By: Revanche

Net Worth & Life Report: March 2017

April 10, 2017

Money and Life Report: March 2017

On Money

Income

Our normal income is two full time day job salaries. We experiment with earning money on the side, including minimal cash flow that we don’t touch from an investment property. The goal is to replace our day job income before my health gives out and prevents me from working.

As a general rule, I don’t factor bonuses into our budget or projected income because they’re not guaranteed, but if we get any, they land in March. PiC’s company is more forthcoming with the compensation than mine is, so his is many times larger than mine. That would make me extra grumpy with a side of spicy if I thought about it too long. Remember, there are also very important non-monetary reasons to choose jobs!

We direct most of the bonus into the 401(k) so that’s filled up with a large deposit really early in the year. We won’t keep much cash but it gives us a tiny increase in take-home pay since the amount remaining needed to invest is vastly reduced.

Philosophically, when paychecks hit our checking accounts and fill them up nice and plump, and I breathe a sigh of relief, I know our spending is out of whack. Which I already knew. This is going to be an expensive year and that’s causing quite a bit of stress.

Swagbucks: I use this daily and my big earners tend to be surveys.

Poshmark: This is a passive earner. This month, 2 items sold for a total of $4.10. Selling small things gets problematic because of the cost of shipping. You don’t get much out of the sale and they’re paying a whole lot for a small item.

Achievemint: March: earned 331 points.

Blog income: I will occasionally accept a paid post. This defrays the costs of running the site: hosting, domain name, and FinCon any year I decide to go and learn something new. This tab comes to about $2000 a year, give or take, and has been coming out of pocket most years. That figure doesn’t begin to touch on the time it takes for me to run the blog of course. They’re posted under Nom de plume, and categorized under “side money”, and definitely don’t replace my usual writing. These are all ways to keep them from being annoying and I hope they stay not-annoying.

Spending

Our normal spending includes the living expenses for two households so this update ignores those ordinary living expenses. When buying anything online, I always check Mr.Rebates and Ebates for cashback.

My January dental chickens finally came home to roost. As usual, the amount the dentist billed was well over the allowed contractual amount, so after I had the Delta Dental claim in hand, I compared that to my statement from the dentist. A 2 minute phone call took the extra $110 off that bill. I wonder how many people don’t realize this happens, and keep paying over and above their contracted amount?

Meanwhile, I’m eyeballing over $4000 in expenses racked up on PiC’s Chase Sapphire Reserve with a frown. That’s not due until April – thanks card float!  Nearly $3000 of that was one enormous expected expense – our property tax. I decided that the $61 fee to charge it on a card was worth it. We were spending that $2900 anyway, and this gets us 75% of the way to qualifying for that huge spending bonus. The math works out.

We’ve “splurged” on Global Entry for all three of us. The splurge is on JuggerBaby who can’t come through on one of our Global Entry passes, ze has to have zir own. That’s at least a little absurd but our two applications were free ($200) so the other $100 for zir to come along made more sense than not. We’re not going to travel internationally without zir, so there’s no point in having, but not being able to use, the timesaver.

It should please me, but it does not, that my $145 in survey money was exactly to the penny the cost of our monthly Subscribe & Save delivery. I was going to give myself $10 in new book money! Instead, we are awash in diapers for JuggerBaby, and pill pockets, healing cream, and dog food for Seamus. FINE.

#GivingCards and Charitable Giving

I don’t believe in tooting our horn for every donation we make. The point of giving isn’t to brag, it’s to help someone in need. The exception is when the cause is sound and could use help. I’m delighted to be taking part in the Rockstar Forums’ giving project where they send out a $20 gift card each month to forum participants who sign up.

My February card arrived late in the month, so I didn’t get to decide what to do with it until March. There was a theme to last month’s #GivingCard, but I overlooked that in my zeal to donate to meals for disaster relief. Plus there were the #1GoodMoneyThing babies. I don’t really have coworkers that it would be appropriate to give a card like this to, but there’s an awesome young teacher at the daycare who works really hard at taking care of the kids and making up engaging age-appropriate activities, all paid for out of her own pocket.

We really admire how patient she is with the kids even amid total chaos, and how much she puts of herself into her work, and felt she was the perfect candidate for a surprise thank you and good job card. She was so surprised, I don’t think she tends to get just a candid “thanks for all you do” during her daily work.

Saving and investing

We max out a 401(k) and IRA every year and save 20% of cash of our net salaries. I cherish our savings rate right now because it’s going to go away as soon as we find a place. :silent sobs:

Our stock portfolio is with TradeKing – I’m a low maintenance investor so they suit me perfectly with low-cost trades.

Our net worth: increased 2% from last month, and 6% from January.

Links from this month

On Health

Working out

March (127,274 steps): about 57.28 miles.

In addition to trying to aim for a higher steps average this month, despite another cold, I’ve been adding short jogs to our afternoon walks. Not every day, but at least 2-3 days a week, to get my heart rate up.

On Life

Sleepover!

I was never ever allowed to sleep away at friends’ homes growing up, and while that seemed like it’d be a scarring and traumatic abstention from normal teenage life, I came through it with a fairly pragmatic acceptance of the reasons behind it. What stayed with me, though, was the sense of fun of having guests stay overnight with us – we could eat whatever we wanted (that we cooked), stay up as late as we liked (or til we nodded off), and the fun would still be there in the morning. We had three sleepovers this month – old friends all, with and without kids of varying ages! While it was more work, it was so much fun. We balance being frugal and doing takeaway because my energy to cook is inversely proportionate to the number of people I spend time with, and so many tasty treats make their way home from the local bakery because what kind of hosts would we be if we didn’t share our local delicacies? (Confession: it’s also because I have an addiction and I’m not sorry.)

JuggerBaby adores the company of visiting adults and kids alike, and incorporates the names of recent guests in zir good night songs for days afterward. It stretches the fun out that much longer.

Ze gets to bunk with us when guests sleep over, and ze takes a proprietary interest in the lucky people who use zir room. It’s good for zir to learn about sharing space, and being a touch less possessive, though it’s hard on us hearing “MAMA. DADA. MAMA. DADA. HI!” at 6 am sharp.

I may or may not exile zir to my office once we have enough room for me to have an office.

On getting sick and common sense

With several weekends of hosting family on the board, I Definitely Absolutely Totally could not afford to catch JuggerBaby’s cold. If you’ve been following along for more than two months, you’ll know how this story goes.

Of course I caught JuggerBaby’s cold.

Not wanting to welcome guests into the House of Plague, when it was clear the germ bullet hit me right in the throat, I gave up and took a few days off. “Off,” as in, I only worked for an hour or two a day, and laid down and did nothing useful the rest of the time. Putting on a pot of soup to simmer all day doesn’t count.

That’s right. I legitimately rested. The last time I actually had more than 3 hours of solid rest where I wasn’t actually just working laying down, or fretting, or taking care of the household was in the Great Flu of 1997. I remember because I lost 10 pounds and I wasn’t aware it was possible to lose that much weight and not disappear into the ether.

And I’m almost positive that even though the symptoms didn’t subside for several more days, that initial rest right at the onset made all the difference in how severe they didn’t get. Now, do you suppose someone could remind me of this the next time I play host body to the plague? It would really help!

Booking travel

This rightly belongs in spending but it’s also a big life thing – we booked an international trip for family reasons (so, not vacation). This trip is for just over a week and it’s a big deal for us, especially with JuggerBaby being at an ALL SQUIRREL stage of life. Hence, Global Entry. I estimated that this trip would cost us $4,000.

So far, the total is coming right up to $3,000 for all booked expenses, which is offset by $600 in Chase Sapphire Reserve travel credits. Because it’s a family visit, and an odd one at that, we won’t have much in the way of incidental costs, so that’s a minor relief. If we manage this under $3,000, you’re going to hear me hootin’ and hollerin’. If we survive flying with JuggerBaby, you will also hear that hootin’ and hollerin’ but it’ll likely be a lot more quietly.

Of course you’ll hear all about the preparation and the trip itself when the time comes.

On the home (hunting) front

We’ve submitted an offer, with a pretty awesome letter, that was promptly rejected because a much higher bid was accepted instead. I’m not too surprised, nor too disappointed, because I was comfortable with the size of our offer given the expected extensive repairs. We’re willing, and eager even, to do our own renovations since the taste of the homeowners in this region has proven to trend toward non-functional and horrifying ugly. Who renovates a kitchen and refuses to put in an oven??  ANYWAY.

Naturally I saved the copy of my awesome letter to be tweaked for the next eleventeen offers we’ll likely have to make before we land our fish home.

An interesting exercise: remember the worst flu you ever had. Imagine that’s how you feel every day, and choose your home based on that level of energy and need for accessibility. That’s one of the major requirements guiding our search – it must be accessible so we can age in place.

:: How was your March? What’s your dream home? Did you dodge this round of colds and flus?

Read past monthly updates here!

*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich.*

16 Responses to “Net Worth & Life Report: March 2017”

  1. Congrats on a good (if not 100% healthy) month! And I’m glad you’re not letting the frustrations of the house hunt prey too much on your mind. We looked for years before finding our current house, and I’m glad we landed where we did.
    Emily @ JohnJaneDoe recently posted…State of the Blog March 2017My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      It takes up a lot of time as is, so I can’t afford to let worrying about it add to the mental real estate 🙂

  2. Joe says:

    Good luck on the trip. It’s not a lot of fun to fly with a little kid, but I’m sure you guys will have a great time when you get there.
    Good idea putting the property tax on Chase. I got a Chase Hyatt card and I’m having a very tough time fulfilling the $2,000 requirement for the bonus.

    • Revanche says:

      Thanks!

      I debated that one quite a bit – but finally decided that it’s ok not to have 100% profit on a credit card bonus.

      Before I apply for any card when I just mean to reap the bonus, I map out all our chargeable expenses like insurance and internet and so on to make sure I have enough expected expenses to hit the minimum without overspending. I hope you can go through and find bills that like that!

  3. Linda says:

    Glad you’re being so realistic about the house hunting process. The market in this area is so crazy!

    I also had a set of requirements that allowed for aging in place, including no stairs inside the house.

    I’ve got some pretty hefty expenses to cover this year and was thinking yesterday how I may be able to juggle them in such a way that I can cover them all without drawing down my EF a lot. While I don’t like to depend on an annual bonus, where I work, people at my level get most of their compensation adjustments through a bonus rather than a raise. I won’t know anything about that until August, though, so I just have to cross my fingers, I guess.
    Linda recently posted…The housing updateMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I know, our broker is clearly appalled by how it’s artificially inflating the market.

      Thanks for the backup that no stairs are still a good requirement. Once in a while I second guess that.

      My fingers are also crossed for you and a really big bonus.

  4. I’m getting my $20 card from RockStar towards the end of the week.

    I can’t figure out what to do with it except for the typical charity stuff. The daycare idea is interesting, but I wouldn’t want to cross a line of buying favoritism for my kids.

    The two leading candidate right now are:

    1) A local shelter for mothers and their children who are homeless due to economic hardship, family crisis, divorce, eviction, etc.

    2) Helping my son’s school donate some Hippo Rollers.

    I would love to give it to an unsuspecting person in person as I feel like that surprise will be a better story.
    Lazy Man and Money recently posted…Surprise! Condo AssessmentsMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Well now I feel terrible for not even considering that might be perceived as buying favoritism! It didn’t occur to me in part because she’s great with all the kids, and I wouldn’t think she would think of it that way. Also it was Teacher Appreciation Week.

      I’d like to do a surprise gift for the next one, too!

      • Sadly, I’m conditioned to think about the 0.001% negative possibilities of any altruism I attempt. Ugh, lawyers.

        This comment might serve as an example. You did a great thing. You helped someone out. And now you feel terrible for me presenting a potential negative circumstance.

        You fulfilled “the mission” with the gift card so I say, “Bravo Zulu!”
        Lazy Man and Money recently posted…Welcome to Jack Johnson WeekMy Profile

        • Revanche says:

          It’s ok, I got over it. I decided that I know that it wasn’t meant as an attempt to curry favor nor are we going to ask for special treatment so in the grand scheme of things I won’t worry about this one time.

  5. It’s great to see that you guys are also interested in earning money on the side and investing in real estate. Those are two of my biggest passions too! Thank you for sharing the report!

  6. “It should please me, but it does not, that my $145 in survey money was exactly to the penny the cost of our monthly Subscribe & Save delivery.” UGH. I feel you. Earlier this month I got so excited by a bump in my blog income and it equalled exactly what it cost when I went to Jiffy Lube expecting to get an oil change only to find a squirrel has been living in my car, filling it with nuts and eating all the filters.

    I was happy to be able to pay it so easily, but, dang, I had much more fun plans for that money.
    Mel @ brokeGIRLrich recently posted…Financially Savvy Saturdays #190My Profile

  7. I love it that your gave your gift to the teacher in the daycare. “I don’t think she tends to get just a candid ‘thanks’ for all you do” during her daily work.” That no doubt meant a lot to her. I also love it that JB likes company in the house. My youngest and I have been taking care of the little ones in the nursery at church each week, and I miss that stage of life! So nice to check into it once a week. This time with JB is precious : ) I’m eager for you to find your house. All the best!
    Fruclassity (Ruth) recently posted…I Didn’t Know We Were WeirdMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I hope it was taken in the spirit that it was given 🙂 The first year was really hard but it’s much easier to appreciate the time we have now with zir even with the Terrible Twos in full force.

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