I didn't have much to blab about myself today so I figured I would be helpful instead. & give some tips on figuring out your mortgage, or any loan, and how maybe you can pay it off early.

Anyway, a while back I went through some amortization tables and played with how much in extra payments, that I Can afford anyway, I should make on my mortgage to get the most benefit. Basically, what is the minimum amount I Can pay that will shorten the loan the most? For me, paying an extra 11% was the best. I am not sure how it differs on different variables. But another $100/month was doable and maybe shortened it a few years. An extra $150 shortened it 6 or 7 years. $200 only shortened 8 years. I said why bother then $150 is like the sweet spot. I like round numbers so I didn't dig much deeper than that.

I did the extra $150 thing for a while, but that has been out the window since my last maternity leave. We took a big hit on our cash and I am waiting to have $10k in the bank to resume payments again. I am guessing next summer though so not much longer. I then updated my amortization schedule with some future thinking. $150 extra/month for the next 2 years. After that I assume with raises and dh bringing in some money I could really afford $200/month extra for the following 2 years. At that point the youngest will be in 1st grade and odds are dh will have at least a part-time job. So I assume $500/month extra at that point. There is a big difference between my attitude now with kind of struggling to get ahead, vs. when dh can bring home a significant check and our goal then will be to pay off the mortgage as fast as we can. With this plan we will payy off the mortgage in 2022, or Big Monkey's first year in college. That's pretty much how I came up with the $500/month extra amount.

The beauty of making early mortgage payments is not only you are paying down your principal, but you are being charged less interest over time as a result. My current plan has $100k in early payments but also saves $85k in interest over the life of the loan. Hey that is $85k I Rather not spend if I do not need to. Even just sticking with the $150/month saved $65k/month interest. So that is really the sweet spot. That would take 4 more years to pay though, but still shaves 7 years off the original loan.

OF course, there is always the argument that if you have money in the bank earning more, that it is best not to pay off low-interest debt. For now my $215k loan at 5.75% is way beyond my measly few thousand in the bank. But certainly something I will re-evaluate as our means change. I am trying to find that balance where we are saving, paying down the mortgage, and maxing our retirement contributions. IF we can do all 3, great. If not, that is where priorities have to be made. But I know money going to my mortgage every month is money well spent and will not go anywhere else once it is gone. A forced savings plan in a way. Trying to balance all 3 is a challenge, but I have never been a fan of debt, and I decide not to be a fan of my mortgage either. No doubt needed it to get into a house in our region in our lifetime, BUT doesn't mean I won't try my best to pay it off long before it is due. An extra $150/month is pretty simple and doable and saves a lot of interest.

Anyway, I have always felt at an advantage because when I applied for a loan and as I study my loans, I have lots of tools at my fingertips as an accountant. But I Decided I would look for some free tools onnline and share, so you can evaluate your loans and do the same. The same principles should apply to auto loans and such.

First I will go through the basics for the really ambitious, and then share the tools for those who just want to know the bottom line.

How amortization works is you take your current loan balance and multiply that by the interest rate. Divide that by 12 (12 months) and that is your interest payment for the month. Take your total monthly payment and subtract the interest portion, the rest is applied to principal. Subtract the principal paid from the beginning loan balance and that is your new loan balance. You can set up columns in excel to calculate your amortization. Maybe a column with date (month and year), monthly payment, principal portion, interest portion, and balance. The sum of the principal and interest portion should always equal your payment for the month. Put in your calculations for a month or 2 and just copy it down the spreadheet until the remaining balance is 0. IT is also a good idea to add a column for extra payments, then you can throw in extra payments evenly for the life of the loan, or just times when you think you can swing it. You can see the length of the loan shorten as you play with it, and you can get to a point where you are happy.

This is the hard way and I wouldn't recommend it overall, but it sure gives you an understanding of how it all works out.

I actually found this website which had a pretty good amortization tool:

http://www.hsh.com/calc-amort.html

The top part of the calculator you put in all of your variables. This is good if you are evaluating a new loan - it will calculate your payment. On the bottom portion you can add extra payments too. The resulting amortization table is really informative - says how much you save in interest with prepayments, etc. You can play with it and see what your sweet spot is.

However, on the above tool, though great, you can't customize to make extra payments here and there, and change amounts over time, etc. What works great for that is an excel amortization template. Here is a free one, you will have to scroll down to the "loan amortization schedule": http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html

You just enter the basic loan info, and it will calculate the monthly payment for you. & in the spreadsheet you can change the additional payments line by line if you like. I understand that this template works in open office as well. I haven't tried, but read it does.

And beyond all that read this super cool article I found. http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/7112005_Payoff_Mortgage_Amo...

I don't know anyone, besides my accounting friends anyway, who even knows or cares about all this stuff. But I figured if I shared here it might actually be appreciated.

& just FYI - this is all in regards to fixed rate mortgages. It does not work the same on ARMS - don't even ask - I have no clue how those work but I always hear scary words like "negative amortization" and such when it comes to other products. I am not sure how much you can prepay principal on some of those ARMs. I tried to find some articles on the subject but it just confused me more...

Today has been pretty productive. I woke up at 5am and got a lot done this morning. Been super productive at work too. A good day. I have been crashing absolutely exhausted at 9pm. The only problem I find is with everyone asleep at 5am I have to be super quiet. Hard to be too productive. But once tax season hits maybe I can work a little in the morning and then come home at 5 instead of 6 or something. I will put my morning self to good use. My dh on the other hand has been staying up until 1 or 2. This is what happens when the baby sleeps well - we revert to completely opposite schedules. He gets annoyed I am never *on time* to work (no one cares). But he doesn't understand why when he waked up at 7:30 and demands I watch the kids while he showers, that I can not get to work at 8:00 - LOL. Anyway, he is staying up until 2am anyway, he seriously could get a full-time job working 6pm-2am something. Not that I want him to work FT, but he is frustrating me.

So anyway, I have trouble sometimes typing about my sons and not saying their names. Would prefer to remain mostly anonymous and I know I have slipped a name here or there, but I decided to call them Big Monkey & Little Monkey. Maybe I will think of something else, but works. Baby Monkey works too, but he is quickly outgrowing babyhood.

www.networthiq.com

Time for my monthly update I guess. I posted the link before without much interest but I try again. It can make you feel real good, depress you, motivate you, I don't know.

Sure Cali is super expensive, but once you get in, these days anyway, watch your net worth skyrocket. IT is certainly a trade off - housing costs more, but rewards you more as well. Though buying at the peak can REALLY hurt you I guess. IT is hard to say where real estate is. You know, when we bought our condo (1999)and then our house (2001) the sky was falling and we were crazy to buy - it was the PEAK! So here we are almost $300k equity later. So many friends still renting waiting for the peak to be over. Missed the boat I think. Though I certainly bow my head to luck - we certainly never foresaw this!

Well, my net worth is $363k!

Without house, hmmm, $78,000. Not bad. But you see where most of my net worth comes from.

Of course we easily could have really stretched ourselves for some house we could not afford and maybe even have a higher net worth. I am comfortable where we are at - very comfortable with our mortgage no matter how ugly it compares to other areas of the nation. Being comfortable is what is important. At the time we bought a house we felt we could afford on $40k/year comfrotably. I think we underestimated how expensive child rearing could be. But at $70k/year our mortgage is extremely comfortable regardless. Dh could bring in a few hundred bucks a month sure, would be great. But don't need the whole second-income thing to reach all of our goals. In this kind of market it is so easy to get in over your head so I am proud we thought it through and decided getting in over our head was unacceptable.

Actually my net worth was $464k in january. A lot more cash and the house was worth way more. But it is funny, my net worth besides house was $81k. Today it is $78. I feel so behind over that $3k because I have a nice new car now but a lot less cash and a small loan. I am really not that far behind. In fact I Will catch up soon enough. Car will depreciate but we can save and will pay off the loan soon enough. IT is not as dire as I thought. IT all comes down to we have a lot less cash and that makes me uncomfortable. But if not I wouldn't be cracking the whip so much on our finances - I think we will come out ahead soon enough.

Minus real estate I am average for 'All' and Education. Way above average for income and age. (That feels good!) Below average for occupation and state. Throw in the house and I Am doing 10 times better than average. But I don't really like to count it overall - here today, gone tomorrow. Real estate is finicky.

Oh I just wanted to say the DRIVE was so beautiful this weekend. Most of the time Northern CA can be pretty brown and dry, in the summer I guess. But was so green and lush this past weekend - just a beautiful drive. I know I took some pics way in the past I will have to dig them out and share - some pics of the landscape beween the Bay Area and up north.

Oh yes - and a wonderful dinner at MILs and my dad took us out to a wonderful mexican lunch. Makes up for the gas I guess. Actually I ate TOO well. As usual, spoiled by our parents.

But a few things to share:

1 - I forgot to mention our investments are all up about 9% all of a sudden, for the year. Were up about 3% 2-3 months ago, and the last couple of months have been AWESOME!!! Woohoo.

2 - We got home last night and house was FREEZING. The chily weather has moved in. BUT usually when it dips below 68 I Am freezing. Today I took a shower in the 63-degree house and it just didn't bother me. For the kids I Set the house to 67 before I left for work. Dh probably wouldn't have even thought to turn on the heat. He freezes the kids out sometimes. They'll be in shorts when I get home or something - wouldn't be surprised. ANyway, I was pondering why the cold wasn't bothering me so much and I pretty much concluded it was body fat. I have a lot more than usual - LOL. I am totally serious though. I usually feel I am suffering through at 68 with layers of clothes and blankets, etc. So it's the only thinkg that makes sense - hehe. I know overall the kids have been keeping me on my toes a lot more - less downtime - more running around and therefore need less external heat. But doesn't explain the shower. Maybe losing weight is not a frugal thing to do - hehe. I just got this layer of fat around my middle that I have never had before - from the last pregnancy - better than any blanket or clothinbg - HA! Oh well, I do truly wonder. I am losing it with all the frugal eating so we'll see. In the meantime I am keeping the house at 67 instead of 68. See how that affects the bottom line. I have to have a discussion with dh about this though - how this means a little more bundling for the wee ones. Dh is an enigma. He is thin as a rail and never gets cold so I am the one who sets the heat basically.

3 - I am not sure what to think about this one, except probably it is a bad idea. Dh wants to buy a PlayStation3 now (is that what it is?) and sell it on ebay - he says he can make 100%. LOL. Sure, I am sure odds are he can make a profit. But first he has to get the dang thing. & then there are so many variables. Like 1, what if EVERYONE has this idea? Woudln't be surprised. I haven't said much because he lacks follow through so it is better to humor him and know it will never be done, then to arge about it - hehe. After years of new playstations coming out and being completely sold out - who knows - this may be the year there will be too many. & I gurantee regardless Ebay will be flooded with those things - other people thinking the same thing. IT will all be in the timing. In the meantime I have no idea why he thinks he can score one if they will be that hard to get. If this involves camping out, as he has done in the past, not sure how practical that is. Even then it is not guaranteed he would get one. In the past inevitably we would get a windfall like this completely unplanned, for example getting rid of extra concert tickets for a REALLY big show, and as soon as we try to recreate it, it doesn't work. So you think he would learn...

Man I Wish he would just get a JOB. The true answer is just too simple, huh? LOL.

4 - I got some little popsicle makers for the kids so I Wondered if you all had any ideas of some good popsicle recipes. I made some smoothies last week that had tofu instead of yogurt. I can not eat tofu in anything - I think it is nasty. But these were pretty good. Recipe was huge, so I told ds I would make them tonight again and the leftovers we can make popsicles with. I think those would be pretty yummy. Anyway the tofu smoothie is way more low-cal than my usual yogurt recipe. But even that one if I made popsicles with would probably be smaller servings. I am not a big fruit fan overall so I am the smoothie queen - helps me to get my servings of fruit. I can eat fruit as long as it is all mashed up and frozen I guess - mostly not big on fruit texture.

So what else do you make popsicles with? Juice? Pureed fruit? Hmmm. I will probably look around online for some other ideas too.

I know, this is so not the season for frozen treats - LOL. It's chilly.

Not me! But I just was doing some transfers and stuff since all the bills are paid for the 1st 1/2 of the month. Looking at what I have left and how much I needed from short-term savings for my $3k bills due soon - property taxes and insurance. & updating Quicken since it had been a few days. When I see a $5 charge from my bank. WHAT???? Digging deeper I find a $125 check that I received has bounced. I am beyond p.o.ed, because my Moms group is having a Christmas party at my community Clubhouse. I sent in the check ages ago and it took forever to get my $125 reimbursement. I waited until my paycheck to cash it so even then I waited another week or 2 before depositing it, and yet the lady does not have the funds to cover it. Bah!

Usually these kind of things always happen at the worst time, but luckily I had not gotten around to paying my credit card bill yet. I just wanted to pay the old one off which would be maybe $1400, but with this I only had $1300 left in my account. So I paid $1300 and will still have to pay a little next month. Fine since a couple of automatic charges I saw had been added. Will probably have a couple of months of charges until we move everything over. But I am just beyond peeved. Yet grateful nothing bounced. I usually run my checkbook balance to 0, but frankly my balance never really dips below $2k. I input all my online bill pays when I enter them, but maybe they aren't due until the end of the month so that is when I set them to be paid. I always pay my mortgage after the end of the month just as float though the money is there well before the end of the month. I am starting to think that maybe I should get a checking account with interest. I always thought why bother since I keep it at 0 overall. But just the other day I was looking at my balance and I realized it had not dipped below $2k in the last 2 months. Wow! The thing is my bokkeeping system is complicated enough without having to figure out how to have my book balance be 0 and my bank balance keep the minimum. Too complicated. Why I won't switch to interest-checking. Just how it is working out for now.

Anyway, decided how much money I had and needed for my lovely $3k in bills and decided I could add another $100 to savings this month. I didn't need it ALL - woohoo. My goal is to get that sucker up to $6k by year-end.

I told dh I had wanted to make some early payments on our personal loan and he talked me out of it. So we may be building up our savings more in the meantime. The power of interest - he convinced me. I need constant convinving - I swear. I hate having open debt - Bah! We will have this conversation 10 more times before it is paid off - I swear. I told him we would have it paid off May no matter what - which is early - and he doesn't mind. But he has the point - what difference does it make in the end if I make extra payments in the meantime - either way it's all the same. So you pay off more towards the end, you earn more interest in the meantime. & he is right! Either way just a few more months!!!

Airhead strikes again!! LOL. & I am not even blonde.

When I grabbed my property tax bill I Was looking at the amount due after penalties if paid late. Something like $2400 vs. the $2100 last year - for 1 installment. I was freaking out looking at the budget. For DAYS! I knew some big new school bond passed and I thought it was s'posed to be a few hundred per year so I wasn't terribly surprised.

Anyway this morning I grabbed all of the bills to figure out just how much to transfer from my short-term saving account for this and some other bills. & I looked a little closer and was SO relieved to see the real amount was closer to $2200. I have been GRIPING about how insane our taxes were all week. LOL. Phew - wasn't so crazy after all.

Oh yes - and I tried to get that jewelry I had to have, but read the fine print after trying unsuccessfully, it wasn't available until today. I threw it with the bills and figured if I remembered and grabbed it before it sold out, whatever. If not, good for the budget. Anyway, when I grabbed the bills I saw and remembered today was the day, BUT again it wouldn't let me order. Oh well. I will save money then!!!! I don't think I will even bother trying again. Whatever. I take this as a sign - LOL.

Oh yes - and send good vibes - preschool teacher is going into surgery TODAY. IT is sad since ds could not go monday to say good-bye - she didn't originally think she would get in so soon. Bummer. So we are getting around $500 refunded. I am probably going to give her a generous $100 cash or something for christmas since taking 2 months off so unexpectedly has got to be hard. & we figured maybe splurge on some nice flowers. & still a big chunk to pay down the van - woohoo!!!

Oh yes, and being sick has made our gas bill nil these last couple of weeks. I am going to make it about 2 weeks between fill-up. WOW! LAck of preschool will help that too. We are driving to San Jose today to visit with family but will be WELL within the gas budget - could probably make another visit this month. Yay!

I have been spending WAY too much time on here so I have to go tidy the house and take care of things I guess. Have a good weekend everyone!

Oh phew, finally have new on preschool teacher. She apparently has some fybroids in her uterus. I am very aware of all this kind of thing because both my mom and aunt-in-law have gone through a lot with this, resulting in hysterectomys. So apparently she is having a hysterectomy next week. I am relieved it is nothing more life threatening, though going under the knife is never a great thing either. She called us all last night and laughed when she found out how dire her assistant made it all sound. She said oh she didn't mean to keep it a secret - wish she had told us. I think she got the point when we called that we were all extremely worried about her!!!! The downside - she is closing the daycare until January!!! Ack!!!!! Of course my usually pleasant son was behaving like a banshee this week - I think dh had about the worst day ever yesterday, just to top it off with this news. I felt that no doubt part of his behavior was missing the regular routine with his wonderful teacher. He was pretty upset when we told him he'd have a couple of months off. Wish us luck that he doesn't drive dh completely insane. He is at that terrible 3 age which for the most part hasn't been as terrible as I hear (neither was 2 really but he could speak so well I believe that whole terrible 2 thing really has to do with lack of communication. Sure he had his moments but don't remember the tantrums and stuff so to speak since he could always tell us what was wrong). 3 is frustrating because apparently at 3 they just completely tune you out. You can repeat yourself 1000 times, say it nice, yell or scream, no matter what - they have a knack for completely ignoring you. Talking ot my friends this sounds pretty usual - the frustrating part of 3. & throwing toys - oh my. We were going to get him a Kid Tough digital camera for Christmas but now we rethink. The way he throws and drops his toys he does not deserve anything so nice. & the best part is the baby is now a copycat. Now when he is done, he throws his sippy cups across the room. Of course that is what you do when you are done with any object. Oh my, a long 2 months ahead...

The silver lining to this cloud is that I will probably get $150 refund for this month and will save $300 next month for preschool. I am kind of excited about that. I Also made clear to dh that did not mean he should not look for a job. Every little bit extra helps right now. I was kind of thrown off by our huge property tax bill, and still have to pay off the estate attorney, so this will really help. I don't have a huge hold on where we will be at the end of the year, but if we have a surplus because of this I will apply it to our personal loan. Would like to knock it down a few hundred extra - woohoo. & gee, I am so gald we don't need preschool and are not scrambling to find alternate care right now. It's got to be tough on those daycare kids.

Bird guy came this week and for $150 re-birdproofed front area of house. Their little alcove which the birds love so much. There is a lot of bird poop he didn't get - the way up high stuff. I imagine we may go up and work on it ourselves one of these days. BUT I have not seen a bird on our house since. Woot. So far so good...

Yesterday I lost a dime. I think that is a bad sign - LOL. I was going to pay for a $1 meal at BK, and I dropped my dime when I Was sitting and waiting and playing with my change. LOL. Bummer. I have been finding money and getting lots of little windfalls so I just have to wonder is this a sign of things to change. Of course I lost a dime around noon and found out at night I would save $450 this year. I guess I am still on the good side. Dime was just a fluke!

I figured I would start documenting my meals. I feel we eat pretty good on our grocery bill. Breakfast - applesauce & wheat thins, hot chocolate, lunch - BK bacon cheeseburger & soda - Dinner: homemade chicago pizza bake & garlic bread, milk. Not the most gourmet day, but dh feeds us pretty well overall!

Just did my training call for financial literacy. It was kind of dissapointing because it sounds like they have too many volunteers. It's good, but it's bad. I am not sure if I Will even get a chance to go out and speak. Oh darn - LOL. But I will try.

Of course they did say if we worked out something on our own they would support us with materials and such. So I am thinking I will have to try that perhaps. Or start thinking about how I could do this on my won completely.

With tax season coming up I don't plan to spend much time on this, but maybe a project to figure out next summer.

Anyway, we got some really great ideas though through this training. They said one thing they did was "build a budget" - either as a class or in groups. Start with an income and put together a budget. Then re-evaluate the wants and needs and how to pare it down. I guess they have a lot of materials on compounding and saving $1 million, etc., the angle discussed here in the forums.

Another idea was to bring in some of our credit card offers and analyze the interest rates and fine print, etc. Kind of like saying - hey doesn't this look great at face value, but let's really dig down and figure what this means. With real world examples. I think that is a GREAT idea.

Suggesstion for generating discussion - if someone asks a question, pose that question to the rest of the class first.

Also bring candy as a reward for participating in the discussion. I went to a professional presentation where that was done - for adults - and it REALLY worked. Kids probbaly really eat that up - literally - hehe.

I also got a link yesterday about the American Institute of CPAs new ad campaign and savings push to the 25-34 year old crowd. HEre's their new website.

---------------------------------------
www.feedthepig.org

"Benjamin Bankes is not just your average pig-about-town; he's a piggy bank, all grown up. And Benjamin has a message to share: Feed the Pig. In other words, take small savings steps today to build a solid financial tomorrow.

Benjamin is the star spokespig of a new national public service campaign from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and The Advertising Council. The goal of the campaign is to encourage the 40 million Americans age 25 to 34 to take control of their personal finances. The campaign, Feed the Pig ™, is a new component of the 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy effort which aims to educate Americans about how financial issues affect their lives. It features a Web site, www.360financialliteracy.org, offering free tools and resources to help Americans manage their finances through every stage of life.

Become a friend of Benjamin! Check out his MySpace page!

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) is the national professional association of CPAs, with approximately 330,000 members in business, industry, public practice, government and education. The AICPA sets the ethical standards for the profession and the auditing standards for private companies, non-profit groups, and federal, state and local governments.

The Advertising Council has produced thousands of PSA campaigns addressing the most pressing social issues of the day. The Ad Council aims to foster tremendous positive change by raising awareness, inspiring action and saving lives.

For more information about this campaign, please contact feedthepig@aicpa.org.

Thanks. Now go Feed the Pig."
------------------------------------


They have a lot of work to do. But look out for Benjamin Bankes - coming soon to a t.v. near you.

Frankly, I think the pig is creepy. We'll see how it goes. LOL. For now I think this site is doing a lot better, and much more appealing. We'll see all they have up their sleeve I guess. I think an online community like this makes all the difference in motivating people to save though. OR keeping up interest, vs. somewhere where you just read articles.

Many topics to post - I Can never be short and sweet - LOL. & the amazing thing is some of you still read my long ramblings. WOW!

I have horrible horrible luck. Just did the drawing for the work guft exchange and for the 3rd year in a row I got a MAN!!!!! Aaaarrrrggggghhhh. I once again have NO IDEA what to buy. You can't appreciate how unlucky this is until you know right now there are only 3 MEN in my office and 9 women. This is probably about the same ratio for the last few years. What gives???? LOL. Oh well, any good manly gift ideas?? My coworkers have helped me out, I will ask around again for ideas this year - hehe.

I am also super super bummed and wanted to ask for prayers and good thoughts for my son's preschool teacher. *sigh* He only goes M & W, and I noticed her assistant was there in the morning AND the evening. I usaully never see her now that he goes full day. HE also told me they watched something on t.v. which they NEVER do. I put 2 and 2 together than she was sick, and was surprised not to see her yesterday either. Knowing this cold has been nasty and long-lasting, didn't think much of it. But another parent came in as I Was walking out last night and asked how she was doing, & "did she just have that nasty bug?" HEr assistant and husband replied, "oh, we will be filling you all in later." What? OMG! So I really pressed my 3-year-old for more details. HE said he saw her because she took herself to the doctor, that she has been going every day, and then came home and went back to bed because she wasn't feeling well. Who knows how accurate any of this info is - he is 3. But I have been really WORRIED about her since. She is simply the nicest and most amazing person I have EVER met. What in the world could be going on? I told dh when we got home and he asked if she could be pregnant. Hmmmm. I doubt it, but she is on her second marriage and though probably 40 or so I just had a 45-year-old friend on her new second marriage - she just had a small child. You just never know, huh? I have the feeling that is not it, but beats her being really ill. Gah, it's really bugging me now. I am going to e-mail my friend who has her son there every day and see if she has any more info.

EDITED. Friend e-mailed back - she said that preschool teahcer is going into the hospital for more tests TODAY - she has been goiing every day it seems. They told her she is having "issues" and will fill us in later. *sigh* I even played detective and checked her daughter's MySpace page - she had set it to private since I last looked. Darn. In the dark for now, but sending lots of positive thoughts that all is well.

Well besides all that, my wish came true. I think I blogged last week that it would be nice if dh could even bring in $50. After looking at last month and the $200 or so I brought in besides my paycheck. I was thinking time he helped a little too! Well he brought home $50 the other day - woohoo. Of course, he sold my guitar, ahem, but he is getting another $50 for it soon - installments I guess. A good deal though, I think - though who really knows - so long ago - I think I bought it for around $50 from my old friend. It is not the prettiest guitar, but easy to play and sounds good. I really like it. Last time I played it? Who knows. I don't know much - I just play a lot of instruments so can pick up the guitar and play a little easily. I never got past the bar chords though - too hard for me - hehe. But dh borrowed it for a movie shoot, and they drew on it - a fake signed guitar for the movie I guess. Then someone liked it so much they offered to buy it for $100. Black sharpie ink and all. I didn't really want to let it go, but being relistic, I have another guitar (looks pretty but not as nice overall - LOL) and dh probably has 4 or 5. I just think it is funny he is out selling my guitars and not his. Hmmmm... But whatever. Makes it another $100 this month. Yay! I know I Am going to use a little of it to splurge when we go to San Francisco next weekend.

I just noticed my bill was only really $25, because I volunteer to pay an extra $6/month to support green energy. I rounded a little, so in the end it was REALLY only $25.

I Was just looking at my electric bill which is separate from my gas bill. It was $20 including a $5 servie charge, $2 or so in taxes, and the $6 voluntary green energy payment. Gas was $11. I don't have the bill online to look at the details. But just amazing how low the bill is with that $6 - don't think I Was paying that last year.

Hmmmm, I have really no idea why it was SO low - the electirc portion was 1/3 of last year at the same time. I am thinking overall weather. We had the heat on for a while a day or 2, but the house has reamined steady between 68 minimum at night and 74 maximum during the day since. Pretty pleasant and no doubt unusual for late October and November. It is raining today and warm overall.

I am starting to worry if they read the meter wrong - hehe.

Oh yeah - and another interesting article from the state CPA society today - on shady credit card companies:

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/money/moneysmarts/artic...

Well I am honored you are so impressed with my low energy bill - hehe.

I Was driving to work today & heard an ad for energy efficient lightbulbs.

Reminds me that is abig thing for us as well. Plus the house has a lot of open space and windows so we rarely use lighting during the day. It's probably often assumed a big new house is an energy hog, but not the case at all in mant instances. They put extra insulation in teh walls and roof, dual paned windows, more natural lighting, etc., etc.

BUT one huge factor is the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Our has came with light fixtures in each room, with these long-life CFLs. I am not even sure we realized we had such fancy lightbulbs until a year or 2 out and not having to change 1 lightbulb. We are coming up on 5 years in our house and we have replaces one bulb. One went out in the kitchen - probably the most used room - and I thought "oh no!" Are they all going to die at once? Will I have to buy 50 new bulbs? & how expensive are they anyway?????? I was a little frightened, surely lightbulbs that last upwards of 5 years are VERY expensive????

So I looked them up and they really didn't cost that much more than regular lightbulbs. They certainly cost more, but not what I had imagined. & I saw they were rated for 10,000 hours+. !!!!!! NEedless to say the one that went out is a fluke. & since we had 6 lightbulbs in the kitchen we haven't even replaced it. Maybe when 3 or 4 go out it will be time. For now we are just using less electricity than we were before. I should probably go throught the house and take out 1/2 the lightbulbs, probably wouldn't make much difference...

I also saw at the time that CFLs use 1/3 - 1/4 the energy of regular lightbulbs.

No doubt this helps the bottom line of our electricity bill.

We have really found that investing in the newer energy-efficient appliances and all this REALLY pays off. This is probably our lowest bill ever, and all I Can think this is maybe our first no-heat/no-air month since our new washer/dryer. We had a 30-year-old model before and recently upgraded to the super energy-efficient. Doing laundry every day with kids and cloth diapers and such, we see a huge difference I guess.

Well - check out the CFLs:

http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_ligh...

Opting out of collission insurance on your car does not make you uninsured in the least. Gah. It is opting out of one type of a whole lot of auto insurance.

When you buy a car for $1k, have $30k in the bank, and the annual premium for a $500 deductible collision policy is $500, why on earth would you pay it????? Collission only insures the replacement value of YOUR car. If car is totaled, insurance company would likely value it $500, even if you just paid $1k. & if that is your deductible, then you are not insured anway. You get to pay the deductible, plus you just wasted $500/year on worthless insurance premiums.

End rant. LOL. I actually came on tonight because I Wanted to veg out and read other blogs. Just a little frustrated.

Insurance is clear as mud, ain't it. I've been trying to re-evaluate our health insurance and I feel like you have to be a rocket scientist to undersatnd it all. Luckily I think I got auto insurance figured out, but I am trying to be patient with the whole rocket-science aspect of it all.

But seriously, if you drive an old clunker, OR if you have a car that you have driven for many years and is long paid off - stuff to think about. I encourage everyone to UNDERSTAND their insurance policies. knowledge is power. Peace to you all.

So help me if anyone replies to this blog and tells me that it is illegal that I don't have collission coverage on my husband's absolutely worthless car. Or why this owuld have any bearing on liability insurance, personal injury, uninsured motorist, etc. - all necessary coverage if you ask me. & yes which I have!!!!! My newer car is fully fully insured. But I will be reevaluating it in a few years no doubt. Very case by case of course. So learn more about what you are paying and why.

Oh yeah - and with having 2 cars and only *needing* one car at this point, affects my decision as well. sure, if you rely on your car and something happens it may be nice to have some coverage and maybe a rental in the meantime while it is squared away, etc. IS that part of comprehensive of collission??? I Don't know, but regardless, I could take the loss on an entire car and it wouldn't affect me much. When dh gets a day job and relies on the 2nd car more, something to consider I guess. For now, not much to consider.

& NOW I am off to read what you are all up to...

Oh well, my Tuesday update.

Got the electric & gas bill - $30 for last month. Woohoo. You don't know how refreshing it is to come to a site where this is the norm. I have been appalled on other sites I frequent - when gas/electric comes up - people's average bills are $500/month. Seriously. You hear how bad utilities have gotten and I wonder if this is somewhat norm BUT most of these people admit to keeping their house 72 degrees day and night in the winter, etc. The idea of conserving energy has apparently never crossed their mind. As for us, $30 is about as low as it gets, I can mostly thank the weather. We turned on the heat a day or two this last week, and right now it is 73 inside and no heat on for a few days. Next month will be a lower bill than usual probably too - yay. But overall with a new baby we tended to conserve a little less. This year so far I haven't been too quick to turn on the heat - the kids are running around like banshees, keeping warm, and the baby is a lot tougher now and can handle the cold a little better. We'll probably set it to 68 during the day and who knows at night, maybe 60 - it rarely turns on at night at 60 I believe - trying to remember. When the kids are a little older we'll just turn it off altogether at night like we used to!

I just renewed my AAA membership and was surprised looking through all the discounts available. I remember looking through in years past thinking it is all stuff I never use. But I noticed supercuts, payless shoes, a lot of restuarants, and even Pier 39 in San Francisco where we were going to go next weekend. I'll have to check that out. I am bummed though my not too smart with money friend who was going with me might bow out because she can no longer afford it. Am working on dh to come with me. Oh well, maybe it will be a little adventure with just my son and I. You know, just looking at $10 for the train and maybe a lunch out. So it is nothing huge.

Oh yes - and one more thing on saving money - was just paying all my bills and thinking in my head how much I am saving on stamps with online bill pay. I Am sure all you savvy savers use it, right? I used the service through my old credit union and it SUCKED. It was free. But they debited your account immediately even though they just wrote thec check for you - it would often take 2 weeks to clear. It drove me mad. Sometimes checks disappeared and they would want a stop payment fee to cancel it. They drove me mad. Talking to my co-worker who is a bookkeeper she said she worked somewhere before where people with online bill pay were always getting screwed like that. So I thought this was normal. But I was at a very small credit union and I just switched. OMG - my new online bill pay is still free but it is AWESOME. I just set up all my credit cards (before I did not trust the payment would get there in time). A few bills come directly to my credit union, and they do quite a few electronically. For the ones they actually write a check - they don't post it until it clears. HAllelujah. I love online bill pay. I post this because if you have a sucky service, shop around. The difference is probably that this is a much bigger credit union. More resources I guess. Well since I am using it a lot more, not just for the little bills I don't care if are late - LOL - I am now really saving on stamps. The only thing that is annoys me is I run through deposit slips way more than checks. Can I just order deposit slips I guess? I need to.

Oh well, I figured I was good on jewelry the rest of the year and did not intend to spend much this month. Nothing on the horizon, I haven't spent any money in about a week or so. & then yesterday I saw some new cookiee lee jewelry and I absolutely HAVE TO have it. I will probably spend $20 and it is well within budget, but it is annoying me. Darn Cookie and her cute jewelry. LOL. I'll just have to work on sellin gsome to pay for it...

Well, off to vote. Dh was cute when I said I Was going after work - he said - "But the lines will be SO long!!!" Is he serious? Bah. LAst time I went around 5:30 and I was like 100th to vote all day - something pretty dismal for a big city. So he is telling me - remember the RECALL election??? The line was huge. I don't particularly remember, BUT you now, it was the recall election. I think this year will be a little more quiet. I just find it extremely ironic, besides annnoying and frustrating, that Arnold has done everything that his predecessor did 10 times worse. His predecessor took a lot of contributions and had a lot of debt. That was their argument against him. Then Arnold came in and did it 10 times worse. ?????? I tend to vote 3rd parties, and I Was going to this year and thought better. I do not like the democrat in the least and feel he is very budget-responsible. But if I really think about it, I do not foresee him just using billions and billions in future bonds to pay for today's expenses, as arnold likes to do. I want Arnold out. *sigh* Not counting on it, but it will be interesting to see what happens. It would be nice if someone fiscally responsible ran for governonr - but that is just dreaming I guess... Oh well, my political rant for the day.

Well, I feel SO MUCH better today. YAY! Back at work...

I am trying to put all my energy to work so I get a nice raise and or/bonus, and some overtime. I had wanted to work some OT in OCtober, but stuff always seemed to get in the way. Trying for a more profitable November. I brought in a lot of extra income last month through Ebay & Cookie LEe & expect more through some freelance accounting work this month. BUT putting in an extra few hours at work every week should be the easiest and most profitable... So I will work on it.

All that being said I am not too sure of my ability to focus and not pop online more than I should. But I will try - if you don't see me around it is good!!!! PRobably more blogging, but less posting. Bums me I don't have time to keep up with all the threads as is. HARDLY. LOL. But not even work, at home it looks like a tornado hit after being sick all week. I have no idea how I survived while pregnant (and very sick for 9 months). Dh is great in many ways, but picking up and cleaning, not his thing. Cooking, dishes, caring for kids. I guess it beats nothing. But when I Am out of commission I sometimes wonder how they would survive without me. SHould I hire a maid in my will? LOL. We are drawing up wills/trust now. I think I should have a maid clause. I Think he would just live in filth.

In the meantime, next years budget is looking more dismal by the day. TOo many unknowns to freak out yet. I Am trying to be patient. I should get our new health insurance premiums soon. Then I will freak out until I get my raise in january. Trying not to think too much about it until I know my pay and my expenses, which right now are somewhat unknown. But just got our property tax bill which went up $600/year (thank you worthless school bond) and I forgot our AAA membership which I just paid. Expenses are inching up fast. We'll re-evaulate when we have all the facts - more busget slashing I Am sure.

Dh said yesterday he will look for some tempt retail work. Not holding my breath. We figure he could work until mid-December, he has had a month to look for something. He has done squat. Going temp may work out better for us, may even work beyond december, but he has to get on it, sooner rather than later. *sigh* In the meantime I Am the only one bringing in any income, regular and extra and otherwise. SEriosuly $50 would help. HE doesn't need to bring in much.

Oh anyway, cool thing is my cruise is booked for next June - OMG. I am SO EXCITED!!!! I tell you I Could live wihtout fancy vacations and I never saw paying for a cruise in my future horizon. But a free cruise - bring it on. The even better part is the whole 4 days and 4 nights without kids - OMG!!! Sounds like pure heaven. We have had a few weekends away, but 4 nights is pretty sweet. We will probably miss them too much - how it always goes - can't win I guess.

The longer you read my blog the more you will conclude that dh and I are just simply spoiled rotten by his parents. Probably true. They gave us $3k last year AND a tirp to hawaii. & now this year I expected it to be super low-key and frugal, and now I am going on a cruise. Goodness! The funny thing is his parents are so "whoa is me we are poor." (Oh please - insulting to the truly POOR). & think my parents all rich and my parents are always like what the hell, they bought you what????? THey gave you what??? Maybe if they kept their money and stopped giving it to you - they wouldn't be so poor!!! Hmmmm. I think it is extra insulting because my dad did grow up extremely poor and my MIL's attitude is so whoa is me and my parents are lucky or something. Maybe some luck but a whole lot of hard work. Plus at the end of the day they are probably pretty equal financially - just spend their money very differently. The last time my parents dropped $3k on me or took me to hawaii? Hmmm, never. & I wouldn't expect them to.

Oh yes, but I do have the details and our cruise goes from L.A. to San Diego, Catalina Island & Ensenda. I have never been to cataline Island or MEXICO for that matter so I Am super excited.

I haven't even told any of my friends because I know they will just roll their eyes at me all spoiled rotten. I am keeping it low key but just had to get all excited here I guess. You can roll your eyes at me too I Don't mind.

HAwaii was pretty mixed because we had to travel with the kids. IT's like who says no to hawaii. But it was the second time we traveled with an 11-month old and the second time it sucked. Looking back we decided to say no next time. But then this comes along no kids. Our other gripe with Hawaii is we had to spend a lot of money in the end. It was free and MIL even bought us groceries for the condo we stayed at, etc., but it still cost us $500 in eating out, etc. in the end, and it was not a fancy vacation. I fear this cruise may head that way so I am budgeting hard for it so we can enjoy it. Though it is already looking good as the website had all the excusrions and none looked pretty interesting to me. Most of them were in LA and SD - been there done that. So that is good I guess. Mexico I think will be fun to explore on our own, as Catalina Island. For now my biggest worry is if we have to dress up for dinner or whatever. Yuck - LOL. Can't we just wear our jeans??? We'll see... It is nice they have all the message boards with info and I will learn as much as I Can ahead of time to keep the cost down. For sure we will have to pay some tips. I Am not sure what else at this point. But I Will be happy to lay on deck and chill and not spend a lot of money. As will dh.

Ah, I am REALLY looking forward to June!!!

Those rotten germies got me this time. Whatever germies ds brings home from preschool tend to hit hubby the hardest, and have let me be overall, which is strange since usually I am the sickly one. But this time we all got hit and we all got hit hard. This is a nasty one.

The cost of preschool is far more than $300/month. We'll see if my boss deems me worthy or a raise this year even with all this sick time. Bah. The upside is the last few times I bowed out of work dh was really sick and I Was able to take some work home so I didn't lose a full day of work. We are getting more paperless and all that, which is really cool as I see in the future maybe dh will get a full-time job and maybe I Can keep mine and just work more from home. You know I am an early bird, I could see waking up at 5, doing some work, taking the kids to school, going to the office, picking them up, and being done for the day. I hate working from home having been there done that, but the added flexibility is pretty superb. Thank you internet! This week dh actually suffered all week and I suffered 2 days at work, but friday I just couldn't tkae it - I felt like hell. Even right now I really should be resting...

Oh anyway, I have mad withdrawls from savingadvice.com. HAd to pop by!

Oh yeah, it never really occured to me that there migh be a lot of accounting-type personalities around here, but makes sense I guess. If the idea of a budget doesn't scare you, or even sounds fun, maybe you are the accounting-type. Hehe. Just surprised at the response to my "75% of CPAs are retiring soon" freakout. I need to do some heavy recruiting here I guess. I will do more in the future.

Oh my goodness - this is so creepily accurate. See the link below.

Black is one of the most beautiful of colors and yet is the void of color too. It is the color of detail.
Black personalities want every thing done in detail. They are statistical and make good accountants. Internal Revenue Service agents probably like this color.
If a job needs finishing, these are the people to finish it. These personalities need leaders, though, to tell them what needs to be done.
Under guidance, they are able to get to the crux of the matter and solve very large problems. When put in a position to find the mistakes of others, they are right at home.
Loving puzzles, and finding others' mistakes brings out their tenacious spirits. Black personalities will sometimes intentionally find mistakes just so that they can repair them.
This color is one of holding things inside. When one wears black, they do not want to be touched. Putting a barrier between themselves and others is the purpose of this color.
Keeping their strength inside so that they can better protect their emotions is the effectiveness of this color. Although they want to be part of the world around them, they want no one to tug at their sensitivity.
Black is a relief color for most people, like "Mom's apple pie". It makes them feel comfortable and even, in some cases, makes them feel smaller, allowing them to hide from the sometimes cruel world.

What Color are you???

http://www.personalityquiz.net/test/colors.htm

I have a few random thing to blab about today. First I looked at the budget for october and we were pretty square on. I was a tiny bit over in a few areas, but just a few dollars here and there mostly. Groceries we were over by $60. We still have issues in that area. $560 for groceries when $500 is our average. I am not sure why all this trying to save on groceries has pushed our bill higher except we tend to stock up a lot more on stuff on sale. Hopefully we will see the resulting decline in purchases in future months. I know we spent about $30 to host a get-together in our home AND that I had wanted to make eyeball cookies and try a new granola recipe and dh came home grumbling how I blew the budget out of the water. All he had to do was call me at work and say "this is too expensive." I would have figured something else out. Oh well - now he knows. Oh but we were under budget for gas by $60 so all is well. Even out!

I also saw an interesting - good and frankly scary - that 75% of the nation's CPAs were due to retire in the next 10 years. OMG!!!!! I work in a CPA firm, and I know everyone assumes I am pretty rich as a result, but frankly CPA firms are the bottom of the barrel. They used to get you because you had to work for a CPA firm for 2 years to get your license. The work is great, very interesting, you learn A LOT, BUT overall when I graduated you were expected to work 80-hour weeks for about $30k. When you could go get a $60k job easy out of school. So I did it just for the CPA designation. But shortly thereafter that law was changed, no longer needed, and as a result starting pay has about doubled the last few years. They just can not recruit people to save their soul. & the whole getting a CPA thing is now 10 times easier as well, but still we are not recruiting enough talent for whatever reason.

So I have been in a pretty sweet spot in a way. I have job security like you wouldn't believe, recruiters banging down my door, AND my pay has doubled in just a few years. OVerall I feel like my boss pays me just enough to make a few k more than the new grads, but I also sympathize that his operating costs have about doubled in the process - hehe. But it is downright frightening to think what a shortage there will be when the baby boomers retire. Wow. I don't want to go back to those 80-hour weeks, for sure... But maybe enough power to work how and when I Want all the same - there will be even more begging and pleading for people like me. Man, I hit the jackpot when I picked a career I guess. Who knew. Most of this paradign shift happened when I was in college. I remember the Big 5 frims were like the elite of the elite and you had to be the BEST to get in and get your $30k/year - LOL. Now they just grovel at your feet - they'll take anyone.

Finally, I bought a *new* car in March. What was that - 7 months ago???? 8??? So today I get a note in the mail that they underestimated the cars registration fees and I owe them $60. In fact, it says "we are trying to register your car but we are short $60." LOL. Are they serious? I just re-registered my car a couple of weeks back. I peak at my original registration and they indeed pay $218 when they registered it (8 months ago by the way - none of this "we are trying to register it and can't without your money" crap). & they indeed charge me $160 on my contract. I pulled out the contract because I believed that there was some wording on the contract that it was an estimate, but I Was thinking there has to be a time limit on that. Come on. So I pulled out the contract and well it says nothing of the sort about it being an estimate or you may owe the difference. It's a final bill of sale and they picked the price. Whoever rung it up screwed up, but oh well. I can't believe their nerve. Good luck!

I then called my parents and chatted with them because I didn't want a lien against my car for $60 or anything. But they assured me the car people were shady bastards. I decided to ignore it. If I get another note dh can tell them that we don't intent to pay it - he is good at that stuff. Seriously though, I paid them $15k for a car and now they are coming after me for $60? Boohooo I feel bad for them - not. & honestly if I got the notice 6 months ago I probably would have paid it without a blink. But the whole waiting 7 months thing is just too much. They were assured they wouldn't get any money out of me as soon as they said "you need to pay us so we can register your car." What utter and total BS. I Call them on it. Scare tactics I guess.

I hold car dealers right up there with credit card companies. I will deal with them when I Can get a good deal, but I will hate every minute of it. They are the worst of the worst. Blah. So you know, not that this is the worst incident ever, but I already have so many issues with car dealers - LOL. Just somethng more to gripe about.

I never really pay attention when my paycheck is due - I am usually surprised like - oh yeah - it's payday!! Pleasantly surprised actually.

But today I need to run to the post office at lunch, and since it is payday too I came prepared with deposit slip, envelope, and misc. checks I have been waiting to deposit. I figured I would run it ro the mail today at lunch with the Vanguard stuff.

So it is 10:00, no check, and I just noticed my boss is not here. Strange I think, so I look at his calendar and he is out until the afternoon.

So the ONE TIME I am eager for my check and make plans around depositing it ASAP - it is not here??? Figures. LOL. Oh well, I planned lunch around the post office trip as well, so paycheck will go out in the mail tomorrow I guess. No biggie, just negates all my planning ahead and gathering deposit slips and envelopes...

In other news I finally got my new credit card downloaded into Quicken after much trouble, only to notice that the closing date is set to 11/16. I start freaking out because I am not really sure how to reconcile the budget in my head with a credit card that ends mid-month. I am not happy, but explains why the last customer service chick told me it was closing on the 30th but due date was 13th. I Was SO confused, so now I Realize we were not talking the same language or something - LOL. I want it to CLOSE at the end of the month - so she sets it to the 16th??????? So I called customer support again today and asked for an end date of the 3rd. I thought better of it because that gives time for everything in the month to clear. My current card ends the 4th and is pretty good but usually sneaks in something from the first of the month. So I figure the 3rd would be ideal for budgeting and quicken purposes. I probably should have just made it the 2nd or something - then I could prepay anything that didn't quite get in for the prior month. Well now I am thinking smarter - oh well. So now my due date is the 28th which is the same as my other one. IT matters little but at least I have some time to pay it - more than 13 days from close - hehe. So it sounds like the whole 20 day grace period plus a few days for mailing/preparing statement is pretty standard after all. Both this card and my other card allow 25 days from close I guess - maybe that is the standard. I was just so confused before. Glad to straighten it out and get my first bill in just a few days. Earning 3% - oooh yeah - fun fun fun... I've been earning 1% on my spending for over a year - but 3% is even better - woohoo.

It's kind of a sad day but I just closed out my first bank account and credit card. I opened the checking account when I Was probably 15 or so and got my first credit card when I Was 16.

I finally got around to trying out a local credit union, mostly because I like to mail my deposits and the US mail has become increasingly slow. Plus there are many reasons to have a local bank. Since we tend to pay cash for cars from private parties, etc., one of these days we may need to get a cashiers check, and I am also going to open a safety deposit box. Etc., etc. We have had issues a couple of times people not taking checks that were not from local banks. So overall it was a good move, about time really - we have lived here 5 years!!! But I just wanted to try out our new bank for a while. Well, they are super awesome, their online bill pay trumps my old one by a mile, and now when I pop my checks in the mail they arrive the very next day. Plus if I Was so inclined there is a branch right down the street from my house, if I Was ever in a huge hurry to make a deposit. I have yet to step inside, but I actually lived about 30 miles from my old credit union before and I don't think I ever stepped inside that one either in the 10 years I lived in the area.

Oh yeah, so I got my new rewards card and a $15 annual fee bill for my old credit card in this last week or so. I decided it was time to close it out - haven't used it in years.

Oh well, it is just a little bittersweet to cut up the first credit card I ever owned. Mostly because it all kind of symbolizes how well my parents taught me about credit and banking, making me start young. I am grateful that I do not rue the day I got my first credit card.

Oh yeah, I also went by the Dollar Tree at lunch and spent $16 on stocking stuffers and gifts. I had a little too much fun. The good thing is I didn't grab a basket and I reached a limit to how much I Ciould carry. That was when I knew it was time to go.

I think just dh's family left with the whole christmas thing. & my one son actually. Getting there...

I must say I was a little dissapointed when my dh coming up with a fabulous trip for my birthday, came up with a trip down south which we can do anytime. We were gonna splurge a little and I am sure it was gonna be a great trip, but for a second when he was telling me his idea I thought he was getting at going on a CRUISE!!! This was before the whole cracking down on our finances thing and keeping in mind I surprised him with a trip to Vegas for his 30th.

& then when he freaked out and said we couldn't go, I was more than a little annoyed. But whatever. I figured maybe in January we could go somewhere for free on his mom's timeshare - monterey or something. So we put it off a few weeks - we put it off as we wait for his vasectomy date and also in case he found a weekend job, etc. IT was more than just we couldn't really afford it. We could have made it a cheaper trip.

BUT his mom was over this weekend telling us how great her new timeshare thingy is. For one, the old one she was getting annoyed with and told us she wanted to give it to us. Just like when she tried to pass of dh's $20k life-insurance - crazy premiums and all - I said NO THANKS!!!!! LOL. So instead they put MORE money into timeshares after just telling us they wanted out of their old one a year or 2 back???? Whatever. I know some day we will inherit those beauties and I will HATE them, but for now they are pretty sweet. WE always get a weekend away free 2-3 times a year. So this weekend she just said that her mom was going ona cruise and she was looking into joining her. & she found it it is FREE through her timeshare thing. Then she said she had to use up her many many points and would WE like to go on a cruise? I jumped on it - yes yes yes!!!!! So I will have to probably wait a few months, but maybe in the summer we can swing it. I am well aware it is not FREE - that there will be many charges associated with it. But the initial $1k charge or so - yeah - is gone. I am going. Yay!!!!!

I am so excited I get such a super cool birthday present after all. I have never been on a cruise. This one leaves out of LA and goes to Catalina Island, San Diego, and somewhere in Mexico. Forget where. I don't even care - LOL. Woohoo.

The best part is I earn an extra week of vacation this year. This particular cruise runs M-Th which kind of sucks, but with mye xtra week of vacation, oh well. Will work out okay.

Last year we were a little spoiled with our travels and I look forward to more spoiling next year after all.

We got a quote for $150 and they will clean up the area, just not the rest of the house - whatever that means. Not sure why the rest of the house owuld need it. So they aren't as thorough as the other guy, but sounds like they will take care of it. Price sounds good to me. Other place never called back so we'll move forward with it. I Am just releived it is not a few hundred dollars. We'll see how it goes.

Ah yes, I don't even think I mentioned that we had more Merrill Lynch issues. Ah. I decided to set up dh's new Vanguard account today online to speed up the process, but I Could not print the forms, ACK!!!! Printer was not working, dh was out. Hopefully we'll get it squared away tomorrow, want the forms out in the mail tomorrow - get our money AWAY from ML ASAP. I need to move it first now and then do the ROTH conversion because ML still hasn't done it. We sent in our forms like 60 days ago. 60 days to get it done, has to be done this YEAR. Gah! Hopefully Vanguard is easier to deal with. I am just sending all the forms at once with a letter I need the conversion done ASAP!!! I give up on ML. I hope never to deal with them again. Don't even ask - Friday was bad and dh has to be so difficult about the whole thing.

I just activated my new rewards credit card and they asked when I wanted my due date. I am like, um, well, I would like the cycle to close on the 30th. Okay they say, so your due date is the 13th. Are you kidding me? My other credit card is due on the 29th. Oh, whatever. my other credit card doesn't give me 3% back either. BUT I think it is interesting how they market it as "choose your due date." Just indicative of what a paycheck to paychck society wants - they have to pick that due date well. I don't care, I am just annoyed it is only 13 days. LOL. What is the average time? I thought 20 day grace period is normal. But then wonder why I have 29 days with state farm. Interesting, is this some hige perk most cards don't offer??? What is this 13 day thing??? I will find out more soon enough I guess. I just hope I heard her wrong, but it doesn't really matter in the end. 29 days sure beats 13 days when it comes to slow mail and stuff out of your control.

Dh finished clearing out storage today - YAY!!!! Next month our bills will go down $56 for storage and about $20 for HBO. IT feels great. We also have Blockbuster Online which we LOVE (saw that netflix vs. Blockbuster thread) BUT they just informed dh that they will no longer in-store coupons with it. THat sucks. He said he may be willing to cancel it now. Save 20/month. Yay!!!

This week I am planning to square away dh's IRA, best I can, and close my old VISA and credit union account - get my $25 out.

The following week I am hoping we get our estate papers signed and open a safe deposit box.

Getting there... Getting somewhere anyway...

Oh yeah - today the house is 69 degrees. Feels a lot warmer THAN THAT, but I Am not sure how long we can last with no heat or ac. Bummer... We usually set it around 68 for winter. Almost time to turn it on... Well, we lasted about 60 days with no heat or ac. Unless another heat wave kicks in. IT has been rather warm...

I don't think we'll save much this year. This month's extra to estate lawyer. & next month to clean up bird poop. *sigh*

The pigeons love our house and we paid upwards of $1k a few years back to pigeon-proof the house. The guy was awesome though, he put spikes up all around and CLEANED UP the mess that was accumulating. We seriously had a hill of bird poop accumulating in the backyard - disgusting.

All was fine but the pigeons were starting to move in again. We had our house on the market earlier this year, we thought with prices falling was a good time to make a lateral move, since it has been too expensive otherwise, but quickly gave up after looking at houses for another $100 to $200k, sellers not budging on price, houses that weren't even NEARLY as nice as we already have. We decided to wait it out in the meantime. But during that whole thing I had called the Bird Guy, thought it would be could for a cleanup, and never heard back.

Forgot about it, because the bird situation wasn't too bad back then, but just looked out the window last night and saw a mountain of poop accumulating on our roof. I Also noticed the driveway was looking pretty icky. Gah!!!! So I Called today and the guy answers. Unfortunately he is in Arizona now. Boo. HE recommended Clark PEst Control. All I know is Clark charges you an arm and a leg for regular pest service, so I am wary. But I Can't find anything else so I Called. They said they don't even do cleanup. Oh well, what are you gonna do - *sigh*. They are going to come reinforce the area that the pigeons are hanging out and I guess we are going to clean up the mountain of bird poop. Honestly I don't mind doing it. I just am not sure if we will do a good job. Plus the other guy came out and cleaned ALL of our gutters, and scrubbed with the right chemicals, etc. I will have to do some internet research. Look up good bird poop removal techniques. At least this time is just localized to ONE area. Though I am not so sure fixing that one area will eradicate them. There are a few that like to sleep in our front windows but with the homeowners rules we can't put big spikes up front. Will talk to Clark about less noticable ones I guess... OR maybe simply sealing off the one area that have gotten back into it will eradicate the mess. I hope. There were a bunch of spikes AND it was sealed off but they wormed their way in. Pigeons are evil.

Oh well, Clark is coming out for the quote today. I hope it isn't too bad...

I know I know - need to start a bird poop emergency fund. LOL.

ETA: After doing a little research I don't think doing it ourselves is a good idea. I called another company for a quote after a lot of looking. IT is more of a hazardous waste issue - ick...

In other news my kids are making me work extra too. I noticed my older son figured out all the cabinet and drawer locks a couple of days back. Frankly I Am surprised it took this long. I have friends whose 1-year-olds were into everything. SO I Consider myself lucky. All the same, some items probably need to be moved, like steak knives and scissors. Actually that is how I noticed because he decided he needed the scissors and just went and got them himself. Ugh. Then last night after bath I put the kids in my older son's bedroom, closed the door, and ran out for a minute to pick up towels. Immediately the door opened and I start yelling, "DO NOT open your door" to my older son. I Am yelling/explaining that he can not open the door and for the millionth time that this is not for him, it is for his brother - he is too little to go out unattended, etc. After my tirade my older son yells - "It was the baby." LOL. I peaked in his room and yes my older son is playing quietly in the far corner where I left him. Indeed it is true that the baby, immediately after I left the room, got up and walked out the door.

Trouble I Tell you...

Damn lever doorknobs.

Overall it's okay - I Would not leave him alone in that room for more than a minute anyway, there is a big bed he likes to climb onto and he is too little to be careful not to fall off, but now my 1-minute upstairs holding corral needs some improvisation. Time to get the gate back out I guess. The second the 3-year-old graduates from all the gates, it is time to bring them back out!!!

But I must say I Am proud he opened the door all by himself. A milestone...

But no cash -

Bummer!

LOL. But I did win a prize. A cute halloween mug and some pencils and bubbles - probably will give to the kids. I'll keep the mug for myself - super cute!!

So I did keep my winning streak. Though bummed I have no cash to add to my stash. Dh was joking and asking how much it was all worth - that I should hawk it. LOL. All 50 cents worth, eh?

So this week speeds ahead very crazily. If I am good I will stay offline and get a lot of work done. Work is a little crazy. Saturday and Sunday are filled with halloween festivities. The kids are wearing hand-me-downs and I haven't checked that they fit. *sigh* I should probably try them on tomorrow so in case one of both boys are too big - would not be surprised - I have time for a backup plan. Wish me luck - LOL. People keep asking me what grade my 3-year-old is in so that is probably a bad sign that he may have outgrown his costume from last year - ack!!!

Here is to a calm November... Please?

Cash Stash:

$35.33 cash for 2006
- 1.08 BK Lunch
-12.00 Bunco
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$22.25 remains
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But if history holds true I should win money tonight - LOL.

Actually I haven't spent much cash in about a week. Not since Friday anyway.

& $11 for bunco tonight. The one night a month I get to escape.
The sad thing is that it is a Halloween theme tonight and I just realized my good old standby - cat ears and tail - are MIA. Probably in storage. Most of the storage is sitting in my living room in boxes, but I wouldn't have a clue where they would be and I have about 1/2 hour to drop off my son from preschool and get ready and turn around. Hmmmm, I may be a party pooper and no costume. Wish I had more time.

I did make super cool eyeball cookies, I wanted to post a pic later.

Oh yeah, I drove the van to san jose and back over the weekend, and then last night occured to me maybe I should get gas. Tank wasn't even empty! I pumped out about 23 miles per gallon - my word - a new record on this gas guzzling van. My husband told me when he got the oil changed they pushed the air filter change to increase gas mileage. I told him it was BS because we had asked our mechanic before. Not on this car, but one that has another 20k miles and has never had an air filter change. So I was annoyed dh fell for this and not sure why he would in the first place because I know they are always pushing this air filter thing. Anyway, that was a while ago and of course my gas mileage around town remains the same. But I am impressed with this whole freeway driving thing. Of course we rarely drive it to San Jose because dh gets all grumpy out gas mileage and so we pack into his Escort, which I Admit gets pretty awesome gas mileage, and 1/2 the time I wonder why I bought a minivan just to commute. Seriously, we drove 400 miles down to Deisneyland scrunched up in the Escort. Oh well, I Didn't mind so much because we didn't have the baby so I could lean back my seat a tad - just enough not to squish the baby carseat anyway which was still very much in the way baby or not. The Escort does get 35 miles + per gallon, what can I say. Yeah, it should be the commuter car in the family and dh with the kids all day should probably drive the van, but he doesn't do big cars is what it really comes down to. That and he doesn't want me to drive his baby.

So anyway, back to the topic, is there something to this air filter thing or is this just the first time I really drove the van on a long freeway drive? Hmmm...

All the bills for the month are done and paid so I updated the stats. I love looking at my progress. The kick in the butt I need.

I am estimating what the costs on card will be but we have so far had a pretty spectacular month. So I estimaed my boost in savings. $30 interest, $100 from extra income this month (ebay & cookie lee), +$150.

$150 is probably more than my target savings each month, we are so breakeven on our budget, I Am trying to save minimum $50/month. The extra money made all the difference. BUT I am very pleased to report that I actually saved $1000+ this month. (knock on wood since just a few more days - don't want my car to explode). I just did not put it over to the emergency fund because I need it for the estate lawyer. I am so pleased to have the cash to pay her now and not dip into anything else.

I am pleased as punch because though we had a $250 credit on our credit card this month which helped, I had $150 expense on there for my cookie lee sales. IT was our last month paying $56 on the storage. Plus we did about $150 worth of christmas shopping (most of it), bought some clothes for the kids, and spent $40 on birthday gifts. It was a pretty excessive month overall and our credit card bill will be around $1100. $1100?????? In my old budget I just targeted around $1650 - that was my goal. IT was usually closer to $2k. I can not believe what a good month we had, we were not deprived in the least. Includes our anniversary dinner and everything.

Anyway, I need about $700/month to set aside for property taxes and insurance which I never do. But somehow I have it all covered through Dec. 31, so if November is as good I may have $700, at least, for the emergency fund next month. Only thing big is Thanksgiving. but even that family really helps out with food (we host) and I think we will have another banner month. Yay!!!

It was kind of disheartening when I joined the site and thought I Could maybe set aside $50/month. I knew I needed to do something- it was better than nothing. But to see that I have saved $500 in the last 60 days is pretty awesome.

Hubby is dragging his feet on the job thing. IT seems like we are back to square one on that issue, a little extra money could really help. But I don't foresee him really pulling it together. Oh well, at least he is helping me to maximize my income and our savings, it is something. What else can I do...

We are doing so well I Decided to resume extra mortgage payments in january if I get a raise. I started right before my last maternity leave and we just never had the money after that. Then I felt like we needed to save more. We probably do, but I am not happy until I Am paying that sucker down faster... But only if I have d ecent raise to boost our savings and then be able to add to the mortgage. I'll find out in january. Depends what our health insurance premiums go up to too - *sigh*

I just had to say to I had a real estate agent acuqaintance tell me that it was stupid to pay down a mortgage because you pay so little. LOL. She has 2 homes she owns with ARMs. Personally I think *that* is stupid. But anywho. Um yeah, our very first mortgage we had a 15-year loan for 1 year and we paid off $10k over the course of 2 years. Our current mortgage we have had for 5 years and have paid off $11,000. That is $21,000 in 7 years. YEah, we have paid nothing off our house - *rolleyes* Okay maybe $21k is nothing to some people, but it is a lot to me. Oh sure if it wasn't for the kid thing and 1-income thing we would have kept the 15-year loan. Instead I like that our minimum mortgage payment is decent, with a 30-year fixed, and we will add another $500/month when my hubby is working substantially again. On 1-income I am looking to pay $5k off of it next year, just normal payments + 1.5 extra payments, or an extra $150/month. Nothing spectacular. Oh well, I am one of those weirdos who looks forward to not having debts, vs. accruing more. I was also a weirdo who wouldn't buy a house without 20% cash down, so hey. Just call me weird.

The weekend was pretty awesome. Met with the estate attorney. She usually charges $1800 for EVERYTHING and will charge us $1200. OF course, she is a funny one and originally threw out $10k. I thought she was serious - LOL. Totally kididng but I Am like do not do that to me - hehe. My husband did her $2k wedding video for about $1k so I bet that has a lot to do with it, though she said it was the friend discount. Anyway, we are hoping to sign all the papers in 3 weeks. I am SO relieved just to get it all done, and relieved as well the cost won't sink us, we have been making so much progress on our savings, I would like to keep it that way. I have a new respect about why going to an attorney beats doing it in Quicken though. I feel like I have a basic understanding of all of this will and trust stuff but she pretty much spent an hour answering all of our questions. She also brought up a lot of good points I would never think of on my own and Quicken wasn't quick to bring up. So I feel like this is money REALLY well spent.

Saturday night we changed our minds and considered going to a movie after all, but looking throught he listing it all stunk. So instead we thought it would be fun to go to a night of comedy. Something spontaneous - we just never get out these days. We lucked out financially because it was sold out. We figured at $30 it was 10 times funner than a $20 movie night - LOL. But it was funny as we walked over to dinner, I Was trying to remember what exactly we did as poor college students. We went to the cheapie movies and the nickel arcade, both which are now closed. : ( The ironic thing is we used to go to a lot of concerts which now we feel are too pricey now that we make 5 times as much. Funny how things change. Really, concerts are very pricey these days compared to 10 years ago for sure. That was the other thing - there is a wonderful BEenfit show every OCtober in the Bay put on by Neil Young and his wife - always an awesome show. We decided to pass this year because the lineup though good wasn't the best, and saving money, etc. PLUS the weather always sucks and we are miserable. So we go out saturday and it is hot. I bring my jacket because I know it will cool off. WE went to our $30 dinner downtown which was pretty darn awesome by the way - Chicago Pizza and we come out at 8:00 and it feels like 75 degrees. WE look at each other and say if we knew the weather was this nice we would have gone to the concert. The last couple of times it rained which really stunk - it was outdoors. How rude for it to be so nice when we don't go. Bah!!! I guess on the plus side I see a few more weeks of no heat at this rate. The house has settle at a nice 75 degrees. No a/c or heat in a month or so...

YEsterday we went to the pumpkin patch and I got some really cute pictures of the baby - put one up here. My older son was in hog heaven - $8 for 4 jumpy houses and a slide. Ack. On the pricey side. But grandma paid for it, so it left our entire weekend of fun $30. We paid for our dinner and that is about it. Our family is nice that way - a lot of free food...

It was a nice weekend.

This week is crazy on the otherhand. Crunch week as Oct. 31 is a deadline. & then with all of the halloween festivities. I hope to squeeze some time on here, but I need to work some overtime, etc., etc. For me at least November kind of calms down. It is just the calm before the storm,a nd then december is crazy between work and christmas, and my life is over come january with tax season. So I will get through this week and try to enjoy november best I can. Phew.

Cash Stash:

$36.32 cash for 2006
- .99 Bag of chips
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$35.33 remains
------

I pulled out a dolalr to pay for my tape. Dang sales tax gets me everytime. Blah. But I ran to Walgreens on my way home to pick up some tape on sale. Not bad.

In other news, on another message board I belong to there was discussion of ebay. The question was posed, "what do YOU buy on ebay?" If I thought about it in the last 3 years or so I have pretty much bought party supplies and gifts. Thinking harder I know I brought a new breast pump (why I signed up in the first place - a great deal). Also a diaper bag and some shoes for the baby. Some of those Robeez knock offs. They are soft shoes for baby - good for when they are learning to walk, etc. Oh well, I bought those like a year ago and he is still wearing them. I bought one pair and she sent 2 pair - so nice. That is what I love about Ebay, always seem to get some extra too, etc. But yeah I bought a super large size since big feet run in the family. I figure as a baby who cared if they were a little big, they just needed to cover his feet, and now that he is walking they fit pretty well.

I was kind of taking offense whenever I brought up ebay, because I am newly excited about it, and people say - oh - I find people who shop on ebay buy too much. overall. Stuff they don't need. I try to defend myself. Well, that is not how I am as a shopper overall. Um okay. I do admit I was tempted by a cute monkey sock purse - LOL - but I resisted the temptation.

But then on my message board the piles and lists of what people buy cam out. Oh my goddness!!! I see what you mean. All I have to say is that I don't buy stuff like that. I buy one thing I need and I keep it until it falls into shreds, and then I replace it. LOL. That is about it.

But I see what you mean. It gets old hearing people whine about their finances and how broke they are, just to see them spending hundreds of dollars on ebay every month because things are cheap. I will never understand why you need 20 handbags and 20 pairs of shoes, and why you spend hundreds on a night out of drinking and go to Disneyland every single month. LOL. Then I see why you are so broke. My word.

I don't know, my house is so full of excesses as is, I am no angel. I look around and wonder how we got so much crap. I don't feel like we buy much but what little we buy finds a way to overwhelm us. Oh well, I have been on purge mode the last year or so. One day I would like to get the crap down to a minumum. I have the boxes from storage to go through now. Most of which will inevitably GO. But I look at people buying all this crap and I truly wonder what do they do with it all???

Reminds me an article I saw a while back that the average american household has more THINGS than an egyptian pharaohah. (I know I spelled that wrong too). I believe it...

Oh well, gonna spend a lot of money today. I thought meeting with our estate lawyer friend may cost a few hundred. Now I hear could be THOUSANDS. My word. I didn't even ask because I Was scared. LOL. It is something that needs to be done and no one else will give us a better deal than a relatively newly practicing lawyer that is a friend. If it cost TOO much we just do the basics. This is why we are so low on cash these days. $3k for ROTH IRA conversion - thank you IRS - and now I am looking at my emergency fund wondering if we have to dip into that for something that is so awfully necessary, *sigh* BUT I think if it does end up a couple of thousand that we can swing it through the end of the year without touching the fund. We'll see how it goes. Both of these things are just so necessary for our long-term well-being. I have put this off long enough.

The worst is the birds are really doing a number on our house and we have to call back the bird guy. I think we paid $1k to him last time to clean up all the bird poop and put up spikes, etc. I don't think it will cost near as much this time, they just broke through the mesh he put up in one area and there is cleanup. But still, another few hundred easily that needs to be taken care of sooner rather than later - before the dang pigeons really damage our house. Who new pigeons could cost so much - blech.

I had a few things to blab about but I Wanted to say it feels real good to have GOALS. I really needed this. I have been feeling pretty blah lately like now what, kind of an early mid-life crisis. IT was like school, school, school, buy a home, get my CPA license, buy a better home, have kids. check check check. Okay, now what. That's really how I have felt lately. Now what??????? I know raising kids is a big endeavor, but at the same time I feel like I need another goal in my life.

I just put 2 and 2 together, thinking today that renewing my financial goals has really motivated me. I Am a goal person, I always need to be working towards something. Some things I have put off like getting an even higher education until the kids are much older. It is something I would like to do, but I know I do not have the time to devote. So I have been feeling like, what do I do in the meantime? On the other hand I look at us financially and think we have done pretty awesome. I Wasn't really scrutinizing or making any goals in that area. Now that I Am scrutinizing I wonder what the hell we have been doing. LOL. So what if we are loads ahead of the saps around us, what does it matter, we are BEHIND. I want to retire young!!!! But it isn't going to happen without a lot of work on our part. Ah, but it is a worthy goal to keep me occupied.

Along the same vein I was ready to devote a little more time to volunteering again after things were settling down from the last few years of bearing children and caring for small babies. I Feel strongly that financial literacy really needs to be taught in the schools because parents are not doing it for sure. I was looking into financial literacy programs and saw my state CPA society has a program so I signed up. I have not heard anything in months, which I Was kind of relieved because I do not enjoy public speaking - hehe. I know it is a good cause and I Want to do it - but overall I am pretty scared.

So yesterday I got an e-mail about a training next week. I am absolutely freaking out. I tell myself, calm down. I joined a local professional group for about a year between pregnancies and I spoke to the group a lot, and you know what they liked my speaking. But then I think - gosh - there were professional adults interested in any free tax advice they can get. How am I going to talk in front of high school students???? Can't I talk to the 4th graders??? LOL. But oh well. I Am trying to suck it up and move forward. All I Can do is try. If it is the most miserable experience of my life I don't have to do it again, right?

I actually wanted to start with doing some presentations for the state society and move on from there - getting more involved in the financial literacy movement. We'll see how it goes I guess. I need all the support I Can get though -t ell me I Can do it!

This is a little gem I found a while back.

www.restaurant.com

I was just telling dh if we didn't eat out the rest of the month that maybe we could go out to dinner this weekend for our belated anniversary celebration. He didn't leave much room when he slashed the monthly eating out budget to $30, and I Was planning to go to a $5 buffet this week for lunch.

But I Decided to look up my good old restaurant.com and I Was surprised to see how many new restauarants have been added in recent months.

BAsically you order a gift certificate - most of them are $25 g.c.s that you pay only $10 for. There are a lot of catches, like applies to dinner only (sometimes), doesn't apply to alchohol (fine for us) and the kicker is most of the time a $35 minumum purchase. We found a lot of the time we just ordered more food and paid the same in the end as we would otherwise without all the extra food - so it seems. We weren't really coming out ahead - just fatter and more leftovers - LOL. Though with the kids it would often be big savings if we ordered them a meal, etc.

We haven't used them in a while because only had g.c.s available to a couple of restaurants in our area. But I was looking in the Bay Area since we will be there on saturday and there was a list of restauarants a mile long. We'll have to give it a whirl - splurge on a fancy dinner and maybe stay in the budget...

It is so rare we get out to a movie that is what we originally planned - a matinee hopefully - since we'll have babysitters (family). But dh said he didn't want to waste all that money on a movie. They are all so bad these days anyway. Blech. But I am really impressed with dh. HE is doing his part for sure...

Today he is taking the kids to the zoo and to a local kid park thingy. We have memberships for maybe $30/year each, and believe me we get our use out of them. The only thing is the zoo just got a train and they charge $1/ride/person - even the baby because he is 1 (oh please). So I told him to take some of my cash stash for a train ride. There is no saying no once my son sees that train - he is obsessed. Oh well, the zoo is a good cause. Though I am less likely to go over there lately with that dang train.

& tomorrow they have library preschool storytime.

Ah yes, what a deprived life we lead frugally. LOL. I know people who think it is terrible I do not take them to all of the fancy/expensive places all of the time. I think they are okay...

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/2006/01/livin-on-petitio...

Just read an article about this guy who started trading up a red paperclip in the hopes of eventually getting a house. Really crazy.

Entertaining website of the day...

While searching for articles on the subject I came across a story about a guy in California who did the same thing - he started with lint.