January 1, 2015
2014 highlights
SPENDING
The good: We can do a fair bit of luxury spending: travel, paying a little more for good quality things rather than settling for the cheapest (and lower quality), eating out more than usual to conserve energy.
We’ve considered a new (to us) car but we’re holding off for now. We’ll wait til the new fancy edition that PiC wants is at least a couple years old and available on the used market. That also means paying cash so I’d like to have that on hand.
The bad: I still feel we spend too much of our incomes (about 75% of it) but we live in both a relatively HCOLA and we pay at least $17,000 annually for my dad’s upkeep, more or less depending on shenanigans.
SAVING
The good: We maxed out PiC’s 401(k) contributions.
I made a last minute 2013 IRA contribution and did the same for 2014. (Last minute because I plain forgot.)
We continued to save 25% the whole year, and started a new savings account for LB.
Our side money venture went really well in Q4.
The bad: I don’t have a retirement plan through the new company so I intended to set up my own. Researched, yes. Decisioned, no. So that’s a fail.
The I don’t know yet: We expanded our portfolio into real estate this year.
Since it took me all of Q1 to properly collect our net worth data, I don’t feel like I can really extol our progress accurately on that front. (more…)
December 16, 2014
Change from November: .63% increase
Change from January: 370% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
Our increases in the net worth from the beginning of the year look astronomical but honestly, that has more to do with me having trouble getting all the accounts in order over the first quarter. It’s not ALL actual growth but I didn’t relish going back and figuring out what it REALLY was in January now that I have all the accounts sorted.
Maybe I’ll just zero out the start-of-year counter again for 2015 and call it a day.
***
End of the year money moves
2014 is running out the clock – what else has to be done?
Last charitable donations
Considering: pay the second half of the property tax a couple months early?
Make a usual big lump payment to the mortgage.
*** (more…)
November 17, 2014
Change from October: 1.67% increase
Change from January: (367.80% total); 1.05% decrease
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
We’ve nearly recouped the investment losses from last month. See, nothing to worry about.
***
Chatting with J.Money about his Craigslist challenge, I realized we’d been doing pretty darn well at it ourselves. (We = PiC, but I get to claim…. writer/banker credit?) I proudly present The Craigslist Sales Tracker!
This changed to Our Sales Tallies and then again to Our Side Money Tracker. Like anything with money, it keeps evolving. Check out our progress page in the top navigation bar there.
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Venturing into I-Bonds: I have been what you might call “a lazy git” at maximizing certain investing avenues. Jonathan’s regular update reminded me that I’d always intended to start buying I-Bonds and with CDs paying so little in the “basically-cash” investment vehicles category, now was a decent time to get in there.
Buying right before the end of October means that if I keep the I-Bond over a year, which I plan to, it’ll earn 1.94%.
I maxed out my contribution limit and am waiting to see what the new rate in November will be. If it’s a decent rate, I’ll max out PiC’s contribution limit.
***
Investing is where my head’s been lately. I know it’s all slow and steady wins the game but I’m a bit twitchy. Reminders that we have quite a few irons in the fire and it will be ok:
I-Bonds – one bond to have and to hold til a better almost-cash vehicle comes along.
CDs – a strange CD ladder: one will CD mature next year, four will mature in 2016, and the last one matures in 2019. Never let me build an actual ladder for you.
Real Estate – one property with a trickle of cash flow.
Stock Portfolio – tiny, but growing.
Retirement accounts – his and hers, medium-sized.
***
We all knew this was coming but with the increase in property value? Yep. Increased property taxes. To the tune of $700. OUCH.
By the way, not that I’m complaining, but it’s a little weird that the actual Payment Is Delinquent date is more than a month after the due date, isn’t it?
***
We’re looking down the barrel of nearly $1500 in increased medical insurance costs for 2015.
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Mr and Mrs PoP asked an interesting question about how comfortable you’d be sharing your income. I’m not totally sure that anyone’s actually interested in reading these Net Worth posts but I’m still on the fence about declaring actual numbers. Seems like it’d be more useful (to me) but I’m not sure. Pros? Actual milestones!
Cons? We’re not poor anymore, not the way I used to be, so it makes me wonder (like Abby did a couple months ago) whether I’d be alienating people by sharing our actual numbers and progress. Your thoughts?
***
On Life
We celebrate three years of marriage this year. I don’t think that I’d ever anticipated coming around to the notion of having kids or being this content with our family life. We’re not about excitement and big thrills, we’re happiest spending quiet time together and getting things done. And on occasion, a bit of fancy food to commemorate how far we’ve come.
We’re lucky and grateful to have met and, over time, become good fits for each other. I don’t think it was anything as arcane as “meeting the one” so much as learning how to mesh our lives. Sure we started out as a couple that really clicked but that doesn’t make a life. We worked hard at making our differences work for instead of against us, and making each other’s needs a priority. It’s not easy but it’s worth the effort.
October 17, 2014
Change from September: 1.38% decrease
Change from January: (366.75% total); 5.12% decrease
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
We lost about $17K in the retirement accounts. I probably picked a bad day to update the accounts as the market’s been very volatile this week. Ah well.
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Short term savings: I’ve always had a mix of savings accounts and CDs, a holdover from the high-interest rates days. Over time, I’ve winnowed them down to cut down on the complication of my day to day tracking. My last high-interest CD with Citibank is maturing next summer, so I’ll have to start thinking about where to park that next. I’ve got a couple CDs with Ally expiring in 2016, so that too will need a better earning home.
***
Checking and savings accounts: Speaking of winnowing, where I used to have about 25 accounts (half because of the high interest rates, half because I liked to break out the destination of all that money), I’d like to only have several. I mainly bank with online only accounts now, but will likely hang onto one B&M bank for physical transactions. It’s possible we don’t even need that if I can break the habit of carrying the B&M card and take the online bank debit card instead; I’m pretty sure they waive all foreign ATM fees since they don’t have their own ATMs.
To date, I’ve closed 4 accounts with 2 banks and have 3 more credit cards to cancel.
***
2013. Taxes. Have. Been. FILED! HALLELUJAH. Now, of course, I need to clean up my notes for 2014 to cut down on the amount of prep and review notes that I give the CPA next spring.
***
Stupid Money: Got another one of those fun surprises in the mail that feature a photo of your car and license plate. Technically it IS my car, but it was not driven by me. That’s right, this was another Family-Money-Fail. There should be a shower on confetti every time that happens.
The bright side? Rather than the $30 that the City of Orange once tried to get out of me when it was their toll booth that was out of order, this was only 45 cents and they let me pay online with a credit card without any CC fees. So that was the cheapest ding ever.
***
Little Bean Money: Lauren reminded me of a thing I’d managed to let slip. Little Bean’s officially got a dedicated chunk of savings transferring directly out of my paycheck (and soon, PiC’s) into an LB savings account. This little cushion will be comforting and good practice for when that money’s just flying out the door.
On Life
Adding another dependent to the household is a whole lot of work. I don’t think I fully understood what I signed up for here!
We’ve been coping relatively well, I think, with all the extra challenges of my even-more decreased mobility and lack of energy, and still getting some of the cleaning and purging done around here so that’s good but it does feel like there’s a mountain or two left to climb before we’re materially ready. I have no doubt there’s no way to mentally prepare for this sort of change, except to remind ourselves to be flexible. Over and over and over.
***
Congrats to Jordann for an October NW increase.
SaverSpender had an increase despite significant spending & comes within spitting distance of a quarter million.
Alicia’s quarterly report shows some major progress.
September 22, 2014
Change from August: 2% increase
Change from January: 272% increase
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household, Little Bean, and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
Bill creep: Our cell phone discount was eliminated, so that went up $10/month. Our internet promotion (though I was lied to by the CSR who told me it was a bundle price, NOT a promotion) expired so that bill jumped 20%. The sewer/water bill went up another $8 bimonthly.
I’ve made calls to bring down the cost of what I could but in the end, the total is still up from three months ago which is frustrating.
***
Mortgage thoughts: Congratulations to SP on the purchase of their new house!
This made me curious. We’ve been working away at the mortgage, which we couldn’t refinance for reasons that still irritate me, and putting a lump sum toward principal each year. It’s made a difference! In spite of the high interest rate, compared to what we could have gotten in a refi, we’re down to 80% of the original mortgage or 60% of the total cost left.
That’s not huge but it is a significant amount and gives me hope that if we batter away at this a bit more, we’ll free up cash flow sooner than I had hoped. The mortgage payoff calculator suggests that if we paid an additional $500/month, we’d pay this sucker off in 15 years from now, shaving off nearly a third of the full term. Since we do a lump sum towards principal once a year, I wonder how much of a difference that makes.
Anyway, this is mostly idle curiosity since my brain immediately demands to know what I want to do with this place: make it a rental? Stick it out? Sell it? And I don’t have those answers.
***
Mortgage, continued: We had a payment snafu where the mortgage payment didn’t process. PiC was positive he’d paid it and he’s never been late or missed one, but the bank’s immediate reaction was to ding us with a $100 fee and tell us about mortgage modification. He had to call and chat with them, and the fee was removed, but that was PITA.
I’ve since set up an automated payment for that to come out of our joint checking account which tells us when they’re going to send and when they have sent payments.
***
We are so close to getting 2013 taxes done I can nearly taste it! Working with a new CPA, however, does require a bit more due diligence and legwork on my part. I’ve reviewed the draft filing and sent back a long list of corrections and questions. If this goes well, we’ll dive into 2014 preparations because our first quarter of 2015 is going to be pretty hectic between home and work life; I don’t have time for hand-holding.
On Life
Not a heck of a lot to say here: we had a lot of change and it’s been hard.
August 15, 2014
Change from July: 0% increase
Change from January: 265% increase
Our investments took a hit this month so interestingly, between that and our savings, we had exactly no change (except for, literally, some change) since last month.
On Money
I’m working away at Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household and dog things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
***
Since the addition of another unbudgeted mouth to feed and body to, well, not clothe, but to get up to medical snuff, all (meager) proceeds of the blog now go to fund Dog#2’s ongoing medical care. I’ve got some saved, but he may bid well to run right through all of it since this isn’t really your standard money-makin’ money blog 😉 We’re calling him Seamus now, Shamey for short when he transgresses, as he has done on occasion.
So if you have to purchase from Amazon and wouldn’t mind using one of my links in the sidebar there, Seamus and we would be most grateful. Every penny really does count!
***
I finally secured a CPA to get started on our much-delayed 2013 taxes – wazoo! Once that’s filed, we can get started on the 2014 tax planning; we’ll have a few things to do there.
I have gotten a few recommendations on an estate planning lawyer, so I think that’s my September goal: Get our paperwork nailed down.
***
Having had no retirement plan through my employer for a while, I really ought to have done this before but I’m just now getting myself in order on that front. I did manage to fully contribute to a 2013 IRA and will do so again for 2014, while quietly kicking myself for not dealing with this much earlier. I think between income, married filing jointly, and having one spouse have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, we won’t actually be able to take a deduction on it but whatever. Saving is the key here.
***
Reflecting: You’d think I wouldn’t have to squeeze every penny and point program to fund everyday life. ‘Where the hell did all our money go??‘ pops up an awful lot in my head since we do make a decent income between the two of us, after all! I keep finding myself thinking it’s time to create more income and/or get a second job. But seriously…
Reality Check. We’re still paying for two households, four adults, and two dogs. The Bay Area isn’t cheap by any means, even as frugally as I try to keep our home. And we would like to be in a house that we can reasonably afford to pay off and maintain, someday, so I’m still aggressively saving our cash. And there’s really only so much health/energy I have for THIS life, forget one that includes yet more work.
On Life
We will manage a vacation this year. A semi-actual vacation where I take a few days off instead of just going off to some place and just work while we’re there late into the night and play during the day and come home and collapse.
I’d be excited about this but I’m still in “prep and take care of everything” mode.
SOON.
July 15, 2014
Change from June: 35% 125% increase
Change from January: 118% 262% increase
On Money
I’m still focused on Swagbucks to earn Amazon money for household things we need. Feel free to join using my referral link if you like!
How is our total net worth increasing when I know we just paid big bucks out this month to the tune of $5000+? I don’t think “gift horses” apply here. I’m half convinced there’s something wrong with my math, but I haven’t found the error yet so we’re going with it. I found the error. And good gravy it’s in our favor again. It’s amazing how just being one cell off in these spreadsheets can make the numbers wonky so I’m both grateful that I’ve caught it and that it went up, not down.
We’re looking at a heck of a lot of expenses coming up too, short term and long term, so I’m doing my best to ensure we maintain growth as long as possible before our finances start taking body blows.
In the meantime, I have our 2013 taxes to face down, 2014 taxes to plan for, and it’s well past time PiC and I got our act together on estate planning. I’m locating a good CPA to help with the taxes because I don’t have the time/energy to devote to winkling out every last detail anymore and an estate planning lawyer to start getting our estate plan in place. It could be done online, sure, but I’ve seen some reports where paperwork done improperly through the online forms didn’t hold up and left the estate in disarray. I’m not comfortable enough to go on my own research and homegrown expertise on this.
On Life
We’re in the middle of needing a lot of things: furniture, rugs to replace the thrashed rugs that mainly serve Doggle’s needs, an entire set of second-dog things, and it’s got me beating the bushes for ways to clear out space (donate, donate, sell on Craigslist, donate, trash) and earn some more cash to pay for these things.
PiC’s in charge of the Craigslisting while I’m in charge of the donations. I’ve found a homeless shelter that will take the household things that aren’t really Goodwill material but are in good shape for use: utensils, toys for kids, etc. Then again, he’s also in charge of buying from Craigslist by common consent, he loves searching CL and has this whole system going, while I’m much better at other kinds of bargain shopping. So that’s keeping us busy.
***
No sooner do I make the travel arrangements for one trip, another one creeps up demanding my attention. We have some major travel (in terms of time and money) coming up and it’s got me wishing to take Doggle and absconding to a hotel for the weekend where I don’t do any work, thinking or anything other than eating, walking and sleeping. Now *that’s* a vacation! (inspired by Lauren’s weekending, actually.)
***
I had some pretty scary weeks when breathing wasn’t…so possible, I guess that’s an accurate description. It felt like a 30 pound cat sprawled on my ribs so every breath was a struggle and unsatisfactorily oxygenating. It wasn’t so bad that I wasn’t getting air at all but it stank. The nurse made me feel stupid asking why I waited two days to call but I was working! And it didn’t seem like an emergency. Usually sort of broken, I can’t be dropping everything to run to the doctor when I feel awful, I’d have to move into the hospital! Anyway I was vindicated when the doctor declared it another mystery because I wasn’t actually suffocating. It just felt like it.
These days, I’m grateful for being able to breath fully. The little things are great.
***
The Roku experiment continues apace. No real complaints other than the occasional hiccup or freezing that may be blamed on the internet.
