October 11

$66  Shoes (Moi)

$10 Parking

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

Not entirely sure if my spending will count today.  I just happened to receive a targeted ad for shoes that looked cute.  It was in a brand that carries wide sizes.  A Kohl's ad?  My big/wide feet are very hard to shop for.  I was annoyed they didn't even carry wide sizes of this shoe but I looked around and they were cheaper on Zappos.  I guess I have my credit card saved on that account, so it was a couple of clicks to order.  (I usually like the extra pain point of having to go dig out my credit card when I make an online purchase).  Anyway, there's probably a 90% chance I will return them.  In general, I'd say that more dressy type shoes are always too narrow and tight.  Which is why I don't think I have any.  Certainly nothing comfortable.

These shoes were a little dressy.  I have two years to find shoes to wear to my son's wedding.  & yes, I better start looking now.  If the shoes are cute at all (in person) and fit, I would be very happy with the targeted ad.  If not, I will just return them.

Today was a chaotic day.  I started out feeling more optimistic but everything I touched was a mess.  It was a frustrating work day.  When I opened up the fridge to grab dinner, a small plastic to-go container of salad dressing fell out and splattered everywhere.  That was DL(19)'s fault and he cleaned most of it up.  I told him that pretty much summed up my day.  I did end up doing a load of laundry because my clothes were splattered with dressing. (It looked 10x worse than it was.  Thankfully it cleaned up quickly.  Though I am not confident we found all of it.)

MH went to a film festival.  I would have gone if it wasn't so chaotic this week.  I recall falling asleep at this festival multiple times in the past.  & that's when it is not an exhausting week.  He got 63 free miles at a downtown car charger (which is a few miles from our home).  I presume he had to pay for parking but I didn't see that show up on any credit cards.  

Okay, so I asked MH about that.  The 63 free miles was just what he had left to top off the car.  (No out of town trips in recent weeks; his commute is only 3 miles each way).  They were doing 'event parking' for a flat rate of $10 cash up front.  Which he thought was BS because there was no event at the big arena (he had checked because then they charge $20 and he would have parked on the street in that case).  So he was annoyed but at least he got some fuel for that $10.

The downtown free charging (city parking garages) was supposed to go away some months ago.  But the wheels of bureaucracy move slow. 

October 6

$14  Movies

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

MH & I went out to the movies.  The $14 was just for my ticket, I suppose.  I don't go to the movies much and usually MH racks up enough rewards to cover my handful of tickets.  

We got a free car charge at the movie theater.  It was mostly enough to cover the roundtrip fuel to the farther away theater, but we probably eked out a few extra free miles.  

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

October 7

$1  Soda

**103F Degrees**

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

I thought I was going to report a NSD.  Then I remembered that I grabbed a soda in the drive thru this morning.  I don't like/drink coffee and Dr. Pepper settles my stomach.  So if I feel a little "meh" or need an extra umph, soda is my drink of choice.

I expect there will be some extra eating out and soda the next few weeks, re: extra work and extra time in office.  I will have to abandon my work-from-home days for a while.  Which is just more energy (that I don't expect to have) to figure out food for work, etc.  Will see how it goes.  Of course, the flip side of that is we always spend less money (overall) when we are busier with work.  

As of right now, the forecast for Tuesday is 99F degrees.  🙄  Hoping for some normalcy after that.  

Oh yeah, and I spoke too soon about DL(19).  He ended up eating out with friends on both Sunday and Monday. 

Apparently I gave up monthly updates in November.  That tracks.  My employer went on a weeks-long Europe trip in December and so the 'worst deadline' (the least forgiving) was shortened by a couple of weeks.  😩  Had to get everything done by 12/15 instead of 12/31.  Since then, it's just the 'tax season' flow of my job, everyone's medical dramas, and mostly being out of town.

I just wanted to jot down miles (it's easy to reference here) but didn't realize how far I would need to go back.

Hybrid Miles Driven: 

Nov - 590

Dec - 1,694 (LA Trip)

Jan - 490

Feb - 218

February Note:  I mostly drove the EV while MH was out of town.  I prefer my car in some ways and I prefer his car in some ways.  But the fuel is a heck of a lot cheaper in the EV.  I use gas miles in the winter months ($$$$) when the EV range isn't quite enough (in the hybrid).  I drove my car once a week while MH was gone, to avoid a dead battery or other problems.

We had some free miles on our LA trip, but I haven't been keeping track.

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 

Nov - 593

Dec - 951

Jan - 1,501 

Feb - 1,045 

Note:  75 Free EV miles in February.

A year or two ago MH set up 'auto charge' with EVGo.  All of the chargers can be finicky, but with the 'auto charge' you can just drive up and plug in your car.  It will recognize the car and charge your credit card.  MH is not a big EVGo fan, so I don't know if we had ever tried it.  I asked MH if he thought this would work on my account but he told me that when he set it up he could only link the car to one (his) account.  

DL(18) and I went to the Bay Area for GMIL's 99th birthday last weekend.  I was delighted to see that there was an EVGo right near the restaurant (on the same street) and they had 10 chargers.  I always prefer the 8-10 chargers.  There's just always a working charger in those cases.  & maybe helps when you don't have a navigator/helper to check ahead of time what chargers are open (I didn't have MH and wasn't going to bother DL with this).  The whole thing sounded pretty easy but I had a couple of other options in mind if this location didn't work out.  I couldn't tell you why but *no one* was using these chargers, while other chargers were largely in-use in this tech-y city.  I was pleased how easy the whole thing was. 

After all that, there was a mystery $10 credit on MH's EVGo account and so the charge was free.  I looked up on my account but I did not get the mystery credit.  Which just made it more of a mystery.  But it was a nice surprise.

Received $120 bank interest 

Received $262 I Bond interest 

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $34 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $71 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $9 cash back on dining out/gas card (used for groceries this month)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

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

+ $38 investment dividends

TOTAL: $157 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$950

Snowball to Savings/Investments:

+$1,200 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  450 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$1,650  Back Fence Replacement

-$   300  Kids' Car Repairs (amount over annual budget)

-$   185  MH Purchase

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  800 Kids' Car Repairs

-$    80 Computer Backup Fee (annual)

TOTAL: $2,622 Deposited to Cash & Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  820

Fuel Costs: $22 Electricity + $30 (Gas)

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

MH drove my car to pick up DL(18) when he had the ER emergency (90 miles away).  It wasn't that much of an emergency, but at the time we thought he might make it back to Urgent Care before closing, if he didn't have to stop. 

I briefly considered this an EV failure.  But then decided that's dumb.  The only reason MH's car wasn't charged up is because I charge my hybrid on most weeknights.  If we had only EVs, it should be pretty simple to keep (at least one) fully charged for an emergency.  

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 1,938

Fuel Costs: $31 (home)  & $44 (Out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

We did 150 miles of free charging this month.  Charged once at the in-laws' house.

High miles = 4 round trips to Tahoe (DL's job) and one college pick up (600 miles round trip).  & then I gave MM(20) $30 for gas when he drove DL back to work once.  Oh, and one of those trips was our own camping trip.  The rest were more practical getting DL to/from work.  (We only used public chargers for the college trip.  We stopped to charge once each way, while eating a meal.)

I expect more of the same for rest of summer.  Less crazy driving this month (July) but MH is planning to go to the college town to help MM(20) move some things at some point this summer.  & we are planning one or two LA trips.  August will be crazy on the miles front. 

Note:  I just looked up electric bill re: increased summer pricing.  We pay a lot more for electricity during summer months but our rates are only up 2% over last summer.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in May will be paid off June 1 and reflected in my June numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects May spending & June savings.

I Bond interest is down because done with the ~10% rate.   Will get ~7% for the rest of the year.

I totally forgot to mention in my last monthly update.  I am saving ~$1,200 taxes with the ortho expenses this year.  To front load that money and to help cash flow the ortho expenses, I changed my withholding the rest of the year.  I lowered my tax withholding by $200/month and am parking that $200 into investments.  I expect this to just be a short term boost.

June was a little less "death by a thousand cuts".  I've already mentioned that the kids' car needed a new starter.  Our forever mechanic was too booked up and referred us to a much more expensive mechanic.  In addition, they found some leaks and things, which gives me the impression that they aren't as conservative as our mechanic.  (100%, nothing is leaking from the car onto the ground).  Who knows.  As I told MH when we dropped off the car, "When you have a problem and have to have your car towed, it's not one of those times you get warm and fuzzy feelings about a mechanic."  But I've learned over the years that we like to hire more conservative people for various things (if it ain't broke, why fix it).  Considering the high price and the fact that our forever mechanic didn't mention these things (they had our car twice in recent months)...  I will add it to my list to find another car gas mechanic too.  & it's just going to be hit and miss, in the meantime.  Sometimes forever mechanic can fit us in and fix the car the same day (by far my first choice, even if we have to wait a few days).  But sometimes they are just too booked up.  

It is what it is.  I am not too put out about it.  Thank goodness we've had people like our forever dentists and forever mechanics (one in each city) during our teens, 20s, 30s.  At this point in our life with a seven figure net worth and kids almost out of the nest...  It's not a huge deal to pay a little more for some of these things.  I certainly could have not afforded this new mechanic myself, through most of my teens and 20s.  With our older cars that generally needed more work.  But today it's kind of moot.  Was looking for an EV mechanic anyway.  So will just add it to my list to find a gas mechanic too.  It just might take a while to find the mix of quality and affordability that we are used to.

We made out pretty well with the fence replacement.  We got a quote end of 2017.  I believe it was in the range of $1,400.  None of our neighbors were cooperating and MH did not want us to pay the whole thing.  *sigh*  Then everything got crazy and lumber prices skyrocketed, etc.  I have been working with a fence company this whole time (my boss owns the company) but they are weird.  It's complicated.   Several things changed this year and I felt it was worth getting a quote from them. 

So I was discussing with my boss and I think he gave me a rough quote of $2,100.   Which was on the lower end (of average prices), but was for a licensed/insured contractor.  Definitely a good deal.  In the end, the quote they gave me was $1,650.  It sounds like my boss told them to give me an even bigger discount, after we had talked.  The fence is great and beautiful.  

& I mean, our fence was falling down all over the place back in 2017.  I am tired of my fence looking like crap, just because everyone else is in over their head with their giant mortgages.  It was far past time.  I don't know why but MH was *over it* this time.  He was maybe regretting turning his nose up at $1,400 and then watching lumber prices skyrocket.  Or he realizes that our neighbors are never going to help us.  

I had wanted to pay for the fence in May, but they forgot to bill me.  I waited a few weeks before I brought it up.  As their accountant, I was hoping they would figure it out on their own, but they did not.  So I guess that is also skewing my June numbers downwards.  But I am not used to actually getting interest on savings accounts, so I suppose that worked out pretty well for me.  I made a few extra dollars of interest, and had more time to replenish savings before I wrote that check.

I usually type up these posts the first of the month and then wait to see how MH's income and credit card rewards shake out.  & car miles.  So this all feels like a bajillion years ago at this point.  I am just moving slowly.   

Received $111 bank interest 

Received $308 I Bond interest 

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $23 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $150 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $12 cash back on dining out/gas card (used for groceries this month)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $11 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $196 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$1,012

Snowball to Savings/Investments:

+$1,550 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  450 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$2,935 Ortho Final Payment

-$   900  Rental Deposit for MM(19) junior year

-$   310  New Phone for DL(17)

-$   425  Ethernet wiring for Gigabit fiber

-$     60  Medical Expenses

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  760 LA Trip

-$  115 Staycation

-$  605 Concerts

-$    85 Gifts 

-$    78 Pest Control

-$    76 College Orientation

-$    60 Flat Tire 

TOTAL: -$282 Net Pulled from Cash/Investments

Pulled from Gifted College Funds:

-$1,000 For Summer Class

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  892

Fuel Costs: $30 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 473

Fuel Costs: $11 (home) 

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

We did 50 miles of free charging this month.  (Free charge downtown)

Ouch!  Our summer electric rates went up significantly.  

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in April will be paid off May 1 and reflected in my May numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects April spending & May savings.

Credit card rewards were wonky this month.  MH put one grocery charge on the dining card.  & of course it was a big one ($200).  So the grocery rewards were way down and the "dining" rewards went way up.  & a *lot* of rewards (on main credit card) with all the spending.  Both charged and paid for the invisalign, so that was a lot of the rewards.

Apparently it's going to be a year of tires. I had one very flat tire.  I was able to pick up a new (used) tire and be on my way quickly.  I presume I hit something because there was a very small gash in my tire.  "Gash" is a strong word, but it was more of a line than a small hole (the slow leaks I usually get from hitting nails). 

We did also buy a *lot* of concert tickets.  Two big concerts we are looking forward to.  Bought a round of tickets for MM's end-of-year school concerts.  & then MH got some less expensive tickets for a concert in San Francisco this summer.

Gifts were for all the CA e-files I paid for, for relatives.  Put us over our budget, so I just considered it a gift and had to pull from short-term savings.  Also bought DL(17) some balloons for his last big high school concert.  It's the kind of thing we generally don't do, and so he was *really* surprised!  I was actually on my way to get the balloons when I got the flat tire.  Just turned out I had some guardian angels that day and ended up at a tire shop in another part of town that happened to have a Party store.  (I mean seriously, when I try to do fun things, this is what happens!  I was shocked I was able to get the balloons after all that).  I waited longer for helium than I did for the tire.  It was DL's lucky day, I guess.  

DL(17) dropped his cell phone and broke it.  I believe this is the first time this has ever happened in our household. (I don't recall any of us dropping/breaking a phone before.)  He's still a minor and he (didn't) have a job when it broke, and so we just bought him a new phone.  We paid $500 up front for the newest? Pixel model, but it was only $310 after trading in the old phone.  I already got the credit. 

Our vacation fund is exhausted, with the LA trip.  It ended up being one year earlier than we expected.  MH bought some show tickets through a crowdfunding campaign.  They had labeled it as a Spring 2024? concert but it ended up being "next month".  🙄  We were able to roll with it, but this is really not helping my "We just react to everything" feelings.  It's not going to be a year where we sit down and make conscious plans about what we would want to do.  I did throw some of the concert tickets to the vacation budget.  It's a Bay Area concert and will make a staycation out of that.  I didn't want to drive home at 1am afterwards, like we did the last time we went to a concert at that venue.  So was putting the one concert more in the staycation/vacation category in my mind.  It's just a one year "caught off guard" budget fail and will plan accordingly in the future.  But just one more thing that will probably draw from our savings this year.

I completely abandon investing any of MH's paycheck.  Too many big expenses already this year, and too many big expenses to plan for.  I'd say that I can revisit once financial aid sorts out.  I think the biggie is that I had planned to use I Bonds for MM's rent next school year.  But our I Bond rate will be 7% through 2023.  This means I will cash flow rent with MH's income and then reimburse ourselves when the bond rate drops down below 4% (in January)?  I may throw a chunk to investments at that time.  To be revisited because financial aid should sort out this summer.  There's still a possibility that rent costs will be less than we planned for.  Not holding my breath, but it is possible. 

I kept asking MM(19) how to reimburse his roommate for half of the rental deposit.  I had mentioned he could just get a cashier's check at our Credit Union.  & maybe that came up because it would have to be a cashier's check if paid directly to the rental company.  But anyway, I guess he just took care of it.  Brought it up in passing some weeks later.  He said he did a cashier's check but they did not charge him a fee.  I wonder if they just printed a regular check for him, which probably makes more sense.  MM(19) also signed up for a summer class at the college.  He initially told me it would be a community college class.  Which might have cost 1/3 as much?  But he needed the credit for his fall schedule or winter quarter and so decided to go the easier route and just take at his college.  Which I fully support.  I expected it to be ~$1,000, which ended up being exactly what it was.  (If it's $3,400 for 12 units, I expected roughly 1/3 the cost for 4 units).  It will just be an online class that he can work around his summer job.  I pulled the $1K from his gifted college fund.  

We got a flier about upgrading our internet to 1 Gig fiber.  We have had fiber "forever".  Most we know do not have access to fiber.  So I asked MH if there was a reason we didn't have this other company.  He had never heard of them and so called.  It's just another brand under the umbrella of our current company.  So no, there still isn't any real competition out there.  Ideally the upgrade would save us money, but MH did not realize we would have to upgrade our wiring.  & even after that, a lot of our devices top out at 100 mbps.  But it's future proofing that needs to be done eventually.  While fixing everything (all the issues the Gig fiber caused), we decided to also run a line to our bedroom.  I wouldn't thought of it, but MH was thinking aloud and asking if I needed faster internet for work.  I said no but that the TV can be slow.  Not often, but every once in a while.  We haven't even run the wire to the TV (they put the outlet by my computer, where it was convenient to put the outlet).  Because then he realized the roku tops out at 100 mbps.  *sigh*   The whole thing has been such a mess, but we will be happy with all this at some point in the future.

Just one more thing to add to a very expensive year.

We also replaced our back fence which went about as well as the fiber upgrade.  On the plus side, got a really good deal through work and they never billed me.  HA!  So that was planned for this month. I was going to write the check May 1 but now I am just kicking the can down the road to June.   

Edited to add:  Just when through June numbers and it may be a +$2,500 month.  Phew!  It's a little easier without $3,000 ortho bills.  Still, I was surprised because we had some big expenses.  

Received $124 bank interest

Received $304 I Bond interest

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $43 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $142 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $11 cash back on dining out/gas card 

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $8 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $204 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$935

Snowball to Savings/Investments:

+$1,300 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  250 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

-$   697 Medical Expenses

-$   230 Furniture 

-$   200 Household Purchases 

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$2,935 Ortho Deposit

-$   911 Income Tax Due for 2022

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  500 Life Insurance

-$  450 Hybrid Insurance

-$  440 EV Insurance

-$  300 LA Weekend (show tickets)

-$   248 DMV Renewal (EV)

-$   150 Dentist (MM)

TOTAL: -$1,444 Net pulled from Cash 

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  543

Fuel Costs: $15 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Was a lower miles month because I had some time off work.

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 2,111

Fuel Costs: $22 (home) & $60 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

Most charging (both cars) was done at home or at free chargers.  (Except for LA trip).

We did 120 miles of free charging this month.  We got 40 free miles at the San Francisco museum and MH got 80 free miles at his parents' house (40 miles x 2 visits).

It was 3 separate Bay Area trips this month, plus a Bay Area stop on our way down to LA.  Thus, the 2,000+ miles on the EV.

The biggie was our LA trip.  Off the top of my head, that ended up being 950 miles.  We spent $60 electric fuel on that trip.  We got a free overnight charge at the in-laws house Day 1 and a free hotel charge on the last night (in LA).  It was ~$20 to charge overnight at the mid point hotel.  Not cheap, but very convenient (about the same cost as gas).  We saved about $60 with not having to buy gas. Overall, for the LA trip we just stopped when we ate or took pit stops.  It was no less convenient than a gas car in that regard, but probably more thought and planning.   

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in March will be paid off April 1 and reflected in my April numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects March spending & April savings.

Whew!  That felt like a "death by a thousand cuts" month.  I am surprised we ended up that much in the black.  But, just a lot of bills were due.  & starting to pile up the medical bills for 2023.

Edit:  Okay, so I started this post before the credit card was stressing me out.  Decided to just pay off the ortho bill.  Could have paid it in May.  Was ~$1,500 in the black before that.  Revised statement:  I am surprised I am not more in the red after paying all those bills. 

I bond interest was bumped up with new $10K purchase early this year.  (When new rates were announced, I decided not to buy any more I Bonds at this time.)  I still have 2 months of mega interest before most my bonds drop back down to 7%.  

The big news is that I decided to do invisalign.  I had wanted to do a separate post about it but not sure I will ever get to it.  Even after 5 years of braces & major jaw surgery, I still appear to be the worst case of the household.  For the most part I presumed I wouldn't be eligible for invisalign and thought braces would be cheaper.  In the end, I am eligible and it cost the same either way.  But I would have paid more for invisalign.  I felt very, "Shut up and take my money!" as they really explained it to me.  I just got the invisaligns this week and so far it is 10 times easier than braces.  

For the most part, I know logically I should get this done while we live in this neighborhood.  My kids' ortho is *amazing*.  But so much trauma around my last round of ortho, that I didn't think I'd be able to do it.  But I am very intuitive and it's just time.  I expected the whole thing to be very terrible, even if it is "time".  & then everything about the whole process has been so easy.  I am grateful for the 30 years of technological advance. 

I decided to use my 2022 ROTH IRA funds to pay for the ortho.  Investing in myself and future in another way, for this year.  Off the top of my head, this leaves our 2022 retirement contribution rate at 14%.  I can live with that.   I initially thought I'd divert $3K from retirement and cash flow the rest.  But with the $6K price tag (the most I expected it to be) I decided to just pull from "retirement" funds.

The furniture and household stuff is just residual from my "nesting mode" in March.  

May is going to be much worse.  I have a lot of big cash expenses this month, will pay off the rest of the invisalign, etc.  Trying to get things taken care of, but everything we fix seems to just bring up more problems.  That just seems to be the wavelength we are on.   

I had fallen behind on keeping track of fuel costs in Quicken.  So I finally went back and got that (2022) all cleaned up.  Which wasn't a big chore because I have done a good job keeping track in my blog.  But I wanted to re-calculate monthly numbers in terms of how the electric bill sorted out every month.  Like my monthly blog estimates, it's all just a rough estimate.  But I keep track of car fuel costs versus home electricity costs.

I realized that I don't think I've ever added up all the free miles we get in a year.  But I expect that 2022 was particularly unusual.  I found a free charger by the animal shelter (had a few free 100 mile charges) and then we were surprised with free fuel *twice* when driving MM(19) to or from college.  That was 1,000 miles of free charge.  The rest were free charges here and there.

Grand Total = 1,660 free miles in 2022

That really was without trying very hard.  We just stumbled upon 1,000 of those free miles.

For point of reference, I have numbers from 2017 (our last gas car year) versus 2022:

2017 

$870 minivan gas ~ 3,000 miles

$1,341 gas sipper gas ~ 14,000 miles

$2,211 Total Fuel Costs 2017

2022 

$297 Hybrid fuel ~ 8,176 miles

$346 EV fuel ~ 12,200 miles

$503 Other Fuel Costs (Rental gas & kids' car gas)

$1,146 Total Fuel Costs 2022

$1,065 fuel savings 2017 versus 2022.  I'll take it!

Of course, with rising gas prices and other factors, our overall savings is much more substantial than this. 

2022 was a weird year in that I paid that $156 fuel for the gas rental car.  & we also paid for gas on the kids' car for at least 8 months of the year.  (We just didn't pay for the gas when MM was home during summer months, and after DL got his license at the end of the year).  That's $500 in fuel costs that I do not expect to pay in 2023.  Or $1,500 savings in a more average year.

& of course, we replaced our 14yo minivan with the hybrid, when I doubled my commute.  Rough math is that my commute is 9,000 miles per year and would have cost $1,800 gas in the minivan.  With the EV, I mostly only drive the hybrid for my commute.  (Any extra driving would probably be on gas, so I take the EV as much as possible in those instances, keeping our household driving mostly electric.) & of course, I only drove the hybrid 8,000 miles in 2022 because it was in the shop for the last 6 weeks of the year.  Anyway, this is an additional $1,000 per year gas savings.

Received $116 bank interest 

Received $246 I Bond interest 

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $49 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $68 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $3 cash back on dining out/gas card 

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $6 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $126 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$955

Snowball to Savings/Investments:

+$1,500 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  250 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

-$   315 Misc. Big Purchases

-$2,300  College Tuition 

-$1,000  Tree Trimming 

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  524 Car Maintenance (Hybrid)

-$  330 Dentist (x2)

-$  275 San Francisco Weekend

-$   263 DMV Renewal (Hybrid)

-$    78 Pest Control

-$    42 Backup Battery (VOIP)

TOTAL: $566 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  812

Fuel Costs: $20 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 716

Fuel Costs: $10 (home) + $2 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

We did 85 miles of free charging this month.

We did one Bay Area trip.  40 free miles of charging (in-laws' new charger) and $2 charging at a fast charger.  That would have been unnecessary but we left for a test drive and to show the in-laws some things with their new car and didn't want to leave the garage door open.  We have a plastic cord passthrough that we put under our garage door when we charge outside and so I have since bought a couple of more.  Will plan to keep one in MH's car and will give one to the in-laws. 

I suppose we gave the in-laws ~100 miles of charge when they drove up here for St Patty's Day.  I will just consider that a gift.  It's not our driving.  But I will have to ponder how I want to account for that, because I don't want it to skew our electric utility (financial tracking). I'll probably carve out that 100 miles (x kWh rate) as a gift.  Or longer term maybe it will just even out.  

We did also go to a show downtown and got 45 free miles.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in February will be paid off March 1 and reflected in my March numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects February spending & March savings.

The big expense was trimming several trees in our yard.  Mostly we have one bigger tree and then there is our neighbor's monster tree.  Long overdue to trim that back.  We paid very little last time.  Person I found this round was more expensive, but I think they did a *lot* more work.  I think last time was more "get that tree off my tree" while this guy trimmed everything back to the fence line, including the entire height of neighbor monster tree.  It should last a little bit longer.  

I am in nesting mode.  Does this happen when your kids turn 18?  I couldn't tell you why.  Maybe some combo of having some breather and also feeling flush financially.  Maybe also emerging from a long winter.  It's just a little deja vu to the pregnancy nesting.

We did our last free timeshare stay in February?  Who knows...  MIL has been wishy washy about everything financial, and that is now extending to their timeshares.  At first they told us we could not use for our LA trip this month because they had canceled everything.  But now they want to extend a year.  We were so happy they were wrapping up this timeshare mess (do not want to inherit) and so are not thrilled that they are prolonging.  MH has been very clear about his feelings, but they insist they aren't keeping it for us.  (Lord knows what the actual truth is.)  It's moot for April LA trip because we already made plans.  If not for all this, we would have stayed at the usual free place and done some extra driving.  But we had already wrapped our minds around staying closer to our destination and paying for the hotel.  & because we don't want to encourage them and had very little notice, I expect we will go over our vacation budget this year.  Just mentioning because just one more thing on the $$$$ side.  (We don't have any big plans, but it all adds up a lot faster when you have to pay for every hotel stay.)  

I did not sweep any of MH's income to investments this month.  Hear me out.  My goal is (was) to sweep everything above $1K per month (MH income) into investments.  When I received MH's last check of the month I was preparing to sweep $500 into investments.  Cash is at $7,000 (projected 4/30, after big expenses.  This does not include emergency funds or funds earmarked for college). It was stressing me out more at the beginning of the year (after big mortgage paydown) when cutting it close.  But having $7,000 left after some major expenses...  Things are progressing nicely and I am happy to resume bulking up investments. 

But...  I am pondering a big expense and getting a quote in April.  Will see how that shakes out before I start committing bigger dollars to long-term investments.   Happy to say that investments are increasing rapidly, regardless.  It took me one year to invest $2K (with snowflakes).  It's going much faster with the $250/month we are contributing from my paycheck, plus snowflakes.

2023 is going to be an expensive year.  

Received $127 bank interest for the month of February.

Received $246 I Bond interest for the month of February.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $35 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $108 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining out/gas card 

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $9 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $162 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,250 MH Income

-$  945 Replaced Tires

-$  400 Over Spending

401k Contributions/Match:

+$940

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  250 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

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

+$1,500 to cash

+$  222 Insurance Rebate 

-$1,380 Various Insurance

-$  410 Vacation Expenses (beach weekend/college drop-off)

-$  160 Dentist 

-$    80 Misc.

TOTAL: $2,322 Deposited to Cash and Investments

Pulled from Gifted College Funds

-$4,300 

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  699

Fuel Costs: $14 Electricity + $8 (Gas)

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

We drove my car to San Francisco.  We decided to use up the gas that MH had put in the gas tank for the Oregon trip.  (We ended up with two Oregon trips canceled due to weather).  But the tank got so low, we did put a couple of gallons in when we got home.  I like to keep 3 gallons in the tank.  This should last me an entire year. 

In March I forgot to charge once and it's been crazy cold, so we put some more gas in the tank (will see in March update).  It was probably more the cold.  (I took the EV to work when I realized I had forgotten to charge.  Not worth going to a gas station *and* wasting an extra $5 on my commute.) 

Week of 3/13:  The cold is backing off.  Instead of needing to burn through a few miles of gas to get home, I am now getting home with 10 miles electric range left.  I feel like the car is over estimating at this point.  But 70F degrees and sun is more optimal for the battery.  

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 1,146

Fuel Costs: $14 (home) + $5 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

Most charging (both cars) was done at home.

MH went to the Bay Area to help his parents look at cars and visited his grandmother.  He did a lot of driving around and spent $5 at a fast charger.   Went to the Bay Area another weekend to work on a movie.  He did not need to stop and charge on that shorter trip.

With warmer temps, switching back to EV tires (both contributing to longer electric range), and the in-laws having a charger at their house now.  We may be done with the bulk of our "out and about" charging.  

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in January will be paid off February 1 and reflected in my February numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects January spending & February savings.

My first impression of January spending (paid for in February)?  Ugh!  But I am letting it go.  We were clearly feeling flush with cash and did dome splurging (after the Holidays).  To the point I was about to subtract from January savings.  But I had already transferred MH's January paychecks into savings.  So I will just leave it be and will save less in February.  & I mean, MH received a $100 check for his birthday and we did a $100+ dinner out.  Then I put the birthday check into savings.  Duh.  (The overall theme is that I was too quick with dumping every extra penny into savings.)

Sometimes I scratch my head when things are really out of balance.  But it's very clear and obvious this month.  When I add up all the extras, it adds up to $400.  MH spent $145.  At this point he's probably contributed more than we received for crowdfunding.  He's still feeling generous on that front (paying it forward).  I spent $60 on gifts for MH's birthday.  We haven't exchanged gifts in ~20 years, but I didn't think the kids were getting him anything and it felt appropriate to buy him a gift.  Gifting is something we may resume (on some level) with adult kids and both of us working.  It probably won't be all the time, but it will be more than "never".  Misc. $186.  Stuff like a school donation, replaced toothbrush heads, toll refill, annual backup expense, etc.  A lot of this is more what I'd usually put to short-term expenses, but we ran through short-term early on last year.  I am a little reluctant to pile up the misc. in months while MH is working.  Would rather save short-term space for one-income summer months. But I am also reluctant to bump up the ST savings because I expect some expenses to fall off soon.   

That pretty much sums up over-spending.  We used our "breathing room" to do a little extra dining out.  Everything else is accounted for above or is a fixed monthly bill.  Or I guess I should say that the rest is within fixed monthly budget (things like groceries).

The college fund note is in regard to kids' money.  But that money is in our name and I include it in our net worth.  So it will continue to be a drain on our own assets, as we draw down those funds for college expenses.  

For the Used EV credit, the IRS states very clearly that you need to get a signed statement from the dealership that includes certain information.  Purchase needs to be from a licensed dealership or something like that, can not be a private party purchase for the used EV credit.

The two dealerships my in-laws went through had never heard of the credit.  They had no idea about the $25K cap but were happy to haggle once my in-laws pointed it out.  (I mean, they had to walk out to get their attention, but obviously they aren't paying $25,001+ if it will cost them a $4,000 tax credit.  The dealership got the point that they weren't going to budge.)

Now that they have the car, the dealership refuses to provide this tax information.  I don't know if it's worth fighting in the moment.  They should eventually figure it out and it may be easier to ask for this information at the end of the year.  Let other people fight this battle?

They are supposed to provide documentation at time of sale *and* also to the IRS.  I am less concerned about the latter.  As long as we have the documentation, is really all that is important.  

I had been thinking that it would be pretty enticing to buy a hybrid and to get this credit, for MM(19).  Something like my car, that I saved my whole life working up to and is very luxurious.  A car like that is $16,000 right now and would only be $12,000 with the used EV credit.  MM(19) has the cash for that and it would last him a very long time.  Though he has a very cheap heart and might want to go more used.  The used EV Credit will swing the pendulum substantially towards an electric hybrid.  I wouldn't have recommended before, given the uncertainty of long-term situation (how long he will be renting, etc.).  I think without a charger at his residence, the full EV would be much easier/better for his situation.  But is also more expensive.  (Easier to charge out and about, with the fast chargers.)  I just don't see how you'd ever charge a hybrid, in contrast.  But if you can save $4,000...  I've seen a lot of people say over the years they only drive in gas mode or EV mode, and it doesn't seem to matter much either way.  

But...  This whole idea is off the table until the dealerships straighten up.  I would refuse to purchase if they had no idea what I was talking about and couldn't provide a tax document.  

I figured I'd share as a warning, if you are considering the used EV credit.  Heck, this also has to be an issue with the new EV credit.  This is a dealership that sells brand new EVs.  So they have to be giving new EV buyers the same runaround when it comes to providing tax documentation.  If not, they would have any clue what we were talking about.

First car deal ended up falling through for the in-laws.  Probably for the best.  We hadn't realized that they were still working through 2020 recalls and don't know when they would have got the new battery.  MH and I were feeling a little bad about not doing our homework on that.  We just presumed they were further along.

I really didn't know why they needed MH and was hoping they'd just go pick up a car if we found one.  MH did find a car with only 8,000 miles but it had two owners already.  I think the whole third owner thing disqualified it from the used EV tax credit.  I could have done some homework to be sure.  But...  It's moot at this point.

On Friday MH found a 2019 model with 39,000 miles.  MH's parents loved it and went to pick it up.  Phew!  

The mileage is really N/A because the car had an EV battery replacement last year and has a new 8-year warranty with the recall and battery replacement.  The car was apparently like-new (in person) and they were very happy with it.

Full price: $24,000

Net $5,000 used EV tax credit and utility rebate = $19,000 net cost.

*Still* the most expensive EV purchased by anyone I know.

I didn't notice until later, but this model didn't have the power liftgate.  But they did get the wireless charging (for phone/devices) and so have that one upgrade over our 2017 model.

They are getting their car charger installed today.  They are also the only other EV drivers I know that are hoity toity enough to get a charger installed.  It's really not necessary.  But in this case, a lot of the *why* is because FIL is slowing down and will be unable to get gas for MIL at some point.  The appeal is just being able to charge at home. (I guess MIL refuses to pump her own gas.  Now she won't have to.)

{We are hoity toity and very much enjoy the luxury of faster charging at home.}

I don't think we were much of the reason for this purchase.  I am sure it helped that they were envious of our car and we have only raved about it.  But...  If you are frugal and want an EV, what else is there?  There's cheaper EVs but they have other issues like much less range and battery degradation.  If you want a 300-mile range and want a car that will last 15+ years, there's nothing else in our price range.  I do also think they are willing to make the leap from gas car to EV because so many in the family do drive EVs.  We are not the early adopters in this family.  

{May I be so brave and open to change when I am 80 years old! 100% I needed that hybrid baby step before I was ready to take the leap.  I have a lot of respect for anyone who just makes the big leap.}

This is a very big perk for us because now we have free charging at their house.  I've been so focused on hoping that MH doesn't have to drive down there another weekend and wonder how long until they finally get a car and stop yanking MH around...  It's only as I type this out that I am, "Oh yeah!  Free charging for us!"  Which will probably be a wash if we give them free charging in return.  But will clearly be very convenient if we can just charge somewhere that we already are.  I see a lot of MH helping his parents in the near future, and the charging situation will make it logistically a lot easier.

Both our EVs should be extraordinarily low maintenance.  But my expectations are pretty low because of the dealership factor.   With the more specialized cars and the long warranties, we are at the mercy of the dealership.  (Might need less repairs, but the repairs will cost a lot more than we've paid to our trusted independent mechanics in the past).  It is on my list to find a trusted EV mechanic at some point. I just thought we would have more time.

We've saved $1,200 this past year by not trusting the dealership.  I don't know much about cars, but I can recognize complete made up bull crap when there is nothing wrong with the car.  This hasn't left me feeling warm and fuzzy about the "if anything goes wrong with our cars" factor.  

In the end, I've seen several people complaining about this dealership in my online EV groups.  It is the worst of the worst.  For whatever reason, MH liked this dealership more than the others and had been digging in his heels a little bit.  But...  I do think they royally pissed MH off in recent months.

We drove the hybrid to San Francisco last weekend.  We stopped at the gas station by our house, on the way home, and the engine light came on.  Got an error to "service high voltage charging system", something like that, and the car would not charge.

I was relieved when I checked my online EV group.  A - the car was perfectly fine to drive.  (A very helpful Chevy EV tech had told many people this.)  B - It was most likely something very simple, like low coolant or just needing a software update.  

I was surprised when MH just booked the appointment with the other dealership in our city.  Phew!  

I quickly looked up this other dealership and saw absolutely glowing reviews in my online group.  We quickly found out why.  The service manager has the same car.  I am relieved that the service manager has the same car, because otherwise I would have questioned if they knew what they were doing.  Because the repair bill ended up being far below average for the work done.  (Which in many cases in other states or regions is because they don't have EV techs or have no idea what they are doing.  But in this case...  I have to trust they did all of the maintenance and knew what they were doing.)  

I am not ready to give my full praise to this dealership.  We paid $200 for the diagnostic.  Which made this repair at least 70% more than it would have been with our independent mechanic.  We've *never* paid a diagnostic fee before.  Not to the shop that is going to do the work we asked them to diagnose.  

But overall I am happy that we found a dealership that we could trust a wee bit more, and that it did end up being the simple fix. 

There is only one line item basically re: maintenance for our EV.  Change out the (battery and other) coolant every 150K miles.  It's the same on my hybrid but maybe a few more line items of maintenance with the hybrid.  The cars are very similar.

My first impression of this dealership was not good when they immediately started pushing "recommended maintenance."  But I quickly deduced from my online group that this is a thing and that it is in the manual.  It was also universally agreed that this was useful maintenance. So I did pull up the car manual later.  There is a footnote that you do this every 5 years or 150K miles.  I had literally never heard this before.  & this does not redeem the scammy dealership.  Never in a million years would I have thought they would sell us bullcrap while completely ignoring the actual recommended maintenance.  But the scammy dealership did exactly that.   

In the end, it was just low coolant.  The maintenance was the fix.  

Moral of the story:  We could have saved $200 (diagnostic fee) if we had realized this.  My car is 6 years old, so should have flushed out the coolant a year ago.

{To be *very* clear, scammy dealership had both our cars in the past year and failed to mention the one line item of maintenance that is recommended after 5 years.  This put both our cars at risk (of damage) and left me with a separate trip back to the dealership for repairs.  I guess MH too.  Will be a separate trip for maintenance they should have done when they last had his car.}

Instead of oil changes, the EV is going to need a $300 coolant flush every 5 years.  I can live with that.  It's the 'oil change' equivalent I guess.  

This means that our EV is also due for this service.  & that we realize we want to of course be proactive because the EV would be far less useful if we couldn't charge it.  But the EV is about 15,000 miles behind the hybrid and the battery coolant (probably the most important part) was changed out already with the battery recall.  So we are just going to wait for a more convenient time.  Will get it done this spring or summer.

Oh yeah, and the dealership told us that the brakes on the hybrid are at 95%.  No surprise.  The traditional brakes are used very little on these cars (only for hard/fast stops).  It was just the first time we had any feedback on our personal cars.  My car has 70,000 miles, for reference.  We've always heard the brakes will last the life of these cars.  

I guess it was a big car repair week for SA.

Edited to add:  I've never joined an online car group before and don't know that I would have thought to do so.  But our EV friend added me to some Volt group when we bought the Volt.  It does help to soften the blow of not having our forever trusted (gas car) advisors to turn to.  & is helpful when you completely miss the fine print.  

Second edit:  To clarify, all maintenance quotes were given without even looking our cars.  This was the stuff they were trying to sell us when we dropped off the cars.  None of this stuff is actually recommended maintenance, except this hybrid maintenance that we agreed to.

The in-laws continue to be wishy washy.   But MH was going to meet them today (presumably) to buy a Bolt.  They had already been very wishy washy and changed their mind last minute twice, so wasn't holding my breath.

It's maybe kind of sort of done...

In the end, MH had swayed them to just buy used.  But they were being very picky (re: color) and so there was really only one good candidate today.  I feel like when we buy cars we usually go out with multiple options, so I didn't expect much.  Last time he had found 3 cars within their parameters, so that was probably more what they expected.  But I thought maybe they'd just go look at new cars if this one car was a bust.

{Reminds me, I saw a MSRP tracker, if anyone is interested.  Just some google sheet type thing where people share dealer feedback and how much they are charging over MSRP.  You can sort by city and car make/model.  I will track it down if anyone wants it.}

Found:  2020 Bolt (fully loaded) $25,000.  Net price $20,000 after federal tax credit and utility rebate.  Mileage 10,000.  

Because of the battery recall *and* very little change between 2017 and 2023 model, it seemed pointless to go new.  & mileage was kind of moot.  But for the same price range, of course "way less miles" is a plus.

When discussing, the only thing the in-laws seemed really intrigued by (re: newer models) was the wireless charging (for cell phone/devices).  I perused the car details today and the only other thing I can find is that this 2020 has a power liftgate.  It's basically our car, a lot less miles, and these two features. 

In the end, they made the purchase but they don't have the car yet.  Very long story.  We could end up with a Round 4, but for the sake of MH's time, I hope this purchase works out. 

This was a non-Chevy dealership and they didn't know about the battery recall.  So...  The in-laws want to get a charger ordered.  They need to have their garage wired to accomodate the charger (have already consulted with an electrician).  & it's plausible they may need to take the car to a Chevy dealership for the battery replacement.  They've got a few steps to go through.   I don't know where they are with the 2020 recalls.  They could be done, but I just don't know and it's something they should double check.   

It's a process, but I think they will be very happy in the end.

Edited to add:  This is by far the most expensive EV that anyone I know has purchased.  I've had some very frugal and broke friends buying EVs over the years.  For more early adopters, they cost pennies on the used market or could lease for $100/month.  Found out recently my bff picked up a Bolt.  It's a $100/month lease deal.  

Received $94 bank interest for the month of January.

Received $246 I Bond interest for the month of January.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $36 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $96 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $21 cash back on dining out/gas card (& grocery rewards from Q4 2022)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $7 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $160 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,300 MH Income

+$  250 MH Award Money (Script Contest)

+$1,130 College Refund 

+$1,050 State Inflation Relief

-$ 700 Stereo System + backup camera (kids' car)

401k Contributions/Match:

+$563

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$  250 to investments

+$1,000 to cash (mid-term savings)

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$1,200 Home Insurance

-$  360 Auto Repairs (kids' gas car)

-$  210 Annual Movie Pass (Regal)

-$  175 Museum Membership

TOTAL: $4,898 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  605

Fuel Costs: $16 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 1,516

Fuel Costs: $21 (home) + $46 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Lots of driving this month.  One college trip (round trip ~650 miles), one Bay Area trip (~250 miles) and then MH traveled about 140 miles roundtrip for a San Francisco trip.  He drove 70 miles and then took the train the rest of the way.

The hotel charging was expensive, $23 for a full charge.   Is more in line with gas prices.  But was worth it and very convenient to just charge up the car all the way, overnight.  The rest of the charging expenses will decrease substantially in the future, with warmer temps and more efficient EV tires.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in December will be paid off January 1 and reflected in my January numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects December spending & January savings.

I chickened out about sweeping MH's income (above $1,000) to investments.  I am struggling with feeling a little "cash poor" after that big mortgage paydown.  We just bought a second set of new tires (when the first were a bust).  We will have fence replacement expenses soon.  & while in storm/fence/tree mode, will get our trees trimmed.  There's college expenses in February, and $12,000 I need to send to IRA for 2022. 

MH did unexpectedly receive some Holiday pay (for the week after Christmas).  I suppose some of this is moot because I didn't expect that MH would bring home much in January.  That was just a nice surprise, but we are also trying to get these tires covered.  With unexpected money, ideally. 

It should just be a short term stress.  Will add back some buffer quickly, these months that MH is working.  & college expenses should be pretty minimal until August.  I am going to pull some money out of college funds, for the first time.  Tuition for the whole (academic) year, which will offset MM's last rent bill for the school year.  & the two refunds I just received from the college will be all I need to cover tuition.  Just parking the refunds until it goes back out again. 

I had written off our inflation relief check as lost/stolen.  Tried to call three weeks ago.  Was told I had to wait until January 31st to get a replacement card.  The original showed up in the mail on January 30th.  Phew!  That would have been so irritating to cancel/replace and then just have it show up the next day.  I applied to the car stereo purchase, which was the original plan.  (I don't remember if that was the original original plan, but was easy to justify the stereo upgrade knowing that this money was coming.)  I suppose that works out pretty well.  The rest, and MH's unexpected Holiday pay, should cover most of the tire purchase. 

January was clearly a big cash boost, and I do appreciate it.  MH also finally got that $250 he won a while back.

I was just updating sidebar.  I am just going to call it.  MM(19)'s first two years of college paid for in cash.  I won't send the final 2022-2023 payments over for another few weeks, but clearly we have the cash to cover it.  Extra so, if I am just applying recent college refunds and pulling from college funds.  I put this *goal* more in my sidebar as a clarification.  The feeling of it is *shrugs*.  It's less of a goal and more just how we roll.  It's also fairly official that DL(17) will be the 4th person in our household to take advantage of CSU (CA State University).  This is just solidifying my *shrugs* feelings about the cost of college. 

Received $79 bank interest for the month of December.

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

Snowflakes to Investments:

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

--Redeemed $113 cash back on Citi card

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

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

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

+ $141 Dividends

+ $100 MH income (to meet 2022 goal)

TOTAL: $386 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,132 College Refund

+$4,000 Bonus

401k Contributions/Match:

+$1,800  

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

-$1,000 Auto Repairs (Kids' gas car)

-$  600 Play Station 5

-$  530 Flood Insurance

-$  270 AAA

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

-$  150 Gas (Rental + Kids' Car)

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

+$1,500 to cash

TOTAL: $7,367 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

For Comparison:

Gas Rental Miles Driven: 220

Fuel Costs: $17

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

Hybrid Miles Driven:  347

Fuel Costs: $9 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven: 1,071

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

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

2 Bay Area trips (Holidays)

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

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

Christmas Day was same, with far below average temps.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MH's parents told him last month that they are going to buy an EV in 2023.  They are eyeing the Bolt, same car we have.

They've probably never spent more than $15K on a car.  They prefer to buy new and will probably end up in the $25K range.

I am 1000% in the "they should splurge and get what they want" head space and am happy to see them buying something a little nicer than they usually would.  But...  I don't see the point in going new for a Bolt.  They replaced all the batteries with the recall.  So the barely used ones will have just as long warranties as the new ones.  There's no improvement in range, charging speed, in anything.  It's the same car.   If anything, they are shipping them without features because of the chip shortage.  All the more reason to just buy used.

Anyway, they told MH that they would want his help buying the car.

Shortly after that, the IRS announced that they are still sorting through new EV tax credit rules and that in the meantime, the Bolt gets the full $7,500 credit.  For a few months, while they sort out all the new rules. We told the in-laws and they wanted to go car shopping January 1, given this new development.

Since then, they've been wishy washy.  MH and I pounce on a deal when we car shop, so we were ready to pounce (and was doing homework the last week of December).  This apparently freaked out the in-laws and they changed their mind.  They've since been wishy washy, with everything financial.  To the point maybe we should discourage them and they need to just take some more time before making any big financial decisions.  But I guess MH was with his parents yesterday and they said they are ready now.  So he may make the trip again next weekend, to help them buy a car.

It will be a really nice perk for us, when we can just charge at their house.  I suppose some of the last minute change of mind is they just talked to someone with a Bolt who said they can charge 30 miles overnight without a fast charger.  If they can just plug into a regular outlet in the interim, they are feeling more confident about it.  They have an older house and it will take some time and money to get a Level 2 charger installed.  

{They think they are only going to drive this car around town.  🙄  They have *no idea*.   I know they need time to warm up to it and get used to it but they aren't making any sense.  They should be able to make the roundtrip to our house without any stops.  Getting free electricity at our house would just be gravy.  When they visit the grandkids at college, they can just charge overnight at a hotel.   Or while they stop for a meal.  It would never make any sense to take their loud and 'expensive to fuel' gas cars.  I expect that they will realize this quickly, once they have the car.}

When we were talking about the January 1 buy date, I told MH I thought they should get the ball rolling.  I'd expect a stampede on January 1.

But...  I forget we live in California and the rest of the country is weird.  😁  I swear, just about everything is different.  Have been seeing in my Bolt group people complaing about it taking months to get cars.  & how some were taking advantage of car sales year-end quotas and being able to haggle, while taking delivery in 2023 (and getting tax credit) because it takes time.

MH kind of rolled his eyes at me but humored me.  I thought maybe they should go shopping that last week of December.  MH said he'd make some calls.  In California, maybe extra so in the SF Bay Area, EVs are abundantly in stock.  & so I realized this kind of worldwide and nationwide experience was N/A.

We've never bought a new car and it all sounds terrible.  All the talks about scammy add ons and mark ups and everything.  But in the land of abundant new EVs, this is more N/A.  We've narrowed down a few dealerships that aren't adding more than $500 or $1,000.  (Which will be entirely offset by Costco and military discounts that the in-laws are eligible for.)

MSRP on the 2023 Bolt was $26,500.  I saw an article at some point that they raise the prices $900, after the first of the year.  If they go new, the in-laws will probably pay ~$29,000 (includes sales tax) and will get the $7,500 Federal tax credit.  Net cost $21,500.

MH did think to check used car prices, which was wise.  I had seen that MH's car was worth $30,000.  I probably wouldn't have even bothered looking.  But used car prices dropped dramatically in December.  Phew!  We found a Bolt for $22K.  It was clear from the listing that they had initially priced it at $30K and had dropped the price down very recently. Saw others in the $22K - $24K range.  I then remembered that there was also a used EV tax credit in 2023.  That credit is $4,000.  So we were pushing the used Bolt and that's when MH's parents changed their mind.  I think they just got overwhelmed how quickly it was happening. 

So MH is just kind of, whatever, will call them next weekend and see if they are really serious.  Before he starts calling dealerships again and searching for used cars.  Will see if these cars remain well stocked with the new tax credits.

We personally never considered "new" because we don't pay enough tax to utilize the tax credit.  You have to have a $7,500 tax in the first place, to offset with a $7,500 EV credit.  I need to confirm if the in-laws even pay that much Federal income tax.  This could quickly sway the pendulum towards buying used versus new, if they can't utilize the full credit.

I hadn't thought much about it because "saving money" really wasn't a reason that we bought our EV.  I mean sure, it made it easier to justify financially because of all the fuel savings, but it wasn't the reason we made the switch.  Fast forward to high gas prices in 2022 and this seemed to piss off people and they misdirect their anger at EV drivers.  So have been fielding a lot of really stupid comments.  The comments peaked when gas prices peaked.  Haven't heard much lately.  Anyway, in that defensive mode, I just started thinking more and more that our car will entirely pay for itself in 5 years, with fuel savings.  As I explain to people that their truck/SUV cost more than my $17,000 used EV.  That it's not going to take 100 years to break even on the "extra I had to pay for the vehicle."

I suppose I was more focused on the splurge and the luxury of it.  But as I correct people, I am just thinking more and more that it's entirely paying for itself (very quickly) in fuel savings.

I do want to come up with some kind of tracker.  It's probably pointless because I don't care enough to put much thought or energy into it.  But I've already done the math at $4/gallon gas prices, which is where things have settled here and mostly been at.  The only rub is that we need both the hybrid and EV to save $3,000 per year on fuel.  So that is why the breakeven will only be 5 years on the EV.  I'd like to do that countdown first and then circle back to the hybrid.  (Both of these cars will entirely pay for themselves.)  It's very intertwined.  With the EV, we are able to keep all of our driving on electric.  I take the EV if I have to make a stop before/after work.  Or if I don't have time to charge the hybrid after work but have plans after stopping home.  Then I switch out the cars.  

This is another reason "fuel savings" wasn't a big motivator for this purchase.  MH mostly commutes 6 miles roundtrip.  I probably didn't anticipate how our household would just go all-electric with the EV purchase.  How much I'd switch my driving to the EV.  

On the flip side of the coin...

We are learning.  It's new technology and new things to figure out.  

MH didn't listen to me about getting OEM tires to keep 300-miles range.  He picked up some other tires and the range has been terrible.  99% of the time it just doesn't matter, but it is very noticeable on bigger trips.  He got new tires last August.  We noticed when we drove MM(19) back to school, but the car was also loaded down with stuff.  It was the first time we had moved his stuff in the EV.  

If MH were a single man, I think he's just suffer and live with his bad choice.  I've told him since that trip to just buy OEM tires.  He has to get over the sunk cost.  I've mentioned it a few times but he's really digging in his heels.

We drove MM(19) back to school a couple of weekends ago and MH finally let it go.  He told me on that drive that if someone told him he could spend $800 to increase his fuel efficiency by 20%.  I mean, duh.  It's a no brainer.  It took some time, but he's got over the sunk cost.

Pretty much the next day he got new tires on the car.  I am holding my breath a little bit because he is still being difficult about the OEM tires (harder to get) and is trying some newer electric car tires.  These EV tires came out a couple of weeks after we bought the other tires.  Talk about bad timing.  

MH did end up driving to the Bay Area yesterday, helping his parents with stuff.  It's hard to guage because temps were unusually low.  But it sounds like these tires might be the sweet spot.  A little higher quality but built for the electric car.  More quiet, and more efficient than the last tires.  

Will give it some more time.  If we are really happy with these tires, I will buy the same tires for my car this summer.  If there's still some range hit, I might just go with the OEM tires again.  (Both our cars had the same OEM tires.) 

After searching used tires on FB and Craisglist...  Ugh!  I had no idea there would be thousands of tires for sale.  This got my wheels turning.  I thought maybe we could just put the non-EV tires on the kids' car.  I just looked it up though and it's not the right size.  That is a super bummer because as I look it up, it's probably getting time to change those tires too.  We will be spending a lot of money on tires, but then should be good for a while.

Received $73 bank interest for the month of November.

Received $180 I Bond interest for the month of November.

Snowflakes to Investments:

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

   Less: $95 Annual Fee 

--Redeemed $92 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $33 on dining out/gas card (+ groceries during Q4)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $8 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $40 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,200 MH Income

401k Contributions/Match:

+$890

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

-$1,200 Life Insurance**

-$  580 Travel Expenses/Film Festivals

-$  400 MH new cell phone

-$  100 Web light and microphone (for film festival interviews)

-$   78 Pest Control

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

+$1,500 to cash

- $5,800 Property Taxes (cash)

TOTAL: -$3,325 Net Pulled from Cash 

Pulled from 'College Savings'

-$7,830 Tuition + Rent

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

For Comparison:

Gas Rental Miles Driven November: 224

Fuel Costs: $55

The rental came with 1/2 tank of gas.  Will probably spend $100+ in December. 

I am getting ~30mpg on my (freeway) work commute. 

Hybrid Miles Driven November:  276

Fuel Costs: $7 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

This car is stuck in body shop re: early November accident

Electric (EV) Miles Driven November: 706

Fuel Costs: $13 (home) 

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

We did 25 miles of free charging this month (at the mall).

Note:  I am putting some of my commute miles on the EV.

I don't think we did any out of town driving this month?  DL(17) and I drove to the Bay Area once (for a college tour) but we took his car.

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

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

November is particularly ugly because I had some large *cash* expenses that I couldn't push off to December.

**Life insurance.  This is my insurance that went up 4x? for turning 45.  I need to address it.  Will either be eligible for ~1/2 rates (based on health) or will have to shop around.  Before age 45, this insurance was very inexpensive.  This is on my to do list.

Note:  Just got my LT disability renewal which didn't change much.  But reminded me I do get cash rebates on these premiums and I just looked it up.  I may get $300 back re: bigger life insurance premiums.  Obviously still need to shop around, but it's not quite as nasty as it sounds.  While going through the application and medical stuff, I am going to apply for a bigger disability benefit.  I didn't make enough income before.  & if I am going to have them pull my medical records anyway, might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Short term savings is *done* and zeroed out for the year.   I'd generally charge life insurance to short term, but I didn't plan for such a large insurance expense. 

Because there were no more short-term funds, everything else was deducted against mid-term savings.  Travel expenses above our budget, new cell phone, etc. 

MH finally invested in a ring light and a nice microphone, because he had some online interviews set up (re: film festivals).  We've been very frugal on this front (er, we've been cheap).  I think MH and DL might still be sharing a webcam.  I don't need one.  MM(19) has a webcam integrated into his college laptop.  Oh wait, we only had one webcam pre-pandemic but MH eventually bought a second once, after things settled down. DL(17) does have his own webcam now, which he does not use much.  Anyway, my point is that this purchase was very long overdue.  I am sure MH's friends and relatives appreciate that he got a light and doesn't just sit in the dark now.  😁  He's always used skype a lot, with friends and family (for past ~20 years).   He probably should have bought a light 10+ years ago.  & the microphone is just crappy on his current webcam.  MM(19) might appreciate our investment, we do skype with him a lot to keep in touch, while he is away at college.

MH did also invest in a new cell phone.  His cell phone was 4 years old.  I think this is one of the longer stretches that he has had a phone.  His last phone, I considered to be very expensive.  I personally try to stick to ~$100/year Max (willing to buy a $400 phone every 4 years).  So overall, I was happy with what MH spent, and was less than I expected.  (It's a $650 phone, but he received $250 for trading in his old phone.)

Re: tuition & rent ~ The school owes us $2,300 (CA middle class financial aid x 2 quarters) and we intend to reimburse ourselves (from college funds) $2,500 for our net tuition costs (x 2 quarters).  This leaves about $3,000 (net to cover) which was pulled from rent money that we set aside in 2021.

Financial aid office is still crazy behind and has kicked the can down the road to 2023.  Was supposed to sort out refunds in early December but gave up and is saying "January" now.  Which means of course, "We are closed for the rest of the year and will get back to it in January."  Lord knows when they will actually figure it out.  In the meantime, I still have no idea the odds that MM(19) will get any other scholarships this school year, etc.  On the plus side, will owe very little (if anything) for spring quarter.   

Looking ahead to December, I just feel very saved by the bell.  We have multiple large inflows of cash coming in.  So otherwise it was a spendy month (though we would not have gone negative, like we did in November.  No *big* expenses like property taxes and college bills).  But it will be a very flush month, with all the extra cash flow.  I will probably net $4K with my bonus, and we should get $1K from the state any day now (inflation relief).  

Received $75 bank interest for the month of October.

Received $180 I Bond interest for the month of October.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $4 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $98 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $26 on dining out/gas card (+ groceries during Q4)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

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

TOTAL: $133 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,250 MH Income

-$  150 College Expenses (dorm insurance, kitchen supplies)

401k Contributions/Match:

+$970

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  900 New Tires (EV)

-$  450 Car Insurance (hybrid)

-$  645 Travel - College Move-In

-$  535 Travel - Arizona

-$ 150 Dentist (MM)

-$   50 Password Software

TOTAL: $2,178 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven October:  785

Fuel Costs: $21 Electricity + $37 Gas

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven October: 1,370

Fuel Costs: $24 (home) + $8 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Note:  Summer rates ended and we will pay lower electricit rates for next 8 months.  

We did 100 miles of free charging this month.  Free Miles Downtown (film festival)

Spent $6 charging on ~270 mile Bay Area trip.  

Spent $2 charging on 300 mile Bay Area trip.  (Used EvGo while meeting a friend for lunch. I still apparently had some old credit.)

We also drove to the Bay Area (a 3rd time) and Napa. 

Note:  Purchased gas for Oregon trip and then ended up not going.  Will have to burn through this gas at some point.  Waiting to see how other film festivals shake out.  Otherwise, will do a gas run to Bay Area at some point.  That will burn through most of the excess gas.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in September will be paid off October 1 and reflected in my October numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects September spending & October savings.

What to say about October?  It's what I expected.  Off the top of my head, still have ~$650 left in the vacation fund; will finish zeroing out next month.  October was *the* big travel month, but most of that was charged in October and will be paid for in November.

I did see that our credit cards rewards are being upgraded on my credit union card.  At first glance the only difference I saw was that gas is going up from 3% to 4% cash back.  I don't think that will help us much.  With DL(17) taking over the gas car, I expect to only spend ~$15 on gas per year.  

I Bond rates should bump up next month.  We are still getting first 6 months of 7.12% rate.  Then will get 6 months @ 9.62%.   

Interest rates on our savings accounts continue to go up.  

Our car maintenance has been ~$0 for the past 4 years.  I had a $1,500 annual car repair placeholder that I have just kept in place because we received the kids' (20yo) gas car 4 years ago.  I figured I'd keep the same car repair maintenance placeholder.  (We used to have two older cars, but now have two newer cars under warranty, ourselves.  The two older cars would always throw off more car repair bills).  But in the end, the kids' old gas car has been extremely low maintenance.  It's a great car, but also barely driven.  I think "barely driven" is more to the point as to the very low maintenance.  & the EVs are extremely low maintenance.  

It was nice while it lasted, but this year we will have some catch up on repair bills.  We had some repairs on the old gas car (will show up next month).  & it was time to replace OEM tires on the EV, which we got 50K miles out of.  Not bad, for factory tires.  I am so confused though because my car has more miles and way more life left on the (same OEM) tires.  All I can figure is that the ~90% freeway driving is much lighter on the tires.  While MH was getting his tires changed out, I was going through tire discussions in my hybrid group and saw some opinion that should replace tires after 5 years due to the weight of the car and the thinness of the energy efficient tires.  But when I got home that day and looked carefully at the tread, I decided that is ridiculous.  I mean, I was almost ready to just switch my tires out too.  I will give it a year and spread out costs a little bit.  I can still be cautious and switch out next fall.  Both our cars are 2017 model years.  I will probably switch mine out at 75K miles.  (An extra 25K miles with all that freeway driving.  MH did buy his car more used, so maybe the prior owner was also harsh on the tires).  With MH's car, we replaced the tires about a year before we needed to.  But we didn't have any expenses for 4 years and we had a used tire on the car (to replace a flat) that was nearing the end of its life.  We just found it easier to replace all the tires and move on.

Looking ahead to November.  Ugly...  Just paid Property taxes and MH's rent for the second quarter.  Big transfers out of savings this month.  In addition to paying off some big credit card charges from prior month.  & I would pay tuition if MH Had been able to register or if financial aid office was caught up.  Will see...

I did just update sidebar.  Tentatively checked off $10K savings goal.  I do expect to fall backward this month and so won't give it a full check off.  But I think December looks promising to solidify this goal.  On the plus side, I am not pulling college money or property taxes from this bucket.  So all of this big money drain in November should mostly not affect our $10K (mid-term) savings goal. 

Edited to add:  I usually draft this post around the beginning of the month I am updating, because I have most numbers and most spending done.  So...  That was 6 weeks ago?  I did end up in a car accident this week.  Ugh!  Someone hit my car on the freeway.  Everyone is okay and that is what is important.  (& for the first time since college, the other person actually pulled over and took responsibility.)  My November numbers will be weird because I expect my car mostly to be in the shop and will have to rent a gas car.  MH will take the rental (for his 3-mile commute), to minimize gas costs.  We are going to drive this gas rental as little as possible. & the timing is good in that we don't have to spend our own gas driving DL(17) to school.  He got his license just days before my accident.  

Oh, and one of my tires was hit in the accident.  I presume the shop will replace it and then I will be left with uneven tires.  I may just bite the bullet and replace all the rest of the tires at ~67K miles.  If I wait until December, I can at least make it a 2023 expense (charge in December, paying with January 2023 budget).  I guess that whole thing I am rethinking again.  I suppose it may be optimistic to assume I can even get my car back this year.  

Received $70 bank interest for the month of September.

Received $180 I Bond interest for the month of September.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $49 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $84 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $12 on dining out/gas card 

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $7 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

+ $65 Dividends

TOTAL: $217 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$930 MH Income

-$150 Grocery Budget Overage

-$230 Misc Over-Spending 

-$  50 Gas (Kids' car, DL practice driving)

-$100 To Friend in Need (came up last minute)

-$100 AP Test Fee

401k Contributions/Match:

+$850

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  486 Airfare

-$  286 Annual Vet Visit

-$  220 Running Shoes for DL

-$    78 Pest Control

TOTAL: $2,997 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven September:  760

Fuel Costs: $25 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven September: 1,300

Fuel Costs: $19 (home) + $17 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Note:  Home charging rates are higher during summer months.

We did 500 miles of free charging this month.  Electrify America is going through some upgrade and has been free for weeks now.  It was just a nice surprise (to us) when we drove MM(19) back to college.

Driving will probably be more next month.  Planning a drive up to Washington.

Side note:  Gas is $6/gallon here.  We are saving hundreds of dollars on fuel every month.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in August will be paid off September 1 and reflected in my September numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects August spending & September savings.

August spending was...  Blech!  

We are personally very insulated from inflation.  My best guess is that with our higher prices (HCOLA), we just aren't experiencing inflation the way most in the US are.  This is coupled with generally not being spenders (& not buying gas, etc.).  So...  Inflation is not a factor in our grocery blown budget this month.  MM(19) was home more, MH was sick and didn't grocery shop for about 2 weeks.  I did the best I could but I know I am not as efficient as the master.  In addition, I stocked up on things.  Off the top of my head, I bought hairspray, toothpaste, and laundry detergent.  Enough to last another year or so.  (Not much of a stocker upper, but generally buy 2x anything I purchase for myself.  Just to go to the store less.  A large laundry detergent box will last us a year.  I bought 4 cans of hairspray because it was on sale.  DL goes through hairspray quickly.)  I just lump all household spending like this in our 'grocery' budget.  

Edit to add:  A lot of our food is produced in our state, so I expect this is also a lot of it. 

{This is just to-date.  Obviously, rising fuel prices affects prices on everything and ask me again in another few months.  To-date, I have nothing to contribute to the inflation conversation.}

That does remind me, some of our spending this month was buying gas, with our -$0- gas budget.  Should just be one-off for a couple of months.  DL(17) will take over gas car expenses when he gets his license (very soon).

We've completely exhausted our Misc. short-term savings.  Will have to just pull from MH's income the rest of the year.  Like the gas, it's one-off and so I am just rolling with it.  I won't be adjusting our budget.  MM(19) is taking over most of his expenses (that would have gone under misc. short-term) and this is the last year we will have high school expenses for DL(17).  Ugh.  He's doing *3* band classes and a vocal class so we will be spending a ton on concert tickets this school year.  So that might get a little crazy, but also should be very one-off.  (We always buy tickets for the grandparents, etc.)

Edited to add: Apparently we will pay for a couple of AP classes for DL(17), but again, very one-off.  I dodged a bullet.  MM(19) took a bajillion tests.  Several AP classes every year, ACT, SAT, PSAT, IB, etc.  His school paid for everything.  I think it's $100 for the one AP test.  DL(17) isn't going to bother with the SAT or ACT.   So it sounds like it will just be the two AP tests.  & even that's kind of random.  No idea why on earth he wanted to take calculus this year.  He takes more after his dad/brother I guess.  But he's never going to use that in the future.  & is generally opposed to unnecessary work.  So this is why I am just finding out (senior year) that his school does not cover AP tests.  

Heck, we've completely exhausted short-term funds, except for property taxes and insurance.  Will pay taxes in November.  & I guess we still also have funds left in our vacation (short term) bucket.  

Misc. spending was doing some crowd funding (more paying it forward) and buying some games and accessories for the new VR.

I was hoping to kick off the airfare another month, but it squeaked by on the last day of the credit card cutoff.  It doesn't matter.  But psychologically, expected a bigger cash boost this month.

I just noticed that we have exhausted the 6% cash back on our grocery card.  Hit the cap for the year.  Will switch over to our dining/gas card which pays 3% back on groceries.  I usually just pull those cards out of our wallet for the last quarter of the year.  (Would never remember, otherwise).

I already balanced out October.  Was a -$0- month on the savings side (cash savings/my salary).  But I will have MH's income, 401K contributions, credit card rewards, bank & I Bond interest, etc.  Off the top of my head, might be a +$2K month.   It was just mid term/short term was a wash with what I put in and took out.  

And then...  November.  Ugh!  MH just replaced his phone.  We will have a lot of travel expenses (Arizona + Oregon).  Oh, and I just charged my life insurance that went up x4 because I turned 45.  All of that...  Plus paying *cash* for college and property taxes.  November will be very ugly.  

That said, we are making good progress.  Big picture, things are chugging along just fine.  Just dealing with a lot of one-off expenses right now.  

Note:  The rumor is that our CA college grant should have posted this week.  I will talk to MM(19) about it this weekend.  November is going to be ugly no matter what, but this will make it slightly less ugly.  The planner in me will be happy to know what our *real* tuition costs are for this school year.  Finally...

Did you see that Frugalwoods moved up from a $10K vehicle to a ~$35K+ vehicle?  😱

I am sure they could easily afford it, and didn't have much choice.  But I just couldn't even imagine wrapping my brain around that.  Yikes!

I am starting to feel like a genius for pulling the EV car trigger.  If it allows us to wait out this used car insanity.  We were so spoiled by the decades that most people turned up their nose at the idea of buying used. 

Oh yeah, so I looked it up out of curiosity a couple of weekends ago.  Our car (that we paid $17K for) is now going for $30K.  With the +20K miles we've added to it since we bought it.  That's crazy!  I probably had looked that up a few days before Frugalwoods posted about their new car purchase.

I am not sure what MM(19) will do.  Maybe both kids.  But the car they have has many years left in it.  & I am not as concerned about DL(17), who has a car that he can probably drive through college years.  

We actually had a discussion about it a few weeks ago because MM started expressing more interest in getting a car his last two years of college.  But he later clarified he was just thinking ahead to next summer and knows he won't just have a car to take to work, if DL(17) is using their shared car.  I had told him that honestly MIL would probably just let him borrow her car for the summer (if she doesn't just give it to him).  & then he said something like, "Why do they need two cars anyway?"  Good point.  & FIL might not be driving much longer anyway.

MIL had already voiced wanting to give her car to MM(19).  It's just when she said that before, it was completely ridiculous.  The car is now a few years older (I have no idea how old, I don't remember at all, but it's just a little less ridiculous at this point).  They came into some money last year and are thinking about going electric.  

If he needs/wants a car at college, just depends where he ends up living. **

I should probably get quotes for full coverage on the gas car and run through the math.  The whole point of the old beater is not having to get full coverage on a new driver ($$$$$).  But...  With this absurd used car market.  It might be extra peace of mind for the first 6-12 months that DL(17) is driving on his own.   I will ask for quotes when we get him coverage.  & I'll have to look up what that car is going for these days, to help guage if the extra insurance would be worth it.   Will see.  I'd still have DL(17) pay for the basic insurance, but we'd pay for the extra coverage if it made any financial sense.  Note:  The car was worth ~$4,000 pre-pandemic; we've put very little miles on the car.  $5K was always our cutoff for full coverage.  It's probably pretty borderline at this point. 

**Reminds me:  MM(19) has a lead on dirt cheap housing.  1/3 of what we are paying now.  !!  His girlfriend has some job on campus that comes with housing deal.  I told him to let her be the guniea pig this year, but I was intrigued.  So far...  I don't know.  I guess there's been a lot of problems but some of that is one person didn't work out and they have an opening.  I think this year is set and fine and paid for already.  But just thinking to future years.  I am intrugued but this is a situation where there are obviously trade offs.  It's not like my housing hack in college where I paid about as much for a *better* living situation.  She's putting up with a lot for the cheap housing.  We may be able to figure that out too (pay less for better housing options), but it's just harder being 300 miles away.  Unless he's just able to figure it out on his own.  Which is what I did. I am sure he can figure it out but he also doesn't have the financial motivation.  If his parents weren't paying, he'd already have the job with the cheap rent.   I am mostly intrigued because he will be stuck with off campus housing in the future and it sounds like a nightmare to figure out.  So if he can lock in some alternative/cheap housing, sounds good to me.

We got MM(19) moved into his college apartment.

He is back to paradise...

A pretty scene on the drive home:

I have to back up and say that I went to get my last free ~100 mile charge by the shelter, the weekend prior.  Was maybe going to justify one more to help offset this drive, but otherwise DL(17) needs to practice this drive in the gas car and will be driving himself soon.  So...  I pulled up to the charger (happy as a lark) and...  it asked me for my credit card?  Alas, it is no longer free.  Couldn't even get that one last free charge.  (It looks like they just move the free chargers around.  Another charger in the same network is free now.  Nothing very practical but I just need to keep it in mind if something comes up in that neighborhood, and keep checking).

It's moot because...  We pulled up to the first charger on the college trip and...  It was free!  

Total miles driven: 820

Total free miles: ~500

The plan was to go very practical this trip and just to charge while we were stopped anyway.  But the free charging quickly changed that scenario.  Stayed a little longer for free charging.  Also, we got new tires.  Between that and the car being so loaded down, the range was absolutely terrible on the drive down.  So between that and the free charging...  Was still just one stop each way, but longer than we initially planned.  & we made a lot more charge stops than planned.  For example, we went to Target and the chargers were free, so of course we took advantage.  

Electrify America ended up being free all 3 days.  Apparently because they are updating their network.  I don't know.  At first we weren't sure if it was just our first stop.  Or just the weekend.  But it ended up being free for the whole trip.  Woohoo!

Our first charge stop was interesting.  South of the Bay Area we stopped at the outlet mall on a Saturday.  Probably busier than we have seen it.  Had been more stopping there on off days.  We saw *3* electric Mustangs.  Never seen them before.  They are cute.  & we saw an Amazon prime truck charging. The Outlets have 8? EA chargers, have the Tesla chargers, the EV Go chargers, and some of the gas stations have chargers.  There is no lack of chargers here.  I was fascinated though because several people came and went quickly.  I texted my Dad at some point and he asked if we had to wait (clearly it sounded very busy).  I told him no, it was all the rich people with their super fast charging cars.  We saw another Mustang charging at the hotel later, which makes me think that is the most popular electric car right now (aside from Tesla).  But then I didn't see any after that.  Saw some giant pickup trucks charging too, the first day.  Rivian (which is a more local company, So Cal?)   We stopped the same place on Monday and it was much quieter.  But I saw a Porsche and two Ioniqs.  Other cars probably came and went, while we went for a walk.  (The first day I stayed in the car because we had it loaded with college stuff.  So I watched everyone come and go).  Ioniq ~ I think that's the Hyundai, they charge crazy fast.  MH talked to the Ioniq guy next to us.  He had just driven from So Cal to British Columbia and was heading back home.  (Their 2023? model will have a 380 mile range.)

It's fascinating to me how quickly it all changes.  Past road trips were all just older/retired people.  Usually men.  Everyone wants to talk about their cars.  How fast does your car charge?  What's the range?  (Our car might charge slow, but have talked to a lot of people with crazy low ranges, trying to do longer road trips.)   Generally no two cars were the same. This time was markedly differently.  Lots of family cars and kids.  No one's standing around and talking because their cars charge fast.  They are running to the bathroom and/or the store and grabbing a quick charge.

I suppose I have to back up more.  We had never loaded the EV up with stuff before.  I think the difference in the size of our cars is negligible but MH was worried it would be too small.  So we made sure to charge up both cars and were ready to take what was more practical.  In the end, I think the EV had more cargo space.  MH brought more stuff and there was more room.  Phew! 

(If we had taken my car, we never would have known we would have missed all that free charging.  My car is not compatible with the fast chargers.)

Spending:

$394 Hotel (saved a bajillion dollars, found a hotel 30 miles from the college.)

$242 Dining Out

That's probably all I am going to put to the 'vacation' category.  This puts us to $870 of our $2000 vacation budget.    I think the $1,130 remaining is reasonable for Arizona trip.  (We have a free hotel for 4 nights).

We are getting a ~$1,000 inflation payment from our state.  Probably next month?  I am just going to throw at vacation dollars.  It will give us a little breathing room for Arizona.  (Food or gas will likely put us over).  & then leaves any money left over if we want to visit MM(19) this calendar year.  Or if any other festivals come up.

Food spending on this trip was mixed.  Treated niece/MM/MM's girlfriend to a big dinner on Saturday night.  But we only spent $10 on the drive home (fast food).  First day we fed MM(19) for lunch but then MH and I went to our cheapie/good place by the beach for dinner.  We've always gone there because it's *amazing*.  Only found out recently they have $4 pizza slices.  We spent ~$20 on that, beer and gelato.  Saturday we actually ended up having a big mexican lunch (YUM) and so MH and I just split an entree when we took out the kids. 

We went to Home Depot, Target, and did a grocery run (will absorb in grocery budget).  I don't think we will do a grocery run at home, this week.  MH made chili for DL(17) as requested.  So that he wouldn't have to cook while we were gone.  Then he forgot and didn't eat it.  It's to the point I will be giving food away at work this week.   We have so much food!  With the *big eater* gone...

Fuel: $22

Fuel detail: $5 to charge at home, $4 for EA monthly pass (for discounts we apparently didn't need/use). Hotel had a slow charger that was on the expensive side.  Not the most practical but is most of what we spent.  That was $13 for 114 miles.  

If we spent any more on fuel, I'd add it to the vacation budget.  But it ended up being so inexpensive, I will just absorb the cost in our monthly budget.

The next few weeks are busy busy busy with film festivals.

Received $67 bank interest for the month of August.

Received $180 I Bond interest for the month of August.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $61 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $70 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $8 on dining out/gas card 

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $2 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $141 Snowflakes to Investments

Snowball to Savings:

+$0 MH Income

401k Contributions/Match:

+$750

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$472 Kids' Birthdays

-$300 New VR Quest

-$230 Senior Pictures

-$191 Movie/Script Stuff & Crowdfunding (pay it forward) 

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  300 Dentist (MH & DL)

-$    60 Quicken (personal finance/accounting software)

Pulled from 'College Savings'

-$7,700 Tuition + Rent

TOTAL: -$5,665 Net Pulled from Cash/Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven August:  860

Fuel Costs: $28 Electricity + $10 Gas (2 gallons)

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Note: I needed gas to be able to remote start my vehicle (and to pre-cool the car in the afternoons).  2 gallons should last me for 12 months.

Electric (EV) Miles Driven August: 996

Fuel Costs: $21 (home) 

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Note:  Home charging rates are higher during summer months.

We did 105 miles of free charging this month. 

EV = free 105 miles @ animal shelter 

MH went to the Bay Area once.  After mostly being stuck in isolation for 2 weeks, I couldn't tell you why so many miles on the EV.  Maybe a second out of town trip that I don't remember??  Where the heck did MH go?  Oh yeah, he did also go up to the cabin twice (I remembered one cabin trip & MH reminded me of the second trip).  & ~80 miles going 2x to the animal shelter.  I didn't bother with the free charge the second time.  MH had plugged in and the battery was too full. 

I double checked electricity prices and they were more than I remember.  So this bumped up fuel costs this month.

Saw a crazy online discussion about EVs this week.  Just something new that I hadn't seen before, so was worth sharing.  Was seeing a lot of negative comments re: conserving energy during a heat wave.  When EV drivers replied that they just charge overnight (and don't pay peak $$$$ prices anyway)...  Got a lot of replies like, "Yeah right!" and "You have to wake up in the middle of the night to charge your car!?"  

I had wanted to correct some of the myths out there, and that was a new one.  So I thought I'd share.  Of course all these super computer cars have all this programmed.  But we are pretty low tech.  Our charger just has a delay button that we push.  We choose how many hours we want to delay before the charging starts (and push the button X times, accordingly).  That's it. 

& of course, the EV has a big battery that stores electricity.  MH is charging every other weekend.  Even that is mostly excessive, but the point for us is more to just have a habit and not think about it.  (In addition to working around my more frequent weeknight hybrid charging; we only have one charger).  There's no need to be constantly charging an electric car.  

Edit:  I started this post a few days ago.  The news headlines are getting more weird and fear mongering by the day.  Just saw a headline that CA EV drivers have to walk while it's 110F degrees this week.  🙄  It literally says that in the headline, of some big reputable new channel.  This "news" is garbage.  

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in July will be paid off August 1 and reflected in my August numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects July spending & August savings.

Holy cow, look at that interest.  Interest rates just keep going up in our bank accounts.  Our I Bond rate goes up significantly after September.

MH lost two weeks of work re: COVID.  Thus, short ~$700 that we were expecting this month.

This was the spendy no-work month that I alluded to in my July update. (The below is all July spending paid for in August).

The VR Quest 2 went on sale suddenly for 25% off.  MH could not resist that.  I do like the VR too but with my motion sickness tendency I never got too into it.  We have an older Sony VR helmet, so it's not our first VR setup. 

When MM(19) did senior pictures, they didn't do the tux (shared clothing) pictures due to COVID.  & he was too cheap to pay for the cap & gown sitting.  I really wanted to murder him when he told me that. 😁  They clearly phoned it in (with the $0 sitting fee) and we were not interested in any of the pictures.  For DL(17), *we* were able to sign up for him (we didn't tell him he had a choice) and we had to drive him over there.  So he did the cap & gown sitting.  I like this photographer better.  Liked.  Have been able to spend $10-$15 on pictures in the past.  But the senior photos were *ridiculous*.  Like $600 for their most basic package.  I cobbled something together. If DL was another kid, I'd just ask my Dad to do some photos.  But...  We are lucky that DL was a good sport.  I just bought some wallets and scanned them.  We can ponder re-doing photos later, depending on his mood.  The $200 was "DL may never sit for photos again" insurance.  At least the photos were professional and good. 

In the end, August (ignoring college expense) was pretty similar dollar-wise to July.  But the rub was the bigger mid-term savings deductions in August.  If it's coming out of mid-term, it's because I am drawing down "longer term" savings to pay for things.  & that is more "ouch". 

(If it's truly "long term", it's invested.  So is why I use the term mid-term instead, when it comes to cash savings.)  

Received $50 bank interest for the month of July.

Received $180 I Bond interest for the month of July.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $48 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $70 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $7 on dining out/gas card

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $4 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $129 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$750

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$250 College Dining Plan (Fall 2022)

-$100 Animal Shelter Donation (matched by friend)

-$130 New Side Table

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  175 Dentist

-$  150 Amazon Prime

-$  125 Clothing for DL

-$  110 50th Anniversay Dinner

-$  100 Transportation home from college (MM + stuff)

-$    78 Pest Control

-$    58 Smog check on kids' car 

-$    30 Vacation Expenses (camp)

TOTAL: $2,253 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven July:  810

Fuel Costs: $26 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Includes 20 *free* miles 

Electric (EV) Miles Driven July: 867

Fuel Costs: $14 (home) + $11 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Note:  Home charging rates are higher during summer months.

We did 170 miles of free charging this month. 

Hybrid = free 20 miles @ animal shelter

EV = free 120 miles @ animal shelter & Free 30 miles @ movie theater

We ended up doing a couple of Bay Area drives to help our parents out.  We only need a quick top off to get home, but for whatever reason MH stayed at a charger for about an hour.  He decided to stop and eat dinner, and I guess there was a long line at the bathroom.  It may have been 45 minutes.  We paid for about 100 miles between that and a quick 5-minute charge on the way home (earlier trip).

I tried the free Volta fast charger that is a few miles from the animal shelter.  O.M.G.  It was the easiest fast charger I had ever used.  & it's nice to not be sitting alone in the middle of nowhere.  I got about 60 miles out of a 30-minute charge.  (Would have been more if I went with a more depleted battery versus mostly full battery).  The round trip drive is about 50 miles (with the drive to the charger) so that worked out pretty well.  There was a free Level 2 charger right next to the free fast charger (30 minute limit), so I just moved over to the slower Level 2 when I was done.  

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in June will be paid off July 1 and reflected in my July numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects June spending & July savings.

Re: I Bonds, I threw another $10K into a trust account.  I won't be able to do the last $10K until January 1.

MH is off work for the summer, so it's just my paycheck for July and August. 

I had a last minute mid-term savings deduction when I paid cash (venmo) to the animal shelter for a dog who needs a very expensive surgery.  My friend was matching donations.  But July already paid and done (the first of the month) I just pulled from longer-term savings.  If I could have thrown it on the credit card, I'd maybe have been able to cash flow.  Our grocery spending has been unexpectedly low this month.

July was spendy (will sort out in August).  We had a lot going on.  So I think we are through the worst of it.  At least MH should have a paycheck in September, if we need to cover any August spending.

By some miracle, grocery expenses were very low this month.  ???  I thought I'd be more able to offset excessive spending (which will show up in August update).  But things were pretty tight, even with the low grocery spend month.  We have a very solid pattern of spending less when busy with work.  July spending (will sort out in August) was the first month this year I just couldn't balance and don't know what happened.  Clearly spending more with the working less.  Even with the 'breathing room' and low grocery month, the math just didn't work. 

I eventually got it to balance.  & MH was called back to work so it's moot.  I don't know how busy it will be but he will be paid for 1 week? in August.  

I guess that means July will be our only one-income month this year.  This is my July update.  It was pretty benign and everything balanced (income - savings/investments - expenses = $0).  August will be more ugly with the over-spending *and* college bills due.  One small unexpected paychedck will help.

As of July 31, no word on scholarships for MM(19).  It sounds like we won't know 100% until August is over.  After tuition is paid. 

Received $38 bank interest for the month of June.

Received $120 I Bond interest for the month of June.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $39 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $69 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $7 on dining out/gas card

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $8 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

+ $9 Rounding (to reach an even $1K for first 6 months of year)

TOTAL: $132 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$935

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,175 MH Income

+    340 MH Extra Paycheck (worked way later into June than usual)

-     340 Dryer Repair

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$200 Movie Expenses (Film Festival Submissions, etc.)

-$120 New Dishes

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  240 50th Anniversary Gift

-$  200 Vacation Spending (Monterey)

-$  105 Misc Spending

-$    55 Field Trip/School Expenses

TOTAL: $3,930 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven June:  680

Fuel Costs: $22 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven June: 910

Fuel Costs: $19 (home) + $7 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

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

Note:  Higher summer rates kicked in this month (home charging)

We did 60 miles of free charging this month. 

Did a separate post due to longer update.

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in May will be paid off June 1 and reflected in my June numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects May spending & June savings.

Note:  I Bond interest hit because we got past 3-month penalty time period ($0 interest).  

Big Picture: Emergency fund is funded. Cash set aside for college rent next year.  Remaining cash = $5,000.  Most of that excess was clearly built up this month.

I know we will very likely have $3K in medical bills this year (our deductible).  & would like more buffer for some of the more foreseen.  Home maintenance is the obvious.  In addition, starting to save for junior year college costs, with a general plan to spend sophomore year saving up for the last bit of expenses we expect for MM college.   So there will be some overlap while we have extra funds for multiple school years.  

{This does not include I Bonds, which are loosely earmarked for college expenses.  Or gifted college funds.  We have a few buckets to pull college expenses from.}

July is kind of "meh" and August is going to be deep in the red.  Could maybe squeak by in the black otherwise, but MH is off work, I have the biggest mouth to feed, and tuition/rent will be due in August.  In addition to some other bigger expenses we've already run up (that will be paid off in August). 

I still have *no idea* what our college costs will be next year.  I've heard that scholarships sort out in July, so we should find out soon.

{We were okay with the one-time scholarship because it's a very inexpensive school.  We will need to pull $2K for tuition in the fall, if MM gets -$0 scholarships.}

I peeked at the big big picture recently and we were down $30K.  I feel very *shrugs* about "the stock market being where it was just a year ago."  But am also very happy with stock/bond/cash mix.  Hint: never bought into going all-in on the stock market, which became very popular during very long bull market run. 

There's that, and also in the accumulation stage it is much better to buy lower.  I welcome the rare chance to buy stocks at a discount. 

I am bracing for a bumpier ride.  Non-fussed about it in the moment, but clearly hear the alarm bells and am bracing for the eventual bumpier ride.  

Edit:  I just realized I needed $9 to reach 1/2 our snowflake investment goal for the year.  I just threw $9 to that.  $1,000 of $2,000 invested, for the year. 

DL(17) update...

DL had his birthday last weekend.  We got saved by the bell because he wanted to go to his bestie's house (they share the same birthday) *and* MM(19) was available to drop him off and pick him up (after sleepover).  Phew!  MH and I ended up busy with my parents' emergencies.  

DL(17) scored a free guitar and MH bought him some electronic/music thing that he loves.  A sound mixer of some sort.  As to the guitar, someone just abandoned it at his friend's house some years ago.  He asked if he could just have it.  He said he doesn't think anyone else had ever touched it (since it was left there).

I guess we did also order out his favorite food on another night.  & MH took him to a couple of thrift shops last week, to spend some of his birthday cash.

Things have been pretty normal here for a very long time.  The one exception is the teen animal shelter volunteer program.  The organizer and some of her adult helpers have autoimmune disorders, so they have been very slow to resume. In the end, they resumed around July 1.  DL(17) had signed up around Feb 2020, so he has been waiting very patiently.  He's done two shifts and really enjoys it.

I went over to the old free charger last time.  It's very isolated and not my favorite place to charge.  But with my hybrid car I can at least get 1/2 the drive covered.  While sitting there, I thought maybe I should check if any new chargers had popped up.  There were several new free chargers in the area but most of them were not accessible or were turned off during the weekend.  I did find one a block or two down, but someone was using it.  Today I gave it a try and no one was charging, so I got this new charger to myself.  It's probably a toss up which place is better to charge, but I personally felt a little more comfortable at this charging station. 

& I did remember to take the EV this time.  It charges twice as fast as the hybrid, so am basically able to get free fuel for the entire drive.   I got about 50 free miles today (for a 40-mile roundtrip drive).

I didn't even think about it while I was charging last time, but afterwards I thought to look for a free fast charger.  Those are more unicorns and I really didn't expect to find anything.  But in the "It never hurts to ask" vein...  I found one!  I would have checked it out today but the car was pretty well topped off.  We left it charged after Bay Area trip last week because we didn't know if we'd have to go back to help my mom again.  It seemed likely we would.  Most any other time we can plan a little better and I will try the free charge next time.  (The car charges faster if the battery is more depleted).  Next time...

I suppose I also have a couple of MH updates.

He was working on a movie production but it was abruptly canceled a couple of weeks ago.  MH is super bummed about that.  But at least it was earlier on before too much work was done.  Don't get me wrong, he's put many hours into this thing already.   But the bulk of the work had not been done yet.  It sounded like maybe a dire emergency and we were really concerned, but it ended up being more that the guy making the movie has a big and unexpected move.  I guess that's an extra bummer because MH enjoyed working with him.  Less potential for future projects if he moves hundreds of miles away.

MH also found out he got into another local film festival.  But...  They canceled due to COVID.  It's only the second one he has gotten into, so that is a super bummer.  I mean, I think they are moving it to online.  He wanted to network *and* see his movie with an audience.  It doesn't seem meant to be. 

Received $26 bank interest for the month of May.

Received -$0- I Bond interest for the month of May (will kick in next month).

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $40 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $76 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $6 on dining out/gas card

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $2 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $124 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$900

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,400 MH Income

-$ 300 Donation to DL(16)'s school

-$ 100 Graduation Gift (niece)

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$950 Movie Expenses (Premier Party, Film Festival Submissions, etc.)

-$585 Drivers Ed

-$180 Show Tickets

-$120 Crowd Funding (paying it forward)

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  150 School Band concerts & field trips

-$  144 DMV Renewal (Kids' car)

-$  100 State Tax E-file (x5)

-$   80 Oil Change (hybrid) 

-$   78 Pest Control

TOTAL: $2,112 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven May:  645

Fuel Costs: $16 Electricity 

(assumed 50 miles & 14 KwH per full charge)

Electric (EV) Miles Driven May: 1,146

Fuel Costs: $16 (home) + $25 (out)

(assumed 300 miles & 60 KwH per full charge)

Most charging (both cars) was done at home.

We did -0-? miles of free charging this month.  I don't recall any free charging.

We did plan about 300-ish miles of free charging for our bigger road trip last last weekend but as I mentioned in my last post we turned around because DL(16) was ill.  It wasn't well planned and we just stopped wherever.  

I am racking my brain because I thought we were out of town every week in May but I just figured it out.  

Week 1 San Jose ~ that was April 30th

Week 2 San Francisco ~ we took the train

Week 3 Bay Area ~ DL(16) had a band event but it wasn't far enough to warrant a stop/charge

Week 4 So Cal ~ spent $25 at chargers

June will be more of the same. 

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in April will be paid off May 1 and reflected in my May numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects April spending & May savings.

I expect that this is the last DMV renewal I should be paying for the kids' car.  MM(18) will be back this month covering all expenses for summer (he has a job/summer commute).  Probably a small gap after that but DL(16) should be licensed and taking over the car expenses this fall.  MH and I covered some of the car expenses while MM(18) wasn't using the car and DL(16) didn't even have a permit.  I am happy to cross that extra expense off my list soon.

The donation to DL(16)'s school is somewhat required (in the form of either money or time).  I would have done some of this in December but the website was not working and I could not make donations.  Because of the large chunk, I just took it out of MH's income.  We probably skipped the past couple of years (in the craziness), and just have one more year left.  Something else that I can cross of my list soon-ish. 

The hybrid does need an oil change once every 2 years.  It was time.  Given that this is really our only vehicle maintenance expense and a more specialized car, we just went to the dealership ($$$$$).  

& then driver's ed...  The place we used for MM(18) raised their prices significantly.  It was only $300 before?  This is not a universal price increase.  It was just this one place that raised rates, but they still had amazing reviews (throug the pandemic) and we were really happy with them.  So I bit the bullet.  After the first drive, I am happy with this decision.  Would pay any amount of money to get DL(16) more comfortable with driving.  (Happy to say that it is paying off).

This should be the last big month for MH's movie expenses.  Future expenses will mostly be travel, if he gets into more festivals.

I e-filed taxes for everyone (better and more secure).  Did you hear that the IRS tossed 300 million "information returns" (e.g. W2s & 1099s) without processing them? 😱  I am skeptical that's all they threw away, given the bajillion IRS notices at work re: multiple paper filed entities (corporate and partnership tax returns).  This is on top of my snail mail ID theft I experienced 10+ years ago.  I chose to just e-file this year even if it was more expensive (than just paper filing with a postage stamp).  Our parents are very generous and GMIL is broke, and so I never in a million years would ask them to pay for any of this.  I filed tax returns for them and the kids.  (I've always just e-filed our own tax return, but have snail mailed a kids' 2-page tax return in the past).

MH bought tickets to a show.  We have since discussed two other concerts but they were just too hard to justify financially.   I moved those to the "nevermind" column category.   Both were kind of "would be fun," but not $200 fun.  Nothing we were very passionate about.

Received $25 bank interest for the month of April.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $33 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $96 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $3 on dining out/gas card

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $10 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $142 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$890

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,300 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$950 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$365 Movie Expenses (Film Festival Submissions, copyright new script, etc.)

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

+$1,500 to cash

-$  941 Auto Insurance

-$  500 Life Insurance

-$  253 Annual DMV Registration (EV)

-$  300 Dentist

-$  386 Medical 

-$  200 Misc Expenses for MM(18)

-$    25 Driving Course for DL (16)

TOTAL: $1,837 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven April:  715

Fuel Costs: $19 Electricity 

Electric (EV) Miles Driven April: 1,185

Fuel Costs: $22 (home) + $6 (out)

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

We got about 70 miles of free charging this month.  We just got lucky.  We went out to a park and a restaurant one weekend, and they both just happened to have free charging. 

We did also do a Bay Area trip (Easter) with -0- fuel stops.

For the Easter trip, we got home with about -0- miles to spare.  It was a little stressful and I had heard that like a gas car there is still 20 miles left at that point.  But afterwards I read that isn't necessarily the case.  Who knows.   Logically we still had plenty of buffer to get home, even if the car computer decided to freak us out during the last couple of miles.  The miles guesstimate was being a little glitchy.

Accordingly, we decided to err on the safe side and just stop to charge when we went to visit our parents last weekend.  It was probably completely unnecessary.  But I also wanted to scope out more chargers.  In this case, the most convenient stop was at another Outlet (where we usually stop; lots of chargers, food and bathrooms.  So makes a good pit stop).  I am glad we did because by then it was after hours (around 9pm) and I can see I would never feel comfortable going there alone.  In an abandoned/dark parking lot at night.  There is a charger right by my parent's house and I can see it's just wise to stop there for a quick top off.  It's at a grocery store and is probably always bustling.  Those chargers are out front and not hidden in the back like a lot of these chargers are.

We stopped for 5 minutes, spent $1.55, and added about 20 miles to our range.  

In the end, we drove 260 miles and had 30 miles left when we got home.  The buffer was probably not necessary, but it's around the 10-mile mark that the car freaks out and tells you that you need to charge ASAP.  We saved ourselves some stress.

We did also pay $4 for a monthly Electrifty America (EA) pass (which I included in fuel costs above).  With the extra $4 you do get a discount on charging that has always been worth it.  But as EA informed me we saved $0.60 on this one charge (the only one we paid for this month), I told MH I didn't think we need to pay the $4 any more.  We are going to keep it for May because we are going on a long trip.  One big charge/refuel will pay for the $4 (in savings).  But it's clear that we will no longer get any benefit out of this for anything but longer road trips.  So we will cancel that after our May road trip.  Er, after June.  I guess we will be picking up MM(18) from college in June.  After that, we can just activate/pay the monthly pass on months that we know we will be traveling 300+ miles (one trip).  Maybe the breakeven point is 400 or 500 miles but we just don't do anything in between.  (The college is a 600 mile round trip; Bay Area trips are generally 250-300 miles).

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in March will be paid off April 1 and reflected in my April numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects March spending & April savings.

I ended up being way too nice to MM(18) when he was here for spring break.  His very liquid cash reserves are getting "low".  Relatively, getting on the lower side.  He needed some nicer headphones but picked out a higher end pair.  I just bought them.  To be fair, I tried to put new running shoes on his credit card (told him we'd sort it out later, based on how jobs shake out for him) but I was unable to put it on his credit card and use MH's REI member discount.  So I gave up and just paid for those too.  In addition to paying for gas for the car, MM(18) was spoiled rotten.

But things are going well on this front.  MM(18) told us at Easter that he has a job for the fall quarter.  It's a TA type position that pays $1,200.  Will be a few hours per week.  That should cover his spending next year, so that was a nice surprise.  (He's only spent $500-ish the last 8 months on campus.  With all food/transportation/extra-curricular mostly provided.  $750 if I throw in the spending I did for him this month.). 

& then it sounded like he got the summer engineering job.  Just talked to him and it sounds like no formal offer yet?   But it's close.  & he already has a lead on another internship *and* an undergrad research project (2 years).  The research project would be $1,700 his junior year (another year of spending money).  Summer jobs will get him a car paid for in cash.  (He already has about $6,000 to that end, it's just tied up in mega high yield savings accounts). 

I expect the extra spending on MM(18) to be very one-off.  

I've already locked in May Spending.  The breathing room is working.  MH has had some weeks of a full working schedule and we haven't tapped any of his income to cover any expenses (for months).  So that is working out nicely.   I'd say that it should be an easy transition to summer (no second income) but maybe not if I am feeding MM(18) during summer months.  I suppose we've had extra extra breathing room with the lower grocery expenses during the school year (one less mouth to feed).   <----I haven't done anything with grocery savings.  2021 was total chaos and we are doing terrible on the food waste front.  But it's hard with how much MM(18) is home and trying to go back and forth between extremes.  Hoping we have the time/energy to be more food efficient in the fall.  

The bigger picture...  We've never had more than $50-$100/month in our budget for misc, spending (things like clothes, haircuts, eating out, allowance spending, whatever random spending might come up in a month that isn't very fixed and predictable).  I put myself through college, we saved up for a down payment in San Francisco (saved 70% of our income for a time), then we dropped our income in half to have kids.  This level of spending is all I know as an adult.  But this year I bumped the misc. spending up to $275/month, and yes we do have some extra extra wiggle room with the grocery savings.

Some bigger picture comments on this:  I was reluctant to increase spending because an extra $100/month spending means an extra $30K to save for retirement (presuming a 4% withdrawal rate).  Financial independence is what is important to us, and I am not too keen to move the needle.  But I also had some unexpected raises and a lot of conversations last year about being too retirement heavy.  So I do think it was prudent to relax our budget a little bit.  (Certainly nothing I ever expected *while* putting our kids through college. I was envisioning 5-ish years of keeping it tight and then, "I'd rather work less than spend more.").

We've enjoyed the extra breathing room, but we quickly abandoned our plans to fit more eating out into our budget.  I've always said that I notice eating out on the scale before I notice it in the checkbook.  I don't care if I order a salad with no dressing.  It's an extra 1,000 calories in a restaurant.  (I am exaggerating, but is how it feels).  This is extremely noticeable when you have spent decades eating mostly home cooked meals.  We've scaled back to 0-1 extra meals out per month.  

In the end, MH and I went to a local college arboretum a couple of weekends ago (completely free) and it was *amazing*.  I'd rather just go back there and have a picnic.  I feel like we have gone full circle.

That is how I am feeling for the moment.  Will just be my income for summer months (plus MM(18) home emptying the fridge and cupboards of all of our food), so it's a good minset for summer.  

This is probably 90% of why financial independence is getting so close for us.  I'd rather just read library books and go have a picnic in the park.  MH is good with the unlimited movie pass.  (He will literally go to the movies every single day).  The electric car is probably one of our biggest frugal wins.  Getting to anywhere just doesn't cost anything at this point.  We have Bay Area trips every weekend this month and that's just going to be *shrugs* financially. 

Received $23 bank interest for the month of March.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $46 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $83 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $6 on dining out/gas card (bought some gas for MM)

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $7 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $142 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$940

Snowball to Savings:

+$1,550 MH Income

+$300 (for doing GMIL taxes)

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$1,050 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$1,700 New Mattress 

-$  350 Movie Editor (payment for finished movie!)

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

+$1,500 to cash

TOTAL: $3,455 Deposited to Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven March:  903

Fuel Costs: $24 Electricity 

Electric (EV) Miles Driven March: 775

Fuel Costs: $16

Note:  I don't recall any free charging this month. 

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

We did a Bay Area trip and didn't have to stop to charge.  !!  Without the crazy (below average) temps, we got a better range estimate.  We got a 277-mile range.  Drove 253 miles and still had an estimate of 24 miles left when we got home.  MH cut it closer on his last winter Bay Area drive (he did not stop to fuel that time either).  But this was the closest I had cut it (I was driving).  Since getting the hybrid and tracking more, I'd say our average Bay Area trip is 250 miles.  This means a 2x gas stop trip is now a 0x fuel stop trip.  (We received a bigger battery due to a recall, so this means more range on the car than what we originally purchased).  We always filled up on the way out and then stopped on the way home (gas cars) so we had gas for the work week.  It's divine not having to stop for fuel at all.

With MH back at work, we've figured out a charging groove.  As expected, I charge every night (for my commute) & MH is just charging his car up on the weekends.  This is for overnight (lower rate) charging.  We can both always charge whenever if we need more miles.  & clearly every weekend is way more than MH needs to charge. (He's getting about 350 miles per charge, with more daily driving and more stop-and-go).  But it's nice to have a habit set, and to not expend any mental energy re: car fuel.  I don't miss the days of schlepping to the gas station. 

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

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in February will be paid off March 1 and reflected in my March numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings).  So this update reflects February spending & March savings.

This is what I wrote last month, which sums it up pretty well:

February ended up being a really good month and will be reflected by mega savings numbers in March.  Even with the purchase of a new mattress, March should go way the other way with more savings than spending.  

I was able to bump up my paycheck savings to $950/month with raise.  Added an extra $100 with retroactive pay adjustment (to catch up February).

GMIL always insists on slipping me $300 for doing her taxes.  She won't take no for an answer.  I probably usually somewhat count on this money.  Whereas this year the thought hadn't even crossed my mind and it was a surprise.  Probably just because I am not even used to MH being back at work and having all this extra money.  It's just extra extra money, at this point.  

I received this money the same day that we got the final edit for MH's movie project.  So that works our pretty nicely.  The final payment to the editor was $350.  Almost a wash.  

I Bonds were purchased this month.  It ended up being pretty fast/easy to set up. But I won't be reflecting interest numbers for three months.  We won't get any interest for first 3 months, because there is a '3 month interest penalty' if you redeem before first 5 years.  I will just wait until the interest $$ reflects on the I Bond value (starting July 1).  It will be 7%+ on $20,000 so will be a big boost to my interest numbers, the second half of the year.  & I am moving money over from investments, so this will be in addition to the cash interest we already have.  (I had some "cash" in my investment account basically earning nothing.  Want it very liquid because this is either going to be college money or 'next home down payment' money, presumably all spent in the next few years.) 

I cashed out this college money in late 2020 ($20,000).  Should have bought these I Bonds in November 2021 when interest rates hit 7%+.  & would have been wise to have taken advantage of 3%+ interest rates last May.  But I think 7%+ is what is pushing this to the no-brainer category.  It's getting my attention.  Making its way through the murky "I don't have the mental energy to deal with ANYTHING".  I might have been more on top of in better times.  But *this* is getting my attention now.

I can see that if rates stay high for a while that I may just consider this money to be emergency funds instead.  If we'd rather spend down 0.50%-interest cash in the short term.  & leave higher interest I Bond money untouched. 

March spending is done and paid for, so I have a good idea of how April numbers will shake out.   We somehow ended up net positive after a lot of expenses (a lot of insurance came due, some medical expenses, etc.).   The overall goal is to get some of these festival submission fees paid and movie stuff paid for while MH is working (out of his income).  He has the summers off.  

I still don't have much clarity on the college front for next school year.  They doled out scholarships to incoming freshman in March, but now I am hearing that we might not hear about scholarships until July, after grades post (for non-freshman).  So my mode right now is to just hoard money for college and movie stuff, and see how much we can hoard before summer when our income is reduced.   I do think we are about done getting MM(18)'s college paid for (even if he never gets another scholarship or gift).  Would just be nice to have more clarity on that front, so we can work on bigger picture planning and know if we have more freedom to move on to other financial goals.  If we know that we aren't going to touch his gifted college money ($30K), that is also just more financial pressure off of us for more long-term planning.   Just as an example, he's starting to talk about getting a car next summer.  If he has mega paying summer jobs and scholarships, we aren't going to sweat helping him with that.  If he doesn't get a big job this summer and he doesn't get a single scholarship, then we might want to come up with a few thousand dollars to help him.  Just stuff like that.  Is why it matters, even if we have full sticker price money set aside already.   & any money he doesn't need for college, is money that is already saved for DL(16) college, which is our next big financial goal.  So yeah, I am looking forward to more clarity.

Received $25 bank interest for the month of February.

Snowflakes to Investments:

--Redeemed $37 credit card rewards (cash back) from our grocery card 

--Redeemed $85 cash back on Citi card

--Redeemed $6 on dining out card

Other Snowflakes to Investments:

+ $4 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $132 Snowflakes to Investments

401k Contributions/Match:

+$800

Snowball to Savings:

+$600 MH Income

Savings (from my paycheck):

+$850 to cash (mid-term savings)

Pulled from mid-term savings:

-$5,719 College Expenses

- $500 More College Expenses

- $600 Mattress  (used MH's income towards a new mattress)

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

+$1,500 to cash

+$  175 Insurance Rebate**

-$1,380 Various Insurance

-$  260 Dentist

-$  266 Annual DMV Registration (Hybrid)

-$   80 Miscellaneous

TOTAL: -$4,723 Net Withdrawn from Cash and Investments

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

Hybrid Miles Driven February:  704

Fuel Costs: $20 Electricity 

Note:  I'd estimate my commute at 800 miles per month.  Short month and a couple of days off.

Electric (EV) Miles Driven February: 486

Fuel Costs: $14

Note:  I don't recall any free charging this month. 

We also didn't have an opportunity yet to test out the bigger battery on a longer drive.

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

Note:  I haven't noticed any gas price changes in months.  Whenever it comes up online, I look at Gas Buddy.  I think as with many things, prices are already high here and so are slow to change.  I share because in the last day our gas prices went up 50-cents per gallon!  At the super cheapie gas stations we frequent(ed).  Last night I thought it was a typo or maybe premium gas, but the other gas station shot up 40-cents today.  So it's official, our gas prices are getting crazy now. 

Of course, I don't want to pay even $4/gallon (much less $5/gallon) for my commute, which is why we bought the hybrid in the first place.  

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

**Insurance rebate was for disability & life insurance through professional association.  The annual rebate was much lower than usual.  I presumed that is due to the pandemic.  I later got an email confirming this.  More life insurance claims last year.

Note:  I am always lagging a month behind because any bills charged in January will be paid off February 1 and reflected in my February numbers.  I charge in one month and the next month I figure out how to pay for everything (if I need to pull anything from savings). So this update reflects January spending & February savings. 

This is mostly how it goes but I have two exceptions for this month:

1 - DMV.  Ugh!  After many many years of accepting credit card payments with no charge, they switched to charging a fee for payments.  This was before the pandemic?  Keep hoping they switch back and surprised they have not yet.  This bill is not due for a couple of months but I don't want to keep track of it, I just want to get it paid.  So I had to move money for this cash expense.  Paid in February.  Couldn't just charge it and pay it off next month.

2 - College Expenses.  Have to pay cash.  Again, could have paid later but I prefer to pay a couple of weeks early and to just pay the quarter in full (versus dealing with more frequent payments).

College Expenses: Paid for final quarter of freshman year.  This is roughly $730 tuition (will be completely offset by college tax credit) + $3K rent + $2K food. 

After that was done, MM(18) pinned me down to pay a $500 deposit for housing sophomore year.  I knew that was due soon, but thought I might have a couple of weeks of breather.  This is the only deposit I have to pay for next year?  Nothing else should be due until September. 

College Big Picture: 

A - I have money set aside to cover rent next year. 

B - Gifted funds are set aside for tuition, if needed.  Worst case sticker price is $20K for remainder of 4-year degree (tuition/fees).  MM(18) has $27K gifted funds.

C - We do also have $20K set aside to cover rent for last two years.  & we are still working towards saving college money for the next 16 months (basically spending sophomore year saving up for MM's junior year).   This is just in a "prepare for the worst" vein and our final contribution before we shift focus to DL(16)'s college expenses.

D - Waiting for scholarships & MM's summer job to sort out for more financial clarity.   

Another Note:  MH had a lot of time off work this month (just slow at work, plus some seasonal time off).    

I did throw MH's one paycheck towards the mattress; his March paychecks will pay for (most of) the rest of the mattress.  That and my raise should do it.  (I've already paid off the credit card, so technically just paying ourselves back in March).

February ended up being a really good month and will be reflected by mega savings numbers in March.  Even with the purchase of a new mattress, March should go way the other way with more savings than spending.  It was nice to enjoy some rare breathing room we put in our budget this year, so it felt a little splurge-y while also being able to keep aggressive savings goals.  I am sure the short month helped, and also just nothing really came up (by some miracle!?).