2008 $20 challenge:

$ 675.00 - 3/20

$ 100.00 - March Interest
$ -130.00 - From Medical Fund
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$ 645.00 - Balance 4/1
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I moved backwards on my challenge money.

Has anyone else ever subtracted money before?

What happened was I was confident in paying $150 or so of medical bills out of the budget. We had some extra money last month - so I put it to the challenge and paid the medical bills, leaving our medical fund intact.

However, dh and I bought show tickets on a whim. For next weekend. It was pretty spontaneous for us.

Anyway, the tickets came to about $130, and when I worked the April budget we were around $100 short. (Paying the march credit card - was a little more than I had expected). I started to worry maybe we shouldn't have made this purchase - maybe I had been too optimistic. Then I remembered we also had a lot of medical bills in March. So I subtracted $130 from the medical fund (for 2 doctor visits), and into my checking account. Worked pretty well.

Oh well, it was nice to think that extra money would go to our savings. But it is nice to splurge once in a while too.

We did earn $100 interest for March. This is the last month, for a while, that I expect three-figure interest.

We paid off dh's balance transfer very early in March (around the 10th?) so his $10k was not deposited very long. But we did get some decent interest on that I am sure, in March.

Still have the 5.7% CD which accounts for about half of our interest.

I still have $15k in balance transfers.

We have the CD, some online savings, and also some money market funds. The savings and MM - rates all went down.

& I already added our ROTH contributions to the challenge.

So that's all I have. A decrease...

I have to pay off the $5k balance transfer in a couple of months. That one is coming up fast too (was like a year???).

The other one is in the CD and that one is good as gold. It kind of replaces dh's $10k, though the 2 overlapped for a short time.

That one is due end of year (around when my awesome rate expires). So I am glad to have another good interest year - REALLY helps the savings. I added the $100 interest to our mid-term fund. Getting awfully close to $500. (Though I expect to add about $3k in the summer months with my bonus and with IRS rebates, etc.). But I am relying heavily on the interest to get to my goal of $5k by 12/31.

Well, my net worth is up about $2k for the quarter. Not bad...

Mortgage - paid $933
Cash - Up $1333

& that is most of it. My investments are quite breakeven. We put in $2100 this year (to retirement) and that looks about exactly how much we have lost in the market this year.

Down about 5%? (Rough guess from those numbers. My investments include a decent amount of cash. I know my mutual funds are all down more than that. But the cash is helping I guess).

I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Second quarter is always a good quarter for us, as I get my overtime bonus. This year we will get the stimulus rebate as well.

Likewise, $2k/quarter is about the minimum I would want to be at, as far as net worth progress. So I am relieved it wasn't worse! & expect a pretty solid second quarter (as we will plump up our cash savings considerably).

Here's to the second quarter!!

I also updated my cash balances to the left. In April I am mailing out $4k in checks - IRS, property taxes, and life insurance. Anyway, so I have a big fat negative in my short-term savings for the interim, but generally don't touch it in May or June (so will replenish it soon enough). Plus $1k or so for the IRS was completely unexpected, and I am using the stimulus payment to replenish $1k of the short-term fund, when it arrives.

I guess the money comes out of the efund in the interim. (For the long-term I expect the mid-term fund to float negatives in the short-term fund. Just inevitable since the short-term fund is an escrow I budget annually, but the expenses fall where they may. Since it also covers the unexpected. Ideally it does. I just don't have much money in that mid-term fund yet. Soon enough...).