Not much to report, but I paid all the July bills (er, set them to pay on due dates) and updated my savings totals, to the left.

This year we have saved just about $7950. So, only $50 shy of my original $8k savings goal. Woohoo!

My goal has since been revised to $10k, but saving $400/month + interest, will get us there easily, by December.

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Our cash total is hovering around $22k-$23k, currently.

My goal is $30k cash (solid 6 months of income) before we will consider putting more into our IRAs. One maxed IRA is fine, for now. I expect by 2011 we will be maxing out both our IRAs. (Or likely, be able to max out 2010 during 2011).

So, definitely making some nice progress.

No plans to prepay a dime to the mortgage, until our ROTHs are maxed. Since our retirement is doing well, as is, I am excited to move on to mortgage pre-payments, etc. BUT, can't pass up the awesome tax benefits of the ROTH. I guess my big pie in the sky goal, for now, is getting to mortgage prepayments once again. Something we haven't particularly achieved on one income (of course, neither have we achieved maxing out IRAs, etc.). I guess it's ALL exciting.

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I guess, as a review, our goals are to:

1)Get cash savings back up to snuff
2)Max out ROTHs
3)Resume mortgage prepayments

In that order, yes.

More income means business to take care of.

I posted yesterday I received a nice bonus. The amount was somewhat unexpected.

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I decided to run my tax numbers again for the year. I was aiming for rather breakeven before the extra income kicked in. I plugged my numbers in our tax planning software and it wasn't good. Not only would we owe over $1k, but I was in AMT! HUH? I knew dh returning to work could push us into AMT, but not a flipping $5k raise. I finally decided that the AMT calcs were wrong - the software had not been updated for more recent tax law changes. I also did not see the Making work pay credit. So I took out the AMT and deducted $800 for the credit. This left us with a $500 refund from the Feds and $500 due to the state, estimated. Good enough for me. I am punishing the state, so that works (hell if I will take a refund from them - they won't pay it anyway).

I was rather pleased with this scenario. I assumed we had no medical expenses this year (beyond insurance/regular checkups) and that we gave nothing to charity, etc., etc. Odds are we will have more deductions. Dh's (ebay) income should be offset by the dependent care credit. So overall, I am happy with this. & we have a little extra cash in the bank if I screwed up my calculations.

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Lest you think I am all work and no play (harldy!), we actually went out on a nice dinner April 15th to celebrate the end of "tax" season and told my parents we would take them out to lunch Sunday. But we can fit this all out of our budget - why we just saved the whole bonus. All this was done and put into motion before the actual bonus arrived.

Reminds me, there is an excellent, albeit a little pricey, Indian cafe in our neighborhood. There is never many people there and it is rather small. We went there Wednesday and it was PACKED. I think that is a wonderful sign. We took dh's friends out to eat on a weeknight when they were here and our other favorite place was just jam packed. IT always is on weekends but it gets so quiet around here during the week any more. I don't know if it's a fluke or what. The food is excellent so I am glad they are doing well.

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It looked like our net worth was up considerably; higher than it has ever been (barely). So I looked at that today. Net worth today was $213k. We hit $212k late in mid 2008. So it's nice to move forward. But barely. Still pretty much at the whim of the stock market. But I do feel like we can make forward progress this year.

Our cash/investment assets are not quite at six figures yet. The rest of our equity is in our house - mostly what we paid off as the value still holds rather steady slightly above what we paid.

Most of that is rather up in the air. (Stock market and home values).

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CASH

We have always saved up a lot of cash. We wanted to put at least 20% down on our home. We wanted to have plenty of cash to supplement my income when dh stopped working, etc. & moving forward we would like to continue to pay cash for everything and to increase our "emergency" cash savings. I think 3 months' expenses suffice for our situation today, but I think this money should always be growing (interest, if nothing else).

Anyway, in the past decade we have mostly been ridiculed as far too conservative (and not investing every spare dime in the stock market). So it's been kind of interesting to read a multitude of articles lately about how cash is IN. Suze no longer thinks you can afford anything until you have 8 months expenses in the bank, etc. Basically, our thinking all along is becoming rather in vogue. & yes, I think it's little more than a trend.

I mentioned briefly in my last post that our goal was $30k cash in the bank. This actually does work out to about 8 months of living expenses. Suze would be pleased. The number mostly comes from the fact that we have hardly ever had less cash as adults. Having our second child changed things a bit. So it's where we want to get back to as kind of a minimum. & of course we would continue to grow our cash savings from there. But 8 months of living expenses is a nice goal. To start. I think our personal goal is more like a year, and growing.

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Finally, as I look at my compensation for the year I realize we are officially back to more of a 2-income level. I never expected to make so much on my income alone, so rapidly. Inflation has eaten at our earnings power over the last few years, but our income taxes have also decreased quite dramatically. I look forward as a result, to rapid savings going forward. In fact, I expect we can possibly do better than before because we are managing our assets better.

I at least know we can get through the next year. Once LM starts school next summer, dh and I will probably sit down and discuss our future more. Right now he is working on some film projects, trying to get them off the ground with his limited spare time. If things continue like this I wouldn't mind him taking a year or 2 to work on that stuff, when he actually has some considerable free time. (& the kids will still need him much). But from there, as the kids get older, he will probably return to school and/or seek employment to help move us along. Though we may be in a spot we won't need his income, it doesn't mean he doesn't want to grow professionally or build up his skills so he has more to fall back on if something happens to me. So yeah, we will have a LOT to figure out.

I am pleased that our current path will probably buy us a little more time to figure this all out. I have the feeling his main job will be staying home the first couple of years LM is in school. Though going back to college during those years may be a wise move. In our current position I don't mind giving him a solid year or 2 to work on his DREAM further. One would argue he has had almost 7 years to do so. But being in full charge of 2 wee little ones, and me making too little to pay for childcare most of that time, has meant I wouldn't exactly see it fair to say, "You had some time and you didn't make it." The elementary school years seem okay for that time - time to try to make it and prove he can make any money with his hobbies. Dh is still young enough that he has time...

I changed our retirement contributions around.

I made my last 2008 contribution on Monday. We maxed out 2007 due to a windfall but didn't even bother trying in 2008. But I always put as much as I can into the prior year. So if we were to have another windfall, or dh were to return to work, we don't let go of ROTH contributions foolishly.

Anyway, since January I have been contributing $350 per month to MY ROTH simply because it was the only financial institution I Could figure out how to make 2008 contributions to automatically, during 2009.

Dh and I view our retirement (As everything else) merely as "one." That being said, he does not work and I have a pretty awesome retirement plan at work. The only downside, and it is a big one, is that if something happens to me, dh only gets something like 50%. I didn't even necessarily realize this until rather recently when I updated my paperwork to add my children as secondary beneficiaries.

Anyway, so between those 2 factors, I think it is a priority to plump up his ROTH. I will probably get $8k in my work plan this year. We will probably only put $4k-$5k into the ROTHs. Seems fair that it should go to him. (In the meantime, life insurance makes up for this unfortunate fact).

That being said, my boss will retire in a few years and I can roll my work retirement into an IRA. So this is certainly not the situation forever.

I am contributing $50/month, going forward, to my ROTH. Just to keep it rolling. I am contributing $300/month to dh's ROTH starting in May. I just set it all up for automatic contributions. Since the last couple of years we have only been contributing around $100/month max, we have stuck to the "retirement funds" and "Total stock indexes." As I changed things around my $50 continues to go to a "retirement fund" and dh's contributions are 50% total stock index/ 25% international index / 25% balanced fund. We haven't bought much international since the market dropped, so it's good to jump back in at lower prices.

I read something the other day like those Retirement funds are risky. Some are down 50%! Well, sure, if you just contributed once, at the peak, and never looked back. Dollar cost averaging significantly smooths those bumps. My "retirement fund" is down 20% today. I have contributed every month since mid 2007. I became a fan of dollar cost averaging when I had my 401k at my last job. It REALLY helps when the market slides anyway. We've unfortunately contributed most of our retirement monies in 2000-2001 and 2007-2008. Great! Right before the busts. But the dollar cost averaging makes it manageable. The losses are significantly muted. Being able to continue to contribute while the market is in the toilet, does pay off in the long run. WE are literally about breakeven - the balance in our retirement today reflect the initial contributions we have put in the last decade. Which kind of sucks that we don't have gains - but happy to say we truly have not "lost" much.

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This year has been good to us. We met our 15% gross to retirement and 10% gross to cash savings goals in one fell swoop. I was hoping to meet these goals when LM garduated preschool. Our home refinance and his unplanned switch to a much cheaper school has made these possible about 18 months of schedule.

So I have been stepping back and looking at our startegy. My goals are clear. The best way to achieve them are not.

Maxing out the ROTH (basically, maxing out a second one) is clearly a priority. WE are still in a virtually zero tax bracket and we would be crazy not to take advantage.

Other goals are to save for college and to pay down the mortgage ahead of schedule. I will put up with a mortgage that is reasonable and cheaper than renting, in the short term. In the long run we are extremely debt adverse and want it paid off well before retirement.

I am worried about affording our health care, as usual. But besides those types of expected expense increases there is not a lot on the horizon. WE are very content with our "Wants" spending at present. I know dh wants more gadgets and we talk about more grand vacations when the children are older. But those things can wait for a second income or a big raise. In the meantime we are quite content. The nice thing for our wants wish list is most of them are one time expenses. Nothing we necessarily need a permanently increased income for.

I have personally been tempted to stop or greatly reduce ROTH contributions just long enough to get our cash savings up to snuff. It is TEMPTING!!!!!! IF we had $30k in the bank I think our current $5k annual cash contributions would suffice. But with the market in such a tizzy, dh and I decided to continue the ROTH contributions as is. We are instead nearing $20k in the bank, and so have a decent amount of cathing up to do. But for now we are optimistic we can max out one ROTH and get our savings up to snuff in the next year or 2.

As far as maxing out the second ROTH? If we can avoid using our medical deductible, we can max out a second ROTH, maybe in 2010. We could contribute that money to a HSA but I like HSAs about as much as 529s. Lots of fees and little flexibility. Which leaves me of the opinion that HSAs and 529s will be our friend when my spouse returns to work and we have more savings than we know what to do with (& when our income tax rates are higher). In the meantime? Not ready to contribute to a HSA or a 529. They make little sense for people in our situation.

Which leads me to thoughts on college. No one in my family has spent much on college, and prices are still quite reasonable in California. In fact, my parents did not save a dime of money for me for college and since dh's parents are huge college money gifters, my kids have about as much money as my entire college education cost (a whopping $10k) at age 3 & 5. IT's not something I particularly sweat, and is another reason I would not save TONS in a 529. BEcause you get penalized on the money that is not used for college.

I have been thinking about it and maxing out our ROTH would put us about 25% contributions to retirement. Clearly more than necessary (we have always put away 10% - 15%, since we graduated college). As long as we are in this position I have decided not to contribute more money to the kids. The one exception is I may contribute a little more so I Can diversify their funds a bit more. (Since every fund needs a certain minimum). Aside from that, the ROTHs will become triple purposed. They hold some of our cash emergency fund, they hold a decent amount of our true retirement funds, and now they will hold a decent amount of investments for college in the offchance our kids "must" go to Stanford or something along those lines. In the meantime, truth is, their college will probably be paid for by the grandparents anyway. So even if dh returned to work, not sure we would go the 529 route... I view it more as contributing to retirement, but I can still sleep well at night if I am REALLY wrong about the whole college thing.

Which means simply, after thinking about it, the only true goal we have once our retirement vehicles are maxed, is to pay off the house.

Dh's income literally went about 100% to our house when he worked (down payment). & I think we will resume this plan when/if he returns to work. Literally, take his paycheck and pay down the house. It's amazing to me what a huge difference a mere $5k a year in income could make. That would be quite a dent. But yes, I think we have come full circle.

I tend to be extremely idealistic so we shall see. One thing at a time...

I just wanted to share my thinking with my current goals. They always seem to be evolving as circumstances change.

I am excited. Maybe prematurely excited, but excited all the same. It's March 15th! The thing is, all of my Corporate stuff is due March 15th (Corporate tax returns) which is our bread and butter. The individual tax returns are really just a nuisance. Bah.

I know I still have another long month, and plenty of opportunity to earn lots of overtime. But I feel I can feel a sigh of relief today. (Even though most everything is on extension. At least, tehcnically, we have a few more months to worry about it all).

I have a few indivudal tax appointments next week, but then I will be done with those. I am tired of dressing up extra nice - dragging out the panty hose and suit jackets and all that. BAck to getting by with the bare minimum of dressing up. Phew! So I am excited about that too.

& strangely I feel pretty caught up. (knock on wood). I have to hound a few clients for stuff I am waiting on. I am sure quite a few tax returns will also arrive in the mail the next few weeks. Will see...

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Clients of note this week -

Another couple of ONE-INCOME families in the LOW six figure range who owed literally 10 times the tax we paid. IT's just craziness. 2-income families have it even worse, because they tend to pay in more social security as well.
But yeah, basically if I made another $40k income, it would be taxed in the realm of 50%.

Another older couple came in and said their young son was house hunting right now and things were selling lightning fast for multiple offers. So that was interesting to hear. THey said it was very troublesome because to gather all the paperwork and loan approvals to put an offer was pretty cumbersome anymore. & yet houses are selling so fast. People with more cash have the edge it seems, for sure. Sounds like could be good news for housing here.

A house behind us, that is clearly jinxed (been on the market most of the last 5 years - various owners) just went up for sale. Surprise surprise. 2 or 3 like it are asking $325k. That's what ours appraised for in November. We shall see. But things seem to be holding on. To be clear though - these are not the houses getting multiple offers. One small home down the street asked $210k and sold in a flash. That one I am still waiting to see what it sold for.

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BM asked us the other day how much money we had. We evaded the question. Well, we told him we had to save up for many different things and we have money in many different "buckets" so to speak. I asked him how much he thought we had, first. He said $3,000. I don't know if he thinks that is a little or a large sum. I think dh said, "We have enough to be comfortable."

I did mention paying for the house as a pretty big bucket and so he asked if the house was paid if I Would have to work. I said, "yes. We tried really hard not to get too much house and the house is not a lot of our bills - we would still need to work." He asked if we could EVER stop working. I said his grandparents were at the age where they were quitting work - to give him a frame of reference. & to say ideally we are aiming for the same age (about 60).

Dh of course pointed out my mom retired in her 20s. I said if you look at it that way, well dh is retired too. IT just struck me as funny that he hasn't quite grasped that we are in a pretty similar situation. Except I remember my parents struggling far more. I really doubt often if he will ever return to work. ANything of the full-time, "have to work" variety anyway.

Just funny conversation with kids. A lot of intelligent questions.

BM's latest thing though is he never wants to work. I have no idea where he gets that from! He just asked me the other day if you have to go to college to become a daddy. He's stuck on that (being a daddy) but if you ask him why it's because "everything else is hard work." Oh, poor naive kid.

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I haven't got my stimulus yet - maybe with my paycheck Monday - I don't know. But our bills have changed enough this year I was playing with it - trying to see where we are at. I was looking at percentages - not necessarily the most helpful way to look at things. But it is what it is:

% of gross income:

16% Mortgage (well I guess it is still our biggest expense - but don't expect it to be - the biggest - forever).

12% short-term savings (Needs - property taxes, insurance, car maintenance, dental, etc.)

12% Health Insurance (close second, as far as expenses go)

12% Income Taxes/Social Security Taxes

10% Work Retirement contribution

7% Groceries/Household goods

6% Mid-Term Savings (for bigger purchases)

5% ROTH Contributions

4% Other (entertainment, extra-cirricular, dining out, stuff needed around the house, wants, etc.)

4% Gas/Auto (though most auto expenses are up in short-term savings - insurance, licenses, etc.)

3% Utilities (gas/electric/water/sewer)

2% Preschool

2% Phone/Internet/Cell (utilities of the unnecessary variety)

2% HOA/gardener (house maintenance expenses I guess)

2% short-term savings (wants - mostly vacation)

***Of biggest note, we lowered mortgage by about 3% of income, with our refi.

Preschool also went down by about 2%.

All of that has gone to increasing savings.

I don't think we are 50/30/20, per se, as far as wants/needs/savings. But I think we are closest we have been since having kids. Getting pretty darn close. IT feels good. It really is a good balance to strive for, for the long run.

I was just thinking the other say about mortgages and how one of our first mortgages was $1800/month (15-year term; much higher interest rate) and I Was thinking we would probably resume that payment when dh returned to work. & I thought, "Gosh. Our take-home pay today is the same probably as it was when we both worked last. Why does that $1800 payment sounds so insane right now?" Oh, could be the $800/month health insurance. $700 more monthly than we paid right before having kids. Yeah - that would explain it.

When I read "All Your Worth" I realized we had been so out of whack since our health insurance had started skyrocketing around 2004. So yeah, before kids $1800/month? No biggie. These days, it's hard to justify throwing any money at the mortgage over our $1100 payment. Boy do things change!

Bad news on the horizon - lots of laid off relatives (news this weekend). It's starting to hit the same old demographic.

I was telling my mom about how it seemed we knew at least one person per household laid off in the 2002 era. & that I Was susprised to not know so many with this new 10% unemployment rate in the state. (Though clearly the layoffs are starting to pile up. Could just be a matter of time). But in reference to 2002 I said, "Everyone was laid off, including us." My mom said, "What do you mean?" I said, "I mean when my husband was laid off in 2002." She didn't remember. She said, "I thought he quit."

I think that nails it on the head. Yes, he was laid off, after working shortened hours and many mandatory unpaid vacations, for about 18 months, in 2002. No one remembers because our savings and preparation made it smooth sailing. At this point everyone thinks it was planned that my spouse has not worked a day in 6 years. Um, NOT planned! But I must admit I am pleased that something that could be so devastating to a newly starting out couple, was barely a bump in the road for us. I am honored that people think we planned things this way. (Though often the same people would say we are lucky to have never had a hardship. Which is kind of annoying. Just because we were prepared didn't mean it wasn't a hardship).

I mean there was a good solid year in there he looked for work - if not longer.

I think this is why I am a true believer in saving. & when I have to roll my eyes when I hear the word "deprivation" as an analogy to saving. I feel like our savings has kept up from feeling deprived.

I'll put it this way - being prepared lessens the hardship blows of life. Indeed.

As for us, we don't dwell on the bad. If I think about it there was plenty of hardship along the way for us. But we don't dwell; we move on.

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Anyway, along the same lines, FIL will be laid off this summer (government, so lots of notice). He is just going to retire. Now there is a perfect example. Wasn't the plan, but they will make do. They seem surprisingly zen about the whole thing.

It looks like our parents will all be in a position to retire around 60. (Probably sooner, if not for the health benefit issues - my dad is 57 now and I think it's the only reason he is working full-time any more - for benefits). It's interesting to have a number (an age) for retirement. We always look to our parents as our baseline. They are moderately successful, and we seem to have it easier than them at this point in our lives (easier than they did at this age). I know we face very different parameters as well, but it's like. "Hey. Is retiring in our late 50s really out there?" Maybe not?

On the flip side, my parents seem well prepared. My impoverished grandparents were quite able to take care of themselves. My more well off grandparents have done quite well for themselves. Dh's family? His grandma really struggles financially (though not quite the same hardships my own grandparents faced) and we have offered to help out. His parents scare me. I don't think they had any good role models financially like my parents did. So I do worry about them, for sure. But in the short term they seem quite all right. (The panicked and cashed out their retiremet for one - so of course we worry).

Now if my dad told me tomorrow he was retiring, I wouldn't worry about him a bit. So it's a little different. His parents taught him how to save, for sure (purely survival) and my mom's parents were good examples for managing money. They seem to be managing their money a little better. I can't see ever worrying about them.

February went pretty well. I could even almost assume my savings plan was not too optimistic or aggressive (a problem I have - I tend to be too optimistic with everything) BUT February was a short month, so we will see how March goes.



AUTO - Only about $190 for gas (we budget $300). $140 on maintenance - had to clean something on the van (forget the name) and dh replaced windshield wipers on his car. That's about as handy as he gets - hehe. Since our gas was so little, we were able to pay the maintenance from the monthly budget (I usually reserve about $1200/year in savings for that). I don't think we drove anywhere this month (no trips to the snow or the Bay), which explains much!

CASH - Dh pulled out $40 cash for his ebay buying/selling business. (Basically took some of his profits out).

CHARITY - was a contribution to BM's school - their first fundraiser of the year (they seem to do okay - not a lot of begging for money - this was the first time).

CHILDCARE - about $220 for Feb/March preschool tuition. $50 childcare in-between preschools. $50 babysitting for a weekend date.

CLOTHING - I stocked up on work shoes because I actually found some in my size. Way too high heels. They don't make small heels in my size anymore, apparently. I don't know what the heck. But I stocked up while I could find anything. I had NO HEELS for about 6 months.

DINING - Well, we apparently ate out a lot. A few lunch dates with dh. A few cheap things and fast food, lunch date with a friend, met LM & dh for pizza one day, and we ate at the new Indian restaurant by my work twice. (Crazy horrid location - enjoying it while it lasts). But yeah, the appetizers get us there. We spent $20 on $5 lunches? LOL.

EDUCATION - Karate class for March

GROCERIES - squeaked under $500 budget.

HOUSEHOLD - gardener, and spent about $100 on CFL light bulbs.

INSURANCE - got some refunds on home insurance and disability insurance.

MEDICAL - $550 insurance premiums and $385 for the kids' dental checkup.

MISC - I bought a blanket, we went to the movies on our "date", and we went bowling 2 times. Well under budget here, which means we were able to buy my shoes and the light bulbs without touching our slush savings. Dh wants to stock up on printer ink in March.

(We generally try to stock up on stuff during tax season because we are too busy to spend money or go out otherwise).

PERSONAL CARE - LM & I got our hair cut

TO HOUSE LOAN - is just regular principal payment with mortgage.

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Other financial doings:

**Deposited $50 IRS refund in mid-term savings (IRS was slow to pay compared to state - funny enough). Also, deposited $550 state tax refund (I filed before February to be like one of the only people in Cali who got their refund already).

**Deposited $1k to short term savings. (& pulled $385 out for the dental bill).

**Deposited $250 to medical savings

**Deposited $250 to mid-term savings (will be $400 next month with new preschool)

**Deposited $333 to our ROTHs (Will be $350 next month with new preschool. Considering $416 per month with stimulus. We were only contributing $100/month in 2008).

**Earned $650 contribution to work retirement plan

**Earned a whopping $20 interest on cash

**Net worth still at a standstill. We seem to contribute to savings at the rate we lose money in the market.

Um, WOW!

We went to check out that preschool today and after looking at a handful of places with NO KIDS we ran into a highly profitable business woman. I assume anyway.

She has BIG shoes to fill in regards to our past preschool experience. But I think she has already exceeded them.

Very similar play-based philosophy, which is what we are looking for. But it is not a daycare. IT is actually a preschool, though in home, with all the bells and whistles of school. I don't think we care at all about the bells and whistles, but I think it will be a good transition for LM. Our kindergarten is intense.

Her market is the stay at home mom crowd. Probably the most reasonable rates we have seen (charges more per hour than our last place, BUT our last place had a $25 per day minimum for half days, so in the end this will be cheaper for half days). We'd probably have to get onto a waitlist if it wasn't for the economy. She runs 2 morning preschools (T/Th or M/W/F) and 2 afternoon preschools.

We'll start in the afternoons and will be wait listed for a morning slot. Morning is more hours and more importantly, LM is crankier in the afternoon. I mean, afternoon is nap time. So we'll see how it goes.

Not only is it only $36/week, for two half days, BUT she does not charge for field trip days, holidays, vacations, etc., etc. Um, okay. Our last lady was way too nice and would always let the kids make up holidays and such. As a prior business owner I think it is quite fair to charge for these things. People will walk all over you if you let them. But she was going on and on about the things she doesn't charge for.

Considering all the empty daycares and such we had seen, we ran the numbers and figured her full preschool was easily grossing six figures. BEcause it is FULL. About 50 kids all told; 12 kids per program. It's just interesting to me.

Don't get me wrong - I have no idea when this lady ever sleeps. !! She certainly works for it.

LM really liked her and I think she just about exactly fills the shoes of Ms. PReschool, except she is like if Ms. PReschool had 10 times the energy and became less daycare based. LOL.

He was going to preschool in a very modest home and now it is in like this McMansion. I guess that will be different to.

It seems like a good fit for LM, is very close to home, and costs little. So I am VERY excited about it. HE starts next week!

I am worried how we will fit into the mix. She kept going on about all the SAHMs though we were clear I worked and dh didn't. So, hopefully he will fit in.

(I know LM will fit in fine - hehe).

We do have to commit for the month, so this is the only difference. Our last place was no commitment. Though I think she said something about 2-weeks notice...

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I just upped my savings goal by $2k for the year because that is how much we will save with the switch. The savings will be a little less if he gets a morning slot, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I am currently putting $333/month into our ROTHs. I am going to *up* that to $350 with the gas savings of this new, closer preschool. It will be nice to get a nice round figure. I also think it is very likely that we will be able to *up* this to $5k for the year. It's just not a priority as that would put our retirement at 16.25% gross. Our current goal is merely 15%. We'll surpass 15% a tad... $350/month = $4200 for the year. 15.25%.

I didn't mind the preschool thing for one more year, but with the economy and everything, it feels divine to save a little more cash in 2009. I can *up* my regular savings contributions from $250/month to $400/month, starting ASAP. Woohoo! I think it is a distinct possibility that we will hit 10% gross to cash savings goal, in 2009.

Our next goal after that is to max out our second ROTH. That goal still feels a mile away... But getting closer.

Every time my pay changes I look at the flow of bills and see if I need to move anything around. I also evaluate all of our savings contributions, etc.

So I came up with a rough new budget.

Because we pay so many of our bills on our credit card (just about everything we can), I don't have a lot going on in my checking account. This is pretty much how it goes:

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+ 2757 (first of month)

-1400 Credit Card (groceries, gas, utilities, misc.)
- 300 Other/Utilities (Gardener, HOA, water, sewer, gas, electric)
- 500 Short-Term Savings
- 333 ROTH

+ 2757 (mid month)

- 550 Medical Insurance
-1100 Mortgage
- 300 Preschool
- 500 Short-Term Savings
- 500 Long-Term Savings

Of course, if anything else is due in any given month, we pay it from savings (insurance and taxes, etc.). Or any small cash amount that we can not throw on the card. Comes from savings.

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I found the way I had it set up before, I had too much stuff piling up and due at the beginning of the month.

I decided the simplest thing to do was to begin to prepay the preschool payment at the end of the month. This is fair enough. I used to pretty much do this anyway, but had gotten into the habit of paying it with my paycheck on the first. But often I can't pay until like the 5th then. Which is fine, since I prepay the whole month (not required) there have been no complaints. But I think it will be simpler to just pay it on the 31st, going forward. I may have to pull a little out of savings for the first month, which is fine.

I have a built in "emergency fund" in my checking account. The credit card is not due until the end of the month and the mortgage is not due until the middle of the following month. But I just pay them all ahead of time, for simplicity. If I ever needed cash in an emergency that is an easy $1100, by delaying those payments to the due dates.

Anyway, I have been paying paying the credit card around the 20th, which is cutting it a little close for me. Never had a problem (knock on wood) but I look forward to re-arranging some things and paying that on the 1st again. As a result, I won't have to RUN to the bank when I get my paycheck. Phew. I prefer to not care so much about payday.

I can't put anything else on the card. (Mortgage, preschool, most utilities, etc.) Everything else that I can, I do. For rewards, of course. & simplicity though - it's just very convenient.

I was funding the ROTHs evenly every paycheck, but I am loading up one of our ROTHS for 2008 right now (the only one that will let me apply automatic savings to last year), and so figured once a month is fine. It probably makes sense with the current incarnation to switch to once a month contributions, indefinitely.

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This is the extent of my budgeting. We keep the card expenditures at $1400/month. (It will be more when we charge medical fees or dental bills, auto repairs, etc. These are all things we pay from savings).

So if the card is more or the utilities come out to more, it gives us pause. & we re-evaluate.

& of course we take all of our one-time expenses, add them up for the year, and divide by 12, to make sure we save ample amounts.

That is about the extent of my "budget." I re-evaluate it once a year. More often if we get out of whack. I don't like to spend inordinate amounts of time and effort on it. I don't like thinking about it every day. Kind of a PITA if you ask me. Our savings were very much on "auto pilot" when we both worked, our budget was strict, and we saved plenty. Never thought much about it. That is my end goal. Evaluating every month or quarter or year is fine. Every day is too much for me. As much as I love numbers I don't like to obsess over a budget, for sure. I was far happier when I didn't have to obsess so much, and I am getting there, slowly but surely. I think this year is going to be way more relaxed. Phew!

Of course, I mention we budget around $500/month for groceries and $300 for gas. Kind of rules of thumbs (actually, more like maximums). BUT if we have a cheap month elsewhere we don't mind going over a bit. We worry more about the totals than any one particular category too much. Definitely prefer that flexibility.

Just a little peek into my method of madness...

Just a quickie. Now that I have my compensation, I am figuring our savings rate for 2009.

I am not a fan of the "rules of thumb." They mean nothing to us in our situation. Since we pay cash for everything, we need a fair amount of savings. Since we don't have medical benefits, we need a fair amount of savings. Etc., etc.

But here goes:

Retirement - 15%
(5% ROTHs & 10% Employer)

Cash Savings - 4%
(9% when LM is done with preschool, 2010)

Medical Savings - 4%

Short-term Savings - 15%
(To be used within the year)

As such, 28% of my paycheck goes directly to savings, every month. 33% when we are done with preschool (Phew!)

Another 10% is added to my retirement account (more like a 401k than anything) annually.

(I don't necessarily consider the short-term savings as "savings." So take that out and the percentages are a more meaningful 13%/18%).

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This is probably ample, but we have 2 things at play.

1 - We rely too much on employer retirement plan. Given. Then again, I don't have medical benefits. The two are about equal, so I expect some day I can get similar pay and better medical benefits. & it's really moot if dh returns back to work, benefits or not.

But in the interim, our goal is to get to 10% into our ROTHs. We will have enough cash to do so when LM is done with preschool in 2010, so I am happy enough with that. We will probably divert that cash to other savings, BUT if I lost my retirement benefit, 10% minimum to ROTHS would be our goal. In the meantime we have some pretty big contributions to retirement while we are young, which means we could cut back more later if need be. With the plan to move forward again, of course.

2 - We have some catching up to do. Our savings rate was $0 for a few years when we had kids. Very planned. But though I feel we are in a pretty good spot, we still have some catching up to do!

& it just depends on Murphy really. We didn't need much of our medical deductible last year, BUT we used up all of that savings for unexpected dental bills in the end.

If we don't use our medical deductible this year, we can ideally shift that cash into our ROTH or into more long-term savings. That all depends on how lucky we are in 2009 though. Not exactly holding my breath.

Expenses anyway...



Allowances: We did better with our allowance this year. Technically we both get $50/month, or $600/year. I think dh did a lot better because he got so much used stuff and used profits from his buying/selling to buy his toys. But I toned it down a bit as well.

Auto:

Auto fuel was down $400. With gas prices we were way more mindful. Also, the van gets 20mpg and the subcompact gets 40mpg. We simply drove the subcompact more. I have been driving the van more the last couple of months to give that car a break. But yeah, was surprised we did spend less on gas. This does not count how many times dh's family slipped us cash for cash either - so we fared pretty well this year in this category. We spent $2800 on fuel.

Insurance was down $70. We spent $1500. (Liability insurance is really expensive in our zip code - terrible drivers).

Auto registration was about $250. Down $33 from last year.

Auto service went down $3. LOL. I guess we are consistent. We spent $1584. I put AAA here - $130. $667 on the 2005 van. It needed a new battery and a new windshield. Problems with the door locks and the window (as usual), and a diagnosis of a check engine light (was nothing). Also, 2 oil changes. Leaves $787 for the 2001 Ford. 2 oil changes, replace PVC pipe, replaced motor mounts, and a new battery. Oh yes, and replaced some brake lights. The Ford has almost 100k miles and has pretty much never needed a thing but new tires. So it was an "expensive" year for that car, but a long one coming. (Last year we paid so much because we had so many superficial problems with the van. Last year we only spent $150 to maintain the Ford).

Bank Charges: I was mortified to have a $3 overdraft charge. My Bad. LOL. I think it's a first.

Childcare: Well this was pricey! We spent about $400 on babysitting in 2008. About $400 more than in 2007. Was a bit of a splurge for us. The rest was preschool for both children. BM attended through mid-July so was a little longer than 2007, that both of them attended.

Diapers: last year's # was amount we spent on the cloth diaper service. (We used cloth but set them out once a week to be cleaned). This year we probably purchased disposables through mid-year. But something we haven't bought in many months. Hopefully, never again. Phew!

Dining: We splurged on this a bit more this year. One thing, dh and I have been having much more lunch dates and sate nights. So this is where we loosened up for 2008.

Education: This went up a bit as we paid for more school supplies and stuff for Kindergarten. Dh also took an Indian cooking class.

Entertainment: Blockbuster Online

Gifts: Guess we were more generous this year. Actually, I put my dad's fees for Family Camp here - we treated.

Groceries: They went up about $500. Since BM was done with preschool we had to buy a lot more food for him. (He was fed 3 days a week before, and he eats a LOT). We also tried a CSA service (organic produce delivered to our door from a local farm) for about 3 months. We just found it to be too expensive to justify for now. A goal of ours is to get a bike basket and do more produce shopping at the farms a couple of miles from our house. So you know, we could make a bike trip of it, and stock up while supporting the TRULY local farmers.

Household: About $1k for the gardener. We also spent about $250 to repair our fridge, and spent a fair amount on thermal drapes throughout the house. We bought a rice cooker and a broom. We also bought a carpet shampooer.

Insurance:

Disability $155 (down 30%)
Home/Flood $1273
Life Insurance $586 ($1.2 Mil coverage)

Medical:

Medical was interesting. We switched to a HDHP and were able to save $250/month, while taking on a $3k deductible. This limited our out-of-pocket to $3k though. Under our old plan we could have been on the hook for more.

Last year we paid over $8200 on medical premiums/co-pays and $565 at the dentist.

This year we spent $6972 on medical premiums and deductibles (including an ambulance trip to the emergency room), and $3300 at the dentist. LM had a consultation for mouth issues and BM had a pile of cavities. Both kids are also going every 6 months for checkups/cleaning now.

Misc: Guess we are consistent. Dh spent $800 or so on his new computer. One of our newer computers, the motherboard blew and it was not salvageable. We don't remember the last time a computer of ours expired before its time. We just donated some old computers from the 90s for example.

This category included swim lessons for the kids, movies, 2 shows/concerts, camping supplies, outings with the kids (zoos, museums, etc.), school pictures, re-size of my wedding ring, new workout shoes for me, etc., etc.

Personal care: This is just haircuts. We are low maintenance. The kids are old enough to handle beauty school so we saved a bundle. When they were younger we took them to Cool Cuts. It was just so much easier.

Taxes: Just property taxes

Utilities:

Water - our bill went down $17. They raised rates but we were offered metered water for the first time. I really expected to save more with the metering. But $17 is $17! Water was $1095.

We paid a little more for gas/electric because 2008 was our first full year on budget billing. All in all I think we spend less (had lower bills in 2008). But we have prepaid balances on both accounts. I wish they would just take our annual expenses and divide by 12. But they refigure every 3 months and end up way over-billing some parts of the year. It bugs me because we are so consistent and we did this to smooth out the bills. Though they are smoother than usual. Our gas bills run $10 in the summer and $100 in the winter. Now they bill us $20 - $40. So it is better. But I wish they would just bill $30/month all year, and be done with it. Gas/Electric was $1460.

Cable & phone is hard to separate. Our cheap cable company provided our internet and cable service. BUT they got bought out by Comcast. We switched to Dish which is a little more expensive, and DSL through our phone company. So I used to classify internet under cable, and now under "phone." So it is a little confusing. We are definitely paying more.

However, we used to pay about $80/month for cell phones, and now we pay $55. Mid-year our parents added on to our plan and now we all share our minutes.

All in all phone/cable was $60 cheaper than the prior year. (Oh yeah, we got a lot of discounts from Dish because of the TERRIBLE customer service. Dh has gotten them to lower our bills a few times. That helps). Cable and Television was $2200. For Land line, 2 cell phones, Dish, & DSL.

Vacation: This is the first year since kids we put vacation in our budget. We had room for the first time. We were aiming for $1500. We went to D-Land for a week and did Family Camp. This also included a minimal amount for our trip to Denver.

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In the end we spent $1800 more in 2008 than in 2007.

I can sum up the culprits as having 2 in preschool a chunk of the year (non longer an issue) and large dental bills.

We did spend a lot on fixing up stuff around the house; long overdue.

Everything else was rather consistent.

Roundabout goal is to limit spending to $60k annually. Much more feasible for 2009; certainly 2010 when LM is done with preschool. We also lowered expenses by $2400 annually, with our refi.

I did net about $66k this year. I did not include any income or payroll taxes in this analysis.

We had about $3k in other income. $1k interest, $500 credit card rebates, $1500 in ebay sales, rebates and focus groups.

We received that $1800 tax rebate, but we also owed the IRS a chunk for 2007 so was kind of a wash.

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We also doubled our ROTH contributions in 2008, from $50/month to $100/month.

We started the year with $0 in our mid-term savings fund, and ended the year with about $2k. I had wanted to save $5k. We saved about $4200, but had a lot of unexpected expenses during the year, which drained the account to about $2k.

Not our most spectacular savings year ever, but may just be our best year since having kids.

All in all, a pretty good year.

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ETA: I notice something large missing from my snapshot. For whatever reason, I usually include mortgage principle payments in my monthly expense snapshot, but I can not get them to show up here. What the heck? That's another $4k!!!! Am I blind?

Well, not as near $60k in expenses as I thought then. But that is my goal and I still see it as very feasible. I have to go figure this out now. It's driving me batty. MAkes you think, "What else is missing?"

I added my long-term goals to my sidebar. I am liking this new format - clear and concise. These are all things I have talked about at some point or another. But, yeah, now it's all in a little concise summary.

**Long-Term Goals**

[x] 15% gross to retirement
[ ] 10% gross to cash (mid-term) savings (This is more of a catch-up goal than a long-term goal. BUT the nice thing about over-saving cash is you can invest it later. As long as it is not spent on stupid things).
[ ] Max out ROTHs
[ ] Pay mortgage off by age 45 (before kids start college)

Those goals are in the order we would like to achieve them.

The following are some things we intend to spend our cash on:

[ ] Paint Exterior of Home
[ ] Replace Fence
[ ] Replace 2001 Ford with a Prius (ideally, 2013 or later)
[ ] Purchase a used convertible in the $5k range (To replace the one I gave up when we had kids! I had bought it like new for about $6k and sold it for $3k after BM arrived. I'd love a Toyota Celica - for power and fuel efficiency - Celica was my first car and is sporty and cute as a convertible. My last one was a Mustang - cute but cheap - not going the cheap route again. & it was actually a 4-cylinder so not bad on gas, but it sucked).

& my aggressive net worth goals, that I have mentioned many times before:

Increase Net Worth by 50% of expenses, annually:

[x] 2007 +$30k
[ ] 2008 +$0
[ ] 2009

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I am caught up enough at work that I worked no overtime this week and I have the entire weekend off. YAY!!!!

I'll do a Christmas update over the weekend.

Sure, if we waited a day we could have got .0125% less or something.

Eh.

You have to understand, we were waiting for a rate of 5% for about a year. & we beat our target. Of course we jumped!

So no regrets here. Actually, still super excited!

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Along the same lines, yes we have started over our mortgage like FIVE times. Yes. But our very first interest rate was 8.25%. So we went from 8, to 7, 6, and now below 5%. We've lowered our interest rate by 3.4%!!!!!

The ironic thing is if we keep paying our last mortgage amount ($1300/month) we will pay off the mortgage in 2030. Which is precisely 31 years from when we bought our very first home anyway. So what, we take one more year and we pay almost half the interest?

Anyway, home loan amortizations can be very complicated. I have analyzed it every which way.

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We have never paid points on a mortgage, or financed closing costs. We've never added to our loan in any refi. It's been almost 6 years since we last refied.

This one is different. This will be our last refi. EVER! (I know, totally what we said last time!) But I really think so this time.

We are going to finance the $3k points & $2k closing costs. We will pay $1300 cash towards interest and the appraisal (I draw the line at financing the financing). But that would have been our mortgage payment for the month. So we will only increase our loan by $5k.

If we did this every time we refinances, might not be the greatest deal, but I regret not paying points last time (rates were similar) and just being done with it all. Kind of an expensive lesson.

Though having waited, we will get a rate lower than 5%. So maybe it is for the best this way.

So I am comfortable with adding to the loan, because I believe this is the one and only time. & We just don't have the liquidity we used to, to pay cash for the closing costs...

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BTW, if rates dropped any lower than this, we would refi to a 15-year-loan. Probably. I think I can pretty confidently say we will never refi 30 years again.

But never say never, huh?

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As an intro to this section, we live in the state of California. We will be itemizing our deductions for a LONG time. We could itemize without the mortgage! Biggest itemized item? STATE taxes. Very high.

Anyway, so, considering the tax savings, the effective rate on our mortgage is going from 4.6% to 3.9%. If my spouse worked and our tax rate went up, the effective interest rate would be closer to 3% (because we would save more taxes - saving in higher tax rates).

Anyway, my savings accounts are paying more than that, even in this economy.

So, yeah, I am going to be much more open to leveraging that debt, with this new low interest rate.

I will definitely be changing my priorities a bit.

Also, fixed mortgages get "cheaper" with time (inflation). We have not experienced that so much because I make as much money today as we did combined when we got our first mortgage in 1999. & our expenses have way skyrocketed (health insurance primarily). So, we haven't necessarily experienced that in the last decade, but with lower interest rates, our mortgage payment has literally gone down - by $400/month - over the years.

Because I expect my income to go up from here, and our mortgage to shrink in terms of inflation, going forward, I am not big for any pre-payments right now. Another reason we are shifting our priorities a bit.

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So all that being said, I will not be very gung ho on the mortgage, certainly not the next 3 years. If ever. But I still want to have it paid at 45. I am thinking we will focus more on investing though, and trying to beat that 3% - 4% return. We may shift our goal to have the investments to pay it off by age 45. I don't know. This REALLY changes things.

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I think this refi will allow us to max out one ROTH next year. We have not put in upwards of $2k - $3k of our income into an IRA since before kids. (We have from savings or gifts; not from income). So this is a pretty big goal for us, and one I am excited to meet with this refi.

We really need some more liquidity, and it is kind of a conundrum. Look at those low stock prices!! But with the economy - I wish we had more liquidity!!

I *think* we will focus on the ROTH and snatching up cheap stocks this year.

I know we will have another $3k easy in 2010, from income, once LM is done with preschool. So I think we feel comfortable sticking with about $5k in cash/taxable savings next year, and aiming for more like $8k the following year, when LM is done with school. I think we can put it off for 18 months or so, and be okay. We do have an emergency fund in the interim, and all that.

So kind of what we are thinking. We'll see!

Excited to snatch up more stocks. Will put our retirement contribution closer to 17% (of gross income) - and - what a year to make a leap in contributions! With stocks so in the toilet. Buying cheap!

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Besides all that, work is CRAZY!!!!!!

More on that later I guess...

Just locked in a refi.

O.M.G.

Today has been a little melodrama.

Short version:

Tried to clock in 5% or less, at 1 point, all year.

We've paid enough off the loan this year ($4k - just regular payments) that 5.25% was starting to look attractive. Certainly 5.125%

Anyway, mortgage broker call and we discussed things.

He told me today he could lock in 4.875% with 75% loan to value ratio and 1.5 points. For various reasons this was actually a pretty freaking good deal. I had pulled a number out of the air though for appraised value (who knows in this market!?!?!?!?!) and so we decided no, then I told him to just let me know when he has a house value. As I ate lunch I started to think I Was crazy not to do it. To even cash out the money.

But I hesitated for a few reasons. Dropping home values. A general aversion to borrowing. We could have paid it right back, but then wouldn't give us the $200/month savings we were aiming for.

So anyway, just as I Was convincing myself to work on my dh tonight, and dreaming of what to do with borrowed money (pay for next car, max out ROTHs, plump up cash???????) the mortgage guy called me back.

House appraisal estimate $325k. (I had pulled $300k out of the air). Sure, sounds good, but how long will it last. Actually, glad it gives us some wiggle room. (Then again, what I Was afraid of. Not borrowing $250k!)

Anyway, not only that, but there had been a rate drop.

So I locked in 4.875%. No cash out - just to pay off our existing loan. NO more having to borrow MORE for the better rate.

Whee!!!!

Did I pay too many points? Will rates go down to 4.5% after all?

Who cares? My mortgage payment is going down $200/month.

We could resume old payments and pay off 3 years ahead of schedule. (3 years ahead of current mortgage payoff).

I ain't sitting around for 4.5% to materialize. No way!

Anyway, last time was s'posed to be the last time (2003, 5.75%). But history keeps beating itself.

It's surreal. Our very first loan in 1999 was $1500/month, 8.25%, borrowed $208k. (For a condo half the size).

Since we're financing all the costs, will be about $212k loan, 4.875%, $1100/month payments.

Pinch me!

Where I grew up you could not rent a studio apartment for $1100/month. In 1995. I have died and gone to heaven.

Anyway, send me good vibes. I do not want anything to screw this up!!!!!!!

I really like the 'goals in the sidebar' thing, so I decided to give it a whirl. I still have my long-term goals on a separate page under 'Goals'.

Plus, a lot of things flit through my mind and then I forget about them. This blog is becoming like my life organizer.

Financial is easy.

At minimum, want to put $5k to savings this year. Contribute $200/month, add interest, and the rest will be covered by credit card rewards and overtime.

ROTHS - $2500. I wanted to double our contributions to $200/month this year. We can scrounge up $100 to round up to $2500 for the year. (May not seem like much but it is double 2008 and quadruple our 2007 contributions. Slow and steady...)

Mortgage - I want to increase prepayments from $10 to $30, monthly.

Umbrella insurance review - had been meaning to get together with insurance broker after he sent me a note mid-year. So, something to work on in 2009. WE also WAY upped our home insurance coverage in 2006? with skyrocketing build costs. So I want to discuss with him replacement cost again. Wondering if it went down, though I want to be cautious and not lower it too much. If it's a significant decrease though... I just want to discuss further.

Close balance transfer credit cards. Just a chore I have been dreading. My personal experience is you have to talk to 10 people in "retention" and then they offer to give you the moon. Even for cards I NEVER use. They hold out to hope that you will cave and run up huge balances, I guess. But yeah, my personal policy is to close unused cards. This is particularly important to me with my recent bouts of ID theft. These are not cards I pay attention to and I may not notice fraudulent charges, etc. Better to close them. So I have closed a lot of cards before. I will report the outcome. (I look forward to a "we thought you'd never ask, it's taken care of" experience).

I think my mortgage is the biggest piece of my FICO pie. Whatever I do with the credit cards doesn't seem to make a difference to my FICO.

I usually sick dh on annoying customer service calls, but since the cards are only in my name, these are all on me.

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As far as the house... We made a lot of progress this year, but much more to go.

Fix Gutter - probably 2008. We just noticed a hole.

Have Trees Trimmed - been meaning to talk to the gardener - the trees are growing and some are pushing on the fence. Certainly before spring.

Plant Fruit Tree - this is dh's idea. We were told by the local nursery that February was the time to plant (tail end of winter I guess). I think we decided on a small apple tree. (I forget the name - but you know - the small ones. We don't want a GIANT tree).

Fix Tile/Sealing - long overdue. Some sealing repairs on some of the sinks. All of the tubs/showers. & the tile in the showers needs some repair (well, the grout. Sealing more than anything. We want to pay someone to do it right. I am not a fan of DIY). IT is so bad in the Master Bath that we have not used that shower in years. I doubt it will cost that much - just was more luxury than need before. (since we could just use the other shower). But I am ready to get it taken care of.

Clear junk from Master Closet - since we have done so much clearing out for 2008, I am making this my 2009 goal. I have a few odds and ends in there to get rid of.

Buy Mattress/Bedding for LM - maybe by summer. Will buy him a bed in 2010. Just spreading out the costs.

Paint BMs room - an idea. I think it would be a nice/frugal enough thing to do. Aim for next fall.

Price Stucco Repair - something we have put off a while - we believe it is cosmetic only (a crack). BUT I am curious to price it this year. We will paint so soon it may make more sense to do when we paint the exterior (2010?). I noticed a lot of painters offer repairs as well.

Price Security Screen Door - Our HOA is very picky but some of our neighbors have been getting them recently. I Think it would be awesome for security, and also for summer nights. The days get hot but the nights are very cool - so can save on AC costs downstairs with a screened front door. Get a breeze going throughout the house...

On a whim I priced some online today and they don't look that expensive. My dad could help us install it. BUT we have an extra large door. Any time we buy anything for the house it is always "custom order." So maybe we will price them this year and see when we can swing it. IT could be VERY expensive with the unique size. *sigh* Will also talk to the neighbors, see where they got their's.

With the foreclosures up, crime has been increasing, so I would consider buying this year and re-arranging priorities.

Along the same lines, we have put off other security upgrades that I think we should reconsider doing sooner rather than later. It's just not a safe time with the economy. Our city has been hit really hard.

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I don't have any other particular goals. We want to get BM into some organized sports. I want to bike ride more and read more. But nothing very large and exciting.

I think my goal is to take it easy. I am easily one who "does too much" and the kids really seem to allow me the luxury to step back a little. So I enjoy not having very many personal goals. & I am pretty happy where things are at!

Oh, I do want to make an effort to call my mom more with the webcam - maybe we can set up weekly scrabble dates or something. I have been trying to get our favorite card game set up online and if I can find the software I was thinking a nice christmas gift. We can even get my sister in on it (she lives on the east coast). Technology is just SO amazing... But yeah, we used to do scrabble once in a blue moon. We'll take what we can find online...

I also remember we seemed to get no weekends away this year - so I will add these to my goals.

Which reminds me of our vacation goals. Family camp again (maybe try the Sacramento one in Tahoe). Dh wants to go to the snow at least once. We need to take more advantage of the family cabin as well. AND we wanted to get season passes to the amusement park by where we grew up. It's where we spent our childhoods, and met too. They have a new waterpark. Parking is included in the season pass. We will get a LOT of use of passes. Kids are getting old enough to enjoy.

I got my gas bill and it was only $15. I was trying to beat $22, from last November.

Well, we accomplished this, BUT the bill ended 5 days sooner this year - on the 25th - for whatever reason. So it wasn't very comparable. I think we turned on the heat on the 24th. (It was a 30-day bill, but earlier in the season by a few days. Which could make all the difference).

Then again, we didn't host Thanksgiving last year so I cringed at all the cooking, laundry, hot water, etc. was used/done on Thanksgiving. Not sure it will help my next bill.

The number to beat for December is $75.
(Just trying to improve on last year).

--------------------------------

I updated my totals to the left.

I just hit $2500 again in my savings account, after posting November interest of about $25. Woohoo.

I don't expect it to hold through 12/31. We have to hire someone to fix our gutters next week.

We saved $4200 this year (close to our $5k goal) but spent $1700 on stuff around the house. My goal was to save $5k BEFORE we started catching up on stuff. But broken computers and fridges had other plans. & then I figured what the heck, and started getting caught up on stuff around the house. (Stuff like thermal drapes). So failed spectacularly on my goal, but am not too upset about it. Still moving forward.

It's kind of amazing how things work out. We haven't saved up any money for stuff around the house in years. Low priority since dh stopped working and such. & things have been okay. Nothing broke around the house when we were broke. But this year we start saving for household stuff again and next thing you know we have thousands in unexpected bills. Kind of annoying, but just glad we had the cash for it all. Looking back we had a few lucky years, so it was bound to catch up with us at some point.

My goal is $5k to this fund in 2009. I hope to still have $5k in this fund come 12/31/09. About 50% funded by overtime and interest, and 50% funded by savings. So makes our goal to spend $2500 on home repairs in 2009 (expected) and have $5k going forward. If I get a bigger raise than expected, or any windfalls, this is likely where it would all go. So I would love to make a higher goal. But $5k is rather realistic at this point.

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I don't expect to add any more to retirement this year. So looks like we will hit 12% again. Mostly funded by employer. Goal is 14% for next year. Goal is 20% by 2010. (10% us & 10% employer). So, not hitting it too heavy in 2009. Just trying to move forward. 2010 should be an easy year to divert preschool tuition to retirement.

I'd probably rather focus more on cash savings at this point, BUT with the market so low, we want to take advantage and add more to our retirement next year.

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Mortgage - we paid off about $3800 this last year. Next year we will pay closer to $4500. Just regular payments, but considering adding $20/month next year.

It's starting to make a dent!

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I haven't looked at our net worth, but Quicken tells us most of our investments are down 30% - 50%. Eh. I'll look 12/31. It won't be pretty!

I depreciated our cars by $4500 this year. I figured since our net worth was in the toilet anyway... A good time to take the hit.

Depreciated dh's car by $500, to $2500. Could probably get $3k-$4k easy for it, the way gas prices have been. (It actually appreciated this year; it gets 40mpg freeway). But I figured to depreciate $500/year going forward. Fair enough. Rather aim conservative.

The gas guzzling van? Plummeted in value this year when gas prices were high. I estimated $12k last year (which is about what we paid for the thing in 2006). BUT I saw them going for $8k when we briefly considered dumping it ourselves. I am sure value has gone back up a bit, but gas prices can also shoot up again. So I figured I'd take the big depreciation hit this year. Will continue to depreciate that one about $1k/year, going forward.

Since the van is like half of my emergency fund (well, was) I tend to keep an eye on prices. So yeah, needless to say I was shocked to see it going for $8k for a time. Yeesh. A big depreciation hit for 2008, for sure.

& with gas prices rock bottom, I am currently glad we didn't dump it. Ask me again later...

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Short-term savings...

I looked at the last year to see where things landed. We have been saving $1k/month. $12k/year.

This is for known, regular, larger expenses (or for anything that's not monthly and regular). So I already know what this adds up to for 2008 - have received all the 2008 bills by this point.

Ended up spending about $13,500 from this fund in 2008:

$4595 Property Tax
$3545 Insurance (Auto, Life, Disability, Home, etc.)
$1550 Vacation
$1225 Dentist (regular checkups)
$1200 Car Maintenance/Repairs
$1300 Misc.

We will probably receive $1k for Christmas to plump up this fund a bit for 2009. Will add $12k again. (I figure we will add another $100/month come 2010, when we have more wiggle room).

Expect property taxes to be about the same next year. (California assesses very differently than most areas - based on purchase price - not volatile market values. So no chance of a decrease next year. It's based on January 1 and values overall are still higher than our assessed value. Not like prices will decrease dramatically by January 1).

Our auto insurance continues to decrease, as well as a lot of our disability and life insurance. BUT our flood insurance is going up something like $500 next year. I think it will all about even out.

Vacation - our plans for 2009 are well within $1500.

Dentist - will go up a bit since LM is now going every 6 months.

Car Repairs - a little more this year than usual, but dh's car is getting pretty old (near 100k miles and though it has pretty much never had any repairs, it is a cheapie car and we expect a lot more upkeep in the coming years), and my car just plain sucks. Always taking it in for door locks and windows and stupid stuff like that. So I expect the same or more next year.

Misc. - where we have room to work with. We put a lot of stuff here when we were squeezed by the cost of 2 in preschool. I think our monthly budget will cover more of this stuff in 2009.

So, will contribute $1k monthly for 2009 and will consider $1100 monthly in 2010.

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So yeah, just kind of an overall roundup for 2008.

Not a great year, but I am happy to be moving forward. Particularly in this economy.

I usually summarize all my expenses/savings together, but ran out of time yesterday.

So we spent a whole lot of money. What else did we do in October?

*Saved $1k to short-term savings

*Saved $200 to mid-term savings

*Saved $250 to medical savings & added $250 credit card rebate also

*Earned $26 interest (to mid-term fund). Good bye Balance Transfers; this amount decreased much as a result

*Deposited $100 to ROTH

*Earned $625 in work retirement plan

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*Pulled $1500 from medical fund for dental and medical bills.

Our deductible could push our medical fund to -$1500 or so, for 2008 expenses. But I figured it was a lot easier to stomach paying all those dental bills out of there, for now. Will tap mid-term savings later, if we have to. IF we ever get BM's ambulance bill, etc.

I guess there is always a slight chance we won't use our deductible next year and we can recover then. Who knows...

*I subtracted $150 from short-term savings for car registration. I did not pull any money out for other things (like life insurance) because fund is depleted for year. Will have to shift to the mid-term fund through 12/31. Need short-term for property taxes and home insurances (will be about $4k due in December).

We have been slowly adding more to this fund every year and are contributing another $100/month over Jan. 1, so I am happy where this fund is for the long run. I think $1k/month is the sweet spot, for now. But a bit behind, since we did not contribute this much when both kids were still in preschool.

Adds up to about $9k for all of our insurances and prop taxes, and about $2k for car repairs and vacation, and maybe $1k for misc. things throughout the year (like Christmas & subscriptions & vehicle registration, etc.).

*Pulled $550 for new drapes and Dec. 31 concert tickets, from mid-term savings. May need to pull a little more out for car service (would have been short-term otherwise) if it hits the card for October.

*Dh earned $125 at a focus group to pay for my ring resize.

& that's October for you. We took care of a lot of stuff. But November we hope will be low key. No "plans" for any bigger purchases or anything from savings.

Truth is though we have a lot of stuff that have been on the back burner for a while, and as our mid-term fund builds up, we are using some of it. I had preferred to wait until the balance was $5k to start touching it, but with all these dental bills and everything... I kind of give up. Maybe we should take care of some things and start over 1/1. Mid-term fund can easily be gone by then. But it is nice to get some stuff done around the house, etc.

There was a lot of talk of savings in the forums that I had been meaning to expand on.

For us, all of this was moot when we made a lot more income (both working). We saved the second wage in cash and trickled it into our ROTHs, and into our house, over the years. We always had enough cash for cars and for property taxes and the like.

I would probably have a more solid/aggressive investment plan next time around. Our loose plan if dh returns to work is to save up his salary for an entire year, cash, to bulk up a hefty emergency fund. & as a hedge if he decided to stop working again, or whatever. From that point on we would do 1/2 investing and 1/2 to mortgage. We assume all our tax-deferred options would be covered by my salary anyway. We could flip a coin which we rather do, so it's both. 50/50. To be re-evaluated with time.

Anyway, when money is flowing in way above your expenses, all that is easy. (To us anyway). We were never big budgeters or anything when we both worked. We just knew our limits.

But with money more tight (on one income) I find we have to do a lot more planning.

Our savings plans has various layers. If the bottom layer fails, the rest of the layers will collapse. It is something we have been working up to with time, and I feel will be pretty solid by the time dh is in a position to return to work. When we won't need it any more. Figures, huh?

*Layer 1 - Short-Term Savings*

The first layer is our short-term savings. For me, this covers every expense within the year that is not a monthly or semi-monthly bill.

We are currently saving $1k/month to this fund (up from $800). I think we are getting there.

This fund covers all of our insurances and property taxes (the bulk of it). It also covers vacation, regular dental checkups, car repairs, subscriptions, Christmas, vehicle license fees, etc. I am sure I am forgetting some things.

If this is not funded, we need to pull money from more long-term savings, to pay current bills. Not Good!

Anyway, our medical fund is along the same lines. Same kind of category. Our deductible is $3k annually and we will likely hit it every year. So we save $250/month for this as well.

As such, this is our first savings priority.

*Layer 2 - Mid-Term Savings*

Our goal is to add $5k annually to our mid-term savings fund. Temporarily we may raise this to $7500 because we have catching up to do. If we had done this all along, we would have maybe $30k in this fund today. (Have not had a lot of expenses lately, since moving here). So yeah, I feel we need to make up for some lost time, but in the long haul, $5k annually should suffice. (We have $3k today and might need it for dental expenses).

I primarily look at this as our new car and house maintenance fund. Other uses would be larger car repairs and stuff like orthodontic expenses. Just larger expenses that are farther in the future.

You could also call it our anti-debt fund. I think this is the kind of stuff the masses put on credit cards and HELOCs, and we just have no desire to do that.

Our one-income strategy was to buy a newer house that should need little work. That has paid off. We have put very little money into this house since we moved in 7 years ago. (Maybe $1500 for some bird proofing??? A new washer and dryer?) We also paid cash for a couple of cars since, so we saved up a lot before we had kids which carried us through a bit.

But for the long run, we will have a lot of house maintenance expenses (some we should be considering now - like painting and replacing the fence).

This fund would also cover furniture and appliances and all that as well. Stuff we just don't spend a lot on, overall.

*Layer 3 - Retirement*

This is the long-term stuff.

For now we are putting 12% to retirement.

We have actually averaged 12% over the last decade or so, amazingly.

My goal is to get retirement up to 15% on one income. With my employer match this could potentially be 25%. But I don't expect to have that extra 10% for the long haul.

15% of my gross right now just happens to be $10k. So maxing our ROTHs is my roundabout goal over the next couple of years.

Anyway, if all my other savings accounts are on track, the less likely I will need to divert retirement savings to bills, or to pull retirement money out to get out of a bind. So it is just another layer in my plan. It goes much better when all the other layers are taken care of.

*Layer 4 - Emergency*

I am not sure where to put my emergency fund in the layers.

I consider this catastrophic savings as we generally have enough savings for smaller emergencies, as is.

I guess the emergency fund would mean we wouldn't have to raid our other savings layers if we did face a large hardship. Ideally anyway.

I have 3 months living expenses in cash & I also could sell our second vehicle for another 3 months expenses (a no brainer if we faced catastrophe - the second auto would go). We also with time should have a fair amount in the mid-term savings fund to divert in case of emergency.

So this is some of my thinking with our emergency fund.

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Anyway, for now it is a work in progress. But we're getting there. I think once LM is out of preschool we will largely be there. (Can fund the second ROTH at that point, by diverting preschool monies).

I think largely, with the shift to one income, mid-term expenses were largely ignored in our household. This was okay because we had a huge efund going into this (trying to prepare for long periods of bed rest, potential medical bills, or a longer period of time between children, etc., none of which came to be). So we ended shifting a lot of that efund to retirement and mid-term expenses in the end.

The rest of our savings has been rather on track. I would have preferred to put more into retirement, as time progresses. But our health/dental expenses have increased by about $10k per year. So it's just kind of crazy.

On the flip side, a decade of 12% contributions are a pretty solid foundation for a 30-year-old's retirement. I do not feel behind in the least. Could have done better, but I think I will survive. It should only be up from here.

I'll show my expenses over the weekend - the credit card closes Friday.

As of today, I am up to $4890 expenses for September, which is quite reasonable. I like to think our expenses average $4000/month (regular and monthly). & the figure above includes $400 in dental expenses and $400 auto insurance and repairs.

Gas and Groceries were right on - $800. Though I am not sure if dh has to go to the grocery store the next 3 days. Probably, it seems it had been a while. So we may go over. I will encourage him to just get what we need. We certainly have enough food to last through Friday.

So everything was right on, or under budget.

Except one area we completely blew out of the water.

Dining out - $225.

Egads!!!!

LOL.

I almost fell over when I saw that one. I guess it adds up fast.

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I also just added all my interest for the month, to my savings spreadsheet.

& I remembered I will get $250 from the credit card (rewards) next week.

So my mid-term savings will hit $3k next week. Woohoo!

It will be short-lived. Too many expenses coming up.

I also was finally able to get my short-term savings back in the black. Yeesh.

I updated my totals on the left.

(Almost $5k in cash over efund? Eh, easy come, easy go... IT will be gone on a flash - most of the money is earmarked for large expenses).

Oh well, more on all of this later...

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Almost forgot, my CD matures next week and my 0% balance transfer is due this month. So this was my last month of $90 interest. That figure will drop to $40 interest, next month. *sigh* It was fun while it lasted though!

To help make up for it I am now saving $200/month. The interest was really nice when times were tighter. Easy money. But now I can pick up the slack (& improve on it).

I don't identify with the masses. Too much panic.

In the midst of the crisis is NOT the time to start hoarding cash, saving more, and changing investment strategies. Too little too late, if you ask me.

You prepare for this stuff when times are good, and then you ride it out and hope your planning was enough.

I guess that is the stage I am in.

I haven't commented much on the financial markets because of this. Business as usual here. We aren't doing anything different. ?

I did decide on a more conservative portfolio in 2006, expecting something like this. You could argue it was a pitiful attempt at market timing. (In the long run I can't say if this was wise or stupid - and just because it might have been wise this time I am not sure I will do again in the future). But it was sure better what I See the panicked masses doing.

& I won't be calling the market bottom any time soon either.

Selling last week to buy back in next week is just crazy. In my eyes, it is no better than gambling. & in the meantime you could lose the hottest day in the stock market year. You just never know. That is the one thing I understand about the stock market. When you start pulling money in and out at random based on emotions, you generally lose. I would venture even if you pull out for a couple of years and try to time the bottom, you also generally lose.

What I mostly don't understand though is if the market has been going up 25% a year for many years (thinking some of my international funds) why does the world end with one down year of 25%? There could easily be more losses. A lot more. You could argue they were way over valued. Nope, a small dip is not rock bottom, for sure.

I see some similarities to the housing market. Our house is worth a solid 20% more than we paid for it in 2001, but the world is ending because of one bad year after a few of the most awesome real estate years ever. This is not rock bottom... This is 20% profit, for me.

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Anyway, the other interesting thing for us is we are just coming off some self-imposed tight years and so our economy has been doing REALLY well lately. (We did cut our income in half after all, in 2002. & 2007 was a very good turning point for us as far as moving forward).

I think on the flip side, there is maybe some fear that we are less ready to weather along storm because we have been in the midst of our own "storm" for a long while.

Then again, we haven't bit off more than we can chew and probably have a more solid financial plan then a lot of our peers who were flush with income these last few years. So for that I guess, we aren't feeling a lot of pinch. & maybe while we worry a bit, I don't think we have a lot to worry about.

Everything we have put forth in our financial plan is to save up when times are good, to weather when times are bad. So now is the time to just hold on and see if we have done enough preparation to weather the storm.

I'm certainly not going to go buy a new car I don't need, but I wouldn't have done that when we were flush with cash either.

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As far as the market? I just have to have faith in my long-term plan (which is logical and avoids the pitfalls of fear investing).

But honestly, we just don't have that much to lose. We are young and even if our entire retirement was wiped out, I know we could recover and do well.

I am trying to make mental notes because I know next time will be harder. My first experience with this was 2001, and I was very fresh out of college. It was a wonderful learning experience. This time is about the same except I have a better game plan. So though I have considerably more money in the market, I am less worried. Before we had a lot of individual stocks and such. & it did scare me off individual stock investing. & I might learn more lessons this time around. But happy enough to learn them young while I have time to catch up and implement better investing strategies.

But yeah, rather then trying to time anything, we are averaging in our purchases, we invest twice every month and my boss deposits my profit sharing (retirement)once a year, which is also very consistent dollar cost averaging.

We're buying high, and we're buying low. Ideally it all just evens out.

We have an asset allocation that we can live with through thick and thin. Etc., etc.

I probably mentioned this recently, but as of right now our mortgage balance is $207,999.

What is interesting about this is that the first mortgage we ever took out was for $208k.

So yeah, pretty much, 9 years later, and where are we but back to where we started?

It's even less exciting considering we paid off a solid $8 in less than 2 years, on our first mortgage since it was a 15-year-loan. Way higher interest, but way shorter term. It paid off. Was life before kids... I should look up the lowest balance we got to and be set to have a celebration once we dip below it. But it's kind of sad it will take almost 9 years to get there, all the same. We'll have lived in this house 9 years before we get to the mortgage balance we started with? Blech.

On the flip side, we live in a way better neighborhood, our interest rate is lower, we have twice the house, we have a yard and a garage and a laundry room, and many things we didn't before. All this was for $40k more than we paid for our first condo. (The house itself, "as is" was actually the exact same price as we paid for our condo but we put about $20k into structural upgrades, $10k into interior upgrades, and $10k into landscaping).

We paid $20k cash down on that extra $40k, and we financed $20k of it, let's say. As of today we have paid all of that extra off.

In a way you can say all of the excess we got with this house is officially paid off. & that is pretty sweet. What a steal it was! (Having done the lower-cost-of-living move).

But the aggressive/conservative side of me is kind of miffed right now, all the same. I've been a homeowner for 9 years and owe no less on my home than the day I first bought. Not much to brag about there. !!

Well, even though we do have a 30-year amortization, we are paying off $4k/year, since we are getting further into the loan. So I guess from this point we are paying it off as fast as we were when it was a 15 year loan, in a sense. $8k paid over the next 2 years (just as the first 2 years in our condo), easy, and from there we should progress. Our goal is to pay this mortgage off in 20 years, shaving off 10 years, and we have thus far made little effort to accelerate it. The kids have slowed us down a bit. But it is still VERY in the cards. The mortgage has gotten cheap with time. We pay the same (or less really) than we did 9 years ago, considering inflation and lower interest rates which shaved $200/month off our original loan.

Since having kids, I feel like we are getting back to square one on a lot of things financially. It's kind of silly to get back to the mortgage, retirement savings pace, savings in the bank, etc. we had at 25. But that's what we are working towards. We had way more income and way less responsibilities when we were 25. Still a long ways to go to get anywhere near back to that, really...

But yeah, we seem to be getting there in many regards. Slowly, but surely.

BM is very active and we were thinking of letting him try baseball last year and whimped out. We decided to enjoy our last few months free of schedules and such. Since he was to start kindergarten this month.

Anyway, I knew soccer was a fall sport and I did look into it, but sign ups were ages ago. Egads.

I should put the baseball/softball dates on the calendar, and soccer - as a reminder to be a little more on the ball. (unintended pun).

For the best, he seems overwhelmed with school. I discussed with dh and we decided no new activities for the year. It's only K, but it is all day and they have PE, art and even spanish. I think he has enough to occupy him. Best of all, all that is "free."

BUT I did pick up the community center catalog on a whim, while at aerobics yesterday morning. (My $2.50 aerobic/yoga class. I can't imagine life without that gem. LOVE the community center).

I had already perused it online, and didn't expect much. Will probably keep it financially low key the rest of the year and such. & considering our talks of giving BM a break.

BUT as I flipped through, dh did mention that BM has talked much about going to his karate class.

We dropped it because it was moved from evening to 4:30; a terrible time. But it was "only" $7.50 per class and was just AWESOME. He LOVED it. Now it fits in rather well as an after-school activity. So we can reconsider it.

So we decided to sign him up yesterday. The $30/month would not make or break us.

I was also pleased when I hurriedly signed up online, before month-end when it becomes an infinitely more complicated sign-up process, I was so pleased to see that they dropped all service charges for online registration. IT was only $2-$3 per class but it just annoyed me to no end.

So instead I was charged a flat $30, and life is good.

---------------------------------
No, not exactly free.

BUT my parents called me with an interesting proposition yesterday. They wanted to add on to our Verizon family plan. They pay $50/month for some ancient/bare bones Verizon plan and we pay $80/month for some newer Verizon family plan. We've had it forever and shop around every couple of years, but recently upgraded to a modern plan from our ancient one. It's nice to actually have minutes.

I primarily use my phone for emergencies and to talk to my spouse (free) and to KIT with out parents ("free" long distance). The rest of our family as well.

But I have gone over my minutes a few times talking to my mom WAY too much. I don't believe my parents had the benefit of talking to anyone in Verizon free since they have such an old plan. We could maybe just be misinformed...

Anyway, it only cost $20/month to add their 2 lines, and it turns out we could have different area codes, and I guess really we don't even have to be family. I am LOVING this.

We will split the bill in half, which means our bill will probably go down from $80/month to $50/month.

What a nice little surprise.

& that pretty much covers BM's karate passion, for a while.

The best part was I was trying to talk my folks into coming up for a visit, and they decided to come up last minute to get our phones set up. So they came up yesterday and we had a delightful visit. Now I just have to get used to calling my mom on her cell.

We decided to stick with our 700-minute plan since we mostly call each other anyway. My parents did not have free roaming or long distance, or any minutes for that matter, so this is quite an upgrade for them, for the same price they were paying. Anyway, I will monitor our usage and we'll give it a whirl. I don't expect we will have to upgrade our minutes, but I guess we should test it all out before I get too excited... We'll see how the month goes.

---------------------------------

Anyway, MIL is still very excited to pay for piano lessons for BM, but I think it is all way too much for right now. I think ideally I should have been teaching him more when he was younger. He was so bored with reading so early on (he had SUCH a letter obsession as a baby he knew the entire alphabet at 18 months and could read well enough at 2.5) I considered teaching him to read music as a way to challenge him. I figured he was certainly ready and maybe it would REALLY Stick to learn at age 4. But I was lazy and never really got around to it.

At this point he is so busy at school, it's like, what's the hurry. What's another 6 months. But with MIL's promise to foot the bill, we will get around to it while he is 5, I am sure. I started piano lessons at 6 so I know the world will not end if we wait a year... More age, maturity, and patience is probably preferred.

I think it is important for the kids to learn music, and not so sure the public schools will come through like they did for us, in these times. BUT I also don't expect BM to be much of a musician. LM is clearly the musical one. So we'll see. I have the feeling LM will fare more with music lessons and band practices, and that BM will be rather sporty. Which is interesting since no one in our family has ANY interest in sports, but we will brave those waters for our child.

LM has NO interest in letters and reading, even at 3, but he already composes his own music. So the differences in their brains is CLEAR.

I assume he has no interest in sports like the rest of us, but that is probably a pretty broad assumption for now. Having a big brother to look up to changes the playing field, as it were. He may be more interested in keeping up with big bro than seriously considering his own wants. Or maybe he will genuinely be sporty too... I just don't see it, for now.

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Well, it's the lifestyle I have been dreading. Kindergarten! School! Schedules!

It really hasn't started out so bad.

BM had friday off, and monday off of course.

There doesn't seem to be much rushing with a 8:30 start time (& a 2-minute-drive to the school).

& for now, this is the start time through 5th grade. I am rather pleased with it all.

It IS an adjustment consulting the calendar when it comes to appointments and such. & I am sure it will SUCK when it comes to vacations. I just realized BM has the most time off the beginning of April (2 weeks) and the last 2 weeks of december (rather standard). The bummer thing is those are my BUSIEST times at work. So I don't know. The only time he really seems to have off that works as far as vacation, is July/August. What a crappy/busy time to travel...

About my only gripe for now.

I stayed a little late at work yesterday to prepare some rebates. I had thought the due dates were not clear when I realized one was to be postmarked yesterday! So I went to the post office. Gah.

Mailed $90 in rebates, cell phone and computer related - will help the bottom line.

Looking at the credit card bill and feeling better able to tackle it, though we maybe weren't the best this month. We could have saved another $100-$200 through extreme diligence. We can try again next month. We'll be boring homebodies; I think we will survive.

Trying to spend no gas through the rest of the month - $100 under budget as is. Phew!

If we had bought no clothing or stayed in from our fancy dinner out we would have another $150 to spare. Then again, I am not sure my boss would appreciate my worn clothing for one more month. But we have September to redo and save some cash. (& October & November as well - living some lean months).

Anyway, today was the first day I wasn't stressed about it all. & I have dh to thank. He has REALLY come through. This is the man I remember.

Today the credit card sits at $3k and we have no plans but for a few groceries this weekend. We'll see, but I think we can have a no-spend week otherwise. (Credit card closes Wednesday so we have a full week left to be very frugie).

$3,000 August credit card bill
- 400 airfare reimbursement from mom
- 1400 budget
- 200 ebay sales (dh)
- 100 focus group (dh)
------
$ 900 Shortfall

Really, all of it is the new computer. Or $800 computer & $100 fridge repair, I guess.

I don't mind pulling $300 from savings, for the full fridge repair. What that is for.

So I guess $900 - $300 = $600 to contend with - all computer.

I expect a $250 rewards check (Credit card) in a month. We got it WAY early with all this stuff. & about $100 in rebates.

So in the end leaves us with $250 shortfall in the long run.

I guess pulling out $250 from savings for a brand new computer is not a huge deal in the end. Why I am starting to feel better as I tally the numbers.

Plus, at this rate, dh will easily make $250 next month. I think I will even ask him to try to hit that goal.

Reminds me, it isn't done yet. The kids both have doctor appointments and BM starts his dental fillings this week as well. The medical stuff is covered by the medical fund; not a prob.

BUT dental, I don't know. I made some appointments in October because he has so many Fridays off. As long as it doesn't hurt to wait another month, I think it will be nice to spread the costs out a bit.

I also have around $1k in the medical fund to take care of the first 6 fillings or so (there may only be 7).

There is a very slight chance I won't have to drain my mid-term savings below $3k. VERY slight. I won't hold my breath...

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Oh yeah, I thought I was getting better at editing myself around people terrible with money. But now, I don't think so. LOL. I have just been less annoyed of late and thought I was getting better.

But I ran into someone yesterday who is totally broke, having a new baby, and not sure if they can afford all the new crib and changing tables and such.

I am thinking to myself, "Why are you buying NEW?????? Why are you buying a changing table?" Certainly not the first thing on my list if I Were broke. (& this is their second child - they should know how useless some of those expensive baby things are).

I just find it ironic when we weren't broke we bought secondhand stuff and skipped a lot of the nonsense.

I guess it's not ironic. It's why we tend to not be broke.

But you know, you just want to shake these people.

Instead I didn't say anything. I've learned to not say anything. It wouldn't have gone over well. So I guess I edited myself, but boy I did have to gripe about it.

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The only other thing I can think of coming up is HAlloween. The kids have 2 very nice outfits which I will probably put up on ebay. We will use the cash to buy something else. So I am pleased with that. I don't think halloween will cost us anything in that regard.

This year the kids are huge on spiderman. They want to be Spiderman and IceMan. In fact, LM generally insists he is IceMan anymore.

I don't even know who IceMan is. LOL. They've moved into decidedly more BOY territory.

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Oh yeah, the ticket talk reminded me. There is no parking on the street in front of the school (& the parking lot is terribly tiny. It used to be the back parking lot for the middle school - it's a charter school without a permanent location - we just make do with what we can get).

Anyway, dh asked if I had just parked there and I asked him if he was crazy. The government is looking for money and the last thing I need is a ticket. I can walk a few blocks. Which I only did the first couple of days while I gaged the traffic. Drop off is working out okay.

Anyway, yesterday there was someone out there issuing tickets and wouldn't you know a number of people stopped (& got out of their cars!!!!) anyway.

I don't know what people are thinking...

The city must be loving this windfall. !

& my kids keep asking, "How come no one follows the rules?" We have a new playground being built and there were people taking their toddlers in there with exposed metals and NO ground covering. It was totally insane. & the kids want to go in and you have to explain those people are stupid and no you can not go play in the extremely dangerous/unfinished playground. People have just lost their minds or something... IT's been months and I know they are sick of seeing everyone else play in the playground. & everyone else park on the street while we walk. etc., etc., etc.

Bah!!!!!

Hey, are you all sending me thoughts, prayer, vibes or whatever for my new car?

I think you may be, because everything else is falling apart. I always notice when something good happens, something bad happens, the yin and the yang.

So that is what I am holding out hope for. LOL.

Is it worth winning maybe one of the $1k prizes if I have to shell out $1k in repairs this week? Maybe not. Bah.

-----------------------------------

It started Saturday. I thought our HDTV was broken (barely a year new). I am QUITE relieved to say it was the TV station (CNBC and MSNBC). But holy cow, I almost had a heart attack. I was drifting off to sleep watching CNBC (Suze of course) when I noticed a missing square on the TV screen. I knew it was bigger than a pixel and seemed kind of odd, but the worst was running through my mind.

Changed the channel and looked at older episodes of Suze, and it was gone.

I told dh later and he knew exactly what I Was talking about. Said MSNBC had given him the same heart attack just the other day. But it was definitely not on our end. Phew!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, so, phew, saved by the bell.

But Sunday, dh got some ice cream out of the freezer and it was mushy. Freezer broken!

We ended up just calling Sears out. They tried to sell some extended warranty thing for $250 and I just rolled my eyes. The freezer was cutting in and out, I was sure it was probably something simple.

Anyway, dh was in a panic and I told him just to chill out and call Sears. Yeesh. He was convinced we needed a new fridge!

Wouldn't you know, it cost $250 to fix. Buggers. But it was just the filter had never been cleaned. They recommended once every 3 months and showed dh how to clean it. I think once a year will suffice. (It took over 6 years to give out). A fuse had also blown, so it was more than just the filter.

The guy tried to sell another extended warranty thing to dh. Dh said no and the guy said, "Yeah, I wouldn't bother. Kenmores never have problems."

Well, duh.

So my PSA of the day is clean the filter on your fridge...

(Also cost us a freezer full of food - luckily really not much in there. Some chicken butter, and veggies. & ice cream that was almost gone anyway).

Anyway, we were coming into our super frugal no-spend August, because the last few months have just been a little too spendy. & this is how it starts. !!!

All of this would be fine except dh calls me later and I don't hear anything. I tried to call back and he didn't answer. I wonder if the kids are playing with his cell phone or what. Or if he was in some terrible accident trying to reach me (I assume the worst of course).

What is going on??????????

I finally reach him and he is grumbling that his blue tooth is no longer working on his phone. (He realizes as he is trying to call me).

Okay, no biggie. He just bought it and he can take it back. But annoying all the same.

But the reason he called me is because his computer DIED. Dead as a doornail.

Ugh!

I am cursing myself for jinxing it. It is the computer we leave on most of the day and I Was quite adamant in the forums that we have never had a computer die on us. (We never have, we still have the computers we used in college - for the kids to use and other uses). But we have replaced the power supplies a million times, so I would much rather leave the computer on than turn it on and off too much. Personally.

Oh yeah, was that the jinx of the century. This computer is about 4 years old I would guess? One of our newer ones, for sure.

Dh bought a power supply because it wouldn't even start, and that is the usual repair - have done it a few times on our other computers.

BUT that wasn't it. He had told me when I got home it was fine unless it was the motherboard.

HE eventually diagnosed it as the motherboard. UGh!

Of course, he first postulated he could rebuild another computer for a mere $200 since he wasn't quite ready to upgrade all the other parts. He built this one. But then he remembers he needs buy an OS. Okay, maybe $350, For a new notherboard/processor and Windown Vista or whatever.

Last I heard he may spend $600. We'll see...

Of course, I looked at the bright side. I know he has been chomping at the bit to upgrade his big editing system. So I said, just upgrade it and move your old one down here. It's the logical choice. & he says, no, he's not ready to upgrade.

Whatever. Will save me six figures then. LOL. (It's all I hear about - I need a new computer!!!! But given the opportunity, no he doesn't want one. I don't understand).

Anyway, I know it's a PITA and has thwarted all my Craigslist selling indefinitely because that computer had my e-mail and Craigslist postings and pictures, etc. I feel jinxed on the Craigslist side. I knew I should have used one of my other e-mails. Bah! I had some interested e-mails that are lost in space. At least future ones will get through.

& yes, though it will be a huge PITA for dh to fix and all, he was just going on and on last night.

Seriously, we have 3 other up and running computers. I think he will survive. I kind of roll my eyes on some level. At least it wasn't our only working computer.

Anyway, Murphy has done a job over here, but it's hard to get too worked up. Dh has been making some decent side money, and for the first time since like 2005, I actually have a savings fund for this kind of stuff. I would prefer to move forward at a faster clip, to make up for lost time. But I have about $3200 in there now. Plenty to fix the fridge and replace a computer. We haven't really had anything give up on use since we had kids and cut our income way down. All I can think of is out washer which was 30years+ old anyway. So I think if this was one month sooner I'd be a bit more panicked. But I know we've had quite a lucky streak all the same.

I just hope Murphy is done for this round.

--------------------------------

Oh, the only other thing around here is I am not sure I shared the monster fight I had with dh. He actually hung up on me on the phone. LOL. Yeah, I Can laugh about it now. I honestly think that was a first.

He went to deposit the kids' birthday money in our account (as we always do) so we could transfer it (electronic transfer) into their mutual funds. This was like a month ago.

Anyway, dh called me to tell me they wouldn't take the checks ("third party") and that he was going to open accounts for them. I started griping that was ridiculous since they would charge fees and give miserable interest and I didn't like the idea. I just wanted to put it in their mutual fund.

Anyway, dh got all pissed like I didn't think he knew what he was doing and he hung up on me. !!!!!!!!!!

We talked it out but I realized there are certain things we will NEVER discuss again. I brought up his wonderful bank account with the crazy minimium and how he kept getting $50 fees for dropping under the minimum. He still to this day is annoyed we have a 0% checking account, and I roll my eyes at his 0.5% checking account that needed a $1 minimum and was routinely hit with $50 fees. So I brought that up and that was the hot button that caused him to hang up on me.

Yeah, something I will never mention again. Yeesh! (But I am right - you understand!!!)

Dh also tells me he is annoyed I locked up all the kids' money for college.

Huh? I told him it was in a UGMA mutual fund where it would actually GROW, but they could use it for whatever the hell they want. That's the point.

So, oh boy, we obviously have some communication issues. I guess he thought it was all locked up in a college fund. We rather see eye to eye on that one since neither of us spent much at all for college. But for whatever reason since I call it a "college fund" he thinks it can only be used for college. More just a term I use for their long-term savings. At this point, yeah, most of it is for college. What else are they going to need it for in the next few years????? But if they want to use it on a car or house, whatever. That's why I didn't put it in a 529.

So, there is a point to this story.

We tried to open these savings accounts for the kids multiple times and each time have had a brick wall. We need to bring x,y, and z. Oy vey. IT's easier to get a passport.

so dh made the trek yesterday for another attempt, BM in tow (thought he may enjoy the process).

Anyway, so dh called to tell me that the deed was done, and I log online to look at all those lovely accounts. After our fight dh had assured us there was NO FEES. Whatsoever. I said, yeah, they'll stick you somehow. & dh thought I was insulting him. I told him I would never argue with him over TV setup so why is he arguing with me in my area of expertise? LOL.

So I log on yesterday and their accounts have $44 instead of $45.

Dh failed to mention the fee they stuck him with. LOL.

So I am like, um, was there a $1 fee? He's like, "Yeah, yeah, I don't want to talk about it."

LOL.

It was just funny.

I was right, but I Can live with $1. It is a CU after all. The bank would be much worse.

But this is the point I tried to make to dh all along.

The nice thing is now we can transfer the money to our account, and then into their mutual fund.

Hallelujah. What a lot of PITA for that. Geez. But it's all set up now, the fee is paid, and life moves on. (Doesn't seem to be any other fees so we'll survive).

I don't care if BM wants to keep some money in there, but I think LM hardly needs $44. (He's 3 - what is he going to buy?) So I will try to convince dh to let me transfer that to his mutual fund. We still have some talking to do about it all.

But yeah, about the biggest fight we ever had - & what a stupid fight it was.

You could argue we put too many of our eggs in the house bucket in our 20s, but I have no regrets. Doing so, for one, means we aren't in the mess most of our fellow young Californians are in. (We put a lot of cash down but refused to pay $600k for a home, all the same).

But even as housing tumbles and rents are rocky, we still pay far less for our home than it would be to rent something comparable (always have).

So there is a large measure of method to our madness.

BUT, I am pleased to report that I was glancing at my net worth schedule, and as of July we have only $1k more in cash equity in our house than we have in cash and investments.

!!

Which means, by the end of the year, we should have more cash/investments that cash paid on our home.

I think that is an interesting milestone. For the longest time it seemed most of our assets went to our home... We saved dh's salary for years, to pay off as much as we have.

It runs something like $91k in investments and $92k cash paid on home. Today.

For the long run, I expect our investments to blow the mortgage out of the water. I am only 30. (TIME is most definitely on our side).

You could argue if we should have paid down more aggressively, or invested more instead, but I am VERY happy with this balance. I think we did the right amount of both.

I am also pretty darn close to hitting six figures in my savings and retirement, which is another neat milestone.

But anyway, though we felt it was important to load up the house basket while we were young, I am glad to move past that. I didn't want all my net worth made up of equity, forever. Though there is little I can do as far as equity equity. If it wants to stay super high, I won't stress that my investments are less. Worse problems to have. (We still probably have a solid $150k of equity in our home, today. But for measuring purposes I am more concerned what we paid on the home, particularly since there is a risk the value of our home will fall significantly more).

P.S. I do look REALLY forward to when my mortgage balance is LESS than my investments. Have a ways to go on that one...

-----------------------------

July is VERY spendy!!!! Ugh...

$85 to school for supplies/field trips
$100 on uniforms/backpack/start up costs
$105 Indian cooking lessons
$110 Swim Lessons
$75 new cell phone (rebate to come)
$30 Hands free head set (new law)
$200 Birthday Party
$100 Car Repair
--------
$805

These are all under the Misc. category which I usually budget something like $150 for.

The rest would be covered under short-term savings (birthdays, car repairs and such) but it seems like I have been pulling more out than I have been putting in lately.

All this would be fine, for one month, but I have some potential, very unexpected, dental bills for BM. Ugh!

So I am feeling the pinch this month.

I was really looking forward to saving $200 this month - portion of preschool savings. But I have decided to put that savings off one more month. For Kindergarten start up costs. (I did divert $100/month to the short-term fund for this kind of stuff, so will be prepared next year. Just not prepared coming immediately off pricey preschool/daycare).

I keep telling myself that the extra $3600/year will help. I just have to give it some time to build. (No plans but to save it all).

Also, I am eyeing the medical deductible fund, as far as dental expenses, to ease my financial stress level. Our HMO is terribly slow to bill, and though I am quite sure we will hit our full deductible (murphy's law of course), it isn't set in stone. There may be some extra cash there. In the meantime there is plenty of float. The $1k cash I have should cover the dental.

These are the budget gymnastics I am going through to make July work.

Dh's extra money has helped much though. I don't want to rely on it, but it helps in a crazy month like this.

Extra money to the ROTHs? Yeesh. One of these days...

This was, thankfully, an extraordinarily spendy month. Not the norm! It just feels a little overwhelming.

I am ready for a slow/calm spend month. Here's to August.

One thing I have forgotten is that as I get more data in Quicken (I only started using it in 2006) I can do more comparative reports. I think it is for the long run that Quicken gets VERY interesting. I think it will be fascinating to look at our budget in 10 years and compare it today.

But, since I have not had much data, I haven't been able to largely utilize comparative reports, before.

It recently occurred to me that I could run a YTD comparison of expenses. Compared to last year...



*Our auto expenses are actually down because our insurance went down. Our fuel is not up much really. We have just changed our driving habits. (Mostly drive the van less and drive the subcompact more).

*Cash - we have actually taken out less cash this year. Dh took out $440 or so for his little side business. Which actually has been reimbursed in some form or another.

We have only withdrawn $90 cash from the bank this year, then, technically. I have switched to credit cards only so makes a big difference. IT is very rare when either of us uses cash.

*Charity - we don't have a regular giving schedule so find it rather odd we are equal with last year... Just a fluke!

*Childcare - I am paying for 2 - so yeah it is a little more.

Explains 70% of the increased expenditures this year. & that is gone as of TODAY! So not much to fret over. BM's last day of preschool is today. Very bittersweet. The pocketbook is very happy.

Oh yeah, this year with the kids out of diapers, we have justified more childcare for date nights, as well. (shifting the diaper costs to date night costs).

*Diapers - I had a separate category for the diaper service, which we dropped late last year. Though BM is largely out of diapers as of today, so that does help the bottom line immensely.

*Dining - yeah, we have been eating out more. The coupons have been stellar this year. & comes with the more dates, etc. We've been making room in our budget for this.

*Education - a lot last year went to LM's toddler class, which we dropped with his start in preschool.

*I guess we have been a tad more gifty this year than last.

*Groceries - spent slightly more on groceries. We haven't notice much increase in our grocery spending, and thus, the proof is in the pudding. Don't ask me for out secret weapon. We just haven't noticed much increase in price in our own food buying habits.

You could extrapolate that we spent an extra $13/month on groceries. Honestly, we've been buying a lot more expensive items and luxuries this year. So accounts for most of it.

*Gym - we didn't have membership before June of last year.

*Disability insurance premiums went down a bit.

*Medical is a little lower because we switched to a HDHP. However, we have some outstanding $1k bill in space somewhere (expect it eventually). So our overall expenses will probably be up from last year. (They always are!!)

They would have been ASTRONOMICALLY higher though (as they always are, year after year) if we hadn't of switched to a HDHDP.

*Misc - too many little things to make sense of. But mostly we have done much better this year.

OH - last year we bought a HDTV for $1k. That accounts for most of the difference.

*Mortgage Interest - going down down down... BUT we paid an extra payment somewhere in 2008 - it's just payment timing.

*Taxes - the difference is the amount I owed the IRS on 4/15. Was for a ROTH conversion. (Part of it anyway).

Otherwise, taxes are rather the same.

*Vacation is up but we got all our vacations out this year before LM turned 3 (while he was free).
------

All considered, we spent $2k more this year than last.

$3k more when you consider the TV in the equation last year.

$2k can be explained by childcare.

$1k can be explained by vacation (just paid for/accomplished sooner).

Another $1k can be explained by taxes.

So all in all, we notice little increase in our expenses over last year. You could argue we spent around $1k less than last year, all considered!

I also had a raise this year and will lower our childcare expenditures by $300/month, come August.

We're saving all that.

So our personal economy? Just fine for now.

Not spending more. But yes, earning more.

I admit I was rather surprised how in line our expenses were, to last year. Or maybe more surprised they were a little lower.

Particularly, as, with time, I think we get better and better at directing our money where we truly want it to go. I would argue we have always done that. But it just improves with time. I literally feel like we have had WAY more money to spend this year, than last. We do have a gym membership and the kids in preschool and all that. But all of our other expenses have remained largely unchanged. Or we were able to lower the unimportant stuff a bit to accommodate other luxuries. What it comes down to.

------------

Also, when I cut out the tax expenses, I come up with $30k expenses for the first half of 2008. A SOLID $5k/month. Would be needed to maintain current lifestyle, after taxes.

You may recall that our emergency fund is based on 3 months of expenses at $4k/month.

This is still pretty valid since we pay most medical expenses from the medical fund AND because stuff like preschool and gardener are about $700/month and would be dropped in a second before I would touch the emergency fund. I am sure there is another $300/month fat to cut in case of emergency. EASY. So I am still quite pleased with the $4k basis for now. Eventually I would like to move up our emergency fund to cover more months of expenses, and all that. But for now I think it suffices.

It is a good exercise to see if our basic living expenses are still where I thought they were. & I think keeping our total expenses (with luxury) in the $5k monthly realm, is quite reasonable. I wouldn't want to get much past that though.

& let me tell you, there are PLENTY of people around here (where I live) who would argue a budget of $5k/month would be miserly and poor.

I beg to differ... With care and planning, there is nothing miserly or poor about our lifestyle.

In fact, $4k/month doesn't even sound that bad if you ask me. & that includes shouldering some pretty hefty medical expenses.

Well net worth is up $2226 for the quarter and up $4362 for the year.

Kind of pathetic!

My goal is $25k-$30k for the year - so a long way to go.

At least our retirement is up for the year - have contributed more than we have lost in the market. (Totals up approximately $1500 for the year).

Cash is up about $1k.

Regular mortgage payments are IT. $2k off the mortgage, and that accounts for most of our net worth progress.

-----------

I can't help but gloat since so many people told me years ago it was stupid to pay down our mortgage and not just get ARMs. "You pay so little principal in the beginning - it's just stupid."

We've paid off on average $3k/year, or about $18k to this point. I guess $18k is no small beans to me.

Plus after 6 years in this house we are getting to the point where we will pay off $4k this year, and this amount is growing rather rapidly.

(ETA: the assessed value of our home is $316k - more than what we paid - and I just saw the final sales price on our neighboring foreclosure. $300k for a house half the size. & it sold FAST. Not bad... I am very pleased...)

Anyway, we paid $10k off our first home in less than 2 years, and put $70k down on this house, on top of that. So yeah, I am happy to be well on the way to mortgage-free in our 40s.

I guess also, putting so much down, means we pay more than pennies on the principal. I'll give you that. But we rather put more down on the front end, and lock in an awesome rate for "life."

But yeah, I know one of these people owned a home in Sac and a home in Nevada - both with ARMs and no money down. I remember she seemed to have no clue when home values tanked here, and haven't heard from her lately. I can only imagine the whole ARM thing isn't working out so well.

I got other people who poo-pooed my lifestyle who are losing their homes.

Talk about bizarro.

Anyway, when we had first had kids we cut back a lot, and we never much lived up to our higher incomes when we both worked. I think we have a much higher life style now, on 75% of the income, honestly. Though I do admit our take-home pay is getting pretty close to where it was before kids. (Tax breaks!)

But in the past we gave up a lot of "stuff" to be home with our kids.

I never really thought it was that much. Having moved somewhere so much cheaper we have been able to have a fair amount of luxury. Sure we drove old cars and rarely ate out, but I am not sure you could call us deprived with our nice home, toys and overall financial peace.

But these days we have so much more than I imagined we would with wee little ones. We have a gardener and the kids both were able to go to preschool for a time. Dh and I have started instituting date nights and we have even been eating out once in a while.

All that and we have resumed payments to our IRAs (stopped for a time so we could be home with the kids).

I wouldn't do anything differently and am very happy with the luxury we can afford a few years in.

We've always been good at prioritizing our wants/needs and all that financially. But I think since joining pfadvice we had to step back and re-prioritize. So I am happy with the results. I feel like we are both saving more and enjoying our money more.

So I got all these people around here calling me deprived as they sink with their houses. What the heck? I guess I am deprived because I care about a budget. BEcause we say no to certain things (mostly thing we don't care about).

It's times like these that the frugalites shine.

I was thinking about it because I was looking through some old pictures. It is insane what our kids have been able to do, particularly with the help of grandparents. They have already been to Florida and Hawaii and Yosemite and it's funny because I think I let those people get to me. I was perusing old photos and I Was absolutely floored with all we have done with our kids the last 3 years. Regardless of grandparents' help, we still did plenty without them. I am so used to hearing we are so boring and deprived, I guess at some point you sort of believe it on some level. LOL.

Hey, all that FUN and I can still afford my mortgage, imagine that.

Some part of me was thinking because we don't stay in luxury hotels and go to Disneyland every month that there is some deprivation there.

I now just realize I live near a lot of absurd people. Who have been clearly been living well beyond their means, even with 2 incomes. Egads.

On the plus side, I got my car back at noon - really nothing wrong with it.

Mechanic called me at 11:45 to say the EGR valve(?) had been stuck, but seems fine now. Plus is usually covered for warranty an extraordinarily long time.

Charged $100, but that's okay. I was holding my breath to more car repairs on both cars. Now they both have a clean bill of health for $100. So not bad. Feeling very relieved. (Likewise, my co-worker just said the Ford dealership quoted her $160 just to diagnose her "check engine" light. What a rip! So though I thought $100 was a bit much, I guess I shouldn't complain. (Family friend mechanic though not as awesome as the one we had back home. But trustworthy at least).

I called dh and asked if he wanted to meet me for lunch and get the car, but he had just heated up spaghetti. I was trying to talk him into it, when I remembered that the fancy Indian place was rather near the car shop (downtown). I didn't have to ask twice. HE said, "I'll be right there to pick you up!"

We decided to go to lunch first and then I could drop him off at the mechanic and let him deal with the time to pick it up.

So we parked a couple of blocks down and realized lunch downtown maybe wasn't the smartest idea. Nowhere to park! We found an empty spot and paid $1.25 in the meter.

We walk to the place and the door is LOCKED. Of course there was a sign, under new management and starting TODAY, closed Mondays. Boy, we felt great about that (not).

So then I just feel jinxed! we were trying to go over there when dh's car died. LOL. I get the feeling that for some reason we are NOT supposed to eat there. Hehe.

But I am super bummed that we didn't make it one last time under old management. Before we had the old chef from the San Francisco location (where we got hooked). Sounds like he had moved on.

So yes, we are crazy and we will try again.

I just don't know when.

Anyway, we walked over to a MExican restaurant and had a so-so meal for $16. What a let down. $16 less for our gourmet Indian meal next month.

We should have cut our losses and left. I had lunch at work and dh had his spaghetti at home. Oh well! It was nice to have a quiet lunch - but we wasted most of our July lunch budget (we usually aim for 2-for-1 coupons and spend $10 on our date lunches.

--------------

I didn't think much about it (since the paper sUnday showed what seemed like a million out of control fires still burning) but when I got out of work today I suddenly realized the sky was BLUE! We had been holed up indoors for almost a week, so I am thrilled.

I don't think the fire situation is grand (not sure) but the wind has blown the smoke elsewhere, for now.

----------------

As promised, our grocery bill. Dh spent $55 picking up some stuff. Got stuff for spaghetti, taco salad, refried bean enchiladas, and some chicken dinner.

We got the husked corn for our spaghetti dinner as well. LOVING the stuff. Our luxury for now.

We needed some bread and cat food, and stocked up on chicken.

I am trying to put a finger on why our grocery bill seems rather unchanged. I think our particular store is slow to change prices.

So I just had to share for opinions. I think for one, prices are usually higher here. So that we are used to. But on the other hand, they don't seem to be rising much.

I don't know how much is regional, store, or if dh is just getting better at meal planning (maybe all of the above).

I did notice we mostly had a lot on hand already for most of the meals we made this week. Which means are regular bills seem to be getting lower, but there is still the occasional monster bill when we stock up on things.



Anything strike you as a good deal? Anything strike you as insanely expensive? Just curious on regional perspectives...

------------

One more thing. Dh is driving me nuts because he drained all of our wallet cash to buy some more games. They are up on ebay and will be sold by Thursday. So this is okay. But he still has 2 unsold Wiis.

I told him I needed ALL the profits back (he owes $400 to the checking account) plus the proceeds from his projector to pay some one-time bills (like private swimming lessons for BM, etc.).

I am thinking once I get all that back and I will just pull $500 cash from savings and give it to him to wheel and deal. He is driving me nuts. Just messing up my system. Plus I have like 20 cents in my wallet now. I don't use cash, but I like to at least carry a $20.

Anyway, he worried about interest. I told him the 3% interest on $500 amounts to $15 annually. HE can pay me a $1/month fee (profits) and I will be fine.

I of course want the $500 back eventually, as well. But will give him some seed money.

I think we may clear $400 this month, though a lot of that is in credit at the "used" store and a lot of that is just in more crap. LOL. But I told dh if he could make $400/month and max out his IRA, it will be a long time before I bug him to get a job.

I think he wants to do more than buy and sell stuff - it does take a lot of time. But in the interim, every little bit helps.

(I do remember July being a slow sell time last year on Craigslist. So we are sort of feeling it. But he sold that Wii last week in a FLASH - so there is hope). For now still holding out for $100 profit/each.

I think I should start scanning my grocery receipts and see what you all think.

We seriously have noticed NO change in our grocery bills, doing nothing different. We might hit $350 this month (a new low actually) and that includes a splurge on sushi the other night (quite unusual).

I do admit we have been eating out a bit more. (All the deals/coupons). Then again, I have been eating out a lot less (for lunch).

Well, I just get the feeling it is largely regional. & little things like our milk price has not gone up since we are charged the same for 2 gallons at a time, as one gallon, now. So since I can't exactly put my finger on it, I am curious how our food prices compare to what you see... (Now I wish I had kept a price book all along. I wrote it off as WAY too time consuming, but now curiosity wishes I had wasted all that time - hehe).

Well, dh made some greek chicken and potato dinner in the crockpot. Also, some spicy hummus. The hummus was okay. (We need to add more spice next time). & the crock pot dish, well, it was pretty good.

YUM!

Reminds me we are getting a new Indian restaurant. I was told it was in the style of our favorite greek restaurant here (more of a cafe I guess). So we are keeping our fingers crossed that it is GOOD!

We have another one, but we aren't a big fan of it. We only went once...

Oh, and dh may sign up for some Indian cooking classes. Forgot about that too. I give you, the Asian cultures know how to cook veggies. I may eat them a little more if dh can master Indian cooking.

Beyond that, we are going to try "monkey munch" today. Oh, it is terrible for you - lots of butter and sugar and chocolate. I saw it on "Jon & Kate Plus 8" last night and of course the recipe was online (just googled it). So, since we are stuck indoors (smoky air) we will have to just make some monkey munch instead...

Since I am stuck indoors I may de-clutter a bit as well. I had all sorts of outdoor plans, so bah!

If you see my weather thing to the left, yeah, that's smoke... Not clouds, but smoke.

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The man and the kids are now addicted to garage sales. LM really wanted to go so dh took him this morning. Every time he comes back with a toy, of course.

I think we will hit a $2k credit card bill for the 3rd month in a row. Woohoo. I say, woohoo, because we earn an extra $30 in cash rewards as a result.

April was my professional dues (reimbursed by employer anyway) and our camping deposit which got us there. (We usually budget around $1300 credit card which includes pretty much ALL our bills - whatever we can card, of course we card - for rewards). May our Disneyland trip got us there in a flash. I expected to get there this month with medical bills or the rest of our camping expenses. But camping remainder was due May and the medical bill never arrived (put off another month...). So, I thought about it and realized I had more professional dues, due soon. I'll just pay them today and hope it clears the card before the month closes.

We also paid $130 to get dh's car fixed yesterday. New battery and new wires and cables and all that. Rather reasonable in the end. We'll drop off my car Monday and that will certainly ensure we hit the $2k. Think we are there already. This month we bought shoes, camping supplies, and dh's receiver. So, it was just spendy.

& no, I don't expect anywhere near $2k bills next month or going forward. Though I may get a $1k medical bill one of these days. They sure take their sweet time, which is fine with me.

I am hitting Craigslist today. I signed BM up for swim lessons and dh is talking about these cooking classes. It all adds up. I have enough baby stuff to sell and cover it though, so cracking at it. I am afraid that my car repairs will probably need to come either short-term or mid-term savings. Bummer. But trying not to touch savings for anything else.

BM also got his school teacher assignment yesterday. Along with a request for $25 for supplies, and $60 for field trips. They just have you prepay everything for simplicity. I don't think it's so bad. There is an option to pay the $60 in 5 installments. I kind of giggled when I saw that. You have to understand we live in a rather upscale community and so, yeah, struck me as strange. Though I guess on some level, it isn't surprising.

I must admit since I never deal in cash, that this is really throwing me off. Suddenly I have to come up with $200 cash between that and LM's private swim lessons. (Awesome deal, I just got that squared away, after months. His lessons are in July). So, hmmmm, yes, stuff to sell. Sell sell sell, deposit the cash, and pay the cash bills. I don't have any cash otherwise, and am loathe to touch savings. Though that really is what some of it is there for. Just a last resort for me.

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A friend just told me she couldn't afford the $1k to fix the A/C on her truck, so she would just live without. (I swear everyone I know has had A/C problems of late. I am thinking this is a perk to an older car - no A/C problems. These are all newer cars - and problems galore).

But then started talking about a new $20k truck she wanted. On and on and on.

Ugh, this stuff just drives me nuts. It's not worth the $1k to fix, so will shell out $20k instead.

& then they wonder how we can afford our lifestyle on half the income, while all the while wondering why we drive OLD cars. I've had one too many people tell me old cars are a financial drain. Yeah, the $130 I just spent to fix dh's car with 90k miles (paid off when we bought it in 2001) is killing us. NOT!

In fact, our newer minivan is so awful, I am sorely tempted to trade it in for an old Toyota. We'll see what the repair bill is this round. The minivan has awful repair bills, which I did not expect in a newer vehicle. So I guess it all depends on the car. But I will take a $1k bill over a $20k bill any day. I know, it's the debt mentality. Get a $300 payment or something and that is better than shelling out $1k. That is the thinking.

I know they will think I have lost my mind when I trade in the van for an older car. But probably what we will end up doing, to get our gas bill and repairs bill down.

I am not sure if I will enjoy doing a net worth update as of 6/30. I am afraid I won't have much to show. But I guess we shall see...

I guess we have a general idea of what our vacation plans will be for next year. Though who knows, anything can happen. My dad told me he was hoping to spend next year visiting family, though I guess I may tag along on some of those. We have talked of flying to Denver for a weekend so the kids could meet my Grandma. Maybe pop in on my sister in NC for a weekend (the airfare is generally cheap, but I don't know these days). My parents would probably foot the bill if I tag along though. Would just be me for NC. But yes, the kids for Denver.

Now that the kids are of booster seat size, air travel is back on the table. We have just had the most horrid experience trying to rent decent car seats on vacation. We traveled with both kids when they were just 1, and at that point vowed never again. I don't know how it went in Florida for dh and the kids last October. But, ugh. He was a brave soul to try that again. LOL.

So anyway, there is discussion of family stuff, and I have no idea what dh's parents have in mind. But we are thinking 4-5 days at Family Camp/Yosemite again, next year. & we have also talked about getting season passes to the amusement park by our home town. I guess it's somewhat nostalgic for us (we spent so much time there as kids/teens) and is in fact where dh and I met, as we both worked there many years. So, they have added a water park and parking is included in the season passes. For today they sell 4 season passes for $260. I am SOLD. We spend so much time in the area that we can make a few half day trips and avoid the large expenses like food. The place is a 5-minute drive from my parent's house, so we can even drop off all the valuables there and go enjoy our time without locker rentals and such. The water park is a REALLY nice touch. Plus if we are willing to pay $320 instead (or just $60 more), we get season passes to another great park in the area. Probably well worth it.

I think that about eats up our $1200 vacation budget, but I think is perfect. We leave plenty of wiggle room in the budget for "daycaytions" as is, which is generally more our speed.

Which reminds me, with all the fires, the air quality here is really horrid around here for now. I am afraid we will be locked indoors all weekend. Kind of a bummer because the weather has been rather pleasant. !! It's just TAUNTING me. This is the mildest June we I can recollect since moving here about 6 years ago. We've barely turned on our air. We left it on around 86 degrees for the cat when we were camping, but I don't think the air turned on at all. Our house has settle at a nice 80 degrees. No air conditioning needed.

But yes, dreading July/August. It's going to be a shock. Likewise, I hope this does not mean horrid hot weather prolongs into September. That is what I am afraid of.

We have been experimenting with changing our water sprinkler set up and have cut the watering time about in half (if not more). I think it is only working because of the mild weather. We may have to go back to watering every day come July. But our gardener set it to go off twice a day, year round. HE tweaks it each season, but I am pretty certain it always goes off at least once every day. So now that we are switched to metered water, we are experimenting with it.

I know, it's terrible. We should have done this before. We are from drought country, so the water habits of people here appall me. We conserve much water inside the house. But never having had a lawn before, we just did what the gardener said. I think we can get by with much less water most of the year. & anyway, we can cut it way back in the backyard. The front yard is another story. We get very mixed messages. Don't use any chemicals (They flow to the lake) but we'll fine you if your yard isn't sparkling green, even in the 110-degree summers. YEah, whatevah! We do what we can in the front, I think we might just let the backyard go. I'd love to rip it out and just put in tanbark and a play structure. Maybe some astro turf like a friend of mine did. This watering thing is ridiculous. All for some ideal that is completely unattainable in the climate. The rest of the year is fine, so no one resorts to desert landscaping. But I am sorely tempted. I know it's probably not "allowed" in the front yard, but we have changes in mind for our backyard. Also considering a garden and some fruit trees, etc.

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Financially speaking...

**Paid off balance transfer #2. Woohoo.

I am keeping this card open until my free FICO score checks dry up. I think I only have one more month. So will just close the card.

LEaves one transfer open. IT's earning 5.7% and will through the end of the year.

**Paid the July bills (all but one or 2) and wrote the last check to preschool, for BM. Plus they were on vacation - unpaid - for a week. & so on and so on.

HAllelujah!

IT will be more exciting next month when I pay $280 (instead of $630, for 2). IT's a "short" month. I will celebrate even more then.

Anyway, beyond that, I had enough cash to pay all the bills for June, which was good, because it was a pretty spendy month.

I expect July to be rather spendy with birthdays and such, but then again, I look forward to plumping up the kids' savings with the gifts they will no doubt receive.

**I was kind of waiting to see how the month panned out because it has been so "unusual" in a sense to see if I had any leftover for a donation.

I think I will earmark $100 of my MLM supply/going out of business sale - for the food bank. If I make more I will probably put the rest in our savings.

I told dh he could buy and sell more Wiis if he's like, to buy a Wii. I caved. Was just feeling nice I guess.

I guess I shouldn't get too excited. Dh's car is in the shop today and mine will probably go Monday. I should probably get those bills before I get too generous.

I also need to keep in mind that BM will need some school supplies and uniforms as well. I think Grandma has a lot of that covered (phew) but we'll see. I wanted to earmark $200/month to our car/house savings, now that he is out of pricey preschool. But I may need to earmark the first month for supplies. We'll see...

**I can't remember if I posted this, but with my stimulus check, my short-term savings is out of the red (pulled into the red by my 4/15 tax bill. Funny how that worked out). AND my mid-term saving fund surpassed $3k. My mid-term goal is $5k for the year and I am rather confident on that. I just wish I had more to add. Going forward, $5k annually is probably plenty. I just wish $10k cash would fall out of the sky and make up for the last few years where we have saved very little. Just a lot more catching up to do...

But yeah, dh bought his receiver and we bought a lot of camping supplies this month, etc. We went on a rather luxurious date (for us) and it was just kind of spendy. We were no doubt helped greatly by all the gas reimbursements dh's parents kept raining on him. I think $200 between all of them. Funny enough, they have BM and we are meeting them mid way to pick him up on Sunday. So yeah, I wouldn't count on more gas cash, but who knows. They must think we get TERRIBLE gas mileage. (His mom have him $60 to drive 120 miles - LOL. & his dad slipped him $40 for driving 220 miles. I guess with his "super car" (40 mpg) we are coming out way ahead. My dad slipped me $80 for Yosemite (to be fair we paid for his entire vacation otherwise) which was actually about right. IF it had been dh's parents they would have slipped us $200 for gas or something - LOL.

I had worried that we could not justify so much driving to see family. Now I am thinking we need to do it more...

I am really enjoying the weather. !!

I know, July/August will be hell.

But in the few years we have lived here, often May and June have been rather unbearable.

I checked yesterday's weather out of curiosity.

It was 90 during the day & 50 overnight (Fahrenheit).

90 isn't the most fun during the day, but there's also just been a nice 24/7 cooler breeze.

Anyway, we haven't bothered to turn on the A/C until dinner time (start to feel hot while cooking). IT's on very briefly.

We have been flipping on the A/C upstairs, just before bed. Just on long enough to cool the upstairs from 85 or so, to 80. I keep going to bed feeling rather warm, and waking up rather chilly (with the cat sleeping on all my covers - figures). It's been a "chilly" 78 when I wake up - meaning, it feels a little cooler than that. Quite a difference from a stuffy 80 degrees.

It's been just cool enough to make the house bearable most of the day, without any air.

We could probably make do without the A/C if we just opened the windows in the evening...

Likewise, we're going to be gone for a few days camping, so I don't expect much of an electric bill for June. The month is half over and only one more week to pay for electricity...

Yay!

That is the one thing I just have had the hardest time since we moved. We come from "70 year round" weather. There is just no comparison. *sigh*

But this year is on the milder side of our experience here. So I am really much happier this year.

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With our cable all up in the air, I haven't been able to update anything in Quicken for quite a few days. (Something got disconnected when the satellite guy was here - I don't keep the data on my laptop) and dh was gone for a day, and well, he just got it all hooked back up again yesterday.

So this morning I updated all my balances and kept an eye on everything.

I don't like getting so behind. I generally check my credit card balances every couple of days, before I start forgetting what older charges were...

There weren't many charges the last few days, and nothing I had to think too hard about, so phew...

What I was surprised by was our grocery bills for the month though. We have only spent $70 in June thus far.

I said last month it seemed a little high considering how much we had eaten out, and all that.

I figured this month might be a "normal" month and we would see what was really going on.

Well, never mind on that. Nothing normal about only spending $70 for the first 2 weeks of the month.

I admit dh was going to shop today, but we will be gone a few days camping (all food already prepaid).

So, um, yeah, I think it will be a low grocery month.

All I can figure was we overbought last month... Food to spare. But that is mostly dh's department, so I don't really know.

I hope dh spent $100 today though, so I can get my 25 cent gas coupon on the next van fill up. I could probably drive it quite a few more weeks without a fill up (or I Should say, I could probably not drive it much) but we are considering driving it up top Yosemite.

We'll see...

Dh has mastered the $50 grocery bill. Which is fine. Every time we fill up one of our cars we at least have a 10 cent coupon. But hitting $100 once a month is perfect for the van. I assumed he must have hit $100 today - since we have like no June groceries!!

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Work work work

I am just in vacation mode at work.

Today feels like the first time in FOREVER that I could just relax at work and take a breather.

Imagine that?

On the flip side, I did a lot of grunt work yesterday and today cleaned out my office a bit.

I just found piles of old stuff that fell by the way side in the craziness of 2007. 2007 was just some super crazy year.

So this kind of bums me out. Though I am feeling a little more relaxed and caught up, I feel overwhelmed by my long-term To Do List.

Then again, if it has waited this long...

So I am in this weird spot where things are good, but I have a TON to do. STILL catching up from 2007 tax season from hell...

You know, the funny thing is, as I started to catch up, I started to wonder, just what would I do all summer?

The thought right now just makes me giggle.

I have enough chargeable work to fill up the summer. I have a new employee to help train (lots of time). & I have a couple of years of side projects left by the wayside.

I don't think I will lack for much to do.

Anyway, July is a deadline month, I have vacation coming up, and I have some nasty August projects.

I honestly feel like I could work some overtime.

I may attempt some week day overtime. But I am enjoying my weekends WAY too much.

I do get paid overtime so I should probably take some early mornings and take advantage. I'll think on it...

Problem is whenever I do that, I get antsy on Friday and leave early. LOL. I am just not so motivated to push the 40-hour envelope.

It's also no fun to be the only one here before 8 and after 5. At least during tax season I have lots of company.

But yeah, haven't updated on work much. IT's just been pretty busy, but I Feel like I turned a corner this week. I have a few client things to work on rest of June, but all the big & important stuff is done. Woohoo!