& am so glad to be done with that chapter. HATE car shopping.

I know everyone probably thinks we meticulously research these things, but historically we trust our gut, stumble upon deals, and most our decisions tend to be pretty rash. (Usually lots of thought ahead of time, but when it comes down to it we make quick decisions).

We went out just to look but they were desperate to sell used cars for month-end sales. There was no one else at the dealership and we had no plans to buy a car and so we haggled fiercely.

We ended up paying about $14k for a 2013 Hyundai Elantra, fully loaded. 15k miles. (It was in total immaculate condition). They wouldn't lower the price any further on one car and I doubt we were going to come to any agreement, when some manager brings this beauty around. I liked it better than any we had looked at. We walked away for a while to be sure. But I think we both just wanted to be done with the least amount of time and hassle.

As much as I dread car shopping, I do admit they know our type. No one tried to over-sell us anything or throw too much BS at us. I was ready to go through the contract with a fine-tooth comb but there were no fees to argue about.

{It was a car dealership. Don't get me wrong. A very painful experience with lies lies lies. You just kind of tune it out and let the car and internet speak for itself}.

I think my dh was stressing more about it than necessary. I looked up trade-in and it was $12k-ish. When you pay cash for used cars you don't sweat these things. What's the worst case? We HATE the car and we trade it in later? *shrugs* (Clearly we don't want to do this, but I don't see the point in worrying about all the long-term worst case scenarios).

Oh, and I am so happy with the size. Dh has only been considering teeny tiny cars. In the end this is similar in size to our Ford Escort, but feels a lot more roomy inside. (& admittedly is a wee bit bigger). It is so roomy that we have discussed making this the long-term van replacement. A roomy car you can fill with people and camping gear and get 40mpg.

We had our eye on the 2016 Chevy Spark, which has not come out yet. We looked at an older model and I am so relieved dh admitted it was too small for now. I think maybe a used Spark in a few years will be a fine second car. But not as our main driver. 2016 should be vastly improved and we prefer used cars anyway, so would have to wait a while for that one.

I think what we wanted more than anything was something small and very fuel efficient (like we already had). BUT... Dh had to make some (size) concession for growing boys. He was driving me nuts looking at SMALLER cars. We share cars because the van is such a gas guzzler we never drive it anywhere. This is why I couldn't see ending up with a too-small car and a too-big car. We need a just-right-car for the here and now.

Oh, and could care less about anything the car came with. (I don't see us ever needing heated seats. This is California! & our cars are garaged). BUT... I think we maybe paid another $1k or so just to get the integrated blue tooth. We have after market blue tooth in our old cars, but the steering wheel controls are so nice (in new car) and we knew we'd have to pay a lot to get any of that after market. We could have got a much better deal otherwise. The premium package was so "all or nothing". Now we have all this stuff we probably don't want to get too used to.

Three thoughts on price parameters:

1 - We save $100/month endlessly/each for car replacements. So we had about $16,000 saved up for car replacement. (Had 13+ years to save).

The thing about doing this is we have never increased our car spending/budget. Waiting just gives us more time to save, and nicer cars with age. Lots of added luxury without *ever* increasing this line item in our budget.

2 - We've seemed to increase our budget $5k with every car purchase. First cars cost $1k. Second cars cost $5k. Last cars cost $10k. This time we have had the time and the means to amass much more. So $15k is the next logical step. Which of course goes in line with #1 since we bought newer cars that last longer and gave us more time to save, last round.

I think we'd both be happy with something in the $10k range again (our last cars were $10k - 1-year-old/15k miles). But there has been a fair amount of inflation, and with age and means you do entertain the fancier cars. Size was also more of a concern than in the past. (We bought the Ford long before we planned to have kids).

3 - I don't know that we would have bought a car this weekend but for my parents' generous gift to us. Let's face it - we got a free car. & it was more than we were expecting to buy. So I know that number heavily influenced us. Otherwise we may have been more inclined to save a couple of thousand dollars.

I was pleased though that (with taxes) we did not spend any more than the gift. (IT would have been easy to talk ourselves up a bit). I really thought the taxes would push us up further as we kept ruling out the tiny cars.

Another note:

We did just trade-in old car because it was worthless and saved a lot of hassle. Would be different if I thought we could actually sell it for more than dealership offered.

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Reasons we sold dh's car:

**It actually had absolutely no mechanical issues, but was just getting kind of loud and rattly. It was a 2001 that we had paid $7,800 for in 2002. It has 170k miles. It's not even leaking oil or anything (like any car I have ever had in the past with so many miles has). A random part did fall out of the engine recently, which is really weird, but I feel was probably a random/isolated event. The car is in such good repair otherwise.

But my spouse is half deaf and the noise was really bothering him. He is very cautious of the hearing in his good ear and puts a huge premium on QUIET these days.

We had decided 100% to junk this car this year but wanted to wait until next spring or winter when we were in a better cash position. We were maybe 90% there but went up to 100% when we recently took the car in. They looked over the whole engine trying to find where that part fell out and we talked to them about engine noise. We confirmed it was age/car quality and there wasn't much we can do. So we decided to close the chapter on that car.

In the meantime dh's car started to get louder again. I don't know if it maybe needed a repair or if that is how loud it was last summer in the heat (I think it was).

So then we get a cash infusion. & we car shopped more seriously. & here we are.

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Edited to add: We don't finance cars. The primary reason at this point in our lives is the PITA factor. I just don't want to deal with all that (not getting title right away, loan application, getting insurance involved, AND worst of all the endless monthly payments). That's really all there is to it. When we were younger and felt we couldn't afford car payments it was more about living with a $1k or $5k car and not tying up any of our potential wealth in car payments that we didn't really have the money for anyway. I guess there is still some of that as we have never spent more than $15k (including taxes) on a vehicle. Anything beyond that is taking away too much from our future. But at this point in our lives we could certainly finance $10k or $15k at a great rate. The reason we don't is the PITA factor.

I do find that people greatly exaggerate the benefits of car loans. Maybe this is obvious to me because we've never had a car loan? But I'd had to substantially reduce our investments and redirect to car payments. It's not so simple as you would be better off investing versus paying cash. The money has to come from somewhere and no matter how you slice it it would come from our investments. It's just a shell game, in my opinion. I think the cash method is just largely misunderstood. I don't literally tie up all my cash for 15 years while I save for a car and I've never cashed out an investment to pay for a car. We more manage cash flow in different ways. The $100/month for a car that we don't intend to replace for 10-15 years now? It's obviously going to be invested. & in 10 years I will probably start working towards keeping a cash buffer for a car replacement. It's usually more how it works out. But just to be clear, taking a car loan would be a huge hit to our monthly investment contributions. We could also invest the cash up front and that's not a bad thing. You will just never convince me that is *always* and *obviously* smarter to go the loan route. The truth is that it is flip a coin territory. (It's market timing. I *can* come out ahead by choosing to keep my investments where they are versus a car payment. You can come out ahead by not paying cash up front, but it's going to be a flip of the coin). The PITA factor will always leave us preferring to just pay cash and moving on. I will never again think about paying for this car. That is PRICELESS.

Just got back from annual camping trip in the Sierras.

Life continues to be stressful and crazy. The minor annoyances continue to pile up.

While my dad was here (we camp with my dad and in-laws) he fixed a couple of minor things around the house for us. But we found a new problem that we will have to call the gardener to fix.

Of course, we appreciated the break and our trip went smooth as could be. Phew! (A nice sea of calm in a month of crazy).

Finances:

**Dh has been earning tons of google credits and amazon gift cards for whatever survey stuff he is doing. He ended up getting a new roku for $25. (Our old one has been clunky for a while but I didn't really want to spend the money. In the end he spent a whole $25 and it is 10 times better).

I suppose that is unofficially his Father's Day present.

**I sent a payment to the credit cards today. I had booked summer classes for BM, our random wildlife vacation, and had charged dh's MRI. I had charged that all in June wanting to push off actual payment to next month, BUT the credit card balances were getting kind of crazy. Plus the one card has a low limit and so I think it was best to pay it down before the end of the month.

So much for delaying those expenses...

**I had to deposit my big check in person. For whatever reason (I guess since I was very nonchalant about it) they made it available immediately. Which was nice since I received the check Saturday night and we weren't back home until yesterday. Seriously, they asked me when I NEEDED it and I shrugged. Apparently that is how you get immediate access to large sums in this day and age. (If you haven't had a large deposit lately, they usually put a hold on some of it).

So I went home and took all the money out (online). I didn't NEED it but if it was available I might as well allocate it.

**So... I went ahead and made my big mortgage payment.

Mortgage balance is now $177,999. I project that we will be at $174,999 by end of year. $169,999 by April 2016.

**I had already opened a $10,000 CD (at my credit union) for a 1.50% rate and so opened up a second one. I don't know that I felt entirely comfortable tying that much up in CDs, but... we also expect a chunk of cash in December. I am always way too cautious, anyway. Odds are we will probably never never touch this money. (I consider about $15k of our cash savings completely untouchable but for extreme emergency). Of course, the CD is easy to access and there isn't much downside if I have to raid it later.

**Money continues to rain down from the sky. I had my piccolo on consignment and apparently it sold recently. Received a $300 check in the mail yesterday. Woohoo!

I am putting this $300 into investments.

{It was in disrepair and this was a very easy route to get it sold for more than I am sure I could have gotten on my own. Certainly was far less hassle than FB and CL have been of late}.

It was funny because I swung by that area yesterday and was stuck in the heat and traffic staring at the music store for a while wondering if they would ever sell my piccolo. (It's an area that I do not frequent). The check was, at that time, on a mail truck en route to my home. Ha! (We kind of reasoned summer/fall would be a good time to sell but had left it at the store at some point in the spring. Better than gathering more dust in my closet).

**The kids just told me that they have no piano lessons next month and so the snowflakes continue to fall. That's another $200 that I will move to investments. Plus credit card rewards this month (About $90?). Plus $30 to investments since we don't have a Ting bill this month. We also have a REI dividend to cash out.

Possibly a $600+ snowball for this month.

Not much to see here. I'm phased out of some of the $500 rewards until next year and I haven't seen the Sapphire card for a full $500 bonus this year. In addition to that, we don't need the extra boost so much this year and I don't think it's the worst thing to rest the credit a bit.

That said, I could see us each doing a $500 reward per year. Why not??

I took some time today to do some fiscal chores. Closed two credit cards (was able to close them simultaneously online with live chat). I called to get my ATM card renewed (it seemed to have not been renewed) and that phone call took less than a minute. I guess I had been putting off five minutes or so of chores. I like it when things are quick and easy!

I still need dh to close a CU account we opened last year for bonus. At that point I can start my list anew.

As I shred credit card bonus stuff for closed cards I don't care about any more, I figured I'd update and was surprised I've not even started a 2015 tally yet. & so here it begins...

2015 TALLY:

$200 Cash (AmEx Card Everyday, Moi)
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$200 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:

**Free Prime For One Year

**$40 cash back (Amex Reward for spending $40 at Amazon)

**Various monthly rewards that I will tally at years-end.

I did have a fairly relaxing weekend last weekend. I surely needed it!

As to this week, has been like the last couple of weeks. I wouldn't even know where to begin...

**We did have some good news and scored a free coastal hotel stay in San Diego for our September wildlife trip. Woohoo! (Was not expecting that at all. This trip keeps getting cheaper. I am so glad that we went for it).

Otherwise, Murphy has just been toying with us:

**AC made a HORRIBLE sound. It turns out just some wire came loose and was hitting the blades. Since we took it apart and re-tightened all the bolts it has been sounding much quieter. Nice! Bullet dodged.

**We left for a bit Saturday and when we came home the cat was squinting one eye. All I could see was emergency vet visit in my near future. Thankfully it cleared up. (Probably just got something in his eye and worked it out?)

**Car troubles. Let me just back up and say that yes we drive older cars. In my experience, our cars have always been in better repair than average. Because we can actually afford to keep care of them. So I have absolutely no frame of reference for this...

So dh gets home Sunday from the movies and he hears a CLUNK when he parks the car. He looks under the engine and finds a part. The car seems totally fine and he decides to drive it over to the mechanic on Monday.

Mechanic is totally and completely stumped. They threw out initially that it looked like a transmission bracket but they can't seem to find it. The receptionist is convinced it's a washing machine part (LOL). Their theory is that it fell out of our other car but we assure them that is impossible. If he hadn't of heard it fall out we would have maybe gone that route. We start to believe someone left a tool in the engine that got tore up or something. OR something got kicked up into the engine on the freeway and fell out when he stopped?

Before we even took it in I told myself this is probably "nothing" like everything else. BUT... Since we do plan to replace this car in 6 months or so, I am running through my head that at least the kids don't have school and we can probably manage okay for a couple of weeks if we have to go car shopping, etc. I know this is ridiculous worst case scenario that will never come to pass. Right? Lord knows I don't want to buy a new car RIGHT NOW though I admit in the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't matter. We'd pay a lot of money just to keep the option of driving the car longer. So as long as it's fixable we are probably just going to fix it. We have already reconsidered car replacement as the medical bills pile up. Not the worst thing to put it off an additional year.

This whole thing was a reminder why it's good to "go there" and to have that Plan B. In the end it was a transmission bracket and they figured it out after everyone looked over the car for hours. They were so happy and relieved that they found it because it would have completely destroyed the engine if they did not fix it. They said they transmission could have just fallen out (WORST case) or caused damage to the engine (probably more likely).

So there's another bullet dodged.

{I have no idea why part fell out in the first place... That is a whole other thing}.

So yeah, that is SOME of my week.

I keep thinking it's Friday. (on Tuesday and Wednesday even). It's been such a LONG and exhausting week, on many fronts.

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We were also keeping a bucket list #4 trip (THIS YEAR) in mind because an opportunity came up for dh. We found out Monday night that it was not meant to be. I think we are kind of emotionally deflated because of that.

He's trying to sell a movie script. One door closes and another door always opens. There will always be a million doors, and it is expected to probably have a lifetime of doors slammed in your face. This was just such an exciting opportunity and a bigger risk was taken because of it. & we never would have planned the wildlife trip if it would potentially interfere with this.

The new open door is that he already has a meeting in LA while we are down there for the wildlife trip. Who knows - maybe this is a better opportunity.

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As to dh's medical stuff, we have a meeting next week. Will go from there. Life hasn't given me a quiet moment to even think about that.

Thank goodness for Saturday! Should have some time to reboot after the last couple of weeks of crazy.

**We got our wildlife encounter booked. Could still be canceled due to weather, so fingers crossed we get to see this through! I will share more eventually.

**BM told me he needed a navy blue t-shirt for the last day of school (for teams). This is annoying since they have a million navy blue school uniform shirts, but I understand he doesn't want to wear a more formal shirt for this. Since Target often has t-shirts for $5 I finally gave in. We were going to drop by Target today while in the area. But anyway, BM ended up checking the other team colors and said there was no "black" and he thought black would be close enough. Smart boy! It's not the saving $5 that matters so much to me as just how proud I am that he figured a solution.

I also notice when things get "crazy" is always when we run to the store more. I just don't know if I don't have the mental capacity to figure it out as much when life gets hectic. So I am relieved that I don't have to run to the store at all this weekend. More time for some well needed unwinding. Phew!

**My employer is selling a bunch of furniture. I looked through it since we are looking for some storage pieces and working on organizing our home more.

I picked up a nice shelf for $15. It's more of a short/long bookcase. I was thinking for LM's closet which has nothing in it. We also talked about putting it in his room to replace his "baby" toy box.

So when I brought it home dh and I carried it upstairs, only to find shelves already in the closet. ??? Dh thinks we bought them. I have absolutely no recollection of them. LOL. But LM liked the new shelves and replacing the toy box is still a good plan. (I'd just put the shelves in our closet otherwise. That was sort of s Plan B. I think they'd work best in our closet but I also though LM lacked storage and would need it the most).

**This weekend we have some fun things planned.

--Annual BBQ for neighborhood.

--LM is going to movies and ice cream with his teacher and some classmates. (Some silent auction thing I think I paid $30 for a couple of months back).

--Dh bought 3 Jurassic Park blu rays with free movie passes, so all the boys are going to that this weekend. (He often buys those deals. The movies were on sale, so win-win). I went with dh when he bought those movies at Target. Looking at full price blu rays and all that always astounds me. My dh is a movie collector but just doesn't spend those crazy dollars on it all. Anyway, any time he takes me along I appreciate how little he spends on that stuff.

June is Crazy!

I'll share some tidbits but just imagine 5 other serious meetings and issues that we have been tackling this month. Gah! Last week was one of those weeks and this weeks hasn't been any easier.

Random Tidbits:

**Thank you whoever has used my Ting referral link. We are looking at 5 or 6 months of free cell service. Woohoo!

**We are planning a third bucket list type vacation for this year (versus the 0 that we usually do?). This is CRAZY!!

It's not overly extravagant and is why we are considering it. But dh told me about this wildlife encounter thing. I initially was just putting that aside for later but then he sent me a link and I looked closer. I said, "We have to do this during this year. There is no way they will be able to keep these prices or manage all this as word spreads about this place." We thought it would be $800 for 4 and didn't know how backed up they would be but in the end it's just $600 (4th person in group is free). Woohoo! We will drive and need a couple of nights of lodging. They had slots in September that we are trying to book. Totally booked up through summer. It's a really small outfit.

In the meantime... Some celebrity goes over there yesterday and blows up twitter with how awesome this place is. O.M.G. Kind of what I was worried about but didn't expect that to happen so literally the day after we started the reservation process. Let's just say I am feeling very happy with this decision!

Will pull this from our Hawaii funds if need be.

**I had a skin biopsy that turned out to be benign. I didn't expect otherwise but it's always nice to get that kind of confirmation. I'm trying to rest up and heal. Stitches get removed Friday.

Other Stuff:

**OF course, dh always overshadows me on the medical front. We received the shocking news last week that his brain tumor seems to be growing pretty rapidly. They want to do radiation this month. If we don't do anything it will be too big and he will need surgery again. (He had it mostly removed in 2010, with surgery. Last year we discussed radiation in 5-10 more years, just as a frame of reference what a huge change in situation this is).

For the most part it sounds pretty easy. The procedure itself. It just brings up a lot of questions for the long term.

The procedure itself was not so easy 5 years ago. Waiting has bought us a lot of time and advancements so this thing will be so much easier than when we last discussed, AND the kids are so much older and no longer daycare dependent. Heck, they can help take care of dh if need be, but doesn't seem to be a concern at all. The hospital is doing a team meeting to discuss best options but the Doctor we talked to thought he'd be done with this procedure the end of June, and that he'd prefer to do in our city. Waiting to see if the team agrees and to get a date.

All we can do is one day or one step at a time.

Financially we will have a lot of medical bills this year and next. The obvious to go is our mortgage pre-payments. That makes the whole thing *shrugs*.

It's hard for me to explain given our own personalities AND what it's like to wonder at some point if you would be around to see your kids grow up. It's not the vacations *at all* that matter to us. But it's just when dealing with all this we also can't muster up the energy to care if we pay off our mortgage possibly one or two years sooner. It's that financial stuff that matters the very least of all. (I am so grateful to have a conservative mortgage and to have paid down rapidly in good financial times, for sure, and that is some of it). The wildlife thing came up like the very same day as all this news. I admit it's also nice to be planning something so exciting while planning something so stressful. It's helped. & of course we aren't going to cancel the one big vacation (Hawaii) we wanted to do with our kids and already planned. (I can't say it's something we'd ever plan solely because of this type news, but we also aren't going to cancel it because of this). There's no thought or discussion here. We have an extra $3k earmarked to the mortgage and it's getting moved over to medical expenses. It was a split second decision that seemed obvious to the both of us.

Received $35 bank interest for the month of May.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $37 cash back on Citi card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $4 cash back on Visa/dining card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $50 AmEx rewards as a ROTH contribution.

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

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

+$1,300 to cash
-$1,132 for concerts/events, vet visits, medical, dental, summer class registration, printer ink, organization purchases, pirate gear for camp (pirate theme this year!) and other misc.

CRAZY month!! In May and June of last year we had -0- in non-monthly expenses. For this May I had ten different entries on my spreadsheet (as to 10 different kinds of expenses). Which is probably like more than we have ever had.

I am happy to put May behind me. It wasn't anything big but just a lot of little expenses. It was just a weird month. We are overall in a "no spend" kind of mode with our big vacations this year. (Not planning anything else all year and being more homebodies than usual). On the flip side, there is also a feeling of "doing very well financially" since we keep surpassing financial goals at a more and more rapid pace. This could be some of the spendy-ness. (It seems silly to deny some random things that came up this month).

I've noticed that "May spendy crazy" seems to have been a common theme for SA bloggers.

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For June dh has a pretty busy schedule and so I will probably have lots of time to work on some more house organization and de-cluttering. It's the kind of thing that sounds so awful and boring to me, but since diving in I have gotten a bit in the *zone*. & it's probably a good redirect of energy since we won't really have any "fun" funds for the rest of the year. (Spending it all on big trips!) So my attitude has adjusted a bit and if I am stuck at home I better make the best of it. OF course, joining a group is also really motivating.

{& I wouldn't feel sorry for me. The worst case is we just lounge by the pool all summer, which is what we have been doing. Boohoo? }.

I have more to blog about organizing and de-cluttering but honestly I've been spending less time blahblahblah and more time keeping my house in order. Maybe not a bad thing? Though I do expect to eventually get over the other side of the mountain. I don't want to spend all my time cleaning for eternity. I am enthused to make 2015 the year to get well on the other side of the mountain! & I know blogging about it will keep me motivated too. So more on all that later.

Just wondering if anyone has bought any dumb phones lately. Where have you been buying your dumb phones? (Specifically, flip phones).

Dh's family is switching over to Ting with the latest promo. (They had just talked about how his mom wanted to splurge on some fancy phone and switch over to Ting. So getting $100 credit to sign up was pretty enticing and they were already getting ready to switch).

Dh really doesn't like the idea of buying phones on Craigslist, generally. But to be fair our phones are on the more expensive end. Not necessarily worth the risk. But anyway, to speed along the transition, he did pick up a couple of used dumb phones yesterday for $25/each. He told me he could not find them anywhere otherwise. I think at the least his Grandma might want something a little more new and nice, but will see. This does get them set up. (His mom will get the new smart phone and his sister has some old hand-me-down that she can set up on Ting's GSM. His dad just wants a dumb phone for whatever reason).

I think the GSM makes the switch much easier. When we switched it was from Sprint and we could just all keep our phones. Dh's family is on Verizon and so they will need all different phones for the switch. That's been the big obstacle though dh talked them into Ting a long time ago. I think they will be saving about $150/month with Ting. (They had just told dh they didn't care about the phone outlay and were sick of their giant Verizon bill and had some extra money. Good timing! All that and his mom is the only one spending more than $25 on a phone anyway. But I guess it's because of the GSM that his sister can use the hand-me-down).

Ting is offering a $100 credit for signing up by June 8th. $100 off of a phone or $100 to try Ting, if you use a referral code. Here is my referral link:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

They went live with GSM and so most phones can now just be moved over to Ting. (I think Verizon phones are the ones mostly that you can't just bring over?) But of course, you can check the Ting website to check if your existing phone can be moved to Ting.

Dh actually just switched to GSM since he has that capability on his phone. Ting took GSM off Beta testing and sent an e-mail about that a couple of weeks ago (offering a $30 credit to switch, which I think expired yesterday?). This means that while I am still using the Sprint Network, his phone is now on the T-mobile network. This also means that we have a lot more phone choices for the future.

I do have one caveat. My dh was surprised they took GSM out of beta because it was quite tedious to set up. No big deal to him, but you know, he doesn't think most his family or friends would have the patience or confidence to figure it all out. On the flip side, Ting's customer service is A+ so it's probably no big deal. (If you get stuck, surely they can get you through it). But you know, just fair warning. IF it sounds intimidating, don't do the GSM thing. Dh is the only one that switched to GSM in our 4-person Ting service. I also presume if you buy a GSM phone directly from Ting that it's already set up.

Payday this week. With the cash inflow I have ample cash savings + $11,000 set aside for 2015 IRAs.

I am thinking through our rough annual plan. $1,200/month to cash x 7 more months = $8,400 more to savings.

Planned Allotment:

-$1,000 Hawaii
-$2,000 Medical
-$1,000 Home Repair
-$3,100 to mortgage
-$1,200 to investments
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=$8,300

So I guess that is roughly where we are at.

We went forward with Hawaii plan this year even though we ended up doing some bigger splurges in recent months. I figured I could probably fund with credit card rewards. As is, we haven't spent our vacation budget and that will cover airfare. Our room is free. We are setting aside a generous (& also unnecessary) $1,000 for activities. This is like the *one* super splurge-y vacation I want to take my kids on.

Anyway, I am SO glad that I went forward with this trip. It seemed a little ridiculous, earlier in the year. But I kept thinking, "How much do we really need to spend? Worst case we lounge on the beach all week??"

I have seen a couple of angles to get airline miles but I am also fine with just cash flowing, which seems to be the much easier and more likely route. Relieved to feel that we will have ample cash for a splurge-y trip.

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Car replacement talks are very up in the air. May be just put off until next year. Not feeling any rush to make any decisions.

I am always amused by perceptions that aversion to car payments is just about interest. It is so much more than interest! (Maybe interest is the least of it??) Right now it seems that we just don't have a lot of motivation to jump on a car purchase. The longer we wait the more cash we will have to buy a nicer car. Paying cash seems a very strong incentive to keep cars longer. I have always felt that, but just even moreso as we are considering next car purchases.

We endlessly save up $100/month/each to replace our cars so have a rough $15,600 set aside to replace this car. $100 x 156 months. Our budget will be $10k-$15k. I don't even know that I see the point in spending more than $10k. Last time we stumbled upon a car deal for about 33% less than we planned to spend, so I am hoping for something like that to happen again!

{I guess in the past the most we have had to save up for a car was just a few years??? So it's nice to have all that time for those little amounts to add up! But also not feeling like we need to spend all of it...}.

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In other random news, dh and I basically have identical credit histories except he still has his very first credit card. I don't know if I have a credit card that is any older than 2 or 3 years. If I don't use them I cancel them. Our FICO scores are identical. (Since having a mortgage, that seems to be the meat of our FICOs. 100% on-time payments and is the only other kind of credit we have had aside from "paid off monthly credit cards").

Over time I guess I thought he was hanging onto that for FICO reasons or something. I guess the truth is that he just wanted a backup card in case we were out and about and joint card did not work. Which was maybe a valid concern a while ago but today we have like 3 joint credit cards that we use often. (Chasing all those rewards!) We keep different cards in our wallets.

So anyway, he finally finally agreed to cut up that credit card and cancel it. WOOHOO! I am so happy because my fear was it getting fraudulent charges and not noticing. Or terms changing and getting hit with some fee. Just one more thing to loosely keep track of though it's probably had no activity for like a decade.

The deed is done! I shot them a quick e-mail the other day and they closed the card. The end. Goodbye 20-year-old credit card!

House:

I have been really focused on house organization this month. Lots more to blog about that later.

Spending:

What a crazy spendy month! Mostly a lot of little things.

I took Monday off and had a nice mix of lazing around, organizing/purging, shopping, etc. Dh and I had a nice lunch out. (I'd like to say we did a spectacular hike or something like that, but I didn't plan ahead. I think it worked out).

We bought tickets to a couple of events that came up this month. I guess it doesn't matter that we missed the Robo Games because now ABC is filming "Robot Wars" in our area. At $10 a ticket (half what we usually pay) we get a redo! I am SO EXCITED!! (Otherwise dh and BM were in Japan for the Robo Games, LM didn't want to go, and unforeseen events and exhaustion kept me from dropping by for a bit). It will be different because it will be a network taping.

Other spending:

Vet visit this week.

Dh's $2,000-ish MRI (will get the bill soon, I am sure). I had really hoped that expense would go away or diminish but they want to keep checking him annually, indefinitely. It's a small price to pay to keep him alive and all. I just haven't given a lot of thought how to budget that for the long run and I guess maybe I should. (I've known for a year that this is "permanent", but just haven't dealt with that yet).

Dh bought a $90 pair of shoes after belaboring the decision for months. He was driving me nuts! Hopefully he likes them.

We needed to order new printer ink: $50.

I am sure I am forgetting many purchases - it's just been one of those months.

Received $50 bank interest for the month of April.^^

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $27 cash back on Citi card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash**
+$900 to IRAs

**I did pull out $1,800-ish for Japan expenses. (All this Japan stuff had been saved up last year, so am not considering it a step backwards for this year's savings).

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

+$1,300 to cash
-$535 for Dentist/Ortho (for 3)
-$400 Summer class for LM
-$150 new glasses for LM

^^Monthly interest peaked this month. I have a 6% CD that matures this month. I can probably renew at 3% but you can only put $500/month into the CD and I have to pay a $35 annual fee to be eligible for this CU. That last part makes it not very worthwhile and it was kind of a pain anyway. (Membership was free for the first year). So I look forward to closing this account and simplifying. Between this and huge Chase checking incentives, I haven't really been paying attention to interest rates. I will probably close this account (and already closed the Chase accounts in December) and will shop around banks/CUs a bit. Probably look at what other CDs are out there right now. I don't expect much but may consider the Ally "raise your rate" CDs since we are so flush with cash. We could maybe just throw our emergency fund into that. I will check terms and pros and cons and other CDs before deciding for sure.

We have about "3 months" of emergency fund that I don't see ever using outside of an extreme emergency, so I think that money is appropriate for a CD. We haven't been this cash flush in recent years so haven't wanted to tie up much in CDs to earn a whole whopping extra 0.25%. But with our current situation it makes more sense to do that. (We also have lots of additional cash that we will not tie up in a CD).

**Reading Laura's posts keep reminding me I have to update on my flakey sister. She was supposed to be visiting here about NOW. Maybe in May. About 4 weeks ago I asked my mom what was up with that and she said she didn't think they were coming. But you know, they never really bothered to mention that they were not coming. It's only because I asked that my mom pushed her some more and she said they couldn't get the time off or whatever.

There could be more to that story, but lord knows.

I am bummed about them deciding not to visit and not bothering to fill us in. On the flip side, I am also emotionally relieved. Maybe for the best.

**Yesterday I received food karma. Literal food karma. We had lunch brought in to work and when I expressed interest in some of the leftovers everyone decided I should take it ALL home. This seems the reverse of the beginning of the month when I kept giving away food. (It's a crazy amount of food!!)

**I think we are all going to visit the Doctor this month, or next. I tweaked my knee and I have been totally ignoring it. I think it could just be an extension of problems I already have and maybe not much I can do, but I should get it checked out. Probably next month when things settle down a bit more at work.

Dh is probably fine. He's just a little hypochondriac-y after our recent tumor experiences. He is considering further testing because of that experience. I was feeling kind of "meh" on that, but it was because it did not sound pleasant. When he told me why he was considering it though, I totally understand. He is thinking about it. For now, he has a clean bill of health.

Dh e-mailed BM's doctor about some skin stuff that wasn't clearing up. Was just recommended OTC medicine for that (one we already have).

Out of nowhere, we realized that LM is having some vision problems. He just said something like, "You guys can read that?" & when we probed him further he mentioned he was having trouble seeing the blackboard in class, etc.

He is such a weird kid. He is 10 and he is SO EXCITED to get glasses. He is currently in a very bummed state because he has to wait 10 days to get them. (Don't ask me! Hopefully it's not a huge letdown).

All that, and the cat is due for a vet visit!

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Well, I am glad LF asked about my dress purchases because I didn't think anyone would care at all. Ha!

It's funny, because I see so little retail or advertising in my little bubble that sometimes SA gives me more ideas to SPEND money than anywhere else. Isn't that funny? I apologize if I encouraged anyone to spend money.

I got dress #2 and it is even better and nicer in person. LOVE!!

I received two new swimsuits and one is a very different style and print from what I already have but was a wee bit tight. I will try the next size up but worry it will be too loose in some places. Will see! It would be nice to mix things up a bit. The other one was a lot like my one owned swimsuit and I decided to just return it since I am returning the other. (Do I really need two nearly identical swimsuits?)

Anyway, if I am re-ordering the one suit then I will peruse the dresses some more. I never thought to buy dresses from that site but the advertising on the site did catch my eye. I suppose I will peruse their other clothes too.

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This weekend I have to work a bit and otherwise should be a chore weekend. It will be another couple of weeks before I can REALLY relax. I am taking a 3-day weekend for Mothers Day.

I have some financial updates to do later...

**I received my annual OT check yesterday. My plan was to put 20% of it to investments and $3,100 to the mortgage.

I have about just enough to do that. BUT... Hoarding cash and allocating later seems to work best for us. We also received word that we might know in October if LM needs surgery for impacted tooth. October is also our Hawaii trip. So I think we will at least hold on to the cash until that point. I've also got a lot of expenses coming up in May.

I've already paid for the Japan trip, with my regular check, so will just deposit all this to savings.

I mostly expect to follow through with original plan by 12/31. Just maybe not if LM needs an expensive procedure!

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**We bought dh's mom some thank you flowers. Mostly she just gets annoyed at those kind of gestures but I think we nailed it this time. Dh had no clue what kind of flowers she would like but we apparently picked her favorite! So glad that worked out. She sent me a picture and they were gorgeous. Money well spent. (Was a, "thanks for watching my kid for 10 days," and otherwise helping with that trip).

**Dh bought a new kindle. With $200 credit card reward.

**I bought two $20 Amazon gift cards and already received $40 back from our AmEx card. (Per my last post).

I ended up just going ahead and ordering placemats. (I had bought a set of 4 and liked them, and had been wanting to order 4-8 more. To go with our new table cloth). In the end, it cost me $8 cash to buy 8 more place mats.

Dh wants to use his $20 to get the ads off the kindle but feels like it's kind of a waste. The timing couldn't be more perfect for that since he had his Kindle for a day or two, felt annoyed with the ads, and then a free $20 fell out of the sky to cover that.

**I ordered a couple of dresses and swim suits for Hawaii. I figured I might return a couple. But dress #1 came yesterday and was *perfect*. Will see how much I keep and return but is my little splurge. Gearing up for *my* big trip this year...

**We will eat well this weekend. Today dh is taking me out to lunch. It's the first lunch date we could arrange post Japan trip, but will also celebrate the end of tax season. Going to my favorite Thai restaurant.

Since my phone stopped ringing off the hook, and apparently everyone thinks I am on vacation, I am thinking of taking this weekend entirely off. I can cram next weekend if need be. It's probably how it always goes. I am stressed and worried how it will all get done... Then I have a quiet day or two at work and it all seems easy peasy. It's amazing what you can get done without a million interruptions!

**This weekend is the kids' school International Festival. It is DIVINE. Homemade meals from around the world. So yeah, we will eat well today and tomorrow.

Tax season has been weird. Kind of slower and more relaxing than usual BUT kind of backed up towards the end. I just finished my dad's and Gma-in-law's tax returns this weekend. Which is crazy late. I am usually mostly done with tax stuff by now. It's the other April and May deadlines that are weighing on me now, since I am now officially *way* behind on those.
I won't get any time off until mid-May. Then the rest of the year just feels like a vacation.

Thankfully, dh and the kids were gone for 10 days. I needed the time to just work work work without distraction. They have no idea how crazy it got! But was easier to deal with without having a family to worry about. I am also usually way more burned out by this point of the year but just am not at all yet. I can deal with a few weeks of "extra crazy" if it doesn't drag on for a long time. So that is the plus.

The fam's trip went VERY well. Last time BM left the country, we had a crazy Murphy week. (I have NO IDEA how I could have ever dealt with anything like that alone, during such a busy time at work, and was a fear I had). I also dreaded dealing with my MIL, who watched LM while the rest of the fam went off to Japan. Except for some drama up front, she was on good behavior. Phew! Of course, I thought LM would be more homesick too, or that MIL would drive him crazy (as she does to people) but he was fine. I didn't know if LM would have the patience for her. & I thought he might be more homesick regardless. But for whatever reason he was in an exceptionally mature mood that week.

I am so relieved that everything went SO smooth.

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The total expense for the Japan trip came out to about $2,900 for dh. We were expecting $3,000. So I am happy with that.

My dad did pay for my son's airfare, but he ended up going 50/50 on the food and hotel and having me pay for all of BM's transportation and so on. I don't know if he just expected me to pay $3k towards the trip or what but I am NOT going to argue about it. Just relieved to only pay $2,900 for a trip that I Was budgeting $6,000 for!! (Have been expecting to just pay $3,000 since my parents offered to pay for my son. All around, is less than I had planned to spend. Woohoo!).

& thanks to technology, we had no costs for communication. When my dad took me to Japan it was mostly paid for BUT I remember spending like $100+ just to call dh and the kids. That was a while ago!

Of course, my dad got some exceptional pictures and BM had a blast. They were able to be there at the peak time for cherry blossoms, which was the primary purpose of the trip for my dad.

It's nice when things go so smooth!

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At home I did not spend much money *at all* so I am hoping to offset some trip costs with some low spending this month.

Mostly gas because dropped off the family in the Bay Area and then went down over the weekend to rescue LM. (They got a ride back home from family).

Of course, the sad part of this story is we had contributed $100 to a Robo Games kickstarter, in exchange for 4 tickets. The annual robot wars are usually later in April and so of course for this year they made it BEFORE April 15th and in the middle of this Japan trip.

I had planned to stop by the games on my way home Sunday night, which is the best time to be there anyway. Is when they do the epic big battles with the heavy weight robots. But anyway, I was going to meet my friend there and hang out at least a couple of hours. But by the time I got out of MIL's house, only then my friend tells me they have to leave at 5:00 or whatever because it's a school night. Don't get me wrong, I Would have gone anyway, but I was SO exhausted I decided to just go straight home. Maybe for the best. But so SAD that we all missed it. I did give our tickets to my friend, so glad someone could use them.

Next Year...

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Oh yes, but as to our spending for the month, it's kind of absurdly low:

I've got a $25 credit on my Target card because I had some returns.

--$73 spent on gas (LOTS of driving, but only drove the gas sipper. Also have enough gas for this week).

--$40 eating out - MOST of this was when I was in San Jose last weekend. MIL and my mom had no food so we just ate out. But MIL had a party Sunday and I ate too well that day.

I had otherwise planned to eat out a couple of times with the family gone but didn't end up doing so. You can say what you want when I have my personal chef/domestic helper doing all that stuff but when entirely alone, during a very busy time at work, my default was to eat in. IT's what I am used to and has become my habit. It just seemed easier to stop by the grocery store on the way home than to go out to eat or to even go through a drive-thru. I share because I know we are creatures of habit. But since I am not in the habit of grocery shopping or cooking, I Was surprised how much that was my default. I am in the habit of eating very well at home. I am not in the habit of eating out. So I guess that is what it came down to.

Groceries: $60 (I definitely splurged because it was just me)

& that takes us through the first 10 days or so of the month. 1/3 of the month...

I don't know that I see much spending the rest of the month, though obviously the food will go up a few notches with the family back.

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Oh yeah, and I fed everyone and their brother while dh and the kids were gone. Dh had picked up a few groceries for me. (Not much, because I mostly planned to buy fresh ingredients). But, anyway, he told me he left a "few leftovers" and we discussed several meals I could probably do in my sleep and would just keep it simple while they were gone.

SO... I already had some food at work the first day and made the mistake of stocking up at the grocery store that night, on the way home. IT wasn't until the next morning that I took stock of leftovers, when grabbing some for lunch.

**O.M.G.**

So yeah, the next day I started "Operation Feed Everyone."

Dh doesn't get it. I swear I had manicotti every single day for lunch for like 6 days. Took one serving to my mom. I still had some left for dh when he came back.

My co-worker took a whole pot of stew and 2 servings of pizza.

I froze a serving of stew for my mom and a whole chicken meal (for 10?) for LM and MIL. Took those down over the weekend. Also had one serving of chili which I gave to my mom.

Before I realized all this I had cooked a pot of spaghetti and bought high quality deli meat and bread for the week. Gave some of that to my mom, who does not cook and was home alone too.

I did cook a couple of meals during the week (had more leftovers for lunches) and made a batch of burrito and spaghetti the couple of nights before the boys came home so they'd have some food while they recovered from jet lag.

I am just relieved that none of it seemed to go to waste. It is amazing how fast that food goes with dh and the kids here! I just laugh that dh thought I would eat ALL That AND cook 3 or 4 meals. HA!

Received $45 bank interest for the month of March.

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $42 cash back on Citi card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash**
+$900 to IRAs

**I did pull out $1,100 cash for Japan airfare.

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

+$1,300 to cash
-$500 for life insurance

Short-term savings is robust right now (you might have noticed way more + than - in recent months) but that is mostly because we prepaid property taxes in December. Which leaves an extra $2,500 cash buffer or so since we've already saved up the next property tax installment (which isn't due until December).

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Doings:

**Life has been busy. Mostly work.

**I did finally sign up for that credit card reward. $200 cash back + free prime for one year. Should get the rewards soon.

**Mid-month I get my OT check for the year. I will also have to sort out overseas trip expenses with my dad. OT should be way more than expenses. So I am mostly just looking forward to sorting all that out. Then we can see where we are at financially and look ahead.

**The funny thing about "more money" is more choices and stress. That's the mode I am in right now. A lot of stuff is popping up on the horizon now that we have some extra money. I think it's just a matter of time -we need to think through and prioritize. But for the moment I am feeling very overwhelmed. Some of it I haven't talked over with dh yet and I know it will be better once we sit down and talk it all out. (Who knows - he may outright veto me. That would make it easy).

Our "year of splurge" is definitely over when it comes to the frivolous, but there is still a lot of less frivolous stuff to sort out. Home improvements and medical stuff.

With the extreme drought situation here we may have the opportunity to redo our front yard landscaping. (Both city and HOA approval, perhaps. Both have been very picky with the unnatural lush green lawns). We can do the back whenever but it's been more of a dream more than a priority. Talking about being able to do the front yard too and having some extra money is suddenly bumping that up to the top of our priorities. Maybe the theme for us this year is "conservation". I really want to dump the gas guzzler too.

(We've wanted a more appropriate yard, for our climate, for ages. It's just not something we really thought through before we bought our house. We didn't really know the local climate either. Since living here for a time, it's always bothered me what a water wasting city this is compared to our last city. & we met a few people who had more appropriate landscaping so kind of put it in the back of our heads that is what we really wanted. It was just I had never heard of the idea before, I guess. When we did start seeing other kinds of yards we had no money).

Anyway, I went for a walk in parents' way more water conservative (though less dry) city over the weekend and saw a lot of ripped out lawns. I am going to broach the subject with dh. At the least let's kill the backyard lawn. Why have we not done that yet??? That part is a frugal (free) step. The problem is that I perused the websites/portfolios of a few recommended landscapers. So now I am dreaming of a fancy hardscape kind of backyard. I am sure everything I was drooling over was expensive.

Of course, maybe I should dream away. We are probably at a point where we could be rid of our gardeners. I'd love to keep them on but the most of what they do is mowing lawns. I don't know that they'd still help us with our meager yard work if we have no lawns. It is something to consider though. If we go REALLY low maintenance we would save $1,000 per year on help. Maybe this is sounding more sensible. Well, if I have to talk to dh about it and get some quotes. Our neighbors are kind of ritzy so I don't think I was looking at reasonable landscapers. (Neighborhood recommendations). It will be a little more work to seek out a deal. But, we won't know until we start getting quotes and doing more homework.

I think that is a lot of my being overwhelmed. I personally tend to estimate things high and plan for the worst. Which is good financially but maybe unnecessary stress at times. Right now I just have a lot of question marks.

**We have a corned beef and cabbage tradition this time of year but Saturday dh made it in the crockpot. O.M.G. (I couldn't tell you why we hadn't tried that before since we us our crockpot so much). 5 stars!

We will probably have again this week.

Saturday we invited up the in-laws and they brought up a pie for Pi day. We ate too well! We also had Irish soda bread.

**I didn't end up going out last week for lunch and I hadn't thought about the kids having short days all this week. So we will have to make sure to get a lunch date in the week after.

Maybe for the best. I wasn't overly stressed this past week and we will be taking the kids out to celebrate their A+ report cards. Initially their wants were very modest, as they tend to be. But I think now they both want to go out to two different restaurants. I am fine with it. They always do well, but lots of A+s this past trimester. Extra impressive since 6th grade has been pretty intense for older child.

Oh, and another reason to celebrate! Dh and I met 20 years ago! Crazy! We will quietly celebrate that alongside the kids' successes. (I don't know the exact day, but was March 1995. We met one the first day of our seasonal job when we both transferred to the same department - was the tail end of our freshman year in college. We probably would have crossed paths eventually, regardless, as we were both studying for the same degree at the same college and worked several years for the same Company).

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**So our library started a program where they will lend out more things. "Library of Things". I had heard about it but just saw that starts this weekend and they will have an online catalog on Monday. Off the top of my head, I saw sewing machines, Go Pro, board games, etc.

My spouse and kids collect board games and it would be so nice to be able to try more of them before buying them. My dh also noticed they have video games. Which historically we are more apt to rent or to buy used and sell afterwards. But I guess there is no one really renting out video games at the moment. (Er, there is nowhere dirt cheap to rent video games, like we have done for the past 20 years or whatever. At this point it makes more sense just to buy used and sell for the same price when done. We are used to renting games for essentially nothing). The library option might be a nice alternative.

Of course, this library is right by my office, so very convenient. I have the feeling I will be picking up things for the family once in a while.

**We car shop so much less than average that it's always an entirely different economy and environment when we do. As such, our biggest car shopping tip is to be flexible and to keep your eyes open. Which means I have *no idea* how this will end up. I don't know what deal we will eventually stumble across.

The *perfect* car came up for sale a few blocks from my office. So we were able to test drive it without taking too much time from our day.

The car was a little more beat up than advertised and gave us an appreciation for the high quality of our cars. (Not bad, but our cars, even our much older one of a similar make, has absolutely nothing in disrepair on the inside). I had been thinking we didn't want to deal with selling private party but that experience made me change my mind. It also made me think about how we never bought a car before in our current city (more extreme temps) and how a garaged car will likely be a deal breaker for us. I was just feeling extremely picky about it.

A wagon sounds ugly as heck but I was pleasantly surprised by the look when I started perusing them online. But this is the thing. I don't see a lot of cars and don't know what the general look is, but I felt like late 2000s wagons are look kind of 1970-ish on the inside. I don't know. I really didn't like it, though I could probably get over it if the car had been immaculate. The irony is that I saw a subaru of the same year that looked the same inside, so maybe it's a wagon thing. I have a 2005 vehicle and I think it looks much more sleek or modern on the inside. Are other cars of that year so ugly? Or is it a wagon thing? Like people want to remember their 1970s station wagons?

So anyway, it was good to make sure we weren't totally wasting our time and I now think we will make the effort to sell our van ourselves. Being garaged makes a world of difference.

We are also keeping an eye out in the Bay Area too and might rather buy a car from a more temperate climate. It's fairly temperate here but the summers can be pretty extreme and I realized that looking at such a low miles car that looked a little more beat up than I expected it would be.

Anyway, I am sure we can work it out if we find the *right* car and am not too worried about it. But as is, I Wasn't planning to buy a car this week and didn't have $5,000 cash on me. So, anyway, the car had been listed for 24 hours when I noticed it and I got to see it right away. When we get there, the guy starts going on and on about how his phone is blowing up and everyone wants the car. Which really turned me off. I just didn't want to deal with that. I figured he was lying, but it wasn't immaculate and I wasn't going to take the rest of the day off work to arrange the cash. We were actually test driving it, he kept going on and on and on, so I turned around and said nevermind. I figured he was exaggerating a little too much. If we really wanted to buy it that day I would have just rolled my eyes and moved on, but as is, he pushed me off the fence.

For reference, the last car I bought private party was a Mustang convertible, similarly aged, half as many miles (about 30k). No one wanted it but me. So yeah, it's hard to imagine people are lining up for a Ford wagon.

Well, what do you know, the next morning the listing was gone. He might have not been totally lying. & holy crap! That really frustrates me as to the used car market. I've never shopped in a used car market where other people actually wanted used cars. Or where anyone else actually wanted an extremely frugal and practical car.

To be continued...

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So, my dh is a bit of a hoarder. He knows that about himself and keeps it under control. I am sure he owns less crap than the average American. (He is used to living in a small space, for one, and plans for that in the long run). But he is also married to Ms. Spartan and I think it's just way too much.

Well, my dh may have found a treasure in his hoard!

I believe he wanted to sell an old guitar, you know, sitting around for like 20 years without being used at all like most his stuff. I think he wanted to sell it for a couple of hundred bucks to buy some video games or whatever.

So he starts looking it up online and sees this guitar valued for about $1,200. ??? HE bought it in college and can't imagine that he paid more than like $400 for it. OF course, he dug further and it's a rare guitar that is now worth closer to $1,500. ($1,200 was more like a 2010 valuation).

Holy Cow! We've got an appreciating asset!

The timing is so odd. I can really really do boring. Trust me! But the idea of selling a treasure to pay down our mortgage by 0.05% or investing it or whatever sounds SO boring. I don't know that I Want to do "boring" with this treasure. Boring is what we always do and this is exciting! OF course, on top of that, we are in a big year of splurge and so my dh could not imagine spending one penny of it. (Except maybe like $50 of it that he wanted to cash out in the first place).

The timing is odd because most of the last 13 years or whatever we probably could have used the money. I would have done boring.

So we are both feeling "meh" on the whole thing. Which is maybe for the best. Sounds like we should just keep it as long as it is appreciating.

To be continued...

HE did take it out for a valuation, just to be sure. Sounded too good to be true! So anyway, while he was out, he took an old band instrument I have been meaning to sell. It maybe came to mind in the last year that I should sell it. He found a music store who offered consignment with a 75% pay out. They estimated we could get $300 net if we sold it without any repairs. They didn't discuss repairing it first. I don't know if this was the best offer or just most people wouldn't put in the money. I would repair it if it would pay off. So we will have to go back later to discuss the terms of consignment and if that is really the best option. It sounds like it might be.

It's a depreciating asset that I can do "boring" with.

Both of the above instruments were purchased used. As most our musical instruments were.

I met with widowed client last week and it was just awful. Will have to nag everyone about their wills and life insurance later. Though I know that no one will listen. The problem is most people don't see all the consequences of not having all that stuff in order. I see it way too much. I could never do that to my family!

Widow will be fine because she has been supporting her family all these years anyway, has a great job, and is a very strong woman. But, it's just I can't believe her husband didn't put her names on his accounts and stuff like that. *sigh*

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I was out of sorts after that meeting. Friday I called dh to rescue me. Just had to get the heck out of there and couldn't focus, so he took me to lunch. (I had met with client the day before? But I just felt so emotionally bogged down on Friday). We haven't been religiously doing our lunch dates and so I am thinking we should plan to meet up the next 3 weeks. The lunches might pay for themselves. I think I was much more refreshed and productive on Saturday after our nice lunch date, and I do get paid OT. 3 more weeks of crazy busy with dh here and then he will be gone for a couple of weeks. So that's potentially 4 lunches out in exchange for some extra sanity. Plus last Friday was very unplanned and we paid too much for a so-so meal. We can plan ahead and eat better food for less money like we usually do. (We just kind of drew a blank last week because we hadn't eaten out in a while, I didn't want to drive to meet him anywhere, and more eateries by my office have shut down. On the way to somewhere else we remembered there is a great little Greek restaurant we had found, so maybe we will eat there this week).

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Dh took some cash out of the ATM yesterday. I had received a note that our ATM card would expire and not be renewed if we did not make a transaction. We initially decided not to bother with it since we absolutely never use the ATM.

But as the expiration of the card approached I decided that it wouldn't hurt to just keep it. If we really never use it before now and next expiry we can re-evaluate at that point.

Anyway, I was frustrated with dh because he didn't know the PIN #. Though he is the only one who has used it for like the last decade?? So I called and was relieved I was able to quickly change the PIN# over the telephone through some automated system. I probably should have done that a decade ago.

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Other than that, I am just waiting for deals to grace my e-mail.

I saw some crazy cheap sales for Hawaii airfare for even up to a year from now but flying out from cities in other states. But I know it's just a matter of time. I am waiting to jump on the first deal I see out of Northern California. Could be any day.

A couple of low-miles cars also crossed my e-mail but they just weren't "the one", for various reasons.

Well I've never had travel abroad plans, that we actually paid for, get quite this far. So hopefully that's a good sign! We got our airfare booked a couple of days ago. I will send my dad a check for dh's airfare tomorrow when I get paid. $1100 for that, which is about the amount I was sending to saving anyway tomorrow. So that works out fine. I think we will settle up the rest when they return in April. Which means I probably won't dip into savings at all. I am expecting a big OT check in April.

I am relieved my parents really and truly are covering my son. (They can be kind of wishy washy with gifts, so I feel better now that the airfare is paid for).

Which reminds me, it is amazing what people assume! Obviously we could never afford to plan and save up for a trip like this and obviously my dad is paying for everything! What I don't get, beyond all else, is why everyone assumes my dad would pay for my husband to go on this trip? The grandson assumptions are at least a little more understandable. (Could be very wrong too, but are more understandable).

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I received an e-mail that Hawaii fares were going on sale through September travel. (We are going in October). Apparently this sale was 3 months ahead of the usual. I am glad I signed up for a website that keeps on top of that and we are ready to jump on the first October flight sale. No rush, but with low gas prices and everything I feel it's good just to jump on anything that pops up below $400 per person. I want to just lock it in and be done. I thought we would do that in June, but I guess it might be sooner!

Maybe some unexpected cash outflow, earlier than planned, but I don't mind when it is for something fun like this!

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In other news, we have had a bit of car serendipity.

I am kind of having this "DOH" moment because though we have been wanting to sell our minivan forever and always figured a time of low gas prices would be more ideal to do so... The reality is all my brain was thinking, "I can actually drive the van! It doesn't cost an arm and a leg to drive it!" Now that gas prices are low.

DOH!

To be fair, I have been way more focused on replacing dh's 15-year-old car, at this point. We are in the very early talking stages on that. But I think this is also some of why the van fell off our radar.

Anyway, I don't remember how we got on cars last weekend but I was looking at some and feeling very frustrated with internet information overload. We bought our last cars fairly new and figured we had so long to save up to replace them that we would just do the same this round. But after seeing small car after small car each having some major deal breaker, I was getting frustrated. We have a very basic car and the bar should be set pretty low. But it's really set pretty high as to fuel efficiency, reliability, safety, etc. We aren't really finding anything newer that compares.

Feeling frustrated, I checked out Mr. Money mustache's car recommendation page and mostly struck out. In my opinion, too much emphasis on more costly name brands. I think our strategy is to more go for not what everyone else is buying. Much better deals that way. That said, he also had a lot of more used car recommendations and maybe that is where we will eventually end up when we replace dh's car. We just aren't to that point yet.

But something struck me from his car page. He recommended my dh's car, years 2005 - 2009 I think, in the wagon version. If you want something a little more roomy and fuel efficient.

Ding ding ding!! I told my dh I had a plan to replace our 2005 minivan and he is totally in. I set up a google alert and have been receiving on average one new car listing daily. (Who knew there were so many wagons of this specific model?? I have absolutely never seen one). It helps to have access to a few super major metropolitan areas. I had written off a couple with 90k or 130k miles (my van has 120k miles) and everything since has been like 200k+ or 300k+ miles. Yeesh! But that is making me more confident in this decision. I don't really want to buy something until May anyway and so for now I am just kind of gauging the market. That said, if anything pops up that is "perfect" we would buy it today.

I am expecting to pay $5k-ish for the fuel efficiency upgrade and to sell our minivan for $2k-ish. Though I'd happily pay a little more for something with lower miles that will last longer. That's probably more what we want anyway. I know if we are patient something with really low miles will pop up.

Well that's our crazy plan for now. Will see...

I have never shopped for a specific vehicle before, but I guess the internet helps with that and this is very in line with our usual strategy to stick with something that no one else wants. This whole experience is probably going to make me very love/hate as to car shopping in the internet age. It's got its pluses and its minuses.

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Well, my client lost his lengthy (and terrible) battle with brain cancer last month. I just found out Friday and have been very sad about that. He leaves behind a wife my age and two young children. He was obviously too young.

Received $42 bank interest for the month of February.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards to our ROTH

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs**

**2014 Maxed out in Feb. On to 2015!

I updated sidebar for all of the above.

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

+$1,300 to cash
-$515 for insurance, smog check, registration (autos)

The combination of low gas prices and putting some more wiggle room in our budget has been great! Our fuel expense was $75 lower than average last month though we made several trips to the Bay Area. Our usual strategy is to way over-save up front. Which is fine - it works very well for us. But this year our savings pace seems more realistic with our budget. OF course, I am fine with relaxing the budget because I am happy with our savings pace. (I'd say we are still pretty aggressive on the "pay ourselves first" but just not as much as the last couple of years. I still don't foresee ever having a penny left over at the end of the month to add to savings. It's relative).

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An update to our free month of Amazon prime (trial): Dh got bored with the TV shows because we can pretty much get 90%+ of what we want elsewhere. (Which is what he has always said and why we have not gotten Prime before. Just that Hulu and Netlfix makes more sense for our personal tastes). Anyway, so our free trial expired yesterday I believe and now dh doesn't want to pay for it. So, phew! I may still do the free year but haven't gotten around to opening that credit card yet.

I don't know what I Was thinking on funding 2014 IRAs but I guess I was leaving a wide margin of error for MURPHY. I thought I may finish funding in March or even April, but I was able to top off dh's IRA today with my paycheck. Woohoo!

Still feeling behind, but so much better than last year (post 2013 crazy Murphy year).

Anyway, I decided to fund it because I could keep cash at the minimum I am aiming for, plus a whole $50 to spare.

In other news, it looks like the upcoming Japan trip (for dh and BM) is a little up in the air.

I've said it before. It's not like we never try do any big splurges like this. Yeesh! But the universe just never seems to be in agreement whenever we try to plan any travel abroad. (Free trips initiated by other people are always fine. Spending our own money to travel abroad has *never* panned out. I may be 0 for 4 with this trip).

Anyway, it might work out or we might postpone for one year. Will see.

Since dh and I have no particular love of travel, it's just kind of funny. Like, "Okay, we get the hint!" I do admit though if it was really important to us we would try much harder. Fair enough. I do think it somewhat speaks to our priorities. In this case, my older child LOVES to travel and thus it is a little more important to us. So we might see this through more than other failed travel plans of years past. Will try again!

When we bought our home we made a lateral financial move from a high cost region. Traded a small condo for a big house.

I can't say we have had much use for the formal dining and living areas, but they have been filled with hand-me-downs and re-purposed furniture throughout the years. I did invest in some drapes a few years back but that is the extent of my financial commitment to those rooms. I think early on the extra space was overwhelming and later on we just didn't want to get used to it because we just plan to downsize eventually anyway.

Anyway, that said, we parked BM in the formal dining room when we got a new laptop about a year ago. Figured the room might as well get some use. Well, I decided to kick him out last weekend. I moved him to an unused corner of the living room. We had an extra desk he could use and it gave me my pretty formal dining room back.

When we moved him it brought my attention to some hand-me-down (I guess?) lamp that I really don't like. He would need some better lighting for homework. It turns out my parents just bought a lamp and though I wouldn't have been surprised if it was more expensive they had only paid $60 for it. I wish I had looked at it closer, but I had liked it at a quick glance. Of course, after shopping around online for about an hour that was the best option I could come up with. Free shipping and it arrived in 2 days. It really classes up the room.

The old lamp was something like this:



The new lamp:



I guess that is the first lamp we have ever bought for this house. The house came with overhead lighting in the rest of the rooms.

All that and dh ended up moving BM back to the dining room. (In the corner - not using the nice table any more. I agree with his reasons). HA! But, I appreciate the opportunity to make a small investment/enhancement to the living room.

It's little stuff like that bubbling up to the surface for us these days. What has been completely overlooked while we had higher priorities. (Though for the most part we are more than happy with all the free furniture we have gotten over the years! I don't foresee many changes like this).

While claiming my elegant dining room back I remembered that the table cloth in there was starting to fall apart. I had noticed at Thanksgiving. (It was vinyl and though it was very pretty and looked more like lace, time was wearing it down).

I ended up finding a table cloth very much like my mom had and I had admired. Plus it was washable and should last much longer.



Thankfully it was as nice in person. Spent about $50 on that, but is a really nice improvement. It didn't match as nice as I thought it would with our current place mats, but that might be a good wish list item (birthday or christmas) or something just to keep an eye out for. I don't feel the need to rush out and replace today.

We got our room booked in Maui. Cost will be $0, thanks to in-laws' timeshares.

Airfare is going for $300 right now from the west coast. I don't know that I've ever paid more than $400. But $300? WOW! It's the first time I am flying all four of us to Hawaii and so these prices sound good but the low prices have not hit for fall yet. We will keep an eye on things. I signed up at a website that had a lot of great airfare tips and sales alerts. I feel relieved because when I perused airfare last month I thought it might be a lot more expensive than I had envisioned. It's since gone in the opposite direction. $300 per person x 4, would be phenomenal.

Our annual vacation budget is $1,500 and so I think I will just try to fit airfare in that range. (We usually don't plan trips to Hawaii and I Would not expect our usual vacation budget to cover that!). I plan to use credit card rewards to pay for the car rental. I may hold back $1,000 from my overtime this year to fund the trip. We wanted to take surfing lessons, maybe two of us do a zip line, etc. But most the lazing around and swimming, snorkeling, hiking and boogie boarding type stuff should be fairly inexpensive. I am feeling optimistic that this trip will be easily funded without pushing into our savings goals.

Of course, our usual vacation budget funds our overall more "vacation lifestyle" and frequent weekend trips and so on. This year is going to be "two BIG trips and not a lot of money to do much else" kind of year. We still live in a resort community, have some amazing hikes in our backyard, and maybe we should make more of a go of some camping excursions this year. I think we can easily keep our "vacation lifestyle" but it will just be more frugal than recent years. Will just have to plan accordingly.

I saw a great article about teaching children about finances:

The Smart Way to Teach Children About Money

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-smart-way-to-teach-children-...

"We focus on teaching finance in school when regular math is much more effective at helping children manage money."

"“A lot of decisions in finance are just easier if you’re more comfortable with numbers and making numeric comparisons,” says Mr. Cole.

Without strong math skills, he says, people tend to use more emotional ways to invest, spend or save their money. What’s more, people with less math experience make worse financial mistakes with issues like compounding or underestimating how quickly interest accumulates."

I can see that it would be hard to make better financial decisions without math skills.

Both my kids are (very) strong at math and I try to apply that to the real world however I can. Which has led me to comment over the years that like my 8yo had more money sense than most adults. Anyway, when I discuss credit cards with them they look incredulous. You know, like why would anyone pay 30% interest on a purchase?? I always thought it was somewhat genetic or learned, but it is interesting to think that maybe their math skills are also a LOT of it. That an 8-year-old might be horrified by the idea of high-interest credit card debt simply because they understand the math.

The above article basically said that the personal finance education just isn't working. Really interesting.

Received $42 bank interest for the month of January. I am still just adding this to cash, for simplicity. We never seem to have enough cash, anyway. When I have "too much cash" we can re-evaluate.

Dh received $70 birthday money. He generally prefers to save this money but we had such a good year I encouraged him to splurge. I think he only spent $40 of it. He had wanted to get Prime but I told him that I would just get it for free. He signed up for a free trial in the meantime and we have what feels like is a million TV shows and movies (on top of the million we already had). I can't say that we miss cable *at all*. (We already had netflix and hulu and get all sorts of free content over the internet).

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $43 credit card rewards (cash back) from our 2% card.

snowflakes into investment account:

$68 cc rewards (per above)

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$900 to IRAs
+$300 to cash

I updated sidebar for all of the above.

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

+$1,300 to cash
-$530 for insurance (home/auto)
-$195 school lunches (6 months)
-$100 passport expenses

**I did file our taxes on Tuesday.

And... I already got a refund from the state. WHOA!

The irony is that I mostly never get state refunds because there have been so many years our state has been insolvent. I've already adjusted our taxes this year so that we should not get a penny back from the state for 2015.

IRS refund should arrive early next week. The entire $3,300 in tax refunds is earmarked for travel this year.

I have not filed the kids' taxes yet but they are mostly done. I might file them today. I just wanted to double check everything and I still have to pay the taxes they owe. They owed $6 in state taxes on about $2,500 of investment income. I try to keep their income tax-free but don't expend much energy towards that end. BM owed 5 of those dollars - I didn't notice his dividends were starting to get up there. More money, more dividends! I will revise my tax strategy to "$1,500 annual income" for him. If he owes the state $5 for that, I can live with that. (Federal is tax free $2k per year with the kiddie tax rules, but the state is only $1k tax-free).

**We got our first Ting bill since I have had work wifi. We barely used any minutes, texts or data this month. Our bill was $26.60. This is definitely what it will be at through tax season. When winter is over and my dad starts traveling again and I am not holed up at work 6 days a week, will see.

That's for the two of us. So, $13.30 per phone.

**Dh did a grocery run yesterday and did really good. He had earned $25-off and stocked up on a bunch of sales. Receipt said he paid $120 and saved $60. The pantry runneth over...

**Oh, and yesterday was kind of a lucky day all around. Surprise money in the checkbook. (Not expecting refund quite so fast). In addition, dh got his passport (we did not pay to get it faster, but they just sent it in a couple of weeks??). & dh also got the extra bulb for his projector (that was a rebate deal). Woohoo!

We are on a roll this week!

I forgot that I have *three* dates with hubby this week. Today we are going to see a show in San Francisco.

Thursday was his volunteer appreciation dinner. He won a nice award, which was a surprise! It's the local public TV station - they always throw a GREAT party. We also managed to score two camping chairs and a New Kindle Fire from the raffle.

I don't know that a new tablet was particularly on dh's wish list, but he is LOVING it. (It's not gentle on the eyes like the e-readers and so it won't scratch his itch to upgrade his old reading Kindle. We did have a fairly old first generation Fire, free with credit card rewards, and so this was a nice upgrade for that. The old one is getting kind of obsolete. I don't know if I can talk him into selling it or purging it or if he can wipe it clean and give it to the kids. It's too bogged down with apps right now. I don't know if a purge of apps would help).

Yesterday I walked into the lunch room around noon and my employer offered me a Panera sandwich and some chips. Guess they didn't need the extra. I was just feeling on a lucky streak - I *love* Panera but rarely spend my own money there.

That is not the end of all the free goodness. My dh was all excited about the Amazon Prime deal today. I was feeling kind of "meh" about it because I see free Prime deals all the time. But I figure I don't really want to get sucked into that. But if we must do it, why not get it for free the first year?

Well, in the mail yesterday I got a credit card offer. $200 cash back PLUS free amazon prime for the first year. Dh agreed that was a much better deal! (I've seen the credit card deals before but didn't want to encourage him. Though actually I think the deals I have seen were usually "just" Amazon prime. I don't know if I would bother with a credit card reward for less than $200. So this was much more up my alley. Talk about timing!).

I looked it up and the snail offer was much better than the general bonus right now. But, you can get $50 and free prime. The offer I got was for the everyday card. The preferred card (also in the link) has a $75 annual fee. Of course, there may be other free amazon prime deals out there - I have seen them around.

https://www304.americanexpress.com/credit-card/compare/blue-...

I already reviewed 2014 but did not keep the entry because it had more net worth details then I'd prefer to leave up in this blog for eternity. So, I will summarize again for future reference. Nothing new here...

CASH:

Cash is up $7,000. This was an easy year - was a fairly low key year compared to more recent years on the "emergency" side of things.

$5k is our annual goal. The bulk of this is to cover home repairs and car replacements.

RETIREMENT:

Maxed out our IRAs. 13.25% of income.

With returns, our retirement funds were up $22,000.

Doing Traditional IRAs in 2014 netted us an extra $3k in tax savings. That extra $3k went to overseas travel plans. But in the future should be more like $2,400 refunds just due to the IRA and will boost our entire "retirement savings" to 16.25%. (We will plow the tax savings into long-term retirement savings - will just have to keep it in taxable investments).

INVESTMENTS:

Opened up a long-term investment account to supplement our cash and retirement savings. Contributed $3k in 2014, for an additional 3% of income. (Contributions were $150 per month, plus snowflakes, starting in May).

Kid's college money was also up $3,700.

HOME:

The value of our home remained the same.

MORTGAGE:

Paid down mortgage by $6,300. About $4,000 was regular payments and $2,300 was snowflakes. We had a great year for snowflakes as we weren't focusing on the mortgage in 2014. But one of the snowflakes was a $500-ish mortgage interest rebate and another was a credit card reward for a $200 check to the mortgage so it seemed appropriate to put those to the mortgage. We put all snowflakes the first 4 months of the year to the mortgage too, before we opened our investment account.

In 2015 we plan to start throwing an extra $3k per year into the mortgage. For now, all snowflakes are going into investments.

TOTAL NET WORTH:

Our net worth increased by $42,000.

This was our goal, exactly. But what are the odds of that??? We are always so much at the whim of the markets.

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2015:

Net worth increase $42k:

Cash + $5,000
Investments + $5,000 ($3k + $2k tax refund)
Retirement + $11,000 (Max IRAs)
Investment Returns + $14,000 (assumes 6% returns)
Mortgage Paydown + $7,000
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NET WORTH + $42,000
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**My "annual net worth increase" goal has been $30k for several years and this was the first year that I had bumped it up to $42k. I wonder if we can bump this up to a full 60k by the time we are age 40? The plan would be that our net worth would eventually increase by our annual spending every single year ($60k). I don't know what age that will be realistic for, but somewhere in our early 40s is what we are aiming for.

**BM is doing a science experiment with celery plants.

So I come home the other day and our cat is completely and totally BONKERS. He can be a hyper and troublesome cat anyway but he has substantially mellowed after a couple of years with us.

All I could think was... EARTHQUAKE. My dh thinks I am totally insane but there is science to back that up. I will never forget in the Loma Prieta quake when all the birds outside started squawking right before the big quake. (We don't particularly live in earthquake territory though so this pre-earthquake like behavior was a little perplexing. Like holy crap WHAT is coming?? We can feel quakes far away if they are large enough).

Dh is always the smart one that figures these things out. He had noticed that the cat had been particularly enamored with the celery plants. I jumped on the computer hoping we didn't carelessly leave out poisonous plants! Thankfully, that was not it. But what I saw immediately was that some cats react to celery leaves like they are catnip. HA! Dh called it.

The cat has kept out of the plants since and has mellowed out again. I keep expecting to come home to find plants everywhere and the science experiment ruined. Will see... He seems to be staying away from them - maybe that celery high was a bit too much for him.

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One of my recent posts I mentioned a lack of things to buy or a lack of a material wish list at this point.

Of course, I Am well aware we have stuff to maintain and to eventually replace and yadda yadda. It just seems to me that maintaining seems to be a generally much cheaper phase of life than the "accumulation" phase.

So I am sitting back and seeing what has been very low on our priority list and what is floating up to the top now that we really have no purchase priorities?

I have a GAP sweatshirt that I bought in like high school (20 years ago?) that I wear at night. It doesn't need replacing in the slightest but I thought "more than one night sweatshirt" might be nice. It's been kind of "meh" since we have done so much laundry with the kids. Especially when they were in diapers. But you know, I can probably afford a second warm night shirt now and we aren't doing as much laundry as we had been. Going longer between washes... So, I bought a couple from Gap online. Didn't see the exact same thing but thought I'd gamble that they are still making half the quality they did in the 1990s. Who knows. Their stuff was on sale. I actually gambled on a large boys' sweatshirt (it actually fit and I really like it) and then just got a large mens' sweatshirt. I figured if the boys' one was too small I could just give it to the kids. It's what looked closest to what I Wanted and both were on clearance. Of course they had nothing like my incredible sweatshirt!

That's my January improvement, I suppose.

February? I am thinking toilet seat. Our toilet seat has gotten scratched up for whatever reason. I think we should buy one and see how we like it. If we find a nice seat then probably should just replace the other two. I don't know that the other two are messed up but they do have some stains. At the least, would be nice to have a new toilet seat in the guest bath. This will be a very nice but inexpensive improvement. I see all the toilet seats these days are "slow closing". That will be nice actually. Our weather is too mild to care about warm seats and stuff like that (though I saw a lot of those too).