Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

$420 at the dentist.

For the 3 of us.

Not bad.

I just made our next appointments. We only went once last year. It seems we were going every 7 or 8 months by the time we found appointments to fit in our schedule. Anyway, so I locked in a good Friday appointment in July. Will go back in December then - make it 3 this year. I can't do the long drive during tax season - just too much. IT was too much this weekend!

Oh and the pediatric dentist called back right before I wrote them off. Dooms day is the 31st. LOL. We'll find out what they say about Mr. sharky - LM. *sigh* I am scared of both the cost and the treatment (poor LM).

Well it was nice we all had a clean bill of health. No cavities. Yay. We usually don't but I did last time. So I Was nervous!

Oh yes and LM was JEALOUS he did not get to go in with us. So he is excited about his special appointment now. Well that is something. Last time I mentioned it he said he did NOT want to go to the dentist. We'll see how he feels on the big day. It could go either way.

Oh yes, dentist money is accounted for in our "short-term savings." So nothing to sweat there. I put it on the card and earned about $5 in rewards too.

Dh and I don't really exchange gifts any more.

It's more of a one-income thing than a gift thing. We rather save up our pennies for vacation and stuff like that than buy each other more crap.

I don't know, we have been doing this more consciously in the last couple of years.

Anyway, the guy in MyMoneyBlog said so much about him and his wife. No gifts for Christmas. & the response to his blog was kind of nasty. Like the world will end if you don't join in the consumerism for christmas, for your spouse.

I have to say we are QUITE happy with this arrangement.

For one, I think the joy of gift getting has gone out the window with the one-income thing. It is hard for my spouse to pick up a gift without me noticing (I pay all the bills and look at the cards daily, etc.). Plus, though my dh is a great gift giver, it is annoying that my paycheck goes to these gifts. Maybe I would have rather gotten something else. I don't know. IT just isn't the same. I imagine when money isn't as tight, it won't matter. I might appreciate some gifts. But for now, I appreciate not having to pay for them more. That is what it REALLY comes down to. Dh is on the same page. For him it probably helps his parents spoil him rotten. He rather we save our pennies for TVs and the like than more junk on his birthday.

Of course one thing nice I always do is take the kids out and give dh a free day. See, it's not like you have to do something materialistic to be nice. There is nothing he would rather have more than that.

This year I am not sure I can swing it or that it will cut it. He had THREE days with no kids this week. LOL. & I am working all weekend and ha has plans (& babysitters).

So I don't know.

I will probably give him $25 to his allowance to go buy some Blu-Ray movies. Then he can pick out what he really wants. There is probably nothing he wants more.

I also agreed I wouldn't nag him for trading the carseat for the PSP. LOL. That's his gift too. I could use the cash and the budget is about $110 over right now for January. I was planning on getting in the range of $100 for the carseat to cover that. So that is also a pretty nice gift.

He'll give me his birthday money to cover the cash shortfall. I didn't spend my birthday money on anything but bills, so seems fair.

He is skeptical but his mom gave ME $100 this year (kind of rare). I said if I got $100 I get the feeling you will get $100. His grandparents will each give him $50 too. I might put some to retirement. Oh I am not counting on it all 1000%, but I think odds are good he will get some decent cash.

I was hoping we could just add these to our allowances, but just didn't pan out this year. There is a fairness factor there. Usually his parents and grandparents rain cash on him and I get zilch. So who knows. Then again now his family is giving me cash. So it might be more fair in a year. ?? We'll see. We always play it by ear. It helps our birthdays are back to back. It helps with the fairness card. Of course, we are also pretty happy to forego gifts and cash and all that right before/after Christmas. Since we get plenty for that too.

Anyway, for the weekend we are going to San Jose tomorrow for a dental appointment. We are going to have lunch with our parents (I may treat, or my parents; we'll fight it out). I wanted to treat with my raise. But I expected it to be more. So if they insist - will take the offer.

Olive Garden. Can't remember the last time I went!! Ages...

Then dh has a poker game. He took $40 cash for that. Since it is his birthday weekend, I hope that means good luck. He actually usually comes out ahead. But I think last time he came home with $0, or only 1/2 or something. We'll see.

His mom is babysitting so I can work all weekend. Phew. Well I hope to work most Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Then enjoy the rest of the day with the fam.

Oh and we are going to try a new pizza place Sunday night. So it will be a bit of a spendy weekend. Dentist, gas, 2 meals out. A good $700/$800 weekend? (Mostly Dentist!)

BM is going to the dentist with us.

I left a message for a recommended pediatric dentist for LM. They never called back. It took me ALL this time to get the nerve and they can't even call back. I take it as a sign to look elsewhere. LOL. I know technology is not fail safe, but I am terribly annoyed. I always look at these things as signs.

Bah.

Man I just hate dentists. Very bad experiences. Not looking forward to this on so many levels. Back to the drawing board for LM. He really needs to be seen. My dentist won't touch him with a ten-foot pole because he is a "baby." Which is fair. He gripes about BM but he was excellent and the hygenist insisted we just bring him in. This will be his second visit and he did excellent last time. He actually LOVES the dentist. (Who is this kid? LOL.) Anyway. I think my dentist said he sees 6 or 7yos and at this point BM can pass for that age. He did very well. But still looking for a pediatric dentist for LM.

It is super super crazy at work. BUT I wanted to go to aerobics tonight. I usually tend to go home at lunch on aerobic days. Then I can grab my stuff at lunch (since mornings seem so rushed) and I can feel less guilty getting home at 7:30pm (if I can see the kids for lunch).

Well, today the kids are at preschool. Both of them - all day! (BTW, LM is loving it. If we left him there all week and picked him up Friday I don't think he'd care. LOL. & I thought it might be a rough adjustment? I have been taking him to the gym daycare in the evening after a full day at daycare because he wants to go play some more. Well, okay then. He is getting accustomed to other toys and the company of lots of kids I guess).

Anyway, kids are gone, so I have a lunch date with dh.

This is kind of nice. We should start doing this. Well, the problem is I usually have to leave early to pick up the kids. Which rules out a long lunch. But tonight dh is picking them up since aerobics is closer to my work. Kids got to go to preschool today since Monday is a holiday. She always lets them come in another day when their day falls on a holiday, which is just awesome.

So dh and I get lunch date. I think I will make a deal that once a week we should have a lunch date if he will pick up or drop off the kids. That is one thing we would like more of, more "Date" time, but the babysitting expense is horrendous. But if we're paying for it anyway, might as well enjoy.

For today just going home for some leftovers. But I Don't remember the last time dh or I had any time for each other. Kind of sad. So it will be nice.

I am also working on my budget with my raise. Will look something like this:

+2,690 (1st)
-50 retirement
-450 short-term savings
-1,318 mortgage
-630 preschool
-200 utilities/gardener

+2,690 (16th)
-50 retirement
-450 short-term savings
-1,300 credit card (all other expenses)
-728 Health Insurance
-200 utilities

Leaves $0.

Ideally...

We'll see...

I realistically expect $5k/year in interest and overtime to fund more long-term savings.

& I have a 10% contribution to retirement (employer) regardless of how much I physically put away.

Preschool drops to $315/month come august. (Did I mention that yet? )

Which means I hope my budget to look more like this by the end of the year. & this would be pretty sweet:

+2,690 (1st)
-150 retirement
-500 short-term savings
-1,318 mortgage
-315 preschool
-200 utilities/gardener

+2,690 (16th)
-150 retirement
-500 short-term savings
-1,300 credit card (all other expenses)
-728 Health Insurance
-200 utilities

I am still lucky to take home almost 90% of my paycheck. Taxes are just nil with the kids, mortgage, etc.

This is one reason I am in savings mode. Certainly don't expect this to last forever. I feel blessed it was this way for us during our one-income years. Then again we will probably have to pay it back tenfold down the road. Which is exactly why we don't borrow money in the first place (as a rule). The whole thing makes me nervous for the long run.

Man, I am whipped.

I did all my Thank-You cards yesterday. I should be thankful there were so many, but I wasn't. LOL. Seemed like an all day project.

Anyway, I did enjoy the morning. I'll give you that. Then I worked all afternoon. Then at 5:00 I did paperwork for various things (rebates, contests) and all the Thank-Yous. I still have to dig out addresses for most of them. I just don't keep addresses. I am terrible that way. As organized as I am. Of course I have a lot memorized which is my thing. & phone #s are in the cell phone. I just never really saved addresses anywhere. Maybe I should make that my goal. Need to look some up on the web and call our moms for the rest. Isn't that terrible? LOL. I guess with the internet age I don't need addresses for any other reason.

Then dinner and gave the kids a bath. & then pretty much crashed. I fell asleep at 9 which is even a little early for me. But I did sleep well...

This week will be no better. On go go go mode.

Then again January is about 1/2 over, which means tax season is about 1/8 over. It will FLY! At this rate it will be over in a blink. That's the upside I guess. This time of year always fly with the hecticness and then I can slow down and enjoy the rest of the year.

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

Well, I cleaned up Quicken a bit yesterday. I added a category for gym/fitness. & differentiating 2007/2008 IRA contributions. Stuff like that.

I also looked long and hard at "miscellaneous." For budgeting purposes I don't want to spend a lot of time breaking down every little category. There is a time tradeoff there.

For example, on groceries. Everything we buy at the grocery store I just put in groceries. I know all we buy is groceries, personal care products, cat food/cat litter, etc. Everything we buy at the grocery store though is pretty basic. The basic needs.

For a while I was breaking out how much we spent on milk, bread, meat, etc. Just out of curiosity. But that, like the price book, was just way too impractical and time consuming. Just not my thing. So I am happy to leave groceries as is. There isn't any fat to cut there anyway, so why bother. (Not now that dh lowered our bills like 20%). !!

Miscellaneous is much the same. I don't want to budget every item to the penny. Plus I like some flexibility. So I always had a round $150/month in my head towards miscellaneous. Usually for stuff like going to the zoo, to concerts, small car repairs, excess medical expenses, or whatever. If it was a slow month and nothing came up, we'd enjoy it. But if we had car repairs and too many trips to the doctor, we would apply it for that stuff and splurge less. Same when we just needed stuff around the house.

I decided this is still very fine for budgeting purposes. I really like this part of the budget because it is so flexible. Just makes it easier.

But when it came to year-end and comparisons to prior year, lord know what that big blob of miscellaneous was. LOL.

So I looked at it closer and broke it down to about 10 sub categories. Might matter less to me throughout the year, but at year-end it will be nice for the big picture, to know how much we spent on this and that.

I already had categories for dh, me, and the kids. So will leave those. (For birthday presents and just misc. things that don't fit anywhere else).

I then added the following categories:

**Household (just stuff around the house. I put the thank you cards here. From last year I saw stuff like mattress pads, beard trimmers, table clothe, towels, etc.)

**Electronics

**Furniture

**Entertainment (I have a separate category for our blockbuster online service, but it is outside of the misc. budget. All the rest of our entertainment out goes to misc. So figured I'd add it here too).

**Family Activities (This is what we used misc. the most for, anyway)

**Books/CDs/Software

**Holidays (easter egg decorating, halloween costumes, anything and everything holiday. Except I have a separate category for Christmas, already, as that is the pricier holiday).

Anyway, looking at last year, that was the best way to break down the misc. items. So we'll see how that goes. It's a work in progress... I think I will appreciate this for year to year comparisons. & seeing where our money really went. I am just going to reclass last years' numbers, monthly, as we go along. So that I will have useful comparative reports throughout the year.

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

Yesterday I was perusing the paper and found a $1 off coupon for my deoderant. So I think I will pick some up. I am particular about my shampoo and deoderant, though particular about little else.

I also saw $1 off for Cover girl. I could kick myself for not looking through those before buying make up last week. I mentioned I only buy like once every 5 years. So I just have to put that somewhere in my brain for next time.

Dh is usually good with the coupons, and stocking up on the regulars on sale. But these are the things he didn't think of. Too girly. LOL. So I have to remember to peruse the adds and stock up when I see coupons.

P.S. We sign up Big Money for kindergarten tomorrow. !!!!!! I think I am going to cry. It doesn't help that a relative said that now he will be an adult in a blink. Once they start school it is over... (Not what I want to hear).

Well I still have Little Monkey. For now... He's still a little snuggle bug. I will really miss this age/stage when it passes.

I never even wanted kids and now I think I am a baby addict. LOL. Figures. Well maybe I will have grandchildren someday. I know I don't want more kids. I really don't. But there is a lot I will miss about the baby/toddler age.

I guess good thing for nieces and nephews!!!

How's this for frugal?

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10229.jpg

If you click on the link above you will see a print out on the floor, of a baby. It's a bunch of sheets of paper put together to put together a big poster actually.

At the party yesterday we saw one of those. So cool. So this morning I played around with it. I came up with a picture for each of my Monkeys. I just happened to have 2 framed posters sitting in the closet. Just poster-sized, cheap black frames. So I uploaded my recent favorite Christmas picture of LM and printed it out. It came out really good.

BM and I chose a picture for his room.

They are framed; I haven't put it up yet. If you can live with the white lines, it wasn't that hard. I wasn't going to bother slicing the pages down to chop the borders, though we do have a paper cutter. I figure that would just be too complicated for me. I don't do good with putting things together. But this was rather simple and fun.

Anyway, I didn't figure it out yet but it looks like you can do the same for top quality prints. It's just free on their website. Look at some of these!

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10668.jpg

We have to fix up LM's room and I saw that one. Is giving me IDEAS. (Oh yes I know that one would be tough to implement. But looks more fun than painting anyway. )

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/8884.jpg

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/gallery/i/10311.jpg

Well here is the website to give it a whirl:

http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator/

I can just see my house being covered in art in no time. LOL. But I was also thinking it might be a nice gift to put together one of my dad's photos on one of his walls some day. Sneak over there and put it up as a giant poster or something.

So much you can do...

We had a good day interesting. Yes, another drive to San Jose. But this time was well worth it. I figured it would cost about $300 to replace my windshield just going with the flow. But my dad, cheapie that he is, pointed out a real cheap place by his house. Swears by them. Except they were closed for a good week after the windshield cracked.

So we went by yesterday while in town and it was a whopping $150.

Will just come out of the monthly budget. Not a biggie. & I was stressed about it!

I am so happy to get that fixed and to pay so little.

Of course on the way home we hit something on the freeway! It was one of those lawn mower bags. It was not good. I think the odds are good my car is okay. But it got lodged underneath the car. We pulled over and dh finagled it for a bit. But he is the smart one. He said, "why don't you back up?" Then it popped right out. The car seemed fine and we got home late. Today I'll look under it and make sure there is no obvious damage. All I could think is we just fixed the dang thing.

Well we did our good deed for the day. We got it off the road. At least no one else hit it. I told dh I preferred to hit it with the van than the subcompact. So as long as the car is okay...

Anyway, I have been realizing lately that there are a large number of benefits to being in the land of expensive. They keep popping up this last week or 2 or 3 and I am feeling less annoyed about the disadvantages of late. I think in a forum like this, seeing so many people live in more reasonable places, it is easy to start getting annoyed about all the downsides, and lose sight of the upside.

Cheap auto glass is one.


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

Well, we went to a fancy birthday party in San Jose yesterday. IT wasn't terribly fancy. It was actually rather low key, but they did have entertainment and about 30 guests (for a 2yo). The nice thing is all the guests had small kids and didn't last long. So us and the family stayed a little longer. The kids just had a BLAST. They have such a fun house.

This is dh's cousin. I am sure they would be easily labeled as the Joneses. But they are not. I don't know anyone our peer who has such a nice home in the area (who can afford it) and I would guess that they have the smallest mortgage. She started with a tiny condo, then a townhouse, then this home. I know she paid something in the $500-$600k range in a very similar neighborhood to when dh's sister paid $800k. The thing is his sister has 1200 square feet if lucky. This house has a nice backyard, & is a very tiny 3-bedroom. But it has an add-on so a family room and a master added on to it. They have some pretty decent square footage as a result. & I know most of that was bought with equity. They are just smart buyers. (I mean the house is a zillion years old, but that's what you get for 1/2 mil in the Bay Area).

Their house is filled to the brim with electronics and fancy things. But I mean, they wouldn't buy anything they couldn't pay cash for and I know she had saved a crazy amount down on the first condo she bought. They are just savers who make a lot of money. They don't have the crazy mortgages the rest of our peers do so they can enjoy those big incomes that much more. Of course I think they are crazy, LOL, because they both still work full-time, opposite schedules. But it seems to work for them. & if it works for them, so be it.

The thing that struck me about the party is most of the parents were OLD.

Anyway, around here in Sacramento, I know a LOT of young moms. Which is not very much the norm in the Bay Area. BEcause it is just too expensive! So up here it was always striking to me how many young parents were. Of course, on the flip side, know a lot of parents in their late 30s, early 40s. But they all look very young.

So yesterday, this party, I see a lot of older people. I figured it was just the different culture. These people can't afford to have kids until much later. I don't know if that was an accurate conclusion, but all I Could figure. None of these people would pass for 20s/30s. So I was pondering.

Anyway, one interesting conversation we had was that dh's aunt teaches for a community college. She was asking a lot of questions of BM because he is quite the brain. (YEs I have bragged about him before). So she was asking me if he knew combinations of 10. (5/5, 6/4, 7/3, etc.). Well, um, of course. She said, "If I asked him if there were 27 people in a room and 7 more people came in, how many would there be?" would he know the answer? I think, yes, of course. He's been on this math kick and he LOVES combination of #s. & adding and subtracting all that.

Anyway, she was asking because she teaches the lowest level math in community college (pre-algebra) and she has for a while. But she says the people coming through can not do BASIC math. We were discussing that and dh's family was kind of concluding that more dumb people are going to college. LOL. I chimed in and said we couldn't find any CPAs who could do basic problem solving skills. I think it is more of an age thing. The young people coming through are just not properly educated. I feel so blessed to be educated and to know that I will ensure my kids are educated. But apparently not everyone has that same leg up. I mean I am in the middle when it comes to home schooling. I am not going to homeschool my kids 24/7. Not my thing. I want them to open their horizons. I had so many wonderful teachers and experiences through the years; so much more than my parents could have given me. BUT just because I send them off to school doesn't mean I am going to put the responsibility 1000% on the school. Come on. I can't fathom why anyone would. But then you get college grads who can't do basic arithmetic. Yikes!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently a lot of parents aren't paying any attention. &/or don't have the skills to teach their kids. IT's just a sad state of society I think. Since when was education such a low priority. *sigh*

But I never really thought about the 2 before, but someone mentioned that no wonder people couldn't figure our basic personal finance. If they can't do basic arithmetic. I had never really thought about it, but I think it is a good point. They young particularly, seem to have a big disadvantage in that regard.

I also know a lot of it is because people rely so much on computers, somehow they miss the basics. But there isn't a lot you can do without the basics. Which is the frustration we find in our field. People just don't "get it" because they don't have the basic skills. You can't be a CPA if you don't understand algebra... For one. But we get these college grads who don't understand BASIC algebra... It seems to be the norm. We don't even really interview recent college grads any more.

I find that quite scary. So talking to dh's aunt was quite interesting. She said for her it was just the last few years things have changed, much as we have found at my work.

Anyway, we just drove home last night so it ended up being a long day. But the kids had a BLAST. Which is why we went; for them. & I am glad I got to sleep in my own bed and get some stuff done at home today. Phew.

I forgot to add that I got 3 free meals this week, which was nice in the hecticness.

A coworker took me to lunch Wednesday and my boss brought in lunch Thursday (which is quite rare. Was leftovers from a dinner party). Between the 2 I had plenty for lunch Friday. Which was great because I went in Wednesday thinking I would buy lunch; was in a rush. (& yes usually I can grab leftovers in a rush. Was just an extra rush for various reasons).

Heck, I might be able to stretch those leftovers a few more days. LOL.

But my lunch out was a nice meal & a 1/2. & the leftovers from the boss's lunch was a nice supplement to that. Which is the fair thing about eating out - usually have leftovers and stretch them out a day or 2 or 3.

Of course, that was a lot of calories for me. I usually have a simple lunch. So we'll see how that goes. IT was free, but not so sure it was worth it. Oh, good food. Too good...

Good food is fine once in a while, but I tend to eat good a little too often...

It's busy, but it's a good busy.

I hit the gym 4 times this week. A record. LOL. But I am feeling motivated...

I don't feel too behind at work; though it is quite crazy.

There's a positive correlation there. Praying I can keep this up through tax season. Helps with the stress and helps me be more productive. So though the gym takes time, I think it is saving me time in the ends. Know what I mean? Trying to keep that in mind as work gets crazier by the second.

I have yet to get my review or raise, between lost electricity and then my boss was sick. I just figure I should know when I get my paycheck at this point. LOL. I give up. Dh called me yesterday. He said, "come on, you should know by now." Considering all the craziness I was just giving my boss some space. But I had to break the news with the boss out sick, um no, I wasn't going to figure out anything.

I expect anywhere from 3% - 10% raise. & so yeah, it would be nice to know. So I can work on my 2008 budget.

Dh executed the carseat/PSP trade yesterday. He is happy.

The applications for kindergarten will be ready Monday. O.M.G. THAT is so surreal.

I keep hearing it is so horrible to wake up kids early and was watching some family on tv wake up at dawn to get their kids ready? Where does everyone live? I just LOL at the idea of waking up my kids. They are usually up at 6am-7am anyway. Just the way they are. Take after me I guess. (Funny enough they are late birds TOO. Their bedtime is 9 which all my friends think is insane. But if I put them down at 7 they'll wake up at 3. You know?).

His preschool teacher was telling me about some weird schedules she has come across where kids sleep around their parents schedule. I can't remember, but telling me one really odd schedule. She said, "well, it works." I think it came up because she babysat our kids a few times, and I didn't even care if they were in their PJs at 8pm. So I was telling her how for the longest time BM's bedtime was 10pm. It took a long time to get them down to 9pm. Phew. But yeah, I went back to work at 6 weeks with BM and all he did was SLEEP. I quickly decided the whole SAHM vs. WM debate was completely ridiculous. As he kind of worked his waking schedule around me anyway.

Then LM came along. He never sleeps. I have always had a harder time working with him, likewise. I miss so many awake hours with him. Just never had that whole thing with BM.

Which is also why I wake up at dawn to get some quiet time. Since the kids are up so dang late.

Anyway, this is just crucial for us to get it squared away. The school has 61 openings for K. & 4 for 4th grade. & that is IT!!!!

It is a charter school, and for us, we are founding parents. We put in x amount of hours to get the school started. So we are in. But of course I worry too much. I have a fear what if I screw up the application or something. I just have to get my kid IN. The rest should be easy.

But it is just mind boggling for me. My BABY is starting school.

No matter what, our kids would go to public school. We are public school people, and in this area there are just SO MANY options. For one, there are so many charter schools. & this one has been faring very well. IT started when we did not have a school due to some major BS and politics. The school board did not buy the land it intended to when it was cheap. Then it whined the land was too expensive (while they were making some backroom dealer with another developer to buy land that was questionable if it was even usuable).

Just crap like that.

Of course our charter school does not have a space yet. Conveniently they are down the street for now. I can't help but wonder if lowering prices will help us get a solid school site. Maybe while one of my kids are there...

This is where buying "small" in a fancy neighborhood paid off. Anyone can do this. But we have a lot of wealthy neighbors, resources, and parents who don't work full-time. So we banded together to form our own school. I have blogged about this before. You would obviously never see this in the inner city. So though technically it is a public school and anyone can do this. It is kind of eye opening what can really get done in a wealthier area. Dh and I used to joke when we moved here that we were living with the rich people. They will divert the airplanes and fight off the Big Box stores and will have the deep pockets to do whatever they want. We would joke, but it is kind of eerie that all this is more true than we ever imagined. So that is my vote for buying in a wealthy neighborhood. I mean we have a nice house, but we are outside the gated part and it cost pennies compared to some of the mansions around here. So we did the whole buy small in a nice neighborhood thing. Of course back home we would be lucky to own a shack. So it is all relative. We might have gone a little gung ho with our buying power here. But the benefits are clear. I am not sure I we will ever regret spending a little more than we had to. HAving more peace of mind for the kids' public schools and all that. Just a BIG benefit to moving somewhere more affordable.

Anyway, school starts at 8:30 for K-5 and it is a 5-minute walk. Or a 1-minute drive. So I don't expect much. I usually drag the kids out of the house 7:30-8 for preschool anyway. & that schedule is pretty easy. Of course with K, I guess there will be projects to gather and homework and all that. For preschool we just throw on their clothes and go. It's not very schooly. So I am sure we are in for quite an adjustment overall.

Actually, K is 8:30 - 2:45. So though BM is used to a 8-hour day at preschool. That is only twice a week. AND they nap a good 2 hours of it. I have the feeling, knowing him, he will come home and crash every afternoon.

But yeah, I guess it is a good 9 months away. But I think our lives will change much. As far as the public school, lord knows it is cheaper than going private. But I am trying to be mindful of all the little costs. For one, uniforms. I am not happy about the uniform thing. Like I want a second set of clothes for school? How frugal is that? Not very. Though they push it for the "poor kids." I think do the poor people a favor and don't make them buy more clothes!

I mean come on, I went to public school, my parents shopped at KMart. & kids picked on me. Somehow I survived. I just don't believe in the least if we were wearing uniforms anything would change. Kids pick on kids. If they can't pick on their clothes, they find something else.

I just don't buy it. & like I believe that the "poor" will be camoflauged by their uniforms. You have got to be kidding me. ?? But this is all for them apparently...

Pictures? I always hear people whine about the pictures. Personally, I don't see what I would buy them. I already posted about that...

Field trips? We'll see.

Supplies? Yes, we have to send a check in once a year for supplies and such.

There are probably a lot of expenses I haven't even though of. Which is why I am trying not to get too giddy about diverting all of the preschool expenses to our retirement. I know better... We'll have some school expenses... Maybe many...

Anyway, in other news, my CD expires in a few weeks as well. I will have to re-evaluate it as I moved so much cash to my ROTH. This would tie up some balance transfer cash until it was due back. Which is probably fine. But I was happy to put it in CDs when I had other cash to fall back on. So I do have to ponder that one a bit. I think only the last 3 months I would have 1/2 the balance transfer tied up. I think I can live with that, but I have to check all the dates.

Also, when I purchased the CD, it was a promotion where it would renew at the higher rate (5.7%) one time. Well, um, yes I want to renew at 5.7%! But I can not find that anywhere. I think, gosh darn, I don't see that on the certificate! So I will call and make sure I am not crazy. I am sure it is fine, but part of me is wondering if they just say that and hope you forget. LOL.

If I can't renew at that rate I may just take on a 3-month CD.

We'll just see.

Well, weekend plans. I'll work. Wasn't intending to, but with the impromptu vacation last weekend due to no electricity...

We're getting my windshield replaced.

We're going to a birthday party. (Apparently a very fancy one for a 2yo. We'll see. Sounds a little crazy, but the kids will certainly enjoy).

The house is actually clean. I have been really productive. So besides working I just don't have a lot to do. Kind of caught up on stuff. Well, I have a pile of thank-you cards to do. I am sure I will find something to keep me occupied. But mostly looking forward to spending some time with the kids.

Well it is almost official. Waiting for the cash to appear in my checking today, and then transferring the money over to our retirement plans.

So will be officially maxed out for 2007.

I think it's cool that we could probably employ the same strategy for 2008. & max out again. We'll see.

By 2009 I would hope we were well into maxing out anyway.

So though the money is just as much efund as retirement right now, I am mostly keeping it separate in my mind.

But if I get to leave it in there...

Puts me at exactly one years' salary in retirement vehicles.

My plan to have double that in 4 years is looking a little more likely now as well.

I think when I started to freak out we had $5k in savings. When I joined this site and tried to get our butts back in gear. After having a spendy couple of years.

The way I look at it I now have a good $5k in efund still sitting in my bank in cash.

BUT I also have almost $2k in other cash and should have $10k in other cash come summer. So in the grand scheme of things I am still oodles above where we started. As such, I am really optimistic this retirement efund thing will stay in retirement. Certainly no worse off in the interim. It feels the same with $5k cash. But I have to remember we had NO other cash before. & that was way too outside of our comfort level. This is a little different...

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In other news, dh was to sell the carseat for retirement monies. (Or more likely monthly expenses since I am a tad short for the month).

Somehow, now he is trading it for a PSP. LOL. Don't even ask. It wasn't him. They offered. How did they know? I said I thought it was fishy that they would KNOW that that is just the kind of trade he would love.

He's all excited. Now he wants to buy a memory card, (and probably games though he has credit at the used store). & he wants to pay a small one-time fee to TIVO for some feature. (Download shows? Play games remotely? Both? I am not sure).

He also wants to buy a new surround sound receiver. His new thing. HE bought surround sound like a decade ago when he lived at home. That's part of our theater system that just didn't cost much (none of it really did) since we just put a lot of "old" stuff in there. Probably fair. He is saving up his allowance pennies for ALL this stuff.

I told him once we drop preschool we can talk too about upping our allowances a bit. Then he can buy more of this crap with his allowance and stop stressing me out all the time. For now it's just $50/month and he really stretches it out pretty well. $100/month would be nicer! Maybe next year...

This stuff is fine, but he also wants a HD TIVO (or 2) and a new computer. The stressful part.

The bigger allowances we can justify, the better this stuff will go.

Anyway, I have a really nice crib bedding set to sell. Around $300 brand new (& yes, probably what I paid. I was a little crazy). Apparently I am not the only one. I saw all this stuff listed on Craigslist for $75-$200. So, I figure I start $100 and see. Don't expect that much. But who knows??????

Maybe I will make some decent cash this month after all.

I have a lava lamp to sell. They are only going for $10. But will probably be worth it. I lied, my price limit is not $20. I guess in a more desperate month it is worth selling smaller items.

But I am doubtful any of this will go to retirement.

Then again, I am pleased overall dh worked out a good trade. He said he had his eye on a new $200 PSP anyway. Not sure he would have bought one anytime soon, as he has been talking about other stuff. But I only expected $75 for the carseat, and now he gets the PSP with no cash. So oh well. He even agreed to deduct $75 from his allowance likewise. I don't think I will. But maybe I should. Hmmmmm.

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Oh yeah, and he told me last night we could sell the van for a fun car. LOL. I am not so sold. I said you know that would be a 3-car average for me. (Sold the convertible for kids - bought before kids were even on the horizon. Bought a really old Saturn for interim but was a great car and drove 3 years. Then got the van, which was the end goal). Anyway, with gas prices, we just rarely drive the van. Dh had a point. If I sell this one after 2 years, we're not any different than our friends/neighbors who upgrade every 2-3 years anyway. LOL.

He has a point. No one would probably blink an eye.

I feel we made a dumb decision, we should stick with it. Plus, well, I like the van. I told dh I wasn't sold on dropping it. I really want 3 cars. & am willing to wait. Love having the van and the subcompact. Best of both worlds. We already shelled out the money, why give it up.

But I did tell dh that was vey dangerous. To offer that to me. I might have the van sold at the end of the day. LOL.

This is where going used is nice. We didn't lose much in appreciation in 2 years. We could probably sell for a good $12k ($10k if we are ultra conservative).

I could buy a pretty nice car in the $8k range and have plenty to spare. We could fund our IRA in 2008 easy peasy then.

But I also like having the van as a nice secondary emergency fund. Sure we don't need such a nice car. We never have. But likewise we could enjoy it now and sell it in a heartbeat, if need be.

Oh, don't tempt me.!!!

I think I will resist the urge.

The funniest thing of all is we replaced the windshield on the saturn shortly before we decided to sell it.

I told dh, well with the cracked windshield on the van, maybe that's the sign. Time to sell.

But yeah, as tempting as it is. I can't justify a non-kid-friendly car for a second car. Which is why I dropped my convertible in the first place. !! We could have kept it, but dropping to one income and upping our insurance just didn't make sense at the time. It makes a little more sense now, but not much. I think I have a few more years...

Plus the weather is terrible here. In the spring it may be harder to resist!

I haven't implemented "Project ROTH Efund" yet.

I am thinking it is likely that I will put $10k in there by end 2009. Then keep $5k of the efund out of the ROTH. But, who knows... I am only adding money to the challenge, the money that goes to retirement stocks. Not counting the cash...

Dh is gaga over Blu-Ray. He bought 7 movies this month already. Cost? $60. Not terrible. It's all his allowance money. I can't say a word about it. But I can't complain about the deals he has been getting. He just goes a little too gaga over deals. LOL. But it's in his allowance. I may think he is crazy but I can't say a word. I finally got to watch the last 1/2 of Ratatouille last night. (took the kids last July 4 and LM got a little antsy mid-way). Yes, it did look better on our TV than it did in the theaters. Yes, indeed. Dh will just never get that I don't care! LOL. "& this is important, why?" Oh, gotta love him.

The good thing with the kids in preschool is he has more time for his projects. For now he has a backlog of stuff for personal and family with friends. With time maybe he will get to some money making. OF course the more he works the more he talks new computer. We were talking computers. I thought his editing computer was the newest, but he said it wasn't. We have a computer downstairs which is apparently the newest. HE said, "remember" my parents paid for it?" Huh? I don't remember.

Sometimes I wonder if we would live 1/2 the lifestyle we did without his parents. & how do I forget this stuff??? It's so much that I can't even keep straight.

I am not too stressed about the prospect of a new computer though. Because he is a good shopper, probably won't cost that much, and will up his money making abilities. He now has so much more time. Kids in school and also being older and a little more self sufficient.

We do have 5 computers, but that is another story. He was saving one for a server or something. Maybe if he upgrades I can talk him into chucking that one. I think it's the one I had from college (a good decade ago, plus). It hasn't been used in like 3 years. I might of had it in high school. Can you say obsolete? LOL. Not sure it could be used for anything these days. But someone was telling me they could not believe people with more than one computer (not knowing we were a computer household. LOL). We get a lot of hand-me-downs, and we saved the old ones with the kids in mind. Anyway, every time dh gets a fancy computer, mine gets a little more fancy. We may just make my old computer the "kid" computer. But yeah, dh needs the fanciness for the work he does, and with the hand-me-down system, we all get an upgrade every time that he does. Fine for us. I just want internet and Word/Excel! We don't have a printer on each computer (the computers are all networked, though we have 2 printers) and I am not sure if we have ever bought a new monitor. Still the ones we had as kids. Thus, owning a lot of computers is not a pricey endeavor. We haven't upgraded in 3 years, at least, so it's not like we upgrade every year or anything. Dh's computer upstairs for editing? Probably 5 years old. Probably time for a major upgrade. He uses a lot of processing and all that.

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Oh yes and the power came back on at work!!!!! I probably should work all weekend. & will work a decent chunk. But I think I can make the trek to my nephew's birthday after all. Phew. I had been looking forward to it. & unfortunately will work before and after. Making it a very short trip too.


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Dh is all gaga about hybrid cars and solar. Expensive expensive. I think if we go back to 2 incomes we will put our money where our mouth is. For now, makes little sense. Plus I expect costs to come down with time. But dh is certainly an early adopter. Though he usually waits a reasonable period.

But interestingly there is a new company that will try to offer solar panel rentals.

http://renu.citizenre.com/index.php

It looks like a pretty interesting concept. I also found a good article on it, I will have to link later. I am a little skeptical, but not going to write them off yet. They will produce their own solar panels (to get costs down) and be the go-between between the utility companies. Selling excess power back I guess (it's all over my head - may get that wrong). For a mere $500 security deposit and a contract to pay them for the solar power at a rate set for the life of the contract.

Their website predicts we would save $5k over 25 years. This is with the big assumption that utility rates continue to rise well into the next 25 years. (who knows).

Obviously not doing it for the savings! But I can stomach this a little more than shelling out the $25k-$40k to BUY solar and save $5/month on the electric bill. The $500 deposit is no sweat off our backs to use renewable energy. Regardless of the politics and greenhouse debate, it just makes sense. Of course it is preferable to use renewable energy.

Short of this we will wait a long while for costs to come down.

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Being a moderate person I feel very offended by internet comments this week. LOL. Eh, not so offended. I don't take it personally or care that much. But I do roll my eyes and I do share to educate people.

You know my pet peeve with "people with big houses have insane electric bills" and all that crap. Overlooking the energy efficiency and the fact it doesn't really take much to heat our cool our home.

But you have heard that gripe many times. Not trying to be bitter or annoyed. Just to educate! Be careful what you assume. If nothing else, that is what you should take away from this. Be careful what you assume!

Anyway, do I live in a cave because I use cloth napkins and cloth diapers? Are you kidding me? (& wash out plastic bags? LOL). All stuff like that. I just don't know when trying to conserve a little bit became so negative. Not sure what the deal is. If this is a cave, then so be it. It is a pretty luxurious cave.

I think mostly people are wary of what they don't know. You don't know how many people I tried to explain the diaper service to, who could never say much more than, "I could never do that!" What, it's exactly like using a disposable except instead of setting them out in the trash, you set them out on your doorstop and get fresh diapers delivered to your door every week. I mean come on, it is EASIER than disposables. But people just hear cloth and their brains turn off. "Cloth is scary." LOL. I think it's along those lines. Fear of the unknown. I mean seriously, I thought I might be able to convert people. Instead they all assumed, no matter how much I tried to explain, that we slaved away over dirty diapers. ???? & they all act like they are in totally in awe of this. People boggle my mind. LOL.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum. On some of the solar discussion I saw criticism that Americans just have wrong priorities. Maybe. But someone was comparing granite countertops, high-end TVs, and SUVs as being proof that Americans have the money and spend it well. They just don't want solar.

Okay, the SUV thing may make sense. I don't get SUVs and they probably cost in the $25k-$40k range that solar panels do. But even with the SUV at least it has a more immediate/tangible benefit with that than solar. You aren't really paying $40k for the SUV. You are paying the premium over what a car would cost, for the SUV. So even that I can see some flaw with.

But um, TVs and granite countertops? Are you kidding me? I am a proud owner of both. The granite cost us maybe $2k-$3k over what the tile would have, but since we like will never have to replace it, that is why we bought it. We bought for the quality. IT wasn't an expensive purchase, and no I did not finance it over 30 years!!!!!! We paid little since we picked it out with the construction. I wasn't going to take the "free" crap the builder offered, for sure. (We did take the free crap upstairs and we do regret it. Will have to rip it out and start over - probably should have in year 2 or 3. But saving our pennies to do it right). But going new construction it was far cheaper, than buying the same house used, which was our frugal angle to buy a lot of nice stuff for less.

As far as the TV, more the same. I mean that's just luxury. But um we bought the TV because it cost $1k. & because dh is a huge videophile.

We're not buying the solar because it cost $40k!

Hello! & the comparison here is what? I wouldn't spend in the realm of $40k for ANYTHING.

People are just funny.

So that is my convoluted piece on being frugal is okay, and so is buying nice stuff. Which is why we try to be frugal so we can buy nice stuff.

If you want to whine about people having $40k to blow, whine about things that cost in the realm of $40k. I mean paving the floors and walls with granite. Maybe... Is that what he meant? Buying 5 TVs every year? Or was it simply the sum of it all, SUV + TV + granite = solar panels? LOL.

I know, I think too much...

But I guess that is my pet peeve. It is easy to say "anyone who buys "x" is wasteful." & anyone who does "y" might as well live in a cave." & obviously any time you say those, you are going to offend someone. So just think before you speak. IS that really true? Or is it little more than stereotype?

Well, dh's car just hit 77,777. Is that lucky or what? LOL.

Since most of our cars we bought with far more miles to start, I never thought I would get terribly excited about the whole 100k thing. But this was also the newest car we ever bought. We bought it with around 15k miles. So anyway, it is 6 years old. I can't believe how much we put on it. It probably went years with little driving (when he had our babies). But the last year or so we have used it a lot. It gets such good gas mileage (average 35mpg on the freeway) that whoever is driving farthest gets it for the day. Which pretty much means it will be the main car driven going forward. Dh no longer has to drive the kids out to preschool. The van is good for trips down the street. I mean we will once again take the compact to LA. Not worth paying almost twice the gas. We just really did not think that purchase through very well. We knew it would get a lot worse gas mileage, but yeesh.

So yeah, we are putting a lot of miles on that car.

It's like super car though. (knock on wood). I saw the disdain for 2000 Ford Focuses on the board. But this is a 2001 Ford Escort. LOVE it. If it died tomorrow, who cares. $7888 to drive a car for 6 years with no repairs. Wouldn't have been one of our best car deals if it died tomorrow. (I paid $1500 for a car I drove 7 years). But I wouldn't have a complaint.

We will have to take it in, in April, for another look over. Before our drive to LA. We keep taking it in. Come one, SOMETHING must need replacing. Spark plugs? Belt? Anything? Brakes? I mean, it is a Ford after all.

It's a little super car. We have always had very old cars that need small work every few months. So it is weird to take the car in and say, um, does it need anything? Just never had to do that before. Usually it's, "the car needs something so check it over while you have it." I can't even say so much on the new van. We have been taking that on average every 6 months for something. (usually something stupid, but the mechanic checks it over every 6 months then). So no, never had a car that we went a year and went, "wait a minute, we haven't taken it in for a year. We should get a look over." We like to keep our cars well maintained so we can keep them "forever." So his car boggles my mind. LOL. We spent the most on it to have our mechanic tell us it doesn't need anything. So it goes. So we figure at this rate we will take it in April or May, before our LA trip.

We take it in for oil changes too so it gets looked over a couple of times a year. I just don't trust those people worth squat. But sometimes they find something real to fix. We always get a second opinion. I don't even think they have ever drummed up anything for dh's car, other than an air filter replacement. So even they can't find anything. LOL.

Reminds me, for LA, it looks like we will probably get to use dh's family's timeshare for a free room.

It also appears they are going to Australia this year. O.M.G. I guess lucky to say we weren't invited. We were going to say no to anything and everything this year. Australia would have been hard to say no to. I don't think we could! But I think that is super cool for them. Wow! We would have gone on our honeymoon, but it was the 2000 Olympics there and the airfare was INSANE. We had a free room anywhere in the world and we had a lot of money so we decided Australia. Really, looking back, should have gone. We had the money. Sometimes we are too cheap for our own good. Looking back knowing what I know now, I would do it. Now if we ever go we will likely have to pay for 4, or wait until the kids are grown. Missed opportunity. But as such, it's kind of in the back of my mind. Continents I haven't seen - Australia & Africa.

Well we have a relative there. So they are excited to go. I am relieved in a sense to kind of calm things down on the vacation front. Let them go and tell us all about it. If it is that great, they will probably take us some time. We can hope for that. Sometime down the road when we have more money to enjoy it a little more!

But yes, if we get free room... I am still not sure we will do much more than Disneyland for 2 days as originally planned. We'll just see how our cash flow is. We can add San Diego on our own dime more lat minute if need be.

The D-Land trip, if it was free room, would be $500 for gas and the park. Maybe $100 or more on food. We could budget $600 pretty darn easily though. So that is probably what we will do. I don't think we can justify spending more this year.

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As far as the ROTH efund thing. Still thinking about it.

I have about $1k cash sitting in my ROTH anyway. (Was waiting to have more money to buy a fund). I am thinking of leaving that there as part of my efund, and diverting $1k cash to T Rowe. So I can get the minimum in my ROTH there and not "have to" contribute every month.

Then I can add $4k to dh's ROTH - in cash. & add almost $2k to my ROTH cash. & max out our IRAs for '07.

That would put $7k cash in our ROTHs. Tax sheltered efund is what it would really be. If our liquid cash goes up though, we could easily convert that to mutual funds then.

I liked the idea of diverting some to T Rowe since I already had cash anyway.

I still project adding $50/month to that in 2008 and $50/month to dh's ROTH. Stock mutual funds.

Then I will have another $300/month come September or so. I foresee being able to max out $5k by next April 15th. (Though will likely be $2500 to mine and $2500 to dh's. I just look at as our retirement as one and diversify likewise. So sometimes add more to one than the other).

I think that is a pretty good spot to be in.

I am not going to sweat the second $5k this year. For '08 anyway.

This will be around 17% gross income to retirement in 2008 then. When you include my profit sharing. So nothing to sneeze at.

As for the challenge, I will keep it as is. I Was going to make it retitrement retirement retirement.

Since I will view my ROTH cash as an efund, I am not counting that for the challenge. Would be cheating quite a bit.

Will still go with it. I think part of me wants to focus on building up more cash. Leaving the challenge as retirement monies will give me extra incentive to throw our retirement funds a few extra bones. Otherwise I will likely neglect it.

Who knows, we might max our ROTHs out for 2008 too. Wouldn't that be awesome??? Way too early to say... I like the flexibility of waiting until well after year-end and seeing how we feel. IT means by NEXT April 15th (2009) who knows, we may find a way to max out again. Odds are good.

But I really want to get $5k for 2008 and start contributing the $415 or so a month to get there. Then inch it up until we max out. My goal is to max out by 2010. so when LM starts public school I can tell dh, work if you want, but we don't really need it. Kind of our long range goal. If we can start putting away $5k/year, that is pretty awesome. I am happy with that. We'll easily hit the second $5k once LM is out of preschool. (knock on wood anyway).

Regardless it is a hell of a lot more than we have done the last 5 years. But I like slow and steady... That's why I am going from $50/month to $100/month right now. & then divert preschool tuition to get to $415/month. Then next year maybe I can add $50-$100/month. Then the same the following year. Then we will free up $300/month at the end of 2010 when LM is out of preschool. Then we'll be 32 and maxing out our ROTHs. & then some. & that is how you do it...

I am not a big risk taker. But I guess one thing I have learned lately is how taking very small financial risks can pay off. I don't even know if "risk" is the right word. Maybe just stepping out of my comfort zone.

I really thought long and hard before I jumped in and did the credit card balance transfers. To earn interest. It was hard for me to get past the idea that this was "risky." Though I knew in my heart it wasn't terribly risky.

Anyway, so I have been doing the same thing with this emergency fund/ROTH thing. Something has been holding me back.

I know ideally that now that we have a decent cash efund, that if we were able to add to it, that I would just do so in a ROTH.

But I wasn't really willing to commit the initial cash funds - any of them to a ROTH.

Anyway, for whatever reason I was thinking long and hard about it today. & was thinking of diverting our next $5k cash into a ROTH.

Of course I discussed it with dh and he is devil's advocate. If this is o great, why don't we just move the $7k or so to max out '07? Why don't we just do it now?

So we talked long and hard about it and I think he has a point. What is holding me back?

Anyway, so no firm decision yet, but I think we are going to max out our 2007 IRAs with cash.

I wouldn't advocate this (like balance transfer interest) to most people. But here are the reasons it makes sense for us.

1. This is $7k that we would not put into our retirement otherwise. Our retirement was up almost $20k last year (contributions) so we made it a point to build cash instead. We made a conscious decision not to fund our ROTHs. This would put our contributions to more like $25k for 2007. Obviously more than we need to contribute.

2. Our emergency fund is for EXTREME emergencies. We figure the odds are rather good (we would hope) that we would never touch that money.

3. We would still have a good $5k cash emergency fund in taxable accounts, on hand. (Of the "untouchable" variety).

4. We would still have other cash on hand.

5. Back to #1. If we got some major windfall tomorrow. All we do is shift the cash in our ROTHs to stocks and we can save the cash outside the ROTH then. So it just gives us more flexibility.

6. Back to #3 & #4. It doesn't really matter if it took some time to pull cash from our ROTHS, in extreme emergency. We have lots of other options in the interim. & plenty of more short-term cash for more immediate cash emergencies. This is why we were quite happy with 3 months living expenses in cash to begin with (6 seemed overkill for us).

7. I keep a sharp eye on the tax law so I will know if things change. For now there is no penalty or tax to pull out cash that I put into my ROTH. But I know this can change any time.

At worst, at some point we'll have to pull out money we never intended to put into retirement in the first place.

At best, we don't need it, we build up more emergency cash, and eventually we convert all our ROTH cash to stocks. To grow tax-free forever. Or we keep it as extra cash for peace of mind to grow tax free forever. Either way doesn't sound so bad.

Am I missing anything?

Well, I am still pondering. But I think dh had a point. What is holding me back? Just the general concept that you don't mix retirement and emergency funds.

Sometimes it makes more financial sense to step outside of your comfort zone a little bit.

I learned that lesson with the balance transfers, and am willing to try again.

I can't see doing balance transfers forever (or even beyond 2008). I can't see using my ROTH as part emergency fund forever. But tighter times call for more creative measures.

P.S. Since there is always mass confusion on this topic...

"Distributions from a Roth IRA are qualified and thus tax free if they are made after the five (5) year holding period AND for any of the following reasons:
**you are 59½ or older;
**your are disabled;
**you use the distribution to pay for up to $10,000 of qualifying first time home buyer expenses; or
**your are the beneficiary receiving distributions following the death of the Roth IRA account owner.

Regardless of the five (5) year tax rule if Roth IRA distributions do not exceed contributions they are not taxable."

Well, it appears we still don't have electricity at work. Still!!

May be another day off...

Which means I will probably work all weekend.

All I keep thinking is thank goodness this was not the week prior!!! Or late in January (W-2s and payroll filings due). The timing is okay. For every day off now though, one less day off later.

I am thinking of lugging in my laptop and seeing if I can find a wireless internet connection. (We're right next to a hotel, maybe I could even talk to them if need be, but I am not sure if they have power).

We have plenty of windows and light and then at least I will have my files. So I may be able to get some work done. Maybe not much though.

I also have a tad I can do from home. I can get a few hours in today. But not much more than that.

So after like 2.5 days off and maybe today, I will probably have to work all weekend to catch up. Here's to overtime.

(Someone outside working on it said it could be 7 days. Oh my!!!!) There are a lot of homes in the area that are still out as well. Craziness.

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Well, I will enjoy the impromptu vacation best I can. One thing I may do today is clean the cars. Nothing huge, but clean out the junk and vacuum. For one, dh's car has baby toys in it. LOL. I have been meaning to do this for a while. I swept through our bedroom yesterday and did lots of laundry. The downstairs is still pretty decent from when we had holiday guests. So leaves the cars. If the power is out tomorrow I will make dh go through the garage with me while the kids are at preschool.

I kind of giggle when everyone goes on and on about big houses being more to clean. My kitchen is a little bigger and I have an extra 1/2 bath. But the 1/2 bath is not much to clean, nor is the extra counter space in the kitchen. The kids' rooms don't need much and I don't touch dh's 2 rooms. So, eh, I just don't clean much. I didn't before and I don't now. I don't find it is a big time buster. I don't even have maid on my wish list. I have a weird thing about maids. I just don't mind cleaning up that much either.

I must admit the master bath is a little overwhelming, but we don't use anything but the sinks and toilet. So it isn't much in the end. We just used the kids' showers. We started this long ago when we had concern of a leak. It appears it was a false alarm, but I like only having one shower to clean. You don't use it, you don't need to clean it.

But get a few days off work, and the house is a little more organized and more sparkly than usual! The kids are at an easy age right now. I remember BM was getting to this age, and then we had another. But they can play together and occupy themselves. Oh, it is divine! As such, I Was getting a lot done around the house anyway.

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Yesterday I had a seminar and skipped their food. Just wasn't in the mood to sit with strangers and eat crappy food. I went to Round Table. I forgot how pricey their lunches were. Spent like $8. Oh well, it was certainly a treat.

I went there on a seminar a few months back and I remember they seemed annoyed I did not order the buffet, after informing me the buffet was like $9. Um, no thanks!!! So yesterday was same thing. "What? You don't want the buffet???" She looked really annoyed too. I am thinking if you don't want people ordering from the LUNCH menu, then maybe you should toss the lunch menu. Rude rude rude. It will be a long while before I go to RT for lunch again. I should have just done Taco Bell. Would have been a lot less calories.

I told dh it must be inflation or something. I met a friend for lunch and Sizzler was a good $10 or something. Since when was lunch so expensive?

Since I never eat out much besides dollar menus and Taco Bell, I guess.

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Oh, the most annoying thing about my seminar, which the average joe blow would never know. But is that California has stopped conforming to Federal tax laws.

Annoying annoying annoying. The sticking point for me has been HSAs. I am almost sold on trying one, but the nonconformity is just so flipping annoying. It means it wouldn't be deductible for state, the interest/earnings would be taxable for state. (Which we are in the 5% tax bracket for state & 15% for fed. It makes a substantial difference in our taxes as our state percentage is not that much lower).

Of course you would want to keep track of your basis in the case the tax law did change down the road (lord I hope).

Anyway, last year I remember that being the one big pain, but this year they said Cali did not conform to one new thing this year. So we have a thick book of all the differences. It is just pure insanity. For one, kiddie tax rules. It's still age 14 for Cali. Not the new rules. Just means a lot of different record keeping since you pay tax for federal but not state. Or you save taxes on fed but not state. So you have to track the basis. But who does that? So no one does. So what's the point of not conforming? Then people don't track their basis and blindly pay taxes on things twice. Way to go California. Is this how they balance the budget? How complicated must it be for them to figure all this out as well???

My first thought was maybe Cali was smart putting it's foot down on endless tax breaks. We need revenue. As annoying as it is, maybe there is something smart about it. But the instructors' political slant was Republicans would not pass any of these through because they RAISED revenues. You have got to be kidding me. "We didn't do the same Fed tax increases to SAVE you money. But look at the bookeeping nightmare mess we left you. You figure it out." I mean come one, for our clients, fine, they have us. I don't think most people hire CPAs or have a clue about any of this.

Likewise, the Dems hate the HSAs because it cut taxes? I don't know. They have said before that HSAs will not conform anytime soon. So it is frustrating. I was hoping for a glimmer of hope this year, but didn't get it. All we got was a bigger nightmare. Something like we have not conformed to any of the Federal tax changes in 2 to 3 years.

O.M.G.

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Financially things are rather ho hum.

I went through Quicken and added some new categories. For one I separated out our insurance premiums in case we do decide to go for HSA. All of our medical expenses would then be deductible for state. But then none for fed if we do the HSA. But I have to track how much I can reimburse from the HSA annually if we set it up. We can't reimburse the premiums, so set that up as a separate category.

We are having an okay month. The weird thing for us is we budget our expenses as a whole monthly, and that is what I track. But since we put so much on the card, it affects the following month as well. When we pay it. So I felt like we had a big credit card month for december and was stressed. But as of today I got all the bills paid in January and looks pretty breakeven. Not bad.

I think I am short $250. I should have set aside $250 for medical on 12/31 (reduced premiums) but didn't. But I realized I just have to. Before I would have HAD TO pay the bill. There is no excuse. I was kind of thinking, who cares if I start 1/31 instead. So I put that in Quicken as a $500 transfer 1/31. Leaves me short $250 on 1/31. I will take it from short-term savings if I have to. I am pleased it was such a breakeven month otherwise. How did that happen? I just wrote a $630 check to preschool and it about killed me. LOL. But maybe I can do this a few more months... (I might even get a huge raise and will have no problem finding the $250. We also still have stuff to sell).

Which reminds me, yesterday I learned that in Cali, if you sell more than one or 2 things on ebay for a few hundred dollars, or you regularly sell your household "junk", you have to have a sellers' permit. You have got to be kidding me. I am kind of glad we just opted out of much ebay selling. I don't know how much the permit is and all that, but yeesh. (I was thinking glad we only sold 2 big things last year).

Of course, who would know this???

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Anyway, I have no idea what my financial goals are for '08. Too much in the air.

I think odds are we can put a good $5k in a HSA (probably use most of it but will be a nice tax break). I am trying to think if we save up decent cash how much we should put in there though. How much to IRAs? How much to 529s? It's awesome to have so many tax-deferred options, but it is mind boggling.

& how much just to cash? Or should we start diverting much of our cash to ROTHS? Then we could easily max out.

I just don't know.

There isn't much I could decide until I know my raise. !!!! With the power out I doubt I will find out today.

So I am trying not to think too much. I won't know how much we can really put in an HSA until we see if we use our deductible this year. It will be a while. Though if we use it all I know we can fund it and reimburse ourselves the entire thing, but get the tax deduction. (Then I'm sold).

I think mostly we want to focus on building up more cash this year. It's just interesting that we have so many options. Build up the HSA? Build up cash in ROTHs for emergency? Just build up our taxable cash?

I am mostly thinking of contributing no more than $5k to ROTHs this year (with the exception if we move another $5k cash over of our efund).

That would put as at a 17% contribution rate with our profit sharing.

I still feel very cash poor, and so am thinking of putting as much as we can to savings this year. I am starting to think that makes more sense.

I am not even sure if it makes much since to contribute anything to retirement (more than the 10% I get anyway). As long as we are saving the money and not spending it.

I just know me. When will it ever be enough? $15 cash? $20k cash? $30k cash? I like cash too much.

The year is long and so we'll see. The nice thing is when it comes to HSAs and ROTHS, we have a good 15 months to decide.

One thing I am thinking of, since we had a dismal IRA year this year, is moving $5k to cash before april 15th. I was planning to save $5k for car purchases this year. This way we could keep our efund savings intact and start storing it in the ROTHs. If we never touch it... Then we can convert it to the stocks down the road when we aren't so cash poor. It is a very tempting strategy. I could do the same in 08 & 09 and get a good $15k cash in there for emergency. The cool thing is we could still contribute 17% to our income (to stocks and such) so it feels very win-win. We still wouldn't touch the $12k cash in taxable accounts either, this way. So win-win-win. I could only see using that ROTH cash if I lost my job or something. & I wouldn't contribute that 2nd $5k otherwise. Which means we would lose the tax shelter if we don't take advantage with our cash.

& the interest would be tax free!

I need to really read up the rules on ROTH withdrawals to be sure. There are some ins and outs. Though overall I have heard this strategy much and makes sense.

If we can do that and add 17% of our income to our retirement (stocks), it really makes sense. I am very concerned that if dh goes back to work we will be lacking tax shelters, so whatever we can get in now is good. My other motivation. & why I expect we could convert all that cash to stock within a few years. Likely... Might as well get it in there while we can.

Oh, I had considered putting some money in regular IRAs for tax savings this year. I learned yesterday cali does not conform. So though our traditional IRA would be deductible for Feds it might not be for state.

Forget it. Since we paid so much tax in recent years to convert to ROTHs, we'll just stick with it. I am happy to be done with all those conversions anyway.

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This week will be a little pricey. Have to replace my windshield and get LM into the dentist. See what the prognosis is on his shark teeth.

so we'll see how that goes. Can put those on the card to worry about February. (I will have a good $400 in the car fund by then so I am okay with that. Dental expenses come from short-term savings, so I think I have both covered anyway). We'll see.

I have complained that one some local forums everyone loves to post pictures of their houses and cars and whatever. It makes me want to barf.

Anyway, maybe I wasn't paying attention years past, or maybe everyone is fighting harder to look like they're on top with this subprime mess (which is particularly horrible here).

Now everyone is posting pictures of the holiday excess!

"Look - I have 4 kids and I spent $1k on each of them!!!"

Are they serious?

Who cares?

On the flip side, someone posted pictures of all the presents under the tree for one small kid. I almost fell over. Remember when our kids got 20+ gifts each from grandma (so it seems). I guess I could be proud to say our tree for 4 kids and 7 adults was far smaller than this. YEESH!!!!!!!!

I mean, just imagine an entire room filled to the brim with presents!

I am going to roll my eyes next time one of these people tell me they are broke. As they always do.

You have got to be kidding me.

I don't know, it seems the longer I hang out a place like pfadvice, the more the behavior of those around me disgusts me. I always found it tacky and stupid. But my tolerance is wearing thin.

I am proud to say that my measure as a person does not come from the THINGS that I buy. Shoot me if I ever post a picture of anything and say "look at what I bought!!!!!! Look at me! Look at what I can afford!"

Likewise, I was worried that my kids are spoiled? Well they are, but this level of spoiling is just absurd.... What kind of kids are we raising???

Maybe for this day and age and location we are doing okay. But doesn't really make me feel any better. They still have way more crap than they should.

Anyway, my point is mostly that pfadvice is a breath of fresh air. Phew!!!!

Well today I went shopping.

I went to work in the a.m. and the electricity was still out. Dh had driven by the area last night and saw a lot of lights on. So I tried, even though answering system did not pick up when I called.

I wondered if maybe the circuit breaker needed to be turned on or something, but not my prob.

The paper did say many people were out of power and would be through Monday perhaps. I really wanted to get some work done this weekend. Likewise, I just took the time off to enjoy and get some stuff done around the house.

Lucky for me, I have seminar tomorrow. I wonder if some of my coworkers got/will get some paid time off with all this? I wouldn't have minded having Monday off!

But likewise, I am kind of glad I do have a seminar and won't be sitting around waiting for power.

This is the only class I go to that provides food. The food is terrible and a big sit down lunch thing. I am thinking of skipping it. Not terribly frugal but if my boss has to tend to office I am not sitting through lunch alone. Blah. I'll go spend $5 down the street.

The plus side is tomorrow is the kids' first day of both all-day preschool. & my seminar is down the street. It is perfect, and the start to some gas savings. Since dh will not have to drive all the way out there to pick up LM at lunch. We'll see how he does anyway. He has stayed all day at times. I don't know if it will be a bit much for him (2 full days a week), but I am sure he will be fine. Will put a load off our shoulders... Will make the tax season a little easier. & really once considering gas savings and all it isn't hardly anything more than we have been paying anyway.

BM was complaining about his shoes so I took him for some new shoes. Went to Payless, but did not have much in the way of wide sizes. Bummer. But found something acceptable. Almost $20, but oh well. I browsed the professional shoes and they had plenty in my wide size (Score) but nothing I liked. Figures. Think I will try Sears again this year. I bought some nice shoes last year and they are holding up okay, but the flats are getting kind of worn. Could go for another pair before tax season and clients and all that.

I also have $50 for Kohls - figure a dress or suit or 2 for the tax season would be nice.

While out we went to Wal Mart since it was there. (I wouldn't go there otherwise. I don't have so much issues with its Corporate practices since I personally find it more the scapegoat for similar stores. Like Target is really that much better? Come on. BUT the store always seems dirty, a lot of the merchandise is crap, and this particular parking lot is horrid. So I try to stay the hell away. LOL).

We went in because I remembered I needed Thank You cards for the Christmas gifts. Should work on those today.

I did find some cards. I also looked for some underwear for LM, but did not find anything his size.

I then ended up spending $50. But felt accomplished.

I picked up a frame for a picture I got for Christmas. I figured I'd look. But I saw the most gorgeous frame for $13. I know I probably could have found something decent at the Dollar Store. But I am pleased with what I got.

The kids have wanted slippers but I haven't seen the point with growing feet. However they had 2 rather nice pairs of $3/each. So got them slippers.

My mom has the most amazing candle - hazlenut cream - it smells DIVINE. I walked past them and it was $10 for a set of 5 candles. I grabbed them. I am keeping one for myself and gifting the rest to some friends. Just because. As I said, they are divine. Couldn't resist.

Finally, we passed the makeup aisle. I don't really wear makeup but the occasional eyeliner and lip gloss. I have this wonderful Covergirl stuff that is just a light shine/color. I bought 3 colors just AGES ago. I have no idea how old the stuff was and the other day I was thinking the one really probably is expired. & yet I have hardly used it, sad to say. But I love the stuff. So I looked while we were in the aisle anyway, just walked by Cover Girl on our way out. They still made them (yay!!!) so I grabbed my favorite and a new color to try. $7 for the 2. Will last me another 5 years +. I'll try to use them a little more. I am just too dang lazy. (Or more like who cares).

Here's to not going into a store again for MONTHs. I really hate shopping. & yet sometimes I love it too much. Hehe. Why I just stay away. It seems like I can never just go in for what I go in for. But all stuff I had been meaning to get, so I feel accomplished.

Well...

Yes I did post enough today. But I went to work and the electricity was still out (should have called - doh). Not even confident it will be back on tomorrow at this rate.

Though I am glad I made the decision to flee yesterday. Right away.

I picked up a file I regretted not having (luckily lots of sky lights in the office, and a sunny day, and all that, so I could even see my way to find a flashlight. Never would have found the file without the light though (though a cell phone is good for light when you are flashlight-less. Of course I didn't think of it at the time. Double doh).

I decided to take the day off. I can work in the wee hours tomorrow morning and head off to the office to clear some stuff off my desk if the electricity comes back. Otherwise - O.M.G. I have So MUCH to do!

Just cramming more to next week. Bah.

Another reason people pay so much to live here. So we don't have to deal with weather like this. The last 2 years though, I don't know...

Anyway, the fam was heading out to shop so I decided to be productive. I printed out most of my online statements. I really never do, and have switched to much electronic over the last year. I figured I better print out stuff for my records. I am considering keeping an electronic copy as well. Don't know if it is overkill, but paper copies only go so far. Particularly in a disaster (top of mind with weather like this).

So I made much progress. I found it easier to print some Quicken registers than the stupid banks that only had monthly statement options. Bah. (Thank you Vanguard for having YTD reports, easy to find and print. Yay!)

So while at it I decided to print a year-to-date register, all inclusive register from Quicken. I glimpsed a little more from these reports than the comparisons I already shared.

For example, all our dining out was McDonalds, Greek, Togo's, Indian, Round Table, Mongolian BBQ, Taco Bell, Sizzler and a few random places. We only went to Cali Pizza Kitchen once all year? Bummer. We've been doing less sit down dining for the budget (not that we did much before).

We did get a new Sizzler which we love, but rarely go to. Very pricey (particularly lunch - very pricey).

We only went out to the movies twice it appears. Which is good since dh insisted he needed a home theater and he does watch a good 3-5 movies weekly (if not more). HE takes advantage of the home setup, for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if it was cheaper than going to 5 movies a week. Actually, I Am quite sure it is.

But the utilities are what I find interesting, since I did not look at the breakdown by category before.

Cable/Internet $958
Gas/Electric $1123
Telephone $1335 (yes we love our telephones!!!)
Water/Sewer/Garbage $1113 (Flat rate)

Yes, we spent just about the same exact dollars on gas/electric as water/sewer/garbage.

& so when I complain about expensive water I mean it. (the lion's share is sewer and water).

With our switch to metered I expect water to go down a good $200 this year. Perhaps more... Woohoo for that. Sewer is still flat $30/month.

Our cable will go down by $120 "just because." (We actually get more channels now too).

Anyway, someone was telling me the other day her friends with a bigger house around here has $450 monthly gas/electric bills in the winter. She was asking us wasn't our bill insane? I said I paid $80 last month, and really, I don't think she believed me. LOL. I don't know what the hell these people are doing. ????? I am tired of people assuming we have $400+ energy bills. O.M.G.

I am not sure I could have a $450 bill if I tried... Yeesh.

Well, all that Disney talk on the boards, and lots of free time yesterday, I started working up a budget for Disneyland.

Gosh, when you have to pay for your own room (which we haven't in AGES) and pay for 2 adults and a kid, well, it starts to add up pretty fast.

We had our dream wish list and we started to cut it down fast.

I came up with about $1500 for a full week in So Cal and maybe $700 for a 3-night trip to just Disneyland. That is before searching out discounts and frugalizing it, but just kind of looking at May room rates and park admission prices, etc.

Dh said $1500 for a week (for 4)wasn't bad. For one we won't have airfare. He probably has a point, but I said, "are you out of your mind?"

As a young single chick I did a lot of traveling around. You know, you stay with friends and you used the student discounts. Take away all those free bonuses and start to multiply it by 2 or 3 and 4 and it is amazing to me how expensive vacation is. !!!!!

I mean Disneyland is one of our cheap staples. We'd drive up, stay at a cheap hotel, enjoy the day, and drive home.

So this is why this vacation will be SO nice. We decided for D-Land we would take a good solid 3 nights. 2 full days to drive (it's a good 6 hours each way). 2 days to go to the park. Sounds absolutely divine!!!! If we can pull it off for $500-$700, so be it. Not bad.

Incidentally, part of the reason we are going this year is LM is free AND he REALLY enjoyed Disney World (which I didn't expect at this age).

So dh and I did wonder aloud how much cheaper the whole week long/add San Diego thing really is without a 4th head to pay for. I really wanted to check out LegoLand down there which is $200 admission just for the 3 of us. Imagine when we have to pay for LM too.

So we did discuss that we should try to do the whole week thing while it is cheaper.

This is like our last hoorah before BM starts school. We wanted to take one last vacation without school schedules to work around. & we chose DL when I was jealous at all I missed when they were in Florida. I didn't expect LM to do much but be too scared to go on anything and too little to enjoy. What do I know? LOL.

Anyway, it all depends on my raise. It kicked in Jan. 1 but I STILL do not know what it is. I probably would have found out Friday if not for the horrid weather. Instead I find out Tuesday at the earliest.

Oh and there is that pesky $1k or so in taxes I will owe April 15th. So yeah, I think we are just doing Disneyland. BUT it will be a pretty nice/luxurious vacation for us. It will be nice not to have to rush.

If I get a huge raise and work more overtime than expected, we can talk about making a week of it. We'll see. It will be a "play by ear" thing.

We figured we'll drive down on a Monday night and go to the park Tues/Wed. I HATE crowds. You couldn't drag me there on a busy day. So like I said we have to enjoy without school schedules. One last year of complete freedom!

& I realize for all I gripe about high cost of living, there is a lot of good to it. We can drive to some pretty nice vacations rather easily, which saves much on the vacation front. I mean a day to Monterey or Tahoe we can stay with family, and we have so many day trips around here to enjoy. Or a days' drive to Vegas, Oregon Coast, or San Diego. Etc. We have it really good in that regard. I think in the grand scheme of things we can vacation pretty well for little money. & so this is maybe one reason people pay so much to live here.

Dh keeps telling me people go to vacation to get away and he likes to make home his oasis. He wants to stay home and enjoy 350 days+ of the year rather than only enjoy one week every year. I think he has a point. Just kind of along those lines too.

We're not big vacation people as a whole, so the whole thing is just a shocker to me!

Might as well stick with the free vacations. I don't think I fully grasped how much money we were saving on those trips. !!!!!! I mean I know how much my dad spent on Japan for me and it wasn't $1500! Of course taking all 4 of us would have put that trip to $5k+.

& then MIL gets all her free room and flights from her miles and timeshare points. But I am sure she shells out a lot to get that.

We still might luck out with a free room on this trip. We'll see. Dh didn't want to ask, but last time we had to pay a cancellation fee because she insisted she had a room for us. I told him, just ask so we can avoid the cancel fees later. Plus it was a REALLY nice hotel. I could go for saving $300 and staying at a really nice hotel.

P.S. the weather has calmed down here much. It is SO quiet.

I wasn't sure if it was worth risking life and limb to go to work today. It probably wasn't. I could have flipped a coin. In fact I was shocked when I got to work and everyone was there. Even my 75-year-old coworker who drives in from the country. Is she out of her mind???

Anyway, we lost power for 15 minutes pre-lunch, while power was out all morning at home.

Power came back on but flickered on and off all day. I finally decided if it went out again I Was just going home.

Good decision. It went out shortly after 1:00, and I jumped out of my skin when it sounded like a transfomer blew. I took a few minutes to backup some work on the internet for home and then fled. My coworkers were all standing around. Not sure what they were waiting for. I have been in that position twice and the power was out for about 8 hours both times. I figured 8 hours +++ in this weather. I take it as a sign.

It's time like these I feel like everyone else is a sheep. Like I said I was pretty darn close to not coming into work anyway. Certainly not if I wasn't swamped. But you hear a horrible noise like that, and lose all power, and everyone stands around in the dark waiting for direction. I just didn't see the point... (I think it's my youth. Impatient youth. All my coworkers are 20 years + my senior). I mean seriously, I did talk to ONE client today and I couldn't fax or e-mail her because their power was out. Many of us were coming in Saturday anyway. Why were we wasting our time in the dark?

I thought it was a good time to leave, but it was a scary ride home as well. More trucks and crazy drivers and TONS of rain. In the morning I had been relieved to see few cars and no big rigs. Not so lucky on the way home. Though their was news of big rigs toppling over everywhere. IT was mostly WIND today.

Of course I had good intentions and brought work home. (As the only reason I went in is we are SWAMPED. I already had 40 hours before I went in today - for the week).

But I am not getting far. Yes I have the laptop, but if the power goes out again, so will my internet. Something I didn't think of. Which I need for my work. I also could not access my work computer from home, with the power off there. We have the backups but not sure how long they would last, so just shut it down.

Decided to call it a day and relax. I give up. Will make it a long day tomorrow. Probably in the office.

Just swamped. But I have a seminar Monday AND I also have plans the next 2 weekends, and one Friday. So just have to do what I can. Also this time of year I know to work when healthy. !!

Which is the nice thing about this year so far. The overtime has been much easier to get in with kids who sleep (knock on wood much) and so on. The OT has been hard with wee little ones in recent years. But this year I already got in a good 10 hours OT and it took little effort. Like I said, I had 40 hours today before I even showed up.

So hoping this year is a little easier on me. Though I always hesitate to say when LM sleeps well, because that is the big jinx. He still has his nights. Nothing like his brother. BM takes after me. I can sleep any time, any how, any where. As such I get really grumpy when I don't get my sleep. LOL. I know I am a wound up person, but at night I just turn it off. I always felt blessed that way. & kids really threw me for a loop. IT's not so easy anymore.

Oh well, blahblahblah. IT was trash day and so when I left this morning there was TRASH everywhere. We rarely take ours out because it takes us a month to fill ours (if that). Imagine when we don't even have diapers! So I am glad to say our trash is not all over the yard and street. But everyone else's sure is.

I guess it was also Christmas tree pickup time. When I got home there was still trash everywhere. But some blown down fences and some toppled trees. & christmas trees EVERYWHERE.

I feel blessed we weathered the storm okay. & a christmas tree didn't blow through a window or anything. Yeesh.

But that is the nice thing about living in a newer development. Sure we will gripe about the lack of mature foliage most of the year. But times like these I was just relieved not to worry about trees or power lines crashing down on our house. Of course, the downed fences aren't fun, but probably much easier to deal with. I did see a few snapped trees. Poor things...

But yeah, this is about as stormy as it gets here. Today will be a day to remember. Even crazier yet how far the storms reached. My parents sounded like they had a similar day. I worried more about them surrounded by so many trees though. So far they seem okay.

But that's my day. Crazy day.

"Today: Windy with rain, heavy at times. High 56F. Winds S at 25 to 40 mph. Rainfall expected to exceed 2 inches. Winds could occasionally gust over 50 mph."

& then I saw:

"LOCAL GUSTS TO 75 MPH ARE POSSIBLE IN THE MORNING"

O.M.G.

IT is really windy here. & rain is rather "rare" anyway. So might as well be a blizzard for here. I don't look forward to the drive today. I haven't been driving the van since it is garaged with the cracked windshield. But I saw my life flash before my eyes twice this week driving dh's little compact. I don't know if the big trucks just look more menacing after driving the big van so much, but they scare the crap out of me. I almost got ran over by a giant camper on Wednesday. I don't like to be tailgated, but in the teeny tiny compact, yeah, my life flashes before my eyes the way some people drive.

So on a day like this I think I prefer the van. Maybe the little Escort which is very low will barely feel the wind. Or maybe the wind will just blow it clear off the road since it is so little. LOL. I am not sure if wind and rain is good for my windshield though. *sigh* Probably should just take the compact.

We were talking about going up to the snow this weekend. Then dh and I both saw there was a big storm for the weekend. Figures. Blizzard conditions in the Sierras. Think we'll stay home.

This year started rather mild. We always find it hard to get to the snow in tax season, but never make the effort in November/December when we should. Anyway, I remember the first (only) time we took BM was May. IT was a weird year and tons of snow well into May. At this rate I told dh we could just go in May. LOL. The cold started late and this is the first storm of note for the fall/winter.

Yes we also drove through a snow storm in June one year. We were driving home from Reno on a beautiful weekend and all of a sudden it started snowing. Heavily. Luckily our friend had 4-wheel drive. We eventually got out and had a snow ball fight. What the heck, who can say they have had a snowball fight in June? We were all just stunned. Where the heck did that come from? Didn't think to check the weather reports in June.

So yeah, here's to April or May. It makes me nervous really to try in winter anyway. I like the snow on a nice sunny day myself.

Dh's family has a cabin about an hour out from here and they have all their snow gear from generations past. So we go up there, bundle up and head up to Tahoe which is a good hour from there. Of course if it snows down to the cabin, as it often does, we don't have to go far to find snow. But we generally do like to go up in better weather conditions and drive up to Tahoe. It is very pretty.

Dh is not into skiing but I like it a fair amount. Too many ski injuries in the family though. I think it would be fun to take the kids though. For now no one will go with me. But with age it does sound less appealing. Risking life and limb. Of course the same can be said for sledding. LOL. Not quite so fun when you are old and big than when you are young and small.

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Well, our gas bill was $80. Down 20% from last year. I think it has just been milder. IT has seemed terribly cold for days. But then it was well into the 60s for a couple of days. I went out at lunch and was sweltering. What a beautiful few days.

Dh did remind me last year was extremely cold (we had a few days of freezes which was quite rare).

But anyway, something like for every 1% we lower our bill in Jan. & Feb., we save 1% on a future bill. Lower bill 10%, save 20%.

It's not entirely clear, but I don't think there is much motivation there for us. Our non-winter bill rusn $10-$20 average. (November was $20 and that had some winter in it). Anyway, so if we save 1% or 20% on that? Big whoop! LOL. But we'll see.

Anyway, one reason our bill went down is we turned down the water heater in summer. I turned it up come winter and though it wasn't quite as scalding as I prefer, it was quite comfortable. With our new metered water I figure might as well not make it TOO comfortable. But to be clear I thought it was just fine. Also trying to be mindful of child safety. I never saw the point of turning down the water heater with kids who couldn't even crawl or reach a faucet. BUT these days, yeah, they can get into anything. So turning down the water heater as we were told 5years ago when I gave birth.

I guess dh has been miserable though and he complained. I told him the point was not to make him miserable. Yeesh. Not worth freezing to save $5. So I turned it up 1/2 way between where it was before and where we had it now. We're still tweaking it. But when we figure it out we'll get the sharpie out and mark the dial so we'll have the winter setting and the summer setting. We cut our summer bills in half. ($20 to $10).

So anyway, our $80 bill was rather low. I am not sure how much was because of the water heater. We'll see how our January bill fares...

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In other news, LM is day 2 into potty training! Yay!

We're really lazy in this regard. Know too many people who tried too hard at 18 months and were still trying well into age 4.

Dh and I kind of didn't see the point of training a kid who still needs so much help. & we hate those little potties. Ugh. Too much work and doesn't help when you want to leave the house.

Even though MIL told me a million times she trained HER kids by 2, we were pretty lazy with BM. We had a new baby at 2 and I heard too much about regression. But he was always very interested in the potty. At 3 he started to do #2 in the potty and we just told him, that's it. No more diapers. That's it. We were just very relaxed about it and didn't make a big deal about it for YEARS. As such, my friends with her 4yo asks me how we do it since they still have so many accidents. What do I say? We really didn't do anything. Which is the point. He took the lead.

So MIL has been going on and on about this again and we figure diapers are just easier. I said I rather wait until 3 again. That was easy! Though LM shows less tolerance for being wet and dirty, and he wants to be like his brother, he is also way more timid. Thus uninterested in the big potty. but somehow MIL got him pretty trained at her house (well with lots of candy for one) so dh decided to work on it this week.

Still lots of work since we have to remind him and help him onto the big potty every few hours. But he is officially out of diapers most of the day.

Good for the pocket book!

We'll see. I am not very optimistic. But we'll see. He seems to be doing really well.

I can't believe it has been 5 years in diapers in this house. (& yes I know lots of people do it much longer. LOL).

But the end is so near I can taste it.

Since we switched out of clothe and dropped the diaper service, it really doesn't cost very much. The diapers. I mean we change them so rarely anyway I Would be surprised if we spend more than $10/month. Dh just buys the giant bag of generics for $10 every month or so. MAybe $12. But it will certainly be nice to drop them, regardless. In more ways than one! I never liked the disposables (environmentally). But LM has always been very particular and wouldn't wear clothe at night, etc. So we'll see. The less disposables we have to use, the better I will feel environmentally... & he is getting big enough to do all the work himself. Here's to that!!!!

He'll be 3 in summer. & the other thing that REALLY motivated BM was going to preschool and seeing the older kids. He started preschool when he was just about 3. & so LM might be getting a little motivation from that end too.

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In other news I am feeling good. I stressed way too much about money last year. I think after reviewing our progress from 2007, on our spending, I feel like a load has been taken off my shoulders.

I still roll my eyes at the people who poo poo any luxury in life. That anyone would pay for preschool!!!! For me it means I will have a 7% contribution to my IRA, from 0.8% come September. & certainly I could do 7% tomorrow if I lost my profit sharing. Then priorities would change. I find the luxuries the easiest to enjoy, and the easiest to drop when needed. The interesting thing for us is that many of our luxuries are NOT long-term expenses. I always looked at preschool and our gardener, and the like, as very temporary. & when we save up the money to buy fancy electronic equipment, it is usually a one-time purchase. Not like there are payments. In tough times we have plenty to get us through (or maybe even to sell). In good times we enjoy.

1/2 my emergency fund today is my car. Efund is $12k. But if I lost my job and our efund was draining fast, I'd sell the car in a heartbeat. Another good $12k.

That is the nice thing about the extras. Don't get used to them. Don't make them "needs." But we have to much nice stuff we bought well before kids that we still enjoy. & plenty of other stuff that we enjoy now in times of abundance, but would drop in a heartbeat to make ends meet.

So anyway, our spending is down and we are trying best to save every raise and windfall.

As such I feel more relaxed. 2007 was year of financial. 2008 will be year of something else. Yay!

I actually took some time this morning and last to work on some scrapbooking. I do digital scrapbooking, but am eons behind. Ever since we switched to digital pictures, we print out few. But I arrange my favorites on little pages and print them out. & I find it MUCH cheaper than traditional scrapping. The software cost $30 eons ago, and my dad sends us free photo paper all the time. (He is really into photography and just sends us the leftovers as he is always upgrading). So it is a pretty cheap hobby. So for 2008 I hope to get a little more caught up. I had the most adorable pictures from Christmas and am working on that. I will share some of my layouts when I am done.

Home Prices Must Fall Far To Be In Sync With Rents

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119931831334463571.html

"The study tracks rents and home prices back to 1960 and found annual rents fluctuated at around 5% to 5.25% of home prices until 1995. At the end of that year, the average monthly rent was about $553 (or about $6,600 a year) and the average home price was about $134,000.

But starting in 1996, home prices started to grow much more rapidly than rents. By the end of 2006, they had more than doubled to an average of $282,000, while the average rent had risen 48% to $818. That drove the annual rent/price ratio down to 3.48%.

That means the rent/price ratio is about a third below its long-term average. To return to normal would require some combination of falling prices and rising rents. The paper suggests house prices would need to fall about 3% a year, if rents grew in line with their 4% average annual growth this decade.

Of course, the link between house prices and rents can remain out of whack for years."

Just found this interesting.

That is the nice thing about moving somewhere else and seeing what is so weird about the city you live in. I knew it was expensive, yes, but I had no idea how whacked rents were as well. I just assumed it was always cheaper to own than to rent. ISn't that why home ownership is #1?

So I did a little research on Craigslist and Zillow, and down memory lane as well.

I'd say historically in the Bay Area rents were closer to 10% of home prices (well when we were renters anyway).

Today it looks like 5%. Rents have kind of stagnated, but home prices are absolutely through the roof. (Like they weren't already).

OF course thinking about averages, my ideas of home ownership would change greatly if we lived in an average city.

It has been interesting in sacramento where there is so much overbuilding and so many propertied snatched up for investment. As such rents have been very low. I am just amazed at how little you can rent for here. (Though still glad we snatched up property before it went crazy).

The interesting thing is there are whipserings of increasing rents while all these homes foreclose. Less available for rent in the interim. I think in the long run there is probably too much property. But then again, as prices fall, we will once again attract many many people from the rest of the state. So it is hard to say.

I guess kind of the interesting thing with falling prices. If prices fall and rents rise, we'll be in a good spot. Because our payments won't rise.

Anyway, as such, you see why I am totally lost on renting as an avenue to build wealth.

I have mentioned my parents probably pay around $5k/year for property taxes and insurance on their million dollar home. Sure they have repairs and maintenance, but they have kept it up well. Certainly no large, looming expenses. They have an older, paid for home (That cost merely $100k 25 years ago) with 2000 square feet. Dh's parents have a smaller house but their expenses are probably very similar. They have a lot more work to do on their house though. Houses were both built in the 70s.

Likewise, grandma sold her house and pays $2500/month to rent a closet. It is a retirement community with food and maid service. So she gets more than just a space. But the renting costs are just crazy. She has been really stressed. We keep telling her to really consider moving closer to us. Lower rents.

OF course, back in 1999 it cost $25k-$30k annually to rent the condo that we paid $260k for. Yeah, we were never going to waste those dollars renting. I rented a room (found a STEAL) for $400/month and dh lived with his parents while we saved the down. But to get a place together would have been at least $1k/month to live on the other side of the railroad tracks. So we just waited a bit. We never saw how we could save up for a house otherwise. Well, more slowly on the wrong side of the tracks perhaps. But not many other options. Likewise I always have thought about the dollars we would save in the long run with a paid off house and no rents to pay!

Reading this article I see a little more why people don't get so excited about that. LOL. Or why they think I am insane to believe owning cost less than renting. But I Am not insane. Just live in bizarro world. IT has it's pluses and minuses.

As such, rents here boggle my mind. I guess I could still be happy to say our expenses are in line with rents, if not lower. Somehow, some way. & might get more in our favor in future years.

For the long run I figure inflation will blow rents out of the water. Which is where it leaves dh's grandma. She obviously never had a $2500 house payment. she's 80. No wonder those rents stress her out so! But I understand why she rents. No longer wanting to upkeep a house.

You can't help but wonder if she would have been better off buying an apartment and hiring a personal chef and a maid. ! I really don't know. But rising rents won't help her. *sigh*

Well I just wanted to do a light post. All this number crunching and 2007 figuring was intense. (But I love it. That's why I an accountant!)

But I did want to say we had a nice Holiday.

Took the kids to the park yesterday. I just wanted some sun and fresh air. It has been terribly cold (for us) so we bundled up real good. Went outside and it was actually a little warm. Was absolutely sweating when we came back. LOL. I am glad we went outside though, I had been scared of the cold. Silly me.

We also watched 3 movies over the weekend. Dh and I watched Simpsons and Bad Santa. Both, eh. Bad Santa wasn't that great BUT the kid in there was absolutely hilarious. It was worth it to see the kid. One of the most bizarre characters I have ever seen. Dh and I were like how did they come up with this stuff? We love bizarre characters I guess. Otherwise lots of sex and swearing and all that. Stupid, pointless plot. LOL. A few funny moments though.

Yeah, I just hate movies anymore. They seem to get longer and longer and more terrible.

I know it dissapoints dh terribly, but most of the time I just let him screen them and refer the good ones. He rarely refers any anyway, but he loves his movies regardless... I just loathe to waste my time for such crap.

Anyway, last night we watched Shrek 3, we just watched it in front of the kids/with them. Not sure they would pay attention, but they were riveted. It was terrible. I remember Shrek 1 being hilarious. This one really didn't have any jokes. I don't remember laughing once. Bah. IT was also much darker.

So 1 long weekend and 3 crappy movies. LOL. It will be a long time before I sit through 3 movies again. PArt of the reason I relented was I was so terribly busy all weekend, I didn't mind just sitting and numbing my tired brain. IT certainly worked. LOL.

I also bought a lamp for the one room in our house without built-in lighting. Long overdue. But I saw a pretty lamp on sale for $20. yay!

Well, this week at work will be rather busy. BUT kind of the calm before the storm. Not too busy. Might be my last weekend off for about 3-4 months. If I am lucky anyway... I have tons to do.

I just wanted to say I have been happy to see so many people returning to the blogs. Yay to the New Years!

& I feel terrible I haven't really had time to read any or participate more. Feeling very one-sided these days. Such it will be for the next few very busy months. But I will try. LOL. It's no fun to just blab blab blab and not read other blogs. I could blab less. But it is therapeutic.

Anyway, this topic has been rolling in my head since the SA blog had a topic about luck. & then since Broken Arrow mentioned how his friends called him "lucky" for paying down his debt. You know, after sleeping in the closet and putting 40% of his salary to his 401k. You have got to be kidding me. I was insulted for him.

But I also wanted to make very clear the other side. I feel very blessed for all the luck we do have. I try to embrace it and appreciate it and even give thanks daily. Sometimes I Care little more than for our food and shelter. & health. The rest really is gravy. But in the rantings of a blog that always doesn't come across.

Anyway, so when I take offense to being called lucky, these are the stupid things that come to mind from over the years:

1. I am lucky I have disability insurance

Yes, someone told me this when I took disability insurance on maternity leave. A state employee who opted out of the state insurance. regular employees don't have that option (state disability is mandatory).

Do you think with a family to support, that I would have opted out of short-term disability insurance if I was a government employee? Are you out of your mind? It cost um, about $400/year (I am sure optional plans are about the same) and I took about $25k benefits over 2 years. If I had a problem and was put on bed rest I could have continued to support my family. Benefits were around $3k/month. What a load off if I got stuck on bed rest for a few months. I could not imagine NOT having short-term disability insurance when it came to pregnancy.

2. I am lucky that my parent's paid for my college.

Well, um, they didn't. I went to state and worked my butt off to get through. But people always assume I had it real easy, my parents paid. When I was in college I went to a commuter school. Lots of older students. I always remember the few who would gripe on and on and on very loudly how they didn't have a free ride. The rest of us would roll our eyes. Who did? Not many. Most in my accounting classes were single mothers or young parents switching careers, etc. A few of them would gripe because I was young and obvious carefree. LOL. The gripers were usually the young ones. Some of them would obviously hint they thought I Was getting a free ride. Because I got good grades and didn't gripe? I Was working 3 jobs.

I also have a friend to this day that I never had the heart to tell that I pretty much did college on my own. Since I have no student loans and don't see the point, obviously I had an easy road paved by my parents. That's her assumption. She is 40 and gripes endlessly how her parents ruined her life (20 years ago by not paying for her college?). I really like her otherwise and I know she supports her parents financially so probably why I didn't have the heart to tell her. At least my parents don't ask for handouts. Yeesh. I think she has some right to gripe. But over the years it is funny how many people have made similar assumptions. A lot of the time, I don't know, you don't even see the point in saying anything. Whatever.

3. I am lucky to own a home

Well, um living on a $10k wage for a year or 2 out of college and saving the difference for a down payment. If that's luck, then so be it. I chalk it up to hard work.

Starting small with a condo. Most people I have suggested that to look at me like I am crazy.

Or working extra jobs to save money. More crazed looks.

That we moved somewhere where homes cost 1/3 where they did back home (though it broke our hearts to feel like we had to move. )

All things we did.

4. I am lucky to have such a good job

I don't think there is anything I have worked harder for towards in my life and the most frustrating thing to me. When people chalk it up to luck.

For one, when considering careers at age 18 I made a point to choose a career that I loved, would cost little to get into, and would have some measure of job security. Accounting came to mind. This could have backfired because I really had no idea what an accountant did. But I knew I loved numbers and that it seemed like the kind of job that would bring much stability and security to my life. That is exactly WHY I chose it. I didn't want to be in debt up to my eyeballs either, when I graduated. The public college in my home town had an excellent program that was really dirt cheap. & I could springboard that to a six figure career. (As my dad did in the 70s - he is an engineer - went to public school. He wanted to be a TV repairman but a community college school counselor told him to shoot for the gold and it changed his life. & he told me to do the same. Shoot for the gold. Where I got my degree would matter little as he just didn't have the means to pay for more college and he did fine in an industry where they say it couldn't be done. Yes I was lucky to have such wise parents...).

So anyway, I worked very hard, was very calculated in my career choice, and got my CPA license when I was 25.

Of course I just sat in my duff in my youth and it just all fell into my lap. Yeah, sure.

5. I am lucky my spouse can stay home

Yes I am lucky we planned from the day we met that one spouse would stay home. When we combined incomes we always made it a point to live on only one wage. We waited a few years to have kids until we felt financially ready.

All luck???????

Mostly we did the math anyway. One small wage minus daycare and payroll taxes and income taxes amounts to a hill of beans.

I'll take the random focus group money any day.

I don't think most people really think it through. What are they working so hard for? A lot of meals out and money for the IRS?

So those are my main gripes. I think I have heard a lot more stupid things.

& you have probably heard these gripes before.

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Of course a lot of the time I do say little because I do feel very lucky.

I have said many times my parents never handed me a wad of cash (well before this year anyway). & I believe that is a principle in the "Millionaire next door." Most of those millionaires were not spoiled or handed much. Which makes it easier to fight on their own, rather than sitting around waiting for handouts.

But having been raised very middle class I don't discount my luck in the least. I know the things that I had that my parents didn't. Lots of hand-me-downs. Many 0% interest loans throughout the years. Help purchasing my first car (help finding a deal I should say). HAving health insurance coverage through them through college.

Just ALL of the little things that they could not say they had when they were in college. The things their impoverished parents could not do for them. & it all makes a huge difference. That is why I cringe when I read in the forums that you have to pay your kids' college. There is so much more support to give them and to be had that will be appreciated even if you can't foot the entire bill. PArticularly if you raised them to be appreciative of what they do have. There are a million little things my parents did for me that I will always be grateful for.

I appreciate probably the most that I shouldn't have to support them as they age. BEcause they didn't go bankrupt for me.

But I know I am lucky I always had an abundance of food and shelter.

I know that we are extremely blessed to have had kids when we wanted them. I know few who do the same. 1/2 our friends are desperate to get pregnant, the other 1/2 have had 1 or 2 or 3 mistakes. I know that a good measure of planning went a long way for us, but there is so much more to the plan. The powers that be could have had very different plans. A broken condom or years of infertility. I am very humbled to that ever since the friend who bragged she could never get pregnant again, quickly ended up pregnant. LOL. I made a mental note never to get overly confident about good planning. I am all too aware of that .001% chance even with sterilization. I just chalk it up if that happens, I guess it was meant to be.

I also feel blessed we had kids when we wanted them and close in age. If it took a while for the 2nd it could have caused much financial strain. But I think we spaced them pretty well. I always felt like we would try our best though I am all too aware that we don't control the whole game. So I just feel very blessed everything went as we had hoped. I know very few who could say the same.

It doesn't help to this day to hear people criticize the fact that me and my sister are spaced 6 years apart. I just don't know what people are thinking sometimes. & yes my parents hoped we would be closer in age and suffered MANY miscarriages. People need to think a little more before they open their big mouths. !!!!!!

Anyway, moving on. I feel very blessed to be in my career. Yes, I choose a smooth and steady job with little threat of layoff like ever. BUT it has turned into a dream in recent years. With the extreme shortage of CPAs I have job security (& raises) out of my ears. I never dreamed it would be this way. & I really can't say how long it will last. Which is why I am extra appreciative it is like this in my youth. When I have small kids to raise. So it made it so I could take as much maternity leave as I wanted (maybe even years) without any worry of job security. Just how it is. I know this can't last forever and is something to be treasured while it lasts.

Though we grew up in the land of insanely expensive I feel we were very blessed that we were able to move a mere 2 hours away to start over. We at least are still close enough to family. IF we had to move farther out it would have been a much harder choice.

& of course this is without all the obvious stuff. I am lucky that our parents do just fine for themselves and have taken to spoiling us of late. That is the obvious luck. That we are healthy and all that too. (We just found out our neighbors' infant has had 2 heart surgeries already. ! I couldn't even imagine going through that).

I know we are very lucky and I try to be thankful for our luck every day.

But people say really stupid things and sometimes I have to gripe about it. LOL. I just wanted a post that said how I Feel. Somewhere in the middle. We all have a certain degree of luck and we all make much of our luck too.

Reminds me of the Serenity prayer,

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

You can't waste your time worrying about that in your life which you can not control. But there is much you can control. & take responsibility for that part of your life. Amen.

I am not religious by any means, but I think those are the wisest words I have ever heard.

Well again my last post isn't showing up. No idea why.

But I put some 2007 totals. IF anyone cares, look at my last entry.

& Happy New YEar!

Yes, this is it. I am ready for 2008!!!!

But this is the first year I had 2 full years' data in Quicken. How exciting. I wanted to do a comparison. & with the push of a button... Wala!

I like technology.



Auto - gas was up $600. Not bad considering prices and we probably drove way more this year.

Insurance and licenses down a bit

Service up $1k. Thanks new car. I can't say we ever spent near as much with very old cars. Bah. No wonder people with new cars assume old cars cost more to maintain. LOL.

Last year we spent $400 to replace a windshield on an old car and we spent $300 on maintenance and oil changes and such.

This year with the major expensive upgrade to much newer 35k mile car (from my 150k mile,never needed a repair, Saturn) we spent almost $1k to repair my electrical system and $500 for new tires. $200 for the regular maintenance.

Wasn't exactly in the budget. Just not used to these kind of stupid repairs. Windows not working, locks not working. Etc.

Charity - we were more charitable-like. We tend to give more time than cash as a whole. But we gave a lot more to charity in lieu of gifts this year.

Clothing - tried to be more mindful, though I think I paid for much my clothing out of allowance this year. Doubt I spent much less on clothing. I actually shopped less second hand this year. Target is just SO cheap for the kids. Wasn't worth the trip to the second hand stores to pay the same prices.

Childcare - We put LM in 2 1/2 days a week. Upped the costs considerably as the mornings costs much more hourly than tacking on the afternoons. We actually moved BM down to 2 full days from 3 1/2 days, to lower costs (funny how that works out). Just 7 more months of 2??? Phew!!!!

Christmas - about same as last year.

Diapers - I put those with groceries. These were just the cloth diaper service. BM dropped out mid-year and we ended the service a couple of months back. Was well worth it for 2. A little pricey for one who rarely used the cloth anymore.

Dining out - spent $430 less. Not bad!!!

Education - we did karate and a gymboree type class through the community center. We dropped these due to time changes and sending LM to preschool instead. I took on an aerobics class, but I only have to pay when I show. So our expenses here went down (but preschool way up).

Entertainment - we pretty much spent the same - I just changed my classifications this year. This year only includes our Blockbuster online rentals at $19/month.

Gifts Given - we didn't give less gifts at all this year. not at all. Just shopped a lot smarter!!! (P.S. a relative said I bought too much only though I only spent $15 each on her kids. Reatail full price looked like $50 each and she thought I bought too much. Isn't that funny!!! Bought brand new too. Sales and coupons...) I used to penny pinch for ourselves and splurge on everyone else. I have since learned that is silly!

Groceries are down on average $110/month. All dh. don't ask me. We eat the same. I really notice little difference to our diet or eating habits. We have been clipping more coupons (just a few) and just planning meals better is all. Dh makes a batch of salsa almost every week now with leftover vegetables. The chips are always on sale dirt cheap if you know when to buy. We switched to bulking up on non-perishables on sale. IT was hard at first because it grew our monthly expense in the beginning, (we had a month or 2 of $600 bills) but with time it seriously has brought it down. Big time. Now we spend $400-$450/month. I think we could go a long ways to bring this down too. shop produce more locally (farms, farmers' markets) and the like, is one idea. I just told dh to pick up spices in the ethnic food section. What an idea.

To be fair, one kid dropped out of diapers, and the other dropped out of formula, and now we buy milk in bulk/sale since both kids are now on 2%. Those helped a lot too.

I leave this $500 in our budget because the kids will grow. I do the same with gas in our budget. Just to leave wiggle room for growing prices and known factors.

Household - is gardener and stuff for the house. Last year we had pest control, but the cheap place quit. They only came 3-4 times a year and had a gurantee (so would come more if need be). But they quit and we didn't see anything reasonable. Dh decided to self spray. We haven't yet, but really should before the spring. The wasps are terrible. We really don't have any other pests though and generally thought pest control was overkill (most our neighbors pay $60/month!!!!! We took the gardener instead!).

This year our big pest expense was mouse traps. (Didn't catch any - neighbors' cat did. Phew).

Housing - when first got Quicken think I put a couple of mortgage payments there. Ignore.

ID Theft - signed up for monitoring since my ID was stolen. May drop it. Considering it. Was invaluable for a few months though while I cleaned things up.

Insurance - Disability and home insurance went down $400. Likewise I added $100 premium to our life insurance. Upped it since we had the wiggle room.

Interest expense - was car loan. Only consumer interest I paid in my life. Was only 3% though and paid off in April.

Kids - just an old classification. Now use clothes and misc. categories.

Medical - only went up $500 though are premiums went through the roof. For one, we only went to the dentist once in 2007. (summer. We went december before and january after. We do go every 6 months, just how it worked out. Guess more like 7 months.

Misc. - I budget $150/month for misc. Just the extras and to buy some wiggle room. & I don't like to over-categorize everything. This one is hard to compare as I have changed some of my classifications with time using the software. We probably spent around the same. This year included a $1200 HDTV and stand. So not bad! Oh yes, this year we included gym membership. I also allocated about $100/month when we had extra money to take kids to museums and zoos and such. So I think we spent this money much better this year. I know where most of it went. Last year we had a lot more junk, stupid purchases. This year included a beard timmer, rock climbing, birthday ballons for the kids, passport, new phone, movie theatre visits, etc. Just stuff like that that I am not going to categorize since we spend so little on. (I should breakout the gym membership in Quicken though - just haven't yet).



Mortgage - some reason paid 13 payments last year? So skewed the comparison.

Moving expenses - was storage and prep for house sale last year. We never moved and didn't try this year.

PErsonal care - this is just haircuts. We started going to the beauty school for the kids year-end. $4 haircuts for BM and $2 for LM. Can't beat that. I get 2 haircuts a year and dh goes every so often - mostly him. I am not into makeup and all that foofy stuff. So we don't spend much on that stuff. I put shampoo and deoderant and the like in the grocery budget. I just don't liek a lot of categories. IT's all stuff we "need."

Professional dues - these are actually my poilitcal contributions. My boss reimburses the rest of my dues. & these are voluntary. I Felt more generous this year.

Recreation - just moved to miscellaneous this year.

Subscriptions - we subscribe to our cooking mags (which help our grocery bill) and the paper and a few other real cheap things. Mostly all I did this year was switch to paying the paper once a year. No idea why not before. Saved a bit.

Tax - Increase in tax is mostly payroll taxes due to raise.

Utilities - Well dh did drop HBO late last year. But we upped our cell phone - upgraded to more ours from our ancient, ancient package. Our water switched to metered last month and dropped significantly. Our local cable company dropped our bill $20/month for no particular reason in October as well. we get more channels now. Eat that Comcast. We also started budget billing so less bills the last few months.

Vacation - 2006 we went to Hawaii and Vegas. This year we went to Japan, Florida, Vegas and a cruise. I also included a trip to Monterey and San Francisco in the "vacation" category this year. Both years much was paid for by relatives. So the $600 increase isn't bad for all we did. (For Japan and Florida all we paid for was treating to dinner and some international phone calls).

Allowances - I don't see them in this report. We both spent around $1k. We budgeted $50/month plus gifts, so was well within budget.

Dh bought some movies and games and a PS3.

I spent mine on clothes and replacing my purse, backpack, suitcase and the like.

But this is perfect for us. Dh thinks I spend way too much on clothes and I can't stand that he keeps a movie collection. I have never bought a movie in my life! Never would. So we allowance it and do our own thing with no nagging.

We'll stick with $50/month for 2008. IT worked well. IT doesn't mean we can never spend more, it's just the nag-free money. We tend to agree on all our other purchases. & without limits, these are the areas we overspend. So it was good for us.

This is the first year we had an allowance since we were first married in 2000. Don't ask me why. This should have been the first thing we did when we went down to 1 income. Doh.

Income (wage) was around $75k. So expenses were about equal. We made our net worth progress with investments, profit sharing, extras (Challenge), etc.

I am hoping the gap between total expenses and my wage grows a little more next year though. But that is one thing we do as a 1-income family. Scrounge up the extras where we can. More time to do so.

I think mostly our wants/needs are in balance too so that is the nice thing. We have always found it rather easy to save raises. We haven't done so well with that the past 5 years on 1 income, but we are re-committing to that. Easiest way to save money. We don't need to up our lifestyle, it seems. We have it pretty good I think.

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

All in all we spent a little less than 2006 (barely). Maybe breakeven once you include our allowances (not showing up). But I got a $4k raise and we raised $10k challenge money. So it was a good year!

I think we spent our money much smarter. Less money for stupid stuff, more for more important things. Yay!

Here's to doing even better in 2008.

2008 $20 challenge:

$ 0 - 1/1

$ 50.00 - January Contribution

------------------
$ 50.00 - Balance 1/10
------------------

**All retirement monies to challenge for 2008**

Well, here's my start to the challenge. If I get at least a $100 raise, monthly, this week, I will up it to $100. I usually officially make my contributions on the 10th of the month.

On the horizon this month? well my raise this week, which could influence this # a lot. We'll see. This is one year our health insurance did not go up too insanely. So we might enjoy a raise... (Instead of forking it over to our HMO). The raise will be anywhere from 3-10%. Who knows. Market is probably 10%. I have had it too good to complain much though if I get less. I work for a small business and it has been hard to keep up. My salary has gone up on average 12% annually since I graduated college. Only slowing down the last year or 2 with "only" 3-5% raises.

I also just vested in our profit sharing plan so I wouldn't be surprised if I get the lower end in cash salary since I am earning so much more as a whole going forward. Which is fine.

We also have a carseat and a nice crib bedding set to sell. At least $50 between the 2...

So hopefully a good solid $150 for the challenge this month. Maybe more if I get a big raise!

Oh my, yesterday was exhausting. It was terrible.

I have 2 kinds of tax seasons. Most of them are the gain weight kind. I am a stress eater. Thus, I often gain 5 pounds (& work it off the rest of the year).

Other times it is just so hectic there is no time to eat. I have had one or 2 tax seasons where I lost weight or maintained. Even with the stress eating on my days off. LOL.

Anyway, I forgot to eat lunch yesterday. I scarfed some food down around 3pm when I started to get hungry and remembered.

I got home and wasn't hungry for dinner then.

Dh has been shopping so carefully and I have been pinching my pennies more, I start to think this may be a tax season I can actually make it without gaining 5 pounds.

I also did good on the holidays. I got an ungodly amount of popcorn in a gift exchange, but dh sent it down to a relative's New Years Party. We had it out christmas and I left it out at work for a while but there was barely a dent. I think I gained 2 pounds eating what I did. We were ready to throw it out. Just too much. So hope it went to good use.

Well, I don't advocate not eating and forgetting meals (certainly messes with your metabolism as well which can work against you). But I start to think that maybe there is hope for me to lose more weight. I usually give up pretty much this time of year. The gym membership helps (as I generally am fine to just go for a walk, but the weather is just horrid here. Cold cold, and more cold. It's 30 degrees. It might as well be 20 below if you ask me. LOL).

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

In other news, I vested in my profit sharing plan yesterday!!!!!! It's been 6 years. Ineligible year 1, and then contribution and vesting of 20% every year since. My contribution has been on average $6k/year (10% wages). So my balance just went from $25k to $33k with the vesting.

For 2008 I figure at 100% vest I am earning about $600/month into my profit sharing (employer contributes).

The ironic thing is it puts my balance to $33k today (from $25k or so on the 30th before I vested). & our ROTHS are also at $33k. Even steven. Our retirement is 1/2 ROTH and 1/2 taxable now. I always say both probably isn't bad, so there you go. 50/50. LOL. We also plan to add to our IRAs at a similar rate this year. Well, very ideally anyway. We'll see... I expect them both to be pretty neck and neck for a while.

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

I participate in a green energy program with our local electric utility. I contribute $6/month voluntarily to pay for more renewable energy sources.

This city-owned utility charges on average, 1/2 of what PG&E does.

They city-owned utility to my boss's building and offered to give him new energy efficient lighting for free. & it would reduce his electric bills, etc.

Just a perfect example of how they are committed to cutting down energy usage and such.

On the flip side, there was a ballot measure to switch some local cities over to our city-owned utility. It didn't pass, and PG&E fought DIRTY. Having lived here I could not imagine why anyone would vote to keep PG&E and pay twice as much.

Anyway, the point of this story is I saw PG&E has a new "carbon offset" program. I started looking into it more. It is a variable payment that s'posedly completely offsets your carbon footprint. (We have PG&E for gas).

Well, it looks like it would cost us like 65 cents in the summer months (we only use 5-10 therms per month in the summer) and maybe $5 max in the higher winter months.

But I Was skeptical. Is PG&E really using this money for renewable energy? I find it hard to believe 65 cents a month will offset our entire carbon footprint for gas.

A little websearch shows a lot of criticism of PG&E's program, and some really high praise for our city utilitie's.

I guess my gut feel was kind of on.

I am not going to waste my money.

It's nice to see high praise for the one we do contribute to. Of course I am skeptical there too. You have to be.

But be careful out there. There was a big article in the paper the other day that 99% of "green friendly" products were not at all. I have always been very wary of that stuff.

I never understood why so many people around here spend so much money on "eco-friendly" products. Tons and tons. We just try not to use so many products, period. I always thought that made more sense. Vinegar and baking soda. What's wrong with that?

I think it is much the same way for "animal safe" and "socially responsible." I am always rather skeptical with anything of this nature. & further digging usually shows you should be. Organic? Same thing. I think a lot of these items have good intentions, but there is only so much you can do (example mass spraying over Cali organic farms when fighting mosquitos and West Nile virus). & I kind of laugh at the socially responsible funds. How do you measure socially responsible? From what I can see, rather arbitrary. & I think that is the problem with a lot of this stuff. It takes hard to work to really care and make a difference and just not buy the marketing hype. Unfortunately, but that's the way it is. Most of this stuff is really just marketing.

$9.703.87!

Didn't swing anything the last few days.

Good Bye 2007!

Certainly more than I ever imagined.

(& officially, as of stock close yesterday, net worth up $29,798!)

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

For 2008, I haven't given much further thought. I guess whatever I add to retirement will do.

It's tempting just to include all savings. Or mortgage prepayments. But I want to encourage retirement savings over all else. So that is my goal. I will live, eat, breathe retirement.

So retirement to the challenge, it is. The thing is I will have a set amount in the budget once we get our raise, but every extra dime we come across SHOULD really go to retirement this year. I think we mostly have everything else covered.

So ideally, my challenge should read much the same. Gifts, focus money, windfalls, extra work, sales, credit card rewards, etc. should go to retirement. Yeah, we'll see!

I am putting interest to the car fund/efund. So that won't go into retirement. Which was a big chunk of the '07 challenge. Only big difference. (& that's the easiest money!).

I am planning to put my entire raise just to the monthly budget (I don't expect much. If it is more I will reconsider). Hoping to add another couple hundred monthly to the slush so that I can put ALL the extras to retirement.

I think I will have my IRA covered regardless. But the other $5k (dh's IRA), lord knows where it will come from. Hoping the challenge will help!!!!!!!

It's not a priority in the budget otherwise, but I think if we continue like last year, we may just be able to scrounge it up. (maxing our IRAs would be 15% gross income, plus I get 10% from my employer. As such we have other fish to fry for now. The new $10k max is a little overwhelming).

If we had another $10k challenge year? Not counting on it in the least! But if we swung more, I would put the rest to cash and taxable investments. Plus I am allocating all of our IRA contributions between now and April 15th to 2007. So we actually have room to put much more than $10k in this year... We'll see... I know one of these days dh will bring in some decent money and we will exhaust our tax deferred investments, so I put everything into the earliest year that I can.

T Rowe is nice because even my monthly automatic contributions can still be applied to '07. I haven't figured out the same for Vanguard... Which is a bummer because it is nice to put it on auto pilot...

Well, here's to 2008! I guess that makes my roundabout goal $10k for the challenge. Here's to our IRAS.

& I already have $50 to add for my automatic retirement contribution for January! (I may up this to $100 monthly for my raise - I'll find out next week - and project another $300/month come late summer or fall when BM is out of preschool. How I plan to fund my $5k).

I am so into "slow and steady winning the race." I have always been so all or nothing in my past. I can save big, easy, but never been much into saving small. But simply adding $50/month every year can make a big difference. It just depends if I get any raise to cover it!!!!! But this is a new me, and this is a nice start to the challenge.

Last year, retirement was not our focus at all. We put in around $350 and had a $1k windfall to add. So I think it will be easy to beat that. $100/month will go a long way... (Yeah it was one of our most pathetic IRA years ever. But I am glad to have our emergency fund back in place, and now we can focus on grander things).

Yeah, that about sums it up.

Ah yes, another year-end post.

Was just thinking, because dh and I were talking about what a crazy year it has been.

The funny thing is that last Jan. 1 I told dh that we could not buy ANYTHING. We would not buy or do anything. This year would be low key.

Then we started getting extra money and decided to do a few things. & the our parents lavished us with all these last minute vacations. It was just WEIRD. But then we were lavished with cash and we actually enjoyed much more than imagined. But all in all was a strange year. I find it even funnier because I came here saying how work is not that important to me, and we are real low key. & then work was crazy and we had a jet set lifestyle.

Which honestly made it hard for me to enjoy this year. Work was really stressful. Not my thing. It hasn't been like this for years. But re-examining our financial situation, I think I finally decided to embrace it. We could use the money. I've pretty much been on vacation the last 5 years. & so it doesn't hurt to work hard once in a while, to show my commitment. It's just the curse/bane of the industry though. Not enough people to fill the jobs. I feel I have been very unique keeping the life balance that I have been able to full-time the past 6 years. (I can think my boss too). But we just lost one too many employees this last year and I really had to step it up.

So this year was really weird. Worked a lot harder but ended up playing harder too. Well, for the long run I look to de-stress and step it down a bit. For now, what can I do. I embrace it.

But here is the craziness of 2007:

1. Dh had his movie premiere (the first "big" movie he worked on). That was pretty sweet. They had a decent offer on the movie but turned it down. Holding out for more I guess. Who knows if it will ever get anywhere now. But it was exciting. He is working on some projects starting in '08 again. Just been so busy with the kids, but now that they are in preschool, he has more time.

2. I tried to make some money off writing. I know I have been down on it in my blog, but really comes down to, I always envisioned writing a book when I was much older. I have the money-making career now, and this should allow me to pursue more hobbies when I am older. & I just couldn't make the time. I neglected my family too much. Really what it comes down to. & work got more stressful. So it's on the back burner but something I will certainly do again once work is lighter or kids are older. Which is fine. I don't find this compromising at all. I love my job. I always figured writing would be better with more age and wisdom. I actually want to go back to get a writing degree some day. I would want to practice the art more too. Take classes. Certainly not a priority today. The kids are. But this year was an adventure! That someone would pay me to write. Strengthens my resolve to write more in the future. Now is just not the time for me. Though I also keep my eyes open for writing opportunities in my field, which probably makes more sense now, for my resume and such.

3. We welcomed a new niece to the world this year.

4. Traveled to Mexico, Japan, Florida (Disney) and Vegas.

5. Took the kids to many zoos and museums and the like.

6. Bought a BIG HDTV & PS3

7. Still managed to build up our e-fund and up our net worth a good $30k (& meet all our other goals).

Yup, that was our low-key, do nothing, buy nothing year.

What the heck??? LOL. But it just turned into that kind of year.

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

2008

We're starting over. Low-key. Buy nothing. Do nothing. Let's try this again. Big Grin

Well dh's mom, well she wants to retire this year so I think she is facing reality. She said she wanted to go on a family camping trip this year. Which is ironic since we were thinking of going on the same camping trip (ourselves) but it would be kind of fun with the grandparents. Sure, why not. Then again all of our trips this last year were rather last-minute. So we'll see. I won't be surprised if I get invited to China tomorrow. But it is hard to say no to trips to mexico and Japan and such. But we have discussed saying no to anything and everything. We want to keep it low key. Camping was more our speed.

We have been planning a trip to Disneyland though. In the spring. & then camping in the summer. Only low key things for summer. & a low key fall (at home). LOL.

Anyway, dh went to the dinosaur thing with my dad and I don't know. We took him to 2 museums with us last month and he did this with BM yesterday. I guess he is getting hooked. Maybe he really enjoyed Japan. He is turning into my MIL. He told dh that he wanted to do all these trips with us in the coming years. He mentioned Grand Canyon and Yosemite and the like. The funny thing is we have talked much of the same (maybe later than he is talking) so I wonder if he comes along if we might get a bit of a free ride. Hmmmmmmmm.

But I told dh we really needed to crack down (a week or 2 ago, before this) and that if Disneyland was our priority I just didn't know if we could justify the camping trip. Not that it was terribly expensive. But it was a good $500+. We don't even have sleeping bags... So I told him maybe we should save up for supplies this year and stuff, and go next year. Or likely his parents will pay anyway. But I didn't want to over commit. Even if it seemed simple, it would cost money.

& then he comes back telling me my dad wants to take us on all these trips. It's starting to come from both sides. When did this happen?

I told dh our kids are SO lucky. So so so lucky and spoiled rotten. I think with my parents, they just want to treat us to all the things they couldn't afford when we were young. Dh's family has been the same way for a LONG while. But my parent's are totally jumping on the bandwagon. Which is just a shock to me. I guess it is a grandparent thing. These are so not the parents who raised me! LOL.

Sometimes I give up on trying to shelter the kids from being too spoiled. I really want them to appreciate what they have and I make it a point to tell them that we didn't have these things when we were kids. Over and over and over. So they get it.

But my grandpa passed on this year and left $0.5 mil to his heirs. $0.5 mil. We were all TERRIBLY shocked. They never made more than minimum wage. They didn't even have a middle school education, much less high school. It was so mind boggling. & as my parents inherited 1/4 of this, they once again resolve to enjoy their money more than hoarde it (as they do every time a relative dies, stronger each time). I keep reminding them that grandpa was only 80 and longevity runs in the family. He wanted to be able to take care of himself, nursing home or not. By dad having grown up with him thought is was just terribly sad they never enjoyed any of that money. They lived a lifestyle deep in poverty. Their entire 80 years. So my parents have more resolve to enjoy and spoil us it seems. They insist he hoarded too much. Probably. But I am just in awe he would have been able to take care of himself well into 100 if need be (was likely. They died terribly young compared to siblings and such).

I keep wondering at this rate if the kids will have to work. I think of course I want them to be hard workers and learn to take care of themselves. I don't want them to be spoiled. But if grandpa can pass on $1/2 mil, what will our more well-off grandparents pass on? What will our parents with significant real estate pass on? What will we pass on? Will our kids ever worry about money in the ways we did? I know we don't worry about money in any sense our parents did at our age. just as they never worried about money as much as their parents did? (not with the freedom to get high school diplomas and college educations). & so it snowballs.

Ever since we had kids I have fought the tide of spoiling from the grandparents. But it just keeps getting bigger. Honestly, there is no fighting it. I am starting to realize. Is it so bad grandma took them to DisneyWorld when they were 2/4 & Hawaii when they were 0/2? That grandpa will take them to Japan before they hit 8/10? All I Can do is make sure they appreciate everything they have. It's a shame that we can never go back and see where my dad grew up and where my grandparents lived in a shack for most of their days. I think it's important for them to know where they came from. Those are our roots. Money just doesn't grow on trees and it took generations to come where we are. I think that's all I can do, is tell them that continuously. Just as my parents did when I was a child.

As such, 2008 will probably be crazy or crazier yet. Our parents will have many wild plans to give us what more of what they never could before.

But I feel very blessed in a big sense. Here is to the health and freedom to enjoy the craziness. Might as well embrace it.

& if it's a really slow, low-key year, I can't say I would mind a bit. I just hope someday my kids can say the same.

Maybe there is something to just enjoying the money while it is there. I guess you never know if you will be around to enjoy it tomorrow. Which is exactly what our parents are thinking. So might as well enjoy I guess.

Then again, I didn't exactly feel deprived before. I think we have always made it a point to live somewhat in the now. Just not so extravagantly. So it is just weird for me. Being a long range planner, just nothing I want to get used to either. I know our parents mean well. But I find it funny they found it so important for us to be independent and capable and NOT spoiled. But with the grandkids, eh. Seems to have gone out the window. Then they will blame us when they turn to spoiled brats. LOL. Would figure. Isn't that the way?

Or maybe I just overthink it all.

Most of my friends think I am crazy, but I a have a lot of friends back home who immigrated here from other countries. who came from true poverty and such. We all worry about our kids getting so far from their roots and not really understanding how GOOD they have it. That even their primary education is an incredible blessing.

Maybe once you've seen it you always have a fear you can end up back there some day. So I guess I am lucky in that regard I have other friends with the same worries.

Around here, if I wonder aloud if my kids have too much, people look at me like I have a 3rd eye. I figure a place like this forum, it is more understood, at least.

Anyway, here's to 2008. Whatever it brings!

I am really frustrated right now. I am working on stuff I could have done weeks ago, but my clients have been really slow. I am not sure what it is. We have been so swamped, that I just let them slide too long? Perhaps...

Oh well, 12/31 is always a huge deadline, but I am afraid this is the worst year yet. By far. I remember stressing last year or 2 and it wasn't as bad as I imagined. But now I remember why I have been stressing. I have THREE clients who want to give me stuff Monday. (Monday, at 5pm? Would figure). Unless they are going to wait around until midnight for #s, not sure I can promise much but a rush. Their loss I guess. I like working under pressure as a whole, but I don't like rushing. Then mistakes are made. So I am frustrated.

On the flip side I will easily pull 20 hours OT this week. $500, whenever I get paid. I am crossing my fingers for Monday. Just not sure. I think I have $500 or so due to me for the rest of the year. I generally really only work OT in the January through april months. But this is a nice start to the season.

Maybe I should hope it doesn't get paid out until April/May. I get a raise come January 1st which should up my overtime rate. I just figure $25/hour after taxes, in round figures, for now. It might go up a dollar or to on Tuesday.

In other news I did my taxes a few days ago. Preliminary. We owe $1000! I think it is somewhere around $1700 with AMT. Our software hasn't been updated for the patch. But take out the AMT and we're at $1k.

Yeah, I planned it down to the dollar, and look where I ended up. Haven't had time to look where I went wrong. Guess hoping this is an error. I just figured, eh, will pay it april 15th anyway. But now I am wondering if I should pay in a small estimate to ensure I get under $1k balance due to the feds. We'll see. Plug it in and see if it lowers my $30 penalty. If not, it will wait until April 15th. At least I have time to scrape it together. there goes a chunk from my car/house fund. Bah.

I also re-evaluated my withholding and it looks okay. The problem I think is my ROTH IRA conversion phased out much of my medical deductions. Maybe the HSA is looking slightly better. I mean I used our advanced software and it should have figured that, but I went wrong somewhere and that is all I could figure. I had more deductions than expected everywhere else. which makes it more scary.

I am also considering upping my emergency fund to $13k from $12k. I feel that at minimum we should have $12k in accessible cash at all times. But another $1k just to kind of keep for stuff like this. Like for the $1k miscalculation of tax bill. Yikes! My dh said he thinks we need a new accountant (joking of course).

Well, we'll see. I got a couple of weeks to ponder. Before final estimates are due for 2007.

Since all of our money is in ROTHS I am glad to not go through that this year. Done done done. Was a lot of tax money in the interim. We converted about $30k over 2 years (at a tax rate of 15% though, which was sweet). I forget that is the other reason our IRA contributions were so dismal this year and last. A good $6k in taxes, plus more for losing a chunk of our medical deductions. But I figure the ROTH conversion was WELL worth it. & we're done! Now it should grow tax-free. Forever. We'll see what Congress says bout that in a decade or 2 or 3... But for now it's looking pretty good. & I don't have to fork over a few extra thousand to the IRS next year. phew.

Oh anyway, in other news, MIL got over her threat not to take the kids (though she was the one that begged in the first place). Dh finally talked me into it, which was fine since I figured I would work much. Just did not think this much!! So he and the kids left me last night. I went to the gym. I worked. I never sleep well alone.

Dh will be back soon. They went to the "Walking With dinosaurs" show in San Jose. I just talked to them. They took BM to a Japanese restaurant afterwards (they went with my dad) and said he had a great time. I was relieved that he was enjoyed. DH finally admitted that it would have been too scary for LM. We have been arguing about this for ages. He really wanted to take him. I really didn't want to spend the money. sure he LOVES dinosaurs, but these would probably just scare him. Plus he is 2. He wouldn't remember if he liked it. So I win finally. Yeesh.

Today I went into work all morning, and I guess I should go scrounge up some lunch. With 2 nights alone with dh it is tempting to go out. But we are terribly broke. Trying not to spend anything but gas and groceries to Friday. So I think we'll just have to eat in.

I never got to making a cake for christmas but I have all the ingredients. A treat I Was thinking about. That's something!

But I will work a few more hours today before dh gets home, and much of tomorrow. I guess his mom offered to watch the kids in the end, if dh worked on some video thing for her. As long as he is productive. (She gets so annoyed when she takes the kids and we don't like clean house or something. Like of course the first thing we do in freedom is clean the house. ??? Is she crazy? LOL. But I am glad dh has a project since I am so swamped. Then again I wouldn't be surprised if he just watches movies all day).

As for Monday I will work as long as I have to. Maybe 5... OR 6... Hopefully get off sooner. I do have a deadline in none of my clients will stick around after that anyway. Will just have to get it all done.

Will relax and enjoy tuesday. & no FAMILY. Phew!!! LOL. Dh is picking up the kids Monday afternoon. MEeting 1/2 way.

& I might just roll into work late Wednesday. I need a bit of recovery. Actually I can get away with taking the next weekend off. Phew. can't say that for another 4 months after... IT's starting!!!

Dh wants to go to San Jose for his dad's birthday around the 31st. I Want to throttle him. We have been there about 10 times in the last 3 months. Our auto fuel bill is insane. I told him we can not afford to keep up this pace. We generally keep it low key during tax season. & this time of year of course is always crazy. But it has been completely out of control. Some business there every weekend. We are going to the dentist in 2 or 3 weeks, and our nephew's birthday another weekend.

He has got to be kidding me. I Was just upset. My parents had birthdays on the 15th and the 28th. No we did not go, because those were the ONLY 2 weekends in 2 months we weren't going. Who cares????? Yeesh!!!! Well, he was there for my mom's birthday yesterday, but I Wasn't. I gave her her gift on christmas.

So that is our fight of the day. He offered to compromise the nephew's birthday, but I don't think that's fair to the kids. Of course I could probably do without either birthday really... I probably won't go to either; I'll be working.

He did tell me that gas might go up to $4 come summer (predictions I guess). HE said we might as well enjoy. He may have a point. Because lord knows we aren't going anywhere near this pace at $4/gallon.

We honestly have barely been over our gas budget, if at all. Our grocery stores are having gas price wars. & I always padded the gas budget because of ever rising prices. But I know we could save a hell of a lot money if we stopped driving 250 miles round-trip every weekend! So here's to tax season. Too busy for the drive.

It's tough though. The problem is kids are older and easier to travel with and he is certainly not too busy for the drive. So I am wary. I have to say it is nice that so little really separates us from substantial time with our family. But we really have to invite them up here more. maybe next time MIL gives us a chunk of cash I should just put it in the driving fund. PArt of me thinks it has been kind of nice. But mostly I look to a calmer few months ahead. It's just too much to pack up and head out every dang weekend.

But yeah, they picked the dates for Florida because they had to be there ON grandpa's birthday. They just drive me nuts with that stuff. They were really peeved I didn't go but it was a tax deadline for Pete's sake. Like they couldn't of moved the party back a few days? But anyway, worked out, I couldn't have gone to Japan if I had went. I just have to remember they drive me crazy, but it worked out. & well, if it's that important to dh.... So be it. There are much worse things he could demand. But I will still grumble when I spend that weekend alone and they run up the credit card with unnecessary fuel expenditures. LOL.

Well, enough procrastinating. Back to work for me!

$20 challenge:

$9,468.87 - Balance 12/24

$ 175.00 - December Interest
$ 60.00 - Cash to Savings

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$9,703.87 - Balance 12/26
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Well, Interest posted for GMAC today. I did a large balance transfer mid-month, so had a little more interest than usual. I have one expiring in March or April so might have a few months of over $200/month interest in the interim. Sweet! Then it will be time to pay back Balance Transfer #1. Which is fine. I don't want to really juggle 3 balance transfers. But I took this one out in anticipation of the other one ending soon enough. I have a 5.7% rate locked in at the bank through October, so I will extend these out until October at the least. I don't intend to do any balance transfers in 2009. Let our FICOs rest, cut up the cards, etc. But I would do it again in a heartbeat. EASY money. We might try again in 2010. Since I will now have all the BTs in my name, I am just curious what it does to my FICO. & depends from there how we proceed. If it doesn't make a blip I would consider doing one BT at a time for a while. More than 1 is just more work I guess. I am being optimistic mostly that the money won't be needed so much next year (well, 2009). It has been awesome to help build back up our efund though.

My mom also handed me $60 for groceries (Christmas dinner and such). Since I am just depositing it into the bank, it's challenge money. That was easy money too.

We have a carseat to sell. So might get to $10,750 by year-end. We'll see! Not much else on the horizon.