Received $79 bank interest for the month of December.

Received $220 I Bond interest for the month of December.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $2 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $113 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $25 on dining out/gas card (+ groceries during Q4)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $5 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

+ $141 Dividends

+ $100 MH income (to meet 2022 goal)

TOTAL: $386 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,132 College Refund

+$4,000 Bonus

401k Contributions/Match:

+$1,800  

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

-$1,000 Auto Repairs (Kids' gas car)

-$  600 Play Station 5

-$  530 Flood Insurance

-$  270 AAA

-$  150 Holiday Break College Travel (Train + Plane)

-$  150 Gas (Rental + Kids' Car)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,500 to cash

TOTAL: $7,367 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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For Comparison:

Gas Rental Miles Driven: 220

Fuel Costs: $17

Ended up being 16 cents per mile for the rental.  Cost was 7x what I pay for electric fuel.  I am glad it ended up being such a short rental.  I thought we would be paying hundreds of dollars for gas.  I only drove the rental about half as much as I drive my car usually.  Paid for most of the gas last month.

Hybrid Miles Driven:  347

Fuel Costs: $9 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 1,071

Fuel Costs: $17 (home) + $17 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

Most charging (both cars) was done at home or at free chargers.

2 Bay Area trips (Holidays)

We've mostly been using Electrify America for charging.  But I found a AAA deal for EVGo, which made the cost more comparable.  We were able to set it up so that EVGo recognizes the car.  You just plug in and it charges your credit card.  MH also wanted to try it out because his parents are buying an EV.  Wants to make it as simple as possible for them.  This time we just got it all set up.  Next time we see if it's really that easy.

It was under 50F degrees when we drove home, so the battery range took a hit.  (50F is when I really notice it on the hybrid.)  Between that and using the heat/defrost (a big energy drain) we stopped for a 100 mile charge.  Most of the time we shouldn't have to stop at all on this drive.  The range has also taken a big hit with the new tires (less efficient) but last time I only stopped to charge for 5 minutes.  & that was probably unnecessary.  Just to show what a difference winter makes.  It easily could have been over 50F degrees, and so it's not a big impact for us.  Christmas and New Years long drives might be the only time we really notice the cold impact on the EV battery.  It was a rare time that we stopped just to charge (without running errands, eating a meal, going to a movie, taking a rest on a big drive, etc.)

Christmas Day was same, with far below average temps.

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Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in November will be paid off December and reflected in my November numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects November spending & December savings.

I failed at saving MH's income this month.  If I had any time or energy I'd break it down, but it just doesn't matter to me at this point.  I did add $100 of his paycheck to investments, to top off 2022 investment goal.  I only needed $50, but rounded up.  This goal was otherwise met with credit card rewards and dividends.

Things were made worse by a last minute auto repair.  Their credit card machine wasn't working and so MH took a check to pay.  A series of random events which led to a very rare last minute cash purchase.  This is messing up my accounting!  But all else being equal it would have been a January expense (charged in December, cash sorted out in January).  So that is how I will treat it.  If I account for it now, I have to pull from mid-term savings.  Short-term savings has been $0 for a while.  In January I will be able to reset the short-term savings clock and will have cash to cover a random auto repair.  (Will reimburse the checkbook.)  I was already planning to use this last few hundred dollars to reimburse MM(19), mostly for groceries.  All these cash expenses are just throwing me off.  But it will work out if I just reimburse the checkbook, and then will have the cash to reimburse MM(19) what I owe him.  Having two ~$300 cash expenses to sort out is incredibly rare.  

It took me a minute to figure out why 401K/match was so high.  The flip side of the coin is that I will only receive one paycheck in January.  (I received 3 paychecks in December.  January 1 paycheck was paid a couple of days early.) 

I received two refunds from the college.   Finally.  (That only took 5 months for the State and the college to sort out.)  That said, the State of CA is being very slow to pay us our inflation relief check.  So now that is dragging on.  (At this point it's clearly lost/stolen, but I can not request a replacement check for another week.)

I Bond interest will bump up in future months.  I have $10K cash set aside.  Have just been waiting for January so that I can add this last $10K to the I Bonds.  I also have some 2022 I Bonds that are bumping up to a higher rate soon.  So these I Bond interest numbers will continue to increase.  I will get the $10K cash moved over ASAP so that I can get interest for the full year.  But I will take my time pondering if I want to do more.  For another $10K or $20K, I might wait closer to the last minute and see what the new interest rate will be.  (I'd park some of the kids' gifted college money in I Bonds.  This is the only reason I have so much cash for I Bonds, in the first place.  Just piling all this college cash into the I Bonds.)

January is also done for us, financially.  Paid bills January 1, and all paychecks have been received for January.  Will end the month up ~$2,700.