Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

I did an Amazon return at Kohls the other day. I had never done that before. They gave me a 25%-off coupon for Kohls, for one transaction in-store. I was going to look around anyway so I used it.

I don't know any of the details, if you can only return certain things to Kohls or what. But it sure makes it easier to shop on Amazon.

Today I paid a handful of annual bills. When I went to pay to renew the registration on MH's car, they were trying to charge a $5 fee for using credit card. UGH. Apparently this was a change that only went into effect during the last week or so. Bummer, that I didn't pay sooner and squeak that one through. We've been spoiled. I don't remember them charging any credit card fees during the past decade or so. I haven't decided how I will pay that bill. I don't know if some of the other government agencies have followed suit and if I will find more surprises.

I honestly don't know how I am going to pay this bill now. I declined paying by echeck, but I know logically (and from personal experience) that mailing a check is far less secure. *sigh* I set it aside to flip a coin later.

MH and I are planning a somewhat impromptu getaway. We are going to LA for 2 nights (just before Thanksgiving) and then we want to stop by Hearst Castle on the way back. I suppose we can make this somewhat a "Top 100 Movie" field trip as we have been talking about it more after watching Citizen Kane. The original plan was one night in LA, but we are staying two nights for free (minimum stay with MIL's timeshare). The third night we will stay in Pismo Beach, and then we can see Hearst Castle on the way back. The extra night makes it a more slow/relaxing trip. The cost will mostly be gas and food (and one hotel night). I will probably just earmark one of MH's paychecks next month since we already maxed out our vacation budget for the year.

We will probably do a somewhat repeat trip for Spring Break, since we want to check out the one college in LA. But that trip will be with kids.

Received $73 bank interest for the month of September.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $53 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $56 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $8 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 3 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$ 20 Citi Price Rewind
$150 Dividend

TOTAL: $290 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

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

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 210 Car Maintenance (new battery/oil change)
-$ 160 Misc. Purchase MH (disability related)
-$ 70 Misc. Purchase MH

TOTAL: $2,573 deposited to cash and investments

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I don't think that things could be any more financially mellow. I am experiencing the reward of working my butt off earlier in the year. Phew!

October should be a good money month. MH received a 12%+ raise (minimum wage increase) and was asked to work more hours. It's becoming more obvious that we should just use his income to fund our IRAs. But 2019 is well covered so we will probably start that in 2020. I also have about $500 in side work to bill, so we will have a few snowballs to add to savings.

Anyway, I can tell you that money has been entirely in the background through all of this, but it's just even moreso right now. We had a lot of big expenses earlier in the year, but it's just a little slice of quiet and calm right now.

Trying to jot down the grocery rewards plan because I completely lost that post.

Our American Express card caps grocery rewards at the $6,000 per year spending level. It looks like they are calculating this from January 1 of every new year.

In the end, we hit $5,950 already for this year. We are switching to our credit union card (3% cash back on groceries) for the rest of the calendar year.

I do buy $5 here and there, and actually spent about $30 today at the grocery store. So I will keep the American Express in my wallet and will see if the cutoff happens where I think it will. If I am off by some $5 purchase it's not as a huge of a deal as losing rewards on a $150 purchase.

Plan for 2019:

**Switch to credit union card (3% cash back groceries) for rest of year.

Will just pull the American Express cards out of our wallets.

Plan for 2020:

**Use Chase Freedom for 5% grocery quarter

It looks like the Chase Freedom card has 5% back one quarter per year. I was going to do this anyway, but it just works out that apparently we need the reward for exactly one quarter.

I had gotten the Chase card intending it to be a card just for MM(16). But it is what it is. I have the card and might as well use the grocery benefit.

Note re: Teen Credit Card

When looking up some other grocery rewards or strategies I noticed that there are a lot of new cards that offer 3%? cash back for the first year. The catch is that these cards don't offer a sign up bonus. I wanted to remember this because it might be a good strategy to apply for one of these cards for MM around his next birthday. Then he can just use it for one year and he should be able to more easily get his own credit card when he turns 18. (I am personally not going to sign up for a higher reward if it expires after just one year, but just makes more sense for someone who was going to change cards in one year anyway).

Note re: American Express

While typing all this out, I remembered that I got rejected for an American Express card that I tried to apply for, re: grocery rewards. American Express changed their terms to some very loose "can deny rewards at any time for any reason" language. I will be cautious doing any new rewards cards with them, but I guess it's somewhat moot if they are just going to reject me.

I took ceejay's advice and grabbed the posts from this year that I wanted to keep. (Thanks Ceejay!)

{Sorry for so many posts at once.}

I think the monthly savings posts are a good snapshot. & there was *so much* going on with MM(16) this year, with driving, first credit card, college, etc. I know I lost a couple, but I was able to find the first few that I thought of. Phew!

I can't find the grocery rewards card thing that I just posted with some notes to self. But I may look again this weekend (or can just jot down some notes).

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In other news, there was another very serious accident in the family last week. & more (accidents) in our circles this week. *sigh*

As to this website, it's just kind of *shrugs*, what isn't a disaster at this point...

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Minutiae:

MH won tickets to see "Dial M for Murder" at the movie theater last night. It was really fun. I don't know when we'd ever pay full price for a movie, but in this case I noticed it would have been $21. So it was nice to *win* $21. We are going another night this month (okay, so we were going to pay full price, this will help with the sticker shock I would have experienced). They are playing a bunch of Hitchcock films at a more artsy theater (MH doesn't have a membership and we don't have any gift cards). But we were going to go back later this month to watch one of the Top 100 movies.

I find it hard to believe, but we made it through the first 50 movies. I was pretty non-committal, even before everything went totally insane. So now that we made it through the first 50, I am more confident that we will actually make it through the rest. Many weeks we have watched 0 movies, sometimes we have watched 2-3 movies. The podcast we are following is going at a "one movie per week" pace. It took us 18 months to get through the first 50.

EDITED TO ADD: NO JOKE - ANOTHER ACCIDENT TODAY. UGH!

I was going to say something like, "Things have been going along pretty well," but then that seems silly because they are not well at all. I think I've just reached a point of relativism. Sadly, facing some of life's biggest challenges is a point of peace and calmness for me, right now. Because that's just how life has been. Everything else has settled down a wee bit and I have any mental space whatsoever to deal with anything.

So... everything else has settled down significantly and I have been able to catch my breath. The first couple of weeks of this new state of things, I did not do much at all. & then Labor Day was a huge blessing and I was able to get caught up on some house chores. Last weekend, Saturday was dealing with very heavy family stuff. Sunday was collapsing due to mental and emotional exhaustion. But I still had Monday, and Monday ended up being quite productive. I have chores that haven't been done for YEARS at this point. So I started to tackle some of those.

I guess this gave me some good momentum. I am hitting the house chores hard this weekend. I think there is largely a feeling of, "it's now or never".

I think 16yo getting driver's license is a huge reason for this shift and a little calmness in my life. If I had to drive him everywhere he needs to be, last weekend would have been insane. MH and I actually left the kids two weekends - two weekend in a row? - to go take care of our parents. This is just something we couldn't do before, not with 16yo sports schedule. & we wouldn't have left our kids to go out of town. In this situation, maybe, but it's easier to do with a self-sufficient driver and both kids being high school age.

I am mostly of the, "I should be working and digging out, I should NOT be blogging" mode. Except it's a weekend morning, everyone is asleep, and this is usually my quiet/brain dump time. But I could probably work on some minutiae posting, going forward. I know I just also feel buried on the blog front, as with everything else. I completely give up and I realize this blog is probably going to just be a black hole void for most of 2018/2019. I really wish I could share more of what has happened, but there's just not enough hours in the day. I've not had time to process most of it, much less blog about it (which does help me process). It is what it is. A side effect of that is having no idea where to begin, as I try to jump back in.

I am already being thrown head first into the next chapter of my life. I feel like I've barely started this chapter. But the next chapter is taking on more of the parental role with my parents. Both my parents are not doing well. I think it's a little bit, "The calm before the storm." The storm has already started and has been pretty nasty at times. But I guess the best analogy I have is that I am in storm prep mode and just trying to get my life in order and take a few deep breaths so I can deal with this whatsoever.

It's been a shift in our relationship, for a while now. I remember very distinctly feeling that I worried more about my mother (the way a parent worries about a child) more than I worry about my own kids any more. This was about a year ago, in regards to my mom's physical health. I couldn't remember the exact moment, because that was just one drop in the ocean of insanity last year. But I did see in my blog that I mentioned worrying about her after she had a fall, and then my dad jetted off somewhere. That was probably it. & it seems very small right now, compared to current medical issues both my parents are having. So I am being tossed into that caregiver role in a way I hadn't really anticipated, certainly not *right now*, particularly with married/living parents.

I don't really have any answers or clarity, but will try to blog when I do. Unless I am taking care of my parents 100 miles away. You might understand why this might just fall in the black hole void.

2019 TALLY:

$550 Gift Cards (Citi, Moi)
$150 Bank Bonus
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$700 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

Other Rewards:
$ 29 Citi Price rewinds (RIP)

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

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I posted earlier that I was reminded to do some price rewinds, when price matching a wedding gift. Citi had a "Price Rewind" where you could just enter a purchase and they would check 60 days for lower prices. It was *awesome*. Unfortunately, today is the last day they are offering this perk.

We had a few big purchases during the last few months. I always put bigger purchases in because you never know when a price will drop, and it's the biggest bang for your buck.

In the end, we didn't get any money back on the big purchases (no surprise) but I found a smaller purchase that had been done (in a time of chaos) and that I knew was ridiculous. So I will get $20 back. In addition, we had received $9 back when we bought our washer/dryer earlier this year, so I need to add that to my year-to-date tally. Total $29 in price rewinds for the year. There won't be any more because this reward is dead.

MM(16) also should be getting a $150 bonus for the credit card I signed him up for. He has not gotten the reward yet because he spent -$0- during the last billing cycle. But he has since gotten gas and hit the spending level for the bonus. I presume that he will probably have his gas covered for the next 4 or 5 months. I am not adding this reward to my tally because he is using it for his own spending/bills.

I don't foresee doing any other one-time bonuses this year. But... you never know when an irresistible deal might pop up.

***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 $75 bank interest for the month of July.

Snowflakes to Mortgage:
--Redeemed $47 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $66 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $15 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to Mortgage:
$ 3 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$39 rounded up mortgage payment

TOTAL: $170 snowflakes to mortgage

401k Contributions/Match:
+$600

Snowball to Savings:
-0- {No side income this month}

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

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-0-

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 280 Car Stereo for MM(16)
-$ 265 Car Insurance for MM(16)
-$ 220 Vacation Expense (brought friend to camp)
-$ 130 Amazon Prime
-$ 120 Dentist

TOTAL: $1,780 deposited to cash and investments

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This is more of a June sum up (on the spending side), since we mostly charge everything and pay off the following month.

From last month:
June went pretty well. It was a very low spend month. Without all the stress and extra income, we just fell back on our old habits (which is living on a shoestring). It's an easy default for us.

It was the first month of my new salary reality ($1,000 less per month), without any side income or additional income. June went very well and we were still able to hit aggressive savings goals. I wish I could say July went so well, but I sat down and went through the books for July today (I always pay everything the first of the month) and July was pretty ugly. It was a "death by a thousand cuts" month, though I think we did pretty well considering. Just not sure if I will have anything to add to (cash) savings next month. It will be a bit of a breakeven month. I expect August (spending) to be more like June. Maybe more low key since the kids will be back at school for the entire month. We are also done with vacations, birthdays, etc.

Our dining out rewards were also clearly insane. I had about $200 in spending (kids' birthdays) that were reimbursed by other people. Plus a lot of vacation eating out, etc. Our grocery bill was actually quite reasonable. (Probably not reasonable enough, considering MM was mostly gone for 8 days. But was much better than other summer months. Phew!)

401k contributions dropped a bit since it was just my income/contributions this month.

Short-term spending was very kid-centric. We paid final expenses on car (before handing it over to MM on his birthday). As a birthday present, we got him a new car stereo with bluetooth. We also paid for DL to invite a friend along to camp. (Which is no big deal because most years MIL insists on paying for us. Just paying it forward).

I did decide to throw all my snowflakes to the mortgage this month. I expect this may likely be the "last hoorah" with our mortgage. I had been paying down an extra $3k per month (OT money) to keep payoff within 30 years of original mortgage. (We've refied several times as interest rates drop, but never felt comfortable with a shorter mortgage term with the volatile economy in our lower-cost locale). I am no longer getting paid OT and so don't have that extra money to throw at the mortgage. MH's income will probably fund IRAs this year (bigger priority). I put a placeholder on my sidebar, but as more time passes and there's no windfall to cover it, it seems less likely I will pay any extra on our mortgage again. So, why the extra payment today? Completely psychological. It's a year or two later than I expected, but we finally dropped below the $150k mark. I had to throw the extra $170 this month to get there. It feels good. Having a $14X,XXX mortgage, feels extraordinary for this California girl.

We've absolutely never hit our mortgage hard. Never more than $20 here or there, or the "extra $3k per year after I cut the monthly payments down by $7,500 per year" kind of thing. Still paying far less than when we started (at 8%). So throwing the extra $3k per year was throwing it a bone, and making sure we don't have a mortgage for more than 30 years But it all seems pretty moot at this point. We are only planning to stay in our home 5-ish more years. We will never pay off before we sell. & we plan to downsize into a home we can pay cash for. Our bigger goal right now is to save up a down payment for our next home. It would be our preference to buy our next home before we sell this one. It just keeps things more flexible and will allow us to jump when we find the right home.

This is also compounded by this whole "kid starting college in 2 years" thing. There will also be cash hoarding in prep for that. I don't know how much I can succeed on either of these fronts (down payment, college costs) with my salary, but MH is looking for full-time work to that end. If he starts bringing home $2k-$3k every single month, we are just going to start hoarding cash. We will never live up to a second income. We will use it to buy a house (again) or pay for a temporary expense like college.

Anyway, I feel much better about this after having reached this psychological milestone. It's easier to just let it go. Will be happy to have an under $150k mortgage for a few years, and then will be done with the only debt we have ever had.

Edited to add:
I suppose I officially reached cash savings goal for 2019. It's not that exciting, because it depends on what comes up the rest of the year (that might drain cash) and I still need to come up with IRA money. I mean, I have $12k cash for our 2019 IRAs, but that was all saved from second income. I need to start meaningfully saving for 2020 and forward. Trying to get ahead of the curve as much as possible, until we get our income back to where it was.

Received $60 bank interest for the month of May.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $36 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $88 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $10 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 10 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)

TOTAL: $144 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

Snowball to Savings:
+$1,000 MH Paychecks
+$3,200 April/May self-employment income

TOTAL: $4,200 snowballs to savings

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

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 4,000 Orthodontist (*fingers crossed, this is it?)
-$ 260 Summer college tour for MM (school trip)

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$1,000 Beach Vacation
-$ 555 Dentist/Medical
-$ 70 Misc.

TOTAL: $1,169 deposited to cash and investments

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We paid cash for school trip this summer, 4 days/3 nights touring several colleges. $260 is an incredible deal. (The school is also covering all the costs of AP, ACT, SAT tests, etc., which I mentioned recently. I am feeling very spoiled on this front right now).

That reminds me too, MM can also take community college classes for free the next two years (junior/senior year of high school).

*As to Ortho costs, that's still another post for another day. It's almost comical how many canceled ortho appointments we had before we had this quote. Yeesh! We had one ortho decide to retire after booking a consult appointment. I think we majorly dodged a bullet! The good news is that though DL(13) completely inherited my mess, he was only recommended 18 months of ortho, versus the 5+ years or whatever hell I was put through. I never in a million years expected him to end up on the lower end of time/cost. MM(15) was told his situation is just cosmetic but no other reasons to have braces; he is not interested. I was planning for the worst case, which I thought was very likely. (To be fair, we already invested $3k-ish in preventative ortho work for MM, when he was very young. It seems to have paid off).

It's not quite so simple. No cause to overly celebrate yet. MM(15) is being monitored for a new problem and may need (relatively minor?) surgery.

We were told up front that DL(13) need major jaw surgery, which I had already assumed. I was not surprised and is one reason why we chose this ortho. He was very up front about it. I had the same surgery at 16. We didn't discuss the reasons for waiting but I think it's because boys stop growing several years later than girls. We are looking at age 20 for him, or 7 years down the road. They are going to do the braces in an attempt to prevent surgery. I am not holding my breath, but appreciate the effort. It's either this or "wear braces forever" so it's not a purely cosmetic surgery, but I doubt it will be covered by insurance. Overall, I could see that one coming from a mile away and don't feel much financial stress about it. But kicking the can down the road for 7 years sounds nice, of course. So that's a quick sum up of everything ortho. We decided to just pay cash (for braces) due to the short treatment, the smaller dollar amount (much smaller than we were expecting for two kids), and probably mostly because of the significant tax break we get for paying cash this year, in addition to cash discount. I am relieved, because it was my very strong preference to pay cash up front.

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June 1 is it. I've managed to kick the can down the road for 8 months, but it's time to accept my lower salary. Unfortunately, the timing hits with MH's summer off work.

June savings update will be similarly nasty, but without all the extra income. I have a $5,000 credit card bill (May charges) that I paid off the first of June. There was probably about $1,000 that ended up being reimbursed by employer (phew) and most the rest was vacation expenses. Plus some medical bills, school lunches for several months, and DMV/insurance on the kids' car.

I did not save all of our side income this month. Well, I suppose I did in a sense. But mostly I was doing a major reset on all things financial. No more, "I have an extra $2,000 coming in this month, and I am completely exhausted, so who cares about $50 here and there."

Where we are at:

Still have 12 months of expenses liquid. Which is very easy peasy with three jobs, but will be more of a challenge with just the one.

I have about $10,000 set aside for 2019 IRAs. Just depends what other big expenses come up this year. Not adding to savings in any long-term meaningful away. Is more "keep afloat level" at this point. I am speaking to just my salary. I realize that I probably have to shift back to letting MH fund IRAs. Which is probably okay with combo of pay cut and work retirement plan (I am able to contribute about 10%, even with reduced salary). Funding IRAs is a very stubborn "live far below our means" goal, and I think is still pretty doable. In the short run, I probably have 2019/2020 covered. In the long run, I am due bonuses/raises (soon) and MH will be looking for more work.

I left enough side income in the checkbook to zero out our checking balance (no projected negative). Mortgage is technically pre-paid by two months. When things are not tight at all, I pay before the end of the month. In addition, am paid ahead one full month. (Other than that, I one million times more rather pay down principal, but I like the buffer of being one month ahead). I am going into June 1 with all bills paid far ahead (still have built-in 6 week emergency fund in that regard). Mortgage paid two months ahead. Credit card balances all zero (as they always are the first of every month). It was mostly knocking the mortgage back to "before the end of the month" to get us started this summer with as much buffer as possible. It would be my preference not to use any of this buffer this summer, but we will have drastically reduced income from what we have gotten used to the past few years. & I have absolutely no plans whatsoever to reduce our savings goals. Will see how it goes.

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I am so late getting to this post. So... How is June going so far?

Dining out is at $20 for the month, with the month 1/3 over. I suppose we have done well with the reset. Gas should go down significantly without work/school (MH kids). I think we may be able to rein in adult grocery spending a bit (without all the stress spending). The big splurge so far this month was $4 at Home Depot to get a couple of house keys made for the kids. MM(15) needed a key, and I just made a copy for when DL needs a key eventually. June should be pretty easy as we will be out of town a few days with all expenses covered.

Life is good. I've been "busy", but the vast majority of it has been family time and self care.

Received $72 bank interest for the month of April.

Snowflakes to Investments:
--Redeemed $42 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
--Redeemed $33 cash back on Citi card.
--Redeemed $12 cash back on dining/gas card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
$ 12 Savings from Target Red Card (grocery purchases)
$ 1 Rounded Up

TOTAL: $100 snowflakes to investments

401k Contributions/Match:
+$700

Snowball to Savings:
+$ 800 MH Paychecks
+$2,000 March self-employment income (received April)

TOTAL: $2,800 snowballs to savings

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

Mid-Term Savings (cash saved for non-annual expenses/emergency):
-$ 2,365 Medical Expenses
-$11,000 Fund IRAs 2018

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,400 to cash
-$ 720 Auto Insurance
-$ 500 Life Insurance
-$ 300 Dentist
-$ 294 DMV (Auto Registration)

TOTAL: $1,443 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.

Second job is definitely winding down. I am hoping to deposit another $3,000-ish in the next couple of months. But I am only working two more weeks for old/forever employer. I am cramming on deadlines this weekend and then it's just running up as much hours as I can to pay for braces. The work is there, since their workload is far beyond their capacity at this point. It just depends on my motivation. Which has mostly been wavering, but I have a dollar figure for braces. I am paying cash up front this week. So this is my renewed motivation. Is another post for another day, but it feels good to have more clarity on that situation and to cross a large financial goal off my list.

Last net worth update:
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.

Net worth is up $60,000 for the year, which is my goal. I am feeling pretty good about dropping second income at this point.

The reduced salary at my new job has little to do with our forward financial progress and is more shifting things around. I've traded $11,500 cash (used to fund IRAs) for $7,500 in retirement benefits. I only need to come up with $4,000 net to be whole. So while I am bracing for significantly less cash in June, I don't expect any change to big picture goals.

Where we have been at with the college thing is that my oldest son has all the tech genes that completely skipped us. So, not only is he interested in the shortest and most practical route from Point A to Point B (typical engineer), but he also lives exactly where he needs to be to go to college. Not exactly where we live, but it's all pretty much in our backyard.

So while I am open to just about anything (within reason), MM(16) has a gazillion A+ colleges to choose from that cost pennies.

So that's mostly where I am at with things (and where I have always been).

On the flip side... MM(16) has always been an extreme outlier. When he was younger, I thought it might mean he was cut out for Ivy League. I always felt very *shrugs* about this because no one in our family (parents/us/siblings) had ever spent any significant dollars on college. & our parents have done *very well* financially over the long term. So, if one out of every 10 of us is an outlier, we have the cash to help them. For us, MH could take on a full-time job to pay cash for college. & in addition to that, our parents would be willing to help. & there's scholarships. MM has nothing but options.

MM(16) went on a tour of several colleges, a couple of weeks ago. We were curiously waiting to see how that shook out. Before that time, he had only toured our alma mater (which has been his #1 choice).

There was one obscure private college that I was glad they were going to hit on the tour. I had a friend (very similar personality) who went there, and so was just curious. I then read it is the "most expensive college in the U.S." So, of course, MM came back with this school as top contender. *sigh*

Honestly and truly, I feel pretty zen about it. If it's meant to be, we have the means to make it work. I think this sums it up pretty well. MH was worried maybe everyone was getting a little too emotional about it. I said last night, "I have the feeling MM will end up at this school, he can get it in, and it will work out. But it's not like we are going to lose any sleep over it if he doesn't get accepted." I think we all feel pretty *shrugs* about it. I just have a very good feeling about it. But you know, *boohoo* if we get to save a billion dollars and he can go to school at any of the top engineering schools in the Bay Area? Pretty much, he can't go wrong. Nothing feels very much at stake here. In fact, I don't even know if MM will choose this private school over more affordable options, if he does get accepted. He's just too logical and practical. We've already discussed that the location isn't particularly ideal. Sure, everyone there gets Bay Area internships. How useful is that when you go to school 6 hours away?

So, that is where we are at with things. It's clear as mud. Flip a coin. Our alma mater is absolutely impossible to beat as far as cost/benefit. So, does he go to school at a school that cost pennies or does he choose one of the most expensive schools? Talk about black and white! Will see...

It's been kind of funny because my husband has accused me often of being close-minded when we talk about college. ??? I always tell him I am open to anything, but come on, there's a 90%+ chance MM just goes to our alma mater. Why would we consider anything else? I guess I know my kid, his talents are the same as many in our family, and I am familiar with most the relevant schools. Even so, I am surprised how much I called it. He's interested in the all of the colleges I would have expected him to be. Some of the other colleges I didn't know much about and he wasn't interested in. So pretty much nothing new came out of this trip, except him being particularly enamored with the one school. It doesn't surprise me at all, but I also wouldn't have been surprised if he decided that was a racket and impractical.

MH has never heard of this school before, and feels kind of like the train left the station without him. We left him in the dust. I finally said, "Do you believe me now? I've always said I am open to absolutely anything." Yeesh! He believes me now. & I admit if I had never heard of the school, I'd probably not be too thrilled with this turn of events. IT's funny how the tables have turned. But for such a small school, they sure have a lot of tours. So we are loosely planning to go tour the college in the spring. We need to get MH up to speed, and lord knows I know very little about the school. We need to see it for ourselves, and ask a lot of questions.

This leads me to revelation #2. So, I am looking into other school tours. We obviously have to hit Berkeley and Stanford. Close to home, easy to tour whenever. Anyway, I am truly open to anything. I am always thrown off when "being open to living at home" or "being open to community college" is taken as the polar opposite. I've gotten so many lectures about this stuff when I've actually never seriously considered that MM would live at home for college anyway. ??? I think that is because of his tech leanings and us being generally underwhelmed by college options in our lower cost haven. Meh. Honestly, I wouldn't even send him to community college here. I think the odds that he will live at home for college are at about 0%. So... I had to laugh at myself when thinking about college tours, I didn't even think of anything local?? & then we went on a drive to Yosemite last week and we passed a billion (so it felt like) colleges I didn't know much about. It's like, "Oh yeah, there's that college and that college and that college..." & then I got home and started thinking about all these other big name tech-y colleges (that I had forgotten about when making initial list). UGH! So, I asked MH if he wanted to tour a couple of the local schools. He did, so I will add them to the list. But I told him that other than that, I Was done. If he heard of some other college that really struck his fancy, to let me know. But I think we can officially check off that we did our job as parents, if we take him on an additional 2-4 tours.

I share, because I think this illustrates why we haven't seriously considered any out-of-state colleges. We are pretty much drowning in affordable/excellent public options. This has always been a very clear trade-off to higher housing costs. I had always planned to take advantage (and we certainly did so with our own degrees too).

I guess #1, this is where we are at currently with all things college. But #2, I have to throw it out there in case I do eventually announce that my son is going to some crazy expensive private college. Because if I don't share this post, it might seem like that is coming way out of nowhere. Like with my husband, I know I have always said I am open to absolutely anything (within reason). But he didn't *get it* until last weekend. I expect it's the same in my blog.

As a refresher, these are our parameters re: college, from prior blog post:

We both agree that we expect the kids to work significantly during high school and college, that our own financial health comes first, and that we don't want to borrow a penny for college. We don't want them to graduate with any student loan debt. We are willing to help our kids in any way we can as long as we are within these parameters.

It always strikes me kind of silly as people get really bogged down with the details. If I had a dollar for every person who told me just how their kid will go to college (where, how they will or won't work, if they will live at home or in the dorms, etc.) from like the day their child was born. This has always struck me as completely insane. Heck if I know! Depends depends depends. I've never focused on the details. It's the parameters I mentioned above that matter to me. Not mortgaging my future (or encouraging my kids to mortgage their future), and it has to make any sense whatsoever. But beyond that, I couldn't tell you any of the details. Even 2 years out, still feel very much, "It depends how it all shakes out". & of course, more opportunities always arise when you keep your options open. The second we start locking things down and being inflexible, the less options we will have. Which is why we are going to wait until it all shakes out.

In addition to that, it's been very important for us to have our kids work and save money now, because I don't know how college will shake out. It's very likely my "extreme outlier" child will not be able to work during college. Obscure private college heavily encourages summer work and internships. That would be very much in line with our values. But it's pretty clear that he probably couldn't work during the school year, at that college. I wanted to clarify because I did put "work" in there. I've never taken it for granted that our kids could work as much as we did during college. That was more, "Our kids aren't going to sit on their butts and do nothing during the summers," if nothing else. There will be always be some way to work and contribute.

Edited to add: To be clear, our "expected contribution" at private college is literally 10 times as much as sticker price at any public college. Unless he does very well on the academic/sports scholarship side of things, the cost of this private college will be ridiculous. It's a decision that is impossible to make until we have college acceptances and scholarships in hand. Until then, it's going to be clear as mud. Will plan for both extremes.

I mentioned in my last post that we got MM(16) a credit card for the convenience factor.

I was just so behind and so much I wanted to touch on, but I did want to elaborate on this today, now that I think about it a little more.

Firstly, I didn't particularly have a discussion with MM about this. The discussions have already been had, long ago. I remember my kids being genuinely horrified, when they were 8 or 10, when they learned how most people use their credit cards. I am guessing that is mostly genetic. We both come from a long line of extreme savers. I just don't think it needs to be said out loud. MM in particular is a math whiz. I don't need to explain to him why it doesn't make any sense to carry a balance on a card with a 15% interest rate.

I did tell him that I set all my cards on a monthly cycle (1st through 30th) and that I pay them off the first of every month. & suggested he get in that habit. You know, in the old days we waited for the bill to come in the mail. But this is the internet age. I told him to put it on his calendar and just be done the first of every month. It will be a good habit for him to start.

The other thing that came up is that this credit card has a 0% interest rate for 18 months? MM asked me why he didn't just borrow against the card and leverage his savings account. I told him he could do whatever he wants. But I kind of felt we were starting with the training wheels and I'd like to take them off more slowly. I think MH and I both talked some sense into him. But that's my kid. I am trying to start at A and he's already jumping ahead to Z. (I did tell him that the catch is you have to pay off within that 18 months, or they will backcharge the interest probably).

It will be the same for my other kid. MM was literally born "0 going on 5" and you throw in the math whiz factor, and that's where he is. (So he's now "16 going on 25.") My other kid? He is way way way into economics. I have often said, "I don't know if he's going to be an actor or a hedge fund manager." Literally. He's the one who was always trading his lunches for something better. It blew his mind when he realized the high value of chocolate milk in the lunch room. So he'd start trading for milk first, and then trade for something more substantial. I actually would have more expected him to leap on the 0% leverage. Is just how his mind works. So though they are very different in their underlying personalities, I think the end result is about the same.

So much going on, will try to pop out a few posts today.

MM(16) got his driver's license. Phew!

So. Much. Time. This frees up for us adults.

MM(16) is as charmed as always. The in-laws came up a week before his birthday, to celebrate DL's birthday. We took two cars out to eat and I said, "MM, why don't you drive?" His car was already in the street, so was just the easiest. We had a lovely dinner, but when we came out, the coolant had emptied out into the parking lot. UGH! MIL had told us when she gave us the car, she'd pay for any repairs before MM's birthday. Which was just a few days away at this point. That is clearly ridiculous. I wasn't going to have them pay for repairs on a FREE car. But, when I saw the coolant, my first thought was, "Yeah, maybe they could pay for that." It clearly wasn't going to be cheap. It's moot because they were there and they clearly insisted on paying for it.

So that is MM's luck. His first major car repair is with *4* adults and a second car. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a huge PITA. But it certainly could have been much worse. That, and he gets a free repair.

I mentioned in my last post that we got MM a new stereo system with bluetooth. In our teens/20s we bought older cars, but always upgraded the stereo. I guess that's what is important to us. But yeah, I am also remembering all my friends and family who like rubberband their cell phone to their visor. Um, NOPE. New teen driver can have a proper bluetooth setup; will keep his hands on the wheel.

MM(16) passed his driver's test a few days after his birthday, and all is well. I gassed up the car and ran it through the car wash before officially handing it over.

I did also get a credit card for MM(16). We had planned to get him a secured card at our credit union. But as his birthday approached and I started thinking about it more, it sounded like an extraordinary PITA. So I veered at the last minute and just applied for some new card (in my name) and made him an authorized user. We settled on the Chase Freedom. It just hit all the marks. He gets 5% back on gas (this quarter). 1% back on everything else? $150 sign up bonus. I suppose this also helps his credit (if reported to the credit bureaus) but at this point "convenience" is our primary motivation. He has all of college (age 18+) to start building up his credit. He will be the only one using that card.

{Side Tangent: & that reminds me, I of course lowered the credit limit, because it started at some ridiculous $30k or something like that. This is just a side tangent, but most of what I saw online was NEVER lower your credit limit *sigh* I lowered it significantly, but still room to keep a good utilization ratio. Is better than being on the hook for $30k down the road, in some bizarrely unforeseeable circumstance. People get a little crazed in their "one size fits all" credit score advice. This is not the first time I've ignored the advice}.

I've only been getting cash (ever) for MM's gymnastics, so I told him he could be in charge of his own cash from now on. One more thing to make my life easier. (I will just reimburse him if he ever goes to the ATM; we still intend to pay).

MM(16) was telling me yesterday he needed some deoderant and shampoo, something like that. I told him I did too, so will go this weekend. But he made a comment at some point, "I guess I can take myself." Good point!

I was thinking about it today and thinking it would be easier to just put him on my Target card so that I didn't have to keep track of "his versus ours" expenses (of course I will pay for his shampoo and deoderant) and he could still get the 5% off. So I went ahead and added him to our Target card today.

I did also add him to our AAA account. & got him insured on his car. I am not sure how that will shake out. I think the bill is sitting in our mailbox right now. Will figure it out tonight. I had told him it would be around $1k per year, and is totally his responsibility. But I already paid $250 in June (for 6 months) and he gets a $150 bonus with this credit card. So I told him it would probably be more like $100, the balance due, for 6 months. I think the bill I got was $250 (sitting in mailbox), so seems rather spot on. I presume that's for another 6 months (July - January). I will see the dates when I get the paperwork. So after prepping for a $500 bill, we knocked it down to around $100. I asked MH if he was okay with just giving him credit for what we already paid. He was fine with that. Is just easier that way, and less accounting.

MM(16) did just wrap up work at my job, school starts next week. He's got about $3,500 cash I believe. He should be good for a while. The car is his only expense at this point. (He doesn't spend money, very much like his father). I do not believe he will work at all the rest of the year. Cross country is 2 hours every day, plus weekends. (He quit before because it was too time consuming, but seems to be going for it this year). Will see how he feels when practice resumes mid-day in the middle of summer. But he's been falling asleep every time I drive him home from work (he's been working with me). He is somewhat super human, but I think he has a very full plate. Especially if he wants to run 2 hours every day AND do gymnastics. MH was kind of, "What about a job?" Ahem. MH, who made bank only working summers. All through college. I told MM that it may be a seasonal job will be more his thing. He will probably want to work more hours next summer, finding something more seasonal but full-time. I also mentioned there is a lot of seasonal work around the Holidays. He's clearly got enough money to last through next summer.

All that reminds me, back to the car. So, we learned our lesson. The in-laws had the car all fixed up and checked out and detailed and everything, before they handed it over in December. It's always been very loud and rattly, but we recently replaced two old and rattly cars that our mechanics said were just old and loud. So we didn't think too much about it. (Our 2001 & 2005. This other car is a 2004). So... We had the car towed to the shop and the second they turned it on they said, "That's the water pump." The car is VERY quiet now. Lesson learned. Always get a second opinion. Yeesh! The coolant was unrelated. Looks like a rock or something hit the coolant tank and caused the leak. So it was two repairs. The mechanic just raved on and on about the car, but I think they were just impressed we found an old car in such good condition. I don't know that we are that impressed, because that's how we buy cars. It's an old car with 200k miles. Yeah sure, we know our parents take good care of their cars. (Admittedly, I've never bought or kept a car with that many miles. I'd expect any car to last that long, with our mild weather and driving habits, but we just don't drive that much. It would take us 20 years to get to 200k miles). It may be the odometer they were mostly impressed with, I don't know. If it's not a "rattly" car, I suppose that impresses me too. So while I am a little bit perplexed why on earth their mechanic couldn't diagnose the very loud water pump (that ours could diagnose with just the sound alone, in about 5 seconds), it sounds like they otherwise knew what they were doing. I think they also had been using our mechanic (back home, AMAZING) who passed away a few years ago. He maybe gets most the credit for the good repair of this car.

2019 TALLY:

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

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

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

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

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

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:
------
$ 20 x4 Target


MOVIES:
--------
$25 Regal?


RESTAURANTS:
------------


RETAIL:
---------


Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.