MyMoneyBlog had a Paypal warning today. Yikes!

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/preapproved-payments-paypal.html?...

"Long story short, it was my Skype account that was hacked. I didn’t even know this, but PayPal has a program of “preapproved” payments where a merchant can repeatedly charge your account without the need to type in your PayPal password. This is meant for monthly subscriptions and the sort. Although I have bought credit from Skype before, I don’t ever recall signing up for any of these subscription-style plans at any merchant. My suspicion is that it was buried somewhere into a default checkbox that I didn’t undo, or worse it was just hidden in the terms and conditions fine print. (I am usually really careful about this sort of thing, so I am quite mad at myself!)

Lesson #1: If you use PayPal at all, check your preapproved merchant list immediately. To find this list, log into your account and then go to My Account > Profile > My preapproved payments. My recommendation is to make every single one inactive immediately."

http://www.frugalrules.com/what-is-first-bill-you-pay-each-m...

Kind of an interesting article.

"I was reading this article on Yahoo Finance recently and it was discussing what bill people pay first and what it may reveal about our priorities.

So, what bill do most people pay first each month?

Drumroll please…the winner is the car payment.

When comparing credit card payments, mortgage payments, and car payments, the latter of the three comes out as the clear winner."

"The problem I see with making a car payment the first bill you pay is that it’s not a necessity on many levels. Yes, you may need a car to get to work and I cede that point, but if given the choice between my car and my home I’ll let you guess as to what I’m going to choose every time – my mortgage payment as I view it as a necessity for my growing family.

Once the mortgage, or rent, is covered along with other necessities then I believe a car payment should be dealt with. Of course, my priorities may be different than what yours may be, but unless you plan on living in your car then I’d think this would fit many."

"At the end of the day I think it’s important to see what value you’re deriving from the payments you make and more importantly breaking the cycle of a payment mentality."



At face value I Was skeptical about what my "first payment of the month" said about my financial values. But, I guess if I think about it I guess he is right. How we pay our bills does say a lot about is.

Me?

Car loans? None (never)

Credit cards? I tend to pay them off in full, about two weeks before payment is due.

Mortgage? The mortgage is the last bill I pay every month. BUT, it is not technically due until the 10th of the next month. So what I tend to do is pay with mid-month paycheck. But it buys me some significant float if something comes up and I just want to pay it off after the first. The reality is I usually pay it 2 weeks before it is due (like with all my debts - I don't want any penalties or fees, so play it pretty safe).

Most my other bills I pay on due dates because they are small and there are no consequences if the payment is a little late.

The first bill I pay every month? I pay the gardener, the gas company and our HOA around the first of every month. Why? They don't take credit card payments and these are the only bills I can't charge. (Aside from mortgage). The total comes out to about $175.

What else do I pay on the first of the month? Nothing. We pay ourselves first. The bulk of my first paycheck of the month (about 95%) goes to our savings. (Which goes hand in hand as to why we don't have any other payments).

Second paycheck of the month pays off the credit cards (prior month's bills) and pays the mortgage.

**We made it to our 3 San Francisco days of events. I thought we were driving to San Jose twice more this month, but dh seemed to think we would combine trips. Will see. It will be a lot to celebrate his folks' anniversary and his Grandma's birthday on one weekend day. Two weeks might be better for me, though more driving. (I was thinking of skipping the birthday, anyway).

THEN we will probably be on low-spend mode until May.

**It's funny because I really thought SIL (more means) would want to do an extravagant party for the in-laws' 40th anniversary.

But, since they are moving into their $1 million+ home this month? Dh has yet to talk to her about this anniversary at all ( ), but we got the message loud and clear. They aren't planning to spend a penny.

{I am rolling my eyes that dh has yet to speak to his sister about it - rolling them at him}.

I suppose it works out. I was trying to set aside $1k - $2k of money that in-laws gave us, in case it was a big dinner party out kind of thing. BUT, I have failed miserably given how 2013 was, and so it is what it is. I doubt we will spend a penny. Dh and I will offer to take them out to dinner. I just can't imagine them letting us pay.

Dh is working on a video, but has been struggling with his own family. I think it's easier to do for other families - maybe being more removed from the subject? I am sure he is also being too hard on himself.

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

**I finished our taxes. Being organized and having a simple tax situation (& having really nice professional software), it was not a time consuming endeavor. Maybe one hour, max, to gather information and file all of our tax returns. I harvested some tax gains for the kids, which means having to file for them when they sell mutual funds.

I always aim for breakeven, but my withholding and deductions have been pretty sporadic in recent years.

I did adjust my withholding in 2013 because our medical deductions are more limited with Obamacare AND our mortgage interest went down significantly (with latest refinance). About $6,000 less deductions than last year, from those two things. Plus income went up a bit, etc.

In the end, I did good. $30 net refund. (Er, I think I just got lucky).

The big question for me is what to do about our IRA contributions. *sigh* I am squarely in "flip a coin" territory with this.

Tax rate has gone up from negative (less than 0%), up to 23%, in the years since we have had kids. So, the ROTH is officially no longer a "no-brainer."

25% is a strong tipping point for me. One reason is because in the past we took a larger deduction up front and then converted ROTHs in lower income years. I am also in the middle of converting my parents' ROTHs (early retirement/no income years). All this to say that it is not a simple situation with a simple answer. (It could be a MUCH better tax savings decision to skip the ROTH for now).

I think the long and the short of it is that even at 23%, it's a lot of money to throw away in the hope that the tax code and our circumstances work out to our favor in the long run. $11,000 x 23% = $2,530 tax savings. Which is certainly no small beans, to me. This would boost our savings rate significantly. ($2500 is like 3% of my income - we'd just turn around and invest the tax savings).

That said, we don't have to decide until next April. At which point we will have more information. If we can easily cash flow the ROTHs at that point, we may just to do so. If not, we can do the Tradiitonal IRA, or do 5/50.

For 2013, I had already committed to doing the ROTHs. Kind of glad about that. Because if I thought to check before I filed, I might have changed my mind. We got our ROTH balance to six figures already, so I think we will do fine whatever we decide. (Those ROTHs will be no small beans when we reach retirement age, even if we stop contributing to them).

I will probably do a few shorter posts because I have a lot of my brain but haven't had much time to blog lately.

Spending wins this month:

**Gas prices are down. Helps with planned 4 trips to Bay Area?? I filled up at $3.15 yesterday. Dh went to San Francisco mid week for a show. Done with the shows. He scored free parking but had to pay $12 for a two drink minimum. $10 on tolls. (The tolls are a *shrug* because I accidentally double paid our toll refill last year. We did spend $25 on tolls the last 3 weeks, which covers the extra payment. Otherwise we tend to spend about $5 or $10 per year).

Oh, and I mentioned MIL gave us a $50 gas coupon. So, I think we will do fairly well with gas this month, even given all the excess driving.

**Groceries - dh did first grocery run on Friday (first for month). I was hoping we could make up excess spending this month ($100+ on food and parking in SF on a recent weekend). I think it looks fairly likely. If we did not need any groceries the entire first week, and can probably stretch out the 4th grocery run into March. That gives us $300-ish in grocery runs ($100 x 3) plus a fair amount of supplementing at Target and ethnic stores.

We haven't shopped Safeway very much in YEARS because prices have been so terrible. But we were at in-laws and they had a 16oz salad with a giant "$5" stamped on the packaging. I asked where they got it and they said Safeway. Whoa!! So I stopped by and picked up some salad. What a great deal!

So, I told dh maybe he should go check out Safeway - maybe they were trying to be more competitive. He is a little resistant as he is just very annoyed with Safeway. But a LOT of our keeping food costs down is keeping an open mind and keeping an eye on prices, and adjusting. So, I think he needs to go check out the prices. (HE does almost ALL the shopping, and he has a price book basically in his head, so he needs to go check it out. He can be the judge).

Spending losses:

Aside from all our shows and driving, was expecting a fairly low spend month.

Last night I caved for a pizza. I believe while we were eating the pizza, dh told me they were going to the movies today. So aggravated, because if he had told me that, I never would have bought a pizza. It's not a big deal. But, better communication would have meant better decisions. I did gripe about that a bit last night. I will make sure that him AND the kids know that it's not a big deal. It was just the communication. It's so rare they go to the movies. I don't want them feeling bad about it.

So, that is our budget loss for this week.

**Because of the above, I got out the old pen and paper monthly budget.

I will never understand on any level why anyone would be tempted to spend more with a credit card than cash. I have very much a cash spending mentality. So, if I don't want to over-spend (and pay interest???), I have to only spend the money I have on hand. & of course we pay ourselves first (money goes to mortgage and retirement and whatever first), so all I really have to spend is what is left in my checking account.

BUT, sometimes it is difficult to manage a household with more than one person. I found a VERY simple solution. I just keep a running total of our monthly spending, by the computer. On a piece of paper. We can usually squeeze out $200 of discretionary spending, monthly. This does not include gas and grocery spending, which we are well versed and practiced in keeping within our budget. So, it's just everything else.

Credit cards make this SO EASY to manage. I can't say dh overly participates in this part. But I can see any credit card charges basically as the card is swiped. SO, I just write everything down. Then either of us can look at the list at any point of the month and see how much we have left to spend.

So yeah, I hadn't bothered with this in a while, but when I do, our spending always seems to be lower than usual. So, I figured if I Want a really tight month, I better write it down.

I wrote down $160 SF spending, though I expect gas coupon and less grocery spending to completely offset that. It will remind us that we had a very big spend month on the discretionary side of things, and we can cool it for the rest of the month.

I added pizza and movies. & dh and I both made a couple of purchases.

I'd like not to spend any more money this month, aside for food and whatever for upcoming Bay Area trips.

Hardly a tight month, as they went to the movies last weekend (FIL paid), I went to lunch with my friend ($$$$), dh went to a show, and we have a birthday and an anniversary coming up (two trips to Bay Area). I think our social calendar is quite full. & I guess another reason why I Was so thrown off by the movie plans.

Another gorgeous weekend in San Francisco. WOW!

I met up with my bff since we couldn't mesh our schedules last weekend. We had lunch and drinks with a beach view. The time went too fast.

We actually had some rain last week and might get more this week. Phew! (Not enough, but it is something).

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

**I redeemed $25 credit card reward and added to mortgage payment. Also added $20 for carpool savings and $15 for internet savings. Total $60 snowflake for 2/28 mortgage payment. I will pay it at the end of the month.

I also expect a $200-ish insurance rebate (we get every February) so will add that to the mortgage payment as well.

**I updated side bar for total January interest received. No other savings this month since it was only a one-paycheck month.

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

I think we pulled off a no-spend weekend. We went down to Bay Area for FIL's birthday. The car already had a pretty full tank (filled up when we got home last weekend). I spent money on lunch, but MIL slipped us a $50 gas card when we left. She often gave us cash when gas prices were very high and we were dealing with dh's medical problems and so on. BUT, it has been a long time. Not expected in the slightest.

So, if I spent about $20 on lunch, and I got $50, then it nets out to a profit. FIL took dh and the kids to the movies while I had my girl time.

I wasn't expecting to make out so well this weekend. Was just expecting to spend.

It's carpet cleaning weekend at work. I should probably work from home. I should probably do some errands. But, I think I will torture myself by doing nothing. Will mean a crazier schedule next week, but am looking forward to a breather before things get REALLY crazy. Maybe if I relax all day I can work up to a little shopping tonight. I have $90 in Kohls gift cards, and only need some nice pants (my work pants are getting pretty worn from so much wear). So, not expecting to spend any actual cash or to use up all my gift cards.

Do you want to hate my guts or what? Beautiful sunny weather here. Barely using the heat.

It's not all roses. Drought drought drought. Our lake is 17% of capacity (it looks fairly non-existent at the moment). The weather is just a mess everywhere, isn't it??? Ask me again in summer when we have no water.

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

I did get to move the needle on my savings, after all. $16 savings interest hit this week. I added it to my sidebar.

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

For whatever reason, my auto insurance decreased 10%. Woohoo! I just saw the online bill - I will get the detailed bill in the mail. & try to figure out what decreased. What's interesting is we drove the van to Vegas, AND gas prices have been fairly low, so I do not think it is likely to be a "low mileage" thing. We have overall been saving a lot since we have been reporting our actual mileage. But yeah, will see what the bill says...

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

Ting Update!!

We should get our second "bill" tomorrow. Still paying with "credits" for a few more months.

Here is how January shook out:

We used way less data and minutes.

I will copy and paste a bit from my last Ting update, and update the numbers.

Sprint Monthly Charges:

1600 minutes (calls to each other were not counted), unlimited text and data

$ 105 for first phone
$ 25 for second phone
$ 25 for third phone
$ 15 for non-smart-phone
$ 20 Taxes
-----
$190 - Our split was $100 per month


Ting Monthly charges:

$24 for 4 phones
$ 9 for 500 minutes (Medium)**-we used 350 minutes
$ 5 for 1,000 Texts (Medium)**-we used like 150 texts
$13 for 500MB (Medium)**-we used 300MB
$ 3 Taxes
-----
$54 - Our split is $27 per month

**You can use however many minutes, texts, data you want. There are different tiers, and then reasonable fees if you need more than the XL tiers. Last month, for example, we had used the large "minutes" tier.

73% savings for the month of January

You could maybe call this "100% savings" because dh won a $50 credit this month.

I did double check and dh and I would use the same medium tiers for everything, if it was just us, and so we are saving a decent amount going in with my parents. It is only $6 per line to add a line and to share in the same data and minutes.

I think this is where our average bill is going to settle. Vacation and unusual usage, aside.

That is going to be so nice when the kids get cell phones. I have a friend who is probably not a great candidate for Ting, today. (Probably will be eventually). BUT, she was intrigued as far as a "kid's first cell phone." The referral possibilities may be quite huge with having a 10yo kid. I got to rack up those referrals! I imagine it's the kind of thing parents will be talking about too. Our friends tend to be budget minded, so they will be comparing notes on cell phone plans, and so on.

Work is crazy busy and has been for a while. & will be for a while.

Of course, January through April is our most profitable time of year. Too busy to spend, and raking in the overtime. Then I generally have the rest of the year to relax and enjoy.

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

This is our January discretionary spending, to-date:

$134 groceries
$ 34 fuel

Exciting stuff!

Actually, about $20 of those groceries were a "Christmas Redo". I was sick on Thanksgiving, and Mom and dh were sick on Christmas, so we got together last weekend to spend some time with my parents. My parents are generally pretty easy and very happy to eat anything we cook, or even just leftovers. But my mom was really looking forward to our "Christmas Pizza".

Dh was going to pick up cat litter on sale today, and pick up a gift for a birthday party.

I did charge $200 for school lunches, on the reward credit card I am working on. (I charge every January, so did nothing different for the reward). I charged up some insurance also. I've got about $350 left to spend. I was expecting a $140 Sprint bill (100% my parents and they will reimburse), but Sprint didn't bill us this month. Ugh!! I thought that charge would be perfect since it isn't even really mine. I checked last years' January and February expenses and can't come up with anything else foreseeable, and so will probably just pre-pay some health insurance this weekend. That reward is going to be $580.

Unfortunately, I have no exciting plans for the $580 but to "clean up the checkbook". After the year we had, it's a miracle I did not have to dip MORE into savings, and so I am happy with the outcome. Could be happier (would make a nice snowball!), but happy enough.

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

I am not participating in the savings challenges. We save very aggressively with a "pay ourselves first" mentality. (Literally, 43% of my regular take-home salary goes straight to savings. Plus, we tend to bank and snowball the extras). The idea of having anything extra leftover to save = harharhar. We keep it pretty tight. This doesn't mean we can't make spending decisions out of our savings. It just means I will never ever ever spend less than we budget, in a single month. Has probably never happened. Absolutely nothing leftover to increase savings. I guess my approach is more to "oversave" up front. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

Saving coins is like nail on a chalkboard, to me. So I have to go get more money out of the bank so I can throw it in a jar and let it earn -0- interest? I don't get it and I never will. Even in the early days when we had to use cash more, we'd just spend the cash (change) we had before we'd go and get more. I am reluctant to waste a single penny. If I don't need it right now, it gets saved or invested.

{My kids are big change savers and if I ever find change I give it to them. I think for their age it is appropriate - they are learning that small amounts add up}.

Of course, in regards to the challenge, having to save a certain dollar amount (different) every week, just gives me a headache.

I don't fault anyone who thrives on the games or for who any of the above works. I just blog to say that these things do nothing for me. & so I am sitting it out. (Really and truly - it's important to do whatever works for you).

The declutter challenge? I was excited to see that post yesterday.

Again, I am not really interested in finding a specific amount of items to purge each and every day or week. But, I am embracing the challenge as far as keeping it front of mind and breaking it down into smaller pieces. Trying to make a little progress each and every week. Instead of complicating things with some fixed number, I will just do whatever makes sense.

I personally can not imagine purging 1,378 things from my home, but I have an open mind and will see what we can come up with. We regularly purge trash and broken items so I am not counting anything that I would toss under normal every day circumstances. I've got better things to do than to count every trash item and junk mail item that I always toss anyway. Looking to see what I can improve on, so will only count the "out of the ordinary" purges. We do also regularly purge outgrown clothing, toys, games and kids' things, so not sure how much of that I will count. Will see how I feel about it. I mostly want to acknowledge going above and beyond "the usual". Wondering if I will ever really feel on top of my "stuff". I have been on major purge mode for well over 10 years. I ramped it up last year because we are planning to downsizing our home in another decade. I want to pick up and move what we have and need - and to have the excess long gone by that point. (Why 10 years? I think our house is *perfect* for 4 people, but would prefer a smaller space for when it is just two of us. Kids will be on their own in another decade or so. Dh and I were more than content when we used to live in half the space).

One thing that makes decluttering hard for me is that I detest throwing things in the landfill. We try to freecycle, donate or sell anything possible. This is my "declutter" achilles heel, but I will stick to my guns. Once I get on top of it, it should be easy to keep on top of, know what I mean? It's the "stuff that I didn't know what to do with 10 years ago," that is driving me crazy at the moment. When I stop finding THAT stuff in my house, I will find some peace in this area.

Oh, and I printed up the challenge for work, too. Today I tossed a small trash bin full of old seminar and tax reference books. (Like 2009 - 2011, which is all obsolete by now). I found a fan in my office and no idea why, so moving it to the common area in case anyone has any use for it. I've been here 12 years and I haven't moved offices in a long while, so it's probably time for a good cleanup. {Oh - since we deal with large amounts of paper - we have a recycle dumpster - so everything I purged today will be recycled}.

At home I have done nothing, but dh just gave me two pairs of pants to purge. I've at least got two items for this week.

Last I ruminated, I wasn't so sure what to do with mortgage snowflakes. For December I did not make a mortgage payment, so just abandoned snowflakes for the month.

BUT, we got a nice cash gift for Christmas and I was able to fund dh's ROTH with it. I was already leaning towards continuing mortgage snowflakes this year anyway. (IT just works the best psychologically, for us). I was just tempering that feeling with feeling like I should put a screech on all mortgage snowflakes until we got our ROTHs back in order. But as of right now the "screech" seems pretty unnecessary. (My ROTH will be funded with Feb. 1 paycheck, assuming nothing else BREAKS. & I do have until April 15th).

So... Snowflakes it is!

I didn't make the December mortgage payment - will pay it today. (Didn't need the interest deduction last year, so pushed it forward).

These are my December snowflakes (paid to mortgage in January):

$20 carpool saving**
$15 internet bill promo savings**

January snowflakes:

$20 carpool saving**
$15 internet bill promo savings**
$25 gas/grocery credit card reward (I just redeemed)
$180 Visa credit card reward^^

**I don't expect these savings to last forever, so am just making an expense "placeholder" with mortgage snowflakes.

^^On the last one, it's a 1% cash back on our CU visa that we receive every January. The amount is only so large this year because they had a 2% promo for a time. (Usually this reward is more like $60).

OF course, we just shifted those rewards from one card to the other. All this money would have gone to our Fidelity AmEx otherwise - those rewards go to my Fidelity ROTH. This just means the mortgage gets a boost because our credit union ran a nice promo. (All else being equal, Visa is accepted more places and I'd rather give the business to my credit union than a big bank).

Snowflakes 2014: $275

Unfortunately, not expecting to keep up THAT kind of momentum. But it's definitely a nice start to 2014.

Hard to believe, but we have been 30+ days on Ting.

I have been anxiously waiting for taxes and fees. My research indicated that Ting charges no fees. But I know taxes can be quite high, but I thought they were mostly based on bill. So cutting our cell bill by 1/3 should decrease the taxes, right?

YES!!

Taxes: $4.59



Of course, our actual bill is $0 because we have several credits applied to our account. We will not have to pay anything for the first 3-4 months.

This bill is larger than I expect it to be for the long run, and to be clear is for FOUR cell phones. We split cell service with my parents.

Minutes: It would have only been $9 for 500 minutes. I presume some months we can stay around 500.

Messages: $5 is for the 100-1000 text rate. (Funny statistic: I texted the least of the group; my old foagie parents text more than me. Even my mom with her her old dumb phone - HA).

Megabytes: $13 pays for up to 500 MB of data. We really thought we would be using more data so this was a nice surprise. I think on an average month we will use less data than this month. Dh found out his speed tests use way too much data, so he stopped doing that. Accounted for at least 1/4 of our usage. !!

We are just shifting mindsets a bit because used to have unlimited data. If we go over on a big vacation or anything like that, we just pay for that we use. So, we have a lot of flexibility with Ting. Other than that, just trying to be more mindful of data usage and using the wireless for any big data.

I'd say the bulk of the data usage is mine, at work. I don't have wireless at work. Everyone else on my plan is retired and so mostly uses wireless.

Devices: We initially activated 5 devices because I was not sure which phone I was going to use. They charged for all 5 this month. Each device costs $6 per month.

This means all else being equal, that this bill would be $6 less next month. About $64. That would leave our half of the bill at $32.

That is officially a 68% cell phone cost reduction in our own household. Woot!!

When we add the kids it will just be $12/month for the two phones (they can use our hand-me-down phones). We've already decided we could cover the $12 but they can pay for their usage. Texts are the cheapest on Ting, so works well for teenage users. I think we have a few years to go, but glad we have a solid plan for the future, one that doesn't cost a small fortune.

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

& this is Ting's nifty Dashboard:



It's easy to glance at and see how you are doing on minutes and data an so on, at any point in the month.

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

I will copy and paste a bit from my last Ting update, and update the numbers.

Sprint Monthly Charges:

1600 minutes (calls to each other were not counted), unlimited text and data

$105 for first phone
$ 25 for second phone
$ 25 for third phone
$ 15 for non-smart-phone
$ 20 Taxes
-----
$190 - Our split was $100 per month


Ting Monthly charges:

$24 for 4 phones
$18 for 1,000 minutes (Large)
$ 5 for 1,000 Texts (Medium)
$13 for 500MB (Medium)
$ 4 Taxes
-----
$64 - Our split is $32 per month

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

If you don't have Sprint, Ting sells new and used phones directly, as well as they help you buy compatible phones from third parties. (A personal shopper service).

They also have a service for selling your old phones. Overall, they try to make the switch as simple as possible.

Here is a referral for $25 off if you decide to make the switch:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

P.S. The credits we earned were $25 for signing up with a referral, $25 for Black Friday sign up, $50 for our first referral, and $88 for "25% reimbursement of early termination fees". They've had some other promos in that time that we did not participate in - for example we skipped on the Starbucks credits because we don't drink coffee.

I updated the numbers below. I will still have to tweak a few numbers as statements come in.

I did also add the $75 we earned from the AmEx Amazon deal.

If I add the Cap One ($152 savings bonus) I added this year, the grand total is $2,775 for the year. VERY close to last year's number. The Cap One wasn't a credit card, but it was really the same difference (but easier, since I only had to open the account and do nothing else). I won't officially include it in my totals because it was not tax-free. But for all intents and purposes I think it belongs in the same category.

{I don't have direct deposit and don't like/trust debit cards so have never been able to do any other checking account or savings account type bonus. I know there are ways around direct deposit rules, but then it is often "at your own risk" and seems like way more work than it is worth. May be re-evaluated in the future, if credit cards dry up. Since Cap One had no direct deposit or debit hoops to jump through, it was *super easy*}.



2013 TALLY:

$580 cash (Chase Sapphire triple dip moi)*
$430 cash (Chase Sapphire triple dip dh)*
$250 cash Citi (dh double dip? Triple dip?)
-----------
$1260 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

+$ 525 deposit to ROTH (Fidelity Am Ex - 2% cash back)
+$ 25 cash back Fidelity Am Ex (bonus for some alternating category?)

+$475 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$ 75 American Express Rewards ($25 x 3 cards)

+$ 85 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$ 178 Visa Rewards (1% cash back - for places that don't take AmEx - primarily dentist/insurance/utilities; had 2% reward for a couple of months this year - woohoo!)
----------------------------
=$2623 Total CC REWARDS 2013
----------------------------

*triple dips = rewards redeemed for the third time. We redeemed once every 12 months or so.

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

Total 3 Years = $9,569
**Tax-Free Income!!**

Caveat: I don't recommend using credit cards at all unless you have the discipline to pay them off 100% within grace period. I have never in my life paid a fee or any interest to a credit card company. I don't think it's a big deal if you don't spend money that you don't have and therefore pay off the balance each and every month. This strategy has worked fine for me for full two decades.

Haven't been posty because work is CRAZY this time of year. Hoping to get time Sunday to relax (will do nothing) and I do get Wednesday off, so not particularly worried about it. Monday and Tuesday will be stressful though with the time crunch. All this stuff has to be done 12/31.

Of course, I will then come home and run my own numbers. Because I just like numbers that much. {You think I'd be sick of numbers, but it fuels me}.

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

Christmas:

Christmas was the BEST Christmas ever. The short version is aliens must have invaded my in-laws because they made it very low key. Who are these people? That was the best Christmas miracle of all. (Though a little heads up would have been nice because usually they are such gift hogs that no one else buys the kids anything. The kids got a little gyped this year, but oh well).

That said, all was not perfect around here. A loved one had a stroke (is doing 100% fine). IT just never ends!!! But, couldn't expect a much better outcome than that?

Our friends announced they were divorcing, on Christmas Eve.

Half of us were sick, and with one in the hospital, it was kind of a bummer for Christmas day. The mood was pretty glum on Christmas Eve after getting the divorce news. It just hit dh and I hard, for whatever reason. (We didn't hear about the stroke until AFTER Christmas because they did not want to worry us and weren't sure what was wrong).

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

We also got a large cash gift for Christmas (very unexpected) and so I maxed out dh's ROTH. Heck, our total Christmas haul was $5,510. & nothing I wanted for Christmas more than a ROTH contribution. How cool is that??? (Plus $10 to spare!)

We had already committed $300 Christmas money (assuming we'd get even that) to some shows in January. We got front row seats for two different shows! So excited! (Comedy sketch fest - hard to narrow down but I guess easy enough with financial and time limitations - both the shows we are all going to are on the same day - dh and I may hit a couple of others if they don't sell out - they have like 100+ shows and all these big names and all of them we would probably love to see).

But, dh had already put $1k in his ROTH, and so I didn't need the entire Christmas sum to max him out. Still money left for our front row seats.

I believe all the 2013 dividends hit in our ROTHs. As of yesterday the sum of our ROTHs was $99,174. So very very close to six figures.

The six figure mark means a lot to me because in our savings in general things tended to quickly take off after the six figure mark. If the stock market averages a 10% return and we contribute $11k per year, then returns are getting pretty neck and neck with contributions. & this is extra exciting for the ROTH space because of the tax-free nature of the ROTHS.

Plus, heck, dh received a 2% dividend in his mutual fund so holy heck. That adds up when you have a larger balance in your fund. This is one reason I wasn't expecting to end the year so well.

Funding both ROTHs at this late date was over-whelming, but since now only $5,000 is needed to max out mine, I will fund it to the point I don't have to dip into our "6 months expenses". It might be January or February. Much sooner than expected, thanks to the generous gift. Phew! This also puts us on track to easily max out 2014 in 2014 (Assuming we don't have a year like 2013!).

{I always fund dh's ROTHs first because I have a substantial retirement plan balance from my job. He only has the ROTH. Plus, the money came from his parents, so I guess it is extra fitting}.

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

Yesterday I sorted out the kids' money.

They both received $20 cash for Christmas. LM had $30 prior and had already agreed to deposit all Christmas sums. BM had $0 but I am worried he lost his money. (He is the bigger saver so I find it hard to believe LM had $30 more than him). I don't know what the heck, but if that is the case I guess it will turn up. (He is also the slob of the two, so it's very likely lost in his room).

After depositing LM's $20, his savings account is up to $300. BM's savings account is sitting at $400 (by virtue of being older). They are both working hard to get to the $500 level. Because their interest rate is 7% on first $500. I spent some time with them yesterday showing them how much more interest they are earning now (used to get once cent per month!). We calculated the interest they should get 12/31, and how their money compounds. I think they are more well versed than most adults. They are both very math oriented and they clearly get it.

I took $20 cash from LM and transferred it into his account. It saved us an ATM run - we might be good for 6 months. (My big cash expenditure for the half year or so was that I gave my dad $10 for a Senior National Park Pass). Lord knows we never use much cash anyway, but it seems to be dwindling down to truly nothing - no cash usage. I certainly could have given my dad $10 without using cash or writing a check, but since it was a gift we wanted it to be more personable than a "check in the mail from a third party." That is how my online bill pay works. If I pay an individual, they just get mailed a check. It saves a TON of time, and of course no stamps for our more long-distance family.

Wow - what a mixed year it has been!

I am optimistic that the big ugly black cloud hanging over our heads since, September 2012, has moved along. It's only been about 15 months. !!! But anyway, will see... It's only been a couple of weeks of calm and so it's a bit premature to get too excited about it.

Because of this, we did terrible on our financial goals, maybe the worst ever. BUT, all our prior savings worked very hard for us, so it was a banner year for net worth and the big picture. Phew??

Anyway, I wanted to close the books on 2013 because I am SO over it! So, unless something big happens in the next two weeks, this is my final "general" commentary on 2013.

In general, we tend to make our financial goals aggressive and we tend to always meet our goals anyway. This year is a first in I ever remember failing. Spectacularly. The optimist in me is fine with that - if some years we do better than planned then it is expected to do worse in other years - it all evens out.

CASH:

Cash is up $5,000 by some miracle. We try to increase by $5k every year. Actually, we had decided to hit our goals one at a time this year. It's a mixed bag. We have not particularly put any money into our ROTHs yet (had wanted them funded by 12/31, and expected to do it easy peasy). BUT, if we had, we'd just be really cash poor and stressed right now. So, I think I am happy with this approach. The ROTHs will get funded. I am just considering doing it in April to preserve cash flow and liquidity. (To be clear: We have never in our lives had a crazy expensive year like this one - so it was pretty unusual).

Our goal for 2013 was to save $10,000. We were going to splurge on a trip to Asia. That is completely out the window because we needed *all* of that money for home repairs. Which leaves me ending the year off with some stress since we were supposed to be so ahead of the curve at this point to be able to splurge on a $10k vacation. I share this to illustrate a point. I have friends who will say we never splurge big and do anything fun. BUT, you see what happens when we try. & it's not like I got caught offguard for not planning ahead. !! Instead I am thankful that we had all that cash to cover it and not dip into savings at all. On the flip side, maybe this was just the universe telling us to do something else with that money. IT was kind of an obligatory trip and our relative in Asia doesn't seem to want us to visit her anyway. So... We aren't too broken up about our change in vacation plans. Heck, I am RELIEVED because I Was never very enthused about it. (Note to Universe: Um, you could have left SOME Of that money to do something fun with though???).

RETIREMENT:

We put a whopping $1,500 into our ROTHs this year, and that is all gifts and credit card rewards. I have been saving the money ($900 per month), but just putting it all into cash waiting for the hemorrhage to stop.

This is our primary goal (above basic liquidity and being able to pay cash for all of our needs) and so it will 100% get done. But, I am pushing it off until April. Mostly so I can fund the ROTH without depleting any cash (from current level). Ideally.

I can't boast a $100k balance in our ROTHs until I get them funded for 2013. So, that will have to wait until next year.

The good news is that our retirement funds are up $23,000 even though all we put in was $1,500.

Retirement milestone hit: 2 x income saved

Retirement investments are, on average, returning as much as we put in. I think that is a SWEET milestone. & also means that going forward that our investments are working harder than we are. (Note: This year was not average - obviously we earned far more than we put in).

& all of that makes this year infinitely easier to deal with!

HOME:

Along the same lines, home value is up 30%. It's been an excellent year for our overall net worth.

MORTGAGE:

Like all our other goals, we failed spectacularly on this one. Only added $950 (snowflakes) to the mortgage payments. Had expected to pay down an extra $4,000. (The rest went to home repairs and other emergencies).

I made the last 2013 mortgage payment in November. Don't need any more tax deductions so will pay the December payment next month (around January 1). So, I was pretty non-motivated on the snowflakes this month. Which is fine, I need to shift focus on the ROTHs. Just waiting to see where the dust settles. (I think I have some snowflakes already applied to the next mortgage payment - probably ones I earned in November since I expected to already pay the mortgage payment, otherwise).

The ending mortgage balance is $190,000-ish. I was going to go for $189,000, as the year progressed, but decided not only did I not need to make another payment this year (Waste of a tax break) but that I really needed to shift focus to ROTHs.

I am not 100% sure what I Will do for 2014. Mortgage has only been a higher priority in past year because of two reasons. 1 - Real estate values were tumbling and we risked having less than 20% equity if things continued. Which is a position I would consider an "emergency". Not an EMERGENCY emergency, but it would be worthy of some drastic measures to correct. 2 - I Thought we were more ahead of the curve and could throw more money at the mortgage.

Today we have over 50% equity (our home never dropped below 20% equity) and clearly we are not very ahead of the curve right now. Not where I Want to be. So, I think mortgage is falling off my radar for the moment as far as pressing financial goals.

BUT, I think the mortgage is ideal for snowflakes. So that is the part I am not quite sure on for 2014. It seems useless to put the snowflakes to the ROTHs because I will fund those regardless. & with anything more short-term I don't find it particularly useful or rewarding. I want to tie up those snowflakes for the long haul (retirement or mortgage). So I may just keep throwing snowflakes at the mortgage even if I am not particularly mortgage-paydown motivated otherwise, in the short run.

For 2014 I am going to focus way more on liquidity, which I think is wise given my job situation. I hesitate to say I am actually kicking the mortgage off my list of goals, because any money we save up and don't need for unemployment can eventually get thrown at the mortgage. It's more of a "better keep it just in case but mostly likely will go to the mortgage eventually," plan.

TOTAL NET WORTH:

Our net worth has increased by $125,000 this year. Since our goal is to increase this by $30k per year, we have quadrupled our goal. Wow, what a year!!! (Last year was similar, but we were making up for a lot of really pathetic years with the stock market and real estate market. This year was some serious forward movement). The $30k figure is just 50% of our annual expenses. That is how much we aim to grow our net worth every single year.

So, yeah, how is that for a mixed year? I don't particularly have anything to complain about. It's always disconcerting when things REALLY don't go as planned, but I also know we had a great year financially, in the grand scheme of things.

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

2014??

I hadn't thought about it yet.

I think our goals will have to be:

1 - Fund 2013 ROTHs
2 - Increase cash by $5k
3 - Fund 2014 ROTHs
4 - Snowflakes to the mortgage ($1k is probably doable)
5 - Increase net worth by 40k**

**My "annual net worth increase" goal has been 30k for several years. 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.

A realistic goal for now is 40k:

Mortgage paydown $ 5,000 (includes $1k snowflakes)
ROTH Contributions $11,000
Cash Savings $ 5,000
Overtime Savings $ 5,000 (to 2013 ROTH)
Investment Returns $14,000^^
---------------------------
TOTAL $40,000

^^Assuming average 8% return, annually

I did not include real estate because way too crazy volatile, particularly regionally. For that reason, $40k may be a conservative estimate. (I did not include additional sources of income, gifts and so on, either).

It is not surprising that we are able to increase net worth more with time - is starting to compound a bit as we move past the real estate bubble and the last stock market crash.

I don't know what a realistic timeline is to consistently increase net worth by $60k annually. I think it will largely depend on short term market fluctuations.

Most of the $10k bump from $30k to $40k "net worth increase" estimate is due to lower mortgage interest rates (faster payoff) and stock market returns on increased investments. When I first estimated annual $30k net worth goal we were probably only paying mortgage down at a rate of $3k per year and probably had less than $50k in retirement savings. Our income has been pretty stagnant in all that time. But mortgage is being paid down faster (with a smaller payment) and investment returns are 3-4 times what they were in 2007 with investment balances 3-4 times as large. Smaller mortgage payment has also increased our savings ability (more to savings).

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

Here is my sidebar update (putting it here for the future):

**2013 Financial Goals**

[ ]$11,000 to IRAs 2013 (MAX)
...(6,050 @ 12/31/13)
...Delaying funding to April 2014, to keep cash intact.

[X]$5,000 to savings
...(13,000 @ 12/31/13)
...Had to bump up savings due to lots of emergencies and repairs this year
...All but $5k redirected to expenses

[X]$5,000 saved for Hong Kong
...($5,000 @ 12/31/13)
...redirected to plumbing repairs

[ ]Pay more principal than interest to mortgage (+$4,000) - admittedly a pie in the sky goal
...($950 @12/31/13)
...Redirected the rest to home repairs, medical, vet bills, etc. What a Year!!

Goal savings rate = 30% of gross
(Actual savings rate = 11%? This may be our worst savings rate *ever*?)

[X]To have more cash/mutual funds than debt (mortgage)
...Goal Met as of 3/15/13!

[X]To increase net worth by $30k (or 50% expenses)
...(Up $125,000 at 12/31/13)

I was surprised to see that I already got two $25 credits from AmEx last Friday. (Fine print said it would take 90 days or something - why do they always say that? - it always seems to take a few days).

I was extra surprised because this particular credit card is the slowest one I have ever had as far as rewards. Except in this case!

We did remember to use the right cards. Dh spent about $50 on Christmas stuff and bought a $25 Amazon gift card. I bought a $50 Kohls card and a $25 Amazon gift card - both of which - Amazon cards - I consider "free" with the credits. (I could use some new pants for work - so got the Kohls gift card with that in mind).

I left our regular/usual credit card for last so we would not have to remember to use the correct card. Was just waiting to see if dh needed to buy some gift cards for his family. Well, it turns out his Grandma wanted him to order her gifts for the kids - about $50. So he will just pick up a third $25 amazon gift card for free. (I wasn't 100% sure if we would use that last one - so it was nice to use it for someone else's purchase - she will give dh back $50 later - and hopefully I get the last $25 credit in a few days).

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

And... Happy Day! I got my first referral from Ting!! Thank you thank you thank you!! I told so many people about it, but since none of my in-real-life friends mentioned it I presume it was a referral from this blog. Someone anonymous in internet land??

Yay!!

From here on out all my referrals will be $25. I was super excited because only the first one is $50. See my last post for details about Ting and our experience so far. (You get a $25 credit too if you use my link).

As it stands, we have a $200 credit on our account, so definitely will not even get a bill for the first three months. Our early termination refund hit today - Ting paid 25% of it for us. I just submitted the receipt for that yesterday. Woot! & then I got that $50 today too. We already had $50 in Black Friday and referral credits from using someone else's referral.

I didn't lay this out in my last post: If we save $100 month x 5 months with early termination (our half of the family plan) that will pay off dh's new phone in NO TIME. As noted, we won't even pay anything to Ting for the first 3-4 months. & who knows, maybe we will generate a few more referrals by then.

{I wasn't sweating it because I got a credit card bonus to pay for the new phone, but looks like maybe I can use the bonus for something else instead? If the phone pays for itself very quickly?}.

One of those examples where it pays to terminate early. It's a racket - but it would have cost us a larger fortune to wait out the contract.

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

Okay, so I FINALLY got my new Chase card.

Old game plan:

Was thinking of charging a property tax installment, fees and all, to get this card charged up. {Even though I cringed at the thought of the fees!} But I also expected to have received it a long time ago. This took forever!

In the end, I already ran my tax return and things were surprisingly breakeven. By some miracle we don't owe any taxes, even without paying December mortgage yet. So, phew! So, I decided NOT to prepay property taxes this year. I still think it will be simpler in the long run, but this year is just not the year. (Surprising because we couldn't deduct as much medical and had way less mortgage interest this year. I had also adjusted my withholdings - paid in more taxes which apparently was enough for this year - phew).

Okay, so property taxes were due before I even got the card and scratch the second installment getting paid before next year. I was relieved because I didn't want to waste $50 or so on fees - though would have been worth it for the large reward.

New game plan:

I am hoping to get this new card charged up by around February 1.

What I have come up with so far:

$400 to Sprint for final bill (50% is being reimbursed by my parents, so this is an awesome hit for the card).

$200 Insurance due

$300 Auto insurance due in January

$250 Christmas Donations. The theme this year is animal shelter. Since our family lost two pets and adopted two pets. My kids won't hear of anything else. I like how we usually spread out our donations among many charities - each choosing one. In this case I was donating as a gift to my mom as well - in lieu of any other gifts - and then the kids both picked the shelter - so it will be one large amount divided amongst two shelters - one in each of our cities.

My choice was definitely the shelter since we had only paid $5 to adopt our cat. At the time it was a stray, we had no idea what we were getting into and just came off a pile of vet bills. But I figured we'd give them $100-ish if the year went well. I am happy to say that he is as healthy as a horse! The year hasn't gone well, but at least we didn't need a pile of money for the new cat.

Other than that - will just put January and February health insurance on that card.

Oh, and another $50 bonus if dh makes one purchase as an "authorized user". He told me he was shopping Scholastic this week, which is PERFECT. He sometimes charges up $0.25-ish there (since he uses his earned credit and tries to pay as little as possible out of pocket). I asked him if he had any small purchases in mind, and I think that is about as small as it gets.

My general strategy is to charge up these cards as fast as possible, but kind of a tall order with having to spend $6,000 on two cards. But, I may just prepay February health insurance and be done with it. Could have that one done by January 1 if I do it that way. Depends when the card closes for the month...

Dh's card already has $3,000 in charges - it was all insurance. Insurance insurance insurance... I should be able to redeem his $430 bonus around December 31.

Things are going well on the Ting front.

**Since we were Sprint customers we were able to all keep our current phones. Of course, our switch was motivated by the new Nexus 5, which dh was able to buy directly from Google and then brought it over to Ting. The phone is $349 new but is a top tier phone. About half the cost of anything my dh was seriously considering up to that point.

Moto G also has a $179 price point? Which would probably be more my style than the Nexus. Ting is not supporting this one yet, but I assume they will work it out (would be a great match for Ting service, due to its reasonable price).

It will be interesting to see what other phones start to flood the market in the next few years.

**In the end, I took dh's android. It was a refurbished phone he bought for about $100 when his phone broke this summer. He hates it, but it's a nice step up from my windows phone. Of note, I can use our bank apps on the android (means immediate deposit of my payroll checks - I had just been using dh's phone when I got home). This phone also has 4G, if we ever get that service... Probably better for the long run.

We are keeping my old windows phone for the kids. It will only cost $6/month to activate it with Ting. In fact, we can activate it and unactivate it at will. Which is nice for this age. I don't see us having any use for the kids having a cell phone for a couple of years, but it is nice to have such a simple option we can activate today if we decide we need it for a special situation.

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

**We are shifting our mindset on this Ting plan because are moving from virtually unlimited everything to "charge per tier". The charges are so inexpensive that it will be fine either way. BUT, of course we want to be efficient.

I also checked the details of our landline today. We have been averaging about 20 of our 300 minutes and so we will work on using the landline for some of our calls. If we do so, I think we can keep in the lower minutes tier with Ting.

{I find the landline necessary, particularly for the kids, and it is *free* anyway with our internet service}.

Sprint Monthly Charges:

1600 minutes (calls to each other were not counted), unlimited text and data

$105 for first phone
$ 25 for second phone
$ 25 for third phone
$ 15 for non-smart-phone
$ 20 Taxes
-----
$190 - Our split was $100 per month


Ting Monthly charges:

$24 for 4 phones
$ 9 for 500 minutes (Medium)**
$ 5 for 1000 Texts (Medium)**
$13 for 500MB (Medium)
-----
$51

**Texts and minutes to each other now double counted (versus not counted at all before).

+ Taxes and fees = ??? I somehow doubt more than $10 per month. Maybe only $5.

So, let's just say $60/month. For now we are splitting 50/50 for simplicity. We may re-evaluate later but I don't think either of our families uses a lot more minutes or data than the other. That makes our half at $30 per month.

I think the data usage is realistic given the lack of 4G service in our city. I am not sure on the minutes.

It is possible this will bump up to $80/month when we get 4G. I am expecting that to be the worst case. Only $40/month for us (half):

Higher End Projection:

$24 for 4 phones
$18 for 1000 minutes (Large)
$ 5 for 1000 Texts (Medium)^^
$24 for 1000MB (Large)
$ 9 Taxes
-----
$80

So, either way we save $60 - $70 every month.



I think the best part of Ting is they only charge you for your actual usage. That, and no insane penalties for going over. (They have reasonable rates if you want to use more data minutes or texts than their XXL "buckets").

^^Our texting is nowhere near 1000 but the tier below that was only 100 texts.

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

If you don't have Sprint, Ting sells new and used phones directly, as well as they help you buy compatible phones from third parties. (A personal shopper service).

They also have a service for selling your old phones. Overall, they try to make the switch as simple as possible.

Here is a referral for $25 off if you decide to make the switch:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com

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

In other news, we got our final Sprint bill. I was expecting to pay last month's charges + early termination fee.

I forgot we had been pre-paying that bill all along. I was utterly confused until I pulled up our very first bill, which was the only one that indicated it was a "pre payment". The rest of the bills didn't seem to have any indication. Kind of annoying, but I guess it was a nice surprise.

I don't know if my accounting was terribly grand with my folks, but I think they are all paid up. They owe me $175 in early termination fees. My mom had been paying me every other month for their half of the phone bill. At this rate I think I will just ask for reimbursement once or twice per year. Since the amounts will be so much smaller... But I will probably draw up a spreadsheet and keep better track!

Ting also reimburses 25% of early termination fees, up to $75 per device. I submitted for that credit yesterday - super easy and it took less than a minute.

When that hits we should have $140 in credits, so I don't expect to pay a cell phone bill for a few months, until we run through all the credits.

My first referral will be a $50 credit so I am also really talking it up until I get that $50 - might cover a month of service for all four of us. We have a few friends we can probably get to switch, so hope to have a few referrals roll in during 2014.

I am not expecting to pay much of anything for cell service during 2014.

{Reminds me, dh was telling me one of his friends was paying like $120 per month cell service for a single dumb phone. You got me!?! He will likely be our first referral. It was a terrible network too - one far worse than the Sprint/Ting network}.

So, we turned on our heat. It has actually been pretty mild. Like it is usually a bit of a challenge to keep heat off until Thanksgiving, but was easy peasy with the late Thanksgiving this year.

I don't know that I necessarily needed the heat on today, but we had a freeze last night. (I am bundled up and will head to work soon with ample heat). BUT, dh is babysitting today and I thought he would probably never think to turn on the heat. Who knows, it might be so cold that my efforts may be futile (it might cool off quickly when I leave). But is my attempt to not look too insane to other people. Other than that, the kids will have to speak up if they are cold.

Otherwise I have my gloves on and am toasty warm, myself.

It was interesting when we got back from the beach because my parents told me their house was 54F degrees. Yikes! Ours was only 64F though our region tends to get a few degrees colder. Just to illustrate how much of our energy savings is the house itself. This morning it is only 60F in the house (the lowest it gets on its own) but there is definitely a colder chill in the air.

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

It is busy here.

I think the Christmas stuff is done. Since it's a busy time of year we don't do much for the Holiday.

Christmas Doings:

--I bought my dad almond roca, like we do every year

--For his 62nd birthday I am giving him $10 for a National Park lifetime pass

--Mom gets a donation to a pet shelter (in the name of her pet that just passed) & I got her some earring on Etsy for her birthday

--I already sent my sister some of these gloves last month - they are DIVINE! We don't necessarily do gifts but I get gifts for people when I see them.

--$10 Starbucks gift card for work exchange - I could only find $10 in pack of 3 but thought that would go well for gifts on hand. I picked up a $5 candle a while ago too. Might give my friend a GC and a candle. I had also ordered earrings for co-worker.

--Christmas work gift will pay for boss work gift

--Dh's family will gift us more than we pay for them - we usually just reimburse SIL for her purchases. Dh might offer to provide Amazon gift cards with the AmEx deal we did.

--Kids bought each other $15 in gifts

--Dh's new cell phone cost me $10 out of pocket. (After credit card bonus paid the bulk). So, the kids ended up buying that for him. He is happy and needs NOTHING else.

--Kids picked up a birthday gift for dh ($10 Blu Ray) - YES it is birthday central here.

--Kids' teachers will get gift certficates to Scholastic (dh earns by volunteering).

Dh's family is driving me crazy with their wish list demands. I thought I had quite a wish list going but apparently they just thought that was for my birthday. I told dh to deal with it. He is trying to talk them into buying some of his and the kids stuff for me. (I often try to sneak their stuff on my list). Will see... I don't think they usually go for it, but if they can't think of anything else.

They are also driving my SIL nuts. Who for one lived in a super teeny tiny space and for two is "homeless" this Christmas. She has a birthday this week too. They sold their home!! But still haven't found another. So, we have both been pretty grinchy about Christmas, but we kind of always are an no one seems to care. Anyway, the past several years I have just put needs on our wish list but I think the thing this year is we no longer even NEED anything. So I have been a little more frustrated than usual.

So yeah, those are the Christmas doings.

Busy doings?

--Only working 4-day weeks most the rest of the year but have TONS of work to do. This week I only get like 2 days in the office. Just CRAZINESS. I will be working some weekends - time is running out!

--Dh is wrapping up his second script - they are rushing a finish because they have an interested buyer. (It's one of those things will believe it when I see it, but overall sounds pretty promising. The buyer is interested in the script they are in the middle of, so no pressure or anything! They want to finish it before the guy changes his mind or forgets about it).

--Dh is volunteering at Scholastic many hours the next few weeks.

--Dh is doing tons of volunteer work at the Public TV station

--Dh is doing tons of babysitting for friends. Our kids are old enough is no big deal, but these friends have a smaller child. I am dreading coming home tonight - SO EXHAUSTING. So much worse in this cold dark weather where we can't run them around outside.

So yeah, it's like dh is working full-time plus nights and yadda yadda. I am only surviving because I am doing all my last minute education this month. Yesterday I attended a seminar from home. BM's shoe broke, so I took him to Payless at 4pm. I hope that is the LAST store I step foot in this year. Often dh is my Christmas elf helper but that is just not happening this year. I think I basically took advantage of down time this past week to get things done. I finished up my online shopping yesterday while attending seminar. I LOVE that. So it seems to be working out.

P.S. See last post for credit card reward tally for 2013!

I've been subscribing to a few more blogs trying to get better notification of credit card bonuses and so on. Anyway, so I had already heard about the Amazon deal about 10 times, but I am glad I read through this post because it had a lot of info that I did not know:

http://millionmilesecrets.com/2013/12/01/american-express-am...

I realized that I was able to register my Fidelity American Express (which in general does not have all of the same perks of a true American Express card). I also saw the tip that authorized users *with different account numbers* can also register. My dh thought I was crazy at first, but I was pretty sure our real and true American Express card had different credit card numbers (our transactions show up separately online because of the different card #s). So, we checked and I was right.

So, we will be able to get $75 off of $225, multiplying by 3.

**Now the trick is to remember to use the right card each time. I think that is TRICKY!!**

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

I was starting to worry that I got denied on that Chase $550 bonus. They absolutely *never* contacted me - I have a fraud alert so they always call when I apply for new credit. They certainly did not approve me instantly - never do with the fraud alert.

So, I was relieved today to get a letter that they just needed to confirm my identity. I roll my eyes at the letter because it says they "couldn't contact me". Well, they would have if they tried. ??? But, if I don't even get this card for another week or two, I think I will pass on charging up the property taxes and will just take my time. In this case it probably works out for the best. IT will take a little longer, but the $3k is no problem with all the insurance bills I have due.

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



I feel like I have been tested very much this year. !!

But I am pleased to say that our third try of the year for a "vacation" went VERY smooth. It did not start out that way and we had our moments, but overall I'd say was an A+ trip. Phew!!!

So yeah, that above was my view for the weekend. It was about 80F degrees and the weather could not have been more perfect!!

My parents went with us and we celebrated my birthday AND also that dh and I have been together for half my life. Not sure on the exact date for that milestone so we just decided, "good enough!" Was also 18th anniversary of our engagement. So, we have been together 18.5 years - we started dating when I was 18.5. We officially got engaged on my 19th birthday but had talked about it and agreed to marry months before that.

I usually am not really into making a big deal about birthdays or anniversaries, but I enjoyed being treated like a Princess all weekend.

Why do I feel tested??? Well, the week started out with a bout of food poisoning. {I am so behind at work I can't even think about it. Stress!! I was hoping for a quiet week to catch up but instead I was home puking out my insides}.

LM was sick on Turkey Day - we had already called it off due to my illness - so we both stayed home for Thanksgiving.

{I have no idea what I ate or what happened, but my body just reacted so violently. Food poisoning was my guess, the symptoms were classic, and no one else in my house got sick. LM had a sore throat/fever thing; totally different. Thankfully he mostly slept in the car and seemed good as new once we got to the beach}.

I was feeling optimistic for the beach weekend, but after bouncing back in about 12 hours (how my kids usually are), LM woke up pretty sick the morning we were supposed to leave. Somehow he snapped out of it and we took a deep breath and we gave it a go. I Wasn't sure until we left that we would even go. I was determined to enjoy our anniversary no matter how we ended up celebrating, but feeling pretty sorry for myself when I woke up and thought we'd have to cancel. & kind of beating myself up for even trying because it would have been our third ruined trip of the year (NONE would have went well). I think any other time BM and I might have just gone with my parents, but it was an anniversary thing and so dh and I were intent on spending the weekend together.

I guess in the end I learned it was good that I tried. Phew!!

We were going to switch over to Ting next week. I believe our early termination sweet spot was Sunday. BUT, dh talked to Sprint a while back and they told us our early termination fee was already lowest it will get: $350. (Not sure I believe this because does not make sense - but whatever - we could argue that is what they told us).

& now Ting is having a big Black Friday Sale, so we will probably transition our phones over today. Sunday is fine, but we were supposed to be at the beach. Today was a "Definitely not leaving the house" kind of day with Black Friday...

Here are the details on their Black Friday Sale:

https://ting.com/blog/just-about-every-ting-device-on-sale/

In addition to their devices on sale, they are offering a $25 per device credit for bringing devices over to Ting. Of course, we have a family plan with my parents, so this is a substantial bonus for us - $100!! $125, since we decided to just switch over all our phones. We haven't decided which one to drop yet (with dh getting a new phone). So we can try them all out for a bit. We will eventually drop the 5th one - I don't see the older kid getting any use out of a cell phone yet (though we will keep the extra for him - maybe could use in the next couple of years). We had already decided a while ago that when the kids get cell phones we'd put them on Ting. It may only be $6/month/each for their level of usage.

& I have a referral code:

https://z181d126bt4.ting.com/

By using my Ting referral code you get $25 off your phone purchase or $25 account credit if you bring your own phone, and I get a $25 account credit.

This referral code works in addition to the Black Friday deal!!

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

These are not the exact numbers, but the figures work out to something like this...

Early termination (4 lines) is $350. It will be $350 for each of the last 5 months of our contract. Last month would have cost more.

Ting will pay 25% of our early termination fee and we will get $125 credit (at least) for switching today.

$350 Fee
- 88 Ting Credit (25%)
-125 Black Friday and Referral Code
-----
$137 Net Fees for switching

Cell phone bill (pre-tax) goes down from $180 to $60 per month. That is a monthly savings of $120 per month. Which means, we about break even on the first month - maybe so with taxes. I expect the taxes to decrease - just not sure by how much.

Going forward, our own household will save $60 per month ($120 x 50%). The catch is that the phones are not subsidized. But, there are a slew of lower cost non-contract phones coming out on the market right now. Which is actually what motivated our switch right now. By the time I need to upgrade my own phone I expect this to be a non-issue. Dh just bought a new phone and so I expect he will keep it many years. (We usually keep our phones for a long time). The rest of us will keep our phones, though we might drop the most out-of-date phone (since we now have 5 phones for the 4 of us). The kids will have hand-me-downs to use, eventually.

When we were on Verizon (for over a decade) we never got new phones every 2 years. SO wasteful, and that way we didn't have to be on contract all the time. I am sure we were off contract more than we were ever on contract. I am beyond happy that those contract days are OVER!! I knew we'd eventually jump ship, but just didn't expect it to be so soon. Woohoo!

{I suppose it was for the greater good and cost savings that dh's phone broke??}.

ETA: We aren't sure if the $25 credit - Black Friday AND referral code - is really $25 per device or $25 per account. I guess we find out for sure on Tuesday. (Confusing wording on both accounts. Their customer service is REALLY good, but we've already called them like *FIFTY* times so we figured we will just figure it out when we get the credit. Just because we had a lot of questions about various unique situations - not because we had any problems).

Yes, of course Chase upped their bonus considerably right after dh applied!

But, I kind of figured that would happen and I am up for a double dip or a triple dip myself (I don't remember off the top of my head). & we can also always ask them to match the offer on the card we just applied for.

Anyway, here is the 55,000 bonus I just stumbled across today:

http://www.creditcardwatcher.com/chase-sapphire-preferred-ca...

I already applied.

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

Dh's total bonus will be $430, and mine should be $580, for a total of $1,010. The reward is CASH.

I am going the "super lazy" route:

For one, I don't think I will bother to ask them to match on dh's card.

Secondarily, I have to come up with $6,000 to spend in the next 3 months for both of these cards. It's not really a big deal because gas + groceries + health insurance is about $2k per month for us. So, we could charge anything and everything and make it work. BUT, that is a lot of accounting on my part.

I've already got dh's $3,000 spent, so the easiest way to do mine is to charge our property taxes. We will pay a $50-ish fee to do so, but this will be infinitely easier in the grand scheme of things. That is one charge versus an entire month of charges to track on some random card we will only keep for a few months. Anything more than that is too complicated for my sensibilities.

So, this is what we did:

--Charged $140-ish to AAA this month.

--Dh's card closes next week (billing cycle closes) so after that I will charge November health insurance, December health insurance & home insurance and flood insurance.

This brings us about exactly to $3,000 (with the bulk of it due January 31). I already have every single one of those bills set to pay after next week.

My new Chase Sapphire Card:

--Charge Property taxes $2,000
--I will probably pre-pay January's health insurance. Or just charge it in January since it is well within 3 months.

--Dh will have to do one small charge for the extra 5,000 points. Hopefully something really small.

& that is how we will spend $6,000 in like one month, so we can get these rewards in hand ASAP.

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

Rewards Spending:

--$400-ish is going to dh's new phone (why I applied for the other Chase card in the first place).

--I still owe $350 for BM's field trip for this year so will just knock that out.

--Leaves about $200-ish after the property tax fee. Might just use that to shore up our beach weekend. I didn't pay the entire hotel yet, and will have the kitty hotel. & eating out always adds up so quickly (since we are so used to such cheap home cooking).

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

While I am doing a credit card reward post...

Progress on our ongoing credit card rewards:

--Will earn about $600 this year from Fidelity AmEx (Deposited to ROTHs)

--Will earn about $500 with our gas/groceries reward card (has all gone to mortgage)

--Earned $160 on our CU visa (we racked up a lot of charges last month because they had a 2% cash back promotion - I don't get this reward until January - it accumulates all year and we usually don't use this card much - will probably throw the $160-ish at the mortgage when I receive it).

--I looked and we saved $80 at Target this year. Once I get the year-end total I will throw this sum at the mortgage. At 5% back this works out to about $1600 purchases. The bulk of that is groceries.

The credit card reward grand total is going to be close to $2600 this year.

So, I got the HOA financials and everything, and an apologetic letter about how they had to increase our HOA dues during these trying times.

My spouse, who HATES the HOA with a passion starts griping while I flip through the paperwork trying to find actual dollar figures. I tell him, "Oh chill out - our HOA dues have only gone down over the years - which is crazy unheard of in any economy - much less THIS ONE." I mean, the majority of the homes around here are in default - no one's paying their dues. I hate the HOA too, but they have their financial crap together. I have no idea how we got so lucky. I'd like to say I poured over financial statements and did my research, but we were an early buyer in a completely new neighborhood. There was nothing to research about the HOA at that time. We just got lucky.

Anyway, I finally found the dollar figure. We have to pay an extra quarter per month.

Who wrote that letter?!? If it was me, it would be, "In spite these hard economic times and the over-bearing amount of non-paying homeowners, the dues will only need to increase 25 cents per month to balance our budget". I mean, seriously. Write a sad apologetic letter over a quarter?

It is the first time in many years they raised the fee at all. Somehow we survive.

{To be fair, we live in the cheapest neighborhood. Some of the others, especially the gated parts, have extra services included. Theirs went up $1.25 - $2.25 per month. & theirs always goes up, so the apologetic letter was probably for them}.

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

I am pleased with how 2014 is shaping up. I think I have got all the budget numbers I need except for any potential raise. I think odds are I won't get a raise and so will just plan on that for now. (I will find out for sure in January).

I'll have to post numbers later. I am pleased I have managed to offset all cost increases with other cost decreases.

This is my past week or so:

**Mom was in a car accident. She is okay; it was minor.

**Mom's cat passed on. This was the cat we were really worried would pass within weeks of my mom's mom passing. SO, we are relieved (and very surprised) that she held on as long as she did. She did go fast and sudden though, so was kind of shocking in that regard. But I still can't believe that cat outlived mine by a solid 8 months. !! (That cat was very sick for many years; ours was only diagnosed with cancer a few weeks before she passed).

It's been a rough year for pets in our family.

**I had a scary medical thing on Monday. It turned out to be "nothing", but you know, you don't know that at the time. More on that later. It's really nothing that exciting, but was just scary when I had no idea what it was.

**I suppose the crappy luck is in my parents' court for now. I am fine and I Was able to be evaluated at a routine medical appointment. I just sped up the appointment to yesterday and so am not out any extra money for the evaluation. (I was worried I'd be sent for an MRI, so glad it worked out the way it did).

I don't like to be cheap with medical stuff, but it has been one heck of a year!!

Oh, anyway, so today was at least a little good news:

Today was the big dental appointment that I was thinking we should see out before booking winter vacation. BUT, it went about as well as it could have. BM had 2 teeth pulled (Expected).

LM may cost a small fortune next year but is currently in "wait and see" mode. I am so relieved to have a 6 month financial reprieve on that. (They did not even pull his baby tooth, which was expected today).

Yes, *only* spending $100 for a routine doctor appointment and $400 at the dentist is GOOD NEWS around here. Lately.

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

So that my post is not just whiny and "woe is me" and accidents and death and doctor bills...

**I got called for jury duty and already got excused (As sole breadwinner/non-paid for jury duty). Oh - they called me in for the worst possible week of the entire year as far as work. That was stress I did not need. (I started to worry maybe my excuse was not automatic and I had used it too many times). Let's just say... "Phew!"

**Last year at this time I got some school shorts on clearance for $3.88 per pair. I hit a couple of Targets last night but no such luck. I think I just got lucky last year.

While out, we got a sympathy card for my mom. I bought the kids a couple of shirts on clearance.

**Dh made 21-ingredient-chili, which was raved about on the crockpot365 website. It was interesting... & I mean that in a good way. IT was tasty and different and good. But, I think we will toss that recipe aside as it doesn't fit our preference for "less complicated".

In case you are intrigued:

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2011/12/21-ingredient-chili-...

It just couldn't hold a candle to our very simple/tasty recipe. Much preferred by ALL of us:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/corny-chili

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

**Last, but not least: Have you heard anything about 3D printers? Dh and my dad are engineer types and so there had been talk about this technology. I saw probably towards the beginning of the year that our library had a 3D printer. O.M.G. I think it took them a while to get staff and support for it though.

So anyway, dh finally went over there to check it out. Now that they have regular hours and information and so on.

HE found a site with designs you can take over to the printer:

http://www.thingiverse.com/

HE found a cup holder kind of design for his new phone (a phone stand to keep in the car cup holder). & so he decided to experiment with that.

Well, it ended up taking about 3.5 hours to print. On a day where the printer was only available for 4 hours. That said, while I was in there, a guy walked in and said, "I promise it won't take 6 hours this time!" So, I guess it happens...

There are several things of similar size that only take 15 minutes or 1/2 hour to print. It seems like it is maybe a little hit and miss.

All of the above said, no one knows about it (the library printer) and it appears to be generally under-utilized.

This thing is a frugie's dream!

Practical applications:

--To make replacement parts to fix items

--To make gifts or toys (or jewelry)

--To make small practical items like key chains. Or cell phone cases.

--Useful for school projects?

The possibilities are probably endless...

Actually, there was a local news story about some young entrepreneurs prototyping their invention at the library.

Here is the 3D printer in action:

**Dh and I had a nice lunch date last week. It had been a while, for whatever reason. Maybe just busy busy busy dealing with life.

We had a coupon so spent a whopping $11. I had leftovers for dinner the same night.

We had gotten the coupon at the last school fundraiser. We also scored an hour of free bowling and $20 in arcade credits (at bowling alley). That will be something we should go do Thanksgiving week.

**That reminds me, I did get our post Thanksgiving vacation booked.



After one heck of a year and more than one ruined vacation, I am a little wary. BUT, since my birthday fell on that weekend it sealed the deal for just going. We went last year and had the entire hotel mostly to ourselves. IT was DIVINE. I figure this year we will get rained out or a flat tire or something. But, will try!! Trying to be positive.

**So, how about that Nexus 5?

It's a $400-ish non-contract phone that works with most cell carriers.

I don't know if dh would care so much, but his phone broke and he really HATES the one that he is making do with.

So yeah, he is all over it!! Which is making me think this broken phone thing was a blessing in disguise.

Because... He is ready to switch to Ting!

Last we ran the numbers it just wasn't working, but I think it was mostly because he didn't want to. We were probably assuming all new phones, and higher prices of phones. So, this Nexus 5 changes things dramatically. In addition, if we switch now, the rest of us can just keep our current phones (barely 18 months old, so no need or wish to upgrade).

One final point - we weren't quite sure on data usage before we tried out our latest cell phone plan. BUT, since the sprint network sucks so much our data usage has been pretty small. Our current actual usage puts us around $30/month for two phones. (Before taxes and fees). I would expect we will use more data with time, and so did not factor this low usage in our past calculations. (Which is fine - even if we quadruple our data we will still be saving a ton on the monthly bill).

We are on a family plan with my folks and are all on the same page. If we stick with Sprint at all, might as well just go to Ting and pay half as much for the same crappy coverage. Either that, or let's just splurge on Verizon and actually get decent cell service.

But the Nexus 5 does not carry to Verizon. So, that seals the deal. Dh's love for the phone and kicking the big guys (and contract BS) to the curb is trumping all else. Plus, maybe he is a sucker. We are supposed to get 4G any day now. (So they have said for the entire past 18 months). I am just relieved he is willing to wait it out.

I would not be surprised if we eventually end up with Verizon, but am happy to save money in the interim. Environmentally, we are really opposed to upgrading all our phones just to switch carriers again.

Anyway THANK YOU to the SA Ting guniea pigs. I really appreciate it. It's an easier choice having heard so much good things about it.

I will have to do a numbers post later. We are terminating our contract 5 months early, so somewhere around December 1, or maybe a little later - depends when we get dh's new phone. Though since there are no activation fees, I am pushing to just switch December 1. He can sort out the new phone later. Anyway, Ting will pay 25% of our termination fees, so that is cool. We will still come out ahead regardless, terminating early and cutting our monthly bill for those 5 months.

**One final thing. That new phone is not going to cost me a penny. I was waiting for the Chase Sapphire card to bump back up to a $500 reward again (I think it was $500 earlier this year??). But, I give up. The $400 reward came to mind as a great way to pay for this phone. So I already applied, and I have enough insurance bills due to hit the $3,000 spending requirement by 12/31. I hope to get that $430-ish reward check by the end of the year.

I am not sure if this is really a Murphy thing:

Our car broke down...

...in the garage!

So, was mostly a non-event. (We also noticed during the weekend when we weren't in a hurry and had the second car at our disposal - the carpool situation eliminated any weekday stress while we got the car fixed. Phew)!

I looked over the tires before we got it to the shop and they look fine. So, financially is kind of a wash (was expecting to replace two tires). I will check our maintenance records, but I think they probably only have 40k miles and are fine. Which would explain why the tires looked perfectly fine though we had been on a somewhat "every 2 year replace 2 tires" schedule. Was a good year to take a break since we just replaced van's 4 tires.

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

I was SHOCKED to see home insurance bill - just got an e-mail copy today.

Down from $900 to $600. Woohoo!!

I googled a bit and saw State Farm reduced rates this year in California. When I get the full paper mail bill I will look over it more carefully.

I don't think we have ever paid that little to insure our home. In 14 years. Not even our condo (since it was in crazy expensive land).

My life insurance also decreased by about 30% this year. I had noticed it seemed lower but didn't look too much into it. Just got a note from my professional association recently that they had way decreased their rates, so I guess that explains that.

Flood insurance went up 20%, which is 100% political. I did not know since can't keep track of all the minutiae, but I googled a bit and saw it should go up 20% per year for five more years, and that the amount this year was correct. (It was supposed to go up 400% a couple of years back, but then I learned we were exempt because we had flood insurance going way back. So, it's just like that. FEMA bills us directly, but the last few years I had to sort out with my insurance agent. It probably wouldn't hurt to check with him this year, though bill actually matched what was reported in news and by Congresswoman. Last two years was all a mess).

I also got property tax bill. Expected decrease due to some bond refinancing. Decrease was about $125. Supposedly more local bonds will follow suit - so that will be awesome. (Total bill increased a bit because home value went up - but county assessed way conservatively like they have been - they can't keep up and I think are just avoiding the time and cost of appeals).

What will I do with large home insurance windfall? Put it to property taxes. Is actually perfect because I wanted to prepay this year. Saved $1500 on vacation and $300 on homeowners insurance, so that mostly covers the extra property tax payment.

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

Other fiscal successes:

Dh actually succeeded in getting out internet bill down by $15 per month. For a year. PHEW!!! I think I will just throw that to the mortgage as a holding place - it will probably eventually fund a cell phone plan switch.

I also received $250 Citi reward. $250 "check to mortgage" - I just deposited to our bank account.

I am holding my breath and waiting another week to make sure they really and truly accepted the third party check. & that dh's tooth removal goes well. & then I guess I must be crazy because will put the money towards our beach weekend. Third time is the charm? Hopefully this vacation is not ruined.

I do feel more financially relaxed about giving that a go, with the home insurance savings. The $250 citi check will pay for the bulk of our weekend away. IT covers the hotel, and we can work the food and gas into our regular budget.

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

Other than that, I am just EXHAUSTED! A big deadline kind of week at work. Dh is no longer volunteering in the classroom (which was like a billion hours) and so I volunteered at Fall Festival last weekend. (Exhausting start to week!!). We had an impromptu get together with friends after (at our house). Cleaned house Sunday because the in-laws stopped by. Last night the school had a chili cook off (which was totally awesome by the way) AND we attended a concert. Concert was beyond awesome. & my folks came up for that, so that was fun.

Oh, and a CRAZY busy week at work. I am probably staying home today - I need nothing more than a nice nap!

**Dh has a crazy wisdom teeth that has come up the past couple of years since we switched dentists. (It's black and dentist thinks it is way cool - I didn't even know about it).

So, I was envisioning "wisdom tooth" surgery and as dh has mentioned more and more he will eventually want to pull it, I was hoping a few more years in the future.

Well, dentist today recommended pulling. For $150. Can you say, "PHEW!"?

I have a bad habit of assuming things our way worse than they are. Don't I feel stupid now?


**BM and LM both are slated for some teeth pulling - we have a meeting around November 10th for that. The word "surgery" was thrown out towards one of the kids. So, I am not out of the woods yet! Crossing my fingers.

Will I be the only one to not suffer a pulled tooth in the month of November?

I actually have horrible horrible jaw and crowded/crooked teeth and orthodontia forever in the $$$$$$$ range, and so on. BUT, I didn't get any wisdom teeth? Does that even things out? Probably not.

I like to say I am just more evolved.


**I was going to post this with my last post but forgot. I noticed stocks did well yesterday, probably due to Government news. So I updated our net worth and so on. I did not realize things had soared higher for us than they did all year so far, until I updated, so that was a nice surprise.

We surpassed a major milestone earlier this year. More financial assets than debt (mortgage). It was an exciting milestone, but now I am eager to get well on the other side of that milestone. In the interim, a volatile stock market can push us backwards on that goal.

As of today we were up about $20,000. !! I am very pleased with that. So, as of today we could pay off our mortgage and still have $20k! It would be higher, but we've had one heck of a year. I think we'd have crossed the $30k mark if not for everything breaking and going wrong. On the flip side, I am very "big picture" focused and the big picture is certainly going well. Of all years for things to be expensive, this might be the one that bothers me the least, on some level. At least our investments are doing well.

I've truly felt that this year is the year our assets are starting to really work for us. & that is aside from the stock market being totally on fire. They'd be working well for us regardless.

P.S. Our ROTHs are also nearing the $100k mark. If I had funded them at all this year, they'd be there. But I think it's too soon to call, though if I add the cash earmarked for that we would be there. Just waiting for some more cash infusions to make those contributions and to make it official. Maybe 12/31? Completely random but dh and I would both have about $50k each. WE have both invested differently and different amounts over the years. I converted my old 401k into a ROTH IRA at some point, too. Which maybe makes up that since most years I funded his ROTH more than my own since I had work retirement plans for several years; he never had a work retirement plan. The last 2 or 3 years we have both maxed out our ROTHs since have been our only retirement contributions that we can contribute to. I have more money in a IRA (rolled over from employer plan). Total retirement is fast approaching the $200k mark. The first $100k was really and truly the hardest. IT goes so fast after that point - especially in a market like this.

**Got a $20 sprint credit - will add to 11/30 mortgage payment. That's $40 mortgage snowflakes next month with the $20 I have been adding for carpool savings.

Sprint was giving us $40 per month, but dh is fine with $20. Basically, him and I are not paying our "data charges" as long as we can't get much data. The $40 seemed flukey and generous, BUT, it also paid for his phone replacement when it broke, so I guess it works out.

**Dh is going to try to call and haggle down our internet bill. The bill is absurd, but we aren't seriously going to leave and the service is A+. It is cheaper than our cell plan, and it actually works as advertised. (He is probably motivated knowing I will be more open to going back to Verizon if we tame that beast - they refused to give us any more discounts once our last promo ended). We don't have cable with them, but was our last cable company. we negotiate everything no problem, but seem to ever have any luck with the cable companies - we walked away from several who were unwilling to give us extended promotions. Even when we legitimately said "we are leaving" and we left. Don't ask me! All this to say, not expecting much on this front.

**I got a $60 prepaid visa rebate for our recent tire purchase. I had the bright idea to pay it to our health insurance (since it was a larger sum than the usual $15 or $20 rebates). Worked like a charm! Will have to remember that for the future.

**We redeemed our Citi "triple dip" reward. $250 check to our mortgage (which I read most people just deposited to their bank - will try that first - our checking account is with mortgage holder so we still have Plan B if the deposit does not work).

We had 1200 points left and one of the first rewards that popped up was a 8G Flash Drive. Sold!

Once my paycheck hits today, I will pay off that card. When we receive rewards in hand I will cancel that card.

The mortgage payment was an annoying reward to redeem because you have to call in to request it.

**My younger child who was fond of big words is regularly calling me "economic". I will take that as a compliment. He means it in a more "frugal" or "money conscious" context. It's cute.

**IT's been crazy and busy and I can't believe Halloween is only a couple of weeks away! It completely slipped my radar. I have not bought the kids costumes in several years. I am a little more open to it this year, especially since getting so last minute, and also because it has been a while. I found angry birds costumes 80% - 90% off. I guess not so popular any more??? You got me! So I am trying to sell them on that. Will see...

**I got an e-mail about the 5th graders $200 field trip deposit due. I had completely forgotten. But was waiting for more info. I suppose I will give up on more info and just put it down. (I don't see any reason why he would not participate, and we had many years to prepare).

That said, kind of bad planning on their part as they added that big 4th grade Sailboat field trip. That means 4 years in a row of big bucks on my part 4th, 5th, 4th, 5th. I noticed the middle schoolers had -0- field trip money requested. But, let's wait until this 5th grade gets up there. Some of the more well-off bigger spenders are in my older child's grade.

Well, that's a buzzkill since I had totally forgotten about it. !!

It's likely we just won't give any money to the school when we have 5th graders. We tend to donate a fair amount (because the school is AWESOME). But lord knows this year I have nothing to give. Next year it will probably be a chunk of change to field trips, instead. I forgot the full price, but it was a lot more than $200 - some "several nights away" thing.

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

The other e-mail I got should probably go into the buzzkill pile. Endless requests for last minute money and so on drives me batty. So, I mostly stopped participating.

But I got an e-mail about a bunch of things needed in two days (shoot me now!) and for whatever reason I perused the list on the offchance anything was easy. I spotted "fall decor" for a raffle basket. I'll hit the Target dollar bins and Michaels with coupons, on the way home tonight.

Aren't I feeling in a NICE mood? (99% of the time I'd just grumble about the last minute requests and would say, "As if!!")

Part of the nice mood if I don't think anyone has asked me for anything this year. So, that helps. (Either that, or I ignored all the rest and forgot because they were too last-minute).

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

Made some de-clutter progress this weekend but had a serious DOH moment. !!

Dh was ready to donate an old first-generation-ish DVD player. I found the manual for it plus a manual for an old CD player dh was supposed to sell many moons ago.

So, what did I do? I switched the manuals! Sent the CD one off with the DVD player. Oh well!

We already had that to purge, some clothes, and some more frgaile goods I Couldn't fit into the last pile. IT was a fairly small purge, but I was able to get it all out. My table begins anew and fresh.

That said, the "stuff we can sell for money" pile is growing, so may be our focus in the coming weeks.

Still got the carsetas (ahem, dh! - to be fair it has been crazy busy).

I got out the old cat carrier since we have no need for it.

I've got some wall hangings to sell.

I've got a mop/vaccum thing and dh did at least get that monstrous CD player out from our closet (so old and big that we will probably just freecycle at this point).

In addition, we did finally get through the downstairs closet. Lots and lots of boxes and gift bags (though we rarely give gifts. Might start a one-in/one-out rule on thise. We retained a "lifestime supply" and recycled anything that wasn't absolutely pristine.

I found some odd things as I believe I used the closet to stuff things in when I had smaller kids and less time. But cleared that stuff out and am mostly left with extra granite, tile, carpet, and all our gift wrapping needs (to last a lifetime).

I also went through manuals I had in two spaces in the house. Found some really old stuff and purged a lot. Others I was able to put with their sales/donation items. I could probably organize a bit more, but was a start.

Both those were fairly short and easy projects that I wanted to just get done to feel like I made some forward progress (on my otherwise super lazy vacation week - I honestly did little else).

November might be a good time to focus on craigslisting and purging paint and hazardous waste (which I mostly have in a pile ready to go).

We could probably also go through the garage now that it has cooled off a bit. (Should be an easy project - not a lot to it - we keep the garage pretty clear for cars. But there may be some weird forgotten things in there).

Phew! The universe seems to be cutting us some slack this week.

**Got back from our "Plan B" vacation. We cut it short by about 5 days - so not much else planned the rest of the week. Might go see a couple of movies.

I will say I haven't had a nicer drive in "forever". No traffic whatseoever - didn't particularly see any crazy drivers. How is that for a miracle? With the year we have had I was also crazy afraid of some bad luck like a breakdown. So I am relieved to say it went very well. (I've probably never done a road trip of any length in such a new vehicle and had no logical reason to be worried - it's just been that kind of a year).

So, we do feel relieved to be home in one piece.

**WE spent about $1,000 for the trip. I will break it down when I get a breather. I think we honestly easily could have made it a $500-ish trip. I told dh to keep that one in our back pocket if we were ever particularly broke and wanted a getaway. We splurged on show tickets and a kitty hotel, which was about $400 of our costs. So, $600 for gas, hotel, food, transportation and so on.

The State Park we went to was AMAZING and probably made up a bit for skipping Death Valley. I think we saw some similar landscapes. The kids seemed to warm up to Vegas by last day and seemed to really enjoy the last night. Days 1 and 2 I wasn't so sure. Vegas was certainly PACKED. I think a lot of travelers were diverted there.

**Sprint coverage sucked eggs most the trip and so dh told me he was done with them. I think he had been holding out hope for 4G, but this trip just sealed the deal. He has to call and complain and get our credits back for the rest of our contract. We will start running numbers. We will probably go back to Verizon. At least we have a feel now of what kind of data usage we use, and so on. Before, was just boycotting anyone who didn't offer unlimited, but he is just not happy with other options. We've never been happy with any phone carrier but Verizon. They may be pricey but they offer exceptional coverage and service.

**We came home to our 2014 health insurance premiums. Gah! They usually e-mail it and certainly wasn't expecting that. In fact, we had been discussing that on the way home. In the end, we dodged a bullet. Only went up 5%. (I know - ONLY!! But we have had too many years of 10% - 20% increases). Which means we have one more solid year of insurance cheaper than our mortgage. Next year looks to be the year, where our insurance costs more, for sure. For reference, this is in CALIFORNIA. It's not like housing is exactly cheap.

I haven't looked up the exchange yet but never expected much from it (while gainfully employed). I appreciate the options for the unknown future though. But anyway, we have "young and healthy" insurance and so did not expect much. For reference, the Platinum plan was being quoted as $1500 per month, while we pay $900/month for a lower deductible and far better coverage. They released the rates around September 1.

In addition, I do have health insurance through employer, so that is another wrench. IT's just really crappy insurance and expensive. It's like I'd pay $1,000 per month to add the family, and nothing we needed would be covered. That kind of thing. But, since *I* have insurance offered to me, I do not believe *I* can buy insurance on the exchange. Even if it is crappy by my own measure - it meets the minimum requirements.

Our income is near the cutoff for income tax credits, so I doubt I will find the worse plan that costs more any more enticing. If I were unemployed, it would be fully subsidized, and that would be a whole other story. But seriously, how does that even work? I have to cough up $1500 per month now and wait for a $18,000-ish tax refund after the end of the year? Holy cow!! I guess it's better than no subsidy.

So, anyway, the long and the short of it was I did not expect to use the exchange. But, I will look up actual rates now that it is all set up and check our tax credit and so on. I haven't done that yet.

My dad told me his insurance was going from $2,000 per month to $300 per month on the exchange. They have no income, so that is not surprising. I have to re-strategize for them since we were converting all their IRAs to ROTHs, ideally before they turn 70. But, it might be better to leave their income very low and get these healthcare subsidies until they turn 65. I expected the exchange to help them more with all their pre-existings.

{Their insurance is still $2,000 per month, but they will be getting HUGE tax refunds as most of the savings will be tax credits}.

**I talked to my dad last night and he no longer wants to take BM to Japan. I am a little disappointed because him and his Japan friend aren't getting any younger and healthier. BUT, he said he wanted to take BM in 2015 instead. I think I can live with that. He even said he wanted to pay for him if they went in 2015. I felt like it would be dumb to pass up the opportunity, BUT, it does put a lot of financial pressure off of me. So, phew! {Next year my dad wants to do a solo trip and wants the flexibility to go any time of the year}.

**We have $1500 left over from our planned vacation budget, for this week. I'd probably realistically expect to spend $2500 on our 10-day National Park vacation. We save $1500 every year for vacations. MIL gave us a check for $1,000 right before we left (totally unexpected - for anniversary and trip). I don't know if she would have given us the check if she knew we could not go to the National Parks. But, whatever. I already sent it to the credit card so it's all paid for. We spent just about that much. I wouldn't say that we planned it overly much or limited it to only $1,000, but maybe we did subconsciously. We certainly splurged more than we would have been able to given our very expensive year. So, that was certainly nice.

So I have this $1,500 that I Was thinking for Japan.

Since Japan is cancelled, then we could really use a $3,000 vacation budget next year ($1500 x 2 years). We have a wedding to go to near Yellowstone. But, without the Japan trip, we can also re-try our 10-day trip next October. It's an election year and so we discussed that the odds were Congress wouldn't be so stupid next October 1. Though, who knows. We hadn't really considered it otherwise because we had like 3 other opportunities next year otherwise. We felt we would probably stay home next October, though the kids get an ideal vacation week (& only THREE more!!!). But, going on 4 vacations next year just wasn't going to happen. 3rd trip was visiting my sister.

Before I talked to my dad about Japan, dh and I had discussed driving up to Montana for the wedding and hitting at least Bryce and Zion. I haven't really looked at a map and don't know how feasible it was. BUT, I told him the kids had seen more than I ever saw before like my 21st birthday (I mentioned we absolutely never vacationed anywhere when I Was a child). & so I was fine with ditching them since the wedding is while they are in school. I am not getting younger and I wanted to see some National parks. So, we had talked about doing a big road trip just the two of us. But, I did not know the wedding was literally near Yellowstone (Montana is a big state). Dh just told me that was the case. So, maybe we will just fly and do Yellowstone for a week or something. & we will try again in October for the rest.

In the meantime, I wanted to prepay our property taxes. Which, only ties up the money for about 4 months. I decided that was the best bang for my buck since would get me an income tax deduction. But, that was while the market was flying high. I will have to ponder that - have until about December 10th to decide. This extra $1500 vacation money would be perfect for that. It's tied up, but then I won't have to cough up $2000 next April. I think that is mostly the plan, but I may fund our IRAs if the stock market takes a dive in the coming weeks. I hadn't wanted to drop our cash down and was thinking of funding in April. I expect some cash infusions in December (gift) and April (overtime). BUT, I will put in the full $9500-ish I still need to max our ROTHS if the market takes a significant dip. & I may forget about the property taxes in that case. It can wait another year.

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

Edited to Add: I forgot one thing. We also expected to save $150-ish this week not being home (regular gas and groceries spending). & I needed $165? to get our mortgage below $190,000. SO, I will add that extra amount to the next mortgage payment - whatever the exact dollar is will come from this savings. I know we will be home 4 days this week, but the gas savings is pretty solid since no school or work commute this week. We will have to eat very cheaply. Which is fine - ready for some good home cooking. I can't stand all the eating out when we vacation, we are so spoiled by the good home cooking.

National Park closure means our vacation is canceled.

Of course our vacation was ruined this year! - because this is how the entire year has been!!

I've been getting lots of well-meaning advice to do this or that instead. (Skip the national parks and do private tours and excursions instead). I roll my eyes because a week in the National Parks was to cost a $25 entrance fee. Everything I have been suggested literally costs 100 times as much.

I am extra bummed because it is just so rare that we do a big vacation like this. A vacation just for the sake of vacation - for more than just 3 days. All 4 of us. Have we *ever* done anything like this? Will we ever make it work? I am REALLY bummed...

We are not out one single penny. I guess that is the silver lining. I am peeved for everyone who flew halfway across the world or spent a lot more time and energy and money. I saw people on the news who had to book their hotels last October, for this October. Thankfully, we planned a more "winging it" kind of a road trip. We'd in general avoid the "mile long wait hotels" anyway. So, we hadn't committed to one single thing. Dh cancelled all of our hotel reservations today (we had booked all but our last night) and he said he got quite an earful. Not just about how all the hotels were now empty, but how all the customer service reps had so many friends and family affected by furlough, and so on. I dealt with the kitty hotel. Apparently they have a generous cancellation policy (which was not in anything I had read or signed before), so glad I asked. I thought that was the only thing we might be on the hook for, but wasn't too worried because it was not a peak travel time. So after talking to them, it was official that we have not lost a cent on our cancelled trip. Phew!

Plan B:

Plan B is not going overly well. But, well, nothing is... We were thinking of going to LA and Vegas, but the LA part seems dead (one show sold out, in the interim, and it was hard to find a decent and reasonable room so last minute).

Right now our Plan B is to just go to Vegas. 3 Nights.

What can I say - we do mini-vacations well?

Even if we throw in a big fancy show, we will probably save $1,500-ish (60%) with the trimmed down trip. Which might be useful next year (Talking about Japan, we have a wedding to go to which happens to be near Yellowstone, and I might visit my sister). That said, all of next year's trips were going to have to be 1 or 2 of us at a time, financially, so I doubt we will actually be able to make up for anything we were planning to do this year. Except be glad if we can make it to Yellowstone. All the other closer parks will have to wait for another time - lord knows when. (& the kids will miss out on Yellowstone because they will have school).

I've been stressed and bummed all week, but feeling much better as we have "given up" and switched gears. It's the sitting and waiting that was driving me the most batty. I am not much of a "looking back" type and with the new room reservation I find myself thinking less about our screwed over trip and more about how we will have fun regardless. I also feel better that we are going on some sort of road trip and can use some of our preparations. Vegas isn't terribly exciting as we've "Been There/Done That" a few too many times, but it will be an experience for the kids. It's probably not something we would have ever planned with them, but it's the only place in our itinerary that we can enjoy. So, it is what it is. I do know there is a lot of cool stuff that they can enjoy.

We had a kind of mild August, but September has been *hot*. We ran the AC most of the month. UGH!

That said the weather has made a sudden turn. So, I turned up the hot water heater to our fall/spring levels. We need to get blankets on the beds this weekend.

Money Mustache had a spectacular guest post late last winter (or early spring) about ideas to deal with the cold. So, I am expecting to use that knowledge to improve on our energy costs this winter. I've gotten some comment how these ideas seem very "deprived", but to me is the polar opposite. There are some simple things you can do to keep more comfortable and warmer, without wasting energy and heating the air in the *entire house.* I am mostly expecting these heating methods to be MORE effective, so I expect to be more comfortable while using less energy.

I'll link the article at the end of this post. What I liked most is that this article finally put into words why I experience cold so much differently than everyone else in my family. The boys have more lean muscles mass and are natural furnaces. I'm always bundled up in several more layers than dh and the kids. Now I know that is mostly because I am female.

In addition, women lose more heat through their extremities. I had never heard this before, but was a huge lightbulb moment for me. When I get cold I really feel it in my hands. (Because of course I know to keep my feet warm!) When this happens, I often crank up the heat far higher than we usually have it set, and it never really seems to help. It feels kind of "duh" now. But I never realized I was feeling it in my hands so much because that is where I was losing all my heat. Of course in those moments I have tried to bundle up my hands, but it's kind of already at the point of no return when my hands turn into little ice cubes. The light bulb moment was this was probably our biggest energy waste - the fact that I had no idea I was losing all my heat through my hands - and no one else in my house was experience this (all males).

I've tried a few different glove options to keep warm and settled on a Target purchase last night. Lightweight fingerless gloves. They are really cute and fashionable. Unlike the other ones I bought last year, these are very lightweight, with a light fleece lining. These will be good for laying around the house (reading/watching TV/computer) kind of activities. If I am up and about I don't tend to get as cold. I obviously will not wear them while cooking and eating and so on, but I expect that to be fine. Trying for a more "keep them warm before they can get cold" strategy. I think I will be more comfortable at much lower temps in the house - temps the boys prefer. I am crossing my fingers that these gloves are warm enough.

Another tip was to wear a hat inside, as to not lose heat through head.

I also read elsewhere about the magic of hot water bottles. I put one on my wish list for Christmas. I think that will be most useful for warming up my side of the bed, before bedtime. I am mostly in the same league as the boys at night, and even prefer to sleep in the cold. Maybe I get the benefit of dh's body heat and so on (though I often go to bed several hours before he does). I have always just stuck out the cold when I went to bed, as I could warm up given some time. BUT, last year I took to flipping on the heat more to warm up the bedroom before bed. I don't know if it was because I am getting older or what - or if I just tried it once and I got spoiled. BUT, I think a targeted warm up of my side of the bed (with a little hot water) would be better and more efficient. (No one else in the house wants a warmer bed).

If the hot water bottle works well, I may take to keeping it with me when I am just sitting around, too.

I am curious to see how much we can improve on our energy usage this year, with these ideas.

Here is the article:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/01/the-oil-well-you-c...

Just Busy over here. I have a (very rare) big project at work, which means lots of work and overtime. So, is all good - my month has been extraordinarily low spend on the discretionary stuff (gas, food, retail). Like, I am not sure if I have spent one penny this month. Dh filled up a vehicle for me. It's like tax season, except I have a vacation to look forward to!! {& maybe not quite the pressure. Phew!}

Lord knows of all years that we can use some extra overtime.

**We are still having plumbing issues. So, lord knows. IT could be a "This caused our leak in the first place" thing. IT could be a "They messed something up" thing. All I know is, "No one knows what the hell it is" thing - which is frustrating.

**I wish I cataloged all of the Citi offers dh got in the last month or so... Talk about random. If they just send us 100 different offers, all with varying terms, maybe we will just pick something??? The *best* deal, that we had received early on, expired yesterday. So, I redeemed it. I would generally hold out for better rewards, but this is one he has already done twice. IT's a triple dip! Basically, it had a low spending minimum, so maybe seemed more worth the effort. Especially if there is a chance we won't get the reward. It is spend $1,000 for a $250 reward. I can redeem it for cash, and I am expecting it to go towards vacation costs.

**Vacation. Now, I am really excited about vacation! Is a trip I have been wanting to do for a very long time.

It's a "Grand Canyon" trip, and I have never seen the GC before. BUT... That seems like the least exciting part of the trip, at this point.

Other views I am looking forward to seeing:











I am kind of in "wing it" mode, but this was making dh nervous. I told him I thought a plan sounded grand, but he has actually been on a southwest road trip, and has the time - so he should maybe do some planning. We sat down this weekend and shaved several destinations off of our list. There are just not enough hours!! But, if it goes really well, we can at least get a taste of *what* we want to see more, or if we should just take two weeks next time. I think we will see a ton.

We more carefully planned out the first couple of nights and booked rooms. Not thrilled that both required deposits for 100% of the cost. Just not helping with the money outflow. We may end up booking most the hotel rooms this month and paying ahead. Oh well...

Vacation Discussions:

Dh asked if we should consider skipping this trip, at some point. Given our year. Heck no! I feel like if we don't go now, who knows when we will have another opportunity. We have been waiting years to be able to do something like this. We did talk about just cutting it short if it was getting to be too expensive. I feel like probably I am under-estimating costs. While on the road there, I feel like we will probably just say, "Whatever." I suppose the compromise is that if it costs twice as much as expected, we may have to give up one year in the future and stay home. So, this is one reason I appreciate the Citi reward that I just applied for. If I can add $250 to my vacation budget, that means a lot.

Basically, what I am thinking is "dirt cheap road trip" but having trouble wrapping my brain around what it means to have three other people with me, and to pay for gas on the minivan. I haven't road tripped since I Was single. !! I think most our trip will be national parks, PB sandwiches, and $50 motels. BUT, we splurged on a hotel in Death Valley for the first night, and dh and I Are coveting our favorite Vegas buffet. Which may have always been a reasonable splurge for the two of us, but quickly adds up to $100 for one meal for four. No matter - we will eat well because we won't be eating anything but PBJ the rest of the week.

If the trip comes under budget, the Citi $250 can pay for the bulk of our November beach trip. I think most likely we will have to cancel this trip this year. But, will see... The good thing is I don't have to decide until November. Gives us time to see how our road trip and this plumbing stuff shakes out.

I remembered to take out 6 bags for charity pickup today. Now just crossing my fingers that they show up (though they always do...).

I've also shredded about 2 plastic grocery bags full of financial papers.

Feeling much lighter!

The sale pile:

--2 booster seats to sell

(Life has been completely CRAZY but I guess I should nag dh about getting those sold now).

--A Bissell wet vac that I got at recommendation of friends at some point and which I find useless. I've switched over to a reusable/washable cloth mop, which is a dream! I wanted to gather all the parts and instructions on the Bissell first though - might be able to get a few bucks for it.

At this point, any cash we make we'd probably hold onto for our road trip. $25 cash entrance fee for the Grand Canyon - stuff like that. It's just in a few more weeks!