Received $70 bank interest for the month of October.

Snowflakes:
--Redeemed $39 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $133 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $18 cash back on dining/gas/grocery card.

Other snowflakes:
$ 5 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

{Note: Did not put snowflakes to investments this month,applied to large expenditure}

401k Contributions/Match:
+$750

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 900 MH Paychecks
+$ 100 MH Focus Group
+$ 265 Self-employment income

TOTAL: $1,265 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 3,700 Orthodontist**

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 460 Car Insurance
-$ 260 Electricity^ (for prior year, electric car)
-$ 190 Misc.
-$ 120 Prepay school lunch

TOTAL: -$695 Net
(Invested +$750, -$1,445 from cash)


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

^Electricity expenditure ~ we have balanced billing and so though we added an electric car to our household we haven't really been paying for it. Had a $260 accumulation I could have spread over next 12 months, but I just wanted to pay it off and be done. I didn't want to spend the next 12 months paying for the last 12 months of car charging.

Prediction from last month:
October should be a good money month.

Things went as predicted. We would have had +$3,000 to savings/investments if it wasn't for another orthodontist surprise. (More Below). & to be clear, I am in "significantly reduced salary" mode.

Unfortunately, November will not be any prettier. I just pulled $5,500-ish out of savings so that I can get property taxes covered for the next year. I am paying a little early and pre-paying. This goes in the "simplicity" category. Don't want to think about it for another 12 months.

**Most of the Citi card reward was due to charging some orthodontist expenses to a credit card. It was very out of nowhere, so I immediately pulled from savings and just paid it off. (This is what we had decided to do for LM, but MH just presumed we'd come to the same conclusion with kid #2. He didn't even talk to me about it! Just came home to, "I spent $4,000 today.") MM went in for a consult and he was recommended a similar treatment plan to his brother. I think it's probably where we would have ended up but I was just dumbfounded that MH didn't discuss with me. (I think this is just a side effect of us both being so run down by life at the moment). On the flip side, he was in such a hurry to pay, he whipped out the credit card. That's good because I got about $75 cash back to offset the cost. Wish I had known for DL's braces. All their fine print was that there was a fee for credit card. Just another reminder that it never hurts to ask! I swear, fine print is usually optional, from my experience. When it comes to bigger purchases.

I had been planning to spend around $12,000 on braces this year (expected scenario) and we are up to about $8,000 so far. So, it was kind of *shrugs* in the end. It probably helped that I was being very cognizant this was precisely why we had so much extra cash and everything has been pretty zen lately. We over-prepared, as we tend to do.

I just threw all the credit card rewards (this month) to offset the ortho costs.

October was some crazy month from hell, as they all are any more. So honestly, this was probably the most boring thing that happened. In fact, that was a "calm" week. I remember thinking it was sad that waiting for MH's MRI results and getting a surprise $4,000 bill is what I consider calm.

& there is more. Now, MM(16) is being referred to jaw surgery. The saving grace is I have two boys. The surgery I had at 16, they don't do until 20s for boys. Because they are still growing. DL(14) has my same jaw and was referred to surgery at age 23? That is very grey area with "cosmetic surgery for medical reasons" and not sure how that will shake out. I don't know what the heck MM(16)'s deal is but it's not the same. I believe they said age 26 for MM. But, the Ortho did happen to mention that our insurance had never turned down covering this particular surgery (if he referred). So that was a nice heads up. Regardless, both cans are getting kicked *way* down the road. It really really sucks that they both have to deal with this, but I don't have any room whatsoever in my brain (right now) for "things that may or may not happen in another 10 years."

Received $73 bank interest for the month of September.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $53 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $56 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $8 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 3 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$ 20 Citi Price Rewind
$150 Dividend

TOTAL: $290 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 210 Car Maintenance (new battery/oil change)
-$ 160 Misc. Purchase MH (disability related)
-$ 70 Misc. Purchase MH

TOTAL: $2,573 deposited to cash and investments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't think that things could be any more financially mellow. I am experiencing the reward of working my butt off earlier in the year. Phew!

October should be a good money month. MH received a 12%+ raise (minimum wage increase) and was asked to work more hours. It's becoming more obvious that we should just use his income to fund our IRAs. But 2019 is well covered so we will probably start that in 2020. I also have about $500 in side work to bill, so we will have a few snowballs to add to savings.

Anyway, I can tell you that money has been entirely in the background through all of this, but it's just even moreso right now. We had a lot of big expenses earlier in the year, but it's just a little slice of quiet and calm right now.

Trying to jot down the grocery rewards plan because I completely lost that post.

Our American Express card caps grocery rewards at the $6,000 per year spending level. It looks like they are calculating this from January 1 of every new year.

In the end, we hit $5,950 already for this year. We are switching to our credit union card (3% cash back on groceries) for the rest of the calendar year.

I do buy $5 here and there, and actually spent about $30 today at the grocery store. So I will keep the American Express in my wallet and will see if the cutoff happens where I think it will. If I am off by some $5 purchase it's not as a huge of a deal as losing rewards on a $150 purchase.

Plan for 2019:

**Switch to credit union card (3% cash back groceries) for rest of year.

Will just pull the American Express cards out of our wallets.

Plan for 2020:

**Use Chase Freedom for 5% grocery quarter

It looks like the Chase Freedom card has 5% back one quarter per year. I was going to do this anyway, but it just works out that apparently we need the reward for exactly one quarter.

I had gotten the Chase card intending it to be a card just for MM(16). But it is what it is. I have the card and might as well use the grocery benefit.

Note re: Teen Credit Card

When looking up some other grocery rewards or strategies I noticed that there are a lot of new cards that offer 3%? cash back for the first year. The catch is that these cards don't offer a sign up bonus. I wanted to remember this because it might be a good strategy to apply for one of these cards for MM around his next birthday. Then he can just use it for one year and he should be able to more easily get his own credit card when he turns 18. (I am personally not going to sign up for a higher reward if it expires after just one year, but just makes more sense for someone who was going to change cards in one year anyway).

Note re: American Express

While typing all this out, I remembered that I got rejected for an American Express card that I tried to apply for, re: grocery rewards. American Express changed their terms to some very loose "can deny rewards at any time for any reason" language. I will be cautious doing any new rewards cards with them, but I guess it's somewhat moot if they are just going to reject me.

2019 TALLY:

$550 Gift Cards (Citi, Moi)
$150 Bank Bonus
-----------
$700 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$ 29 Citi Price rewinds (RIP)

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I posted earlier that I was reminded to do some price rewinds, when price matching a wedding gift. Citi had a "Price Rewind" where you could just enter a purchase and they would check 60 days for lower prices. It was *awesome*. Unfortunately, today is the last day they are offering this perk.

We had a few big purchases during the last few months. I always put bigger purchases in because you never know when a price will drop, and it's the biggest bang for your buck.

In the end, we didn't get any money back on the big purchases (no surprise) but I found a smaller purchase that had been done (in a time of chaos) and that I knew was ridiculous. So I will get $20 back. In addition, we had received $9 back when we bought our washer/dryer earlier this year, so I need to add that to my year-to-date tally. Total $29 in price rewinds for the year. There won't be any more because this reward is dead.

MM(16) also should be getting a $150 bonus for the credit card I signed him up for. He has not gotten the reward yet because he spent -$0- during the last billing cycle. But he has since gotten gas and hit the spending level for the bonus. I presume that he will probably have his gas covered for the next 4 or 5 months. I am not adding this reward to my tally because he is using it for his own spending/bills.

I don't foresee doing any other one-time bonuses this year. But... you never know when an irresistible deal might pop up.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

Received $75 bank interest for the month of July.

Snowflakes to Mortgage:
--Redeemed $47 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $66 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $15 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to Mortgage:
$ 3 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$39 rounded up mortgage payment

TOTAL: $170 snowflakes to mortgage

401k Contributions/Match:
+$600

Snowball to Savings:
-0- {No side income this month}

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-0-

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 280 Car Stereo for MM(16)
-$ 265 Car Insurance for MM(16)
-$ 220 Vacation Expense (brought friend to camp)
-$ 130 Amazon Prime
-$ 120 Dentist

TOTAL: $1,780 deposited to cash and investments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is more of a June sum up (on the spending side), since we mostly charge everything and pay off the following month.

From last month:
June went pretty well. It was a very low spend month. Without all the stress and extra income, we just fell back on our old habits (which is living on a shoestring). It's an easy default for us.

It was the first month of my new salary reality ($1,000 less per month), without any side income or additional income. June went very well and we were still able to hit aggressive savings goals. I wish I could say July went so well, but I sat down and went through the books for July today (I always pay everything the first of the month) and July was pretty ugly. It was a "death by a thousand cuts" month, though I think we did pretty well considering. Just not sure if I will have anything to add to (cash) savings next month. It will be a bit of a breakeven month. I expect August (spending) to be more like June. Maybe more low key since the kids will be back at school for the entire month. We are also done with vacations, birthdays, etc.

Our dining out rewards were also clearly insane. I had about $200 in spending (kids' birthdays) that were reimbursed by other people. Plus a lot of vacation eating out, etc. Our grocery bill was actually quite reasonable. (Probably not reasonable enough, considering MM was mostly gone for 8 days. But was much better than other summer months. Phew!)

401k contributions dropped a bit since it was just my income/contributions this month.

Short-term spending was very kid-centric. We paid final expenses on car (before handing it over to MM on his birthday). As a birthday present, we got him a new car stereo with bluetooth. We also paid for DL to invite a friend along to camp. (Which is no big deal because most years MIL insists on paying for us. Just paying it forward).

I did decide to throw all my snowflakes to the mortgage this month. I expect this may likely be the "last hoorah" with our mortgage. I had been paying down an extra $3k per month (OT money) to keep payoff within 30 years of original mortgage. (We've refied several times as interest rates drop, but never felt comfortable with a shorter mortgage term with the volatile economy in our lower-cost locale). I am no longer getting paid OT and so don't have that extra money to throw at the mortgage. MH's income will probably fund IRAs this year (bigger priority). I put a placeholder on my sidebar, but as more time passes and there's no windfall to cover it, it seems less likely I will pay any extra on our mortgage again. So, why the extra payment today? Completely psychological. It's a year or two later than I expected, but we finally dropped below the $150k mark. I had to throw the extra $170 this month to get there. It feels good. Having a $14X,XXX mortgage, feels extraordinary for this California girl.

We've absolutely never hit our mortgage hard. Never more than $20 here or there, or the "extra $3k per year after I cut the monthly payments down by $7,500 per year" kind of thing. Still paying far less than when we started (at 8%). So throwing the extra $3k per year was throwing it a bone, and making sure we don't have a mortgage for more than 30 years But it all seems pretty moot at this point. We are only planning to stay in our home 5-ish more years. We will never pay off before we sell. & we plan to downsize into a home we can pay cash for. Our bigger goal right now is to save up a down payment for our next home. It would be our preference to buy our next home before we sell this one. It just keeps things more flexible and will allow us to jump when we find the right home.

This is also compounded by this whole "kid starting college in 2 years" thing. There will also be cash hoarding in prep for that. I don't know how much I can succeed on either of these fronts (down payment, college costs) with my salary, but MH is looking for full-time work to that end. If he starts bringing home $2k-$3k every single month, we are just going to start hoarding cash. We will never live up to a second income. We will use it to buy a house (again) or pay for a temporary expense like college.

Anyway, I feel much better about this after having reached this psychological milestone. It's easier to just let it go. Will be happy to have an under $150k mortgage for a few years, and then will be done with the only debt we have ever had.

Edited to add:
I suppose I officially reached cash savings goal for 2019. It's not that exciting, because it depends on what comes up the rest of the year (that might drain cash) and I still need to come up with IRA money. I mean, I have $12k cash for our 2019 IRAs, but that was all saved from second income. I need to start meaningfully saving for 2020 and forward. Trying to get ahead of the curve as much as possible, until we get our income back to where it was.

Received $60 bank interest for the month of May.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $36 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $88 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 10 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $144 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

Snowball to Savings:
+$1,000 MH Paychecks
+$3,200 April/May self-employment income

TOTAL: $4,200 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 4,000 Orthodontist (*fingers crossed, this is it?)
-$ 260 Summer college tour for MM (school trip)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$1,000 Beach Vacation
-$ 555 Dentist/Medical
-$ 70 Misc.

TOTAL: $1,169 deposited to cash and investments

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We paid cash for school trip this summer, 4 days/3 nights touring several colleges. $260 is an incredible deal. (The school is also covering all the costs of AP, ACT, SAT tests, etc., which I mentioned recently. I am feeling very spoiled on this front right now).

That reminds me too, MM can also take community college classes for free the next two years (junior/senior year of high school).

*As to Ortho costs, that's still another post for another day. It's almost comical how many canceled ortho appointments we had before we had this quote. Yeesh! We had one ortho decide to retire after booking a consult appointment. I think we majorly dodged a bullet! The good news is that though DL(13) completely inherited my mess, he was only recommended 18 months of ortho, versus the 5+ years or whatever hell I was put through. I never in a million years expected him to end up on the lower end of time/cost. MM(15) was told his situation is just cosmetic but no other reasons to have braces; he is not interested. I was planning for the worst case, which I thought was very likely. (To be fair, we already invested $3k-ish in preventative ortho work for MM, when he was very young. It seems to have paid off).

It's not quite so simple. No cause to overly celebrate yet. MM(15) is being monitored for a new problem and may need (relatively minor?) surgery.

We were told up front that DL(13) need major jaw surgery, which I had already assumed. I was not surprised and is one reason why we chose this ortho. He was very up front about it. I had the same surgery at 16. We didn't discuss the reasons for waiting but I think it's because boys stop growing several years later than girls. We are looking at age 20 for him, or 7 years down the road. They are going to do the braces in an attempt to prevent surgery. I am not holding my breath, but appreciate the effort. It's either this or "wear braces forever" so it's not a purely cosmetic surgery, but I doubt it will be covered by insurance. Overall, I could see that one coming from a mile away and don't feel much financial stress about it. But kicking the can down the road for 7 years sounds nice, of course. So that's a quick sum up of everything ortho. We decided to just pay cash (for braces) due to the short treatment, the smaller dollar amount (much smaller than we were expecting for two kids), and probably mostly because of the significant tax break we get for paying cash this year, in addition to cash discount. I am relieved, because it was my very strong preference to pay cash up front.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

June 1 is it. I've managed to kick the can down the road for 8 months, but it's time to accept my lower salary. Unfortunately, the timing hits with MH's summer off work.

June savings update will be similarly nasty, but without all the extra income. I have a $5,000 credit card bill (May charges) that I paid off the first of June. There was probably about $1,000 that ended up being reimbursed by employer (phew) and most the rest was vacation expenses. Plus some medical bills, school lunches for several months, and DMV/insurance on the kids' car.

I did not save all of our side income this month. Well, I suppose I did in a sense. But mostly I was doing a major reset on all things financial. No more, "I have an extra $2,000 coming in this month, and I am completely exhausted, so who cares about $50 here and there."

Where we are at:

Still have 12 months of expenses liquid. Which is very easy peasy with three jobs, but will be more of a challenge with just the one.

I have about $10,000 set aside for 2019 IRAs. Just depends what other big expenses come up this year. Not adding to savings in any long-term meaningful away. Is more "keep afloat level" at this point. I am speaking to just my salary. I realize that I probably have to shift back to letting MH fund IRAs. Which is probably okay with combo of pay cut and work retirement plan (I am able to contribute about 10%, even with reduced salary). Funding IRAs is a very stubborn "live far below our means" goal, and I think is still pretty doable. In the short run, I probably have 2019/2020 covered. In the long run, I am due bonuses/raises (soon) and MH will be looking for more work.

I left enough side income in the checkbook to zero out our checking balance (no projected negative). Mortgage is technically pre-paid by two months. When things are not tight at all, I pay before the end of the month. In addition, am paid ahead one full month. (Other than that, I one million times more rather pay down principal, but I like the buffer of being one month ahead). I am going into June 1 with all bills paid far ahead (still have built-in 6 week emergency fund in that regard). Mortgage paid two months ahead. Credit card balances all zero (as they always are the first of every month). It was mostly knocking the mortgage back to "before the end of the month" to get us started this summer with as much buffer as possible. It would be my preference not to use any of this buffer this summer, but we will have drastically reduced income from what we have gotten used to the past few years. & I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to reduce our savings goals. Will see how it goes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am so late getting to this post. So... How is June going so far?

Dining out is at $20 for the month, with the month 1/3 over. I suppose we have done well with the reset. Gas should go down significantly without work/school (MH kids). I think we may be able to rein in adult grocery spending a bit (without all the stress spending). The big splurge so far this month was $4 at Home Depot to get a couple of house keys made for the kids. MM(15) needed a key, and I just made a copy for when DL needs a key eventually. June should be pretty easy as we will be out of town a few days with all expenses covered.

Life is good. I've been "busy", but the vast majority of it has been family time and self care.

Received $72 bank interest for the month of April.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $42 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $33 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $12 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 12 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$ 1 Rounded Up

TOTAL: $100 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 800 MH Paychecks
+$2,000 March self-employment income (received April)

TOTAL: $2,800 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 2,365 Medical Expenses
-$11,000 Fund IRAs 2018

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 720 Auto Insurance
-$ 500 Life Insurance
-$ 300 Dentist
-$ 294 DMV (Auto Registration)

TOTAL: $1,443 deposited to cash and investments

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

Last month's commentary:

Still just hoarding cash. Second job is winding down (I hope). I have $3k medical bills coming up, want to pay cash for braces this year (x2), have to cover all my professional expenses going forward, etc., etc. Just hoarding cash for all that, and preparing for a big income drop this summer.

Second job is definitely winding down. I am hoping to deposit another $3,000-ish in the next couple of months. But I am only working two more weeks for old/forever employer. I am cramming on deadlines this weekend and then it's just running up as much hours as I can to pay for braces. The work is there, since their workload is far beyond their capacity at this point. It just depends on my motivation. Which has mostly been wavering, but I have a dollar figure for braces. I am paying cash up front this week. So this is my renewed motivation. Is another post for another day, but it feels good to have more clarity on that situation and to cross a large financial goal off my list.

Last net worth update:
Net worth is up about $40,000 for the year. Or about 2/3 of our annual goal. Most of that is stock market recovery from end of last year.

Net worth is up $60,000 for the year, which is my goal. I am feeling pretty good about dropping second income at this point.

The reduced salary at my new job has little to do with our forward financial progress and is more shifting things around. I've traded $11,500 cash (used to fund IRAs) for $7,500 in retirement benefits. I only need to come up with $4,000 net to be whole. So while I am bracing for significantly less cash in June, I don't expect any change to big picture goals.

2019 TALLY:

$540 Gift Cards (Citi, Moi)
$150 Bank Bonus
-----------
$690 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just saw that the points posted for my latest one-time bonus.

Citi has significantly better gift card rewards than the last time I did this. Will probably pick up some Target and Kohls gift cards, in addition to some movie theater gift cards. Then a handful of dining out gift cards so we can go out and enjoy a bit this summer. All of this will help us immensely during our "income gap". Which I expect to be during the summer months when MH is not working.

I will probably try again for a Chase bonus. I was denied the last time I tried, though I didn't have anywhere near the "5 credit card apps" or whatever they were denying for. But I only applied for one card this year and last year. It's worth a try.

On the flip side, I told MH that I think this is my last big push. We really relied on this extra money to help us through lower income periods and periods of lower bank interest, but I just don't see continuing to do the same bank bonuses over and over and over again. The ongoing rewards and cash back for everyday purchases, those I have done my entire life and don't intend to stop. But I can see wanting to juggle less bonuses and one-time reward cards, for the long term. Will see...


***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

Received $83 bank interest for the month of January.

Also received a $150 bank bonus.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $30 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $46 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $9 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 4 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$100 Tax Refund
$170 Dividend

TOTAL: $359 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$800

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 0 MH Paychecks
+$ 750 February self-employment income

TOTAL: $1,550 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 890 Elliptical purchase (dropped gym membership)**

**My super awesome discount gym closed and transferred my membership to a really crappy gym.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 450 Misc. Expenses (school lunches pre-paid for a few months, medical bills, etc.)

TOTAL: $2,750 deposited to cash and investments

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

Last month's commentary:

Still just hoarding cash. Second job is winding down (I hope). I have $3k medical bills coming up, want to pay cash for braces this year (x2), have to cover all my professional expenses going forward, etc., etc. Just hoarding cash for all that, and preparing for a big income drop this summer.

I don't know what happened to MH's income. I wasn't able to save any of it (around $900) which is totally ridiculous. But I am still pretty buried and it is most likely an accounting error. Either that or we over-spent something like $400 last month and $400 this month. That is more likely. I know we didn't over-spend $900 this month. Anyway, I share to explain why I saved -$0- of that, but will chalk that up to "life is chaos." Because I track our spending so closely, is why I am fine with, "I don't have time to track it down and don't care." I suppose is the flip side of working crazy hours/extra money. Our life is usually more slow/relaxed, and lots of time to pinch pennies. Life is just the polar opposite of that right now.

All of this is still true. I put $2,000 medical bills on new reward card. I pulled this out of savings in April, along with $11,000 to fund IRAs (for 2018). All of this will show up on my April report.

{I ended up funding our IRAs today}.

I also didn't save any of MH's income in March (again) and couldn't tell you why. It's kind of moot because March is really just paying all of February expenses (credit card charges). So this month was already over (spending-wise) when I did my last monthly update. I don't know that anything has particularly changed, but March expenses (paid in April) ended up balancing to about the penny. & that was during a crazy busy month when I doubt we were particularly frugal (except for being too busy to spend money). I actually just found $150 I accidentally transferred to savings for April, and will fix that by the end of the month. I expect I might find more stuff like that if I look back the last two months.

Net worth is up about $40,000 for the year. Or about 2/3 of our annual goal. Most of that is stock market recovery from end of last year.

I will try to do some more work posts later. But I am starting to feel more *chill* about dropping second income. Some of my reluctance to drop the second income was not having any real idea how things would go with new job. But after 6 months, I feel pretty confident I have found a long-term work home. I also think it's pretty likely I will replace my old salary this year (with the one job). This was part of my strategy and willingness to take a pay cut in the interim.

Received $80 bank interest for the month of
February.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $89 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $13 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$13 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases) ~ this month included some clothing purchases

TOTAL: $165 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$730

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 0 MH Paychecks
+$2,500 January self-employment income

+$ 200 Missed prior month when moving money around - moved back into savings

TOTAL: $2,700 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 360 Driving School (for 15-year-old)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
+$ 210 Insurance Rebate
-$1,289 Various Insurance
-$ 175 Dentist
-$ 200 Vacation (Weekend Away)

TOTAL: $3,800 deposited to cash and investments

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

Driving school was very one-off and nothing I specifically saved for, so it comes out of the mid-term savings.

Still just hoarding cash. Second job is winding down (I hope). I have $3k medical bills coming up, want to pay cash for braces this year (x2), have to cover all my professional expenses going forward, etc., etc. Just hoarding cash for all that, and preparing for a big income drop this summer.

I don't know what happened to MH's income. I wasn't able to save any of it (around $900) which is totally ridiculous. But I am still pretty buried and it is most likely an accounting error. Either that or we over-spent something like $400 last month and $400 this month. That is more likely. I know we didn't over-spend $900 this month. Anyway, I share to explain why I saved -$0- of that, but will chalk that up to "life is chaos." Because I track our spending so closely, is why I am fine with, "I don't have time to track it down and don't care." I suppose is the flip side of working crazy hours/extra money. Our life is usually more slow/relaxed, and lots of time to pinch pennies. Life is just the polar opposite of that right now.

Just tracking my gift cards. Not *all* credit card rewards, but most of them are.


GIFTS:
------
$ 20 x4 Target


MOVIES:
--------
$25 Regal?


RESTAURANTS:
------------


RETAIL:
---------


Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In this case, none of these are credit card rewards.

I was just thinking that we had run through all our gift cards. Not sure if someone else was talking about gift cards or why I Was thinking about it. But I haven't done any (one-time) credit card rewards in a long time. I did some easy travel one last year for our road trip, but that's about it. I didn't have any room in my brain for one more thing, that is for sure. But I was thinking about it and I have been wanting to do a specific $500 reward (gift cards) for a while. They had increased the "spending for bonus" to $4,000, so that was the other reason I have been hesitating. But I have $3,000 in medical bills due, so the timing would be good. (I usually just run up these rewards with health insurance, other big insurance bills, and medical bills).

I applied for the card and it wasn't an immediate approval, which is super weird. Will see...

I am reviving my "monthly savings" posts. I abandoned last year because I knew I would just be in hoarding cash mode. Not very exciting. But in the end, I didn't have time for this, so probably for the best. Going forward, I should have time to keep up with these:

Received $67 bank interest for the month of January.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $0 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $83 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$5 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
--$8 "Price Rewind" for washer/dryer purchase

TOTAL: $106 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$686

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 500 MH Paychecks
+$1,500 December work for old/forever employer

TOTAL: $2,000 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$0 No Mid-Term Expenses this month

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 800 Home Insurance

TOTAL: $4,000 deposited to cash and investments

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

I had been putting $300/month to savings and investing $250/month into taxable investments. I just combined these to "savings" for 2019. We are "retirement heavy" with more retirement space and new job situation. If nothing else, will eventually be redirecting that $250/month to our IRAs. Will abandon taxable investments, except for snowflakes.

I like to put snowflakes to either the mortgage or taxable investments, because it's a "small things add up" thing, and if we keep it in cash I have no problem not touching it, but at some point when you have an extra thousands of dollars laying around you will be tempted to spend it. So I always tie up snowflakes in things I won't touch. I am going to fund retirement regardless, so that leaves taxable investments or mortgage.

On the income front, I traded $11,500 reduced salary for $7,500 401k contributions/match and significantly reduced taxes. Just means we can fund 401k with $7,500, without reducing our cash flow at all. So I am really only short $4,000 net; $4,000 less going to retirement. I expect to easily make that up this year with raise/bonuses. (& I've already made that up with side income, but more long term I'd let to get my net salary where I left off, with just the one job).

I've also lost the OT, which we were throwing at the mortgage. So we will stop mortgage pre-payments for the short run. We may stop indefinitely. We just want to pay cash for our next home when we downsize and we have achieved that goal (we have enough equity to do so: $300,000+). But we don't want to make this move until our kids are adults and done with high school. For now, we would rather fund our IRAs, and otherwise hoard cash for college and a down payment on our next home (we expect to buy our downsize before we sell this home, the down payment will keep things more flexible). That's our plan for now, but I do expect things to change significantly in the next 5 years. It's a very loose plan, but just to explain why the mortgage will fall off our radar for a while.

We are doing well on extra cash/side income, but we also want to fund our IRAs (in addition to the above retirement savings). We have three cars now, both kids need braces, college is right around the corner, we have some home improvements to tend to, etc. Oh, and the down payment we want to work on. We are going to be in "hoard cash" mode with the extra income.

We've also already maxed out our medical deductible for the year. I don't expect this side income to really remain in our account very long.

P.S. If it isn't not obvious, our emergency funds remain entirely intact. I did not end up having any time off work, beyond what was covered by PTO owed to me.

2018 TALLY:

$561 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
-----------
$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)

Ongoing rewards:

+$315 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$88 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$149 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$823 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $2,096

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017/2018).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,578
Year 2018 = $2,096

Total 7 Years = $22,862
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

I don't have December monthly reward totals yet, of course. But I figured I would update all my numbers and see where we are at. This will make it easy to update/finalize at the end of this month.

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
-----------
$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)

Ongoing rewards (through 11/30):

+$276 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$88 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$141 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$705 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $1,932

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017/2018).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,578
Year 2018 = $1,932

Total 7 Years = $22,698
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)
-----------
$721 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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

I submitted a "price rewind" (price match) for a Black Friday deal. The cell phone MH had bought was $150 off for Black Friday. So I got a $150 credit for that. Woohoo!

I submitted the washer/dryer purchase, because you never know. Generally Citi tracks the price match, but when we saw the $150-off for the phone we just wanted to be sure it was counted. Washer/Dryer were Black Friday deals. So far Citi is showing I am owed a refund of $8, for those purchases. They track for two months. For smaller amounts like that, they will just send me the money when the two months are up.

I haven't had any energy/time to chase rewards this year. It will be interesting to see how it comes out in the final tally.

I think I can beat 2016, so it wasn't even our lowest year. I probably have around $100/month in rewards, or another $1,200-ish to add to my 2018 tally.

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)
-----------
$571 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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

I was just paying bills and saw a Hulu Reward offer on our American Express card. Should get $5 back per month, for next 4 months. $10 this year and $10 next year? (We Pay Hulu around $10 per month in lieu of cable).

That reminds me, I need to set up a couple of Citi Price Rewinds (where Citi automatically price matches for 60 days). We had a couple of big purchases this month. I always set up big purchases even if I never expect to get anything. Was just looking and nothing has come within even $100 of the charger we picked up at Costco. But who knows, someone could have some super crazy sale in the next few weeks.

EARLIER POST FROM 2018:

I think I probably would have mostly passed (on one-time bonuses) this year given all my employment upheaval. Life has been CRAZY this year and I am being ultra protective of my credit score since I work in the financial industry. It's always been like 800+, but I just don't feel like it's the year to open 5 new credit cards in my name. Might raise some eyebrows during any employment consideration. (& I am probably just being overly cautious, but that is how I roll). & I did open 4 cards in MH's name last year so I am giving him a break. But anyway, this travel reward was easy and too good do pass up with our travel plans.

In the end, my new employer never ran a background check or a credit check on me. I actually am kind of horrified about their being so lax on this front and will probably chastise them a bit about this in the future. It's on my infinite list of things to address.

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
-----------
$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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

POST FROM 2017:


***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

At this point in my life I just pay the balances off the end of every month so that we go into each new month with -$0- credit card debt. This is really simple because there is no remembering bills or due dates or any of that. I just go in and pay them all the last day of every month. I have set all my credit cards to close for the month around the 28th of the month, so that the statement is closed by the last day of every month and every charge for the month has been posted. (I can just voluntarily pre-pay any charges that didn't make it on the statement for the last week of the month). From an accounting standpoint, anything else would drive me crazy, maybe especially since we do have so many credit cards that we use every month for rewards. This way, I just don't have to really keep track of anything and I know they will always be paid several weeks before due date. This also keeps all of our charges on a monthly cycle, which lines up with our monthly paychecks and my monthly accounting.

I expect 2018 to be more like 2016, but you never know. I don't feel like we need to put as much emphasis on the credit card rewards with MH working and with interest rates (on our savings) increasing. We really relied on these to boost our income and to stretch our dollars further when MH was home with the kids. I also have something like $1,000 unused gift cards laying around, which is about $1,000 more than usual. (In the past we mostly redeemed cash back, but those are harder to come by and it seems it was mostly gift cards and travel rewards for this year).

I figured I'd post that as a reminder and/or to fill in newer readers.

I think I probably would have mostly passed (on one-time bonuses) this year given all my employment upheaval. Life has been CRAZY this year and I am being ultra protective of my credit score since I work in the financial industry. It's always been like 800+, but I just don't feel like it's the year to open 5 new credit cards in my name. Might raise some eyebrows during any employment consideration. (& I am probably just being overly cautious, but that is how I roll). & I did open 4 cards in MH's name last year so I am giving him a break. But anyway, this travel reward was easy and too good do pass up with our travel plans.

I needed to spend $3,000 to earn $560, have already done so:

$2,082 Medical bills/insurance
$ 621 Auto Insurance
$ 275 Professional Dues
$ 13 Misc.
-------
$3,000 Spending
-------

I didn't plan it that way. I would have just pre-paid a couple of months of health insurance to hit the $3k spend. Super easy and takes me just a few minutes to earn rewards. But in this case I just happened to receive a pile of bills right after I applied for the card.

It's been long enough that I was not thinking. I would have just pre-paid the $13 (difference) to my medical insurance but I forgot (and would be a pain to make a separate $13 payment). I instead just used the card for some online shopping that I was doing regardless, to get up to the $3,000 spend. I wasn't thinking that means they won't bill me until the items ship. So it wasn't the smartest way to rack up immediate rewards, but I guess waiting another day or two doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Just tracking my gift cards. Not *all* credit card rewards, but most of them are.


GIFTS:
------
$ 20 x4 Target


MOVIES:
--------
$25 Regal?


RESTAURANTS:
------------
$25 Red Lobster


RETAIL:
---------
$100 Staples ($50x2)**School supplies next summer?**
$200 Home Depot ($50x4) **need taller ladder**


Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I still have 4 of 5 Target gift cards (to use as gifts). We may tap one or two of those for school supplies.

Yesterday I found a movie gift card. ??? I have no idea where it came from. It's in some sort of packaging so I don't think it has been used. (It may be that it's been used already. Will see...)

I expect to use up some of the Staples cards in the next month for school supplies.

It's on MH's infinite chore list to buy a taller ladder with the Home Depot gift cards.

Just tracking my gift cards. Not *all* credit card rewards, but most of them are.


GIFTS:
------
$ 20 x5 Target


MOVIES:
--------

RESTAURANTS:
------------
$25 Red Lobster


RETAIL:
---------
$100 Staples ($50x2)**School supplies next summer?**
$200 Home Depot ($50x4) **need taller ladder**
$75 Kohls ($50 + $25) **to replace kids' shoes?**


Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards.

Received $50 bank interest for the month of December.

Credit card rewards:
--Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $70 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 200 to investments

Snowball to investments (MH Paycheck):
+$ 600

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 500 Computer (for DL)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
-$ 720 Home Insurance
-$ 535 Disability Insurance
-$ 450 Flood Insurance
-$ 240 School Lunches (5 months x2)
-$ 215 Umbrella Insurance
-$ 115 Auto repairs
-$ 90 Dental
-$ 76 Medical

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

December was a bit of a mess. Not sure what to do with that, but trying to summarize the way I usually do.

I abandoned saving anything. Not for any of the usual reasons (we didn't spend anything substantial on the holidays). But I was doing a credit card reward and paid ahead several large bills. It made my life complicated in December but I knew we'd have some extra cash inflows to offset. Usually it's just so much at the end of the year that I try to spread it out or pay bills closer to due date (though most the rest of the year I generally try to stay more ahead of the curve). So the outcome is we had a huge cash outflow in December, but I have got all the bills paid ahead and won't be cash flowing $2,000 in January and February. (I just looked at last year and saw I put off most these bills to January and even February last year).

It hurts for now, but we will quickly build up cash in the next few months.

I've been slowly getting further ahead on bills. The mortgage is paid one full month ahead. Credit cards are paid in full the end of every month. Getting these end-of-year bills tamed I think is the last stop for me. I am fully transitioned to just paying bills when I receive them (or even earlier in many cases). This is what I did in early adulthood, but with online bill pay and cutting our income in half, I would more and more just set the bills to pay on their due dates. (I liked that I could get the bill paid when I received it but could set the due date to later and utilize the float). With more means, I've been going back in the other direction. Rather than save more cash and into an emergency fund, I am giving us some space and buffer.

When sitting down and trying to get to December balanced out, I abandoned all savings for this month and used credit card rewards to cover bills. In the end I had $200 left in the checkbook, so I went back and put that $200 into investments. That was all we saved this month. We did receive enough cash for Christmas to cover the rest.

I did also throw an extra $225 at the mortgage. That was what I had decided at some point (to get below $159k), and I had enough cash to cover that.

I did also donate my work Christmas bonus ($200), per our annual tradition. I earmarked this sum entirely for the local animal shelters.

One other note: I believe that our flood insurance (FEMA) is the only bill I *have to* pay by snail mail. I initially held onto the bill because I wanted to throw it on a specific one-time credit card (for rewards) and then got lazy and ended up mailing it closer to its due date (maybe a couple of days before, but I remember it sitting here for maybe two weeks in the meantime). Wouldn't you know it? It got lost in the mail! (Which is precisely why I avoid snail mail for anything important; this is the second hugely important item to be lost in the past 2 months). Anyway, I think I got it squared away about 3 weeks later, but in the meantime my mortgage holder was freaking out I didn't have proof of insurance. & lord knows I did not enjoy going without flood insurance for 2 weeks.

So anyway, all this to say, I am paying that bill the minute I get it next year, or about 30 days earlier. Yeesh!

Big picture: I am about $1,750 short of sidebar goals for the year. (I've updated sidebar). This is equivalent to the amount we redirected to spontaneous Europe trip. I am fine and happy with how the year shook out. Our savings goals are always very aggressive, and I am okay with directing that sum to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

EDITED TO ADD: I forgot that 50% MH's check went into his 401k, or $600. I guess in the end we invested more than I was thinking when I typed this up.

2017 TALLY:

$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, Moi)
$525 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, MH)
$545 Gift Cards (Citi Thank You, MH)
$499 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture,MH)
$200 Cash (WF Wise, MH)
-----------
$2,269 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$21 Citi Price Rewinds
$30 AmEx insurance payment rebate
$ 5 AmEx for mobile app login

Ongoing rewards:

+$355 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$114 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$86 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$698 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $3,578

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,578

Total 6 Years = $20,766
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

At this point in my life I just pay the balances off the end of every month so that we go into each new month with -$0- credit card debt. This is really simple because there is no remembering bills or due dates or any of that. I just go in and pay them all the last day of every month. I have set all my credit cards to close for the month around the 28th of the month, so that the statement is closed by the last day of every month and every charge for the month has been posted. (I can just voluntarily pre-pay any charges that didn't make it on the statement for the last week of the month). From an accounting standpoint, anything else would drive me crazy, maybe especially since we do have so many credit cards that we use every month for rewards. This way, I just don't have to really keep track of anything and I know they will always be paid several weeks before due date. This also keeps all of our charges on a monthly cycle, which lines up with our monthly paychecks and my monthly accounting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I expect 2018 to be more like 2016, but you never know. I don't feel like we need to put as much emphasis on the credit card rewards with MH working and with interest rates (on our savings) increasing. We really relied on these to boost our income and to stretch our dollars further when MH was home with the kids. I also have something like $1,000 unused gift cards laying around, which is about $1,000 more than usual. (In the past we mostly redeemed cash back, but those are harder to come by and it seems it was mostly gift cards and travel rewards for this year). If all I can do is gift cards next year, I imagine I would probably scale back but might consider focusing on those more for charity. If I had gotten this last $500 in time for Christmas, I would have donated those gift cards.

Just tracking my gift cards. Not *all* credit card rewards, but most of them are.


GIFTS:
------
$100 Benihana ($50x2) **SPRING 2018?**
$ 20 x5 Target


MOVIES:
--------

RESTAURANTS:
------------
$50 California Pizza Kitchen **Ecard**
$75 Chili's
$50 Olive Garden
$50 Seasons 52
$100 P.F. Chang's


RETAIL:
---------
$100 Staples ($50x2)**School supplies next summer?**
$100 REI **For MM's rafting trip supplies**
$200 Home Depot ($50x4)
$75 Kohls ($50 + $25) **to replace kids' shoes?**


Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards

2017 TALLY:

$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, Moi)
$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, MH)
$525 Gift Cards (Citi Thank You, MH)
$499 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture,MH)
$200 Cash (WF Wise, MH)
-----------
$2,224 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$21 Citi Price Rewinds
$30 AmEx insurance payment rebate
$ 5 AmEx for mobile app login

Ongoing rewards (through 11/30):

+$330 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$114 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$76 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$628 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $3,428

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,428

Total 6 Years = $20,616
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already.***

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

This is where I am at as of November 30, 2017. I will revise at the end of December 2017. (It will be simple to just throw in December numbers. I wanted to do this now because cards like Target have a YTD total for rewards, but it will probably reset before I look at it again. So I am just tallying up now to make my life easier).

Received $49 bank interest for the month of November.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. But... Paid annual $95 fee. I will subtract $95 from snowflakes/investments.
--Redeemed $83 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$12 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

Snowball to investments (MH Paycheck):
+$950

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 200 to investments
+$ 300 to cash (mid-term savings)
+$ 900 to IRAs

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$1,850 Medical Expenses
-$1,400 Home Maintenance

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,300 to cash
-$5,300 Property Taxes
-$ 430 Life Insurance
-$ 349 Auto registration
-$ 30 Dentist

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

I mentioned in my last (monthly) post that these past two months would be a bit of a wash. Lots and lots of bills paid this month.

For the most part, all bills are paid for 2017. Any charges past this point won't be cash flowed until 2018. The only exception is if something comes up that has to be paid for in cash.

Received $52 bank interest for the month of October.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card.
--Redeemed $61 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $7 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$5 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
--rounded up $2 for an even $100 snowflake deposit

Snowball to investments (MH Paycheck):
+$1,200

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 200 to investments
+$ 300 to cash (mid-term savings)
+$ 900 to IRAs

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$300 Trombone purchase

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,300 to cash
-$ 85 museum membership (renewal)
-$ 275 auto insurance

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

I think this month will end up being the polar opposite of next month. I literally deposited $4,300 into savings/investments this month. We save about $4,000 in a month that MH works and that we don't have any one-off expenses. (Rare, because there's usually some non-monthly expenses). But I am also replenishing savings for pre-paying some big expenses for credit card rewards.

Next month: We've already racked up $4,000 in medical bills and home repairs (and includes some smaller expenses). Will pay property taxes for the year, so that's $9,000 outflow right there.

This is the 4th year that I am just pre-paying property taxes, by paying it all up front (the second installment is not due until April). This is just done from a simplicity standpoint. If interest rates ever rise I guess I can re-evaluate, but I think we are building enough wealth at this point in our lives that I'd prefer simplicity over a little extra bank interest. But I probably only feel that way because interest rates are only 1%.

2017 TALLY:

$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, Moi)
$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, MH)
$525 Gift Cards (Citi Thank You, MH)
$499 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture,MH)
$200 Cash (WF Wise, MH)
-----------
$2,224 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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MH got a $250 reward offer from AmEx. I tracked down the $500 offer link and applied for that one instead.

This is a LOT for us. I am not a big churner and have probably never opened 4 cards in one year for just one of us. Yeesh. I will probably lay off and not do any rewards for him next year.

{This level of credit card churning has absolutely no effect on our credit scores. Hell would freeze over before we ever carried a balance on a credit card}.

As to credit score, which is a question that I get a lot, we have 100% on-time payments and 10 years of good credit on our reports (even if the accounts have been closed). That's clearly about 90% of OUR credit score. No one knows exactly how it all works. About the only think I have ever noticed that impacts our score is utilization ratio. Like when I made a big purchase on our Target card and totally forgot it only had a $500 limit. (So we ended up with a very high utilization on one card). I mean, it probably never would have occurred to me in the first place. It dinged our score for a bit, but maybe just for a month or two. Nothing we couldn't overcome and I am talking maybe it went from 840 to 820. I'd consider this "no effect" since anything above 750 is an excellent credit score. This is something that didn't amount to a hill of beans in the long run. But as someone who needs a good credit score for her job, I will be cautious about utilization ratios in the future. As to most the rest, the only thing I really care about is paying my bills on time.

Since we have mostly never borrowed for anything and this credit card reward extravaganza is a more recent phenomenon, we have way below average # of cards/credit lines on our credit reports. (I think that's CRAZY!! Lord knows we have opened tons of credit cards in the last 8 years or so. How are we below average?!). So it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the future. But that's something that doesn't affect our score because we are at or below average. (P.S. I guess our willingness to close our credit cards is also a lot of this. Stuff older than 10 years completely drops off, so maybe we've already reached a bit of a peak.
If I apply for 4 new cards next year but 4 old cards completely drop off my credit report, it's hard to increase this number much at this point).

Closing credit cards and having only a year or two of open credit doesn't amount to a hill of beans, for us. My theory was since good credit stays on your report for 10 years that clearly that counts for something. I've since seen this theory confirmed, in the years since I figured this out on my own. This is why I have never given a flip about keeping old cards open. That is WAY too complicated for me, to keep track of open cards. (I felt this way when I opened one credit card every few years or so. So it never occurred to me to keep open all of these cards. No Way!). We close all accounts we are not using.

Anyway, so those are some notes on that front. With this $500 reward, we are on track for our second best year ever. About $3,500 in rewards. Year #1 was 2011, which was more than $4,000. (That was the year that Chase had a $1,000 cash bonus. Crazy!)

Received $53 bank interest for the month of September.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card.
--Redeemed $30 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $7 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$5 Savings from Target Red Card
--$115 dividends reinvested

Snowballs (not invested):
--$200 cash from credit card reward
--$1,025 gift cards received (cc rewards)

Snowball to investments (MH Paycheck):
+$250

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 200 to investments
+$ 300 to cash (mid-term savings)
+$ 900 to IRAs

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-1,000 Europe trip
-3,000 to fund mortgage goal ($$ came from OT)

MH paycheck:
-$340 to Europe trip

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,300 to cash
-$ 325 van repair/maintenance
-$ 240 school lunches (partial year)
-$ 183 Medical expenses
-$ 150 Vet

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MH is back at work after summer off. I just set his 401k back to 50%. Could use more in accessible investments, but I think our taxes are going to be pretty ugly this year. I couldn't change it before first (very small) paycheck, which is fine since I wanted to use towards trip expenses anyway. But will just go aggressive at 50% for the rest of the year.

We did buy a musical instrument that I wanted to fund with MH's check, but nothing else is on the horizon. (We charged this in September, so will pay for it in October). I think we are kind of on pull back mode (on spending) after extravagant trip to Europe.

September was a work month for us. MH is getting back into the swing, and I was SLAMMED at work. So it was more reminiscent of tax season when we don't really have time to spend money. Making lots of money, but no time to spend. I guess this was compounded by the credit card reward windfalls. It was a big income month.

I mentioned in a prior post that I felt confident enough with our cash/expected expenses to fund mortgage goal. This is OT money I deposited in April and that I transferred to our mortgage this month. (If nothing else, wanted to see how Europe trip shook out before tying up all that cash).

I mentioned in my last post that I don't have a system in place to manage all these gift cards. But I think keeping track of my blog is just the easiest.

I know it's going to take a while to get through all these. (Including gift cards that we don't expect to use for 10+ months).

GIFTS:
------

$100 Benihana ($50x2) **DECEMBER**
$ 50 x2 Barnes & Noble **DECEMBER/JANUARY**


MOVIES:
--------
$50 Regal gift cards ($25 x 2)


RESTAURANTS:
------------

$50 Ruth Chris Steakhouse
$50 California Pizza Kitchen **Ecard**
$50 seasons 52


RETAIL:
-------

$50 Staples **School supplies next summer?**
$50 Home Depot
$25 Kohls

Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards

2017 TALLY:

$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, Moi)
$525 Gift Cards (Citi Thank You, MH)
$499 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture,MH)
$200 Cash (WF Wise, MH)
-----------
$1,724 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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I guess this is the flip side of managing several credit card rewards at once. It's raining rewards!

I received $500 gift cards and $200 cash in the last week or so.

Yesterday my American Express reward points showed up online. My initial feeling was getting the $250 reward last year was not very useful as it was only dining out cards. But we ended up enjoying more than I thought we would. It took us like 6 months to get through $250, but we enjoyed.

That said, if I found $250 in dining cards difficult to figure out how to use wisely, then $500 is definitely harder. I figured we'd gift most the excess but I realized yesterday the Cheesecake Factory cost way too many points, so scratched that as a gift card idea for my dad. At the end MH looked at the options and said he could use Home Depot for small things around the house (goes there to get light bulbs if nothing else) and Staples for school supplies next year.

So, we chose:

$100 Benihana (Birthday gift for my dad, we will take him and my mom out).

$100 California Pizza Kitchen (can treat the kids once or twice)

$50 Barnes & Noble (gift for FIL)
$50 Ruth Chris Steakhouse (lunch date for us)

Starting to grasp at straws:
$50 Staples
$50 Home Depot
$50 P.F. Chang's (??? never been here)
$50 seasons 52 (restaurant)

The thing that sucks is managing all these gift cards, but we will figure it out. (I usually do just SIMPLE rewards that don't require much energy.
We aren't stockpilers in general. Just is more work. I guess also we don't have any systems in place to manage this level of gift cards).

I wish we could have found a nice gift for MH's parents. But we struck out (none of the free gift cards or anything they would really love) and MH is not being helpful. In the end, I decided to just send them $100 as a thank you for watching our kids for 10 days. Want them to treat themselves to something nice.

In other gifty-ness, MH received a $5 Starbucks gift card at work. I gave it to to a co-worker who is always very appreciative. (We don't drink coffee and so we always re-gift Starbucks gift cards).

On the credit card reward front, I was briefly dreaming of a trip to Hawaii. I have gotten more comfortable with the (super easy) travel rewards and was thinking we could do a mostly free trip to Kauai. Maybe next year? I have a weakness for Hawaii. For all the air travel that I don't care for, Hawaii is the one exception. Plus, if it's FREE, why not? I don't want to spend a lot on travel these next years as we save up for college, but this would be far below our minimal travel/vacation budget.

It was only a brief thought because the childcare would be tricky. I wouldn't mind taking the kids, except our only option would be the peak of summer. Which wouldn't be enjoyable at all. So I think we have to put it on the back burner. I tentatively brought it up to MH but talked myself out of it in the end. He was open to it but just surprised I would want to go at all. I told him we have been normalizing all this big travel, and he reminded me how happy I seemed to not want to go ANYWHERE next year. I think I need a year off just to have a quiet year at home. It's moot because it would be a lot to ask right now and not sure my kids would go for it. If we wait until Fall 2019 at least our older child should be driving. Will give everyone some time and space before we plan another adults-only trip. So yeah, thinking one quiet year off and then maybe considering a big trip to Hawaii. I am thinking I could probably cover airfare and car rental with credit card rewards. We can get a free hotel through in-laws. You see why it would be such an inexpensive trip.

2017 TALLY:

$500 Gift Cards (AmEx Gold, Moi)
$525 Gift Cards (Citi Thank You, MH)
$499 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture,MH)
$200 Cash (WF Wise, MH)
-----------
$1,724 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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

Today we spent some time redeeming $525 Citi gift card rewards.

Unfortunately, didn't see anything particularly useful as a Thank You gift for MH's parents. Might have to spend some cash on that. Will have to brainstorm a bit this weekend, and double check the AmEx rewards that we have coming due soon.

But MH is going to 90th birthday in Florida next month and thought a Cracker Barrel gift card would be nice for his Grandfather.

There's also some crazy deal out there where you can see unlimited movies for $10/month. ??? Doesn't sound particularly sustainable but MH is probably going to sign up for that, for as long as it lasts I guess. Yeah, he can pretty much see everything for free already, but that is a big time commitment. Anyway, so he mentioned getting a Regal gift card so that I could accompany him to some of those movies. Or the kids can. I think that's a good idea. That said, the Regal movie theater (close to our house) is not his first movie theater choice, so he didn't want any more than a $25 gift card. (For the most part, he wants to see 100 times more movies than anyone else in the household, so $25 would last us a while).

We did get a $50 Barnes & Noble gift card for his dad, like we always do. We can make that part of the Thank You, or hold back for Christmas/Birthday.

I'd otherwise like to fund the next "big" ($300 - $500) electronic purchase with this reward and I know a few ideas had been thrown around. But MH just doesn't have anything identified at the moment. So we decided to just get a $100 Best Buy gift card so that he could buy movies or whatever.

This left us $300 that we redeemed for Target gift cards. We will use for groceries and should leave a $300 budget surplus through the next three or so months. Then if something bigger comes up we should have some extra cash for it.

I updated the tally above because the actual reward ended up being $525.

I also had something like $15 to add to the travel rewards (from trip spending). I was able to apply that $15 to trip spending already.