Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

HOTEL:

--------

$50 Hotel Coupon

MOVIES:

--------

$100 Regal

$50   Tower Theater

RESTAURANTS:

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

$50 Cracker Barrel (small balance left)

$50 Olive Garden

$25 Chili's

$5   Jamba Juice (Gift)

$ 25 x 3 Jamba Juice (Gifts)

RETAIL:

---------

$100 x 2 Target (Emailed/paper gift cards)

$25  Kohls Gift Card (DL Christmas Gift)

Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Long story, but I got a $50 credit for the beachfront hotel by MM's college.  I don't want to forget about it, so am adding it to my list.

October 4

$159 Groceries/Household

Dinner:  Crockpot Chili

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

I don't know what to say about grocery spending.  I asked MH if he got food for two weeks or what.  He said not much food for dinners, was mostly a lot of "little things add up."  Will see...  Was hoping for a $500 or less grocery month.  Not at this rate.

Crockpot chili was requested by the college student.  We brought him 2 (teen-sized) servings of leftovers.   Oh yeah, and some of those groceries were for the college boy.  Stocked up on some snacky food that he can keep in his dorm room.

I did also make some pumpkin bread (mostly for MM).  Was my contribution for something more home-cooked.

Edited to add:  We just went over meal planning and MH has like 7 dinners to cook.  This is 4 days after shopping *& will probably last two weeks.  Plus we were gone a few nights.  I know we will need some groceries but I think we will be set with dinner for at least another 10 days.

October 3

$3 Car Wash

Dinner:  Leftovers

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

MH was busy volunteering all day. 

I made a small list of chores.  First and foremost, I took MM's car to the car wash.  The car wash was broken last I tried.  This time I succeeded.  We moved the kids' car into the garage.  Ugh.  Super long story.  But will just say that our electric car is under recall and relegated to the outside.  (One of these days, I might get to that post).  The silver lining is we can easily garage car #3 while it is mostly unused.  There is no way we would otherwise drive the gas car or put it in the garage.  But it's just one less thing to deal with and keep track of, if we can garage it.   The car has like a rack on top and the top of the car still looked pretty dirty (the car rack clearly impeded the car wash).  I had rinsed a bunch of ash off the car (when the car wash was broken) and put it through the car wash today.  & the top of the car still looks dirty.  We will put the car outside when MM(18) is home.  Will add it to his list to wash the car when he is here.  He can reach the top of the car way more easily than I can.  (We really don't wash our cars very much, but the outside cars get so much more abuse).

I was also going to put air in the tires, but his tires were okay.  So I might also put that on MM's list when he is here.  Or whenever it's not 90F degrees.  🙄  We just put air in our (newer) car tires, because the air sensors were freaking out with the cooler mornings.  

Driving the old gas car was a painful experience.  I hated everything about it.  (My freeway acceleration and braking were more reminiscent of my "learning to drive" years.)  & I didn't even think to look at the gas tank.  I am used to my car always being charged (I plug it in every night).  I just didn't think about it.  Hopefully MM(18) left some gas in the car.  😁  (It did occur to me a few hours after I got home.  I expect I will forget to check by the next time I drive it again).  

I left this post (draft) for a couple of days and I don't remember what all I did Sunday.  Mostly a weekend of rest.

October 2

$18 Fandango (movies)

Dinner:  Falafels

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

The plan today is for a NSD.  Will see how it goes.  MH has another volunteer shift today.  I certainly have no plans to leave the house.

Edited to add:  Money was spent.  See below.

We spoke to MM(18) very briefly today.  He squeezed us into his busy schedule.  My heart is very happy.  He was always so bored with school and so I am just crying tears of joy after talking to him.  The workload (very easy freshman schedule, assigned by the college) is easy and that part is probably boring to him.  But he's joining several clubs and getting a variety of hands-on engineering experience.  He was basically planning to spend the day in labs and machine shops, learning a lot today.  & was very excited about some math/physics project he is working on for one of the clubs.

We did discuss the food last week.  After seeing his food spending detail and seeing other parents complaining about "airport food prices" at the college dining halls, we told MM(18) to just eat out if it was better/cheaper.  That we'd cover it, if it saved us money overall.  So I was surprised he hadn't eaten out at all.  Anyway, we talked to him today and he told us he was figuring it out.  Was telling us he had found $3 potatoes.  & I mean, cooked/prepared potatoes in the dining hall for $3. & I am going to bring him some ceramic bowls for oatmeal, stuff like that.  He's getting a feel for what is filling and some of the better values.  I'll probably give it another week or two before I look at it again.  We have a "redo" end of October where we can change the dining plan.  But my crystal ball says he will still run out of money before the end of the quarter, and that we won't be changing his plan downwards.  We've already chosen the max dining plan.  (I figured that was a safe bet).

My trip is getting complicated with the change from 1-2 people to now 3 people.  MH had movie plans (free with his pass) to see the new James Bond movie.  We re-arranged those plans today.  Which was really irritating me for a while.  But we finally just re-arranged the puzzle pieces and got it all figured out.  Phew!  Once we figured it out, everything fell into place.  We are splurging on the hotel and dinner out (x4) one night, but that should be it.  MH used a Fandango gift card (that I won) to get a free movie ticket for himself, but he's going to the movies with his Dad (a stop on our drive home) and he picked up a ticket for his Dad.  Thus, $17 spent today.  In turn we will get a free place to stay for a night and a free meal. 

October 1  

$7 MH Allowance Spending (Patreon)

$0 Target (Groceries/Houehold)

Dinner: Leftovers

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

Well this will be interesting.  Because any time in the past I have recorded daily exenses in blog, our biggest spending was generally groceries and gas.  No longer feeding an athlete teenager at home, the grocery spending should change drastically.  Also, we are driving 100% electric.

I just perused the credit cards and a patreon charge posted today.  Might have been initiated another day but today is when it showed up.  That's an MH allowance thing.  

MH was planning to make dinner tonight, while at the same time complaining about people not eating leftovers.  ???  I told him I would be happy to eat leftovers (have been all week) and maybe he shouldn't cook dinner.  Still majorly adjusting and it sounds like probably some food waste in the process.  Anyway, we had that conversation in the a.m. and he decided not to cook dinner. 

MH is volunteering at the public TV station tonight.  It's the first time since the pandemic started?   They were having trouble getting volunteers so he probably over-volunteered.  But I guess it works out.  I am sure when he committed he expected to be working during the week.

Oh yeah, and MH did a Target run.  He used a gift card; about $40 remains on Target gift cards.  He picked up a couple of grocery items, some laundry detergent (will last a year?) and some cat litter.  He went yesterday because I asked him to wait until October after putting cat litter and laundry detergent on the shopping list.  Our grocery budget is $850/month but September ended up being $900.  I tried to absorb film crew food spending into our grocery budget but it was just one of those months.  

MM(18) switched to tide pods a while ago (the sport version) to get the stink out of his athlete teen boy clothes/sheets.  So I don't expect our laundry detergent usage to change.  I just mean that the family size Tide laundry detergent we usually buy and keep a year, it's still going to last a year.  Strangely, we only discovered the family size recently, versus when we had kids in cloth diapers and did laundry several times per week.  (We used a laundry service for diapers but it was still a lot of laundry!  We had to wash all the diaper covers plus babies make a lot of mess).  I can still see buying the family size when it's just the two of us.  Just so we don't have to go to the store as often.  

The big excitement this week is that MH received a 24%-off offer to renew his movie pass.  When "movie pass" went defunct he signed up for the Regal annual pass (truly unlimited movies).  They extended that with the pandemic and his one year pass just expired this month.  He might have ended up having that one pass for two years.  He was going to renew anyway, but jumped on the deal.  For someone who will easily go to the movies three times per week, that works out to about $1.28 per movie. 

I am not worried about one-income mode whatsoever.  MH has always saved 100% of his income.  We have always budgeted off of my income alone.  It's just that we are coming off a few very robust financial years and are used to having a lot of buffer/extra.  So it will be an adjustment as we get back into that one-income mode (without any buffer).  But as long as I have library books and MH has a movie pass, all will be fine and well.  We do also have a museum membership (reciprocal with other museums) and an electric car that costs pennies to run.  That last part makes traveling anywhere pretty easy (other museums, the beach, the mountains, etc.  Various low cost activities that weren't so low-cost when you factored the cost of gas).

Wednesday was a good money day.  MH got an focus group (about electric cars!).  It's next week? & will pay $65 cash.   I don't remember the last time either of us did a focus group.  

I was craving pizza and was surprised to see I had a free personal pizza at Round Table.  Woohoo!  It seems to work out generally buying one large pizza equates a big reward like a free personal pizza.  We had kind of made a big deal about getting a Large pizza before MM(18) left us.  But if we average one pizza out every other month, that's probably going to remain the same.  MM(18) will be back in November and December, and March.  I can probably squeeze some more free personal pizzas out of my big eater.

I dragged my feet for about 10 days but finally contacted our auto insurer to get an "away at college" discount for MM.  I don't know how much that will be but I am going to pocket the money.  MM(18) paid the full cost of the car age 16-18 (license, insurance, gas, maintenance, etc.).  I decided to pocket the insurance savings since we will be covering the insurance/registration in the meantime.  It will probably be at least a year before DL(16) gets his license.  In turn, MM(18) will continue to get free use of the car when he is home.  Should only be a week or two here and there.  He can pay for the gas.  I doubt we will pay for gas.  My gas budget is $0, we are driving 100% electric.   The 20yo gas car is *very* unappealing to drive, but we will do shorter trips to keep the car in good condition.  Which means probably just 4-mile round trips because I can't imagine where else we might drive it but the grocery store or maybe to DL's school.  

MH was told that work should pick up next month and that they will probably need him the week after next?  Not holding my breath, but that's the latest.  The silver lining is that MH can go with us to visit MM(18).  Of course, the whole point of that time off work was to give me some quiet time.  So much for that!  I have mixed feelings about it all because I was going to feel bad visiting MM(18) when MH was really the one having the harder time with him leaving.  Another adult on a road trip is not a bad thing.  Especially with my very moody teenager.  I was surprised that DL(16) even agreed to go with me (but expected very likely it would end up a solo trip, which sounded pretty divine).  

MM(18) continues to be uber frugal.  I don't know all the details but he stumbled upon a Rite Aid and got a $2 ice cream cone.  We used to do that all the time with our kids.  I am glad that could translate into a frugal find in his new locale.  As far as I can tell, that's all he spent his first 12 days of college.  

So that's a wee little bit of what has been going on the last week or so.  

I don't know if I will be able to keep up with it because it always seems to get very time consuming.  But I don't really know what October will hold on the grocery spending front and as our household changes.  So I decided between that and just diving back in with some minutiae posting, I will record daily expenses in my blog this month.  I always track every penny we spend (with accounting software) but this is just sharing in my blog.

I'd say overall our goal for October is to do a more frugal reset.  But that is offset by a trip we have planned to visit MM(18).  It is what it is, we have the savings for it, however it pans out.  & if MH's job comes back with decent work hours, then we might not care so much about a reset.  So I guess October is just a big mystery.  Will see how it plays out.  Mostly I am curious how the grocery spending shakes out and how much money I can shift to college food.  Oh yeah, and the other splurge-y thing is we are going to be dipping into savings probably to get this movie done.  Fingers crossed, anyway.  Yeah, October is kind of a crazy month, now that I think about it.  But through all that we are going to be figuring out how things shift with the smaller household.

We've got MM(18) all moved in at his college.  Phew!  The first week was pretty much a vacation for him.  Orientation week, with some practical orientation stuff but also a bajillion activities.  Some highlights were crawdad fishing and beach bonfires.  Classes started last week.  All my fingers and toes are crossed that the kids can stay on campus this year.  

MM(18) had never gone back to school after the pandemic started, so I can't even imagine the stimulation overload he is experiencing. 

I am personally very zen about the emptier nest.  Probably for many reasons.  MM(18) is very independent and will be just fine.  My bff attended this college and I spent many a weekend there during my college years.  So it helps that it's very familiar to me.  Also, my parents never really took us anywhere, *but* for this incredible deal of a beachfront hotel they found in the 1980s, that's about 10 minutes from this campus.  I think the whole thing would have been a lot harder if we didn't have such a familiar place to go to that first night.  We gave MM(18) about 24 hours to get settled, before we left.

I am planning a trip in a couple of weeks.  Ideally will be taking DL(16) with me.  He has never been to the college/town and would be good for him to see where his brother is living.  He asked to stay at the usual hotel and so I obliged.  But that necessitated a mid-week stay at $200+ per night versus a weekend stay at $400+ per night.  (Yeah, it's not the insane deal that it once was).  In the future we will be finding other places to stay.  In fact, MH wants to be cheap and not stay at a hotel at all (during move-in, when we visit, etc.)  I told him we were too old and well off to make that a day trip (10 hours round trip, just for the drive).  I said something like, "We aren't 18 any more."   😉  But we could probably stay with our parents for a night and make a day trip of it.  I basically set the college travel budget to -$0- once MM(18) accepted at this college.  The costs are very minimal (especially with the electric car) and can be absorbed in our regular vacation budget.  

I may be zen, but MH Is not zen at all.  He was the one home with kids, and both MM and MH have been home together mostly 24/7 the prior 18 months.  On top of that, MH just had a really rough week.  His coping clearly improved after a couple of days, even as things continued to go to heck.  *sigh*

Oh yeah, and MH was called back to work a couple of weeks ago but then that got postponed indefinitely.

I guess it's just a lot of limbo at this point.  Considering October a bit of a limbo month.  

One of the big things is figuring out the food situation in our household.  I would have guessed that MM(18) was about 50% of our household grocery spending.  I am not quite so sure now.  Besides DL(16) being picky and looking starved...  Any extra junky food I brought home has disappeared in a flash.  So I am thinking that DL(16) is just more of a stealthy eater.  Still, he is pickier with dinners.  We clearly no longer have to make dinner every night *and* double batch everything.  It's been more cooking every other night.  We are probably going to do some major revamping of our meals.  I mean if DL(16) seriously won't eat what we cook, then we will drastically change our cooking.  Feeding two middle aged people is entirely different from feeding "5,000 calories per day teenager athlete."  We don't need all the calories and so we just have a lot to figure out.  Maybe starting to mix in our future empty nest diet with "still have a very high calorie teenager" diet.  Alternating days. 

I am just waiting to see how October shakes out.  How MM's spending shakes out at college, how our grocery spending shakes out here.  If we notice any difference in our utilities, etc.  Once this starts to sort out then I can make sense of our budget going forward.

MM(18) is pretty much on his own, financially.  & I mean, we are covering tuition/room/board/medical.  I just mean anything above and beyond that.  But on the flip side, his job fell through last month and he ended the summer with about $3,000 less than we expected.  So that is why I am anxious to see how much spending he ends up doing and what he needs to cover.  Also, still trying to decide if we help him with groceries and stuff like that.  It just depends how much he is spending and how much we are saving.  If our grocery spending literally goes down by half, I could probably send him some grocery money.  It is our preference that he does not work this first quarter.  Something else to just re-evaluate mid-year.  

MM's first impressions are that he can remain uber frugal.  He's already told us he won't need a bike and that he doesn't see any reason to spend money.  It will be interesting if this still stands in another month or two.

MM has been okay with the food so far, but he also started up long distance running.  I honestly don't know if he will have enough food for that.  At home, he'd eat 5 large meals a day.  I guess that's the other thing we will have to figure out.  See if he has enough dining dollars (I already bought the biggest plan and am doubtful it will be enough).  There will be lots of tweaking everything "food" in the next few months.

& then of course, figuring out what the heck is going on with MH's job.  It is not surprising at all that is up in the air (with the pandemic) but the timing (and indecision of his employer) just sucked.  He was looking forward to going back to work and having the distraction.  

Will see how next week goes but if MH is still unemployed as of October 1, I guess we will also be going back to one-income mode.  & some of that might be shifting more financial responsibility to MM(18).  I don't know how it's all going to shake out. 

As always, the work situation is complicated.  I'd say that MH will be pretty picky until the pandemic eases and DL(16) gets his driver's license. The bottom of the barrel jobs are opening up yes, but then there's just more competition for better jobs.  His job is worth waiting out the month of October for.  If they are still delaying indefinitely or telling him nevermind, once October is ending, then it will be back to the drawing board.  Which may likely just be taking another year off.  I don't know.  I am probably more of the "screw this, just retire" mentality.  MH thinks the grass is greener and idealizes full-time work to help him deal with the emptier nest and the impending empty nest.  He is also extremely financially conservative and so wants to be working while we are paying for college.  Because of this I am sure my blog is confusing as we vacillate between these two extremes (retire or work full-time).  

Fire blew through camp last weekend (our city's family camp, in the Sierras).  The firefighters were camped out there and not a single structure burned.  🤯  It's still touch and go.  But maybe feeling a little more hopeful at this point.

By some miracle, the family cabin still stands.  It's on the west border of the fire, about one mile from the flames.  & I mean, they have that side pretty well under control at this point.  The cabin might live to see another day (or month, or year). 

The flames have blown about 30? miles east, to Tahoe.  I am looking at a map and it's about 40 miles on the twisty roads.  Maybe 30 miles as the crow flies?

The east side of the fire is about 3-4 miles from some homes we built in Tahoe (my job).  A homeowner stopped by the office this week.  He was very matter of fact about it, but said his home would probably burn down and asked if we would rebuild.  I don't know when I would have even thought about it.  Probably someone in the office would have brought up at some point.  I told MH it would be fitting, because that was some project from hell.  Between all the Tahoe red tape and the whole "Lake time" vibe when trying to hire people there.  Wouldn't that be icing on the cake for all that work to just burn up in smoke?  

Hope everyone else is hanging there with the various disasters.

The theme continues:  Life is chaotic and difficult, but finances continue to be doing great. 

Mortgage dipped below $130K, into the 120Ks...  Woohoo!  Next year we should drop below $120K.

We also officially hit our $500K retirement goal (one year ahead of schedule).  🎉🙌🥳  Actual retirement balance is something like $505K.

I am still resisting thinking about the big picture and coming up with our next goals.  Taking a break for a year or two, still.  But we will keep on track with the goals we already had.  It's just going to take some tweaking and rethinking at some point.  In addition to waiting for more clarity re: MH's employment and DL's college situation.  At that point, we can better decide our next steps.

Goals we already had:  Want to be financially independent by the time the kids are done with college.  Will continue to max out IRAs and take my employer match, to get to this end.  (Would do this anyway probably, because it's very fiscally efficient).

So we will stay on this course.  This is a fine one-income goal.  I do not know if I can literally keep putting away 20%+ of my income into retirement funds, with just my income alone.  But I expect I can continue to do this, and pay cash for college (x2) if we do just plan to shift our taxable investments into retirement accounts.  

MOVIES:

--------

$100 Regal

$25 Fandango

RESTAURANTS:

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

$50 Cracker Barrel

$50 Olive Garden

$25 Chili's

$ 25 x 2 Jamba Juice (Birthday Gift)

RETAIL:

---------

$ 100 x 1 Target (Emailed/paper gift cards)

$20 Target gift card (loaded to online account)

Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I won 3 gift cards at a work event.  It was actually kind of funny because MH is lucky and always wins everything.  Apparently I stand a chance when I go solo.  MH was in Florida and DL(16) was working at my office at the time, so DL went with me.  I think technically he won one of those gift cards.

Two of them were Starbucks gift cards that I immediately gave to co-workers.  No one in my house likes coffee at all or shops at Starbucks.  But the Fandango card was a really nice and appropriate win.  Well, for MH.   Maybe he was really the lucky one after all.   Doesn't even need to be present to win.  Obviously I gave the gift card to him (the cinephile).  

I did a gift card update because I had new gift cards to add, and had removed a lot of gift cards with dorm shopping.

Restaurant/Food gift cards will languish for a while.  We went through them very slowly in the best of times.

I posted recently that we had a dramatic week.  It's only gotten worse from there.  Ugh...

A lot of mini dramas.  But the large drama is one of the big fires in our state.  I expected last Tuesday night that our family cabin was long gone.  The cabin still stands because...  The wind has been blowing (for a whole week) in the opposite direction.  Of course, now it is looking like it will be a miracle if either the cabin or our family camp site survives.  Camp is about 30 miles away, but the fire is raging in that direction and getting very close.  I never in a million years imagined a fire so big/fast that would knock out both at the same time.  😱

I looked it up, the last big fire that threatened our cabin lasted for a month.  It seemed to drag on forever.  I don't expect to have any finality to this situation for a very long time.  

Oh yes, and the miracle did not happen, MH's movie shoot got postponed indefinitely.  His filming locations are all under threat of fire.  That's a super bummer and a huge blow to MH, but a small loss in the grand scheme of things. 

This is not the stuff I want to blog about, but I did want to touch on.  I just wanted to dive back into the minutiae and try to get back into blogging. 

Had some new dramas after starting this post, so I think I will just stop here and work on a new blog post.  I will update on fires when I have anything to update.  

I finally got confirmation on the final piece of financial aid.  

I never expected any need-based financial aid whatsoever.  But our State has a middle class grant (if you attend a public college).  It just takes forever to process.  & the whole thing seemed very vague, but the dollar amount showed up in MM's 'financial aid' stuff this week.

This confirms free tuition for Year 1.  Woohoo!

I had actually just left it very "whatever" because I hadn't realized you had to pay tuition to get college tax credits.  So either he had free tuition or we had a college tax credit, it was going to all be the same in the end anyway.  I was guessing he'd get $2K-$4K for this State Grant. 

In the end it works out to: $6K scholarship + $2K Grant + $2K tax credit = Free Tuition Year 1.  

As to room/board...  The dining plan is a wash with what we already pay to feed that kid.  So I am not expecting to have any added expenses on this front.  

Dorms were a big question mark due to the pandemic.  They've gone back and forth if they will do full capacity and I didn't know where things landed.  Less roommates would equal more cost.  I personally would prefer less roommates and more cost.  (The dorms are far below market rent, and it's pennies more to get a solo room.  Not literally pennies, but when it comes to the market cost of housing it's just like nothing).  We were able to state that preference on the housing application.

The dorm ended up being much lower than I expected (probably went back to full capacity, after quoting us up front with 'half capacity' costs).  I had also completely forgotten about the deposit I paid with stimulus/unemployment money.  The total cost is $9,000.  He ended up with the cheapest option, and more roommates.   That does include utilities, laundry, everything.  For reference, is cheaper (substantially) than the rent I paid in San Francisco when I was 18. 

I decided to pay quarterly (this school is quarter system) because as much as I prefer to pre-pay things, there was no financial benefit to doing so.  Keeping track of a monthly bill would drive me crazy.  So quarterly will end up being the sweet spot.  First quarterly payments will be due September 1.

It works out to the following (after deposits already made):

Tuition $700 (will save this in taxes, but have to pay it up front)

Dorm $2750 

Dining $1050

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

Total $4,500 1st Quarter

So I will be draining $4,500 from the $12K I have set aside for College Year 1.  That looks more like $15,000 Total (for the year), but will be offsetting the $2K tuition with a tax credit.  & I expect to save $5K-ish in groceries over the next year.  So really I was estimating $12K for dorm when it only ended up being $8,500 (after funding deposit with other monies).  Which leaves a lot of cash to throw at food, if my grocery estimate is way off.  If we still have 'Year 1' money left over, that's a good start to 'Year 2'.  We will spend the next 12 months coming up with the money for Year 2. 

Our credit card bill is absurd, at $4,000 already for the month.  That's roughly $2K medical + $1,200 laptop + $500 auto insurance.  Plus regular spending.  I am going to pay off $4K-ish this week.  Was just waiting to nail down college costs before I start pulling money from savings (wanting to transfer just one lump sum).   I'd say on an average month we spend about $700 on this card.   So seeing that $4K balance like 5 days into the month...  I need to pay it down for my sanity. 

Edited to add:  Finally, I saw a tip where to figure out this CA financial aid stuff.  MM(18) had a login and so we just looked at it.  They are only rewarding him 3 years of the CA middle class grant, because he is starting technically as a sophmore.  (Which might be useful for other majors, but he can't apply any of his one bajillion credits to his engineering degree). I am writing this down here because I will never remember this.  Jotting it down for now, and will get more organized later.

July was a crazy expensive 'low spend' month.  It did work out pretty well that we were so busy spending down buckets that we didn't spend money on anything else.  Thus the 'low spend' but expensive.  

MH and MM are back from Florida.  Pulled $365 from vacation fund to cover Florida expenses.

Movie filming is about 60% done.  Pulled $330 from film funds.  Reminds me, MH received some more donations and has raised $1,500 to-date.  One of the biggest expenses was going to be feeding 15 people for two days, but MH knows how to feed a crowd very well and cheaply.  I was hoping to just absorb in our grocery budget and that worked out pretty well.  Of course, this only worked because MH/MM were out of town for a week. 

We did the first round of "should buy way ahead of time" spending for college.  I pulled $300 from Grad gifts, for dorm expenses.  Fans in particular, sell out during fire season.  Laptop was ordered a while ago due to production delays but I got lucky and that didn't ship until August 1.

I've probably reached the peak of my savings for this year.  Will pay off the laptop charge September 1 and I just charged up some medical bills, in addition to a bunch of medical bills I paid off August 1  (more savings drain).   Credit card is already absurd for August, I just charged auto insurance. & we will probably be paying some big college expenses (room/board) this month, cash.

We did attempt to splurge on a couch/bed for DL(16).  Long story.  In the end, I found something kind of perfect in the $600 range.  I also randomly received an IRS refund.  I know what it was, but I thought I would have to amend my tax return and wait 12+ months to get this refund.  It was only as I sorted out July and reconciled everything that I realized that perfectly covers this splurge (the IRS refund was maybe $5 more than the couch).  

I was so relieved to cross that amended tax return off my To Do list.  Phew!  July was just...  Crazy.  In addition to a lot of medical appointments and all of the above, our parents were very needy last month.  It's been so calm (relatively) compared to recent hell years that I didn't think too much about it.  But as I was compiling in my blog one day (a draft I ended up tossing), I told MH, "No wonder we are exhausted."  I didn't even really appreciate why I felt so exhausted until I saw it all written down.  & this is not everything.  My employee is going through 12 weeks of medical procedures (I seem endlessly jinxed on this front; whoever I hire will mostly end up in the hospital and their life is a disaster).  That was while MH was gone so it was a really rough week covering for both MH and my employee.

So...  I scratched any half written blog posts (I give up) and thought I would just start over today.  

I was so wrong about being *shrugs* about DL getting a job in my office this summer, if he might just have to wait until next summer to get a job.  We made room for him in my office and he is loving the job.  I don't think I have ever seen that kid in a better state of mental health.  Phew!  I am so glad that it worked out.  Not only has it been good for his mental health, but it's very different than it was for MM(18).  MM 1000% wants to do math/science.  This job was just a means to an end.  For DL(16), he will be able to do a lot of career exploration in my office.   

That said, my schedule has been topsy turvy, carpooling with him during his shorter work days, and trying to keep him occupied.  I am relieved this is the last week.  DL(16) is back at school next week.   Fingers crossed, anyway.  (For his mental health, he needs to be there in person, and very much looks forward to it).  

This reminds me of the other thing, MM turned 18.  That's just been a lot of paperwork and stuff like that.  

Edited to add:  This week has been pretty dramatic.  It will be a miracle if MH can get his movie shoot finished this weekend, between COVID and all the fires.  😞  Crossing my fingers.  So close to that finish line...

I hadn't mentioned camp in a while.  We have an annual tradition to go to family camp, which I describe in further detail below.  When the kids were little they had a lot of activities planned for them (so that the adults could relax).  We've gone in the past with my in-laws, nieces, SIL and my Dad (often all together).  This year was just us and in-laws.  We paid our own way early on (it's actually pretty expensive, not what I would classify as frugal).  But at some point in-laws were doing well and was their annual treat.  Last time we went, DL brought his friend and so we just payed it forward and paid for his friend. 

I *really* thought my kids would outgrow camp by now.  But...  What the heck do I know?  😁  DL(15) has just been over the moon happy about camp.  By far the worst thing about 2020 was that camp was canceled.  He *needs* this for his soul. 

Post from 2017:

I hadn't thought too much about it, but was describing to a co-worker. It's basically like summer camp for the whole family. The camp is run by our city. Year 1 we tried San Jose's camp (near Yosemite). But Sacramento's camp (near Tahoe) has nice cabins. It's easier to get to, and we all just love it. So as I described to my co-worker the nice cabins, how all food is provided (dining hall) and they serve beer by the patio. The more I described it the more heavenly it sounded. 

So that is a little bit about camp.

In the end, it was a really good camp year.  Everything was actually pretty terrible because of the pandemic.  Mostly couldn't do anything inside.  Huge staff turnover.  Apparently lack of consistent food supply, etc.  While everyone was griping one day, I was just, "Yeah, it's always like this, since we moved to the first session."  I couldn't remember why we did that, but were discussing and I guess it's because they changed the dates around and so we moved from 3rd session to 1st session.  Which just makes us the guniea pigs and practice run for the season.  But anyway, lord forbid we go another time (everyone else's response), but at least everyone stopped complaining after that.  I just remember they had some major turnover 2018 and I am pretty sure 2019 was just as bad.  Except for the food being so much worse this time.  It was actually kind of funny because they went way vegetarian the first couple of things, which I just thought was due to demand or something.  ???  I guess it was the food supply because then they went crazy the opposite direction.  

Anyway, all of that said, I think overall it was one of the more fun times at camp.  Definitely not all bad.  They were only operating at about 1/3 capacity, which I think was due to a little bit of everything.  They were majorly understaffed, I don't think they could have had more people if they wanted to.  In turn, it was kind of extra nice and peaceful.  They also put in a new deck which we largely had to ourselves.

Because there has been so little going on the past year or so, I do think everything was a little extra exciting.  I was telling the kids on the way home that there may have been 3 or 4 mini dramas one day.  Mostly minor stuff, but when you haven't had so much adventure or even been around crowds of people you don't know in so long...  I think the vibe was mostly people were ecstatic to get back to some normalcy. 

The kids had the *best* time.  I know my MIL is kind of over it and waiting for my kids to outgrow.  Ha!  At 13/14, they were not going to do the teen activities.  This year, they did them all and DL(15) wanted to make new friends and be social.   Heck, I think MM(17) did all the sports (volleyball and softball) for the first time.  They both had a blast.   

We also were able to upgrade back to some of the nicer cabins.  They are newer, more well sealed, and have electric outlets.  We got bumped at some point when we missed a deadline and someone took our cabin.  This time went the opposite way, with such low attendance.  Everything opens up on the last day (whatever isn't reserved/claimed for next year) and so we bumped back up to the cabins with electricity.  That will be extra nice next year.

Here is an (older) cabin, that we stayed in this year.

Oh yeah, and we did just take the electric car.  There is a charger right down the road from camp (maybe 1 mile away) and so it's very convenient in that regard.  If we ever did want to charge up, but it was completely unecessary.  MH has been making the drive a lot (we have a family cabin in this area) and so he is very comfortable with it at this point.  I was a little bothered when we drove 100 miles and only had a 70 mile range left showing on the car.  Even though I know logically the car wouldn't use any electricity most of the way home.  (Not only does going down hill take no electricity, but the downhill regenerates electricity).  In the end...  We literally made it all the way back to our city before we used any electricity.  & that included blasting the A/C the entire 100 miles because DL(15) was car sick.  We've never blast the A/C quite that much on that car.  We started to use electricity for the last 20 miles (back to the flat land) and had a 50-mile range left when we got home.  That seems to be our thing, always over-planning by 50 miles.

I usually just keep our cash savings in one big pot, but I do track short-term and mid-term cash.  (Long-term money is invested).  Now I've got a bunch of new buckets popping up that I need to keep track of.

I've added a separate tracker for college start up costs.  Which is probably extra complicated because most of that cash is in MM(17)'s bank accounts.  But maybe all the more reason I need to keep track of that somehow.   

Not too much has changed since I reported the 'college start up costs' plan.   I did redeem my credit card reward already, it ended up being $800. 

My SIL also gave MM(17) $100. 

So here is the current tally: 

MH's Family:  $780

Credit Card Reward: $800

Target Gift Cards: $300

Grand Total:  $1,880

Most of that will be going towards a laptop, the rest for dorm set up expenses.  At this point, I think we are well covered.  

The other bucket is crowdfunding for MH's movie.  It's a long story...  Someone picked up his script and was going to produce it last year.  Just before the pandemic.  Which is pretty much the story of MH's life.  It's not the first time things far beyond our control have yanked the rug out from under him.

Anyway, he's been really anxious to move forward but everyone has been flakey and it's just been drama.  He's just kind of whatever, will do it himself.  I don't know that he particularly wants to self-produce and self-fund, but he's been looking forward to making this movie for so long and is the only way it will get done.

This is a non-financial investment *I* want to make, with stimulus money that fell from the sky.  But I don't know if MH will ever agree.  In the end, he did raise $1,000, and most of that was not from family.  It was mostly from people he has worked with and met in the industry, as well as finding enough people willing to do everything for no pay.  (His dream goal was a few thousand dollars, so that he could pay everyone).  

I am glad he did the crowdfunding because it was so interesting.  Maybe especially because we have always covered everything re: starving artist friends.  We are more apt to treat if we get together for a meal, to pay for script software costs and contest submissions, stuff like that.  Everyone always acts like it's the end of the world to spend $20 on collaborative software (that makes your life 100 times easier).  So I was absolutely dumbfounded when the same people largely gave us $50 or $100.  ???  I admit some of them probably felt like they owed us.  But I really wasn't expecting much from the starving artist crowd. 

{As an aside, MH was invited out to lunch by his biggest donor, someone he didn't really know on a personal level.  Turns out he was very young retiree.  Probably around 50 now but retired a while ago.  It's pretty normal for our long-term friends and family to be financially independent, but might be the first time we met a young retiree out in the wild.  😁  MH is meeting a bigger variety of people in his current professional group, I think a couple of others are probably independently wealthy just based on what we know about them.  I can see how things would sway to either extreme.}

MH's relatives also gave him some money.  A bit of a gimme, being the first time he has ever asked for money for a passion project.

Last we discussed, MH was just going to keep the budget to what he could crowdfund.  $1,000 is plenty.  If everyone works for free, we can make it work.  But I am still earmarking a few thousand and won't sweat it if we do need it to get this project completed.  The hard part will probably be convincing MH, if it comes to that. It sounds like most likely he may want an extra $500-$1000.  He wouldn't pay anyone unless he got funding or was able to make money on the project.

In other news, looks like we won't be touching our savings this month.  I have no idea how that happened.  Mostly expecting to find an error in my math at some point.  I pre-paid some health insurance and double checked and triple checked I got that part right.  I usually wouldn't pay that until August.  That's really the only part I could have got wrong, so I am still finding it hard to believe.  (I use accounting software, so it's difficult to "forget something" or to make a math error.  Impossible might be the better word.  It's impossible.  So I am confused but confident in my numbers).

The major thing working to our favor is that we had a really low grocery month.  Came in about $300 below budget.  Phew!   We were treated to a few meals out, plus vacationed 3 full days with food provided.  MH has gone back to more careful food shopping (with things normalizing) and MM(17) is done with track.  <----That last part is the most of it.  MM(17) did also received some free meals at work.  I guess it all added up.  This was an extremely rare occurence, to have so much grocery money left over.

I still don't entirely understand how we cash flowed the following: printer paper & ink,  blender, pest control, medical expenses.

I did fund vacation expenses and a dental cleaning with short-term funds.

I had a dental crown done but was able to cash flow with that $800 credit card reward.  Just kicking that can down the road, for now.  Will need to deduct that $800 when we pay for MM's new laptop.

While thinking about expenses, I looked up where our medical bills stood and we are up to $500 (that's due in July; will charge and pay off in August).  It's at least trickling in slowly. 

June expenses (charges) will be paid in July, so I have a pretty good estimate through July.   August may be our last one-income month, and we won't pay those expenses until September anyway. 

July might be our last one-income month then (July charges paid in August).   I don't really know what to expect.  I can see that our energy will probably be largely focused on spending down these buckets.  But that's money I don't otherwise have to come up with.  MH & MM will be in Florida for a week, so we might get away with an extra low grocery month again.  Florida is mostly paid for already, their only expense will probably be food.  Is another bucket (short-term funds earmarked for vacation spending) that we will just be spending down.  

In the end, MM(17) finally ordered his college laptop (will take about 6 weeks to ship) and MH spent his first $150 on technology and props for his film. 

I will try to do a brief MM(17) money update.  I never got around to that.

MM(17) had about $30 left in his checking account.  I guess he estimated pretty darn well (he hasn't worked since last summer).  He also had a $200 IRS refund to deposit. 

{This does not account retirement & savings.  Probably $5K+ in his high yield savings accounts}.

In the end, we finally hired a more full-time admin assistant at my job, when MM(17) went back to school last fall.  MM had mostly been filling that role, during our busy summers.  But the admin assistant is a college student and ended up going out of the country for a few weeks.  So MM(17) has worked two weeks already and will fill in next week.  He will make about $1,500.  (He's working part-time hours, and we were also gone a few days on vacation).

The plan is otherwise for MM(17) to take the month of July off.  He has some college orientation stuff and is going to Florida with some of our family.  After that he will be 18 and we are desparate for construction site help, so he agreed to work full time on site during the month of August.  That still gives him 2 weeks (early September) to take off and prep for college.  Usually the kids start school early August, so he is really enjoying the long summer.  He will probably make $5,000, even with 6 weeks off.

The construction job will be terrible, but it will be an experience.  It sounds very likely he will have mega high paying internships in future summers (due to his college and degree choice).  

I joined a parent group for his college and is probably TMI at this point.  Information overload.  But some of the conversations have been really helpful.  The concensus seems to be that $200/month spending money is pretty average (mostly for food and transportation expense/uber).  MM(17) is far below average.  But I am fine with using the average as a starting point.  $200 x 9 months = $1,800 per year spending money.  I think he will end this summer with enough cash to cover all 4 years (and then some). 

MM(17) is a personality who likes work and independence, and can work with all A's.  That said, we all agreed he really needs to just take the first semester/year and get settled.  I wouldn't be surprised if he decides to get a job at some point, even if just a few hours per week.  But it also sounds like he is pretty well set up to not have to work at all during the school year.  

I did see that the summer job he had secured on his own last summer (that never came to be), that they had bumped their hourly rate and were offering free daily meals.  !!!  That's quite a benefit for a very hungry teenager, but I knew he wouldn't be too enthused by their junk food menu.  Anyway, I did bring it up but he told me he thought it was better to take the job with less exposure to mega amounts of people.  Fair enough. If he had chosen the other way, would have just told my boss, "Sorry, but they are feeding him every day!"  & my boss probably would have matched it anyway.  Given him an extra $30 per week or whatever.

I am going to attempt to briefly touch on the big picture, but mostly just want to dive into the minutiae.

Yeesh, last week was some week from hell.  We've dived head first back into too many hospitalizations and disasters.  (If it's not infinite like it was before, I can deal with one bad week.  There are not enough hours in the day to get into it).  In addition, MH was out of town for two days (so I had to work and play Mrs. Mom, as opposed to Mr. Mom that the kids usually have, it was just a crazy day).   With things opening back up, the kids' schools are trying to cram a whole year into a week or two.  

I am exhausted! 

Big picture:  MH applied for his last unemployment check.  I used the last few checks to cover Orlando airfare and down payment on college room/board.  (He may be able to renew unemployment, I don't know.  Not worth the hassle and red tape at this point).

In my mind, I just lumped MH's last job as "dead" with the pandemic.  But we talked about it recently and I am moving it over to "plausible still has a job," category in my mind.  They'd open back up in the Fall.  If they were going to shut down this location, they would have already.  Fair enough.  I really haven't though about it other than "dead" since the pandemic started.  Plan for the worst.

Anyway, so we decided to just coast through summer and pull from savings if we need to.  We will regroup in the Fall.  If MH can't find a job by September, then we will regroup and make a longer term one-income plan.  For now, we have too much cash to really bother with it.  That said, he's never had work during the summer, since having kids (2003).  So it's probably a natural rhythym for us to pull back spending during summer months.  We are just going to play it slightly looser than we would if we knew 100% he was just going to give up and retire.  I don't know, still some limbo for probably 2-3 months.

We also have a bajillion big expenses coming up, hence the title of my post.  We've hit our savings goal this year per side bar (thanks to stimulus and unemployment), but I am not calling it as a completed goal yet.  Will have to wait and see where we end up at the end of the year.  I will deduct house maintenance and medical expenses that we will be paying next month, which will put us back under our goal.  Mostly I wanted to save $12,000 cash this year to pay for college (after cash flowing anything and everything else that might come up).  If it doesn't go to college or long-term savings, I will deduct (from sidebar/goal) if we spend down for other things.

I did receive $275 in car insurance rebates, due to the pandemic.   This works out pretty well because we just bought a new toaster oven (we had a price watch for a long time and it just dropped in price).  We also upgraded our blender.  I believe I paid $20-ish for that thing 20 years ago and we have been pretty hard on it.  Both have been really nice upgrades.  We spent $295 for the appliances and so will pay for most of that with the car insurance refunds.

MM(17) received some cash gifts from relatives and so I decided to go through our cash stash and will make a deposit this week.  I have way too much cash, I think it's just building up with not much going on.  In the end, I pulled out $150 that I'd like to deposit to help cover some expenses. 

Other expenses will come out of short-term savings.  We did book the hotel for college move-in week.  That will come from our vacation budget (short-term funds).  We also just found out that our annual family camp trip is on.  We thought we had canceled because we did not expect DL(15) to be vaccinated.  We moved to the waitlist for late summer, figuring he could get vaccinated after his birthday next month.  But anyway, that was a very pleasant surprise.  I booked the cat hotel because there's no way he is up to us leaving for 3 days.  The cat *freaked* when we left for one night and DL(15) stayed behind.  Again, vacation budget will cover that (the trip is otherwise free) and that still leaves some substantial dollars for Florida trip (which is mostly paid for already; free hotel and car rental).  

This weekend I made some good progress on freecycling.  Already gave away the old toaster and blender.  While at it, I spied a couple of electronics I had set aside to give away (but never got to).  I listed a printer and a drawing tablet.  MH spotted the tablet right before he went out, and rescued it.  I told him it was all his, but to put it away with is crap.  😁  It was a miscommunication, I thought no one wanted it.  I had a legit taker like one minute later, so MH was lucky I didn't give that away.  I've got one large item left listed, kind of surprised no takers yet.  Is probably the nicest thing we are giving away.  I did also give away 6 empty cat litter containers last week (nice plastic buckets).

This leaves me with four donation bags I don't know what to do with.  Will probably just presume things will open up and be more normal soon.   The charities stopped coming by for pickup; I was spoiled by that.   If they don't start coming by again, will have to figure out where to take this stuff.  When I have some time/energy I really need to do a clothes purge.  I was kind of thinking, "I really shouldn't be buying any clothes the rest of this year," and then my employer basically bought me a wardrobe.  4 shirts (with our logo), a second jacket and a really nice sweatshirt.  The sweatshirt is so cozy and comfortable, might wear it every day in the winter months.  So I have a pile of new clothes to launder and to figure out what to do with.  On the flip side of the coin, I went through my closet today and figured out what to wear for graduation.  I was buying up dresses on clearance, when I left my last job.  Thought I'd have more time between jobs and more than one interview.  Anyway, I can most definitely shop my closet for the rest of 2021.   It's nice not to have to go shopping to find a nice graduation dress.  I am happy with that aspect, just not happy with the clothes piling up everywhere.  I think it's a bit of an 'extra money/nothing else to do/more online shopping/less ease of purging" thing.  It seems pretty moot as I stare down this one-income summer.  "Buying more stuff" has fallen to the way bottom of my priority list.

My last post was how I decided it was easier to utilize credit card rewards than scholarships (in particular, really ridiculous applications for small dollar amounts).

Then, the in-laws came up yesterday to celebrate MM's Graduation.  So I have some numbers in hand.  They had brought up cards/gifts from that side of the family.

MH's Family:  $670

(Mostly from Grandparents; some from Great-Grandparents and a Great-Aunt)

My Family: $0  

(I will be shocked if MM receives even $1 from my family.  I have by far the much bigger family, but they mostly don't seem to care that I exist.  My parents just are not cash gifters.).

Because of the state of my family, I really just didn't have any idea what to expect.  I thought MH's family was probably going to be generous, particularly his parents.  But...  I don't really have a frame of reference of what is "normal".

In fact, before this turn of events, I started to eyeball all my credit card rewards and thought I might just earmark them all (roughly another $2,000) for college expenses this year.  I don't expect to need all of it, but would raid what I need for college set up type expenses.

In the end, if I add the $300 Target gift cards I have and the $755 credit card reward that I just did (I should get that cash any day)...  

Grand Total:  $1,725

Most of that will go to a laptop, the rest to dorm expenditures.  I think this *should* cover everything.  Will see where we end up.  (Anything extra, we will let MM keep.  I suppose it's plausible that he will have more gifts than expenses). 

With the chip shortages and everything, we are leaning on MM(17) to pick out a laptop this weekend, so that it arrives in time for school.  I probably should also set a hard deadline to make dorm purchases this month.  It just keeps coming up over and over to plan ahead before popular items are sold out.  MH just happened to notice the long lag time in laptop delivery; he was pricing laptops last weekend.  I don't think we would have been this far ahead thinking about it except I was trying to decide if this credit card reward would cover a laptop purchase.  

This is just one more step in ensuring paying cash for college *and* not touching college funds.  At current, that is our goal for freshman year.  Future years, depends on grandparent gifts and MH's employment.  (100% will pay cash, no loans.  But not sure how realistic it is not to touch any college funds). We had decided to pull dorm costs from college funds, but then we had stimulus and unemployment monies to cover Freshman year, in addition to a free-tuition scholarship.  So we have gone back to Plan A, cash flowing everything.

2021 TALLY:

$800 Cash (Chase Sapphire Quadruple Dip, MH) 

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

$800 TOTAL *ONE-TIME REWARDS*

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

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

I just applied for a credit card reward.  The reward is $800 cash, minus $95 annual fee.  Plus some extra $50 grocery reward and the possibility to get an extra 25% back on some categories?  At the least, should be $750 cash back.

Edited to add:  Ended up being $800 cash back

It's a quadruple dip I did last year.  Will have MH quadruple dip this year.  Which means we will have both done this reward 4 times.

My motivation?  I was thinking about it because I was closing my Sapphire card (before another annual fee kicked in).   

But my motivation this time around is trying to come up with college money.  The scholarships are *ridiculous* this year.  Like $500 scholarships where you need three letters of recommendation and have to write an essay and spend hours on an application.  Meh.  I thought one day, "It would be easier to do a credit card reward."  Which generally work out to about $1,000 per hour of effort.

So...  I looked it up, the reward was really good, and have already gotten MH approved for this card.

I had been kind of counting on college money and scholarships to cover dorm start up costs and a laptop for MM(17).  But the scholarships have been frustrating.  The really big generous scholarship our CU does every year, they had unrealistic community service requirements during a pandemic, in my opinion.  It was $20K that we let go.  & then all these $500 ones have ridiculous requirements.  I don't think it's just us.  The school emailed us the other day that no one had applied for this or that scholarship.  It was one that wasn't too ridiculous, but MM(17) was too busy and I told him I was kind of over it anyway.  I totally understand that he didn't have the time and energy.  

I had kind of figured he'd get some money from family and maybe a scholarship from the school (he is top of his class).  But...  Then a Grandparent sent MM $20 the other day.  & then I remembered how cheap my family is.  LOL.  (That's probably $20 more than anyone from my family will send him).  So I think that was also some extra motivation to hustle.  

I do also have a $300 Target gift card.  So I figure $750 + $300 is a good start to get him all set up for school (dorm, computer, etc.).  My in-laws will give him too much money I am sure.  There is also that.  This is a good start to get costs covered, and I will consider anything else to just be gravy.

Edited to add:  Discussed later with MH and MM.  We tracked down computer specs and MH priced one out (today) at $750.  Is just what it happened to come out to.  If MM(17) wants some extra computer capabilities, he can contribute towards a more expensive computer.

Second edit:  Just saw a $1,000 reward offer on this credit card.  Yeesh!  I really missed the boat!  Could have squeezed out another $200.   MM(17) will be 18 soon but I doubt he has the credit needed for this card.  

I will start with DL(15) who is more at the starting line.  

He's really dragging his feet working on his driver's license.  Which is driving MH crazy because he wants to go back to work full-time.  Anyway, DL is a personality that needs to be pushed.  It is what it is.  I think we are trying to give him a little space, but with his 16th birthday next month we are going to start pushing more.  I'd like him to start 2022 with a license.

In the meantime, I may or may not have a summer job lined up for him.  I've told my boss my kids' availability and he is considering everything.  But I just realized, only 3 more weeks of school!  So I will probably push a little bit on Monday and see if DL(15) needs to get a work permit.  It's been a little up in the air because my office is mostly being vaccine adverse (UGH).  So at first we decided DL(15) would not work in my office.  But then he was able to get the vaccine, much earlier than we ever expected.  Phew!  

It doesn't really matter, he won't have any expenses until he gets his license and needs insurance.  We won't expect him to pay gas or anything while he is still learning.  He is not doing sports and pretty much refuses to do anything extra-curricular after school.  He is the polar opposite of his brother in many ways.  So...  I think it's more likely he will probably pick up a more traditional teen job, do 16 hours per week more year round.  Something like that.  If I can get him some job experience and money at my office this summer, will make the working transition easier and give him some extra money before he turns 16.   Though I guess with the labor market, there are more jobs opening up to 15yos.

I am pulling up his financial situation to see where he is at.  He is exactly like his brother in that he is a money hoarder.  He's probably the more spendy of the two, but he has managed to save about $1,400 from his $2 per week allowance (during the last 10 years).  He may also have some generous grandparents, and a bank account that pays 7% interest.   We personally do the allowance thing from a young age so the kids learn how to manage their money well before they can get $20/hour jobs in their teen years.  (It's good to learn this before you dive head first into mega money and no expenses).  Because of the high minimum wage here, whatever, we are not paying them any allowances past age 16.  It's completely unnecessary.

I think DL(15)'s money hoarding will pay off and he can probably get away with not worrying about a job this summer.  We will just roll with it, however it works out.  Car insurance will run him about $1,000 per year, so he's going to need a job at some point.  Cars aren't cheap, best to learn that now.

My kids were gifted an old car from Grandparents.  The rule is just that they have to share.  They are welcome to a free car, but they can pay all the expenses. 

I probably haven't gotten around to posting about it, but MM(17) chose a college where he can pretty easily go car-free for 4 years.  Being a mega money hoarder, he wants to try to go carless (maybe indefinitely).  Will see.  For the first year it's pretty much impossible to have a car there, so not much choice.  DL(15) needs the car for a couple of years anyway, so it works out pretty well.  Afer that, we will re-evaluate.  If MM(17) wants a car at that point (in two years), he can probably take the car back.  & I think by then he should have enough cash to buy a much nicer/newer car, but it also seems pointless (buying a nice car) living in a college town with mostly new drivers.  

This is getting so long, I will do a separate money post re: MM and can do a rough college money post.

I heard last year that there was some retroactive tax credit for installing car chargers in your home.  We amended our tax return about a year ago and just got the refund check.  With interest, was about $250.

{These retroactive tax changes are driving me crazy!!  Much to my favor, but makes it hard to plan.  Should just be grateful I no longer work in tax and that it's just my own tax returns to worry about and constantly amend.}

We also returned from our beach vacay.  The hotel we always stay at is about 10 miles past the college that MM(17) will be attending.  We already did a very rushed 2-day trip in May.  It was fine and clearly the electric car is absolutely fine for this trip (600 miles roundtrip).  But we went an entirely different way this trip and had more time to be a little more efficient and to choose less expensive chargers.  Very roughly, might have spent $40 on our first trip (with very little time or planning).  Is a $75 gas fuel trip in our gas sipper (current gas prices), and we probably got it down to $30-$35 this last time. (I will get the exact dollar amount, below).  Of course, it will be cheaper when MM(17) is at college and we can use the free college chargers.  There's also a garage near the campus with chargers, at $1 per hour.  So we will have some good options.

This time, we went an entirely different route, stopped at different chargers, etc.  Last time we didn't see another soul charging.  This time we saw a lot more people.  Strangely, the busiest charger was in the sleepy little beach town we were staying at.  I'd expect to see more people charging closer to the Bay Area?  But the beach was a good stopping point for driving down to LA.

We did stop in the Bay Area to see family on the way down, but this was the first time we decided not to also stop and charge.  It makes more sense to charge when the battery is lower.  Then it charges back up more quickly.  So we let it go (though we were stopped anyway).  There's no lack of chargers to choose from on the 101.  So we went both ways on the 101 this time (which is the same distance as coming back more inland on I-5.  I-5 currently lacks chargers).  <---& even that I think is probably moot.  It's just going to take us some time to get more comfortable with the car and how it behaves on this trip.  We seem to be perpetually over-estimating by 50 miles (always having 50 miles left when we get to our destination).  It really isn't that big of a deal to come back I-5, there's certainly more than ample chargers.  I think we just enjoyed the more choice of going the 101 route.  Probably more psychological than anything.

We spent $32 charging (out and about).  Technically $37, including charging the car up fully at home before leaving (about $5 for a full charge).  Total miles driven: 665

Plugged in at home overnight and started out with a full charge.

Stop 1, about half way (150 miles).  Stopped for lunch which was *divine*.  Stopped for 1/2 hour and gained 100 miles of range. 

Car range is roughly 240 miles.  Destination was 300 miles.  Added 100 miles on the drive, so had 40-ish miles left when we reached the hotel.  We did stop and drive around the Bay Are a bit.

We did also use free fast chargers at the rest stops, but those were purely bathroom stops we'd do anyway.  We ended up with about 70 free miles from pit stops (one stop each way).

There's two ways to play the recharge for the trip home.  You can spend some time at a slower charger or you can fast charge (most efficient from about 20% to 80%).  Or I guess a combo of both.  It was a pleasant surprise to find out that the beloved hotel I have been going to my whole life, that they had chargers!  I am guessing in the future we will get whatever free charging we can get on the college campus and can just top off at the hotel.  This time we just lucked out.  We had a couple of errands we wanted to run and those were all right next to the fast charger.  So the next day we went over there and ran errands and added 140 miles to the car.  Took about an hour, but we just charged while we were busy running into a few stores.  This charger was walking distance to the hotel and to our favorite restaurants so this will be an easy lunch stop in the future.  

The thing about the hotel charger was that it is expensive.  Electrify America chargers are roughly 1/2 the cost of gas (for our car).  The hotel slow charger was about the cost of gas.  Electricity at home is roughly 1/3 the cost of gas, for reference.  I think the charging at home and the charging at the hotel kind of offset and overall still kept our fuel costs very low.

After we got back to the hotel we just plugged in and charged (to top it off) while we lounged by the pool.  We could have just been even more lazy and left it plugged in overnight.  But at that point we just needed 60 miles.  It took about 2.5 hours to top off.  The slow chargers are nice for somewhere you will be all night (or day) anyway.

On the way home we stopped mid-way again (same place) and stopped for 45 minutes for about 130 miles.

Had 50 miles left when we got home.  It will take some time to just get used to the drive/car.  It depends so much on the terrain, how much A/C you use, etc. that we honestly weren't sure if we had enough to get home and if we may have to stop again.  But we decided we were ready to go and could always stop 5 minutes for a top off if we needed to.  *shrugs*  Of course, we expected really heavy traffic.  It wasn't so bad, but there was enough stop-and-go for us to have 50 miles left when we got home.  Without the stop-and-go I think we'd have enough left, but maybe just 20 or 30 miles.  Braking regenerates energy.

I personally find the electric car more convenient than gas for around town and for our frequent Bay Area trips (we now need less fuel stops for that trip, and is a trip we make 1-2 times per month). Before, we'd have to make sure we had a full tank before we left or stopped on the way.  We always refueled on the way home so that we had gas left for the work week.  Now we just have to make one small stop, and even that is probably just being on the safe side.  If we ever hit any traffic on that drive, stopping to fuel is not necessary.

600 mile road trip = *shrugs*  It 1000% depends on your personality.  I said to my friend, "You have to stop and eat anyway" and she looked at me like I was crazy.  Okay, sure, most our friends rather leave at 6pm on a Friday to get to LA at midnight.  That is so not us.  We always stop and picnic at the rest stops, and take our time.  As they put in more free chargers at the rest stops, that is 1000% what we will do, but what we did before anyway.  Finding out our hotel had a charger though, certainly made life easier.   & this trip we were very much just wanting to rest and recharge our batteries.  We didn't really drive anywhere else.  In the future, we may want to travel a little farther and explore.  So being able to just plug in when we get to the hotel and not think about it (just wake up the next day with a full charge), that will definitely be nice.

I am still curious about a longer road trip, but not sure when we will ever get to that.  It will be an experiment when we do.

For whatever reason, Electrify America is putting their chargers at all the outlet malls.  We stopped at so many outlet malls!  I found them to be a nice place to stop because of all the restaurants and bathrooms. 

So that is a general sum up of a longer trip.  One that will be made frequently in our future, with MM attending college over there.

There was about 5 weeks in between trips.  During this time DL(15) started going back to school full-time, in person.  MH got his wish, with just driving the car around town and seeing how far he could get.  I mean, we had a few freeway trips thrown in.  If just driving to/from school/work, MH and the kids, I expect the car will probably go 350+ miles with all the regen (from braking).  

In this case, MH drove 300 miles during these 6 weeks and did not need to recharge in between bigger road trips.

That said, he did find a free charger at a movie theater.  I think it's mostly moot because at the time our nearby theater was closed.  It has since reopened.  But he is going to some other movie with free charging today (we have a gift card).  He will get about 75 miles free charge.  It may be 30 miles roundtrip diving to get there.

It may be mostly moot in the short run (with our neighborhood theater opened up) but I guess as the free movie screenings open back up, that is where he will get use out of these free chargers.  I think MH would be in heaven.  Free car charging and FREE movies!?  What else could you ask for?  😁  The free movie screenings are all over the place.

Edited to add:  Just a reminder that every EV is *so* different.  This is one of the slower ones to charge, for reference.   I wouldn't judge current EV technology based on our car choice.  We have more time than money; our primary motivation switching to EV was to save money.  This car was the sweet spot for our personal situation.  I was just reading about all the new cars coming out that will charge roughly 200 miles in 20 minutes. 

April Spending covered with unemployment funds:

--Some charitable contributions came up 

--College expenses ($300 for various orientations)

--Dining Out $200+ this month ~ this included a marvelous lunch out of town (our first restaurant meal in over a year and it was actually very good, some place a little different).  Also, MH is working on a film project and I ran out to get dinner two weeks in a row, in addition to feeding other people.   Just a lot of extra splurging.

--Vacation spending $600

This last splurge feels very redundant because...  MM(17) chose a college!  He's going to school 300 miles south along the coast (in paradise).  Lucky him!   So though we may go back several times this year for orientation, to get him moved in, etc.  This is my happy place and it's the only place I want to go.  I tried to come up with anything else but I just don't want to go anywhere else.  MH and I are going away for a couple of nights, to celebrate our full vaccination.  

Hotel is booked and paid for already.  Fuel will cost basically nothing (electric car).  Will splurge on some nice meals out while we enjoy the coast.

May Spending:

--I need to come up with a $1,500 housing (college dorm) deposit.  I am just going to use MH's unemployment money because it's less I will have to pull from savings later.  (I do have Year 1 costs set aside for college already, in cash).  

Edited to add:  Ended up paying this last weekend.

--Will also be booking Florida airfare (MH and the kids) for this summer.  Can probably cover 2-3 tickets with unemployment money.

MH should get two more unemployment checks, and then we are done.  If they automatically extend him again, he will stop certifying for benefits.  He will still be looking for work.  But, mostly we don't want to deal with the red tape and issues any more.  If he wants to take a month off from the job search to work on his movie or whatever, just wants to get back to things on his terms.  We kind of felt this way in January, but then everything has been smooth with unemployment since then.  Knock on wood.  With the extra $300 per week boost, sure whatever, was worth dealing with the hassles that came up.  But at this point we are both very over it.  He usually is off work during the summer months, so it seems a natural breaking point.  

So I am trying to fund as much as I can without touching savings.  Before we get back into one-income mode.   

Oh yeah, and in other random money spending, we picked out a tuxedo rental for MM(17).  His friends are doing a mini-prom, which is absolutely perfect.  He never would have been interested in regular prom.  He is a very casual dude and so I joked early on that he needed to do a full tux.  I think some because it would be so unexpected and us probably being more willing to fund that after a year of not much exciting going on.  Even MH (most definitely not a tux guy) liked the idea.  But at that point it was just talk.  Yesterday MM(17) committed and picked out a fancy tux.  Most of his friends are girls so they are all going to freak.  They are probably expecting him to show up in shorts.   

Goal Achieved:  $500,000 Retirement

I feel ridiculously "retirement poor".  Because we spend so little and need so little to retire comfortably.  

Because of this, I just felt so "meh" about fomulating the next retirement goal.  I started this post earlier but then walked away to give it some thought.  I decided I've had these feelings before.  We saved 75% of our income to get into a home (San Francisco) when just starting out.  After that, we saved 50% (all of MH's income) until we had kids.  After that we took a 5 year breather to have kids.   We eventually circled back and started to think about longer term goals.  Retirement was it.  It's just not that exciting.  Might have taken us a couple of years to get into a home and a couple of years to feel ready to prepare financiall to be home with kids.  But...  Retirement is more of a decades long slog. 

So I stepped away, thought about it, and decided my feelings were similar, today.  20 years ago, I think we were just feeling very financially comfortable and wanted to enjoy the fruits of that hard work.  This time around I am feeling very burned out.  2018 & 2019 were some terrible years for me.   It's similar, but also different.  I don't think I am going to start working half as much, while I get my kids through college.  😉

I decided that I don't want to make a goal and I am going to take a breather.  It will be very relative.  A relative breather.  We were saving 20%+ to retirement after MH lost his full-time job and we had our first child.  It will be same now (20%+ to retirement).  I think a lot of our "retirement poor" is just a side effect of financial and tax efficiency.  It doesn't make any sense whatsover to give up employer match or keep money in taxable accounts (that can be moved over to ROTHs).  And...  MH is looking for a full-time job.  Has absolutely nothing to do with money.  Is more about personal fulfillment.   This breather is more about taking a break from some longer-term goals.  We are also talking about investing in some non-financial things, taking some new risks. 

I am just going to leave the "$500K retirement at age 45" goal in my sidebar.  See what the market does, and where we are in another year.  See where we are at when we are 45.

I think we are going to give it 6-24 months.  In 6 months we should have a lot more clarity on the job front (MH).  If he does find a job, maybe we just buckle down and finish saving for retirement, get our home paid off.  I don't know.  What's relevant in 2 years is that DL(15) should be making his college decisions.  All of this is a lot of limbo to sort out.  So we might want not to expend too much energy on longer term plans until this stuff starts to sort out.  

This year is going to be expensive.  I am just trying to let it go and roll with it.  We are just talking about a lot of things.  This post is too long already, so will get to these things later.

Not related to our "taking a breather feelings" whatsoever, I later saw that our home had gone up 40% in value over night.  !!  We live in a city that everyone is moving to.  

It's...  depressing.  We got priced out of the city we grew up.  Apparently we are doing the same to our kids.  It makes it really impractical (too expensive) to downsize and stay here.  It's not all bad.  It makes it more practical to move closer to our parents, if they do need more help.  We are just along for the ride.  Not planning to get off this ride for another 2 years (when DL is done with high school).  I guess this is just more limbo getting thrown into the mix.  

Yeah, it's completely absurd.  We have bought in two completely absurd markets.  I...  Don't know what this is.  It's something that has never happened before.  I saw some home sold in our neighborhood for $750K last month.  I then saw Monday morning that there were people camping out and lining up for new townhomes ($1.2 Mil) in the Bay Area.  I mentioned to my boss (I work for a home builder) and he started showing me graphs of the current market.  He's just, "This has never happened before."  The housing inventory was already non-existent before the pandemic.  So that's the fuel and throw on the fire of everyone trying to move here.  I keep seeing articles that it's also impossible to find rentals here.  

{Home construction was not labeled "essential" in our state but was labeled "essential" in our region last March, which is why work has remain very unchanged for me}.

I share because it's probably pretty likely we have hit our "financial independence" goal, with this turn of events.  {Current net worth is $1.2 Mil}.  Which is of course meaningless.  Our "financial independence" goal was $1 mil plus a paid-for condo.  It's not $600K investments + $600K home equity.  (That $200K condo is now a $400K condo, with mega property taxes).  & it's made further moot by this not being a "financial independence" goal while still supporting kids and having a mortgage.  We have to cross these other things off our list first, before we can hit "financial independence" with $1 mil.

So...  I will work on re-formulating that goal.  Again, might just step away from that for a year or two and see where this roller coaster ride ends up.  I might not formulate a new goal for another year or two.  But off the top of my head, it might be $800K investments, as a new goal.  If we expect to cash out roughly $200K when we do sell this home (and downsize).  All of this can change so dramatically based on the stock and housing markets.  It may just be a goal that needs significant re-tweaking over time.  

It's still a coin flip between the two State colleges.  The schools themselves are pretty much the same in most ways (academics and job opportunities).  Both are impossible to beat from a cost/benefit standpoint. The decision at this point is purely how/where MM wants to live.  

MM told us he would decide this week.

He did get his last private school rejection last Wednesday.  (They pushed back decisions about 10 days due to huge increase in applications, so is why it's getting so late).  So yeah, the second he does decide, we need to scramble with housing applications and orientation signs ups (which opened up last week).

We dropped everything last Thursday and took him to tour both schools, to help his decision.  He toured both at some point but has been a while.  MM is so tactile, I knew it would be good for him to go see in person, as he makes his final decision.  It also gave us a chance to do our first longer trip in the electric car.  600 miles roundtrip.  Not the most practical with such a rushed trip.  But it looks like we can get away with paying -$0- for fuel if we can have more time on these trips.  (I will do another post later about the road trip/electric car). 

This is what I wrote in my first official college post in this blog (4 years ago):

Some of the ways that we expect to keep college costs down:

--Saving money ahead of time for college
--Scholarships
--MH working more while kids are in college
--Possibly finding an employer who will chip in with college costs (re: Grad school)
--Kids working in high school/college, even if just during summers
--Thinking outside the box as to housing (which is important with the high housing costs here)
--Mostly considering public colleges
--Community college (this is really what all the regional public colleges prefer these days, getting first two years done at CC, so motivation is more than just saving money)

Certainly not meant to be an all inclusive list, but in general sums up how we stayed out of college debt.

All of these things will come into play.   A college student gave us a tour of the farther away college.  One thing she mentioned was that most students take at least one online GE class at the community college every semester, because it's cheap and easy.  (Community college is currently free in our state?  Before that it cost virually nothing).  I had kind of written off community college re: the specific colleges MM applied to (beyond anything more than maybe a summer class here and there).  But maybe we will utilize after all.   

MH has voiced wanting to go back to work full-time.  I had told him to put a pin in that with the more mushy gushy private schools (more income wouldn't help our bottom line).  But...  That's all moot anymore.  He can make as much money as he wants, we might actually be able to keep some of it!  Both sets of Grandparents have offered to help more, even with the cheap public colleges.  So...  Will see if any of this sticks.  Not sure what to do with all this.  If they do both help *and* MH gets a full-time job...  We may just tackle our mortgage??  MM(17) should also be getting mega high paying summer internships, with either of these colleges.   Will see what sticks and will figure it out.  

When MM picks a college, I will go through numbers in more detail.  Will just start with my current salary and current assets.  Anything else will be gravy; not counting any eggs before they hatch. 

Vaccinated!  All of us but DL (because he is not 16 yet).  He will at the least be able to get vaccinated this summer, when he does turn 16.

They had a pop up vaccine event (in our neighborhood), intended to hit the uninsured and less privileged groups.  But...  They had 300+ vaccines leftover.   

I still am in disbelief, honestly.  Not only that one of us got a vaccine, but that we all did.

It will probably take a while to process what all this means.

Things discussed already:

--MH wanted to make travel plans to see his Grandfather this summer.

--MM(17) can (safely) get a job this summer.  We had kind of just given up the idea of our kids working at all this summer.

--MM(17)'s high school graduation seems to be a go.  I wasn't particularly enthralled with that (when a date/venue was announced a while ago).  But...  Now it seems more realistic and doable.

I am sure there is a lot I haven't thought about yet. 

Edited to add:  I personally haven't skipped any regular appointments.  So I have nothing to catch up on.  But both MM and MH have not gotten a professional cut in over a year.  They may want to get hair cuts.   

{In the end, my health insurer is highly prioritizing essential workers that work outside of the home.  & I mean, they are not following state guidelines.  They are making their own priority list.  I was offered an appointment today.  So...  I gained 3 days?!  But the leftover vaccines were *great* and life changing for MH/MM, who are at the absolute bottom of any priority list}.

If that's not enough excitement for one weekend...

My parents came up, for the first time in over a year.  My Dad took some sports photos of MM(17).  It was worth the wait!  I thought I missed the boat, but he just happened to get his uniform back a couple of months ago (they've been doing scaled down track meets this year).  So I was able to get the 'professional' sports photos I never would have otherwise gotten.  Will do a repeat when MM(17) gets his cap and gown.  My Dad will do his senior photos.

In other total random news, MM(17) gets his braces off today!  

Financial stuff:

Taxes are (were) on hold again.  I got an email about an unexpected tax loophole (unemployment in community property states).  This will save us $555.  Phew!  So glad I didn't file yet.  I was waiting for more firm confirmation (on this grey area), but got it a few days ago.  I may file our tax return tonight and get that rolling.  Especially now that we are getting a refund.

Oh yeah, I did also get confirmation in that email (from a tax publication I subscribe to) that the IRS has (or will) delay the IRA funding deadline to May 17th.  (I started typing this out a few days ago, it's been officially announced at this point).  I expect to have a lot more information by then and probably would be prudent for me to wait a while to make a final decision (Traditional versus ROTH).  But with the stock market being rocky (more oportunity to buy lower) and college costs getting more clear, I had already transferred $12,000 out of our savings account, ready to fund our 2020 ROTH IRAs.  Will probably just rip off the band aid and be done.

This still leaves $10,000-ish in addition to our 9-month emergency fund.  I updated sidebar (with stimulus and unemployment received this month).  We've got MM's freshman year of college well covered.  Will probably spend next school year (MM freshman year) saving up for Year 2 of college.  That is the rough plan, for the moment.  

Still no college decision.  MM is too busy with school.  His task for spring break is to make choice (still a coin flip) between two public schools.  Should also hear back from last college next week.   It would sure make life easier if they would get back to us before spring break.  It's plausible, but that would probably be too easy.  

Crazy Crazy Week(s)!

Things just went from 0 to 60.  Schools are opening back up (in person) this week.  We hosted guests for the first time in a year (St. Patty's Day dinner).  MH got jury duty.

& then College...

So far, we have ruled out the more expensive and more far away private colleges.  It's official that MM(17) will stay in state.  It's a super rough year on the college front, I already mentioned.  But the east coast college had 70% more applications that prior year(!) and dropped their acceptance rate from 8% to 4%.  Was a stretch anyway, but I think we are pretty shocked he didn't get into his #1 choice (LA college).  Have had some time to digest and move on.  Honestly?  We were supportive because MM was MM.  We were discussing *if* #1 college choice was $40K per year, we would make it work (with help from Grandparents).  He is extremely driven and he knows what he wants to study.  But...  Public school is so much better for *our* personalities.  Private school was so...  Complicated.  In the distance, in the cost of travel.  How MH couldn't work at all because it would just make it more expensive (he'd net nothing after increased college costs and taxes).  How we probably couldn't accept gifts, it would then be too prohibitively expensive.  I kept calling it "mushy gushy."  Public college is just so much more straightforward.  I literally wrote in my college comparison spreadsheet, "Unlimited Income and Assets!" for the public schools.  The cost won't drastically change if our personal circumstances change (for the better).

MM(17) is totally cool and fine.  He is not emotionally wrapped up in college choices.  Still has *no idea* which college he wants to go to and is a hard enough decision with just two college offers in hand. 

{Still waiting to hear back from one private college.  It's the least expensive and mushy gushy.}  

All remaining college options cost roughly the same.  One might be free tuition, the other might be free room and board.  But it all roughly comes out to comparable price (over 4 years) for all the options.  & the least expensive option has some other trade-offs.  Cost is removed as a deciding factor, for what's left.

This was my last post re: public college tuition.

Tuition and fees at our alma mater:  $31,000.  <---  That is total for 4 years (sticker price)

In addition, there is a state grant that I believe was $2K per year.  & MM is a kid who will get some scholarships.  I'd be surprised if we paid more than $15K?

In the end, the other State college is more expensive (full price is $40K; $10K x 4 years) but gave MM a substantial scholarship.  Our cost:  Probably $0.  It depends how the State Grant shakes out.  & he won't need a car there at all, which saves a lot of money.  So probably would be the most expensive school (of the schools he has been accepted to and we are waiting to hear back from), but they just leveled the playing field with a merit scholarship.  

It looks like college is probably going to be a small blip for us financially.  I am just going to enjoy that, for now.   😁 Am not going to bother worrying about any finer details until a college decision is actually made.  When the college decision is made, will work through all those finer details.  If MM needs a car, what we expect MM(17) to pay for, if we even touch his college funds (probably not), etc.  

Edited to add:  Don't have to buy MM a winter wardrobe, don't need to worry about travel/airfare costs, etc.  The cost savings are significant all around.

Final shake out of how the latest stimulus bill benefits us in direct payments and tax savings.

Stimulus (x4):

+$5,600

First $10,200 $20,400? of unemployment will be tax free for 2020:  

Tax savings 2020:  +$2,200

{I edited this part because of some tax loophole in community property states.  We probably get the full $20K and will save an extra $555 I was not anticipating.}

Child Tax Credit changes:

Tax savings 2021: +$1,000

$1,000 tax savings for DL (increased child tax credit)

I decided to just file taxes on time and not play the game with getting extra child credit for MM(17).  The more extra income we have, the less benefit we will get from playing the game.  Will opt for simplicity for over a (big maybe) few dollars.

I will check if our tax software has been updated yet for retroactive tax changes, and might just file our taxes this weekend if we can.  I already did our taxes a while ago, but then they changed 2020 tax laws.  (The work is done, but hadn't filed).

Unemployment extension:

+$5,000

MH just got renewed for another $5,000 of benefits.

Because of this, I think I am just going to bite the bullet and do ROTH IRA contributions for 2020.  I was initially hoping they'd extend IRA due dates and that I would have more time to decide.  But...  lots of college news this week and I think it's safe at this point to voluntarily pay an additional $1,500 in taxes.

-$1,500

Will use $1,500 of this money to fund ROTH IRAs. Basically, swapping Traiditional IRA deductions out for tax-free unemployment.  

Total unexpected monies:  +$12,300

$11,300 of this should be received this year (within the next month or two).

The rest will sort out when we file taxes next year.

A lot of college stuff is shaking out and I will do a separate post for that.  But it sounds like we will most likely use this money to cover college costs this year.  As of today, it looks likely that we will just stick with sidebar goals, and that college won't change anything.  Plan A was always to stick to inexpensive public colleges and to cash flow with current income.  This plan is shaping up pretty well.   

Final shake out of how the latest stimulus bill benefits us in direct payments and tax savings.

Stimulus (x4):

+$5,600

First $10,200 of unemployment will be tax free for 2020:  

Tax savings 2020:  +$1,700

Child Tax Credit changes:

Tax savings 2021: +$2,000

At the lease, $1,000 tax savings for DL (increased child tax credit)

Probably $1,000 for MM (advanced child tax credit).  Best I can determine, they can't clawback $2,000 (of advanced credits) if our AGI is below $60K.  It's $1,000 that they can't clawback if our AGI is below $90K.   I'd say the biggest unknown (re: our 2021 AGI) is unemployment income, noted below. 

MM is not eligible for this tax credit (he turns 18 this year).  He will most likely get the advanced tax credit because we have not filed our 2020 tax return yet.

Note: The catch is we can't file our tax return for a long time.  Will go on extension and plan to file around the 10/15 due date. 

Unemployment extension:

???

MH did receive his last unemployment check and it had a note that said it will automatically renew and nothing he has to do.  If that's the case, will just keep taking benefits.  (I noted in my last post we were kind of over the red tape and had already replaced two years of his income).  

Note: If we do continue to receive unemployment benefits with Fed boost, the less we can keep of advanced child tax credit for MM (who turns 18 this year).  Will evaluate as the year progresses.

I can further manipulate AGI by throwing more into my 401K, but I don't foresee doing that this year.  I need all the cash I can for college.  TBD, I guess.  I am still in the "can hope for a free ride" stage (waiting for acceptances).  

Total unexpected monies:  $9,300

It took a little time for me to find (more detailed) clawback/phaseout rules for the 2021 advanced child tax credit.  Just noting a very detailed blog post for future reference (linked below).  That's getting complicated enough, I want to at least be able to remember why I made this plan (to file our tax return 10/15).  I will get more in the weeds when I take my professional education classes later this year. 

https://www.kitces.com/blog/the-american-rescue-plan-act-of-2021-tax-credits-stimulus-checks-and-more-that-advisors-need-to-know/

I feel like every time I look at the news, there's more money raining down on us.

{I am so glad I haven't contributed to 2020 IRAs yet, or filed our tax return.  We would have had to change/amend everything.}

It seems likely this is the first year (ever) that we will go on extension.  Our taxes are very simple.  But...  As much as I had come to abhor the ridiculousness and tradition of 12/31 retroactive tax changes (which made my life mostly impossible when I worked in tax).  Making tax changes March after the year is over, is just absurd.  😠 I hope it's a 'once in a lifetime' pandemic thing and doesn't become the new way of things. 

Mostly irritated because, we really really really could have used that extra $11,000 for college.  But I put it in my 401K to avoid a tax cliff (50% tax rate).  Nothing we can do about it.  That is something I can not change.  

{This commentary is in regards to retroactively making first $10K-ish of unemployment tax-free in 2020}.

I can revise this when new stimulus is finalized, but it looks like this is probably how things will shake out.

First $10,000-ish of unemployment will be tax free for 2020:  

Tax savings 2020:  +$1,700

Child Tax Credit changes:

Tax savings 2021: +$1,750?**

At the lease, $1,000 tax savings for DL (increased child tax credit)

**Oh boy, this one is going to get complicated.  If we don't file our 2020 tax return, we will get advanced child tax credits for MM that we won't have to pay back.  At this point, maybe we just file our tax return in September (final due date).  I will have to go through the math and figure this one out.  

Thankfully, they also made this credit more refundable.  I was already targeting -$0- Federal taxes in 2021.  This could mean that we literally pay -$0- in Federal taxes but the government pays us (negative tax rate).  We pulled this off during some of our early one-income/maternity no-income years.  Our tax rate hasn't been -0- or negative since our kids were babies.

Unemployment extension:

???

I did see the latest unemployment extension being thrown around is through Labor day, or when MH's job would most likely come back anyway.

I am not sure if MH will keep looking for work or will have the patience for unemployment red tape.  We will have to run through tax and college financial aid calculators to figure out if we are getting anything net net net (with extra income).  This will be better math once we have a college decision in hand.  Unemployment has already replaced two years of his income, for reference.  We may just be happy with that and done with this red tape mess.  

Stimulus:

+$5,600

This is the amount we will probably receive.  I've never seen any AGI cutoff discussed that would affect us. Our AGI was same 2019 and 2020 (based on current tax law) and so it doesn't matter which year they pull to base this stimulus off of.  Potential new tax law just lowers our AGI even further for 2020 (which wouldn't change anything).

I actually was holding off tax filing because technically MM(17) was not eligible for the last two stimulus amounts.  It sounds like he will be this round.  I wasn't going to volunteer that he has turned 17 last year, in case he wasn't eligible for this round either.  <---This is the reason we haven't filed our tax return yet.

Phew! Thank goodness we held off.  Now, I am going to wait for unemployment taxes to sort out.  I don't want to have to amend a tax return.

I do hope they can figure this out before April 15th.  (I mean, between finalizing the bill, and getting everything programmed with tax software and IRS.  It takes time to implement tax law changes).  I don't want to go on extension, and it would be nice to know how much we could put into Traditional IRAs before the April 15th deadline.  🙄  (Depends on our AGI).

Edited to add:  This was written before I read we could get some child tax credit for MM and not pay it back, if we do go on extension.  I guess extension it is.

Total unexpected monies:  $9,050

I guess that breaks down into $5,600 expected soon and $4,700 at the end of 2021.  Minus some advanced tax credits we may have to pay back in 2022. I can't adjust my withholding to pay negative tax (or even $0 tax), so I don't have any other way to advance these monies into 2021.  But I guess it works out nicely that the government wants to advance these tax credits, July through December of this year.

If MM goes the public school route (and lives in the dorms) then that is 1000% what I am going to do with this $9,050 basically falling from the sky.   We needed to roughly come up with $10K per year.  We are going to probably pay most of the dorm costs with his college fund and it sounds like the bajillion dollars in groceries we spend (for that kid) will equate to dorm food costs.  That leaves about $5,000 that I think is mostly hyper inflated expenses (that we would be more frugal about), things MM(17) covers already (like the cost of his car), and things we expect him to pay for (books, personal expenses).  <---- He also has very generous grandparents willing to help him fill up this $5,000 bucket.  

This is really rough, but is where our heads are at with public colleges:  We will get -0- financial aid**.  I never expected any financial aid for public in-state colleges, but it's official that the financial aid reward is: $0.  (I do not seriously consider student loans as a financial aid reward).

**We are technically eligible for some automatic State grants, which sound like they may be $2k per year (for public college).  Those will take forever to sort out, so I don't know.  We are putting this in the 'not counting our eggs, but will take more money falling from the sky' category.  I expect more details in October, if he chooses a public school.

No one in our family has ever lived in a dorm (and did not go away to college, for the most part).  Though MH and I both chose not to spend our 'college money' on college, and felt we needed that more for post college housing in the SF Bay Area.  We have kept that same mindset and never really expected to use this money for college.  It's extra complicated because MM's college money is gifted from grandparents.  Too many strings and weirdness, which is also some of why I just ignore it.  So... we discussed recently and agreed that pretty much his college fund would be spent on dorm costs.  If MM is going to live in the dorms, we won't be saving this chunk of change for him to use after college.  It will be up to him.  (We won't pay it forward, if he chooses a significantly more expensive college route).

I had a lightbulb moment.  I have to back up first though.  I've gotten a few well meaning comments (over the years, in this blog) that we need to be prepared to pay for college before college starts.  ??? (& to clarify, I mean like having to pay a semester ahead of make a down payment.  Though honestly, all I see is installment payment options, anyway. We are more "pre-pay as much as we can" personalities.  I think we'd pre-pay the semester rather than deal with the hassle of more frequent payments.  But I am also hyper aware that is not normal whatsoever).  Look, I entirely put myself through college.  I know how college works.  We also have never borrowed for anything (but our home).  You don't do that just flying by the seat of your pants.  I think people are confused.  We have never tied up a penny of our money 'specifically for college.'  This doesn't mean we have no money, no plan.   MM(17) can go to school pretty much anywhere he wants to go to school, and we intend to pay cash.

Hence my lightbulb moment.  As I think through how much these windfalls mean we pretty much will be spending $0 or our own income/savings this year.  It's... 1 year down and only 3 to go!?  It's kind of blowing my mind.

I just keep thinking, "6 more years..." and so it's kind of nice to realize that it may just be "5 more years..."  College is our last big mountain before financial independence.  

GIFTS:

------

$50 Barnes & Noble (we always gift these to FIL)

MOVIES:

--------

$100 Regal

RESTAURANTS:

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

$50 Cracker Barrel

$50 Olive Garden

$25 Chili's

$ 25 x 2 Jamba Juice (Birthday Gift)

RETAIL:

---------

$ 100 x 1 Target (Emailed/paper gift cards)

$20 Target gift card (loaded to online account)

$24 Kohls credits ($20 + $4), in wallet

$ 75 Kohls ($50 + $25)

$50 Bed Bath & Beyond (for college dorm)

Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I guess I have nothing to add or change.

I bought a lightweight stick vacuum at Target, using up the last of the gift cards I had loaded to my online account.

I was a little thrown off that we had used *all* of our gift cards.  Until I remembered it was so much I didn't want to load it all to our online account.  

So I just remembered to check, and we still have $300 paper/emailed gift cards.  Which I no doubt noted in this post (last time) that these were paper gift cards, so that I would not forget.

Phew!  I am going to hang on to that $300 for college/dorm type expenses.  That was always the plan, which was why I was thrown off when I thought I had spent it all.

We had also talked about sending this last gift card to FIL but never did.  It can be a belated birthday gift.  Probably rather just give it to him and get it out of our hair.