May 15, 2011
There’s so much going on these days to share, that the dearth of posting, in part thanks to Blogger’s downtime at exactly the wrong time, has naught to do with having nothing to say. Though, I’m hearing that blog posts and comments from mid-week were deleted so I suppose it’s a good thing I hadn’t posted anything close to that time – I’d be furious about losing those!
Where to start?
Work.
Thailand.
Dog.
Wedding.
(You’ll note that the wedding falls to the bottom of the list. That is representative of something.)
But I have been writing, organizing and doing and you shall soon enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Budget: Traditionally, my family expects you to spend between $20-30K on a wedding for a standard 300-400 guests (“they pay for themselves” etc). “Thank goodness for formulas” except PiC and I are going off the grid, particularly because “standard Asian traditional” for me would have gone right through the roof to 400 on my side alone. So we’re starting from scratch too.
I love regular budgeting but …. I don’t love wedding budgeting. Maybe it’s because I’m cranky about the mark-up on everything just because it’s a wedding?
No matter how awesome you are at negotiating, it eventually becomes a zero-sum game. You can either have it, make it, or do without if you’re going to hit your budget. Unless someone donates it. So again, somehow, it feels a lot less fun than regular budgeting even though it is exactly the same principle.
Vision: I haven’t got a vision. Or a theme. Or colors. For the love of smooshy, stop asking about colors, please?
Eemusings is also engaged but her take is a bit closer to my attitude of “Not ready to plan yet” despite my probably most-pending-nuptials of the three of us. I could use a real kick in the pants to get moving on making things happen because between now and the projected “Hey, can we do this?” date of early November – we have major work events (June), travel (July), more travel for work (undetermined), weddings to attend (June), work (August), other people’s weddings (September) …
Yeek! Who has time to plan a wedding? Or go to one?
Is it just me or do the years book up really fast? Is anyone else feeling a bit overwhelmed by their schedule and wanting to opt out? (Funny about Money, you come to mind.)
April 26, 2010
This is probably the most important detail in the whole process of budget-making: how do I ensure that I have saved a substantial amount by the end of the year, even on an incredibly tight budget?
Step One was establishing my bottom-line expenses. I know that they will increase but for now, I need to know the precise minimum I *must* have.
Step Two was establishing my savings wish list. This is what I want and mean to have. On a meta-level, I know that I have a priority list and can switch priorities as necessary.
*Investing in a 401(k) will be automatic and basically invisible.
Step Three was re-establishing my time commitments. I rely on alternate income to make up the difference between the regular income and the goals and that requires careful time management so that I don’t drop the ball on either side.
Step Four was setting up tracking spreadsheets for the income generated so I stay abreast of the tax implications of freelance work.
Step Five is pulling it all together: as income is earned after the month of April, a set amount will go towards the expense fund and the rest will go to savings. All alternate income goes toward the savings goals as well.
My priorities
Providing for my family
Rebuilding my portfolio of savings and investments
Making time to enjoy my new life
The numbers
Expenses: A very conservative $2,800 per month
Savings: I aim to average $400-500 per month on freelancing = $4950-5850/this year. That takes care of my debt to self which is the same as 50% of my Emergency Fund rebuild goal. I would then take the rest and stash it in the insurance and maintenance funds.
It’s a little disappointing to see the numbers are so low, but any other windfall gigs aren’t included in that total. It’s ok, this is a work in progress.
{———-Bonus Round———}
And we now know that I have to budget in extra money for further medical treatment and therapies for my mom (to be determined) as well as to move them. Look forward to Budgeting, Redux!
February 16, 2010
I absolutely love the reduction of paperwork and the mostly empty file drawers in my desk. One of my main goals of decluttering was to eliminate loads of bulk and excess that creep into all the corners of your life until one day, you fear that it might claim you in your sleep.
Or is that a creeping feeling that only I get?
It does take some upkeep, but with a bit of dedication to scanning in paperwork as you receive it, even if you don’t immediately name and deal with the file in question until later, you can eliminate those Leaning Towers of Recyclables from your life.
The one major problem I’ve run into is that when some record goes missing, my heart goes KER-PLOP. No matter how hard I look, if something isn’t in my electronic files, I probably didn’t scan it but definitely proceeded to discard the hard copy too long ago to retrieve.
I discovered this flaw in the Master Plan a few weeks ago when reviewing documents for tax returns. I always use the previous year’s return as a guide but for the life of me, I cannot find my tax return paperwork for 2008! I triple checked to make sure I wasn’t just thinking of the wrong tax year, but no love.
The Master Plan needs tweaking, I see.
January 15, 2009
I think *gulp* I’m gonna do it. Without the title in hand, it’s a bit harder to sell the truck because potential buyers don’t want to wait 7-10 days to complete the paperwork and sale. So I’m going to send my payoff to Toyota. Yipes!
This is half my expense cushion! But it shouldn’t make a real difference; I’d have to pay it over the next six months, regardless of my employment status.
It makes sense if it eases the sale process, I just have cold (spending) feet!
Edit: Did it. Just did it. Whew!
October 3, 2008
The long-awaited quarterly check has arrived and I am positively stoked.
I am so close to having six months of living expenses in the Emergency Fund!! As soon as I have at least $1000 in the mini E-fund, my plan is to [finally] close the real E-fund to all non-critical withdrawals.
All the bills for September have been paid and I still have $1300 in the Expenses fund. With the deposit from the quarterly, I have enough for October’s expenses on October 2nd. All paychecks earned in October will continue to add an allotted amount to the Exp. Fund, but I won’t be waiting on them to pay the bills. Holy cow, I could pay the entire month’s bills on October 1st. I won’t, of course, that’s not the point of the cushion. The point is that I could if I needed to. Whew!
So I discovered a few things wrong with my math. The quarterly is for the past three months of work [July 1st-Sept 30th], so plotting the total expenses against income through the end of December means I come up short, ie: depleting most of the expense fund by year’s end.
What I need to do is fund the supplemental portion ahead of the next three months. In other words, instead of taking July-Sept money, and only setting aside three months’ worth of income to make up shortfalls from July-Sept, I should set aside enough for July through December. Then, I’ll be covered and still have the cushion in place through the end of December. Then the last quarterly check of the year [Sept through Dec] funds the various accounts that I’d previously planned for this check: Savings, Insurance, Car Maintenance, Travel, Moving, etc. That means I’ll be funding it for 2009, at the end of 2008! This makes much more sense.
All OT can now go towards other sub-expense funds instead of just savings and expenses. I expect an insurance bill in November and I don’t quite have enough for that yet, so OT will fund savings and insurance for the next month and a half.
Also, I’d goofed on the October paychecks, so I have to rewrite the plans for 4 paychecks in the next two months, not three. And actually, now that I’ve fixed the above problem, that third paycheck can come at any time, it’s no big deal.
It’s very strange budgeting on a hybrid [half regular-half supplementary] income. The supplemental is scheduled and the amount is set, so it shouldn’t be difficult, but I haven’t done it so very well since this started. Might I now be starting to get the hang of it?
Perhaps I’ll even get my September snapshot in order now that I’ve reconfigured the economic landscape …
September 24, 2008
Wow, it’s amazing how much brighter my outlook is now that I’m not in excruciating pain. I always forget how much pain, self inflicted or disease related, affects my mood.
In the interest of getting it off my chest, and thus (with any luck), off my mind: I’ve been eaten up by the gimmes. (It’s strange, confession really IS good for you.)
Not a surprise, really. I’ve been quite focused on purging, cleaning and organizing, which is great, but since it’s been rather intermittent, it creates a bit of mental vacuum.
Which leads me to ….
A new laptop. We knew this. I’ve wanted a new one since 2006, but have held off in part thanks to Kira’s post about saving old computers and knowing it’s not in the budget. If I were to give in, I’d still have to wait until Black Friday, so it’s really just best to get a replacement battery. It’s just a matter of finding a reputable place to buy from. Decision: Get a new battery. Hold for another 3 years.
A new business/interview suit. Because I want to look snappy. (Uh- huh. That’s the whole of it.) Not a good enough reason, when the suit fund’s still a fledgling. Decision: on hold.
A cruise. HS friends and I have been talking about going on a little 3-4 day cruise to Mexico together for years. It’s been about six years now. Girlfriend and I were on the phone yesterday and she’s determined that we’re really going to do it!! And she wants to go in November. Lordy. Well, I have $268 in the travel fund. This could be a birthday gift for BF, since he was just complaining that we *never* travel together because of my schedule. I’d have to scare up another $300. Decision: maybe, because it’s a potential birthday gift and right now I just have a cute toy for him.
Pretty shoes. I don’t actually want to own more shoes. I don’t even want to store the ones I DO have, so this is just a symptom of mouse+cookie=craving. Also, I’m supposed to buy real quality when I buy from now on. Right.
November 19, 2007
Could it be, I have no unclaimed cash? Why, yes! Duh! Typical, I get all excited about the idea of expanding my financial horizons, broadening my exposure to different investment and saving options, and exploring the great NASDAQ. And forget that I’ve not a penny to put in place of my mouth.
Silly girl. One great reason I shouldn’t be redirecting my cash: the plan to buy a rental property next summer with my friend.
Another great reason: my e-fund’s still not up to par yet.
Another: I still haven’t a clue what’s going on in the stock market, beyond the basics. In fact, I might not really grasp the basics thoroughly, either.
Instead of becoming discouraged, this is what I’ll do.
1. Research the brokerages. Scottrade, Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, etc. Compare and contrast their products, services and fees. Decide on a brokerage by Christmas. Research and pick a couple of stocks I like.
2. Clear up my financial messiness: round up the credit cards from last year’s AOR, transfer the credit limits to the cards I plan to keep and cancel the losers. Decide if I want to pay off the BroDucky fiasco 0% BT two months early so that I can take advantage of my last 0% BT for about 8 months.
3. Call in the $5000 personal loan from a family friend and deposit that into my savings. It’s convoluted, but the end result means that the money will now be working for me, and not for my dad.
4. Sell the truck. Maybe I will take the “easy” way out and use a car selling service. Carmax, maybe? Things are sufficiently busy and complicated that I don’t relish the idea of investing a lot of time, but neither do I want to lose a lot of money selling that way. If they’ll pay $10k, then I’ll just do it.
5. If I get a good Christmas bonus, set aside $1000 for investing. That’s assuming the brokerage I pick doesn’t have a higher minimum balance.