January 24, 2018
I’ve been battling back some seriously expensive impulses lately. It’s been months of being grumpy because my rational side knows it’s right. It’s not the right time or it’s not in the budget for us, given our financial goals.
My irrational sliver of self continues to whisper and it’s frustrating the snickets out of me. It continues to say, “yes, but ….” HUSH, YOU.
I make pragmatic decisions every single day, regardless of what I wished or hoped or wanted. It’s easy because my first priority is to be efficient and effective. So why won’t my whole self settle down?
This is my attempt to work out what the problem is.
It’s relatively easy to say that we will go to Japan for a three week food fest or Australia and New Zealand to hike for a month someday but not this year because I don’t want to leave Seamus that long. I’m still traumatized. Those are my castles in the sky. I know the kind of money we’ll need to have ready to spend, and we are not ready to spend 5 stacks of money on a vacation between dogsitting (3 weeks away would cost at least $1000!), airfare for three, lodgings, food, and so on. Time off isn’t easy to come by right now, either, but that’s neither here nor there without the money piece settled.
I’m fine with giving up some things now so that we can have financial freedom later when it’s going to be critical for my health to have that freedom – we moderate eating out and travel, for example. We don’t stop them, we just don’t do it every week. But some thoughts keep chugging around my brain like they’re stuck on a toy train track, refusing to accept the pragmatic “No.”
(more…)
January 22, 2018
This is old hat for old hands in the PF blogging world but in direct contrast to my move toward simplification in our investment holdings, I’ve finally decided to “complicate” our cash savings and set up a proper ladder. A CD ladder!
All of 2017, I’ve been fiddling with our cash reserves because it feels foolish to hold so much cash but it also feels foolish to invest when stocks are at all-time highs. Conflict!
On January 1 2017 I rashly threw a huge amount of cash into long term (5 year) CDs at Ally. I had no plans for this cash so why not? Then the neighbor happened. Dammit. When you break a 5 year CD early, you lose 6 months of interest, so I scraped cash together every other way I could before July 1 to pay for the house reno to avoid cashing out my CDs for less than the principal I put in. I knew those terms going in but on Jan 1st, it sure didn’t SEEM like there was any reason to need that money in less than a year. Fool.
(more…)
January 15, 2018
Quick recap – It was time to cut off my father who I’ve supported for nearly 20 years. I grieved, then started the process.
For several days, I ignored that manipulative email convincing me to keep helping. After closing my bank account that he had deposit-access to, so that he can’t deposit any cash in an attempt to twist my arm into writing more checks for him, I found calmness in my soul again.
With that protection, I responded to that email with a faux-contrite decline to provide further funds saying that I couldn’t come up with anything extra.
That’s not precisely true, when I have to, I can usually find a way to scrape money together but I’m simply not willing to take a second job to support him again. I phrased that as “I can’t”.
We are truthfully groaning under the weight of our current obligations: a five digit annual bill for property tax, a five digit annual bill for daycare with two increases expected this year, a merely terrifying mortgage, and corresponding insurances but all that aside, he doesn’t need, or get, to know the true state of our finances when he doesn’t care about our well-being. In a world where my Dad loved me, he would have expressed concern for us when I described our faux financial distress even if there was nothing he could do about it. In reality, he didn’t reply for weeks.
(more…)
January 10, 2018
Like Military Dollar, sometimes I have a collection of thoughts that aren’t full-post worthy.
I scored 10 out of 15 on J. Money’s 15 things to do to be above average. That’s a failing grade by normal standards, but I don’t feel bad about it.
- Build a starter emergency fund of $1,000: 1 point.
- Organize your important financial information in a binder or eFile: 0.5 point, this is mostly done but needs more organization.
- Develop a monthly budget habit: 0 point, we track spending but stopped budgeting traditionally.
- Pay off all of your debts: negative points! well, 0. Damn you, new mortgage!
- Build a mid-level emergency fund of $10,000: 1 point. I require at least a year of liquid reserves.
- Be aware of your credit score: 1 point, I don’t check this regularly but we just applied for a mortgage so we’re in the 800s.
- Earn extra income: 1 point, I do a bit extra but I don’t necessarily agree this should be on the list. Sometimes your primary incomes are just fine.
- Read the top personal finance books: 0, I don’t read PF books, I read blogs.
- Automate your savings: 1 point, YES! I DO THIS.
- Automate your bills: 1/2 point, I automate the ones that make sense.
- Automate investing: 1 point, retirement and 529 investing is automated, brokerage investing takes more work.
- Write a 5 year financial plan: 0 point right now, I used to do 5 year plans but I need a new financial plan with details!
- Start maxing out your retirement account every year: 1 point, I finally got this together.
- Complete your emergency fund so you have at least 6 months’ expenses saved: 1 point, yes, as above, we need a year for me not to grow Baby Ulcer.
(more…)
December 25, 2017
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate, Happy nearly end of the year to everyone else!
I’m feeling pretty good about all the work I’ve put into getting our money wrapped up in 2017 and ready for 2018.
This series has been monumentally helpful to keeping me on track because my other constant feeling is being on edge with our current administration. Politics aside, the people we have in office are utterly abhorrent human beings who only believe women exist in a binary state of “would have sex with her / wouldn’t have sex with her” and it’s appalling. Then there’s all the egregiousness of Naziism and white supremacy gaining a public facing foothold, revelations of abuse of women and children over the years … it’s way too much for …
Wait. I was talking about money, wasn’t I? Sorry, got a bit off track there. Oh right, that’s because I started thinking about the tax code and all of THOSE implications. Right, back to my original train of thought here:
(more…)
December 18, 2017
Last month, I had a brief conversation with our tax person to run some numbers for our 2017 taxes, but we didn’t come up with much more we could do to become more tax efficient other than more charitable giving. Then along came Nicole and Maggie with a reminder that I hadn’t considered bunching our property taxes and I’m so glad they did.
If we don’t bunch them, our 2017 property taxes will be $8,500, $10,780 in 2018, and $10,420 in 2019.
If we do bunch them, they will be $14,020 in 2017, $5,210 in 2018, and $15,630 in 2019.
Our other relevant assumptions:
1. Expected mortgage interest for 2017: $19,865.43, approx expected morgage interest for 2018: $26,506.08
2. Drop Dad from list of dependents starting 2017
3. Drop Brother from list of dependents starting 2018
4. My W-2 income will probably be static for another year since I got a raise this year, PiC’s will probably go up about 3-5%. Stupid small companies *grouse* (more…)
December 11, 2017
The second (missing) IRA
It’s a touch mortifying to admit that until now, I have failed utterly to start contributing to PiC’s IRA – we started to get on that, and …. I dropped the ball. I got distracted!
Plus I let myself get hung up on where his money should go. His work uses Fidelity but I use Vanguard and we all know I’m right! But for some reason, that argument holds no sway with his company. Philistines.
He had a teeny IRA somewhere long ago that we rolled over into a money market account until we had time to make a decision. Er, until I had a time to make a decision. (more…)