Tried a new recipe that was a hit with the adults. I don't recall the kids caring for it much, which is kind of surprising.

Pumpkin-Chorizo Bow Tie Pasta

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pumpkin-chorizo-bow-ties

(If the link doesn't work, just google it. It's free to join the Taste of Home website and to see recipes, BUT I generally don't share recipes that need a login. It seems to be finicky right now and depends on the browser I guess. It seems to work in Chrome if you open in an incognito window and earlier it worked in plain old firefox).

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Went to a party yesterday and had some interesting pizzas.

The kids made "watermelon pizza". The white stuff is coconut. Berries and grapes make a nice topping.



A vegetarian relative also brought some veggie pizzas for her kids. They were surprisingly delicious. Instead of cheese, they grated carrots onto one pizza and added little bits of brocolli. I didn't expect much, but was pleasantly surprised by how tasty it was.

Things are going pretty well financially. Knock on wood. (They never seem to go this well for very long, so will see...). I suppose my positive feelings and measurement of "well" is just that we have a pre-kids level of cash and are saving at a pre-kids/dual income pace. Which was a good measure of financial freedom. Today we have all that plus a heck of a lot more assets.

I still make a solid $20k less than our highest "dual income", but I am taking home more with the $20k+ decrease in taxes. I have been for a couple of years probably, but have had some catching up to do on the savings front. This tax/income interaction is really key on the balance side of things. We could easily make an extra $20,000 - $40,000 and be NO BETTER OFF. I see it every single day. Show me someone who has a $30k higher wage and I will show you someone who is paying $30k more in taxes than I am. This is an important point to understand when it comes to balance. That you can work significantly less and be just as well off.

I personally credit my parents for being extraordinary examples of balance. I don't know if I appreciated it before, but in recent years that balance and the benefits of that balance has become pretty clear. & I know that it seems to come pretty easy to me.

I don't know if I had given it much thought lately, but it really hit me as I was evaluating our current finances. I'd say we are back to our peak financial comfort level, which was pretty darn comfortable. So, what do I want to do with all this financial comfort? With more wiggle room, is there something we should be splurging on?

The answer? Nothing. There is absolutely nothing we want to splurge on. We have more than we could possibly need or want. This wasn't really the answer I was expecting to come up. But that is where our strong sense of balance has put us.

This is all well and good because I have a ton of financial pressures coming up on the horizon. Our plan is actually to do a couple of big splurges, and then nose back to the grindstone. Which is for the best with the economy, with kids nearing college age, and all the other financial pressures we know are on the horizon.

Even our splurges have a solid "Plan B". Which is also an important part of balance. So you don't feel deprived when everything doesn't go as you expect it to. So you don't even feel particularly set back when life happens. Because life will always happen.

Big Splurges?

Dh does have his eye on a $3,000 projector. His parents have already vocalized giving us that money for Christmas and it's all his. I've even given him a thumbs up to keep an eye open for sales. Will probably buy late winter (after cash in hand) unless a sales comes up before then. But we will jump on a sale prematurely if it will put us ahead for the long run. (Fall is when new models come out? So we may make a purchase next month if the price comes down at that time).

Plan B: No matter what we will upgrade his projector this year or next. I am just not sure if we will go with a $1k or a $3k purchase. Either way is a huge step up and will make him happy. I think the $3k purchase will make him more happy for longer. But we are both interested in sticking with a reasonable budget.

You can file this away under, "ridiculous splurge that we never could have justified the past few years." He's also been enjoying his higher quality TV and sulking about his loss of hearing. I am personally happy to see him excited about his movie theater again - the one we bought the extra big house for. We don't plan to downsize for another solid decade, so he might as well use and enjoy. Or the kids are getting to an age where they will use and enjoy.

I admit dh has had this projector on his wish list for a while, but this will do it for him. He's got nothing else on his want list.

The other big splurge is BM's Japan trip in the spring. That is a given and I have a creative way to fund his trip. IT's just that the opportunity popped up now, but it is good timing for us financially. Plan A is for both dh and BM to go, but Plan B is to just send BM. I don't think we will decide until next year. Will see how the next few months go financially and where we are at. It is possible (but unlikely) that my parents will chip in a bit for that trip. So, waiting to see how that sorts out before we commit to anything.

What about me? Well, it is mostly true that I have everything I could possibly want or need. But I suppose I have one caveat to that. What I want more than anything is lots of cash to tide me over for my next job transition. Both of our long-term employment situations are just clear as mud, for the moment. I just want to be able to take some relaxing time off in between jobs. (I don't know if this is possible, but it is what I want). & I want to be able to take my sweet time and find that perfect job. I have always had that time and freedom in the past (which is why my current job is so awesome - I know the awesome jobs are out there). For the first time in this economy I feel a bit of that again - that I have the luxury to take my sweet time and to hold out for that ideal job. It's also been almost a decade since my last maternity leave so I am ready for some time off and a reboot. My next job transition just seems a natural time and way to take that reboot.

& so is the plan. A couple of big splurges and then noses back to the grindstone. It's also that final stretch before BIG expenses like college and so on. If unemployment is never an issue, then we will have plenty of other uses for any savings in the next few years.

One final thought on balance. It probably pains me on some level to plan to spend $9,000-ish that can be set aside to pay 2 months of our expenses in event of job loss. But I am not sweating it. Times are good and we should enjoy. I know it will make any period of unemployment or adjustment easier because we did splurge and enjoy when we could. We've been saying "no" to a lot of things since we had kids and I know there is a lot of "no we can't do that" for the next 10-ish years until we get our kids through college. I think it's important to relax and enjoy when we obviously can. & I think we can do so while being well prepared for all of the uncertainty. & that feels awesome!

Things are strangely quiet on the financial front. Heck, things are uncharacteristically quiet all around. I am enjoying the peace and calm.

**General Frugal Doings**

Dh has been wanting to get some D&D going, but strangely enough he has never played. (Seems like most of our male friends are fairly into it). But my younger child is way into it. Dh is starting to feel comfortable enough to be DM and get a game started for the kids and some of their friends. So maybe sometime in the fall. In the meantime, he has found a couple of groups that don't mind an 8yo or 9yo tagging along. So, that has been a lot of free entertainment. I guess they have been meeting about once a month.

Dh also joined a meetup and has gone to several game nights. I guess those are also once a month.

BM's bff is going to a different school this year and so we had invited them over to our house for dinner and a game night last month. I personally kind of want to start just a once a month thing, but it just seems like such a big commitment. We talked about this very seriously with our neighbors but then all hell broke loose in our personal life. & so, I don't know. Maybe it's better to keep it loose, but we should be more proactive on invites when things are calm. Like right now!

This weekend and last weekend was family get-together stuff. Relatives in town and a good excuse to get all the kids together.

Oh, and one other thing. We did some sound recordings this past weekend. My dad has a band that he has had since college. One member has passed on, (well, maybe two have), and the rest of the band is still together. I suppose now that they are all retired they are doing a lot more music. The band has always recorded throughout the years and borrowed kids and in-laws and whoever to fill in the blanks. I have done lots of singing, but am not into solo-ing and no one was going to ask me as long as my sister is around (she is an exceptional singer). But my dad had a song that was kind of perfect for me, and my sister is on the other side of the U.S., and so lucky me! It was fun and we got that all recorded and finished this past week. If LM would take it seriously at all he would have totally replaced me (he has a lot of talent). But maybe in a few years he will be the "strong male singer" my dad has always wished for.

All this to say, we have no problem finding free and inexpensive entertainment.

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Other doings:

**Dh has been really in the groove with his movie stuff lately. He is gearing up to produce a movie and has generated some interest on his script.

He got someone in the industry to read his script (his first script/his "baby") and they LOVED it. Not holding my breath much on that, but it's an exciting lead. (It's also really creative how he got his script to this person. He has tremendous business sense, and maybe that is just the edge he needs. It's definitely been pretty noticeable that a lot of his film making friends lack even the most basic business sense). So yeah, that is kind of exciting.

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Financial Stuff:

**Dh asked me if Target card had closed for the month yesterday and I said, "Sure". I looked it up and it always closes on the third. I suppose that was meant to be "it always closes on the third after they count all your shopping on the third". I've paid all the bills for the month so now I have to go back and pay another $70 or $80. (I had already sent off the payment for the Target balance for the month). Dh did a big grocery run there, yesterday. (Some months we don't even spend that much, so it figures).

Oh well - this will be easy to remember - it cycles with our 2% cash back card. I just don't know that we have ever made any purchases on the third before. Or if it was unusual that those charges snuck through.

When I get home I will make sure I have the cash in the checking account for that - I believe I do. I will finish paying off the balance this week so I can move on.

**I suppose I have one other bill to pay this month. Waiting for my Citi bill and will pay that off next payday.

Then I will get my $200 bonus!

I have decided to put that bonus to the mortgage. That is veering from "the plan" but I can't resist the exact round number that $200 will get us to this month. I think it will even out as I was planning to throw a little something to the mortgage in December. This is probably less than I would have put to the mortgage in December and is likely to keep me happy well into 2015. So maybe it works well with "the plan".

Dh scored a $75 focus group (for 1.5 hours).

Woohoo!

I have no idea what we will do with this money. I expect that I will throw this snowflake to investments.
I don't foresee that he will want to do anything else with it.

Beach Trip:

Spent $400. The bulk of that was food, and then the kitty hotel. That maybe includes $20 gas. I won't worry about the rest of the gas (maybe spent $50 gas total).

I don't remember the last time we went somewhere so crazy expensive on the food front. Never?? Their Round table pizza prices were 70% more expensive than our own local RT. We went there on the last night for a "cheap dinner" and couldn't believe the bill. Large pizza was about $30. !!

I'll pull $400 from the vacation budget. It works out perfectly because I also wanted to donate $100 to Camp Sac. I just hadn't gotten around to it yet and so made that donation this week and will pull $500 from vacation budget. $400 + $100. (Since MIL treats for our camp trip we always make a donation instead. Money used to keep up the non-profit camp).

Here are a couple of pictures from our trip.

First is the Mendocino coastline. Breathtaking.

Second picture was taken at Glass Beach. Old dump site where the trash has been ground down over the years into a beautiful sea glass beach. When you look closer at some of the rust colored areas of the picture (in person), is remnants of the old dump. There was one part that had an old giant car part and shards of glass. It's fascinating how old trash can be so pretty. Lots of the sea glass on the shore is plastic (red and orange pebbles used to be car tail lights) and ceramic (lots of pieces of china).

Our hotel accommodations were free, think to MIL's endless timeshare points. The property was so beautiful but the rooms were really run down. We are not picky people by any means, but when we got there I think we were both a little uncomfortable. I will say that the place grew on me. The beds were surprisingly comfortable and so we got over it. The beauty of the grounds won us over. Which is maybe why MIL's timeshare covered this place. Usually WAY NICER properties.

So, we finally did it. It took us 13 years, but we finally ventured up north for the beach. Since we now live up north. What was our overall feeling about it? It was beautiful but the drive was so stressful getting there. I don't know if I have ever been on such a windy road in my life and felt really horrible for carsick younger child. (I know I would have been miserable most the drive if I wasn't driving).

Glad we saw it, but think we will stick with Pismo Beach. Oh, and it took us 6 hours to drive home (supposed to be a 4 hour drive). SO... Pismo is a lovely and very easy 5 hour drive with hardly a windy road. I think that is just *our* beach.

We certainly had fun and have no regrets about it. It will just be a long time before we go back again. & new adventures sometimes give us extra appreciation for the places we already know and love.

We are back from a long weekend at the coast, and kids start school this week.

I have no idea how much money we spent, but guessing $500-ish for gas and food and kitty hotel (4 Days).

My parents picked up airline tickets for visiting my sister in October. Phew! Glad that it is confirmed for sure that I don't need to cough up $500 for that (before they changed their mind). Which meant I had $1,000 left in vacation budget, and it doesn't look like I will be spending much in October (We won't rent a car and at worst it will only be $25/night to split a hotel. Just me, so not a lot of food to buy either). $500 should be more than plenty leftover for that trip.

Dh wants to go to Napa next month (I doubt we'd even spend $100) and I am still toying with the idea of going to Pismo Beach for my birthday. The kids don't get their usual day off (Monday after Thanksgiving) so it would just be dh and I. Will probably just make that a last minute decision, based on funds available. I suppose I should just use my Citi reward to book that hotel, and call it a day.

Will post more about our trip later.

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When we got home the Citi card was here. I charged it up already. $215 school lunches for first half of year, $260 field trips, $70 supplies and spirit t-shirts, this month's health insurance, plus $35 to pre-pay next month's insurance. Total = $1,500.

$200 earned - now I wait until I can redeem.

Another summer break has flown by. Kids go back to school next week.

I decided to jump on that Citi offer when creditcardfree jogged my memory that I can redeem the $200 in cash form. Woohoo! I also received an auto insurance bill and was thinking about back-to-school spending, so it seemed like a good time to do a cc bonus (lots of expenses).

School spending:

--Bought a larger and sturdier backpack for 4th grader. 4th grade is really intense at their school.

--Middle schooler doesn't need anything? I have gotten on a wonderful schedule of offseason clearance purchases. He already has an entire wardrobe in the next size up.

--Will prepay school lunches for 6 months. I fund every August and January.

--School requests $25 per pupil, for supplies. Which is one reason I have nothing else to buy.

--Field trip fees. BM's class seems to be fiscally ambitious, overall, so I am relieved they are requesting a mere $60 for this year. But just wait, someone will think that a $600 field trip is a great idea. *sigh* I ned to cough up $200 for the 4th grader. I will just pay it this month and be done with it.

We of course save for all of the above monthly - will just pull from savings.

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I've noticed the AC was weak in my vehicle but I thought it was just in my head. I learned on a 106F degree day last week that it was NOT at all in my head. UGH!

Anyway, took the car in today. It's very cool today, but kind of muggy. Just really WEIRD weather. I flipped on the AC and it couldn't have felt more cold and refreshing. So, will see. I told the mechanic it's working great now but does not seem to perform in 100F degree weather. I am hoping it just needs a simple recharge. IS probably most likely.

I did look up maintenance records and we replaced 4 tires last year and had some brake work done in 2011. So, if the vehicle needs a big repair, it is long past due. We endlessly save up for car repairs - one of those things that have never been a big deal to us. (Also helps to have a trusted mechanic that keeps repair costs well below average).

EDITED TO ADD: $200 today to recharge the AC and insert dye to find if there is a leak. As of now, no leaks found. I am thinking it is probably a very slow leak that is not worth fixing. But we will follow up on that in a few weeks.

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Car Shopping? NOT ME.

IT's my mom. She finally found a vehicle. She bought a barely used luxury vehicle about 17 years ago, for $20k. It still gets a LOT of attention - it's kind of flashy. It is still often assumed to be fairly new. My parents wanted to replace it a couple of years ago but she just did not like anything else, in comparison.

Fast forward 2 years and they are doing exceptionally well financially, so she is trying to talk herself into a car upgrade. She called me last week bemoaning some awful experiences at the dealerships and how crappy all the newer cars are. I know she was really trying to talk herself into a brand new luxury vehicle, but was feeling very overwhelmed by all the gadgets on the new higher end vehicles.

Anyway, they ended up finding a stripped down 2013 luxury model which is perfect for them. Will only pay $20k-ish after trade-in. I told my dh after talking to my mom earlier in the week that they were so NOT buying a NEW car. I am glad they found something.

I share, because I am feeling so blessed with my own experience and point of view. I can't imagine how different our lives would be if we were afraid of buying used cars. A lot of unnecessary financial stress. I just cringe every time I hear a "I can't survive without a $35,000 vehicle!" comment. Which seems to be like every single person we know. I love to help and educate people, but preconceived notions are mostly impossible to overcome. All I can do is be thankful that we aren't stressing over GIANT car purchases in our own household. & that I am blessed to know that I can buy a VERY NICE vehicle for a bargain.

Woohoo! I finally got the $200 bonus for dh's Chase checking. Phew! I set up another ach transfer from a less popular financial institution, but when I checked to see if the transfer had come through the $200 bonus was already pending. (I wasn't expecting that!) So, maybe it worked the first time. (Though that was well over 10 business days!). Or maybe they just deposited the $200 when they saw the transfer coming through. I don't know, but it did work without a real "direct deposit".


2014 TALLY:

$500 Amazon gift cards (SW Chase double dip, Dh)
$250 Cash (Chase Freedom, Moi)
$200 Cash (Chase Checking, Moi)
$200 Cash (Chase Checking, Dh)
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$1150 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Notice that these are ALL Chase rewards? Yeesh!

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So BM survived his backpacking trip. We ended up spending about $350 on backpacking gear. I am relieved to get the $200 bonus as I will throw that at the gear.

I would like to say that I was depositing all these rewards to our mortgage or investments, but I think it *all* got spent. Just one of those years. We happened to have a couple of things break just as we got the rewards. IF not for this bonus, I'd pay for the gear out of the vacation fund. But, if I can leave the vacation fund robust it gives us more options for the rest of the year. We leave for the beach next week and I will definitely relax more and not worry about how much we are spending.

It is what it is. Always easier for us to splurge extra money or "Free money". I am certainly glad to have it!

**They are offering free solar setup in our neighborhood these days. The company takes all the tax breaks to subsidize the costs.

We don't use enough energy to utilize. So, phew. Dh is a little more into that than me. I can't say he would necessarily do it, BUT, the whole thing appears to be moot at the moment anyway. So it's not even a discussion.

It is interesting though as several neighbors are taking up the offer and discussing their energy bills. $150-$225/month. We are at around $60/month. Don't ask me! It was our electricity usage that I wanted to work on this year - a rare bill I felt we had room to improve on. We don't really do anything special in this area and since we aren't from the area we aren't particularly used to the heat. On one hand. On the other hand, we don't feel the need to keep our house 70F degrees 24/7. I suppose that is the most of it.

The other interesting thing about our current electricity bill is that it is at a "people home 24/7" level. For the long run I do expect it to go down. I'd expect in 5+ years that everyone else in the house will have jobs and be out of the house more.

We do have a very energy efficient home and I guess some part of me presumed all these new homes were energy efficient, but maybe some of them are not as efficient as others. Ours is specifically an "energy star" home.

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I had no idea how much our vacation was going to cost. I mentioned maybe $0 or $1,000. I was just figuring $500. Probably the worst case.

In the end, I think we pulled it off at around $500. (In-laws were sidelined so did not really go anywhere with us. In the end we paid for the entire meals when we were together. Don't ask me. Is why I had no idea where we would end up).

MIL gave the kids $50. They spent $40 on souvenirs and arcade games. I will consider that a wash. We probably would not have done any of the above, otherwise. Though that was another plus for Six Flags. Their arcade was actually reasonably priced.

$20 parking, $400 food, $180 gas. Total is $600. But we will pull $100 from the regular food and gas budget to cover some of the costs. So, leaves $500 to come out of the vacation budget.

Hotel - free with MIL's timeshare
Parks - paid for by MIL and credit card rewards
Kitty hotel - paid for with credit card rewards

I think it was an extraordinary vacation for $500!

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Our total vacation budget is $1500 per year and so that leaves $1,000 for the rest of this year. Was waiting to see how this shook out before we plan trip to visit my sister. Waiting to see how that shakes out before we decide what to do with the kids' fall break.

Well, things are shaking out. My mom is not feeling up to flying out to see my sister and she offered to fly them out here. She feels bad about the whole thing. But I told her I think it is great. I did not want to fly out my whole family and I knew that would disappoint my sister. It just makes way more financial sense to bring her out here.

In exchange, my mom offered to fly me out with one other person in my family. I don't know if I will take up the offer to bring someone else. It will probably just be my dad and I. If she is really intent on being fair maybe they can pay for $400-ish of BM's Japan airfare next year. For that second airfare.

I have never seen my sister's current home or been to her current state (Kentucky) and so I think it's important to still go out there. I do look forward to just having a special trip with my dad.

I also think I can get us a free hotel, from MIL. (Or we may just split a $50/night hotel room). I don't even know if we will need to rent a car.

So that trip is starting to look fairly -$0- on the spending front. & that is a nice surprise!

Since we will likely go visit my sister the week my kids have off of school, dh and I are leaning towards doing something small that week. When I get back. Maybe just Death Valley. Or maybe just Grand Canyon. But don't want to do the whole giant road trip thing, due to time and finances.

We do have a beach weekend planned in August, so it's nice we might have a little spending money for that. I think we will loosen the purse strings on that one. (We already have a free hotel room and may or may not reserve the kitty hotel).

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All of the above is good, because this backpacking trip is going in the other direction. My dad mentioned we could just rent some stuff. So you know, we just got back from vacation and are looking at prices. BM leaves on Tuesday. We probably should have just planned ahead and bought some used gear. !!

Our attempts to borrow a tent are also failing, given the last minute nature of our preparations. I did find a backpack to borrow but also saw some at REI for $99 that were very highly reviewed and could last a lifetime for BM. That I am totally cool with. But haven't seen anything on the tent front under $200.

The University does rent out tents so we will look into that tomorrow. If that does not pan out my dad said he can rent one for us. The REIs around here don't have any rentals? But several in his neck of the woods do have rentals.

Anyway, preparation and planning is probably the #1 key to frugality. & I am feeling a little frustrated with our lack of planning. I am seeing how we could have saved a lot of money with a little bit of planning.

As of right now, will borrow a backpack for free. (Is a friend who owes me a favor anyway). Will probably rent a tent somewhere and then keep an eye for a sale for next time. My dad wants me to buy a titanium bowl and spork. {BM is going backpacking for three days with my dad. I suppose I should have mentioned that at the beginning}. We will owe my dad for some camping fees and so on too, but don't expect that to be much. Like literally a few dollars. Thought we might be driving to drop off or pick up but it seems they have most of that covered. It is a relief that we don't have to drive the van down too. Will just take the gas sipper to deliver BM. Maybe someone can also meet us halfway for that.

I will take all this from the vacation budget. This is also giving me renewed motivation to get that last $200 Chase bonus. That would go a long way to some backpacking gear if he thinks he will want to start backpacking more. (I don't see why he wouldn't).

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One final thing. Our Ting bill is going to be about $120 this month. We went over on our usual minutes with our travels. My dad has also been traveling.

My dad just got back from Japan and was able to use his phone there. Ting pricing was very reasonable. So that is the rest of it.

$120 is still significantly cheaper than our old sprint bill. So I had to talk up Ting a bit and share our referral code again.

$25 off referral link:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

Overall, travel aside, we have bumped up to the next data tier with my new phone. I must be using it a lot more. I don't know. So our household's portion of the Ting bill is averaging $30/month instead of $25.

I seem to be on a roll this year for doing really dumb things.

So LM was quibbling with me the other day and I was trying to deposit their birthday money into their accounts and so on. I had a $20 birthday check for LM. He deposited $7 from his piggy bank and BM had $10 from his piggy bank.

Oh yeah, so I found out the "catch" on their 7% accounts. I could not believe they let us open those accounts for the kids without us having to be CU members. BUT, the catch is we can't take money out without going in person. UGH! BM hit the $500 max (for 7% interest) so I told him we could go withdraw interest once or twice a year. I was going to just transfer it out every quarter until I went in and they said I could not do that.

On the deposit side it is okay because they can do phone deposits. Go figure. So I just write them checks to deposit. Usually the kids give us cash from their piggy bank, we put the cash in the allowance money pile (to give back to them later), and I deposit a check into their account. Since they won't let me transfer money into their accounts, from external accounts. It works...

So let's start over. LM had $27 to deposit and BM had $10. I was quibbling with LM and I proceeded to put all of his money into BM's account. TWO CHECKS! From two different people. I told dh that I doubt the CU would even notice. But was hoping I would not create returned check fees and problems.

It's been a week and it looks like they all went through without a problem. Phew! I guess I have to straighten it out on our end, now. Dh is going to deposit BM's $20 check at our CU. We can transfer from that account. Will then put it in our account and write a check to his brother for his CU account. That will straighten out the $20 I put in the wrong account. Then I owe BM $10 and LM owes us $10. I will have to think through that part later.

Okay, so through my work experience, I'd say banks frequently don't look too closely at checks. If they are signed, who they are made out too, the date, whatever. They don't seem to look at any of this stuff! So I am not surprised at all if it all goes through.

BUT... I seem to have been spending a ridiculous amount of time this year straightening out the stupidest little things. So, crossing my fingers that the CUs really are paying that little attention. Could I be so lucky this time?

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Reminds me, I seem to have failed at getting the $200 bonus from Chase since we don't have a true direct deposit. After reading that it doesn't matter. *sigh*

I will do a little more research on that before I give up and close the account. Looks like I should just try from another bank account. I have a couple of CU accounts and I do see reports that some random CU ACH transfers do seem to work. So I will keep trying.

A sure way to vacation success is to go in with low expectations.

Background: In-laws invited us to So Cal for a week. We were wary about the heat and crowds and spending all that time with them, but in the end it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately FIL had an injury and they didn't end up really doing anything with us. ??? So it was kind of weird (to go on vacation with someone and then never see them), but WE certainly had fun.

Disneyland: Glad we didn't spend our own money to confirm that the kids are over it.

My parents took me to Disney once. I always kind of appreciated the magic of vacations like that because they were so rare. Living a 6-hour drive from Disney I certainly know many people who go many times a year and seem to enjoy it. But, dh and I are just so bored with it, and our kids even moreso. (I think they have both been 6-8 times? The older one a couple of times more?). As dh said, "We don't care enough about anything to actually wait in line for it". We saved that for Wednesday and the day started out pretty well but it was so crowded in the afternoon and evening. We gave up and left early. For the most part it was way better than expected and we did all the "long wait" stuff early on before there were any lines. Phew.

The kids still LOVE Legoland and the in-laws did join us for a few hours.

For BM's birthday we went to Six Flags. Best day of our week. We could not believe how not-crowded it was. There was only one ride BM could not get into (didn't want to wait 45 minutes and the ride shut down when he decided to do it last even if the wait was long), was the new one. We told him we will come back in 5 years and everyone will be bored of it. It was surprising how short the lines were on everything else.

So, we decided that he did 11 mega coasters for his 11th birthday.

Oh, and the Six Flags by us is just awful. They won't let you carry fanny packs on the baby rides or set your drink down while you ride. Ridiculous $1 lockers by every ride where you have to put your hat and sunglasses. Dh and I both worked at an amusement park in high school and we were just kind of annoyed about everything last time we went to that Six Flags, in comparison. Looking at the website this one seemed to be about the same so I Was resigned to being the "stuff holder" all day. In the end, they had very few rides that requested lockers (BM saw one or two) and they still let you set your hat and drinks to the side for the ride. It's a small thing but it makes a big difference in enjoyment.

Compared to the other crowded parks, Six Flags was heaven. LM and I had a surprisingly enjoyable time though we didn't do many rides. Dh was a sport and rode most the BIG rides with BM. I am just getting too old for that stuff. Dh feels the same way, but he is a trooper. Next time we need to find a friend who is brave enough or tall enough. We could not for this trip. (His best friend is way too short to ride anything!)

I am guessing we spent $500 for the entire trip. Will see where we end up. Six Flags was entirely paid for by credit card rewards. In-laws paid for our other park tickets. We treated MIL to a $100 meal for her birthday dinner but she got us $100 Disney dollars (going to a timeshare talk). So I think we made out pretty well. We could have made the Disney day free, with the disney dollars, but decided to splurge on a ridiculously expensive lunch. $90 for four. IT was okay. If we had spent real money we would have been pretty disappointed.

Dh and I also made it to one show. A podcast one of his favorite comedians does. There were some other $10 shows but the timing didn't work and these are all shows that come to San Francisco at times. So, those will have to wait for another time.

I can't believe we were gone for 5 nights. I can get pretty cranky when we are away from home too long, but I think I am mellowing with age. I seem to travel better. But still very happy to be home! LM too seemed to have a surprisingly good attitude but this morning he told me he was happy to be home and he was going to hug the floor all day. That is usually how I am.

Edited to add: $500 in expected costs is for food and fuel.

I feel like I have been on vacation for weeks. Work is just really quiet. (Clients are mostly on vacation so I am getting caught up with stuff, just doing what I want to do). The long weekend was extremely refreshing (feels like it was more than a week or something). I think a lot of it is that I don't work a full week again until kids go back to school. Two more vacations in that time. I am already winding down for vacation after a quiet couple of weeks and a long weekend.

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I updated my 2014 rewards tally in my last post.

It's been a good money week. I did receive the $2k kids' college money.

I redeemed $200 Chase Freedom reward towards Six Flags expense, as planned. (Just saw my rewards hit today). I saved the rest ($36?) to redeem next month with gas 5% cash back (vacation driving). I expect this reward to be a grand total of $250. Will redeem the remaining $50 next month and will figure out what to do with it at that time.

We received our $500 (SW Chase) gift cards yesterday.

I won't know about dh's other $200 checking reward until Friday?

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I had yet to close the last two Chase Sapphires we opened. No rush, until the annual fee comes due a year after we opened. I probably would have closed them by now, but I did not want to close them while opening other accounts for rewards. In case it lessened our chances for any reason. The checking offers were because we had Chase accounts, and so I decided not to close them until we got our checking rewards, at the least. We have since both applied for new Chase accounts. At the time we both only had one Chase credit card.

SO...

Today I closed my Chase Sapphire card and dh's SW Chase card. The SW chase card was paid off yesterday AND we received the reward. It's best to close that one ASAP to get the annual fee refunded. Crossing my fingers on that too.

I will pay off the Chase Freedom next pay day and close that account. I will close dh's Chase Sapphire as soon as I sort out the SW Chase. Maybe tomorrow.

I can't close our Chase checking accounts before December. I have those set up in Quicken with a reminder. If we close before 12/31/14, we will be eligible to do the same rewards again in 2015. But if we close before December we forfeit our rewards.

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I suppose I have been somewhat in cleanup mode. Also managed to do some light de-cluttering around the house. Freecycling a few items, recycling batteries, etc.

I was going to say I wish that I had anything to sell. BUT, I guess that is not true. I am glad I don't have much laying around that we don't use or need. The difficult part for me is the stuff I don't want to throw away. (Thank goodness for freecycle! So glad to get things to people who can use them, even if can not sell for money or give to charity). I did have two freecycle no-shows, which is really annoying. I got a slew of e-mails of interested parties, but it's hard to tell who is actually serious I guess.

I purged a personalized frame (unique spelling), my very old and tired cat carrier, and a small animal pet leash. The free stuff got enough interest that I will try a few more random things next weekend.

We decided to do an impromptu birthday party for LM tonight. Sleepover, one guest. His wants are simple. He requested an indoor sleepover and Round Table Pizza. & a homemade cake. I think we can oblige.

Oh, and frozen waffles for breakfast.

BM will probably have a backyard campout with his best friend, when we return from vacation.

We were going to worry about them both after vacation, but we thought to ask if LM's friend would be free tonight, with the holiday. I think the kids are excited to space out their parties a bit more.

I am also noticing that the kids' favorite play place tend to be open on Holidays. (Is otherwise closed for parties on the weekends. So we just hit it when we can on weekdays). BUT, it looks like it will be open all weekend. I last took them on Mother's Day. There was no one there and I read a book. It was DIVINE!! I hope it is half as quiet there this weekend.

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Kids also got free cupcakes from our local grocery store. For their birthday month.

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Fiscally, I just paid all the bills for the month so I won't have to worry about getting my next paycheck late (after vacation). I am good until August. Mostly this means paying off all the credit cards for last month. They all have credit balances at the moment. (Since I round up to nearest $1 or $5 when I pay, I have some reward credits already applied from last month, prepaid $200 snowflake for kitty hotel, and haven't charged a penny this month yet).

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The above reminds me that the in-laws are coming up on Monday, to celebrate LM's birthday. They charged up $3,000 of our medical bills for travel rewards. I will repay them Monday while they are here.

I expect they will bring birthday money for the kids. They have consistently gifted $1k per year, per child, since birth. For college. (Though I think that is pretty flexible. Dh didn't need his college money and instead used for a down payment on our first home. I wouldn't be surprised if it is the same for our kids, and I know the in-laws would be cool with that).

Between the low cost of education in our state, and the in-laws providing enough gifts to fund 4 years of college, college savings probably couldn't be any lower on our priority list. BUT, this year we are starting to match the in-laws' contributions. I received a $150/month raise this year and so that is where the raise is going. That said, this match is not being solely earmarked for college. (Is probably more earmarked for retirement). But it will be there if we feel we need it for college.

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June/July Fiscal Minutiae:

--Received $22 bank interest & $11 taxable dividends (dividends are from that new "college" fund I mentioned)

--Transferred $190 to "college savings/misc" account: $150 monthly contribution + $25 credit card reward + $15 monthly internet promo savings

--I did not have my usual $50 ROTH reward this month. Because I let MIL charge up $3,000 of our medical bills. That cost me $60 in ROTH rewards. (But they are very generous so I do not mind. Like I said, I think they are bringing me a $2,000 check for kids' college).

--I updated side bar for IRA and other savings. (Saving $1300/month for the rest of the year, to max out IRAs).

**We got our $500 gift cards ordered (SW Chase reward).

Dh is still set on a $300 game system. The sales keep changing quickly so he decided to get Best Buy gift cards. He can do price matching there. (Otherwise, who knows where to best get gift cards - we won't receive them for another week).

Oh, and our printer broke and so we picked up $100 Amazon gift cards to replace our printer. It was really old, probably unfixable, and so I look forward to upgrading significantly.

Because of the printer situation we decided not to buy a second tent. We will let the kids use our nice tent in the backyard. We don't use it that much, so might as well. Too many other financial pressures at the moment.

Dh got $50 Amazon gift cards to spend on whatever; I got a $50 Kohls card. I don't have anything in mind but will just keep for future clothing needs.

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Vacation plans are firming up. Since we traveling during BM's birthday, he chose Six Flags for the day of his birthday.

In-laws seem uninterested in tagging along, surprisingly. They still have cards to charge up and so on. But, so do I. So I will go ahead and pre-buy those tickets. I *just* got my Chase Freedom card (took forever!). & so will charge up some auto insurance and Six Flags admissions. I will top that one off today. (Spend $500/get $225).

Six Flags will be around $200 for admission and parking, so I will just let the reward pay for that.

If I can remember and keep it all straight, we will use the Chase Freedom for gas on our trip. They have 5% cash back on gas, next quarter. Overall we already have a 4-card sytstem and I much prefer "ongoing rewards" than this rotating categories business. But, we are going on long drive and I have the card so might as well use it. For this one trip.

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Dh didn't get his Chase checking bonus because I forgot that his "direct deposit" had to be more than $500. I tried again. *Fingers Crossed*

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I didn't do that focus group after all. The person who called me was obviously new. She missed a question and so I did not qualify. Bummer!

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Spending:

**Paid dh's $1500 MRI bill.

**Our vacuum cleaner broke and we replaced it. I used some reward to pay for it and charged the purchase towards some other reward.

**I have to nail down dates and buy airfare for planned visit to sister (Kentucky/Ohio) in the fall. I'd probably move on that but trying to coordinate with my parents.

**BM is backpacking with my dad later next month. I suppose I am throwing that on the birthday pile. Dh was telling me something about gear or costs and I told him, "Yeah yeah, I kind of figured money was no object for that". It's a special trip and will do whatever we need to do. Dh already has some backpacking gear, my dad has some extra, and he mentioned we could rent the rest. So, I don't think it will be very much.

**Oh, and I keep forgetting. We need to replace our water heater. I am kind of being cheap and lazy on that. If it isn't broke, why fix it? BUT, it's clearly near the end of its life and when they go it isn't always pretty. So we did want to ideally fix that before we went on any vacations this year. We didn't get around to it but have some time before our other (bigger) trips.

Just checking in. Got back from camp today and have lots of laundry to do. A shower would be nice too!

I know we have lots of new bloggers around here, so I will do a bigger update. We have an annual family tradition to go to our city's "Family Camp". Several of the cities around here own or lease campgrounds in various areas. (Near Yosemite or Tahoe). Some of our family lives in other cities so we have tried various camps throughout the years.

BUT, Camp Sac has really nice cabins and it's a lot closer. So we have come to prefer it. It's about 90 minutes from our house and 1/2 hour from our family cabin. Only about 20 minutes outside of Tahoe.

The kids get the run of the campground and various supervised activities, so the adults can rest. It is DIVINE! Especially when our kids were younger. They provide all food.

So, we just returned from our 3-night stay. We went with my nieces, SIL, my in-laws and my dad. We decided this was our 6th year at Camp Sac. I can't believe that!

I think the weather has mostly been okay the past few years, though one year the camp was buried in snow this time of year and another year they had just cleared out most the snow. THEN last year rained the *entire time*. Which this year the staff said they never remember happening before. Yeesh!

But I guess this year made up for it. *Perfect* weather.

This picture is at Lake Tahoe. Sometimes it is warm at camp but too chilly by the water to really enjoy the lake. But we were blessed with perfect lake weather yesterday.



Some of the camps are more reasonable. I'd say Camp Sac is fairly expensive. (They try to advertise it as a cheaper alternative to Disney, but WE tend to spend about as much go to Disney. It's probably cheaper than an average vacation, but is expensive if you have a very small vacation budget. Camping is certainly infinitely cheaper and we have many beautiful campsites in our state). But anyway, MIL loves to vacation with the extended family and it seems to scratch that itch for her. We may have paid the first couple of times but now she insists on covering it. I am expecting this to cost us $0. We drove a little extra but didn't have to buy food for 3 or 4 days.

I was reflecting on what special times the kids have had there. My kids may outgrow it soon enough. So we are cherishing the years that they still enjoy it.

**Just waiting for a few bank and credit card rewards to come through. $200 seems to be the number, of late. (I think we have racked up 5 x $200).

I am pleased to say that the Southwest Chase double dip worked. Woohoo! That will be $500 in gift cards.

Crossing my fingers that our "fake direct deposit" worked for another $200. Will find out next week.

**Kids finished school this week and so we are slipping into vacation mode. I don't think I work a full week again until they go back to school.

**The kids' birthdays are coming up in July. That whole thing has been interesting. We literally and seriously told them not to expect anything for their birthday. Which we did achieve last year (no gifts). But have failed this year. We told them that because we bought some things earlier in the year that we did not want to wait until July for.

BUT, with credit card rewards and deals, their gift pile has gotten absolutely ridiculous. At least it will be very unexpected.

We spent $50 on them. Dh saw a prepaid Moto G phone deal and picked that up. They use my old phone to play games they can't get elsewhere. So, when dh saw this deal he was very excited about it. I thought it was the perfect surprise gift. (The Moto G is much nicer, and they won't have to share the one phone as much).

Dh wants to pick up a Wii U with the gift cards. We are negotiating on that. (He seems pretty set on it so I am trying to talk him into buying it after birthdays or holding until Christmas. It seems ridiculous for birthday). We had also already agreed to pick up a tent for them, with gift cards. We saw a massive one for $100-ish and thought that it would be nice for them to have a tent for the backyard. One that we don't care if they muck up.

THEN, I am talking to MIL the other day and she tells me to tell dh she "picked up a DS2" and then quickly changed the subject. I was thinking, "Surely that is not for my kids?" So I asked him about that, and surely it *is* for my kids. (The in-laws are crazy on the Christmas gifts but usually don't do much for their birthdays. BUT, they are trying to rack up some travel rewards).

So that is how their "expect nothing" birthday turned into the Great Gift Extravaganza of 2014.

**Our trip with the in-laws is coming up. (Which is also a birthday gift of sorts, for the kids). I never know if these trips are going to cost us $0 or $1,000. When they invite us and insist on paying for the bulk of it. But it's been several years and we are in an infinitely better financial position than last time we planned a trip together. So we will just roll with it.

Since the in-laws are racking up credit card rewards, they already bought all the park tickets and we have our kitty daycare covered. Which is a great start. I think if I suggested they put us as authorized users on their reward credit card that they would be over the moon with us charging up all our gas and food on the trip. But, I didn't go there. As is, we can handle food and gas. & I am sure they will manage to squeeze in and pay for some of that.

I am waiting on a $500 reward (Still crossing my fingers if this double dip will work).

I am waiting on a $200 reward.

Both of those are dh's and a little iffy. Technically we don't qualify but so many people online said this or that worked that we gave it a go.

I qualified for a focus group. It's been YEARS - I don't remember the last one I did. $85 for 2 hours. It's the day we get back from camp. We should get back pretty early and its a paid vacation day for me. So I figured I might as well get double paid. The focus group is in the late afternoon.

So, I came across another Indian cookbook author and have been trying out a few recipes. (I put her cookbook on my Amazon wish list - will get it for Christmas if nothing else).

But she has a bunch of recipes on her website.

I tend to fry up potatoes on the weekends and so I decided to try an Indian version today:

http://monicabhide.com/monicas-indian-express-potatoes-with-...

Different spices that ended up tasting pretty similar to our "paprikia/salt/pepper" blend. Dh said the spice was pretty subtle. I told him I had doubled the spices. I think "tripling" them will be the sweet spot for this dish. We like our spice.

What I am intrigued by is this dish: Indian Style Chili.

http://monicabhide.com/indian-style-chili-monica-style/

I still have to find a samosa recipe, for the young'un who is on a samosa kick. Just been busy with other things.

What we don't have and what I want is a good and simple Thai curry recipe. I tried one while dh and the kids were sick one week in winter. I thought it was okay and dh and the kids didn't like it. They had some flu and their tastes buds were way off. I just mentioned and dh said he liked it. I said, "That is not what I recall". Though it's possible they would like it better in good health. I think I rather scour the internet for a similar recipe with high reviews. I was healthy and the flavor was a little off to me.

So those are my two current cooking goals. To find a good and easy samosa and thai curry recipes.

P.S. Check out my last post - a good balsamic chicken recipe.

For dinner last night we had Balsamic Chicken with Broccoli couscous.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/balsamic-chicken-with-bro...

YUM!

The chicken was excellent but couscous was just okay.

We don't spend a lot on monthly household spending, aside from groceries. I mean, I have been told I should separate non-food purchases in tracking and so on, but I don't see the point because there isn't much to track. If we need something, we buy it.

I think a lot of it is that we try to reuse/reduce/recycle as much as possible.

We have always used cloth rags for cleaning, cloth napkins, tupperware for lunches, etc., etc. We rarely have to buy trash bags since we always have plastic bags at our disposal. & not generating much trash is also a lot of that.

Personally, I think there is always room for improvement. So I wanted to share a couple of recent improvements that I am pleased with.

Firstly, we bought a reusable mop a couple of years back. I have shared that before, but just wanted to say I am still LOVING that.

http://www.amazon.com/LIBMAN-CO-00117-Libman-Microfiber/dp/B...

Secondly, I had put silicon muffin molds on my wish list last year, to replace paper muffin cups, and received them for Christmas.

http://www.amazon.com/California-Kitchenware-Butterfield-Sil...

I had never gotten around to using them. (I made some muffins since but was admittedly too lazy to clean the reusable ones, etc., etc.). Yesterday I was cleaning up and decided to wash them, which probably helped. Since they were able to dry overnight. Versus wanting to use them and not wanting to wash them and dry them first.

I used them today and they were just awesome and so easy to clean. LOVE LOVE LOVE! I am converted. Will wash them up and they will be ready for next time. (They are also dishwasher safe but they were so easy to clean that I just hand washed them. Seemed more hassle to put them through the wash).

Thirdly, I bought these reusable water bottles about a year ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-Refill-Reuse-20-Ounce-Bottl...

I was skeptical about the durability when I first bought because these bottles are difficult to close. I thought it would frustrate the kids and/or they would break them trying to pry them open. But, surprisingly they have been really durable. (The kids take daily with their lunch).

We should have bought these water bottles ages ago, but it seemed like we always had an endless supply of water bottles (like our parents would buy some from Costco and give us a case, or whatever). We had also bought some cheaper bigger ones a while back but they didn't last very long. These seem to be a good middle ground. & they are dishwasher safe. & the kids delight in freezing them overnight so that they have cold water on hot days.

So those are my recent "reuse" upgrades.

What do you reuse in your house? I need more ideas.

**I received $200 from opening a Chase checking account. I already transferred that into my savings account.

**While checking dh's Southwest Chase card I saw that he was getting an online offer (to apply online) for a Chase checking account for $200 bonus. (I had scoured his spam when I got my offer; he didn't get the same offer I did).

The catch? This one is a direct deposit offer. I am printing it out and setting it aside. I saw enough stories of success with bank account transfers (in lieu of paycheck direct deposits, which is what the fine print says it should be), that we may give this one a whirl. Worst case, he doesn't get the bonus and we just close the account after a few days. Not a lot of effort to try.

Will probably just save or invest this $200.

**We need to spend $2,000 on the Southwest Chase, with hopes of being able to double dip for a $500 reward.

I already charged $950 for health insurance and yearbooks. (I try to avoid small charges on these things - less to keep track of. But, the yearbook was an unexpected expense and so I figured, "what the heck". Since I know we will get to $2k quickly).

I have a $800 charge to bill for work that will be reimbursed. So, that just leaves about $250 to come up with. I will probably just prepay some health insurance and be done with it.

**I got my 6% CD set up finally at HFCU. Like I can actually access my acounts and transfer money. It was really a PITA. I think they got overwhelmed by the number of new customers they attracted.

All of the above makes me really appreciate our local credit union. It is the best of all worlds. Way ahead of its time (have always had online bill pay and online deposits and yadda yadda, long before the big banks were able to implement for their bigger customer base). My CU's website is so intuitive and easy to use. Customer service is A+. HFCU was just kind of a mess and I was starting to regret opening the account. Maybe more of the credit union stereotype? But, now it's squared away. & as to Chase? I could only internally roll my eyes as they went over all their fees when I had to sign up in person.

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Ting Update:

With my new phone I accidentally used a big pile of data (due to some settings on the new phone). This added $7 to our bill and $3.50 to our half. I guess we will survive.

Of course, the family was filled with crazy medical drama this month and I have been using minutes more than usual with my car upgraded with bluetooth. I saw my parents last weekend and told them no big deal, but if they didn't need to make calls to just cool it for the next few days. (Mostly didn't want to pay $9 for the entire tier for going over just a few minutes). But if not, whatever. But we are all four savers by nature and so we made it through. (I think this would be hard to do with different personality types, but we all cared enough to remember and to not make unnecessary calls).

In the end, we didn't go over our usual minute usage. Total bill will be around $60. $30 for our half. Not bad for a high volume minutes and data month. Ironically, this is like the first bill that we actually have to pay. By far the biggest one we have had. (We only paid $10 for the entire first 6 months). I do have a couple of referrals in the works, so will see. Maybe next month will be free.

Ting announced last week that they now have an exchange program for non-Sprint phones.

"From May 22 to June 30, sell any of the following T-Mobile, AT&T or Verizon devices on Glyde and buy the same Sprint model, capacity and condition. We will reimburse you with a Ting credit to cover any difference between what you spend (plus fees, taxes and shipping) and what you collect.

Apple iPhone 4
Apple iPhone 4S
Apple iPhone 5
Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Samsung Galaxy S2
Samsung Galaxy S3"

"Second, if you want to upgrade to a better device (as long as it is on the Sprint network and on our whitelist), you can do that. We will just give you a credit for what it would have cost you to swap for the same exact device (plus fees, taxes and shipping) and then you’ll cover the price of the upgrade on top of that. For example, sell your Verizon iPhone 4 and buy a Sprint iPhone 5, or even a Sprint Samsung Galaxy SIII. We will credit you the difference between buying a Sprint iPhone 4 on Glyde and what you recovered selling the Verizon iPhone 5 at the recommended price plus taxes, fees and shipping. So, we will cover what a swap would have been. And you will have paid for the “upgrade”."

https://ting.com/blog/ting-your-t-mobile-att-or-verizon-ipho...

I personally not have used Glyde, BUT Ting literally credited our account for our "early termination fee" refund the day I submitted the request. They are FAST with account credits.

Here is my Ting referral code, for $25 off at sign up.

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

Also, if you have *any* questions about the process, don't hesitate to call or e-mail Ting customer support. They are GREAT.

Small Fiscal Updates

--I finally got smoothie maker replaced with a working one - dh returned non-working one for me

--I got 6% CD all set up after endless issues

--I *finally* got my full Kohls refund (from like January???)

--No new jinxes lately?

--Crossing my fingers, but signed up dh for the Southwest Chase card. It's a double dip, but it's been over two years on that one. They are more strict on the double dips. If it goes well I may apply sometime in the future. It seems to be hit and miss from reports of others. Reward is $500 in Amazon gift cards.

--I spent about $60 buying clothing for BM. Uniform pants for winter, uniform shorts, regular shorts, and a jacket, all in the next size up. I thought to shop because I unpacked all the summer/swim wear I had bought in clearance during the winter. I think that was $60 for 9 items of clothing, and the jacket was quite nice. He's fairly set for the next year. LM is rich in hand-me-downs.

--Dh's mom has been mending uniform pants into shorts, for us. Dh thought this up and is genius since the kids prefer shorts most the year anyway. & they are kind of rough on pants.

--I do have to buy a backpack for LM, and am keeping an eye out. I think August will be a better time to find a deal. (He starts 4th grade and his dinky little "since kinder" backpack is not going to cut it. 4th grade is intense at their school - lots of books).

--I was commenting the end of last year that only the electric bill was left as far as room for improvement. & I was kind of stuck on that one.

Well... We do the balanced billing because it's just so much easier. Most our bills are fixed every month and I find that easier to manage. Makes our monthly spending very predictable.

So, our electric budget billing just went from $90 to $65. Woohoo! I keep an eye on the usage and hadn't noticed anything, but after the reduction I went back and looked at past 6 months or so and noticed that we have been consistently using a little bit less electricity. I think the large swing is due to the fact that we have been over-paying for a while. There is a time lag on the billing.

We also tend to be pretty consistent and so we have never had a big adjustment either way (after several years of budget billing). So this was certainly a significant change. Will see where it ends up eventually. As we approach A/C weather, they may decide to "up" that in another 6 months or so. Particularly since this has been a really hot May (maybe a really hot summer?)

I had no idea why our bill would go down, but dh told me he thinks that his new computer is much more energy efficient, and it has a better automatic sleep mode. He has had that for about a year. I'd say most the appliances we have bought lately are supposed to be way more energy efficient, but the computer is the first one that seems to be noticeable as far as to lower electricity bills.

Fiscally, things are going quite well.

*knock on wood*

Aside from saving up for our homes, we are maybe $5,000 away from the most we have ever had in savings. Which would be more than we have had saved up since having kids. I don't know the exact (peak) figure since I just track net worth every 12/31. Since my first pregnancy went so well we diverted a lot of that money into retirement that first year. So pre-kids was the peak; we were saving up for multiple maternity leaves and so on. We spent it down and redirected because we never imagined dh would be out of work 5 years later, much less 12 years later! It's been slow going to build that back up, but we are getting there.

Along the same lines, I wanted to update about a "big picture" goal. Last year we achieved more assets than debts. We've always had a positive net worth, but I mean we reached the point where we could pay off our mortgage with our savings and investments. We reached that goal in March 2013.

Where are we today? Today we could pay off our mortgage and have $50,000 left over. Woohoo! I think that's great progress for one year. (& that was with a very very expensive and trying 2013).

The next big goal for us? More in retirement savings than owed on mortgage. We are within a few thousand dollars of that milestone.

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After years of consolidating and cleaning things up, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. I am opening more accounts (two taxable investment accounts this past year) and I have to open a Traditional IRA for dh. He only has a ROTH. We had converted all of our money into ROTHs during some of our lowest income years, but I have a Traditional IRA from a work retirement plan rollover in the years since.

OF course, the kids have their 7% savings accounts and I just opened two bank accounts for bonuses. So, yeah, it feels like I am opening a LOT of accounts. I suppose that is a GOOD thing.

I saw this on Facebook today. Don't you love it?



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We went to the Maker Faire yesterday. It was awesome.

The plan was to go for one day, and evaluate if we should go two days next year. Though two days would no doubt be absolutely exhausting, I think that is what we should aim for next year. I think if it was just us adults, the one day was good enough (there is probably a lot of overlap year to year; not because we actually got to see everything!). BUT, the kids hands-on stuff was fairly infinite and the kids just ate it up. So, for that, I think it's worthwhile to make the time and financial commitment next year. As is, there was an entire "Kids Hall" that we never even made it to.

LM had a blast with an animation station that was set up. He is talented on the artistic side, and so we will probably look into getting some software or see if there is a website that he can practice on. "Animation" is just not anything overly specific we have looked into for him, before.

He also saw his favorite video game had a booth and they gave him some freebies so he was over the moon.

BM wanted to do something that took like an hour. He is lucky his daddy had the patience and saw the value. It ended up being the highlight of his day. (If I knew it would be the highlight, of course I would have encouraged him). It was an area where they were ripping apart stuffed toys that move and make sounds. You rip it apart and then cover the electronics up with the parts left from the ones everyone else ripped apart. So he turned a bat into a snowman. Dh dubbed it "frankenfrosty".

The other hit was an area where they had just thrown around a bunch of small appliances for kids to rip apart and see what was inside. Admittedly, I don't know if my kids were into the true spirit of this. They were more into the demolition aspect of it. But BM also enjoyed from a "curiosity/how does it work?" standpoint.

SO... I talked to my dad about it and he said he had some stuff laying around that they could rip apart. (My dad grew up poor in small town Kansas and had absolutely no science mentors. BUT, he enjoyed taking things apart when he was a kid. That's really all he could do. His career ambition was to be a repairman, until he went to college and received guidance. The fact that BM Enjoyed this part so much reminded me of my dad, and I know my dad would love to show him how all this stuff actually works).

It was crazy crowded, but not to the point of non-enjoyment. & I have really low tolerance for crowds. But there just weren't that many lines or anything (except for the bathroom!). The venue was so huge and there was so much to see.

I wouldn't even know where to begin with everything we saw. Here is a cute video that gives a overview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wlw4qRJ5YZo

The giant flaming octopus reminds me of our neighbor who liked to shoot fire balls in the air. (Keep in mind the high density housing and the desert like climate. !!! CRAZY). Maybe we should just be glad he wasn't *that* ambitious. (Apparently 200 gallons of propane for the giant octopus, for the weekend). {That neighbor lost his home to foreclosure and is long gone. Surprise surprise}.

**Exciting news on the cell phone front. The new Moto E was announced, at $129. (The price drops this past 6 months are crazy!).

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5/13/5712900/motorola-moto-e-re...

Moto E is not supported on Ting yet (neither is Moto G), but I will let you know when it is.

Moto E + Ting will make for some very cheap cell-phoning.

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**One of my pet peeves is loose change just sitting around (not earning interest in the bank!). I noticed a while ago dh had a bag of change laying around. He told me it was the money he found in Florida in 2012. (He found about $4 on a ride).

I was going to deposit it into the kids' accounts (free loose changing machine if it goes into their accounts) but decided that dh had more time and he could take care of it. He said, "Why don't I just take it to the grocery store change machine for an Amazon gift card?" I said, "Why don't you?" Because it's been sitting around for over 18 months and you haven't done anything with it? He is trying to drive me crazy!!

The kids take after their dad. They refused to deposit their loose change. So, dh lucked out. I told him to get the Amazon gift card. If I still see that change in a week or two, I might have to go figure that machine out myself. Finders keepers.

**Speaking of Amazon, I received a $20 Amazon gift card for doing a survey re: my profession. Woohoo!! I am supposed to get another $20 for a phone interview. I had almost forgotten about it because it took them a week to send me the gift card. It seemed pretty legit, but I was getting skeptical after a time. But then it arrived today.

I already spent my gift card. BM is going to sleepaway camp very shortly and I wanted to get him a disposable camera for the trip. I picked up a couple of things I needed and dh recommended a game for the kids (birthday) so I could get the free shipping. I don't know if I will get the camera in time, but I tried and the camera at least will be "free".

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One more random thing. I am still definitely jinxed (I have never spent so much time in my life dealing with customer service for this or that - OMG). I think the jinx has worn off on dh. For example, I ordered a smoothie maker on his Amazon account (I don't remember why I ordered from his account, but I did) and it arrived broken. Would not work at all. By itself, whatever, but this is every single thing I have touched this year. ???

So... We had some interesting mail this weekend. A birthday card and check arrived for dh. IT was postmarked around the time of his birthday, in JANUARY. It had come to us from California, to California, via Papau New Guinea.

It was from my parents. They didn't notice because they forgot to put the check in their register. We didn't notice because my parents never give us money. So we were surprised by the card, and even more surprised by the generous ($50) check.

But yeah, I think it's official. We both be jinxed.

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The jinx is annoying, but I can appreciate that it is just stupid little stuff.

We are holding our breath for the rest of May because it's kind of heavy on the medical front.

Sister has a big appointment early next week. I don't know where to begin with that, but if there is anything to report with that I will. For now, it just makes me anxious. She is very young, but her health is very poor due to her own choices and lack of care for her health. (It's not an addict thing, but is a lot like that). I am honestly surprised she has not had more problems, but being referred to a specialist is likely because she is developing more serious problems. I don't even know how honest she will be with us, which is a whole other thing. But she did tell us she had an appointment. *sigh*

That by itself is pretty heavy. But, in addition, for those of you who do not know, my spouse also has a brain tumor. It's relatively benign and harmless at this point (after surgical removal), but if it grows we will have to consider radiation and so on. So, he had his annual MRI this week. We will get the results at the end of the month. We are a little extra anxious this year because they were concerned it might have grown last year. (But it was too little to tell). It's the only saving grace about this type tumor. It grows really really really slow. But maybe that's bad too. Not looking forward to another "Gee, I don't know if it's growing or not" evaluation.

So I think my family and his family are all collectively holding our breaths a bit, until we get more news.

Shifting from work mode to play mode, over here.

I took yesterday off, which was first weekday off since December. Having 3 days off feels like having a week off, after tax season.

Dh and I went on a beautiful hour long hike about a 40 minute drive from our home. I just googled "easy" and this is what I came up with. It was close and it looked gorgeous, and it was indeed easy. We were rewarded with a waterfall at the end of the hike.





Afterwards, we went over to Fry's for 50 cent hot dog/soda meals. Dh picked up a blu ray on sale for $9.99. The full prices of those blu rays astound me. Yeesh! ($40 for a movie??)

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Other May doings:

**Robot Wars seems to be a no-go this year. I haven't heard anything as to what happened with that.

So, we have plans to go to the Maker Faire this month, instead.

"Part science fair, part county fair, and part something entirely new, Maker Faire is an all-ages gathering of tech enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, engineers, science clubs, authors, artists, students, and commercial exhibitors. All of these “makers” come to Maker Faire to show what they have made and to share what they have learned."

You name it, they will probably have it. I expect to have some interesting pictures to share.

**This weekend the kids have a birthday party at a rock climbing place. The place has a very reasonably priced summer camp, so we make look into that for BM. He probably needs a membership to one of these places. He is a born climber.

I also noticed the drop-in play place was open Sunday. Hard to get open play on the weekend, due to birthday parties. So, I may take the kids. It's only $7 per kid and it might as well be Disneyland, as far as they are concerned.

**For Memorial Day weekend the HOA has a BBQ and turns on the pool heat.

BM will be at camp that week with his 5th grade class. IT sounds fairly identical to the family camp we always go to in June. I think he will have a blast.

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We have a movie theater in our home. Which I have mentioned before, but probably not much the past few years. My husband is deaf in one ear, post brain tumor. & so I think this has really dampened his enjoyment of the theater room. In addition, he has since bought a couple of HDTVs (which are smaller screens but higher quality). We are also both fairly set on downsizing, so I don't think anyone here has been too upset that the theater room is not getting a lot of use. We aren't taking it with us. (Will just buy a ridiculously large TV for our new home. Which can be way more expensive than our theater setup, but will work better in a smaller space).

BUT...

Dh is getting renewed interest in utilizing the room more. I told him I was more than fine with him upgrading the projector. I know he has been unhappy with it for a long time. I did express my concerns about long-term future. But we both kind of feel if we have the space and the equipment, we might as well enjoy it. We don't plan to downsize for another 15 years or so.

So, we have a loose plan to build a platform for the seating so it is at a more ideal height. & this will allow us to add another row of more formal seating if we ever want to. For now, we have some old office chair and bean bags, which I think will work for a long time. We've been using those anyway, but more seats will work better with the back row raised. I don't think dh cares that much about additional seating aesthetics, but I will keep an eye out on Craigslist for theater seating. The only reason we ever bought theater seats in the first place was we stumbled onto an incredible deal. I am sure we can find a deal on a second row.

Before dh and I discussed it, I was kind of thinking we had really gotten pretty up to date on everything. Finished furnishing our home a couple of years back (took it very slowly over the years) and replaced most our electronics in the past year. I was thinking that really the only thing on our wish list at this point is to replace the old projector. We've agreed to probably do that after Christimas. Dh's parents have been generous lately and if he wants to take all of what they give us at Christmas, I am fine with that. Will probably work on the seating before that since it should be fairly inexpensive to build a platform.

I don't know if I fully realized how much dh has been sulking around the last 4 years, but he seems to be snapping out of it. I am so happy to see him impassioned about his movie set up again. I think financially the timing just works, too. This may have been a ridiculous splurge 2 years ago and it might be two years from now too. But for now, it works. I think his parents will likely pay for it anyway. They have been fairly generous the last couple of Christmases, with cash gifts.

We are waiting until Christmas to see what his parents give us and what kind of year we have financially. We can buy a much better projector for $1,000-ish otherwise. But holding out to potentially spend closer to $3,000 of gift money. Whatever our budget, we will make it work. A $1,000 projector will be a significant improvement.

Our home theater setup is fairly simple. It started with an inexpensive projector on a small table. That was when dh had a dream and we all thought he was a little insane.

We eventually bought a screen and seating, and a new ceiling mounted projector. Around $3,000-ish for all that, but it was about 5 years into this whole movie theater thing. For the first 5 years, a blank wall and a projector and some hand-me-down couch was the setup. We have had the current set up for about 10 years.

That's the bulk of it. Dh has a surround sound setup that he bought in college. He eventually bought a fancier tuner and a blu ray player, but can watch most anything through his computer.

I share because I think it's something really important to share as far as debt free living. It has never been about deprivation for us. It has always been about being creative, and usually means having more than other people anyway. It means starting small and building up. Which is how we approach just about everything. I couldn't tell you how a $30,000 theater set up is any better than our current $3,000-ish set up. The difference would be fairly indiscernable to most. (Especially when you turn out the lights!!) Yes, our projector is outdated, but that would happen no matter how expensive we went. It's a 10-year-old projector and TV technology has blown it out of the water in that time. Dh is fairly confident that this projector will be the last one he ever buys. For this house, anyway. We may be able to swing a theater setup in a smaller space.

As an aside? Technically we paid an extra $30,000 for the room for this theater. That is not exactly frugal. It came to be when we moved to our lower cost haven. We figured we might as well splurge on that because we were saving *so much* on housing. BUT, at then end of the day, since we bought new construction we got the extra space at a deep discount. Today the extra room fetches a premium of about $100,000 over the smaller homes in the same neighborhood. I had to share because I think at the end of the day this little splurge will have been a fairly profitable investment. (It's been like that since Day 1 and was obvious we got an incredible deal on the extra space. Which is why we chose this house in the first place. The space was perfect and the price was right!).

Well, I am well on my way to tripling our bank interest this year. Without any credit card rewards. Literally, just talking bank interest.

**Chase

I got a direct mail offer form Chase, that I have yet to redeem. I will probably do it this weekend. (The offer expires in July. All I have to do is open an account and I will get $200 in 10 days. The kind of offers they sell on Ebay. Fine print is I have to keep $1500 in the account for 6 months to avoid any fees and to keep the bonus. That works out to a 26% interest rate on my $1500 for 6 months. I will take it!)

So, that *doubles* the bank interest income I expect to receive this year.

**Hanscom Federal Credit Union

This one is a little more complicated, but the timing is kind of perfect for me.

The details are at My Money Blog:

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/hansom-federal-cu-thrive-review.h...

Check out the referral link and read his blog post. He did a fine job summing it up.

The short explanation is that this CU is offering 6% interest for 12 months. It's called a Thrive account. It is kind of like a C.D. The max you can put into this account is $500 per month.

You need to open a savings account and keep $25 in the account to be a CU member. You need to open a checking account and keep $1 in that account, because you have to fund the Thrive account with the checking account. You can then transfer up to $500/month into the Thrive account. No minimums in the Thrive account, but there is a penalty for withdrawals. These are basically no-fee accounts.

There is a $30 sign up bonus if you use a referral. On the flip side, if you don't qualify otherwise, you have to pay $35 to join some organization, to qualify as a CU member. But these two pretty much offset. & you can potentially earn additional $30 referrals.

The interest earned on the Thrive account will be in the realm of $3,000 x 6%. Around $180 total interest. Since you have to fund it slowly throughout the year. This in effect *triples* my total bank interest for the next 12 months.

At the end of 12 months, the Thrive account is swept into your savings account, I believe, and you will get a renewal notice about interest rate. Which is otherwise about 3% right now. You then start over at $0.

If I had any doubts about the PITA factor of this account, there was an extra bonus for me. My kids have a 7% interest account that cap out at a $500 balance. My elder child is well on the way to $500. SO... I figure in one year if the interest rate on this account reverts to 3% or so, it would be an excellent place to save up kids' money. & heck, 3% isn't a bad deal for myself either. But yeah, I expect it to be a long while before the kids have $6,000 ($500 x 12). So, it might be a good place just to pool some of their savings and track it in excel or something like that.

{My kids have been REALLY motivated by the higher interest rate, but are well aware they won't earn much, anywhere, after they hit the $500 cap. So, I think this will help motivate them to keep saving}.

Minors (over age 8) can also open these Thrive accounts. I didn't look into those details.

I wish I had my referral code to share, but I don't think I will receive it before this promo ends. 6% Promo ends Saturday.

**For the first of the month I received $19 in bank interest and $100 in credit card rewards. ($50 for ROTH and $50 cash; two different cards).

**I am taking care of some fiscal chores. I finally got around to making sure I was set up as secondary custodian on kids' investment accounts. I was mostly concerned about those (real $$$). Though I guess I should look into getting dh set up as secondary custodian on their savings accounts.

**Got my first Ting bill ever! We signed up right after Thanksgiving? First 4 months were entirely free. For April, we were charged about $10. $5 of that is for our household.

Next month we will likely pay a full $26 for our half of the bill. That has been our consistent monthly usage.

**I plan to open Chase checking account this weekend. That will be a $200 reward earned in something like 10 days.

I am not sure what I will do with this reward. Might just set it aside for vacation/kitty hotel, though I don't know if that is necessary. Otherwise, will probably invest the $200. We are diverting our snowflakes into an investment account, starting this month.

**I opened a new investment account this week, for my current year raise and to divert all snowflakes to. The purpose is a supplementary unemployment fund, college savings, and mortgage paydown/retirement. Gives us a little more liquidity and flexibility for the first two purposes, but mostly expect to use it for retirement or mortgage payoff, eventually.

No firm decisions yet. If things go well we may do 50/50 mortgage paydown/investing. I think that is probably where we will eventually end up.

I guess we are all backwards. When we graduated college the IRA contribution limits were a mere $2,000 per person. But we were saving 50%+ of our income. We started out with much more money in taxable savings and investments than we could possibly put away into tax-deferred accounts. Over the years that has shifted and we have certainly tried to be very tax efficient. In the past we have also done the complete opposite. We were saving too much into retirement, but funded ROTHs anyway knowing that we can use that money for college and so on. IT ebbs and flows.

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**I think last year was a dud on the "vacation lifestyle" front, but this year is shaping up pretty nicely.

Had a few loose vacation plans fall through. (Yellowstone wedding is postponed for a year or two; National Parks don't seem to be in the cards for us).

But, several other things popped up in the meantime. Most of them involve free hotel stays and driving, and so I think I can leave most the vacation budget intact for my plans to visit my sister in Ohio in the fall. Other than that, we have a short trip planned every month for the rest of the year. The Northern California coast, the Southern California coast, Napa, Tahoe, etc.

MIL invited us to Disney. I feel a little bad for her. She wanted to do something nice for us. We could really care less about going to Disney. Even moreso though with the summer offer - hot and crowded! (Even our kids don't want to go. What did we do to our kids??? ). I might regret it, but we are giving it a go. Trying to compromise with Lego Land, which the kids are excited about.

**I got an e-mail about a Chase reward for opening a checking account. $200 reward, and didn't seem to have all the hoops to jump through (direct deposit or debit card usage). I am skeptical because I have never seen that before, from Chase. BUT we have a branch down the street from our house. I will read all the fine print later. But if it looks like a good deal, I will have dh execute that, since he has more time. The bank ones seem to be more hassle, in general. I don't really want to deal with it, but I know dh won't mind. He can just walk over there to open the account and to close the account.

I will let you know if it's a good deal or just a direct targeted offer. For now, I am guessing the fine print will turn me off. I don't have direct deposit and we don't like using debit cards, so makes most these offers generally useless to us.

Edited: The Chase offer I got was a direct offer that I have read about in the past (can buy from ebay, etc.). I asked dh if he received it too. I haven't heard back from him. I didn't see any limits per household or anything. Unfortunately, this one is in my name and I have to deal with it. But, I also saw I could probably just open the account online. So much easier! I have to keep $1500 in the account for 6 months. That is a 25% interest rate. ($200 in 6 months). I will take it!

Unlike credit card rewards, these rewards are taxable. But still very worthwhile.

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I am getting a new phone. I need to get around to another "Ting is awesome" post and beg for another referral. I am not 100% sure if our credit balance will be applied to phone or not. But, if it is, we will have to actually pay for our cell service this month.

Why I am getting a phone is a long story. But mostly the refurbished cheapie dh bought to get through when his last phone broke, has a LOT of problems. I was willing to overlook them but now that we have decided to replace it, I am realizing more problems. So, I feel good about the decision. It gave me an android to play with, and I am very happy with the android. The phone I am getting should last many many years (fingers crossed). & the troublesome android will give the kids a phone to play with and get apps on. (Apps they can't get anywhere else. They can just use it on our wifi - we will de-activate the phone service).

I was also having problems with my new vehicle blue tooth setup, but didn't realize it was problems on the phone end. We were trying to skype the kids over the weekend and I remembered I could never get the sound to work on my phone. So, it's all that stuff that's like, "Yeah, this phone is really crappy". I was willing to live with it another year. I would certainly survive. BUT it kind of defeats the purpose of my car stereo upgrade if my phone doesn't work with it half the time.

In the end, we decided to jump on buying a Moto x while it is on sale at Ting. We had been holding out for them to offer Moto g, for me. Would have cost half as much. BUT, in the end I decided I wanted more in a phone. So might as well buy it on sale.

Grandma gave me the $300 I told her not to give me, for doing her taxes. She pretty much stuffed it in my pocket and ran away. We had decided before Easter that I would replace my phone if she gave me the money. Which obviously she was going to. But, if not, we could wait. So, thanks Grandma!

This means we both paid $400-ish for our phones, in the end. BUT, we are still miles ahead financially from when we even had dumb phone cell service. It will take us 16 months to break even. Well, it would have taken 16 months, except we might already be breakeven because we have never paid Ting a single penny for first 5 months of service. So, the breakeven is even sooner. From then on, we save $50/month versus what we paid for dumb phones with no text or data.

**I have to keep telling myself this, because it does feel ridiculous to pay $800 for two phones. !!**

So anyway, I buy this phone. From Ting. & I tell dh I would like to have it by May 9th, because I am taking a three day weekend and might be a good time to play with it and get it set up. He tells me it takes 10 business days. & that even though he has the feeling that Ting is super fast, it is shipping from Canada. So it will take a while, even if they ship it out ASAP. I said that's fine. Certainly no rush and no paying for expedited shipping.

So, what's the story? We got home late Sunday night from Easter and dh ordered the phone for me. It shipped out of California, and it is due to arrive tomorrow (Wednesday). Holy cow!

So, there you have it. Ting is awesome. I haven't really been pushing Ting for those in the middle of contracts and/or having to buy new phones. But honestly, the having to pay $400 for phones even is still saving us a small fortune.

I guess this is my "Ting is awesome" post.

Here is my referral code:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com/

$25 off for you & $25 credit for me

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One reason we were talking about phones in the first place was dh was telling me some competing $100-ish smart phones are coming out the end of this year. That will make some really nice options for Ting. We'd maybe consider getting the kids a phone like that (they can share for a while) and putting them on Ting. Not now, but when they are older.

I think a lot of more frugie folk on the fence will be jumping to Ting when that happens.

I am not going to specifically save to replace our phones, either. The prices are coming down astronomically. I don't expect it to be a big deal financially when we replace them, in several years.