Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

Flat Tire #4 for the year.

I am beginning to rue the van.

My last car was a "nail in the tire" magnet and the van too. How did I get 2 in a row????

The Saturn - last car - well - it had a flat every darn week it seemed. NAils, nails and more nails. I have no idea where they come from.

The van on the other hand has picked up 2 bolts which led to some new tires and a multitude of nails. I had noticed one tire had a nail but seems okay. Had been keeping an eye on it. It was diverting my attention from the flattening tire with 2 nails in it. Ugh! at least this time we have been completely surrounded by construction and makes a little more sense. Caught it before it was a total flat at least.

In other news I drive dh's car almost every day lately (saving gas) and I am not sure if that thing has ever had a flat. How do cars do that? Evil!

I would probably come to the conclusion that the van's tires (perhaps original?) were pure crap. I even looked up reviews wondering after so many flats so early in the year. Then again, you figure would any tire really withstand all this abuse? I think I am just unlucky when it comes to tires for whatever reason. No flats in 2006 either - so weird.

Dh took care of it for me - that is the swell part.

Here's to no more flat tires in 2007. 4 is plenty.

Now that I think about it I think dh did have a flat this year too. They will be doing construction by our home for a while so maybe we should just get used to it. Makes it 5 already then, combined. The nails aren't nearly so bad and costly as those nasty bolts.

Seriously, who has this many flat tires though? When we moved here our entire street was under construction and the entire neighborhood for years but we didn't get flats like this. Bah.

http://www.thestreet.com/s/save-now-and-your-life-may-be-non...

Maybe you have all seen this.

It has probably been reamed all over the internet 10 times over already. But I just have to chime in.

Huh????

IS it really that impossible to save $4k of a $40k paycheck?

Um, would you rather live with roommates in your 20s or for the rest of your life, because I didn't really mind it when I was first out of college. I was used to it, I Was young, and yeah I had to suffer the discomfort another year or so before we could buy a home. But it was so WELL worth it. It is like a little sacrifice for more later. If i had to do it for a few years, so be it.

I just roll my eyes that single unattached 20s can't possibly save 10% of their income.

I do have to admit that I did not put a huge priority on saving for my retirement in my 20s. Sometimes I regret it a bit, sometimes not. But I guess we lucked out saving all of our money to a house which was our best investment like ever. Just has bought us tremendous financial freedom. But yeah, driving the old clunkers, living with roommates, eating ramen noddles, etc. is far more suited to a single unattached 20-year-old than a family of 4 or someone of middle-age. I mean come on.

I guess I just don't get the whole instant gratification thing as I find not falling it for it has been far more rewarding in my own life. IT means you don't live up to your income, you have more time for your money to compound, you pay less to debts, etc. These are all of the benefits of saving young.

Maybe I could agree with this guy a bit. I really never saw the point of saving money while I was in college and I don't regret it a bit. But this is more of an anti-debt thing. I felt my energies were far more productive to getting good grades in school and avoiding debt than to building up cash that I didn't have. The whole point was to take a risk and lay the foundation for the rest of my life.

So anyway, maybe I could agree to some point where I can say I was successful not saving money from really early on. As long as I hit it gangbusters right out of college it really made no difference in the end. So maybe I could kind of sort of see his point. But I am still at a loss why $40k is such an impossible wage to save money on. I know plenty people living in San francisco making less and saving more. It's one thing to make an excuse not to save when you are trying to pay for college (for the whole point of a bigger wage) and pay for rent in an insanely expensive area. It's quite another to make excuses when you are out in the real world, because then really when are the excuses going to end? IF you're not worried about paying for college and having enough time and energy to keep up your grades, what the hell are you doing. I guess I am also a big believer in saving as much as I can while I am young and healthy in case something happens to me and I can no longer work. I don't exactly take it as given that I will be able to work in this capacity forever. You just can't.

OF course someone who doesn't believe in saving in their 20s and doesn't see how they can live a comfortable lifestyle on $40k/year (yes I realize it is NY but my hood is actually more expensive) well, they will have problems. If I could find some decent benefits for healthcare (like one of the abundant government jobs around here) I could support my family of 4 on $40k easy peasy. We could live QUITE well actually. I mean, is this guy for real? Um, the reason is because I Saved so much in my 20s - even more ironic. It means I didn't buy a ton of crap I didn't need, live up to a lifestyle I couldn't afford, or rack up any consumer debt. I am not sure driving older cars and living with hand-me-downs will ruin my life in comparison to the tremendous financial freedom we share compared to most of our peers. But you know putting up with less in our 20s means we no longer have to. Plus, gosh, the most ironic part is I agree with his philosophy. You do need balance in your life. sometimes it is good to enjoy now while you are young and healthy. I guess that is the whole point for my financial goals right now - I want to work less while I am young. That sounds far more pleasing than retiring fully at 65. So far we were significantly able to pull that off at 25 because we did some crazy saving in our young 20s. I mean neither of us has really worked very much the last 5 years since we decided to have kids. I am just ramping up again, focusing on retirement and such.

I guess the big thing where I have to draw the line or disagree is that money will buy you happiness. Like my kids care if we walk down to the park and go down to the public pool every day or if we spend our days at Chuck E Cheese. Does it matter if I drive a $20k car or a $1k car? Does it matter if I have all new items in my house or mostly used? Does it matter that we eat home cooked meals every day instead of eating out? Does any of this have an impact of the quality of my life? Not at all... Once you realize that savings in your 20s is not a big deal at all, and you will find your 20s FAR more pleasant. Then it should just get easier from there.

But hey, what do I know?

He says, "If you really believe you can get through your 20s like that and not be absolutely miserable later in life, be my guest."

Um yeah, I think for MANY of us here saving while we were young (going that extra mile when we were young) really made life easier later in life. I guess it is frustrating to see how he has it all backwards. It is easiest to clamp down on your finances when you are single, in your 20s and completely unencumbered. You should have more youth on your side to work more and live in more difficult situations. Plus you won't be letting your debt compound for years AND your savings will also be compounding for YEARS. win-win-win.

Gosh, sometimes you just have to rant.

$21,000... 7 cards...

New running balance. Got 2 more cards in the mail today (plus some I was expecting). One was a jewelry store. Surprise surprise.

Fraud departments closed AND no live people to speak to either card. So at least it was fast and easy to close the cards (automated). But I will have to call back Monday to get this taken care of.

I think this is going to be way more massive than I first suspected.

On the bright side, all this places are on EST time and I usually awaken from 5-6. At least I don't have to spend my days at work straightening this crap out. A plus to being on the west coast. However, significantly cuts into some of my only free time and writing time.

I am just scared to know what else is out there. I got something in the mail from a bank and was like, oh lord! But it was the bank who issues Lowes cards - a form about the fraud investigation - phew...

All I can say is thank goodness this did not happen during tax season. I would probably just flip out from the stress.

It's almost a bane and a curse that they are using my address, since all of this is caught before it hits my credit it isn't a bump on my credit BUT it makes it that much more easy for them to get credit. I REALLY hope the fraud alert and/or credit freeze helps... I have to assume these were open before I found out about this whole mess...

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On the plus side I have more energy today than I have had for MONTHS!!!!! I am REALLY feeling good about this whole gym thing. It is helping my mood and stress tremendously. I am just surprised how fast, but I have been going to aerobics for a while though, so I guess I just had to kick it up a notch.

Um okay. I feel like a dolt for being so cheap when it comes to the gym. On top of the foundation I have been laying with aerobics I have been shaping up fast. I feel like my waistline is already improving.

Thursday night dh and I had a little date at the gym.

He got a break from the kids during the week at the gym.

We both really needed some alone time and "alone" together time so just so awesome.

But last night was the kicker. You know I am obviously terribly busy and when the kids wake up all hours of the night and we are both just exhausted there is not much time for romance. But yesterday dh just smelled DIVINE. I finally asked him - are you wearing some new deoderant or something? He has not smelled so good since the day we met - LOL. I was feeling some extra chemistry there. Even funnier he said no but he was about to ask me the same thing. I'll have to do a web search. But we both concluded maybe our phermones were being upped by all the exercise. I mean sure we have both been sweating more, but it is not a smell good sweat in general - LOL. So I don't know. I also fine I have more energy, etc. I think I could go on all day about the benefits of exercise, but beyond the benefits I already knew I think this could be good for our marriage - hehe.

Anyway, today I am ambitious. Aerobics in the a.m. but we are going to proceed with our morning date at the gym. Don't worry I will take it easy. I was actually not sore yesterday and kind of in the mood to hit the gym last night. But no time. But I'll probably hit it tomorrow too - just no daycare tomorrow so we if we want a little date we have to go today - in the morning.

Oh I also tried the elliptical for the first time. Those are GREAT. I love running but have an old leg injury and am pretty cautious about only walking. We'll see if I can get by with this and not aggravate my leg. I am not sure if it is the motion or the impact - probably a little of both as too much walking really aggravates it. We spend a good amount of time stretching in aerobics which helps. So one reason I want to stick with it. Second my leg starts bothering me I am screwed. I have to spend so much time stretching there is just not enough hours in the day. Hoping I can work past it. Probably one reason I dropped the gym so long ago. So we'll see.

Dh bought some software (kid computer games) at the store - free after rebate. Woohoo. ($10 in the meantime).

Work is crazy. But I got an article out, had some quality time with dh, hit the gym. It is all helping my stress level a bit. I even arranged a play date with the kids this weekend. I have been so bad about that. I had a friend who moved though way across the county so it has been forever. BM doesn't even remember them - we'll see how it goes. I need to be better about being social. Sometimes I feel all I have time for is my family, which is mostly fine. I think too lately I figure kids start school soon and will be meeting more local people. But this is my favorite person I met in Sacramento. You know when everyone I knew was whining they couldn't take maternity leave because they employer didn't pay them (as if mine did? Save up some money - duh!!!). Anyway, one day we were sitting and chatting about my impending maternity leave with LM and she said in Texas there was no state disability and so she saved up x% from her check every week so she could stay home a few months. I almost fell over. Her and her husband neither have college degrees and they had their first child very young (16?) but they bend over backwards to raise their 3 kids and be there for them, etc. They whine less about their finances than most people making 6 figures. They do a lot of bartering and take on a lot of odd jobs. Really an inspiration. I think she makes a decent wage in graphic design and they are both very talented in different things so I hope one day they finish their degrees and can make some money. Just a breath of fresh air after hanging around a bunch of moms talking about their McMansions, six figures, new cars, $3k vacations and how jealous they are that I could stay home. Whatever!!!! Anyway, I have been on a lot of online communities and met a lot of moms around here. All of them were always insanely jealous when I took my maternity leaves. I mean yeah, I had it easy, we got disability which was almost $3k a month. Frankly it paid all of our bills. & even then I took some unpaid time off but I had saved up a load of cash for the event. I mean I'd be an idiot not to. What if I had been put on bed rest at week 12? That is what I was terrified of more than anything. But yeah the general concensus was if someone else didn't pay for it, they weren't going to bother (entitlement). For the people online they all assumed the state of CA was the only reason I could swing it. (IT certainly helped but I would have swung it regardless). For people here, the story is the same. The best yet was some teacher whining she didn't have state disability. Well she's an idiot then. She chose not to have it. IT's a CHOICE! When you choose not to take it you also don't have a few hundred withheld from your check every year so you can go buy private insurance if you think you are going to have kids. Or you can save some money. I mean the scary thing is these are 2nd wages!!! Can't live without a second wage for a month? Scary!

So yeah, breath of fresh air...

Another card just popped up today - $7500.

I guess if you have good credit you can walk into a store, open a credit card, and walk off with $7500 of merchandise.

This one was opened last Monday it looks like.

Lord knows what else is out there.

But they were kind enough to use my address AND to enroll me in "Balance Protector" Program. So they sent me some literature about it today - and of course I knew.

TransUnion still won't tell me anything about my credit report. I'll get it in a week or something. WHat in holy hell? Hopefully by the time I will get it, no surprises.

If you EVER get your credit stolen make sure to get your credit report from Transunion FIRST, even if you have to pay for it, before you put a fraud alert. It is frustrating how each report had different inquiries and maybe I could have caught this one Saturday. (An even worse thought is maybe they made no credit inquiry - but obviously they did for $7500... Right?)

Good thing I like filling out forms. Brings my list to 5. 5 cards. 5 affidavits. I can't even imagine how much credit they could have gotten if I hadn't caught so soon. So far is around $15k in the course of 5 days and my credit score still reads "Excellent." Of course I know there is no guarantee that they won't be able to open more with the fraud alerts. That is the worst part...

Kind of the bane and curse of good credit. The million inquiries and even some hefty balances is affecting it little, but lord if I had a lower score maybe they wouldn't get so much credit so easy? who knows...

Oh - I almost forgot!!!

We're going to Vegas.

Vegas is the epitome of cheap vacation for us. Hardly paid more than $50 to fly or more than $30/night. Just the land of cheap vacation, and helps to live close enough to drive too. Though I am not sure I have ever had to myself with airfare deals.

Anyway, we went to one of those timeshare presentations one time in Vegas and it was just like, whatever. We were staying at the Hilton for $30/night (no real special promo - just the rate for that time) and we are just like WHY would we pay $15k for a timeshare when the Hilton is $30/night. ????? Timeshare in Vegas? Ha! Whose bright idea was that? Oh I guess they sucker people in anywhere, but obviously the whole thing was ENTIRELY lost on us. They begged us to take the thing for like $5k but in the end we walked away with $50 in poker chips. I remember we both walked off thinking who would buy a timeshare in Vegas? Just doesn't make sense. You go for the casinos (or at least somewhere on the strip!) and you can get pretty cheap/nice accomodations pretty easily.

Anyway, yesterday I was listening to the radio and was just half-listening but was getting all sucked in by the anemities at this fancy resort in Vegas. They said first few callers would get 3 free nights. I figure odds were slim OR there'd be a huge catch, but what the hell. I have to say very weird and out of character for me.

So I called and immediately found out the catch - the place is a timeshare. LOL. But I listened to the spiel and for a $100 deposit we can go any time in the next few months.

I honestly thought though we would get to stay at this resort and this is where I was fooled. IT was "a major hotel/casino on the strip" as the e-mail states. Well darn. I did get a little fooled.

But when they said it was a timeshare I was relieved - well I KNOW what the catch is!!!!!

The deposit is refundable once we sit through their stupid presentation. I will be interested to report how low they beg us to take this one for. It's Vegas, they can't be getting many bites...

Plus our schedule is pretty flexible so since we can go any time pretty much I figured what the hell. If this was mid-tax-season I'd feel different. I guess we'll see how easy it is to get a weekend date, but we'll roll with it.

Anyway, I probably would have not done it, but it was Vegas and I figured ifnothing else we could drive. Not like it has to be expensive. What's wrong with 3 free nights??? They help pay for travel too... I have quite a few months to find an airfare deal too - which I just might! I think we'll aim for December...

I am excited!

I told dh I bet a million bucks were staying at the Saraha. We usually stay there because it is CHEAP!!!! (Sometimes even Motel 6). So anyway, if we stay anywhere else it will probably be a step up. Low expectations and these things are a steal - hehe!!!!

Well, my net worth is up $2600 for the month, or a little over $18k for the whole year. It was hitting $20k a few weeks back. So the overall downslide is from the market. However, I guess I am in a lucky spot as hardly any of our assets are in stocks, as I mentioned before. Planning to change that soon, but the more we can buy at a bargain, the better...

Of course losing a couple of thousand of dollars in a couple of weeks isn't fun either.

The interesting thing is I lucked into a couple of awesome CDs (that much more impressive now that the market is in a spin). My 5.7% CD expires in 6 months but I can renew it for another 8 months at that time at 5.7%. Sounding like a more awesome deal by the day. I also decided to keep my cash IRA in a CD (locked in 5.5% for 3 years actually) last fall because I just knew the market was heading for a tumble. I have learned my lesson since about market timing and all that - the second I invested it the market has been HOT!. However, this move may pay off. We'll see. I figure by the time it renews we will have so much in investments that I might keep a bit in cash. It depends. If all we're saving is 25% of our income for retirement, we really should go all stocks. & I figured in 3 years time I may be willing to move it into the market (hopefully in a lull). But if dh is working and we are saving more than 25% I don't mind playing it a little safe with good interest rates. We'll see...

Our retirement overall is up 5% for the year with market appreciation, so still not bad. Not that I expect it to end up for the year, but who knows. Still way ahead from where we were last september (up 15% or so?).

My "efund" is only $160 away from my goal, as of my paycheck today. I am going to drain $1k in September for taxes though. $1k in January. My overall goal is to get it there by 12/31. I may move any excess to retirement. Or just keep it as a cushion. We'll see. I am confident I can save another $1k by December and that I will get $1k for Christmas to cover the rest. I decided to do that rather than move backwards on cash again - by $2k at once. Kind of depressing. I keep feeling once I take care of this, this should be it! But there always seems to be something...

ETA: I Was incorrect. Efund sits at $12k today - OMG! I miscalculated my July contribution. Wow. I may only have to drain it to $11.5k for the IRS and can get it back to $12k by October then, probably. Sweet...

However, I didn't expect to be this far along so early in the year either. So it is cool. I am assuming by 12/31 I will have $12k to lock up in an efund untouched. From there we will add $5k/year for car/house stuff so we can always fall back on that if smaller stuff comes up. Once that starts to build, I mostly see the efund as untouchable except for large emergency (natural disaster or lost job pretty much). I think for now we have vowed not to drop it below $10k. But we got to get these ROTHs taken care of so can't commit the $12k just yet to efund...

& expenses for the month:



Allowance is negative because I returned some clothes.

Auto fuel was only $240, or $60 under budget (drove to san jose once too. & met grandma 1/2 way like 3 times? Awesome possum). The auto expenses are up because paid $250 net for dh's auto insurance (net of dividend check).

Dining we budget around $40 so were $13 over. But not bad considering we took BM to McDs twice for his birthday, ordered 1 Round Table Pizza & also went out for Mongolian BBQ. We took BM the other day and felt a little conflicted but just got him his own bowl. He generally orders kids meals these days but there they don't really have the option. But he seems way beyond sharing our plate these days. So we got him a bowl and they did not charge us. Sweet! I guess smaller kids are just free - so worked out.

Plus the funny thing is dh and I have met his mom 3-4 times this month to switch kids and she always pays for lunch so we hardly feel deprived this month with all the eating out. The kids always notice Grandma likes to go out to eat A LOT - quite a treat. As they have spend most of the month with her...

Groceries $521 were $21 over budget at face value. But the amazing thing about this month is it was the kids' birthday. We didn't spend a ton on gifts and we didn't spend a ton on the party. I think dh might have spent $100 at the grocery store for primarily party stuff (food) which was PLENTY. But we had a party for like 20 people and that was about ALL we spent. Usually July seems to be an expensive month for the birthdays so it is interesting to look at the budget and thing maybe only $21 over with the groceries and $13 over with the trips to McDs.

IT also means I think we are moving towards a $400 grocery budget. Which is just awesome. We have shaved almost 20% off the budget since I joined SA. That's all dh. Plus he has mastered the art of $50 groceries so every time he goes we get a 10 cent off per gallon gas coupon. ($50 minimum purchase required). I swear every time it hits the card it is $51 at the grocery store. I have no idea how he does that! Every time we fill the van I have a coupon - so it's sweet. Helping to minimize our gas costs too. Lately we have had enough coupons for both cars most of the time. Which also reminds me a shopping corner is opening on the corner so means less driving and more walking - woohoo.

Household is gardener

Interest - interest on the balance transfer fee ($75). Not a biggie. paid 63 cents, earned $20 or so on that particular BT. More my experiemntal BT - dh's had no fees and was twice as much so is going much better (though for a much shorter time).

Education was my aerobics class. Every thing I sign up for through the city I just put to education. I tried to pay for karate class online but it was giving me difficulties so can pay that in cash next week. (I will have to add a gym/physical fitness category though - makes more since. Maybe kids extracirricular class too - makes more sense than "education").

The weird thing about this month was that we had no "other income." How weird. Will have to make up for it this month. We have been doing pretty well on bringing in side income - at least $200/month. But this month was rather dry. Oh well. Budget was so good we didn't need it?

Medical included a $50 copay which I budget for.

Misc. - generally budget $150 (sometimes add in writing money as I consider it misc. spending but had $0 this month). Anyway, the gym sign up was around $200 so we kind of made an exception for that. That means we spent $100 on misc. otherwise. Included our expenses to go to the Redwood Forest, one trip to the movies (Ratatouille), Birthday party balloons and supplies, and various household items at Dollar Tree (mostly plastic plates for LM who isn't as good with adult dishes as BM is. Just weird because we never found the need before, but LM needs plastic!).

$150 over on misc. because of the gym which we intend to make up with some ebay selling this month.

Utilities - cable, internet, land lines, cell phones, sewer and water (which run $90/month for a flat rate here - insanity) means only about $80 was electric/gas. Not bad for the a/c being on pretty much 24/7.

July was another awesome month overall...

I think mostly it didn't happen overnight, but we are still whittling things down little by little. Like when I set our grocery and gas budget I just set what we were spdending on average. I might have even been a little aggressive. I think I will leave gas the same to allow a cushion for rising gas prices. But will move groceries down to $450 maybe next year. Maybe sooner. We'll see. In the meantime a good month means more to savings or more to enjoy, but then future increases won't be a shock to the system either. Plus since I usually do little more than keep the budget in my head and eyeball it (as anal as I am about money I do not enjoy strict budgets) I generally like to just use round #s. IT would be in my best interest to set a $200 gas budget and a $400 grocery budget, but I think that is a bit too aggressive. It is very psychological. I rather budget $800 for the 2 and cheer myself on every month that I am under! (BEcause overall it is an improvement from where we were...) Going for $600 between the 2 to keep round #s would just suck because we would always be a few dollars over, even if we got close. Yeah, budgets are psychological. For now I just don't want to mess with it. We are affording everything we wanted and then some, so I am happy for this year. We will revise the budget in 2008 though, regardless. I might consider setting a budget of $450 & $250 for them, accordingly. We'll see how it pans out.

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P.S. If you were practically living in poverty, why on EARTH would you rent a bouncy house for your 1-year-old's birthday? What is WRONG with people? Hell will freeze over when I rent one of those contraptions - LOL. Ugh. I generally get annoyed when people say "I would never buy "x" or "y". We all have our priorities. But yeesh... The middle class has been annoyiong me with their extravagant birthday festivities for wee little ones as is, without people who are a paycheck away from homelessness deciding that this is a good idea. ?????

Oh there is so much to update.

I had a meeting with my coworkers yesterday and encouraged them all to check their scores and even consider freezing their credit. CPAs have good credit scores and don't use their credit much (at least the people in my office) so I wanted to let them know they could freeze it. I have to say if it had happened to someone else I would not have been so game to pay $30 every time I may want to unfreeze my credit in the future ($10/bureau). BUT having been here, it is probably a small price to pay. IT also probably warrants a lot of letter writing to congress. Why consumers have to pay to protect their identity. It is just a little ridiculous if you ask me...

I called AICPA and they said "no one has reported any ID theft." Yeah right! Not one CPA in all of the US has had their identity stolen in the last 18 months? Whatever. I filled them in and they put a note in my file. If this is a CPA problem though I imagine I will find out eventually just keeping up to date with friends and co-workers. For their sake I hope not. AICPA seemed very unconcerned as far as they were concerned because it had been about 18 months since the security breach, and a year since they informed us. I guess once a year is past you just are s'posed to forget that your data is lost out there somewhere???? I don't follow the logic.

I was kind of surprised how open my boss was to me doing a quick meeting (it is deadline today and VERY busy) but he just was SO concerned. Since I have been a CPA we use pin #s to sign returns and I actually suggested everyone in the office get a pin # when I joined this firm in 2001. Anyway, he mentioned yesterday that his social security # was all over tarnation from the millions of tax returns that he had signed over the last 30 years or so. I mean all you need is one idiot client to toss their tax return in the trash, and there you go. HEck, a photocopy place called my office one day when I was the only one there and so I was answering phones and they said they had a client's tax return. They had forgotten it. I called the client immediately and we all talked about at work how they were lucky an honest employee found it. But to think our own info used to be at risk when clients did stupid things - *shudders*

& I think it was interesting to point out that I am pretty guarded with my info but it still got out somehow. I just wanted to make sure everyone was checking their reports and that they should do the fraud alert (it is very easy to do) in the case it does stem from AICPA.

Anyway, my coworker had some interesting insight. Her last boss's identity was stolen and she had 2 interesting tidbits. One - the detectives said usually identity thieves sit on data for a year before they start using it (wait for the smoke to clear in case the theft is caught, etc.). Which is very interesting and why I am more annoyed at AICPA's indifference. IT was interesting to hear that is the actual pattern of ID theft - waiting a year - which makes the AICPA look more like where this could stem from.

Also, in this case they found out right away but the ID thieves tried to change the mailing address 2 weeks after applying for the credit. Because of this they were able to CATCH them. I have been at a loss as to why they would use my home address and wonder if that is something they plan to do. Rather interesting...

Then again I got home last night and guess was in the mail - a new credit card from Lowes. The only good I can see from this is the ID thieves hopefully wanted to run up a bunch of credit and then run. & not cause me any further headache. Well I can hope. Why else would they just have the card sent to me. I would have found out so fast regardless. I hope this means they are done...

I signed up for the monitoring but it takes 7-10 days to start up or something. Then again I probably won't get all the paperwork from all the cards until then anyway. We'll see... All I can do is wait at this point.

Oh we were also talking about in our meeting how the key was they seemed to have my birth date too. I am not sure how easy it or hard it is to find that info once you have the rest of my personal info (probably easy) BUT we did discuss that we should never give our SS# OR our birth date to anyone who really doesn't need it. What I wonder is if I use a birthdate with the same month and year but a different date, does it really matter for most things? I don't know. Just another interesting point as I had input my birthdate on SavingAdvice when I signed up and later changed it to a phony date once the topic came up here that that is TMI. I had never really thought about it before, but I will guard my true birth date like my SS# from now on - for the most part.

& yes my coworker offered to do free notaries for me. My bank would have been $10/document. Not terrible, but not great either. I'll take free. The funny thing is she is rather elderly and I have been thinking of becoming a notary anyway to make some side money. My boss would probably pay for the classes and stuff if I offered to help her/take over for her. But yesterday she starts telling me notary horror stories. LOL. All these clients coming in for free notaries (as it is offered as a free service by my boss) and coming in needing 50 at a time, etc. I came home and told dh nevermind. I said who will I get free notary service from if I am "it"??? I'll let someone else take over that whole thing - hehe. Of course hopefully I never need another notary again. Yeesh.

Well in 2 weeks I will probably filling out a lot of paperwork. I am also waiting for my final police report to do my credit freeze. I did hear you should demand to go to the police in person for a report. as for here, they really wanted me to do it online and it is convenient. I could hardly argue. The police shortage out here is insane - like they truly have time for this. You hear it takes 30 minutes to respond to a 911 call and they ignore calls about potential kidnappings. I am just not interested in wasting their time with something that can be done online. What are they really going to do anyway??? Does it matter if I go in person? Is is really going to be hard to dispute that I didn't open a card at Lowes and max it out in Indiana on Monday? I was at work all day!

I also wonder if this mess would be worse or harder to clear up if they had changed my address before I found out. Oy vey.

Well, we'll see..

Oh finally, I had one more clue. My credit report has an "l" in my street name instead of an "i." Apparently the thieves used "l"s. I know a few of my bills come to the address with an incorrect "l" but not very many. I am not sure if it means much though. The problem is "i" gets mistaken for "l" so much. I think it will be interesting to see the original applications and see if we can determine if they used l or i. If it is obvious what they intended to use. It could be a clue. Or it could just mean nothing. When we bought the house they told us the wrong street name because someone misinterpreted the i. ??? I found it interesting though since I read off my address to all the companies but Express read it off to me with the "l" so it got the wheels turning in my head. I will check for one what AICPA has for my address. Hmmmm...

I just got off the phone with Express. The reason Express called me was not because they were so on the ball BUT because the ID thieves were really dumb and used my phone #.

Anyway, I just called them and chatted with them and get this. The amount charged up on this card was $0!!!!! They were stupid enough yes to issue the card. BUT you can't really fault them for that. However, the first charges were suspicious and so they DENIED them. They then called me.

Which means there was a $0 balance. OMG you don't know how relieved I am.

They are still sending me paperwork and stuff to investigate, but at least it's not a mark for my score to worry about. I Thanked them very much and told them they did what all the other cards should have done. Lowes was clueless. Macys & Sears said they had tried to call me, but they just let them max out the cards anyway. IT's like what, they were going to start denying charges AFTER the cards were maxed? they didn't notice anything weird until the cards were maxed?

Express checked my credit report twice yesterday that I know of, saw that suspicious activity, and DENIED the charges. just as any of them should have.

I will be sending them a nice letter. I hate the credit industry as a whole, but I feel grateful to them for being on the ball in this case.

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

Expenses I have incurred/will incur:

I will have to pay for a million ceritified mails which is not huge at least.

Looking at all the ID Theft Affidavits I have to file, I need to get them all notarized. I Cringed when I Saw that but my bank may offer free notary service. If not my co-worker will probably help me out for free or discount. I'll ask. She is a notary. who am I kidding - she will do it for free.

I signed up for a free 30-day credit monitoring because it is the only way I can figure to check my report vigilantly at all. IT wil cost me $12.95/month after the first month unless I cancel. I'll probably keep it a month or 2 for peace of mind. (YEah thanks 3 credit bureaus for the ONE free report. Not! I haven't even figured out how to look at Transunion yet and shudder to think there may be more on there. I think I will just pay the $10 to look today for peace of mind).

ETA: I just tried to pull my Transunion report at they won't let me look online since there is fraud alert on my account (nice to see it is working). It is frustrating though that Equifax & Experian let me see my free credit report right away, online, easy peasy. If I can find the time I will call them today and get my free report today. This is ridiculous. I just dread to see if there is more...

Or maybe I should just be happy they are taking more precaution. But mostly it is a PITA. YEah I will find out eventually, but I would like to know NOW what the credit report is showing so I can nip more in the bud I have to.

Well isn't that special? I was thinking I needed a more interesting idea for a blog, and dh did mention hey I could get a lot of articles out of this. The funny thing is I thought the same thing. Not something I really intended to become an expert on or wanted to experience firsthand.

Anyway, I just had to say that isn't it ironic that my info was stolen and now it feels like I have to give all of my personal info to a zillion organizations. Plus more of my personal info that wasn't even stolen. So far Equifax, Experian, Transunion. FTC, police, 4 department stores I never even shop at, etc., etc., etc. It's a little unnerving. Suddenly you want to protect that info that much more, but everyone needs it to investigate.

Today I am going to call the AICPA which I mentioned. I shot an e-mail to my boss about the situation and my concern that it may stem from the AICPA's security breach. I am going to hold a meeting tomorrow and suggest all the CPAs in the office get their credits frozen. Or at least put fraud alerts in the meantime, just in case. I think most of the crowd is up to it. Like me they don't really use debt and all have spouses to fall back on for credit as well. just good to let them know what their options are anyway. I think also it is a good time to have a talk about how we secure our client's data. I know that we had talked about locking up every item with a SS# due to some new laws or something, but we never did. I think insurance companies are required to, and maybe we're not, but the malpractice insurance company recommended it or something. We talked about the logistics of locking up everything we work on every day (difficult and annoying) and we also discussed blacking out any bank account or credit card #s in our files. I think as we move towards electronic scanning and other precautions that have been put in place that there are no longer any accessible SS#s just for the taking when you walk in. But in the past all the files were just in open file cabinets out in the open. I know in the insurance industry they have to follow strict guidelines - in locked file cabinets or locked rooms, or something along those lines. Then again maybe it is kind of ridiculous to think someone could break into your business but could not figure out how to break into a locked room or file cabinet. Then again I guess, why make it so easy. Lots of people come through the office every day...

Well I am wide awake at 6am. I worked out for a good hour yesterday and overdid it a bit. I am whipped. But I have to say I slept good. I went to bed super late and feel SO Refreshed. I think the workout helped. Taking the day off to recover. I'll probably go to aerobics tomorrow and see how I Feel from there. Anyway, I figured I could call Sears and express today before work since they have east coast hours. Phew. Helps. I still have a deadline looming over me for tomorrow and I only worked 4 hours yesterday. I spent so much time on this crap and worrying about it and such; very hard to concentrate though I have to calculate a bonus for this client before 7/31 and I have to disseminate all his info first, in the middle of fighting crime... After tomorrow I should have more breathing room at least.

I filed reports with the police and the FTC yesterday - which will help me freeze my credit for free.

I also read I should call SSA (after reading I shouldn't) and I should contact all of my banks and credit cards, etc. Are they kidding me? Seriously? I am not sure if there is a point and that could take a million years since I just opened like 3 different mutual funds, 3 new banks, and 3 new credit cards in the last few months. The ID Thieves don't seem to have a clue about that info, BUT I guess they are that much closer to fooling a non-vigilant customer service rep with the info that they do have. I think I will call my bank today - maybe my 2 banks which both have a decent amount of cash - and just call and let them know and see if I am required to fill them in and if there is any added layer of security I can add. I do check my balances on everything every day. I just don't want my credit cards coming back and saying I am responsible if something happens, for not alerting them. Beyond that I am not sure what me calling them would help any. None of my existing accounts have been tampered with (knock on wood). Oh well, the day is young. I will call my bank and chat with them at least...

ETA: Thank you STUPID THIEVES!!! Just talked to Express and they used my real phone #. Is the only way I found out so fast. Though the statements rolling in, in a month, would have been a clue. But I am just grateful I found out so fast. At least I had really stupid thieves in this case...

Oh, I just had a horrible thought in the ID theft saga. I just remembered that if something bad from this hits my credit report, that I could face "universal default" issues with my Balance Transfer. Sure I have a good reason and could probably argue with them and clear it up, etc. But I don't like hassle. So I am considering just paying it off this month. I think I will wait a month and see how things progress, but definitely pay it off before any of the charges come due, if they are not cleared up ASAP. Off the top of my head I don't know how universal default works. But I don't expect anything negative to hit my credit report right away, so I think I have some time to ponder?

Just a thought I had. & makes it clear why this can be so devastating to so many people. Just another angle I hadn't thought of.

It sucks, but I rather play it safe. The good thing is that the bigger amount is in dh's name so that one should be okay. The bad is that I had this offer for like 15 months and I paid a $75 fee. Figures. It was probably going to bring in as much dh's, just over a longer period of time...

We'll see... Once my credit is frozen and if all the charges are removed from my credit report, maybe I will stick with it. But something to think about...

I am sure more un-thought-of consequences will pop up. *sigh*

I was just thinking with all the creditors calling me at work next week - yeah that will be fun. I will tell my boss because I know I received 2 notices from 2 professional associations. One is so old I threw away and the other one I don't remember where I saw it - seems it was rather recent. I will never throw away a "possible ID theft" letter again. I feel like a dolt. Something you keep forever I guess. So I will see if he remembers getting these (must have gotten the same notices) so I can call and see if I am the only one this far - if we can maybe trace this down somewhere. & also let my boss know why I am going to spend a good chunk of the week talking to creditors on the phone and stuff. I am sure there will be some raised eyebrows...

*sigh*

Oh and I found this - it was the AICPA:

http://idtheftsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/06/330000-aicpa-memb...

Of course so did the state CPA education foundation - same kind of thing. Except I am pretty certain they never had my SS#. Actually I think in that case credit cards were stolen but they also did not have mine since the boss pays.

Of course I thought the IRS had also had some issues losing SS#s. So you get back to it could have come from anywhere. But if there is a rash of CPAs who become ID theft victims, then we will know I guess. Now I have to add AICPA on my list of calls to make...

Now ask me why I gave the AICPA my SS#? I don't remember. I am usually pretty guarded with it. BUT I don't know. I will think twice next time.

Other places that come to mind though:

Current employer
Former employers
College (they used to put SS#s on our IDs too)
IRS
State Taxing Authorities
All Banks & Investment Brokerages

I am not sure how they ever track down where your ID gets stolen from?

I have been more committed to getting in some overtime (took me a while to give in after dreams of a lazy summer, but the pay is motivating I must admit).

So I earned around $260 last couple of weeks and will probably work 5 hours today (& earn around $130). Puts me up to almost $400 (this is all after-tax). Boss will pay it in a bonus, lord knows when. If nothing else will get it 12/31 and hopefully can put it to IRA. Though I must admit I may find other uses for it. We'll see...

Grandma also gives us $1k every Christmas. Ever since we had the kids anyway. Last year I put it to short-term savings as I was just starting to get that under control. I was looking forward to just putting it to our IRAs this year. Just gravy savings - retirement. Unfortunately, I think I may end up using that for the IRS - for my last ROTH conversion. It's awesome to have it to fall back on and all, but I really want to get to the point where all these kinds of windfalls go straight to our IRAs or investments. I am not sure if I will get there this year, but if I make a goal to earn $1k from OT maybe I can use that for the IRS and put grandma's check in the bank. We'll see. Next year I want to put BOTH to dh's IRA which could mean we would only have to come up with $200/month more to max out his IRA. It's an interesting idea. $200/month sounds much easier to stomach than $400. I guess it is still a distinct possibility that we will max out both IRAs next year. But I think it would have to be a good year with little unexpected. What are the odds of that???

Then again I don't want to have to work OT all year either... We'll see. The nice thing is I get paid well.

I cleaned up my office Friday and it helps me to see straight. I think I realized part of the reason I have been so stressed out is that I have so many piles of undone tasks. IT is VERY frustrating. In the past I did not have so much responsibility so I guess it is still being in this adjustment phase. I made a deal with myself to try to spend 1 hour a day doing the crap that has no deadline and sits piling up in the corner. IT stressed me out so much just to have so much hanging over my head. It doesn't help that someone just quit and all the menial tasks I have been giving her fall back on my lap. So I will try. 1 hour a day to menial/non-deadline/non-chargeable items. To know that I will get to take home $26 for each of those hours I think will help. I'll feel better, make some progress, and make some money.

I foresee working 2 more Saturdays/weekends as well. After this weekend. I am not sure if it is entirely necessary but I have PLENTY to do and I can't relax until I feel more caught up. So we'll see. I am hoping I get to a point where I don't feel like I am drowning, and that I can take a couple of days off.

In other news we went to the gym yesterday and LM flipped out. Unfortunately the downfall was when I heard a child screaming over the whir of the machines and thought it was him. Dh went to check. It turns out it wasn't him, but when he saw dh he flipped out and demanded to go home. We tried to leave him a while longer but that was it. IT was kind of nice the way the daycare was that it was open so you could hear what was going on, easy to peak in if you went to get some water or use the bathroom. & if you just worked out towards the door you can keep an eye and make sure no one walks out with your kid. It was a good setup. I am not sure how good the security was in there, but the place is small enough you will know if your kid is unhappy or see if they tried to run out the door. So overall I was pleased with it. BM is still with grandma and so though unfortunately we trauamatized LM, hopefully he will not mind going back with BM. I figure next time I might have to sit in there with them for a while until he acclimates and just sneak out or something. He gets trauamatized easily so maybe it was a bad move to attempt it without BM. I don't know. I assume once he gets more familiar with the place and realizes it isn't so bad, and we are right there, that he will calm down and be able to go alone. But we'll see. Dh was griping that he thinks he will only go during the days to get out of the house with the kids, and this may ruin it. But frankly he will be kidless one day a week and BM only goes one other day a week. He could technically go 4 days a week if he can get LM to calm down with BM's presence. We'll see how it works out...

I will probably go work out today. I am pleased - think it is rather convenient. Could be a 10 minute drive with lights but I can pretty much just pop in and out and get a 30-minute workout every morning. I still haven't decided what schedule to take there.

It was funny - I have not been in a gym in about 6-7 years. I felt like a kid in a candy store. Fancy. It's just amazing how all the equipment has come. They also have TVs on much of the equipment and stuff which makes it a little more interesting. I got my MP3 player - I would really like to get some books or podcasts on it though. I think my music selection will get boring after a while. We'll see.

Well, one of my worst fears happened today. ID Theft...

It sucks.

But I feel lucky. Thank you to the very astute fraud department of Express...

The weird news is I get my FICO score from WAMU and I happened to get an update yesterday. My score was down 20 points BUT I had just opened a bunch of accounts and maxed 1 card in a balance transfer. I didn't find it particularly odd, but I did kind of think maybe I should check my credit report. Must have been a gut feel.

Today we went to the gym and when we got back there was a message from Express credit card about my Express account. Frankly I thought it sounded suspiscous and wasn't even going to return the call. But I did some online investigating and didn't see much. I Called and they asked for my SS#. I Said no way in hell and argued with them a bit and hung up. They wouldn't tell me why they called, but I figured at this point I would pull my credit report.

A Lowes card for $3k had been opened and maxed out Monday. I called them right away and got it straightened out. They were very nice/fast. Was on the phone merely minutes - but the fraud department will call me next week to resolve/finalize things.

I then called 1 credit card bureau like the new recommendation says. The FTC says that they will then in turn notify the other 2. Placed a fraud alert with all the bureaus. Dh and I vented and fumed all day. I called my mom. She was going on about those online transactions. The interesting thing is this was obvious someone stole my records. They had my SS# & address, but that is it. I have received 2 notifications from 2 different professional associations in the last year that had records stolen so I am guessing those would be the most likely suspects. But really who knows. The fact is someone only need to break in my office to steal tons of SS#s and personal info. It's all right there for the grabbing. We were brainstorming how easy it was to get everyone's SS#s at our first job. lord knows where they stole my identity from!!!!!! It really could have been taken just about from anywhere. It is the records in business that are so easy for the taken, more than online stuff...

Anyway, later I thought twice and decided to call back the other 2 bureaus. I also tried to call Express back once I verified their phone # but fraud department was closed until Monday. They are obviously on it and I bow down to them. I have no idea how they found my true phone # but I am so grateful. I think they will save me a lot of grief.

When I called the other 2 Bureaus, Experian said go online and I could check my credit report. I figured I would look and see if anything had changed from the few hours I called Lowes. Unlikely, but who knows. It popped up that Macys, Sears and Express had done a credit pull yesterday (did not show up on equifax). So I spent the afternoon calling them. macy's was kind of eh. But Sears was very nice and said they closed the accounts, will notify the bureaus, and will call me next week. They gave me a pin # to use when talking with them. All the fraud departments are mostly closed for the weekend. All of these cards were opened and pretty much maxed yesterday.

Express pulled my credit report twice today - I am sure they froze the account so will just deal with them Monday. They would have to be morons not to with all the credit activity on my usual dormant account. OMG I am so relieved they called.

I will file complaints with the FTC and the police on monday. I'll see if anything else pops up, and once I get a police report or something I can freeze my credit for free. I have been looking at the pros/cons of this and mostly ASAP I will do that. Lord knows who has my SS#. I have no need to apply for any loans, insurance or job in the near future. The horrible downside is you have to pay a fee to remove the freeze anytime you need a credit pull (new job, mortgage, whatever). But I think in the long run it will give me some decent peace of mind. I also have dh to fall back on - I can use his credit to get by if anything comes up and we don't want to pay the fee to unfreeze my credit.

I checked his credit too and looks fine.

The upside I guess is none of my account info was stolen and nothing was stolen off me. The downside is lord knows how much more credit they got and even moreso where this all originated.

For the most part you have wonder what the hell though these places are thinking letting someone open a card on the other side of the country with my California address, and maxing out the card right away. ???? IT is just so frustrating that companies can overlook so obvious fraud in the name of profits. Obviously they get paid well to eat the fraud charges and allow instant credit.

So lord knows if this is the entire war, or just the first battle. All I know is I will spend a good chunk of next week filing reports and making phone calls. On the other hand I think when you hear of stories of fraud in past times the police and the law enforcement, the companies and the victims, just didn't really know what to do. There are a lot of resources out there and by catching it right away I didn't get any hassle (yet). I guess I Can hope all the cards carry through and notify the bureaus and erase it and move on. Time will tell I guess...

Well, I'll keep you updated...

$20 challenge:

$8,080.32 - Balance 7/12

$ 108.00 - Interest

------------------
$8,188.32 - Balance 7/31
------------------

$108 in interest this month. Very sweet.

Looking back earlier in the year it was $50/month and has slowly inched its way up over the year, helping my challenge greatly.

With $15k in balance transfers now in place, I expect closer to $120 next month. & in the $100 range for the rest of the year. Woohooo...

This is one of the smartest things I have done since coming here and working on my finances - finding a 5.3% - 5.7% interest rates for my cash. It's an easy way to make more money. When I had double the cash in the bank all we ever made was $40/month at most (1.5%???). So things are looking up. Just an area we were horrible with our finances before and are improving.

Are all the BTs worth it? It's not a ton of money, but at this point EVERY little bit helps. So I'll say yes, definitely worth it!!!

I got a bill in the mail for my disability. I just upped it to $4k/month benefit, which is AWESOME!!!! I think $4k would pretty much cover all of our bills but not preschool and some of the extras. Oh well. The coverage is really cheap (& good) through my professional association but they limit it to x percent of pay. I forget the percent, but I just bumped it up from $3500 to $4k and I feel much better about it. I need to check how long that pays out. If for life, we are well covered. If not, it wouldn't exactly cover retirement. But I think if I was disabled we could cut back our lifestyle all the same. Of course it is good to check the terms of the policy and exactly what it entails. I knew at one time but I don't remember now.

The bill was $15 for the increase (for the year). Not bad. I'll keep upping it as I can... It costs me maybe $200/year. Well worth it.

I have a professional dues bill to pay. It's for like $160 but my boss will reimburse right away. I'll throw it on the card for the cash back and just pay it with the next bill (prepay) so I don't get tempted to spend it. Or forget why I have another $160 in my checking - which happens sometimes. LOL.

THe hard part is they always ask for x dollars for political action committees and y dollars for scholarships and on and on and on. In past years I have mostly ignored them as I have spent a lot of time not working. But I have to decide how much to contribute. I think all of the things are important. Believe it or not much of the political action stuff is SIMPLIFYING the tax code. Well needed... Which reminds me I have been reading how all the presidential candidates say they want to change the tax code and it makes me cringe. I have had enough - LOL. Gah. It makes it frustrating to plan anything around taxes - you realize how futile the endeavor really is. Tax planning... Oxymoron.

I have to pay the diaper service and the phone bills - throw them on the card. I think then I'll be done for the month. Overall was a good month.

Oh yes and the gym opened today. We are going to go tomorrow and check out the daycare with LM. We'll see how that goes. HE is still small enough I am not sure how I feel. Particularly since his brother won't be with him. Grandma kidnapped him for most of the week... We'll get him back Sunday. The kids together I'll worry less. Hopefully they like it and we can drop them off often!

The stock market is ugly, but I am rather unmoved. I noticed the thread about the 1987 stock market. I can't say I know much about it as a whole (how bad it was how it affected the economy, etc.) since I was only 10. BUT 2001 was pretty ugly around here. I remember it well. IT was a good lesson. But then again the world didn't end. I was thinking today though that the dot com crash and all that was particularly bad in this area with the whole high tech thing and living in Silicon Valley at the time. I hardly know anyone who wasn't out of work at that time. (Except me - which gives me confidence that my job is rather recession proof). & we lost a LOT of money in stocks, and it was just ugly all around. Dh's employer was high tech and at least they did lots of unpaid time off rather than outright lay him off. But since we moved to Sacramento he was the first one eventually cut by a lay off from there.

Anyway, with the whole subprime/foreclosure thing it of course affects this area more than most areas of the country. So once again it will probably hit harder here. Which is interesting. I guess it makes sense though where so much of the wealth congregates, on the flip side so does so much volatility. It's interesting so many people seemed to have not learned anything around here since 2001... I can't exactly say I haven't seen the writing on the wall with this whole mortgage thing for a LONG while myself.

Anyway, this time, we have played our cards different (lots of diversification), and we have recovered enough from last time to know life goes on. But on the other side we really don't have that much in stocks. Not a large percentage of our assets as a whole. We were actually going to start contributing heavily next year and the more the market goes down, the better for us to jump in. I imagine though with youth and time on my side, and LITTLE in stocks, it is a lot easier to stomach. I am thinking ahead to the future. I think in the middle, when we start to build some decent investments, but are nowhere near retiring or millionaires, I imagine I will have a harder time riding out some of these waves. IT will be interesting to see I guess. It seems on the bottom end of the spectrum we don't have much to lose and on the high end, well the same thing. Not as much to lose... For now my insanely conservative side helps - I will always have more in cash than we probably should. But it helps us ride this wave too...

Yeesh.

Was just seeing some discussion on another forum about some guy moving to the most expensive city in th US (which he appeared to be well aware of this fact - talking about San Francisco) and was asking for advice on rent ranges. But it was funny because he demanded all sorts of fancy stuff that I would never dream of affording in San Francisco. He asked if a 4 bedroom for $1500 was reasonable (he had seen an ad). ?????? Where in hell is he looking? Of course someone obviously from the area mentioned that a studio apartment would run a good $1k (not luxury by any means either) and 1-2 bedrooms would probably be in the $2k range. Um yeah, in San Jose our condo would have rented for $3k/month but luxury - hardly. I thought SF was more expensive (though not by much). HArdwood floors, granite countertops, and washer/dryer??? Is he for real? I have never seen apartments like these since most people my age were renting hell holes in the $1k range. & our condo though a decent size had nothing in the realm of that. So I would guess what he is looking for will cost him a good $3k-$5k/month. He didn't say how many bedrooms he needed but it was clear that the thought of a studio hadn't crossed his mind.

But hey, he heard the wages were good. WHo cares that the rent is $50k a year if you can get a 10% raise?

He then came back later whining he only had to pay $800 or something for a luxury apartment where he lives now. ???? He said so himself he heard it was expensive. SO why is he surprised that it is REALLY expensive?

I suggested he come look at some apartments and jobs before he decides to move cross country for these "bigger wages."

I don't know, it just annoys me. We have $400k equity in our house and I could probably get a $20k-$30k annual raise easy to move back to the Bay Area, now that I have more experience under my belt. I still have to say I have no idea how we could afford a house even 1/2 the size of ours down there, even with all that to boot. I honestly feel bad about these people getting sucked in. But then you wonder, have they done ANY research?

Oh he was also saying he demanded A/C which went over my head. Someone else pointed that one out. There is no, nor there needs to be no AC in SF. Gah. Is he going to show up in shorts and tanks? because he might just freeze his ass off.

Oh, I am sorry to rant on and ream the guy. I guess mostly I Don't understand how people can make such a rash decision to move across the country with such little info. & with little regard that maybe the most expensive city is more expensive than you imagined. I don't get what is so shocking about the rents. Has he heard of NY? DC? There are plenty of cities that rival SF, unforunately.

I probably mentioned before but we had all sorts of accountants moving in from other states to SF and surrounding area for a $35k wage because it was so grand compared to back home ($30k back home???). They never lasted very long. They always said, "We heard it was expensive but we had no idea." After a while you wonder why the HR is even bothering with them. A giant revolving door. Wasn't the kind of industry that brings significant more wages, not at that level anyway - fresh out of college and all... ANother $20k-$30k/year at this level hardly does much once you pay uncle sam and property taxes - forget about the mortgage...

So anyway, being bitter that I can not figure out how to live in the city I grew up, without great financial risk anyway, I get extra annoyed when people get all excited about the prospect of the wages. It pretty much makes me sick. If you are in the tech industry, you just might make it. But you ain't going to start out in a luxury apartment - for sure. You're gonna live somewhere pretty supbpar and it is still going to be insanely expensive.

Still sound appealing?

IT was funny when we moved here because we always got a lot of questions why we moved. I had a friend who asks me over and over like she doesn't remember. She has been to my parents' home. One day she was asking me again why we moved here. In her head it is expensive HERE so she just doesn't get it. I finally said one day, "um, my parent's house is a million dollar home." You can tell she didn't believe me. "Your parent's house????" That old, little thing??? When she realized I was serious I think her eyes were about going to pop out of her head. I also had a coworker tell me if his wife got a job offer at Stanford they would so move to Palo Alto. He didn't understand why we would ever leave. I asked him how he was going to aford the $1 million starter home? He looked at me blankly. Not to mention he had something like 10 kids. Yeah - a whopping 20% raise is worth paying an extra $800k for a home 1/2 the size???? Did you figure property taxes would be $10k/year or so? People just don't GET IT! Like they figure anyone who doesn't see the joy in the Bay Area is a raving lunatic. We couldn't know what we are talking about. It couldn't be that expensive! Guess you gotta see to believe it or something...

Since I can't comment on my last blog I had to say this in reply to BA who said: "All my friends from all walks of life have had this belief that jobs equated to self worth." The thing about my husband is he feels that way too. So when he gets dejected from that first job he looked at he retreats in the corner and sulks. That is the part I will NEVER understand. My family is so opposite of that. We brush ourselves off and try try again. Anything is possible.

I just had to say he does take care of me and does so much for me non-financially so I don't want to be too 1-sided. But when I am frustrated of course that is the only side I see or need to rant about. But yeah he told me if I wanted to quit or cut my hours he would support me. But Fern guessed right, I am too cautious to do anything like that until he gets a job, and I know I will have a LONG wait.

I was pondering this today though because like I said it is important for me not to raise my sons the same way. Mommy always took care of him so though he has a good work ethic, and once he lands a job he could be a great asset. We actually met working together and I Really admired him because he became management right away. He is no lazy slob. But he just has no skills whatsoever in how to get a job. & you are right he hasn't had to learn. Mommy took care of him until I did. He never had to take care of himself. I cringe because MIL is very take-charge, and frankly if I am honest with myself, MUCH like me. (We really butt heads as such since we're so alike). Then again my parents always expected me to take care of myself, and I plan to raise my boys the same. I don't want to be caring for them like they are still babies, when they are 20... So there is hope for them. Somehow I turned out more like my dad than my mom...

The thing is it is what I signed up for and what I wanted. It bugged me he was persuing a career he hated because his "mommy wanted him to" so all I have been telling him for the last decade is quit working. LOL. Now he quits working and I am bugging him the other way I guess. He probably feels like he can't win.

I was pondering this too today because my parents are much the same, genders reversed. My mom just could not take care of herself. But my dad has always taken good care of her. But she provides so much to him by keeping up the house and such so he doesn't have to worry about the mundane things so much. It goes much the same with my spouse. I could go on and on all day for all the things he does for me. I mean I don't remember the last time I had to go grocery shopping or cook a meal. & I do LOVE that. He does all the laundry and takes such wonderful care of the kids. So I have to defend him a little bit lest I paint him to be a lazy slob or anything. I am the one more likely to come home from work beaten down and tired and go lay on the couch all evening, go to bed early, and ask him to get the kids in the middle of the night. & he won't complain about it, most of the time. I could hardly imagine anything worse than being home all day with the kids. I would just go batty and he does that for me. Even though it hurts his pride somewhat that he can not support his family (well he believes he can't).

Well mostly I swear he ain't so bad and truly I enjoy taking care of him 99% of the time. I think things will change a lot in the next year. I think if we are still going round and round on this when the kids are in school, then we'll have issues. But he is really limited on what he can do right now with my work schedule. Hopefully he finds it easier to step up to the plate more when he has more free time during the week. He may be able to do some temp work or substitute teaching. Stuff he can't do without the money, and even less so the inclination, to put LM in daycare, today. I can hang in another year and see. I am not going to give up hope or anything. If he never works another day in his life, then I may have some issues though. For now it is rather complicated. Of course the only thing worse than him never working again is settling for some crap job he hates. So we may just go round and round on this forever. He still really hasn't gotten the courage to put himself out there and do what he truly wants to do. & that may just frustrate me forever. I am not sure what more I can do. Have tried pushing him, supporting him, leaving him alone to do his own thing because the last thing he needs is another "mom." Nothing seems to make much difference. HE was working on that movie and I was happy for him, but things seem to have fizzled, that whole waiting for stuff to fall in his lap thing because maybe this one isn't working out.

Looks like I will make about $80 interest for July. Received a $40 credit today from MM and my CD will be up $40 in a few days. Plus a few pennies here and there from my other accounts. My big BT was only in the account for a few days. So next month will be the most lucrative BT month - expecting more like $120 interest. woohoo!!!

Well my expense reducing streak is done for the moment. Insurance down, water down. But the last sewer bill had a 8% rate increase. We used to pay $60 every other month, and now it is $65.

The $200 sign-up charge for the gym hit our credit card (as well as the HP book refund. Oh after many calls our book finally arrived yesterday - much drama. We had both finished reading it before it arrived - borrowing 2 diferent books - but was good and will keep for our library). Anyway, gym... Hmmmmm. We have been so good at saving first and living on a tighter budget I am for once at a loss where to come up with $200. I have been really lazy on the ebay/craigslist selling so I have a few weeks to cough up the money. Will hit it from that angle. Sell sell sell. we have $200 to sell easy. Regardless where it comes from I feel it was a very important investment and I knew we could cough up the cash. Don't worry, I am not going to make a habit of buying things outside the budget. Eagerly waiting for christmas to cough up the $200 for unlimited childcare for "life" which will make the gym THAT much more appealing. We'll try it out first, hope the kids do okay with it.

Other than that I just feel BLAH lately. I am sick of working full-time. I want to speed up my part-time time table by about a decade. LOL. I just have to hang tight. Slow and steady wins the race. I think mostly I was so looking forward to an easy summer. Since it has been anything but, I am in a funk. Dh isn't helping. I allowed him to buy his stupid TV if he would cough up the money because it was a really stupid thing to do really. But as usual he applies for one job, doesn't get it, and the world might as well end. I think I am just peeved with him lately, or taking it out on him. Both probably. I am still sick of bringing in so much side money on top of my FT job and his inability to bring in a dime. I am kind of at a loss with him because he always worked many jobs through college and save save saved. Looking back he was always working where his friends got him jobs. He used to make fun of me "wasting all that time" in professional sororities in clubs. Whatever, all I have to do is pick up a phone to get a job with all the contacts I have made. I had 5 job offers the day I graduated college. Yeah, what a waste of time *rolls eyes*. All his friends still work for minimum wage. The only silver lining is the whole TV subject came up again last night. I had mentioned before that Dave Ramsey always mentions delivering pizzas as a great part-time job for paying debts, etc. Told him to go get a job for a couple of months and then be done. If it isn't so bad he could keep it to fund his ROTH going forward. Anyway, some days he says he will do anything (even fast food) to help but his actions speak louder than words. Don't see him putting a lot of effort in a job search. But when we were talking last night he mentioned his cousin who is out of the work (much the same - a lot of brains but unable to find a job for whatever reason - no college degree to boot in his case - lord I hope my sons don't end up like these guys please...). But anyway, he is doing pizza delivery in Sacramento 2 nights a week and dh said he found with his GPS he could make more money because he could deliver more in shorter time. I could see the wheels turning like maybe he realizes it isn't the craziest idea after all (well duh). But then again I get the feeling if he gets a job like that he will want to buy a GPS first. Which mostly defeats the purpose. LOL. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Yeesh!!!!

Seriously, I am not sure I know 2 people smarter than him and his cousin really but they are just about dead end jobs for the most part while all the women in the family (most in their 20s) make close to six figures. It is a little bizarre. My frustration with dh is he applies for 1 job and gives up. Lord help him some day when he NEEDS a job. Waiting for jobs to fall into your lap just doesn't cut it, and he never seemed to have got the memo.

Anyway, if he could help me a bit I Think I could go to part-time now, or within the year, but I just don't have much faith in any help. So that is putting me in a funk too. Lord knows he is not happy being home full-time and it would help both of us if he could find some work. But whatever. We had a talk about it today. I don't expect much to come of it. He knows how I feels. IT's up to him.

I was starting to see a silver lining at work and maybe feel caught up, but someone quit yesterday. It's dismal here... Back to square one. IF people would just stop quitting AND there were qualified candidates it wouldn't be so dismal. It's a catch 22. Pay is good but stress is high. Maybe in a few years we'll get more CPAs/accountants. YEesh. In 2000 we were offered bonuses of 1/3 our annual salary to find qualified candidates. These days I get paid twice as much and I bet that bonus is much more - who knew it would get so bad. I thought it was bad then! Now they are saying 75% of CPAs in the country will be of retirement age in the next decade. Just a little crazy.

Sure I picked the right career, if I wanted to work ALL the time. I value work/life balance too much but struggle with everything my family demands of me for now. I think with things as the way they are though I will probably get a few more raises and will be able to take a much lesser job or cut back my hours significanly for good pay, in just a few years. I think that is the other reason dh and I have been butting heads. He wants much more materialism out of life than I do. Not a ton, but I would be happy to cut back my hours today and downsize our house. He would think I Was insane to suggest it. *sigh* Then again I keep telling myself what if I coul have all this and a part-time job at 35. It may be possible. How many people can say that?

In the meantime the overtime pay is sweet. I like my job enough I don't mind coming in on a saturday. Miss the kids, but don't mind the work. Hanging in there and saving that overtime for now!

But just a glimpse into all the thoughts running through my head of late.

What I find interesting is there is a huge woman demographic when it comes to CPAs. As they pay more, more women are just happy to work less and spend more time with their kids. Every woman (but I) in this office works part-time while all the men are FT management. I am somewhere in the middle since my spouse doesn't work I guess. But it is not a pure gender gap/discrimination thing. The woman are happy to work part-time. They want to. They demand it. Some days I wonder how much Full-time CPAs will be paid to encourage them to work full-time. Or maybe they'll have to pay less to draw in more full-time workers. A strange dynamic where mostly I don't find I will be hitting any pay ceiling in the near future. The pay is still not enough to draw people in so I will probably get another few 10% raises and expect six figures without any management duties. When I graduated college in 1999 you wouldn't make more than $40k at a job like this. It's a little insane. I keep seeing bookeeper jobs listed in Craigslist for $65k. Strangely appealing to me (very low stress!!!!). $65k ain't no chump change!!!! I am blessed to have so many options. Then again some days you figure this can't last forever (we will draw in more talent at these wages) and I should make as much as I can while I am young and jobs are so easy to come by... IT's a strange/mostly good dynamic for now. But I don't want to be forced working into long hours forever either, feeling there is little choice because it is impossible to find or retain employees. An interesting catch 22. I am trying to focus on the good for now. If it wasn't so crazy I Wouldn't be paid so well, so I do have to keep that in mind. IT may speed me to earlier semi-retirement which I am aiming for at 40...

On other days though when I don't see my kids for most of the week it is hard to not get peeved with the whole current work/life balance situation. Just have to look at the big picture I guess...

I knew once our efund goal was reached I would be tempted to add more. But as I mentioned one of our not-so-good financial moves was hoarding too much cash in the past and not ivesting well. I am trying to fix that going forward. I mean what it comes down to is not having to work so hard if the money is working for us, right?

Anyway, I just had an epitome. One reason we have been so cash poor of late is we put a lot of cash into a newer car. After having been very happy driving an old car that merely cost me $1k (& not the first car that I paid so little for that did me good) I have mostly come to the conclusion that new cars are not all they are cracked up to me. Then again this one may last 20 years and at least it has collission coverage so I worry less about it getting totaled, as a whole.

Anyway, glancing at our net worth it just occured to me that we have an easy $20k assets in our cars that I know we could liquidate. IF we had to sell both and go buy a $1k car to get us by if I lost my job or something, so be it. It really would not be a biggie or a stretch for us.

So this just popped into my mind. My car alone is worth a good 3 month expenses easy. & though my dh would argue that 2 cars is a necessity, I am not sure I would agree in dire financial circumstances (or a true emergency). Even today obviously we could survive with one car. Since our cars are paid off there is little care about if we could sell them for more than we owe. So I just kind of had a ding ding ding in my head that though we did put a lot of cash into a car, does not mean it is gone forever or we could never tap it. I also feel a lot better about settling for the 3 months expenses in the e-fund, knowing another 3 months would be pretty easy to tap if push came to shove. Just another angle I hadn't thought of.

As the car depreciates we will have far more in the car replacement fund that we could likewise divert. THat one I had already thought of. I figured if we had a good decade we both might buy some pretty nice cars next time around. If not, an old clunker will do. There are much worse things...

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

Anyway, in other news, check out this article on the new automatic 401k plan enrollments.

"This 401(k) plan hums along on autopilot"

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin22jul22,1,779646...

Don't worry, your employer can not enroll you without asking for your permission first pretty much. It is very easy to opt out if you so choose. But I mentioned these in an article for pfadvice and people did not take to it kindly, saying no one is jumping on this. From my perspective with small employers, everyone is jumping on this. This can actually help employers increase participation in 401k plans and reduce some of the limitations that employers face when they do not get enough participation in their 401k plans. I admit I am not much into big business these days, so maybe they aren't excited about this. But lord knows the small business are taking advantage.

This article had a really interesting comparison though on showing how an average person who waits until 45 to contribute to their 401k and invests more in bonds because more risk-adverse, where as the average 25-year-old who is automatically enrolled in a 401k that invests in a Target Retirement Fund will have SO MUCH MORE at retirement. Though they don't have to think about it or do anything - their employer just does it all for them.

It is definitely a good thing for young workers!

Well, there is no doubt we will make our net worth goals this year. Well I shouldn't say that. Unless something terrible happens, we will meet our goal. I read that you should grow your net worth by 1/2 of your annual expenses, every year, by the time you are 40. It then goes aggressively up from there, as your assets grow more on their own accord. I figure I am 30 and that is a doable/worthy goal. Puts me 10 years ahead.

So this year I started with a round goal of $25k increase in net worth. Our more basic living expenses run around $4k/month or $50k/year in round figures. So 1/2 of that is $25k/year. I found this a very aggressive goal but I was going to shoot for it.

As of today our net worth is up $20k, and with my profit sharing it will be up a good $25k easy this year. We've pretty much made it. I just noticed, so I am stoked. Not a lot of it is even in investments so there is not a lot that can set us back too far right now.

Our actual expenses probably run closer to $5k/month which would put us at a goal of $30k/year.

I think I will revise my goal to increase our net worth by $30k next year.

$4k Mortgage payments
$5k IRA
$5k Savings
$8k Profit Sharing
$5k Investment Returns
$3k Kids College

That puts us right at $30k. I think it is both a worthy and a doable goal. In case of a bad stock year though I think aiming for a range of $25k-$30k year is probably the way the go. As we could easily live on $25k-$30k in the course of 6 months. Then it goes for the net worth increase.

This is why having 2 incomes and not relying on them moves you ahead so fast... IF dh had a job we could save his entire wage. But since we don't rely on that income, looking at it in terms of our actual living expenses I think makes a lot more sense. If he made $10k/year after tax (not a huge stretch) that means we could technically increase our net worth by $40k with little extra effort. I am just motivated to do as good as we possibly can on my income alone, and then his income down the road will just be gravy. IT was gravy before, but it helped us get into a house and have more time with the kids. Now looking at the gravy of early retirement is pretty sweet. Better yet, just working less while we are young.

Not there yet, but I feel we are well on the way... I mean at this rate our net worth will be in the range of $700k at 40. That's with no raises and no second income. But most of the increase will be in cash and investments. IT is nice that we are no longer putting so much to our home; to watch our more liquid investments grow.

Actually, I think even more exciting, our non-house assets will probably hit $100k this year. Woohoo. In addition our cash paid into our house will hit $90k. It will mean we will have saved up about $190k in our young lives, for the most part. The sad thing is we have invested so badly in the past, our retirement assets are barely more than we have contributed (not a lot of appreciation, if any). That is going to change going forward. I can't even imagine where we would be today if we had invested better. Sometime you just have to live and learn though.

Well, we have quite the Harry Potter saga over here. But in the end our book is free (minus shipping I guess - a few bucks?).

Dh stayed home all day yesterday to accept delivery of his book.

In the meantime his mom passed through Friday on the way to their cabin near Tahoe because her sister had some thing to go to. She is a nun who lives in So Cal for now so they drive her around to these things (conferences?). & the kids LOVE her so they had fun. She handed dh a $20 bill and asked him to go run to Target in the morning and pick up the HP book since she wouldn't be near any stores. However, she called him around 8 and said nevermind because the wal-mart closest to them opened at 7am and they decided they couldn't wait. But she wanted to babysit LM for a few days and will be babysitting my 3yo niece as well, until Wednesday. They stopped by yesterday morning so we could have LM back for the day though and dropped off her book - said to enjoy - she just wants it back Wednesday when we trade off kids. She doesn't imagine she'll have much time to read with the 2 little ones in the meantime...

Thank goodness for this!!!!!

In the meantime no book had arrived and so dh got a head start with her book.

Around 4pm his impatience probably paid off as he called UPS and they told him "we just couriered the books from amazon to USPS - we are not going to deliver them."

What the foo???? Our mail had already arrived so obviously we were not getting our copy yesterday.

We had bought the last 3-4 books through amazon this way and they always arrive first thing in the morning on the day of release, through UPS. I mean, that is the whole point of the pre-order - so it gets delivered to your doorstep on Day 1! & we have been VERY pleased with Amazon in the past.

Dh was livid and he scours his old e-mails for confirmation when he reserved this book MONTHS ago. In fact the original email read it would be shipped UPS and that if it did not arrive on the day of release that we would be entitled to a full refund.

HE had already sent an angry e-mail about the whole UPS debacle before he found the delivery date guarantee.

Amazon pretty much wrote back right away that they were refunding the $18 (We still pay $5 shipping). But they pretty much sent a from letter stating, "Are you sure that your neighbor didn't take your book off your doorstep?" LOL. THey did not acknowledge in the least that they actually did not use UPS - for our shipment anyway. What the foo is that about anyway? Since when do you pay for UPS delivery and get US mail????

They also asked if we were sure the book was not misplaced or stolen that we could request another copy. Don't really see the point unless it never shows. IT will be interesting to see if, and how, it arrives Monday. IF it arrives US mail I am not sure why we have to pay $5 for shipping. Bah.

But we get a "free" book out of the deal and it matters little since MIL's book is here. I have read 200 pages so far... I skimmed the end so I have an idea what happens. But it's kind of no fun because I can't discuss it with anyone. I am a fast reader so though I am time crunched I think I will finish it by next weekend. Since LM is off with granmda I intend to work quite a few hours today and will probably find a few hours of reading too - though dh and I are fighting over the book today. I hope he finishes it tomorrow since he will be kidless for the day... So I can just take it to work and read a few chapters through lunch.

I think my tune has changed since yesterday. I was kind of "eh" on the whole thing, but then of course I had to pick it up and now I can't put it down.

It's a little bittersweet because the last 2 books came out around the week both my children were born. It's weird to be reading Harry Potter without an infant in one arm - LOL. Of course along the same lines, I don't remember much in the details at all - past books. You know the whole no sleep with infants thing probably explains a lot. Maybe I'll remember this one a little more. LOL.

Patience is a virtue, but unfortunately not a virtue my husband has. Lord I hope my kids don't get that from him!!!

Today life revolves around Harry Potter because we couldn't possible wait a day, a week, a month, or a year for the book.

Did I tell you that my husband sat in line for weeks/days to watch several Star Wars movies. Don't ask. He HAS to be the first one to see the new movie, to read the new book, to buy the new PS3. Etc., etc. You don't know what a miracle it was he held off on the PS3 until April this year, but good lord, we got some extra cash and he ran out the next day. HE almost missed the $100 price reduction because he had no patience - LOL.

Anyway, he pre-ordered it ages ago but I just saw the $22 hit my credit card yesterday. I was trying to plan a fun family day but dh is going to sleep by the front door until it arrives. I guess you have to be here to accept delivery.

So I guess I am part of the madness.

I think for past books I have been a little more eager. But this one, well it's the last one. I am not even sure I really want to read it right now - then it means the END! *sob* But then again, I kind of just want to whip it out this weekend so no one else spoils it for me. we were joking we really can't turn on the radio, internet or TV, or talk to anyone for that matter, until the book is done. so spoilers!!!

Grandma whisked off the kids for the week. Well LM For 1/2 the week and then BM for the rest of the week. So we may actually get some time to read.

Overall I think we can get used to this. MIL is a school teacher and retiring after next year. Sometimes we have boundary issues with her and I have been kind of dreading it. BUT this is probably where living farther out has paid off in a sense. All the gas and driving is worth personal boundaries - all I have to say... Anyway, next year she is not teaching a class so she has an immeasurable free time. No spending all summer preparing for next year. So she keeps taking the kids because she is bored. When they are older I can see maybe taking more issue, wanting more notice, not wanting the kids gone all the time, etc. But for now, OMG. LM had a horrible few nights and all of a sudden we get 4 or 5 nights to get a good night sleep? Woohoo!!!

Anyway, we're getting spoiled but she'll be working a bit next year. Then again her sisters and her mother do not work and she will only be working part-time so I wouldn't be surprised if she took the kids more, and the kids will get more time with cousins. All good. By next summer maybe she will take both kids together more often. But I guess she is watching my niece all week and so the boys will have a blast getting to much time with her.

I will not have to pay to take LM to preschool next week after all so she saved me $25. will make it up in gas this week easy - will have to drive 6 hours to pick up kids this week. But most certainly worth the break!!!!

Plus I was packing up a bag for LM last night and it just took a few minutes. I love they are getting to an age where you don't have to pack everything but the kitchen sink to leave the house - hehe.

Well I spoiled BM and took him to McDonalds this last week. I had invited his friend to meet up in the evening as a birthday thing, but then Sunday he really wanted to go on his birthday - forget the friend. Hadn't heard anything so whatever. But then his friend was game Wednesday so we just went again. That day they spent more time on the video games than the playland - figures. we both commented how they were like their dads. Video games video games video games. Boys & video games...

But we got a free book. My friend had received a duplicate of a book so gave it to us - was cute.

Today is Wacky Water Day. There is a cute little place called Fairytale Town and they have little waterways through the park they usually don't use. But once a year they fill them with water and bring out a bunch of sprinklers. We went last year on like a 110 degree day and with the COLD water and the shade it was quite pleasant. BM and I went and just had a BLAST. This year they are doing it 3 times (guess it has been pretty successful). We were sick for the June one and I Was really bummed so I am SO excited today. Plus this time I get to take LM (he is coming home for the day before the fam shanghais him for a few more days). I wish dh could go too - hopefully his book arrives early. I know if he just goes once he will be hooked.

Oh & this time we are meeting up with some friends too - woohoo.

We have membership to the park, and believe me we use it, so today is "free." We often go every weekend in the more mild months. Kids just love the place.

I had actually intended to work today and hadn't reconciled the 2 in my head. Instead I will go to aerobics and then take the kids to get wet. Tomorrow will be a good day to work since LM will be gone anyway. I can get a good night sleep, wake up early, get a ton of work done by noon. Will just work from home. Is a plan.

Hmmm, what else has been going on? Yesterday I went to Target to get some Draino. I tried some home remedies but it was just too late. I think we will be a little more vigilant on keeping hair out of the shower and try more things when the clog first starts instead of waiting until it is horrid. I Cringe at pouring that stuff down the drain. Dh and I were just saying we probably really never cleaned out the hair though and that is an issue. Live and learn. I also read to pour boiling water down the drain every week to reduce build up. An interesting idea...

Anyway, I took my $50 gift card (Credit card reward) and picked up a few things like razors, shampoo, thank you cards, etc. I perused the purses but didn't see anything I liked. But I spotted a black tote bag with white snakeskin handles that had my name all over it. I glanced at it and thought. "That is so cool!!!!!" LOL. Much cooler than the bag I had picked up on sale a while back to lug diapers and stuff around. This one looked a little more beachy and will be perfect for water day today. I did not think of buying it, was really just admiring it, but it was on clearance for $8 - it was sitting on the clearance rack - OMG. (Originally priced $30?). I have to say I would not have spent $30, but $8 for such a cool bag? You bet! Hardly a dip in my allowance. I am not even sure I need to include it because it was free!!! I spent $$49.xx so I have something like 70 cents left on my gift card. Dh asked why I didn't buy a pack of gum or something and max it? LOL. I just wanted to buy what I needed. so I have 70 cents left - I'll use it - not to worry! Not gonna waste it on something I don't want or need.

In other news, we are all signed up for the gym but it is not opening until August. We'll see when it opens - I guess they have pushed back the date a few times already. I have aerobics until then. I had just paid $30 for another 12 classes or so.

Kids - Oh who cares how expensive they are, they are so FUN - LOL.



I just had to say that this morning LM looked at me and said, "You use your eyes?????" He was VERY excited about this because I didn't have on my glasses. I assured him yes my eyes work fine. I tried to explain how I need my glasses to see far, but that went over his head. He was just fascinated that my eyes work after all.

He had a blast at preschool and all the kids were impressed with his social skills. Dh & I are a little underwhelmed I guess because all I know is boy genius BM. Ms. Preschool said she was very impressed and he talks on the level of a 3.5 year old. I was stunned. I said, if he talks like a 3.5 year old then BM was talking like a 5 year old at this age. It's probably good for the wake up call because LM does get overshadowed. I know he is bright but I really lose sight as I rarely see him with kids his own age.

It was at this exact same age (age 2) that BM became a big brother. I am not sure I would have remembered exactly where he was at any stage of development except everyone's favorite story in the fam is when he told them that "Mommy had to go to the hospital to get the baby out of her belly." Having only had 1 child I didn't exactly realize this was an extraordinary sentence for a kid who hadn't even turned 2 yet (was a week before his 2nd birthday). THat's just how my kids talk. I always looked at wonder at the kids at Toddler Time who used 2-words sentences. I don't think my kids ever did!

Inetrestingly, I have taken issue with the anti-TV bashing of late but hadn't got around to posting much about it. I am sure cutting TV out of yoru life is fine and worthy. I am not a huge TV person and don't think you are are missing a ton without it. But my husband is a big TV person and we do a lot of family time with the TV. Ms. Preschool keeps asking me questions about why my kids are so good verbally and frankly I couldn't tell you why. Dh and I are intorverts and we don't get out a lot. I think some of it has to do with the TV. As with anything you can put your kids in front of the TV in another room and ignore then and let them watch violence and absolutely harm them. But there are also smart ways to watch TV. The kids love educational TV and I think it may play a role as some more studies are showing TV is not all bad for pre-schoolers (if done right!).

Of course for us TV is a small piece - we are big on teaching the kids about the world and reading lots of books too.

We also talke to our kids like adults which may be even more the key. I remember when I Took LM to Gymboree I was absolutely astounded all the baby talk. I think he was about 1 at the time. I would cringe to go in there, could hardly take all the high voices and baby talk. That is probably a clue that we just talk to our kids like adults and expect them to talk like adults too - LOL. IT's not like I never play with my kids or never did the goo goo gah gah thing, but good lord, I felt they were insulting my baby's intelligence - LOL.

Beyond that I think most of it has to do with dh being so involved with the kids. Men approach kids very differently. Interestingly I have a few friends with SAHDs as well and all of their kids are just exceptionally bright. It has a lot to do with it. I notice I lean more towards nurturing and dh leans more towards making just everything a learning experience and so that probably explains a lot.

As far as BM, yeah I kind of brace myself for the challenges ahead of raising a bright boy. I feel we have an edge as dh and I both were bright kids and know clearly what our parents did right and wrong, so I hope we have an edge to help him. We were both challenged very differently - dh not enough - me I feel too much - so we want to try to strike a balance. But sometimes I am just at a loss. Yesterday he told me that "Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen, but people breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide." I think my eyes just about popped out of my head. OMG. I had to actually stop and think if he got it right. Wait a minute. The interesting thing is that the reason he apparently remembers this (probably from TV) is that he is utterly fascinated by the dynamic of the plants and people - how we work together to survive.

Anyways, he has been 4 all of a week. I think I had the realization, when he said that, that I have no clue what to do with him. I had the first glimpse that my own child is probably going to outsmart me by the time he is 10, if not sooner. IT's such a delicate balance keeping a kid like that challenged and yet not wanting to suck all the fun out of life either. Just challenging times ahead for us as parents. I guess we are both open to the challenge though. IT's a little scary, but I think we may be good for the kids. Neither dh or I want to have one of those kids who graduates college at 10 or something. Dh has some relatives who are VERY bright, one who did graduate college very early, and they both really struggle emotionally and socially. So for us it is important to make life as normal as possible for them. But sometimes you realize it isn't as easy as it sounds. When he spits out stuff like that sometimes I am amazed he can even relate to kids his own age at all.

I feel like the queen of cheap exercise but it looks like we may be getting a gym membership. I have missed having one (used the college gym for 5 years, had 24 hour fitness membership through my job for a few years while also living in a complex with a gym). So now I have been gym-less for 5 years.

In the meantime I have improvised. Time is short with the kids, but walking is something I do on and off. But it is really hampered by hot weather and random crimes in the neighborhood that leave me not really much in the mood to go on a walk alone or even with the kids. We walk at work often, but not when it is rainy or to hot which rules out a big chunk of the year.

I have a few workout videos that I have accumulated with time and also Lifetime airs Denise Austin workouts every weekday morning - I have my favorite workouts saved on the TIVO. Most of my videos and these tv shows are short, but to the point. They work wonders and I love the little time it takes. Then again I haven't done one of those workouts all year - LOL.

I am really enjoying my aerobics class. It is a little out of the way but it is only $2.50 for the hour, only when I show up. Aerobics for about 1/2 hour and then stretching/yoga, work the arms, legs, and abs. I love the class because it is so cheap, I can show up whenever, very good workout, and we don't use any weights or tools, so it is giving me ideas how to workout on my own. So far I paid $30 for 2 months. I hope to go a little more than just 1/2 the time going forward. & Tuesday I had a breakthrough - my stomach muscles are just stepping it up a notch - I am starting to feel "strong." So that is cool.

I just was flipping through the community college catalog and they are adding a bunch of classes to our neighborhood - right down the street at the middle school - I could walk. An aerobics class for 4 months - 2 nights a week - cost $20. I really wanted to look into that. What the registration fees are, etc. Is that really it????? (Incidentally I just was reading an article that CA community colleges were struggling because they charge so little - I guess $20/unit has been it for a LONG while. So maybe yes it is that cheap!).

I was stoked to have an option so close to home and I could keep up the other aerobics class on saturdays at $10/month or so. I had my eye on cardio kickboxing - something I have been wanting to try for a while but unwilling to shell out $50+/month.

But just one more thing. Dh was productive yesterday with his time - woohoo. We keep getting these ads for $16/month at this new gym if we lock it in now before they open. At first glance it sounds a little good to be true/gimicky so I didn't give it much thought. But I know dh wants to get working out. We had talked about joining a gym this year but decided we need to get our IRAs caught back up first, etc. We can go for more walks. So anyway, he went rock climbing a couple of times, which is expensive for my blood, and he was looking at memberships - they have a little gym. I wasn't really going for it but as with anything I said he could go get a one night a week job at the movies or pizza place to pay for it. He has options if he wants it that bad. There is just only so much my income can support and gyms and stuff like that are just a luxury (that we can't afford) as far as I am concerned.

Anyway, but he still wants to join a gym so he went to check out this place. He called me and said it was like $99 to sign up and pay for the first month. Thereafter is $16/month for life and you can cancel any time. It doesn't sound horrid but I grilled him on the details (free child care he tells me - yeah right!). So he called back to ask them all my questions too. Plus I said hell at that price I want to join too so he inquired on the family rates, etc.

We have been talking about spending $100-$200 on some nice used gym equipment. I think it would be a wonderful investment but the logistics are really tripping us up right now. I want to get something really sturdy and nice and we certainly have the room (not a cheap portable fold-up). But downstairs in front of the TV just won't cut it with the kids at this age. Upstairs in front of the TV won't cut it because the times I work out is when dh is sleeping for the most part. So it's kind of on the back burner for now. But putting that money to sign up for membership and then paying no more than $30/month for both of us to go to the gym is awesome (I can drop aerobics, or significantly cut back, which is $30/month at most).

So dh got back to me with more info. The childcare isn't free (you think?) but you can buy free childcare for life for $198. In the meantime it's $3/hour for both kids. The hours aren't much but they always have childcare between 8 & 1 and the kids nap in the afternoon so it really works out pretty good. Kind of sucks no evening babysitting if dh is ever out of town or anything, but for the most part it is not an issue. If we join we'll try out the situation and see if we even use the childcare that much. They do have childcare until 6 also (3-6?) and so I could work my work schedule around it - meet dh there or something a little after 5 and he can take the kids home at 6, etc.). If we do enjoy it I think we can buy the unlimited thing with Christmas money or something. The free/prepaid childcare for life is worth it if we use it - indeed. But we can swing $3/hour in the meantime. & if the childcare sucks, we don't need it. We can stagger our workouts.

The price for 2nd person is only $13/month. So our upfront fees would be $200 which is fine. Then $29/month for the 2 of us thereafter. We can divert our exercise equipment money to this. I am a gym person - I'll go every day. I will be glad not to drive all over tarnation for cheap aerobics.

So dh pretty much had me sold. No showers, no pool (both fine with me) and you know just not a lot of frills, but we are not big on frills. It is so close to home I wouldn't use the showers anyway - we already have access to a pool down the street - we would never use a pool anyway, Etc.

I was still feeling a little wary on the whole thing (still sounds a little too good to be true) so I looked up some reviews on the place and it actually has a very good reputation - lots of locations nationwide. The place is called Fitness19 - they seem to be a spin off of 24HourFitness - taking the complaints from there and catering to people who just want things simple and cheap. Oh and they are not open 24/7 but they open 5am on weekdays - I think we can work it in... I am not a late owl so the fact they close at 8 or 9 bothers me little.

Of course the gotcha is that they want you to pay $40/session at least twice a week for personal trainers. I think dh's brain went out the window when he tells me he is thinking about it. It's only $20/session if you lock it in now - prepay or something. I said, "for how many sessions - twice a week?" Oh yes, I guessed right. So we had to have a talk about the budget. He quickly realized personal training is not in our budget. He can find the money if it is that important to him...

Anyway, he is cracking me up though because he keeps saying he needs the personal training to get on track (before I pointed out how insanely expensive that really is) and then I said - well - just sign me up - and he is all wary. I am just frustrated with him. I said, look, I will go every single day of the week. Commitment is not my issue. I have weight to lose and having a class or gym to go to will make it 100 times easier for me. I am one of those people who can eat whatever the hell I want and go workout every day and be a size 0(well used to be before kids). & now that the kids are a little older and I have some breathing room I would love to get to they gym again. I understand him not wanting to shell out all this money if we're not going to go but I don't know why he doesn't just sign me up then. HE can join later after I check it out if he is wary about it. He's the one with the commitment issue. Well maybe we could motivate each other but with the no evening childcare I am not sure how much we can really go work out together. It is something we'll have to figure out.

He was saying - "Didn't you stop going to 24-hour fitness because you never went?" I am like um, not I stopped going because there was none in our area when we moved AND we had a gym with our condo dues - remember? LOL. & it was just never in the budget when we moved up here. I miss the gym something awful, particularly now that I Really have some weight to lose.

Overall we have a week to lock in the low rate "for life" and I am game. We'll see how it works out.

Oh yeah the other catch is we can only use this location. So basically as long as we never move, we're set. I have no interest in paying out the nose just so I can use other locations. So sounds good to me!

Actually I am excited! I could go run over and hit the stair climbers every morning before work or something - I am usually up at 5 or 6 anyway. What the heck. Or an after-work workout won't be so time consuming as my aerobics class which I Was pretty unsure I could keep up with in tax season. So I am actually really excited!

I'll probably still look into the community college aerobics in the meantime. The price tag is good at face value. I'll save a lot on gas - and time - over my current aerobics gig. IT could be a good supplement to the gym.

Hey I may actually lose some of this baby weight! I got 25 pounds - 12 pounds each kid pretty much. Actually it's 10 pounds kid #1 and 15 pounds kid #2 (was 20 pounds - he was brutal on me - my hormones are just whacked - I gained the weight with him after I had him which is the weird/annoying part). I think a lot of that is age. I no longer have the metabolism of a 20-year-old - that is for sure. A lot of it is hormones. Lord knows if they'll ever settle down.

But if I could lose 10 pounds AND tone up it may be all I need. I am not sure if losing all 25 pounds is a realistic/worthy goal. I used to be a waif. That's the plus. I don't have a huge long way to go. We both just want to be in better shape for the most part.

I was just wondering the other day if I will ever get to a point where I don't need insurance. I just saw another post on the topic =- insurance.

It just makes me sick how much we shell out in insurance.

Annual:

$8,000 Health (increasing 10-30%/year)
$1,500 2 Autos
$1,500 Home
$500 Life
$200 Disability
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$11,700/year

What am I forgetting?

Of course the house insurance doesn't really bug me. $1500/year or so (trying to remember off the top of my head because it increased last year) to protect a $600k asset in a flood zone doesn't seem so bad.

Life insurance coverage of $1 mil doesn't seem so bad. Disability insurance to cover our current level of living expenses(inclusing insane health ins.) is not a bad deal at $200/year. These are lower since we locked rates in our 20s for these.

The auto insurance bugs me because we have perfect driving records (knock on wood) but I guess that one comes back to medical to. I mean most of the expensive part of the coverage is medical. We don't even have collission on both cars.

So I guess mostly my pet peeve is with medical insurance. Just insane.

So at the end of the day a good 16% of my income goes straight to insurance. This is just mind blowing to me. Before we had kids we made six figures and we paid about $3k/year for all of our insurance. We didn't have life or disability at the time, but everything else. from 3% of income to 16% of income in just a few years. Of course it had been hitting more like 25% of our income for a while there. Yikes. This is the part that has blindsided me about having more assets - the cost to protect said assets.

We have been slowly adding more insurance through the years as we could afford it (well likewise decreasing our medical coverage to a more affordable level). I feel we are in a good spot on one hand, then again I just see it as a never-ending battle as far as health costs. I keep wondering if it will get easier.

I will probably keep all of our insurance because I am not much of a risk taker. But I am sure it is something you think about once you have some really decent assets. Then again then you start thinking umbrella assets and even more ways to protect your growing assets.

For us the next step will probably be long-term care insurance - I just feel it is too early for now. We figure we'd evaluate that in our 40s.

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In other news I got my balance transfer check - woohoo. It should hit my money market tomorrow.

I am estimating (& have locked in the interest rate on most of it) that this will yield us $60/month for 13 months and $40/month for 8 months thereafter. I will have $15k for 13 months and $10k for 8 months, with 3 staggered balance transfers. & paying down 2% per month. So these are some very round figures. I paid one $75 fee so considering that I expect to net around $1k. It's kind of an interesting experiment but would pay off far greater to have some higher limit cards. Then again $1k is nothing to sneeze at!

Since my cash is doing good I guess mostly I am diverting this interest into my new T Rowe ROTH IRA. All I needed was $50/month to get started, and once I hit $1k I don't need to add to it monthly. So it is an interesting way to look at it - the arbitrage is buying me some ROTH IRA. I was going to do it anyway in 2008 (more like $400/month), but started a few months early with the credit card money. Definitely a nice head start...

Anyway, I generally don't like to set up automatic payments for my bills, but I have just set up automatic payments for my new ROTH and for the kids' money. I will also have to set up automatic payments for the balance transfers - haven't done it yet. I must say I am playing it safe and just paying those early in the cycle - not closer to the due date. So I could take greater advantage, but eh. It might limit my returns a bit as I will probably pay back a month early too just to be way on the safe side and not mess with it.

Anyway, whereas I don't like the idea of vendors being able to take money from my account monthly (in case I have a dispute or they make an error) I do not mind so much for investments I guess. I'll make that exception.

I intend to get a lot more automated on my savings in 2008. Would love to get to a point where I don't even think about it. Beyond setting up/changing automatic savings with every raise...

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LM went to preschool today. Dh gets a free 1/2 day today. Lord knows what he is up to - hopefully either relaxing or something productive. Preferably something productive. He is just starting kind of on a drop-in basis. One 1/2 day a week is about my limit of affordability for now. Until January. I will allocate some of my raise to that, then. IT will only be for 9 months then before BM goes off to Kinder, LM takes his spot, and no more paying out the nose for preschool.

I remembered I have to run by Target for a few things so called dh and asked him to bring me the Target gift card at work (aha - won't cost me a dime - thank you credit card rewards). He said why doesn't he leave it at preschool for me when he picks up LM? Woderful idea - saved a few cents in gas.

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In other news I have been having this wild urge all of a sudden to take BM to this really cool little place called Bonfante Gardens. I have been trying to talk dh into all us going and he isn't going for it. I forgot about it for a while, but got it in my craw the other day. I decided I could just take a day off work and make it a special mother/son trip. Excited about it! Maybe in August...

I was just looking up prices yesterday and was shocked in all they had added in recent years. I just had to throw it out as if you are ever in Northern California - you just have to check this place out if you have small kids. It is so delightful. I think the place is 100 times better than I remember - more rides and some newer water features.

http://www.gilroygardens.org/

The place is a little near and dear to my heart as they were one of my clients back home (audit clients). We were there when a lot of the building was going on and the owner (who made it a non-profit) just seemed like a REALLY nice, decent guy. HE had owned some grocery chain and put a lot of money into this which is just his dream. He loves plants and gardening, etc. The gardens are just spectacular. For a while it was really up in the air if it was going to take off, but it really looks like they have done a lot of work and the place is thriving. Every once in a while someone up here finds our about it and just raves to the moms groups, etc. So as word gets out, the place has hope. But I have not been since I worked at my last job (6 years or so) and I know the kids will just love it.

Anyway, I have allocated my writing money for fun/family stuff and my June profits will pay for our admission. Plus for $2 extra I can make BM's a season pass in case grandma wants to take him sometime or something. Definitely worth it.

Yes, for us parking and admission would be covered and we could pack a lunch and picnic to keep costs down. It's about an hour from my parents' home so we'll have to go visit them on a Sunday, sleep over, and take full advantage of a full day in the park. The only downside is the weather is darn hot in the summer so I may postpone to September when they are only open weekends. Though call since I hate crowds - but we'll see how the weather is.

Which reminds me it is raining here today. Extrmeely bizarre - it generally doesn't rain here in the summer. But I LOVE the change in weather (& break on the a/c).

Just a question/insight.

I just set up an Automatic Asset Builder account with T Rowe Price - ROTH IRA. I've been intending to open account with them for a while.

With Vanguard I had Automatic Investments for dh's IRA for a short while and I recall not being able to use those for prior year contributions. I kind of found that a shame since we are trying to put as much as possible to prior years so that we can take the most advantage that we can from IRA contributions. If dh gets a $400/month job we will be beyond maxing out all our tax-deferred accounts and will have to resort to taxable accounts. So it's kind of a conundrum being so close, yet so far. Not really near maxing out both IRAs as of right now, but the simplest of second jobs or additional income could leave us scrambling for some tax streategy, with two maxed IRAs and more left to invest. All we can do is just put as much as we can to prior years in anticipation (e.g. January through April contributions can be for the prior year).

Anyway, just setting up my T Rowe account and it asks if I want to make my January - April contributions for the prior year. Um YES!!!!!

I think that is an EXCELLENT feature.

Now is it just me or does Vanguard not have that? I wish they did too.

Going forward I am planning to make monthly contributions to Vanguard and to T Rowe.

I guess this means I should maybe contribute heavily to T Rowe during the January - April months... I may be able to squeeze an entire 2007 ROTH contribution in 2008 without messing up my dollar cost averaging strategy. That is sweet. Sure I could save up the cash and make a lump deposit in Vanguard, but wanting to start making monthly contributions, I really wasn't pleased with the option overall. So this is cool - I can have my cake and eat it too...

The downside is this will be a little harder to keep track of. Will have to keep all my years straight. Right now I have a "Retirement Contribution" or "IRA Contribution" line item in Quickbooks. I think I will have to make one for each year (and separate ones for dh and I as well) to reduce confusion and keep an eye on the limits. Definitely good; definitely confusing.

ETA: Since I can't comment from here. Yes but Vanguard does not let you use automatic investments in January - April to fund prior year IRA contributions - is my point. Last I saw. Just wondering if I am wrong or someone found a way around it. This question is specific to automatic investments in january - april.

T Rowe lets you and that is very cool.

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Oh - also just saw a very interesting article:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20070716-1429-pa...

Story of my life. Definitely my goal to be PT. FT mom or FT employee - blech - I like the balance of both...

http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2007/07/what-percent-of.html...

Just an interesting discussion. Something I hadn't really thought of and found it hard to quantify in terms of living in a High COL area. I find we have little control in this equation ourselves. Is it bad we bought a home that appreciated a ton? I don't think it was through no fault of our own. So our house appreciates more than we can save, what's so bad about that?

I think it is much more important to focus on buying what you can truly afford, and keeping housing costs down in general, which was always our goal. Why did we buy a condo immediately out of school? Because it was cheaper than renting. Why did we move 2 hours away? To limit our housing costs.

At the same time we thought long and hard about what and where we would buy. If we had to sink $300k to get into a house it was going to be a house that was set up for some long-term appreciation. A house that could hold its value well. So we have a house that has done just that (& then some). But we're bad off because 80% of our net worth is in our house??? Should we just have bought a house that couldn't hold its value?

Of course, I think the point is twofold. When you buy in a high COL area the affordability of a home AND limiting your housing costs are just the MOST important factors by far. But maybe this exercise is important to remember not to rely on the value of your home as a factor of your net worth. I certainly see that point. It's not like I look at my house and say, "wow - I don't need to save fore retirement." & that is probably a good point. I am more likely to pay little attention to it as far as our overall financial goals.

Affordable housing locked in for life? check! Moving on...

While I have many friends who are in the 20-40% range who can't afford their mortgage...

I do notice that having so much of our net worth tied up in our house has changed one thing about our strategy. While so many people here look very favorably upon prepaying their mortgage as a matter of comfort, I feel the opposite. Sinking more cash into an asset that is already so overvalued, it just makes me feel queasy. What is the point of making ourselves more house rich? Having all of our eggs in the house basket? Of course this comes also from the comfort of knowing we could simply move (even in the area if we downsized) to pay off our mortgage. That our next door neighbor pays another $500/month over our mortgage to rent a house half as big. So it is this equity richness that has changed our feeling greatly about carrying a mortgage. I feel more comfort carrying a mortgage than not around here.

But it is impossible to keep the net worth of our house in line with the rest of our net worth. Heck, our parents both have houses that they bought in the 70s that are long paid off and worth 10-15 times what they paid, today. I would venture to guess that in both cases their net worth is more than 50% home, but means little. They have saved plenty for retirement and don't intend to sell their houses for retirement monies. I think that is more important than ratios. I agree that you want a paid off home in retirement and that you don't want to rely on it for cash/retirement. Agreed agreed. But having 80-90% of our net worth tied up in our home in our 20s reflects little of how we plan to retire. We actually plan to pay off our home in our 40s and look at our house as a backup/emergency plan. IT feels nice to know you can move anywhere in the country and pay cash for a house. Doesn't mean we're counting on it overall. Just another leg to stand on if something horrible were to happen to us financially. Another emergency fund, another plan.

Maybe in some areas where housing appreciation is steady/muted you can keep better control of your net worth and your house as a percentage of said net worth.

As for me I make no apologies for the fact that my house is 80% of my net worth today. I think it would be great if it stays that way - LOL. 20%, 90%, means little difference to me. As long as my retirement is sufficient and my ducks in a row, its the best I can do rather than make sense of much else in such an insane housing market. Looking back to our parents as an example this "bubble" is 40 years in the making... From what we can tell not much has changed in 30 years. IT was insanely expensive then, and still is. As such, none of the regular rules of thumb seem to apply in the land of insanity...

We might receive some hefty inheritances, we may move somewhere cheaper and retire young (all due to the housing market). Lord knows. But if the market crashes I don't see it affecting our lifestyle or our overall strategy. Its just a perk in the meantime I guess. You can't look at it as much else I guess. We are just lucky it isn't our handicap or achilles heel as it is for most young people around here. Trying to figure out how to afford rent or mortgage. I am glad not to worry about that - we worried about it plenty in our 20s.

Though I guess it could go a lot easier...

I was listening to Dave Ramsey yesterday (just interesting) and someone called with my income and said his mortgage was $1700. I choked. Dave Ramsey said his mortgage wasn't the problem. I choked again. LOL. But he knows what he is talking about (sort of). He also had $700/month in car payments as well as credit card debt. I thought dear lord, if I added $400 to my mortgage, and almost $1k/month to debt I would be BEYOND broke. It is eye opening to listening to these stories. I feel like we have it tight enough as is. I feel we live quite well, but lately it just feels tighter than it should be. I feel conflicted on the mortgage comments as the caller was clearly scared his mortgage was too much and scared Dave would tell him to sell the house. I think that comment speaks volumes. He *knows* they bought too much house. Heck, now that I think about it he said their combined income was in the $70k range. They need 2 incomes to support their mortgage - which is just dangerous. So I think Dave missed a big one. But then again he was right too - he had bigger issues...

I was cleaning some files and saw my list of bank accounts/important info and saw we have 4 bank accounts, 6 retirement accounts (between the 2 of us) and now 2 UGMA accounts. Most opened in the last year. It's a little overwhelming. I don't foresee opening any new accounts in the near future though. We've just been in the process of re-organizing. Gosh, we may have 7 credit cards as well. Though 3 are solely for the purpose of balance transfers & 1 is an old one dh has yet to close. We only use 2 cards and dh has a backup card. I closed my backup when we got a second rewards cards for bigger rewards. But he isn't big on closing cards like I, so he has more...

It adds up fast! Of course before getting organized we had maybe 4 retirement/investment accounts and we had 5 bank accounts (at 2 institutions) that we have since closed. So lots of shuffling. I just see a list of financial institutions growing fast. But for the long-term I Feel much more comfortable spreading our money around (not all in one basket).

I am anxious to move ahead on some retirement things and just have to remember to hold my horses. I think we are doing well on cash and I could probably do all I want in a sense, but I have to remember we have $10k tied up in a CD and the rest isn't really our money (lots of balance transfer money). We need a cushion over the $10k in case the BTs make me skiddish and I decide to pay them back right away. Anything can happen...

Plus I found we were considering $100/month for LM for preschool and $50/month to the kids' college. I am getting antsy to open my T Rowe account which would be $50/month. But I also need to save up a good $2k for the IRS. If everything goes perfect between now and December we can swing it, but isn't that the big "IF"? Part of me feels like, eh, we got a good $10k, do we really need more in an efund? Twice as much as we had a year ago! I am just not sure if it makes that big of a difference, truly. Shifting more to retirement than I originally intended...

The other things in my mind are that I want to divert $1k into an IRA I opened but gave up on the transfer because both financial institutions were difficult. The account sits open with no cash and as long as that is okay (so far no complaint) is fine with me but now that the dust has settled I wouldn't mind diverting the $1k minimum to open the mutual fund. This one is pushing it for now, but a cash advance on next year's contributions to get this account settled is not the worst. Just more "retirement over cash" thinking. I would probably be wise to just hold off as long as I can - until they send me a notice or something. Even if they close the account I can just start over later. Then again maybe I should just suck it up, pay the stupid medallion fee AGAIN and transfer. I am just so annoyed the other financial institution called me 3 times to straighten out the problem and this one just sent me a note that I had to start over - medallion fee and all. Bah. But $10 is probably a lot better than $1k...

I also would like to divert $1k to start a taxable account, but I am not sure. I don't think we will add a ton to it right now, but I would like to divert a little of our cash savings into an investment account so we don't get too cash heavy. Overall I think this can wait another year though.

Mostly I find all of a sudden I find that we are doing much better than I thought and all these competing wants rear their ugly heads. I just have to prioritize.

I think the $50/month is small beans for T Rowe, and also that I can come up with the money if I put some effort to ebaying and stuff like that. So that one I am going to go through with. May be a bit hasty, but not a big dollar amount.

I don't have much choice with the IRS.

I guess once July is over I can attempt my IRA transfer again. Bah. Of course now that I think about that one I can't because I just converted the original account to a ROTH. Figures. I forgot about that whole thing. Guess I have to close the other account anyway. No more regular IRAs here... Sometimes it helps to just think aloud and realize stuff like this. I can hardly keep it all straight. We are officially all switched to ROTHs though (well - in the process) so will make things easier going forward. I just need to close that account before I forget it is not a ROTH anyway... Hadn't even thought about that.

Dh is cute.

He ran to the store for eggs last minute last night and came home all excited the store had those canvas bags for sale for 99 cents.

Of course he didn't pick any up because he'll get them tomorrow. ???

Okay then.

When he mentioned I just kind of thought I have no idea why we never used canvas bags before. Even earlier in the day I dropped by the store to get 2 cans of frosting and went to the self checkout and just popped them in a bag without thinking. I didn't need it. I usually say no thanks with a couple of small items, but my brain went out the window on self-checkout.

So yes, overall I think we do a lot to try to reduce our economic footprint, but we still need lots of work! This is a good step. Hopefully he buys a lot of bags while they are cheap.

Dh and I are also big on showers. He likes them long and I like them hot. Kind of our luxuries. I have been thinking though that in the heat the water is way too hot so I turned down the water heater last night. I was surprised it was already set to "warm." Obviously the HOT side of warm - LOL. I know I always roll my eyes when they say turn those way down when you have small kids. Like the infant is going to jump in the shower by itself and get scalded. I keep the water rather hot because I like it hot but we are extremely cautios with the kids. But it is probably more of an issue as they get older and into more trouble on their own. Anyway, I turned it down a tad and probably could turn it down much more for the remainder of summer. We are not even big on hot water for clothes washing so really don't need it too much. Today the shower was plenty hot so I will probably keep lowering it until I find the sweet spot.

But I also thought maybe with the new water metering we could work to shorten our showers. I wouldn't be surprised if we both took 15-20 minute showers. We don't necessarily shower every day. But I am sure I could take a 5-minute shower every other day. I don't have a beauty routine or anything.

Something to try anyway. I am not sure if dh will go for it - hehe - but we'll see. For us I think it is really our ownly quiet/relaxing time alone so we enjoy our showers immensely, but I can go meditate in the closet for the other 15 minutes if I have to. LOL. I think it will be harder in the winter because I just love to warm up in the shower on a cold morning. Then again it's so cold you don't want to stay in too long. I guess it can go either way. Well, I'll try. I might need to invest in a timer. I don't need to keep the water so hot in the winter if I am going to keep it short, and probably better with the kids too.

You know what they always say about writing down your goals and how much easier it is to make them happen... I wrote some pretty aggressive goals and am shocked I have even exceeded some of them...

Goals that I wrote in 2006 for 2007:

2007 goals:

**Save $10k in cash.
I wrote this before I knew what my raise is so between my raise and a significant cash gift I was able to. But still. It is only July and I have surpassed this (months ago). I have one more important thing to take care of (ROTH conversions) but project I will have $12k in cash easy by 12/31. Since 2007 started I have made that my "permanent" efund goal.

**Actively manage investments. 10%+ returns, but depends on market.
Well that's been easy this year.

**Resist the urge to prepay mortgage. This is just silly until ROTHs are fully funded and savings is where I want it.
I paid of $60 so I failed for a couple of months - LOL - but I am back on track. I still struggle with this one though it makes much more financial sense in our situation to invest than prepay mortgage. As long as we haven't fully funded our ROTHs anyway.

**Resist the urge to prepay personal loan. Silly silly silly. I extended my goal for payoff to December 2007.
Oh, I failed this one but that's okay. I only failed it once I hit my cash goal and so I won't consider it a "failure" in the least. I didn't think I would have so much cash so early in the year. Glad that was paid off long ago -

**Set up allowance system for dh and I. will open new high-yield savings for this.
We did. We both have a negative balance but that is okay. We have cut our expenditures significantly going back to allowances. Heck we wouldn't think twice spending $100 here or there before and now we are stuck with $50/month, but it hasn't been particularly hard. I don't expect either of us to exceed our $600 allotment for the year as a whole. We both tend to take little advances (or big ones) but take the budget as a whole quite seriously.

**I also set a monetary goal to have $150k in our retirement by age 35.
Well, still working on it. I guess making my cash goals makes us that much closer though...

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However, it is amazing to me how much my goals have evolved in the last 6 months...

2008 Goals:

The year is young but with our efund up to par and the car paid off we can focus on much more important things next year:

1 - $400/month to IRAs (one full IRA)

2 - $100/month to car/house fund
(plus $100+/month interest from efund & credit card balance transfers)

3 - $2500/year in overtime to car/house fund

4 - $50/month to kids college fund

6 - Scrounging up another $5k any how for a fully funded spousal IRA too. Overtime, ebay selling, focus groups, save cash gifts, dh working a bit, wherever we can scrounge up money...

I am not sure we will meet his IRA goal in 2008, but I guess I should just make it a goal and go for it!!!!!!!

If we did make all these goals we would be making 25% of my gross pay to retirement contributions and saving considerable cash for house/car stuff so we could move back to more luxuries and extras going forward which is pretty sweet. A raise in our allowance would be really sweet.

The other sweet thing is the more we put in our car/house fund (same bank account as the efund) the more interest we earn and the less we have to contribute. I am not sure I have ever been in that kind of spot before. It is nice to only have to throw in $100/month and my tax season bonus and know we can pay cash for 2 new cars in just a few years. Or have the cash for any work around the house. Alternatively we can choose to buy very modest cars and have the excess to splurge if we so desire. Going forward we will divert some of that money to investments. I am aiming rather high to get a good cushion in there and hopefully have to save less down the road as it earns more on its own accord. I am aiming for it to grow $5k/year which is probably far more than we need for our cars and for house maintenance. But gives us a little cushion for more unexpected expenses...

Then again life happens so who knows...

It will be very interesting to see where I set my goals once 2008 rolls around. A lot has changed in 6 months and the year is still young!!!

Mostly I notice my goals went from a kind of frantic catching back up from a fall TO more organized and more thought-out goals. Trying to prioritize some things and meet many goals. From "saving money" to "saving x per year for this and y for that." It is some organization that we never had as before we just saved everything for a house. We saved everything the ability to be home with our kids. Now we have a more more mature, long-term budget. We have a few short-term goals and many more long-term goals. I don't think we could see very far past the next few years before. Which was fine, it worked out okay, but I am glad to look at a more broader picture going forward.