Monkey Mama*s Monkey Money Blog

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

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

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

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

So I guess I am part of the madness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annual:

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

What am I forgetting?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.gilroygardens.org/

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

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

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

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

Just a question/insight.

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

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

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

I think that is an EXCELLENT feature.

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

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

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

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

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

T Rowe lets you and that is very cool.

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Oh - also just saw a very interesting article:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't have much choice with the IRS.

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

Dh is cute.

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

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

Okay then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Goals that I wrote in 2006 for 2007:

2007 goals:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2008 Goals:

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

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

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

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

4 - $50/month to kids college fund

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

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

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

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

Then again life happens so who knows...

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

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

Silly me. I already mentioned but I asked BM wherever he wanted to go out today we would splurge. Well, #1 is McDs which surprised me a tad. Well sure we can go play on the playland and spend a couple of bucks on a Happy Meal if he likes. But I said, well how about dinner? You can go wherever you want or we can cook your favorite meal at home? What do you want?

"Chicken & Stars."

LOL. I think it is just like something in a can dh gives them as a treat once in a while. Like sphaghetti-os or alphabet soup. I guess it's like chicken soup with pasta stars.

It's funny dh and I were so excited by an excuse to eat out we thought the kids would really enjoy, but all they want is a can of soup. As evidenced by the boringness of home cooking and the rareness of eating out, that is all they really want. Hehe.

Anyway, BM did get a transformer toy from LM, and a computer game as well as a remote controlled helicopter (we saw it at a friends' home - kids LOVED it - and dh spotted it on sale somewhere a while back). The kids also got Stomp Rockets...

http://www.amazon.com/D%2BL-Company-Junior-Stomp-Rocket/dp/B...

I haven't seen them in action but some kids at the park had them and were letting the kids play with them and they just could not stop talking about these rockets. Dh happened to see these on sale for $5 at Ross or Marshalls (one of those) so he grabbed them.

So for today I am taking the kids out to play in the morning, popping by the store to get frosting for cupcakes, and then dh or I will take BM to McDs for lunch. Probably me because I would love some friend and/or a sundae. Yum yum! Nap time, and then tonight when it cools down we will have to go try out the stomp rockets. Oh after our Chicken & Stars dinner.

Doesn't keep much to make the kids happy...

In other news I just had a revelation. Since my efund is doing so well I will divert $700 to the IRS for ROTH conversions. I have 2 IRAs and I have been waiting for the market to bottom out a bit (and also to save the cash - even moreso) but I am getting to the point where I have the cash to cover it. So it just occured to me my one IRA is in a very slow fund right now. The managers converted a ton to bonds and cash and it really hasn't been going up wildly as the rest of my funds. I decided I might as well convert that one now. I can fund both without dropping my efund below $10k.

So I will get rolling on that one today or tomorrow. I figure I have until 9/15 to send in the tax.

The other one, I am just not sure. Of course if I think about it, if that fund dropped 10% it would only be a $100 difference in tax. I almost should do that one first because I need to add some money to it so I can move my $100 cash to a mutual fund. Hmmmmm.

I guess it's just time to bite the bullet and do both. I should have $1700 for the taxes and a good $11k back in the e-fund by then. IT shouldn't hurt my goal to get back to $12k by 12/31 and it really needs to be done. Our tax situation will be pretty equal to last year. Last year we converted $20k to ROTHS. This year we'll convert $15k but I got a $5k raise, so it will even out. Of course I probably get even more overtime and maybe a bigger year-end bonus - but overall not more than $1k or $2k. I think it will be a pretty equal tax year. Which means I will report around $90k in income at a 15% tax rate. Woohoo. I was doing some calcs in my head trying to see if we were near the 25% tax rate and we're getting there with the ROTH conversion, but not quite. But this is why I feel it is so urgent to get this done now. These low tax rates will not last forever and one part-time job on the part of dh would make us pay a good 10% more on the conversion - easy... Well that and I already mentioned I am not eligible to contribute to a regular IRA either... So I have to change all mine to ROTHs.

Oh well, it kind of sucks to be so close to my goal but to have this to pay off first. Bummer. But still... Getting there... Still feeling good about 12/31 meeting all my goals. & also, should get some overtime bonus to soften the blow.

Nothing like a good 6 hours at work with NO distractions. It has been heaven. I got caught up on so much little stuff.

That is the good.

The bad is that I allocated some work out but no one did what I asked. Between that and so many clients on vacation it leaves me on 7/15 with not ONE of my client's payroll stuff done for the quarter. O.M.G. I was just talking to dh and he was like - "when is the deadline? The 15th?" LOL. No - it's the 31st but I try to get all the easy ones out of the way so I am not too crunched with the procrastinators. Bah. The whole idea that nothing has been done is freaking me out. Oh well, a repeat of April. I am sure we had nothing done by April 15th as we were preoccupied by the big deadline, and we survived.

I think it is my biggest pitfall in a more managerial position though. I start to get antsy that things are not done and I just do them myself. It seems to work out since my manager does the same - LOL. Well he knows I will never get to it - which was nice last quarter with the craziness, but this quarter I think I could have handled it.

Maybe not...

Yeah, I am still waiting for things to slow down.

I have been pretty crabby at work these last months and so I am trying to think positive today.

I got 7 hours overtime this week and can probably push it to 9 hours if I work a little tomorrow. I have sonme mindless stuff I can do while the kids play or watch t.v. in the morning.

So I am going to start a running total of the overtime I am earning. I thought about it and instead of getting bitter about all these hours, I am trying to look at a bright side. So I made almost $200 today - overtime. Nothing to sneeze at.

If I work on average 5 hours overtime a week above and beyond the normal (which is usually no OT except tax season) I can swing that second IRA contribution. The idea is rather motivating. I really value work/life balance but as long as it isn't there might as well embrace the income. My boss is trying to redistribute the work - we are all just so behind. But I am optimistic it won't be like this forever. Believe me if he has to pay me that much overime - LOL. But we'll see.

I am going to create a page to track my overtime going forward. As a motivator. I said this before but I didn't stick with it. But I am not sure I have much choice now... So crazy here...

In other news, tomorrow is Big Monkey's birthday. I had wanted to take him to McDs to meet up with a couple of his friends some night after work and then let him choose somewhere to eat out tomorrow. All he wants is McDs - he asked if I could just take home (we didn't want to go with LM because he is too little for the PlayLand). I guess that would be a hell of a lot cheaper? I think I will take both kids to the zoo or something in the a.m. - if it isn't too hot anyway - haven't even looked at the weather - and for lunch him and I can do a nice indoor playland at McDs. Works. Won't cost me more than gas and a treat or a kids meal.

He is probably getting an oodle of toys - I am scared to look. Off the top of my head dh got him a remote-controlled helicopter and some rocket thing. I forget what else. We'll see. I might have to make more cupcakes too - can take the leftovers to preschool and/or work. He gets a big party at preschool Monday too - so spoiled...

IT is weird to have a 4-year-old. Seems like yesterday he was a newborn! I don't think he is considered a toddler any more. He's just a boy I guess. *sniff*

Which reminds me LM's favorite new toy is a flashlight. He loves them, but somewhere he got a little one and I was showing him how to put it over his fingers and toes to make them glow. We made quite a game of it - fingers, toes, ears, nose. Cute. Now that's cheap entertainment. Today I was asking him how many hands and feet he had, etc. He has gotten the concept of "2" for a while and is one of his favorite words. As he gleefully points out when he sees 2 of anything. So next I asked him how many ears he had and he said "5." Same for eyes - 5 eyes. I guess since he can't see his eyes or his ears he just had to take a guess??? LOL. Silly little monkey.

Well, I just peeked online and dh's balance transfer was approved. They are already showing it as reducing his available credit. Of course they will send a check in the mail. Lord knows when it will arrive. Maybe it will say more tomorrow or I have an e-mail sitting at home. There will be sonme turn around time and maybe not much interest to earn until August.

Anyway, today started bad as I could not find a particular red shirt and the only thing I could find to wear with my nice long skirt (read: skirt that I can wear knee-his with so no uncomfortable pantyhose) was a black sweater. Hmmm, it is usually cold in the office and why I mostly have a winter wardrob anyway - a/c overkill. But I was going out to 2 clients today and lord knows their a/c situation. I finally thought whatever, I'll survive and went on my merry way. About 5 minutes later or 1/2 way to work I realized I forgot to put on deoderant today. Yikes!!!!!! LOL.

So when I got to work it was cold as an iceberg inside so since I wasn't sweating I figured I'd run to Walgreens on the way out to a client at 10. But she called 3 times and kept pushing back the time. Finally settled on 1:30 or something. So I popped into Walgreens on the way around 1:15 and stumbled upon a 2 for 1 deal on deoderant. It was labeled $4.54 or something but there was 2 stuck together in shrinkwrap labeled "2 for 1!" Score!

So I went to check out and had to wait FOREVER behind this lady but it was worth the wait. It rung up at $2. I am not sure if he rung it up wrong (took 1/2 off the total?) or if it was just on sale anyway. Lord knows, but I paid $2 for like a year supply of deoderant. Or a 75% discount!

I am rather pleased with myself. I don't shop much - dh does most of it - but it was fate today I was steered towards quite a deal. Woohoo.

I will leave one at work. Which is good for next time I forget - hehe.

P.S. I just noticed my e-fund is $500 away from my $12k goal. O.M.G. Is that right? I must be forgetting something... Oh I just transferred some money over and if I consider the $130 or so I have in another MM account I am up to $11,500. At the end of the month it will be $11,600 with interest. If not for my ROTH conversions I could shift gears and fund 1/2 an IRA this year. But I guess it's about the same in the end. Paying taxes now so I get tax-free growth. The only reason I am really so big on converting is so I can add to my existing IRAs. It's up in the air if I will be allowed to make deductible IRA contributions this year and I don't want to deal with an over-contributions. & I can add to dh's and be just dandy but it is up in the air if we will still be in such a low tax bracket next year - so might as well take advantage now. Our efund has been down int he $5k range for almost a year so I think we can survive with $10k for a few more months... But um, yeah, I guess in a month I will have my full efund. That just rocks. Way earlier than I expected - thanks to a nice gift from my parents a few months back. Woohoo. Now I have to shave off a couple of thou to get this ROTH thing rolling so I can make some contributions... I probably really won't get my completely untouchable efund until Dec. 31... I have no further plans for it though once I get these IRAs squared away. Then I can start diverting $400/month to our IRAs - woohoo.

Hey, this is me! LOL.

The simpsonsmovie website had an avatar thing. I tried this in the Southpark format before but could not find a way to save and use. I figured this would have the same issue (it is) until I remembered the good old "Print scrn" button which I use to show my spreadhseets. Wala.

I relish in updating my investments at a peak. So what the heck, it's time for a update. Sure its paper profits but I am in for the long haul so whatever. I'll get back to this level one of these days. Honestly I have been waiting for the market to take a dip so I can convert my ROTHS. Oh yeah, I decide to keep some money in cash because it can't possibly keep up at this rate (last September?) and I am waiting for the market to drop a little so I can convert my ROTHS. Plus I wasn't feeling very pleased about resuming contributions at the "peak." Though all this reminds me any attempt to time the market in any way shape or form is futile. A good reminder I guess. I am convinced in the meantime that the day after I convert my ROTHs will be the great stock market crash of 2007. (No I am not really convinced but it would just be my luck. There will be a dip - Murphy's Law - I'll give you a heads up when I set it in motion - LOL).



Anyway, I should have hidden 1999 for this. I put in a $2k contribution sometime in college or high school or something but I don't know when so I just threw it in 1999. I did not have that big of a return that year.

2000 I put a token amount in my 401k and then was able to contribute the full year in 2001. Also added to the IRAs in 2000. Some co-worker helped me pick a stock/bond portfolio which did rather well - it rode the wave rather well considering the times - I invested it all at the peak really. My $2k IRA was somewhere making no interest (cash CD) and dh's money was all with a broker losing 20-25% per year over 3 years. I lost 20% one year and that is about it. My 401k made 30% in 2003. No clue what I was doing but I bounced back. My bonds really limited my losses overall. Dh's broker was always overly aggressive if you ask me - plus all the fees really inflated the losses.

Since 2004 my 401k has averaged 10% per year. I wasn't paying any attention/no clue.

Dh's brokered IRA made 15% in 2003 (never recovered) and averaged 8% after that.

Last fall I started reading up on investments and taking charge, dropped the broker, picked more low cost investments. I kept my cash but went from 1-2% to 5.5%. OF course this coincided with a huge market run. So it is all in the timing I guess but everything we own is performing MUCH better than historically.

Since the basis of my 401k was a cheap index fun, it hasn't taken much to convince me of the error of my ways otherwise, and the benefits of index funds.

I am also convinced something that helped my 401k at the time was income averaging as it was the only time that I had continually contributed to our retirement on a monthly basis. Most of the rest of the time we would use our IRAs as a tax savings tool with lump sums around April 15th. I plan to start regular contributions with our IRAs on 1/1/08. So I look forward to it. It really seems to smooth out the many bumps of the stock market when you contribute regularly. I feel much more confident in out current asset allocation to help us ride the next wave. & I am avoiding any attempts at market timing. As I learn and find that regular contributions and setting a investment rebalancing policy are both key in trying to avoid emotional decisions and attempts to time the market.

Don't worry, that's only 1/2 our retirement. I have had a 10% contribution from my boss every year for the last 4 years anyway. This is just the investments under our control. We already have 1 year of expenses in all our retirement and will probably hit 1 year of income next year. It's all relative as our income has been 20k, 60k, 80k, 99k, 55k, 45k, 55k, 40k, 70k, 75k. Lord knows where we should be at. LOL. I think 1 years' income in retirement is not bad since we have suddenly hit the higher end of the spectrum again after being out of it a few years. I have read that 3 years' salary by age 40 is good. I know I can have $225k in retirement by age 40 easy. I am just not sure if we are both working and/or I continually get big raises, if I can have $450k or something. But nor would we really need to. I see little need to up our lifestyle at all going forward. We are happy where things are at and little goals going forward to upgrade our lifestyle. & the year we made $99k we lived WELL below our means. So it's all relative... For now 3 years' (today's) salary sounds like a decent goal. It's actually about exactly where I project us to be with our planned contributions going forward. The kicker is I would expect us to be making much more by age 40. I guess which is what makes the 3 year by age 40 rule rather difficult to achieve. Well, we'll see... In the meantime knowing we have lived well below our means and intend to do so again, I find it easier to talk in terms of annual expenses, which are rather fixed, instead of annual income which is quite volatile around here. Hell, dh could get a job tomorrow and we could be in the $130k range. Just who knows. It would be no indication of how we would need to save for living in retirement. Just as if I got a job tomorrow with full benefits I could cut our living expenses considerably. I guess that is why these are guidelines. Real life is TOO complicated...

As for the kids they both made a 1.5% return on their investments yesterday - yeesh. Cool for them... (The ones I just opened).

Dh called me yesterday to tell me LM had a clean bill of health after all. As usual he was griping about the $50 copay. He said he got 2 $20 stickers and a $10 ear cleaning. LOL. I said the doctor probably gets paid $200/hour or something so not to discount her time. & anyway we are saving $250/month on insurance or so with the increased copay so I am not exactly sweating it. It smarts, but so far it has beaten the alternative by a mile. I am glad LM is okay, though back to square one what his deal is. Terrible 2s... Actually he has been far less grumpy this week. Though sleeping has been hell. Though it could be worse so little to complain about.

My kids aren't big on ear infections but I think BM had 2 last year during swim season at preschool. I remember he was sick and Ms. Preschool is generally good at helping diagnosing. She asked me if he was susceptible to ear infections and I said no because at 3 he had never had one! So we quickly wrote it off until a couple of days later I saw some discharge in his ear. Couldn't be! But it was. I guess she was quite shocked as well. From her experience either you have a lot or noe many... We chalked it up to all the time in the water I guess. All those preschool germies too I guess... Anyway he had a terrible bout with another one soon after where one day he just started grabbing his ear and screaming in pain. He takes pain rather well and of course didn't complain until it was unbearable. So it was not fun...

But anyway, LM has just been sleeping horrid the last few days and horribly cranky. We figure teething/growing/whatever. But last night he started saying his ear hurts. Gosh, I didn't even think of anything like that! Thank goodness he told us. We are stil uncertain but dh is taking him in today to be sure. Will be $50. But gosh if that is what it is would explain a lot. The kids spent a lot of time in the pool last week and LM fell in and got dunked twice. If he has an ear infection I am starting to see a cause and effect... Today he seemed fine and said it didn't hurt and dh was ready to take his word. He asked me, "what are the symptoms?" I said I wouldn't mess with it - symptons are fever and ear pain and discharge from the ear, etc. BUT I know so many kids who had an ear infection with no outward symptoms, and the parents felt horrid when they figured it out. Just not something to mess with - so I convinced him to take him in.

I need to go in to the doc next month for female stuff and with the kids birthdays they are both due for wellness visits. Now that I think about it their wellness visits may just be free or reduced... Hmmm. I guess we'll find out. LM probably needs shots too. I hate that. Easily $200 in copays for the next month. Blah. Thankfully it has been pretty quiet on the health front the last couple of months. The year hadn't started out as well. Regardless it will be a record year for medical expenses on premiums alone. So every $50 visit just kind of sucks. But the silver lining is now I remember the welness visits did not cost as much - so phew.

$20 challenge:

$7,875.32 - Balance 6/30

$ 55.00 - June writing money
$ 100.00 - Price match on PS3
$ 50.00 - Gift card - last credit card reward for a while...


------------------
$8,080.32 - Balance 7/12
------------------

I just remembered I had some stuff to update and while I was at it I also remembered dh's score with the price match. Which brings me up past $8k...

I mentioned earlier I would probably need so much overtime to get to $10k... I don't remember how much. But I am definitely working overtime this month. Trying to pull in 10 hours/week OT which would be around $700 take home for the month if I could pull it off. I am not sure I have really been working any overtime lately but July is a deadline month and I have little choice. I worked an hour on the laptop last night over dinner on some more mindless stuff and have more for tonight. A client meeting tomorrow night and I may only have to work a few hours Saturday to make it to 10 hours for this week. We'll see...

I also haven't written much if anything this month because I feel SO swamped though I have 10 articles floating in my head. Plenty of ideas but still a bit of writers' block. I think mostly stressed and trying to find a decent chunk of time to write a proper article. I am hoping once we get past July things will settle down. At least August is a rather quiet month - hopefully plenty of time for catch up. I should probably buckle down and do the overtime then too. Maybe I could take some time off in September. October is busy and November is slow and I am taking around 8 days off as is. December is CRAZED. I probably should just buck up, work hard, and take a week vacation in September or something. I had wanted to spread out my vacation time and work a reduced schedule in the summer. But summer is half way over and I have to work overtime instead. I can work hard knowing I will have a week off in September and a week of in November. Sweet! Well, we'll see...

I'll probably also received $30 next week or so for mileage reimbursement. I have been traveling a bit... Will help...

I still have a pile for ebay and Craigslist - just haven't had much time.

Oh they called me back and it is all worked out. It won't kick in until around September, but that is fine because July & August were the only months our metered billing was the same as the flat rate anyway (or could end up being even more - with the extreme heat).

So I think that works out rather well. Can I venture to say I am the FIRST person in Sacramento with metered water? Perhaps. Sounds like it - LOL. I am not sure that is the best way to be. But as long as our bill goes down is all I really care.

Dh got called for a focus group last night. Someone had cancelled - it was for today - but he didn't fit the criteria. Bummer. I honestly have no idea how he gets on all these lists. He's got luck - he is on 2 group's lists now - just one is in another county so unlikely he will ever be able to go - usually they disqualify him since he doesn't live there so I am not sure why they keep calling. For them he does a lot of free phone surveys though. I assumed it was them when he was called to the last focus group, but since found he had gotten on ANOTHER list. One that pays well. & calls often. Lucky bum.

Electric bill for June was $92. Not bad at all. I was worried since dh's family was here for a week while we were gone - that maybe they blasted the air all week - it did get to 100 that week and they are certainly not used to the heat. But then again the thing about back home is there were plenty of 80-90 degree days but no one has a/c back home - not really necessary. On the few hot days you just swelter. But even when the heat is in the 80s it can get rather warm inside. So we set our air at 80 which is very comfortable to us. I find that we can tolerate much more heat inside the house than most people here who are used to cranking the a/c. Just interesting.

Of course my mom is very sensitive to the hear so we set the a/c to 75 for the kids' birthday party. The interesting thing was when I went upstairs our bedroom was 75 too. I thought, "crap" since the thermostat is in there. What happens is the other bedrooms get stifling hot and our bedroom is cooled by the downstairs air. However, I checked the kids room to guage how much I should put the upstairs air on to, and their rooms weren't so bad. I almost wonder if it is better to set the air cooler and cool the entire house with the downstairs system. & forget the upstairs. Then again we rarely turn on the upstairs anyway - just before bed. So probably best as is. I am sure it would cost considerably more to cool the entire house to 75 than keeping both zones at 80. I mean the whole house at 75 meant around 80 in the kids bedroom, still considerably warmer since not near any vents. But the cold air did float up into their rooms when there was a lot of it. Interesting.

Of course July is by far our worst month so who knows. Next month will suck and then our bill will get back to the $50 range...

I was moving so much money for the kids I just put our $450 in savings for the month. I moved $1k from my short-term savings into checking as a cushion. So I don't have to run to the bank when I get my paycheck. I am rather happy about that. Phew. We will probably get $1k for Christmas (around the time I drain our ST savings for insurance and property taxes anyway) and I am thinking of earmarking it for little more than a cushion in the checking account. I was pleased to pay for dh's beloved tv with the extra money we had sitting there but it has been driving me batty since. I guess we can consider it a gift from his parents when they give him the usual Christmas windfall. Which reminds me when he bought it I said he needed to find a way to pay for it. He hasn't been very motivated. But I must admit he has come up with about $200 since. $200 down, $800 to go! His mom's money is fine, but I am hoping to use that for his ROTH going forward so overall I am not pleased. He has a projector to sell for a few hundred dollars and some games. If he can squeeze out a few more focus group sessions too this year I will be happy. I will consider the debt settled.

Oh which reminds me LM is sort of starting preschool. He was going 2 days while dh is on a big hike this month but I was talking to Ms. preschool who still has not had a spot for him (fine for my pocket book) but has some people who come off and on in the summer because their mom is a teacher. So we are going to start taking him Wednesday mornings when she has a spot. Which should work out a lot in the summer. We'll go from there. Once he gets adjusted she always seems to have a Friday spot, but we kind of wanted the kids to be together. Maybe he will enjoy going on his own turf though. HE can start Fridays in the fall if nothing else. Of course it also means much more gas and all that, but at the most it will be a year that we will have 2 in there. So I think we can deal with it.

I can't believe my baby starts kindergarten in a year. That's crazy! In the meantime we may shell out quite a pretty penny between the 2 in preschool but I guess we never really minded the expense so much because it is temporary. It will be tight this year but doable. By next year hopefully he will be out of diapers (which will save us lots of diaper money we can use for preschool) and/or I'll get a raise. We'll suck it up. Once September and school rolls around the money can be diverted to retirement then since we'll only have to pay for 1 in preschool. Then again we may need some of it for school expenses anyway. I guess we'll see...

I think I will do dh's balance transfer today. Step #2 in credit card arbitrage. This one is $10k! I have $10k in a 5.7% CD right now so I am guaranteed that rate of return on the money. It matures when the balance transfer 0% rate expires so works out quite well. Plus I have already earned that rate for a month. I will be glad to pad my accessible cash though now. Wouldn't overall put most my cash in a c.d. otherwise. I am going to see if I can do this transfer straight to my money market. I heard you could so we'll see!

LOL. I just posted in my last post how we can switch to metered water and it will save us around $140/year - washing diapers and all.

So I called and the lady who answered said I was the first to call for the switch. Lucky me!

She had no idea what to do and asked for my address. She read off some phone # which was not mine in the least. I tried to verify if she really had the right address/account but I wasn't getting anywhere with her. Sounded like an elderly lady and she was really flurstered. I told her there was a flyer in my bill to call the # to change now and I can't imagine I will be the only one to call! Might want to get a little more prepared.

But anyway, she took my phone # and said she'll get back to me if she needs more info. She'll figure it out. As for me I am still not convinced she got the right house. LOL. What a surprise for someone else? LOL.

I'll call back next week and try again if I don't hear anything. She said we would be eligible 7/17 so no hurry I guess. I'll give them a few days to work out the kinks.

In other news, when we met with our estate lawyer she told us why we don't put bank accounts and cars and stuff like that in the names of trusts. It is something to keep private that you have a family trust, otherwise people smell money. But we put the house in the trust, as is common. So of course our utility bill this month comes to "_____ Family Trust." OMG! I will ask if they can change at least our mailing address to just say our names. Yeesh. They recorded the new title on the deed quite a few months back but for some reason they changed out city utility bill this month. Weird.

Well, I think I got all the bills paid for the month (or set up to pay anyway) except for the gardener who hasn't billed us yet.

I got the gas bill which was a whopping $16 & also the water/garbage bill which is flat but went up 29 cents per month with the new budget I guess. I think we'll be okay.

Now that I think about it, I didn't get the electric bill yet. Soon enough. Won't be pretty for June...

Anyway, back to the water bill, I have probably said this 10 times already but they bill a flat rate. So for the year I lived here alone I was certainly overcharged. For the year dh and I lived here alone we were certainly overcharged. It figures they are switching to metered water now that we have 4 people here and use a lot more water.

But the good news is I just got a notice they are switching to metered water 2010 but we can switch NOW if we like. They have been adding to our bill what the water portion would be with meter readings every 2 months and 90% of the time it seems the meter charge is less. PLUS knowing we can control our costs I am sure we can work on getting it down. So I think we will switch. I will look back and double check. On our current bill they would have billed us $40 for 2 MONTHS of water. As is they billed us $30 for 1 month at the flat rate. The savings looks like it will be on average $10/month. Not bad!!!!!

I'll double check our prior bills. I am not sure I noticed they were only doing the metered water in 2-month increments so it could save a lot more money than I realized. The 2 months is usually less than our 1-month bill. I am most definitely switching over ASAP.

The downside here is the ridiculous requirement for green lawns in the 100-degree summers. I think we will change the backyard to more dessert landscaping one of these days which will help. All of our appliances are really water saving (low-flow toilets, water conservative washers, etc.) so we have quite an advantage. I question how they have billed these newer houses all along. Of course there are a bunch of retirees living on our street in 2800-sf homes so no doubt their bills will lower considerably as they probably don't use near as much water as families like ours. We still wash diaper covers every day. Moving past diapers will save us a lot of money! But even beyond that we don't bathe every day or shower every single day. I think all of this stuff is to our advantage. Though if they find they aren't getting the revenues they will certainly raise rates. I guess it could be a gamble. But overall I am not surprised the meter will cost less. We grew up in drought country. It's just natural for us to be on the conservative side with water. We grew up not being able to shower every day. It isn't as bad as it sounds - I swear - LOL.

ETA: I did check and we would be saving on average $15/month (50% decrease) 8 months of the year. Save $10/month in May & June (gets hotter) and save $0 in July & August (no doubt all the lawn watering). So all in all we should save around $140/year on water!

The best is once we get the baby out of diapers we should be able to bring it down (& give the clothes washer a break!). Between that and the diapers and diaper service, well I hope it is sooner rather than later. We really haven't had the motivation to keep our water use down so maybe we can find more ways with extra motivation. Man I have been griping about how expensive water is here. No wonder. We still pay like $50/month for sewer or whatever. Geez. But I am very happy to no longer be penalzied on water just because we have a bigger house. Coming from drought country I was just shocked they did not meter water here. Just foreign to me.

Hey, in other news dh's car just rolled to 70k miles. The baby is about 7 years old so has averaged 10k miles per year. We've had it 5 years and got it with 15k miles. The first 6 months he was commuting to San Jose for work with it so probably put on some decent miles. Since then it hasn't got much daily driving but we tend to use it for road trips since it can get 35 mpg. The thing is still one of our newest cars ever at this point. It's a baby. I am not sure if it has ever really had much in repairs. We've gone years without spending a dime on it outside of oil changes.

The van is going to hit 50k by the end of the year. We've only had it a year (put 15k on it). It will be ironic if dh's car lasts longer. IT costs 1/2 as much as the van and so far I would say it is more reliable to boot. The van stands a chance though because dh is better about letting me use his car with gas prices lately. His car has been getting used a lot more lately...

Today dh saw that they lowered the price on the PS3s, today I believe, by $100. He grabbed his receipt only to find out that the expiration on returns for his PS3 was YESTERDAY!

Anwyay, he told me today that he was going to go demand a price match or return. I wasn't very optimistic. "Good Luck," I thought. But he just called me and he said he got a $107 gift card (includes tax) for the difference. He said he was polite but insistent and they obliged. He will put in a good word for the lady who helped him. He said if it hadn't of worked he would have tried another Target later. But score one for Target customer service. It was nice they were willing to bend as he was only 1 day late. Woohoo.

Since we already have a $50 gift card in the mail (to arrive soon from credit card rewards) and kids' party is done, we decided we most likely will save it for kids clothes in the fall. They seem pretty set in every other way shape or form and nothing else I can think of we need. We have the $50 g.c. for sale items like laundry detergent, in the meantime.

Then again with $150 coming to us maybe it is time to revisit the purchase of a GPS. Something to think about. Though there is no hurry on that. We have been wanting to do some geocacheing, but I think it will be another year before LM is up to some of the hikes we want to do. Then again if we could get a decent GPS practically for free, we can start looking for some of the local cahces... Hmmmm..

I had been meaning to and so I just ransacked my closet and tossed 51 items. Not bad. I think I still have more than I purged. I have to admit I left quite a bit of nice clothes that no longer fit "just in case I lose weight." Which is reasonable, especially with so much more room. Plenty of room to store it - our closet is the size of a small bedroom. Don't even ask - wasn't exactly my choice.

But I don't think I have ever done such a purge before. There was stuff in there that is a decade old from college and stuff. I did go through a while back and did the "I will never be a size 6 again" purge. Getting rid of everything size 0-6 or 8. I was such a waif in college and high school that I don't expect it is physically possible to be that small again, nor would I want to be. SO I finally thought what the heck am I doing with this stuff? My ideal wight is more a size 10 or 12 so I kept those and would be nice if I do lose the weight that I intend to but haven't really worked at yet.

So dh has a couple of bags to take to Goodwill full of clothes and toys. Phew. Feels good to purge!!!!!

I think I will have to institute a rule that next time I buy more clothes I have to purge as much as I buy. There was plenty of stuff I Was on the fence about and that would be a good way to handle those.

Most of the stuff I tossed was of horrible quality. I am a better shopper now and expect to still be wearing a lot of these clothes for a long time.

In regards to the thread of what would you do if you became a millionaire, I asked dh and he said, "I'd invest it." That's what I figured, but I double checked. I don't think there would be much fighting here, but I did wonder if I Assumed too much. He did ask if we could get HBO back if that was the case. I guess he could have his precious HBO. I was surprised he didn't ask for a new TV. LOL. Actually he said he would maybe want to buy a Prius and upgrade his electronic equipment, but for the most part he has everything he needs and he would rather invest it towards our mutual goal of working LESS. It's good to think you know how your spouse would respond but good to ask. I guess overall I agree. sure maybe we would splurge a very small portion, but overall it wouldn't affect our lifestyle. The funny thing is I said if I had $1 Mil to invest I would probably cut back my hours at work because I would no longer need to save for retirement - it would be well covered if invested well. Dh actually got a little annoyed with that answer - we would still need x and y and z. Yes I said, but I intend to save for x and y and regardless, but why work for retirement if it is covered? It is almost the #1 thing we work for these days! IF we don't need it, why bother. I think sometimes he gets annoyed with my work ethic. He obviously is not as supportive as my goal to work part-time as I imagined. I said if he wanted to work full-time it was just dandy with me, but wasn't on my list of things to do long-term if we had a $1 Mil windfall. I told him I hope he knew if I got a $20k raise tomorrow I would cut back my hours. I am not sure why he would be surprised/annoyed. He says he intends to return to work someday and we have his entire income to tap for extras and investing. So interestingly I knew how he would answer and I was correct, but I was taken aback how annoyed he is about my goal to work less. The thing is I could probably make twice as much as him working part-time within the decade so I don't really care what he thinks. I made clear I Wasn't talking about cutting back my hours anytime soon. But if we could live this lifestyle on a part-time income, which would be a cinch if I no longer needed to save for retirement - LOL - then well I Would be up for working less. I think he just imagines I would jump the gun or be careless in my career which isn't the case at all. A silly argument since the $1 Mil will likely never materialize. Not in our youth anyway...

Well it was fun while it lasted...

We bought our home for about $295k when all was said and done, in 2001.

It appreciated quite rapidly and hit the $650k mark in 2005. Dh and I made a deal around then that if our house hit $750k we would move. $795k would be TOPS because we could sell and take out $500k profit tax free and go semi-retire in Oregon or something. Doesn't really matter where because such a windfall so young would be pretty sweet.

But of course we don't expect to get there anytime soon, but we see it as possible in our future.

Sure the market has stunk but we had our house on the market briefly last year and nothing in our neighborhood had sold for less than $600k. We would have sold for much less if any offers came in, but we were in a hurry (were trying to get into a specific house - make a lateral move) and we ran out of time in 2 weeks when they found other buyers. So we only had our house on the market 2 weeks with a few crazy $450k offers. We would have taken $499k to sell fast. In the meantime the other houses that were on the market with ours - the sellers were patient and they all got $600k+. I was absolutely amazed. I guess you start to feel a false sense of appreciation. & believe me our neighbors were NOT happy we low-balled our house. You hear about frustrated first-time buyers complain about the greedy sellers, but try selling your house for $50k less than other houses are selling for. IT would have been a $250k profit in just 5 years, sure, but the neighbors were ready to lynch us and the realtors were harassing us. They had worked so hard to keep these insane housing prices in the neighborhood, god forbid someone actually wants to make a fast sale and settle for a more reasonable price. Which is why we gave up on the whole move thing - we got so sick of looking at crappy homes in the $600k range - very unrealistic - people unwilling to admit the tides had turned.

So anyway, our neighbors just moved and had mentioned to dh they did not do well at all. But they had to sell fast and get out due to medical reasons. They sold within the month. The house is a bit bigger and nicer than ours. IT's frankly gorgeous. But I just opened the paper and they sold it for $490k! I was shocked!!!! Whoa! I told dh the realtors around here were going to flip out!

As for us, not much to complain about. We could still sell and move and plop $200k in the bank easy. We still have options. But dreams of independent wealth are slipping fast. We haven't had many foreclosures in our neighborhood, but you know that there will be more with time. IT feels like this is only the beginning.

Well it was fun while it lasted!

You would not believe how many people around here would freak out about our equity. Why don't we spend it all, or aren't we rich, blahblahblah. I am just like, "here today, gone tomorrow..." But it has been here so long I guess we were getting a little used to it. I am not sure if our house has been worth so little since 2003 or so. But all the same we didn't make grand plans our lessen our retirement contributions because of it. We lost $100k equity overnight while our last home was on the market so live and learn... It put things in perspective for us here as our equity grew even more rapidly than our first home.

I honestly don't expect our house to fall below $400k like ever. But I guess you never know... Well, I should qualify that as long as the Bay Area is still going strong, I don't expect much further of a fall overall. Of course I have no idea why the Bay Area is still going so strong - it is really the land of ARMs. The truth is really that anything can happen. But as I said a million times, I really didn't care how low our house got because we bought something WELL within our price range. I remember when we bought some relatives here thought we were insane and we were just like, you can't even buy a real house back home for $300k so we were happy to grab up a nice house for the price. We didn't buy to get rich, has just been a side benefit seeing all the equity. Honestly we just bought because it was dirt cheap form our perspective. & with a 50% raise from my job since it is just that much cheaper in our minds.

On the plus side we kind of like lower values. We have been wanting to make a lateral move, but the property taxes would be insane moving from a house valued at $300k to one valued $600k+. So as things settle it makes it easier on us. IT is also much easier to sell a $450k house than a $600k house. Finally, I am happy if things settle down maybe our kids won't be completely priced out of the state. When you have some decent equity, ever-rising prices is not necessarily the best thing. Our house would have to fall to the $200k range for us to be upside down. So falling prices isn't exactly keeping us up at night.

As for us we have a big adjustment to our net worth schedule. I valued our house at $550k which I felt was quite conservative. apparently it isn't any more. I seriously wonder if $450k is too much now. Kind of a bummer, but I can see the bright side. Maybe my kids will be able to live here into adulthood after all...

Well the realtors around here are going to have to work hard to get back to our neighborhood's over-inflated values. It will be interesting to keep an eye on sales prices. I think buyers are waking up though...

You know we ALWAYS get compliments that our parties are relaxing. Dh and I tend to be pretty low key and I cringe at some of the lengths people go to for parties around here. It's like a competition. If they enjoy being Martha Stewart (& then some) good for them, but it feels like a Joneses thing.

As for us, we don't play the game and we always have the best parties anyway. LOL. Anyway, yesterday was a smashing success. A wonderful party, most people stayed for 5 hours which is insane for a kid party. I was ready for a nap. I was pleased because I didn't really do much to prepare. I think it made it extra low-key and people could sense it.

All our ice cream pies/cakes came out DIVINE. I will post the recipes. Everyone seriously thought we had slaved over it all though. I laughed at that - it was really pretty easy. But it was an experiment so I am glad it came out so good. Most of it is gone.

My bacon pinwheels were also an experiment that went well. I made 4 dozen and they were all gone by the end of the party, with many recipe requests.

The meatballs were a bit of a bust. They were certainly good, but dh and I agreed they were a little too ketchup-y. I have a couple of other recipes to try though - for next time.

We went through all the food except had 1 full pizza left. Over-ordered. But I am pleased most of the appetizers and dessert went. We'll have plenty of leftovers all the same. Fine with us.

The part that was frustrating was the kids got WAY too many gifts. We asked for none, they got too many. Gah. The only people who didn't give them gifts were my mom. Grandma gave them the cash and a pile of books. I am impressed with her resistance, but she did by them 100 toys and outfits when she babysat them for our cruise. Probably why. I still get the impression they got a little less than they would have otherwise. I mostly disappointed our neighbor who had a "no gift" party before bought a gift. We figured if nothing else she would understand. Then you wonder if she meant no gifts, because we certainly took it to heart. I don't like the games people call etiquette. Where people think you don't really mean it or it wouldn't be polite. But oh well.

They got a pile of books, some cash, video game, Mr. Potato Head, Toy Story 2 DVD, some large stuffed animals (dh's pet peeve - LOL - was all he would let me purge earlier was the stuffed animals but now we got MORE!). Oh and some walkie-talkies and some travel games from SIL for their Florida trip. They made out quite well! Dh and I gave them a toy tent with a periscope. It is really cool, we just gave it to the kids in the morning since it was a joint gift. They LOVE it.

At the party LM blew out his candles in one blow. I was SO impressed. I expected he would need some help. Actually he was impatient to wait through the Happy Birthday song and wanted to blow them out sooner!

We went to a joint party where they had 2 cakes and sang twice. I think if I had to do it over I would do that. At the time I thought it was a bit much. But I think though they shared their party they probably both deserve their own time to be recognized. We had 2 cakes, but I will have to remember that next year. It is really more fair to sing happy birthday twice so they both get a turn at all the attention. Mostly I realized I was so preoccupied with LM that I didn't really get to see that BM blew his candles out well too - he was very proud.

Today we don't have much planned. Recovery. I want to take a nap. A mark of a good weekend is if I have time for a nap. LOL. I am one of those people who is wide awake at 5am every day, but then have to nap in the afternoon. But rarely get to.

Tomorrow is back to reality. *sigh* But this was in a way a much nicer vacation than the cruise even. It is nice just to be home and enjoy time with the kids.

Tomorrow is crazy. Work/preschool than take BM to karate. Luckily it is at a cool park. It is LM's birthday. We figured we would meet at the park and let the kids play and go out for a late dinner. Will probably give him his gifts in the morning so he can play with them all day, and also because it will be such a hectic evening.

I absolutely dread work. I got NOTHING done last Monday & Tuesday because so many clients were having computer issues and I was put on IT duty. I will be doing IT duty Monday - probably going out to 2 clients to install stuff. On most days I would welcome the change in pace/schedule. It is more interesting to get out of the office and meet new faces. BUT considering how behind I am on everything I am not pleased. & July 31 is a big deadline that looms. I'll probably just work weekends until things get more under control. I have been stressed and dh asked if I would do better working at home. I said hell no - been there done that - don't like working from home in the least. But after Monday & Tuesday... He has a point. If I don't have to be the go-to gal for EVERYTHING I might actually get more work done at home. I have to at least pick 1 day a week where I lock myself in the office and don't answer the phone. Pretend like I am not there. It may be possible to juggle work and everything else, but I haven't figured it out yet. Historically I always work on long-term projects and I can get through them quite fast and effectively. But since I have become the jack of all trades in the office I find I get little done. I think it is more of a function of a more managerial role. I am working on delegating more work out which really is the only solution. But I don't enjoy any of this nearly as much. I rather work for weeks on 1 project - just what I am used to.

Well I got fat checks for the kids today so I popped on my online Vanguard account and set up their UGMA/UTMA accounts. Very fast and easy. Woohoo.

I had some money in my bank to spare so just took care of it. Was eager. I set up auto investments so $50 is going to each account every other month.

They may get a few more dollars before the end of the month as neither of them have had their birthday yet. 2 birthdays next week. I'll just hoard it up and deposit the rest (if any) at the end of the month.

The kids' net worth is now about $6k. Most of it is in a 529 plan. I am jealous. LOL. If they don't spend a lot on college, like we didn't, they are going to have a nice nest egg when they get out in the real world. That's the part I am little jealous of.

It is funny I read that MSN article on a bunch of financial tips (someone mentioned here) and one of them said yeah, take care of yourself first (retirement first), but investing a mere $25/month for college now can make a huge difference. I missed that one the first time but I must have taken it in subconsciously because it was around the time I read that article I figured I could budget $25/month/kid.

I don't really plan to do much more in the near future. Between this and the 529 (& all their gifts) I don't plan to put any more money in their name or in a 529. When our IRAs/401ks are maxed we'll working on building our taxable accounts and/or paying off the mortgage. A paid off mortgage is worth $15k/year which will go a long way for college if need be. I don't want to over-save in the kids' name. I want them to appreciate that they aren't going to get everything handed to them in life. If the rest is in our name we can spend at our discretion - college, help them buy a house out here, or just leave them to their own devices and retire early. That doesn't sound so bad...

No - Not HERE!!!

I called my mom yesterday and mentioned our 108-degree day and she topped it. I guess it was 118 in Vegas (my BIL is there for military training and my cousin is getting married there tomorrow). 118!!!

Well, she blew the wind out of my sails. I didn't go outside yesterday myself, but I just have to remind myself thank goodness it is not THAT hot here. I have been there when it was Hotter than Hades. But I am not sure about 118. Can you even go outside in that weather? Blech!

As for here, they predict 96 today. Not horrid anyway.

YEsterday we went through the kids' toys and it is like pulling teeth to get dh to get rid of ANYTHING. For one, the pile of the alphabet toys no one plays with but that we must keep until LM learns the alphabet. The thing is BM LOVED the alphabet and practically taught himself to read when he was 2. LM, not so in love with the alphabet! But we have to keep all these toys "just in case." Of course my pet peeve is the pile and piles of McDonalds Toys. & after yesterday my pet peeve is all the STUPID toys dh won't part with because the kids love them. Fine, the kids love them, but do they need them ALL? To his credit he honestly knows every toy in the house and where they are. I found all sorts of crap in the cupboards and when I threw something in the pile saying, "You didn't even know we had this or where it was," he proved me wrong. Just because I didn't know didn't mean he didn't know. I think it is extra frustrating to me though because I only see the kids play with a handful of toys. Dh swears they play with the rest on occasion. Whatever...

I will revisit a couple of things. He wouldn't let me throw out a box of old animal markers because some of them work and the kids ask for them. I thought later I Can at least throw away the ones that don't work!! & the worst fight was over crayons. Dh would not let me give away one crayon though somehow we have 100 boxes or something. LOL. I don't know, all the little boxes of crayons from the restaurants and happy meals, and just piles and piles of art supplies I have never seen used. I will approach dh again on the other new markers - if they are not being used they may dry out. The kids mostly use crayons at this age. & frankly I should just go over his head on the crayons - not like anyone would notice. Not like there would be a great shortage! Those strike me because I have a giant box myself from then I Was a kid. So I think more than 1 or 2 boxes is a bit much. We didn't buy ANY of this stuff. I swear every time we see grandma she has a box of crayons. Next time we'll just have to say no thank you please - we have enough.

We ended up getting rid of about 1/2 large garbage bag of stuff. Maybe a bit more. I think all we could really agree on was the stuff other people bought and a few baby things. LOL. I cleared some of the old bottles out of the cabinet as well so we had more room for all the play-dough in there.

I have to say when all was said and done, it was nice to purge what little we did. The kids have plenty but unlike most of their friends they don't have toys floor to ceiling when you walk in the house. & we certainly purged more toys than they will received today. SO phew! Not as much as I would have liked, but at least the toys are still within reason. I think I will have to institute a rule with dh, and the kids, that a new toy means giving up an old toy. Going forward it is really the only way to go to keep it under control.

In other news, I don't know if it is because I am being a little more frugal minded or what but I keep finding I don't have to buy much this year because in many instances for one-time things I already have what I need. Weird. When we went on vacation I found a stash of travel-size shampoo and and all that stuff from last year so didn't have to spend a dime on that stuff. Yesterday we were getting ready for the party but no need to buy utensils or paper plates or plastic cups - got it all. IT seemed like I had another example recently and it struck me as bizarre that I have all this stuff covered. well sounds good to me!

I did not go out in the heat yesterday but dh ran to the grocery store. Today I will go to the party store and get some balloons for the kids. Just our tradition, they love it.

I swear I have never thrown together such a last minute party, but it's not do bad. We came up with the menu yesterday and the house isn't even entirely clean yet. Kitchen is a mess but I figure I'll clean it after I am done with the morning cooking. Just taking it easy.

I am experimenting with 2 recipes today too. Something I usually wouldn't do, but what the heck. Some bacon pinwheel recipe thing (bacon, cream cheese, seasonings, rolled up in a crescent roll - bake and chop into smaller pieces). I am also trying a meatball recipe in the crockpot.
Both form our cooking mags.

Dh and I both attempted one ice-cream pie and they look divine. One is mostly cherries and vanilla ice cream & mine is vanilla & chocolate & peanutbutter cups & m&ms for the kids. HE also attempted the ice cream cake. I was wary but so far it was almost the easiest to make. Well they were ALL easy. We'll see how they go over.

On top of that ordering some pizza. & fruits and veggie trays, and some chips and salsa (which we always have a ton of laying around anyway). I have been lazy and gotten veggie trays in the past but I asked dh just to get some ranch dressing and some veggies. we can chop them. why have we been so dang lazy lately? LOL. I have these cute plastic trays with a little "bowl" in the middle for dipping sauce I got at target for a couple of bucks WAY back. The funny thing is everyone always raves about how cute they are. To me it's like, cheap plastic, but does the job. Oh yes and for fruit I have some recipe where you mix together sour cream and brown sugar - for a fruit dip. Everyone always raves about it - is a must - but couldn't really get any easier.

For ice we have been taking ice out of the freezer and storing it in bags so we have enough to fill the cooler without buying ice. We just started yesterday but looks like we'll have plenty with the ice trays too. Well the ice maker started working just in time. It would have been a lot more work the other way, but very doable and would do it to save a few bucks regardless. just emptying ice trays for a few days.

& so it goes. MIL was all amazed when dh said we are having 20 people over. I am like, well it is mostly YOUR family and not everyone could come. LOL. I just found that funny because we can't have a get-together without at least 20 people with dh's big family. Not exactly shocking. I think we are expecting 13 adults and 5 kids so overall it will be one of our smaller crowds. & that includes us 4 actually so not so bad,.

Anyway, for whatever reason dh was VERY helpful yesterday getting things ready. I guess not having the kids could be a big reason why. IT is hard to work together when someone is caring for/keeping an eye on the kids. I appreciate not having to do everything myself. Phew!

I hope the party goes well. I will let you know how much crap the kids get. We asked for no gifts but I heard the kids are getting walkie-talkies and a video game. We'll see. We asked for no gifts a couple of years back and it was quite manageable. & then last year they just got PILES so I like this way better. Dh got them a little tent with a periscope (CUTE) that he set up as a surprise for when they get up. We have a few things but will wait for their actual birthdays, which are coming up very soon! But anyway, if they go NO gifts I would be happy.

Oh yes and my mom always respects that the kids have too much crap so she is giving me cash for food. She told me yesterday she would bring $5 for food, as a joke (she'll give me $20 or $40). I said, "sounds good to me!" I mean seriously, would I turn down $5? When I said no gifts it meant I don't expect aNYTHING. She told me I have a great attitude. Well of course. But regardless $5 or $40, I'll be happy to accept some cash.

Yesterday was marvelous. I guess I have been missing a lot of the down time I had grown accustomed to. The last couple of days have just been grand.

Anyway, I was impressed when we got home last night and it was only 85 in the house (downstairs where the air hadn't been on). I figured maybe it hadn't gotten so bad, there was a bit of a cool breeze when we got home at 11pm. I thought differently when I woke up in a sweat and it was up to 85 inside (we had whimped out and turned the air to 80 right before bed - usually do this anyway and keeps cool overnight - turn it off once it gets to 80). So I woke up earlier than I intended to, sweltering.

Dh got up a bit ago and grabbed the paper. I guess it was 108 degrees yesterday! A record-breaker! Blech! Obviously we made a very smart choice to get the hell out and not come back until late at night. LOL. But unfortunately they have revised the forecast to 100+ degrees the rest of the week. Double blech.

Anyway, I share because the insulation and energy efficient measures in these houses still amaze me. That the house could stay at 85 while it was 108 outside! not bad. It is days and days on end of heat that it starts to get hot inside. But if we have cooler nights it just self regulates.

Oh well, frankly we are lucky we went this long without this kind of weather. It can be this way from May - September sometimes. Endless 90-100+-degree weather. It is still just a shock to my system since I grew up where the weather rarely varies between 60-80. I feel entitled to good weather because of it - LOL. But we have all the waterways and night cool breezes. Of course it usually doesn't get up to 108 until days of 100-degree weather and no breeze. So rather bizarre. The next week will be pretty unbearable. Thank goodness for a/c!

As for us, we had a great time. Got a bit of a late start and got to the Redwood Forest around noon. IT was CROWDED!!!!!! I guess a bad week to go. admission for us adults was $6. IT seemed pretty on the honor system though. Who knows if anyone checks or cares if you pay. But we did regardless. We ate at their pricey cafe and headed on a nice hike. The kids did spectactular. LM tripped and fell a few times so he is obviously not up to the big hikes yet. A lot of the road was paved and he did fine. But I think he needs another year (or 2) of walking to do any significant hikes with us. BM as usual was fine. HE could probably outpace us with all that energy - I am sure he could do an all-day hike if we wanted to.

After our hike we drove to GRandma's. We were able to avoid the tolls on the way to the forest, but had to take the Golden Gate Bridge down ($5 toll). I REALLY regret not having my camera in the car with me (had put it in the trunk). To us the Golden Gate Bridge is, eh, seen it a million times. But yesterday it was absolutely GORGEOUS. The fog was rolling by and it just looked mystical peeking out from the fog. We saw the city in the distance shrouded in fog as well. We rolled down the windows and enjoyed the COLD air as we waited to cross the bridge, thinking of all those suckers back in Sacramento yesterday - LOL.

There was absolutely no traffic so made it to Grandma's within the hour where the kids went swimming with their cousin. We got out really late but had a good time. GrandDad BBQed and we ate well! (Now I remember why our grocery bill was so low - we have been eating so good on our parents' dime).

Oh well, I have a million things to do today. Grandma is keeping the kids until 4-5 so I guess we best get to it.

With the heat I had an idea for ice-cream cake for the kids. Maybe splurge. I got the idea as we walked by DQ. Went in and didn't have a cake under $30 - yikes. I told dh I knew I had gotten cheap ice cream cakes before - we should try Baskin Robins. But he remembered an ice-cream pie recipe he had - was premade crust covered in hard chocolate (magic shell) then fill with ice cream and top with toppings. Looked so easy and DIVINE! We are going to do that... I am looking online for a simple recipe - something a little more kid friendly. I even found carrot ice-cream pie. LOL. Eeeew - I didn't even look at it - how weird is that. I don't wanna know - hehe.

He is onboard with my frugal pizza plan too. Two premade pizzas from the grocery store ($5/each) and order a couple from Round Table. The pizzas are on par but since we only have 1 oven I haven't really figured out how to bake 4, and I didn't want to cook all day. I think it is a good compromise. I'll take either pizza - they are both just our FAVORITES so it is not like the cheap pizza will be lesser and some people will feel gyped. LOL.

But I have some pics to share:

A hike we did by my folk's house. A little hilly park with trails where I used to ride my bike a lot as a kid. We did this as an easy/experimental hike and LM had a freakout that day. (May?)



But there was this lone house on the hill that struck me. I think I could go for that when I save my first millions of dollars. Just looked so peaceful.



& found some baby birdies by the pool:



& from yesterday... I didn't get a lot of great shots of the forest, but the kids were cute:

I already wrapped up June before, but I always have to wait for the final credit card statement to make sure nothing got missed and where we stand...

Was a very good month income-wise.

Received some cash to spend on our cruise, and had a good interest month. Also received $250 in credit card rewards and $200 in other money from freelance work. Dh also received $75 for his focus group. Seriously, a few months like that, and it is not so far-fetched we could come up with his IRA contribution as well next year. IT certainly adds up! Doesn't even include the $60 we spent in free gift cards (more credit card rewards).

(Oh yeah - and the $15 we found on the ground we deposited in the bank as well!)

As far as expenses, I treated myself to some clothes, a big chunk which I have yet to return.

Gas was $350 but with the state farm insurance rebate to offset it our auto expenses, net, were $300 or right on budget - woohoo.

Diapers - I paid 2 months on the service so bigger than usual. A good choice since otherwise it was mostly a low-expense month.

Gifts - Fathers Day & Kids' birthday stuff too. Portion of one FDay gift was reimbursed cash from other family. Sometimes I report those as income in Quicken but I don't think I did in this case. So was not all our own cash outlay at least. But June can tend to be a pricey month as we prepare for the kids' birthday. We didn't do much this year, in contrast.

Groceries came in at $375, or $125 under budget. Granted we were gone for 5 days and granmda probably stocked up on some food for us while we were gone. BUT we only ate out once (ordered pizza) all month. All in all I have to say we had a stellar grocery month. Usually the times we don't eat out at all our grocery budget reflects it a bit. Instead it was $50-$75 lower than I expected it to be and the only reason dh has to run to the store today or tomorrow is for party stuff - we have plenty of food! How bizarre! I hope this keeps up!

Medical - just our insurance premiums. Probably a first for the year.

Misc. was a trip to the zoo, a toy ball, and a few used books for the kids. A meager misc. month since I usually budget more like $150 just for extras/unexpected, and usually we splurge it at the end of the month if nothing else comes up. But with our cruise we took the attitude no other splurging all month. Zoo was last minute and spontaneous, but cheap enough to keep us well under budget.

All of our utilities are fixed (& yes expensive - water/sewer is insane around here, etc.) But gas/electric is only $75 of it. Not a bad month at all. May can often get up to the 100s but it was quite mild so we only had a $50 electric bill. phew. We'll pay June's bill in July. Bracing myself for that one. We've hardly run the air or heat since February. Until now!

Well, that sums up June. With the cruise (compounded by last month's very unexpected car expense) we did not have money to save for June. But since we got a rebate on the insurance and significantly reduced premiums on dh's car I pulled money out of short-term savings and put it into long-term savings. When I get my auto insurance in the next month or 2 I will have to evaluate if I can pull out more or if I pulled 2 much. I assumed my premiums would go down $200 for the year... Which so far looks reasonable/low-ball.

In Conclusion, June was a GREAT month because:

1 - We found lots of sources of extra income
2 - NOTHING "unexpected" came up
3 - We splurged so much on our cruise we kept it very low key otherwise for the month

If every month looked like this I could max out both our IRAs easy peasy. But well, usually life happens! & we generally don't find so much side income in 1 month either. Though we could certainly work on it...

Well, I am annoyed with dh for suckering me into the Rat movie yesterday. Sure, it was cute, but he knew it was a 2 HOUR MOVIE!!!!! I just do not know what the hell he was thinking. & now that I think about it next time it is his turn to take out the squirmy/screamy child. The only other time we took both kids to a movie was last year (Cars?). But when LM freaked out I was the one who left the movie. Though granted I didn't miss a ton, our plan was that he would sleep through it and I had to take him for a walk to get him to go to sleep mid-movie. But at least I saw the end. Anyway, yesterday I was very impressed how he did and figured he might sit through the whole movie. About an hour into it was his limit. He wanted to walk around. Every time I threatened to walk out he screamed, "no! I watch rat movie!" But since he clearly did not want to watch it we finally left. HE argued and tried to turn back a few times, but the lure of going to the pet store was enough for him to forget the rat movie soon enough. I said, "Let's go see the real rats!" It was 100 degrees outside and it was quite a walk across the parking lot to Wal-Mart & the pet store. We went in and looked at pets forever and had fun. Mostly fish, but lizards, birds, rodents, and cats too. Plus many dogs with their owners. I noticed the staff ignored us. I think we are clearly in the "kid couldn't sit through the movie" category. We are obviously not the only ones who use the pet store as free entertainment. LOL.

After about 45 minutes I was wondering what in the heck was going on so I called dh and I could clearly hear the movie when he answered. OMG. How long is the movie??? He tells me about 2 hours. I am just flabbergasted. Did he really think LM would sit through a 2-hour movie???? Gah. I assume it was a little thing. Of course now if I think back I thought Cars was ridiculously long as well.

Still waiting, we headed to Wal-Mart and looked at toys.

Finally found the fam and picked up MIL's cheap crappy pictures from Wal-Mart. She paid like $5 and I am not even sure it was worth that. LOL. People out here have an obsession with professional pics. I find with our equipment we can produce as good quality, certainly better than Wal-Marts so I don't bother. But MIL gets all upset and drags the kids in for pics (poor kids). Granted she has had some nice ones done at Sears on ocassion. But for the second time I was NOT impressed with Wal-Mart. I think we took BM there when he was 2, as a break/surprise for MIL. They had some special. But I wasn't really impressed in the least. However, we got some nice pics then. This time was way cheaper and not much to show for it. I am just not a big fan of Wal-Mart. If they have stuff that is the same stuff as Target and cheaper, fine, I'll buy it. But everything else is pretty much just CRAP if you ask me. In the Wal-Mart wars I don't really have that much problem with them as a business. I think they are the fall guy for modern retail. But as a business to shop at, I have never been a fan. I mostly try to stay the hell away from that place - LOL. Say "wal-mart," and all that comes to mind is insane crowds, dirty store, crappy stuff... Now I can add to the list - horrible pictures.

In the evening we headed to the Cal Expo for fireworks. In the past we would drive there at the last minute and try to find a free patch of grass at the local mall or one of the local businesses. I have to say the plan wasn't the worst. We decided to be a little more fancy and actually go pay for the parking at the expo and see the free entertainment. What was not clear was that the free "seats" was simply the ground. LOL. I have to admit, regardless, I had a great time, and BM rather enjoyed it, but LM was in hell. Poor kid. I think it is worthy for future years, but was a bust for LM. We sat on a blanket on the ground and I tried to entertain LM for a couple of hours while dh ran around. He ran to get the blanket we keep in his car for picnics and such (left in their from the park playdate days) - phew. Then we sent him for ice cream. Then I sent him for nachos which apparently was an hour-long line. HE didn't get the memo that the hell he went through for my nachos wasn't worth it. He just thinks I am a nacho nazi. But I guess he waited like an hour in the wrong line and they were REALLY disorganized, so when he was in the right line it was too long because everyone else in front of him was in the wrong line. ??? Oy vey. He eventually emerged with nachos about just in time to see the fireworks. Of course they freaked out LM, but I was optimistic since I don't remember him minding them last year. Dh ran him inside and missed most of it but it was absolutely SPECTACULAR. A very long show. Well worth the $7 to park and get up close. We had in the past watched them quite a few blocks away and don't remember them being so grand. Bm was a little frightened by them as well - we were just SO close. But he did okay - he really liked it.

Anyway, we got out of the parking lot within 15 minutes and home not long after so it was perfect. PArking was $7, All the food we got was $13. All that was certainly worth the show (plus talent show and a live band before the fireworks though LM could care less).

I have to say though, I have been really frustrated lately when we try to plan fun things with the kids and everything backfires. I finally put my finger on why recently, and not sure why I didn't notice before. We are big on routine and all that, as most kids need to be, but the second you break the routine they just freak out. In yesterday's case I think keeping that in mind I was a little more relaxed. Plus I guess it was obvious LM was going to have a hard time with all of these activities. I guess the moral of the story is to plan fun activities as much into the regular routine, as possible. Then again when we took them to the zoo the other day they completely missed their naps and had a blast. I guess they get a little more flexible with age. Phew.

Oh well, amazing enough I have something for my wish list. I haven't had much on there lately. Not really much I want. I guess lately my struggles have been trying to cut costs down on eating out and little splurges, not so much on material things. There is just not much I have wanted for which always drives dh and his family batty come christmas and all that. They can't fathom that I don't want *stuff.* But I will oblige them this year. I have my eye on a nice used Stairmaster. Something I would really enjoy and be positive. I had had the idea for a while but I am scanning Craigslist and they have all this unused equipment bought new for thousands and thousands of dollars, selling in the $200-$800 range. Best yet I saw there is a used workout equipment store that sells, delivers AND has a 30-day money-back guarantee. I might even checked that out - they were priced competitively with the private party stuff, at first glance. & well part of the reason we got the van was so that we could more easily buy & transport more used things. I figured exercise equipment was the epitome of the used deal. People buy it and don't use it, and sell it years later. So you can get practically new equipment at a fraction of the cost. I Feel the same way about most baby stuff, furniture and appliances, but exercise equipment is just top notch on the list with the abundance of "new" stuff just never really used. Yet worthless enough you can score some decent equipment for $200 if you shop right!

Oh well, I think it would be a bit much to buy right now. But frankly, it might be worth it. Spending a little money to get off some weight now. I'll talk to dh about it. You don't know how many times I went to the gym just to use the Stairmaster. I love them. But using it at home in front of the t.v. sounds even better & easier. Dh wants to get a bike. I think we can probably get both this year for Christmas if nothing else.

Well today we are going on a hike and MIL is taking the kids overnight. Our gas budget for the month ended up being $350, or $50 over budget. Still not bad considering all the driving (LA, SF, and SJ twice). We were saved by lower gas prices which I was just discussing with dh. I figured we were in trouble when they were up so high in the winter and spring, but they had mercy and dropped instead of the usual summer rise. Phew. MIL though said she was bored and wanted to keep the kids. We said sure since we have not done ONE THING for the party. IT is really unlike me to procrastinate like this on one hand. On the other hand I don't plan to do much and was keeping it low-key. So it goes. But tomorrow we really need to clean the house and go get groceries and see what we need, etc. Bake cupcakes, and on and on. So it is great she'll take the kids! She is semi-retiring this year from teaching, and retired after this last year. She does not have to prepare for a class though and usually she has a million things going on, so no doubt she is bored. I think it is great that this will be the second week in a row she'll take both kids overnight. we are certainly spoiled!!! For the long haul I am not sure how the gas and wear and tear on our cars and all that can handle this. I always liked the distance between us because she can be a little over-bearing, but I am starting to think maybe it would be a lot better if she moved up here. Who knows I guess, FIL will not retire for a while. She is scared to make the drive up alone so it created more problems. Otherwise I think we could just say, "sure, you're bored, come get them." LOL. Anyway, the year ahead will be interesting. For the most part it is really nice and freeing for us to have so much free time. My mom and dh's grandma don't work and take the kids on occassion, but neither can keep up very well. MIL is the only one who will take them hours or days at a time so I see more breaks for us in the future. & when she takes them the kids have more opportunity to visit with extended family than we usually have with our random weekend visits when everyone is busy. So it's good for them.

Well the next 3 days will be LONG... & busy!

Oh yeah - but today is s'posed to be 105 degrees and we are skipping town. Yikes!!!!!! I left the upstairs a/c set to 85 so the cat doesn't melt. She'll be okay, there are some cool spots. Turned off downstairs. We'll see what we come home to tonight. Last year a friend came home from a long heat wave to a 100-degree house and a dead fish. Can you imagine???? I had always left the air on for the cat and that was a good reminder as to why! As for this week, today is s'posed to be the worst and it is s'posed to cool down a bit the rest of the week. Phew. I told dh hopefully we get home late enough we can just let the downstairs cool off overnight. It might get to 90 or something if it is that bad out. It's already 81 in here since it didn't cool down much overnight. But leaving means we don't have to run the a/c on max all day today. When we get home it will be 85 upstairs and we can pop open a window. The heat sucks but at least we get cool night breezes usually... Since we don't have to cool the kids' rooms tonight - the window should do. I laugh at some of the comments on how we bought a bigger home before we had kids - and the comments that it was a waste to cool/heat the rest of the house in the meantime, the empty rooms. Um, not exactly. We have an upstairs and downstairs system, and so before kids we would only run the downstairs a/c and heat which would waft up to our bedroom at the top of the stairs. We NEVER heated or cooled the other 3 upstairs rooms in the house. But now with kids in mind we have to run the upstairs a/c and such. But not tonight!

Dh ran my paycheck to the bank yesterday. (No direct deposit here). On the days BM is in preschool he'll brave the bank with LM.

BM went to preschool because they were having a 4th of July parade and she had a spot. So he went Tues instead of today which is a holiday anyway.

When I dropped him off I did not see my friend or notice her car but I noticed it on the way out. Strange, I thought, since I didn't hear her or see her when I walked in - I haven't seen her since the cruise.

So I asked BM later if she was there in the morning and he said, yes, that there were a lot of moms at the parade. I either wasn't invited or didn't realize I could stay. I was a little jealous - LOL.

Oh, VERY interestingly is my son is a drama king and I am interested in getting him into children's theatre when he is older. Even just to try it out, give him a taste. But he seems to have what it takes. (Interestingly, dh took a bit part in an internet sitcom his production company is working on and he turned out to be the "star." I had no idea he had an actor in him, but he is very good with humor and so I am not surprised he is probably the most adept of the bunch at improv comedy. He's also written some hilarious scripts for a sketch comedy show so maybe it's just in the blood. Though BM is MUCH more extroverted and charismatic and dramatic and all that stuff, which is why we have been saying since he was pretty little that he is going to be an actor. He's got the personality). Anyway speaking of the personality, the husband of the preschool owner is a very demure, quiet guy and she just told us he was in a local play. I just figured he must have a bit part or something, but I was telling dh so we looked it up to find out more and he is like the LEAD!!!! I didn't know he was a big actor guy.

But the theatre he is working at offers workshops to 4-6-year-olds. For $100 they have a class one hour a week for about 2 months and then they have a part in the current production as well (a group part it sounds like) and then after the show they feed them pizza or something. It looks like the perfect thing to try out. Not only does he get to learn a song and dance, but he would get to be in a big production? I think that is so cool! It was too late to sign him up this summer, though it looks like they have classes 3-4 times per year. I am not sure they always work the kids into the show. But I am thinking maybe next summer. He will be a little more mature and things should be less crazy.

This theatre is kind of far away as well, so in the meantime I should probably look long and hard for closer opportunities.

I guess we have to brace ourselves if he does enjoy it - time consuming! All the more reason to wait.

LM has been singing ABCs - but he usually gets to about "ABCDEFG, Next time won't you sing with me..." LOL. So I almost fell over yesterday when he sang the whole ABC song by himself. Wow!

As for BM, he counted to 100 the other day. He has had the building blocks to do so for a while, I think he needed help with 60, but he really did it. Wow! I told him if he could count to 100 he could count to 1000, but we haven't tried it yet! I thought this was cool since grandma said she would give him $1k for his birthday. I told him maybe it's a good rule that you can't have that much money until you count it, and now he understands just how MUCH that money is!!!!! Well, he will when he attempts to count that high. LOL. But he is all excited to have money for the bank - he has been a little fascinated since I drug him to the bank a couple of time. He asked what we could buy at the bank which was cute. I said we don't buy - it's where they pay you to keep your money there, and so it grows. I know most of it is probably lost on him but I am milking his interest for all it is worth.

Speaking of which I double checked Vanguard's Auto Invest Plan and you can put in the $50 minimum as often as you want - weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever. It is not a cinch to set it up every other month. But I think I will start $25/month/per kid. Since I have to do minimum $50 per account I will just set up a schedule to alternate accounts. $50 every other month to each, staggering so I have a $50 outlay every month. I think that works best. I was thinking that I can do $75/quarter or something, but then it gets complicated. $50/month, automatic pay them first, out of sight out of mind. Maybe next year I can up it to $50/month each. In the next couple of years I'll be able to cover it, but I think it is a bit much for now.

As for us, by the end of the month I project $11,500 in the efund. It would be easy peasy to get to $12k from there, interest alone for the rest of the year would do. But I will be diverting a chunk to the IRS for my final ROTH conversion. I will probably just do it this quarter, we are doing well on cash. I figured maybe I will set a rule to not drop the account below $10k, and just get it done. Barring the unforeseen, we will still get to $12k at 12/31. I just want my efund "full" and my IRA converted to ROTH before I can and will contribute to the ROTHs again. I have a goal of $400/month starting 1/1. Of course, I am not leaving dh out in the cold. I will split it between our IRAs. It is just easier thinking of terms of mazing out 1 IRA. In dollars though we usually contribute pretty 50/50 to our IRAs. Maybe more heavily in dh's since I have so much in my work plan really. It probably does make more sense to max his out as a result. But it is complicated since we still have small amounts, I diversify all our accounts as if they are all one IRA. He has all the indexes and I have all the mid-cap/small-cap/managed funds. I'll probably start heavily investing in his indexes but will have to evaluate periodically if I need to add to some of the other funds to keep our planned portfolio mix.

But the cool thing about building back up our cash is all the interest. It just means less we have to save. With the balance transfers we will pull in $100/month interest for a while. My goal is to put away $100/month, and wala new car fund. It helps we don't plan to purchase another car for a LONG while - 10 years plus. But cash in the bank and interest certainly makes it a lot easier. Dh and I could both buy brand new cars in 10 years at this rate. Then the simple $50/month to the kids.

All that for the low price of $550/month. College fund, 2 new cars, IRA maxed. It's really not that hard - just have to start small! This is why I never *got* debt though, everything just costs twice as much when you put it on a card or make a payment plan. You can't buy 2 new cars for $100/month that way. But I have always preferred to earn interest rather than pay interest myself.

I've heard good things about haircuts at the beauty institute around here, but since we generally don't spend a lot on haircuts and I stay away from SuperCuts after many a bad cut, it didn't sound terribly appealing. Not that I go to the salon, but I have been much more impressed with Great Clips - and is quite cheap. Though I must admit you have to take the risk of the occasional bad haircut anyway.

However, was flipping through a coupon book in the mail and they had a big ad for kid haircuts at the beauty institute. $1 for every year of age. WOW! I cut both kids' hair to about 2 & butchered LM's hair so bad last time I figure it was time for the pros. BUT the thing is we take him to the kid place with the car chairs and the TVs. Beauty institute does not have the TVs apparently BUT they have the car chairs and even give you a balloon for free with your very first haircut. All this for $1 if we get him in before his birthday next week! Not bad, not bad. I think for the kids it will suffice. We'll give it a try. You can also pay a small premium for the more experienced people. Will have to check out the rates again.

I think with tips BM's last haircut cost $15. We just try to limit it to 2 times a year and not worry about it, it's not terribly expensive. But I meet keep him more trimmed at $4 a pop.

As for me I got a cut around January and I was thinking it was time for a chop. But 2 people asked me if I had had a haircut, my hair looked really nice. LOL. I decided why bother. I got the most excellent cut last time and it still shows I guess.

In other news dh finally got a date for his Mt. Shasta hike and I am happy that preschool had a spot for LM. So I got the kids covered for M/W and my mom will come help with the kids on the Tuesday. The alternative will be to just take T/Th off and work the weekend instead. I have plenty of vacation time, but too much work to do!!!! Anyway, LM full-time for 2 days is $70 and so dh's focus group money will really help for this. Woohoo. If he only stays 1/2 days it will be $50. We will just have to play it by ear. I am not sure he is up to the all day thing, but if he naps with the other kids and doesn't disrupt them he will probably be just fine. He'll have his brother and he just loves it there. The alternative was for grandma to take them all week but I wouldn't like that. I would miss them. I am pleased I arranged something that won't interfere too much with work anyway.

Dh went a little crazy and bough a few toys for the kids' birthday last night. Oh well. Just more spoiled as usual. MIL told me all she got the kids was a couple of books (outside of cash) in respect for my request for no gifts. Well, we'll see. LOL. I'll believe it when I see it?

My grandma sent me a bunch of shoes she did not want to throw out but could no longer wear. Funny enough a lot of then said size 10 but were too tight on my. Figures. Others were not my style or just more worn than I cared for. So I told dh we should run a batch to Goodwill (I did make out with a couple of very nice pairs of shoes though!!!). & we really need to go through the kids' stuff and make a Goodwill pile. We just got crap spilling out of every cupboard. I know we can get rid of a few million toys. & a few from Christmas that we might try to sell. BRand new in box. Though for the most part I think we'll donate most of it.

The weather has been rather mild here but it is s'posed to be in the 105-110 range the rest of the week UCK!!!!

We haven't decided what to do for the 4th but will probably see some fireworks somewhere (if nothing else, at the mall). For the rest of the week we plan to go see the new rat movie. Will be experiment - take both kids. Not sure LM is up for it but we can leave and go for a walk if it is too much. BM will love it.

Going to a redwood forest just north of san francisco another day. I am not sure where dh's brain is but he is like, I don't think we can go on a hike in 100+ degree weather. You think? I said all the more reason to get the heck out of here. I looked and weather in SF will be around 70. Sounds QUITE refreshing. I have no idea why dh thinks it would be 100 degrees in SF though. LOL. Silly. But anyway, there is a very small hike. We tried a smaller hike a few months back and LM had a freakout, but he tromped all over the zoo without a prob last week so we decided to give it a whirl. It will depend on his mood I guess. I REALLY look forward to next year when he is up to more hikes. We really want to do more outdoor stuff with the kids. But it is nice when you don't have to pack the diapers and bottles and stroller. My kids were huge and way too big to carry any length so we just haven't done much hiking with them. But we went on some big hikes in Hawaii last year and BM LOVED it so we are trying to get into it with him. The abundance of day hikes around here is beyond belief so I think we will have much to explore as the kids get older. I hope LM shares the same enjoyment as he gets longer legs and can keep up better!

Saturday is the kids birthday party, but looks like mostly family. Very low-key. Not much to prepare.

Well today is my Friday. I will bring a ton of work home for the long weekend but not sure if I will get to any of it. No more vacations for a LONG time after this though.