Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

2019 TALLY:

$540 Gift Cards (Citi, Moi)
$150 Bank Bonus
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$690 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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I just saw that the points posted for my latest one-time bonus.

Citi has significantly better gift card rewards than the last time I did this. Will probably pick up some Target and Kohls gift cards, in addition to some movie theater gift cards. Then a handful of dining out gift cards so we can go out and enjoy a bit this summer. All of this will help us immensely during our "income gap". Which I expect to be during the summer months when MH is not working.

I will probably try again for a Chase bonus. I was denied the last time I tried, though I didn't have anywhere near the "5 credit card apps" or whatever they were denying for. But I only applied for one card this year and last year. It's worth a try.

On the flip side, I told MH that I think this is my last big push. We really relied on this extra money to help us through lower income periods and periods of lower bank interest, but I just don't see continuing to do the same bank bonuses over and over and over again. The ongoing rewards and cash back for everyday purchases, those I have done my entire life and don't intend to stop. But I can see wanting to juggle less bonuses and one-time reward cards, for the long term. Will see...


***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

Received $83 bank interest for the month of January.

Also received a $150 bank bonus.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $30 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $46 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $9 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 4 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$100 Tax Refund
$170 Dividend

TOTAL: $359 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$800

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 0 MH Paychecks
+$ 750 February self-employment income

TOTAL: $1,550 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 890 Elliptical purchase (dropped gym membership)**

**My super awesome discount gym closed and transferred my membership to a really crappy gym.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 450 Misc. Expenses (school lunches pre-paid for a few months, medical bills, etc.)

TOTAL: $2,750 deposited to cash and investments

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Last month's commentary:

Still just hoarding cash. Second job is winding down (I hope). I have $3k medical bills coming up, want to pay cash for braces this year (x2), have to cover all my professional expenses going forward, etc., etc. Just hoarding cash for all that, and preparing for a big income drop this summer.

I don't know what happened to MH's income. I wasn't able to save any of it (around $900) which is totally ridiculous. But I am still pretty buried and it is most likely an accounting error. Either that or we over-spent something like $400 last month and $400 this month. That is more likely. I know we didn't over-spend $900 this month. Anyway, I share to explain why I saved -$0- of that, but will chalk that up to "life is chaos." Because I track our spending so closely, is why I am fine with, "I don't have time to track it down and don't care." I suppose is the flip side of working crazy hours/extra money. Our life is usually more slow/relaxed, and lots of time to pinch pennies. Life is just the polar opposite of that right now.

All of this is still true. I put $2,000 medical bills on new reward card. I pulled this out of savings in April, along with $11,000 to fund IRAs (for 2018). All of this will show up on my April report.

{I ended up funding our IRAs today}.

I also didn't save any of MH's income in March (again) and couldn't tell you why. It's kind of moot because March is really just paying all of February expenses (credit card charges). So this month was already over (spending-wise) when I did my last monthly update. I don't know that anything has particularly changed, but March expenses (paid in April) ended up balancing to about the penny. & that was during a crazy busy month when I doubt we were particularly frugal (except for being too busy to spend money). I actually just found $150 I accidentally transferred to savings for April, and will fix that by the end of the month. I expect I might find more stuff like that if I look back the last two months.

Net worth is up about $40,000 for the year. Or about 2/3 of our annual goal. Most of that is stock market recovery from end of last year.

I will try to do some more work posts later. But I am starting to feel more *chill* about dropping second income. Some of my reluctance to drop the second income was not having any real idea how things would go with new job. But after 6 months, I feel pretty confident I have found a long-term work home. I also think it's pretty likely I will replace my old salary this year (with the one job). This was part of my strategy and willingness to take a pay cut in the interim.

I had a post mostly typed up, but it disappeared. *sigh*

I don't even remember what the heck I had written about.

What I do remember:

I got the *all clear* on two different medical fronts last week. Woohoo! Even better, I got to enjoy this good news for more than like an hour or a day (before the next disaster).

I'd say that things have significantly settled down in the past couple of weeks. On the medical front, I have been monitored for two different issues for about 12+ months. In fact, I got the one questionable medical result the same day my old/forever employer announced he was selling the business. So all this stress has been intertwined. I know I also mentioned DL(13) for some reason (in disappearing post). I don't remember why I mentioned, but I think he has turned a good corner. I was saying that any one of these things is a huge stressor, but it's just been everything piled on top of each other. So removing potentially *three* huge stressors has been pretty awesome.

Don't get me wrong, I know a lot of people going through a *lot* of horrible crap right now. But I guess it's settled down a bit in our closest circles. I feel like I can relax and breathe.

I suppose #4 is that I got all of the clients (the ones I took on personally) transferred over to "twin" and her new firm. Phew!

I probably had a good 4 weeks to catch my breath (took time off from side work), but now I am diving into helping "old employer" for the next couple of months. It's still very "playing it all by ear" and wouldn't be surprised if it all ended tomorrow. But I think my current plan is to work another 8 weeks or so.

As to the workload, *shrugs*, I am working less hours than usual for this time of year, and I have not offered to do anything but super easy work. I've left behind 100% of the stress and responsibility. But I think I'm tired because it's been such a slog for the past 2 years or so. I was just checking the calendar, and we do have our beach weekend in 4 weeks. Which is something I could have never done at my old job (take a long weekend during April). So that will be nice. I think that will break up the next couple of months nicely.

I am getting through a lot of chores; I think I have a little more energy these days. Today I am going to get the car washed so that I can get my carpool stickers affixed to the car. (I received them a few weeks ago but just haven't made the time to deal with it). Yesterday I asked MH to mail off the kids' taxes while he was at the grocery store (also our closest postal center). Slowly but surely.

In other news, I just happened to notice that our assets have surpassed $900,000. $1 Mil hadn't been particularly on my radar before. But the $900k+ did jump out at me, as we just achieved that. I suppose that $1 Mil is our next big financial milestone. I've got a ways to go as to "net worth" with the mortgage, which is probably why I hadn't particularly noticed or thought about the "$1 Mil mark." But I think it's an exciting milestone, regardless.

I signed up for Imperfect produce a couple of weeks ago and am really happy with the service so far.

This is a "farm direct" produce delivery service, but the jist is that it's a lower cost service for food that otherwise would be tossed (with the goal of reducing food waste). Because the food has minor imperfections and is not super market quality, etc. They advertise "30% below grocery store prices" for these imperfections.

First Impression = Awesome!

I don't know if they pick carefully for the first box (new customer) but the food was absolutely beautiful. I think some of it was on the smaller side, which is a lot of what their food is.

I didn't realize when I signed up that they also had snacks and other items (overstocks). We had a Nature Box subscription in the past, so it was kind of like combining our old CSA subscription with Nature Box.

The thing I like best about Imperfect Produce is that you don't have to get every single week. They have a "every other week" plan (what we signed up for). & it's very easy to skip weeks if you want to make that a "once a month" delivery. When we tried the CSA before, I think it was just too much. I am thrilled that we have two weeks to get through all this food, with Imperfect Produce. (If we don't go through it or the food doesn't last, we may consider the weekly option of a smaller box).

The kids LOVE it. DL(13) in particular has been eating through it. I think with the apples we got last week, they were a more expensive variety than we usually buy, and were just so fresh. Those were gone in a flash.

The reason I like these services is to kind of force us to try new recipes/veggies. So the "new" thing we tried was fresh snow peas. Have never bought or cooked fresh snow peas before. They were divine.

Of course, they don't deliver everywhere, but if you are interested check it out with my referral code:

http://imprfct.us/l86gI

With the referral code, you get $10 off the first box.

They mostly deliver to the west coast & Texas (a handful of cities), but you can check out the map.

As for us, we have really low cost produce where we live, so I wasn't expecting much. I just put everything I would want to buy into our grocery store online shopping cart to compare prices. Some things were more expensive (much more expensive) which didn't surprise me at all. But anything we could save money on I did order through imperfect produce. On those items, our savings was about 20%. There was a $5 delivery fee, which made it a wash. But given the other benefits, I was willing to try it. I also was able to get my first order for free. So, nothing to lose as to trying it out.

I should back up a bit. If you just ignore it (don't want to do anything after you sign up), they will send you an automatic box of produce. But you can customize to your heart's content (you have a time window to do so). The whole thing was way more flexible than the last CSA we had signed up for.

Received $80 bank interest for the month of
February.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $89 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $13 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$13 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases) ~ this month included some clothing purchases

TOTAL: $165 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$730

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 0 MH Paychecks
+$2,500 January self-employment income

+$ 200 Missed prior month when moving money around - moved back into savings

TOTAL: $2,700 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 360 Driving School (for 15-year-old)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
+$ 210 Insurance Rebate
-$1,289 Various Insurance
-$ 175 Dentist
-$ 200 Vacation (Weekend Away)

TOTAL: $3,800 deposited to cash and investments

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Driving school was very one-off and nothing I specifically saved for, so it comes out of the mid-term savings.

Still just hoarding cash. Second job is winding down (I hope). I have $3k medical bills coming up, want to pay cash for braces this year (x2), have to cover all my professional expenses going forward, etc., etc. Just hoarding cash for all that, and preparing for a big income drop this summer.

I don't know what happened to MH's income. I wasn't able to save any of it (around $900) which is totally ridiculous. But I am still pretty buried and it is most likely an accounting error. Either that or we over-spent something like $400 last month and $400 this month. That is more likely. I know we didn't over-spend $900 this month. Anyway, I share to explain why I saved -$0- of that, but will chalk that up to "life is chaos." Because I track our spending so closely, is why I am fine with, "I don't have time to track it down and don't care." I suppose is the flip side of working crazy hours/extra money. Our life is usually more slow/relaxed, and lots of time to pinch pennies. Life is just the polar opposite of that right now.

I don't even remember where I saw it, but I saw a recipe for brussel sprouts with balsamic vinegar. I thought that sounded really good, but poked around for a more positively reviewed recipe. I found a winner:

https://keviniscooking.com/roasted-brussels-sprouts-balsamic...

Yum!

In other randomness, we made it through African Queen and Duck Soup. Our weekend is busy, so I am guessing that is all we will get to. But we are getting caught up on "Top 100" movies.

Tonight we are going to the Symphony. I expected to drop expenses like this with my pay cut. Not a huge adjustment, as we were just getting to a point where we could add these kinds of expenses to our budget. But I've had so much side work, we splurged. Tonight is Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue. I am so excited!!

Step 2 of reset: Getting some time off!

I still am not optimistic that I won't end up knee deep in some emergency. *sigh* But... I do have the week off!

I am no longer drowning in everything, so it should be a good mix of catching up on some things and relaxing. I did basically nothing the last two days. Absolutely nothing on my plate. Catching up on some sleep and relaxation. Tomorrow I will start working through my To-Do lists. But I think I can do so at a very relaxed pace.

After 20 years of "no time off" December through April, I am also just enjoying the novelty of the time off. We also planned a long weekend at the beach, for April. Would have preferred to do mid-week, but the kids don't have any time off together except one Friday. (IT's crazy expensive, will probably be pretty crowded, and so my first impression is that I haven't been missing much. But I still really look forward to going to my special place).

As I turned my attention to my household this weekend, I decided to buy some plastic bowls to replace the old hand-me-downs we use for feeding the cat. Those things must be 30-years-old. I've never bought any cat food bowls before. They were looking pretty sad, so that was a nice and inexpensive upgrade.

I also took MM to Ross and Target Saturday for some new clothes. We did not spend much at all.

I haven't watched any movies in several weeks and I know I owe MH big time. We are still watching the "Top 100" movies. I think we got stuck on a couple of very long movies. Will probably get through Lord of the Rings today. Then we have a few super depressing movies to get through. Hopefully things pick up a bit after that.

I'd like to try to blog more, but admit it's pretty low on my priority list at this point. Will see.

Just tracking my gift cards. Not *all* credit card rewards, but most of them are.


GIFTS:
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$ 20 x4 Target


MOVIES:
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$25 Regal?


RESTAURANTS:
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RETAIL:
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Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards.

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In this case, none of these are credit card rewards.

I was just thinking that we had run through all our gift cards. Not sure if someone else was talking about gift cards or why I Was thinking about it. But I haven't done any (one-time) credit card rewards in a long time. I did some easy travel one last year for our road trip, but that's about it. I didn't have any room in my brain for one more thing, that is for sure. But I was thinking about it and I have been wanting to do a specific $500 reward (gift cards) for a while. They had increased the "spending for bonus" to $4,000, so that was the other reason I have been hesitating. But I have $3,000 in medical bills due, so the timing would be good. (I usually just run up these rewards with health insurance, other big insurance bills, and medical bills).

I applied for the card and it wasn't an immediate approval, which is super weird. Will see...

I am reviving my "monthly savings" posts. I abandoned last year because I knew I would just be in hoarding cash mode. Not very exciting. But in the end, I didn't have time for this, so probably for the best. Going forward, I should have time to keep up with these:

Received $67 bank interest for the month of January.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $0 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $83 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$5 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
--$8 "Price Rewind" for washer/dryer purchase

TOTAL: $106 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$686

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 500 MH Paychecks
+$1,500 December work for old/forever employer

TOTAL: $2,000 snowballs to savings

Savings (From my paycheck):
+$ 550 to cash (mid-term savings)

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$0 No Mid-Term Expenses this month

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 800 Home Insurance

TOTAL: $4,000 deposited to cash and investments

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I had been putting $300/month to savings and investing $250/month into taxable investments. I just combined these to "savings" for 2019. We are "retirement heavy" with more retirement space and new job situation. If nothing else, will eventually be redirecting that $250/month to our IRAs. Will abandon taxable investments, except for snowflakes.

I like to put snowflakes to either the mortgage or taxable investments, because it's a "small things add up" thing, and if we keep it in cash I have no problem not touching it, but at some point when you have an extra thousands of dollars laying around you will be tempted to spend it. So I always tie up snowflakes in things I won't touch. I am going to fund retirement regardless, so that leaves taxable investments or mortgage.

On the income front, I traded $11,500 reduced salary for $7,500 401k contributions/match and significantly reduced taxes. Just means we can fund 401k with $7,500, without reducing our cash flow at all. So I am really only short $4,000 net; $4,000 less going to retirement. I expect to easily make that up this year with raise/bonuses. (& I've already made that up with side income, but more long term I'd let to get my net salary where I left off, with just the one job).

I've also lost the OT, which we were throwing at the mortgage. So we will stop mortgage pre-payments for the short run. We may stop indefinitely. We just want to pay cash for our next home when we downsize and we have achieved that goal (we have enough equity to do so: $300,000+). But we don't want to make this move until our kids are adults and done with high school. For now, we would rather fund our IRAs, and otherwise hoard cash for college and a down payment on our next home (we expect to buy our downsize before we sell this home, the down payment will keep things more flexible). That's our plan for now, but I do expect things to change significantly in the next 5 years. It's a very loose plan, but just to explain why the mortgage will fall off our radar for a while.

We are doing well on extra cash/side income, but we also want to fund our IRAs (in addition to the above retirement savings). We have three cars now, both kids need braces, college is right around the corner, we have some home improvements to tend to, etc. Oh, and the down payment we want to work on. We are going to be in "hoard cash" mode with the extra income.

We've also already maxed out our medical deductible for the year. I don't expect this side income to really remain in our account very long.

P.S. If it isn't not obvious, our emergency funds remain entirely intact. I did not end up having any time off work, beyond what was covered by PTO owed to me.

I just did a shorter, "Life is still a disaster" post, because I didn't want to write a novel, and not sure if I will even have time to post this anyway.

So this is moving off that topic (I'd rather blog about anything else) and giving some other general life updates.

Overall, things should be getting better on the work front. January was pretty harsh with deadlines, and then last weekend I tried to wrap up as many clients as I could, getting them switched over to "twin" and her new firm. I've made leaps in that direction and maybe only have a few more hours of side client work. Between that and taking some time off the rest of the month, I don't expect to do any work for old/forever employer this month. There is some deadlines but I decided and told them many weeks ago that I am not participating in February deadlines. At the time, I was being choosy about the type of work I was accepting, but now I also just want to take some time off.

I will probably help them in March/April, but I won't have all these side clients in addition to that, and I am not entirely sure at this point. I will re-evaluate in another few weeks.

**MM(15) did get his driver's permit and that is going well.

**My old gym (which was totally awesome) ended up closing and transferring my membership to some really crappy gym. Ugh!

This is one of those things I have been super indecisive about. I thought very seriously about investing in an elliptical a few years back. (Okay, so I looked it up in my blog and that was *six* years ago):

The elliptical is okay. I can see the benefits, and it is thankfully quiet, but doubt it will entice me to quit the gym. I tried... I just don't want to invest the money, man power, hassle and space to get a gym-quality machine. & I won't be happy with anything less. This is making my $15/month gym membership seem extra valuable. So for that, it is all good.

I should back up and say I have bad knees, and pretty much just go to the gym to use the ellipticals. But... I just never wanted a giant piece of gym equipment. But I don't know how else to do cardio, which I *need* for my sanity.

In evaluating my current level of unhappiness, I know a key point is fixing my gym membership. I don't have a lot of options at this point, so was considering something much more expensive. Which is hard because I just took a $20,000 gross pay cut. But I was starting to think the investment would be worth it, regardless.

In the end, I decided to go for the gym equipment. I was too cheap and space conscious last time, and I probably really didn't have the means anyway. Not in a way that I wold be comfortable with. But I will probably bring in $3,000 side income this month and decided the one thing I probably should invest in is better gym equipment.

The deed is done. We went to a used equipment place today and bought a piece of equipment for about $800. It's really heavy duty/high quality (retails $4,000) new). If I am not happy with it for any reason, they will take it back the first 30 days.

In any other situation we probably would have shopped around more, but I didn't feel like I had the time. They had something exactly what I wanted. They will deliver it today. I am more than happy with that.

I know if I fix this, my mood will improve significantly. This is probably step one in my "reset": Getting some more consistent exercise.

Oh, and if you were wondering... I believe the last elliptical was in the $300 range (new) and that I gave it to MH's grandmother. Money well spent. She loves it and uses it every day. She is in her 90s.

My life is still an unrelenting roller coaster. I don't know that there's any better way to describe it.

MH just got the medical all clear (his latest brain scans show no brain tumor growth. Phew!) But this was after a period of up/down, up/down. They found something else on his brain scan this time (AGAIN) and so that was a whole ordeal.

I got to enjoy the "it's nothing" news for literally about 1/2 hour when my mom called to tell me that my sister was in the hospital and starting dialysis. She was diagnosed with failing kidneys a few years ago, and so it's no surprise. I honestly never expected her to make it to 30, and this diagnosis came after she turned 30. Nothing would surprise me as to bad medical news. But, she's on the opposite coast and tells us very little, so it's been like playing telephone. In the end, she's not in the hospital and she's not starting dialysis. But it sounds pretty bad. Not sure if she can keep her job, etc. Her husband is a Federal employee, so that makes everything all the worse. Then her and my mom were fighting a couple of days ago. (Because she's clearly lying to us and nothing she tells us is adding up). UGH! I think this marks the end of a long period of peace on that front. Even though the truth is fuzzy, I think she's being honest when she tells us her health has taken a bad turn and she hasn't been able to work for 3 weeks. It's the details that are fuzzy.

Absolutely everything I touch is a disaster, so it's everything big and small. It's been this way for 12+ months at this point. I signed up for the Ally bonus, but they never sent me any follow up e-mails after the first one, and I didn't get the bonus. It's on my infinite to do list of things to get fixed. I am due $100-ish. I signed up for a tax class and somehow put it in MH's name. ????? (NO IDEA!) By itself, maybe I could laugh it off, but when so many people around you are dying form some horrible disease, or grieving, it's just been so overwhelming. These are just a couple of examples. I swear the list is endless.

So that's a quick sum up of my life right now.

The new job is going really well, and the money side of things is also going really well. Too well. MH and I are both drowning in work. Which is part of the problem. But our big financial motivation has always been so that we can focus on things that matter. If my sister really does take a turn for the worst and my parents need my support, I wouldn't think twice about quitting second job.

Anyway, that is the very brief sum up of the past 4 or 5 emotionally draining weeks since I last posted. I will try to get to a separate post of some more of the minutiae. But I didn't want to post a novel and not sure I will ever get to that.

2018 WINS:

**I survived!

Honestly, that's good enough for me. Anything beyond that is gravy. It was definitely the most difficult year of my life.

**I figured out the "next phase" of my career. Time will tell, but I feel like I ended up with a good combo of significantly less stress/responsibility/work, in exchange for better pay than I was expecting (based on the regional job market). I was very open minded going into the job search (open to anything), but fell into a job that hit most of my marks. In the end, is probably a bigger break on the career front than I expected at this point in my life. That is a major win.

**Somehow, in the middle of that madness, we ended up having our highest income year ever.

{If you missed it, my small employer fell ill and sold the business to some super scammy company. I eventually quit without another job lined up. I had wanted to take some time off to regroup, but ended up getting a "too good to refuse" job offer on my very last day at old job. The catch was they needed me to start like "yesterday", which was the general vibe coming from employers. Any other job, I might have gambled some time off, but didn't want to lose this one. Then my old employer ended up undoing the business sale and hiring me to help them through some rough patches. So my expectations of unemployment and a significant salary cut ended up being more "drowning in work" all year}.

The end result? I quit my old job around 9/1 and took a 15% cut in compensation, but we ended the year with $875 more income than we did in 2017. 2017 had been our best income year ever, finally surpassing our 2001 income, last we both worked full-time. 2018 was somehow better.

**Net worth was up $51,000, or in line with our "big picture" goals.

**We finally ditched our gas guzzler (that we have been scheming to get rid of most the years I have blogged here). This newer car purchase was spurred by a cash gift, accepting a job that doubled my commute, minivan getting hit on the freeway, and minivan also needing a medium-sized repair ($750) the last day of my old job. By itself, the repair wasn't a big deal, but I still hadn't gotten around to determining if the vehicle needed any body work or just had cosmetic damage from the accident (or if I would have to spend thousands to repair). With my pay cut, we were extra motivated to invest in a car that used significantly less fuel. I got to buy my "dream car" and we are saving about $200/month in fuel costs. So that is very win-win.

Plus, it's nice to have a significantly nicer car now that I actually spend time in my car. All those years we drove older cars, meh, we never really drove that much. I am glad I saved my pennies for a time in my life where I am spending a lot more time in the car.

LOSSES:

Okay, so my gut reaction was to just use wins/losses, because I didn't like the word "fail". But, now that I am typing this out, I want to use the word fail.

FAIL:

**As an adult, I have never failed so miserably on the work/life balance front. It was definitely a FAIL.

I have no idea what in the heck. I suppose I feel like it was all completely out of my control, and not sure what else I could have done to set my life up to be any easier to deal with it all. So maybe "fail" is a strong word. But I just feel like I so completely failed on this front.

2019 will be a year of trying to find my balance again.

Edited: & to be clear, it was more than just WORK. It was "work" also in the sense of chores/obligations, etc. I suppose I said work/life balance because it seemed to start with that, but it has little to do with work at this point. I've always been a "raising kids and working full-time is more than enough" type and don't have any other commitments, but my friends and family have been going through such hard times, and life has been non-stop Murphy hell. I don't know if I've ever had so little down time during my entire life. It feels mostly out of my control. I felt this way when I was between jobs and two weeks off, because I just had a mountain of chores I am finally starting to have the time for (now in January). It's not all going to magically get better if I stop doing side work. It's just how life is going right now. I don't know how to fix it yet, but am trying.

Good Riddance to 2018! Woohoo!

I wish I could say 2019 was going better. I suppose it is in many ways. I feel like my work life turned to a sea of calm a few days ago. Just the complete polar opposite of this one long year of "putting out fires". I took 10 days off from Job #2 (end of year). At Job #1 we finally "caught up" (last Friday). The employee (on leave) that I have been covering for (the entire time) should be coming back next week. So the mood at my primary job has shifted about 180.

Back to, "I wish I could say 2019 is going better..." *sigh* I had an emergency dental appointment yesterday (because life is apparently still non-stop emergencies). I also saw "twin" at lunch Thursday. While discussing everyone that had passed away during the last week or so, my mom called to tell me someone passed away. So, that is how 2019 is going.

Last weekend was actually pretty peaceful though and I finally got caught up on some stuff around the house. Phew! Literally, for the first time in about 11 months, I feel "caught up".

MH drew the short stick and went to the DMV Monday. Probably for the best because he also had to renew his license. In the end, the DMV was closed last weekend (I was going to go transfer the car title because MH was crazy sick), but he had Monday off so was the only time either of us could go. I then mailed the application for carpool stickers this week. & after all that, we still have to go back in about 10 days so MM can get his learner's permit. I think that is enough DMV for one month.

It was nice to have a little bit of a breather, but my January is shaping up to be pretty crazy. I am wrapping up 2018 for 3 clients I have on my own, and then I am shifting them all to "twin" and her new firm. That's about all I will have time for. MM(15) did some work for my old/forever employer this week and so I stopped by to talk to "workaholic" yesterday. Told him I honestly didn't think I'd be able to help them at all this month. I will see where they are at the last few days of the month. They are losing clients left and right, and have two new employees, so hopefully it equalizes a bit. I also started to temper workaholic's expectations about the rest of tax season. I don't know if he is listening because he thinks we should want to live in the office like he does. I am probably going to cram pretty hard the next two weekends and hope to mostly be done. Some of this is self inflicted because we are going away for a weekend. I just wasn't thinking what a hit that would be as to "job #2" hours. So it will be crazy, but I am continuing to lessen my workload.

I don't think I will realistically be able to hit the "reset" button until February 1.

I will do a separate post about 2018 wins and losses. It will just be a gloss over and I don't expect to have any time to do anything in depth until next month. Which I may or may not ever get to.

2018 TALLY:

$561 Travel Rewards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
-----------
$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)

Ongoing rewards:

+$315 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$88 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$149 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$823 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $2,096

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017/2018).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,578
Year 2018 = $2,096

Total 7 Years = $22,862
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

I decided to put up my 2019 goals on sidebar. Which are pretty much the same as 2018, except that my $12,000 salary decrease means that we will have to fund IRAs from other monies.

Our health insurance went up $50/month and I may have some more expenses with the third car, BUT I already lowered our expectations about funding IRAs, so just didn't want to cut back on any of our other savings. So I probably committed to saving at least $50/month I don't have, but I suppose I am presuming I will eventually get a raise to cover it.

Money that was going to taxable investments before, is now going to 401k. From a net worth standpoint, it's all well and good, but I am not thrilled because I feel like I need a bajillion dollars cash (teen drivers x2, braces x2, home repairs, etc., all in the very near future). "College savings" is accordingly on the back burner again, but I am okay with earmarking ROTH money (for college) during years we contribute 20%+ to retirement. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense to be so retirement heavy, at the expense of the rest of our finances, but everything is so "hell if I know," I'd rather err with piling up ROTHs.

I do also expect some side income in 2019, but will just be hoarding up cash to fund IRAs and to pay for big planned expenses.

I am just cutting and pasting so that I can update my sidebar for 2019 goals. I expect a $20,000 decrease in salary/wages/OT, and so 2019 numbers will be more muted. Though honestly, by the time you factor taxes/401k (allows me to contribute 9% to retirement while keeping our cash flow the same), and extra/side business income, I expect 2019 to probably be about the same (cash flow) as 2018 (which was a very flush year for us). The one big change is that we will be very retirement heavy, as a result, which I mentioned below.

2018 Goals

**Financial**

[/]$11,000 to IRAs 2018 (MAX)
...($6,090 @ 10/31/18)
...We save $900/month
UPDATE: I diligently saved $900/month until I decided to quit my job in August.
For 2019, I have to abandon funding IRAs from *my* income.
I took a $11,000 pay cut, so this is the obvious solution. We will max out our IRAs regardless; will fund with other income or assets.

On the flip side, I am contributing 9% to a new 401k (my contribution + employer contribution). My contribution is a complete wash with reduced income taxes. So I am able to contribute 9% to retirement without coming up with more money. This is very reminiscent of our early one-income years when I had 10% work retirement contribution and we just funded IRAs with other monies. In both cases, we were contributing 20%+ of our gross income to retirement and didn't have much left for other savings/investment vehicles.

We will be "retirement heavy" until I get a raise and/or MH returns to work full-time.

**NOTE: WE DID FUND OUR IRAS, BUT JUST NOT FROM MY INCOME**

[ ]$5,000 to savings
...($0 @ 12/31/18)
...$300/month, plus interest.
...Topping off with snowballs
UPDATE: Savings was up about $8,000. I funneled everything into cash this year in prep for job transition. But I ended up putting all this money towards a car purchase. The net result is -0- change to savings.

[ ]$9,000 to investments
...($1,500 @ 12/31/18)
...$250/month, plus snowflakes
...Will also invest tax savings ($2,000) when contribute to Traditional IRAs
...Will top off goal with snowballs
UPDATE: Due to job instability and substantial decrease in income, have only contributed 'snowflakes' to investments this year. Goal for 2019 will be to fund retirement instead. This is due to a combo of less income and more retirement space to utilize.

[ ]$3,000 to mortgage
...($0 @ 12/31/18)
...$3k per year to pay off in 20 years (from last refi); also ensures that we pay more principal than interest
...Funded with overtime
UPDATE: Will probably abandon this goal for 2018 and future. I am no longer working OT (new job) and was never paid for the OT I worked in 2018.

Goal savings rate = 30% of gross

**Actual savings rate = lord if I know. I am just so happy that I have been able to cash flow the insanity this year. Mostly, we funded IRAs and threw our snowflakes into investments. We did also throw about $1,000 into MH's 401k. Savings rate was probably around 15%.**

In addition, we save 100% of MH's (net) income ~ most goes to 401k/taxes.

**We only did the minimum for match this year because I expected employment upheaval. This is just a very small part-time/seasonal income, and was probably -$0- after you factor taxes, 401k contribution, and covering my unpaid time off work.**

& just like that, we are a 3-car family.

Where in the heck did the time go??? How on earth is that wee little baby old enough to learn how to drive!?

I will back up. The in-laws told us 2+ years ago they wanted to give their old car to MM(15) for Christmas. He turns 15.5 next month and will be getting his learner's permit. Our ideal world would have been buying a very used car from a friend or a relative, someone we knew who took good care of their cars.

I don't know that we would have thought at all about getting him a car before he turned 16, but I guess it works out because we have two new-ish cars and aren't really thrilled with the idea of him learning to drive on our cars. This is maybe extra so after having much older cars most of our lives.

So, the in-laws starting telling us this about 2 years ago. We were skeptical. We were just kind of, "Will see if you still have your car in 2 years." You know, anything can happen. I believe they had recently replaced their other car because it had been totaled in an accident, when they first brought it up.

It came up again in the last 2-3 months, and I guess MH and I were more ready to start making concrete plans. We made very clear that we were able and willing to buy the car from them, and did not expect them to just hand it to us (or to our child). They insist, but we just wanted to make sure we made it very clear that they don't have to give us a car. The other thing is they have *4* grandchildren, and I think they were jumping the gun significantly and probably hadn't thought it through too much (particularly when they brought it up years ago). So we wanted to make sure at this point they had thought it through. MIL keeps telling me that her daughter and her kids are "too good" for her old car and don't want it. I don't know if it's actually been discussed or if this is a presumption. But, whatever. I say, "whatever" because I can't control that. As long as they think they have discussed it, whatever. Last we brought it up, she told us the car was for BOTH of our kids. I think it just works out about as well as it can. It gives MM(15) two years to save up for a car, maybe 6+ years if he doesn't need a car for college. My kids are exactly two years apart, so should give them both a car to drive their last two years of high school.

I think MM(15) was somewhat aware, because some adults have slipped up in front of him. & I know I change the subject any time we get on this topic. He knows we are planners and he knows it's weird we have not discussed this at all. Beyond, "You should be saving up for a car."

He was definitely not expecting a car *right now*, and so I think it worked out pretty well as to surprising him. MIL/FIL put a bow on the car and hid it in their garage. After doing Christmas stuff at SIL's house Sunday, we drove over there and they opened up the garage door. He is very surprised and happy.

We drove the car home, Sunday night. I will need to get insurance on it. We were paying around $500 per year for our 2005 minivan, and this should only be cheaper. Is higher miles and is a small sedan, so should be cheaper to insure.

The year has been so chaotic and in-laws have never had any details when I asked in the past. I thought it was maybe a 2003 or a 2005? (Just subconsciously remembering that they bought it when the kids were born?) I guess in the end it is a 2004 and has 188,000 miles.

The car is worth about $2,500. Is probably about just exactly what we would be buying our kids anyway (private party) except we'd probably be looking for a $2,500 car with 130k or 150k miles. For a free car that we just want to last for 4 years, it should be more than ample.

I am guessing we will be paying $250-ish for liability insurance on the car for the next 6 months, and then we will get MM insured on the car when he turns 16 this summer.

When he turns 16 he will probably bear all of the costs of the car. I've already been quoted $1,000 per year for a teen male driver (roughly). I was happily surprised because I know that is less money than I paid as a teen driver. Will see what the real numbers end up being. But everyone makes it sound so scary and awful, especially with a teen boy. I did discuss numbers with my insurance agent at some point, because I did realize a year or two ago that probably most people are more price sensitive than we are and maybe it won't be quite so bad as I was imagining. We do not plan to let him drive our cars, which is where it can get really expensive. Apparently we don't have to insure him to learn on our cars though, which is nice. Practically, he will have to be practicing in our cars once in a while.

Because the car was gifted by a family member, we also don't have to pay any kind of transfer tax on the car. I suppose if we have to pay any license or registration fees though, we will cover them, this first year. We just think it's important for our kids to learn about all the costs of owning a car. If they end up with some large car repair because the car has almost 200k miles, we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I could see helping with any major repairs.

Merry Christmas to us, because that's a can we can kick down the road. Phew! I don't think saving the $2,500 is particularly life altering, but I just feel like we'd be taking a lot more risk on the private party market, otherwise. I feel extraordinarily blessed to have found a (well cared for) hand-me-down. I know we are probably saving a lot more than $2,500, given the circumstances.

In our family, the point of the 'allowance" is so that you learn how to manage money and make money decisions (at a very basic level) long before you get your first job and start making significantly more dollars. This is just until kids make their own money. My husband seems reluctant to turn off for our oldest son, but there is no doubt that it is time. He made $700 in the 6 months since he turned 15. & that's really barely lifting a finger. I expect that he will be making a ton more money when he turns 16 and can drive himself to any jobs.

As to learning how to manage money and make his own money decisions...

**Mission Accomplished**

The kids' allowance is $2/week. Because we started when they were *5*. I of course expected to bump that up over the years.

MM(15) takes after his father and is an extreme money hoarder. I really expected to at least bump up when he started high school. But he's not very social (he is laser focused on sports and academics). It will be interesting to see how that changes when he gets a car. But for now, he's not much for hanging out, and I get the feeling when he has a car he'd rather be working. Will see.

Though his brother (13) is more balanced and an entirely different personality, he is frugal enough I was starting to think that he would also be happy with the $2 indefinitely. But I failed to account for the high school bump. He is super social, in contrast.

So... He asked for an allowance raise this weekend. Some part of me was, "Oh crap," because I did just take a large pay cut and I know his friends have insane allowances. But beyond that, I Was so proud he asked, and was kind of like, "What took you so long?" I asked what he was thinking about, and he asked for $3. I thought, "Phew!" and I think that is beyond reasonable. What is funny is that MH was shooting me the funniest looks because he is clearly not on the same page. Whatever. Not everyone wants to save every penny they ever make. Yeesh. When we discussed having $1 per week of blow money to hang out with his friends, this is when my MH really looked pained and uncomfortable. I am just, "He needs to learn to live in the real world." In the end, I guess DL was more in negotiating mode and he was kind of like, "Really? $3 is so much more money than I would ever need!" So everyone (but MH) seems pretty happy. I bumped up MM(15) to $3 just to be "fair".

MM is getting a car this weekend and turns 16 this summer, so we will probably re-evaluate his allowance shortly. When I bought my first car it was 100% on me, but I didn't have a sibling that I was expected to drive around or help my parents with. So if we need him to spend $20/ month on gas or whatever, might bump up his allowance and then let him manage all that. Him having a car will help us out so much, we still have a lot to sort through. His grandparents are just being crazy eager beavers and can't wait to give him their old car for Christmas. I think it's fine and good that he has an old car to learn on but haven't had any time or energy to figure out the logistics. It will be a bridge we cross when we get to it.

Anyway, after this whole allowance conversation, DL went on to tell me (as he has many times before) that he has a couple of friends with 10 times the allowance who are horrible with money, and so are their parents. I asked him if he thought they were bad with money because they have *So much* allowance. His answer: Yes! I think he is just observing how other people relate to money and their values, etc. & how maybe it's not so great to have a seemingly infinite allowance if your parents are struggling so much that you are talking about it with your friends. (I don't remember the details, if it's like they were working extra to pay off debts, in bankruptcy or what not. 10 years ago, they'd be losing their house, it was so ubiquitous to be in foreclosure). I think the kids probably try to tease my kids that they have a $3 allowance, but they just aren't having it. They know their bank accounts are fatter and that they live in a financially secure household.

I think it's more complicated than just the size of the allowance. Because lord knows I could give both my kids a 1,000% raise today, and neither of them would spend it.

This conversation gave way to sensible car and college choices. (My sons have NO IDEA they are being gifted a car to use through their high school years).

Who are these people? I don't know that I Would have thought of or discussed "sensible car or college choices" much before age 25. Given the reaction my husband was having to the allowance raise, it makes me wonder if maybe he did sound like this when he was 13/15 and is some of where the kids get it from.

MH dug out an old recipe a couple of weeks ago and it was *so good*. Better than I remembered.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/south-of-the-border-wrap...

Just some beans and veggies, with some cheese and butter. & I can imagine infinite ways to customize to one's taste and/or what is on hand.

MM(15) and I made for dinner tonight. I wanted to share while I Was thinking about it.

Just to round out my last EV update.

I hadn't shared the total fuel costs for the month of November.



Apparently, we spent $60 total to fuel (electric and gas) the Volt/hybrid and $61 to fuel the gas car.

That was $61 to drive the gas car 550 miles.

& $60 to drive the hybrid 1,769 miles.

So, there you go.

I was going to say that we hadn't even bought any gas this month. But I see that we topped off the (Volt) tank at some point after Thanksgiving. The cool thing about that is we won't have to stop for gas on the way to or from the Bay Area, for Christmas. We knew we'd be driving back for Christmas, and so we just filled up the tank all the way. I have been using a 1/10 tank of gas here and there for extra cold mornings and to keep the car heated (electric range is not quite enough always, in the cold). But should still have 400-ish gas miles left and will use about 200 of those miles for Christmas festivities out of town.

Edited to add: The negative $45 was a work reimbursement I received for October work miles. Which reminds me, I received a $10 reimbursement in November, to further reduce my fuel costs for that month.

I did my "life is still chaos" post, and am now hoping to just move forward.

I don't know if I will accomplish anything today, but honestly I'd just be happy to get a nap. I may just crash all day.

My birthday was last weekend. I spent about 5 hours doing my last class for this year. It is what it is. That was the day of the class, and it felt awesome to be DONE! I sent off my professional license renewal and got that huge time suck out of my hair.

Going forward, will have to maintain my professional license on my own time and expense, but now that I know ahead of time I can at least plan for that. I should probably be doing one class every 3 months or so. No more cramming. Phew!

Back to my birthday... Just stayed home and kept it low key otherwise. I did make sure to relax and enjoy the rest of my day.

Yesterday was absolutely exhausting. I had a Kohls return I wanted to sneak in as early in the month as possible. Went around 8am and thankfully there was no line yet.

I thought I was going to have to do that earlier, then take MM(15) to the animal shelter. But MH has more brain cells left than I have at the moment, and figured out he could drop off MM and I could pick him up. Doh. I really thought I Was going to have to sit there waiting for him 2 hours. Too exhausted to figure out the logic.

Anyway, I picked him up, grabbed some fast food (because that's what we do any more) and took him over to my old/forever employer to work. He worked about 4 hours and he is DONE for the year. Woohoo! I was exhausted yesterday, but it's all good. In discussing his availability and "awesome admin" availability, it was decided he is not needed for the rest of the year. Which is the only reason I would step foot in that office. So I will probably work a pretty long Saturday next weekend (from home) but then I am out and done for the year. December is a MASSIVE deadline month and no idea how they will get all their work done, but it's not my problem. I've been setting pretty clear boundaries re: the last 10 days of the year or so. The only reason I set foot in that office is if I am taking my son there to work.

Wish I could say I'd be getting any time off, but I am just in a new "crazy busy" end of year work situation. As I am guessing the majority of jobs in my field are. My new job is very 9-5 and will be a HUGE break compared to what I am used to Christmas break. Because I won't be cramming all weekend and during the evenings. I do look forward to that. But it's going to be crazy demanding during work hours.

After that I rushed home to ready for my new work's Holiday party. Which I was absolutely dreading. For one, I am an extreme introvert so it mostly sounded like torture. Secondarily, I was just exhausted and wanted to take a nap.

In the end, the party was GREAT!

I don't even know what in the heck, but the house was amazing and had an incredible view. This was at one of the owner's homes. He is not one of the "super wealthy" owners, but he does well enough and is a home builder and so of course built a custom home.

They had hired caterers and the food was absolutely divine.

We had a great time, in the end. Everyone I work with is *so nice*. No idea how on earth I found these people. I would never expect to have so much fun at a party with a big crowd of people that I barley know. (Many of them don't work in the office and I have only met in passing).

In other news, I found out I have two weeks vacation time to use whenever. Woohoo! I will have to ponder. I don't have a lot of time off with this job, so it's deciding if I am just, "OMG I need a week off now." Which probably wouldn't be too feasible until March, given workload. So I don't know if it's that, or I am willing to wait for kids' spring break in April and to plan around them. We've already discussed going to the beach for a few days, but figured that would just have to be a long weekend. I will have to look at calendars and ponder.

We got to enjoy our new washer/dryer for about 5 seconds, before MH tried to start his car and move it back into the garage. At least he was able to move it out of the way for delivery. *sigh* I was pretty sure a nice/convenient Sunday delivery would NEVER happen (because this year has been non-stop insanity). So I am happy that at least we could accomplish that transaction smoothly. (Apparently, just barely).

Anyway, car wouldn't start. Was kind of "meh" about it. I mean, I laughed. I swear I have spent every single week this entire year putting out fires (or dealing with fires that we can't put out). So all I could do was laugh. That we had barely put out the last fire when we had a new one! But it was Sunday night and obviously something *easy* like a dead battery, right?

WRONG.

Was the first time we had car troubles with new job/long commute. So Monday was total and complete chaos. It didn't help that AAA driver did a decent diagnosis on the car and told us it might need to be in the shop for days (to re-create the problem). UGH! In the end, is something with the fuel line probably (our mechanic agreed with the AAA diagnosis) but they cleaned something up for a few bucks and think it might be fixed. It's just the inconvenience factor that was so awful. & I suppose we are not 100% sure it is fix fixed, or if it has a bigger problem.

Got the car back and then someone ran into MH at a red light. Because... of course. It was as minor as can be, but... of course!

I completely give up on the house. I just had to, or I would FREAK! Every single time I plan to tend to household chores, something or other comes up. When you have *11 months* of this, your house looks like a total disaster. I really thought I was starting to get on top of things, and then... I don't know what happened. It seemed to take a pretty bad turn with the laundry/car issues. If I think about it at all I will freak. So I just give up.

I think at this point it's just "life is chaos". "Completely and utterly outside my realm of control" chaos. MH is really getting grumpy about job #2 situation. I told him literally I didn't have time to do ANY work for job#2 last month. !!! That is not the problem! But it will be stressful next month (deadline month). So I keep infinitely kicking the can down the road as to when I expect any rest or free time.

I just think he perceives, and is probably perceived in this blog, that I am killing myself over working so many hours. When the reality is, I can't even find time for that even. I just spend all my time to reacting to chaos. I've probably only had time to blog like 10% of the chaos. There is no way to get it across. I don't even remember all the chaos. This was a conversation we had recently: MH tells DL that my dad had been in the hospital, when DL got back from his Finland trip. I said, "Oh yeah, I forgot." Because seriously, I had 100 more important things to worry about. He was fine, so I had no more room in my brain for that. There is no world where I am just, "Oh yeah, I forgot about my dad being in the hospital 3 days ago". Or that is what I would have thought, but that is my world right now.

There's been some good things and I just wanted to do a separate happy post.

Total miles driven last month on new electric/hybrid car: 1,769

A small improvement; was 2,000 miles last month.

Out of town trips:
--MH drove about 100 miles (on gas) to do some political canvassing before the election
--Bay Area for Thanksgiving (200 miles on gas)
--Bay Area for a book signing (100 miles on gas)

Probably a pretty average month for us.

I remembered to track miles on our gas vehicle this past month; we drove about 550 miles. That was pretty typical for how much I was driving the minivan. Same kind of situation where we favored the gas sipper when we had a gas guzzler, but I feel like we are favoring the electric vehicle even more. If we were driving 4 miles round trip to get groceries before, meh. Who cares if you took the van or the car? But, now all the short trips we do on electric if at all possible.

This comes up to an average of about 28,000 miles per year, total household driving. I'd say we were putting 20,000-ish miles per year on our cars, but have added 5,000 miles per year in commute miles. So I think that sounds about right. The 20,000 was "ish". We don't always do so much out of town driving.

For context, this was from my post last month:

We drove the car 2,000 miles total. UGH! I don't have a handle on total household driving because I didn't track miles on the other car. For November 1, I made sure to take a picture of both odometers. We generally average about 20,000 miles per year total. How we divvy it up between the cars just depends. But this was before I doubled my commute. For the long run, I expect to work from home one day per week, to lessen the wear and tear on our cars. October was clearly unusual with *a lot* of out-of-town driving. But there was also an element that we barely drove the other car.

Back to November...

Electricity costs: $34.23

1,302 Electric Miles Driven

418 kWh Used x $0.0819/kWh = $34.23

{418 kWh overnight electricity usage, per electric bill. This is the easiest/best approximation of how much electricity we are using to charge the car}.

Fuel Savings: $207

1,302 Miles/ 20mpg old minivan
=65 gallons of fuel

65 gallons x $3.18 = $207

$207 cost of commute in old minivan
-$34 cost of commute in new electric car
-----
=$173 FUEL SAVINGS

For now, I am focused on tracking the fuel savings to offset the cost of the fast charger we installed in our garage. Once that is paid for, I would like to offset the premium we paid for the car.



I am just going to call it. The charger has paid for itself. Woohoo! We apparently received a $400-ish break on our DMV registration, with the car. I thought it was a mistake and had been waiting for the bill. But for now, will just call it a day and will consider the charger paid for.

I don't have December monthly reward totals yet, of course. But I figured I would update all my numbers and see where we are at. This will make it easy to update/finalize at the end of this month.

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
-----------
$561 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)

Ongoing rewards (through 11/30):

+$276 AmExRewards (6% cash back groceries/3% fuel)

+$88 Target rewards (5% discount Target purchases; mostly groceries)

+$141 Visa Rewards (3% cash back fuel/restaurants)

+$705 Citi 2% card (2% back everywhere - health insurance/medical is the big expenses that we charge, is more than our mortgage payments)

Grand Total = $1,932

I just want to add that historical figures below do also include bank bonuses. They just don't generally work very well for us so I do not utilize as much. (We did -0- bank bonuses in 2017/2018).

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906
Year 2017 = $3,578
Year 2018 = $1,932

Total 7 Years = $22,698
***Mostly Tax-Free Income***

Note: I have been tracking since 2011 because that's when the rewards got CRAZY. I have always utilized cash back on credit cards. It's just been extra rewarding during the past decade or so.

***CAVEAT - I absolutely do not recommend utilizing credit card rewards in this manner, unless you are in full control of your credit card spending. We treat our credit cards like debit cards; only charging if we have the cash on hand already. We've never paid a cent of late fees or interest.***

2018 TALLY:

$561 Gift Cards (Capital One Venture, Moi)
$150 Citi Price Rewind
$ 10 Hulu Credits (American Express)
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$721 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

**In addition, various monthly rewards that I will tally at 12/31.

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I submitted a "price rewind" (price match) for a Black Friday deal. The cell phone MH had bought was $150 off for Black Friday. So I got a $150 credit for that. Woohoo!

I submitted the washer/dryer purchase, because you never know. Generally Citi tracks the price match, but when we saw the $150-off for the phone we just wanted to be sure it was counted. Washer/Dryer were Black Friday deals. So far Citi is showing I am owed a refund of $8, for those purchases. They track for two months. For smaller amounts like that, they will just send me the money when the two months are up.

I haven't had any energy/time to chase rewards this year. It will be interesting to see how it comes out in the final tally.

I think I can beat 2016, so it wasn't even our lowest year. I probably have around $100/month in rewards, or another $1,200-ish to add to my 2018 tally.

Year 2011 = $4,164
Year 2012 = $2,782
Year 2013 = $2,623
Year 2014 = $3,128
Year 2015 = $2,585
Year 2016 = $1,906

Well, I am still completely and utterly exhausted.

Last week was actually amazingly quiet and nice. Until Sunday afternoon when our washer broke. In the middle of a wash. *sigh* So peace and quiet turned into "lugging sopping wet clothes to the laundromat and appliance shopping".

I suppose I should back up. Both our washer/dryer are long past their prime. We've been too cheap/lazy to deal with it. But there is no way in heck we are spending one penny on fixing the washer. Will replace both. We did attempt to fix (because would have been nice to finish our laundry load) but gave up. That just added to the time/frustration factor.

In almost any other situation, we would have had it repaired.

On the plus side, most the Black Friday deals lasted through Thursday of last week. I was so relieved to have some time to deal with that. We also supposedly have a weekend delivery, which I am very appreciative of, but not holding my breath about that. (That presumes everything goes well. HA!) But if they can actually pull it off, that is pretty awesome.

Other Randomness:

**My plan is to get my education done and my professional license renewed today. Phew!

I haven't done any work (for old/forever employer) whatsoever. I just didn't have any time this week. I had a sick kid, work was crazy, etc.

I guess my new goal for December is to work enough (extra/OT) to pay for new washer/dryer. That's just 9 hours per week, times 3. I still have lots of financial motivation on this front. Plus starting to feel some pressure re: work promised versus work done (zilch).

Honestly, this is all work I LOVE doing and can't believe I am paid to do. I would be more than happy to sit home and work. It's just finding the time/balance when life is totally crazy.

I am clearly not going to find any balance in my life during 2018. I give up! But I am still optimistic that next month will be better. I am making very slow progress...

**We've got a full plate of concerts and shows planned for next year. My hope would be to have this all pre-funded and then just not worry about spending any cash on this during the next year.

It's just everything we are most interested in has gone on sale this past week or so.

**Other Black Friday Spending

I forgot to mention that I picked up tax software for $18 on Black Friday.

My initial thought was that I would take advantage and use old/forever employer's software while I still had access. Would save me many hours. It takes me about 5 minutes to do my taxes on the professional software. BUT... "Useless employee" deleted my tax access in true "useless employee" fashion. She then realized her bad and sent me some new access code to my work e-mail that no longer exists. *sigh* I had planned to sort that out later. But when presented with $18 software that would do everything I need it to do (but in a very slow and painful fashion) I decided to just go with that. The solution for me may end up being more middle ground. But at the end of the day, I like the idea of moving on with my life. Probably best to let it go. Heck, don't know that I Want my personal information out there anyway. Not feeling lots of confidence in how things are being run, and lord knows who they sell the business to next. I think it's best on many fronts just to figure out a better long term tax prep plan for the future.

Oh, and the 15yo is definitely doing his own taxes. That is another perk of the cheapie software.

**New job is going really well.

This is what I posted recently:
I expect generous raises and bonuses with this employer and so expect the current state of things to be very temporary.

Re: taking a pay cut for a very 9-5 job, but expecting to gain some ground eventually.

Shortly after I posted that, I received confirmation that they are VERY generous with raises and bonuses. More than I expected.

I wasn't expecting much. They had done performance reviews for everyone and are expecting a pretty big ramp up of work in 2019. But I was hired in reaction to that and expected not to receive a raise with everyone else. I just happened to come across whatever bonuses/raises they were discussing. Yesterday my boss pulled me aside and told me they were doing bonuses mid-month. As the accountant, clearly I am in charge of executing all that, which is why I had access to the information to begin with. But since I had last come across it they had gotten around to discussing me and told me they weren't giving me a raise, as I expected, but they would plan to do a review/raise for me before next year is over. Just that I don't have to wait until the following January. Also, I am getting a $1,000 net bonus. Woohoo! (I presumed they would give me *something*. $1,000 was more than I was expecting, but I also think some of it is not wanting me to feel left out, especially since I am seeing everyone else's BIG bonuses).

It's very feasible I could get a 10% or 20% bonus next year, so I am very happy with the state of things. I need a $10,000 salary bump to track to where I was at with old/forever job, for 9-5 hours. If I can get a 6% raise and a 6% bonus, then I will be there. Both seem very feasible at this point. I'd say that my new job is 10 times easier and 10 times less responsibility, so I am very happy with things.

This $1,000 bonus even is HUGE to me. The only reason it would not be is the context of the pay cut. But I've never worked anywhere that did bonuses.

**Other than that, my finances feel like complete chaos in the moment.

Just paid the property taxes for the year, all our insurance comes due this month, just bought up a bunch of concerts tickets and a new washer/dryer, etc. But also having lots of money inflows. It just feels like money is flying every which way. I will have time later this month to feel more organized about it and to get a better handle of things. (I know we are spending less than our income, but it still feels very chaotic).

I was doing a post and it was getting really long, so am separating out the "old work" part.

MM(15) did not get his paycheck timely from my old/forever employer. I think payday was a Friday and he went in Monday (Thanksgiving week) to work because he had the week off of school. His paycheck was not there, but I didn't think too much about it. The rumor (whatever they told MH?) was that they had run out of checks. I didn't think too much about that either.

The latest is that old/forever employer took back the business and told "fake employer" to go to hell, basically. I have *no idea* where they are in the legal process of that and infinite monies owed to them, but "fake employer" is not fighting them on giving them back the business. They never really did anything to begin with, so there isn't much to it. They had taken over payroll, and that's about it. They have officially given that back.

Anyway, I didn't think too much about checks having to be ordered with this sudden turn of events. & I mean, I just would totally understand if that slipped through the cracks in the chaos.

Then maybe Tuesday or Wednesday "awesome admin" (who has gone back full-time, temporarily, and is the only reason MM is working there) called me. {MM is there to help her out and to work for her. If she's gone, then he's gone}. Anyway, she called me with an earful. I guess in the end they still had checks (I should have realized because I had been paid already the first of the month) and "awesome admin" knew they had to order more, but old/forever employer disagreed. He is sick and has no idea. I guess it was just a whole thing. Plus they hired some new employees, so how is that for a first impression!? (Probably the least of their problems, as far as first impression. Ugh). Plus, okay, so you don't have checks, so figure it out. There is just no one there capable of "figuring it out." I mean, I am sure "Awesome admin" could figure it out, but she is the lowest person on the totem pole, and employer is probably embarrassed and just unwilling to deal with it.

Anyway, MM had the week off and they really needed the help. I know 100% they will pay him. I told him in no other situation would he ever show back up at work again, but that *I* would guarantee his paycheck. & Wednesday, when he still didn't have his check, I pulled him aside and told him, "And that's it. You don't need to go back until you get paid". You know, just willing to make an exception for the holiday week everyone wanted to take advantage of, but beyond that, whatevs. Figure out your crap!

Yeah, I don't know how long "awesome admin" is going to last, at this rate. What a MESS! I mean, this is just like 0.01% of the business, right? Having checks to pay bills? I don't even want to know what else is going on over there.

Before I quit, old/forever employer's wife pulled me aside with the "great news" they were "hoping to" take back the firm. I was pretty blunt with her. & how does that help me? Back to square one. They still have to sell. Let's just say it didn't appeal to me at all. I told her that I support my family and needed a better long-term plan.

Then... When everyone was going back to help (because old/forever employer was AMAZING, and we are all willing to help in any reasonable way), MH was concerned about it. He just sees everyone is going back and is worried I will to. HA! I told him I couldn't imagine anything less appealing.

So, fast forwarding to last week when my teenager wasn't paid for like 8 days and "awesome admin" is telling me what a nightmare it is over there. I said to MH, "Yeah, because no one could see that coming." Things may be worse without "fake employer", which is hard to imagine in some regards, but not surprising given the situation. Old/forever employer has much better intentions, but you need more than good intentions.

**MM(15) did eventually get paid. Was just delayed a bit longer with the holiday weekend.

Thankfully, my experience was the polar opposite. I did side work for about 4 clients, plus some very highly-paid work for old/forever employer. Everyone was so grateful for the help that they all paid me immediately. I think old/forever employer paid me before I even got around to invoicing them.

I am trying to wean off my old clients and get them transferred over to new accountants. I never did and still don't want the work. I was open to the opportunity when I had no idea what my work situation might be, but it will be *awesome* to get all this work out of my hair.

Work for old/forever employer (side work) is the "best of both worlds" at this point, and I am fine with that longer term. But I've said I am not holding my breath. If it all goes to hell tomorrow, I am totally fine with walking away. I feel pretty removed from the situation. They are desperate and have agreed to my crazy one-sided terms.

Last Saturday we were able to get some free charging. MH sat at the free charger while waiting for MM(15) at his volunteer shift. It covers one-way on the 21-mile drive.

We also went to the Symphony last weekend. We had planned to get "free charging" in the garage, but went a little early for dinner and there was free parking everywhere. We chose to save $4-ish and take the free parking instead. Our city (downtown area) has free parking night and weekends for the month of December? But I didn't expect it to be so completely abandoned on a Saturday night. Of course, maybe just lord knows where everyone parked, because the restaurant that we went to was jam packed.

In the middle of the month, winter started to arrive, and did a number on the car battery. I had been forewarned (belong to some online group) but ignored all the "Cold + car battery" stuff, figuring we don't have COLD here. Unfortunately below 50F degrees, you lose a lot of range. I don't know if there is much difference between that and like 0F degrees, because seems plenty of people are happy with their Volts in cold and snowy regions.

In the end, this happened around mid-month and I haven't noticed any changes to our costs, but December will be much colder and I will have a whole month of "cold weather" data to report. Most days I have been able to eke out my commute on the electricity. If I am using gas, it might be 1/10 of a gallon per day. (I think it got a little warmer, because I have not used gas all week).

This will be a morning problem. We have freezes overnight, but during the day it won't drop below 50F, generally. It probably helps to park in the sun and keep the battery on the warmer side. During summer, will do the opposite. I had always been more concerned about our hot summer weather. The heat is supposed to be worse as far as long-term battery degradation. Not much I can do about that, but will definitely be sure to park in the shade during summer.

The garage seems to be keeping the car about 30F degrees warmer than the outside, so maybe that helps with the cold and battery range.

In other news, GM is discontinuing the Volt as of next year. In the online group everyone was saying prices would drop at that point. I don't see why it would make such a big difference, but in the end, I guess this is driving people to not want to keep their cars. I don't *get* it, but whatever. We have talked seriously about buying a second Volt in about a year, before all this. Honestly, I don't expect prices to change much between now and then. But if they do, we will certainly take advantage.

{I think probably they mean more new prices, while I am only looking at used prices}.

It is sad. Americans love their gas guzzlers so much. I haven't seen any other cars quite like this. I was never thrilled with going all-in on electricity. Yes, it's cheap now, but you never know how that might change. I guess for the long run it might be we keep a gas car and an electric car? But I really like this whole "bets of both worlds" thing and haven't seen anything else quite like it.

I guess I should back up and say one reason we are considering buying the second Volt is we are going to run this one into the ground crazy fast, at this rate. Would rather spread over two cars that we can keep for 15 years each. (This car won't last 15 years if we do 90% of our driving on the one car). & MH has a new-ish car, so it would be more of a lateral(ish) trade. We just left it that we need to give it a year before we put all our eggs in one basket. Which is something we would probably never do otherwise, but the car is that amazing. & this also hinges on me getting like a really nice bonus next Christmas. I said it's lateral(ish) because we still would need to cough up some decent cash.

Costs and updates:

**I need to do some homework on the carpool stickers. Still have not had one reason to use them in the two + months we have had the car. I had heard a rumor if I renewed after this year that I could get 4-years of carpool stickers (for solo driver). I can't find anything about that and don't know if that is just a presumption. I don't want to lose out altogether. It would be three years if I apply now. I just have some homework to do. You never know when you might end up in a traffic jam or have a job change, etc., so I just want to maximize carpool benefits. Being prepared, as I like to do.

**The other thing I can't find *anywhere* is what on earth our car registration fees are supposed to be. ??? We paid something like $40 when we bought the car, and when they sent us the title it said "$40 paid" on the registration and/or title. I thought surely that wasn't right and expected to get a bill at some point.

I think it would be a fair assumption that the electric cars get a crazy break on this front, but I just can't find anything verifying this. On the online group I am in, everyone says they are still paying $300 or $400 or whatever to register and renew newer/expensive cars (same model; same state). So, I am confused. Am curious what the renewal will be next year.

**Fuel costs for December:

Electricity is still at about $1 per day, or $30 for the month.

We also drove out of town three times during December, so used a fair amount of gas.

Gas fuel spending was $26. I received a $10 work reimbursement (for driving 20 miles). This puts my net gas costs at $15 for the month, or about the same as last month.

When it got cold, my first thought was that my "reimbursements to self" for quick charger and car premium might take a little longer than I planned. But looking back at October, I think in the end it will be about the same. I saved about $225 in fuel costs?

When I get final electricity costs for November, I will share the details.

December and January are our coldest months, so will see how we fare during those months.

Thursday we drove down to spend Thanksgiving with our families. Usually we host (potluck ~ we don't do the cooking), but in recent years it's been dwindling down to "every other year". Lord knows I bowed out a long time ago, for this year.

We were most thankful for fresh air. We had a big storm and it cleared out all the smoke. Which I know just created more problems overall, but it was so nice to breathe fresh air.

Yesterday I Was just zonked. I wasn't thinking too much about the smoke, but I think that could be some of it. Some combination of oxygen overload and maybe getting some of the smoke out of my system. I mostly slept.

I told MH I'd watch three movies this weekend. We should be done with 20 out of 100. (We are watching the Top 100 movies, AFI, along with the podcast Unspooled).

Weekend goals:

Saturday - clean house and get house in order. Fingers crossed!! (Every time I have tried this year, something seems to get in the way). If I could just cross off a few bigger chores, and feel like I am making progress on this front...

Sunday - baking?

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For Black Friday, I submitted a Citi Price Rewind for the cell phone MH recently bought. It was on sale for $150 less. I will get the price match, if Citi will match Black Friday prices. Will see...

{This makes the price far less ridiculous, though will be stuck with the higher sales tax}.

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Other than that, we've been spending ridiculous sums of money on concerts. Everything we were interested in went on sale last week.

Also, Sketchfest tickets went on sale. I believe we entirely skipped it last year. Just nothing grabbed us and we were kind of burned out on the spending/travel.

For this year, pretty much everything we were interested in was during MH's birthday weekend. That never happens! Usually it's a lot more spread out and it's figuring how much time we really want to spend traveling to San Francisco. In this case, we got tickets to everything we were interested in, and already got a free timeshare stay right by the theater (where all the shows are at). So MH will have a very fun birthday weekend. These tickets are generally quite inexpensive, especially when it's just the two of us. Will just pay with Christmas money, and the room is free, so it will be a frugal weekend. We will plan to eat very well, but he will probably get some birthday cash to cover the dining out.

Here is my Christmas post from 2014:

http://monkeymama.savingadvice.com/2014/11/30/christmas-simp...

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

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

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

I'd say not much has changed. I have a new job situation (so might have a wee bit more time over the holidays). But... I don't expect that I would do anything more but collapse this year (from exhaustion). I am not making any new traditions, that is for sure. I will be able to spend a little more time with my family.

My kids are completely disinterested in the consumer treadmill. As teenagers they don't want *anything* for the Holidays. It's funny how often people tell me, "But you have to buy MORE when they are teenagers because they want so much stuff." I don't think parents realize how much kids absorb from their own parents' attitudes and actions. If nothing else, the kids have never seen us make shopping a pastime. So they just never got the memo.

Thus, we don't save up any money for the Holidays or plan to do any spending.

Now that I think about it, next month is going to be pretty busy because I am working two jobs. (Even though I am taking Christmas week off at job #2). So I think this year I am not going to do anything differently. But next year I could see putting a little more time and energy to baking and volunteering. That is what I would want to do with more time and breathing room around the Holidays.