Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118687812752495256.html

Kind of an interesting article.

I see the point.

Can you have too big an efund? Hell yeah. I guess I have seen the other side on that one too. You can have too much.

Savings is savings, that is what is important.

I have to have the caveat that I really don't think you can save too much. Well, you probably can, but rather unlikely. LOL. But you can have way too much in liquid funds not working for you (especially when interest rates are like 2%). Been there, done that.

I laugh at the idea of being a risk taker because I am trying to maximize my returns and rather max out my IRAs than keep 6 or 12 months liquid cash in my e-fund. I guess that is the ironic thing because I am SO not a risk taker. But the odds I would ever need that 6 months cash? Pretty slim. So I am going to max out my IRAs, and if that slim chance comes, at least my butt is covered. It's savings, I can use it, the world would not end.

The odds are I'll come out ahead. That's what is important. IT's an odds game.

So I read his article with interest. He has a point.

Well, I am going to Tokyo but don't ask me where yet!

My dad put me in charge of airfare - lord knows why - I'll see what I can scrounge up this weekend.

& to the comments on my blog - it's good to hear the weather will be nice. My dad was scaring me how beautiful it was in the spring and how he didn't know about October. Early enough in October too, so not that far from summer I guess...

Just had an interesting story to share.

When the debate comes up if you are wealthier when you "give" I think most of the logic is a load of crap. I guess I know too many people who give what they really don't have to give, but are stuck in poverty with that belief. & too many people who do quite well but don't give a dime. I think those who give of themselves are probably happier as a whole. But for one, in my immediate family there is not a lot of cash giving going on. But everyone is pretty happy and well off. I think they are giving people in general though & probably why I find myself justifying that I just bend over backwards to help my friends and family and we have always been very big on volunteering, etc. Which to me is more important/rewarding than giving a ton of cash.

Which reminds me the amazing has happened. When dh lost his job I tried to get him to do some volunteer work to keep occupied, as waited for our first child to be born. Volunteering is not something his family ever had him do and he had no experience in, at all. I am not sure he was very game, but he was going a little stir crazy. Finally he found a gig at the public TV station. Originally he ran the cameras and stuff, and with time they let him do less (bummer) - just the way it is - volunteers can only do more menial things I guess - ??? But he told me the other day he was thinking he wanted to give $1k to the TV station. I almost fell over. Who is this guy? LOL. He has also been devoting TONS of time to the station as back to my last post it seems they have been having a lot of flakes, and dh seems to be the first they call when there is a no-show volunteer (since he lives close and will actually show up). So he has been logging in the hours. Oh well, when you feel passionate about something... We aren't going to, but he said he had thought about it next time we get a windfall or something. I am not even sure if I am so keen, but I am touched by his generosity. (Well either that or he has been working WAY too many pledge breaks - they are getting to him).

But anyway, I got off track a bit.

My mom however has taken to paying the bridge toll for those behind her when she drives up to visit us. She does this on occassion, and I liked the idea so much I have thought about it on a couple of occasions. Every time (rare) I come over the same bridge there is no one behind me. LOL. Figures. It kind of loses its meaning when you can't get a "thank you" wave.

But the last 2 time my mom came to visit she said each time her toll was paid for her by the car ahead of her. Isn't that sweet? Funny how sometimes what goes around will literally come around. She said no one had EVER paid her toll before.

I guess there could be something to it.

Well, if you want to make someone's day - pay their toll for them.

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In other news, um, I think I am going to Japan in a couple of months! Well, apparently my dad and sister are going in October, no one told me, and well I do have my passport from the cruise (that I never got to use since it arrived after the cruise). My mom just mentioned today and I said "HUH?" She said I could go (expenses paid) but I have to talk to my dad first. He went there when LM was quite little (a few months old) and I am sure he invited me and he had such a wonderful trip I hoped I would be able to go along some time. I wasn't going to travel with an infant OR leave him either at the time, so I declined. I figured there would be ample opportunity in the future (figured I'd be invited). I should be peeved I wasn't invited, but I think he got sick of asking me with babies because I kept saying no. He could have realized I may be a little more free now though...

IT works out perfect because dh's family is taking him and the kids to Florida in October and I could not (& didn't want to) go. So we both get our own family trips. Japan sounds far more exciting. Never been to Asia. I can't believe I might be going in just 2 months.

My dad has been to Asia many times for business and has a friend out there. I am not even sure where in Japan (how pathetic). But he was just out here for a week and so I was extra shocked, I had no idea they were going back there this year as well.

I don't think dh is too jealous either because he has been to Asia many times. Last was to MAlaysia for a month for work (he worked for a Malaysian company). I don't think he had a good time. He also had an aunt who lived in China many years (nun/missionary). It's always a really fun game to take the white lady out and have her start talking Cantonese in the Chinese restaurants and such. Always gets quite a response - LOL. Well, dh says knock myself out. He is not much of a traveler. I am not sure I am, but I have much more sense of adventure.

Though I do have to rethink this a bit. Rooming with my sister a week. Oh we might just KILL each other. Small price to pay I guess. (We're okay as long as we don't have to be in the same room or city or town - she is just one of those people it is IMPOSSIBLE to get along with).

We'll see...

I give up.

I am tired of trying to plan things with friends and groups and being stood up. Every playdate and night out I have planned in the last 2 months has been canceled with less than 24 hours notice (more like 1 hour if I was lucky - for most of them).

I am just FED UP with the human race.

Whatever.

The mommy politics don't help. With friends like these who needs enemies.

I am extra frustrated today because a good friend I have seen little of since she moved across town, well this is the second weekend in a row I got stood up. She asked if I wanted to try next weekend? You mean rearrange my whole schedule a 3rd weekend in a row to be stood up again? Blech.

I think the kicker is I just joined a new Moms' group through meetup because I was just beyond peeved with my old group with things recently, and I just popped in today to see they had planned a BBQ for 20 people or so and only one family showed up. ???? I now realize a new group won't really solve the problem. People are just idiots. No consideration in the least. I think they said something like 10 no-shows. Bloody hell.

It doesn't seem like it that would be that hard to get along with the human race, but for me it really is. Good thing I have a swell family I guess.

So is this a common thing or just a rude California-er thing. ?????

Oh yeah I am saving tons of money because I never get out any more...

I was going to take BM to a play too but he decided not to nap 3 days in a row. I decided going to a play at 7pm with no nap was NOT a good idea. LOL. I try to plan anything fun lately and that is about how it goes...

I think a lot of it can boil down to everyone over-extending themselves. I am sick of cracking out the calendar and planning things months in advance. As un-spontaneous I am I just like more laidback friendships. Pop by for a bit one night or whatever. A spontaneous night out... This planning months in advance and getting stood up anyway just gets really old.

Call me a dork.

I have reading all about this balanced billing for utilities and thinking, eh, what's the point?

But anyway, I guess maybe my bias was that I like getting the $10/$20 bills here and there. The higher end bills I expect and anticipate, but I think I enjoy those little bills too much. Our gas bill is often $10 in the summer and our electric bill is often $20 in the winter.

But we got the big July electric bill and with the a/c it wasn't pretty. Since I am budgeting my paycheck down to the penny it seems, I think it probably would help with the budget. If I think about it, all of our bills are pretty fixed except for the gas/electric. Gas varies, but it kind of sucks as a triple whammy when you get the auto gas, electric, and water bills in August - just nasty all around - gas prices is high, water usage is up so the lawn doesn't fry, and the A/C works hard to protect us from the 100 degree heat.

So it is one thing to do to lessen the load in August. The water we are just in the process of switching to metered, but it only varies at most $20 here and there. Our electric and gas bill can vary by $130 from month to month.

It's funny to me how the better we are with our money the more those little fluctuations seem to matter. Bizarre... I guess since we weren't investing our money as efficiently as before. & it is far easier to budget with set amounts...

So I guess I am converted.

I checked and it looks like both our electric and gas company offer programs. I looked in Quicken and our average gas bill over the last year was $35 and our average electric bill was $45. I think we can swing $80/month... (I think in the lowest months we tend to pay $50 combined so it doesn't sound bad at all).

I looked at our budget for the month and if I just pay our minimums for the rest of the year (balance transfers) and transfer nothing over to savings, we will meet our efund goal. So I am going with that. It's around $300/month to efund (by paying balance transfers out of checking and letting the savings grow since we'll owe less back in the end). & around $100/month in interest. (Plus I got $100/month going to investments). I expect enough christmas and OT money to cover my next IRS installment. We'll see. But if we're only at $11k on 12/31, the world won't end either. I think being above the $10k mark just feels darn good. We had dropped to $5k for a few months and I just did not like it.

I still need to sell some things around the house. As well as freecycle really. Could use a little cash. I think all the bills are covered but I feel like I have no money to go to the ATM. It's not the worst... The less cash I have the less I spend it.

I was talking to my mom and her electric bill was about $400. They just got a/c in the last couple of years. I say buy a new house. She said with the house paid off she'll take the utility bill. It really sucks though, but having an older house can REALLY be a financial drain if you ask me. That's my bias I guess. They are obviously better off staying put with the house paid and all... (The property taxes would slay them if they made a lateral move - would be more than my mortgage). But I mean it is smaller than our house and they just get GOUGED. I know it is amazing how running a 4-person household with more space can be so much cheaper when it comes to utilities. Technology has come a long way. Maybe there is some hope for the environment. We have been here 5 years. Sometimes I wonder how long before all the stuff we have here becomes obsolete and we have to upgrade. But it was really part of our plan that we didn't want to spend a lot on repairs and upgrades early in our home-owning lives. & the electric bill is one of the perks of going new!

Oh I just wanted to say first that Amazon credited us the $4 or so for shipping on the Potter book - dh had already called to complain and they didn't do much but credit for the book and resend it. But then when they got the first book back - sent back for no reason - they credited us for shipping - so book was FREE.

I am still confused by dh's parents - even moreso - but I guess I understand a little better in the name of parental fairness.

Dh talked to his mom yesterday and I don't think she is so keen on the LM going to preschool thing - she really wants to send BM more. Which is fine - her perogative - but I am starting to rethink the whole thing. It is just 4 months or $400. A little less actually since vacation is in there and such. The only way I would regret this is if I didn't get any overtime or a decent raise January. I already have earned enough OT to pay this though, and well if I don't get a raise my boss is insane. It's just pretty much expected. So maybe we'll swing it anyway. I don't know. Like I have said before it is at most only one year the 2 kids would both be in preschool. If this was it, it would be a no-brainer. But I notice as we are catching up financially suddenly we are getting a little too lax. The $400 here and there is starting to add up. So have to think on it more... I could also put off adding to the kids' college money to 2008. That one I struggle with too. I finally gave in and admitted that power of compounding is worth throwing in a token. But the $50/month would go a long way towards this instead. Does it really matter of I start in 2008 (or will I find more excuses). Part of me just wants to stick with it and move on - I set up automatic transfers to start in September.

But dh was talking to his mom about it and for one she really thinks BM should got to school more to prepare for Kinder. I admit I am a little concerned that Kinder is all day (what are people thinking around here? I am sure working parents are in charge of this *great* idea). We have kind of gone round and round on it ourselves. But for the most part the preschool he goes to is more to play. We chose it wasn't very "schooly" which is more what our brainy kids need. I like they get really messy and play with other kids because dh isn't great about being social OR worse, letting the kids get messy. They need that. So dh and I are kind of like, eh, is a 3rd day of "play" really going to prepare him better? Lord knows we don't want to drive all the way over there 3 days a week. & Friday nonetheless (oh traffic is so horrid Friday). We have been feeling opposite. We have been saying lately how this is the last "lazy" year for us before the kids have to go to school and all that. As much as we have looked forward to the kids going to school and working not being so cost prohibitive for dh - we have SO looked forward to this. But even so, as the time it approaches it is a little saddening. Once the kids start school, these most carefree years of theirs will be over. We have been talking about how much we should do and enjoy with their 100% flexible schedules. That certainly won't last forever!!!!

We have also looked at the community center preschool. The only reason we did not go that route before was that the ages were a lot higher (like 4?). & we wanted to start him much sooner. We have talked about taking him to get him used to going to school every day. He could go T/Th for 2-3 hours and it is more structured. But more importantly he will meet more local kids who will go to his school probably. It's an idea, but then you go back to: why push it? It's bad enough Kinder is all day, do we really need to take him to preschool every day of the week? I think it is something we will consider the last few months before school starts, just to gear him up for it. But starting now just doesn't make sense. We certainly want to enjoy not having to shuttle him around and make him sit at a desk a good part of the day. He is only 4.

Anyway, MIL did shed some light on stuff though. My SIL works and dh's family baby sits for her for free. HEr 80-year-old grandma was babysitting "for 1 year" when their first was born. Dh and I thought it was a little tacky but whatever. 1 year has turned into 3 years - even tackier. But though we looked on in annoyance, believe me we were NEVER jealous of this scenario. Oh yeah jealous they can't even figure out how to take care of their own kids without relying heavily on poor Grandma...

Anyway, in their defense they bought a very small modest fixxer-upper that was $700k. There is only so much they can do - not like they are just lazy mooches. But I still can't believe with a baby due any day now that grandma is still it. I am amazed how well she keeps up - for sure. But I guess MIL has decided she and her mom have done so much babysitting for them that it is not fair to us. So she wanted to give us a large sum of money to make it up (like all the preschool daycare we ever paid - or maybe all we never paid). Pffffft. It's bad enough to look on and cringe and what they are doing, but to have them feel like they owe us something because of it? Are they crazy?

I go through the same thing with my parents. My mom will send my sister money and every once in a while she'll send me some and say "it's only fair. I gave money to your sister and I have to give some to you." It just annoys me. YEah my sister is a dolt who can not take care of herself. I Was just telling dh yesterday - I said we have built a life 10 times more luxurious than when my parents were my age. Why in the hell do they feel the need to give me money? Are they crazy? It's bad enough my sister is a leech- I just don't want to be one either. I guess they expect us to be jealous that our sisters need so much help. But the truth is we really aren't at all - LOL. They have probably sensed our annoyances with them, but jealousy is not the word.

But I guess that's how it goes with parents - when they are intent on being "fair."

So, I don't know, who knows where this will lead...

Am I really going to do the same thing to my kids? Probably I guess. I guess we just have to embrace it. Save all that money for when one of our kids turn into a dolt? LOL.

The worst is that MIL has been babysitting our kids like crazy this last year. I am sure we have gotten more than our fair share. Hell, for us they have to drive so far, I am pretty sure it evens out. I think they are just feeling more burned out on the constant obligation on that end.

Got the balance transfer statement for dh. They are only asking 2% so woohoo. when does this 4% thing go into effect (minimum balance?)? Plus I assume since it is based on averages that must be why they only asked for about 1% of the balance for this month. Making more money.

As far as subprime loans and all that menutia, I am at a loss to where the surprised was in all this. I though I learned a lesson in market timing as I locked in some CDs last fall, but these days not feeling so bad about that either. Rates are falling and I got about $20k locked in 5.5-5.7%. Some for a long while. I guess it can pan out bad, but latest I heard was October was a big rate adjustment month for ARMs. If people think the worst is over, ugh. IT seems to me it is just beginning. I keep reading articles that "only" 1 million people will lose their homes. "Only" 7 million... Since when do we live in a vacuum? I don't know, for a while I thought I moved too soon, I believed too much the sky was falling... These days I realize I have to give myself some credit. I guess dh said the Mad Money guy was freaking out on TV today. Where is the big surprise??? People getting too caught up in the ride up? I don't know... Dh and I have been sitting around talking about how all these credit and ARMs were going to mean a bad fall for the economy one of these days - talking about this for years. I think it was 2 years ago my broke friends started getting approved for these crazy subprime mortgages and you are like - what in the heck????? At least the ARM people stand a chance compared to them. Oh yeah - they are all going to be rich next year so it won't matter... *roll eyes*

I have $50 going to my new ROTH account tomorrow I believe. I just checked to see if it got purchased today - that would have been too perfect - to buy at a low. We'll see how the market hangs tomorrow. got money in stocks, but feel confident it is well diversified - all long-term retirement stuff. We were really going to jump in heavily come January. The timing might be good. Going back to income averaging too - it helps. Makes it all less volatile as a help. We'll see...

Oh I got our electric bill. I got an e-mail but I didn't look at it - it was $130. I think that is pretty nasty for us. Dh and I have been having a debate as I swear we always leave the air on 80 and he insists 78. (78????). Since he usually insists on 68 in the winter and I insist on 70, I didn't argue too much. We are obviously 2 degrees off - LOL. I have been switching it to 79 when I come home myself. If he doesn't notice he can't complain. & well - it is a compromise. But I think he forgot how we used to set it honestly - I don't remember keeping the house 78 at all. & the bill shows it - yeesh. august is usually our worst month so it isn't looking good, but when I told dh he got scared off and the house was 84 when I got home. That seems a bit extreme. Oh well. Well, good thing my minimum payment is only 1% this month. It helps. My efund sits at a square $12k with that payment (just transferred $150 from the BT column to the efund column - paid it out of checking). So essentially that money moves from the BT category (to be repaid) to the E-fund category. Woot.

I am about $100 under on my savings this month, but screw it. I need to sell some stuff or write or something this month. I need to save $1k more to keep my efund at $12k for the year. (Just $300/month and I have been aiming for $450?). HEck, with all the interest I only need to save 1/2, if that. So I am not going to sweat it. Some days I wonder how well I will do on this automatic saving thing. I just never really had to do it like this before... We'll see. For now I fail miserably it seems. But I have had enough windfalls to get by. I am expecting another $1k check to cover the rest of my IRS bill and also some overtime (maybe in the range of $1k - to retirement). So eh. I am bracing myself next year because when I set up automatic payments of $400/month to our IRAs there is not much I can do when one month is short. Well there is, cut back on other stuff. For now I am too used to too much savings to fall back on. Good or bad but we haven't been doing as well on retirement as we should.

On the other hand I started putting $800/month away this year for more short-term things and that has been easy peasy. I know a couple of more raises and I won't even notice. A few more thousand in cash to fall back on and it won't matter. But it will be a bit of an adjustment for a while. I am used to having more cash I guess so it is an adjustment to sock it all away in retirement (though smarter - investment returns and all). I am considering setting my goals a bit lower next year. Then again I think that is my problem. I set REALLY high goals this year, all is well, and I lose motivation. I have been REALLY relaxed all of a sudden. I guess that's good. But then again I don't want to relax the rest of the year and make it harder to get back into the swing come January. Maybe my goals just weren't aggressive enough? Or should I relax just because I Received a windfall? I don't know...

I guess it doesn't matter going forward. The balance transfers will be a good $350/month going forward and the kids will be $50 and my retirement is now set to $50 so it is all automatic. Not much I can do. The budget will have to fit all that - my entire $450 earmark for savings - every month for the rest of the year. Better slow down and breathe this month in preparation I guess. I may be bad at the automatic saving thing right now but one thing I sure as hell won't do is take money out of savings to pay my bills. So maybe there is hope for me the rest of the year.

I just started calling on the 2 newest cards and for whatever reason they transferred me over to Citi ID Fraud Dept. (some investigative arm of Citi) and most of the Fraud happened on cards they issue I guess. One other place asked if I would be willing to talk to them (might have been on the weekend) but otherwise no word from them though I rpeorted 4 fradulent accounts like 7 days ago.

I was a little annoyed because they wanted to take 1/2 hour of time to look at my credit reports and issued fraud alerts. Um, done done done. However, she sweet talked me into it - TransUnion was the report they would check - the one I have been unable to access and am waiting for it to come in 7-10 days by mail (ridiculous).

So she pulls it up and thank goodness NOTHING new on there. Anything else issued was issued without a credit check. Hopefully nothing else.

She then called TrnasUnion and they placed the 7-year fraud alert on my account. Issued me a pin #, blahblahblah. Saves me time and ceritified letters. While on the phone TransUnion removed the false inquiries (sweet!). They will forward data for the other 2 bureaus to do the same. Nothing else is showing up on my report anyway but not the credit bureaus are notified what all the fraud was and to keep it off my report (saving me more time and postage, etc.).

Then she said she would gather all the data from all the theft related to Citi (most of it) and FedEx me the one form to notarize. (Just making it easier on me). They even took care of 1 card that I hadn't called yet (since it was under Citi). I was going to call them next.

I am annoyed because if I talked to them 1st it would have saved me SO MUCH time and effort. But glad they are simplifying things. Sounds like way less forms to fill out. & this whole FedEx thing is nice. I thought waiting 7-10 days was just ridiculous really. No sense of urgency.

I really don't have a sense of what else they will be doing, but I am pleased with them today.

I have decided maybe I will forego the credit freeze and just see how things go. If anything slips through I will do the freeze. But a lot of effort and expense, so hopefully the fraud alert will take care of it. Time will tell. *sigh*

I guess if nothing else I feel better today because I think most of it is taken care of. It still scares the crap out of me though that people can be applying for cell phones, utiltiies, and jobs in my name and my never know... Until the collection agencies start to call. But we're getting somewhere I guess. I don't think any of this will affect my credit score - phew.

ETA: With 7 cards now - to keep everything straight is insane. I just had a pile of papers. Today I started a 3-ring binder with labels for local police, FTC, each of the 3 credit Bureaus, and each fraudulent account. I think this will go a long ways to keeping everything organized and straight. Then it will be easy to pull any copies I need of anything... Sometimes being organized just takes a simple solution.

Well, just got the gas bill - it was just under $12.

I checked when I turned down the water heater - it was exactly mid-cycle. & our gas was down over $5. That was a 30% decrease in our bill just turning the water heater down mid-month.

WOW!

What is it going to be next month? $5?

Little things do pay off apparently. Lord knows why I didn't think of this one sooner. The water can still get pretty hot too - it's just no longer scalding. I turned it way down to "warm" on this particular water heater, but it is still plenty HOT. We will turn it up in the winter, but what a way to save money in the summer. I might save like $10/month...

The interesting thing is we cook almost every day (gas stove) and we do do laundry almost every day (hot water). I could have sworn our dryer was gas too. But all of these energy efficient appliances REALLY pay off.

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I mentioned in another blog about how some people have made it in high COL areas buying homes. I mentioned how combined dh and I made $60k out of school and saved like 70% of it. I got reamed over there for being like a rich princess or something. LOL. I actually mentioned how timing was everything and I did not envy people today (a bow to how we lucked out getting in when we did. Luck certainly plays a HUGE part in our current financial situation). Someone got on a high horse and set timing had nothing to do with it - I picked a very high paying job and a spouse too - like we are going to ride off in the sunset on $200k/year or something. Then on and on how we made more than the average homewoner, etc. Totally blowing by the point how expensive homes are in the Bay Area. So yes I have to beat the dead horse again. Some other guy popped on about how he doesn't buy new cars or carry debt, blahblah blah and that's how he saved. I am like, well, I thought that was pretty self-explanatory when I Said we saved 70% of our income. You don't do that without cutting some corners. Yeesh!

Anyway, I was just peeved and rather than ruin that guy's blog with a debate that will probably fall on dead ears, let's do a math lesson.

#1 - When dh and I both made $30k/year out of school these were NOT big wages. If you want to say we were lucky to have 2 incomes - sure - I have always said it made saving VERY easy to have 2 incomes. IT certainly doesn't cost twice as much for 2 of us to live. There is tremendous benefit. However, I probably could have walked into Wal-Mart and got paid more back then. The point is the area is insanely expensive but I took a low-paying job as it was a stepping stone for my career. Honestly I think I was paid $32k and dh was $28k. I absolutely laugh at the idea of $28k as a high paying job. Teehee. We don't live in KAnsas anyway!!! Plenty of relatives who do live in Kansas, NC, etc., and I know they haven't got a clue what it is like out here - they get mesmerized by the "high wages" as well.

Secondly, let's do the math. Dh and I made $99k combined one year before we moved out of the Bay. Again, not high paying jobs. I could have made more as an administrative assistant myself, at the time.

But you say that and people assume you are filthy rich and homeownership is easy as pie.

Well, if we wanted to buy a $600k (2-bedroom major fixxer upper) say we scrounged the 20% down (what is that like $120k?).

Say, sure we waited a few more years and maneged.

$100k income - $30k taxes leaves $70k to play with (but people don't realize bigger wages mean BIGGER taxes!!!).

Minus $40k for mortgage interest (who knows what the principal would be), property taxes, and insurance. This would not even include earthquake insurance.

Leaves $30k to live on. Might sound nice, but you have a major fixxer upper to fix up in this case. Plus this is a house you probably don't want to live in the rest of your life - you will want to strive to move up to say a 3-bedroom if you have kids. (YEah I know too many people cramming 6-person families in these houses with little choice though). & also since the city is expensive and WalMart pays $30k/year to its employees, then you know EVERYTHING is expensive.

Then there is savings and retirement too.

So no, making $60k/year is not filthy rich, nor is $100k. Quite the opposite.

Rents were even worse. You couldn't live without at least $12k annual rent (& that would be a pretty crap studio apartment). But I guess that brings the point that I lived with roommates in a nice house and only paid $400/month rent through college and such, and did a lot of house sitting (free rent!). Only way I could survive on so little as we saved for a down payment. You just have to think outside the box in these situations.

Timing is everything to us. It means we could live on like 1/2 as much money, we can stay close to our family, we don't have to work so hard the rest of our life. We were able to start our family younger, etc. We couldn't have done any of this without our luck and timing. Our wage has nothing to do with it. But anyway, I guess I Was annoyed to be painted as a 2-yuppy household because that is SO not us. I admit I am going for that high-wage job but the whole point is I like it and it means I can work part-time and have most of the benefits of most full-time jobs. The point isn't because I want to hoarde a ton of money - work/life balance is very important to me. As far as my spouse, the idea of him being some upper class yuppie makes me laugh - hehe. I did not marry someone who was going to take care of me, for sure. He hasn't worked in years...

Oh well, just had to vent, and do some math. I guess it annoys me too to post how you did the impossible and just get shot down. For every argument they had against me I know someone who did it their way, but if they didn't want to hear the solution, why do they ask??? Dh has 2 cousin singles who bought homes in the Bay Area, one was a school teacher and one doesn't even have a college degree. If you put your heart and soul to it it CAN be done. It didn't require 2 wages and a fancy job, I would have bought a home in the land of expensive regardless of my situation. But why are all of us (related) buying homes when none of our peers can figure it out? Because we were raised with financial sense. IT makes all the difference...

Well, I already said the other day that with like $400k equity and six figure job I still have no idea how we could even afford a house 1/2 the size back there. The income taxes and the property taxes will eat you alive! I guess what more do I need to say - that speaks volumes!

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...

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

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...

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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.