I saw a great article about teaching children about finances:

The Smart Way to Teach Children About Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

snowflakes into investment account:

$68 cc rewards (per above)

Savings (From paycheck):

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

I updated sidebar for all of the above.

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

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

**I did file our taxes on Tuesday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are on a roll this week!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CASH:

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

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

RETIREMENT:

Maxed out our IRAs. 13.25% of income.

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

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

INVESTMENTS:

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

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

HOME:

The value of our home remained the same.

MORTGAGE:

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

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

TOTAL NET WORTH:

Our net worth increased by $42,000.

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

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2015:

Net worth increase $42k:

Cash + $5,000
Investments + $5,000 ($3k + $2k tax refund)
Retirement + $11,000 (Max IRAs)
Investment Returns + $14,000 (assumes 6% returns)
Mortgage Paydown + $7,000
---------------------------
NET WORTH + $42,000
---------------------------

**My "annual net worth increase" goal has been $30k for several years and this was the first year that I had bumped it up to $42k. I wonder if we can bump this up to a full 60k by the time we are age 40? The plan would be that our net worth would eventually increase by our annual spending every single year ($60k). I don't know what age that will be realistic for, but somewhere in our early 40s is what we are aiming for.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's my January improvement, I suppose.

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

Dh turned 39!

I had been thinking of getting him a kindle (Voyage?) but then we got a laptop instead and he didn't seem overly enthused.

He is big on the kids getting us gifts for holidays and birthdays because it teaches them to manage money. Which I admit is probably extra important since they seem to have very little opportunity to save up and buy for things - too spoiled by grandparents and circumstance.

That said, LM has -0- in his piggy bank and I welcomed the opportunity to do a less materialistic birthday. (I am fine with his -0- balance. Best to learn these lessons when you are 10 versus 20. & maybe is a nice lesson about money not being everything when it comes to showing love and appreciation).

BUT. Then I thought of the perfect gift and picked it up. I didn't realize dh had put it on his wish list and his MOM bought it for him. UGH! (Mental note - always check the wish list to be sure? I was at first very annoyed at myself for why didn't I coordinate with her, but then I remembered that I thought I Was being much more impromptu. At least she gave it to him a week or two early and so we realized a while ago).

Anyway, I was going to cover the kids on that one. Which worked out I guess that I didn't have them pay for it, because now it's in the gift pile for someone else. It leaves me scrambling because that was all I had as far as gifts.

My family always celebrated with FOOD but dh is just not that into it. I did whip up some fudge for him and he did appreciate it. He refused to let me make him dinner or to do anything special meal-wise. But we will go out on a lunch date this week and we also have a dinner event this week. So two dates in one week is not bad.

I asked him again how he felt about the Kindle and the look on his face was he would LOVE it though his words said otherwise. (You know, if money was no object, he'd buy it. & I mean like only if he had a zillion dollars would he buy it). I told him I wasn't planning to buy it this week or anything, BUT we should reconsider in April. I think we had probably decided "no" before his parents gave us a big Christmas check. But, we had also felt like we had been spending a lot of money and we could cool it for a while. (He feels he should wait until the next generation probably - would make more sense. But I don't think it's the worst thing to have an extra hand-me-down for the kids, if he wants to upgrade again in the near future).

Which reminds me why we weren't really going to buy him anything for his birthday in the first place. He got his $3,000 toy a couple of months ago and he is LOVING it.

& so I am thinking ahead to 40. We aren't really big on birthdays and don't make big deals of them. But I was recalling that I surprised dh with a trip to Vegas for his 30th! In the grand scheme of things, don't know if that was the most exciting gift to him. But at the time he was staying home with a newborn and a 2yo. I came home from work and told him to pack his bags because we were leaving for the weekend. Getting away was the best gift I could have dreamed up for him. (I had seen an incredible deal on airfare, which has spurred most my vacations in my younger and lower income years).

So, how do I top that? I don't know. It might be fun to do a party, but the logistics of planning one this time of year is probably pretty horrible. Maybe we should split the difference and do a joint 40th birthday party in the summer. (I turn 40 in December of the same year, so that would be meeting in the middle). I would so much more enjoy a party in the summer. Not in the middle on Holiday and work crazy! I have a whole year or more to ponder that.

Reminds me, dh's Grandma turns 90 next month!

I'll start with the minutiae because I have lots of catching up to do. This is what happens when I don't post for a week!

**I officially opened a Traditional IRA for dh yesterday. I will fund 2014 as I can. By April, of course. (We contributed to his Traditional IRA in 2-income years but converted it all to ROTHs in low-income years. Time to start his Traditional IRA from scratch, since our taxes are creeping up).

**Still waiting for investment forms to complete our taxes but hope to file this week. Refund should be about $3,200. I am going to throw that at dh's IRA and mostly be done with that. (The refund is due to funding Traditional IRAs versus ROTHs. We aim very breakeven on our taxes otherwise but this will be "flip a coin" territory for a while; to be decided for sure when we do our taxes every year).

{This $3,200 refund is his Japan trip money, as you may recall. It still is, but throwing it at the IRA will just mean less money to move around. I will keep $3,200 in savings that was earmarked for IRA. I don't know how much or when I will really need the Japan money}.

**Mr. Money Mustache blogged about his 2014 spending details and all I can say is: I BOW DOWN BEFORE HIM!

Mostly, his efficiency increase in 2014 was astounding. Whereas once I would compare our budget to his and be like, "Sure, that's where we are and will be when we cut out the mortgage and the expenses of working and yadda yadda". This year was, "Never mind. What the..."

I don't bow down to people lightly, that is for sure. But it's the only response I have to that...

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The theme for 2015 seems to be "ONWARD and UPWARDS," for us. We might progress our net worth upwards from it's peak in 2005? (Depends on the markets, so lord knows). Cash is back to it's peak level. Our income is higher than it's ever been. It feels AWESOME!

I did get a raise. Woohoo! It was not a full $200 per month raise but that is what I will net after tweaking my taxes a bit.

Thank goodness for the raise because we had a lot of expenses creeping up.

--Health insurance creeped up, as it always does.

--Property taxes went up about $1k per year and so I added $100/month to our savings to cover that. (During most years our property taxes have gone down and offset other expenses, so I don't know that I have increased this monthly savings amount in like a decade??)

--I increased our grocery budget by $100/month. Which is also the first time I have ever increased that category (in like 15 years of marriage??).

So that's a lot of budget increases, for us.

I suppose that is more budget increases than raise. I lowered our cash savings by $100/month since our cash savings is robust. I split the difference and added $50/month to our long-term investments. I will move things around if we have to but I think it makes sense to shift some of the cash savings to longer term investments.

I guess overall that leaves us saving $50 less per month but I am fine with that - our savings rate is very high.

I also have a lot of buffer in the budget still. The $150/month I Was putting to long-term investments was a placeholder for my raise last year. If I can keep this at $200/month (new amount) then that is a nice buffer for future expense increases.

We also have an extra $200/month tax savings for any year we do a Traditional IRA instead of a ROTH.

That gives us a total $400/month buffer - I am holding onto this for future health insurance increases.

In addition to all the above, we have significant sources of other income. Most of which will likely go to savings. (I've been averaging $8,000 per year NET income with overtime and credit card rewards, in recent years).

& this is why our income will be so high this year. I am making a solid $15,000 LESS household income than last dh worked (my salary alone). BUT, we are also paying about $20k+ less in income taxes, so we are netting MORE with my paycheck. All the extra income just boosts our "net income" substantially. I am sure we are nowhere near our peak "gross income" level on two incomes. But on a net basis we should blow our highest income year out of the water.

**On a side note, I took a 10% cut in compensation in 2009 and so it is only this year that I am making as much money as I Was back then. With this raise, it puts me back where I left off. That is another reason for my feeling of moving onward and upwards.**

The crazy thing about the abundance this year is that there is absolutely nothing we want to buy. If I ever receive a large raise, or any raise above expenses, we wouldn't make any plans to spend it. We are very content.

After carefully planning and saving up the cash for every purchase it feels quite odd to have nothing left on our wish list. It certainly took a long time but we have made it through our entire list! (We topped it off by upgrading our phones and car stereos last year, and dh's home movie theater. The year or two before we had finished furnishing our home and replacing the old furniture that we did not like).

I mean like since the time of our very first jobs in our teens this is probably the only time we aren't saving up for something substantial and material over the long run. (Or a long list of smaller things that would take time to accumulate). It feels WEIRD!

I've personally never been a big fan of spending money on experiences. Both my hubby and I much rather buy something we can use and enjoy every day. But I will admit that maybe a lot of that has to do with being in the accumulation phase of life. I'd rather buy something I can use and enjoy and save the rest for a rainy day?

I do see our spending shifting with age and assets. If our house is furnished and our cars are new and we have everything we possibly want... That frees up a *lot* of money for other things. We are definitely throwing more dollars at vacations and shows and experiences. & it's certainly nice to be able to afford more than a budget vacation once in a while.

Passport fees have gone up a wee bit the last several years. Yeesh!

Anyway, all our passports (kids and I) are current so I didn't think much about it. Dh thankfully realized that we've never really traveled abroad together and were probably on different schedules. His passport expired 5 years ago! He should have enough time to renew before his big trip.

He last renewed his passport in 2000 because he worked abroad at that time. He has been to Asia several times (family and work), but he has never been to Japan. He figured he couldn't pass up this opportunity.

As to the passport fees, just taking it out of the vacation fund for now.

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There is a lab in our city that teaches technology classes to kids and so on. There is a class this weekend on making games for PC or mobile. The software is free to use. So BM is going to that. He can teach LM and dh from there. (LM would probably be more into that but would probably rather just learn from his brother).

They wanted cash and I am pleased I have $20 cash for that. My mom gave me $40 for Thanksgiving groceries? For whatever reason I just put it with our cash on hand for "in lieu of ATM". If we go to the ATM once or twice a year then maybe this would make it zero times per year.

{I usually put any and all change and cash straight into the bank, but I thought it might be more useful to keep a little extra cash on hand this time}.

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I've said it before and I will keep saying it I guess... It is so odd that one of the biggest benefits of our low-cost move is not having any grandiose illusions of income. As we approach 40 it just seems to get more and more ridiculous.

I wouldn't even know where to begin. Seven figure mediocre homes and $33,000 private schools, etc.

I was thinking about it more locally actually because co-worker brought a brand new SUV. He is older and higher up and makes more money. BUT... His car was broken some time last year and he groused that he was carless (for like a whole week?) because he could not afford to fix it. I personally had absolutely no frame of reference for that. When I was a completely broke and almost penniless college student I could afford to fix my car. I thought, "Is he so tapped out he can't even throw it on a credit card??" I don't get it. I really don't. I understand living far beyond one's means but I don't understand having no means to secure a loan.

So anyway, to be fair, he is the only one in my office who has not replaced HIS car during the entire past 13 years that I have been there. & as much as I feel on a different planet as my co-workers, they are certainly more frugal than average and it's common for us to all keep our cars for 15+ years.

So I believe he has always had this car since I have been there and he is probably due an upgrade. But, he did just also buy a new car for his wife. & there was this whole thing with this ridiculously expensive truck he bought his daughter than just sat in his driveway. (He complained it was too gas guzzling to drive and use; daughter went off to college on the other side of the country).

All that, and he could buy nothing less than a brand new SUV for himself. Of course!

All of the above makes me feel grateful that I am under absolutely no illusion that I can afford any of the above. A $30,000+ vehicle, a seven figure home, or a private school education (or two or three) in the most expensive city in the U.S. Nope, nope and nope.

OF course, my gross pay may be a lot lower than everyone above but I don't know that our means are particularly lower. We don't pay much in income taxes. So I have just been pondering a lot how bigger salaries motivate people to spend more. Even when they really don't have any more at the end of the day.

As to our relatives back home, I really hope they have stock options or something lucrative on their side. It seems less likely the more they grouse about how broke they are. I am extra fascinated by this when it comes to our relatives because I'd say they more started out like us. Very frugal and financially sensible out the gate. But the insane high cost of living has eroded their common sense, for sure. (Except for the one who moved to our city and then spent lavishly beyond his means with his home equity windfall. He's chronically unemployed and $300k-ish upside down on his house. So - I don't know WHAT it is! Any illusion of wealth of any kind makes us really stupid??)

A lot of it also seems to be who you marry. Dh and I are the only ones who married another saver. Watching our relatives makes me extra appreciative about this point. It's not anything I ever thought about consciously when I picked a mate - I met my spouse when I Was only 18 - but I don't remember ever seriously dating any spenders. Would be like oil and water.

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How about that Elio??

http://jalopnik.com/elio-releases-definitive-2016-model-at-c...

"Elio has released their "definitive" 2016 model at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even though the electric-looking three-wheeler is gasoline powered."

"...standing firm at 84MPG and the $6800 price tag"

Who knows if they will be able to pull this off but I just LOVE that they are trying and that so many consumers are excited about this.

This could easily be our next car. (Or a third car to limp our sedan along until the kids have their own cars).

I mean, this is like my husband's dream car. There have been a lot of small cars that are ridiculously expensive (and thus impractical). But YES - this is what we need - small cars that are low gas mileage AND inexpensive. YES YES YES!!!

We have a 2001 Ford that we paid under $8,000 for, barely used. (We bought it in 2002). It gets 40mpg on the freeway. Of course, it cost so little because we bought it at the height of SUV crazy and in the midst of the massive debt bubble. No one wanted a practical and small and inexpensive car.

But anyway, I have just been so disillusioned watching cars get more expensive and less practical. & bigger. Like there was a time I had no idea what we would do if anything happened to our cars. Particularly as the debt bubble peaked.

The timing of this is interesting because dh and I have discussed that if we saw a deal like when we bought his last car I'd be ready to pull the trigger on replacing his car. Figure it likely will not happen, but we agreed to keep our eye open for maybe something in the $10k range. Otherwise plan is probably to spend more like $15k-ish in another few years.

Of course, I completely ruled out buying a one-year-old low mileage car for under $8,000 again. But hey, what do I know? This gives me hope! & maybe also gives us some extra motivation to wait a few more years.

I redeemed $50 (credit card reward) to my ROTH today and added that deposit to my sidebar.

Nothing much else going on.

**Paid $1.89 for gas! (Dh got a 50-cent off per gallon gas coupon). I will savor moments like this while I can.

**I funded the kids' school lunches for the rest of the year. (Once a year would be even cheaper - they charge a fee per deposit. But twice per year is my middle ground. Accounts for "things change sometimes." I don't want to pay for the whole year and then the kids start hating the lunch or something like that).

**Our taxes are pretty much done. I will have to wait for some broker statements to finalize.

I just printed out a bunch of Quicken reports around 12/31 - that was the most of the *work*. It then takes me a few minutes to enter it into my professional work software.

**The kids and I visited my parents this weekend. We took the van (which we very rarely drive out of town) and I guess the only thing I spent was about $30 for gas. We had a very nice time!

**Today I took the kids to their indoor favorite play spot which only tends to have weekend hours on holidays. In fact they were only open 2 hours today! (Otherwise they shut down for birthday parties). But I had noticed that and it was still worth the $7 per child admission. I brought a few $1 bills for snacks. I took a book and enjoyed the peace. The kids were in heaven.

**Dh and BM bought up quite a few $1.99 shows on Amazon this week - they got into some series. Considering that is about it for our spending during their break I think that was a good value.

**LM is doing that overnight sailboat field trip this week. (The one his brother did a couple of years back). I keep forgetting about it! Guess I better make sure we have what we need for that.

**On the Hawaii front I think we have settled on Maui as our destination. No decisions for sure until we book our free room.

Today I looked up the credit card deal I saw and it looks like we will be able to get two free flights out of four. My plan is to get the credit card for dh and to play around with the booking a bit (nothing final). If it works as they say then I might get the same card for a second free flight. The only downside is the $89 annual fee - which makes me nervous if we can't get the free flights for any reason?? But, then again, with the $12,000 or so of free money we got the past 4 years I think we can take the risk.

**You may recall the BIG trip that the in-laws took BM on for his 10th birthday. The same offer extends to all their grandkids. & LM turns 10 this year!

How does LM feel about this? He refuses to go anywhere with them. LOL.

So that is where we are with that. I don't think he is going anywhere this calendar year but he has another 18 months to come around. In addition, MIL told me last we discussed it that he can have a raincheck. I do hope he comes around in the next few years but I don't necessarily expect much.

**Work is cray cray! I just keep telling myself I survive every year-end and somehow I will survive this one.

**Dh finished up a script this week and it is really good. That just makes my heart happy! I think him and his writing partner have incredible talent, BUT this was definitely their best script. The more they try, the better they get. The plan is to produce this one.

**As of today, financial goals are going really strong. Will see where the market lands 12/31. I am expecting some pretty large dividends and capital gains this week and next.

**Dh grew up in a household where Christmas was a BIG deal. I didn't. We had just gotten the kids one modest gift each and something shared. We also got them some candy, which I think will be a BIG hit. {Their junk food secret santa exchange has been like the "best thing ever". That's in a household that really doesn't keep a lot of junk around but probably also never says no to junk. As with anything, I think we are pretty moderate. You would think they never got any candy or soda with how excited they have been this week!} Anyway, so yay to the candy. BUT... Dh was feeling like the gifts we got were a little inequitable, and we discussed how BM is so much more about the experiences than the stuff. I told dh, "I really don't think the kids will care". But, you know they are at an age where we could ask them. So I asked the kids about it all and what surprised me was that BM said, "As long as I get the big present I want I don't care if I get anything else". Well, I knew Grandma was getting him the "big" present, and so case closed. I was proud though of his maturity on that matter. I didn't necessarily expect him to be quite that mature about it. I was thinking more, "We are saving up $3,000 for a trip abroad for you, so maybe you can be mature about your brother getting a gift he is a little more excited about". Didn't even have to go there.

Anyway, so dh can stop overly worrying about it. Yeesh!

**I took my car into the shop this week. I took it in a while ago and it remained undiagnosed. I wasn't about to take it on any long trips or anything and still felt something was off. Then the heat was not working. I waited a couple of weeks so I could push off the payment of that expense well into next year. (Weather wise it's been very mild and I didn't miss the heat). But I took it in Monday and got the heat fixed and now it is all nice and quiet again.

PHEW!!

It sounded just like dh's car (which has 165k miles versus my 115k miles) and I was starting to think maybe I should just get used to old cars being LOUD.

Not overly thrilled with our "forever" mechanic - I think their business is going downhill. I won't be surprised if it is just shut down at some point. I was fine to let them do the work but wasn't thrilled that they couldn't diagnose it before it got cold and I tried to use the heat. It seems that they didn't check the fluids at all when I took it in for "strange noises". Not that I expect them to just know, but I just didn't get the sense they looked over the car thoroughly. (I took it elsewhere for an oil change and basically all my fluids were low).

Anyway, so we are in early talks about shopping around mechanics. Dragging our feet because it sucks and is no fun, but will happen eventually.

I would say that having a trusted mechanic is very key as to keeping low car expenses. I have confidence that we will find a place that works for us. Maybe something more convenient - it's not all bad. This is just a shop my dad's cousin used to work for and they have always treated us very well. Clearly struggling in this economy.

I still have "old car" problems though. My van also has an oil leak. Oil leaks are something I have always inherited in 150k+ mile cars, and have only driven that or fairly new. SO... I don't know when that usually starts up. All I know is dh's older car has not developed any leaks yet.

That means we really need to slip back into "old car" mode. It's always wise to keep an eye on fluids, but after 10+ years of never having *any* problems I can't say we particularly bother any more. But I checked things enough when younger that it's no big deal. Just a shift from not worrying about it for 10 years. Lord knows it's probably a good idea to keep a closer eye on the older vehicle too. (We bought both our current vehicles at 1-year-old, 10+ years ago).

I am just so relieved that my car is QUIET again.

**One last thing...

Our favorite restaurant shut down. WAH!!! I think last we were there was about a year ago and it was the first time ever we had bad food and crappy service there. UGH! I predicted they would be shutting down. Just seemed like those kind of red flags.

It's not ALL bad. They do have another location. A little different, but mostly alike. Phew!! I haven't been to the other location in forever, but I guess we will start frequenting it more. We were probably going to go this weekend but the open location is in a busy shopping area with limited parking. It will have to wait. The open one seems to be in a much better (busier) location - hopefully they are doing better??

That is not all though. Our grocery store told us our favorite take and bake pizzas (very yummy and very CHEAP) were going to be discontinued. Took them about a year but it is true now. They are gone!! So bummed about that because it is our Christmas tradition. So we are scrambling a bit trying to decide what to serve for Christmas. (We can get other pizza, but none of us like other pizza!)

I suppose it's not all bad as it will probably force us to do some DIY pizza at home. But I will still miss the cheap convenience.

Had a GREAT soup for dinner last night!

Sausage & Kale Lentil Stew Recipe

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/sausage---kale-lentil-stew

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This weekend we worked on our Christmas Giving.

Saturday we did a Giving Tree sort. This picture is a small fraction of what was sorted. This charity caters to sick and grieving families. It was the first time we volunteered for the sorting, and it was kind of mind blowing to see all those toys crammed into one building. (Lots of toys and bikes and clothing).

We always take my Christmas bonus ($200) and take $50 each to donate. The kids are both choosing the animal shelter this year. I will probably give $50 to the food bank. (We will do this regardless if I get a bonus or not, but that was just how we started this tradition).

Both kids' classes are doing secret santa with junk food and soda. (After all the endless notes not to send junk to school, don't ask me! I suppose they figured it was cheap and easy, and I appreciate that at least it will be consumables). So we picked those up on the way home from sorting, yesterday.

Dh has been doling out Scholastic gift certificates. Teachers are very happy.

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Spending:

**Last night I cleaned the kids' shower. It goes a lot quicker when you use the good stuff that dh is hoarding in the bathroom, not the 10-year-old expired shower cleaner. LOL. Seriously, that tub and shower hasn't been so sparkling white in years. IT was some no-scrub thing and it actually worked.

Anyway, the reason I did so was that I got a new shower curtain for the kids. When trying to figure out what to do with some Kohls gift certificates and Kohls cash, that was one thing I was looking at. The kids' "froggy" shower curtain was starting to fall apart. I could probably limp it along, but I figured they would probably prefer something a little more grown up, for the long run. So I did end up picking that up this month. The new shower curtain seems rather flimsy, so we will see how long it lasts!

Of course, I still also have the original original shower curtain. It was someone on the blogs who mentioned that you can just wash shower curtains in the regular wash. Yesterday I did a good wash of the extra long shower curtain I have in there. Which was apparently of high quality and has held up very well (& several washings) over the past 13 years or so. It's extra long for the tall shower but it is also just a clear thing. I had put our old (froggy) shower curtain on the outside for aesthetic and some privacy. (Though otherwise it would be too short for that shower, by itself). I suppose I could tell the kids if they break the new one they will just have to live with the clear plastic. Will see how it holds up...

**I bought myself a new laptop this week. Last week was just one too many days of "fighting over the computers" in this household.

Kind of impulsive, but I had no idea how cheap they had gotten. We did already buy a laptop this year, but every computer in our house has more advanced gaming and video editing capabilities. My needs were far lesser than that. I think it was last Saturday that I joked that I needed a new laptop. Dh kept an eye out on sales and picked one up Thursday? $288 for another Lenovo. Merry Christmas to me!!

Hoping for more peace in the house.. The computer didn't need much more than internet and spreadsheet capabilities, but dh picked out something that should be fairly future proof. (Faster processors and what ever techie goodness he wanted). I had a few wants with the laptop too, so it wasn't just "the cheapest thing we could find". I can't get over the price!

I will either pull the money from savings in January (a blip) or will pay for it with extra Christmas money. Hoping for extra Christmas money!

I am waiting for a $99 Chase refund and I think my parents owe me $150-ish for Ting. So, I guess there is some of that too. (All money due to me, but the checkbook is already fine for this month, so maybe one reason I am not sweating some bigger purchases this month).

**It's that time of year! San Francisco Comedy Sketchfest. They put on a TON of shows and we try to narrow down given the constraints of money and time.

I think a lot of the smaller stuff was kind of "meh" or either not that exciting or worthwhile for a weeknight trip. My pocketbook is happy with that! Dh is trying to arrange companionship for some of the shows. (Babysitting is a challenge, I don't like all the same weird stuff he does, AND I have an early bed time. I will go if he needs me to, or he will go alone, but it's more fun to go with a companion who can stay awake). Which has led to some conversations in our house about, "What is the point of making a bajillion dollars if you can never DO anything?" UGH!! (Don't get me started... You know, we are just the stupid ones who don't make as much money as we should, live in the middle of nowhere, and never have any fun. That kind of thing...).

So far our plan is to buy $200 show tickets. Hoping to cover with Christmas money. Thrilling Adventure Hour (a tradition for us) and a Newsradio Panel. Will have most the cast. (Oh how we miss Phil Hartman! )

I like how that worked out because we didn't want to go too overboard, and the Newsradio was completely unexpected. But is one of our favorite TV shows. Will see if dh can swing any company for some of the other $20 shows. Or if I will be drug along.

Notes to Self, or, Stuff I do not want to Forget:

**I learned in the forums today that libraries have free museum tickets. As a lifetime avid reader and library user, all I can say is, "Wha?????????"

This is good because I feel like 2015 should overall be fairly low-spend for us on most fronts. Planning two big vacations... I see some free museum visits in our future - should keep us fairly entertained next year.

Oh, and they do Passport services too. I think I knew that but don't want to forget. (Can even use just for passport photos).

**That reminds me that our CU also has some discounts that I probably rarely remember when I actually buy any tickets. Mostly amusement park type stuff. Just adding this to the "note to self" section.

**Credit Union has been profitable lately and is increasing credit card rewards. & a nice snowball, which I will get to at the end of this post!

As to the credit card rewards, 3% cash back on gas, groceries and restaurants. Our other cards are better right now but the good rewards come and go. So I Want to remember this for next time I am shopping rewards, or if I ever lose 6%-back on groceries.

I have to work on remembering the restaurant reward - 3% is more than we get from any other card in that category.

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Snowball:

Our credit union announced a 7.5% rebate on all loan interest paid in 2014. Which would mean a $500 rebate on our mortgage interest. Woohoo! I will receive that in a couple of days!

It probably makes the most sense to plow that back into the mortgage.

But... I am not going to do that right now. I am far more worried about getting 2014 IRAs funded and also funding overseas travel for dh and BM, in just a few months. So, I will happily add this rebate to savings, hoping to reach those goals faster.

I think mostly in the short run I will have a little more cash than I expected, and in the long run I will try to throw the rebate at the mortgage. April should be a good cash month for me and would probably be when I throw it at the mortgage. Once IRAs are funded and overtime is received for tax season.

What's best about this snowball is how out of the blue it is!

I think I am DONE, but still have to help the kids pick up a birthday gift for dh. At least we have some time for that.

Note to self: shopping the first Saturday in December is okay as long as you wrap it up by 10am.

So yeah, I lied. I did go out shopping. I did do as I said I would - avoided crowds and traffic. I guess my sole goal was to get a Christmas present for work gift exchange. I drew the new girl and decided I'd just pick up a nice Christmas decoration. (Recalling a really pretty one someone picked out last year). I printed out some Michael's coupons. I thought Target would be try #2 if need be, but Target opened earlier. I also noticed my wallet is falling apart, so figured I'd look at wallets while I was out.

So stop #1 was Target around 8:30am. Pretty empty and calm and nice so I took my sweet time. Could not find a wallet like the one I had. Could not find almond roca for my dad (the other thing I decided to get while I was out).

I did find a GIANT snickers bar. Dh had told me he wasn't going to do any stocking stuffers but then he was. I figured the kids would love that!

Defeated on the wallet and gift front, I decided to go to Marshalls later, which would be on the way home. When I got to Michaels a little after they opened I realized that there was a Ross next door. I popped in and failed on the wallet and the gift front but I found a good deal on almond roca! I will have to remember that for the future. No one was there and there was no line.

(I ended up getting some almond roca for the kids too and dh was happy with that for the stockings. Phew! I was actually just going to give it to them, but waiting is fine too).

It was probably closer to 9:30 by the time I got to Michaels - they opened at 9. Huge sale there and it was a bit crazy. Waited in line for a bit but at least it was early and they had a lot of registers open.

I found a second gift for my mom - so she is all covered for birthday and Christmas. (I wasn't necessarily going to get her anything but found a $8 gift she would love - the only thing I paid full price for).

Spent about $15 on a cute basket and some ornaments for work gift exchange. I also have a Starbucks gift card left over for last year, to round out that gift.

Saw the perfect gift for Japan friend, though I almost didn't get it! Then I had my "doh" moment that BM plans to be traveling to Japan in April. That's taken care of.

Found the cutest gift for a friend I am meeting up with on Monday. We just have that relationship where we don't necessarily exchange gifts but buy each other cute things here and there. Just, no pressure or commitments, which I love with buying gifts. I spent a whole $2.40 and the gift was perfect!

I also picked up some really cute ribbon which didn't make it into my bag or onto my receipt. I don't know what happened with that. But I will survive.

Hoping that I am now officially done with stores and shopping for the rest of the year!

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Other Doings:

Today dh is taking the kids to stock up on free Scholastic books. Has like $300 in vouchers, in exchange for volunteering. (Much much more than that will go to teachers and school).

Dh also did some de-cluttering and sold a pile of books and video games for $100+ credit at the used store. So, he has close to $150 to spend there now. That will keep him rich in movies and video games for a while.

I closed two credit cards opened for one-time bonuses, and applied for another one. The card I applied for - the website just flashed a "thank you" real quick and went back to the home page. I will wait a couple of weeks and then call and see if my application went through or not. I don't see why I wouldn't be approved, but maybe the website glitched. So the new card is in limbo but I think everything else is officially closed and done with. Just waiting to hear if my $99 Chase Southwest fee is refunded.

The picture above is our Christmas tree, a couple of years back.

& a couple of my favorite articles that I have shared in the past.

http://smallnotebook.org/2012/12/17/12-tips-easier-christmas/

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2012/12/17/resisting-the-h...

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My job is crazy insane busy during the Christmas season, and so this has been a very big factor in our attitude about Christmas. I don't have the time and the energy and so mostly sit out the season.

Our attitude is also compounded by the in-laws' Christmas gift extravaganza. It's like, the kids got 100 toys from Grandma, so no one else gets absolutely any joy giving them gifts. Even my parents just don't get them anything. I share just to point out that all of the above is more for the adults than the kids. My kids know that their paternal grandparents are a little crazy and excessive but that everyone else we know is the complete opposite. I think it's obvious to them that their experience with Grandma is not the norm. They have never once asked me why no one else gets them any presents - aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc. It's never occurred to them that they should be getting presents from everyone. They just think Grandma really really likes Christmas!

I read through those articles again and it reminded me of the final rules of Christmas simplicity in our house. We don't travel and we don't cook. My spouse has a problem with taking the kids anywhere on Christmas day because he hated that when he was a kid - he wanted to stay home and to play with his toys. So, Christmas day is always at home. I am more than fine with that because is I am lucky to get Christmas day off and certainly can't swing more time off than that.

Dh is really good about cooking and helping with cleaning, etc. But we make Christmas a day of rest. I think dh is probably fine with throwing something in the crockpot and maybe we have done that on occasion. But it's my mom who really has a problem with people cooking on Christmas. So she usually insists that we just order a pizza or pick a take and back from the store (our grocery store has great pizzas). Surprisingly, even my MIL seems to like this tradition. She loves the idea of ordering out on Christmas day. I've never lived in a house with a Christmas feast, so all of the above works fine for me. I don't do anything to prepare, and we keep Christmas day very low key.

I got a $50 Ting credit for a referral. Woohoo!

The timing is good because my dad had some setting switch (mysteriously) on his phone and he racked up some crazy data this week. It would have cost us an extra $10, but now we have a $50 credit to offset that!

My mom used to reimburse me $180 every 2 months for Sprint and so I told her to just pay me once every 6 months on Ting. They gave me a check in August (since the first several months were free) and I will ask for one this month since I don't think the Ting credit will be applied until our next bill. Then they will be paid up for the year and I can clear some of the "negative" in my checkbook for them owing me.

Anyway, this week is our Tingaversary and this is how our bills shook out. (This is just our half of the bills).

Dec $0
Jan $0
Feb $0
March $0
April $6
May $30
June $30
July $34
Aug $35
Sep $33
Oct $30
Nov $35

Total = $233 for 2 phones, 12 months of service

That's $19/month average for two phones.

{The first several months were free due to black friday deals, referral credits, and early termination fee (ETF) reimbursements from Ting. It made more sense financially to ditch Sprint early and to reduce our phone bill down to $0 (or even down to $30) for several months. Ting reimburses some of the ETFs}.

I expect that we can do same for next year. We already started out next month with a $50 credit. I am also getting wifi at work, which will significantly reduce our data usage. BM seems more than happy with wifi-only phone and so I don't see adding him to Ting for quite a while. I am continuing to budget $35/month for Ting, but I know we will pay less than that.

Of course through this weekend you can get $100 off a new device or $100 in Ting credit if you buy used or bring a Sprint device to Ting! If you use my referral link:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

November is very slow at work and so November is usually my "fall cleaning" month. & with the change in weather and everything.

We have been doing some purging. A charity came by and took a bag of shoes and outgrown childrens' clothing. It had been a while and I had a bag sitting out ready for a while. So I am glad to have that gone. Dh ran an old printer and computer to Best Buy for recycling. I was able to pass on some old church choir music I found to the kids' piano teacher. (She seemed excited! I didn't know what else to do with it, so I am glad she wanted it).

Fiscally, I closed my Chase checking account. I can close dh's in a couple of weeks. I haven't looked at any bank bonuses lately because we had *3* tying up our money. But when these Chase accounts are closed I will keep my eyes open.

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We host Thansgiving every year since we live in the lower cost region and have the biggest house in the family. Of course, we have lots of room, and certainly the biggest kitchen, but neither of us is interested in cooking for 20 people. So we have always done it more potluck style. Which means I look forward to it and don't plan to do much to prep for the big day.

I did absolutely nothing to prep yesterday. Today we may clean up a bit. We already cleared out all the paper clutter in the kitchen area and cleared the formal dining table a couple of weeks ago. (Moved the kids' computer for the season, will move it back to the otherwise unused table after Turkey day). Anything we don't get through today the kids and dh can handle during the week. I don't think we have much to do. Dh already picked up the Turkey and most the groceries. He will probably run back Tuesday for a few items we need to buy more last minute. He is cooking a few side dishes. I whip up a couple of very fast things the morning of.

We all have a small part, so it makes the whole meal more enjoyable and relaxing for everyone.

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Christmas

As to Christmas, I mostly don't partake. Spending is in the $200 range and I think we are mostly done.

**Dh spent about $40 for the kids, throughout the year. (Probably mostly games)

**We spent $10 on my mom

**Dh bought a $30 concert ticket for my dad

**Of course, most of the $200 is probably the kids' spending. I see they spent $75 on gifts for each other and for dh and I.

**I sent an extra $20 to the gardener

Dh is earning an insane amount of Scholastic gift cards this season (more than usual) for the kids' teachers. I was thinking maybe we should give some to the piano teacher this year.

{This is also a substantial part of the kids' Christmas - they go pick up hundreds of dollars of free books every mid-December}.

Employer and In-Laws always pay for their own gifts, basically. (They will both give us more cash than we would spend on them). For employer, I will just write a check in January. For in-laws, dh will sort that out with his sister later.

I am thinking of getting a Kindle for dh's birthday - free with credit card rewards. It won't be a surprise because if I am spending "$200" I want to make sure it is the exact right one. His old Kindle is just fine, but the kids are using it more and he has salivating over the new one a bit (though he thinks the price is kind of crazy, but is fine with Chase or whoever paying for it!)

Interesting side note: DH's current kindle was the first credit card reward we got from this current (4 year long?) credit card extravaganza. We opened an American Express gold card and charged whatever, and they sent us a brand new Kindle. That is probably the only non-cash or non-gift-card credit card reward we have ever gotten.

**I noticed that the projector that we just bought was selling for $200 less today. (Probably has been one sale for a while, isn't that how these things go? Did it go on sale the day after we bought it?)

I wasn't sure it was the same projector, but I forwarded the link to dh. He pretty quickly wrote back that he had secured a $200 refund. Woohoo!

**Dh found a large amount of change, like he always does. It was up on a ledge and so I presume he just felt weird taking it. Because it wasn't on the ground? Don't ask me. Noticed it while picking up LM from school and I was going to let LM grab it on the way home, but forgot.

Anyway, I remembered later when driving the kids home in the evening and BM popped out of the car and the change was still there.

Three quarters and three dimes!

Other Fiscal Doings:

**Payday this week; paid off projector purchase. (When I get the $200 refund I will put it to savings).

**I redeemed $40 cash back from the Citi double dash card. Will throw into investments (snowflakes to investments). I expect to have $3,000 by year-end. (Not ALL snowflakes, but heavily contributed to with snowflakes).

**I harvested gains in the kids' investment accounts. I thought I was going to skip this year, but I can't complain about the market.

I basically just sold and re-bought their funds, to lock in tax-free gains.

**I made a play on Target stock after the data breach and that is paying off this week!

**I paid $2.65 for gas this week.

My 50,000 points hit on the SW Chase card. Woohoo!

We will pick up a PS4 and an extra controller - I think that will use up the entire $500 gift card (with taxes), unless we can work out a Black Friday deal. Dh briefly entertained the idea of getting a Best Buy gift card and hoping to get it cheaper. I asked if he was insane. He thought better of it. (You know, one of those things people will be trampling each other over and will only have limited quality).

Let's just be happy with "FREE!"

But he may hold off the purchase until after cyber Monday - keeping an eye on amazon deals. I will just get amazon gift cards because is the only PS4 Black Friday type deal I think we will possibly partake in.

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SHOES

**I had bought some athletic shoes a while ago and though I certainly tried them on and was happy with them initially, I think they are too tight and uncomfortable now that I am really wearing them. (Which is the story of my life).

Anyway, I happened to see some double wide mens shoes at Kohls.com. I was not shoe shopping or anything, but I liked the look and I figured I would give it a try.

The funny thing? I have been walking in my Ugg-type boots I bought when I Was left shoeless in Ohio. They are *so* comfortable, and so those are my walking shoes at the moment. (Says the woman who would never walk more than a quarter mile or so in nothing less than a top quality athletic shoe).

But anyway, I bought the men's shoes and thought it would be a shame that I would be athletic shoe-less for a while longer. But these were way cheaper than zappos (with all the kohls coupons). & so I bit the bullet and figured I have my comfy boots in the meantime. (I am not going to aerobics or the gym in my boots, but at least I can do some walking in comfort).

So, a package arrived yesterday. & it was my shoes!! They shipped On Trac (which is always lightning fast). They never sent me any indication that it was coming overnight - which might have been nice to know. But anyway, I wonder if they did that to compete with Zappos. Which again, is useless if they don't tell you what they are doing. Whenever Zappos sends me shoes overnight they make sure to brag about how awesome they are and how nice they are being.

Anyway, Men's double wide did the trick. They fit so nice! I haven't worn them outside yet, so will see what I find wrong with them when I wear them on my first long walk. But for now I am pleased. (They are black - I wonder if anyone would notice if I wore them to the office today? LOL. Tempted).

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SHOWS

**This weekend we have two shows, that we paid for a while ago. Dh and I may do dinner out while in San Francisco.

**Robot Wars, which is our most favorite thing ever, is coming back! We contributed $100 to a kickstarter they had, which would get us 4 tickets. (We usually pay $100 for 5 tickets, so will consider the $20 an extra donation. We get some swag too, I guess).

I am so excited about that! But it won't be until Spring.

**Dh wants to go to some concert in December and is probably going to go with my dad. He said me might just buy my dad's ticket as a Christmas gift. Sounds good to me, because I had not planned to buy him anything.

That reminds me, we went to Target this weekend (to get LM some pants) and he picked out a gift for Grandma. Just something we couldn't resist when we saw it, $10. So, I guess I have officially crossed off everyone off my Christmas list. (The list is very small, and I Wasn't even sure I'd get my parents anything). Just waiting for a few more packages.

I guess fall is in the air, sort of/kind of. (Though weather-wise, it is still unusually warm).

Fall always puts me in a baking and cleaning mood. Definitely have been doing a little bit of both.

A lot of it is that work is so quiet. Very slow at work and not going into the office too much.

We host Thanksgiving, and so my plan this next month is to prep the house for that. (I don't know that we usually put that much effort into it. BUT, since we have gotten the momentum going on cleaning I did want to work through sorting some of the clutter and putting things away, versus our usual tendency to throw things in the closet the night before).

Otherwise, it's more of a potluck thing and dh is in charge of all the food/grocery/cooking side of things.

In recent years we have tended to go on vacation after Thanksgiving, but the kids don't get that Monday off this year (bummer) and we have exhausted our vacation funds and are saving up for Japan. I took the day off before I knew the kids didn't have the day off, so look forward to a long Thanksgiving vacation. The final calm before the work storm. Then it's busy busy busy until May.

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We tried an Olive Garden copycat Pasta Fagioli in the crockpot last week. YUM!! My new favorite recipe:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/10/day-305.html

{I love this crockpot recipe site but I never saw the pasta fagioli before! Has always been one of my favorites}.

Today we are making butternut squash soup in the crockpot. One of our favorite recipes:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/butternut-squash-soup-wit...

Edited to add: I have to bookmark this recipe because it was the best roasted seeds I have made. YUM! {I couldn't remember how I usually toasted them; ended up being about 18 minutes to perfection in our oven, at 275 degrees. Tossed in butter and garlic salt. I was better than usual about letting the seeds dry out a little first}.

http://mideastfood.about.com/od/appetizerssnacks/r/squash_se...

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Christmas shopping is mostly done over here. The kids buy us and each other gifts. Dh picked up a couple of things for the kids a while ago. We don't do much Christmas materialism. I sometimes buy my folks birthday and Christmas gifts, but this year I am not feeling it. Probably just a donation in their name. (The bulk of us all have birthdays next month too. Just dh's mom and the kids are off in their weird world of summer birthdays. ). No one in our family with kids wants to exchange anything because grandparents spoil too much. Dh and I bored of getting each other gifts a long time ago. OF course, work is crazy busy at Christmas time and so I mostly sit out the season. That is a lot of it, for me. Means I don't really care to buy gifts OR make gifts or do much of anything Christmas-y.

I picked up a few random things we could use, while shopping. Replacing bath rugs that I am unhappy with (saw a good sale) and replacing BM's broken watch. Stuff like that.

I did go through the kids' clothes. They don't really need too much. (Stocked up on next size up clearances over the summer, that are fitting BM now). But LM refuses to retire pants he is way too tall for and so I told him we could go find some replacements this weekend - in a more appropriate size. Hope I can find something similar?

I also bought a middle school sweatshirt for BM that is too small. Hoping we can exchange it for a bigger size.

Well, I have a date with a squash! (Dh is the chef but I am the sous chef for this dish - I always help him with the task of cutting up the squash - it goes a lot faster).

**It's Official. Our health insurance is more than our mortgage.

(I am surprised it took this long...).

7% increase this year. Which is probably one of the smallest increases we have had in the last decade. But still enough to bump it up to more than our mortgage.

So, the budget is rejiggered. I will start with the new budget January 1.

Using a "no raise" assumption I am happy with the rejiggering. I am lowering our monthly (long-term) savings rate from 21% to 17.5%. (Which also factors bigger budget increases: property taxes and grocery spending). BUT, if you factor our new income tax savings, this will keep our long-term savings rate at 21%. We will just commit that tax savings to long-term investments. I could certainly change our withholding to get our monthly savings back to 21%, but since it will depend on how the year goes, we will just keep that as a tax refund every year (if we contribute to Traditional IRAs instead of ROTHs). Our taxes are still low enough I could see choosing the ROTHs in a year flush with cash.

I will finish rejiggering when I get my salary figure for 2015. Not sure what I will do exactly with my various monthly savings figures and how I will re-allocate.

I've had a LONG time to wrap my brain around this. So today my feelings are pretty "meh". Some days I am frustrated by how hard we have worked to significantly cut our housing costs, including picking up and moving solely for the cost of living, just to be slammed by the cost of health insurance. Most days though I am just grateful that we have managed our housing (and other) costs so well so that we can handle it. In addition, with my dh's brain tumor, there is no doubt that keeping the best insurance possible was the right choice for us. Having exceptional insurance is priceless, and there is no doubt that we are getting more out of the insurance than we pay in. If not, we would have switched to something cheap and crappy a long time ago.

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Yesterday I took a retirement planning class for my continuing education. As it is with these investing classes, I tend to walk away feeling like I already knew everything. Which is a GOOD thing.

But I did enjoy the class from a "reality check" standpoint.

Lord knows we are very unique, but it is interesting how much of our personal retirement plans and our parents' retirement experiences are actually pretty universal.

I think this is also why I enjoy Money Mustache so much. He touches on most of this. Which can translate to a very unique and different retirement and worldview. But if you don't adopt 100% of what he says (lord knows we haven't) you can still learn a lot from him. I think he comes across as on the "fringes" but the reality is that his financial take is very sound.

Points of note?

--Start saving younger (in your 20s) and you don't have to save nearly as much as otherwise.

--About 50% of people retire before they plan to retire, due to health and job loss. Is true for both our parents. (Compounded with the current economy, this is happening at MUCH younger ages; both our dads ended up giving up finding work and retiring in their 50s. I think historically this is more people plan to work into their 60s and 70s but can't).

--Consumption and spending goes down in retirement. This is true across the board. This is not just a "frugal folk" phenomenon. (That this is fairly universal, I found that interesting).

--Most retirement calculators are focused on "replacing income" and are not particularly useful. Instructor used an example of a mid 30s person making $100,000 per year and needing to save $4.5 million for retirement. Which is crazy ridiculous. Especially in a time when the average retirement savings rate is like 4%. I mean, we are in BIG trouble here, right?

So the instructor did talk a lot about "replacing expenses" as a more useful metric for retirement planning.

--The topic of conversation did come up about how no one is saving anything and how that is panning out. My personal experience is that we have a lot of long-term family friends who have saved nothing for retirement, or who have significantly under-saved. None of them have ended up on the street or are lacking the basic necessities. But, what is obvious is that they lack choice in their life. Many will rely on family or government assistance. The instructor echoed this sentiment. Most are getting by, but it's not the retirement that they envisioned.

Today is payday for me.

I won't be able to deposit my check until later today but the $5,000 transfer I made for property taxes showed up in my account today. So I paid all the bills I planned to. I can pay the property taxes after my payroll check hits my CU today.

I paid the mortgage payment and I paid off most the October credit card charges. The handful of bills I can't charge were already set to pay this Friday.

Next payday I will pay off the projector. IT costs exactly the amount that I usually put into savings every month, so we are just cash flowing it.

Other Fiscal Minutiae:

Received $33 bank interest for the month of October

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards towards my ROTH

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Dh earned $35 cash from a focus group

Snowflakes into investment account:

$50 cc rewards (per above)
$15 internet savings (placeholder)
$10 from focus group
-----
=$75 TOTAL

I had planned to use focus group money towards most recent cell phone purchase, but I am projecting $11 left in the bank account at 11/30, so I transferred $10 of that into investments.

**Before I forget. We went over our usual Ting data this month and planned for it with all the traveling we did and so on. BUT... Like the day before our Ting month ended dh realized we had only used like 1005 MB of data. He recalled that they had a 5% grace on each tier, so I think that means we could have gone over by 25MB (or up to 1,025MB) without paying for the higher tier. So I set my phone to airplane mode that day and we squeaked by!

Ting is so cool on things like that. VERY customer service focused. I had just assumed we were going over. WAY over. It would have cost us $5 if we did, so I Wasn't exactly sweating it.

**The projector came in a little under budget. Will see, but so far so good. IT was quick to set up and it looks phenomenal. (It's 3 times are bright as our old one but it still works in our dark room). IF we wanted brighter, it would have been even cheaper. I guess that is a lot of where the technology has been going.

{I do have one complaint. We've always been very "meh" on the decor of our home theater because you mostly enjoy it in the dark. This is no longer the case. The projector now lights up the room so much! That said, no plans to funnel any money into aesthetics.}

Dh also thinks he can sell the old projector for more than he initially thought. Will see on that too.

Dh thought that he may need a new tuner to enjoy and saw a good sale this week. So he looked into it a little further and decided that he is probably going to be just as happy with his temp fix, which was to buy a $15 cord. Phew!

**I've met my spending minimum for the $500 gift cards from SW Chase. Just waiting to be able to redeem those, so we can pick up a new PS4.

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Of major news, I am upping our grocery budget. The kids are eating us out of house and home! I knew this day would come, but the older child is 11 this year, and Good Grief!

{I've been told he eats more than a teen boy; I've been told this about both my kids for years. But I think it's official that BM has graduated to some new level of eating, and yes I do worry it will get worse when he is actually a teenager}.

Which means a full 20% bump to the grocery budget. I am moving it from $500 to $600 monthly. That is our people/cat/household goods/toiletries/whatever else grocery store budget.

It's past due and I will figure out the entire budget and logistics when I get my salary and health insurance figures for 2015. For now, I know I have some wiggle room in the budget for groceries. (This is one reason why we tend to save all our raises. Save them when they come so that we can dole them out when we actually need them).

I wish I had not mentioned to my dh because he has taken this very personally. We have *never* increased our food budget and he has probably felt for the past 12 years that it is his primary financial contribution to the house to keep the grocery costs down. & he has done a *phenomenal* job. So, in the end, I am upping the budget and dh may work on keeping it down. I don't think that's a bad thing, but I just don't want him beating himself up over the fact that his kids are growing. I think it was quite foreseeable and nothing we can do about that! & of course, prices are rising too, but dh has always been able to outwit rising grocery prices. Which is also nice, but at some point you run out of room for improvement. I don't think we are so broke that it needs any more energy. I am sure we could re-strategize and scout out new stores, and maybe we will when the kids are older, but for now we have the income for this increase and I really don't care.

The reason I Decided to increase the budget so much was I feel like money has been tight the past few months and we have been regularly over-spending. Our "forever" budget has been $500 groceries and $300 gas. The gas budget is very high to allow for ever increasing gas prices. Plus, I used to drive home every day for lunch and just could not bring myself to do so when gas prices shot up. So, I set the gas budget really high but probably have been economizing gas in other ways. In the end, the gas budget has allowed for a little wiggle room in an otherwise very tight budget. We throw all our misc. purchases into that extra space.

I thought maybe I could lower the gas budget to offset the groceries, but we are at $600/month groceries and $200/month (Fairly consistently for 2014). So, no wonder I feel like we have been over-spending. I think $900/month for groceries/gas/misc will be fine. That will give us $100/month wiggle room for all the miscellaneous. Like, if we ever want to eat out or get a haircut or go out anywhere.

In other news, I still don't have my 2015 health insurance rates. ??? Really really late this year. I initially figured ignorance is bliss. I really just don't want to know. But now that our food spending and property taxes have gone up so substantially I am trying to rejigger the budget. Which is fairly useless if I don't know what our health insurance bill will be next month. So, I am thinking about it, but the specifics will have to wait. I guess I will figure a no-raise budget when I get my health insurance figures. Usually we can offset increasing costs with some other decreasing cost. & I think this is true next year. Our taxes have gone down substantially with the shift to funding our Traditional IRAs. I kind of wanted to keep that in my back pocket for dealing with our health insurance when I turn 40. (It's not going to be pretty). BUT... I do have the money for all the cost increases we are experiencing here and now. IT is what it is. Easy come, easy go.

Rewards Update...

I received a direct offer for a $175 cash bonus that I have decided to redeem. (Spend $500, get $175 cash).

I went through all of my ongoing rewards and revised my 2014 projections. Most of them were lower than expected because have been diverting so many charges to the one-time rewards cards. (Target's website was not showing my YTD rewards so I will have to double check on that later).

{I also kindly let go of $60 in rewards this year, letting my in-laws charge up $3k in our medical bills for rewards. So I will be pleased if we hit the $3k reward mark even with letting go of that $60}.

2014 TALLY:

$175 Cash (AICPA card, Moi)
$200 Cash (Citi card, Moi)
$500 Amazon gift cards (SW Chase double dip, Dh)
$500 Amazon gift cards (SW Chase double dip, Moi)
$250 Cash (Chase Freedom, Moi)
$200 Cash (Chase Checking, Moi)
$200 Cash (Chase Checking, Dh)
-----------
$2025 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

+$150 Extra bank interest from a CD promotion

+$500 deposit to ROTH (Fidelity Am Ex - 2% cash back; health insurance & misc. spending)**

+$350 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)**

+$ 60 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)**

+$ 45 Visa Rewards (1% cash back - for places that don't take AmEx - primarily dentist/insurance/utilities)**

**Estimates for the whole year

Grand Total = $3,130

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,130

Total 4 Years = $12,699
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

NOTE: ABOUT $550 FROM BANK CHECKING AND CD PROMOTIONS THIS YEAR. UNFORTUNATELY, THOSE ARE TAXBALE.

Yeah, our next car is going to be paid for with credit card rewards. Heck, if this keeps up, both of our next cars will be paid for with credit card rewards. (As of this moment, we only plan to spend $20,000 to replace our two vehicles).

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending.***

**Dh pulled the trigger on his projector upgrade.

It's a big purchase, so he had a hard time pulling the trigger. I was kind of surprised that he was having a hard time, but we later discussed how this is probably one of our biggest purchases.

As for me, since we decided to buy it ages ago, I could really care less. The money is already spent, the projector is already paid for - in my mind. I guess it just isn't hitting dh so much until he swipes that credit card.

Dh is fairly convinced that this is the last projector upgrade we will ever do. But I won't exactly hold my breath. I am fine though to replace our 10-year-old out-dated projector. More than fine with it!

It seems that time and technology is buying him something much more top-of-the-line than before. (I am guessing our last projector cost about the same as this one).

This is really a present from dh's parents. I am cash flowing it from my salary in November. We jumped on it a little early due to a sale. But his parents have mentioned they will give us $3k for Christmas. So all along I have just considered this a gift from them. (They can change their minds, but I don't think it's an unreasonable purchase if we have to pay for it ourselves. IT will be fine either way).

{We have a relatively frugal movie theater set up in our house. For those who are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about... We have an extra room dedicated to a large movie screen}.

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**That reminds me, I did a tax projection as the year is nearing its end and I have more firm numbers than I did in January or whenever. Our Traditional IRA contribution will net us a $3,000 tax refund. I am thrilled with this number because this is the estimate I have for BM's Japan trip and this was how I intended to pay for said trip.

This Japan trip is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We mostly plan to use future Traditional IRA tax refunds to bulk up our savings. We are just planning to spend the tax refund this one year. A splurge like this is something we have never done before and can probably handle restricting ourselves to once per decade or so.

We'd stil also like to send dh on this trip. Time will tell on that. Feeling a little cash poor at the moment! But we don't have to decide for a while...

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**I am also going to go ahead and pay the property taxes for the whole year. They went up about $1,000, from $4k to $5k. Our home has been way under-assessed most the past decade or so and even this assessment was still on the conservative side. BUT, certainly more in the realm of where it should be.

{I suppose this is the silver lining to this housing mess? A long period of LOW taxes?}

So I will probably write a $5,000 check for that next week. OUCH! I am kind of rethinking that on one hand, but then I realize I just have to pay it all by April regardless. It's all the same in the end. So I decided to just go through with it. I am also counting on this to help boost my tax refund a small bit.

As long as interest rates are in the toilet I think I will prefer the ease of just paying this bill once per year. My primary motivation is simplicity.

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

All of the above aside, I feel like we have been spending way too much money. October was very spendy.

SO... Trying to reign it in and have a low spend November. Maybe low spend November and December. In fact, all of our spending *should* be done for October. (knock on wood). So, yeah, we will cool it for the rest of the year.

http://slickdeals.net/f/7289268-motorola-moto-g-verizon-39-a...

Fry's has in in-store only deal for prepaid Verizon Moto G. I mentioned recently as a good wifi-only phone for tweens or frugies. It's a one-time $39 splurge for a fairly nice phone. Google apps will get you free calling and texts (over wireless). I can see this as a good way to dip one's toes into the smart phones.

This is the phone my 11yo son is using. It's really no big deal to add him to our Ting and to start paying $6/month (his cell and data usage would be so low at this point, I would not expect to pay more than $6/month that we'd have to pay for the new line). BUT, this phone gets him trained in using wireless and conserving data and minutes. Plus, I don't know that he will need more than wireless until he is of high school age. For now, the wireless is far beyond anything he "needs".

**To be clear. THIS phone is not compatible with Ting. It's not compatible with anything but Verizon prepaid plan, as far as I can tell. If you don't activate it with Verizon, you can just use whatever wifi networks that are available to you.**

Excellent Article:

Comparing Three Major Levers You Can Pull On Your Retirement Portfolio

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/retirement-lever-comparison.html

The gist:

--Investor begins working at 25, but saving at 35
--12% savings rate
--50%stock/50% bonds asset allocation
--Salary starts $30k and rises with age

Initial plan, portfolio at 65: $474,000
Change to 80/20 allocation: $577,000
15% savings rate: $593,000

**Begins saving at 25: $718,000**

DING DING DING!!!

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I share because I think this is very important in regards to efficiency and balance. Not helpful if you are no longer 25, but I do share for any young person who comes across my blog.

Our personal average retirement savings rate since age 24 is 12%. I get a lot of comments that we must not be saving enough or will have to work for 50 years. Considering we are well on track to retire at age 50, I am not worried about it.

Of course, we contribute more when we can, and that is important too. I just happened to notice the other day that our "average retirement savings since having kids" was 14%. I think this is counter-intuitive for many. It is most often assumed that our retirement is being sacrificed (with my spouse not working). The opposite is more the case. It's easier to save a bigger percentage of a smaller income. We simply don't have to save as much? (Some years we have put away 20% to retirement; those were our smallest income years, when 20% was just not that much money). That's all there really is to it. But it isn't setting us backwards because the smaller income is more than enough for us to live on and is a fine base for savings percentage.

We personally plan to save more over time. We are savers, and we like to prepare for the worst. That said... I would say that we are pleasantly surprised how well our retirement savings is doing. We've already done the heavy lifting, no doubt about it. Which is kind of ironic because it doesn't necessarily feel like it. IT feels like retirement has been more on the back burner than we care for, due to kids and economy and medical woes. It's nice to look back and see our steady/consistent contributions working for us over the long haul.

Our personal rule of thumb has been to never put less than 10% of post college income to retirement. We started with that, and then got a lot more serious about retirement savings in our 30s. (Maxing out retirement vehicles, around age 30).

P.S. I notice one very important lever left out of this discussion. Fees and costs. MyMoneyBlog has also touched on this point in the past. http://www.mymoneyblog.com/lower-costs-higher-returns-again-...

**Ooooh, I had really bad misinformation on my last post of this topic. (Which I corrected). Bad information in a good way!

So let's try this again.

Idea for a frugie phone (or good for a tween):

--Verizon prepaids (Moto G) sell frequently for $50 at Fry's. Probably other deals around, but this is the best deal on the west coast.

--If you have Ting or think will eventually use Ting, the Boost Moto G sells for $60-ish at times, Best Buy. The thing about the Boost Moto G is that it is compatible with Ting. (Or if you have a Red Card, just buy at Target and ask for a price match, for an extra 5% off).

We have one of each. The Boost Moto G is still in the box and was bought because my dh has a phone fetish (apparently). BUT, it will be a great first phone for our kids. (Or is a cheap backup phone for us).

The Verizon prepaid is being used by my older son. Has come in really handy for his age range. **This phone has no cell service.** He signed up for a google voice number and can make and receive calls and texts on wifi. So basically, it's a one time purchase and all usage is completely free. As dh said, "There is more wifi than pay phones in this day and age". So it makes sense, for now. He will want cell or data service when he is older, but I don't even know if that will be particularly necessary for a few more years.

Dh thought that BM could not receive phone calls directly on the Verizon phone. So this is the correction. He's had the phone a few weeks and we just figure out that he CAN receive phone calls directly. Doh! (To be fair, it seems like you can't set this up until after you've had your google voice # for a while. Dh felt less crazy after he got himself a google voice # and had the same problem on his phone).

Bonus Idea: If you know someone with Comcast, you can also sign up for Xfinity wifi. We might test this out since dh's parents have Comcast. IT would be interesting to see how much wifi coverage that would give BM.

**We are also able to whittle down our own cell bill a little more, due to recent developments.

Firstly, it was just announced that we will get Wifi at my office. Woohoo! (That's like 90% of our entire data usage, since no one else on my plan is working right now). I presume that will be set up for tax season - maybe in a few months.

All in all, it might save us a whopping $5 a month? Because the data is so cheap to begin with? But I will take it.

Secondly, we installed the hangouts dialer and we can make phone calls through wifi. So that will put a big dent in our minutes. Not as useful for incoming calls and I don't want incoming calls to go to data when I am not near wifi. So we are just using for outgoing calls, but it helps.

Dh went ahead and got a google voice # (which allows for more functionality) and so I picked one up yesterday too.

If our home phone # is 916-xxx-1234, then we each got matching cell numbers. I got the very last "1234" number.

The problem with the google hangouts dialer was that it was just shown as a blocked number when we called other people. Of note, our parents refused to pick up the phone. For their home phones they can now just glance at the caller ID and I think it's pretty clear that it is us, even if they don't want to memorize the entirety of our new phone numbers. The area code and the last 4 digits will always be the same from whichever phone we call.

Anyway, this might also save us a couple of bucks, but we are thinking ahead to when dh might be out of the house more or when we add the kids to our plan. The less we use now the less of a jump it will be to add back more minutes and data, later.

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

Other Doings:

**Dh and I went to Napa last weekend for our belated anniversary getaway. We were pretty lazy and did not do much, but enjoyed the quiet time.

I think it was our third trip there and we finally found some good food. Phew! Call us picky, but we just never particularly enjoyed anywhere else we tried. The dinner we did end up enjoying was about $85 (no alcohol, that is all FOOD). MIL slipped us $100 as we left, so dinner was on her. (& the meal was good enough I certainly did not mind spending the money. Yum!!) Otherwise, we just went to the grocery store and ate in for the rest of the time.

**While we were gone, my 11yo informed his Grandma that he is too old to Trick or Treat. This is the first I have heard of this! I guess this a 6th grade boy thing? (I am more than fine with it. Maybe just a couple of more years of the old trick or treating? Little brother is having a hard time with this news).

We all got our monkey PJ/costumes so we hadn't planned to buy any costumes beyond that.

**Today I called AmEx because they decided to start classifying all of my charges as "cash advances". ??? I figured it might sort itself out, but after a week or so I called to be sure. While I was calling anyway I finally asked them to change the due date on my credit card. This means no more driving dh crazy with my endless, "Don't buy that on that card" and "use that card this week". He always keeps it all straight, but I am sure it is annoying. I also fixed the Target card a few weeks back and so both of these are on a more monthly cycle. No more charges on the 3rd or 4th showing up on last month's bill. I should have fixed this *ages* ago but just kind of hate these things and sitting on hold. I am pleased to say I did not sit on hold at all. IT wasn't so bad.

Now we just have to tame our new Citi card. The credit limit is ridiculously low and the card closes on the 15th of the month. UGH! I tried to change the due date online but was denied. So I will let it cycle through a couple of months and then have dh call to fix everything. (It's in his name). I paid some of it off way early because I didn't want to max it out. Yeesh. A $5k credit limit would sound nice at this point.

Meanwhile, the SW Chase card I just applied for gave me like a $22,000 credit limit. ??? I have no idea how they decide these things. Citi thinks we are worthy of a whole $3k of limit. But Citi has always been kind of weird.

**As to the SW Chase, I received it yesterday and threw a couple of month's of health insurance on it. Now I wait for my $500 reward.

**Our promotional rate expired with our internet company but they renewed it with a contract. That is always the catch on these discounts that few seem to mention. We are pretty loyal to our internet company though (little guys) and so we will just take the contract. (Not that they can't get bought out tomorrow - that always happens!) But, anyway, last year we had to call and beg a few times. I am glad they just gave us the deal this time. Phew! I will continue to throw that $15 savings to our investments.

Dh and I had discussed dropping the landline (bundled with internet) if it gave us any leverage. We did not expect that it would. Probably the internet alone costs more. For now the landline stays free with our internet, so we keep it.

This is absolutely the only contract we have right now, besides our mortgage. For that, I still hate having a contract. But I guess mostly it's important not to be up to your eyeballs in contracts. Even in case of job loss I'd probably keep this internet. So I won't lose sleep over it...

**Dh received $35 for a phone survey. This money will go towards that Moto G phone purchase.

What a nice surprise at the pump!

**Filled up the van today, should be the only time this month. Timing worked out well.

I had filled up 3 times last month because MIL requested we bring van down once when her sister was in town. This month, no one drove the van the 6 weekdays I had off from work. So I guess it all evens out.

I usually fill up the van twice a month. I've just been commuting with the van because we have been doing so many longer trips in the gas sipper.

I like the gas prices today considering we are driving to Napa and San Francisco next week.

**Current carpool arrangements (knock on wood)... Neighbor is picking up kids all week and then dh next week, alternating. I still just take BM on my way to work. I offered to take neighbor child as long as he is at our house in time but they have not taken us up on that offer.

This is new for this year since their child is a year younger and was at the other (Walking distance) campus last year. Neighbor keeps telling us he will be working and unavailable but then he is not. Is good for us I guess, but bad to see how unemployed he is at the moment. (They are *awesome* neighbors but their home has shown to be in foreclosure for over a year. Public records. No idea what is up with that. Is the curse of our carpool).

**Reminds me, dh has been helping out divorced (last year carpool) friends with a lot of babysitting. He was assertive that things were not working out so well and it seems they are kind of pissy with us. Whatever! We are not your personal free babysitter. Never minded helping them because they always returned the favor best they could and were very gracious.

Anyway, I hope newly divorced mom was just surprised or feelings briefly hurt and she gets over it. It's nothing personal. Her child is WAY younger which is most of the problem. In a couple of years I don't know that it would matter. Dh is always way too nice about this stuff but always draws the line once it affects the kids. My kids were getting really cranky about it. (I would have been cranky too. I can't say I would have ever agreed to watch a 7yo. But dh has way more patience for kids. It's not just that dh changed his mind. She kept bringing him over 2-3 times more often than she had asked. So, she can't be surprised that dh was getting annoyed).

**Dh got a 3rd and 4th opinion and repaired the crack in our stucco. Final cost? About $4 in supplies, plus borrowed a ladder from a neighbor. Woohoo! I always love it when nasty looking home repairs turn out to be like $10 or less to fix. It happens sometimes.

**Oh, and I almost forgot the best news of all! Did not run the AC yesterday and the weather looks favorable for turning it off for the season. Phew! We have been running the AC every day this month, which is ridiculous.

We usually don't turn on the heat until Thanksgiving. With this crazy weather, who knows...