April 21, 2008
After all that research and ordering a $100 Bed, Bath and Beyond gift card, I came back this weekend to the announcement that PaDucky had happened upon a yard sale where our neighbor was selling a brand new microwave for $30. It had never been used, and looked perfect, so he bought it.
It was a great deal, and I’m glad I don’t have to spend $120 on a microwave, but now … what do I do with a $100 BBB gift card? I never shop there! Drat. I shouldn’t have been so efficient in burning another 10,000 Thank You points.
April 15, 2008
There’s nothing on the Linens’n’Things website yet, but I hear they’re about to declarebankruptcy. C3 had mentioned hearing about the possibility a few weeks, but since I couldn’t find any news on it, I didn’t think anything of it.
After waiting months, using our old yucky vacuum that spits up, to earn enough points to redeem for all the GC I want, the master plan to spend nothing out of pocket may not work out.
On Saturday, I spent part of the morning at LNT doing some hands-on research with their floor models, and had finally decided on the two models I liked best for lightweight maneuverability, and nice attachments. The next step was to order my $100 GC from Thank You points, and bring home my new vacuum baby!
Now I’m hesitant: I’ve already got a $50 GC on hand, but that’s not enough for either vacuum I want. If I get the $100 in time, I’ll have too much money left over since I’ll also be stacking the GC and sale with a 20% off coupon. That’s assuming they don’t stop accepting their own GCs like Sharper Image did! Yar. I hate being thwarted.
April 13, 2008
Since Ma and PaDucky are champing at the bit to replace our microwave, I’ve been doing a lot of research online about microwaves using MoneyDummy‘s discovery: Consumer Research.
It doesn’t seem like there’s much consistency in microwave quality between brands, and there definitely doesn’t appear to be correlation between cost and quality. Since that’s the case, I’m just looking for a product that satisfies our needs in terms of size, power and features, and a better than average sense of satisfaction from previous buyers. There’s not much else I can do about it. Oh, and availability from a merchant for whom I can redeem Thank You points. Spending as little out of pocket as possible is crit-i-cal.
I’ve finally settled on redeeming $100 for 10,000 TY points for Bed, Bath and Beyond. They would have to order the Sharp R-305KS and have it delivered to my home in about 5 business days, but the advantage of ordering in store, instead of online, is that they’ll allow me to use their 20% off coupon on the purchase in-store. I’d already tried to have them do a store to store transfer, but the employee who tried calling other stores didn’t have any luck, apparently they don’t carry it in this region. Unfortunately, that’s the drawback to BBB, in my opinion, they don’t have in-store pickup for many of the products I looked at, unlike LNT.
Comparison shopping revealed that Amazon.com has the same product, with free shipping, for $99. BBB has it listed for $120. With the coupon, plus $11.95 shipping (nope, couldn’t weasel out of that charge either), the oven will cost $108, plus tax. Using the $100 GC, I should only be out of pocket about $20. I was shooting for 100% “free” via GC, but I won’t redeem more simply because I can’t redeem for a 1:1 ratio on less than a $100 GC. I believe the next step down is $50 for 6000 points, and that’s just a waste of 1000 points. Also, I practically never shop at BBB so there’s no reason to tie up more money there. I’d just gratuitously waste the excess GC later on stuff I probably don’t need. Unless …. I might need stuff for the new apartment next year …..
April 4, 2008
This isn’t the first time I’ve pondered this and I’m sure it’s getting old. I’m mulling over the various adjustments I’d like to implement for Tax Year 2008. I know what my annual goal was fairly sensible, but in light of some mistakes made in Tax Year 2007, I need to make some post-Q1 adjustments.
Mistake Number 1: Underestimating the amount of “contractor” income I was going to make.
This led to Mistake Number 2: Adjusting my withholdings drastically to make up for what I thought had been excessive withholding, given my Head of Household status. For the last few months of the year, I was paying very little federal tax.
Had I not received so much untaxed income in Q4, too late to correct the withholding and increase my retirement contributions correspondingly, my estimate of my taxable income and corresponding tax bill would have been just about perfect.
Instead, the effects of the two mistakes above were:
1. I ended up owing the entire amount of taxes assessed on the untaxed income, and
2. My percentage of retirement contributions of total income was significantly lower than it should have been.
3. I think I’m being assessed a $32 federal penalty for not making quarterly payments on that income because I withheld too little. 🙁
Rather than making quarterly payments this year, I’m considering the following:
1. Increase my retirement contributions for the rest of the year to include the equivalent of 30% of the untaxed income.
2. Save 10% of the untaxed income for taxes, instead of the usual 30%.
3. Keep my withholding at 1 and add a small, additional amount per month so that I don’t have to waste time, money and brain capacity on sending in quarterly payments.
I like this plan because I really like watching the balances in my Vanguard account go up (despite the market volatility, it creeps up now and again). I really like the idea of committing to a bit more in the retirement accounts. I like reducing that feeling of false security when I’m holding a lot of cash in anticipation of a tax bill.
Cons of the plan: reducing my take-home pay even more will make budgeting even more difficult. I’ll have to be ultra-careful about juggling expenses because I’m no longer holding out until that next fat supplement check, what I gots is what I gots!
Any cons that I’m missing here?
March 31, 2008
It seems that, in a stroke of irony akin to your pet goldfish dying the day after you clean his bowl, I killed our microwave when I cleaned it last weekend.
My first impulse was to go look at newer and better models that aren’t liable to self-destruct upon contact with soap and water, but that enthusiasm petered out as I contemplated the scads of bills coming up. I decided to wait a while to do some research and try to purchase a model from a store for which I can get gift cards (via Thank You points, more than likely). Possibly from MyPoints.com, but I’m only halfway to a $50 gift card there. My choices seem to be Linens’n’Things or Macys since I only want to redeem in increments of 10,000 points for a $100 GC.
Meanwhile, we’ve been a microwave-free household for the better part of a week, and while it’s not convenient, I’m not terribly put out, either. My dinners tend to be lukewarm since my schedule is either inconsistent or incompatible with Ma&PaDucky’s, but I can live with that, for a while longer.
January 7, 2008
Monthly Expenses
(some are close estimates, as the cost may vary slightly)
Fixed
Rent: $1360
Trash/Water: $80
Cable: $26
Landline: $37
Cell phones, Padres: $75
Cell phone, mine: $50 currently, will go up. A lot. Est, $80
Gas, home: $30
Electric: $125
Internet: $18
Gas, auto: $300
Groceries: $200
Truck payment: $400
Auto insurance: $300
Total: $2631
Variable Categories (personal, unbudgeted)
Eating out
Clothing
Travel
For the last section of variable categories, I don’t have a budget other than “as little as possible” because the fixed expenses have crept up to more than I make. It’s usually no more than $200 per month for all of the above, though, which isn’t much because even a cheap flight is about $120.
My plan to bring down the expenses:
1. Truck payment
Goal: Sell that sucker!
Deadline: By the second week of February. [After the wedding!]
Action: I have a figure in mind that I want to sell it for. I’ll get a quote from CarMax to see if they can match that price first. If they can’t, then I’ll take photos, and post it on Craigslist and perhaps AutoTrader.
Associated benefit: the auto insurance should come down quite a bit as well.
Savings: $400 + insurance reduction
2. Cell Phones, Ma/Pa
Goal: Change plan
Deadline: By Feb 22nd, the end of their next billing period
Action: Reduce their family plan to the cheapest one available.
Savings: $10/month.
3. Cell Phone, mine
Goal: Maximize minutes, minimize costs
Deadline: Feb 1st
Action: When I activate the iPhone, I’ll ask for the plan with the MOST minutes (6000) for the first month, then reduce it to the cheapest plan available. Since AT&T/Cingular has rollover minutes, I plan to bank the remaining minutes for use through the rest of the year. I do need to verify that they don’t penalize for changing plans, nor do the minutes expire.
Cost (before tax):
$880/year for 10,950 minutes
vs.
$720/year for 5,400 minutes
The difference is an extra $160 for 5,550 minutes. This is a situation where I’ll have to spend to save more overall. There’s no way I can use only 450 minutes/month when no one other than my officemates are on AT&T, and I am not paying any 40 cents/minute overage!
September 4, 2007
| Retirement Savings |
Roth IRA: $3,439
401(a): $832
403(b): $8,581
Total: $12,852 |
| Emergency Savings |
$10,856 (of $15,000) |
| Goal Oriented Savings |
House/Wedding: $9,813.36
Currently intended for BT repayment: $2,357
Total: $12,170 |
| Investment Loans |
Prosper-ish: $12,630
Personal Loan: $5,000
Total: $17,630 |
| Total Assets |
Non-Liquid: $12,852
Semi-Liquid: $17,630
Liquid: $23,026 |
| Debt and Liabilities |
Truck: $8,515
BT (Brother): $17,537, due 02/08
Total: $26,052 |
Not only am I crap at updating NetworthIQ.com, I don’t even have the faintest idea of what my finances were like this time last year. For a completely neurotic person, that doesn’t make much sense now, does it? Ah well. Easily fixed. I’m seeing immediately that the original money pots I’d created: Emergency and Goal Oriented will need to be combined to cover the BT debt and anything left over will go back into a new Emergency pot. Originally I’d thought that the Snapshot should just be annual to give an overview of how things have progressed, but this could easily turn into a much more frequent task. In the meantime, I’m just twiddling my thumbs waitin’ on that raise money we heard so much about a couple months ago. Any day now …..