Monday, June 11, 2012

Weekly Updates (Spending & Money Goals)

I married a bro-ny... and i'm okay
with it.
A bit of normalcy has entered my life since the end of Relay (although there are still things to work on and do!). I feel more confident going into our next year already having gone through and done it once! Our city raised over $105,000.00 for the American Cancer Society and we still have donations coming in! My crochet flowers were a hit and all 60 sold out at $2 a piece and my little critters/animals I made flew off the table so those will return for next year!

But it has been wonderful to embrace normalcy again. I got to start my Saturday morning walks back with my friend this week, it seems the hubby and I have been able to real in our spending since our life has calmed down, and we have been preparing for our next showing at the farmer's market on Friday (2 days before father's day).

We already have doubled the inventory since last month & we have been promised a better location this go around too since I pitched how great the pens would sell for father's day. The gal who coordinates the craft vendors is rooting for us!

On the spiritual end of things, I've finally finished the Book of Mormon, and while i'm not at the point of joining the church or anything, I was glad to see myself pleasantly surprised that it didn't have a lot of the more "interesting" philosophy I believed it would. Were still hanging out with missionaries once a week, but now were  going to start talking about the church itself and how it got to be what it is today, which as a history nut is so up my ally.

Yup... Camo Duct Tape tie...
Despite finally getting my first paycheck of the year without any overtime on it, I was still already able to bring in a little extra green. A woman asked if I wouldn't mind doing a quick design for her on Vista Print to match her business cards. I was planning it a favor, told her so twice, and for around 15-20 minutes of my time I got a check for $70! I even tried to give it back to her but she insisted I take it.

We also emptied the last of SCB's unemployment off his EDD Card. Apparently that letter he got in the mail was because he checked the wrong box on his form... but we haven't received any more correspondence from them and all the money he was awarded has run out. Anyone know where to go from here? They didn't mail us anything about extended our benefits or reapplying.... Which is part of the reason that SCB has been slaving away pen turning like crazy the past few days. We are determined to make every last piece of inventory before Friday so we can give it our best shot and earn as much as possible since the market vendors are supposed to rotate so we don't see a July opportunity since they made an exception for us to come back since it was so close to father's day. I called about the annual 4th of July street fair, but for sellers, its a $90 stall fee and we haven't been able to clear much profit to afford to do that since we re-invested the profits from last time on more inventory and I have to work that day already and for a fair that large, SCB would want me there. But I tried emailing the Farmer's market in Irvine to see about vendor fees but no one responded back yet... I'll have to try the number since email is apparently a no go for them.

SCB is frozen at Relay after letting
one of my friends sleep in the
tent so she wouldn't freeze...
(luv him)
With our new budget this month including giving, we generally come up a bit short in a few areas, as I mentioned in our budget post:
  • Roth is short $106.82 a month from maxing it out
  • Birthday fund was eliminated ($50 a month)
But with the $70 check I got and the last of SCB's unemployment, we were able to catch these two items up for the month so now any monthly extras will go towards our car fund, which is currently only $830.82 away from our goal. Once it hits $1,000.00 we will be able to consider getting rid of SCB's 21 year old car and turning his old car into the state for $1,000.00 and buying my mom's more reliable 2001 single cab truck for $2k (It has only 60,000 miles on it!). The old escort has been making not the best sounds lately... I guess you could say we are at the point where we are considering the whole, do we go and be a once car family--- or do we purchase my mom's truck at a STEAL of a price just to be on the safer side in case we need a second car... The truck won't be around forever... a few of my sisters friends have mentioned wanting it and my mom will give it to us first over them... but its just a matter of time. She's willing to go till the end of the year/Jan for us to make a decision (when the escort comes up for SMOG renewal at CA standards for the first time).

Wow, a whole lot of updates for just a week so I better get on to our weekly spending!

Weekly Spending:

June 1:
June 2:
June 3:
June 4:
  • $17.29 Gas (top off my mom's truck we borrowed for Relay)
  • $23.23 The Hat (Eating out/Date Night)
June 5:
  • $41.41 Electricity
  • $809.40 Mortgage
  • $58.42 Fresh and Easy (Groceries)
  • $42.49 Gas (SCG)
  • $9.18 Costco (Groceries- Milk & Block Cheese)
June 6:
  • $15.15 Fuddruckers (Eating out/Date Night)
June 7:
June 8:

Money Goals:
  1. 2012 Roth IRA SCG:  $1,225.73 / $5,000.00 (24.51%) 
  2. Emergency Fund: $12,500.00 / $12,500.00 (100%)  Done
  3. Paying Extra on the House:  $45.77 / $1,301.28 (2 additional mortgage payments) (3.51%).
  4. $1,000.00 Car Fund: $169.18 / $1,000.00  (16.91%)
  5. 2nd Roth IRA: $0 / ? We're just aiming to put 15% of what SCB earns in this account. Unemployment doesn't count as income... so I think we have to wait until his business turns a profit.

14 comments:

  1. Have you thought about crocheting items to sell along side the pens? It may not be worth the time to you, since you just made a bunch and are enjoying your free time. Just a thought to consider though.

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    Replies
    1. I actually have!! If we get a consistent market venue to sell at (preferably on a weekend so I could be there to help) then we may purchase another table to fit under the easy up.

      But for now, we only have a small 5 foot table we use so we are focusing on pens and stuff SCB makes.

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  2. Why isn't SCB working? I know he was laid off but can he not find another job? Just curious...
    Be careful with the Mormons--very high pressure there. I know as I was once engaged to a Mormon guy. They do have some pretty strange ideas. Learned that Joseph Smith was a convicted con man in Illinois. Just saying...

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    1. SCB has a class C misdemeanor on his record that the state of Utah won't let us remove until next year... even though the shoplifting happened when he was 19 and when he was at a bad place in his life...

      The hubby actually thought it was already removed from his record because he wasn't having issues finding work out in Utah after it happened... and when he relocated to California, we discovered it was still on there (ya, I knew about it ahead of time) and we can't apply to seal it until January 5th.

      He lucked into his last job by word of mouth and references, but then the economy went even worse for construction over the holidays and he got laid off and no one out here will hire him with the record still. So for the time being we are trying the wood turning/create your own job and see where it goes. If it doesn't pick up on Friday and we don't sell a decent amount then he's going to go back to Labor Ready and will try to wait in line for work at the day labor place. I know how much he hated that place so I didn't push him going there these past few months because i wanted to give him the opportunity to try out the pen turning business and get some self confidence back.

      He has an ongoing application in with Apple One since I know a gal who works there, but most of those gigs require a clean slate :(

      As for the Mormon bit, I get it. Thankfully, the missionaries for the most part have respected my space issue and haven't been trying to go past my comfort zones. I actually just watched a documentary on that the other night.

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  3. You should upon up an etsy shop when you get a little more free time. Crochet stuff is popular on there. SCB should too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's the next step after Friday. Anything that doesn't sell will get posted to the shop... but that's a great idea about adding crochet items to the shop as well.

      I make really cute flowers on stems and I can make critters :)

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  4. Job well done! It is good that people are learning how to handle their finances responsibly. With a little self-discipline and strategy, many will find themselves out of debt in no time, especially in mortgages and loans. One trick in paying your mortgage faster is to make an extra payment every time you get a raise or earn extra cash. It will reduce your principal and minimize interest payments of the mortgage.

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    Replies
    1. That's the plan.... its just finding the extra money to toss at it!

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  5. My DH had a misdemeanor on his record and was totally unaware of it--had to do with paying his business taxes late. It did come up after he'd been hired--the company understood why he didn't know but said they had a 100% truth on applications policy so he didn't get that job. After that, he made sure he explained in detail why he had a misdemeanor--no problems getting a job after that. Maybe your DH could try the same.

    Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's how he got his last job-- told the guy straight up about it and the guy told him he would give him a fair shot and he got the job...

      But SCB was also offered 3 jobs from people/business whom he had explained the misdemeanor to in the interview and on the application who said it wouldn't be a problem... only to then rescind the job offer.

      Since it's only 9-10 months until its gone for good and off his record, we have kind of stopped really job hunting because we don't want to hit up all the local places who might hire him in 10 months when he applies and have been looking word of mouth and network wise to figure something out.

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  6. What is his skill set? Does he have a marketable degree?

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    Replies
    1. The short story--- no degree.
      SCB's parents moved around a lot during his last 2 years of high school and then a bit after he graduated. (Which was when he had his bad depressed period in life and when the shoplifting incident happened at 19).

      So he didn't start school right away and instead was working 2 jobs and getting a feel for what was going on. Eventually he decided he should do college and started slowly taking a couple of classes here and there in a computer related field. When he did a full semester, he bombed most of his classes because it was too much for him at that point.

      So right now he probably has enough credits to be a sophomore. We have talked about him going to the community college to finish his AA, but we haven't enrolled him. He's not sure if school would be a good fit and we don't have the money to send him part time because he isn't able to work right now and I we don't believe in student loan debt. We also wanted to see if the pen turning would work out first before we talk about maybe a trade school.

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  7. Too bad you are married 'cuz he would qualify for a fee waiver at the community college since he has no income. Also would probably qualify for a Cal Grant and Pell Grant. But you probably make too much for that to happen. Doesn't hurt to check it out. He can always just take a couple classes and do the pen stuff on the side. I'm a firm believer in doing something to keep busy. How does he occupy his time during the day? Although, it would be kind of nice to have a house husband who cooks and cleans! Always said I could do the whole commute/long work hour thing if I had a "wife" at home. DH didn't volunteer--just kept working. DARN!

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    1. When he's not wood turning, he plays fishwife and takes care of the house and stuff so when I come home we can have time together. Dishes, Laundry, vacume... I just leave him a list and he works his way through it.

      we cook together most days, or we end up with just an entree and no sides, lol.

      If there isn't much to do around the house he doesn't have to kill much time if he sleeps in a bit since i'm home from work at 1:30pm most days and then we keep each other company.

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