March 1, 2016
Change from Jan 2016: 0.10% decrease
0.10% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
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- By way of ebates and Swagbucks, our Side Money tally this month went up $118.
- I knocked serious money off a bill with a phone call which was good because…
- We had that lovely episode with Seamus.
- I pick the best Valentine’s gifts. I’m loving this delightfully petite broom and dust pan! When you spend half your snack time sitting on the floor picking up crumbs, tiny cleaning implements are suddenly fabulous. Well, no, that’s not true, tiny gear of any kind is always fabulous. I gave LB a demonstration of how to use it to sweep up counters and got a little chuckle. Laughing at me, laughing with me, whatever. As long as we’re laughing.
- I bought a humidifier in an attempt to not die of the latest Viral Scourge and it came with a free subscription to Better Homes & Gardens. Imagine my tiny triumph when I read the fine print and found we could refuse the subscription and get a check for $6 instead. Yes, that’s small beans. It’s half a bean. But it’ll pay for my postcard mailing habit so it’s mine mine mine.
- File under credit card churning. I picked up the Bank of America Alaska Air credit card and used it to pay for our car insurance and a couple incidentals to meet the minimum spend of $1000 in 3 months. We netted 25,000 bonus miles (one round trip ticket), a $100 statement credit, and some thousand and change purchase miles. The downside was the $100 wasn’t pure profit – they didn’t waive the first year’s annual fee like most of the cards I prefer to nab so we came out ahead $25 and 25,000 miles.
- Two really sick friends received the gift of food delivery. It was a surprise and the best I could do once I found out how sick they were because I couldn’t run over to help myself. It ran to the tune of $400. That’s coming out of our discretionary spending and I regret nothing. (There were tears, the good kind. I double regret nothing.) Then PiC sold car parts to cover half of it, so I triple regret nothing because it’s always been my instinct to make up for unexpected expenditures instead of just cashflowing it. I’m a good influence, dammit!
- I’ve been wearing holes into the only pair of jeans that fit after I sized out of the maternity jeans. After weeks of deliberation, and cajoling by PiC, $55 bought me a pair of new jeans (50% off) so of course when I wasn’t looking, I dropped the last 7 pounds to hit my pre-baby weight. DAMMIT. I’d plateaued! There was no reason to believe those lingering pounds were going anywhere. Has unanticipated weight loss ever been so annoying??
- We are so close to completing our estate plan I can taste it!
- I’m also very close to completing our tax document compilation! We’re just missing a couple of forms. But I’m maybe not so much in a hurry to file because thanks to something outside my control on PiC’s side, we’re expecting a huge tax hit. Ugh.
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February 8, 2016
Our 2016 financial goals are pretty normal. How about some personal goals this year? Setting quarterly goals last year was a good format, even if I missed the target on several of them. This year, I’m taking a different approach to the goals because, as it turns out, I don’t need motivation to work more or harder but I do need some motivation to do things that are just good for me.
In that vein, these won’t be assigned specific dates since they’re more fluid.
Reading
I have missed reading so much. 2015 was not my year for reading books. It was my year for reading comics on the phone app, but only once in a while, when breastfeeding or so tired I couldn’t sleep. This year, I have a stack of books on my shelf, by my bedside, and a subscription to Marvel Unlimited. Now the real problem is if I have some time and accessible books, I will read til the dawn breaks.
Travel
We have firmly decided to tackle travel, and flying, this year with LB. Thanks to all your reassurances, I understand that mostly it won’t be a huge world-ending thing but we do have to take a few outlier things into account: my uncertain, but certainly limited, energy levels; overall travel costs; balancing the time off with our work and vacation time.
We’ve got a late summer Hawaii visit on the books, along with a spring visit to the packed-to-the-gills Emerald City Comic Con. I’d dearly like head to New York and soak in the wonders of the Hamilton musical while visiting with dear friends we haven’t seen in ages. Even my addled mind admits that’s probably too much to manage this year though, because you start with New York and find yourself adding on New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia/DC because how do you go cross country and miss this friend, or that friend?
If we do Maui and the Big Island, I’d love some food and adventure recommendations! (more…)
February 1, 2016
Change from Dec 2015: 0.6% decrease
0.6% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
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We made it through the holidays intact in most ways, despite running on empty and for that, I’m grateful. Like a giant nerd, I’ve decided to change our financial reporting for the new year. Presenting money news: Konami Cheat Code-style!
It’s a clean slate as far as percentages go, whatever this month’s net worth is will be the number I compare each coming month to.
Up: A friend told me that I inspired her to start saving and investing because my #1GoodMoneyThing hashtag made it seem simple and not intimidating! That made my entire month.
Up: I negotiated a huge discount on my hosting fees for 3 years, thanks to Donna for the kick in the pants post. This added a year to my already paid service cycle, and netted a refund of $120. Since this blogging venture isn’t exactly raking in the moolah, that lowers the cost of entry so that I can cover the cost of a hobby. (more…)
January 15, 2016
2015 highlights
SPENDING
The good: I took an extended (for Americans) maternity leave with only partial salary. I needed every minute of that time to recover from LB’s delivery, so I’m grateful that we fought to make that happen.
We hosted family and friends throughout the year, traffic to our wee abode was easily four-fold higher thanks to the draw of a fresh-made baby. This wasn’t cheap between feeding them and housing them but we managed to stay within budget.
We even traveled and enjoyed some of it despite the massive increase in gear and logistics. Lowering expectations made a big difference. (more…)
January 8, 2016
Change from Jan 2015: 23.5% increase
0.23% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
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Spending
Much as I would like to cut out all Christmas gift spending, that’s not going to happen overnight. I’ll instead be glad we’ve gone to a somewhat more organized, pick a person system now and hope that someday we can maybe only do small gifts for kids or something. Honestly, we don’t need anything and the things we want, we can save up for, for ourselves. It doesn’t make much sense to me to share our wishlists so they can buy things we want and we can buy things they want – it’s just a swapping around of money. Signed, The Grinch
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Because Dad didn’t bother to tell me he’d need some help staying warm this season, and we’re looking at a potential record El Nino year, I had to do some unexpected post-Christmas shopping. I won’t dwell on how much we could have saved had I known before. We bought him a new blanket and coat: $150 after discounts, and using old store credit we’d had on hand.
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December 2, 2015
Change from Jan 2015: 18.7% increase
0.23% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
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Spending
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The huge cash withdrawals are still happening: half of our property tax bill was due, the other half will be due early next year, our mortgage prepayment actually went through (though we had a specific amount we took directly out of savings so that wasn’t a scramble).
The large withdrawals for my retirement savings will drop to a lower monthly amount starting in January thereby improving our cash flow by a couple hundred dollars. That’ll be good. I hate feeling like we have zero cash flow cushion.
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November 2, 2015
Change from Jan 2015: 19% increase
3% decrease from last month
ON MONEY
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I kicked some financial-planning tuchus this month!
I rearranged our banking to accommodate new regular expenses, got our estate planning lawyer lined up and retainer fee-d, sorted out the paperwork for Phase 2 in LB’s childcare arrangements, had the life insurance nurse visit for the necessary lab work. HUGE.
Expenses
Three huge checks: One for our estate planning, one for LB’s care. I was expecting those, but they still felt like an elbow to the solar plexus. Then a big whack at our mortgage. That was satisfying.
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