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December 20th, 2020 at 03:07 pm
At the last minute I did end up opening a 529 plan for MM(17). I always presumed we might utilize if MH took on a full-time job or we had some other sort of windfall. Otherwise, it's just a lot of red tape with absolutely no benefit to our personal tax situation. In addition to that, want to keep things flexible. Our public colleges cost pennies, so want to be able to use this money potentially after college.
In the end, while in complete limbo with college and no idea which way it might go, I decided last minute to put MM's money into a 529 plan. There's no downside. It's all in cash, so even if he decided tomorrow to not go to college, we just take it all out without any penalties. It's only the earnings that are penalized if not used for college. So... That's about $150 per year we have to make sure to spend on college. I think we can live with that. We just didn't want to commit a lot of dollars that could only be used for college. But I guess waiting for so long also dodges that bullet. Which is probably why the more I thought about it, the more it seemed obvious we should just bite the bullet.
If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. This was what worked best for our personal situation. It was easier to keep the investment growth tax-free when the money was in the kids' names. & this kept these funds very flexible. The 529 plan never made any sense until we started applying for colleges (529 plans are not factored as much for financial aid). & like the plan was all along: it's easy to change your mind at any point along the way.
{I don't know what I will do for DL. If he only applies to in-state public colleges, then it's pointless to mess with his college money. Will think about it in another 2 years. I think he's much more likely to go the community college route}.
I've also been thinking more about Plan F, G & H, (versus Plan A, B, C) while applying for private colleges and with MH being unemployed, etc. The end result? *shrugs* Feeling non-fussed about it all.
I think the obvious is that we can slow down or stop retirement contributions, to pay cash for college. More of a Plan H type scenario, after running through Plans A-G. I wanted to share for a couple of reasons though. Mostly, wanted to share as a heads up that this plan is on the table (so it's not a total shock if we go that route).
But... I also figured out I had been re-inventing the wheel. It seemed like the obvious and logical thing, as we are "put our oxygen masks on first" personalities who are far ahead on retirement savings. In the end, I perused Bogleheads a bit and those are my people. I realized I had been re-inventing the wheel re: what is a very common approach over there. Amazingly smart people who know their tax stuff (which might be my yardstick, as a tax professional. In general, free tax advice is worth about as much as you pay for it, so Bogleheads always stood out to me). But... Bogleheads is also very crowded and just "too much" for me so I don't spend much time there. I just sometimes go over there to look up a specific question.
It wasn't just just this one point that was very Bogleheads. It was our entire approach to college, which is why I feel like I have been re-inventing the wheel this whole time. If nothing else, it's a lot of "put your own oxygen masks first" personalities over there, which becomes a very different approach than the average college advice. (The only reason we have any money to put into a 529 is because it was gift money from grandparents).
I think for most things, I have exceptional real-life mentors. But... probably feeling a little out of my depth on this one. Our parents and us just went to very affordable public colleges. My parents did not help me whatsoever with college, so though they may be my biggest financial mentors, this is where we diverge. My other biggest financial mentor did not have children.
So... We are just in limbo land for another 3-4 months until college acceptances and scholarships and financial aid sorts out.
To clarify, in the past we have decided we are "done" with retirement savings. Our money will compound to where it needs to be at 65, if we stop contributing entirely to retirement. We keep contributing because we want to retire early and also for the "worst case" scenarios.
More to the point though, the biggest reason given for not skipping retirement contribution years is to "not give up retirement space." As someone who also likes things like food and shelter 😁, we give up tens of thousands of retirement space every year. For us, this is a nonsense reason. Our three biggest household expenses will literally disappear or decrease substantially when our kids are done with college and fly the nest (mortgage, health insurance, food spending). We can literally just double up our retirement contributions for a few years after college and end up in the same place anyway. I wanted to jot this down, because it's a point I may forget.
Edited to add: The 30% we put to retirement in 2020 was nowhere near the max we could have contributed. But like I said, I do also like things like food and shelter. 😉
Edited in Late March: This is entirely moot at this point. We've ruled out anything far from home (travel costs) or mega expensive. So... We will keep our 20%+ retirement savings rate while paying cash for college. If we just go with Plan A, then... Plan H is *way* off the table.
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College
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December 19th, 2020 at 04:05 pm
General life update: Life is absurd and crazy as ever, so no recent blog posts. The work I planned to do last weekend was delayed to this weekend. I am exhausted (emotionally, mentally) but at least have a couple of long weekends to look forward to.
Also, lots going on financially (sorting out 2020, planning for 2021, college, etc.) so I have a few posts I want to try to get out today.
I've got final #s for 2020.
Expenses will be same as 2019. The only noticeable difference is a reduction of auto costs by $2K-$3K this year, which will be a permanent budget change with the purchase of an electric car. In 2020 we might have done a lot less driving, but in the future our fuel will cost a small fraction of what it used to. Also less maintenance, no oil changes, etc.
While I am personally not surprised our expenses remained the same (we are aggressive savers without much fat in our budget). I will say that this year was *easy* on this front. I think we usually navigate a lot more pressure to spend money, and that just completely evaporated this year. We might have also had more wiggle room in our budget for other splurges. I probably don't remember an easier year on this front.
Income was a record breaker this year. The extra unemployment bumped our income by about $10,000 (above what we would have otherwise earned this year). I will also receive a $3,000-ish retirement plan bonus, due to PPP loans. & work was record breaking on the income/profit front, so I got another bonus on top of that.
At first I just attributed the mega income to the financial ease of this year. But I do think it's the combo of extra income and less spending pressure.
Of course, the extra unemployment income was pushing off a tax cliff and so I put one month of my salary into my 401K. I was hoping I could keep a wee little bit of my bonus, but it was not meant to be. I had to put the whole thing in my 401K.
First world problems.
In the end we will be contributing 30% of our income to retirement this year. Which is by far a record. The prior record was 21%, the year MM was born. (I had a generous work retirement benefit, and we had substantial savings to plow into our IRAs. It ended up being a big % of a very low income year).
Of course, the 30% is even more exciting, because it was 30% of a big income year!
{Pretty much, we put all that unemployment income into my 401K}.
In the end, this is why I miss blogging. I would have gotten here much sooner if I can write it out and process. But... I guess I got there.
I started to think that's ridiculous (we do have other financial goals too). & so I eventually got there that we don't *have to* max out our IRAs too. Last I ran the numbers we could put $8K in our Traditional IRAs (which I will do for the tax break) but the ROTH IRA contributions seemed pointless and would free up $4K cash. I just felt better realizing at least I could squeeze out some cash somewhere, from all this extra income.
Then I changed my mind again, because we have assets we can shift to IRAs.
In the end... I am kicking that can down the road and making it an April decision. I know it probably makes the most sense just to plow that money into our ROTH IRAs. That money is *always* there if we need it. But... The only thing giving me pause is the whole college thing. I think it will be easier for me to commit to the ROTH IRAs once I have some clarity on the college front. Which should happen before April 15th, so I have some time.
If I could just sell off some taxable investments, it would be done. But... That's a whole other worm hole with taxes, college and financial aid and everything... I've been very good about harvesting tax gains in the kids' accounts. I have been not so good doing the same with our own accounts. It's probably what I will do, but I am already so knee deep in financial aid forms and various tax projections. Just more reason to kick the can down the road. I will look at it next year with a clear head and a 2021 focus.
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Just Thinking
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December 6th, 2020 at 07:07 pm
Nope, there is no peace here. *sigh* Back on the crazy train. I suppose I spoke too soon. My one remaining 'dumpster fire' employee had *two* significant emergencies this week. & my Dad got some all clear for maybe a week or two and is now sent back for a bajillion medical tests. So... Back to the same old, same old.
December is shaping up to be busy busy.
My plan for this weekend was to get through all things financial aid and scholarships. Instead of just completing everything ASAP, we moved some assets around and maximized our timing. Sorted everything out by 11/30, so completing all of the financial aid forms this weekend.
I did end up adding a College category in Quicken. We've been spoiled with the schools paying for all things AP/ACT/SAT. But... Will probably spend $400 on college apps this month and $60 on financial aid form submissions. I am just using MH's unemployment money to cover all of these fees. MM applied for two State colleges already and will probably spend winter break finalizing his private school applications.
The plan for next weekend is to do side work and to renew my professional license. I guess my general plan was to free up the last two weekends of the year to be more relaxed.
Work is so busy this time of year, I generally don't participate in the Holidays. This year is probably extra low key with the cancellation of my work Christmas party. I bought the kids some stocking stuffer type gifts, but that's about it. Gum for DL, because he is getting his braces off! I spent a whole whopping $14, and that may be the extent of my Christmas spending. Charity instead of consumerism, is more of the focus for us.
If things don't shut down entirely, DL should be getting his braces off around New Year's eve. That's exciting! (I don't know if dental/ortho is on the shut down list. Prepping for a big shut down due to lack of hospital beds in our region).
It sounds like DL(15) is going to pass on getting his driver's permit right now. I am not surprised whatsoever. MM, MH and I were all "get our driver's license the minute we turned 16" personalities. DL is the tortoise to MM's hare (they are so complete opposites) and so I was not surprised. That said, he also never learned to ride a bike. So we are going to lean on him pretty hard to at least get the license and the practice (even if he never buys a car and just embraces uber/lyft culture). He just needs to rip off the band aid and do it. He will never get easier practice than just driving to school every day. In the end, he told us he wanted to wait out the pandemic. I think that's fair enough and I will save the 'leaning on him' for next winter if he is still balking. Winter break is a good time to do the online part of the driving course.
Will have to sort out the car situation in that case, but will cross that bridge when we get to it. It sounds like DL might be open to getting his permit over the summer. At that point, we should have a much better idea if MM has any use of a car (based on college choice). Then we sort out all things car.
I did buy $500 in Target gift cards yesterday, 10% off. I've never done the max before, but we had so much extra income this year. And... Expect so much less income next year.
In the end, I decided to load up all our (old) gift cards in our Target account. So... I ended up with $300 (probably everything I bought last year 10% off and never used). We have $300 sitting in our account now and $500 gift cards to load once we get through these old ones. We used to keep a bunch of $20 gift cards in hand for random gifts and stuff, but we don't seem to be using. I had also earmarked some for school supplies, but didn't use the last couple of years. (For high school, kids really mostly seem to need paper and pens/pencils, which MH stocked up on some point when on sale).
We spend about $100/month at Target, for groceries. So is why I bought the $500 gift cards this time. Instead of "saving gift cards for later", this time will just spend them down while MH is unemployed.
In other complete randomness, I bought some nail wraps a while ago. I picked them up on Etsy for $3-$4 per set. They were so easy to apply and lasted for so long... I wanted to pick up some Christmas/winter ones for December so did my second order.
I share because I have some friends doing Color Street? and a co-worker was buying some of those. When I told her these were $3 on Etsy, she told me she had been paying $10 for some of them. Yeesh!
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Just Thinking
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2 Comments »
December 5th, 2020 at 06:43 pm
GIFTS:
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$50 Barnes & Noble (we always gift these to FIL)
MOVIES:
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$100 Regal
RESTAURANTS:
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$50 Cracker Barrel
$50 Olive Garden
$25 Chili's
$ 25 x 2 Jamba Juice (Birthday Gift)
RETAIL:
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$ 100 x 3 Target (Emailed/paper gift cards)
$ 75 Kohls ($50 + $25)
Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Commentary in a separate post.
Edited to add: Duh, also forgot to add gift cards received as birthday gifts. I will add those now too.
Posted in
Credit Card & Bank Rewards
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November 30th, 2020 at 02:24 pm
2020 TALLY:
$740 Cash (Chase Sapphire Quadruple Dip, Moi)
$ 24 Cash (Citi Black Friday Bonus; 5% online shopping)
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$764 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*
**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31
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Noticed some random $24 bonus today on our Citi card. I vaguely remember singing up for 5% cash back on online shopping? & then I completely forgot about it.
Googled it and found the details: 5% cash back on 'online shopping' between Nov. 24 & Nov. 30.
We did about $67 in online shopping the past week. The only other charges were $5 MH paid for some movie thing (live stream) and we paid a $410 deposit on some rodent abatement. (This seems to be a 'once every 15 years' home maintenance expense. We aren't sure if it's just birds or rodents, or both. Last time we invested in some bird proofing and have to redo some of that). Anyway, I was a little confused when I saw the dates, because was after we made some bigger splurges. MH just bought a computer for his parents (they reimbursed us) so my first thought was we got the bonus for the larger computer purchase. In the end, it looks like they categorized 'pest control' as online shopping. Also, the live stream got categorized as "shopping".
I am so confused. They gave us the bonus a few days ago, I have no idea why. Well that was crazy fast! It seems moot since we haven't spent any money since that date. (Or if we have, it still shows as 'pending'). Wonder if they will give us credit for my pending electric bill payment. The max bonus is $25.
Note to self: Still need to sign up for $400 Capital One bonus (open checking account and do direct deposit). <---Just putting this here so that I don't forget.
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Credit Card & Bank Rewards
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November 29th, 2020 at 06:04 pm
I hesitate to even think it but... I've had a few weeks of calm and peace. On the work front and the home front. At work especially, all the problems seem to be peeling away. It's shaping up to be the dream job that it was on paper. It just took a rough couple of years to get to this point.
I wouldn't even know where to begin. Even all the employees who are infinitely in the hospital, are leaving. Lost a good employee (good for her, took a much better job) and maybe that will make my life harder in the short run. But most of me is just, "YES!!" as I seem to be moving past this jinx where everyone who works for me is mostly a medical disaster (in addition to just having a dumpster fire life, in general). It's been completely absurd. It's very emotionally draining, in addition to infinitely covering for absent employees.
I think this mostly says it all: I took Thanksgiving week off of work. As the time off approached I felt absolutely *shrugs* about it. Didn't feel that I needed the time off whatsoever. This is a complete 180 from the time off I took end of September, when I was just starving for some time and space. That's how quickly things have done a 180.
Unfortunately, Dec/Jan/Feb is my busy season and I am a little overwhelmed by work To-Do lists. But it's very relative. A little busy by itself is a breath of fresh air compared to the work drama of the last few years. (& it's nothing like 'tax season' busy).
On the home/personal front, I think everyone is out of the hospital and no one is waiting for medical results. *knock on wood*
Thanksgiving was nice. Just kept it to our household. MH had the idea to make corned beef and cabbage (soaked in beer in the crockpot). We made various desserts and appetizers. The Holiday was probably more reminiscent to my own childhood when it was just my parents, sister and I. I think MH just doesn't care that much for traditional Thanksgiving food. We were grateful for the peaceful Holiday at home.
The Instant Pot arrived on Friday and I did a mac & cheese test run. It was *amazing*. I've never been able to make good mac & cheese before. MH was a little less impressed. By the time you pre-heat and de-pressurize and everything, it probably wasn't any faster than our gas stove. I can see it wouldn't be worth the hassle for such a quick/simple dish. But if I can't re-create that on the stove top then it's going to be a Instant Pot dish. I don't know how much of it was the *right* recipe and how much was the magic of the Instant Pot. I expect it was more the magic of the Instant Pot.
I am going to make a corn chowder today. It just looked good and I have all the ingredients on hand.
That reminds me, we made butternut squash soup (crockpot) for dinner last night. YUM!
I think this is an attempt of a sum up and a reset. I'm never going to get around to blogging most of the insanity of the last few years. But... Things are calming down a bit and I would like to blog more regularly. Just not overly optimistic that I will have the time or that life will cooperate. But mostly I just have to start from today, or it will never happen.
I need to work on the art of the shorter blog post. 😁
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Just Thinking
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November 29th, 2020 at 03:05 pm
Net worth hit $900K last week!
The value of our home had stagnated for quite a while. People are strongly favoring smaller homes. But... a house on the street behind ours just sold for $570K, or about +$70K more than I have our home valued at. That seems to have knocked things loose from a very long stagnation.
For now, just going to hope to end the year with $900K+ net worth, and will leave our home valuation as is. If some more homes sell in that range, I might bump things up to $950K (when I increase home value by $50K). Probably a 2021 adjustment.
If I ever had a timeline goal for hitting $1 mil, I don't remember what it might have been. But I'd say that age 45 is shaping up to be a realistic goal.
I also came across some financial projections that I made a while ago.
In 2011 I did a 10-year financial projection. I don't remember why, but I made two financial projections. One of them presumed that we stopped saving. I think I was just fascinated by the power of compounding. Probably that, and just planning for a worst case scenario.
2021 projection (with savings): $800,000 Net Worth
2021 projection (stop saving) $470,000 Net Worth
In either scenario, we'd be in good shape.
In 2014 I revised my projection. It was a 2022 Projection, updated for my goal to have $500K in retirement by age 45. I'd say that was an aggressive goal, but the stock market has humored us.
2022 projection (with savings): $880,000 Net Worth**
2022 projection (stop saving) $625,000 Net Worth
**I made a note on this projection that we would need to keep a $100K mortgage to meet the $500K retirement goal. For now, retirement savings is the bigger financial priority.
The 2022 projection is fairly spot on. Getting close on the retirement #s, but not quite there yet. We've been able to exceed the 2022 net worth projection (in 2020) due to home values exceeding my conservative estimate.
I decided to do a new 10-year projection, out of curiosity:
2030 projection (with savings): $1.5 Mil Net Worth
2030 projection (stop saving) $1.2 Mil Net Worth
I just went with a more conservative investment return, and the first thing that popped out was $1 mil (retirement), which is my 'financial independence' goal. What is fascinating about that was I think I kind of just didn't want to know, as we face college years and drawing down some assets. In the end, current retirement contributions and a fairly conservative investment return should get us there. The $1.5 mil figure above did include spending down assets for college. It presumed that I just did the minimum 5% for 401K match and that we maxed out our IRAs ($12K per year). That works out to about 22% of our income going to retirement; I personally do count employer match in our retirement contribution %.
$1.5 Mil projection = $1 Mil in retirement + $100K cash/investments + paid-for home (after downsize).
This was a reminder to really sit down and do the big picture math when we make those final college decisions. It's probably a necessary step in making those decisions. Is just not something I had done to this point.
I think mostly we already kind of know these things. (But... doing the math is a still an important exercise). I expect this is why I've been thinking that MH is probably going to just retire if his job is killed by the pandemic. Is nothing we have discussed, but it just feels like it's time. It's not like he would turn down an opportunity or a good full-time job. But... I just don't think we are really going to see the point of looking for another job. I should mention that I did not include MH's income in any of these projections. It's more than just the stock market, the extra income has also helped us meet some more aggressive financial goals.
Posted in
Just Thinking,
Living on One-Income,
Budgeting & Goals,
Financial Independence by 50
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November 27th, 2020 at 11:07 pm
Mentioned in my last post that we finally pulled the trigger on the Instant Pot. It just arrived and we did the test run (with some water). I already found a handful of recipes that we have ingredients on hand for. Will probably make corn chowder this weekend.
For today, going to do a quick mac & cheese test run.
Wanted to ask if anyone had favorite recipes that they wanted to share? TIA!
Posted in
RECIPES
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3 Comments »
November 27th, 2020 at 07:02 pm
Christmas/Birthday stuff is very anti-climactic this year.
I bought all my presents earlier this week. I had already decided to get a new cell phone. (Replacing cheapie phone bought when I considered cell phone use mostly for emergency... Now that I am using phone more for work, podcasts, music... am buying a newer phone with 5x more storage space). Made the decision a couple of months ago but was waiting out Black Friday deals. MM(17) was the guniea pig and got the Pixel 4A a few months ago. I will get the same phone. At the last second, MH decided to just get one for DL too. He has someone's old hand-me-down phone. I really don't like going all in and everyone having the same device. But I guess the price point is good ($350). Pulled the trigger because they aren't putting these on sale for Black Friday (bummer!).
{That reminds me, there is a Capital One bonus. $400 bonus if you open a checking account with them and haven't been a customer since 2018. Something like that. My plan was to pay for my phone with the bonus. I am the only one eligible right now because it requires paycheck direct deposit. I won't get the cash until next year, so will just add it to my 2021 reward tally}.
MH bought the phones Monday and I purchased a case. We won't be very formal about it, MH will just ask the kids to cover the $8 as a birthday gift. But we aren't going to bother wrapping it, I am sure. Same with DL's phone.
Of course, the phone stuff was made complicated by Ting and is mostly why MH pulled the trigger. I have to back up though. Dish bought Ting a few months ago. Ugh! I removed the Ting referral link from my blog. I despise Dish, I am not going to take money for referring people to them. I don't mind passing along a good deal or a heads up, but don't want to profit from directing people to Dish. Is just my personal hang up. I never expected the Ting deal to last forever. For now, is the cheapest thing I can find, so will stick with it as long as that is the case. In the end, they just announced some new pricing/plans. You can stay grandfathered under old plans, but the new plans will be even cheaper for us. We are switching but we need new SIM cards. MH sped along DL's phone purchase for that reason. Might have at least waited for Christmas or his birthday or something like that, otherwise. MM(17) got his phone a while ago and was transferred to the Verizon network. Probably same for DL and I. MH has some fancier phone and I hope he ends up on a different network. It's just a nice perk (with Ting) that if we travel, we are on two different cell networks, so less dead spots between the two (or four) of us. Before the new phones/plan, we were on 3 different cell networks (Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint).
The other thing on my "buy" list, but no strong need and just haven't got around to it, is a nicer and more ergonomic office chair. Pretty much the first one I pulled up yesterday looked perfect (the arm rests flip up). Is one reason I had never bought a nicer chair for my "office". I just have a desk in our bedroom which is fine, but none of our nicer office chairs fit if they have armrests. So... imagine my surprise when the first office chair that popped up had flip up arm rests. There you go, problem solved. Should have done this years ago. (I was already working from home one day per week, before the pandemic. & before that I was doing second job from home).
I told MH I found a chair on sale, he told me to just buy it. Now that I am thinking I will work from home more in December, it will just be an early Christmas gift.
The only Black Friday deal I am aware of that MH took advantage of was that he bought an Instantpot. I think that was dumb because his mom has been *begging* to buy us one. (& we both have birthdays very soon). But whatever. I think it could be a good dorm appliance; I think it's good we try one out before MM goes off to college.
Other doings...
Because we had some Symphony concert tickets for March (concerts canceled), we have a free subscription to the online season this year. It's not the same, but it was nice to mix things up a bit. We watched a concert over the weekend.
We just donated our tickets back to the Symphony, for the concert that will never be. It's the least we can do to help them through a tough time. They would honor the tickets for a future show, otherwise.
The art museum offered to put a freeze on our membership. I instead renewed and picked a more expensive membership than we had before. For this year it's in the vein of supporting them. But I think it was a good move with a kid starting college next year. The higher level membership gives us reciprocal membership to a *lot* of museums.
Between that and the electric car (pennies to fuel), I think we are going to have no lack of things to do. MH and have been through "very low income" a couple of rounds before. My maternity leaves, and our own college years. We know the drill. We aren't going to be sitting at home. We always find things that fit within our means. When our kids were small, we lived for those memberships. But the kids were also happy to go to the same place over and over and over and over. I think this is a more appropriate 'college years' kind of membership. It will keep the adults entertained while pinching more pennies.
This is just a little bit of this and that; I have a couple of other posts to get through this long weekend.
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Just Thinking
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November 8th, 2020 at 06:44 pm
I feel like all I do any more is wait for medical results (just more infinite up/down/up/down). MH just got MRI results; all clear for another year. My Dad and BIL seem to be on the up/down/up/down merry-go-round. They both have biopsies this week? I don't know, who can keep track...
In other randomness, I am very pleased with a recent purchase/upgrade.
These were my bed sheets:
They are probably 20 years old. (I presume, because I have pictures of my kids on these sheets when they were babies). What I like about the sheets is that they are sturdy. There is nothing wrong with them.
I did well with internet shopping recently and got a nice mattress protector. I decided to just buy a second one as a backup. I don't remember why, maybe because my sheets are 20 years old, but I was looking at sheets. OMG, these new sheets are the best! Not only are they cute, but they are so soft. I don't know if they are just going to fall apart in a few years or what, but am enjoying in the here and now:
It's possible I have aged/matured a bit during the past 2 decades. But... I also bought these:
These are fleece sheets, I haven't tried them out yet. They may be nice in December/January.
The cotton sheets were so nice that I ended up buying a set for MM(17).
We got MM(17) set up at our credit union that had 3.5% interest. It's gone down this year, but is still over 2%. The limit is $5,000 (for that rate) but that's about what MM(17) has to put into savings.
That reminds me too that the kids' other credit union (where they have 7% interest accounts) is merging with some other CU. It's official as of last week. I was pleased to see they are keeping the 7% accounts for now, but not holding my breath. They moved that to youth accounts only (that part is new) so MM(17) will age out of that pretty soon.
Probably the *big* thing here is college applications. We are maxing out MM's IRA before we start financial aid forms. So, figuring out what to do with that. We decided to shelter some of his gift/college money and to just leave all of his (earned) cash since we are making this decision so early. For reference, he decided around July 2020 (extended deadlines) what he wanted to do for 2019. We don't even know if he will have a job next summer (with the pandemic) and college is still a choice between two extremes (pennies or $$$$$). Anyway, if he's keeping his salary (parked in savings) this year in case (for the "who knows if he will need the money" factor), we will officially move it to some higher interest rate savings. College stuff and these decisions has been the catalyst for opening up this new bank account.
It wasn't our plan whatsoever to put his college/gift money into IRAs, but it is what it is. It's how we are dealing with this one-off limbo year. It's limbo all around. Aside from the pandemic, it's complete limbo until we start to solidify a college choice. I expect this to be entirely moot during second year of college. If he chooses the one pricey college where it matters at all, he won't have any assets left for the second year.
Our assets are not as important (mostly sheltered in home equity & retirement accounts), but I am going to pay our property taxes first, and pay down this big credit card bill (for reward) before we start filling out financial aid forms. Also, we won't have any clarity on IRA contributions (how much/which kinds) until we do our taxes, which is why I always fund after we do our taxes. I can't speed up in this case (without a lot of red tape that's just not worth it). This is why we are doing a super early (for us) IRA contribution for MM, but are not bothering for ourselves. Actually, there's another reason...
We hit a tax cliff, with all the extra unemployment income this year. This puts with 50% of the extra income going to the IRS (though we are in the lowest tax brackets). Blech. I decided to put my entire salary to my 401K last month; rather keep (in retirement funds) than give half to the IRS.
I know that "too much cash" is a thing, but... It's a problem I have yet to experience in my lifetime. With kids starting college next year and an unemployed spouse, I can't say putting 33% of our income to retirement funds topped the list for this year. But, financial efficiency for the win. (I don't think that MH or I have it in us to spend $3K just to keep $3K in more accessible cash).
I don't even know if we will do our IRA contributions in addition to the extra in the 401k. I suppose we most likely will because we have taxable investments we can shift over to retirement funds. I have the luxury to make that decision next April. I did count IRA contributions (presuming we max out) in that 33% figure.
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November 8th, 2020 at 06:30 pm
2020 TALLY:
$740 Cash (Chase Sapphire Quadruple Dip, Moi)
-----------
$740 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*
**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I logged into Chase to see if statement had closed yet (for the month) and saw that I had about $835 cash to redeem! Woohoo! That was fast!
I had been skeptical, given the "can choose not to give rewards any time for any reason" language they use these days.
I offset the annual fee against the reward. In the past I've been pretty aggressive about cancelling these cards immediately and also getting the annual fee refunded. Which I guess technically they are supposed to do anyway (or pro-rate if you keep open a little longer). But I always asked right away. In this case, it's such a huge reward and I already did this reward *3* times... I am just going to let it go. Less hassle. Easy money.
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November 7th, 2020 at 04:00 pm
Consumer Reports put out a couple of articles recently about the lower repair costs in electric vehicles.
This was one of the articles:
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-repair-maintenance/pay-less-for-vehicle-maintenance-with-an-ev/
**I have no idea how to do links in this new blog format**
The general conclusion is that EV cars cost half as much to maintain, versus gas vehicles.
"“It has long been well known that EVs are cheaper to maintain than their gasoline-powered counterparts,” says Chris Harto, CR’s senior analyst for transportation and energy. “But this is the first time we’ve had enough hard data from actual EV owners to prove the point.”
I did see a couple of these articles that discussed this in terms of electric cars also being more expensive (purchase price). I find that part to be completely N/A on the used market. Quite the opposite. YMMV depending on where you live. As someone who has never bought a new car, I guess is why I don't care or hasn't come up in my blog. One of the reasons we had been considering an electric car so seriously was because it was so inexpensive on the used market (we had seriously considered a barely used Nissan Leaf for $5,000 at some point; that was at a dealership). These were conversations we had when our means were much smaller. It was the small means that led us to very seriously talk about going electric. It was the car purchase price AND the savings on fuel.
That does remind me though, I have seen some people picking up brand new Bolts in the $20k range (I belong to a Bolt online group). So I guess there is also that if you are a "new car only" car buyer. Costco had some $3,000 discount on top of some $8,000 manufacturer discount, something like that.
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November 7th, 2020 at 02:49 pm
October Miles Driven:
Teenager Gas car: ??
Hybrid Electric car: 626
All-Electric car: 712
Total fuel costs September: $33
Note: Back to lower winter electric rates.
**Note: We received 90 FREE electric miles last month.**
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For reference, fuel cost in October 2019 was $110. Savings of $77.
Fuel costs October 2017 (two gas vehicles): $196. Savings of $163.
(Note: This was also when my commute was half as many miles)
Driving was mostly my commute, about 900 miles. I did split the cars somewhat 50/50, but if MH had a 5-mile drive or wanted to get groceries, I left the electric car for him on those days. Was not exactly 50/50, though mostly have been driving my car (hybrid) on Mondays/Tuesdays and the all-electric on Thursdays/Fridays. Not only is this to keep both cars running and moving, but... More to the point, we piled the miles on the hybrid during the past 2 years (30K miles in two years). I do want to pile more miles on the all-electric and even it out a bit. 50/50 is just how it seems to be working out, for now.
These are all electric miles. I came up with a rough estimate of fuel costs based on overnight electricity usage.
I expect MH is frustrated with me because he is getting insane fuel efficiency on all the around town trips (taking kids to school to pick up this or that, getting groceries, etc.). He wants to see how far one charge will go with his more normal driving. The problem is that I expect it will go about 300-400 miles, and... it's going to take like a year to get to that...
It's not all me and my commute messing up his test run. He is working on a film project and did a couple of 100 mile drives (hence the higher miles on his car last month). He did also take DL(15) to Tahoe when he had some days off of school (which is where he got a free charge).
November is probably going to be a similar miles month. It's pretty quiet and not much going on. But... I am taking a week off work and imagine that we will be doing some smaller road trips.
I didn't look at MM's car. I just didn't get around to it yet. I recall he did some "virtual" 5K with friends (that he drove to) and met up with his friends on Halloween. He may have driven 10-20 miles.
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November 7th, 2020 at 01:29 pm
September Miles Driven:
Teenager Gas car: 5
Hybrid Electric car: 214
All-Electric car: 1,556
Total fuel costs September: $43.52
Note: This was our last month of higher summer electric rates.
**Note: We received 470 FREE electric miles last month.**
I would have guessed 10 miles on the kids' car. It was a whole whopping 5 miles. That was probably just one trip to the orthodontist. We had mostly been putting miles on the hybrid, so I drove the newer car to work some, in addition to a lot of test runs and some staycation drives. It probably works out to 650 miles commute and 700 miles bigger trips. With the two Bay Area trips and the two Tahoe trips, that makes sense. I don't foresee much driving (October), aside from my commute. I will probably drive somewhat 50/50. I want to put more miles on the newer car, to make up for all the miles we piled on the hybrid the last two years. But... I don't want to drive it all the time. There are some things I like better in my car.
Pretty much I am the only one driving anywhere (more than a couple of miles here and there) so I guess it's up to me. It will probably mostly sort out 50/50. Once the pandemic is over and/or we can equalize the miles on the cars, I can see favoring my car. We abandoned his/her cars when we had kids. I can see maybe settling a bit more into his/hers with our current cars. It's easier because they are both similar and same year, so no one's going to feel "stuck with an older car" or anything like that. & they are both so similar in size and fuel costs and everything. But... Will see how we feel about that after the pandemic. For now, I have two cars to choose from. We will be fighting over the all-electric car on weekday evenings and weekends (post pandemic). Probably whoever is driving farther gets the all-electric.
We had been switching sides in the garage, to refuel the electric car during the weekend. But we quickly figured out this is unnecessary. The cord will reach over the nearest car to the other car. This will save some hassle. I charge my car when I get home every night (I plug it in and set it to charge overnight). So we just have to remember to charge the other car Saturday or Sunday night. Long term, that should be more than sufficient. Maybe extra charging if we plan a bigger trip. I think when things normalize, I will also be better able to track real fuel costs. For now, I am just doing rough estimates based on overnight electricity costs.
I believe that MH and I both gave up a Free 100 miles. or 200 miles total. I realized my last free charge was going to expire, but the air quality was too questionable to be worth the free $2. It probably sounds ridiculous to take the time/effort to go sit and recharge for 45 minutes. But... After sitting so many hours and waiting for kids in recent years, I kind of miss the forced silence. To me, it sounds nice. Just being stuck somewhere, without anything productive to do and no one vying for my time. Plus, we've only had the electric car for a month. In my mind, 100 miles costs at least $10 (gas price). I think that is more to the point. MH did end up going out of town one day, but he took DL(15) up to Tahoe and there is all free chargers on that route, so he didn't bother to go out of his way to use up his extra free charge.
I was thinking that I hadn't put any gas in the hybrid since March? That was what I was recalling and I realized I probably needed to burn off some/all of the gas. Gas will go bad over time. But I put a pin on it while the air quality has been so bad here. (Logical or not, I just figured I didn't want to suck more ash or whatever into the engine). In the end, the car made the decision for me. We did experience "maintenance mode" when looking at Volts, before we purchased. So... I knew not to freak out. But when I left work one day it went into 'maintenance mode' and started burning off gas. What I had not realized is that you can still drive while it does that. (The car salesman smartly said, "Let's just wait," because you aren't going to get the feel of driving an electric car while it is doing some all out maintenance to the engine. But it had left me with the impression that you had to wait it out). So... It was a learning experience because I didn't realize it would start after driving the car. It would have really freaked me out if I had no idea what it was doing. In the end, I chose to burn off an extra 10 miles of gas because I was going to run some errands after work, and figured might as well. I didn't have enough electric miles to hit all my errands, and it's better to burn gas on the freeway (better mpg). Clearly I have a lot of gas to dump. It feels like throwing it down the drain, but it is what it is. When the pandemic started, our inclination was to hoard up gas (filled the hybrid), just for any worst case scenario.
In the end, I started thinking that I was pretty sure we drove to the Bay Area in July. So I looked it up and we did last put gas in the tank in July. The gas is not quite as old as I thought. It still feels like pouring money down the drain, but will probably plan one out-of-town trip with the hybrid and will run through the gas (before year-end). I am probably just going to put a gallon or something in it, of new gas, after that. Will see how long it lasts. The car needs some gas to function properly. But during the pandemic and with kids home and MH unemployed, I expect one gallon will last a very long time. When things normalize, will have more reason to run through the gas. In that case I might try 3 or 4 gallons and see how long it takes to get through. It's going to be weird. I can easily see us becoming a 100% electric-fuel household, even when things normalize. We do often have stuff going on after work, but if we just take the electric car for those trips, then that was pretty much the only reason we were using gas around town. Will have to use gas once in a while, but I already feel so, "Ugh," about it. It's just wasteful and expensive at this point. I've seen a lot of hybrid owners say they haven't bought gas in months or years. I am just experiencing this side of it for the first time.
I expect it will probably make more sense to keep a little more fuel in the tank and to just burn it off within 6 months or something. It's probably more practical to throw gas down the drain every 6 months (potentially) versus leaving very little gas in the car and having to go to the gas station more often. I honestly don't remember the last time I went to a gas station. Kind of the whole point is to not go to the gas station unless going out of town. So going from, "I don't remember when I last got gas" to "maintaining just one gallon of gas" sounds like an extraordinary hassle. But I think I need to try it in the interim. The other thing we can do is add fuel stabilizer to the gas tank to prolong the gas. I have some homework to do on that front. It's something we should probably consider also for MM(17)'s car. Until DL(15) gets his permit and starts practicing driving...
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October 28th, 2020 at 01:02 am
GIFTS:
------
$50 Barnes & Noble
$20 x 6 Target
MOVIES:
--------
$100 Regal
RESTAURANTS:
------------
$50 Cracker Barrel
$50 Olive Garden
$25 Chili's
$ 25 x 2 Jamba Juice (Birthday Gift)
RETAIL:
---------
$ 50 x 3 Target
Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Had to redo entry, with new format.
In the end, I found some nice bed sheets to replace our own bed sheets. Will try to do another post on that. We liked them so much, I bought some more of the same brand for MM(17). I had also found a nice mattress protector for our bed, bought a backup (because has been kind of hit and miss) and then decided to pick one up for MM while I was at it. I went through the Target gift cards and found a nice surprise...
$80!
In the past, hell would have frozen over before I found a cent lying around the house. But... You guessed it. Bought these gift cards in 2018. Bought in December when on discount. They were e-gift cards and they got lost in the mix. I thought, "Surely I spent these down, they are from 2018." But.. Nope!
& we should probably spend down the 2019 ones, because probably just going to buy some more in December. I never do the max, mostly just buy enough for gifts and school supplies. I think for the best, we have a big pile to get through. I didn't bother tallying them all. But I think I had a good idea of all of them except for the paper print outs.
I had also been saving my Kohls card ($50 gift last Chrismas) to buy the kids shoes. But... They aren't going anywhere and seemed to have stopped growing. I am probably just going to get some more gift cards soon, so figured I would spend it.
It's not just a pandemic thing, we weren't getting through these cards anyway. It's just even more slow going right now.
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October 3rd, 2020 at 02:17 pm
2020 TALLY:
$700 Cash (Chase Sapphire Quadruple Dip, Moi) ~ MAYBE?
-----------
$700 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*
**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POST FROM 2018: I think I probably would have mostly passed (on one-time bonuses) this year given all my employment upheaval. Life has been CRAZY this year and I am being ultra protective of my credit score since I work in the financial industry. It's always been like 800+, but I just don't feel like it's the year to open 5 new credit cards in my name. Might raise some eyebrows during any employment consideration. (& I am probably just being overly cautious, but that is how I roll).
2019: More of the same. Too busy to bother with, and too much extra income.
2020: Less crazy busy, but too much extra income to bother with. That said... I got a $800 Chase Sapphire offer. It's been over 4 years since we did this deal, which is the requirement. I can see from my blog that we both did the Chase Sapphire bonus 3 times already. So... It's a quadruple dip.
It's worth mentioning that I have been bombarded by credit card offers. But... I have always considered myself a light credit card churner. Most places where I get the credit card tips, there are crowds of people who do a *lot* more churning, manufacture spending, etc. I share because the flip side of the coin is the opinion that it's morally questionable, especially when doing the same deal over and over and over. To which I can only roll my eyes. It's not like they aren't cramming these offers down my throat, begging me to fall into their credit card traps. They are the ones that are BEGGING me to apply for the same card I already applied for 3 times in the past.
$800 is speaking to me though. Net of annual fee, will be $700 cash. If it works out well, it looks like it's also a common public offer. I will have MH also do a quadruple dip, if I can find the offer again next year. (It's a credit card company. I am skeptical if they will really give me a bonus for a fourth time. I don't trust them at all. Will see).
In other news, I met my sidebar snowflake investing goal. It's worth mentioning because was entirely funded by credit card rewards (cash back received from monthly spending). $1,500+ so far for 2020. Total credit card rewards will probably end up in the $2,000 range for this year.
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September 27th, 2020 at 02:56 pm
Hell froze over and I got a week of peace and calm. There's probably a million things I could/should have done. But... Treated the week as a long overdue staycation and didn't do much of anything productive. I felt like I was figuratively gulping in the fresh air but I guess it was also quite literal. I had to pinch myself that our staycation destinations all had clean air on the days we planned. Was trying to keep it flexible, but locked in reservations one day and it still worked out. (The air quality has been very patchy). We had a difficult time spending any of our vacation funds. I did some rough math and an old average of $100/month for car gas will now give us 8,000 miles of driving. We enjoyed this incredible freedom. If I want to drive to the beach every single weekend, cost of fuel is no longer a limiting factor. On Tuesday we took advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and had Muir Woods (redwood forest) mostly to ourselves. It was *amazing*. We didn't see another soul once we left the main trail, and had a picnic spot all to ourselves for lunch. I had been starving for some beach time and so we hit the beach afterwards. We did end up stopping for a refuel on the way home. We drove 254 miles, stopped and added about 55 miles of charge, and still had 65 miles left when we got home. Third completely different drive, still getting that 260-mile range on one charge. We learned two things worth sharing: We played it a lot more loose this trip, just stopping for some fuel on the way home. It's a charger we would use a lot on drives from the Bay Area, so it was nice to check out this one (different location, different route home). All we did was run an errand and grab a couple of grocery items while we were there. I'd say we spent about 15 minutes in the store and then spent a minute or two discussing if we had enough to get home, deciding yes and unplugging. We ended up charging for 17 miles and gaining about 55 miles. & honestly, we didn't even have to charge 1/2 that long to get home. Felt more like a gas car trip. In the short run, we have infinite free charges and will probably be stopping more, but long term when it's not free, it's just going to be much shorter stops. We had spent so much time in the car, it was nice to stop and take a break. {As a side note, MH wanted me to mention our car had one of the slowest charge times. I had no idea, but that's good to know. Like I said before, every single car model is different. If faster charging is really important, almost any other electric car will be faster}. We did some windy steep hill driving and that is also worth mentioning. When I mentioned the manufacturer recommended maintenance, there was no mention of brakes. This is not an oversight. The car does have traditional brakes, but those are mostly there for sudden stopping and more emergency type braking. Most of the time, you don't use the brakes on the car. The regenerative braking system slows the car down through the engine (more like a low gear on a gas car). This braking regenerates energy and adds more range back to the battery. So... Not only did we get to zip up the hill with ease. But... We did not have to use the brakes at all to come back down. It was *amazing*. {Again, I don't get the sense this is universal for all electric cars. So just another reminder that every car is different}. The next day we went to the family cabin, midway between our home and Tahoe. It's a trip that MH had already done with DL(15). We just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We went on a hike where we didn't see a single other person. I personally would have stopped for a free charge but MH was feeling "meh" about that. I have no idea why. He usually leans toward the cheap side of things, so it was very unlike him. He was kind of saying, "We don't need a charge, and these chargers won't always be free." So wanted to live life without worrying about fuel, for this trip. The chargers are so under-utilized east of our city that they have left all of those free. It's the more utilized ones that they started charging more for around the time we bought the car. So there is a completely free charger at the freeway exit we use to get to the cabin. View from hike near cabin, no other people that day: Total driving 2 days: 400 miles. Total fuel costs 2 days: $5 Thursday was our anniversary and we had a low-key day at home. We ordered in a nice dinner. Because the kids had school, we left Saturday for one more trip/hike, this time with kids. The road to Tahoe was closed. If not, I think we would have gone all the way and tested it out. But our plan was to go visit Camp, which was mostly closed for this season. It's probably about 10 miles away from Tahoe. We got our camp fix, and there is a nice isolated hike. Our timing could not have been more perfect. We saw a couple of people hiking back down as we hiked up, but that was about it. We had the top of the mountain completely to ourselves. I would have stayed longer, but MH seemed to be more in a rush. For the best, because we saw at least 20 people coming back up as we hiked down. It was clearly a popular lunch spot. We had debated packing lunch for the third time that week, but decided "meh" with the longer drive and earlier start. But we didn't start too early and had missed the early morning crowd too. {We hadn't expected it to be crowded because we've never seen too many cars there when we camp during summer. Even though the parking is very limited. Was one reason we left that hike for the weekend. We saw more people than cars, not sure where all these people were coming from}. Of course, the "up the mountain" 100 mile drive wasn't doing much for our electric range. I believe it was estimating we only had 90 miles left on the car once we got to our destination. We weren't worried about it at all knowing that it would use very little of that energy to go back down. The stories are true: We had more range when we got home than we did at the top of the mountain. So... 90 miles downhill generated more energy that it used. It's hard to believe it until you see it for yourself. We did stop for lunch and a free charge. The lunch took longer than the charge. We had two convenient options: a charger right by camp or the charger by the cabin. We drove 190 miles. Stopped for a free charge that added 100 miles to the battery. Still had 200 miles left when we got home. Although we had consistently been getting a 260-mile range in different weather and terrain, this works out to a 290-range on one charge (if you ignore the extra charge and 100 miles). Which means... even though the uphill used a lot of energy, the downhill still put us +30 miles ahead with the roundtrip. Obviously, stopping to charge was completely unnecessary. MH ended up getting an extra free charge. It was the first time he got a survey/free charge offer. I have already redeemed two and got an accidental extra credit, so make that *3* free charges. When showing him how to access the free charge, I noticed my last free charge expires next week (on October 6th?). I asked MH not to plug in the car when we got home. There's enough range for me to drive to work all week and then we can refuel at a free public fast charger next weekend. MH does have some planned day trips with DL(15) during his time off (fall break in another week), but if they go into the mountains where the chargers are always free, I expect that we won't get through all of these extra *free charge* offers. Oh yeah, our fuel costs for our 190 mile drive yesterday: $2.06 Our higher summer electric rates end October 1. For spring and fall, just means even cheaper driving.
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September 19th, 2020 at 05:46 pm
Insanity continues here, too much bad stuff to keep track of.
Good News: GMIL was released from the hospital and has been home for a couple of weeks. Phew! We visited her once in the hospital (through a glass window) and visited her at home through her screen door when we did our test EV run two weekends ago.
I never had time to get to it, we went to the Bay Area four weekends ago to pick up a new (used) professional grade trombone for DL(15). I had put some email alerts up about a year ago and had set aside the cash when we sold our treadmill (and eventually forgot I had that cash still). But as school/band started back up, I increased my efforts and found some good options. It was a nice surprise how little cash I had to come up with (just had to get $500 from the ATM to top off the purchase and to replenish cash emergency fund).
We could probably sell the old cheapie trombone for $300 (what we paid) but we have decided to donate it to DL's art school. That got lost in the mix; MH can drop it off sometime this next week.
Bad news last last week (just some highlights): A fire broke out in our zip code and the fire department was setting up a perimeter the street behind us. It was a really windy day. In the end they put out the fire crazy fast. It was a large fire, for such a short period of time. I expect that is why our cars were completely covered in ash (dark/black ash). There has been a general raining of grey ash for several weeks now, but that day was much worse. The same day, our neighbor's tree fell and missed MM(17)'s car by just inches. My nerves were just completely shot by the end of that day. (Which seems to be mostly my state of being any more. It's either that or completely numb by the bad news overwhelm. I wish I could say it was just a 2020 thing, but I am three years in at this point). If that's not enough excitement for one week, young relative's "it's nothing" diagnosis was changed back to, "It's really bad" and is being sent back for another biopsy. *sigh* That one I had been really struggling with. I am running out of people. So... The relief on that front only lasted a week or two. Now it's back to square one.
{I wouldn't be surprised if this was a COVID thing. It follows the trend of "completely stumping the Doctors". In fact, my employee who has been infinitely ill all year, her nurse brother is now fairly certain she is a COVID long hauler. He is just putting two and two together}.
We did get our gas car sold. Phew!
Usually MM(17) is the super charmed one, but DL(15) got all the luck last weekend. The last couple of years we have had a new season between summer and fall: fire season. When it is smokey and it is difficult to go outside. But I don't remember it ever being so bad as it has been this year. The air is too hazardous to go outside. Anyway, I know DL(15) was really looking forward to his day trip with MH Saturday. He just really wanted to get the heck out of dodge. I was concerned if they should even be in the car or go anywhere so was looking up the air quality Saturday morning. They had decided on the family cabin near Tahoe. Was really they only place within day trip vicinity Saturday that had clear air. ??? Don't ask me! No idea how on earth they pulled that off. Most of the west coast was under a red or purple "hazardous" level.
They went and hung out at the cabin for a few hours, went for a hike (I am so jealous!), and rescued a few priceless items from the cabin. No fires in that vicinity right now but as someone else said, all that it takes is a spark. It's definitely the most at-risk property in the family; it is in a woodsy area.
They drove 150 miles and spent $3.60 on fuel. They skipped the free charge because they hadn't used much fuel by the time they got there. The cabin is about 60 miles away. After that, the extra driving was going to see a movie at the drive-in.
In other randomness, MH seems to be making progress with the state and Unemployment claim. It's like... If you stand on one foot, jump in a circle and howl at the moon... Maybe he can get his unemployment check. 🙄 Is kind of how that is going. It was 1000% approved and he had been getting payments through mid-June? Then it stopped. Though we had followed directions and did everything right, they told us, "Well you never did this." (*This* is the exact opposite of what their website or formal instructions say to do). Which was super weird and wonky and we were skeptical. In the end we literally got a check the next day... For last year. ??? Don't ask me! MH immediately called again because his online account was all messed up and he was freaking out. Not cashing this check because it isn't right. In the end, whoever he talked to assured him it was all fixed and online it shows they have issued us $6,500 in payments (for last 3 months). It's showing on one side but not on the "checks issues" side, it will take a few days to process. I now know that check could be in our pocket like tomorrow (because we got that weird check in one day!), but they seem to be a little more slow and cautious with the whole "releasing 3 months of payments" thing.
I didn't really know what to do with my sidebar since we spent more money than saved this year, with car purchase. (Re: first sidebar "savings" goal). For now, I will just cross my fingers and hold my breath for a few more days. The unemployment catch-up will put us back in the black for the year (added more to savings than we pulled back out, cash car purchase included).
We are both so "not counting our eggs until they hatch" types, not really sure what to do with this. If unemployment starts rolling in again (another $600-$1800 per month, depending on Federal unemployment boost). It just fell off my radar and feels like a big windfall as it enters back into my radar. Mostly, MH's income was funding our IRAs so our #1 financial goal is probably to set aside $12k for 2021 IRAs. There's also college next year, shortly followed by college x2. Hoarding cash continues to be the most prudent, until college decisions become more clear. I think our financial priorities are pretty clear: Retirement, college, mortgage. College might bump up or take the center stage for a while.
Edited to add: Today is apparently a good money day! I get an email scan of all our mail from USPS. I just got a ding on my phone and I was happy to see car insurance refund (gas car that we sold) AND a client check (I only have the one client; just sent out the first 2020 invoice last weekend). And... 7 Unemployment checks (7 envelopes) for 14 weeks probably. Woohoo! Now we just cross our fingers that it actually shows up in our mailbox. This might be a lot to hope for, these days. But this email means it is all supposed to arrive in our mailbox today.
I got sidetracked by the good money news. It all reminds me though that MH would have been back to work the first of this month. (The summer unemployment is just gravy gravy because he usually has summers off). We hadn't thought too much about it. It seems fairly moot because DL(15) has been so moody and needy. As long as schools aren't in session, MH isn't going to have a job. As long as schools aren't in session, he's going to need to be home anyway. (I appreciate this is one thing working out well for us; it seems to be a disaster for most people with kids). I think initially Labor Day passed and neither of us gave it much thought. It was always pretty obvious he wouldn't be back at work this calendar year.
I am just happy to get in a general update. I was going to do a separate financial update, and I guess now I can do that with some more clarity.
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September 19th, 2020 at 03:15 pm
I don't remember why or the context, but the topic came up at work: Cleaning off your windshield at a gas station.
I made a mental note. If we no longer go to gas stations... I suppose I should buy a squeegee.
One reason we wanted to replace our gas car was that we were just piling on *all* our miles on the hybrid car. Wanted to spread out our driving a bit and want to be able to keep both cars for decades if that is what we choose to do. Wasn't going to happen at the rate we were driving the hybrid. We put on 32k miles in 2 years, which is a *lot* for us. My plan is to pile up some miles on the newer car. When the pandemic is over, we can spread it out a little more. Even if I still mostly use the hybrid for my commute, I can still take the all-electric to work in the summer/winter months when MH is off of work.
I drove both cars this week so I have some real numbers.
The bigger battery (all-electric) is more efficient and using less energy for my drive.
HYBRID Commute
Cost with summer electricity rate: $1.36
Cost with rest-of-the year electricity rate: $1.10
ALL-ELECTRIC Commute
Cost with summer electricity rate: $1.13
Cost with rest-of-the year electricity rate: $0.92
I suppose it works out nicely that I can probably just drive the all-electric on my commute during summer months (months that MH has off of work).
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September 16th, 2020 at 03:18 pm
I will probably do another post, but I don't wanna. Life continues to be absurd.
Rather just talk about the car, it's nice to have a distraction.
I do think it's worth sharing perception versus reality. I should probably continue to share these things as they happen.
The other day I was wondering if car expenses would fall off our "Top 5" annual expenses. I looked back at 2017/2018 as better comparison years because we only had 2 cars and they were both gas cars.
Holy Cow... This is how the numbers are shaking out:
2017 - $6,299 (fuel/insurance/maintenance/tags)
2018 - $7,025
2020 - $3,000 (estimate for all of 2020)
We are saving roughly **$3,000 per year** switching to all-electric driving.
But... "It's 2020. You haven't driven much?" You say? Well, I *doubled* my commute end of 2018 and I still have my commute (which is the most of our household driving). & it will cost a whole whopping $200 per year to fuel the new car (if even that, am erring on the aggressive side). I expect same/better for 2021 ($3,000 total car expenses for the year).
That's cutting our expenses in half while driving significantly more. 🤯
I honestly have no idea what our #5 household expense will become. I glanced at it and wasn't coming up with anything else big. Utilities and Misc., which are broken out into a lot of smaller sub-categories. Will figure it out at the end of the year.
MH's friend just thinks we are giant idiots. I know is what most are thinking. I suppose I don't care, I am used to it. We are used to making unpopular decisions that just make our life better/easier.
This guy has the same gas car as MH (40mpg freeway). He is just, "NO WAY were you spending $1,000 per year on car gas!" 🤣 Seriously, how hard is it to spend $83/month on gas? With our gas prices? This guy is single and childless. He clearly has no concept of how much MH drives kids around. (Also, all those short trips were knocking the mpg down closer to 25 mpg). FWIW, we drove the gas car 8,000 miles last year. That was probably a less than average year, as we both preferred to drive the hybrid if at all possible. But it was the only car available for MH/kids' commute, and is also the car that MH took to LA. I am sure there were many other times we needed two cars or both had to be somewhere.
In other news, MH/DL did their father/son trip last weekend. After being told several times by friends/relatives with electric cars, that the car basically uses no fuel to drive back down to the valley from Tahoe... I was wondering how much fuel it would take to get up the hill though. In the end, they only went about half way, stopping at the family cabin. MH could have gotten a free charge but he hadn't used up enough electric fuel to bother. Mental note: Don't fully charge the car before that trip. He also wanted to leave room on the battery in case it did generate more charge than it used. In the end, did get some crazy #s coming down the hill but was probably only a 25% - 50% improvement (round trip) over a more average drive. The downhill did use very little fuel. The uphill used a lot of fuel. But the downhill more than made up for the uphill. Once you netted it out though, it wasn't anything terribly exciting. Especially once you factor the cost of electricity and figure you might have saved a quarter. 😁
What is interesting is that the weather was mild and the terrain was entirely different than any other driving we have done. MH drove 150 miles and had 110 miles left when he got home. So... It sounds like 260 miles is the true range. If we have gotten that twice on two entirely different trips. Entirely different terrain, weather, etc. Electric cars are weird like that. The quoted range (manufacturer) is 238 miles. Our long trip average is 260 miles. Our shorter trip average will be far above that (more range). Though the range is more relevant/important on longer trips so I understand erring on the side of driving faster/longer to come up with the range. I am sure we could come up with 238 (the "official" range) if we sped and blasted the heat.
That reminds me, MH had to make a couple of trips to take kids to school. Both times was coming up with -0- miles used. Clearly there is *some* fuel being used on these shorter trips, but too small to register on just a couple of trips. Miles driven: 10 miles total, divided by two trips. (Reminder: braking regenerates energy. It is possible that trip generates as much energy as it is using). It seems moot. At this rate, MH's employer will close up shop and kids won't be back at school until they are both licensed drivers. The electric car is made for those infinite 6-mile roundtrips that MH was making. I just don't know if those trips will still be made. We are obviously happy with freeway and long range performance: silent drives that cost pennies. It just would have been interesting to see what kind of a range we could have gotten with MH's average driving, pre-pandemic.
In other news, we sold the gas car. Another post for another day. The day before we sold it, a neighbor's tree fell and missed MM(17)'s car by inches. Also, we had a fire too close to home and black ash was raining from the sky covering the outside cars (was more significant than the general infinite rain of grey ash we have been experiencing). I feel great relief to have less "stuff" to manage. Would have felt great relief regardless, but it wasn't a good week for the outside cars.
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September 7th, 2020 at 03:18 pm
We did our first longer distance test run.
Success!!
I suppose one big electric car adjustment is not knowing how much range you are actually going to get. It depends on a few different factors.
Things that helped us along: Some minor stop-and-go traffic along the way, and also some city driving when we drove between relatives' homes.
The thing going most against us: One of the hottest days of the year. A - this directs more energy to cooling off the battery. B - A/C is an energy suck. Best we could tell, blasting the AC was taking 7 miles off of the range. Not a lot, but adds up more on a bigger battery with longer range.
{Holy cow that AC is amazing though. A+}.
The end result:
We could have probably made the entire trip, even with hot conditions and a few stops, without a stop to re-charge.
Literally, we stopped for a free 100-mile charge and the car estimated we had 100 miles left when we got home. How is that for cutting it close? IT sounds extremely feasible to make the roundtrip without any stops. The battery might go 20 miles further in fall and spring (more mild weather). It will be interesting to see on future test runs.
Of course, in a gas car I know you can run it to empty and still drive another 20-30 miles. I don't know what the deal is on an electric car. Probably same, but it's not ideal to run the battery to empty. I don't expect we will ever cut it close.
Considering that we literally always get gas on the way to/from the Bay Area, I can tell this will not be any different (logistics) from driving a gas car. We either fill up gas when we plan for a longer trip, or we fill up on cheaper gas on the way home (most likely). The electric car is going to be the same. We might need to stop for 10 minutes to top off a few extra miles to make sure we can get home. *shrugs*
Considering we often make this kind of trip multiple times a month... We are very pleased with the outcome.
When we bought our hybrid car we were considering that the "around town" car and had no intention whatsoever to make it the "road trip" car. Then we drove it to the Bay Area the first time and the gas mpg was 50. We had no idea that the car could do that! So then that became our "drive everywhere" car. Because of that, I am not surprised at all that the all-electric is easily going to become our "drive everywhere" car. Like the hybrid, the official quoted range is less than it really is.
MH did fill up 100 free miles (free charger test run) middle of the week. The only other driving he had done was to drive 5 miles home from that charger. I plugged the newer car in when I left for work on Friday.
Saturday morning we left with a full charge. This is how the numbers worked out, and I will compare to our other vehicles.
Miles Driven: 261.2
{After paying close attention to our hybrid driving and costs, I would have guessed that 250 miles is pretty average for us when visiting our Bay Are relatives. This was a very average drive}.
Electricity Used: 58.5 kWh
Free Charge: Less: 23.25 kWh
Net Electricity paid for: 35.25 kWh
x.1059 (summer electricity rates @ home)
=$3.73
That is $3.73 in fuel costs to drive 260 miles.
Unreal!
{I guess technically it was cheaper than that because we got two free charges! But that will probably not be typical}.
It's official. The only time I ever get gas in my hybrid car is when we drive out of town. After this trip? I am removing gas fuel from our budget. It will be -$0-. Car gas will no longer have any place in our monthly budget.
Anyway, here are the comparisons:
260 mile trip Fuel Costs
All-Electric: $3.73
Hybrid: $13.90
Gas Car: $19.50
That said... We failed on our trip and spent more money.
We chose the most ideal place to stop. It was 50% or 75% off. (Free charging *all the time* ended last week, but it's still discounted and sometimes free).
We had decided to stop and eat dinner. Not that we would always do that, but it's a test run and it was just MH and I. Plus, we usually eat with our parents. We just aren't going to do that during a pandemic. So you can somewhat put this in the pandemic category.
We were still in the Bay Area and all the restaurants over there ended up being $$$$.
Downside: Spent a lot on food. $25. If there had been a Taco Bell or something, we would have been perfectly happy with that.
Because the charge was deeply discounted, we decided to stop 45-minutes for the max amount of free charge. It was a billion degrees and not much shade.
Upside: Sat and ate in completely comfortable car with A/C. It doesn't idle like a traditional car. I am well aware after 2 years with the hybrid. It is a great pandemic car, if you are sitting around in your car waiting a lot. You can turn on the car and be comfortable, without bothering anyone else or spewing exhaust.
Overall, we were happy with the stop. It was a very large shopping center and I expect in the future we would just get out and go for a walk. Maybe pick up a snack or something. Don't need to eat an entire meal every time we need fuel. & like I mentioned before, a 10-minute re-fuel would have got us home comfortably.
I believe that this charger was going to be 50%-off during the time frame that we arrived. Just as we were about to charge, a survey popped up on my phone. In exchange for answering a few questions I got a free charge. That was unexpected! MH was jealous that he did not get a survey when he charged.
Then there was a glitch and they credited me twice, so it looks like I have another free charge? I don't know. Not holding my breath on that one. But if it's still there next time I drive out of town...
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September 4th, 2020 at 04:35 am
I did a quicker fuel savings post (my last post). Just a more general summary if you are curious about fuel savings and a more general update. This one will be a little more in-depth.
Every electric car out there right now is very different. I think driving an electric car is a big jump (no matter how open you are to the idea) and we most definitely got there a lot faster with the hybrid car as the gateway to electric. It was literally just a day or a week before it was, “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” I will say that all of my hesitancy was dumb. Really and truly. Change is difficult.
But anyway, I share because there is really nothing similar about our two cars right now, or any of the other electric cars on the market. They all have their pros and cons.
Infrastructure is also going to vary widely where you live. In California we have great battery warranty protection and chargers everywhere. Is worth mentioning because there’s a lot of areas of the country where I probably would not buy an electric car.
Of course, mostly to the point, you have to have somewhere to charge. If your employer or apartment complex provides chargers, that’s great. I wouldn’t recommend an electric car at all to my kids, because who knows what kind of charging options they will have over the next several years. If you own a house and can charge at home, that’s the most ideal. You aren’t going to refuel in the old sense of gas stations. You are going to recharge your car overnight while you sleep. Or maybe while you shop, go to the movies, eat out, or while you are at work.
Probably the best I can do is share what I know (in more depth) about our hybrid and compare with what will change with our electric car.
Range:
Volt (“hybrid”) - 50-ish mile electric range. Just about enough for my commute. That car also has a 350-ish mile gas range. 400 miles total on one charge and one full tank of gas.
Bolt (electric) - 240-ish mile electric range
{Edit to add: We are coming up with 260-mile range on longer trips and I expect 300+ with city stop/go driving. Don't have a good handle on how far it will go city driving because have not tested more than 10 miles. I will update again when we are doing more normal driving again, it may be another year}.
Note: We mostly drive the Volt/hybrid for my commute, which is all open freeway. Stop and go traffic generates more electricity/fuel and is more ideal for electric car driving. It’s going to be interesting to see how many miles we get out of the all-electric car with MH’s more city driving. (It could go up to a 400 mile range with the right conditions). I read today someone drove from Tahoe to Sacramento (about 100 miles? downhill) and actually generated more miles than they used. Crazy! The range will depend on how you drive. I feel like I really have no idea with the Bolt yet, we have to get used to it.
My commute is roughly $1 per day, hybrid electric driving. The quick napkin math is that during summer we probably pay $6 to drive the 200 miles on the all-electric car. $5 during the rest of the year (cheaper electric rates).
Charging:
In either case, charging with a regular outlet isn’t really practical. It is for some (if you can charge at work or only drive a few miles per day), but hasn’t been practical for us. This is the slowest way to charge.
Volt (“hybrid”) - My 50 mile range will fully charge after 4 hours on our Level 2 charger (we installed in our garage). It takes about an hour to add 12 miles. It gets charged overnight, at home.
Bolt (electric) - The 240 mile range will fully charge after 10 hours on our Level 2 charger. (It can also just be charged overnight). It takes about an hour to add 25 miles. I don’t know any of the logistics/details (don't ask me why), but if we use the same chargers, we will be getting twice as much range as we had been with the Volt. More value, when it comes to free charging. A night out downtown might get us 100 free miles on a public Level 2 charger.
{Because I charge the hybrid every night for my commute, we expect we will charge the all-electric car on the weekends}.
The Bolt also has a fast charging option. It takes about an hour to get 200 miles of range with the fast chargers. Fast charging is only available on public chargers.
Apparently not every electric vehicle has fast charging capability. It was a deal breaker for us, so we were careful to get the fast charging capability.
NOTE: I didn't know this, but MH pointed out to me that the charging on our car is slower than most. Just a reminder not to judge all electric vehicles based on one vehicle. They are all so different!
Maintenance:
Volt (“hybrid”) - Virtually nothing
My car has a gas generator and an electric engine. It is absolutely nothing like a traditional gas car (under the hood). The maintenance is virtually nothing. It does need oil changes once every two years.
Bolt (electric) - Nothing
I am exaggerating a wee little bit, but really not much.
Literally the maintenance schedule on a Bolt: replace the air filters, replace/check the tires. First maintenance at 150k miles. For reals.
No oil changes. No state smog inspections.
This is kind of a general sum up of what I know going into this electrical vehicle purchase. It is by far not an all-inclusive list of all things electric car, but just some key points.
Electric fuel (our utility company) is roughly 1/3 of the cost of gas fuel (our region). YMMV. (That was pre-pandemic. MH paid $2.50 for gas the other day, so maybe we are currently at 1/2 price. Either way, I will take it. 😁 )
There's two major mind shifts with an electric car:
1 - Rethinking how you fuel (as mentioned above).
2 - Switching around what affects the "mpg" the most. Stop-and-go city driving is good and will add more miles to the car's range. (Braking generates electricity). Long freeway trips will be less efficient and you will be more subject to higher fuel prices out on the road. So pretty much the opposite of a gas car.
Edited to add:
I was just reminded of one more thing. In the Volt/hybrid, the A/C seems to cost pennies to run but the heat sucks a lot of energy. This is another mindshift. If you just use the heated seats and steering wheel, it's a much more efficient way to stay comfortable in the cold weather months. I honestly thought the heated steering wheel was ridiculous (for our climate) when we bough the hybrid. MH finally set me straight. He told me, "Don't you keep saying that women lose more heat in their hands?" {My life was changed when I learned that all I needed to do was to put on some gloves to feel significantly more comfortable. & I mean like inside}. That is my DOH moment. He's right. Most of the time I don't even bother with the heat on the hybrid. I do primarily use the heated steering wheel to keep warm in the winter months. I expect that the electric car will be similar. I don't mean in a "sacrifice" kind of way. I mean in a "I have never in my life been more comfortable during winter" kind of way. It's different but also more effective. Heated steering wheel and seats should be a deal breaker when buying an electric car. One reason we went with the premium trim is because *all* the seats are heated.
Another Edit:
One thing I didn't mention initially in this post is performance. The electric cars are both very zippy and handle hills like they are nothing. It's worth mentioning because is another reason it feels so "blech" to go back to driving the gas car. I looked it up out of curiosity.
Electric 0-30 mph: 2.5
Electric 0-40 mph: 3.7
Electric 0-60 mph: 6.3
Gas 0-40 mph: 5.4
Gas 0-60 mph: 9.5
Personally, we are both very boring/careful drivers, but it makes it *so much easier* to merge onto busy roads and freeways. For that reason, it feels safer and just makes driving easier.
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September 4th, 2020 at 03:25 am
If you missed it, we bought an electric car last weekend.
I had to think about it a little bit, but looking at last year numbers should be a good gauge of our gas spending. I was thinking that MM was not 16 yet (for half the year), but we did do most his driving in either his car or with electric fuel (hybrid). & I remembered I track fuel costs per car so it is easy to separate out.
Gas car fuel 2019: $879
Hybrid car gas fuel 2019: $270**
Total gas fuel = $1,149
{All of this will go away}.
Oil changes/smog checks = $125 annual
Total savings = $1,274
That's about what we paid for sales tax on the early car upgrade. I thought we might break even the first couple of years, but it sounds like it may be a lot sooner.
Of course, the electricity cost something.
Drove the gas car 8,000 miles last year. The electric fuel cost for 8,000 miles will be about $200.
We will be replacing some of our fuel spending with free electricity on the road, so I think this is a good rough estimate. Presume all the hybrid gas dollars gets reduced to -$0-. Most of that is longer trips that will be replaced with free on-the-road charging.
Net cost savings = $1,074 annually
We already found that we can get free charging throughout Northern California. It should be fine for our most frequent trips to the Bay Area. But the chargers are even more readily available between here and Tahoe/Nevada.
So we already have two test drives planned out. MH wants to do a Bay Area test run this weekend. This is just a logistics run. It sounds mostly too good to be true. I am sure it is fine, but nothing like a test run. There's a few free chargers on our route. I honestly don't even know if we need a charge on this trip, but don't want to cut it too close on a car we aren't familiar with yet. It's getting familiar with the car range on this particular drive, and using a fast charger for the first time, and figuring out the free stuff.
{In the end, MH already tested out a free charger this week. It was roughly 100 free miles. He coupled it with an errand he was going to do anyway}.
DL(15) is going a little stir crazy and said he wanted to go on a road trip. MH has been wanting to go to Reno to see a movie. It's been a, "It's dumb and I probably won't do it" thing to this point. But if it would lift DL's spirits at all, that's an entirely different animal. So if all goes well on first test run, they may go to Reno the following weekend.
Edited to add: The most significant free fast charging we found expired today. Bummer! It's not all bad. Most of the chargers on the Reno route are still free or deeply discounted. This is less so for more heavily used chargers (less free or super cheap options in the Bay Area). Reno trip is still a go (free fuel) and Bay Area trip is just getting tweaked. There's so many options, it's just going to take some time to find what works best for us. & will have to just keep an eye out as things change. A lot of more free/fast options are coming down the pipe.
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September 2nd, 2020 at 02:50 pm
Three whole days of owning 4 cars, and it was driving us crazy. I am sure the pandemic just makes it worse. We could live very happily with one car right now.
I figured I would adjust and was giving it some time. But MH brought it up last night because it's really driving him crazy. I am glad because we had our light bulb moment. I do think it was prudent to just buy the newer car first and figure it out later. It's all just a lot. But now that newer car decision was made and lived with it for a few days, now we can move on to the next decision. Lightbulb moment: We decided that any college where MM(17) could use a car, they all cost pennies and we can help him buy a much newer car in that scenario. Price probably won't be much of an object and we can skip the more iffy older used cars where we don't really know the history. I am sure some relative or friend or someone will be selling a car, but just feel better about the whole thing if that doesn't happen. & all the more expensive farther away colleges, he obviously won't need a car the first year or two. & even if he could use one, I think it's fair enough that it won't be practical with a very expensive college. As we are desperate to reason our way out of keeping the car, it seems kind of obvious now. We just needed a little time. A whole whopping 3 days of time, but it is what we needed for some clarity on the decision.
We are going to offer the car to my 16yo niece first, and then go from there.
I've mentioned before but our forever car budget is $100/month (per car). What I mean is that I saved up one year to buy my first car for $1,200. Later on we were able to save up for 11 years for a couple of barely used $13,000 cars. Those cars were so new that we could drive those cars even longer and buy up from there. Which means we never really spent more dollars on our cars. Or we both have an infinite $100/month "car payment" in our budget, but will probably never increase that. Doing some quick math, the trade-in on this car will squarely keep us in the $100/month car purchase budget. I find that fascinating. I wasn't necessarily expecting that part. I didn't run the math before because I didn't think we were going to trade-in the gas car. It's a 7-year-old car that we have owned for 5 years.
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August 30th, 2020 at 09:59 pm
I started a "Don't be surprised if we buy an EV" post a few days ago but was too slow on the draw.
It is done.
Our last car (dipping our toes in electric and saving a bajillion dollars in fuel) was our toe dip into the electric world. A hybrid of sorts (I still don't know what to call it because it's technically not a hybrid either. It's an electric car with a gas generator, the best of all worlds). This time around we spent a lot less money and it's more of a, "Holy cow this is too good to be true" purchase. Prices will probably continue to fall, but one bird in the hand is better than two in the bush.
The car was within our "infinitely saving $100/month/each to replace our cars" price range. We haven't saved up that much (meaning that it's premature) because we've only had our gas car for 5 years. But we are also adding 50k miles back to the odometer and will add more time to the back end (reset the clock for another 12+ years). The only added expense I can come up with the early trade is the sales tax, or about $1,500. I presume we will break even and save $1,500 on fuel over the next couple of years. We also won't need oil changes, etc. For these reasons and also because sitting on a large pile of cash, it's a relatively boring/prudent purchase. It is the first time we have ever prematurely upgraded our cars (we usually keep our cars until they are 15-20 years old). I did do a premature downgrade once. This is the first premature upgrade we have ever done.
In this case... We decided after about a week of owning our electric hybrid that we wanted to go all-electric. Once you go electric, it's hard to drive a gas car. Even though we invested in some soundproofing in MH's gas car and I would consider it a very quiet car, it sounded like a wind tunnel the last time we took it on a road trip. It was driving me crazy! You get used to silent. Some of our decision to pull the trigger is that it is somewhat of a medical/disability purchase with MH's hearing loss. With all this cash, why didn't we just do it sooner? If we didn't have teen drivers, it would have been done a year ago probably. Our only hesitation has been trying to figure out the car situation with 4 drivers. We should have a lot of clarity in the next 6 months or so as college decisions start to shake out. Next summer we will have a fourth licensed driver in our household.
So... We have been trying to hold off as long as possible. But... pandemic pricing is hard to ignore. I haven't been shopping gas cars, so no idea where those are at. But I expect that electric cars are being affected by lower gas prices. They dropped well into our price range and we have been thinking about it, but then several popped up this weekend with an additional 20% price drop.
We hadn’t even test driven this car yet, but it’s pretty much the all-electric version of our hybrid and is similar in most regards (it has everything we really like about our “hybrid”). We were pretty certain it was the car we wanted. When a bajillion cars popped up on deep discount this weekend, we decided to at least go for a test drive. I didn’t really want to continue the conversation for a car we might not even like once we see it in person. It was time to test drive.
I should back up though. We haven’t decided yet what to do with our gas car and have left that as something to figure out later. As talks were getting more frequent about electric car purchase, I decided to consult with our insurance agent last week. I was relieved somewhat that the cost to fully insure a car for MM(17) had gone down about 40% since I last asked. It dropped into the realm of reason. (Still expensive, but not completely absurd). There is nothing magical about turning 18 (next summer) but his insurance rates should continue to drop as that car gets older and he ideally continues to add to his good driving record. Which means it would be reasonable at all to sell him our gas car.
Back to the test drive… The prices are not crazy low in our city so we had to drive about 30 miles out to test drive one of the deals. The salesmen were all very hands-off, I don’t know how much of that is pandemic related. They honestly seemed bored by our presence. We test drove two at that location, one was *the* car. MH was more than happy with the car, and the price was good. The only thing was that there was a used car lot with about 50 Bolts (better pricing), 40 miles up the road. We tried to haggle but they just weren’t budging. Honestly, this is usually how we buy cars. It’s an incredible deal, we go pay cash, life goes on. We tend to discuss things for weeks and months but the final decision on anything big is going to be a split second decision for the most part. My gut serves me very well. MH and I were probably leaning towards just buying the car and enjoying the rest of our day. I finally said, “Let’s walk and see what happens.” *shrugs* There is really no reason to be in this big of a rush. I really expected them to change their tune (and have experienced this many times before, when it comes to various purchases). We told them there was a better deal down the road but that we preferred to not make the drive. If they could even meet us in the middle? They just didn’t give a flip. We walked. I was honestly surprised how little they cared, it was a car that had been sitting for a while.
As we got on the road and I perused cars (on my phone) that cost $1,500 less, we decided a little extra driving was well worth it. But… I knew the whole “50 Bolts” thing was going to be overwhelming. Hindsight 20/20, should have taken some notes and been more organized. In the end, I have a real mental block about black cars though that is MH’s preference. The black ones are beautiful and it’s absolutely my favorite color. But, the one and only time I drove a dark car (it wasn’t even black) it was infinitely getting hit by other cars. That car once got hit while I was paying in a parking garage, and that was before the distraction of cell phones. ??? Don’t ask me. That was after I had replaced the bumper like 5 times. It was absurd. So… All I ever tell MH is that I don’t want a black car. But, I also told him I wasn’t going to buy any of these cars if they weren’t immaculate. It was clear a lot of these cars were a little more rough (the one we otherwise liked the best was really scratched up and clearly not meticulously kept). So… I caved. I do like it and I hope this round of dark car ownership goes a little better. The car was immaculate. Posted price was same as the car we walked from, but had 10k less miles. We haggled in the “never hurts to ask” vein and they shrugged and took a few hundred dollars off the top. I think they were just as overwhelmed as we were. I admit those prices will likely drop even further given some time, due to sheer volume, but there was something to be said for sniffing out the nicest one in our price/mile range. If all that was left was the beat up ones, we wouldn’t have been happy to have made the extra drive.
We bought our prior 4 cars at dealerships. We generally end up there for the ‘1 at this price’ “too good to otherwise be true” type deals. This was more of a specialized used car lot and it took 15 minutes to sign the paperwork, paying cash. For reals. I would 1,000 percent go back to that car lot again. Probably too specialized (was a luxury car lot). But… I can’t believe all that and they even threw us a bone on the price.
We bought the higher-end/fully loaded version of the car. The pricing was all the same regardless. So might as well get all the bells and whistles at no additional cost. There is all sorts of crazy stuff: parking assist, lane departure, pedestrian braking, adaptive cruise control, etc., etc. No one tried to sell us on that stuff (very hands off) and is not why we bought the car, so have to figure out exactly what we have and how it works. I don’t know if I want to get used to all that, but will google a bit and try to find some quick videos about how all of this stuff works.
We bought used, paid cash. It's a 2017, same as the hybrid.
We have a learning curve on the all-electric driving. We didn’t do much research. We know the electric range is more than enough for our needs (will 99% of the time charge at home). But if we can get free charging or figure it out for road trips, we will. We just don’t have that all figured out yet. It will be a lot easier for us since we already dipped one foot into electric driving. We had so many surprises (all good) after we bought our electric hybrid. So there’s some baseline understanding and experience there. But we’ve never really had to think about refueling outside with only electric options. That’s the learning curve we have. & if it sucks and it’s not practical, then it just will be our around town or “within 100 miles” car, which is more than fine. Is more than we need. This car is primarily going to be driven on MH’s infinite 6-mile roundtrips to/from school and work. There’s just nothing practical whatsoever about making all those trips with a gas car, if you have a reasonable electric option.
That is what will be interesting and is some of the learning curve that we have. The hybrid electric car we bought was due to the doubling of commute (that also came with a significant pay cut). All of my electric driving is open freeway. I don’t even know if I have been in a traffic jam in that car because I have carpool stickers and have always been able to go around any backups. This means that I just get the expected miles range. If you do more city driving and stop and go, the car generates its own electricity and you can drive farther on the electric. MH mostly drives city, so it will be interesting to see how long we can go between charges. Of course, MH isn’t really driving anywhere right now, so these are things we might not be figuring out for a while still.
We will be able to function very well with our one “fast” charger. We call it a fast charger because it’s a lot faster than just plugging into the wall. But now that we have a longer-range vehicle with actual fast charging, I need to change my terminology. We have a Level 2 charger in our garage, that is in the middle (speed of charging). I will continue to charge every night for my commute. The all-electric vehicle can be charged on the weekends or as needed. (Probably 1-2 charges per month, on average, during non-pandemic times).
I will do a post later going into some more details about the car. Answering some of the basic EV questions. Ideally, I would like to share information and hopefully correct a lot of misinformation in the process. But… I know I haven’t done a good job since we bought the hybrid, because life has been so crazed. It’s also probably going to be “meh”, because the car is probably going to mostly sit in the garage for the rest of 2020. If I never blog about it again, it may just be that no one’s driving anywhere anyway. I expect it will all be a little more interesting and informative when life resumes some normalcy.
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August 23rd, 2020 at 04:37 pm
It's like the apocalypse here. Heat wave was a nightmare. Because... We had freak weather and lightning. I don't recall *ever* having thunder storms during hot weather. But, that's what happened and is why the state is burning down.
We had a small storm in our city but somehow were spared. It's the Bay Area where it seems to mostly be uncontained fires (east, north, west), due to 10,000+ lightning strikes. The fire closest to our family is up to 340k acres. The evacuation border is at the end of my in-laws' street. I am convinced they will have to evacuate (or should), but I guess it just depends on which way the wind blows.
The smoke is unbearable in our city. It's been raining ash.
So... Pretty much just a typical week. 🙄
Stay safe everyone. Hurricanes and fires, and whatever else...
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August 16th, 2020 at 03:12 pm
The last month or so has been complete insanity. But... What else is new? *shrugs* Honestly, it's been more calm overall and I have any time and space whatsoever to deal. I can recognize the improvement, though it's still insane and I am exhausted.
We are in the middle of some house murphy. So far the count is a broken toilet flapper ($4 to replace), a sink hose that is covered under warranty (if we could ever get through), and two bug infestations we handled. At least it's inexpensive Murphy?
The medical/disaster/accident front has been absolutely absurd, and so has my work jinx. I give up on getting into any of that because it would take all day. So I will just share the two most terrible things.
95yo GMIL had a fall (her first) and ended up in a rehab facility. That has been roller coaster. They were literally releasing her from the emergency room and everything was "as good as could be" given that she broke a couple of bones. But... At the last minute they decided to hospitalize her. She lives completely independently/alone. It's scary as heck to have her in a medical facility during a pandemic. & clearly this marks a turning point in her health and independence, so it's just a lot.
Update: She was starting to walk, but now she can't walk, so that continues to be very up/down.
What has been keeping my up at night is DL(15)'s mental and emotional health. I think I have been somewhat holding my breath the last few weeks, not sure how he will deal with school this year. He's had a mental block re: distance learning (especially emergency distance learning).
I am so relieved to report that he has gotten over it and is handling things as well as can be. He's only been back at school for 3 days. I expect it to be a very long road, with many ups and downs. But, the first day does set the tone and I feel much relief. He does well with a schedule, and so far I will say that school has been nothing but good for him. They are doing distance learning until numbers are better in our state. His school is very small and well set up, and I am sure it will be safe (and best for him) when he can go back.
Those are the most terrible things, I guess. More of the same with some other younger relatives (with random terrible health issues) but those are all roller coasters and "good as can be" for the moment. One minute they have months to live, the next minute it's "nothing".
As to the more mundane...
MM(17)'s school (and entire district) has been delayed a few weeks while they figure things out. His work permit expired and he achieved his goal of making $$$$$ during summer months. He has chosen to just take some time off and to enjoy the unexpected break. College apps start soon!
As I circle back to getting the house in order, we are tending to things around the house. Last week we hired someone to repair our shower. Grout was falling out and we've never been great about keeping it clean. We live in such a throwaway society that it never had occurred to me it would be so inexpensive just to get it repaired. Probably should have done it 10 years ago, but it is done now. The shower is all sealed up and looks brand new again.
{As a side note, I was going to make note of the homemade shower cleaner mentioned in the blogs recently. But... got an email from shower repairer that specifically mentioned not to use low PH cleaners on grout (e.g. vinegar). This probably explains why the kids' barely used showers still looks good as new. Our shower has been more used and exposed to more harsh cleaners over the years}.
I did a minor wall repair yesterday (filled some screw holes) that took about 2 minutes. Should have done it 3 years ago, but it is done.
With the heat wave we are having, I have nothing else on my list for the weekend. Mostly just reading.
We made it down to our last 2 movies! I am still behind a few podcasts, so don't expect to be all caught up (with Top 100 movies + each podcast per movie) until probably next weekend. But... I should have so. much. time. when it is done!
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August 15th, 2020 at 02:18 pm
I don't want to jinx it, but...
We are headed into a big heat wave this next week. I saw last night that our state was having rolling blackouts to handle the electricity needs that are exceeding capacity. (Which is kind of insane, because the heat wave barely just started).
This is not affecting us. We have a non-profit utility company that is inexpensive and great. I didn't mention anything when long-term blackouts were widespread in our state (last summer/fall?) because did not affect us.
I share to say that is why I have not mentioned whatsoever. But... I also saw this meme last summer/fall and it just cracks me up. I had to share. I think it sums it up pretty well.
We are thinking to our next move, and I probably need to start writing a list. Not dealing with PG&E should top the list.
The last 30 days or so have been absolutely absurd. But I survived, and I am working on a more general update.
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August 9th, 2020 at 03:54 pm
The Universe laughed so hard at me last last week. So so hard. 😞
{Yes, it's taken me a week to even finish this post. So I was talking about last week, but now that is last last week}.
I initially titled this blog post "fail". Because not really sure where to begin but it just felt like a big fail.
But... Our assets did top $1 Mil. I had kind of given up for this year. In fact, was surprised how much the stock market went up after we hit this goal several days ago. So I get to even enjoy this for more than just one day. 😁
But... It took us 10 years to get back to a $500k+ net worth after hitting it the first time. So while it's nice, I don't really have any huge expectations at this point. $1 Mil is a cool milestone, but I don't expect to stay there given the current economic outlook.
& so it continues... My work life is generally impossible, and everyone around me is dealing with a lot. But... Everything money is going well. That pretty much sums up the last few years, and so it continues.
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July 29th, 2020 at 02:24 pm
*sigh*
I completely gave up last last weekend (no idea where to begin). Finally decided, Meh, will just dive into the minutiae on Monday.
Then... last week was just completely overwhelming. & so it continues. (Accidents, tragic deaths, medical scares, etc.)
We had the first COVID-19 positive at my job. Not really relevant because it wasn't in my 5-employee office. But... My boss was completely MIA (being super cautious) and it was just a super weird week.
{Employee was very mildly ill and has recovered}.
Last week was pretty slow at work (compared to average), and Monday was the most peaceful I ever remember (with people actually in the office). ??? Super weird. Large problems had suddenly resolved. I was really liking yesterday. I thought, "If only we could get MH's unemployment squared away." He's owed about $5,000 that seems to be lost in space.
Edited to add: I know we will sort out eventually. I just don't have any high hopes that it will be any time soon.
When I got home, MH told me he had called the unemployment office. I told him, "That sounds useless." Since all I have heard is you could call literally 1,000 times and never get through. But... He reached a semi-helpful human that said she was aware of the glitch he got caught in, and the only way to get out was to call. So... I guess it wasn't completely pointless? Not holding my breath, but they have been notified. (The person on the line couldn't personally help him, but knew exactly what was wrong: a computer glitch).
MH also took the cat to the vet for annual shots on Monday.
And... MH also got some quotes for some shower repairs. The more I get caught up around the house, the more I Feel like I am adding two more to-do list items for every one item I cross off. I think it's just this in-between stage. As the house gets in order, I am adding projects to my list. I also had an incredible ability to not "see" things while bogged down by infinite bigger problems. But... As long as MH is unemployed, it's easier to get through some of these items.
We did make it to the last 8 movies (of Top 100 list). In no particular order, still have to watch:
Nashville
Spartacus
Raging Bull
Star Wars (only one I've seen)
Blade Runner
Shane
Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
Casablanca
We were able to pick up Shane & Nashville from the library (curbside pickup) and a few others we already watched. I don't entirely understand why but it sounds like we had for several weeks. (Maybe a new shutdown?). I don't know, I just borrow digital content anymore. MH is the one who takes the time to actually go to the library. So we may knock those out this weekend and get those returned to the library. We don't need to be hogging up all these movies we have.
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