Dang. I glanced at the budget this month and it was crazy. We spent a lot on clothes and car repair (more things we budget a certain amount annually - less of a monthly thing).

But other areas we did really bad were in Dining Out. I am not exactly sure why. I know we ate out a couple of times while we were sick - probably part of it. But dining out was $100 (vs. our $30 budget).

It's okay though because we only spent $350 on groceries. If dh goes to the store in the next couple of days it will hit our September budget (card) but I didn't get the feeling we were really short on food. Our budget is usually $500 and we have been hitting closer to $450. So $350 is amazing. So the dining is okay in that regard. I think grocery bill is down because there was a full week we were pretty much sick and couldn't eat. (Lots of toast and rice). & the kids were gone last weekend as well. (They have been eating like adults though lately - they are both in a growth spurt - most definitely).

Well I put $1k to my ROTH and $1200 to the IRS for ROTH conversions, so the cash outflow this month was just HUGE. I just felt like it was a horrid month, so was surprised to see how we did on most the budget. We did pretty good (way better than usual). Oh yes, and only $200 on gas (I budget $300 and prices have been going up like crazy). I think the whole sick in bed for a week helped with that. Sort of.

I expect October to be much the same. We have some big expenses coming up, but all of us will be gone 1 week on different "all expense paid" trips so I don't expect gas or groceries to be particularly as high as usual. Then again we have to drive to the Bay 4 times to pick up and drop each other off at the airport (or now that I think about it I think dh is flying out of Sac! Maybe not so bad - I just am not sure. But not driving to work for a week, and not driving to preschool for a week, will help offset that.

Well, I will look harder at September numbers once the credit card closes. 3 more days. The thing is we both have a full tank of gas, so I know our gas expense is set for the month.

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The neighbor's cat is very sweet and likes to hang out in our yard, but this morning I caught a glimpse of her and pointed her out to the kids (who love to watch her and say hi). Of course I quickly realized she was playing with a dead mouse. Eeeeeeew. I am kind of revolted (particularly since the kids have had pet rats and they have pet rats at preschool). But then again I am thinking, if there are mice around, the fact that cat practically lives in our yard, is FAR less annoying. Kudos to her. I have a cat but she is declawed and therefore stays indoors (no I would NEVER do that to a cat - got her from the SPCA). So she is useless on the mouse front. The kids are fascinated. LOL. I hope they are not traumatized. Poor mouse.

Maybe I should be disturbed we have MICE. Eeeks.

Well, it was another great quarter for net worth.

Cash gifts and great stock market returns made up most of it.

Net worth is up $2500 for September.

& up $7189 for the quarter.

$1700 up cash, about equal to cash gift. Saved up some cash, but paid $1200 to the IRS and shifted $1k to retirement. So basically means I saved up $2200 this quarter and shifted it out of cash. Since I have met my efund goal I don't expect my cash to go up much the rest of the year. If my cash increases more than a few dollars I will shift more to retirement. Interest earnings I will leave in the efund though.

For the quarter, kids' investments are up $2250. Mostly gifts. I added about $150 to their accounts and the rest is cash from their birthday. Is the kids' money part of our net worth? It is in a sense, because the more they have the less we have to save for them or save for their college. For now it's too little to fret much about the logistics. Something to think about for the long haul.

Retirement is up $2300. I probably contributed around $1300 & that leaves $1k appreciation (mostly in the last month).

Oh, and we paid down our mortgage $900. Just regular payments.

SO my net worth is up $23k for the year. My goal was $25k-$30k by 12/31. We are well on the way. I will find out any day what my profit sharing earned in '06 (should be decent as it was a good stock year) and I will get a $7k addition to that this 12/31. So I am looking good for the $30k goal. SWEET!

In the interim I will need to pull some money out of cash for year-end bills, and I don't really have much plan to save through the rest of the year. So we'll see. If stocks keep going up, I might make $30k. If not, I think $25k is well within my reach. I am certainly happy with that.

We have added a lot to cash and a lot to retirement this year. My goal next year is not only to increase our net worth by the same amount, but most of it should be to retirement. I don't expect to do so well on the cash gifts in 2008, but we have invested so much that investment returns should pick up a little to fill that gap. I expect to save my raise and blahdeblah. I guess we'll see. This year we had a lot of EXTRAS, but all the same we put a lot in place to make the goal easier for next year. I should really only have to save about $7k to make my goal for 2008, and already have that in my plans.

If it is a token 10%-return investment year in 2008, technically we should be earning as much, or more, than we put into retirement next year. What is cooler is being so close to the point where the retirement starts working harder than we do. Where returns should start to be more than contributions, on an annual basis. Cool! I don't expect to the stock market to be hot next year, but then again I didn't expect it to do much THIS year. Anyway, what's more important is on an average basis, a 10% return of around $7k is about what I intend to be putting in the next couple of years. We're at about breakeven and it shouldn't take long to surpass that. (On the other hand I want to up our contributions considerably. So we'll see how that all works. If we put in more it will be harder to earn that amount - but then again our balance will just grow faster).

It's kind of like how our retirement balance almost equals one year salary. But my salary keeps going up too fast to really make that goal. Boohoo, huh? LOL. Either way there is little to complain about. My cost of living is not going up with my salary and I tend to measure things in terms of expenses, since historically we spend far less than we make. Trying to get back to that. I got well more than one years' expenses in retirement. That's pretty sweet!

Got new tires on the van today. Spent around $500 with tires, oil change, break check and such. I had budgeted $600/year for car repairs/maintenance. In past years we really haven't spent much so seemed fair, but gosh we have blown it out of the water this year. Around $1500 I think this year - just insanity. I know too we could have saved money on a lot of this with more time and effort on our part. So something to think about. Well, hopefully next year will be less costly! How to pay for it? I'll throw it on the card and hope some extra money pops up. I am thinking of not putting $300 to the efund next month. Will probably put it to the tires instead. I have $200 coming to me for Cookie Lee sales. So wala. Am only about $500 away from my efund goal and figure I will get there regardless. So it kind of sucks, but in the long run not much to complain about.

Well this weekend is our anniversary and grandma was going to take the kids. However, dh and I got "the bug." It was some nasty thing with a 10-day incubation that all the kids at preschool got at once. IT was lovely and I was worried it may ruin my Japan trip (like if we all got it one at a time, 10 days apart). LM has been rather resilient, but last night dh and I started to get very sick. As luck would have it, his parents were in the area. They were going to go to their cabin an hour away, go gambling tomorrow, and pick up the kids on their way home (so we could have a free weekend for our anniversary).

Instead I started puking and dh wasn't feeling well so he asked if they would maybe take them for the night and we could send them to preschool tomorrow, not to ruin their plans. Anyway, they just took the kids home with them, so I feel bad. But I could not imagine caring for the little ones with us both puking all night. So anyway, it was nasty. I am just starting to feel better, but as it was with all the kids, they felt better one day and then relapsed for one day. So I am wary. Trying to rehydrate the body, but not push it. We have piles and piles of leftovers in the fridge, all completely inedible with these stomachs. Bummer.

So happy anniversary to us! It's been 7 years. (We've been together like 12 years). Oh I am just so grateful the kids aren't here and we could rest and recover.

Dh's parents are crazy generous and his grandma gave us $40 cash. His parents will probably give us some too. We were thinking of splurging it. dh saw they were doing some charity dinner/wine thing down the street for $35/person. We were thinking that may be a nice use of our time/money to celebrate, but frankly I am scared to eat anything at this point. So we'll probably put the $40 towards the tires and whatever else we get - and the $65 (challenge money). So it's not so bad.

Oh which reminds me. I feel REALLY bad but there is some distant family member who always sends the kids a lot of cash. Like $50 or $100 - though I really have no idea who she is. Anyway, I wrote down she sent the kids $5 each for their b-day and thought it was a little unusual (so little), but whatever. Sent her a thank-you. I think the same day (but after it had gone out in the mail) I found an envelope with the address of a different relative of the same name - where I had noted her $5 gifts to the kids. How embarassing - I sent a thank you to the WRONG person. We just figured, whatever. She would be confused, but at least we realized (& I was able to send a thank-you off to the right person).

So anyway, $50 arrived in the mail yesterday for the kids. I guess she felt bad (or maybe she had just genuinely forgotten their birthdays). I feel really bad, I did not want to guilt her into sending money. I joked with dh that this was a good tactic to raise college money for the kids. Send thank you notes to the wrong people. Of course I thanked her for $10 and she sent $50. I'll send her a 2nd thank you with an explanation.

Well, hopefully we'll feel better tomorrow and will enjoy this kidless time. At least I won't feel so tempted to do stuff around the house. Just trying to take it easy.

I don't think I have been terribly busy, but I have been using my online time for craigslisting/freecycling. So haven't gotten on here.

IT's not going well either. We have some old recliner my mom might have even used when my sister was a baby. Well at one time it was a very nice chair. It still is comfy, just ugly as hell (Worn, dirty, torn, etc.). & I am sad I can not give it away. 2 separate mentions on freecycle and nothing. Not even anyone asking to see it! & so I tried free section of Craigslist. This morning I had an e-mail and excited maybe someone wanted it, all it said was, "ugly chair." Well, gee thanks. I went between annoyance at someone could be so rude (I am emotionally attached to this chair - wah) to kind of, duh, I didn't say it was beautiful. Has the guy looked at the other free stuff? I have seen some pretty hideous furniture. Didn't think this was so bad. LOL. But um yeah, thanks for stating the obvious. Hehe.

I did get rid of a few things - baby blankets, old bibs (the ones I couldn't sell) and a pile of hangers (like a giant bag). So I have had a little success on the purging, but not much. I have about 5 bags for goodwill too. So maybe this weekend... (Mostly baby clothes - some adult clothes and shoes from my grandma).

I am also shocked no one is interested in our crib, though there were a million listings. Just few were asking for so little and the crib is very nice. Oh well, you win some and you lose some. I am tempted to hold out and try the crib another week. Just never had such bad luck - must be the time of year or something. But if not I will happily donate it. The crib can be used. The chair may have to go to the dump. Bummer!

In other news, I sent off $1200 to the IRS. The good news is I only need to pay $300 to the state to ve even steven for the year. ($8 to fed and $8 from state, doesn't get much more even than that!). & also my withholding is a tad on the high side so I might adjust it down a notch next year. Woohoo. With all the ROTH conversions and balance transfer interest I am just leaving it as is through January. I will be happy to adjust it down 1 or 2 though for next year.

So yay - I thought I was going to have to shell out another $600 - $800 to the IRS in January. $300 to state instead is MARVELOUS! I am also making overtime, so financially things seem good.

On the flip side I spent $100 at Target yesterday. Kid clothes. Most necessary. Couldn't resist. (A lot of the prices rival the thrift store and since Target is so convenient I have been shopping there much more for the kids. I can easily work the overtime to pay all that versus the time it would take to scout the thrift shops. Reverting back to laziness I guess).

& Our trips are coming up fast.

& I feel so broke. I have $100 coming out of my checking every month for investments, $300 for balance transfers, and $225 or so for LM's preschool tuition. I was "trying" to set aside $450/month to savings. & though I mostly succeeded, with this $625 outflow - all automatic - I am feeling really broke.

Dh wants to go out to dinner for our anniversary and my friends want to go out and on and on and I feel like I don't have a dollar to spare.

I am working hard on the overtime and hopefully all the preschool tuition for LM for the year will be reimbursed around December or JAnuary. No guarantees - my boss just pays it whenever he feels like it (if it feels like it though he mentioned to me the other day he would pay me overtime if I would work more - hint hint hint...). So my goal is to do that, to get efund to $12k, and to not sink in the meantime. We'll see. October I will know where we are at. IF we have to drive to Vegas with a cooler stocked with food and not leave our room - LOL. OR if we can splurge a tad there. Either way we will enjoy. The tough part for us will not be splurging on the food in Vegas, but we can go pretty cheap otherwise, and have a good time. But if I get enough overtime and we don't have to spend a dime on our trips, we may be able to spurge on some nice food. On the other hand, our parents are taking us to far off lands, we can help them a bit. Just don't want to be cheap with them - they have done a lot for us this year.

Of course I was sure I might pocket $60 this week with the crib and a few other big items. But so far, pretty blah. Which is bumming me out too. Could really use it. (No focus group calls lately either!!)

So that's the long and the short of it here...

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Um, I can't believe I leave for Japan in like 2 weeks. Haven't done a thing... I guess little to prepare since I already got my passport earlier and since it is just me there is not a lot of preparation with packing up kids and arranging house sitting, but I don't know, feels like I should be doing something. LOL. Our "host family" will be planning our activities. I guess I should just sit back and relax. This is how we should really always vacation - little planning. I am hoping to fit all my luggage in one big duffel bag (I bought earlier in the year for travel). Oh, we'll see... Not optimisitc. I am an over-packer though I get better with the years. But yes, would be nice to fit it all in one bag.

One thing I probably should think about is phone calls. I will want to call my family. Haven't figured that out yet (a frugal way?). I can look at my cell phone but the roaming is probably insane. Will have to see about my AT&T card if there is any benefits with it. Perhaps?

Oh maybe a bit dramatic, but today is not off to a good start.

I paid $3200 on my card for Japan expenses and childcare last week. Thankfully not due until the 20th or something, but it throws me off a bit to have such a large/outside budget amount outstanding so just paid it when my mom reimbursed me for the Japan portion. Then my credit card balance looks normal. & it doesn't look like I have an extra $3k to spend in my checking - hehe. No temptation.

It didn't clear the credit card right away (though it did the bank). I have been busy all week, but was checking all my balances today and still hadn't cleared. I Was thinking, oh lord, where the heck did it go? Just figured I'd have to call and straighten it out. Got sent off to space or something.

Then I remembered I have 2 Chase cards and am always worried about paying the wrong one in Bill Pay. Bingo. Paid the wrong card.

The only reason I have that stupid card in there is Chase denied dh's PS3 purchase so he pulled out the old car he hadn't used in 5 years and they accepted that charge. Still not happy about that. Glad his charge went through, but wondering why Chase would deny our regular card but not that one. ??? Unless they figured the odds were slim someone stole both cards. ? But anyway, so now my Bill Pay is all screwed up. But I keep it in there because if he does use that card ever for any reason I'll get an online bill. I'll have to rename it if I Can in the "bill pay" screen.

Anyway then I Was freaking out because I Could not find a statement for his stupid acocunt we never use. I know I have it somewhere with the login info I set up, but lord knows where it is. So I am frustrated. Mostly because I am pretty organized and have no idea where this can be. I finally realized (doh) dh has the card in his wallet. So I asked him to call and have them apply the $3200 from his old card to our newew/regular card. I will try to follow up with a letter tonight too. Get it squared away.

The reason I Tell all this is no matter how organized and on the ball you are, mistakes happen. It's why it is good to #1, pay your bill early to avoid problems. & #2, to have an emergency fund. If we don't get this straightened out on showing on the card by Friday, I will just send a check off from my money market account. Then we can worry about the refund, but at least I won't incur any interest. I Certainly have the cash, easily accessible, to cover this mess in the meantime, while it is straightened out. I don't expect it to be straightened out by the 20th when it is due, since it is dh's card and he has to call. But we'll see. I am not happy about losing interest if I have to dig so much out of the efund, but we'll survive.

But yes, & I can really be an idiot sometimes, hehe. It was a good wakeup call for me because ever since we bought that stupid TV I have way less checking float than I would like and I have been paying the bill much closer to the due date than I like. This could have really screwed me up if it was a regular bill, so I will be more careful.

Anyway, so far everything about today has been crappy. This is the least of it. Here's to a better rest of the day...

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$50 cleared my bank to my IRA & $50 to BM's UGMA so this whole automatic investing thing is getting off to a good start. Vanguard is giving me problems on LM's UGMA so I printed off a voucher for $100 for the year - will just mail a check next month or something. That's another one - all in dh's name so he will have to call to straighten out our issues and so I keep putting it off. But it's so little it matters little. Just was looking forward to the automatic part and the income averaging. So we'll see. I was curious what the minimum was and in these particular funds they can deposit as little as $100, so that is good. Can probably just make extra Christmas deposits for them when they get christmas money (if they don't get $100 we'll probably just add to whatever they get to make it $100. Our fam is not big on cash gifts overall. But they will probably get something).

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P.S. I forgot, someone at aerobics told me I Was "getting skinny." & I have lost 4 pounds. It has been VERY slow going but as long as I make progress I do not mind. Slow is good. But I mean 4 pounds might be generous. 4 pounds from maybe my peak. maybe a good 2 pounds since I have been going to aerobics (4 months?). So a little too slow, but better than nothing. BUT I dropped my birth control last week and lost a pound pretty quickly. VERY interesting. So we'll see. Since most of this 20 pounds I had gained was post-birth control. I had lost all the baby weight on my second child and then put on a load afterwards. I always thought it could be the birth control since it coincided (& it came on FAST), but I also had some hormone issues and you know nothing seems the same after having children. But I am getting optimistic that maybe a lot of this weight will start to drop off. My nicest work pants are getting too big. A catch 22. I have to lose a lot of weight to fit most the stuff in my closet.

I lost all this weight last year but my metabolism is just so shot. So I am having hopes that maybe my body is returning a little more to normal and it will be easier to keep off this time. (On the flip side I feel like I have been working harder and the fat has been very stubborn this time). The true test for me beyond losing the weight (which I know I Can do - it's not much) will be to keep it off during tax season. I am feeling optimistic I am creating a workout schedule I can stick with. But we'll see.

I wish this came so easy to me as finances, honestly. The principles should be the same, but I have serious food issues. If it wasn't for my husband I would be extremely overweight. He keeps me honest and eating good; cooks healthy meals, etc. But there is only so much he can do when I am off at work. I just grew up being able to eat whatever I want/whenever I want and I am thankful my husband has taught our kids such wonderful eating habits. He made some casserole with no veggies last night and I Was chowing down and both kids refused to eat it. So bizarre!!!!! IT was just such an usual meal to them. They love their fruits/veggies and have to eat what we make for dinner, or at least try it (once, twice, 3 times). Rules I have never lived with. I just eat with my emotions. So I have been thinking a lot it just takes a little self control like with finances, but it is just so completely different to me. Thankfully I have a husband who enjoys cooking and has wonderful/healthy eating habits.

Got my electric & gas bills. Signed up online for balanced billing a couple of weeks back and already in effect. Bills will be $90/month between the 2. About $35 gas & $55 electric. $6 of our electric bill is a voluntary "green energy" charge. But I was looking at the bill and we also pay bout $15 in taxes and $5/month "service charge." I was worried maybe that was for the balanced billing, but it's not just always been there.

Anyway, my electric bill would have been $106 but I only have to pay $55 this month. Sweet. But I am pleased it was down overall from last month. It has been HOT... September/October/November should be months of little a/c use and we will probably pay more than the monthly usage bills would have been.

Um, since we have turned way down the water heater our gas bill would have been $7. They don't charge fees and the taxes are pennies. But we paid $36. I think that will adjust down next quarter. Though we will turn the water heater back up in the next month or 2 I am sure (maybe not so much though).

Either way it made a high electric month a much easier month. I like it.

I can still feel some of the joy of getting a "$7 bill." I think that's a record!

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In other news I was popping my estimated tax position into my work software yesterday trying to figure out if my ROTH conversion tax estimate still stands. my portfolio has gone down and haven't done one yet. Because I do have an estimate for that due 9/15. Was getting it ready. Anyway, popped my #s in and $100 in AMT popped up. What the foo???????? I then remembered that it is already September and Congress has not done the AMT quick fix for 2007 yet. WOW! I Am sure they will, but they are certainly dragging.

For those of you who have no idea what AMT, it is a tax that was meant for the wealthy to avoid certain tax breaks. It was put together in the 60s and has never been indexed for inflation. It hits coastal states like CAli and NY hard because it completely disallows all state and local tax deductions (which are very high in these states. High property values mean high property taxes and high state and local income taxes means lots of taxes in that regard as well. Why these states are hit the most. Oh yes and higher wages because of higher COL. People rely on these tax breaks to afford their insane mortgages. Plus they aren't exactly "breaks."). BAsically they are predicting if this is not fixed almost everyone with kids and a $75k income will be hit in the next few years. IF you live in Kansas, "so what?" you think. But you can hardly live out here without that kind of income. & also, for those who don't care, just wait until it hits everyone making $30k. If no one does anything about it, it will. Wealth used to be measured in millions. Now it is $75k a few decades later. Gah. Just a couple of more decades before everyone pays AMT.

Of course the reason Congress has done nothing is they have no tax revenues with the current tax code (10%/15% tax rates for most people), but they sure get a lot with AMT. Makes the whole Bush Tax cuts a joke, for many.

In the meantime, we are squarely in the 15% tax bracket. I could do a $20k ROTH conversion and still be squarely in the 15% tax bracket. & yet I am also in AMT. Make up your mind Congress. Am I rich or poor? Blech!!!!

$100 AMT. You got to be frigging kidding me.

What are my crazy wealthy tax breaks? I lose all of our personal exemptions (4 exemptions, around $13k total). & I lose our state tax deduction. $4k property taxes & $600 or so state taxes. (We don't make enough to pay the big nasty state taxes. They are big and nasty - up to 10%). I still get to keep my $2k child tax credits (between the 2 kids). YEah, makes a lot of sense. Well thank goodness for that.

For us it isn't so bad. I know too many people in the Bay with $10k property taxes and who make more (obviously to afford the million dollar modest crappy homes) and so pay tons in state income taxes. All disallowed. For one, it is not going to help the ARM disaster for these people to be hit by AMT. But they will be the ones hit the hardest. Congress will make a quick fix this year and next, and then blame the whole AMT mess on the next president or something, though it has been an annoyance for years for the tax profession. This is why I pay money to my our political action committees. To get crap like this fixed. Most of the populace is blissfully unaware how ugly AMT is. They'll complain soon enough. I am guessing in 3-4 years there will be some public outrage.

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BM is $75 richer today. I set up automatic investments - $50 every other month (easiest for me since if I do it with each kid it is a steady $50/month. Vanguard does not take $25 contributions). I also had $25 of his birthday money left - I figured I would just deposit it with this.

Kids' college - automatic. BM will be $75 richer than his brother for 1 month. Next month is LM's turn. Then the whole $50/month thing. Of course they may have a deposit for Christmas. Hmmm. Hadn't thought about that. Yeah, they are doing well. I am glad I decided to throw then the $25/month bone. It's little enough not to make much difference but it can grow to a lot of money in the long haul. I have never been good at small savings, so it is an experiment. I feel so all or nothing. I still don't want to hit our retirement hard (though I am doing $50/month for now) until our efund is back up. It's like I can only do one thing at a time. But I know this $50/month to the kids and the $50 I currently have going to retirement make a big difference in the long run.

Well just had to say I jumped it with the Net Worth. It was up an additional $250 after Friday's stock market close. Not that it means much for the long haul, but always nice to end the month on a nice note like that.

I was listening to Dave Ramsey Friday (some older podcasts from the last 2 weeks) and it was really depressing. Lots of people just at the end of the rope. A little off from the usual. IT also seems a lot of layoffs in the air. & yet the economy seems to be chugging along all the same. Extra scary since it seems like the beginning of something big and prolonged. We'll see. I won't continue listening to Dave Ramsey if it is so depressing though. What a bummer. It's just, sad, to listen to.

I guess it is in the fall that we get a lot of one-time bills. Got car registration, newspaper subscription, zoo membership renewal, etc., etc. I finally got off my butt and went through Quicken for the last year and eyed all the unusual 1-time expenses that I really haven't particularly squeezed in the budget. I only came up with about $500/year. (I really expected it to be worse). I have been putting $800/month away as a kind of escrow fund for bigger things, but all of our auto insurance went down at least $500/year - I think more. So I can breathe a sigh of relief on that. I will continue to do $800/month but tap it for all of the little things as well. It makes things easier. It also means I can still budget $100/month to savings, $50/kids and $400/month retirement like I have been planning. Wasn't sure if I'd have to shift some to "Escrow" or come up with another plan for another $50-$100/month. So just getting to the point where we really don't need much else but to hit retirement hard.

I still feel like we are setting the stage to be doing well, but just not quite there yet. It's all relative, just a bit out of our comfort zone until we can hit retirement more heavily. I don't think it is something we have ever done, but always seems to be something. (Sure we have always done the 10% but for the long haul it is just not enough). For now figuring out preschool and trying to get our efund to an acceptable level, before we hit retirement hard - moving above the 10% crawl. It's one thing to be stressed out that we aren't hitting retirement as hard as we would like. It's another thing to think that we don't have to worry about buying a house or starting an emergency fund or paying off debts like so may of our peers. But I see too much room for improvement to sit back and happy. We already did that and it didn't do much for us.

Preschool is stressing me out a bit as it is official that LM starts next week. However, honestly, I just wrote a check for $480 for September. It isn't so bad. We were paying just over $400/month for BM when I joined pfadvice, but I restructured it to save gas money and preschool money - been paying more like $300 lately. September is a shorter month too. But if I look at it that way we aren't that far behind where we started. Just temporary. Plus I no longer have the car payment which I was juggling at the time. I am sure I will get a raise to cover LM's portion soon enough anyway. But if not, we'll survive.

While I was looking through Quicken I saw some car repair payments and decided to dig out dh's car records and check on the tire situation. As organized as I usually am I have no repair bills in there (just a bunch of oil change recipts). Given that I know the car has hardly ever needed a repair, doesn't sound so bad but Quicken shows we spent $186 last fall. I remember we took it in to get it checked out before our Disneyland trip and I remember being shocked that nothing needed replacing/repairing. BUT all the same we spent $185. I Am sure those were new tires. So I will definitely call to get a quote for them on tires and compare to what my dad comes up with. If it's in the $200 range, the convenience of just going there and letting them do it would be great. Dh has a little car with little tires so mine will probably be pricier. I would also consider longer warranties since the car is newer and I plan to keep them forever. (However, with all the flat tires and endless construction, maybe I should just go with 40k mile tires. They might all get obliterated anyway...). Anyway, I still have hope I will find that dang receipt. But looking at dh's tires it seems obvious they are rather new. Well, I haven't given up hope of finding it - just not where I expected. I guess I can ask our mechanic to check his records so I can be sure.

Oh yeah it is really HOT (well over 100) so we decided to stay home all weekend. Forget the trains. It is just awful out there. We went to the pool twice today (could walk but didn't because didn't want to fry). & I told the kids we could go Sunday and Monday. We really rarely go because it just gets hectic. Dh would never take them - lord knows why - I wish he would work on their swimming more. They have all day but he is just not a swimming guy. My days and weekends and nights are so filled. But not much planned this weekend so decided to enjoy. I love going early in the morning. No need for sunblock and the place was deserted. Just very nice and peaceful - just a handful of people swimming laps. If there were any shade I'd probably go plop by the pool and read or spend more time floating on a raft with a drink pretending like I was at a resort. Hehe. But tonight wasn't so bad either - everyone must be out of town. I guess that is the other reason we never go - turns into a madhouse once everyone gets off work during the week. The only saving grace is our kids tend to stay up late and it it so hot we can swim until 8 or 9 sometimes. It thins out and we can sometimes enjoy.

Oh just paying some bills and looking at Net Worth.

It is up $2600 for the month. Don't ask me how. I have been meaning to redo my spreadsheet for some better measuring and tracking. I assume it is mostly investment gains (must of been low at the beginning of the month?). Around $1.5k of it is savings (adding a bit to retirement, $350 or so to savings, small token to kids' college, oh and $300 paid off of mortgage, $800 to Short-term savings etc., etc.). So yeah, it might go down a bit in the following months as I pay some big bills. Oh yeah, but added $500 profit sharing as well. Maybe most of that is savings (though admittedly some of it temporary).

Puts my YTD at $20k increase, so "just" $5k more to go for the year.

I will probably drain a few thousand in September - December for IRS, property tax, insurance, etc. But I will also get a $6k or so boost to my profit sharing come December (full vesting - woohoo). So might even out.

I will have to re-evaluate my goals as well. The whole $25k (or 1/2 our annual expenses) this year might work out, but we just committed LM to preschool at $200/month. Blech. It might set us back. I think we can still hit $25k in 2008. But we'll see what it does to us this year. Regardless we'll be close and I didn't really expect to make it when I set the goal. Well, we'll see!

*Got signed up for balanced billing - both electric and gas. Gas told me they were going to bill me $30/month. I think our electric average is around $40/month. They didn't tell me the amount up front. But we'll see. I'll miss the $10 bills, but oh well, makes budgeting easier. (& I guess that I won't miss the $100 bills!!!!!!)

*Still hadn't gotten the paperwork to switch to metered water, but I guess they called dh today to say it is still in the works. August is a bad month, but metered water in September would be nice (will save $10-$15). Maybe October - as long as we get it by the really cheap winter months.

*Experian sent me a note that they deleted a bunch of crap from my credit report and will permanently block all of it. Woohoo. We'll see what Equifax says. Transunion was called by Citi (with me on the line) but they were the ones that had that horrid FICO score. If it doesn't bounce back up by next month I will write in for the "permanent block." Maybe should do regardless, since I swear they said they "removed stuff" (got that in writing) but nothing about a "permanent block." Maybe that has to be requested (certain states like California allows fraudulent stuff to just be permanently blocked from your report if you ask). I am also terribly confused by what the credit Bureaus do and do not share. They seem to share all the info with each other, but then others say they don't. From my experience they seem to be sharing all the info - if anything reports on one it reports on the others. I think I even read if you requested a block with one it will send on the info to the others to block as well. Well, we'll see. see if I get more confirmations or if I will have to pull more reports and send off for more block requests.

All the instructions and forms said you can only block what is showing, but I sent along the police report and they blocked everything that has shown up since I pulled the report - as much keeps trickling onto the report - so woohoo. Score one anyway for a tedious process. For one, Lowes has taken the balance off my report from day 1 but it still shows on my report (with a $0 balance). I assume this means it won't show up at all. Other places are still showing on my credit report with balances while they resolve things though I think most said they wouldn't. (Whatever...). IT should be a good month before I get anywhere near resolving all of this. Waiting for them all to officially "clear me" and take everything off my credit report. I think most quoted it as a 30-day process from when I sent in the affidavits (all signed/notarized/sent/received, so just a waiting game here on out.

*We weren't home all weekend, and yesterday was a LONG day (Marine World - went well - kids loved it). Tomorrow I am hosting a playgroup with like 10 moms and 15 kids I don't know. Oy Vey! Don't ask - long story... (Of course funny enough dh asks me what we are doing for dinner - LOL. I said - do you think we can afford to feed all these people? Play date is AFTER dinner of course. He was asking if he should pick up some pizzas...)

*Which reminds me I am SICK of pizza. We did the take/bake cheap yummy pizza thing last Monday for guests, had lots of leftovers (since dh bought 2 - told him we only needed one! ). Pizza Saturday for birthday party and then we went to visit dh's friends Sunday and they pulled out the pizza menu. We just looked at each other. "Sure, sounds great." (If I never see another pizza again). Well, we did get a lot of free pizza - so hey...

*Made a big deposit at the bank. My mom reimbursed me for all the airline tickets (like $3k) and I had kids' birthday money (transferring to Vanguard in the next month). I had been waiting until I needed it and was ready to transfer so it didn't just get spent... I mean I was going to transfer it regardless, but now I can just transfer the actual checks once they deposit. I was starting Automatic Imvestments for the kids in September. & then I had dh's focus group money - deposited the cash like a good girl.

*Dh was inspired by my dad to attempt pest control on his own. Woohoo. We tried in the past and he just wasn't helping me, lord knows I don't have the time. We found a cheap service for a while (who would only come when we needed it - thank you) but they gave up on wasps (too many injured employees and that is our only real problem, though I have seen more spiders than I have cared to this last year inside the house. We are lucky the house is air tight enough few get in though). I haven't balanced my disgust for chemical pest control with my disdain for spiders. It's irrational I know, but I just can't stand the things. Anyway, some guy came around with some insane quotes last week and dh wanted to sign up. I asked him to call around. We need someone to come once or twice at the beginnign of wasp season and that is about it. We don't need to pay $60 each and every month (nor do I want to spray that much as we try to be somewhat environmentally conscious). But after a year if no spraying something needs to give - indeed. So when we were talking to my dad over the weekend about frugalness or something dh got inspired to give it a whirl himself. We'll see. I just don't want him to get stung. But yeah my dad has always done the pest spraying for our home growing up. So he had some tips.

Which reminds me our guests from Canada came to the door and said, "You get tarantulas here???" Yeah, just want the arachnophobe wants to hear. They were going on and on about our BUGS which I found rather ironic. I know I wouldn't last a minute in the south myself. Maybe we should move north! IT wasn't a tarantula - just a really big spider. The thought will give me nightmares though. But yeah told them they hasn't seen nothing until they go spend a summer day in North Carloina - hehe.

*We decided my van needs new tires. Still 2 originals (2 blew but ran over bolts both times - not much you can do). I told dh I thought the used ones looked worn but he convinced me they weren't. We're pulling out the penny and I think he was guaging the wrong areas of the tire. So over the weekend his dad mentioned my tires looked pretty worn. (Van has about 45k miles on it and I am sure the 2 are original tires - probably crappy factory ones at that). So I asked my dad to check since he is the car expert. In true frugal fashion he tells me front tires are pretty iffy (should replace) but the back ones have 6 months. If he were me he'd wait 6 months on the back ones. But get the tires that last 60k miles. I am thinking if I am taking my car in and getting tires, and they are going to last 60k miles, might as well get 'er done. But that's my dad. We usually just have our mechanic guy do it (he advises us but we haven't taken the cars in much since we have 2 newer cars). So I asked my dad where he recommended and he recommended someone down the street from them in San Jose. He said he would call and get me a quote. Sounds good - next time we drive down - my dad will help me get a deal.

That being said I don't think our mechanic charged particularly much for the 2 or 3 times he replaced all my tires (I have gone through a lot of cars lately) so I will probably call him for a quote too. If they are that "iffy" on the front rather just get them done - can take them in tomorrow if I wanted.

Not a biggie, but then dh tells me he doesn't think his tires have ever been changed. I vaguely remember they have been but I couldn't remember when. The car has well over 70k miles. I figure he is insane. I haven't pulled out the paperwork yet (hardly been home) but at lunch I remembered to look at his tires. Clearly new. Probably replaced in the last year or 2, but the car is never driven. I was pleased to glance at his tired and see they obviously don't need replaced too - phew. I mean if they did - what are you going to do - we'll replace them - we have the cash. Safety first. But he was freaking me out. I'll pull out the paperwork and see when we got those tires...

Always something...

*Yesterday we spent $110 at Marine World (Discovery Kingdom or whatever - just changed the name). I was wrong. Our tickets were $30/each. & parking was $15. (Are they serious?) Of course if you looked at the prices the day without discount would have cost us something like $200 (tickets only - not even parking). Who pays that????????? Everyone we saw had a coupon of course. But they day was PERFECT - just dead as could be - not a lot of people. We did good! Kids had a blast. Spent $35 on food for the grand total of $110. Of course we were lazy and tired and had a $5 Taco Bell meal on the way home and stopped by Rite Aid for some 99-cent ice cream so made it a $118 day I guess.

I also made the observation that the more fit people had the fancier strollers yesterday - for the toddlers and preschoolers. IT strikes me as odd. I guess BM has never been a stroller fan (too much energy) and in the last few months LM has pretty much been done with his (pretty much after he had been walking just a few months). When we took them to SF zoo a few months back I was amazed how well LM but at the end of the night we had to carry him out and about killed us (he is a good 30 pounds). But yesterday we brought the stroller "in case" but left it in the car. Didn't need it in the least. Since we are more in shape carrying him at the end of the day exhaustion point was just a piece of cake. & I am just happy one less thing we have to pack next time. I have read that people are keeping their kids in strollers way too long (part of the whole obesity thing) and yesterday I really noticed it. I just think it was extremely ironic that the most fit people had the biggest strollers - LOL. Dh said it was a status symbol thing. I don't know - maybe. As for us, every time we have to pack (or more importantly, every time I have to REMEMBER ) one less thing, we do the happy dance of joy. I think we are about done with strollers... I say woohoo!

*THough I have been a little stressed lately about money (when am I not?) I am feeling rather at one with the financial universe all the same. Life is good. I left work early last week to hang out with BM at preschool "because he wanted me to." Sure, what the heck. Took yesterday off. Going to Japan in a few weeks. Dh and the kids are going to Florida as well in OCtober. Our savings is going in a positive direction for the first time since kids and one-income and all that. Life is good. What is there really to complain about. I already blogged that while everyone is "Going Back to School" we are enjoying the kids. Maybe it is because the kids are at a good age too. Moving past diapers and bottles (& strollers) and sleepless nights, it's kind of an enjoyable time. Easier to slow down and enjoy their innocence a little bit more without the complete exhaustion that comes with babies and newborns.

I've even been feeling less like working part-time is really going to be my goal. I want more time with the kids now - like it matters when they are in school all day anyway. Which means I might make an effort to work less the next year or 2 and then ramp it up when the kids are in school and give up on the whole part-time thing. Maybe... I mean if dh returns to work it will be an entirely different beast. But if he is not working, kids in school, my work schedule isn't so bad. I can compile my vacation and take a month off every summer and be home with the kids then if I like. I could come home every afternoon and work while they do homework. At least we can all be home together though - though we will all have our own work to do. It's an idea. I think I would probably be better off doing that and going for more unpaid time than the goal of part-time. I would just lose way too much. If I can vie for more unpaid time insetad, I wouldn't lose all my benefits and perks. Frankly, I don't really mind working full-time. I have had a time of it since LM was born. I think I have felt like I have been missing a lot more with the kids. But with LM sleeping better and getting to the gym and all that I have just been feeling so much better. Work has been going so much better. A good night sleep does make all the difference - it really does. I think with sleep and getting more fit and a clearer brain I am focusing more on how good we have it lately and so feel little need to complain and am rather happy where things are. I have just been on a bitch fest when it has come to work these last few months and I think just the stress and exhaustion. But things are going a lot better. Work is still crazy, but handling it better.

I just don't use cash.

I think I have said a few times that I don't use cash much and therefore don't really get a lot of the cash/coin savings. It may make more sense if you use a lot of cash and probably is somewhat psychological. But I always say I find it easier just not to take the money out of the bank in the first place so there is little cash out of the bank to save.

I was just curious after looking at LuckyRobin's Post and peeked in my Quicken. I was curious just how much cash we had used this year.

It's hard to say because we receive a lot of cash (focus groups, other income, parental gifts - they like to give us cash here and there all the time).

But from the ATM we have only taken out $350 the entire year (including the $60 I just pulled and should last us through September easy).

Comes out to an average of $39/month or $20 each to dh and I monthly. I can tell you exactly where my money goes. $10/month to eating out (exact change - I can squeeze two $1 meals a week) and $10/month generally to Bunco - or maybe a lunch out with the girls other months.

Lord knows where dh puts his money. I probably tend to spend a little more since most months I do bunco and a couple of lunches out with the girls. But I have been sticking to meeting for sodas lately and not been spending much. Dh rarely spends his cash for the most part.

The interesting thing is I have deposited around $600 cash in the bank this year and I have been pretty good about tracking it. If my mom gives me a $20 to reimburse us for something I have generally been putting it in Quicken (as a plus and a minus) just so I can track where all our money goes. Something I had never done in the past. But we mostly don't deal with cash and there is not a lot there. I have saved almost twice as much cash as we have spent this year.

For us this is really where the savings comes in. We used to consider all this cash just extra and would enjoy it on extras. I still feel somewhat that way on some of this money. But for the most part the new general rule is, unless it is going to save us a trip to the ATM anyway, all cash we get goes to the bank. We may earmark it to something fun but I guess we are trying to track everything more and stray even less from the cash. The less we use cash in general the more we know where all our money is going (just try to put it all through Quicken for a snapshot).

If I think about it - bunco and a split lunch is about the only places we NEED cash. Maybe the occasional toll and parking fees as well (Which I find more for work than dh would use).

Which means we have saved $600 this year, thus far, that we usually wouldn't.

So I guess that is how it works for this mostly cashless household.

Heck I put the kids $5 birthday cash in their investment accounts too.

So yes, it is a mindset to saving cash and I see the benefit.

I just will never get taking more cash out than I am going to use, putting it back in, and getting excited about savings. LOL.

Oooooh - to my credit I pulled out $100 this year for on hand emergency cash so that means we have only pulled $250 in cash this year for spending. Wow. Averaging $28/month. That's probably all me. Poor dh. LOL. Then again he just uses his card for everything so no biggie.

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In other news dh has utterly confused me. He LOVES music more than nothing else (Well except movies) and he talked about getting a smaller more portable MP3 player for the gym. He was going to go cheap. I told him just to get something nice. I mean cheap is like $40 but nice is $100. What difference does it really make if the nice one last twice as long? So then he told me he didn't want to buy a MP3 player because he didn't want to be "in debt" with his allowance. I know some of you are wary of my dh but he really and truly is extremely anti-debt and would never buy something he couldn't pay cash for. So much that this thinking carries over to his allowance - LOL. Which I find funny. As long as he doesn't spend more than his annual allotment, I could really care less. It's more just to give us a guideline what we can spend, the cash is there.

So we were at the gym the other day and I could not believe he did not have an MP3 player. He can't go to sleep without listening to music. HE can hardly breathe without listening to music, but here he is in the gym listening to the crappy gym music. My god!

I should have figured he would cave. He finally bought one. He is all pissed because it cost $10 more than if he just bought it originally when he was looking. But oh well. I think it was $120 with tax, and used the rest of the Target gift card.

All I have is like 70 cents on my Target gift card. Well, it was fun while it lasted (Credit card rewards).

But yeah it's the kind of purchase I don't mind. & now he'll stop using MY MP3 player. It would be one thing if we could share but I generally go to the gym straight from work so it is easier this way, since I generally just carry all my gym stuff around with me. Since his is fancier I might be borrowing his a little more often though.

Of course dh is very good on keeping on top of sales so he says he will probably return this one as he keeps an eye for an internet sale. We'll see. He'll probably shave off $10 eventually.

Praying for a Focus Group - and it has arrived.

Dh has a $60 focus group next week - woohoo.

I hate to jinx it but word is the movie he worked on may be selling too(he gets a commission). We discuss using the money for video upgrades for future projects (some days I get the feeling this means we will make little on any video work ever - LOL. But I have to admit he doesn't have much time now and he has always worked to pay for that crap so whatever. I can probably talk him into putting 50% or so into retirement. We'll see, guess no point discussing until we know what it is AND it arrives but we are assuming $2k now. (If it is more than $20k though it is totally going to screw up my ROTH conversions. I guess there could be worse things. But for the most part I highly doubt it. Maybe I should hope my ROTH conversion gets screwed up - hehe).

So things are looking up.

On the flip side, I feel a little like BA. I feel like we have been doing really well and suddenly we are starting to slip backwards. Like we can feel we can afford more. But can we really? I am not sure yet.

Then again it is the 17th and the only thing we really splurged on all month is a $20 play and a meal at Subway.

I can sit home and not spend money until the cows come home but the big stuff will always get me.

Looks like we will just put LM in preschool 2 days a week. Money money. Temporary. But then I wonder when the "temporary" will end. We have been in a "temporary" state since 2002.

We went to that play and it was just awesome. They put on quite a production. I think they have 5 casts. I have no idea how they do it. They even work around my tax season (no plays in winter/early spring). They must have a CPA in charge in there somewhere - LOL. The play was darling and the cast was like 50-60 kids. I kid you not. I was just amazed at how well it was done - how do they organize all those kids?

Means we will shell out $100 for BM to take classes in the fall and be in the fall play. I don't think it will be a big deal. There may be a minimal costume fee and pizza fee, and the place is a bit of a drive. But for the most part it is not much. We have knocked our gas bill on its butt lately so we have some wiggle room.

Oh yeah, I will probably have to take a couple of unpaid days off for Japan too. Which matters little since the trip will cost me little. But it will cost me something as will dh's Florida trip. I feel like I am putting too much off to - "oh - we'll get Christmas money for it." I haven't locked in the efund yet because my goal is still $12k by 12/31. I think we'll still make it. But more precarious as more and more comes up. Then again I just need to work more overtime... Not that hard...

On the plus side I am feeling a little more caught up at work. My office looks less like a disaster area. But I hesitate to say that too...

Not to worry - still PLENTY overtime to be had!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118687812752495256.html

Kind of an interesting article.

I see the point.

Can you have too big an efund? Hell yeah. I guess I have seen the other side on that one too. You can have too much.

Savings is savings, that is what is important.

I have to have the caveat that I really don't think you can save too much. Well, you probably can, but rather unlikely. LOL. But you can have way too much in liquid funds not working for you (especially when interest rates are like 2%). Been there, done that.

I laugh at the idea of being a risk taker because I am trying to maximize my returns and rather max out my IRAs than keep 6 or 12 months liquid cash in my e-fund. I guess that is the ironic thing because I am SO not a risk taker. But the odds I would ever need that 6 months cash? Pretty slim. So I am going to max out my IRAs, and if that slim chance comes, at least my butt is covered. It's savings, I can use it, the world would not end.

The odds are I'll come out ahead. That's what is important. IT's an odds game.

So I read his article with interest. He has a point.

Call me a dork.

I have reading all about this balanced billing for utilities and thinking, eh, what's the point?

But anyway, I guess maybe my bias was that I like getting the $10/$20 bills here and there. The higher end bills I expect and anticipate, but I think I enjoy those little bills too much. Our gas bill is often $10 in the summer and our electric bill is often $20 in the winter.

But we got the big July electric bill and with the a/c it wasn't pretty. Since I am budgeting my paycheck down to the penny it seems, I think it probably would help with the budget. If I think about it, all of our bills are pretty fixed except for the gas/electric. Gas varies, but it kind of sucks as a triple whammy when you get the auto gas, electric, and water bills in August - just nasty all around - gas prices is high, water usage is up so the lawn doesn't fry, and the A/C works hard to protect us from the 100 degree heat.

So it is one thing to do to lessen the load in August. The water we are just in the process of switching to metered, but it only varies at most $20 here and there. Our electric and gas bill can vary by $130 from month to month.

It's funny to me how the better we are with our money the more those little fluctuations seem to matter. Bizarre... I guess since we weren't investing our money as efficiently as before. & it is far easier to budget with set amounts...

So I guess I am converted.

I checked and it looks like both our electric and gas company offer programs. I looked in Quicken and our average gas bill over the last year was $35 and our average electric bill was $45. I think we can swing $80/month... (I think in the lowest months we tend to pay $50 combined so it doesn't sound bad at all).

I looked at our budget for the month and if I just pay our minimums for the rest of the year (balance transfers) and transfer nothing over to savings, we will meet our efund goal. So I am going with that. It's around $300/month to efund (by paying balance transfers out of checking and letting the savings grow since we'll owe less back in the end). & around $100/month in interest. (Plus I got $100/month going to investments). I expect enough christmas and OT money to cover my next IRS installment. We'll see. But if we're only at $11k on 12/31, the world won't end either. I think being above the $10k mark just feels darn good. We had dropped to $5k for a few months and I just did not like it.

I still need to sell some things around the house. As well as freecycle really. Could use a little cash. I think all the bills are covered but I feel like I have no money to go to the ATM. It's not the worst... The less cash I have the less I spend it.

I was talking to my mom and her electric bill was about $400. They just got a/c in the last couple of years. I say buy a new house. She said with the house paid off she'll take the utility bill. It really sucks though, but having an older house can REALLY be a financial drain if you ask me. That's my bias I guess. They are obviously better off staying put with the house paid and all... (The property taxes would slay them if they made a lateral move - would be more than my mortgage). But I mean it is smaller than our house and they just get GOUGED. I know it is amazing how running a 4-person household with more space can be so much cheaper when it comes to utilities. Technology has come a long way. Maybe there is some hope for the environment. We have been here 5 years. Sometimes I wonder how long before all the stuff we have here becomes obsolete and we have to upgrade. But it was really part of our plan that we didn't want to spend a lot on repairs and upgrades early in our home-owning lives. & the electric bill is one of the perks of going new!

Well, my net worth is up $2600 for the month, or a little over $18k for the whole year. It was hitting $20k a few weeks back. So the overall downslide is from the market. However, I guess I am in a lucky spot as hardly any of our assets are in stocks, as I mentioned before. Planning to change that soon, but the more we can buy at a bargain, the better...

Of course losing a couple of thousand of dollars in a couple of weeks isn't fun either.

The interesting thing is I lucked into a couple of awesome CDs (that much more impressive now that the market is in a spin). My 5.7% CD expires in 6 months but I can renew it for another 8 months at that time at 5.7%. Sounding like a more awesome deal by the day. I also decided to keep my cash IRA in a CD (locked in 5.5% for 3 years actually) last fall because I just knew the market was heading for a tumble. I have learned my lesson since about market timing and all that - the second I invested it the market has been HOT!. However, this move may pay off. We'll see. I figure by the time it renews we will have so much in investments that I might keep a bit in cash. It depends. If all we're saving is 25% of our income for retirement, we really should go all stocks. & I figured in 3 years time I may be willing to move it into the market (hopefully in a lull). But if dh is working and we are saving more than 25% I don't mind playing it a little safe with good interest rates. We'll see...

Our retirement overall is up 5% for the year with market appreciation, so still not bad. Not that I expect it to end up for the year, but who knows. Still way ahead from where we were last september (up 15% or so?).

My "efund" is only $160 away from my goal, as of my paycheck today. I am going to drain $1k in September for taxes though. $1k in January. My overall goal is to get it there by 12/31. I may move any excess to retirement. Or just keep it as a cushion. We'll see. I am confident I can save another $1k by December and that I will get $1k for Christmas to cover the rest. I decided to do that rather than move backwards on cash again - by $2k at once. Kind of depressing. I keep feeling once I take care of this, this should be it! But there always seems to be something...

ETA: I Was incorrect. Efund sits at $12k today - OMG! I miscalculated my July contribution. Wow. I may only have to drain it to $11.5k for the IRS and can get it back to $12k by October then, probably. Sweet...

However, I didn't expect to be this far along so early in the year either. So it is cool. I am assuming by 12/31 I will have $12k to lock up in an efund untouched. From there we will add $5k/year for car/house stuff so we can always fall back on that if smaller stuff comes up. Once that starts to build, I mostly see the efund as untouchable except for large emergency (natural disaster or lost job pretty much). I think for now we have vowed not to drop it below $10k. But we got to get these ROTHs taken care of so can't commit the $12k just yet to efund...

& expenses for the month:



Allowance is negative because I returned some clothes.

Auto fuel was only $240, or $60 under budget (drove to san jose once too. & met grandma 1/2 way like 3 times? Awesome possum). The auto expenses are up because paid $250 net for dh's auto insurance (net of dividend check).

Dining we budget around $40 so were $13 over. But not bad considering we took BM to McDs twice for his birthday, ordered 1 Round Table Pizza & also went out for Mongolian BBQ. We took BM the other day and felt a little conflicted but just got him his own bowl. He generally orders kids meals these days but there they don't really have the option. But he seems way beyond sharing our plate these days. So we got him a bowl and they did not charge us. Sweet! I guess smaller kids are just free - so worked out.

Plus the funny thing is dh and I have met his mom 3-4 times this month to switch kids and she always pays for lunch so we hardly feel deprived this month with all the eating out. The kids always notice Grandma likes to go out to eat A LOT - quite a treat. As they have spend most of the month with her...

Groceries $521 were $21 over budget at face value. But the amazing thing about this month is it was the kids' birthday. We didn't spend a ton on gifts and we didn't spend a ton on the party. I think dh might have spent $100 at the grocery store for primarily party stuff (food) which was PLENTY. But we had a party for like 20 people and that was about ALL we spent. Usually July seems to be an expensive month for the birthdays so it is interesting to look at the budget and thing maybe only $21 over with the groceries and $13 over with the trips to McDs.

IT also means I think we are moving towards a $400 grocery budget. Which is just awesome. We have shaved almost 20% off the budget since I joined SA. That's all dh. Plus he has mastered the art of $50 groceries so every time he goes we get a 10 cent off per gallon gas coupon. ($50 minimum purchase required). I swear every time it hits the card it is $51 at the grocery store. I have no idea how he does that! Every time we fill the van I have a coupon - so it's sweet. Helping to minimize our gas costs too. Lately we have had enough coupons for both cars most of the time. Which also reminds me a shopping corner is opening on the corner so means less driving and more walking - woohoo.

Household is gardener

Interest - interest on the balance transfer fee ($75). Not a biggie. paid 63 cents, earned $20 or so on that particular BT. More my experiemntal BT - dh's had no fees and was twice as much so is going much better (though for a much shorter time).

Education was my aerobics class. Every thing I sign up for through the city I just put to education. I tried to pay for karate class online but it was giving me difficulties so can pay that in cash next week. (I will have to add a gym/physical fitness category though - makes more since. Maybe kids extracirricular class too - makes more sense than "education").

The weird thing about this month was that we had no "other income." How weird. Will have to make up for it this month. We have been doing pretty well on bringing in side income - at least $200/month. But this month was rather dry. Oh well. Budget was so good we didn't need it?

Medical included a $50 copay which I budget for.

Misc. - generally budget $150 (sometimes add in writing money as I consider it misc. spending but had $0 this month). Anyway, the gym sign up was around $200 so we kind of made an exception for that. That means we spent $100 on misc. otherwise. Included our expenses to go to the Redwood Forest, one trip to the movies (Ratatouille), Birthday party balloons and supplies, and various household items at Dollar Tree (mostly plastic plates for LM who isn't as good with adult dishes as BM is. Just weird because we never found the need before, but LM needs plastic!).

$150 over on misc. because of the gym which we intend to make up with some ebay selling this month.

Utilities - cable, internet, land lines, cell phones, sewer and water (which run $90/month for a flat rate here - insanity) means only about $80 was electric/gas. Not bad for the a/c being on pretty much 24/7.

July was another awesome month overall...

I think mostly it didn't happen overnight, but we are still whittling things down little by little. Like when I set our grocery and gas budget I just set what we were spdending on average. I might have even been a little aggressive. I think I will leave gas the same to allow a cushion for rising gas prices. But will move groceries down to $450 maybe next year. Maybe sooner. We'll see. In the meantime a good month means more to savings or more to enjoy, but then future increases won't be a shock to the system either. Plus since I usually do little more than keep the budget in my head and eyeball it (as anal as I am about money I do not enjoy strict budgets) I generally like to just use round #s. IT would be in my best interest to set a $200 gas budget and a $400 grocery budget, but I think that is a bit too aggressive. It is very psychological. I rather budget $800 for the 2 and cheer myself on every month that I am under! (BEcause overall it is an improvement from where we were...) Going for $600 between the 2 to keep round #s would just suck because we would always be a few dollars over, even if we got close. Yeah, budgets are psychological. For now I just don't want to mess with it. We are affording everything we wanted and then some, so I am happy for this year. We will revise the budget in 2008 though, regardless. I might consider setting a budget of $450 & $250 for them, accordingly. We'll see how it pans out.

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

P.S. If you were practically living in poverty, why on EARTH would you rent a bouncy house for your 1-year-old's birthday? What is WRONG with people? Hell will freeze over when I rent one of those contraptions - LOL. Ugh. I generally get annoyed when people say "I would never buy "x" or "y". We all have our priorities. But yeesh... The middle class has been annoyiong me with their extravagant birthday festivities for wee little ones as is, without people who are a paycheck away from homelessness deciding that this is a good idea. ?????

I knew once our efund goal was reached I would be tempted to add more. But as I mentioned one of our not-so-good financial moves was hoarding too much cash in the past and not ivesting well. I am trying to fix that going forward. I mean what it comes down to is not having to work so hard if the money is working for us, right?

Anyway, I just had an epitome. One reason we have been so cash poor of late is we put a lot of cash into a newer car. After having been very happy driving an old car that merely cost me $1k (& not the first car that I paid so little for that did me good) I have mostly come to the conclusion that new cars are not all they are cracked up to me. Then again this one may last 20 years and at least it has collission coverage so I worry less about it getting totaled, as a whole.

Anyway, glancing at our net worth it just occured to me that we have an easy $20k assets in our cars that I know we could liquidate. IF we had to sell both and go buy a $1k car to get us by if I lost my job or something, so be it. It really would not be a biggie or a stretch for us.

So this just popped into my mind. My car alone is worth a good 3 month expenses easy. & though my dh would argue that 2 cars is a necessity, I am not sure I would agree in dire financial circumstances (or a true emergency). Even today obviously we could survive with one car. Since our cars are paid off there is little care about if we could sell them for more than we owe. So I just kind of had a ding ding ding in my head that though we did put a lot of cash into a car, does not mean it is gone forever or we could never tap it. I also feel a lot better about settling for the 3 months expenses in the e-fund, knowing another 3 months would be pretty easy to tap if push came to shove. Just another angle I hadn't thought of.

As the car depreciates we will have far more in the car replacement fund that we could likewise divert. THat one I had already thought of. I figured if we had a good decade we both might buy some pretty nice cars next time around. If not, an old clunker will do. There are much worse things...

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

Anyway, in other news, check out this article on the new automatic 401k plan enrollments.

"This 401(k) plan hums along on autopilot"

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin22jul22,1,779646...

Don't worry, your employer can not enroll you without asking for your permission first pretty much. It is very easy to opt out if you so choose. But I mentioned these in an article for pfadvice and people did not take to it kindly, saying no one is jumping on this. From my perspective with small employers, everyone is jumping on this. This can actually help employers increase participation in 401k plans and reduce some of the limitations that employers face when they do not get enough participation in their 401k plans. I admit I am not much into big business these days, so maybe they aren't excited about this. But lord knows the small business are taking advantage.

This article had a really interesting comparison though on showing how an average person who waits until 45 to contribute to their 401k and invests more in bonds because more risk-adverse, where as the average 25-year-old who is automatically enrolled in a 401k that invests in a Target Retirement Fund will have SO MUCH MORE at retirement. Though they don't have to think about it or do anything - their employer just does it all for them.

It is definitely a good thing for young workers!

Well, there is no doubt we will make our net worth goals this year. Well I shouldn't say that. Unless something terrible happens, we will meet our goal. I read that you should grow your net worth by 1/2 of your annual expenses, every year, by the time you are 40. It then goes aggressively up from there, as your assets grow more on their own accord. I figure I am 30 and that is a doable/worthy goal. Puts me 10 years ahead.

So this year I started with a round goal of $25k increase in net worth. Our more basic living expenses run around $4k/month or $50k/year in round figures. So 1/2 of that is $25k/year. I found this a very aggressive goal but I was going to shoot for it.

As of today our net worth is up $20k, and with my profit sharing it will be up a good $25k easy this year. We've pretty much made it. I just noticed, so I am stoked. Not a lot of it is even in investments so there is not a lot that can set us back too far right now.

Our actual expenses probably run closer to $5k/month which would put us at a goal of $30k/year.

I think I will revise my goal to increase our net worth by $30k next year.

$4k Mortgage payments
$5k IRA
$5k Savings
$8k Profit Sharing
$5k Investment Returns
$3k Kids College

That puts us right at $30k. I think it is both a worthy and a doable goal. In case of a bad stock year though I think aiming for a range of $25k-$30k year is probably the way the go. As we could easily live on $25k-$30k in the course of 6 months. Then it goes for the net worth increase.

This is why having 2 incomes and not relying on them moves you ahead so fast... IF dh had a job we could save his entire wage. But since we don't rely on that income, looking at it in terms of our actual living expenses I think makes a lot more sense. If he made $10k/year after tax (not a huge stretch) that means we could technically increase our net worth by $40k with little extra effort. I am just motivated to do as good as we possibly can on my income alone, and then his income down the road will just be gravy. IT was gravy before, but it helped us get into a house and have more time with the kids. Now looking at the gravy of early retirement is pretty sweet. Better yet, just working less while we are young.

Not there yet, but I feel we are well on the way... I mean at this rate our net worth will be in the range of $700k at 40. That's with no raises and no second income. But most of the increase will be in cash and investments. IT is nice that we are no longer putting so much to our home; to watch our more liquid investments grow.

Actually, I think even more exciting, our non-house assets will probably hit $100k this year. Woohoo. In addition our cash paid into our house will hit $90k. It will mean we will have saved up about $190k in our young lives, for the most part. The sad thing is we have invested so badly in the past, our retirement assets are barely more than we have contributed (not a lot of appreciation, if any). That is going to change going forward. I can't even imagine where we would be today if we had invested better. Sometime you just have to live and learn though.

You know what they always say about writing down your goals and how much easier it is to make them happen... I wrote some pretty aggressive goals and am shocked I have even exceeded some of them...

Goals that I wrote in 2006 for 2007:

2007 goals:

**Save $10k in cash.
I wrote this before I knew what my raise is so between my raise and a significant cash gift I was able to. But still. It is only July and I have surpassed this (months ago). I have one more important thing to take care of (ROTH conversions) but project I will have $12k in cash easy by 12/31. Since 2007 started I have made that my "permanent" efund goal.

**Actively manage investments. 10%+ returns, but depends on market.
Well that's been easy this year.

**Resist the urge to prepay mortgage. This is just silly until ROTHs are fully funded and savings is where I want it.
I paid of $60 so I failed for a couple of months - LOL - but I am back on track. I still struggle with this one though it makes much more financial sense in our situation to invest than prepay mortgage. As long as we haven't fully funded our ROTHs anyway.

**Resist the urge to prepay personal loan. Silly silly silly. I extended my goal for payoff to December 2007.
Oh, I failed this one but that's okay. I only failed it once I hit my cash goal and so I won't consider it a "failure" in the least. I didn't think I would have so much cash so early in the year. Glad that was paid off long ago -

**Set up allowance system for dh and I. will open new high-yield savings for this.
We did. We both have a negative balance but that is okay. We have cut our expenditures significantly going back to allowances. Heck we wouldn't think twice spending $100 here or there before and now we are stuck with $50/month, but it hasn't been particularly hard. I don't expect either of us to exceed our $600 allotment for the year as a whole. We both tend to take little advances (or big ones) but take the budget as a whole quite seriously.

**I also set a monetary goal to have $150k in our retirement by age 35.
Well, still working on it. I guess making my cash goals makes us that much closer though...

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

However, it is amazing to me how much my goals have evolved in the last 6 months...

2008 Goals:

The year is young but with our efund up to par and the car paid off we can focus on much more important things next year:

1 - $400/month to IRAs (one full IRA)

2 - $100/month to car/house fund
(plus $100+/month interest from efund & credit card balance transfers)

3 - $2500/year in overtime to car/house fund

4 - $50/month to kids college fund

6 - Scrounging up another $5k any how for a fully funded spousal IRA too. Overtime, ebay selling, focus groups, save cash gifts, dh working a bit, wherever we can scrounge up money...

I am not sure we will meet his IRA goal in 2008, but I guess I should just make it a goal and go for it!!!!!!!

If we did make all these goals we would be making 25% of my gross pay to retirement contributions and saving considerable cash for house/car stuff so we could move back to more luxuries and extras going forward which is pretty sweet. A raise in our allowance would be really sweet.

The other sweet thing is the more we put in our car/house fund (same bank account as the efund) the more interest we earn and the less we have to contribute. I am not sure I have ever been in that kind of spot before. It is nice to only have to throw in $100/month and my tax season bonus and know we can pay cash for 2 new cars in just a few years. Or have the cash for any work around the house. Alternatively we can choose to buy very modest cars and have the excess to splurge if we so desire. Going forward we will divert some of that money to investments. I am aiming rather high to get a good cushion in there and hopefully have to save less down the road as it earns more on its own accord. I am aiming for it to grow $5k/year which is probably far more than we need for our cars and for house maintenance. But gives us a little cushion for more unexpected expenses...

Then again life happens so who knows...

It will be very interesting to see where I set my goals once 2008 rolls around. A lot has changed in 6 months and the year is still young!!!

Mostly I notice my goals went from a kind of frantic catching back up from a fall TO more organized and more thought-out goals. Trying to prioritize some things and meet many goals. From "saving money" to "saving x per year for this and y for that." It is some organization that we never had as before we just saved everything for a house. We saved everything the ability to be home with our kids. Now we have a more more mature, long-term budget. We have a few short-term goals and many more long-term goals. I don't think we could see very far past the next few years before. Which was fine, it worked out okay, but I am glad to look at a more broader picture going forward.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Savinganddebt/Savemoney/...

Oh yes, I did find another one.

Basically, divide your net worth by your lifetime earnings. That's it!

"For young clients early in their careers, the desired ratio is somewhere between 0 and 25%.

For clients in midcareer, he wants a ratio between 25% and 100%.

By the time they're ready for retirement, the preferred ratio is 100% to 200%."

Interesting. I have played with our savings as a percentage of income (from our social security statements) but I wasn't really sure how to measure the results I guess.


With home equity we are at a wonderful 68%. Without, we are at 28%. Considering we are so young and early in our careers, overall, I am quite pleased.

Of course I am more interested in forward progress, and at first glance I thought gosh, we are probably slipping behind. LOL. But my goal for the year is to increase our net worth by 33% of our income. 28% is actually quite an easy goal in comparison. The 33% is a little aggressive and depends on a good stock year. So overall, this fits in our goals, we are moving forward okay.

On the other hand, we probably need to more forward faster than our current 28% clip, so I don't know. Then again we are saving far less than our earlier financial peak, and overall the prospects for the future look much better. I guess something to keep in mind as we track further progress.

But overall another interesting article and another way to look at things. & the main point of the entire article is that it isn't what you make, but what you save. Amen to that one!

We have no doubt had a few good years, but most years in the last decade we made an income in the $20-$60k range. House aside, we have saved 28% of it all. These days aren't our best savings years, but our investments are certainly picking up the slack, all the same. Saving much, early on, truly makes all the difference. & the funny thing is sometimes I regret not doing more sooner, because it would make things easier today. I guess there is always room for improvement. As on the flip side it is saving so much early on that gives us more freedom today. I just have to be happy with that I guess.

Ooooh, just like the word - arbitrage.

Dh got his card. Um, that is fast!

The little insert that came with the card said nothing about waived BT fee, but it also said there was a cap of $50 (which I don't believe there was a cap on the contract I read when I signed up). So either way, $50 or free, either way is fine with me still. We'll still come out ahead. But I also saw an article that Citi was getting rid of universal default and its famed line that made me cringe: "we can change the terms at any time for any reason." I hear they are dropping that too - so good. Maybe good we got these cards now as you wonder if they will change some of their other fees and rewards to compensate.

Anyway, dh can go make a purchase this week and then we can wait for our bill to pay it off, get our reward, and do the balance transfer. Oh, and ask for an increased limit too. We'll see... I'd say by end of june we will have our balance transfer in place.

I don't know where my card is? I applied the same day. Maybe in the mail today!

BM had his first karate class. My word - it was right up his alley. Wasn't sure what they would do with such young kids, but lots of jumping and running, working on dexterity I guess. Plus they did 1 cool move where they jumped over a foam noddle and then did a somersault as it sailed over their head - it was actually quite a simple but impressive karate move - LOL. Right up his alley, but he was very intimidated all the other kids were so practiced. I saw those noodles at the dollar store so figure we can get one and practice a bit. I don't know if for the long-term this will be something he enjoys, but for his energy level today and all - they definitely designed the class well for energetic 3-5 year olds. Hehe. Didn't know what to expect but I think he will enjoy. Class was only 1/2 hour but was fairly intense. At the end of the day, close to dinner, might be a better class for early in the day. HE was exhausted after a day at preschool and that. But overall went well.

Funny thing is I was wary signing up for this class and aerobics after rumors about how horrid the traffic is going east/south at evening commute, but thankfully I do not see this to be the case. I have had so many co-workers complain about their commute a little further south - I guess the bad part is the south part. ??? I thought last week might have been a fluke, but it was actually quite a pleasant drive, so not too much rush rush - phew.

Also, gas prices are insane. I mentioned in the past that dh would refuse to let me drive his car (which gets almost twice as good gas mileage). I took to driving it sometimes on days that he wouldn't need it, so he won't gripe too much - LOL. & then, well, now I am taking it whenever I have a class - which is almost every day - LOL. HE didn't even whine about driving the van yesterday. Phew. IT really does make more sense him home with the kids to drive the van, but he loves driving little cars and I don't mind the van - in fact I prefer it to his as long as I don't have to park in a tight spot. But in the name of gas I think we'll give his car a good workout this summer.

I was looking at our April budget and we actually made out $1200 credit card budget (pretty rare because it is a little too aggressive). But um, yeah, just about right on. With that and our low utility bill and being a little under budget with gas and groceries - all that really helped. Of course add on the car repair and t.v. and we blew our budget completely out of the water - but we won't do that every month, and it feels like a great accomplishment that our monthly goal is not entirely impossible.

I was super impressed that our heat/gas bill was only $6. LOL. But it was actually really $16 with a $10 credit still left over - lord knows why.

Our electric bill has been insanely low since we had a second child, but coincided with a new washer/dryer. We bought for energy efficiency and let's say I Was really impressed. But realistic since we on average do 1 load a day with cloth diapers and all. BUT they stopped billing us for 3 months, came out and replaced the meter (obviously some problems) and bill went up markedly. We wonder if we were just under-charged all this time. BUT we have a separate gas and electric company. So last month our gas bill was -$10 because they have us a $40 credit with no explanation (just said adjustment). & this $6 bill shows we used 1/2 as much gas as the same time period last year. ???? So why is our gas going way down while our electric goes up? Were they backwards? LOL. Kind of weird...

But anyway, the main reason I post this because I am SO sick of people assuming big house equals wasteful. Gah. Dh and I discussed it. We use gas for hot water (4 people to bathe), stove (we do tend to cook almost every night), gas dryer (laundry almost every day), and of course heat - which we haven't touched in about 2 months. So all I have to say is wasteful my butt. Beat my $16 gas bill. & yes the house is always between 68 and 80. I think we suffered a couple of days in the 80-85 degree range because they were odd days - last week. But basically my point is taking energy efficient measures goes a long way. We are more likely to conserve bath water and laundry energy than suffer the discomfort of a cold or hot house though, but it is all compromises here and there. Obviously there is more to the bigger picture here. The house itself is built extremely energy efficient so there is little need to run the air or heat about 1/2 of the year. So while certain relatives and friends are wagging their tongues behind our backs (I hear from the grapevine from those who do know how low are bills really are) they have no idea what they are talking about. Just because they are content to pay $500 gas/electric bills doesn't mean we are paying $1k/month because our house is bigger. No way! LOL. This month our combined gas and electric, before credits, was $50. & that is pretty average. It is funny the assumptions out there. I guess I just find it ironic that people could be so wasteful and spend $500/month (I know the gas/electric companies are gouging, but they are using a lot of energy all the same - much more than us). That they could be so wasteful and point the finger at people who are much more conservative in the end. It is really weird I guess... & I guess an important lesson to be careful what you assume. & for the record, I am not assuming anything, they are always complaining about their high bills - LOL.

Anyway, since we had such a crazy expensive month, it is nice to have a $6 gas bill - it helps - phew. Hopefully things will settle down because yeah we will have a couple of $100 electric bills in the summer - the heat gets pretty intense here, and the a/c will be working overtime. I'll take all the negative and $6 bills I can get - woohoo.

Ugh, not a typical month thank goodness. Got the car locks fixed yesterday - grand total for mirror, window, locks, oil change, and a fixed seatbelt (bugger was twisted so I asked them to fix - think they just threw it in anyway) - grand total was $850! Of course if I knew the door locks would be such a pricey ordeal I probably would have fixed the side mirror myself. Yikes! The part alone was $200. So much for convenience. Probably wasn't worth it. Dh wondered aloud why I even bothered, but when I smashed it to smithereens it had some sharp edges. I figure $200 is better than someone getting scratched and suing us - you just never know. But the odds that I will smash it again? LOL. Probably big. I will really try to be careful though - I should just get in the habit of turning in the mirrors whenever I park in the garage - would be a simple solution.

So the #s for April:



As you already know, dh used his entire annual allowance for his PS3.

Auto - we were $100 under budget for gas (good with these insane prices - includes a trip to San Jose as well) but the repairs were $850 and blew my budget out of the water. I think we have only been budgeting $600/year for repairs (& not coming anywhere close). So a bummer, will maybe up it in the budget.

Diapers - paid 2 months for the diaper service because paid late last month.

Dining - all we did was order in 2 pizzas in April - one was reimbursed by family - so not bad at all. I use my cash to get $1-$2 meals here or there, but really didn't do much this month either.

Education - kids and I are each taking 1 recreational class. cheap cheap cheap overall. I had my first aerobics class last night and it KICKED my butt - LOL. But it also felt really good. Well not so good today, but I need this. BM starts karate on Monday.

Groceries were $50 under budget. They were $50 over last month so probably a wash. Includes paper diapers (LM is sensitive to the cloth at night) and soap and all our household goods.

Household - dh bought a new filter for the fridge - in addition to the usual gardener expense. What a racket. I wonder if you can find them cheaper on ebay or something. We only change them out 1/2 as often as they suggest - and even that could be overkill - sucker is like $40.

Medical includes dental - since all 3 of us went in, in April. Paid with short-term savings set aside for it.

Misc - $1300 to the t.v. and stand. I spent $150 Target that I haven't broken out yet. Some of it for kid clothes - rest to my allowance. Got to dig out the receipt.

Professional dues from last month were reimbursed.

To car loan - final payment - woohoo.

No mortgage payment - I postponed it to after the first so I wouldn't have to touch savings to pay for the TV. Which just now reminds me another reason to catch back up - to help our taxes - will make sure to get 12 payments in for this year.

That sums up April.

It was a really crazy month.

Got my bonus so paid off the car.

To pay for the $850 car repair? I am not sure. I think I have $400 excess in the checking and so if I don't save the earmarked $450 to the e-fund this month I can swing it. But we are just SO CLOSE to having a *full* e-fund and wanting to invest a little above and beyond, it is frustrating to be so close, but so far. Since this month was so crazy, and leaves little cushion, I will probably need our June earmarked savings to pay for my tooth filling. Most of it anyway. Anyway, part of the reason for the e-fund I guess is so we can earmark a certain amount to retirement in 2008 and not touch it! Because it would really frustrate me to miss a couple of months of contributions over this stuff. Well, we'll see how it goes.

So anyway, it was a very spendy month, and kind of crazy, but my bonus and the unexpected cash gift from my parents helps immensely, so not much to complain about. & it is nice going into summer. Even though a/c bills get crazy and gas gets crazy too, overall summer tends to be very mellow and less expensive, lord knows why. So I am looking forward to a typical summer, please. On the flip side, we have been so busy and want to get out more, so I don't know.

Which reminds me now that I have some more time, we probably need to set a goal to bring in a certain amount each month - maybe $200/month or something. Will either invest or save - need to hit ebay and Craigslist.

In case you concluded I don't have a life during tax season (because I didn't), gosh, I can't believe how quickly our May calendar is filling up. Every weekend is filled with activities. It will be good to get out, but gosh it gets so easy to overdo it too. This is the exhausting part about having kids - feels like it is always something - LOL. I forgot about this - silly me - thought things would really calm down. But with dh itching to get out of the house and work on movie things, I am finding my time even more hectic and squeezed, in a sense. So it goes. At least less sitting at a desk all day...

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/how-to-make-money-from-0-apr-bala...

Yesterday was hectic, so waited to today to apply for cards. I figured I would just start with one and see how it goes. Citi has all the cards with no fees for balance transfers. No fees for anything - plus gift cards to boot.

So I applied for one in hubby's name. Didn't expect much since he has more cards opened than I, but they immediately approved a $6k credit line, which is okay, wouldn't want any less. Will also get $100 in Target gift cards. That alone will be worth it.

Since it wasn't the $10k-$20k I had hoped for and since they said right away what the credit line was, I applied for one in my name too. $5,900. Wha??? LOL. But this gives us a good $10k to invest in the bank, and a little left for minimum payments. I think minimum payments are 2%? I am not totally sure - says nowhere in the fine print I looked at so far,

Anyway, we'll get the cards in a couple of weeks, make 1 purchase each, and pay off the card, wait for the billing cycle to redeem the gift cards ($150 total between both cards). Then I think we should both call and try to up the credit lines. If one of us can get $12k or something, that would be even better! OR if one of us can, we can take advantage of one for a while, and take advantage of the other one later.

Interestingly, reading the fine print, they can change any of the terms any time, for any reason. Credit card companies - how do they get away with this stuff?????? For me means I don't want to waste my time on too small of an amount because one changed term can wipe out the profits. BUT at the same time, don't want to borrow too much for the same reason.

Anyway, for us, another $40/month in interest, would be great. & it looks like at the minimum that is what we will get. Woohoo. WIth our credit scores I am sure we can get some higher limits before we try the BT. So we'll wait it out a bit, if need be.

Well, step 1 is complete. Now we wait!

I have learned a couple of big lessons lately that are leading me to tweak my goals again.

I think I can sum them up into 2 lessons:

1 - The answer to most financial questions is: it depends. No one-size-fits-all!!!

2 - Doing something without truly thinking it through and looking at the big picture (like doing it on a gut feel) is not smart.

My gut feel used to be I wanted a lot of cash and no mortgage, etc., etc. But I was falling behind on all my financial goals by being so short-sighted about the BIG picture.

I've been coming to this realization slowly over time, but I finally gave into the other side of the great mortgage debate and completely change my tune. I no longer am paying an extra dime to the mortgage. I don't see the point. I decided to change my tax withholding because I was a little behind. At first I was frustrated as it significantly compromised my savings goals. & then I looked at the stupid $30 extra mortgage payment and decided I would commit that to retirement instead. Much smarter! Before I looked at it as a forced savings, a small amount I wouldn't bother with otherwise. But forced with such a huge budget change, I thought, gosh, I have been saving that $30 no prob - why not just put it to retirement instead. I can commit to save a small amount. & that is huge - a huge change in my thinking just over the last few months. Getting away from the so all or nothing thing.

We also have formulated a plan for our cash savings. We are going to keep 3 months bare minimum expenses and that is it. The rest - again to retirement - much better returns in the long run. We are losing out on so much earnings potential wanting a lot of cash in the bank.

In my new thinking I am just able to weigh everything with our goals and make decisions now. Vanguard dropped their fees so the $50/month I have been adding in a slow attempt to erase the fee of 1 fund (thought it was screwing up my allocations - and was why I was doing it slowly) - well I no longer have that need. I dropped the investment plan yesterday. By doing so we are on track to meeting our 3-month EF by December, $1k to invest, and the $1500 to do my final ROTH conversions. No more money to retirement this year, but with a $13k contribution from my job this year, just makes sense. We can go into 2008 with a full e-fund, an investment account started, all ROTHs, and can contribute heavily to the ROTHs in 2008. Woohoo.

Anyway, many circumstances have changed this month, but having the big picture in mind it was easy to make the appropriate changes and work with them.

Anyway, besides 3 months in expenses we will be adding $100/month & my overtime to savings for bigger purchases (cars and house maintenance) but should be plenty, with these interest rates anyway. We will start investing a very minimal amount in a balanced fund, since my new-car horizon is so far away. & for longer-term stuff. & then hoping to set aside about 8% to ROTHS. But of course, any unexpected windfalls will got to max those out. So I think the odds are high we can max out next year and still make decent progress on our savings. My gut wants to max out the ROTHs, but realistically, we don't need a 25% retirement contribution next year. Not at cost to all else. We'll get there in a few years. No hurry for now. Having more than enough for my own ROTH, on one income, sounds nice and dandy. But if anything extra comes along... It is reachable to fund both, all the same!

Some reasons I have changed my tune:

1 - thinking about our time horizon and how we have a 40-year plus investment horizon for investments. Longer horizon means more time to ride out the wave.

2 - Even if we take the full 30 years, the house will be paid off in our young 50s or well before retirement, no need to stress about it right now. It will be so much easier to make extra payments in a few years and will still have a significant impact - if we our making all our other goals.

3 - Our interest-rate is low and we will have the mortgage deduction (effectively making it lower) for years to come.

4 - I feel confident in the ability to earn twice as much over the long haul - 8 - 10% vs. the effective 4-5% mortgage interest rate.

5 - Yup, 8-10% because in the ROTHs it is all tax free earnings! Makes it the no-brainer.

6 - Over 90% of our net worth is in our home - we need to spread out our investments.

7 - Our mortgage is very reasonable and low-cost for the area. If I had a huge windfall I would have NO urge to pay off the house. I find small monthly payments much more manageable. I NEVER got the idea to pay off a house with life insurance, but I guess being the sole breadwinner I wouldn't - LOL. I look at life insurance as more of the retirement contributions that my dh would have made in life. Of course if something happened to him I would downsize the house anyway, may be able to pay it off in that case. On the flip side, the mortgage is quite huge at $215k. It would take a big effort to significantly pay it down early, at all costs to retirement. Instead I expect we will have the income in a few years to pay it down faster and in the end will still pay it off just as fast as originally planned. But will have lots of money in the bank, earning a nice return, to boot.

8 - I still can't get past the idea that my house could flood away or we could get sued for something stupid and have it taken away, but that our retirement is so safe from creditors, bankruptcy, lawsuit, etc. I just do not feel warm and fuzzy about having a $600k asset paid off. Frankly, it scares the hell out of me to sink all our cash into the house. If it was a $200k or $300k house I would feel differently. It's all in the sheer size and weight in our overall wealth I guess.

& as far as cash:

1 - job security out the ying-yang

2 - Plenty of insurance on all fronts

3 - Plenty of 0% credit options as well as plenty of well-off family to fall back on (loans) if we hit some really horrible times like the house flooding away or major medical bills.

So though I really want to hoarde a lot of cash, we probably could hardly be in a better position to not really need it. We just have a lot of options. So we decided to stick with the 3-month expense thing. The odds I will be out of work for more than like a day are just really slim to none in this market, and my job is quite recession-proof to boot. ( I exaggerate a tad, but not really, I could go find a job in a day - it is just crazy in my field right now). Disability actually would cover all of our bills - both the short-term and long-term (disability), and we have plenty of life insurance and all that. Medical is the big unknown for now, but we have low deductibles at least. I am starting to think we should keep a little less in the bank and try to pay for the higher premiums again next year. Might just be worth it to keep the costs controlled, even if the premiums are insane. Something to consider.

Anyway, overall it is amazing to me how much my thinking has changed in just the last few months. But I think we are looking at the big picture a lot better and are maximizing our wealth.

I still can't believe car is paid and we are so on track to so many goals this year. Though the year is young and anything can happen, all the same.

All that and a HDTV!

But setting goals and being focused has sure paid off tenfold... I had the focus before, just really not any tangible goals. What the hell were we doing anyway? LOL.

Every time I see "Money Karma" it reads "Monkey Karma" to my eyes - always cracks me up.

Anyway, dh needs to fiind the money for the t.v. & well, he just got a video job - woohoo. Out of nowhere, didn't have to look or anything. Well, he did some work for a client of mine last year, and they want him to do some more - editing some old videos, transferring to DVD and putting on a continuous loop so they can play in their lobby. Will probably net $200-$300 for that, whenever they get the details worked out.

My mom also offered the same when I told her about the t.v. purchase - they have a lot of old stuff to move to DVD. But you know, it's fam, you don't want to charge them. But I am starting to think he should take up the offer. He hasn't done anything yet and won't be a priority until cash is a reward. Just the way it is. Ask how far he is along on OUR own home videos - LOL. We got a "first year" video for child #1 & that's about it. Which reminds me though he did say he wanted to devote some time to that this summer. Hopefully he can make progress on all of these things now that I am much more free!

In other news, my dh is quite happy to spend his days playing video games and watching t.v. He is a real homebody. I am pleased that is changiing (maybe he is a little stir crazy - I don't know). He wants to go to the musemum and a Scottish festival this weekend. ???? Who is this guy and where is my hubby? Hehe. Well, we'll see...

I need to log into my online MMA more. GMAC is now paying 5.3% APR!

I've been looking at c.d.s and treasuries now that our e-fund is about at its goal, and well, don't see the point for now.

I tried to pick a bank this time around that had a longer history of good rates. So far very proactive in raising rates (from 4.97% in just a couple of months). Since high yield is not everything to me (much weight on history/security of institution, FDIC, cusomer service, etc.) I am pleased I found a decent compromise for all that I wanted in a bank. For now anyway. Yeah, the subprime whoas are something to consider, but for now I will take GMAC any day over most the fly by night online banks. I do wonder if that has anything to do with more attractive rates though - haven't been keeping a close eye on rates overall...

I am enjoying seeing the blogs come to life with so many pictures.

WE decided to go for a walk last night and I decided against dragging along the camera, but when I stepped outside I Saw this, so ran back in for it.

Picture #4


If you look really closely, the lower right-hand corner of the clouds has a faint rainbow.

& then the sunset progressed.







For the area, not the most spectacular sky or sunset. It gets really beautiful in the evening as a rule. & the sky has just been so beautiful with a brilliant blue and puffy white clouds in recent weeks as well. But overall a pretty nice evening. We stayed out for an hour and the rain cloud seemed to shift south, stayed clear of us - phew. I got some well-needed exercise. Have to enjoy before it starts getting hotter than Hades... But even so we are lucky to be near so many water ways, it tends to cool off in the evenings with a breeze, but not always. Yup, definitely enjoying mild weather.

In other news, I think we are going to give it a test with the $10k credit card debt, 0%, to earn interest in the bank. I think we just felt uncomfortable borrowing more money than we had. No particular reason, it is just a lot of money to mess with if something goes wrong. What? I don't know really. But the original $20k seems a bit much. I think I will try to get $12k, so even as I pay down the minimums, the $10k will earn interest. Dh has been firmly against investing our e-fund at all as is, but now he is like, maybe we should invest a bit. Is he crazy? LOL. We can take the money we earn from it and invest it - fine. Sometime I just don't know. Why look over a 5% "sure thing"? But anyway, we already expect to earn $500 this year from our rewards card, and now maybe $500 from this little ploy. I think after we give it a try we will try for another Citi Card and see if we can get another balance transfer. I have no idea how much they will give us, but I am sure they won't blink at $10k with our credit score. I think we will open one in my name and one in dh's name just so it won't really hit either of our credit scores very hard. Frankly, in our situation, I think it will help. Anyway, I think I am a little weirded out by the idea so we'll test it and get our little $50 gift card (woohoo). & if I don't regret it and just pay it back in a couple of months - LOL - we might try to borrow a little more. Free money here we come. We have been pondering it, and I just don't feel comfortable opening a lot of cards just for promos and how it could mess with your credit score. But if we can open 1 each, play the game, and close the cards without much of a blip to our credit score, then I am in!! Which I am sure we can. I just am not sure we can do this indefinitely. So I don't want to get too used to it. But all the same I feel quite pleased at the idea of making $1k off the credit cards in 1 year. Doubling our current returns. Well, maybe even tripling if we can get 2 cards at $10k. We'll see!

Not only does CitiBank have no fees and all that, and the gift card promo, etc. BUT the best part to me is just being able to get a check deposited directly to my money market account. I still do not trust the credit card companies enough to send a big negative balance to them I guess.

If you told me a year ago I would apply for $10 cc debt, I would have thought you were insane. Oh yeah - this is going to add to my challenge money - woohoo.

Oh anyway, here is the blog where I got the idea (below). I considered it carefully because I do not necessarily agree some of this bloggers' money-making ideas. For one, I can't see myself applying for a zillion cards just for free money and promos. It has got to affect your FICO signifcantly. But we'll see. I was also reading his step-by-step guide to investing in Treasuries, which was very useful and interesting, I do have to say. But just left me not seeing the point because I can make more in my money market with a lot less effort. But I will keep in mind for when times change. So I had to look at this cc idea a little more critically, and I still think it is good as long as you don't overdue it. So while I recommend the blog overall, I wouldn't do everything the guy suggests myself. I guess a reminder to consider things very carefully when it comes to finance.

ETA: Oh, to give the guy credit he seems pretty on top of the credit score thing - I just saw more of his replies on the subject). I guess the risk is not my thing - LOL.

Yes - for Citi the fees look like they are waived on most of the promo deals for most cards right now. But I will definitely let you know how it goes - will keep you updated.

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/how-to-make-money-from-0-apr-bala...

*Forgot to mention work has been so crazy we skipped Toddler class this month - runs $32/month. I didn't really have the time to meet the fam and keep an eye on the big Monkey. So we skipped it. Save $32.
Will probably resume May - December. I think we will keep it on top of preschool until then. Who knows when he will start preschool anyway - said they might have an opening around his birthday which would work, but no hurry either. Will keep his little fun time in the meantime. IT's been good for him.

*Just paid the life insurance. Cash was in the bank. woohoo. The property taxes and IRS payment and all that stuff just cleared the bank as well - what a chunk of change.

*We are finally making it to the dentist today. BM has his first dental appointment. I have the money in the bank for this too. I think. I hope. No cavities please. Hope he takes it well, he is really scared but we keep trying to tell him how cool and fun he is. I don't think it will be so bad, said he might just be able to look in his mouth. But he has a cool camera that he puts in your mouth and you can see your teeth on this screen - magnified, I know BM will love that part. Well I hope. I realized we have not been to the dentist in AGES. HAve been trying to set up this appointment for months. My teeth really need a cleaning. So we'll see. My friend also gave me a glowing review for a local dentist. I've had one before that turned out to be a scammy dentist so I am very wary, but we'll see. We need a local dentist. But for today I am taking the day off work. It is so crazy we are just pretty much going to the dentist (quite a drive) and back today. I will work tomorrow. No time to really stay and enjoy the fam. It is raining today too - ick. Driving in the rain...

*Reminds me, at work I got my last extension out yesterday, so hopefully Monday and Tuesday won't be very rushed. I did wait for the very last minute to see if I could make it to this dentist appointment - wasn't sure I could. I noticed everyone at work was kind of treating Friday as the big deadline (as I had) so it was really winding down. But no rest for now, lots and lots of other work to catch up on and the impending 4/30 payroll tax deadline. Hence me going in Sunday for sure. & I still have people who want their taxes. Just nice to remove the 4/17 deadline and breathe a little - on all the extended returns. Even if I get them all out next week.

*Just paid all the bills. I don't even know how much money wormed its way in and out of my checkbook this month. A LOT. Was a little behind and just not sure where I stood. So I paid everything (I think) for the month, paid dh's PS3 bill which was $700 - or $30 less than expected. When all is said and done I have $200 or so sitting in my checking. I usually run it to 0 and I Wanted a small cushion with this extra money. So better than I expected when dh told me he spent $700 instead of $500. Still left a little. Oh yes, other reason is my mom sent me $100 for doing her taxes though I told her not to. I think I will just leave it in checking in case I missed something - not saving it therefore not adding it to the challenge. Some bill or other will come up I am sure. Oh yeah - I forgot I wanted to use that to fix my car. Indeed. IT will be spent and back to square one. But with a lot more in savings at least. I actually don't mind dh's allowance is way negative because I rarely have the ability to fund it anyway - it has been so tight. It is more a running balance in theory than actuality. So he has a negative $400 balance today that will be 8 months reprieve from funding. I have $25 or something that I might run through once things slow down = I have a few things to pick up at the store - just been too busy. So it is actually good - with negative balances, paid and gone, no need to replenish our funds for a while - hehe. I use it more of a guideline of play money we have than anything - since we tend to use it I don't do much with it. But in recent months dh was building it up for his PS3 and I had it all in one account to itself. That creates a conundrum since the minimum is $100. So in the meantime I have to do some fancy bookkeeping as I spread out our short-term savings to that account to cover minimums and I usually keep a little with my checking to have immediately accessible cash, and when the balance gets large (as it will the next couple of months with no big bills due) I keep a chunk with the emergency fund for the higher interest rate. It is usually much simpler than this, but oh well. Just more tracking.

*Since I paid all the bills for the month, got all the deposits (I think) I was plugging our numbers in my net worth spreadsheet. Oh yes, and because our investments had such a good week. Doesn't exactly mean a ton at one space in time, but suddenly our net worth is up about $10k for the year. Woohoo. First 1/2 of year should be quite grand is I expect another $2500 increase to the net worth next month with my bonus check - whether I pay the car or save it, will bump up the good old net worth.

*Oh yeah, I dug out dh's credit card info so I could pay off the PS3. SIgned up online to access the account, then linked it to my checking and paid it electronically. So in the future any bills will be delivered to my checking account. Though there shouldn't be any more. Anyway, when I signed up a 2nd mystery credit card account appeared. Dh thinks it is his very first card (with Chase too) that is in his dad's name too or something. I guess he thought his dad closed it. I guess not. I think since it is in his name he can close, but will have to check with his dad. I just closed my old ancient card and not a blip to the all but perfect credit score so I say close it. His score is the same as mine. At this stage in the game all I Can figure is our mortgage is 99% of our score - nothing else we do seems to matter. Either that or the years of paying on time speaks for itself. But well, that was an interesting find. I thought we scoured our credit reports but maybe not his as much as mine. The other interesting thing is the last time I saw these bills none of the were Chase. BAnk One & something else, but apparently Chase is taking over. So today we have 3 cards with Chase - who knew. Well, hopefully only 2 soon enough. I just have a thing about old opened cards that sit unused - don't like it. We both keep one for backup. But beyond that don't see the need to carry unused cards. Leaves 3 cards between us (2 joint), and that has been just fine.

Anyway, I am really happy to pay off all 3 cards this month. I like simplicity and why we use only the one card. Kind of a weird month for the credit cards, that I accidentally charged one thing to my backup card and dh had to resort to his backup card. So I just paid them off and that is good - was about $80 in gas and groceries I would have paid off next month otherwise, so that might help the cushion in the checkbook too. I just don't like it when my system gets all messed up. Glad to get those cards paid and out of my mind. Until something else comes up - another denied card or another tired reach for the wrong card - hehe. I have never done that before - so weird.

*Played as joke on my parents. We actually love April Fools but I get lazy with age. Brings out the kids in us I guess though. In reality I felt too sick today to work on their taxes as promised. But they did not know that so I called and told them they owed $15k. I was trying to pick a number high enough to shock them, but since they expected to owe I Wasn't sure how much. I did good - my mom said she was freaking out. My dad was confused, but I got them good. I didn't prolong the torture too long. They probably think it is worse that I haven't looked at it yet though. I am trying to talk them into extension. But they aren't going for it. But they might have to at this rate.

*Just updated my net worth. Short on time so did a quick excel sheet for 3/31. Did a column with house and one without because it skews everything so much. But without house it landed at a few dollars short of my current salary. Too funny. 30 with 1 years salary. But it will be even more by the end of the year - still have 9 more months of being 30. Not bad, not bad. I didn't even include the cash equity we paid into our house like I usually do. Just thought of that. With that we are well over 2 years salary in net worth. Over time will mean more. For now I am making a good $25k less than when we both worked (which was only 1 year or so at that level) but a good $25k more than the last few years so it is really hard to pinpoint where we should be, how much we really need to live on and so on. But I am pinpointing our expenses at around $50k/year which makes me want to grow our net worth about $25k/year - seems reasonable and yet a little aggressive at this point. Reasonably aggressive.

*Tonight we will splurge on dinner out. I wish I Was feeling better and my taste buds would enjoy more, but I don't remember the last time we all went out to eat on our dime. Maybe in December for birthdays - I don't know. So it should be fun. Then again the little one is really grumpy this weekend. So we'll see. We had a good month overall so figured what the heck. I think we are breakeven on the budget...

http://www.punny.org

Just came across this today. Check out the last 4 entries.

Quite interesting.

I think ever since I have been an adult they question of net worth and social class fascinates me. IT seems so obvious to me there is such a swirly curvey, fine line between what makes you upper-middle class and lower-class, and lower-middle-class and all that. I like to quantify things and so I look up salary ranges for class and sometimes by salary for the area we are even considered lower class. or lower-middle-class, where I Felt we had settled for a long time, purely based on income. Though through many other factors middle-middle or even upper-middle is more explanatory.

Then I find the people who are so "poor" and whiny are all making six-figures and it just boggles the mind. The $30k cars but can barely afford their rent. No money in the bank, not a dime saved for a rainy day. Yet upper-middle-class on that six-figure salary, for sure. Yet with taxes and daycare a lot of them take home far less than my $70k wage at the end of the day. So since I am in the lowest of low tax brackets with no daycare expenses, where does that put us? I've said a million times we'd bring home less money if dh worked. Guess that put us upper-middle. But in such a high COL Area is a $100k wage upper-middle? Or should it be?

So while many of 2-income families eye our assets and assume we are in debt up to our eyeballs or make quite a wage (neither true) I always wonder where that leaves us. No one is defined by their income. The extreme complexity of the real estate market means that my dh's cousin owns his 4-bedroom 1/2 acre lot here outright since he bought in 1999 with equity from the Bay Area. HE drives a corvette and makes I imagine not much more than $30-$40k/year - no college degree. Lower class by income, extremely upper-middle class by assets and lack of debt. Hmmmmm... IT all just makes that class gap that much more wide and strange. Hard to pinpoint.

Anyway, I found this perspective of wealth (See link) from so many important angles very interesting. Probably how I think in terms of wealth, class, net worth. & I am fascinated to see hot to quantify it all - in future articles to come.

Oh I am feeling in such a good mood because the weather is nice. I was too sick to venture out but late yesterday afternoon dh took the kids to the park - they had a blast. Daylight savings starts early this year and I am stoked. Love coming home and having time to go outside, get a walk in, play with the kids, get fresh air, etc. So am in a good mood with the weather!!!!

I am feeling better today - will brave work.

The budget is interesting this month. I did notice the grocery and gas bill were insanely low - dh hasn't refilled his gas tank in ages. So we were talking last night and he said he hadn't been to the grocery store in a long while because everyone had been too sick to eat (primarily kids who eat way more than us it seems). & also that he hadn't been driving for his film work, all done, so he mentioned he didn't remember the last time he got gas. Plus with sickness I haven't been driving to work or preschool either. I think all of this will help offset some of the medical expenses.

For whatever reason we were also discussing dh's movie - premieres in just a couple of weeks!! & the money he may (odds are slim - but possible) he may make. I guess I was in a generous mood because I told him no matter how much he got we should just reinvest in future movies. I started thinking about all the gas/car expenses we had since he was actually driving his car a lot more, possible daycare expenditures so he could have more flexibility (LM is getting old enough), etc., moreso than the few thousand I assumed he'd want to upgrade his equipment. We were even discussing it as a film fund but could double as an emergency fund as well, obviously a true emergency would come over his film stuff. So something to think about. No matter what we do I will demand a slice for myself and for the e-fund. But if 99% goes back to him moving forward on his career I am fine with that all the same. I think it is just bad overall to get ini the mindset this money is his is why I would at least demand a little for myself and the e-fund. Hehe. I think it is a dangerous mindset to get into. But overall the hope would be to help him generate more income to come back to the family, and that is a worthy goal!

GMAC bank just sent me checks. My new MMA. Too bad since that was s'posed to be my e-fund, separate it out, make it easy. Gah. I know I do not have to use them but I am thinking if I move my short-term savings over there too it will earn higher interest and I can write checks for insurance and property taxes directly from it, avoiding a lot of transfers. I'll think about it. MAkes sense, just makes it a little harder to track. I was enjoying the balance in that one account equaling the balance in my e-fund. But with the interest might be smart - have $2200 in short-term savings today. IT is earning 0.4% less in the meantime or something and gets drained out twice a year so I don't know...

Well that is all the money stuff thinking of today. I actually have not much more than work on my mind really. I am going back to a landslide. Hope I feel up to a full day...

ETA: Oh I just had to add what a BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!!! It has hardly rained all winter but it did all last week (rain = snow in the peaks), and then this week "spring" has been settling in. So my drive to work I saw beautiful snow-capped mountains (sierra nevada) in the background, against a brilliant blue sky. It is just gorgeous out there.

I can't imagine how I would feel in an area with real seasons. Califorina is just so moderate overall there isn't a huge difference in the seasons. I actually find Sacramento a little refreshing, we get more beautiful colors in the fall, a little closer to the snow-capped mountains in the winter. But still overall not a huge difference in the landscape season to season. But with the heavy snow/rain followed by such nice weather, it is just absolutely gorgeous here today. Too bad I am locked up inside under a pile of tax returns - LOL. I heard it was going to rain or something too but doesn't look like it.