I wanted to do a reality check on our spending for this year. I just had to spend a minute or two running reports in Quicken to gleam the following.

2016 Stats through April 30th:

--Spending is $15,580 for 1/3 of the year.

This is $3,132 less spending than same time frame last year.

Major difference is that we paid $3k for Japan trip in spring 2015.

I'd say we are pretty consistent. The Japan trip was clearly a one-off.

One thing I was concerned about is if we were justifying more spending with dh working. I'd say the answer is no.

In fact...

--Gross Income is up a mere $326. Versus the same time period last year.

Factoring taxes, I'd say our net income is lower.

Is dh working for the money? Clearly no.

{I made less OT money and didn't chase as many credit card type rewards}.

Other Stats:

--Net Worth is up $20,000, from January 1.

--If we paid off our mortgage today we'd have $125,000 left in savings/investments.

I think we have crossed the line to feasible. This would leave our Traditional IRAs and kids' college money (gifted) intact.

Is not something we will consider until we can do so without raiding our ROTHS. But, we are getting there... It's starting to snowball down the hill. We went from $0 to $125k in just 3 years, and that should just continue to accelerate.

Received $36 bank interest for the month of April.

Snowflakes to Investments:

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $42 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $5 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$7 Savings from Target Red Card

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$ 200 to investments
+$ 300 to cash
+$ 900 to IRAs

+$3,000 OT to savings (will fund my mortgage goal)

Savings (From dh's paycheck):
+$ 840 to Savings/Investments

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
- 500 life insurance

{That's $6,155 total saved this month!}

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

Grandma slipped me $300 for doing her taxes. I'd say we spent about $200 of that for Robot Wars and related expenses. So I just left this money in the checking account to cover expenses. Will consider all that a treat from her.

Mortgage goal is funded, thanks to OT. (I really didn't work a lot of OT this year, so was glad I made just enough for our annual mortgage goal). But as usual, I am just setting it aside for now and seeing how everything else shakes out. I will apply the $3,000 to the mortgage some time between now and 12/31.

I mentioned in my last post that we are going to spend down some of our liquidity. It's a long story. But I wanted to be clear that it's not a "spend money to spend money" kind of thing. The next step for us is hitting our mortgage hard (our only debt). The short version is that it seems to be more sensible to take care of home improvements before we start throwing large sums at the mortgage. If I have $8k to throw at the mortgage, maybe I'd rather complete some long put off home improvements with that money. On the flip side, we want to have *all* of our ducks in a row before we start throwing bigger dollars at the mortgage. I believe this is our last duck. (& if we had no ducks to tend to, then we'd be throwing some of this money at the mortgage. So I guess either way we will be spending it down).

Received $38 bank interest for the month of March.

Snowflakes to Investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $40 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $2 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$5 Savings from Target Red Card

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Savings (From dh's paycheck):
+$1,400 to Savings/Investments

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash

{That's $4,235 total saved this month?}

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

It's been rather weird and quiet on the financial front. Eventually we will get hit with some bigger bills. I have no idea why I have not gotten dh's MRI bill yet.

Of course, we saved so much by virtue of February being a short month I guess. I don't feel like it was a spectacular month on the low spend front, but these numbers say otherwise (since we pay off all February bills in March, then any March savings reflects last month's spending).

April should be a bigger savings month since I expect to receive one check for 4 months of overtime. I feel like March was a pretty lax month on the spending side of things. Probably justified a few too many treats because it was busy. But that said, all the splurging was food related. There was no retail spending this month.

Work has been really slow for dh, which I think has worked well with my busy work season. We only saved so much because it was a 3-paycheck month. I believe he had at least 3 Fridays off in March. I much rather put more of his paychecks to the mortgage or taxable investments and will re-think that since we don't seem to be on track to make as much money as we thought we would this year. I think I will leave it as is but might back his 401k down to 6% from 50% (for match) come fall when maybe he should be working more. I just have to run some tax projections and is why I figure I will let it be for now.

Received $36 bank interest for the month of February.

Snowflakes to Investments:

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $37 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $3 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$40 Citi Price Rewind
--$ 5 Savings from Target Red Card

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Savings (From dh's paycheck):
+$355 to Investments

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
+367 Insurance rebate
-$250 Auto Insurance

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

March is a 3 paycheck month for dh and we already have the cash to pay all the bills (February spending) and so I expect we will be able to save $1,500 (his entire paycheck) + the $2,700 I usually save.

This is how I Was expecting to hoard up $10,000 (for car replacement) by May. I am also expecting a $4k overtime check for this tax season, in addition to the above. I will get a lump sum in April. Dh will probably match that with his job, first 5 months of the year. Then he will have summer off and I won't be working OT. So this is peak earning season for us. Taking advantage.

How has it been him working during crazy busy time? Dh working = *shrugs*. It's been really slow and he has had a lot of time off. March and April might be a different story, but it will just fly by. I can't believe it is the end of February already!

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

For February, dh's check was so small that I just threw it into investments. I believe it was $160 net. The rest of it went into 401k.

I expect his net to be closer to $700 for March (after 401k), and so will just add his paychecks to savings. I will probably keep throwing that into savings until summer. We have some big expenses coming up.

February 14:
$117 Groceries
$12 Kohls
$ 2 amazon (TV show streaming)
Dinner: Sweet & Spicy Salmon w/Garlic Butter Rice

Dh did a grocery run Sunday.

I made out well at Kohls though I didn't find anything suitable for work. I think it was my mood. I tried on like 30 things (which is why I like Kohls so much - they are okay with you taking in piles of clothes to the dressing room). I just felt so "meh" and "ugh" about everything. Which is too bad because I actually found a lot of nice stuff in the clearance racks. I usually don't bother to go through those, but I spotted some really pretty colors and started going through it all. Then I tried it all on and said, "UGH!" In the end I picked up 3 t-shirts. Two are a little winter-y and Christmas-y (long sleeved). & I had wanted to pick up another plain black shirt. They didn't have the nicer one I had bought last time but they had a short-sleeve one that will do. I did take a picture of a couple of shirts that were not on sale and that I think I would have been happy with. I can look online later.

Anyway, the three shirts I picked up were $12 total. I think I did pretty good. I really loved the two winter-y shirts I got, so there is that. Oh, and I scored a plastic bag! I suppose I don't know what all the rules are with that. I was thinking it must have been the first retail store I have been into this year. But now that I think about it I went into Walgreens once and they were charging for plastic bags.

Dh wants to use up our movie gift card this week (going out while the kids are gone). We discussed using a restaurant gift card that we got for Christmas but decided to keep that for when we take out the kids. It will be nice to cut down the bill when it's the four of us. I think that is all we have left in gift cards right now. Well, other than a $2 Barnes & Noble gift card balance.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that I also have a $20 Target gift card from work gift exchange.
Dh is planning to use it today towards a grocery run.

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

Mid Month Spending Totals:

$283 Groceries
$19 Fuel
$4 TV Streaming
$209 Everything Else

That leaves $367 left for groceries and $68 left for everything else. I expect we will spend about that much on fuel for the rest of the month. & of course, we can always spend less on groceries to free up more general spending money.

We are very aggressive with paying ourselves first, and so we would never have money left over at the end of the month. Psychologically it's what works for us.

We are planning to take dh's Grandma out this next weekend though. That is such a one-off thing, as is our medical co-pay this month, that I will probably cover these things from our short-term savings. We do also save aggressively for that, which is just for non-monthly expenses during the year. So that buys us some wiggle room. Especially early in the year when we have not spent down any of that. But of course, if I can cover these things from our monthly budget I will do that. The more I can keep for more fun spending later and for the more random things that always pop up, the better.

On the flip side, we both get paid this week and we already paid all of our bills for the month. So 100% of our paychecks are going to savings. (The daily spending is put on our credit card for rewards. Will pay this month's charges off on the first of March, or the following payday).

Received $35 bank interest for the month of January.

Snowflakes to Investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $45 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $10 cash back on Visa/dining card. {Lots of eating out in January, with a couple of weekends out of town}

I have officially phased out 5th credit card (ROTH rewards) and so all my ongoing rewards are now just cash back. 4th credit card is Target card. I suppose I should add those savings to snowflakes too. For January it's a whole whopping $1.50 saved (I have no idea how or why we only spent $30 at Target this month. Is probably a record low. Dh manages the grocery shopping there). I'll add that to "other snowflakes".

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$25 Ting Credit
--$1.50 Savings from Target Red Card

Snowballs to investments:
--Invested $2,500 tax savings (for funding Traditional IRAs)
(Funded $1,500 with tax refund + moved $1,000 over from savings)

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$750 Various Insurance

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

Dh did not work this month. I received a small raise that just covers increasing expenses. So I just kept our savings goals the same as prior year.

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

First 4 months of year is low-spend/high-save, generally. Will hoard up cash for medical expenses (dh had an MRI this month) and some home repairs. We also want to save $10k in addition for car replacement.

2015 was a big year for us. We had a peak net worth of $498k in 2005, and then our net worth went down years 2006-2011. Our house lost $400,000 in value during that time, while we were saving and doing well with the rest. Housing started to turn around here in 2012. Our house is still $250,000 below the peak, but we've been increasing cash and investments over the years.

& so it seems like it took forever, but we finally did it! We surpassed $500k net worth in 2015. Moving on up!

We also made our net worth goal, which was to increase net worth by $42k (70% of expenses).

This is what I had estimated for 2015:

Cash + $5,000
Investments + $5,000
Retirement + $11,000 (Max IRAs)
Investment Returns + $14,000 (assumes 6% returns)
Mortgage Paydown + $7,000
---------------------------
net worth + $42,000
---------------------------

& here is how 2015 shook out.

2015 Actual:

Cash + $0
Car Purchase + $13,000 (Added asset to net worth)
Investments + $6,000
Retirement + $11,000 (Max IRAs)
+ $5,500 (2014 IRA)
Investment Returns + $0
Mortgage Paydown + $8,500
---------------------------
net worth + $44,000
---------------------------

I am fine with leaving this goal the same for next year. I think it will be doable. But overall, we want to start increasing our net worth by a full $60,000 per year. Even though that is 100% of our current spending, it is actually far more than I Expect that we will spend in retirement. I'd like to get to this somewhere in our early 40s. With dh working, maybe we can get there at 40. I really do expect to hit a seven figure net worth by age 50, which we will call "financial independence." I expect our 40s to be our last final push on the earned income/growing net worth stage of our lives. I expect to earn far more from our investments by the time we are 50, and in turn I expect "work" to fall down the importance scale significantly.

I am sure if we start hitting $60k annual increases early on that those amounts will increase over time with investment compounding. On the flip side, gives us some room to still make our goal with normal market fluctuations.

2016 Estimate:

Cash + $10,000 (saving to replace vehicle soon)
Investments + $10,000
Retirement + $11,000 (Max IRAs)
Investment Returns + $15,000 (assumes 6% returns)
Mortgage Paydown + $7,000
---------------------------
net worth + $53,000
---------------------------

Wow! More than I would have expected. Maybe at 40 I will just revise my goal to $50k annual net worth increases.

I am copying and pasting sidebar, to memorialize in my blog. Brief Commentary below.

2015 Goals

**Financial**

[X]$11,000 to IRAs 2015 (MAX)
...($11,000 @12/31/15)
...$10,850 savings;$150 credit card rewards
...We save $900/month, plus ROTH credit card rewards

[X]$5,000 to savings
...($5,000 @ 6/30/15)
...We save $300/month, plus interest
...Received an unexpected gift and so will stop tracking savings this year. Just want to have $5k cash more than last year.

[ ]$5,000 to investments
...($4,596 @ 12/31/15)
...We save $200/month, plus snowflakes

[X]$4,100 to mortgage
...($4,100 @ 12/31/15)
...$3k per year to pay off in 15 years; $3,100 *this year* will be more principal than interest!
...Funded with overtime
...Added $825 (gift) to get balance below $175,000

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

I am putting this under the "one income" category because these goals were based on my income alone. & dh brought in a whopping $2,000 in 2015, which was more of a snowball. I did not use any of his wages for the above goals.

We fell a little short of our investment goal. I am fine with that since I will have a tax refund to deposit in a month or so (getting us to $10k+ in taxable investments, which was more my "bigger picture" goal). Since the "big picture" is currently much better than I expected for 2016, I just can't bring myself to care that I Fell short of my 2015 goal by $400.

Received $35 bank interest for the month of December.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card reward to ROTH IRA.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $67 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $1 cash back on Visa/dining card.

I was also able to add an additional $670 from Christmas cash received.

Reinvested $325 Dividends

------------------------
Total snowflakes: $1,138
------------------------

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$1,500 to home/disability insurance

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

In addition to the above, added $825 to the mortgage (using Christmas money received). This put us below a $175k balance.

{This was all I did with Christmas money before check bounced. Also threw $1k to the credit card to cover recent splurges. This is why I didn't go more in the hole with that. When I get the check replaced and cleared we will fund our IRAs. Which we'd do anyway, but this just saves us from moving money around and keeps our savings account fatter}.

I believe dh made $189 this month and I didn't do anything with it. I suppose I will consider moving that over to investments. I just haven't got that far yet. (Everything is a bit of a mess because of our bounced deposit!)

Edited to add: Cleaned up Quicken a bit today and don't seem to have any money leftover, so will just use dh's checks in December to cover concerts/events we paid for. I had not used gift check for this and I did not pull from savings to cover this. He actually received $635 and we paid $625 for shows. (I forgot he had one bigger paycheck the first of December, for November work).

Received $36 bank interest for the month of November.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $48 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $2 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Savings (From my paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Snowballs to savings:

+ $ 85 Citi Price Rewind
+ $207 credit card reward
+ $220 freelance video work (net of expenses)
+ $300 Chase checking reward
+ $900 Dh's paychecks

I am just hoarding up cash for now. Waiting to see how things shake out 12/31.

{P.S. What a month!!}

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
- 340 Auto registration and insurance
- 550 Dentist(3)
- 5,000 Property taxes

I went ahead and just prepaid property taxes again, for the whole year. It is so much simpler.

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

Goals for 12/31:

--6 months' cash efund (bare minimum cash for long run)

--Have $11,000 cash to fund 2015 IRAs, in addition to the above

--Put an additional $1,400 to investments

--Put an additional $825 to the mortgage

I am hoarding cash and seeing where we end up. I know at the least I can probably attain all of the above if I fund IRAs in January or February. Not so confident doing it all by 12/31, but will see.

Received $40 bank interest for the month of October.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $80 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $10 cash back on Visa/dining card.

{These last two were much higher than usual due to vacation expenses}.

Other snowflakes to investments:

--$12 rounding (gets us to $3k)

--$ 25 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)
**This is the final free month since we've run through our credits**

Savings (From paychecks):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
- $150 Auto registration renewal

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

A little commentary on our savings goals:

With dh working, I expect to increase our savings rate roughly from 30% to 40%. But I suppose we will work through that next year.

IRAs: I just happen to expect another $50 credit card reward to my ROTH and so we will get exactly to $11k max this year. It usually doesn't work out quite that perfect. I usually try to get close and just top it off end of year.

I did see that IRA limits are unchanged for 2016 so this goal will remain the same for 2016.

Investments: I am thinking of abandoning this goal. Not in a bad way though. I had intended to invest $7,500 this year.

I've yet to fund $1,400-ish from my OT. Sure we've had a splurge-y year and maybe that is a lot of it, but we have also had a very charitable year (by our own standards). I am thinking of letting this go since we have given about this much to charity. & I definitely foresee charity being a higher focus next year with dh working. For this year, we just knew a lot of people suffering a lot of hardships. A lot of stuff came up that we felt compelled to give cash to. I know next year we will probably have more means AND also switching to more cash giving as we have less time to donate. (We've been infinitely more focused on donating *time* since having kids - with lots of time and less money, but that is starting to shift the other way - probably more 50/50 in the interim).

I was also going to invest our tax refund, estimated at $2,500. I was going to invest around 12/31, since we have the cash, and reimburse our cash when we get our tax refund in early February. I am still going to invest the refund, but I am not going to count it towards this year. I will just invest it when I get the money. I was thinking the money was really saved this year, and it's true, but I'd also rather keep it simple.

I've revised my sidebar for the $2,500 (tax refund) and we can wait and see on the other $1,400. I've still got time to scrounge it up.

Received $40 bank interest for the month of August.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $33 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $3 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Redeemed $50 AmEx rewards as a ROTH contribution.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$ 30 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

+$1,500 cash gift (to savings)
-$1,500 to pay off medical bills

I suppose that last part was a wash.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$ 385 auto insurance (other vehicle)
-$ 325 Life Insurance
-$ 120 School Lunch for 6-12 months

{I'll be draining the "short-term" part of our savings in the next month or two to pay property taxes}.

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

LM has hit $500 in his savings account! I can't tell you how motivating the 7% accounts have been for the kids. Now that they both have $500 that is the max that can earn the 7% interest on.

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

Dh did receive a $125 focus group payment this month but I didn't snowflake it. We seem to be in the hole this month. Spent more than we should have.

Received $39 bank interest for the month of July.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $52 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $1 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$ 30 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)
--$100 Random refund (from a developer fee paid to city like 15 years ago)

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$ 540 auto insurance
-$ 200 Back to School Expenses
-$ 160 Spending during So Cal weekend

Received $38 bank interest for the month of July.

Snowflakes to investments:

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $50 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $2 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes to investments:
--$ 30 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

But... Took out $800 for medical bills.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$2,000 Hawaii airfare

Received $38 bank interest for the month of June.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $83 cash back on Citi card.

Redeemed $1 cash back on Visa/dining card.

Other snowflakes:
--$200 (no piano lessons July)
--$300 sale of piccolo
--$ 30 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)

In the end, I added all the snowflakes to savings. Savings got drained a bit for the car purchase and mortgage pre-payments. So I felt all the windfalls were better used to bulk up savings a wee bit.

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

But... Took out $2,600 for summer school, medical bills, and wildlife vacation. OF course, after that drained savings further for car purchase/mortgage paydown.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$60 Medical
-$385 Auto maintenance/repairs

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

Current cash position:

Still have about 8 months of expenses in the bank, so am happy with that. Plus a 9th month in taxable investments.

Upcoming known expenses:

--Medical, medical, medical

--Still have not paid anything for Hawaii yet

Just got back from annual camping trip in the Sierras.

Life continues to be stressful and crazy. The minor annoyances continue to pile up.

While my dad was here (we camp with my dad and in-laws) he fixed a couple of minor things around the house for us. But we found a new problem that we will have to call the gardener to fix.

Of course, we appreciated the break and our trip went smooth as could be. Phew! (A nice sea of calm in a month of crazy).

Finances:

**Dh has been earning tons of google credits and amazon gift cards for whatever survey stuff he is doing. He ended up getting a new roku for $25. (Our old one has been clunky for a while but I didn't really want to spend the money. In the end he spent a whole $25 and it is 10 times better).

I suppose that is unofficially his Father's Day present.

**I sent a payment to the credit cards today. I had booked summer classes for BM, our random wildlife vacation, and had charged dh's MRI. I had charged that all in June wanting to push off actual payment to next month, BUT the credit card balances were getting kind of crazy. Plus the one card has a low limit and so I think it was best to pay it down before the end of the month.

So much for delaying those expenses...

**I had to deposit my big check in person. For whatever reason (I guess since I was very nonchalant about it) they made it available immediately. Which was nice since I received the check Saturday night and we weren't back home until yesterday. Seriously, they asked me when I NEEDED it and I shrugged. Apparently that is how you get immediate access to large sums in this day and age. (If you haven't had a large deposit lately, they usually put a hold on some of it).

So I went home and took all the money out (online). I didn't NEED it but if it was available I might as well allocate it.

**So... I went ahead and made my big mortgage payment.

Mortgage balance is now $177,999. I project that we will be at $174,999 by end of year. $169,999 by April 2016.

**I had already opened a $10,000 CD (at my credit union) for a 1.50% rate and so opened up a second one. I don't know that I felt entirely comfortable tying that much up in CDs, but... we also expect a chunk of cash in December. I am always way too cautious, anyway. Odds are we will probably never never touch this money. (I consider about $15k of our cash savings completely untouchable but for extreme emergency). Of course, the CD is easy to access and there isn't much downside if I have to raid it later.

**Money continues to rain down from the sky. I had my piccolo on consignment and apparently it sold recently. Received a $300 check in the mail yesterday. Woohoo!

I am putting this $300 into investments.

{It was in disrepair and this was a very easy route to get it sold for more than I am sure I could have gotten on my own. Certainly was far less hassle than FB and CL have been of late}.

It was funny because I swung by that area yesterday and was stuck in the heat and traffic staring at the music store for a while wondering if they would ever sell my piccolo. (It's an area that I do not frequent). The check was, at that time, on a mail truck en route to my home. Ha! (We kind of reasoned summer/fall would be a good time to sell but had left it at the store at some point in the spring. Better than gathering more dust in my closet).

**The kids just told me that they have no piano lessons next month and so the snowflakes continue to fall. That's another $200 that I will move to investments. Plus credit card rewards this month (About $90?). Plus $30 to investments since we don't have a Ting bill this month. We also have a REI dividend to cash out.

Possibly a $600+ snowball for this month.

Received $35 bank interest for the month of May.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $37 cash back on Citi card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $4 cash back on Visa/dining card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $50 AmEx rewards as a ROTH contribution.

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$1,132 for concerts/events, vet visits, medical, dental, summer class registration, printer ink, organization purchases, pirate gear for camp (pirate theme this year!) and other misc.

CRAZY month!! In May and June of last year we had -0- in non-monthly expenses. For this May I had ten different entries on my spreadsheet (as to 10 different kinds of expenses). Which is probably like more than we have ever had.

I am happy to put May behind me. It wasn't anything big but just a lot of little expenses. It was just a weird month. We are overall in a "no spend" kind of mode with our big vacations this year. (Not planning anything else all year and being more homebodies than usual). On the flip side, there is also a feeling of "doing very well financially" since we keep surpassing financial goals at a more and more rapid pace. This could be some of the spendy-ness. (It seems silly to deny some random things that came up this month).

I've noticed that "May spendy crazy" seems to have been a common theme for SA bloggers.

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For June dh has a pretty busy schedule and so I will probably have lots of time to work on some more house organization and de-cluttering. It's the kind of thing that sounds so awful and boring to me, but since diving in I have gotten a bit in the *zone*. & it's probably a good redirect of energy since we won't really have any "fun" funds for the rest of the year. (Spending it all on big trips!) So my attitude has adjusted a bit and if I am stuck at home I better make the best of it. OF course, joining a group is also really motivating.

{& I wouldn't feel sorry for me. The worst case is we just lounge by the pool all summer, which is what we have been doing. Boohoo? }.

I have more to blog about organizing and de-cluttering but honestly I've been spending less time blahblahblah and more time keeping my house in order. Maybe not a bad thing? Though I do expect to eventually get over the other side of the mountain. I don't want to spend all my time cleaning for eternity. I am enthused to make 2015 the year to get well on the other side of the mountain! & I know blogging about it will keep me motivated too. So more on all that later.

Received $42 bank interest for the month of February.

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card. Deposited this snowflake into investments.

Redeemed $50 credit card rewards to our ROTH

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs**

**2014 Maxed out in Feb. On to 2015!

I updated sidebar for all of the above.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$515 for insurance, smog check, registration (autos)

The combination of low gas prices and putting some more wiggle room in our budget has been great! Our fuel expense was $75 lower than average last month though we made several trips to the Bay Area. Our usual strategy is to way over-save up front. Which is fine - it works very well for us. But this year our savings pace seems more realistic with our budget. OF course, I am fine with relaxing the budget because I am happy with our savings pace. (I'd say we are still pretty aggressive on the "pay ourselves first" but just not as much as the last couple of years. I still don't foresee ever having a penny left over at the end of the month to add to savings. It's relative).

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An update to our free month of Amazon prime (trial): Dh got bored with the TV shows because we can pretty much get 90%+ of what we want elsewhere. (Which is what he has always said and why we have not gotten Prime before. Just that Hulu and Netlfix makes more sense for our personal tastes). Anyway, so our free trial expired yesterday I believe and now dh doesn't want to pay for it. So, phew! I may still do the free year but haven't gotten around to opening that credit card yet.

Received $42 bank interest for the month of January. I am still just adding this to cash, for simplicity. We never seem to have enough cash, anyway. When I have "too much cash" we can re-evaluate.

Dh received $70 birthday money. He generally prefers to save this money but we had such a good year I encouraged him to splurge. I think he only spent $40 of it. He had wanted to get Prime but I told him that I would just get it for free. He signed up for a free trial in the meantime and we have what feels like is a million TV shows and movies (on top of the million we already had). I can't say that we miss cable *at all*. (We already had netflix and hulu and get all sorts of free content over the internet).

Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.

Redeemed $43 credit card rewards (cash back) from our 2% card.

snowflakes into investment account:

$68 cc rewards (per above)

Savings (From paycheck):

+$200 to investments
+$900 to IRAs
+$300 to cash

I updated sidebar for all of the above.

Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):

+$1,300 to cash
-$530 for insurance (home/auto)
-$195 school lunches (6 months)
-$100 passport expenses

Fiscally, things are going quite well.

*knock on wood*

Aside from saving up for our homes, we are maybe $5,000 away from the most we have ever had in savings. Which would be more than we have had saved up since having kids. I don't know the exact (peak) figure since I just track net worth every 12/31. Since my first pregnancy went so well we diverted a lot of that money into retirement that first year. So pre-kids was the peak; we were saving up for multiple maternity leaves and so on. We spent it down and redirected because we never imagined dh would be out of work 5 years later, much less 12 years later! It's been slow going to build that back up, but we are getting there.

Along the same lines, I wanted to update about a "big picture" goal. Last year we achieved more assets than debts. We've always had a positive net worth, but I mean we reached the point where we could pay off our mortgage with our savings and investments. We reached that goal in March 2013.

Where are we today? Today we could pay off our mortgage and have $50,000 left over. Woohoo! I think that's great progress for one year. (& that was with a very very expensive and trying 2013).

The next big goal for us? More in retirement savings than owed on mortgage. We are within a few thousand dollars of that milestone.

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After years of consolidating and cleaning things up, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction. I am opening more accounts (two taxable investment accounts this past year) and I have to open a Traditional IRA for dh. He only has a ROTH. We had converted all of our money into ROTHs during some of our lowest income years, but I have a Traditional IRA from a work retirement plan rollover in the years since.

OF course, the kids have their 7% savings accounts and I just opened two bank accounts for bonuses. So, yeah, it feels like I am opening a LOT of accounts. I suppose that is a GOOD thing.

**I can't believe it - I got a raise! My boss told me two years ago that no one else in office had gotten a raise for years. So I did not expect anything.

In the end, it was the biggest raise I have gotten in 6 years (since economy soured significantly). About 2.5%. What's even more exciting is that I had already covered health insurance increase with other cost savings, and so the raise is pure gravy. Which maybe has never happened since we have had children (our health insurance has gone up in cost 1,000% in that time). I feel like I have always just been grateful that any raise has covered our healthcare costs.

The net increase is $135 per month. With our cell phone savings, I will just round that up to $150/month and add that to our savings.

**Those that are "by the book" will be happy to know that this boosts our retirement savings rate up to 15%. (I've never particularly cared because we have been mostly saving more than we need for retirement, without saving that much. Some of it is utilizing ROTHs - no taxes later - the rest was just starting young and never contributing less than 10%).

We are already maxing out our ROTHs, and so I would like to open a taxable investment account for this money. (Which, for now, we won't be taxed on, due to low tax bracket and some simple tax management). But we are also a little behind on ROTH funding for 2013, so I think I will wait until April and see how things shake out. Honestly, I Was doing the paperwork last summer, to open a new investment account, because things were going pretty well, and then we had the "Great Murphy Year of 2013". I feel like we should be saving TONS at this point, but life seems to have other plans. IT seems silly to contribute a penny to a taxable account until our ROTHs are well funded. But I kind of feel like sometimes things never go right until I just dive in and make it happen. So, for now I will just assume we can get that started in April or May. Will see... At the least I won't open that account until 2013 ROTHs are funded.

To help get some momentum going, will probably divert all snowflakes over to this new account, for a while. Though I would like it to be a general hands-off account, it will have more purpose than retirement. $150/month is a nice match to the college money grandparents are providing ($1k per year, per child). Whatever is not used for college, will eventually go to mortgage payoff or retirement. I don't actually expect to use any of this money for college. Seems unlikely at this point, but just for a Plan B.

I am abandoning the mortgage payoff for the interim. This account will take precedence because my job is a bit up in the air, so this will help us get a good start to some "potential long term unemployment savings". I really don't expect to have to use it for that either, but just hedging our bets.

Of course, the only reason we were hitting our mortgage harder the past couple of years was due to losing equity in our house. Even at the worst, we never went below 20% equity. But it was close, and we took proactive measures. Today we are back over 50%. So, it's fallen lower as far as priorities. {I'd love to pay it off today, but have to balance wants with reality. Reality is I have to get college and employment sorted out first, and crossing my fingers this is just a giant "mortgage payoff" fund, in the end}.

Anyway, the plan is $150/month, plus snowflakes, starting around May. I'd like to be agressive with putting gifts and credit card bonuses and such in this account. Once we get some momentum going on this account, we may consider a 50/50 save/pay down mortgage type plan. Or 70/30, or whatever makes sense.

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I work well under pressure. I did some major mad declutter and cleaning progress, last weekend. It generally would not be my preference to do that kind of big job in the middle of tax season, but apparently it works for me. (I never did as much as I wanted to last year because I got really bored with working and chores all the time - am used to fairly laid back summers and falls, and work was kind of busy too). So whatever, I will embrace it. Any chore I can cross off my list before, "want to relax and enjoy" time.

The problem is I got some major momentum and couldn't stop for a while. It might be okay for January and February. For March and April, I will have to slow it down and put work as a higher priority.

I had a genius idea this morning. I was thinking the downstairs was pretty decently decluttered, except for I have to sort through the piano music. I used to teach piano, and so I have hoards of materials. It just flitted across my mind this morning that I wanted to tackle that nasty chore this weekend. (Something I have just put off and off and off, otherwise). & it occured to me I could probably store a lot of that stuff digitally and be done.

I don't know why I never thought of that before!!! I've just got so many freaking photo copies of music. & part of me doesn't really want to give it up - could always be a nice side income stream. Storing stuff digitally is a good compromise, though I don't foresee "piano teaching" in my near future.

I will have to ponder that as I go through that type stuff in the house (things that can be just be kept on computers). For some things we are well ahead of the curve on that (financial records and photos and so on). But, for other things, we could use some strategizing and rethinking.

I don't expect to tackle all that music stuff this weekend, but I do hope to make a dent.

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

P.S. Dh just won $50 in Ting credits. One more month we won't have to pay anything (sharing Ting with my parents and will give them the benefit of the credit too). I am starting to wonder if we will pay *anything* for cell service this year.

Last I ruminated, I wasn't so sure what to do with mortgage snowflakes. For December I did not make a mortgage payment, so just abandoned snowflakes for the month.

BUT, we got a nice cash gift for Christmas and I was able to fund dh's ROTH with it. I was already leaning towards continuing mortgage snowflakes this year anyway. (IT just works the best psychologically, for us). I was just tempering that feeling with feeling like I should put a screech on all mortgage snowflakes until we got our ROTHs back in order. But as of right now the "screech" seems pretty unnecessary. (My ROTH will be funded with Feb. 1 paycheck, assuming nothing else BREAKS. & I do have until April 15th).

So... Snowflakes it is!

I didn't make the December mortgage payment - will pay it today. (Didn't need the interest deduction last year, so pushed it forward).

These are my December snowflakes (paid to mortgage in January):

$20 carpool saving**
$15 internet bill promo savings**

January snowflakes:

$20 carpool saving**
$15 internet bill promo savings**
$25 gas/grocery credit card reward (I just redeemed)
$180 Visa credit card reward^^

**I don't expect these savings to last forever, so am just making an expense "placeholder" with mortgage snowflakes.

^^On the last one, it's a 1% cash back on our CU visa that we receive every January. The amount is only so large this year because they had a 2% promo for a time. (Usually this reward is more like $60).

OF course, we just shifted those rewards from one card to the other. All this money would have gone to our Fidelity AmEx otherwise - those rewards go to my Fidelity ROTH. This just means the mortgage gets a boost because our credit union ran a nice promo. (All else being equal, Visa is accepted more places and I'd rather give the business to my credit union than a big bank).

Snowflakes 2014: $275

Unfortunately, not expecting to keep up THAT kind of momentum. But it's definitely a nice start to 2014.

As a follow up to an earlier post on my BHAG:

http://monkeymama.savingadvice.com/2012/09/14/progress-not-p...

I had posted about my goal to surpass $150k in retirement by age 35, which was a really huge/big/aggressive goal. So I did not beat myself up when I did not achieve at age 35. I knew I would be pretty darn close?

How close? About 5 months after turning 36. Because I achieved the goal yesterday. Well, I think that is AWESOME. Good enough for me...

If investments return 8%, than this means we are earning more than we are putting in, at this point. Since the only retirement vehicles at our disposal are the ROTHs.

I think this is why I am not feeling behind at all with the loss of work retirement plan. It was a very generous 10% contribution by employer. But it was invested conservatively for my mostly "retirement age" co-workers and eaten up by administration and investment fees. Compounding has easily taken over those contributions. Sure, another $8k per year to our retirement funds, in addition, would be awesome. But, it's just we aren't falling behind or feeling the pinch. & maybe $8k only felt like $4k with all the other factors, and we have been easily able to make that up. I appreciate that I had that extra compensation in the years we really needed it - very early on and our lowest income years (maternity leaves and such). This means our retirement was always growing very healthily and is why we were able to meet this goal.

I also just noticed that we surpassed the $200k mark on our investments. Woohoo!! $100k was surpassed some time in 2009. Which means it literally took about a decade to save $100k but only 3 years to turn $100k to $200k. $200k can turn into $400k over 10 years if we don't add another penny. The power of compounding at work. I have this large feeling that the early years were by far the hardest and that we are over that hump. This compounding stuff sure makes life easier.

I also think this is why it is hard for many to understand why my spouse has not had to work. I've said here many times that we always saved 100% of my spouse's income, which laid a nice financial foundation. Anyway, I remember someone telling me very early on that they "to each their own," but how they just could not neglect their retirement like that.

Neglect retirement? Who said anything about neglecting retirement?

I haven't really set the next BHAG for retirement. I am thinking I should just set it to "$500k by age 45." It's about as realistic as "$150k by age 35" felt. It sounds huge, but I know it is doable. A modest rate of return and current contributions (just the ROTHs) will easily put us to $400k+. So $500k is my aggressive twist on the goal. It should be easy to remember. I think that visualization is very important - our subconscious works in ways we don't even understand.

Petunia asked me some questions about my savings methods, and I thought she might find my method useful.

I found this idea on a personal finance blog many moons ago. I don't remember what blog. I would much prefer to link the clear and concise instructions I read many years ago. But I will try my best.

One banking benefit that I really don't give a flip about is subaccounts. My spreadsheet method is an alternative to relying on bank functionality.

I suppose I do it this way is so that I can completely divorce *where* my money is from *what* it is. My banking strategy is basically to find the consistently highest interest rates with the least hassle and fees. My savings strategy is to save x for a and to save y for b. Combining the two strategies gives me a headache. Using a spreadsheet just keeps it separate.

At current I basically have 3 savings accounts. I always keep a token amount in my old account when I find a better interest rate and move to a new account. So I will in general always have two online savings accounts. I will close the lowest performing account when I find a better interest rate elsewhere, so there is always generally two accounts. I also have a savings account at my primary credit union, linked to my checking account. I always keep about $1,000 in there. Give or take, it doesn't have to be exact. (My checking account is little more than a conduit, I always run it to $0. The $1,000 account means I don't literally only have $0 at my disposal. You could call it a baby emergency fund. The interest rate sucks, but I have instant access to it. Though frankly, the primary reason I have/use the account is so that I don't transfer money back and forth to other accounts very frequently. You will see what I mean...).

FIRST, you do not need any fancy software to track subaccounts. I use openoffice. You can download it for free. (It is virtually identical to Excel - which just cost a LOT more). Or if you have any other spreadsheet software at your disposal...

I will start with the main sheet and then drill down:



My sub-accounts are: Short-term cash, mid-term cash, medical fund, and cash Efund. (Your subaccounts can be anything and everything. Vacation Funds, down payment funds, debt payoff funds, car replacement funds, however you organize things).

The totals for the subaccounts are being pulled from other spreadsheets. I have one "sheet" for each subaccount.

This first sheet reconciles the total in each subaccount with the grand total of all my savings accounts. **I just manually enter the bank balances at the end of the month.** I check that it is balanced about once every month (after the end of the month). If the difference between both totals is -zero-, then there is success!!

**You do not have to limit yourself to cash. If you have bonds, mutual funds, stocks, whatever, same method can be used.**

Okay, now for the subaccounts.

Let's start with an easy one:



CASH EFUND. This balance has been $5k *forever.* I don't have to do much with this.

My medical savings is the same kind of thing.

The ones I update regularly are the short-term and the mid-term, as I save a set amount monthly towards these savings accounts:





As I mentioned before, the totals just automatically flow through to my first subaccount Total sheet.

I generally enter the income and the outflow to these subaccounts as I make the transfers or payments. Since I generally charge everything, I usually do all this ahead of time before I actually need the money or do the actual transfers. BUT this should still work fine for a more cash method. You don't want to make 10 transfers every month from your bank account (there are legal limits and penalties for that kind of thing!). But, the money I transfer every month generally serves as a buffer until I finalize it all at the end of the month. If I have plenty of money in my checking account I might do my regular "to savings transfers" at the beginning of the month, and figure out what I need to transfer back, later. BUT, if not, I just leave it all to figure at the end of the month. Many months the two figures (to savings/from savings) are kind of a wash. I most often do just one transfer a month, and I will explain that at the end.

**I do think using an electronic check register, like Quicken, is essential with the way I do things. I often just move things around so that my checking balance is always positive. This is far more complicated to do with pen and paper. In a really spendy month I can easily rejigger in Quicken - change a payment date here and there.**

Anyway, so I jot it all down as the info becomes available, but put an "x" next to each transaction when I literally record it in Quicken (or you could do the same when you record it into whatever kind of check register you use - paper or electronic). When I record it in Quicken is not necessarily when transfers are made. This just means, I didn't forget anything in my check register. If everything has an "x", everything will easily reconcile, UNLESS I messed up a spreadsheet formula. Which is usually what throws me off once in a blue moon.

Okay, so now that you see the nitty gritty details for each account, let's go back to the summary.



Got it?

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Two more notes:

This is what my $1,000 linked savings account (with crappy interest) generally looks like:



I am not a stickler on the $1,000. It's just if the amount starts to get to be more than $1,000 at the end of every single month, then I know I have some money to transfer to my higher interest savings. Likewise, if the account balance is $5,000, but I know I have $4,000 in bills coming up - I just leave the $5,000 in there.

Finally...

** I do not do 10+ transfers per month to/from my savings accounts!**

I generally do one transfer per month.

What I do is add up all the money I need to transfer back out of savings (adding up all the little things in my spreadsheets), and put the total in my Quicken register (check register). That could be one total for 10 transactions.

In this example I needed to transfer $1,665 for several different insurances and expenses. This my checking account register:



It's really this simple. I need to transfer $1900 to savings, but I need to pull out $1,665 for expenses. SO, the net is $235.

What I actually do is just transfer $235 to savings. The End!

{Looking at the savings register above, before this last check register, you will note I did just *one* 12/30 transfer for a heck of a lot of transactions. There were like 8 transactions - all I did was transfer $570 to savings at the end of the month}.

**Quicken is a little finicky about this. What I do is delete all savings transfers when they download, and hit the "reconcile" button. I find if I do it this way, and manually reconcile the savings transfers, it works beautifully. If you try to finalize the reconciliation automatically, during the download process - which is quite easy to do by accident - then things can get messy. & it won't let you go back and mark off the savings transfers to make it balance. But after a while you know better NOT to do that. You will learn quickly once you figure out how to make it work. The trick is to choose to reconcile *before* closing off the "accept/match transactions" screen.**

So there you have it. What appears to be a little bit complicated actually just makes my life VERY simple.

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For the spreadsheet uneducated, I found this. I am sure there are also lots of useful internet and library resources. My spreadsheets that I have shared are VERY basic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kNEv3s8TuA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeMSV9T1PoI

I also use spreadsheets to track our net worth, and to track all things financial. ALSO is really great for loan amortizations. Etc., etc.

I've already talked about all of this, but will do one final 2012 wrap up.

Net Worth

Cash: +$5,000
Investments: +$32,000
Home Value: +$65,000
Mortgage Debt: -$6,000

Total Net Worth: +$108,000

I have failed on my net worth goals the past 4 years, but this almost makes up for all those years. (Real estate had plummeted those years, only to rebound to 2007 levels in the current year). Going forward, still have a goal to increase net worth by "50% of our expenses" on an annual basis. (This year, $108,000, is almost "200% of expenses" - which covers goal for past 4 years, and makes up for some bad real estate years).

Oh, and as of today our net worth is about exactly $300,000. Depends how the stock market does on Monday...

ETA: Officially ended the year at $300k!!

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Income

Income was *awesome* this year.

--A solid $2800 in credit card rewards (tax-free)
--$6,500 overtime (it helped that no one was in the hospital this year!)
--$1,000 in amazon and craigslist sales
--smaller amounts of bank interest and focus group money
--Cash gifts galore (tax-free)

The interesting thing is that this year we surpassed our prior two-salary income level (when you count all the extra in-flows). But it is not apples to oranges in the least. You will notice how much of the extra this year was tax-free. This means we blew our "two income take-home" completely out of the water, this year. I share because the one-income thing for us has always been about "working smarter, not harder." The linear idea that we literally live on "half as much" has always been completely ridiculous.

I know we are extremely blessed to receive some nice cash gifts this year. I also know we made excellent use of the windfalls (extra payments to the mortgage, bulked up cash, sped up ROTH contributions, visited aging grandparents, etc.).

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Expenses

As far as the monthly expenses, we are a well-oiled machine. Money to savings first. Live on the rest. As such, there is little variability to the sum of all our monthly expenses. (There may be give and take between categories).

The less predictable expenses varied more (some come from savings, from extras, etc.). BUT, I already noted that we didn't spend any more money in 2012 than 2011. I find that fascinating since we were able to buy and do so much.

The variable expenses breakdown:

--Dining Out - spent $600 less

--Home Repairs - spent $1,000 more (versus about -0- in 2011)

--Medical - spent $2,000 less (no surgery!!)

--Misc. - spent $4,000 more
(New dishwasher, new garage door opener, a bed for LM, new couch, new smart phones, new TV - feeling the prosperity - some long overdue purchases here. I couldn't fathom buying anything large next year, in comparison, if we fulfilled several years worth of waiting and wants in 2012)

--Mortgage interest - Spent $2,000 less (thanks to lower interest rates!)

--Piano lessons - Spent $1,000 less because in-laws decided to pay all year

--Vacation - Spent $2,000 more (due to gifts, and status of aging grandparents we intended to visit)


**Consistent expenses:

--Auto (fuel, insurance maintenance)

--Groceries (almost to the penny)

--Insurance

--Utilities (traded cable for smart phones)

--Mortgage principal (paid same amount as last year)

--allowance, clothing, gifts, gym/aerobics, HOA, gardener, haircuts, sports, Christmas

--The rest of our misc. expenses (not big purchases) were pretty consistent. Further details: script software for dh (after he finished his first script, ironically - he used free software for his script), watches for kids, toothbrush heads, hair clips, movies, SA meetup expenses, concerts, events (robot wars), blu ray burner, camera accessories, CDs to burn, birthday party/gifts for kids, swim goggles, school supplies, pet supplies (litter boxes), piano tuning, bowling, golfland, online backups. This stuff is just all too small for its own category; largely where we put any purchases or any entertainment.

On the expense side, there is room for improvement. If we hadn't done all the extras, you see we have room to trim expenses. This year reminded me of lower income years when it seems luck went our way and we did not spend large sums on home repairs and medical bills and such. To be fair, we had an emergency room visit, a broken heater, and had to replace a dishwasher and spent a fair amount on our garage door, and I think we drove to San Jose MANY times when Grandma was in the hospital, on and on. BUT, it didn't seem to come from all sides/all year like it had been doing in recent years. Phew!! For one, it made all the difference not to miss work because one of us was having surgery! I am still working on decreasing overall spending for next year. IT's give and take because I wouldn't be surprised if we had some large vet bills and appliance replacements in 2013. But, if we don't, it could be a decent year to decrease our overall expenses.

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I have no idea what to expect for 2013! I know we will be losing $130/month with the payroll tax holiday ending.

I know our income taxes will be going up, and we could possibly stuck with AMT too.

I know our health insurance and property taxes are going up significantly.

I don't know if I will receive any raise.

So, more to ponder once January shakes out. Too many unknowns in the immediate future - I hope to get some tax and salary clarification in the next week or two.

We also have absolutely *nothing* on the purchase horizon, but the cat is getting old, our cars are getting old, and so is our fridge and hot water heater. These are the predictable nearer-future expenses.

Oops - the site ate my post!! I usually copy and paste and all that but wasn't thinking. Grrr...

I added a page to my side bar.

http://monkeymama.savingadvice.com/little-savings-add-up.html

I don't know if I will keep up with it, but trying to remember to share all the little savings.

Surprisingly, I've been able to come up with something every day. Saved almost $100 this month, already.

Most of it is pretty usual.

Of note, I had to do some back to school type shopping for BM. The kids rarely wear pants, but I guess BM's new school campus is on the cold side. Considering it's like pulling teeth to get them to wear pants in January (when it's often 30 degrees when they walk to school), it must be really COLD!

So, usually I don't buy a whole school wardrobe, and try to hit the thrift shops or wait for a sale. But it was rather last minute and I couldn't remember the last time I bought any school clothes. So I hit Target for that yesterday.

They also had some really nice jackets at Target, but none in his size. They weren't online at all. I will be in San Jose today so crossing my fingers that the closest Target to my folks house has some jackets in his size!

While perusing online for school pants, I found some clearance items at Kohls. They might be good items for the kids to give each other for Christmas - so they might reimburse me for those. If not - presents or stocking stuffers.

Reminds me, I am not doing any Christmas preparations because I am mostly *out* of the Christmas spending. Dh's family goes big, but they also give us cash - so they just pay for their own presents and dh takes care of all that. IT's not just us - no one else we know is just into the materialism. So it's been a pretty mutual thing over the years with the rest of our friends and relatives.

Anyway, I asked dh yesterday what he was thinking about the kids for Christmas, because I was thinking the $20 I spent yesterday was probably enough. (Dh will get free books and games, and already bought them a few things throughout the year). Thankfully, he was totally on the same page. Phew! We both agreed they were WAY spoiled last year and for their birthdays, and so we look forward to an uber modest Christmas under our own roof. Dh is into having the kids buy us and each other gifts to teach them money management skills, which is fair enough, but I am not even into that so much any more. I think I am just so over the materialism of it all. I don't remember the last time dh and I regularly bought each other gifts. I have no gifts in mind for dh - he is spoiled too.

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P.S. I really like creditcardfree's snowflake posts. I suppose I wanted to share as a reminder that there are probably 1 million ways to snowflake. I know we all do it a little differently. I think my snowflakes are heavy on the credit card rewards (which have been more like giant snowballs the last couple of years - yeesh!)

All the little savings aside, last month we actually pocketed $578 cash from other income sources:

$85 focus group
$10 sold costume
$8 ATT settlement
$470 credit card rewards
$5 sold old cellphone to Sprint

I will include all this stuff in my "Little Things Add Up" page - going forward.

Was just paying the October bills since we will be on vacation soon. Making sure everything is in order and paid ahead of time.

I am not 100% sure, but think we have reached the milestone of lowest mortgage balance ever. $201,333. Woohoo! (Hard to tell because all I have record of is some mortgage payoff when we sold our first home - the payoff included interest).

We are on track to hit $199,999 by 12/31. I expect a $250 Christmas bonus, and so just have to scrounge $165 Christmas money to top it off. $199,999 will most definitely be the lowest mortgage balance we have ever had.

& so I welcome FORWARD PROGRESS.

Story is that our first mortgage was $210k or so (for just a condo). But we traded for a luxurious home (+ yard and garage and stuff like that) for a $230k-ish mortgage. My dh also got laid off and we had a child, so we dropped the 15-year mortgage. Which basically means it took us, oh, 10 years to get back to where we started. A $202,000 or so mortgage. But, you know, no complaining here. The infinitely nicer home, and the spouse not working for a decade - all that is 100% WORTH IT. But I am just excited to make FORWARD PROGRESS. Versus, owing as much at age 34 that I did at age 24.

In another 10 years, we pretty much expect to have our home paid off. (I can handle the 15-year amortization, and dh doesn't need to bring in that much income to knock off 5 more years).

Woohoo to forward progress!

The super plus side is that we were paying in the realm of $1800/month for a smaller mortgage in the year 2001. 15-year amortization. For the next year, looks like we can cobble together $1400/month to the same end (15-year payoff). Low mortgage rates are definitely not all bad. (We can't even justify refinancing below 4.875%). That said, if interest rates stay low, and we can knock off enough principal, we will refinance to a 15-year. I am salivating at 3.25% rates. We just aren't quite there yet.

Hard to whine since we are saving $400/month over our last 15-year amortization. 10 years ago I was paying $1800/month for a flipping condo in a so-so neighborhood. Today we pay $1400/month to pay off dream home in 15 years (same mortgage balance). I suppose we have experienced much forward progress - just nice to move forward with the debt numbers, too.

Dh did well!

We had discussed what to do if cable company offered incentive to stay. Since past cable companies seemed to care less if we left, I really didn't expect anything. BUT, told dh kind of no matter what it was, I think we were pretty committed to trying no cable for 6 months.

Anyway, today was the big day.

Apparently, our full cable/phone/internet bill is $196 or so. We have been paying about $165 on a one-year contract. I figure cable was about $100 or so of that.

So, they offered dh $105/month.

Honestly, not bad. Not bad at all! SO, I am proud that he declined.

What's even better is that on a contract, they gave us $50/month for phone/internet. This is smoking fast fiber optic internet. No one else offers it, and there is no way in heck we would drop it for anything else. So, I don't mind the contract.

& so it is OFFICIAL! We are a no-cable household. For 6 months, at least. Ideally. Assuming dh doesn't cave. I still don't foresee caving, myself. Hulu has annoyed me, but I think that means I will just be more of a Netflix and a "watch after the fact" type. Like, instead of suffering through commercials, I rather just wait a couple of years until these shows come out on DVD. I can already tell that rather than seeking out my old usual shows, I will probably drop them for easier to watch shows on netflix.

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With the new internet deal, we will save exactly $100 per month. Comes out to about $115, but Hulu will cost about $15/month. So, $100/month savings.

Dh may need to buy 2 antennas for network TV, but they are only $20-ish, each. We have one, but I guess it's older and they switched things around so it doesn't get all the channels it could otherwise. So, we hooked it up to our main TV, for now, to get some channels. We may invest in 2 antennas so we have sports for relatives, public TV access, access to live news, etc. On both TVs.

We subscribe to both netflix and Blockbuster, regardless.

We will be buying some shows off of Amazon (streaming). The only thing we have discussed specifically, is Breaking Bad. We are in the middle of the season, and there is only one more season left, after this one. We want to see it through (& it's certainly worth paying for!!). But, that's about it so far.

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$100/month savings goes to mortgage, for now. For next year, will probably go to ROTHs, but we should be maxed out for 2010.

Of course, if we drop cable indefinitely, dh is going to start begging for a smart phone. Will see... The data plan on ONE smart phone is significantly cheaper than cable. But, then it is just MORE contracts and all that. & we will probably have to change carriers - and our cell plan is currently pretty darn cheap. We shall see!

Officially Received, between 1/1/11 and 9/7/11:

$1030 cash (Chase Sapphire)
$1015 gift cards (Citi $500 + SW rewards $500)
$ 350 deposit to ROTH (Fidelity Am Ex)
-$99 annual fee (SW card)
-$23 lost value for exchanging some Citi gift cards for cash and amazon gift cards
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$2273 TOTAL

cha-ching!

Dh is still due $200 cash from Chase.

=$2473 TOTAL

Today I signed dh up for a reduced Southwest deal. Deal is to make one purchase, pay a $69 fee, and get $250 in amazon gift cards. (HE is eyeing the new kindle, so this will cover it. & how easy is it to just make one purchase)?

I've got my eye on a Citi deal - $300 gift card reward + no fee first year. BUT, I am going to hold out a bit and see if I can get a better direct mail offer. Or, maybe close all the other cards before I start this merry-go-round again. I think you have to spend $1500 in 3 months? I am waiting to redeem that $200 cash from Chase in a couple of weeks. So, I will re-evaluate at that time. For now, the SW card was a no-brainer since it only involved one purchase. Anything more complicated than that, I rather close the chapter on all the other cards first!

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If I get that $300 deal, I will probably turn it into cash for the school. Will see!

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MORTGAGE UPDATE

Expect to make an extra $450 mortgage payment this month, with credit card rewards.

This puts the balance to about $201,750. I had expected to use savings/Christmas money, etc. to pay this down to my $199,999 goal, but doesn't seem too necessary. Normal principal is around $300/month, and I can add $250/month for the rest of the year with no cable + payroll tax holiday (& piano lessons covered by MIL). So, that about covers it.

This is good, because I probably need to divert about $1500 from savings, to max out our ROTHs in 2011. We are on track to put in a full $10k this calendar year, but also diverted a LOT of that to fund tax year 2010. So, I ran the numbers and a $1500 deposit will get us maxed out by April.

I am keeping an eye on the market. If it REALLY tanks, I will slip in that $1500 earlier. IF not, will wait until the last minute (either December or April - just depends). For now, seems like lots of downward pressure on the markets, so I will wait it out and build up more cash, first.

$30,000 cash goal is still so close but so far!! Kids have dental appointments today, which is never good news! I also need to set aside about $1500 for taxes. (The usual was not withheld from my overtime - so will owe)! & that ROTH money I just mentioned. & so it goes - on and on and on!

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I got $10 off at Kohls (Kohls cash) for buying stuff with my free gift card. Woohoo! (I think usually when I spend enough to get Kohls cash - the last thing I need to do is go shopping there again)! But this was a little different.

I also have a 20% off coupon, so will buy myself a treat today. Probably a nice top that I can wear to work. I don't think I've bought any work clothes this year, and I am feeling the boring-ness of my wardrobe.

We never keep collision/comprehensive long on our cars. Mostly because we tend to drive really old/inexpensive cars.

When we picked up HBO for a few months to watch a new series ($5/month) I recalled that we still had comprehensive on dh's car. (It's worth $2k at most, is 10 years old, has a high deductible anyway, and we have the cash to replace it with a 1-year-old car we have our eye on for next vehicle).

I don't remember precisely when we dropped collision - but it was years ago. Comprehensive was far cheaper, and we seem to have high odds of flood/auto theft. Which mattered more when the car was worth twice as much as it is now and we had no intention of replacing it barring worst case scenario.

Dropping it saves about $60/year - or enough for one year of HBO. Woohoo!

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I think my newspaper just saved me $150. Paid for itself this year.

Read about State Farm's "Drive Safe and Save" program:

http://www.statefarm.com/insurance/auto_insurance/drive_save...

I skeptically looked it up not expecting it to apply to us, etc. In the past you had to drive less than 7500 miles per year to qualify for any low driving discount.

Looked it up, and low and behold, discount applies to less than 19k miles driven per year. More discount the less you drive.

We drive both our cars about 10k per year, on average. Looks like we will save 5% or 8% off of our premiums.

It took a click of the button to sign up.

I registered the van, which probably will yield the bigger savings. (We drive it far less when gas prices are high, and is the more expensive insurance since it is newer and has full coverage).

I couldn't register the gas sipper, so I e-mailed my agent to ask why not. I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't be able to. Discount applies to almost everything - not just collision/comprehensive.

He probably thinks I lost my job or something. Fishing for those pennies! I just talked to him about the comprehensive last week.

Will see. Very little effort to save $200-ish per year.

I have no idea why I have not heard of this program! So I had to share. That said, it is only available in 4 states. Keep an eye out though - wonder if this will become more common.