Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

Switching to Cash May Feel Safe, but Risks Remain

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/business/yourmoney/09money...

Most interestingly, and something I was already well aware of:

"From 1963 to 2004, the index of American stocks he tested gained 10.84 percent annually in a geometric average, which avoided overstating the true performance. For people who missed the 90 biggest-gaining days in that period, however, the annual return fell to just 3.2 percent. Less than 1 percent of the trading days accounted for 96 percent of the market gains. "

"Selling now and moving to cash could mean guaranteeing a lower standard of living for the rest of your life, because you’d be locking in your losses. "

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I mentioned earlier that dh's parents took ALL their money out of stocks Monday.

I deleted the post because it had a lot of personal info. But I did want to share.

But yeah, this is why I Cringe for them.

They told dh they will buy back in when things are better. Yeouch.

PG's blog about her Boulevard of Broken Dreams made me think I should do my own.

However, while I was looking up photos of our wasteland of empty retail spaces and unfinished (& barely started) housing developments, I also decided to check out the real estate prices in our neighborhood.

Bad Move. Eeks!!!!!

It's official. & just like that, real estate values have fallen below to what we paid back in 2001.

Wow!!!!!

I really didn't think it would happen.

What is scarier is that at this point it is spiraling downwards in such a viscous cycle.

As for us? Eh. We still have a solid $50k-$100k equity. Payments are still quite reasonable on our income. Even more important, we bought here because it was so considerably cheaper than where we come from. So while there may be panic in the streets I still feel better off where we are at - even if we have some pains to go through in the interim.

But it is scaring the hell out of me. Rates of foreclosures are already very high. This pretty much means few in our neighborhood can refi now. We bought the low of the low. Unless more people put a lot of cash down, I don't know. Somehow I doubt it! No more refi-ing. More lost jobs in the horizon. Which equals more foreclosures. And so it goes...

I worry how devastating this all could be for our neighborhood. We've been hanging on, but it's taken a wilder turn.

I still stand by it would be crazy for home values to fall to the $100k level again, in the area, for the long run. But I am starting to see that in the interim, it may come to fruition.

Maybe it's kind of sad because now everything we did right was for naught. We could have still been in our condo, sold it for $400k today, and swoop in an buy some $100k house in a year or something. Man! IF only I had my crystal ball!

I have also been rolling my eyes because a lot of VERY anti-owning friends and acquaintances have been jumping on the house purchase band wagon. THat just really annoys me. I was stupid to pay $300k for a house but suddenly you are running to spend $350k on the same house? They were clear how stupid they thought we were. So I find it ironic. Renting is only good until you change your mind I guess. (I guess they are worse off than us now. For today anyway).

Anyway, I guess we are still better off than if we had rented all these years. I mean heck, find me a house like ours we can rent for under $1k per month and stay in forever if we like. I guess I still am happy with our lot.

But I must admit today I am bummed to enter negative equity territory.

My net worth is also due for a serious adjustment. I had been using assessed value as a fair measure, but always said I would drop it lower if house prices went lower, because we would lose ground. (But I was not adjusting upward for such a volatile housing market). My net worth just went down a good $40k or so from assessed value. It's depressing. Now we aren't losing equity. WE are losing the cash we put into the house.

I am sure it will turn around in the long haul, don't get me wrong there.

I do feel lucky for one thing today. I feel lucky our development was completely built. Construction started in 2001 and finished in 2006 or so. I would always say we had advantage to get in the ground floor. Pffft, guess it doesn't matter any more.

Anyway, a lot of developments in the area with a handful of completed houses, a handful of unfinished houses, and a huge mess of empty house lots. Some people are living in those developments. UGH! How scary is that. I am relieved that we are at least not in that situation today. At least our neighborhood is whole.

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Anyway, yeah - that house I Saw:

Bought $310k in 2002
Sold $580k in 2006
Foreclosed for $445k in 2007 (I assume this means they had actually put like 25% down - yeesh)

SOLD $279k by bank 2008

Our house is slightly smaller and price we paid to builder was $285k in 2001. We put some cash into landscaping and such and I am a rounder so in my mind we paid $300k. & clearly we have dropped below that - maybe to $250k territory.

A lot of houses still asking upwards of $300k, but also clearly sitting empty. One like our model just dropped its $370k price (bank owned) to $310k. You're thinking, "why not $299k and just get it over with?" Yeesh. So this one sale could be an anomally (it has sat bank-owned for over a year while many others sold) but who knows any more. The number of foreclosures are increasing and I think it is clear there will be more $2xxk sales.

There was a lot of talk of savings in the forums that I had been meaning to expand on.

For us, all of this was moot when we made a lot more income (both working). We saved the second wage in cash and trickled it into our ROTHs, and into our house, over the years. We always had enough cash for cars and for property taxes and the like.

I would probably have a more solid/aggressive investment plan next time around. Our loose plan if dh returns to work is to save up his salary for an entire year, cash, to bulk up a hefty emergency fund. & as a hedge if he decided to stop working again, or whatever. From that point on we would do 1/2 investing and 1/2 to mortgage. We assume all our tax-deferred options would be covered by my salary anyway. We could flip a coin which we rather do, so it's both. 50/50. To be re-evaluated with time.

Anyway, when money is flowing in way above your expenses, all that is easy. (To us anyway). We were never big budgeters or anything when we both worked. We just knew our limits.

But with money more tight (on one income) I find we have to do a lot more planning.

Our savings plans has various layers. If the bottom layer fails, the rest of the layers will collapse. It is something we have been working up to with time, and I feel will be pretty solid by the time dh is in a position to return to work. When we won't need it any more. Figures, huh?

*Layer 1 - Short-Term Savings*

The first layer is our short-term savings. For me, this covers every expense within the year that is not a monthly or semi-monthly bill.

We are currently saving $1k/month to this fund (up from $800). I think we are getting there.

This fund covers all of our insurances and property taxes (the bulk of it). It also covers vacation, regular dental checkups, car repairs, subscriptions, Christmas, vehicle license fees, etc. I am sure I am forgetting some things.

If this is not funded, we need to pull money from more long-term savings, to pay current bills. Not Good!

Anyway, our medical fund is along the same lines. Same kind of category. Our deductible is $3k annually and we will likely hit it every year. So we save $250/month for this as well.

As such, this is our first savings priority.

*Layer 2 - Mid-Term Savings*

Our goal is to add $5k annually to our mid-term savings fund. Temporarily we may raise this to $7500 because we have catching up to do. If we had done this all along, we would have maybe $30k in this fund today. (Have not had a lot of expenses lately, since moving here). So yeah, I feel we need to make up for some lost time, but in the long haul, $5k annually should suffice. (We have $3k today and might need it for dental expenses).

I primarily look at this as our new car and house maintenance fund. Other uses would be larger car repairs and stuff like orthodontic expenses. Just larger expenses that are farther in the future.

You could also call it our anti-debt fund. I think this is the kind of stuff the masses put on credit cards and HELOCs, and we just have no desire to do that.

Our one-income strategy was to buy a newer house that should need little work. That has paid off. We have put very little money into this house since we moved in 7 years ago. (Maybe $1500 for some bird proofing??? A new washer and dryer?) We also paid cash for a couple of cars since, so we saved up a lot before we had kids which carried us through a bit.

But for the long run, we will have a lot of house maintenance expenses (some we should be considering now - like painting and replacing the fence).

This fund would also cover furniture and appliances and all that as well. Stuff we just don't spend a lot on, overall.

*Layer 3 - Retirement*

This is the long-term stuff.

For now we are putting 12% to retirement.

We have actually averaged 12% over the last decade or so, amazingly.

My goal is to get retirement up to 15% on one income. With my employer match this could potentially be 25%. But I don't expect to have that extra 10% for the long haul.

15% of my gross right now just happens to be $10k. So maxing our ROTHs is my roundabout goal over the next couple of years.

Anyway, if all my other savings accounts are on track, the less likely I will need to divert retirement savings to bills, or to pull retirement money out to get out of a bind. So it is just another layer in my plan. It goes much better when all the other layers are taken care of.

*Layer 4 - Emergency*

I am not sure where to put my emergency fund in the layers.

I consider this catastrophic savings as we generally have enough savings for smaller emergencies, as is.

I guess the emergency fund would mean we wouldn't have to raid our other savings layers if we did face a large hardship. Ideally anyway.

I have 3 months living expenses in cash & I also could sell our second vehicle for another 3 months expenses (a no brainer if we faced catastrophe - the second auto would go). We also with time should have a fair amount in the mid-term savings fund to divert in case of emergency.

So this is some of my thinking with our emergency fund.

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Anyway, for now it is a work in progress. But we're getting there. I think once LM is out of preschool we will largely be there. (Can fund the second ROTH at that point, by diverting preschool monies).

I think largely, with the shift to one income, mid-term expenses were largely ignored in our household. This was okay because we had a huge efund going into this (trying to prepare for long periods of bed rest, potential medical bills, or a longer period of time between children, etc., none of which came to be). So we ended shifting a lot of that efund to retirement and mid-term expenses in the end.

The rest of our savings has been rather on track. I would have preferred to put more into retirement, as time progresses. But our health/dental expenses have increased by about $10k per year. So it's just kind of crazy.

On the flip side, a decade of 12% contributions are a pretty solid foundation for a 30-year-old's retirement. I do not feel behind in the least. Could have done better, but I think I will survive. It should only be up from here.

*Spending*

Earlier in the year, I looked at my first 6 months of the year and compared our spending to last year. There wasn't much to note (that I remember). Kind of on the same track.

So I decided to compare this year-to-date, through 9/30, to last years. To see if there is anything else to note.

Not really. Total expenses last year for the first 3 quarters, was $45,000.

This year? $47k.

The difference? Easy peasy. 2nd child in preschool - $2k.

We've dropped the childcare expense (BM is out of preschool) back down to a reasonable level.

Auto - we spent $160 more on fuel. But $70 less on insurance and $300 less on repairs.

Groceries, we spent $235 more this year, so far. I'd argue the increase could be attributed to us having to feed BM more (no more meals provided by preschool). But diapers were in this category and we have stopped buying diapers, as of July. There are a lot of little nuances here.

Medical/Dental, we have only spent $250 more this year. This is a tough one. We have had an extraordinary amount of dental expenses. But we also switched to a HDHP plan that is very slow to bill. Our deductible is just about maxed but I have only been billed maybe $1k of $3k this year. So far! In the end I think this will even out with our childcare expenses. (I don't necessarily expect to spend more money this year than last year, as a total, because we will spend less on daycare).

As of June we were pretty even at $30k expenses for the year, both this year and last. I was confident that $5k/month funded our expenses and luxuries, and that $4k would cover a more basic lifestyle in our current home. (Why I base my emergency fund on $4k/monthly. I could cut out $500/month with the lift of a finger - no more preschool or gardener - and I assume if I lost my job or something we could cut another $500 expenses. The easiest thing to cut would be commuting gas and stuff like that. we could trim our groceries and cable, etc. Which I would immediately do if I lost my job). We were actually rather surprised how low our bills dropped when I was on maternity leave, so this is pretty realistic. When you know you are broke, it is easy to spend less. & work is more expensive that you realize!

I think last year, preschool brought up the expenses at end of year. This year, all of the medical and dental bills will. So yeah, it might end up pretty much the same.

This year it's dental work; next year will be something else. There will always be something. But it seems to fit in with our $60k spending goal ($5k/month max).

Well, you all know that I work and my spouse raises the kids.

You also know that he loves himself some electronics.

What may not come across, even in in my blog, is that I don't think my dh could be more frugal or conservative. Electronics are like cars. If you buy used or wait for an older model, you can get a pretty significant discount. My dh pretty much buys NOTHING else. & I mean nothing. & he would save $50/month for 5 years to afford some electronic gadget if he had to. (He did wait almost 10 years to buy his beloved HDTV after all. It cost 10% of, and was of much higher quality, than the first one he badgered me to buy in 1999).

Anyway, gamecock's last post made me think. I realized that I think people look at us and think I make the money and my spouse spends the money.

I would not necessarily realize this except my own dad told me this the other day. LOL!

We were all out to dinner (when we treated my parents a couple of weekends ago) when my dad mentioned something or other about how he knew I was pretty anti-debt, and he had raised my well, but what about my spouse? Something along the lines of he likes debt or something.

I started choking on my food.

"Dad! Dh does not even like my 0% credit card arbitrage. *I* am the debtor in this family."

It was so funny to learn that was someone's impression because my spouse could not be more anti-debt. The only reason we have a mortgage is because he is more anti-rent than anti-debt.

So now I learn I guess. I've always got the impression that people who don't really know us think we are in debt up to our eyeballs, simply because dh stays home and we live rather well. I guess my impression was not that way off. Somehow my parents thought maybe we were in debt with my dh's spending habits or something.

Teehee.

It's just so funny because the truth couldn't be further from that impression. & yeah, I thought my parents knew us a little better.

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Anyway, yeah, my dh is the extreme anti-debtor. He might as well be Dave Ramsey.

He is also very anti-rent.

I have joked with him in the past that some of us have to live in the real world though. My dh has never been in a position to do anything but bank his entire paycheck. Yeah, not exactly real world. So, he is a little extreme even for my tastes.

His parents bought his first car. His parents paid for his college and let him live rent-free. Don't get me wrong, he has always worked very hard, but he has never had much in expenses. So as a teen and in college he worked and saved a ton. Then he married me and we banked his paycheck. So I would say he has never been in the real world, and it shows. He is an extreme saver, but I worry if he would have a clue how to budget. (Kind of a strange result).

As such, he would never take on a dime of debt. Which is noble enough. I know plenty in his situation who did not work, or who did not save a dime, and did go into debt. So I have no problems with his philosophy. I am rather anti-debt myself.

But my take is more of the "real world anti-debt" philosophy.

My parents did not buy me my first car and since I needed my car to get to work, I would say I had little choice but to finance my first car. It was "only" $1500, but it might as well have been $100k when I was 16.

I think this is probably where I come up with my personal one-year debt rule with cars. (Only buy something I could pay off within the year). I did have a lot of friends buy $20k new cars (& a lot of them wrecked their new cars). I figure I was young and a terrible driver (for lack of experience). The old clunker would do. I didn't want to start out life deep in debt. I drove it for 7 years.

So I understand it was a situation hard to do without debt. But I did pay off that car within the year.

My dh never would rent, but I was able to live in the most expensive city in the country for $400/month for a private room in a nice home. It would have made no sense for me to buy during my broke college years. So I am a fan for renting in the right circumstance. (I also house sat for 6 months before I rented). Dh had a free place to stay and all that but my parents had no desire to support me beyond 18 and frankly I couldn't live with them anyway. Love them; can't live with them.

I was lucky to get through college with no hardships, and was able to completely avoid college debt. But I do not sum it all up to luck. I chose a well paying career with a very cheap degree. There was a lot of thought put into my path. & no, I will never understand racking up $100k in debt for a job that pays $25k/year. People have seem to lost their minds when it comes to this area. & a lot of people have told me I am unrealistic to be so anti-debt. Well, no. My dad paid his way through college with no debt, and he really couldn't have been more poor. I managed to do the same. If you think it through and it is important to you (or you have no other choice like someone like my dad) well, you figure our a way.

I could very easily see an instance though where I would have resorted to debt. & I really wouldn't have a problem with that, because it would have been a small debt in comparison to my post-college income. I would have paid it off quickly.

But yeah, while most people believe it can't be done I was thinking "debt is not an option." I think you can sum a lot of it up to simply how you think.

Anyway, I have borrowed for more cars since my first, because my first car completely died just a month or so out of college. I probably could not have been in a worse financial position asset-wise. No debts, but no assets either. But I was starting to receive a decent income, so I borrowed $5k for a significantly nicer car, and paid it off within 6 months.

I paid cash for a car later on (downgraded to a older/safer car when I had BM - it only cost $1k and I sold my old car for $3k).

The last vehicle I bought was after we had both kids. I financed a small portion and paid it off within a year, though we could have paid cash. I did not want to drain the efund for a car. We bought the $1k car in the interim until we felt comfortable to buy the van. I drove that $1k car for 3 years. It was fine when we sold it for $500. We just wanted a bigger auto with the 2 kids and planned well enough for it. We didn't rush into it though we had the cash before LM. We wanted to wait and make sure the pregnancy went well and he was healthy, etc. Then we felt okay to spend the cash.

My dh on the other hand, bought his last car when we both worked. He paid cash for a pretty new car and so nothing in his mind has changed over the years. I have certainly had the worse luck (my car dying when I couldn't have been more broke. But willing to take on the debt because I had the income. If I had been still in college I would have gone for another clunker for much cheaper).

& then there is the mortgage. But these are the only things I have financed.

So there you have it. Dh is Mr. Extreme Anti-Debt and I am more "I live in the real world" Anti-Debt.

We bought a lot of really used furniture and appliances over the years. (As an aside how we have avoided consumer debt).

Now that we have built up some decent assets and income, no, I do not expect to ever take on debt again. We are also kind of straying from the very used purchases. It is a little Ramsey-esque. Standard of living just improves with time and stability. But if we had to take on debt, due to hardship or anything like that, I would just be careful about it. Dh simply thinks this would never happen.

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Anyway, yeah, you should have seen how insulted dh was by this impression. Completely and totally insulted. !!!

So yeah, I have to wonder how many friends are thinking, "poor Monkey Mama." How I slave away to support dh's expensive tastes.

(Truth is I love my job and dh takes care of the household so I have a fair amount of leisure. Dh does not run up debt, at all. No complaints here).

The only truth to that impression is dh is used to having a fair amount of disposable income. As such, I think he puts a lot of his purchases in front of saving more for retirement and stuff like that. I often joke I wish he had the same passion for his ROTH as his electronics. But yeah, he would never buy any of this stuff if it involved DEBT. So that is the funny part, that someone so close would even think that. I think some people do pick up on his priorities though. They are the priorities of the spoiled. One who is used to spending a very small amount of income on electronics and banking huge amounts in the bank.

& I am sure people who did not know us at all would think perhaps he is taking advantage of me. (Particularly people who do not understand how much work it is to run a household. I have no interest in all that work, so it works well for us).

& fact is, most of our financial stability comes from when he worked. So things are just not as they appear all the time.

The weather prediction is 80 degrees day/50 degrees night, for the next week.

The house has been around 75 in the mornings and 80 in the evenings. (Still warmed up from the hot weather, I expect it to drop down a bit to more comfortable temps).

I am crossing my fingers the AC is off for good.

I also turned up the hot water heater a bit, in anticipation of cooler weather. Particularly since it is cooler in the morning when we shower.

We also adjusted the lawn watering system since it FINALLY dropped below 90-100 degree weather. I cut the water in half and turned off one day of watering. (I was running it every day when it was 100 degrees. But now 3 days a week. & I turned it off for a couple of days when it rained).

I think I will get the electric bill today or tomorrow. I expect it to be way bigger than last year with all this HOT weather. We'll see...

The weather is nice, the kids are playing outside, and since it is the first day since summer, that felt at all fall-like, it seemed like a good idea to make cookies.

Dh has this very simple PB cookie recipe he does with the kids, often. (PB and sugar? Maybe some flour?). So they seemed disappointed I was going for chocolate chips instead of peanut butter. But I think they will get over it.

LOVE this recipe.

http://www.bigoven.com/38002-Best-Ever-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie...

I went to aerobics and filled my tires on the way home. The air has gotten significantly colder, and it was long overdue. We filled dh's tires last weekend. We stick with 35 psi. Better gas mileage and the tires tend to last longer (a little over-filled). We have done this forever per the recommendation of a good mechanic back home.

When I got home I filled up the trash with more garage junk. The kids helped me sweep a bit with our new broom.

The trash is filled up again - but should be done next round.

Dh took BM to Home Depot for one of their free kids' projects. A little more for older kids but he LOVES it.

LM & I are going to Fairytale Town. (A glorified park with a few farm animals). Our membership expires this month but we never seem to make it in the fall or winter. So I figured we would get our use this month and let it expire. Maybe renew in the spring. Being cheap since it has been kind of crazy.

Tomorrow there is a free symphony event for the kids. LM is SO excited. He is music boy.

So I can't say I planned it all this way, but is turning into a pretty frugal weekend.

Dh picked up my wedding ring last night. We lucked out. The credit card closed early. I figure maybe we could squeak it by with a night purchase, but no prob. A ton of stuff I expected on the card did not come through. October is extra spendy as a result.

I closed my CD (matured today) and tried to redeem my $250 Chase rewards. The rewards I earned this cycle were not showing so I will try again Monday. I will also pay off the final 0% balance transfer on Monday. So yeah, good bye almost 6% on money that isn't even mine. Now I am left with 3% on my pitiful bank balances.

But yes, I feel quite productive!

Oh yes, the rain came last night (& the HOT weather went away). Dh had promised BM ice cream so we went over to Thrifty - they have awesome ice cream for 99 cents. It was raining and they didn't seem to expect anyone to come in for ice cream. It was actually pretty fun. We just brought it home to eat because there was no where really to eat it but in the rain. But it was a fun adventure.

The house is 78 degrees. It is nice as we enter comfortable realm.

With true fall weather arriving (albeit a few weeks late) I think it is also time to go through the kids drawers and pull out the warm clothes. Phooey. BM might need new clothes. Hadn't even thought about it, it has just been so hot. We'll pull out last years clothes; I don't expect they will fit! Might have to make a Target and/or thrift store run for him.

P.S. Oh yeah - BM had 2 fillings yesterday. Ugh. They think there is only one on the other side. PHEW. 3 appointments down, 2 to go. That one we can push off paying another month as well since it didn't hit the card. Yippee! But yeah, we will card 6 cavities, maybe even 7, this month. $1200-$1400. I will be glad when that is over. BM still LOVES the dentist. He keeps getting thse giant blow up toys. LOL. He is going to have like 6 when we are done. Geez. Our house looks like a carnival for now.

I saw Fern's post about seeing how long before we turn on the heat.

Then I came home and the AC was on. (It's been in the 90s here. I am not sure what it was yesterday, but close to 90). This is officially CRAZY Weather.

It looked cool (cloudy) in the evening though, I hadn't been outside though. So I told dh to open a window. I just assumed it was cooler out.

I flipped OFF the AC, and no window was needed.

Anyway, thermostat said it was 81 degrees upstairs when I went to bed, but I figured it would cool off faster than usual. It is October after all. (In summer, and THIS september, we flip on the air before bed, for maybe 1/2 hour, to cool off the upstairs).

I woke up at 1am sweltering!!!!!

I wrestled with myself, in my mind. I am generally not very cheap when it comes to comfort. If I wake up hot, I flip on the air for a bit and turn it off when it cools back down. Not a biggie.

But, it's OCTOBER!!!!!!! We generally don't turn on the A/C in September. Certainly not OCTOBER!!!

I sweated it out. It was the principle. Stupid as it may be, it was 100% the principle of it all!

I was pretty close to breaking though, but I eventually fell asleep.

It's 7am and it is 80 degrees downstairs. Probably still 81 upstairs.

81 can be comfortable enough at bed time, but it obviously got hotter as the night progressed. I expected to wake up this morning a little chilly, but it was HOT instead.

Which pretty much proves it did not cool down last night much, outside. UGH!!!!

Yeah, looks like we won't need heat for a while.

I already told you I had a real and true nightmare that we went straight from this weather to cold winter weather. We usually get some in between.

A strange year, for sure.

Check out your free FICO score from Equifax:

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2008/10/free-fico-credit...

My score - 768 (Matches my Transunion FICO which I get free from WAMU)

Dh - 808

This is the first that I confirmed that dh crossed the 800 threshhold. I get my score free all the time, but don't know if I have ever seen his. Last we pre-approved for a home, I was told my score was higher and in the 800s.

So I know I had crossed 800 in 2006, but not sure if I have been there since.

We both took on some BTs and dh's was paid back quite a few months ago.

Mine is till outstanding - thus my score is still a little lower than usual. But somehow I think I will survive.

You can see the $25k credit arbitrage (divided between the 2 of us) has had little long term effect on our scores.

& have I mentioned before that I always close all my old cards when I no longer use them? One less card for ID thieves, if you ask me. My caveat is since we had had a mortgage for so long (almost 9 years) that the length of our credit card history no longer really matters. I personally only have an official "5 years" of credit card history though I have had credit cards since I was 16 (so for 15 years). I've closed all the ones I had in high school and college. I've gotten better rewards cards since.

I share because I still have a rather excellent credit score. I do everything "wrong," I've never been too concerned about it, and yeah, I would do it all wrong again. Don't freak out too much about your FICO. If you are trying to bring up a lower score, only then is when all of this stuff really matters. When you need every point you can get!!!

But yeah, at the end of the day, 768 or 808, there really is no difference.

Anyway, take advantage of the free offer!

I watched Oprah last night, and sort of regretted it.

It was about a mom who had left her daughter in the car all day, in the summer, and who of course didn't make it.

My heart SUNK when I watched it. It was really hard to watch.

This happened to a friend of a friend, in 2006 I believe. Before that time I don't know if I would have thought much but, "How on earth could you do that?????"

But at the time this happened to the friend of the friend, it was VERY unsettling. I had a 9-month-old and was completely sleep deprived. We had just started taking BM to preschool. IT was a completely new routine and there were days I forgot he was even in the car. I remember for weeks and months after this tragedy thinking, "He was so quiet. I am glad I was awake enough to remember to take him to school."

When I heard this happened, it was unsettling because I knew the exact same thing could happen to me, quite easily.

For me, it was the sleep deprivation more than anything. & these days, though I am more well rested, I am grateful LM is very loud in the car. He talks non-stop. He wouldn't be forgotten. Phew!

Anyway, the interesting thing on Oprah was the woman did come on the show to get the message out - that this can happen to you.

But not in the way expected.

The sleep deprivation was mentioned off-hand towards the end of the show.

What they were really focusing was just on women who did too much. Their brains were too full of to-do lists, they had taken so much on, and they felt such a strong need to be perfect, that they were putting their children at risk.

The show became more about how overwhelmed women (moms)as a whole are feeling.

So really the message of the show was slow down and ask for help.

& I have blogged quite a few times about that, in a sense. You don't have to be super woman and you don't have to do everything. I have blogged many times how I know a LOT of women returning to work this year. Most of them are doing too much. For various reasons their husbands aren't helping. (Some don't have husbands, some of them work out of town most of the time, some of the husbands are just a$$e$). But a lot of them have been coming to me on advice how to juggle it all. Because I am the experienced WORKING mom, and I seem to have it together, I guess.

Honey, the reason I seem to have it together is because I don't do half the stuff that you do!!!!!! I mean, that's what I have to say most of the time. It's kind of like, "Hello. Do you remember my husband? The one who stays home? Do you think I let him play video games all day and I run the entire household?" I honestly have to figure that's what they think. YEah, sure, since when do men help with the domestics?

I guess it gets under my skin. That I have a full-time-at-home spouse, and women still ask me how I have to make dinner, bathe the children, blahdeblahdeblah after work is over. How do I manage doctor appointments?, and on and on and on...

Are they serious?

So in the past I have kind of said to the young women, you know, you don't have to give up yourself to have children. Demand the help you respect and reserve. & just don't take on too much.

But I had to share. I think this is an important message. Disasters happen when you try to do too much. So slow down and take care of yourself and your children.

& give them extra hugs today. Life is short.

I'll show my expenses over the weekend - the credit card closes Friday.

As of today, I am up to $4890 expenses for September, which is quite reasonable. I like to think our expenses average $4000/month (regular and monthly). & the figure above includes $400 in dental expenses and $400 auto insurance and repairs.

Gas and Groceries were right on - $800. Though I am not sure if dh has to go to the grocery store the next 3 days. Probably, it seems it had been a while. So we may go over. I will encourage him to just get what we need. We certainly have enough food to last through Friday.

So everything was right on, or under budget.

Except one area we completely blew out of the water.

Dining out - $225.

Egads!!!!

LOL.

I almost fell over when I saw that one. I guess it adds up fast.

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

I also just added all my interest for the month, to my savings spreadsheet.

& I remembered I will get $250 from the credit card (rewards) next week.

So my mid-term savings will hit $3k next week. Woohoo!

It will be short-lived. Too many expenses coming up.

I also was finally able to get my short-term savings back in the black. Yeesh.

I updated my totals on the left.

(Almost $5k in cash over efund? Eh, easy come, easy go... IT will be gone on a flash - most of the money is earmarked for large expenses).

Oh well, more on all of this later...

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Almost forgot, my CD matures next week and my 0% balance transfer is due this month. So this was my last month of $90 interest. That figure will drop to $40 interest, next month. *sigh* It was fun while it lasted though!

To help make up for it I am now saving $200/month. The interest was really nice when times were tighter. Easy money. But now I can pick up the slack (& improve on it).

I think the jewelers are having hard times. They called and my ring is ready - less than 24 hours. Almost like they had nothing else to do...

Oooooh - I am excited - but we wanted to pick it up Saturday to put it on the next credit card cycle. It will have to wait... We have spent enough this month.

Reminds me, I got another emergency room bill for January. $135. I hold my breath every time I get a bill or statement (still awaiting the ambulance bill). Anyway, I have held my breath about 100 times.

Our HMO's statements are impossible to follow (dribs and drabs for a 7-month-old-expense. Egads). But my bill did come with a note that they have taken our suggestions and revised their billing system. Hallelujah. It looked about the same though, if you ask me. Made little more sense than usual. All the bill said was "emergency services" and it looked like a familiar amount. So I double checked all our statements for the year (what a pain since they are hard to make heads or tails of). ANyway, I finally remembered they tried to bill dh $135 for some lab work last year though we were not on a HDHP last year and we had already paid.

ANYWAY, I told dh they wanted that $135 so they just billed it this way. No detail beyond "emergency services". I think it is fishy that it is the same amount.

I wouldn't put it past them.

Anyway, BM will cost us around $4k in medical and dental bills this year. Heck, it isn't even October. I will hope that is all. *sigh*

Yeah, he has another dental appointment Friday. I am hoping they are slow to bill so I can keep that money in my account another month (carding it - sometimes those don't come through right away and Friday is the cc cutoff date).

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

Tomorrow some charity is coming by to pick up donations roadside, and I am prepared. I have 4 bags and a box. Woohoo!

We have just been too lazy to take it down to Goodwill. I am sold on this "leave it on the curb thing."

We will also cram my van full of large cardboard boxes to drop off in the (recycle) dumpster.

I am giddy with the large amount of purging we will accomplish in one day. Woohoo.

I have a few boxes and packing materials in the living room for ebay and such. It just occurred to me that I should move those to the garage because we have so much more room now. Woohoo.

I don't identify with the masses. Too much panic.

In the midst of the crisis is NOT the time to start hoarding cash, saving more, and changing investment strategies. Too little too late, if you ask me.

You prepare for this stuff when times are good, and then you ride it out and hope your planning was enough.

I guess that is the stage I am in.

I haven't commented much on the financial markets because of this. Business as usual here. We aren't doing anything different. ?

I did decide on a more conservative portfolio in 2006, expecting something like this. You could argue it was a pitiful attempt at market timing. (In the long run I can't say if this was wise or stupid - and just because it might have been wise this time I am not sure I will do again in the future). But it was sure better what I See the panicked masses doing.

& I won't be calling the market bottom any time soon either.

Selling last week to buy back in next week is just crazy. In my eyes, it is no better than gambling. & in the meantime you could lose the hottest day in the stock market year. You just never know. That is the one thing I understand about the stock market. When you start pulling money in and out at random based on emotions, you generally lose. I would venture even if you pull out for a couple of years and try to time the bottom, you also generally lose.

What I mostly don't understand though is if the market has been going up 25% a year for many years (thinking some of my international funds) why does the world end with one down year of 25%? There could easily be more losses. A lot more. You could argue they were way over valued. Nope, a small dip is not rock bottom, for sure.

I see some similarities to the housing market. Our house is worth a solid 20% more than we paid for it in 2001, but the world is ending because of one bad year after a few of the most awesome real estate years ever. This is not rock bottom... This is 20% profit, for me.

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

Anyway, the other interesting thing for us is we are just coming off some self-imposed tight years and so our economy has been doing REALLY well lately. (We did cut our income in half after all, in 2002. & 2007 was a very good turning point for us as far as moving forward).

I think on the flip side, there is maybe some fear that we are less ready to weather along storm because we have been in the midst of our own "storm" for a long while.

Then again, we haven't bit off more than we can chew and probably have a more solid financial plan then a lot of our peers who were flush with income these last few years. So for that I guess, we aren't feeling a lot of pinch. & maybe while we worry a bit, I don't think we have a lot to worry about.

Everything we have put forth in our financial plan is to save up when times are good, to weather when times are bad. So now is the time to just hold on and see if we have done enough preparation to weather the storm.

I'm certainly not going to go buy a new car I don't need, but I wouldn't have done that when we were flush with cash either.

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

As far as the market? I just have to have faith in my long-term plan (which is logical and avoids the pitfalls of fear investing).

But honestly, we just don't have that much to lose. We are young and even if our entire retirement was wiped out, I know we could recover and do well.

I am trying to make mental notes because I know next time will be harder. My first experience with this was 2001, and I was very fresh out of college. It was a wonderful learning experience. This time is about the same except I have a better game plan. So though I have considerably more money in the market, I am less worried. Before we had a lot of individual stocks and such. & it did scare me off individual stock investing. & I might learn more lessons this time around. But happy enough to learn them young while I have time to catch up and implement better investing strategies.

But yeah, rather then trying to time anything, we are averaging in our purchases, we invest twice every month and my boss deposits my profit sharing (retirement)once a year, which is also very consistent dollar cost averaging.

We're buying high, and we're buying low. Ideally it all just evens out.

We have an asset allocation that we can live with through thick and thin. Etc., etc.

Today was a manic monday. I prefer not to have a lot of manic mondays. Or manic days.

I imagine to myself if this is what most working parents or working moms go through. The way I hear it described, anyway. I couldn't live like this. We were just gone all Sunday and home very late, and hecticness ensued today as a result. That's my excuse anyway...

It rained all morning in the bright sun (where were the clouds?) even though it was almost 92 in the afternoon. Well, this is more like desert than anything. We don't get rain in summer, nor warm rains. But it was bizarre because it was cool and rainy in the morning but hotter than hades in the afternoon.

Looks like earthquake weather to me. But earthquake weather is not so hot. What the heck is this anyway? LOL.

Everyone kept gloating about the wonderful weather. Puh-leez. Another night of A/C. IT's almost October!

I come from 70-year-round weather. A 90 degree day is not pleasant, no matter how cool the shade. Certainly not on September 29th!! Bah!

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

So yeah, I have barely had time to slow down, all day.

Spending:

$140 or so to resize my wedding ring. Because it is 2 rings that will need to be re-welded. Dh walked around the mall pricing resizes and then we got hit with this anyway (he didn't mention it was 2 rings, welded together).

Oh well. It's been 8 years and 2 pregnancies. Maybe in 10 years if I need another re-size we'll have more means. I fretted all the way home since I Was so bloated today I Was an idiot to get sized today. Of course I called dh to have him talk sense into me and he asked if he should pick up the ring and we can go another time. LOL. I told him, no, just tell me to get a grip. I thought it through and decided since size 7 rings are too small in general, and 8 is too big in general, 7.5 is probably right after all. Even if I lose or gain a few pounds. Phew.

Dh also wants to go to a NEw YEars' concert. I told him yes, for his birthday. IT means a lot to him. I think he is being too practical to buy the tickets. I am this close to just buying them. HE deserves it. He may be able to take a friend. I am not that interested and it will only be $70 as opposed to $140 if only he goes. But I'll go if he can't find someone.

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

Dh made $50 on ebay today. I had forgotten about that, so phew. Will help with the ring.

We are canceling our fresh produce from the farm service. IT is $29 a delivery, and just too much. $58/month for now.

We decided our food bill was also up because BM used to eat at preschool 2 days a week. Yes, we notice that much difference! Bills been same same same, even with the economy, and lately with BM out of preschool, it's just, ugh.

We were discussing it and I told dh, "I am not sure how much is just prices in general." But we picked up the kids from Grandma and she said they ate her out of house and home. We looked at each other and said, "Oh yeah. That's some of it." We feed BM 10 more days a month - breakfast, lunch and snacks anyway. Which can be a LOT of food!!!

So we decided in light of recent things, to drop the farm service. We'll pick it up again when we have the means. We really like it. Just way too expensive for right now. Dh said he was spending more on trying to make recipes for all the veggies, etc. So we'll see how much this helps.

Sometimes you think you can afford something nice, and then you realize you really can't. Which is fine. We try to make a point to make sure most of our luxuries are not long-term contracts. So when we make these realizations, it is quite easy to cut back. Phew.

Heck, our only long-term contract is our mortgage. That is the NICEST part about not having debt. For sure. But some of our biggest luxuries are our gardener and our preschool. & tomorrow we could drop both services. It is that simple. We prefer stuff like that over homes and cars and things that just aren't so easy to get out of!

Well, my weekend was exhausting.

Saturday was actually exhilirating because I had so much free time; no matter how hard we worked.

But Sunday we drove to San Jose in the a.m. for a family party and to pick up the kids. I am exhausted. The kids are more exhausted. I don't think Granmda gave them time to nap (a weekend quite full of activity). Kids were SO exhausted. Slept most of the way home and so I prepared for a wakeful night. BUT they are still asleep at 7am. LM did not even eat dinner since he slept through it.

Dh's relative has finalized the adoption of her third child. Why they had a celebration yesterday. Better yet, she is about 4 months along. (A fertility treatment miracle). They have easily spent $100k+ and 5 years on trying to conceive their own child. I would have told you surrogacy was their only option at this point. Modern medicine didn't seem to be enough. Before now anyway.

So we are collectively holding out breath for the next 5 months. Looks promising, but still a lot of fear there. They've been through a lot of loss these last 5 years.

I told dh we should have done before/after pics. So I did the next best thing. After pics!

Actually, I talked dh into the garage work around 11am. It was going to be a HOT day and we were kind of lazy, and slow getting to it, but I peeked my head into the garage right before 11 and it was still cool, so we got to work. (My sidebar says 96 degrees right now - goodness gracious - but there was a nice breeze - we were outside a lot of the day. I never guessed it was such a hot day - yeesh).

It was really almost too hot though, so I think we lucked out that we were able to do anything.

Anyway, my dh does a good job keeping the garage organized and neat. It wasn't so bad.

But I knew we had a lot of boxes in there. & I had a plastic bag full of dirt and wood chips, that had broken and was laying on the ground in the garage. I asked dh to help me clean it up because it was too heavy. This was like 2002. For the longest time he said he needed a shovel. So he bought a nice big shovel. But fast forward to 2008 and the bag somehow still remains. (With the kids, other projects to tend to, when we get the chance).

So dh kind of asked what I envisioned getting done. I said, I don't care as long as that friggin bag of dirt is OUT of the garage. ! That was about the extent to my vision - hehe.

I guess that was my anniversary present! Hallelujah, it is gone. I think dh just spread it around the yard.

I also only saw one or 2 spiders, and NO black widows. So it was a success. I would have done most of this sooner, but was scared of the creepy crawlies.

I went through most of the boxes and swept and got all the cobwebs and such. Dh broke down large boxes and scooped dirt out of the garage.

The interesting find of the day was a petrified sandwich. Don't even ask! LOL!

Tada!


In this picture - all we have is stuff to go. Trash (that didn't fit in the trash can today), and a lot of boxes. We actually have a dumpster at work which is only for paper recycling. So I can load up the van and take all those boxes to the dumpster, and get them recycled. Phew! I may be able to walk around to the driver side of the van once all those boxes are gone. Imagine that! (For now I just enter from the passenger side).


The back is our storage stash. The bulkiest thing back there is my old childhood bed. It was a very nice bed. BUT it's gotten a little scratched up. We figure we'll put it on Craigslist for $100 and see if we can get anything. Will be nice to be rid of it. It is a zillion pieces of wood for now. Was keeping it for the kids but we ended up getting them smaller beds. It was a twin water bed and these bedrooms here are on the small side. So we got them smaller framed beds.

We have our electric mower, a ladder, a coffee table (not kid friendly) and some outside chairs stacked. There were a few boxes over there too that I think we can be rid of. Woohoo. & the kids's bikes & swim stuff. Not bad - that's really most of our storage space.


Some of the stuff in the next picture will be Craigslisted (all the strollers for one) and some of the stuff on the shelves, etc. I need to make a list or keep on top of it somehow. But some of that stuff was spilling into the car area, so it was nice to clean it up a bit and make more room. The stuff left in the middle of the garage - one is my dad's power washer we are returning - and a pool toy we are giving to MIL - our kids have outgrown and she has a pool where all the grandkids congregate.


This picture is dh's crap. He has 2 boxes and 2 framed pictures he never brought into the house. I have the feeling those are permanent fixtures. !!
There are also 2 old car stereos we are going to recycle.

I also showed this last picture because it shows our water heater. Now that I can approach it rather easily I should look up the model number. It was installed in the house in 2001, but I think it is a prime reason our gas bills are so low. Biggest gas usage is hot water and we only used 5 therms for the month of August. I love that thing! I can't tell you what kind of water heater and why it is so efficient though. ?? It has a blanket wrap...



Cleaning the garage cost some money. I hadn't realized our hand-me-down large broom had broken. I found a small/cheap broom that sufficed, but since we were going out and had to stop by Target we figured we'd check out their brooms. Dh was skeptical but I found a nice large one for $12. I will finish the job once the boxes and trash are cleared out.

We also went to Best Buy and recycled an old vacuum cleaner and my ancient (13 years I would guess?) computer.

I mentioned in an earlier blog, they take 2 items per day. When I saw the vacuum, dh said he would call and ask. It was broken and I tried to freecycle it before, to no avail. Yes, I think they take everything!

Anyway, only 2 people had come in to recycle things since dh had last gone in a couple of weeks ago. Too funny (we saw as we signed on a log sheet).

We found 2 car stereos to recycle another time. (Dh was s'posed to sell them on ebay at some point - but just worthless now).

We went out to lunch, parked centrally and walked to lunch, Best Buy and Target. Must have been crazy in this heat, huh? Well, the breeze was nice enough.

Then we came home and I cleaned the interior of both cars.

I am now collapsing inside.

The other expense I guess is I was so heat exhausted I had to flip on the air. I might have been okay otherwise.

I washed BM's shirt with bleach and most the marker came out. Clearly washable. Phew! It still has a pink tint. Maybe one more wash will do...

I think I am going to collapse for the evening now. Phew.

Oh yeah, but besides the petrified sandwhich, hmmmmm...

I threw away an old mirror that I had tried to freecycle a few times.

I will Craigslist of freecycle one or both fans we found. We just don't use them because we have ceiling fans. & a whole house fan.

We just don't use stand alone fans.

I found a jacket that needs a wash. I also found a baby blanket, my old lunch bag, and a couple of dragon figurines. (It looks like a box I packed when the house was on the market and somehow missed it).

Some old shoes and a box of toys for Goodwill.

That's about it.

My dh likes to keep the original boxes for EVERYTHING. Drives me nuts. So the interesting thing was most of the boxes we had in there was for stuff we already sold or gave away. Honestly, I think I only found 2 boxes to keep. So that makes me happy too.

I think his theory is it is easier to sell, or transport old things, when we have the original box. But if you can't find the box and you don't get the box out when you sell things, well, it kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?

I guess we agree to disagree on that one. I can live with the 2 boxes.

(I also think some of it was he offered the boxes when he sold things but the buyers did not want them. Imagine that).

Well, now you've glimpsed my garage.

Ah, today is my spoiled weekend.

& I am very glad not to be SICK!!!!

(Everyone in this house has been sick. Everyone else; knock on wood).

Dh was sick Thursday and since Grandma was taking the kids for the weekend, I marveled how she always took them when we were sick. Certainly nice to have the help while we are sick, but when was the last time we got to enjoy a healthy weekend at home without the kids???

Maybe this weekend after all. Phew.

Well, the kids left with Grandma yesterday and in the evening dh and I had a date.

We went to try a Thai restaurant nearby with rave reviews. It was packed and we were lucky we got their early. Lucky to get a seat.

The dinner was nice and all but when we left I pretty much said, "Blech." LOL. Dh agreed. He thought it was just his blocked sinuses. We certainly did not see what all the hype was.

But we tried it I guess. & we can cross that one off the list. Kind of a bummer since a night out is such a rare treat.

We spent $35.

After that, we went to a movie. Dh got some free movie tickets in a trade for some video game stuff. We hadn't used them yet because all the movies suck. Just NOTHING we want to even see. Which is kind of sad - my dh is a movie buff. So he tried to talk me into the new Coen Brothers movie - "Burn After Reading." It said it was violent and I was feeling kind of "eh" about the whole thing, and I asked how long it was. "90 minutes," dh says. (I ask because I can not stay awake past 10pm. LOL). "90 minutes? Seriously?" I was so there. I am so sick of these 2.5 hour movies. They just keep getting longer and longer and longer.

& yes, this was the first good movie we have seen in the theaters this year for sure.

It was a CRACK UP! Loved it.

I don't remember the last time I laughed out loud so much at a movie.

Take note movie industry - 90 minutes is a NICE length for a movie. !!

Anyway, yeah, my dh id trying to tell me this is a comedy and it started out so dark. You are just like, where the hell is this going? But, yeah, hilarious pretty quickly. & GREAT acting.

It was rather dark too.

Bizarre maybe, more than anything.

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

Today - what is on the agenda?

Trying to talk dh into helping me clear the garage a bit. & while in there, maybe I will clean the cars.

I have been uber super lazy. So of course, what will I do while the kids are gone? Clean house. But boy, it NEEDS it.

Garage, cars, hose off the house a bit. Things I have been noticing...

The bathroom needs a scrub. & the kitchen. & so it goes...

I will bug dh to get all of our strollers back on Craigslist. We gave one to a relative who gave it back so we have 3 to sell.

& yeah, dh has a volunteer shift today so I get a chunk of time to myself. I will probably clean house. What else would I do anyway? I am not accustomed to TIME. I think I would be bored if I had nothing to do. Sad but true. (Well, I may take a nap too).

Oh yes, but we are absolutely spoiled! We got $110 cash from dh's family, for our anniversary. I am sure a chunk of that represents gas money since we will drive to San Jose tomorrow. But was completely unexpected and very generous. We decided to go to dinner yesterday and maybe even lunch today ($20 total for a buffet). We want to resize my ring. & there it goes. We mostly blew it.

But it was nice. Sometimes it is nice to just blow unexpected money.

I guess you could say we blew $60 on food and the $50 or so to resize my ring was planned anyway. Now we don't have to pay for it out of our own pockets. That is NICE.

Funny thing is last night was so disappointing I told dh I wanted to go to the Japanese buffet today.

We were probably going to treat my parents' tomorrow for dinner. (As a Thank you for the Denver trip).

So we are a bit spoiled this weekend.

I also feel spoiled because often the only quiet time I get, sans kids, is if dh takes them to San Jose without me. & like clockwork, I am always immediately saddened and bored with all the QUIET. I have always been a very independent/alone type person. But the constant noise and drama of 2 children, well, I guess you get used to it. I always look forward to the quiet, and then immediately hate it.

Today is nice. Dh is here. & yes, I am putting him mostly to work. But it is really nice. It's nice having a peaceful house and someone to share it with too.

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I paid all the bills for October (to see if we were in the black or the red) and I told dh that I would be nice and just pay for the extra preschool day, when he was sick last week.

We seemed okay. (In the black).

The extra $110 changes things as well. Might have flipped me if I had decided the other way.

But yeah, we did fine with our spending in September (we pay the cc bill in October - and what I was mostly gauging, how much I had left all the savings and October bills were taken care of; how much left to pay the cc bill).

We did good, but our short-term savings is a little on the low side. So I had life insurance and some car repairs I would have pulled from savings, but will essentially be paid by dh's business ventures instead. PHEW!

I pulled no money from savings then, except for $400 from the medical for BM's fillings.

& that was a relief.

No wonder I need my wedding ring resized.

As we watched our wedding video last night, (I took Baselle's words for my title) I thought something very similar. More like, "Dang, we were YOUNG."

I don't remember ever looking at it and thinking I felt a million times older.

But this year I did.

Dh told me it was something about being 31. It makes you feel OLD. (He is now 32 and says 31 was the worst year). LOL.

How pathetic. How will I feel when we are 40,60,80? LOL.

The funny thing is dh said, "Oh, you look exactly the same." & I think I rather do, but for a few pregnancy pounds.

Dh looks like he has aged 20 years or something. LOL. He just looks like such a "kid" in the video. I guess it is true what they say - men just are late bloomers. I was really marveling at him more than anything, and how old some of the kids in the video had gotten over the years. My best friend's little toddler nephew is now a tall lanky 11-year-old.

I guess it really magnifies how SHORT childhood is. Maybe that is the stuff we notice more with kids now.

We were both pretty skinny too, yes. Unnaturally, crazy, young skinny.

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

Sickness has overtaken our household. Blech.

BM threw up in the a.m. and missed his first field trip (yesterday). But he was chipper and better all day.

(As an aside it was a play and I figure I might take him on a weekend to see it, but it cost twice as much for non-school-kids. Not so sure after all... We already paid $10 for him. Not like I want to pay another $30. When I don't have another $30. All I can think is this stuff adds up SO quickly.... $20 here and there and everywhere. Nevermind).

I assume he will be up to school today. At least it was short.

Dh said he was really sick. I am usually pretty nice and just stay home when he is sick. BUT today I have a big meeting. BM, the wild one, is going to school. LM, the calm one, will be home. I think I will let him fend for himself. Though I may pick up BM from school, turn on a movie for him, and go back to work for a couple of hours.

LM may be able to go to preschool. In the past I have been more generous but we have had a LOT of unexpected bills. So I told dh maybe LM could go today but stay home Monday. So it won't cost more.

School makes it rather nice, though I am afraid school is from where these germs are coming from. It has been a pretty calm 6 months or so. Hallelujah. But new school, new kids, new germs, and the changing weather all mean sick sick sick. Ugh.

Anyway, since dh is useless that is all the time I have. I have to go round up the kids.

In typical gender reversal fashion, dh remembered today was our anniversary, and I didn't remember at all.

Figures!

We talked about it last week, but I just hadn't looked at the calendar I guess. Lord knows when I would have noticed.

Anyway, 8 years for the hubby and I. Last year everyone teased us about the 7-year itch.

I figured we probably passed that milestone ages ago. We have been together over 13 years. We dated five years before marriage. (Dh wanted to do thing like finish college and buy a home, before we married. Whatever, I waited forever...)

It was actually pretty funny since we waited 5 years from engagement (we were only 18/19 at the time so I think a decent amount of the waiting was warranted), and we moved in together about 9 months before our wedding, when we bought the condo together.

I felt like I had been ready and waited a very long time. I had been completely on my own a long while, while dh lived at home. I think a second income, any point through college would have been nice and helpful. But to dh, living at home was easier, and I respected that.

So we moved in together December 1999 (6-7 months out of college) and dh's family started pressuring us. When IS the wedding?

Being practical, we had no interest in graduating college, buying a home, and marrying all at once. We kind of spaced it out. ONE thing at a time please. & primarily why we chose the home purchase before the wedding.

So I remember moving in December and being pounced on by dh's family. WHEN IS THE WEDDING????

I was probably working 80-hour weeks (literally) and studying for the CPA exam. So I said, "We'll start planning after the exam in May."

As such there was much drama in that 5 months since I was such a wedding staller.

Puh-leez.

We actually had a relatively simple wedding which I started planning in June, as promised. Since we decided to marry on a Sunday it was much cheaper and we didn't have to plan as far ahead. (None of our vendors were booked many Sundays).

So it just worked out really nice. & we married September.

Anyway, I chuckle to myself when I think about all the drama.

It was at a time when it was popular for people to move in with their fiances and hide it from their parents, or often just hide it from extended family.

That was the other drama. We were kind of sick of all the bullcrap. We moved in together; take it or leave it. Everyone else is doing it. Hello. At the time I had a roommate who moved in with her fiance. It was nice having a roommate in name but not in actuality. But I couldn't imagine wasting all that money for appearances. YEOUCH! They probably had a huge house payment with a $500 monthly rent to boot.

YEah, those were the days. I imagine not much has changed...

Anyway, We married at a public golf course (it was GORGEOUS - for both the outdoor wedding and the inside reception) and had many friends in the wedding industry, so most of our vendors were free or deeply discounted. To reserve the place would have been an extra $1k on a Saturday. So we just lucked out. We spent all of our money on the dress, dinner, and the flowers. IT was a $7500 wedding at most. The same wedding would have been $10k easy on a Saturday. Maybe the guests hated the Sunday wedding, but we got compliments many years after on how nice (& more importantly, relaxed) it was. My parents paid for the reception and we paid for most of the rest.

One thing we like to do is watch our wedding video every year on our anniversary.

It was free and it wasn't very good. I am okay with that. It's enough to relive the day. BUT dh is not okay with it. Now that he does professional videos. So I have to hear him gripe. LOL. I think he re-edited it a lot of it at some point too.

I can honestly say that is his only wedding regret. I have none!

If you don't have children and you think the expensive part is clothing, food, and toys. Well, Teehee! That's the EASY stuff.

It's the medical and dental care, for one.

& other expenses...

Anyway, BM had another dental appointment yesterday and they filled 2 cavities. Said it may only be one, but it was 2. *sigh*

I guess it's good I have had some time to get used to it. I am less stressed about it all today.

I have 2 more rounds at the roulette wheel. (2 more quadrants with 1 OR 2 cavities each. Won't know until they drill - teeth too close together which is the whole problem in the first place).

He's fine - he thought it was great fun. At least he is taking it well. I am $400 poorer for it. (Though credit card rewards and tax deductions means I get back 23% for every dollar spent. Eventually). They also gave us 10% discount since no insurance, so was more like $360. But it still will be a chunk of change.

3 down, 5 - 7 to go.

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BM got sent to the principal's office today. Wrote all over his white shirt with markers. Oy vey.

Actually they were pretty easy on him but I am at a loss.

To be fair, *I* did not buy the white shirt. MIL did. The school were the stupid ones who thought white was a good color for small kids. ???????

At a loss because he has NEVER destroyed property with a writing utensil. I guess there is a first time for everything!

Shirt will no doubt be tossed. I will be glad to see it go. Will probably take a chunk from his allowance to replace it. With a nice dark colored shirt.

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

Anyway, I will knock wood at this point but he has not lost his backpack or lunch box yet. (knock on wood furiously). I was eyeing his jacket with the weather probably cooling off soon and wondered how long until he loses it. I am starting to see little expenses adding up that I didn't think of, now that school has started.

It's every morning when I have to remind him about his backpack as we get into the car AND as he gets out of the car that I start to think about these things...

I guess if he doesn't lose everything, the plus side is plenty of hand-me-downs for LM. That is the other rule of children. 2 kids is not twice as expensive. Phew, for that.

Honestly, surprised the white shirt lasted that long! But no, not the demise I expected.

Yeah, I got to go back to the one-income talks again.

I noticed something else from the direction of the discussion. I notice that if you can get your housing costs down (which we have done) in a HCOLA, you can do QUITE well.

There are a number of reasons why.

Because we grew up in such an expensive area (insane, really) we were always looking for ways to cut costs down. In college I shared a house with strangers. The $400 rent for the nice big private room in the nice neighborhood was a STEAL compared to the $1k price tag on a studio apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. (The primary renter had lived there for a long time with no rent increases, and she sublet a room to me).

Since I did have a private room and largely was gone 7am - 9pm between school and work, I never really had any roommate issues. Some of them were awesome, more of them were crazy. But even when I had time off I was generally home more during the daytime hours while they were at work. I always tended to work evenings and weekends - so it just worked. The roommates I didn't care for; I rarely encountered. Of course they were all older professionals and I was just lucky they let a college kid in. So they were pretty tame. I didn't have to try to study while there were wild parties.

& no I didn't lead deprived college years. I rarely took classes in the summer and always got August off work. I would go hang out with my friends who went away to college, on the weekends. I have very fond college memories and remember plenty of fun though I always worked very hard. My spouse and I met in college and also had many fun times together. You can work hard and not be completely deprived. I could have graduated sooner, yes, but didn't see the hurry either. My 5th year was my slowest and most fond year. I will never regret slowing down that last year before "real life" began.

Another example is when we looked into buying in San Jose it was because it was far cheaper than renting. The PITI was about 50% of the rent on the same place.

Of course, the best/easiest thing we did was move somewhere cheaper. But prices have been sky high even here, in recent years. We put a lot of money down, got a low FIXED interest rate, and all that. Before prices were sky high. It helps. We maybe bought bigger than most on these forums would, but from our perspective it was just a steal, and we know we have erased the possibility of "upgrade." I don't think we will ever move again but to downgrade our home, honestly. (Perhaps, in retirement).

So what are the benefits really? I think I may have touched on these before.

First, the wages are higher. So if you can keep your housing costs down, your wage will generally be higher than elsewhere. How many of you younger folk live in a LCOLA and have a $200k mortgage? Probably a lot of you. Since I live in a HCOLA and have a $200k mortgage, then I get to keep that much more of my paycheck. Because the wages are higher. (I think most of our friends would DIE if they knew how "small" our mortgage is. The common guess is like $300k-$400k).

Likewise, if you can manage to live off of one income, that second income is GOLD. My husband has not worked in 6 years and I have no doubt he could find a $30k - $40k job in a snap. If he were to suddenly go in search of full-time work. If he pursued a career, $60k-$80k would be pretty easy in a few years time. I know few without college degrees who make less, honestly. Imagine if an income like that was pure gravy. But those kinds of incomes are a lot harder to achieve in LCOLAs. In a HCOLA, if you don't rely on the higher incomes you more easily have a lot more to save.

Vacations - well I have mentioned this before. HCOLAs tend to be very desirable areas. We actually prefer to vacation in the state, which usually means a short drive and little expense outside of lodging. Plus our family has a cabin a near Tahoe. Reno, LA, Vegas, Oregon, etc., are all rather drivable or airfare can be found pretty cheap. Beautiful camping galore in our own backyard. This year we vacationed in Yosemite and LA (Disney and such) rather cheaply. We like to vacation elsewhere, occasionally, but we can get some pretty decent vacation fixes for pennies when the budget is tight.

College - when the discussion of college comes up you all lose me. Part of it can be the private vs. public school thing. But I have realized more and more with some of the discussions that a lot of it is our state. I try to remind myself not to gripe about our high state taxes. Our colleges are STEALS. Community college is pennies, and state colleges cost nickels and dimes. The UC system is very prestigious but extremely affordable compared to the private schools they often compete with. Plus there are a handful of excellent colleges close enough that our kids could live at home (or with relatives).

Things are changing and I am trying to be mindful and prepared. I graduated 9 years ago with under a $10k college bill for 5 years (all college costs; excludes living costs which I paid for working part-time as well. I Didn't need to borrow a dime). I am realistic and know my kids won't be so lucky. Competition for the public schools is fierce and I don't know if we can really go another 15 years without raising community college fees. (My understanding is the per unit cost has not increased in decades). But, overall, we have a pretty big advantage when it comes to education. Even if public school starts to get astronomically more expensive than they have been, it will still be relatively affordable compared to the numbers I have seen thrown around in the blogs and forums. Egads!!!! & I probably care less about private school because there are so many excellent public options here.

Oh well, there are also many downsides. Gas is more expensive here. Daycare and babysitting is sure as heck more expensive here. (I guess that's one more thing we save on though - not needing daycare). A night out feels like highway robbery.

Healthcare is definitely more expensive here. But you could argue that it is a wash. I have the wage to pay for the good insurance. So maybe in the end it is not that bad. Plus I get decent tax breaks since out health expenses are such a large percent of my income. (You can itemize health/dental costs over 7.5% of your AGI, which we are WELL above).

Yup, for all these reasons I do think we have it rather easy in some regards.

State sales taxes are high but most groceries are exempt. We don't consume much so we don't pay a lot in sales taxes. (Services are tax-exempt).

Property taxes here are actually very reasonable. Because too many would lose their homes if values kept up with real estate values. (Kind of another HCOLA edge. At least in this state. I can't believe some of the property taxes in other states). As long as you don't buy too much house, you can do pretty okay.

Insurance is sky high, but we have the income to cover it I guess.

So if you ever read my blog and my HCOLA rants, and you wonder why the heck I still live here. Well I guess these are some pretty good reasons why.

I do admit if we play the game right, we end up with a fairly large edge.

Just 10 more days for my fiscal month.

Expenses so far this month so far, $3950.

BM has a dental appointment today. Blech. Crossing my fingers for one filling instead of 2 (again). He has to go through this on each quadrant of his mouth. This is quadrant #2.

& of course hoping it goes as smooth this time. (He is not scared at all - enjoyed it).

Anyway, that will add $200 or $400 to our expenses. I think he has three appointments in October, just because it seemed easier since he had so many days off school.

We had some other plans for this month, but so much other stuff has popped up that I don't think there is much else.

We were invited to a family member's adoption party over the weekend so it looks like we will head off to San Jose.

Oh yes, and our anniversary is Wednesday. We don't generally do gifts, but dh wants to get my ring resized. I have not worn it for years, and he HATES that, but I plead every year to wait and see if I lose weight. Funny enough, I don't think I have lost a pound since last September. So, since I have so settled at this weight, I give in. I figure it may be the jinx I need to lose some of this baby weight. Then again, I don't think if I lost 10 pounds that it would make a difference. I'd venture a guess that I have gained 40 pounds since I was married, and the 40 pounds is why my ring does not fit! I doubt 10 pounds makes much difference, and I have no plans or desires to go back to being a stick (unrealistic anyway). I enjoy having meat on my bones. Which is good, because the meat is here to stay - hehe.

Anyway, we will probably drive to San Jose and have to get a gift. So that should round out our expenses for the month. Maybe $300 in gas and groceries as well.

I think we will aim to have a few no-spenders otherwise. I don't think there is anything else on my purchase horizon. (Knock on wood!)

Dh will pay for my ring out of his video game profits.

We have free movie tickets and free baby sitting so we'll probably go for that for an anniversary night out.

Actually, grandma wanted to watch the kids Friday night since they will be in the area, and we just thought to ask if they would take the kids and we can pick them up in San Jose.

I told dh that if the weather is not horrid (it probably will be though - it's been so hot) that I wanted nothing more than to go through the garage a bit (while the kids were gone). There is an old bed buried in there that we need to sell/donate. & we have some cardboard to get rid of. & know we have some old crap in there. I just want to go through it a bit. But I would never do it myself - I am so scared of spiders. & dh does well with smashing the black widows. Blech. We have more black widows than I care for around the garage. It might be a good time to spray them down, if we can clear the perimiter a bit.

Oh yes, that will be fun. But just something that needs to be done.

We actually don't have a lot in our garage. We do park 2 cars in there and there isn't a lot of storage in there otherwise. But yeah, even so, there is stuff in there we don't need, for sure.

But yeah, I don't expect it to be a huge project. It's just something easier to do when the kids are not around - we don't need them around the spiders and sharp tools, etc.

Short & sweet since dinner is ready. (I posted a part 2, prior post, that took some time).

Anyway, for the first time since we got a new shopping center, we walked over. I needed to pick up a few things at Walgreens.

BM joined me and timed it. The long way dh suggested took 17 minutes at a brisk walk.

Our slower more tired walk was 14 minutes the way I preferred. Aha!

They have improved our park and added a new play structure for bigger kids and are now just taunting us. Looks done to me (for weeks it has) but it is still all gates up. Bah!

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

The weather has been really hot. There is a nice breeze outside but the sun was blazing and the house probably needs some AC.

Unusually hot for so late in September. All of September has been more like August really.

I was dreaming last night that we needed the heat and I was quite upset because we usually have 2-3 months of no heat or AC. The house is just so well insulated so does quite well on its own in fall and spring.

Anyway, I told dh this dream and he kind of mocked me, but he truly did not understand how relieved I was to realize it wasn't cold season yet, right on the tail of hot season. !

I am thinking though we will be lucky to make it through October with no heat. We usually get at least September and October without touching the thermostat.

Then again the entire weather system seems to have shifted by one month. July was cool, September is warm. Maybe it will work out.

Oh boy, spending too much time in the forums. Actually, some of the threads I missed while gone were fascinating. The "who has the final say in your marriage" thread was actually cracking me up. But kind of sad all the same. You know, compromise. Those with strong marriages understand. You COMPROMISE. No one gets the final say all the time. I dare say that would suck. The inference that the spouse with the larger income gets the final say, really offends me. I guess since we have a long tradition in our family of a spouse who stays home. The spouse who stays home contributes plenty to the marriage, and I can't imagine ever telling my husband he has less say because he doesn't have a paycheck. I have told him, "If you want that you can get a job." Not because I have the final say. It's my way of saying we can not afford that and if it's that important to you, you know what you need to do. I am sure he has had to put me in check in some way in the past as well. It's nice to have someone to bring you back to reality when you have a crazy idea. !!

& if you have that much to disagree on, I guess I could argue you shouldn't be married. We have disagreed on a few major things, but marriage is give and take. If we disagreed very often on major things, I think I would question our compatibility. As is, our disagreements are sometimes rather shocking because they are so few and far between. You wonder, "Where the heck did that come from?" OR, "I had no idea you felt so strongly about that."

We sometimes just agree to disagree.

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Anyway, the other interesting thread was the "Do you NEED two incomes" thread. You have to understand that this is a pet peeve of mine because where I live I know a lot of people who make $80k-$120k and can not make ends meet. I am not talking about people on minimum wage, or people making $30k. Not even necessarily $50k (though I could support a family on that quite EASILY, personally. I have rather recently). But when you come across people all the time who can't make ends meet on a near six figure income. Oy vey! This is the group who can not distinguish wants and needs.

Anyway, I giggled at a reply (& not to pick on the poster - but yeah, made me laugh) that you can not possibly plan for things like a new washer/dryer, car repairs, or a new roof on ONE income.

& of course I think, "Why Not???"

I mean, you know I haven't had the best month or 2. We just replaced a $800 computer, are facing $1500-$2k in completely unexpected dental bills, and just had a $270 fridge repair.

But we had the cash to cover all things.

Why? Why did we have the cash to cover all these things?

Well, for one, these are not all surprises, and we save up for them.

But more importantly, we are not scared to buy USED things.

If my washer and dryer died tomorrow (the ones we bought in 2005 on ONE income - brand new). Well, it would be a little unexpected. So what would we do with such an early appliance death?

We would pop on Craigslist and pick up a used washer/dryer in a heartbeat. $100 easy if we were willing to go really used. Like our first washer and dryer we had for 3 years for $100. The dryer was fine when the washer died but it seemed like a good time to just go new. We could have spent $50 for another ancient washer that may have lasted a few years...

Since BM's recent dental bills were so entirely unexpected, we pulled from our future large expense fund. If we had too many of these "emergencies" we would go out and buy a VERY used car next round, instead of buying something newer and fancier.

It is this willingness to buy used that makes our budget VERY flexible. In the past buying used was the only way we could survive. We don't have very much new furniture in our house, and we have mostly had old appliances.

With time and raises and better means we find that we tend to go for the new stuff (& hope it lasts forever). But if we have to replace something unusually early, we will go *used* in the interim.

For now we are aiming to save about $5k/year for our next cars and for home maintenance. But if by some bad chance we have to use all that money for other things, or more for home repairs, then, well, we will just go buy a really used car the next time we need a car.

Rather than pay retail for our toys (the kids and all of dh's games he must have), we tend to buy them used.

If we needed some furniture we would go used. The old hand-me-downs and used furniture is just dandy though - it's not even on my radar as far as upgrading. (I guess particularly not with kids who like to destroy things).

There is a wealth of stuff out there that people bought and realized they couldn't keep, and turned around and sold the next day. "Used" does not necessarily mean used at all. What it really means is you can get brand new, or like new stuff, for a fraction of the price.

If you ask me, the difference between people who do not understand how to live on less income, and those who do quite well on one income, the difference I usually see is a willingness to buy used things or more to the point, just a willingness to think outside the box a bit.

I have a lot of broke friends who make good money and buy a brand new car every 3 years, like clock work. They just don't realize how much money they are losing on cars. If they truly understood they would do things very different. But their eyes glaze over when you bring it up. These are the people, from my experience, who whine the most that living on less is impossible. Well, yeah, of course it is if you buy TWO brand new car every 3 years!!!

Anyway, if you truly can not live on less money, don't take any offense to my ranting and raving. I have no issues with that. All I can say there is a lot of people out there who give the rest of you (in true dire straits) a bad name. I have no doubt many people can not survive on less income. So to them this whole thing is kind of moot.

I have mentioned many times, my dad came from a very poor upbringing. I have seen true poverty firsthand. When I think how my grandparents lived their ENTIRE lives and people with nice homes and cars whine that they are broke, it just gets old. I just think, "You have got to be kidding me."

Even my MIL is very jealous that my mother never worked. She said to my parents' one day, "I have ALWAYS had to work." Like, poor me. "I had to work to pay for all the vacations and private school (grade school and college)."

Yes, she seriously said that to my father who grew up dirt poor!!!

My parents and I just looked at each other and roll our eyes. My parents could never afford vacation (before I was maybe 16?). No one in my family has ever attended a private school. Pfffft.

What do you say to something so ignorant? All you can do is roll your eyes...

Somehow I survived with all the deprivation though. I actually grew up very middle class and had PLENTY. But yeah, when I compare my upbringing to the standard middle class lifestyle today, all I see is a lot of excess.

We have some of the same excess. We have plenty of excess. But I could just never imagine whining about my lot. I have never had to worry about food or shelter. I've always had plenty for that, and that's all that really matters. I also know I could support my family on a significantly lower income. I feel blessed I do not have to. But it is rather financially freeing to know I could, all the same. A lot of our lifestyle is just gravy, and I am fully aware of that, for sure.

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Oh yeah - I have already mentioned the other little known secret many times. When you have a lower income you have WAY lower taxes.

I seriously know MANY people who pull in six figures (2-incomes) who net less than we do after all their taxes. It can make that much difference. Granted, a lot of them get big tax refunds. But suggesting they give up large tax refunds to them means giving up their only source of savings. So yeah, that is kind of insane too. But how it seems to go...

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P.S. TOTALLY another topic but my investments that I did not check in Quicken all week, were up $100 when I downloaded stock prices today.

I am up $100 and world feels like it is ending. (I don't think your net worth generally increases in a depression. Oh yeah - but I forget the government is footing the bill here. UGH).

Oh boy...

I'm Back!

Actually, I don't think I could have asked for a more pleasant trip. It went very smoothly.

Flights were great, the weather was beautiful, my grandma was feeling well the day we visited her, BM was perfect and we ate well and caught up with a lot of people.

I actually met my deceased aunt's parents, who were very nice. It was interesting because the aunt was never very nice but I guess her parents were. So I don't think I had heard much about them or realized they were still friends. When they left, my grandma apologized for the husband for being so boring. LOL. I guess he is a talker, but I actually enjoyed chatting with him. He had some interesting stories to tell - they are all in their 80s.

I don't get a lot of history from my family since I was never close with my grandparents. So I just found it interesting to hear all the stories (some again).

As such, I was very pleased with how the whole thing went. BM really took to my Grandma and she seemed to take to him. I know he would either be an angel or he would be bouncing off the walls. There isn't much in between with him. But for whatever reason he was calm, and did QUITE well. As such, I enjoyed the compliments (I got many). I enjoyed because all I could think was on a bad day the opposite would be what a terrible mom I was. LOL. I've had both. It just depends on the day.

So yes, I was so grateful, I don't think most days he would have sat still for 12 hours. Not that he sat still the entire time, but he did good.

Anyway, I was also a twinge jealous. My other grandmother was just a nasty woman who wanted nothing to do with me until about her 80s. Suddenly she kind of warmed up, but by then it was really too late. My maternal grandma was not nasty, but has always been rather stand-offish. I do have to admit that I was a little jealous to see how well she did with BM. She has also certainly come around with age.

I just can't help but think how lucky BM is that he has had so much time with so many great-grandparents who care for him so much. Dh's grandma we see regularly, and he met dh's grandfather on one occasion. This grandma is the only living grandparent of mine. But BM also sees both of his grandparents all the time and they all adore him. I will always appreciate how lucky he is; he will probably never realize.

I also saw an aunt and a cousin from Kansas. My aunt came to spend some time with my dad since it was a lot closer for her. & oh, BM LOVED her as well. They had lots of fun.

We met one of my cousins for dinner one night. She is working in Denver for now. It is interesting because our family is just so varied. A lot of them just in the backwoods and uneducated (my dad comes from a very large/poor family). But his one sister has the 4 brightest/most educated kids you would ever meet. IT was interesting because I have always thought of this one cousin as a "kid" but she is something like 25 now. Funny enough her brother is a lawyer and wishes to be a farmer. He is trying to save up the money so he can farm for the rest of his life. (That's how my family is I guess, the lawyers just want to be farmers). Anyway, so the cousin I met with is also a lawyer, but just not happy. She is thinking of going into teaching. Anyway, she just said she was saving up all her money so she can take some time off to get a teaching credential, or whatever. We were joking how everyone in her family paid all that money for law school to not even use it. We joked if it had been worth it. I can't say I know if she has school debts between her 3 degrees. But she seemed on top of it.

Just nice, nice people though. Though I never spent much if any time with my extended family I have to admit I always feel comfortable with them. There is just something about family.

Because my family is so frugal, and my grandma is not getting around so well, she just provided lunch and dinner for us. I started to think I would not spend a dime on the entire trip! But I took my parents and aunt out to breakfast on our last day. (We met my cousin for dinner, yes, but we had already eaten and my dad and aunt INSISTED on paying).

Breakfast was all of $20. I told dh when I got home that we owe my parents a NICE meal next time they visit. They paid our $400 airfare and $120 room - 2 nights. I have to say that we could have afforded the trip. I could honestly see repeating that trip on our own sometimes. Not that we could afford to all 4 fly, but the airfare was very reasonable for two.

Oh I am just SO HAPPY my grandma got to meet her great-grandchild (one of 2). Will have to arrange for LM to meet her one of these days. She kept saying she felt bad for our time and expense. Pfffft, it was really nothing. I can see taking LM back next year on my own. Times like this you reason we should have taken more time and expense over the years. I hadn't seen her in 10 years.

My parents are driving back. I will rest easier when they arrive home. It's a shame my mom just hates flying. They spent more on gas than we did on airfare. But they did seem to enjoy themselves!

I am actually getting ready to go to Colorado.

This week has been a bit crazy.

Monday we met a friend at Chuck E Cheese in the evening (& spent too much. The trip was night & day from our last frugal venture there - oh well).

Anyway, it made for a long day. BM had karate before that (back to his old class - it is now at a workable time for our schedule).

Wouldn't you know, the kid he sits next to in his K class was in his karate class - many miles away. Small world. & he had a little brother and his DAD with him as well - so it sounded like dh and him chatted about much.

BM has a new best friend.

We heard some interesting stuff about the school/teacher. It's all in who you know I guess. Gotta get in the rumor mill. So you know what is going on.

Actually, dh and I are not very social, and I talked a friend into taking her child to BM's preschool, and she always was way more into the rumor mill than I was. She is just very chatty so hears more. It is nice to get all that insight. If we didn't socialize with the chatty people, we wouldn't have a clue I guess.

Anyway, last night I went to aerobics after work and then packed.

So the week has pretty much flown by.

I am leaving in a couple of minutes to pick up BM from school and head out to the airport.

I hope the stock market does not crash while I am away. Reading posts and talking to people it seems like there is a lot of panic out there. If only people realized if they would stop panicking and let things be, all would be fine. Maybe not perfect - but panic will not help ANYONE.

Kind of my thoughts.

I actually talked to my dad Monday who was in Colorado and he asked me nonchalantly how the market did after we discussed some of the news. "Are you serious?" I asked. He asked like he didn't expect much exciting. I said, "Down 500!" But yeah, clearly my dad is not panicking.

Dh's family is another story. They ALL - cousins, aunts/uncles, grandparents, have all their money with Merrill. MIL did not want to talk about it (& I don't expect that in itself affects much). But she did just "Retire" as of June and I think she is a bit panicked.

I worry about them because their ML broker is a piece of work. They may have had more in financials than they should have. Well, they probably did.

It will be interesting to chat more with his family in coming months. I am not sure they are aware we jumped ship long ago. Dh just doesn't want to talk about it. I think they are all paying too much for too little. So yeah, I don't know if he told them we left Merrill a couple of years ago.

Some of the kids' college money is with Merrill. Interesting to see what happens with that. In their 529 plans. Maybe B of A will keep those intact. Who knows... I would welcome the chance to move them to something better. (Since 2006 MIL has let us invest the money where we please - not with an overpriced brokerage - for sure).

Well, gotta run. See ya!

I probably mentioned this recently, but as of right now our mortgage balance is $207,999.

What is interesting about this is that the first mortgage we ever took out was for $208k.

So yeah, pretty much, 9 years later, and where are we but back to where we started?

It's even less exciting considering we paid off a solid $8 in less than 2 years, on our first mortgage since it was a 15-year-loan. Way higher interest, but way shorter term. It paid off. Was life before kids... I should look up the lowest balance we got to and be set to have a celebration once we dip below it. But it's kind of sad it will take almost 9 years to get there, all the same. We'll have lived in this house 9 years before we get to the mortgage balance we started with? Blech.

On the flip side, we live in a way better neighborhood, our interest rate is lower, we have twice the house, we have a yard and a garage and a laundry room, and many things we didn't before. All this was for $40k more than we paid for our first condo. (The house itself, "as is" was actually the exact same price as we paid for our condo but we put about $20k into structural upgrades, $10k into interior upgrades, and $10k into landscaping).

We paid $20k cash down on that extra $40k, and we financed $20k of it, let's say. As of today we have paid all of that extra off.

In a way you can say all of the excess we got with this house is officially paid off. & that is pretty sweet. What a steal it was! (Having done the lower-cost-of-living move).

But the aggressive/conservative side of me is kind of miffed right now, all the same. I've been a homeowner for 9 years and owe no less on my home than the day I first bought. Not much to brag about there. !!

Well, even though we do have a 30-year amortization, we are paying off $4k/year, since we are getting further into the loan. So I guess from this point we are paying it off as fast as we were when it was a 15 year loan, in a sense. $8k paid over the next 2 years (just as the first 2 years in our condo), easy, and from there we should progress. Our goal is to pay this mortgage off in 20 years, shaving off 10 years, and we have thus far made little effort to accelerate it. The kids have slowed us down a bit. But it is still VERY in the cards. The mortgage has gotten cheap with time. We pay the same (or less really) than we did 9 years ago, considering inflation and lower interest rates which shaved $200/month off our original loan.

Since having kids, I feel like we are getting back to square one on a lot of things financially. It's kind of silly to get back to the mortgage, retirement savings pace, savings in the bank, etc. we had at 25. But that's what we are working towards. We had way more income and way less responsibilities when we were 25. Still a long ways to go to get anywhere near back to that, really...

But yeah, we seem to be getting there in many regards. Slowly, but surely.

Just a tip – Best Buy takes old electronics for recycling and disposal. 2 items per day (you can bring 2 items every day if you like).

Dh will drop off his old cell phone (just replaced) and his broken computer. He pulled out a few parts but mostly didn’t see the point of keeping the rest. Just obsolete really.

We have actually NEVER taken a computer to the “trash heap� – isn’t that funny??? This was our NEWEST computer until it died last month. We just had a lengthy discussion on how they just don’t make things like they used to. WE have much older computers we still have up and running (for the kids, etc.).

Anyway, my old computer (from the college years – I graduated a decade ago) – dh was holding onto to use as some kind of server. He told me, this whole thing (the ease of Best Buy for recycling) will probably get him to just let it go. Where it may have been reasonable 3-5 years ago to make it a server, it is just so obsolete at this point. He will pull out the hard drive though – we want to wipe it clean – not sure how. Perhaps a project for dh. (Not sure we can boot the computer so I guess something dh will look into – for now will just hold onto it).

I told dh to ask if they take PDAs and car stereos. Stuff we were going to sell but never did. All incredibly obsolete.

Funny, PDAs were a way in life with silicon valley (particularly with our traveling jobs) but we haven’t used them since we moved here 7 years ago. I think the window to sell has long gone.

I found our old film camera – will donate.

I am thrilled to purge some of this stuff.


We’ve kept on top of it from the getgo, but I realize we need to get organized in order to control the flow of paper from the school. Egads!

For now it is a pile on the kitchen counter of stuff we need to keep. I have been going through on the weekends tossing everything useless or past its prime. Welcome to Bureaucracy I guess… LOTS of paper.

For one, we need to volunteer 30 hours a year to keep our spot in the school. Not imagining it will be a problem, but I had printed out the worksheet to keep track and had not logged any time. I filled it in yesterday and put it up on the fridge. In plain sight to keep track of; hopefully won’t lose.

Most of the stuff BM brought home, I tossed when he wasn’t looking (just work he has done – it will be endless). Recycled anyway…

Lots of newsletters and info, but most of it obsolete once time has past.

Then there is the handbook that I couldn’t find when BM was sick and I was looking for school procedure. I found it, but I haven’t got a spot for it yet.

As well as the packet from the teacher about the school year.

So I am thinking of getting some kind of binder/folder with at least 2 sections – permanent reference – and current information we can toss as we go. Maybe another section for volunteer stuff/tracking.

I pulled a few things (School work/art work, etc.) to keep for posterity and found a large plastic bin to put them in. Will do for now, though I have the feeling I will have to go pare it down at the end of the year or something.

I knew I had an extra one laying around. There was a bin full of diaper covers. All of them – I tossed the diapers in a goodwill bag and had a memory box for BM. Wala. I can probably throw some of his preschool stuff in there as well.

Oh yes – I also found a lot of disposable diapers yesterday. I had been holding off – the whole law of Murphy. Give the diapers away, and suddenly they will be needed!

Anyway, I gave in and lugged a giant box full of diapers to preschool today. She thanked me profusely, and said “those are expensive!� No kidding. LM just trained like over night – 24/7. There is no way we would have had so many diapers if we had any warning there. But yeah – I held on about 2 months – and it’s just time. He hasn’t even wet his bed in 2 months. One day he wanted his diapers 24/7, the next he didn’t want them at all. No complaints, really!

Now for Murphy to work it’s ugly magic, huh?

Best of all I knew I could ask for some back in a pinch – hehe.

Geez, seems to be a lot going on. Not personally. But just in the forums/blogs. Plus hurricanes, politics, and all that kind of stuff.

Not much going on in my "boring" little corner. I guess why I haven't been so bloggy. (& yes, glad to report it is boring!!)

--Dh made an Indian feast the other day. More recipes from his class - an interesting potato salad and a cilantro/peanut chutney. Rice and beets. Dh braved naan though they didn't cover it in his class - was good and the kids devoured it all in seconds. Yeesh. Bread monsters.

As an aside, "cilantro" is one of LM's favorite words, and he says it quite well. LOL. It's just a funny thing. (He just turned 3).

--Last night we went out for frozen yogurt. We found an okay place in our neighborhood, but with a coupon we had we were all able to get our yogurt piled high with toppings, $4 total. (Coupon just happened to come in the mail yesterday - $5 off at any store in the shopping center - and we had been planning to go out for $1 ice cream - this was even better).

--Mentioned briefly but someone I met and just started to hit it off with in 2004, moved up North. Just sold house (offer anyway), will probably take away a profit, and is moving back in a couple of weeks. Will probably buy here now that it is affordable. Kind of a cool change of things. I am excited!! Moving an hour out, but I can see getting together, we have since had younger children too. Will have to get together once they get settled.

Reminds me there are a few houses on our street for sale. 1 foreclosure, 1 that is not.

Another house closer to us on the street had moving trucks but no news on that front. I saw reference to a listing online but never saw it listed. Dh saw people moving in. I wonder if it sold fast (& why it would). Time will tell. Could just be rented or something. Just no info for now.

Oh the first one in foreclosure - police activity the other day. House has NEVER been kept up on the outside - in 7 years. IT just occurred to me it could be a pot house. I keep reading about them but not sure why thought never crossed my mind. They just trash those houses and fill them to the brim with pot plants - the pictures are just crazy.

-- Well, getting ready for our Colorado trip. Kinda sorta. Not much to it. My parents left today (& since they got a late start we are meeting for lunch - yippee!). They have BM's carseat. (Driving).

All we need to do is throw a couple of changes of clothes in our backpacks, print our boarding passes online and drive the 2 minutes to the airport, for our 2-hour flight. We should have it rather easy. No a lot to bring/do/prepare. (Which is strange to say since travel by air has largely been a PITA in recent years. Since we are leaving mid-day on a Wednesday I don't even expect the usual security backups - the line has been BAD in the past for weekend trips).

Our parents will pick us up at the airport in Denver and will drop us off again on their way home Friday. Denver will be another story - such a big airport.

We'll have 36 hours to catch up with a few relatives and such. Will be a whirlwind for sure, but glad there is not much to prepare. LOVE that I don't have to lug a carseat.

--I am working today so I can take half the week off, (and keep the rest of my vacation intact for November & December time off). DH is volunteering much of the evening.

I don't think we have any plans tomorrow. Recover I guess. Enjoy. Sleep. Rest. I don't want to do anything.