Well, it appears we still don't have electricity at work. Still!!

May be another day off...

Which means I will probably work all weekend.

All I keep thinking is thank goodness this was not the week prior!!! Or late in January (W-2s and payroll filings due). The timing is okay. For every day off now though, one less day off later.

I am thinking of lugging in my laptop and seeing if I can find a wireless internet connection. (We're right next to a hotel, maybe I could even talk to them if need be, but I am not sure if they have power).

We have plenty of windows and light and then at least I will have my files. So I may be able to get some work done. Maybe not much though.

I also have a tad I can do from home. I can get a few hours in today. But not much more than that.

So after like 2.5 days off and maybe today, I will probably have to work all weekend to catch up. Here's to overtime.

(Someone outside working on it said it could be 7 days. Oh my!!!!) There are a lot of homes in the area that are still out as well. Craziness.

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Well, I will enjoy the impromptu vacation best I can. One thing I may do today is clean the cars. Nothing huge, but clean out the junk and vacuum. For one, dh's car has baby toys in it. LOL. I have been meaning to do this for a while. I swept through our bedroom yesterday and did lots of laundry. The downstairs is still pretty decent from when we had holiday guests. So leaves the cars. If the power is out tomorrow I will make dh go through the garage with me while the kids are at preschool.

I kind of giggle when everyone goes on and on about big houses being more to clean. My kitchen is a little bigger and I have an extra 1/2 bath. But the 1/2 bath is not much to clean, nor is the extra counter space in the kitchen. The kids' rooms don't need much and I don't touch dh's 2 rooms. So, eh, I just don't clean much. I didn't before and I don't now. I don't find it is a big time buster. I don't even have maid on my wish list. I have a weird thing about maids. I just don't mind cleaning up that much either.

I must admit the master bath is a little overwhelming, but we don't use anything but the sinks and toilet. So it isn't much in the end. We just used the kids' showers. We started this long ago when we had concern of a leak. It appears it was a false alarm, but I like only having one shower to clean. You don't use it, you don't need to clean it.

But get a few days off work, and the house is a little more organized and more sparkly than usual! The kids are at an easy age right now. I remember BM was getting to this age, and then we had another. But they can play together and occupy themselves. Oh, it is divine! As such, I Was getting a lot done around the house anyway.

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Yesterday I had a seminar and skipped their food. Just wasn't in the mood to sit with strangers and eat crappy food. I went to Round Table. I forgot how pricey their lunches were. Spent like $8. Oh well, it was certainly a treat.

I went there on a seminar a few months back and I remember they seemed annoyed I did not order the buffet, after informing me the buffet was like $9. Um, no thanks!!! So yesterday was same thing. "What? You don't want the buffet???" She looked really annoyed too. I am thinking if you don't want people ordering from the LUNCH menu, then maybe you should toss the lunch menu. Rude rude rude. It will be a long while before I go to RT for lunch again. I should have just done Taco Bell. Would have been a lot less calories.

I told dh it must be inflation or something. I met a friend for lunch and Sizzler was a good $10 or something. Since when was lunch so expensive?

Since I never eat out much besides dollar menus and Taco Bell, I guess.

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Oh, the most annoying thing about my seminar, which the average joe blow would never know. But is that California has stopped conforming to Federal tax laws.

Annoying annoying annoying. The sticking point for me has been HSAs. I am almost sold on trying one, but the nonconformity is just so flipping annoying. It means it wouldn't be deductible for state, the interest/earnings would be taxable for state. (Which we are in the 5% tax bracket for state & 15% for fed. It makes a substantial difference in our taxes as our state percentage is not that much lower).

Of course you would want to keep track of your basis in the case the tax law did change down the road (lord I hope).

Anyway, last year I remember that being the one big pain, but this year they said Cali did not conform to one new thing this year. So we have a thick book of all the differences. It is just pure insanity. For one, kiddie tax rules. It's still age 14 for Cali. Not the new rules. Just means a lot of different record keeping since you pay tax for federal but not state. Or you save taxes on fed but not state. So you have to track the basis. But who does that? So no one does. So what's the point of not conforming? Then people don't track their basis and blindly pay taxes on things twice. Way to go California. Is this how they balance the budget? How complicated must it be for them to figure all this out as well???

My first thought was maybe Cali was smart putting it's foot down on endless tax breaks. We need revenue. As annoying as it is, maybe there is something smart about it. But the instructors' political slant was Republicans would not pass any of these through because they RAISED revenues. You have got to be kidding me. "We didn't do the same Fed tax increases to SAVE you money. But look at the bookeeping nightmare mess we left you. You figure it out." I mean come one, for our clients, fine, they have us. I don't think most people hire CPAs or have a clue about any of this.

Likewise, the Dems hate the HSAs because it cut taxes? I don't know. They have said before that HSAs will not conform anytime soon. So it is frustrating. I was hoping for a glimmer of hope this year, but didn't get it. All we got was a bigger nightmare. Something like we have not conformed to any of the Federal tax changes in 2 to 3 years.

O.M.G.

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Financially things are rather ho hum.

I went through Quicken and added some new categories. For one I separated out our insurance premiums in case we do decide to go for HSA. All of our medical expenses would then be deductible for state. But then none for fed if we do the HSA. But I have to track how much I can reimburse from the HSA annually if we set it up. We can't reimburse the premiums, so set that up as a separate category.

We are having an okay month. The weird thing for us is we budget our expenses as a whole monthly, and that is what I track. But since we put so much on the card, it affects the following month as well. When we pay it. So I felt like we had a big credit card month for december and was stressed. But as of today I got all the bills paid in January and looks pretty breakeven. Not bad.

I think I am short $250. I should have set aside $250 for medical on 12/31 (reduced premiums) but didn't. But I realized I just have to. Before I would have HAD TO pay the bill. There is no excuse. I was kind of thinking, who cares if I start 1/31 instead. So I put that in Quicken as a $500 transfer 1/31. Leaves me short $250 on 1/31. I will take it from short-term savings if I have to. I am pleased it was such a breakeven month otherwise. How did that happen? I just wrote a $630 check to preschool and it about killed me. LOL. But maybe I can do this a few more months... (I might even get a huge raise and will have no problem finding the $250. We also still have stuff to sell).

Which reminds me, yesterday I learned that in Cali, if you sell more than one or 2 things on ebay for a few hundred dollars, or you regularly sell your household "junk", you have to have a sellers' permit. You have got to be kidding me. I am kind of glad we just opted out of much ebay selling. I don't know how much the permit is and all that, but yeesh. (I was thinking glad we only sold 2 big things last year).

Of course, who would know this???

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Anyway, I have no idea what my financial goals are for '08. Too much in the air.

I think odds are we can put a good $5k in a HSA (probably use most of it but will be a nice tax break). I am trying to think if we save up decent cash how much we should put in there though. How much to IRAs? How much to 529s? It's awesome to have so many tax-deferred options, but it is mind boggling.

& how much just to cash? Or should we start diverting much of our cash to ROTHS? Then we could easily max out.

I just don't know.

There isn't much I could decide until I know my raise. !!!! With the power out I doubt I will find out today.

So I am trying not to think too much. I won't know how much we can really put in an HSA until we see if we use our deductible this year. It will be a while. Though if we use it all I know we can fund it and reimburse ourselves the entire thing, but get the tax deduction. (Then I'm sold).

I think mostly we want to focus on building up more cash this year. It's just interesting that we have so many options. Build up the HSA? Build up cash in ROTHs for emergency? Just build up our taxable cash?

I am mostly thinking of contributing no more than $5k to ROTHs this year (with the exception if we move another $5k cash over of our efund).

That would put as at a 17% contribution rate with our profit sharing.

I still feel very cash poor, and so am thinking of putting as much as we can to savings this year. I am starting to think that makes more sense.

I am not even sure if it makes much since to contribute anything to retirement (more than the 10% I get anyway). As long as we are saving the money and not spending it.

I just know me. When will it ever be enough? $15 cash? $20k cash? $30k cash? I like cash too much.

The year is long and so we'll see. The nice thing is when it comes to HSAs and ROTHS, we have a good 15 months to decide.

One thing I am thinking of, since we had a dismal IRA year this year, is moving $5k to cash before april 15th. I was planning to save $5k for car purchases this year. This way we could keep our efund savings intact and start storing it in the ROTHs. If we never touch it... Then we can convert it to the stocks down the road when we aren't so cash poor. It is a very tempting strategy. I could do the same in 08 & 09 and get a good $15k cash in there for emergency. The cool thing is we could still contribute 17% to our income (to stocks and such) so it feels very win-win. We still wouldn't touch the $12k cash in taxable accounts either, this way. So win-win-win. I could only see using that ROTH cash if I lost my job or something. & I wouldn't contribute that 2nd $5k otherwise. Which means we would lose the tax shelter if we don't take advantage with our cash.

& the interest would be tax free!

I need to really read up the rules on ROTH withdrawals to be sure. There are some ins and outs. Though overall I have heard this strategy much and makes sense.

If we can do that and add 17% of our income to our retirement (stocks), it really makes sense. I am very concerned that if dh goes back to work we will be lacking tax shelters, so whatever we can get in now is good. My other motivation. & why I expect we could convert all that cash to stock within a few years. Likely... Might as well get it in there while we can.

Oh, I had considered putting some money in regular IRAs for tax savings this year. I learned yesterday cali does not conform. So though our traditional IRA would be deductible for Feds it might not be for state.

Forget it. Since we paid so much tax in recent years to convert to ROTHs, we'll just stick with it. I am happy to be done with all those conversions anyway.

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This week will be a little pricey. Have to replace my windshield and get LM into the dentist. See what the prognosis is on his shark teeth.

so we'll see how that goes. Can put those on the card to worry about February. (I will have a good $400 in the car fund by then so I am okay with that. Dental expenses come from short-term savings, so I think I have both covered anyway). We'll see.

Well...

Yes I did post enough today. But I went to work and the electricity was still out (should have called - doh). Not even confident it will be back on tomorrow at this rate.

Though I am glad I made the decision to flee yesterday. Right away.

I picked up a file I regretted not having (luckily lots of sky lights in the office, and a sunny day, and all that, so I could even see my way to find a flashlight. Never would have found the file without the light though (though a cell phone is good for light when you are flashlight-less. Of course I didn't think of it at the time. Double doh).

I decided to take the day off. I can work in the wee hours tomorrow morning and head off to the office to clear some stuff off my desk if the electricity comes back. Otherwise - O.M.G. I have So MUCH to do!

Just cramming more to next week. Bah.

Another reason people pay so much to live here. So we don't have to deal with weather like this. The last 2 years though, I don't know...

Anyway, the fam was heading out to shop so I decided to be productive. I printed out most of my online statements. I really never do, and have switched to much electronic over the last year. I figured I better print out stuff for my records. I am considering keeping an electronic copy as well. Don't know if it is overkill, but paper copies only go so far. Particularly in a disaster (top of mind with weather like this).

So I made much progress. I found it easier to print some Quicken registers than the stupid banks that only had monthly statement options. Bah. (Thank you Vanguard for having YTD reports, easy to find and print. Yay!)

So while at it I decided to print a year-to-date register, all inclusive register from Quicken. I glimpsed a little more from these reports than the comparisons I already shared.

For example, all our dining out was McDonalds, Greek, Togo's, Indian, Round Table, Mongolian BBQ, Taco Bell, Sizzler and a few random places. We only went to Cali Pizza Kitchen once all year? Bummer. We've been doing less sit down dining for the budget (not that we did much before).

We did get a new Sizzler which we love, but rarely go to. Very pricey (particularly lunch - very pricey).

We only went out to the movies twice it appears. Which is good since dh insisted he needed a home theater and he does watch a good 3-5 movies weekly (if not more). HE takes advantage of the home setup, for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it was cheaper than going to 5 movies a week. Actually, I Am quite sure it is.

But the utilities are what I find interesting, since I did not look at the breakdown by category before.

Cable/Internet $958
Gas/Electric $1123
Telephone $1335 (yes we love our telephones!!!)
Water/Sewer/Garbage $1113 (Flat rate)

Yes, we spent just about the same exact dollars on gas/electric as water/sewer/garbage.

& so when I complain about expensive water I mean it. (the lion's share is sewer and water).

With our switch to metered I expect water to go down a good $200 this year. Perhaps more... Woohoo for that. Sewer is still flat $30/month.

Our cable will go down by $120 "just because." (We actually get more channels now too).

Anyway, someone was telling me the other day her friends with a bigger house around here has $450 monthly gas/electric bills in the winter. She was asking us wasn't our bill insane? I said I paid $80 last month, and really, I don't think she believed me. LOL. I don't know what the hell these people are doing. ????? I am tired of people assuming we have $400+ energy bills. O.M.G.

I am not sure I could have a $450 bill if I tried... Yeesh.

Well again my last post isn't showing up. No idea why.

But I put some 2007 totals. IF anyone cares, look at my last entry.

& Happy New YEar!

Yes, this is it. I am ready for 2008!!!!

But this is the first year I had 2 full years' data in Quicken. How exciting. I wanted to do a comparison. & with the push of a button... Wala!

I like technology.



Auto - gas was up $600. Not bad considering prices and we probably drove way more this year.

Insurance and licenses down a bit

Service up $1k. Thanks new car. I can't say we ever spent near as much with very old cars. Bah. No wonder people with new cars assume old cars cost more to maintain. LOL.

Last year we spent $400 to replace a windshield on an old car and we spent $300 on maintenance and oil changes and such.

This year with the major expensive upgrade to much newer 35k mile car (from my 150k mile,never needed a repair, Saturn) we spent almost $1k to repair my electrical system and $500 for new tires. $200 for the regular maintenance.

Wasn't exactly in the budget. Just not used to these kind of stupid repairs. Windows not working, locks not working. Etc.

Charity - we were more charitable-like. We tend to give more time than cash as a whole. But we gave a lot more to charity in lieu of gifts this year.

Clothing - tried to be more mindful, though I think I paid for much my clothing out of allowance this year. Doubt I spent much less on clothing. I actually shopped less second hand this year. Target is just SO cheap for the kids. Wasn't worth the trip to the second hand stores to pay the same prices.

Childcare - We put LM in 2 1/2 days a week. Upped the costs considerably as the mornings costs much more hourly than tacking on the afternoons. We actually moved BM down to 2 full days from 3 1/2 days, to lower costs (funny how that works out). Just 7 more months of 2??? Phew!!!!

Christmas - about same as last year.

Diapers - I put those with groceries. These were just the cloth diaper service. BM dropped out mid-year and we ended the service a couple of months back. Was well worth it for 2. A little pricey for one who rarely used the cloth anymore.

Dining out - spent $430 less. Not bad!!!

Education - we did karate and a gymboree type class through the community center. We dropped these due to time changes and sending LM to preschool instead. I took on an aerobics class, but I only have to pay when I show. So our expenses here went down (but preschool way up).

Entertainment - we pretty much spent the same - I just changed my classifications this year. This year only includes our Blockbuster online rentals at $19/month.

Gifts Given - we didn't give less gifts at all this year. not at all. Just shopped a lot smarter!!! (P.S. a relative said I bought too much only though I only spent $15 each on her kids. Reatail full price looked like $50 each and she thought I bought too much. Isn't that funny!!! Bought brand new too. Sales and coupons...) I used to penny pinch for ourselves and splurge on everyone else. I have since learned that is silly!

Groceries are down on average $110/month. All dh. don't ask me. We eat the same. I really notice little difference to our diet or eating habits. We have been clipping more coupons (just a few) and just planning meals better is all. Dh makes a batch of salsa almost every week now with leftover vegetables. The chips are always on sale dirt cheap if you know when to buy. We switched to bulking up on non-perishables on sale. IT was hard at first because it grew our monthly expense in the beginning, (we had a month or 2 of $600 bills) but with time it seriously has brought it down. Big time. Now we spend $400-$450/month. I think we could go a long ways to bring this down too. shop produce more locally (farms, farmers' markets) and the like, is one idea. I just told dh to pick up spices in the ethnic food section. What an idea.

To be fair, one kid dropped out of diapers, and the other dropped out of formula, and now we buy milk in bulk/sale since both kids are now on 2%. Those helped a lot too.

I leave this $500 in our budget because the kids will grow. I do the same with gas in our budget. Just to leave wiggle room for growing prices and known factors.

Household - is gardener and stuff for the house. Last year we had pest control, but the cheap place quit. They only came 3-4 times a year and had a gurantee (so would come more if need be). But they quit and we didn't see anything reasonable. Dh decided to self spray. We haven't yet, but really should before the spring. The wasps are terrible. We really don't have any other pests though and generally thought pest control was overkill (most our neighbors pay $60/month!!!!! We took the gardener instead!).

This year our big pest expense was mouse traps. (Didn't catch any - neighbors' cat did. Phew).

Housing - when first got Quicken think I put a couple of mortgage payments there. Ignore.

ID Theft - signed up for monitoring since my ID was stolen. May drop it. Considering it. Was invaluable for a few months though while I cleaned things up.

Insurance - Disability and home insurance went down $400. Likewise I added $100 premium to our life insurance. Upped it since we had the wiggle room.

Interest expense - was car loan. Only consumer interest I paid in my life. Was only 3% though and paid off in April.

Kids - just an old classification. Now use clothes and misc. categories.

Medical - only went up $500 though are premiums went through the roof. For one, we only went to the dentist once in 2007. (summer. We went december before and january after. We do go every 6 months, just how it worked out. Guess more like 7 months.

Misc. - I budget $150/month for misc. Just the extras and to buy some wiggle room. & I don't like to over-categorize everything. This one is hard to compare as I have changed some of my classifications with time using the software. We probably spent around the same. This year included a $1200 HDTV and stand. So not bad! Oh yes, this year we included gym membership. I also allocated about $100/month when we had extra money to take kids to museums and zoos and such. So I think we spent this money much better this year. I know where most of it went. Last year we had a lot more junk, stupid purchases. This year included a beard timmer, rock climbing, birthday ballons for the kids, passport, new phone, movie theatre visits, etc. Just stuff like that that I am not going to categorize since we spend so little on. (I should breakout the gym membership in Quicken though - just haven't yet).



Mortgage - some reason paid 13 payments last year? So skewed the comparison.

Moving expenses - was storage and prep for house sale last year. We never moved and didn't try this year.

PErsonal care - this is just haircuts. We started going to the beauty school for the kids year-end. $4 haircuts for BM and $2 for LM. Can't beat that. I get 2 haircuts a year and dh goes every so often - mostly him. I am not into makeup and all that foofy stuff. So we don't spend much on that stuff. I put shampoo and deoderant and the like in the grocery budget. I just don't liek a lot of categories. IT's all stuff we "need."

Professional dues - these are actually my poilitcal contributions. My boss reimburses the rest of my dues. & these are voluntary. I Felt more generous this year.

Recreation - just moved to miscellaneous this year.

Subscriptions - we subscribe to our cooking mags (which help our grocery bill) and the paper and a few other real cheap things. Mostly all I did this year was switch to paying the paper once a year. No idea why not before. Saved a bit.

Tax - Increase in tax is mostly payroll taxes due to raise.

Utilities - Well dh did drop HBO late last year. But we upped our cell phone - upgraded to more ours from our ancient, ancient package. Our water switched to metered last month and dropped significantly. Our local cable company dropped our bill $20/month for no particular reason in October as well. we get more channels now. Eat that Comcast. We also started budget billing so less bills the last few months.

Vacation - 2006 we went to Hawaii and Vegas. This year we went to Japan, Florida, Vegas and a cruise. I also included a trip to Monterey and San Francisco in the "vacation" category this year. Both years much was paid for by relatives. So the $600 increase isn't bad for all we did. (For Japan and Florida all we paid for was treating to dinner and some international phone calls).

Allowances - I don't see them in this report. We both spent around $1k. We budgeted $50/month plus gifts, so was well within budget.

Dh bought some movies and games and a PS3.

I spent mine on clothes and replacing my purse, backpack, suitcase and the like.

But this is perfect for us. Dh thinks I spend way too much on clothes and I can't stand that he keeps a movie collection. I have never bought a movie in my life! Never would. So we allowance it and do our own thing with no nagging.

We'll stick with $50/month for 2008. IT worked well. IT doesn't mean we can never spend more, it's just the nag-free money. We tend to agree on all our other purchases. & without limits, these are the areas we overspend. So it was good for us.

This is the first year we had an allowance since we were first married in 2000. Don't ask me why. This should have been the first thing we did when we went down to 1 income. Doh.

Income (wage) was around $75k. So expenses were about equal. We made our net worth progress with investments, profit sharing, extras (Challenge), etc.

I am hoping the gap between total expenses and my wage grows a little more next year though. But that is one thing we do as a 1-income family. Scrounge up the extras where we can. More time to do so.

I think mostly our wants/needs are in balance too so that is the nice thing. We have always found it rather easy to save raises. We haven't done so well with that the past 5 years on 1 income, but we are re-committing to that. Easiest way to save money. We don't need to up our lifestyle, it seems. We have it pretty good I think.

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All in all we spent a little less than 2006 (barely). Maybe breakeven once you include our allowances (not showing up). But I got a $4k raise and we raised $10k challenge money. So it was a good year!

I think we spent our money much smarter. Less money for stupid stuff, more for more important things. Yay!

Here's to doing even better in 2008.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Ah yes, another year-end post.

Was just thinking, because dh and I were talking about what a crazy year it has been.

The funny thing is that last Jan. 1 I told dh that we could not buy ANYTHING. We would not buy or do anything. This year would be low key.

Then we started getting extra money and decided to do a few things. & the our parents lavished us with all these last minute vacations. It was just WEIRD. But then we were lavished with cash and we actually enjoyed much more than imagined. But all in all was a strange year. I find it even funnier because I came here saying how work is not that important to me, and we are real low key. & then work was crazy and we had a jet set lifestyle.

Which honestly made it hard for me to enjoy this year. Work was really stressful. Not my thing. It hasn't been like this for years. But re-examining our financial situation, I think I finally decided to embrace it. We could use the money. I've pretty much been on vacation the last 5 years. & so it doesn't hurt to work hard once in a while, to show my commitment. It's just the curse/bane of the industry though. Not enough people to fill the jobs. I feel I have been very unique keeping the life balance that I have been able to full-time the past 6 years. (I can think my boss too). But we just lost one too many employees this last year and I really had to step it up.

So this year was really weird. Worked a lot harder but ended up playing harder too. Well, for the long run I look to de-stress and step it down a bit. For now, what can I do. I embrace it.

But here is the craziness of 2007:

1. Dh had his movie premiere (the first "big" movie he worked on). That was pretty sweet. They had a decent offer on the movie but turned it down. Holding out for more I guess. Who knows if it will ever get anywhere now. But it was exciting. He is working on some projects starting in '08 again. Just been so busy with the kids, but now that they are in preschool, he has more time.

2. I tried to make some money off writing. I know I have been down on it in my blog, but really comes down to, I always envisioned writing a book when I was much older. I have the money-making career now, and this should allow me to pursue more hobbies when I am older. & I just couldn't make the time. I neglected my family too much. Really what it comes down to. & work got more stressful. So it's on the back burner but something I will certainly do again once work is lighter or kids are older. Which is fine. I don't find this compromising at all. I love my job. I always figured writing would be better with more age and wisdom. I actually want to go back to get a writing degree some day. I would want to practice the art more too. Take classes. Certainly not a priority today. The kids are. But this year was an adventure! That someone would pay me to write. Strengthens my resolve to write more in the future. Now is just not the time for me. Though I also keep my eyes open for writing opportunities in my field, which probably makes more sense now, for my resume and such.

3. We welcomed a new niece to the world this year.

4. Traveled to Mexico, Japan, Florida (Disney) and Vegas.

5. Took the kids to many zoos and museums and the like.

6. Bought a BIG HDTV & PS3

7. Still managed to build up our e-fund and up our net worth a good $30k (& meet all our other goals).

Yup, that was our low-key, do nothing, buy nothing year.

What the heck??? LOL. But it just turned into that kind of year.

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2008

We're starting over. Low-key. Buy nothing. Do nothing. Let's try this again. Big Grin

Well dh's mom, well she wants to retire this year so I think she is facing reality. She said she wanted to go on a family camping trip this year. Which is ironic since we were thinking of going on the same camping trip (ourselves) but it would be kind of fun with the grandparents. Sure, why not. Then again all of our trips this last year were rather last-minute. So we'll see. I won't be surprised if I get invited to China tomorrow. But it is hard to say no to trips to mexico and Japan and such. But we have discussed saying no to anything and everything. We want to keep it low key. Camping was more our speed.

We have been planning a trip to Disneyland though. In the spring. & then camping in the summer. Only low key things for summer. & a low key fall (at home). LOL.

Anyway, dh went to the dinosaur thing with my dad and I don't know. We took him to 2 museums with us last month and he did this with BM yesterday. I guess he is getting hooked. Maybe he really enjoyed Japan. He is turning into my MIL. He told dh that he wanted to do all these trips with us in the coming years. He mentioned Grand Canyon and Yosemite and the like. The funny thing is we have talked much of the same (maybe later than he is talking) so I wonder if he comes along if we might get a bit of a free ride. Hmmmmmmmm.

But I told dh we really needed to crack down (a week or 2 ago, before this) and that if Disneyland was our priority I just didn't know if we could justify the camping trip. Not that it was terribly expensive. But it was a good $500+. We don't even have sleeping bags... So I told him maybe we should save up for supplies this year and stuff, and go next year. Or likely his parents will pay anyway. But I didn't want to over commit. Even if it seemed simple, it would cost money.

& then he comes back telling me my dad wants to take us on all these trips. It's starting to come from both sides. When did this happen?

I told dh our kids are SO lucky. So so so lucky and spoiled rotten. I think with my parents, they just want to treat us to all the things they couldn't afford when we were young. Dh's family has been the same way for a LONG while. But my parent's are totally jumping on the bandwagon. Which is just a shock to me. I guess it is a grandparent thing. These are so not the parents who raised me! LOL.

Sometimes I give up on trying to shelter the kids from being too spoiled. I really want them to appreciate what they have and I make it a point to tell them that we didn't have these things when we were kids. Over and over and over. So they get it.

But my grandpa passed on this year and left $0.5 mil to his heirs. $0.5 mil. We were all TERRIBLY shocked. They never made more than minimum wage. They didn't even have a middle school education, much less high school. It was so mind boggling. & as my parents inherited 1/4 of this, they once again resolve to enjoy their money more than hoarde it (as they do every time a relative dies, stronger each time). I keep reminding them that grandpa was only 80 and longevity runs in the family. He wanted to be able to take care of himself, nursing home or not. By dad having grown up with him thought is was just terribly sad they never enjoyed any of that money. They lived a lifestyle deep in poverty. Their entire 80 years. So my parents have more resolve to enjoy and spoil us it seems. They insist he hoarded too much. Probably. But I am just in awe he would have been able to take care of himself well into 100 if need be (was likely. They died terribly young compared to siblings and such).

I keep wondering at this rate if the kids will have to work. I think of course I want them to be hard workers and learn to take care of themselves. I don't want them to be spoiled. But if grandpa can pass on $1/2 mil, what will our more well-off grandparents pass on? What will our parents with significant real estate pass on? What will we pass on? Will our kids ever worry about money in the ways we did? I know we don't worry about money in any sense our parents did at our age. just as they never worried about money as much as their parents did? (not with the freedom to get high school diplomas and college educations). & so it snowballs.

Ever since we had kids I have fought the tide of spoiling from the grandparents. But it just keeps getting bigger. Honestly, there is no fighting it. I am starting to realize. Is it so bad grandma took them to DisneyWorld when they were 2/4 & Hawaii when they were 0/2? That grandpa will take them to Japan before they hit 8/10? All I Can do is make sure they appreciate everything they have. It's a shame that we can never go back and see where my dad grew up and where my grandparents lived in a shack for most of their days. I think it's important for them to know where they came from. Those are our roots. Money just doesn't grow on trees and it took generations to come where we are. I think that's all I can do, is tell them that continuously. Just as my parents did when I was a child.

As such, 2008 will probably be crazy or crazier yet. Our parents will have many wild plans to give us what more of what they never could before.

But I feel very blessed in a big sense. Here is to the health and freedom to enjoy the craziness. Might as well embrace it.

& if it's a really slow, low-key year, I can't say I would mind a bit. I just hope someday my kids can say the same.

Maybe there is something to just enjoying the money while it is there. I guess you never know if you will be around to enjoy it tomorrow. Which is exactly what our parents are thinking. So might as well enjoy I guess.

Then again, I didn't exactly feel deprived before. I think we have always made it a point to live somewhat in the now. Just not so extravagantly. So it is just weird for me. Being a long range planner, just nothing I want to get used to either. I know our parents mean well. But I find it funny they found it so important for us to be independent and capable and NOT spoiled. But with the grandkids, eh. Seems to have gone out the window. Then they will blame us when they turn to spoiled brats. LOL. Would figure. Isn't that the way?

Or maybe I just overthink it all.

Most of my friends think I am crazy, but I a have a lot of friends back home who immigrated here from other countries. who came from true poverty and such. We all worry about our kids getting so far from their roots and not really understanding how GOOD they have it. That even their primary education is an incredible blessing.

Maybe once you've seen it you always have a fear you can end up back there some day. So I guess I am lucky in that regard I have other friends with the same worries.

Around here, if I wonder aloud if my kids have too much, people look at me like I have a 3rd eye. I figure a place like this forum, it is more understood, at least.

Anyway, here's to 2008. Whatever it brings!

Well, I wish anyway. MAde you look.

Anyway, you all know (I have mentioned many many many times) how I bought a really immaculate/cute/perfect, used (but rarely used) Mustang convertible when I was out of college. Spent a whopping $5k or so because the car was about 10 years old. Thought it was pretty much brand new in every other respect. Only 20k miles; still had a new car smell.

But alas, I gave up my car when we had our first kid. It was paid for so that wasn't the biggie. We bought a family car for $1k. But we just couldn't see carrying 3 insurance payments. So I sold my baby. *sniff*

So in our financial progress, one of my big goals is to get a cute sporty car of the same variety.

Every once in a while I scan the $5k listings in Craigslist. I figure realistically I will wait until I can buy something a little more expensive. But who knows. I keep reading about despratate sales postings due to foreclosures though, so I have been skimming a bit. I haven't really seen much. Those people are mostly selling really nice/new cars and asking way too much anyway.

So on a whim I looked at the Bay Area Craigslist last night. I always say I don't see the deal with used cars because all of my used cars bought private party were bought in the Bay. There is just such a glut of nice used cars. The population is huge and most of them want to upgrade every few years.

I hit gold!



Now isn't this one a beauty??? $4k. $4k cash. Hell, I could afford that now.

It's a Toyota Celica with 155k miles. Perfect since this is pure weekend/fun car thing. I don't care about the miles. & I have owned 2 cars with tons of miles that lasted ages. So I am not scared.

I know, I have had my eye on the 2000 Camaro, for about the last decade. But when looking through the cars I am particular. Do we need another gas guzzler? Not really. My convertible could double as a commuter car. Mustangs may be a bit better, but I think they are cheap. I had one. It needed far too much upkeep for a newer car. BUT my first car was a Toyota Celica. The gas mileage was awesome and it drove another good 7 years (lots of miles) after I bought it with 150k+ miles. So I think very favorably of the Celicas. I think it would just be perfect. I wouldn't be scared to go very used and they look very sporty these days. & one of the rare sports cars to get decent gas mileage.

Anyway, this one is a 1992. I think it is splendid!

Anyway, I type in "Celica convertible" in Bay Area craigslist and 10 pop up. I am lucky to ever find one in Sacramento. so I am so excited. I know when the time comes, where I will probably by. I can always go send my dad to check it out for me. He's better at that stuff anyway.

There's actually a much newer/cheaper one. & a pretty black one.

So I am just drooling.

& dh is very annoyed with me. LOL. He has every right to be. We did just by the van a couple of years back.

Well, now is not the time. We are still back to square one. I could perhaps justify the car. But not the insurance at this point. Not that they would be much on an older car. But the insurance premiums are just nasty up here in Sacramento. With our "perfect" driving records we already pay a good $2k/year. I am afraid we would pay at minimum $800/year for a 3rd car. & we are just not there. Still back at square one.

But I can justify it sooner rather than later. We are saving up cash for our next cars. & if I buy a 2nd car, I won't need another car for a long, long time, ideally. So I think I would take an advance from the car fund. The sticky thing is dh's car doesn't have collision insurance and we really need to build up money for him too. Though he would be extremely happy with a $8k car if his car was ruined well before we intend to upgrade. (Or even buying a replacement at $2k or so until we are ready. The car itself is worth way too little to bother insuring. Though it should have a good 5 years+ left in it, easy).

I don't think we could justify it until the kids are out of preschool. Both. But by then we should have a good $15k in the car fund. I could even save the money from preschool for a few months before we divert it to retirement, to save up some extra cash for a car.

Well, it's kind of sad to wait 3 more years. That will be a good 8 years, no fun car. That's just sad. LOL. I'll survive though.

I probably need the 3 years to work on dh. He is not happy with me. If it wasn't for the minivan I would have a lot of leverage. Stupid minivan. LOL.

We have spent so little on our cars over the years that it just isn't a really big deal. But the insurance, yeah, that's the kicker. Of course repairs and such. But if it gets bad, I'd just sell the thing. As then it wouldn't be worth it. I don't expect much with a Toyota. Insurance is really the worst though. I could drive a car like that for $400/year in the Bay. That is the sad thing. Stupid crazy sacramento drivers, jacking up our insurance like crazy.

Anyway, it is fun to have a dream though. One of these days...

Just give me a few years, I will be showing off a shiny red or black car. Truth is I Want to enjoy a fun car while I am still young. Yeesh. Youth is so wasted on the young.

But yeah, I think dh was hoping I would outgrow this stage. That years without my convertible would make me forget. Fat chance!!!!! I literally waited until BM was 3 months old before I gave up my last one. I was in such denial. Hey dh was staying home, why would I need to give up my convertible. I would never put the kids in there. But then you know, reality sets in. Just not practical. Finances set in. I eventually gave in. But absence just makes the heart grow fonder. LOL.

No, I am going to be driving fun cars well into my old age. These days money is too tight to justify much else, but I aspire to be like Ima Saver when it comes to cars. & since my dh doesn't like cars, more car money for me. LOL. (Though admittedly, he will spend as much on electronics. But at least it is always fair; feels fair to us. We both have our luxuries).

I can't remember what I last said, but Christmas is coming around $700.

I think I am done. Really done. It's actually kind of late for me. But I finished up some wrapping last night.

We spent around $250 on our parents/grandparent. We usually don't do much or spend much on them, but they were awfully generous this year. So we got a zoo membership for MIL to take the kids whenever (she loves it). & a personalized calendar of grandkids. Sent the calendar to great-grandma too. & got her a g.c. to get her hair/nails done. I was going to do donations in their names this year, but MIL did not want it. & G-Grandma said she wasn't going to give us gifts this year because she felt she couldn't afford it. Usually she piles it on, so I had no idea. We decided to get her something nice. IT's her little luxury. I think she will appreciate more. If she is worried about money and such.

We took my dad to the Exploratorium and also got him a ticket to the "Walking with Dinosaurs." He loves that stuff and is going with the kids. & bought him some candy.

Bought my mom that home-made blanket and did a donation in her name.

As far as donations, we did about $250. At least 1/2 were gifts, "in honor" of others. In lieu of gifts. (Oh I also did this for my mom since her birthday is this month). Everyone in our family pretty much has a birthday this month too, so why our spending is a bit on the higher side. My birthday is in December and so I am mindful not to gyp anyone. LOL. Orelse one gift would have done for my parents, or dh's parents. Etc., etc. At least all our kids and nieces are summer. Phew.

Giving $70 cash to my boss and to my gardener. I always turn around and give a decent chunk back to my boss, from my bonus. He takes good care of me. I might get $100 from him and I'll give him 1/2. I probably appreciate him more than about anyone though, so I enjoy giving something back.

Spent around $100 on the kids (one nice gift each, some cheap stocking stuffers). & $30 on the nieces. I actually spent $50 on them and had a $20 off coupon. I think I did well. Was the first year shopping for 2 nieces.

That left $40 for thank-you cards, a potluck, and 2 gift exchanges. We spent $8 on a veggie tray, and yes I know we could have made one much cheaper. But it was a hectic weekend and I didn't plan ahead. Oh well.

We don't do Christmas cards. We probably should. Just too much work. But you know, with time, you get that bigger trail of friends you barely keep in touch with, and I do LOVE getting their cards. Sometimes, in January I sent off pictures and updates to the people we got cards from. I figure maybe every other year, and I did that last year. (The funny thing is I have a lot of older friends. None of my friends under say 35/40 have ever sent us a Christmas card. I think it's a generational thing. We got e-mail for the rest, huh).

Oh, I might need to buy a gift for my "nephew." He's dh's cousin's child. We don't exchange. (No way. We don't want any more Christmas obligations). BUT alas, he is also a December birthday. So I'll probably buy him a gift. But it's not part of the Christmas budget I guess. He's rather new. Still figuring that one out. I think he is too little to care and one birthday gift will do. We might add him to the Christmas list down the road.

But say $200 in November, $300 in December, $200 in January. We just spread it out and pay cash as we go. It's so much simpler that way. It's coming out to something like this.

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Well, this time of year is busy busy busy at work. I am not sure I will get next weekend off. Depends. So I figured I'd better enjoy today. I worked much of yesterday, but today should be relaxing.

We were thinking of taking the kids to the train museum and riding the "Polar Express." The sacramento version anyway. But we went to a museum last weekend, and am going to one next weekend. & we decided we better just lay low. Have a quiet weekend. Phew. Next 2 weekends are filled with family gatherings and such. (& work...).

Gas is also dropping considerably AND our local grocery store is now offering 25 cent per gallon discounts. (Usually 10 cents/15 cents). We have 2 stores with gas stations, apparently in a price war. Phew. Since we have to drive to San Jose THREE more times this month. We drove about as much last month and were in the gas budget. So we'll see. There's hope. I just pad the budget for the peak months and to keep room for gas appreciation. But it's nice that it may cost a little less. We'll see what prices do around the holidays I guess. I will regardless, be glad, when January rolls around, and the driving slows. Then again, we are planning a trip to Tahoe and San Jose in January. Figures. But beats the 5 long drives of December. Yeesh. But yeah, during tax season, I am not keen on the weekend drives, since I tend to work Saturdays. So we'll lay low for a few months. We are going in January for a dentist appointment actually. Otherwise, would not bother. But coincides with grandpa's birthday so we can kill two birds with one stone there.

Anyway, so last night we ordered in some Greek Food. (Divine!) & we went to look at Christmas lights. It's kind of sad since the most awesome house light show ever is gone. I was trying to tell dh that it just isn't the same, once you see something so grand. HE says to me, "Yeah, it's like going from Blu-Ray to VHS." LOL. That is my husband for you. But yeah, probably says it well.

BUT we do have a really neat neighborhood around where a few blocks are just lit up. Every house participates and they light up the sidewalks and everything. We went last year, but I think LM will appreciate it more this year. We sill have to hit that one. Would have last night, but the kids didn't nap and would have fallen asleep on the longer drive. We just drove around the local neighborhoods last night.

Well, last night the kids helped me wrap up the last presents. All done! Oh, and I told them we would have some hot chocolate. But forgot. We'll have to do that tonight.

Beyond that, we have been firming up our plans for Christmas Day. We'll spend it with our parents, here at home. Let the kids wake up and open gifts. Then my parents will come over. We figure we'd to Take & Bake pizzas (they are divine, and CHEAP) for lunch. & play cards or something. & then dh's parents are trying to move in on our day. LOL. We are celebrating with them over the weekend. Yeesh. But we said they could come over, but they had to respect our time first. So they'll come over for dinner. I was thinking of ordering Thai food. We did last year, on a whim, and they were open. I am thinking that is a nice tradition. It will be kind of fun to have the whole gang. But I look forward to quieter time with my parents too. Best of both worlds I guess. I just find it somewhat annoying since long ago my parents claimed Christmas and they claimed Christmas Eve (or weekend prior since I have to work Christmas Eve, which makes the drive impossible). Anyway, my parents would not dream of moving in on their day. But they want their cake and eat it too. Oh well, it's family, what do you do. You love them but they drive you crazy sometime. I guess if they get too annoying over the years I can start inviting my parents over christmas Eve. LOL. But I think for this year, we have a good compromise.

So yeah, I am busy with work. But that's just the way it is. I am used to it, and always plan ahead best I can. All the same, the next 2 weeks should be pretty enjoyable. Such a magical time with the kids. I think they are enjoying...

I've pretty much slam dunked my goals for 2007! Yay!!!!!!!

& so I updated my goals for 2008.

http://monkeymama.savingadvice.com/goals.html

I had categorized everything short-term, mid-term, long-term. Mid-term meaning 2008 and beyond, but I had other things to tackle first.

So I took out all the mid-term stuff. It's just the short-term and the long-term goals now.

Oh yes, but here are my accomplishments for 2007. Which I will comment more on after year-end. If nothing else, for Net Worth, I Want to see the final value 12/31. Before I recap how I got there. I project a $30k Net worth increase at 12/31. Give or take a couple thousand, depending on the market...

Short-Term:

Short-Term Savings
Goal: $800/month - for annual big bills
(Cur: $800/month)
DONE!

Emergency Fund
Goal: $12,000 by 12/31/07
(Bal: $12,000 as of 9/30/07)
DONE!

Kids/College
Goal: Start fund for kids (college/home/whatever)
(Bal. $2,300)
DONE!

ROTH IRA Conversions
Goal: Final ROTH Conversion - 2007
(Need $1500 for taxes on conversion)
DONE!

Net Worth
Goal: Increase Net Worth by $25k-$30k Annually
(Actual Increase: $25,000 as of 9/30/07)
DONE!

I already had a rambly entry that touched on this, but this is the short and clear version.

Well, before I get into Christmas... Dh was reading a newspaper article yesterday about how the trend is to give women nice gifts for giving birth. Women want diamond earrings, when they give birth, dammit! The way he approached it though was, "Did you want a gift for giving birth?" I was like, "um, well, no. Wasn't our new baby the most precious gift we have ever received???" Wondered what the heck he was getting at. So he read off a little of the article. Said most moms want diamonds. *choke* I don't know, you have got to be kidding me. We've ruined Christmas with materialism, so why not move on to the most sacred of all things? Like seriously? It just struck me as so odd. The 2 days I gave birth were the 2 best days of my life, bar none. I am not sure how any material thing could even come close to matching that joy. As such, a personal/nice gift for myself would be farthest from my mind. It wouldn't be very appreciated. So the whole thing strikes me as bizarre. I haven't read the article and can't find it online, but hopefully this will remind me to dig it out. I have got to read this.

I guess in particular, when I think of having my kids, I think of giving up a lot for something greater. So the last thing that comes to mind is what *I* want, when I think of my children's first moments. What you want goes out the window at that moment pretty much.

---------------------------------------
Anyway, here's my christmas budget. Most the spending is done:



My mom sent me $200 (for Christmas, not sure why so early). But hey. I decided to put a chunk to charity since the money was so unexpected.

In-law gifts are a little lower than planned because she refused to take a donation in her name. & we went in with SIL for all the gifts.

We did a little extra for them and my dad though, overall, since we were so spoiled this year. They just get annoyed when we try to do to much. The way with parents though. I find it so bizarre with my parents because they have always made a point not to spoil me. So this year they spoiled me, about 30 years worth, and they freak out when I try to buy them something. I should just get used to it I guess. But it's weird. With MIL I am used to this.

Oh, I was only going to spend $2 on stocking stuffers. I have piles of free books and games and stuff from Scholastic... But I saw these cute piggie banks (searched them out). I think I paid almost $20. But BM has his money in a bowl and LM in a bottle "piggy bank" we got last year. They both need more proper piggie banks. Though they have pretty ceramic ones that they are too young to touch. LOL. These are just plastic see-though - more their speed. (Did I pay $20? I can't remember. Will have to see. Probably $10 to ship or something. Figures). Anyway, perfect Santa gift.

We've also been talking about starting an allowance for BM when he turns 5, come summer. He better enjoy these next few months, because carefree childhood is over soon enough. school and chores. I know he goes to preschool now, but that's just play time. Play play play. But I think things will get very different come kindergarten. Homework and schedules and all that! & chores & allowances... (& yeah, don't get caught up in the term "allowance." Just doing it how we were raised and it worked very well for us to teach us about money). I am trying to figure out how much is truly reasonable to pay a 5-year-old and if I should start an IRA for him. I think I will wait until he is old enough to sign his name if nothing else. LOL. something to look into. IT would have to be a savings account, small amounts to start. would he need to sign for a rollover once he built enough for a mutual fund? Hmmmm. Things to look into.

Oh well. For Christmas we did quite fine on the budget. We really spread out the costs over 4 months or so. Always makes it quite simple. & went over, quite on purpose, with the unexpected cash gift. I was glad to put a decent amount to donations.

I also wanted to do Toys for Tots with the kids or something. Something else we may add in. Just not organized enough. But I should think about that this weekend. BM actually seemed interested. LM is much more empathetic so I think he will enjoy, though too young to understand much at all about it.

Oh I just LOVE this blanket I got at my friend's boutique. She is making one for my mom now. Around $35. Said her price was going up to $40. I may get 2 blankets for the kids. Maybe next year. I think $70 for 2 blankets is plenty for now.

I am not much of a collector, but I think you could call me a blanket collector. At this rate anyway. So many family members make quilts and knit blankets. I just LOVE them. The kids have oodles but they are outgrowing them. So a couple of larger fleece throws will be nice for them next year. Call me addicted...

I usually watch the market (housing) like a hawk but have paid little attention lately.

For one, there is less for sale than usual anyway (in our neighborhood).

So I was poking around zillow today and was rather shocked at how things are settled.

Our neighborhood has been so WEIRD. For one, big homes saw little trouble for a LONG time. Still plenty of move-up buyers, though obviously the writing has been on the wall a long time as the small homes have sat and sat, for about 2 years now. I am not even sure if any have sold. Some have been sitting for well over a year.

We had our home briefly on the market in mid '06. We would have taken $499k (wanted to make a lateral move in the area). There were 3 houses for sale for $600k. I thought they were absolutely insane and we priced around $525k at what seemed reasonable at the time. All 3 houses sold for $600k. 2 of them in less than 3 months. No houses sold for less.

Obviously that wasn't sustainable, but it was interesting all the same.

So I mentioned earlier our neighbor had to move for health reasons very quickly and wanted to sell fast. They took $490k in about a week and fled. I figured that would bring prices down, but no real signs of desparation in our neighborhood. Not a bigger price drop on the horizon. (wasn't $110k overnight enough?)

& then I saw on zillow today the bigger homes that have been sitting a while now with short sale signs and all that - well one of them I have noticed for a long while anyway - it is priced at $399k! Wow! & not a nibble. There is another one priced around $425k.

So it pretty much breaks down to this:

December 2006 - $600k price - sold easy (full price at that).

December 2007 - $399k price - sitting

33%+ price drop in the blink of an eye!

I have said a million times those people asking $600k were crazy idiots. What the hell do I know? They sure squeaked out in the knick of time. What luck!

So anyway, though most of me is not terribly surprised. I am still a little amazed. When the heck did this happen?

What happened is clear though. The last sellers in 2006 were not desparate in the least. One of them held out a year to get $600k. They were also rather "greedy." I am not sure most people in their right mind would care that much to have to get $600k. Or maybe there was some looming desparation there. I just don't know what their thinking was at all. I am just surprised it worked for them.

On the flip side, all we have is desparate sellers today. Thankfully not too many in our neighborhood. Yet. But enough... All it takes really is one.

WE locked in the base price of our house in mid-2001. $260k. The big ones were going for $270k. (Lots more space but we didn't like the layout, orelse we would have grabbed one of those - sure for $10k extra for a few hundred square feet!)

I know they were well into the $400k range by December 2002.

At $399k I swear we are back to June-2002. (& these are the big models).

I just didn't expect it to happen so fast. I am starting to think things will get a lot worse than I imagined.

As for us, I am not too concerned. There was lots of concern if we were getting in over our heads buying a $260k house in Sacramento in 2001. From the locals mostly. WHo did not fully understand that the alternative was 1/2 the house for twice the money in the Bay. I always said back then, I don't care if the house depreciates to 0. I just wanted to live somewhere that didn't cost an arm and a leg. & we were blessed to find that and still stay in the state and be close to family, etc.

PRetty much how I Still feel today.

It helps to have a reasonable mortgage and to have paid 30% down already. I just assumed we would never be upside down in this house though. I assumed that until about today. It is starting to get UGLY!

Wow, the tide turns fast.

I still feel pretty good though. My house's appreciation might amount to a hill of beans tomorrow BUT the houses we could not afford in 2001 in San Jose are holding strong at $800k+ today (from $500k in 2000). I'll take this any day. Appreciation was a nice side benefit I never expected. Sacramento had never appreciated like that before, and who knows if it ever will again. I know a lot of people who got out at the right time and made bank. We decided we didn't want to get out though, and I am just as happy with that decision today.

But in the meantime, yeah. I think I will just switched to assessed value for net worth purposes. I am not sure how long that will even be enough at this rate though. I have the house at $450k in Quicken which felt rather conservative like a week ago. $325k or so assessed. (I'll have to double check!) That's what I will go with for 2008.

We paid about $300k (in 2001) with all the upgrades & landscaping, and owe $210k today. So we've paid off a chunk, for sure.

I also was not holding my breath in the least that we could fight our property taxes anytime soon. Wow, at this rate our assessed value could possibly go down next year. That's crazy.

I still feel like this is only the tip of the iceberg so I am trying to brace myself now. The possibility of us being upside down on our house just did not cross my mind. Impossible. We bought before all this mess... I don't know. Not sure it will happen, but it suddenly looks a lot more plausible...

It was kind of nice to be blissfully unaware...

I think this is where my juxtaposition on house ownership lies though. 90% of me just does not care. In the least. Maybe more than 90% doesn't care. My house is my house. I think the only reason I have ever looked at my house like an investment, at all, is because how expensive houses are out here. HEll if I going to put $100k into a house and not make sure to increase the odds of keeping that $100k. Hell if I am going to sell my house for $600k and throw that money down the drain by not doing my homework on my next house purchase, etc., etc. But at the end of the day my house is really little more than a house to me.

I can't say I will lose any sleep over any of this. Just a bit of a shock factor today.

Outside my own little bubble though, this is certainly a wake up call to how bad it is getting out there .. Just, wow...

You know I started a Vegas post and never finished it. Too much business to tend to this week. It's crazy.

Anyway, yeah we had fun and we are back. More later... (I have to vent about those timeshares later - are they out of their minds?????? LOL. Was interesting. It was easy on us, but I had to share some of the funny, and insane aspects. They put us up in a nice room though and I would do it again in a heartbeat. Timeshares are horrible deals, but the "sit through a presentation for a free vacation" thing is not 1/2 bad. In this case it was THREE nights so the 3 hours "wasted" was hardly noticed. & we had REALLY nice accommodations).

Well, I got my books in the mail today (cashed out my Wish List since everything was on sale really cheap the other day and I needed to buy a few things for free shipping).

One book I got was "All Your Worth." I know this book is spoken of like it is the Holy Grail of personal finance. But I was raised with a very high level of financial literacy so most of these books almost bore me (as I have mentioned before). The subject is interesting, but rarely find these books terribly enlightening. (& I know I am BLESSED to already have known much of this stuff). Plus the 2-Parent Income Trap (same authors) bugged me quite a bit. I didn't really jive with it.

This book has my attention a bit though. & I really want to work through it because I think this could be a really good book to pass on to struggling friends. Because I identify with it so much. I could have never formulated such a book but it speaks well my unconscious spending habits.

#1 - First thing they say is no counting pennies here. Go for the big stuff. (Um yeah, that's me). Not only can it often make little sense but it can be really psychologically damaging. If you really struggle with budgets this book is for you. For sure. {I've always formulated and budgeted as a guideline but never particularly followed a strict budget. Just too constricting if you ask me. This book says, that's okay!!!! & I knew it was, but I think more people need to hear this!}.

#2 - This whole idea of balance. Well that is so "me" too. I always thought that was rather obvious though. Balance is important in all aspects of life. Of course it is the same with money. But I think they put into words well what I thought.

At first I was skeptical that the "50/30/20 rule works for most of the people most of the time." I was thinking all along, why would it? Personal finance is very individual; very personal.

But as I run through the #s and ponder it, it actually does make sense.

For one, I thought, well, this has got to be average over time. There is much time in our life where we saved little (college) and where we saved most of our income (2 incomes). & then there are times we saved little again (When we had kids). But as I ran through the #s I would say we have averaged around 50/30/20. I share this though to say I wouldn't get too caught up in the #s in one point of time. If you do go down to one income and can't save much, you would be best to save a lot beforehand, and plan to catch up afterwards. Etc., etc. The numbers should be kept in mind in terms of keeping balance; as far as never being too off balance.

For us, I had a goal in my mind to put 15% to retirement before I would consider letting go of 2 incomes on a permanent basis. The interesting thing with our other savings that would put us right at 20%. IT was my goal all along.

The other VERY interesting thing is I calculated our "needs." We're at about 60% today. The interesting thing psychologically is we worked really hard, unconsciously, to get that to about 50% of my income before dh stopped working. We allowed for a bit more (temporary), but quickly settled to 50% with raises and such. Anyway, when we had kids and our health insurance skyrocketed out of control, it is the one thing that stressed me out majorly. It has been the total bane in my side. Interestingly, it kicked our "needs" from 50% to 60%. Yeah, no wonder that is the thorn in my side. I knew we were out of balance. But I feel there is little I can do about that for now. Just hope it gets better when dh works again (if nothing else we can spread out to find better insurance through employment).

I've only read one chapter of the book thus far too, so bear with me too...

Anyway, at the same time, I didn't need to read the book to know we were out of balance. & we were already working hard on rebalancing.

I also had issue if dh did return to work. If he got a part-time job we could easily put 60% of his net check to savings and 40% to wants. (No need to up our "needs" at all). That would be quite an increase in lifestyle/wants. Yet we would be about 45/20/35. I was pondering how this would put us out of balance in the least. In the short term it wouldn't. I think we would be MORE in balance. Life would be simpler and we would be saving more. BUT I did ponder it a bit and realized I wasn't saving all this money to leave it to my kids. I think at some point if that was sustainable, we would cut back our working hours. Or we would retire early. Etc., etc. Eventually we would probably move back towards 50/30/20. I think there may be something to it. It really seems to be the "balance" point over the long haul.

Anyway, it's interesting. I'll try to read another chapter tonight.

Oh, and I was totally lost on the savings portion. (Only one chapter read thus far, maybe it gets clearer?). I really got the impression they were talking about 20% savings for retirement only. I got stuck on the stuff you save for the future that eventually will go to needs, wants, and maybe even retirement. Since most of it was rather long-term (5 year plus horizon) I just included it in savings. Maybe it gets clearer... Maybe I overthink.

I did find an exception to the 50/30/20 rule. When you are spoiled rotten by family. LOL. Without preschool, seriously, our wants are at 10%. & I am not sure they have ever been terribly higher. We did pinch so many pennies before kids. & probably even more since. I don't know. Does everyone need 30% wants? I like to think for one we are very happy with non-material things. I think some of that is true. I've never felt particularly deprived. But on the flip side, we get a lot of "wants" for free. Just look at our travel itinerary this year. Or how often we get to eat out for free. It's a pretty sweet place to be. It makes the 30% way too high for us, as an example. I am sure there is stuff in the needs section leaking over to the wants too. We don't "need" such a big house. So as much as I like to think the wants matter little, I think for us they are quantified in different ways. When you are spoiled rotten that # could go down. & hopefully the difference goes to savings. That is what we have been working towards...

Kind of a boring month (phew...)

*Allowance I have to square away. Dh bought and returned some stuff along with Christmas stuff and not sure if those figures are right. I bought some clothes/books/CD. CD was for kids so will probably move that to misc.

*Auto - paid annual AAA dues & also squeaked in right at $300 for gas. I think we drove to San Jose 3-4 times and same for December. I don't intend to make many drives January - April. Phew. But still amazed we squeaked in the budget. I left it high for rising gas prices and such.

*Christmas - mostly kids and cousins. & stocking stuffers, etc. Phase 1 over. December = memberships and charity expenses.

*clothing = belts for BM, socks for me, a shirt to match BM's friends' gift - they like to wear matching clothes.

*Dining - actually were closer to our $30 budget this month.

*Groceries were rather on the high side this month, but below $500 budget. Included Thanksgiving dinner so makes sense.

*Insurance = flood & additional life insurance

*Misc. - we usually budget $150 but ebbs and flows for unexpected things and christmas and vacations and such. Tried to keep it low this month. Was just for gym, a trip to the movies, and to replace BM's melted mattress pad.

*Utilities have settled much lower with balanced billing, lower cable and newly metered water. Phew! Just got our November gas bill and it was under 1/2 of last years' bill. Thanks to mild weather mostly. I think our electric will edge upward because it was *off* for a while (charged too little) and gas will probably edge downward - with the balanced billing. (Next time they re-evaluate the monthly charge. We have separate gas & electric companies).

*Vacation - I don't have the totals yet. Will have later today. Will be another $100 at least.

Even so, with all the extra money we brought in November (focus groups and credit card rewards) we spent far less than we brought in.

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

I was looking at comparison reports to last year (something I didn't have enough data to play with before). It is really cool how much we have saved this year compared to last year. Will have to share that at year-end.

I really love Quiken. Shows exactly where all our money went all year, last year, etc. Since accountants tend to deal more with historical data I guess there is more of an excitement factor for me as I have more data to play with.

& I am up a whopping $140 for November!

Hey, up is better than down...

Up just under $25k for the year. Already posted I have little doubt that we'll hit $25k by 12/31. Will get a big retirement contribution and vest to 100% in less than 30 days. Now, that will be reason to celebrate!

Which might just put me up to $30k for the year, the upper end of my goal. The stock market decides the rest...

I woke up early and so was double checking on Vegas info this mornings. Bus is still cheap as I remember but they do have a monorail. Cost twice as much BUT I know of no other way to get across the strip in 10 minutes. Sounds like QUITE an addition. The Deuce was a big step up, and the monorail sounds even better. We'll see what we think in person anyway. Interesting to see how things evolve with time. (I had no idea they put in a monorail!)

Also was checking out all the buffet reviews and such. We are huge fans of the Spice Market Buffet (Aladdin) but I think this time we'll try Mandalay Bay too. Looks similar, but better priced.

We're staying on the north end of the strip which has the really cheap buffets. So a dinner there. & then we'll dine at Fremont Street and at our favorite Indian restaurant (also very near our hotel).

I pinned down more of a $180 budget for dining and about $60 for transportation (shuttle, buses, monorail). This assumes all the info I saw online was current (not so sure). Leaves $60 for incidentals, unexpected things, and gambling. If we adjust our budget to $300. Much more realistic but I am excited to try a new buffet, and that will be for quite an amount of food. Yes, we will have to hit they gym on our return. Though I am sure we will also do PLENTY of walking.

It seems like every time we go to Vegas we spend more money. But we also enjoy more. Gotta splurge once in a while I guess. WIll be fun...

Actually we have never stayed 3 nights before, so accounts for much of the cost. Eating out is such a budget buster when it comes to vacation. It just adds up so fast and is always maddening since it is so much easier to eat way cheaper at home. I mean $180 on food? At home that's 2 weeks of food for 4 of us!! I feel like food is always the vacation budget buster. But we are certainly splurging and enjoying in this case. Just what I always find is so pricey about vacation. The food will cost about as much as our plane tickets this time around...

Well, on a whim we decided to catch one show in Vegas. We did really good on our retirement and efund this year so we decided to take our December balance transfer interest and splurge.

I really wanted to see O (Which would be more pricey) but it was pretty much sold out. We decided to try Spamalot instead. A tad cheaper (though not much). I don't know, I am ready for vacation and the idea that "I wouldn't waste my money on a show" went out the window rather last minute. But we have been to Vegas quite a few times and never splurged on a show. IT will be fun.

So our budget looks something like this:

Vegas (4 days/3 nights):

Food/Gambling $200 (Already pd/use gifts)
Shows $150 (Paid with Interest)
Airfare $250 (Paid with cc rewards)
Hotel $0 (No cash but timeshare hell is "priceless" - LOL).
--------------------
$600
--------------------

Oh the $200 includes airport shuttle and bus fare too - the incidentals.

We'll see, it's our last hoorah before tax season and all that. I just want to REALLY enjoy. Mostly plan our budget for fine dining. If we end up over $200 I Won't sweat it much. Just all we need to spend to not dip into our checking account at all. On the other hand I figure we could splurge on 2-3 really nice meals and go cheap the rest of the time (fast food or a trip to the grocery store is just fine) and stay well within the budget. Certainly what we aim for.

Not one of our cheaper Vegas trips by a mile. But the ironic thing is gas is getting so expensive, I think our airfare may be cheaper than driving. Certainly if we took the van. Gas would have cost around $200 easy in dh's car. Not to mention wear and tear and TIME. I got the deal I wanted on airfare, but even if I hadn't it probably would have been worth $300-$400. I now realize as prices skyrocket before my eyes. Our airfare deal is looking better by the minute.

Southwest also changed their policy. You get to board in the order you check in. Already checked in for tomorrow's flight (& at the front of the line)! I am just not sure we will get the opportunity to print out our boarding passes ahead of time for the return flight, but will try.

Is it worth it to fly round trip for $125 each, to not get to sit next each other for a one hour flight? OF course it is. But I am optimistic dh and I may actually get to sit next to each other this flight. How divine. I am loving this online checking/boarding pass thing.

Our only obstacle now is staying healthy for tomorrow. & for the entire weekend really. IT would be nice, but probably too much to ask. (just usual kids and germs...).

Oh yes, and I Will have to tell you about Tahiti Village. I can't believe when people IRL seriously tell me to hold my ground or "BE careful because you get sucked in." LEt me tell you, I don't remember the last time I got sucked in by a timeshare presentation, by a car salesman, by a furniture salesman... Any salesman... I just giggle. Somehow I think we'll survive. (Just a hint. The reason we do well financially is we don't spend our money on stupid things. WE don't make rash purchasing decisions. We don't buy things we can't pay cash for. Etc. All things you have to do to buy a timeshare. We didn't need to read all the horrible timeshare stories to figure out it was a high pressure sales thing that made absolutely no sense).

I think I also mentioned people keep telling me they were "trapped" in these presentations for hours. You have got to be kidding me. Let them try to "trap" us - LOL. We do have legs. & cell phones to call a cab. & rights. The bus pass won't hurt either if we have to flee too early.

Honestly, for the most part I think we will go, be bored, and be one of the first to leave, with little incident. It's just so obvious we aren't buying it on any level they don't even bother trying. Has been our past experience.

& you would have to be crazy to think I Would actually tell them my real income. Teehee. Rule #1 - do not tell them your income. I figure the "spouse is out of work" card should keep them off our back. I remember last time we went to a Vegas timeshare presentation they were salivating when we said we were from Bay Are ($$$$$ in their eyes). I told dh, um, let's say our income is 1/2 what it was. The scary thing was how much they salivated over the $40k income or so I put down. Yeesh. This time you have to be over $50k. I am thinking $50,001 will work. $0 assets. Negative net worth? I don't know, maybe they will smell weakness if we lay on the negative net worth thing too thick though.

But yeah last time was a $15k timeshare and it made no financial sense in the least. We were staying at a hotel for $30/night. A NICE one. Why would we spend $15k on a timeshare???? Who wants to stay in a condo off the beaten path in Vegas??? This one will be even easier. They are seriously asking $50k for these things. IT's going to be 10 times easier to say, "Are you out of your mind???" I Think we can walk away from this one.

Anyway, dh likes to play psychological games with people so I think he is looking forward to it. I figure it is a small price to pay for 3 free nights stay, but we'll see how I feel afetrwards. LOL. I am sure it will be uncomfortable at best. Have to play nice... With dh by my side will be okay though. Last time we wasted a good chunk of a short trip on a timeshare presentation (For $50). This time we get 3 full days to enjoy, so eh. It won't be such a big chunk of our time at least. & more reward.

Well, got a surprise in the mail. My property taxes are due on 12/10 so I know I have to get that check ready. & yeah I am going to mail it on the 10th. With the GMAC checking account I can extend the days I earn interest by a few. (The last check I sent to the IRS - took them like 2 weeks to cash. Cool for me).

Anyway, so I got the bill ages ago and I have a reminder in Quicken, on and on. But I get this bill in the mail. I open it up and it looks just like the last property tax bill. Checking the date. "Strange," I think. Until I finally find the insert that explains it's an adjustment. Wondering why on earth it would be adjusted...

But then I finally saw they had an error on one of our bonds. We pay about $1k/year of bonds on top of our taxes. They call it "mella roos." Don't ask me why. They mistakenly charged us an extra $130 on our original bill for some kind of landscaping bond. ???? How in the heck would you know that is wrong? That is why I wonder. I will keep a sharper eye next year, see what's new and if it is valid (they keep adding school bonds and such as well - which I remember were voted in at least).

Anyway, so the $130 decrease is pretty cool but then they also extended our deadline by 21 days. Now it's due 12/31.

I figured it probably wasn't worth the interest saved, but calculated it and we will earn another $7 interest waiting to pay it on the 31st.

Well, I'm sold.

I guess they allow everyone more time because sometimes the bill gets adjusted upward. As for ours, I thought it seemed a little high. It had gone up 5%. (with the bonds. The valuation portion can only go up 2% max per year). So now it is only a 2% increase - no new bonds this year. Phew. That is the NICE thing about California. They got a handle on property taxes years ago.

I am also a complete dork and lost our home insurance bill. ??? All I could figure was it landed in the recycle pile. Yeesh. I have to call and ask for a new one. I can pay all my insurance bills online, but this one had an option to pay less with a new deductible plan AND it said I had to pay with a check. (Don't ask me why). I looked online where I figure I could get a copy of the bill. Well it says the amount, but no address, no new amount for the deductible (it says I should have that with my paper copy. Well duh). & it re-iterates that I have to pay it with my paper bill voucher, with a paper check. Yeesh!!!!! Why is this the ONE bill I lose? LOL

I will have to call today and get a copy. It's due at the end of the year. I have about $4k due between that, property taxes, and IRS and such. Yes, got it all in the bank; ready to go.

We have not turned on the heat here. I thought it was a possibility we would turn it on Thanksgiving for guests. BUT with all the body heat and cooking there will probably be little need, all the same. Anyway, what is it, the 20th? Can we make it to December with no heat??? I don't know... It probably helps we will be out of town the 29th. Dh's parents will be staying here to watch the kids but they have it in their head that we pay hundreds of dollars every month to heat and cool our "giant" home. (teehee). I guess she has said to my mom that our bills must be insane and my mom likes to toy with her so didn't say anything. I call my mom often to brag about my $7 gas bill and my $20 electric bills in the off seasons. Anyway, so she knows we aren't paying squat. But last time dh's fam was here they devised an elaborate plan to not use the air conditioning. (With windows and such). Because they assume we are energy hogs and never thought to open a window though it cools down considerably at night. (duh. ?????). Anyway, so we just play along. I just think it's funny. I should leave an energy bill sitting out in the dead of winter or something. Maybe they'd get the hint. Maybe while we are in Vegas. LOL

Anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised if they don't touch the heat in an effort to save us money. So yes, even with guests, it may be possible.

Or they may just turn it on and ruin our streak. Oh well. I guess the true question is if we can make it to the 29th. Hmmmm, 9 more days. I don't know. It's 45 out right now (probably the low for the night?). It's decent inside. 67 downstairs. Upstairs tends to get chillier, I don't know. But I know I can survive without heat today. Without a doubt. The sun is out so the house will heat up during the day. Yay!

9 more days... We'll see...

It is unusually warm. It really is. It's been nice!!!!

Well, I got it in writing that all those cards were fraudulent, except one. Still waiting on Macy's. I will call them, but I figure the second I call them is the second it shows up in the mail. So I am biding my time before I make the effort.

So pretty much all cleared. My credit report seems cleared up enough so I figure I would ask for a credit increase on my balance transfer card. I have around $5k borrowed and dh has $10k. But his will have to be paid off in a few months, and we get 5.7% until end of 2008. Definitely taking advantage. So I would like to borrow $10k when we pay off his. Or heck, might as well get it now... Before interest rates decrease more. I guess I could earn 4.5% in the interim, and then once dh's is paid I would figure I would be earning 5.7%.

Anyway I haven't borrowed on one card and I should also take advantage before they retract it, but they only have me $5k limit - "until I was a customer for 6 months." Blech. I was filing paperwork yesterday and saw they sent me that note 6 months ago.

So I popped online and applied for a credit increase. They asked me a gazillion questions - hard credit pull - small price to pay to make another $50/month without lifting another finger after applying.

So the card company called about 1/2 hour later. They are obnoxious and call all the time about buying their payment protection plans and all that and usually dh tells them to buzz off. BUT ever since my ID theft I have to take the calls, in case it is important. IT never is.

I grumbled as dh handed me the phone. Getting ready to say if they called me on more flipping time I am closing my card or something.

But alas, they were calling because they pulled my credit report and saw the fraud alert. Just checking to see if it was indeed me. I thanked them profusely. Yes, Citi paid attention. Glad to know.

Also when I applied online they said 7-10 days, but the guy was like, um yeah, you'll be approved within the hour... So yay credit report.

I should log online and check. Might as well do that balance transfer. Make sure the terms haven't changed.

I also shared all this to say I was really happy with the balance transfer process.

I was worried about universal default with the ID theft and was going to talk to WAMU about it, but then WAMU sent notice they are no longer doing universal default. Phew. It's been the only real hiccup. I worried how my bad credit report in the interim could affect well standing accounts. But I Was able to clean it up quickly enough.

But overall I have been really happy. I haven't even set up to pay everything automatically. I just pay the minimum balance the day I get the bill. I keep so on top of my bills it seems to work.

If I could do over again I would have made better notes when I took the BTs and when they were due. I know dh's is 9 months and I can see in Quicken when I got the check, but I didn't write all this down. Duh. As time passes, I am thinking, when is this one due? I went back and documented best I could in Quicken. As the time gets closer I need to pay more attention. I figure I will pay it a month or 2 early to avoid issue. I have no idea how the credit card company measures 9 months, and I am sure it is in their favor. So um yeah. I will be paying off dh's in February or so, and mine in June (Expires in July?). & I believe this new one is for a year but I will have to go refresh my memory. If it is for a year and I do it now, I can take full advantage of my 5.7% CD.

If I paid all these back it would leave me with about $11k in a CD and $1k in cash. My emergency fund anyway - we have some other cash... So I would like to string these out until my CD expires.

Once my CD expires and we pay all these back. That's it. Closing all the cards. Checking our credit. Laying low for a while... If when all was said and done and our credit scores weren't affected, I would do it again. But I am not going to have 10 open cards. I always close my unused cards. I just find it easier that way. My credit score is better for it I find.

I expect a bit of a blip on the score with all this borrowed money. PArticularly when I borrow $15k in my name through next summer. I don't mind taking the hit temporarily. But I would take the time to clean it up before I considered doing another balance transfer. I care less about it in the short term. But I care enough about it in the long run to not just do BT after BT after BT.

I think if dh and I both just borrowed $10k it was a good plan. Vs. one of us borrowing a large sum. So far neither of our scores have taken a hit. Maybe a hit, but they are still well over 750 so who cares. But I can't say borrowing another $10k will help my score any. But the cash has been really helpful in building back up our efund, and we'll take advantage for one more year.

I would be happy enough with the balance transfer process without the CD. But I always knew there was a risk interest rates would go down. BUT I just happened to have this 5.7% CD offer from my credit union right after I did my first balance transfer. Talk about luck. I can renew it at 5.7% for another 8 months comes March or so. Until my last BT expires. Just "perfect."

So yeah, my strategy until then is just save more cash. Then I will have to come up with a new plan for the efund. I am certainly not going to tie most of it up in a 8-month CD again. Was strictly for the balance transfers. Will have to evaluate some CD laddering options and such going forward. Who knows how things will be in a year.

Well, today is the day I dread every year. Got our new insurance premiums for 2008.

Um yeah, surprise surprise, up 12%. You know part of me was really wishing for a dull year. Could we have ONE freaking year of like a 5% increase? 2%? Is that too much to ask? Instead it was same old, same old...

Holy Hell.

Our old plan went up to $1k/month (the one we dropped last year. YIKES!!!!!

Ours went from $673 to $744 and is set to go up some ungodly amount when we turn 35 in 4 years. This will top our mortgage in no time. & I always thought housing was all we had to worry about out here. (Of course interestingly I have been perusing the ORegon plans and they aren't any cheaper. So much for moving to cut costs...).

Yeah, we can swing it. We've had much worse years. But forward thinking, it scares the crap out of me.

So I started looking at all the HSA/HDHP plans and such.

They actually have good options for once. I am wary if I am missing something. I researched those in 2006 and it was like our annual max would be $10k, but we could only put $3k in the HSA even though we would save FAR more in premiums. It just left us way over exposed and unable to save the difference and get any real tax advantage. The odds were very high we would pay more with the HDHP/HSA than with the insane premiums. So we stuck with the insane premiums.

Last year was about the same, though they made it a lot easier to contribute more to a HSA. But the plan really sucked.

They totally changed it this year. If we switch to a $1500 HSHP that qualifies for HSA, then all of our expenses will be down. Slam dunk.

Premiums go down just over $3k/year.

Our out of pocket goes down too. We didn't have deductibles before, but our out of pocket was something like $10k for the fam. All routine stuff covered with small copays, but emergency and hospital stays were astronomical (thank you emergency fund).

They seem to be saying on the other hand, that if we take the deductible, which is $3k for the fam, we will never pay a dime for anything else. We also get prescription coverage back. The most we would ever have to pay is the $3k deductible which they just skimmed off the premium.

Well, okay, then I am sold.

The HSA is just PERFECT. We can put in $5800 in 2008. $3k saved premiums. Around $1k for dental. & $600 I had budgeted for copays anyway. So, um, yeah, we'll just max it out. Pay all our dental and vision & drugs out of there too.

We really won't save much in the way of taxes. We already pay so much in insurance premiums that we get a tax deduction of around $4k - $5k anyway. So it won't make a huge difference. But a little one, for sure. Any wage increase lowers the tax deductiblity of our regular medical expenses anyway. So with higher wages there is probably a slight tax benefit. (Before we took it as an itemized deduction - portion over 7.5% income - which yes was around $5k last year).

Which pretty much means it is all a wash for us except that we will get to put away $3k every year that *if* we don't use, can grow tax deferred. I mean if we have ONE year where we don't use our deductible, we should come out ahead. Right?

So I have been pretty down on HSAs. I thought they REALLY sucked. But if you have a little money in the bank, and you get a deal like this... It's good. Sure as hell beats forking $750/month to the insurance company. Eeks. With 4 of us I wouldn't be surprised if we hit that deductible every year (broken arm? Car accident? Sick kid? Lord knows...). But, yeah. This is the first time the odds have been for the HSA. {This particular insurance company is obviously phasing out it's co-pay plans. They offer less and they cost more every year}.

Oh yeah, these premiums do not go up at 35 either. For now anyway. Which gives us some breathing room.

I have to figure out how/where I want to invest. Decision, Decisions. Starting with cash though eventually I Would like to put some in a balanced fund at Vanguard (if we build up any). I am not sure what the rules are, if we can have 2 accounts or what. More to look up. & I am trying to decide if I should divert a little of the efund to prefund it a bit Jan. 1. I don't know. LEt the money grow tax free and replenish the efund quickly. ??? IT's an idea. In case we end up using our deductible Jan. 1 or something. ANything can happen.

Well, much more to research.

ETA: Well, um the investment selections REALLY suck. I am thinking of just starting with State Farm since I already have some accounts with them. Looks like the best option thus far. $25 annual fee & 2%-3% interest. Yikes! Will do for now I guess. Not so enthused any longer. But if we start to build up some balances over the years I'd switch to one that offers mutual funds. I don't see much better in the way of interest rates except crappier banks and higher fees. lose-lose. Hopefully more banks will start to jump on the HSA bandwagon.

Seems some of them have you submit reimbursement forms for every expense (that is horrid since we would have them OFTEN). But State Farm at least gives you checks. Many give you debit cards but I wouldn't use. Not my thing. I'd probably put it on my card for the rebate and see if I could pay the card then directly from the HSA. Or if I have to write a check and use a stamp. Pricey all around... Yeah, not so happy now. I just don't want it to be a huge PITA to pay my medical bills. So no matter how you slice it, this really complicates things... Much research to do...

2nd Edit: Oh yeah and I forgot the stupid HSAa are NOT tax deductible in Cali. It really leaves us with little tax benefit here. I mean my 2% earnings will be tax free (Federal), but the fees will take a chunk. I am getting more annoyed by the minute. *sigh* I guess that means my earnings will be taxable in Cali as well. Not that Cali has huge taxes, but the bookkeeping for the difference is atrocious..

We haven't had to turn on the heat here. I can't believe it. Well into November.

On the other hand, we don't have a small baby this year and BM is content to run around the house in his shorts. (Takes after his father). We have racheted up the air and heat a bit more than usual in recent years having small kids around. Worrying if they are comfortable. I see a trend this year that we might lean towards keeping the house cooler. Suddenly the idea of keeping the house 60 doesn't seem so insane (we usually aim for 68). I think it is harder to justify 60 though when it just isn't that much colder outside though. If it were 30 outside, sure 60 would be divine. It's all I could figure why we are way too whimpy.

The weather has just been divine though. Coming from the land of "70 year round", Sacramento weather has been really hard for me to swallow. You can't step outside while the sun is out in the summer (though at least evenings are fair - phew). & spring may be okay but the allergy factor is horrendous. I stay locked up indoors. So October/November have been divine. It's been mostly in the 70s and we have been going for lots of walks. This is the weather I miss back home. If we moved to Oregon or something I just don't think I could handle it. I am weather spoiled. It could be a tie between the idea of moving so far from family and the weather, why we haven't made the move. I think the weather may factor even more.

Was hearing on the radio a while back - or maybe it was an article - weather is one of the smallest factors when you move. I cringed. When you come from the land of "70 year round" the weather will make or break you. It is clear to me I have to live in a southern coastal state orelse I may just melt. Hehe. Preferably west coast since I don't do humidity either. Ick.

Well, soon enough it will be cold and the heat will be running. Blech. It gets slightly colder here. Though I would say summer is 10 times worse than winter. But last year we did have some freezes. Lord I hope this is a sign of a milder winter. I don't do ice at all. For the most part I would say winter mirrors back home, but maybe 10 degrees cooler. I think I can handle it. But it is just one more season I can't walk outside. So that's a bummer.

Talked to the in-laws today and they do not want any of what we were getting them for Christmas. They INSIST. So I think I can adjust my budget downward to $500 (original $600). & I really wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being lower. But gives me plenty of wiggle room.

The main part of the gift was going to be a donation in their name anyway, which they do not want at all. I'll probably make the donation anyway. I might donate whatever we come under the original $600 number. We'll just have to wait and see.

So Christmas plans are under way.

I wanted to do all the purchases this month so I will have dh pick up the kids' presents and I will have to grab the stocking stuffers.

Leaves December for donations and checks, and such. Buying a zoo membership for the in-laws too. (They said they'll take that - LOL - can take the grandkids anytime and get discounts and other area zoos).

We'll also still get them a calendar of the kids - they love that. Will at least be a surprise.

MIL wans to be helpful by picking up a G.C. for me for great-grandma. It's not particularly helpful since I rather put it on the card and pay it in January. I don't even have the cash to write a check this month. She'll just have to wait. Cash really screws up my credit card budget mentality. Yeesh. On the flip side, our little talk went a long way to shoring up Christmas details. IT will be a simple year. I like it simple!!

I've come to the conclusion that one year of reorganization can make up for a few years of bad money management. If not "bad", at least less than stellar...

It's interesting.

Just thinking about it as I ponder our 2008 budget, and forward.

I recently came to the conclusion to relax a bit on retirement. I have been trying not to rely so much on my boss's contribution and that is certainly a worthy goal. But I realized, while pondering the budget, that 10% of my income (even a little more) goes to preschool. Which is rather temporary. & the reason I want to hit retirement so hard is less because we need it today, but more for future planning. So thinking about it in these terms I realized both the easies thing and the most sensible thing to do is to consider the preschool money as retirement money. It means we can contribute 5% easy to retirement come this September when we go from 2 to 1 kid in preschool. & then in 2 years we have the 10% contribution easy (total). In the meantime I get 10% from my boss too. Is there any reason to rush it otherwise? At expense of other goals? Not really.

Kind of like a lightbulb went off in my head.

Anyway, thinking in these terms and looking at our savings plan for 2008 I realized for the most part we on track to save 1/3 of my income. Even if 10% goes to preschool in the interim. Well, not for long!!!

I also realized that on another level if we save 1/3 of my income, we are still living on the same income we made before kids. How bizarre is that? I feel like we have really been living up to our income. & we certainly have much more/more cushier lifestyle than we did 5 years ago! Plus we have 2 more mouths to feed.

But um, nothing has really changed. We haven't lived up to anything. We have done a lot of cost cutting measures in order make it on one income. Wow! It is just bizarre to come to this conclusion. I feel like in the interim we have been living up to our income and I have been fighting it every step of the way. Well, maybe all the fighting has been working better than I realized!

I have been running the #s through my head because it doesn't really make sense. But I think when we had 2 incomes we felt we had a lot more room to waste money. PLUS we have done so much planning that we have far more assets to fall back on, which means we rely on the income a little less. We have newer cars (so less worries about replacement costs in the interim). The cash in the bank earns decent interest which means some of our savings comes from that. Etc., etc.

It's, interesting.

On the flip side, we used to pay a lot more of our income to taxes. So though I may be saving 1/3 of my gross pay in a sense, I also take home a much larger percentage of gross than I used to. & that probably counts for inflation and the extra mouths to feed and all that. To be fair - we aren't doing THAT great. LOL. The tax factor is huge...

Well, I am sure I am missing something. But it's kind of my "aha" moment. Maybe we aren't doing so bad.

Our savings looks something like this:

3% retirement
10% Preschool (to retirement eventually)
13% Short Term Savings (escrow)
7% Mid Term Savings (house/cars)
--------------------------
33% Gross Income Saved
--------------------------

I also understand a large chunk is for short-term savings (to be used within the year). But, um, I wasn't saving that before when we dropped down to 1-income. Nor when I received about a 50% raise over time. So it's all money I wasn't making or saving before. Now I am making it and saving it.

I still want to plump up retirement as much as I can, but am considering working more on cash reserves in 2008. With more cash reserves, we could more easily devote 100% windfalls to retirement. win-win-win. There is a bit of a psychological factor in it all. Of course the more we put to retirement now the bigger difference it makes. So it is a balance trying to figure out the best plan. But we're getting there.

On the flip side, the more cash reserves the laxer we feel on the budget. So part of me wants to put every last time I can to retirement. Forget cash. I guess the psychological factor can go both ways. & of course the more we put to retirement today, the easier it should be in the long run.

All stuff I have to think through. In the meantime it feels nice to think we are doing much better than we thought. BUT don't worry, I don't feel any more relaxed. The whole IRA max is really motivating to me. Because the more we put in there, the more is tax deferred. Which in the meantime encourages to try to save even more than the plan.

The other interesting factor is though my income has gone up so much, it shows little sign of slowing down. So saved raises will go a long way to get our percentages up in the interim.

I think my overall goal is that in about 3 years, when the kids are in school, I want to say to dh, "I don't care if you work." If he wants to buy new TVs and electronics and all that a faster rate, or if he wants to work on a career. He will have that freedom. (& I will largely say you want that stuff - you come up with the money). I want to be able to say that even if I no longer get 10% of my income from my boss in retirement that he does not have to work. He only has to work if he wants to go back to school or if he wants an elevated lifestyle. It's just one level in the path to financial freedom I guess. & I feel we are getting there quicker than I thought we would.

As stands it probably means I would hope not to need a second income in the least by age 32 (which ironically means by age 25 because that is the last time he worked anyway. But today we still think of it in terms as temporary. It has to crossover to a permanent thinking yet).

My goal is still not having to work full-time by age 40. Of course, if he decides to work and finds some success, I may be able to speed this up significantly.

It is interesting. Full blown retirement appeals little to me. I like working. But not "having" to work is certainly a different mindset - a worthwhile one.

I think this month will get by without having to dip into savings, just by the skin of our teeth. (Really not bad considering the $250 or so vacation expenses that I figured would have to dip into savings for).

Right now I am projecting a -$182 balance as of 11/30, in my checking. (If worse came to worse I'd just transfer that from savings and put it back when I got paid on the first).

BUT I will probably receive a $60 check for jewelry sold this month (score). I paid $33 or so for it but that is on the card. I also have a $10 rebate to deposit.

Leaves me about $112 short. Dh got a $15 focus group this weekend. Woohoo.

Puts my negative balance under $100 at least.

I wouldn't be surprised if my mom gives me $50 for Thanksgiving dinner. She usually does. For the rest, will have to hope for another big focus group this month. It's really all we are short.

I also have a lot of stuff to sell and would be nice to clean out some stuff before Thanksgiving. I have been really lazy. But between this and being SO CLOSE on the $20 challenge to reaching my $10k goal, maybe I should get on it. I could probably come up with $100 if I really tried. It's also a much slower month (phew) than the last few, and so maybe I could pen some articles.

Well, lots of options.

In October I transferred over $100 for a couple of days and then put it right back. Hopefully will get past that come January. Seems to be becoming a trend. Then again this is a high spend time for us. It gets so crazy busy at work Jan - April that we don't seem to spend much money (plus no birthdays or holidays. Certainly no vacations. LOL. It just gets real quiet here).

I have been going over our budget in my head, thinking ahead to 2008. It's probably a little premature since I have no idea where our health insurance premiums will land.

I think preschool is more of a monster than I imagined. Particularly since we really want to put them both in full days during tax season, which will bump up an average month to $650 or so. Yikes!!! On the flip side I will be able to squeeze out more overtime with them going full days. Dh usually picks up LM at lunch and is quite a drive for him so it is hard for him to help me in morning and evening. We we want to do full days. He can pick them up so I can work late, etc. The cost is more, but we will save so much in gas and it will interfere so much less with work, will have to look at the big picture. I guess it will cost about $100 extra a month.

I wanted to set aside $100/month for car purchase/house maintenance and $50/month for the kids. But am thinking of holding that off one year. I will have a good $3500 for the car/house fund regardless with overtime and interest. So I am thinking that is miles ahead where we are today and we can add that extra $100/month in 2009. I have been pondering that as part of the $100/month was I wanted to take care of some smaller stuff around the house now as we built it up. But it can wait. Certainly it can wait.

Kids certainly can wait. They each get $1k a year regardless and are invested in the market. I think preschool is a more important investment for them today and that will be over soon enough. We can catch up even, much more easily, when they are done. I can't believe just one more year for BM.

So I am thinking of trying to squeeze $200/month out of the budget to retirement next year. Unless I get a raise and can squeeze more. I think considering health care and such, $200 will be reasonable. It's probably around 3% of my income. In the grand scheme of things not completely grand. But I expect even at that rate that we will hit six figures in our retirement in the next couple of years. So I am not too worried to have one lax year. I guess the point is it is only one lax year. & considering where we have been, it will probably be a bit more than we have been doing anyway.

I am thinking when BM gets out of preschool I will have another $200/month easy. Just assuming I will need the other $125 of his monthly preschool tuition for school supplies and uniforms and such. We may be able to save much more of that, but want to be realistic all the same. When we are no longer paying for preschool he may want to go back into karate, etc.

Which means by the end of the year we'll be on track to max out dh's traditional IRA easy. With a raise next year we'll be well on our way to funding 1/2 my IRA as well, and that will be complete when LM gets out of preschool. Plus we'll have a little money to spare for his schooling expenses and extra-curriculars.

I guess that's pretty much our 2-3 year plan. I just eye that $650/month to preschool and know that will go a long way, if we can swing it, to savings down the road. I am just not 1000% we can stay on top of that for now. But we'll sure try. I have the money in savings that MIL gave me for school, to fall back on. & a good $3k-$5k to IRAs would not be a bad addition next year.

The other thing I have been thinking about this year is that we had a good year and I earmarked a lot of extra money for "fun" stuff. Next year will be harder to balance that out. On one hand, it will be BM's last year (or 9 months anyway) of freedom before the rigors & schedules of public school. So there is a lot we want to do with that freedom. Then again, with this whole preschool thing it is going to be one tight year. I can already tell it is going to be a hard year to find the right balance. How do we enjoy without going too overboard? At what point do we say, this is just one year. Hopefully the last tight year of our one-income years. Should we not enjoy it though our budget will be $325/month looser by October? Should I be fretting about retirement though it should hit six figures regardless? How many people my age have six figures in their retirement? Without a capable spouse working? Sometimes I wonder why I worry about it. We may be saving $20k/year with little effort when LM hits school and dh returns to work. ??? I certainly am not relying on that 1000% but sometimes I do wonder why I stress so much. I do stress way too much.

Well I did my Christmas budget and came out about to a budget of about $600. What we ended up spending last year. Last year we spread it out over 3 months, and this year I am a little slow to the game. However, expect a lot of Christmas cash.

Figure we'll buy gifts this month (love to have them wrapped up by Thanksgiving - generally my goal. I don't do stress and all that and always strive to make Christmas relaxing as possible. Plus work is crazy, all the more reason to be ahead of the game so I can focus on work - if you must know the truth!).

I know, it's funny, I worked here 6 years and yet dh continually forgets that it is hard for me to get time off around Christmas. At my old job I always took a good week or two (had flex time and sure worked a LOT of hours the rest of the year). So it's been kind of bummer to only get one day off. Often working the weekends and such. BUT the last few years Christmas or our Christmas holiday fell on the weekend. So dh tells me we are doing our usual Christmas Eve thing and I am like, um, well I'll be at work. I feel like we go through this every year. As for me, I decided to take the week of Thanksgiving off every year. Doesn't cut so much into my vacation as a full week off, and is also nice with all the preparation as we host every year. We just have the most room. (& I LOVE a holiday where we don't have to drive 2 hours each way!!!) With Japan & Vegas that is out the window this year.

Oh anyway, as far as the budget, like $200 is for our families who were so extremely generous to us this year, and $50 to my boss's gift. He'll give me $200 or so, and I'll give $50. Seems fair. I really appreciate him. So yeah, that is about 1/2 the budget. There really is not a lot to it in the grand scheme of things. Presents in November and then December we will work on all the donations. I can put them on the card and pay them in January after we get all the Christmas cash - so though we are one month behind, I think it will work out just fine.

We also went through the kids' wish list and decided that they don't need much. We want to get a $40 train table for LM and could not decide on much for BM. But they get so spoiled we kind of just want to get them both one nice toy (& only that. We have piles of free books and games and such from Scholastic as well). I saw a $30 scooter and figured BM would LOVE it so will probably go for that. We were thinking of getting LM a leapster. BM has one and LM loves the thing (just getting old enough to use). But the new ones use a different battery charger so we were looking at $100 for the whole package. (Gee I wonder if the old games are compatible - I assume yes since dh did not mention but who knows). It would be very excessive, BUT LM generally gets little but hand-me-downs. I thought it would be a really nice gesture. We thought better of it though, and I think that is good. Dh mentioned BM is really outgrowing it and with the whole charger situation it just doesn't make sense. So we saved quite a few dollars there.

That leaves the next biggest item on my list to spoil my nieces. & I do have twice as many this year. So my mom called me last night to say she had a $10 Kohls coupon (just a $10 minimum purchase - I LOVE those) and she was going to send it to me. Woohoo. I figure I might get one in the mail too. Keeping a sharp eye out. I can swing some cute outfits for the nieces with $20. So will cross my fingers on that.

In other news, it is *that* time of year. Time to see what our health insurance premiums bring. Blech... We're at $675 for a lesser plan and I can not imagine paying more. On the flip side, we are in a position now with all the permanent birth control measures to maybe keep the kids on this plan and dh and I would consider taking boss's crappy plan. Not happy about it and not even sure if we would save much money. But will have to evaluate again. I think it's something like $350 to cover the kids now and $250 to cover dh on boss's plan (I'd be covered). Plus dh's portion would be pre-tax, which is huge. So it is something to consider. That would be around a $100 savings perhaps, today. Just not sure it is worth it for much lesser coverage. Probably not... Higher deductibles and all that. (But I think the catch is no quite high enough to qualify for a HSA. Plus we really wouldn't save enough to heavily contribute - and so on).

Well, probably will know in a week or 2... I just DREAD this time of year. But some part of me thinks at least it can't be as bad as last year (40% increase for turning 30 last year!!!!!!). Of course, at $673/month, the usual 10-20% increase is too frightening to think about.

Well, um, I did Fern's energy test thing last week I guess? & it said 94% of US households use more energy than us. I found that quite impressive considering there are 4 of us, we wash diapers and cook every day and someone is always home, etc.

On the flip side I wasn't terribly surprised because our house has a lot of energy efficient features (roof, insulation, windows, etc., etc.) and we have all CFLs throughout the home and all new energy saving appliances. We can easily go 1/3 the year if not 1/2 without turning on the heat and air either (Because of all the energy saving features AND milder weather here).

Anyway, I just go our bill and expected it to be dirt cheap since we were all gone one week this month. We barely used any electricity all of last week with the fam gone. BUT instead the bill would have been $60 after tax ($45 for the energy usage). Yikes! It was bigger than I expected - I expected more like $25 tax and all - if that.

The bill said we used 6 times as much electricity as we did the same time last year. & looking at the little graph of our electricity over the last year - gosh it looks awfully higher than usual this year.

I remembered that they were having problems with our meter and fixed it in March, right around a/c time, and our bills seemed a little higher than usual. So whatever. Maybe we were a but under billed.

BUT I mean our bills last Oct., Nov., Dec. were less than $20 each. LOL. (At least $15 of that is taxes & fees!!!!!!).

So, um we are on budget billing of $54/month now and I now realize this is not terribly realistic. This bill should have been the lowest of the low and it was $60!!

I have the feeling this figure will be raised with time. Won't get to used to it.

At this rate I would project our budget billing to be about $75/month.

To be fair we pay an extra $6/month for green energy, voluntarily. So will put our combined gas & electric around $100/month. Considering the size of our house, all that we do with people home all the time, etc., I still think this is rather impressive. But I think our 94% # is a bit inflated. I'll probably wait for a whole year of corrected billing and try that again. See where we really stand.

Oh yeah the other funny thing is I saw last night something about unplugging all your computers and game systems would save you $20/month in electricity. I had to laugh. My dad is an engineer and told me this was a big pile of BS a while back (we were asking about cell phone chargers - unplugging them). Anyway, I was like, if my bill went down $20/month it would be $0. are they kidding? Well, even with a $45 bill, I still don't buy it. But it makes a tad more sense today.

YEah we did unplug our cell phone chargers and all we got is a big bill. Yeesh.

But yeah, looking at our bills last fall I totally see why the electric company came out and thought something was wrong. I used to just look at the bill total, and they have always been rather low. But yeah, they were obviously under the realm of reasonable once you consider all we were really paying was the service charge, greenergy charge and taxes. I think we were lucky they didn't go back and charge us for under-billed electricity in the past. I have no idea what is up with that.

But now we have a challenge to reduce our electricity. We suddenly have much more room for improvement.

2007 has been VERY good to me. Our water bill has gone down, our car insurance went down. Our cable is going down. On and on and on. Not to mention all the stuff we worked on getting down (all the stuff mentioned above just went down with no action on our part!!!).

Anyway, add home insurance to the list!!! Just got the bill and it went down $200 over last year. I expected much more. (Obviously this was billed before all the wild fire claims and such too. State Farm sent a letter how they lowered premiums to better reflect claims. Yes, we should brace ourselves for NEXT year. Can't say they'll say the same after a year like this in California).

But anyway, not only that but the premium would be lowered additional $100 if we would take a deductible of $2k.

Um, $2k? Like the same deductible I have on my car that is worth 1/50 as much or something? Okay then. I think we can swing it.

So I am happy that while I expected my bill to be inflated, it went down $300.

The other thing is we finally got around to raising our coverage last year to reflect increased construction costs (they had about doubled in 5 years). Anyway, last year was about the peak. With the reduced premiums I will just ride it out for now. But I think it is another strategy I can try next year to lower the premiums (particularly if they rise). In this economy construction costs have to be going down. Well, you would think. We'll see next year...

We got our mortgage locked in, and property taxes are controlled pretty darn well out here (orelse no one could afford to live out here if they reflected home values). BUT insurance has been another thing.

The irony is we still pay less to insure 2600 square feet than we used to insure a 1300 sf condo in the Bay. (Just covered the inside of the condo as the outside - walls and roof and all - were insured by the association). So it is hard to get too upset about any of our housing costs having come from that insanity. Certainly not the worst deal - but I am glad for a break.

Some things I forgot to mention last week when I Was stressed with money outflow was that BM had a potty accident in bed (extremely rare) and dh melted the mattress pad in the dryer (gah). He felt really bad but I Was annoyed. I am sure it was a good $20-$30 - fancy waterproof whatever... So will have to replace that... Haven't yet. Not even sure if it is necessary to get such a waterproof one. I should just be grateful it didn't ruin the dryer or anything like that.

On the PLUS side, went to change dh's oil and there was an angry customer making a fuss. The oil change place was embarrased and insisted on giving me a $10 discount for witnessing that. I'll take it!

I also was going through the November numbers because I know October credit card bill is ugly (& one more week to go). I was stressed as I saw a big fat negative, when I finally realized I had shelled out $250 to AAA and Life Insurance. I decided to pull those from short-term savings. Since that was the plan all along. It just flew under my radar until I looked harder. It was a good $150 lower than usual preschool month and it was freaking me out how we could be in the red for November. Gah. Looking rather breakeven. Not sure how December will pan out. I think dh and I Will have to consider any Christmas money carefully. We tend to deposit it for our respective allowances, but we have already spent some money we intended to replace with Christmas money. SO I wouldn't be surprised if most our Christmas money goes to replenish our short-term savings. Dh is just getting out of the red, so we'll see how he feels about that. LOL. He spent his entire years' allowance pretty much on his PS3. I know he is antsy to buy some Blu-Ray movies to watch on it now. OF course his family is big on wish lists so he can ask for all the movies he wants and will probably be fine to funnel the cash to the household.

I also HAVE TO remember to pay the mortgage by December 31. I have gotten in the habit of waiting for the grace period and paying after the first (ever since dh took my "slush" to buy his beloved TV). Anyway, I was thinking today I have to remember orelse it will screw me up tax-wise. I was pondering when I would get my final paycheck and realized 12/31. Wondered if the bank would even be open once I got my check and all that. Then I Realized I am a dummy. I can just transfer some money from savings on the 30th or something, pay the mortgage, and transfer it back when I get my paychek deposited. Phew. (& now that I think about it I will probably have plenty of Christmas money to cover an extra mortgage payment in december).

Anyway, so yeah, it is official, I have an extra $200k coverage on my life. I feel better about that. Will keep just until both kids are in school or dh is working or something. We'll play it by ear. But overall look at it as rather temporary. But gives me further peace of mind.

Well, as of today my net worth looks like it will be up around $33k for the year. My goal was originally $25k and then I adjusted it to more like $25k-$30k. More like my goal is $30k and should be for the long-term, but wasn't sure I would make it this year.

Woohoo.

It is probably best in a good stock year that I would overshoot a bit, as I am sure it will be much harder to reach in a bad year. I guess I am going for an annual average more than anything. & why I Was happy with the range.

The year is young. I don't want to get too ecited yet. Anything can happen, right? But regardless of the stock market it looks like we will meet our goal.

I read that your net worth should increase by 1/2 of your living expenses annually, by the time you hit 40. Being an over-achiever I was trying to hit that at 30. We'll see how sustainable it is. I figure we could live on $50k pretty easy but we have been living on closer to $60k, so kind of went with the $25k-$30k range, accordingly (being 1/2 of what we live on).

It is a lot tougher these days as most of this comes from savings and paying down the mortgage. In a few years time a lot bigger chunk of this will come from investment returns. This year alone we are looking at around $5k in returns, which certainly helps. But that should grow substantially in the coming years, all the same... I look forward to the point where more comes from investments than income and debt payments. But I got a long ways to go...

I really like using this way to track progress. I may have to tweak it a bit with time as the stock market fluctuates. But our problem has never been saving. Our problem is we invested terribly in our 20s. Trying to make up for lost time. Being able to achieve this goal is a sign that we are much more on track with HOW we manage our money. I have since learned saving is only 1/2. Maybe only 1/4. As it does little good to have an IRA that has not grown int he last decade. As we would never make this net worth goal if we were not managing our money better with higher interest rates on our cash and lowering the fees on our investments, etc.

I actually do have the crow picture my dad sent me. IT is very high resolution and when I edited it down it got all blocky. Bummer. I will have to get dh's help when I edit more of the pics down for later. But you get the idea - we just saw these big crows in the park (Tokyo's equivalent to Central Park I guess - Yoyogi park - right by our hotel). & I love crows. I used to nurse baby birds back to health - the crows were my favorite.



& yes I promise to share more pictures later. I'll share mine sometime this week & throw in some of my dads' pics when I get them.

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

Well I got my profit sharing plan update for 2006. I was feeling down on it because earnings were very minimal in 2005. However, I got away with a 10% return for 2006 - so will have to update my net worth upwards $1500. Not bad! Considering fees and everything, a 10% return is stellar for a retirement plan. (One I have NO control over...)

Anyway, if I keep my job through the end of the year, I should have $32k as of 12/31. Today I stand about $25k - only 80% vested. So I will add my $1500 tonight in Quicken (or 80% of it anyway) and will have another $6k adjustment on 12/31 to show full vesting. That is awesome.

Since I moved some money around I also updated my excel spreadsheet where I track my investment allocations. I updated all my investments today, and though it is a very high/peak # with the market right now, our retirement sits at $34.5k (IRAs).

I knew the 2 retirement vehicles would be neck & neck around 12/31. But have put more into IRAs than I Expected this year, so the IRAs inch ahead. (I won't know my profit sharings current earnings until next October either. Though I could assume it is doing well I am sure. Possibly another $2k earned already for 2007 that I am unaware of).

That will put our retirement at about 95% of our income as of 12/31. (I'll be 31). Not bad.

We should hit 100% next year. Will get another $8k from the boss I imagine (I imagine I Will work much more overtime if nothing else - probably a small raise too - which will inch up my contribution which is based on a percent of my income). & at minimum want to get $5k in our IRAs. Goal is $5k-$10k anyway. I don't expect much more than $5k unless our parents feel extremely generous 2 years in a row. Any windfalls will probably go to retirement. But I am not expecting anything like that. I think $5k will be tight for us, and if I get a sizable raise we can aim for more. (I don't even know what our health insurance status will be. I am feeling optimistic but lord knows why, it could easily eat my raise as it has been for many years).

Anyway, for retirement in 35 years, even just the $5k to IRAs will put us on an okay path. (That whole starting early thing. ). OF course I want to get to a point where we max out our IRAs. Pretty much our next goal. That would be $10k next year. Aiming for $5k, and hoping to inch it up over the next 3 years or something. Just retirement, retirement, retirement going forward. If nothing else in 3 years we will no longer be paying $4k/year to preschool so should be very doable. & I don't really see the need to do more than the $10k. Would be 15% of our income. But as long as it is doable, reasonably, we will max out our IRAs for tax reasons. So, we'll see...

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/retirement/20071003_persona...

I posted an older article recently; the same points and topic. But this was an updated article at bankrate.com this week.

I am still stuck on this part:

"At age 30, one should ideally have a savings-to-income ratio of 0.1, or 10 percent, and a debt-to-income ratio no greater than 1.7, or 1.7 times your income. Translated into dollar amounts, this means that a 30-year-old with a household income of, say, $50,000 should have $5,000 in savings and an overall debt no greater than $85,000."

Seems extreme to me, and I am not a debt lover by any means.

Of course his reply in this article is as follows:

"People might find that the recommended debt levels are not achievable given the average cost of housing -- this is one reason why many cannot afford to sufficiently save for retirement," says Farrell. "As financial advisers, there is little we can do about the cost of housing, but we can help our clients understand how housing costs may affect financial security."

True I guess, but living where housing has always been insane, you have to suck it up. I tend to notice that people back home are much more fugal (out of having little other choice in order to afford the roof over their head). BEcause of that lifestyle, people can easily afford much more. Of course dh and I drew the line twice at having a mortgage no more than 4 times our income. & we drew the line FAR lower than most people around here. To someone in say Kansas, we are crazy (yes I have many relatives there who think we are crazy. ). But it's all relative I guess. Out here we are cheapskates. LOL. But I have never felt we were stretching it to have such a big mortgage.

There are many reasons why and many factors not considered in this "1.7" ratio:

1 - Interest Rates (very low these days which means you can borrow more for less).

2 - Income Tax Rates (& of course income tax deductions which means the mortgage we pay is not nearly so high once you consider the tax breaks for said mortgage).

I keep reading about how few people get real tax breaks for their mortgage. Um, in Cali pretty much every does.

Also, our income tax rates have been extremely low this entire decade. More disposable income for the mortgage. MUCH more.

3 - 2-income versus 1-income status. 4 times might have been high, but was not including 2 incomes. We never relied on that. On the flip side we could get our ratio down to a solid 2 if dh got a job but I am not sure we would be any better off financially. We would have work expenses, daycare (VERY expensive out here) and our tax benefits would go down considerably. We would be slammed by AMT for one. Could we be better able to afford our mortgage in that case? Not sure it would make much difference. Not to mention that would not help our stress levels and medical expenses are bad enough as is. But seriously.

4 - It really depends on the type of debt. I think it is expected young people will have more high-interest debt. If all you have is a mortgage with a low rate, I imagine you can afford more.

As evidence by the fact that all the other ratios mentioned would be very easy to surpass in our case.

10% income saved by age 30? How about 100%?

Pay off your mortgage by 65? We were planning 45. Even if we never prepaid a dime we'd be debt free by 55. No plans to take on any MORE debt this lifetime.

& so on...

Of course, he does mention the 28% house expenses to income ratio (or did in the last article). I think that is probably much more relevant. We've pretty much always been in that range, and that was always more our measure of affordability than the dollar amount of our loan. (Though for long term thinking I don't think the ratio is bad. We try to keep in mind that if we were ever forced to move there is no guarantee we would get such a good interest rate again, and we are trying to up our savings considerably in anticipation of higher income tax rates, etc. Just because it is good now doesn't mean you should assume it always will be - for sure).

I also heavily agree the ratio should go down with time. The age we expect to pay off our DREAM home is the age many people like to upgrade their home, etc.

Anyway, this article goes on about starting young and the power of compounding as well. Good for the young people.

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P.S. BM is watching TV and just told me we HAVE TO get a TV in our car. I guess he has never noticed those on the road before, but just saw a commercial. He is amazed that people would have TV in their cars and think that would be cool. He looks like a kid on Christmas Day - what a find!!!! Dh and I aren't going for it. Sorry buddy. LOL. Darn commercials...

I know my friends are confused because for many years I said the gym was way too expensive. & well, it was. But um, now we pay less than $30/month for us, locked in for life. & with $400 down we never have to pay for the childcare again either. I am sure for the average gym user this is not the greatest deal (the down part) but we are pretty committed).

Anyway, I met someone who lived by the gym and told her oh we were over there a lot since we just joined the gym. Obviously it is a discount gym but it had everything we need. She wrinkled up her nose a bit and said she was waiting for the new "CA Fitness." My take on that is it is 10 times expensive and 20 times as crowded. Blech. But tell me how you feel why don't you?

The funniest thing though is we live in such a hoity toity neighborhood and dh has run into some of our neighbors there. I was starting to wonder if we should keep our membership to ourselves. We're not the only ones happy for a deal I guess.

Anyway, so yes they are building a new Cali Fitness and we keep getting e-mails from neighbors about the great deals!!! Something like $130/month for 2 adults and $35/month for the kids - probably $35/each (lots of classes and activities - adults and kids). Holy Hell. For a crowded facility doesn't sound very appealing. I have heard people say they don't leave their kids because it gets so jam packed. Dh and I discussed that something like that may be feasible when we both work and the kids are much older. I am not keen to leave my kids there today. IT sounds like overall the kids' program may be reasonable, but they really do stick it to the adult prices then (duh). & yeah, maybe by the time the kids are like 10 the hype will have died down.

So yeah when I Read over and over in like the forums - the gym is a waste. It's like, well yeah, most gyms are very pricey. & people tend to flock to them like cows to slaughter or something... But you know $30/month for "free" daycare and our health, I don't think that is much to spend at all. IT's all relative. They daycare is DIVINE!!!!

Last night was SO nice because dh had a focus group so I came home, picked up the kids, and headed to the gym. I also got a compliment how GREAT they were with the babies (no doubt largely due to preschool and all the babies there). They got to play with a 1 & 3yo while I worked out. Phew. First time back to the gym since that stupid stomach bug. I hope to hit aerobics tomorrow morning but not holding my breath. When I went to aerobics last saturday I was surprised how STRONG I was after a week or 2 of not much. I felt the same way today. Phew. It's just a constant battle to make the time. I figure when the kids are gone I will hit the gym every day. Gear up for the holidays.

I am also not sure what this trip will due to my waistline. Probably much more active than a week at work - lots of walking and such. So that part will be good. I also tend to be a picky eater so we'll see. Maybe I just won't eat much. I will probably tend towards eating less than pigging out. I guess we'll see. I don't look forward to starving, for one. I'll try. Of course traveling with the ULTRA picky eater and the junk food dad, I don't know. I may gain 10 pounds. (Whenever I travel with my parents we get mounds of junk food. Where I learned my bad habits). Since my sister will no doubt refuse to eat anything I am sure we will stock on some more edible items. I am not that convinced I will mind the food at all though. I just won't be eating a lot of weird looking fish. LOL. Or raw fish. I'll give anything a try though.

I lost a couple of pounds but dh lost 10!!!!!!!!!! Men! HE just told me and I was stunned. Gah. He has just been hitting the gym a couple of times a week, not much else.

Same thing when we first went down to one incomes he started cooking every night. We ate out a lot before that time. He was already a stick and he lost a ton of weight then too. Not fair. LOL. His family is all on the extremely thin side - very high metabolisms. I generally enjoy having more meat on my bones (I was a stick long enough in my youth to know the downsides) but yeesh. I am jealous how easy it is for him to lose weight. Generally for me the eating or the working out means I stop gaining weight, but I am not sure I have ever lost weight so effortlessly.