Money & Life Report: March 2019
April 1, 2019
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We earn money on the side, including tiny cash flow we don’t touch from an investment property and investing in dividend stocks.
Our side income comes from Swagbucks, rare sales on Poshmark, cash back sites (Ebates, Mr.Rebates), and tracking physical activity through Achievement (my introduction to it). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a tiny commission to keep the blog running.
The long term goal is to replace our day job income in case my health prevents me from working.
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Dividend income. We received $268 in dividends this month. Our year to date net dividends are $929.44. I currently reinvest all our dividends.
Book sales. Nothing like last month’s $45 but this month we had $15.83 come in from TextbookRush and another $7.60. They were pretty slow to actually process payment but they came through in the end. Anyone who says that you can just sell stuff in case you lose your source of income has a lot more sellable stuff than we do.
Going paperless. FINALLY Chase offered me $5 to go paperless with our checking account. Honestly I’d thought we were paperless already but I prefer to get paid for these things. 🙂 Sent that $5 directly to savings.
Spending
Household things. We had to pick up a handful of household basics (lotion, Pyrex, toothbrushes for JB, melatonin for me) and I zipped through another Target gift card. I also bought a couple pairs of sandals for JB and a set of dry erase markers and boards for our summer trip. I had to return the sandals because the first pair was way too big and the second pair was a very strange color. Not that ze would have minded, I suppose but it was the principle of getting what I paid for. In the end, they didn’t want me to send back the shoes either so accidental free sandals.
Haircuts! JB got a trim and so did PiC: $30. We tend to tip generously because the basic cost of the cut for PiC is under $20 and she does free trims for JB. I skipped my trim because I’m lazy and also a little cheap.
Seamus. This requires a whole post of its own but in a nutshell, March was another several hundred dollars in x-rays and labwork and another $350 in medications. Whew. Painful.
Dammit Sera! She chewed through a second leash. We need heavy duty hands free leashes for them because they’re so strong so this is not cheap to replace.
Life insurance. Our large expenses fund is taking a real hit this first quarter of the year – another $700 for my annual premium. *waves to the checking account*
- Accessories, 2019: $0
- Clothes, 2019: $32
- Shoes, 2019: $0
Not spending
Rental HOA. I won that battle over $300 in fines they shouldn’t have charged.
Homemade weedkiller. Thanks to some internet sleuthing and some input from Twitter friends, I concocted a mixture of vinegar, epsom salt (I bought a ten lb sack for soaking in years ago and never used it), and dish soap to kill off the weeds on our walkway. It worked! I still have to dig out the dead weeds but they’re dead and that is a victory.
Forgiven fines. I had to plead for mercy on a $29 NSF fee incurred because I accidentally let my automated savings transfers get ahead of our paychecks and it completely overdrew our account. Whoops. ROOKIE MISTAKE. It was corrected quickly but I felt silly.
Giving
Deferred. I’m planning to cut a check for the library but since our projected ending balance for the month is $123, I’m going to wait a couple of weeks so that I don’t accidentally overdraw the account again.
A very personal gift. I’ve also pulled back on all our charitable giving to conserve money to help a dear person in my life who is fighting to protect vulnerable children and leave an abusive situation. They’re all going to need a lot of help for a while because things are going to get much worse before they improve.
Saving and investing
PiC is getting a very modest raise and an unexpectedly robust bonus this year. You know I’ve already allocated it toward maxing out his 401k and increasing our automatic savings deposit to account for the whole raise. I’m lucky he’s on board with my financial planning – another person might be miffed they’re not going to see a penny of their raise and bonus! At least not in a tangible enjoy it now kind of way. We’re really focused on building our foundation for the future and we’re only now able to do it this intensely.
The disconcerting thing is we still don’t know if he’ll have a job or be able to bear the one he’s left with after several rounds of layoff at the end of the year. He hates his current job and he’s just hanging in there to keep us solvent while he searches for a new one. He’s so stressed. 🙁
I’m changing my savings buckets. We had 1) E-fund, 2) Side income, 3) JB’s money, and 4) Large expenses.
They are now: 1) E-fund, 2) Investing money (now to include JB’s money), 3) Real Estate savings, 4) Large expense.
The money in the e-fund was getting mixed with investing savings over the past several months. This way, I can stop mentally tallying how much cash I have to leave in the e-fund in order to preserve the 1 year of savings (I keep 2 months in liquid cash, 10 months in CDs) AND I can separate out the money that’s dedicated to the rental property. Our side income, investing dividends, and all that other income goes into the investing savings account and I will invest four times a year to ensure our dividends are qualified. It’s a little weird, change always is, but I think this is good. It’s cleaner.
Small changes, big impact. I even corrected my recurring transfers so they’re not withdrawing before our paychecks come in! SUCH a simple solution.
Miles & points
Alaska miles: 282,073
Marriott Bonvoy: 616,673
Chase Ultimate rewards: 223,947. I took out 100K points as $1000 cash to drop into our savings account and boy am I a hoarder. I hated clicking that button even though I knew we’d need it for some travel money. In my head, the points should just stay there forever until I redeem them for travel, even though I already paid cash for our summer airfare so obviously I won’t be using them to cover airfare.
Net worth and Goals
Mini check-ins for our money goals this year.
Cash Investing: 25% – this hasn’t changed because I realized that we have to time our purchases of index funds a little better. I need to hold them over 60 days before dividends pay out in order for them to be qualified dividends, so I should make my purchases 4 times a year in specific windows to ensure we’ll hold those funds for over 60 days.
Mortgage Principal: $15,000: 23%
On Life
Social things happened! We took a trip to the city, just us three, and spent the afternoon moseying about and hanging out. We also visited a friend with a new baby. Then we attended Holi with our friends and that was fantastic.
Work life. It’s still a challenge, I’m in a particularly tough spot now, but we may have started turning a corner and the next 4-12 weeks are going to be critical to our long term happiness and success.
Good things this month: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5
My April won’t look pretty. I had a couple of large expenses (I’m looking at you, $480 business taxes) that boosted up the credit card limit so that I can only put a couple hundred into my SEP. Though at least that’s in addition to my Roth IRA, which I put $500 in each month (in order to max it out over the course of a year). So that’s something. But it’s still a little disheartening since it means savings gets $0 this month. (I’m trying to make myself prioritize compound interest over a bigger savings account.)
Eh, I’m still putting money away, which is what matters. That is, until I take out $1,600 for this home project I have to work out. AND my ceiling fan’s light kit just pooped out, so now I have to replace the whole thing as it’s the main light source in the living room. Le sigh.
Oh, taxes. They have punched us in the face this month.
Let’s just focus on the fact that the money is actually there to cover those big bills and that you’re not going into debt for it! Trying…to….focus….
And I thought I hoarded a lot of credit cards rewards points! (I have about 200K in United miles, between ~2 years of Chase points and a new card bonus from an United Mileage Plus card. But I don’t really have a plan for my points…)
This first quarter of 2019 has been pretty spend-y for medical things, including the optometrist (which should at least be a once every ~3 years thing at most, at least). Due to factors entirely outside my control with changes to my health insurance through work, costs for getting the same prescriptions I’ve been using for years have shot up dramatically. How fun!
Darn those cost of living related increases! I’ve been looking at ways to bring them down and I’m not loving it.
We don’t have a specific plan for our points either, TBH, I just had a loose plan for what I wanted it for. We may not be going forward with my loose plan anyway.
So sorry to hear about PiC’s work situation. We are going through a huge reorg at work, and it’s a giant slog. I’m really happy I have the sabbatical coming up, so I can take time to recharge & figure out what comes next. Sending good “job finding vibes” your way!
Thank you! I’m so glad you have the sabbatical coming up!
I paid off my house and car in March, so I am concentrating on paying medical and dental bills. I call April the three t’s, taxes,tires, and teeth. I miscalculated my tax bill for this year and it was horrible…groan.I will still be having dental and medical procedures done all the month of May….sigh.
Paying off both the house and car? That calls for HUGE congratulations!!
Best of luck with the dental and medical procedures, though, and crossing my fingers for minimal discomfort.