Backlogged...

Hey all,

Sorry for the sporadic posts this week. The powers that be swapped my work schedule for an 8-5pm bit and by the time I get home from work, hubby is lonely and I end up spending my time with him and enjoying a rare week of sleep since my alarm isn't going off at 4am and i'm still hitting the sack around 9...

Updates coming soon,

Farmer's Market Overview

While it wasn't our best showing (its hard to get people to browse in 90-100 degree weather), we ended up walking away with $100 in profit after all our fees from the market last week.

I ended up selling about $16 in crochet flower hair pins, we sold one custom letter opener (which SCB will make and ship out by Friday), 5 key chains (2 to our friends and 3 to the lady that buys something every time we are there), and 5 pens.

We collected $141.16 and paid $20.00 for the stall, $2.30 in Square credit card fees, and we will need to remit $10.16 to the state for sales taxes, so we netted $108.70 for the day.

But the great news is the feedback we got from the community.

We had a lot of requests for matching pencils and a few that would like to see matching pen pencil and letter opener sets!

Since we had a custom order to fulfill, we decided to reorder and expand the inventory again and reinvest our profits. While SCB's dad was in town he also paid him $50 for making a variety of decorative push pins that his mom's lace guild needs for an event next year. SCB still has to make 300 of these by next year, so that's more income for the business down the line.

We ordered the standard items we wanted to replace, things SCB has been dying to make that came back in stock, and are working on making some pen and pencil matching sets.

We also are going to have another venue to sell out up in Buena Park. There's a lace makers guild craft workshop and SCB's dad was offered a stall space to sell. Since the stall is only $10 and his parents just left California and want to be at home, we are going to go up and sell for them (15% commission on anything sold for our time) and we can sell SCB's pens too!

We also found a good home for some of the woodworking items that haven't gone over so well. In a few weeks we will be volunteering for Child Share at their annual gala and donating the last of our long neck bottle openers and a cork screw bottle stopper combos to their "Wall of Wine" displays. It will be good advertising for us to help get the word out there, was something we were going to to anyway, and this way it helps clear out the bottle openers that haven't been selling much (we will be keeping one of each-- Bottle opener and corkscrew stopper to display at the farmers market for our custom order table.)

So, after ordering our last bit, here's where we stand for the year thus far:

Expenses: $1033.83
Income: $575.48
Money left in the account: $55.86

Current standings: -$402.49

While we are still under for the year, we have a lot of inventory slowly building up (which means we can think about paying for a different venue and trying our luck elsewhere), I think were doing really good in terms of figuring out what we should stock.

After we get an idea for how much the letter opener will cost to ship, we will be able to work on setting up that ETSY account (I'm really behind on that...) and start to expand :)

A Week with Family!

I decided to do one large post to sum up having family in town instead of two... so hopefully the delay was worth it :)

Last Tuesday night  the first of South County Boy's family slowly started trickling into town for my baptism and confirmation. Since we live in a one bedroom condo and just one of his brothers family is 6 people all on its own, it was decided that the family would just book the same camp grounds they used for the wedding and all stay there and use our condo as home base and a break from the really hot weather we have been experiencing.

Of course when traveling with little kiddos, something always gets left behind and plans slightly delayed, so they weren't able to make it to camp until night fall so SCB and I headed over there with a better lantern and some extra flash lights to try and help them set up camp before it got too late into the evening.

We spent the next morning at our house making plans for the week and decided that  we should spend the day at the beach. We packed and loaded up our cars and grabbed chairs and sun shades and spent a full day breaking the heat on the coast, playing in the surf, and getting a good lead in to the book i've been working on. It was a really pleasant day all around! We had to race home that night because we had a last minute meeting with the missionaries to talk about my baptism and then we headed out to the campgrounds to help SCB's parents set up their campsite since they had arrived that evening.

After getting them settled in, we decided to spend the next morning going over to finally experience the giant orange county balloon! The city of Irvine has a giant orange helium balloon that's free to ride with a carousel inside "the great park" that they have been constructing over the years. While they ended up having some temporary issues and we could only go up part of the way (100 of the 400 feet), it was a pretty cool experience and SCB and I now have 10 "skip the line" passes that we can use to come back since the balloon was having issues that day and we never made it back out as a family to go back on it while everyone was there.

Look!!! Its a panda!

I like him!

The Balloon!

Our friends from Utah drove down to visit family in California and thursday afternoon they drove down from LA to see us and for my baptism. Just after they arrived, SCB's other brother and family were there as well!! We did a condo style BBQ (where some people ate outside on the grass, others on the patio, others in the kitchen and living room... few people on my bedroom floor) and my best friend came down and hung out with everyone too since she stopped in after working in Anaheim and stayed with us until after the baptism since she lives out in Riverside. I had invited my mom and sister to come over for the BBQ, but they declined... again. (It seems like whenever SCB's family is in town, they don't want to have anything to do with them, and then once they are gone my mom complains about how they never reach out to her... No wonder SCB's parents no longer thing kindly of my family)...

My friends adorable baby girl... makes me want kids....

After the BBQ we went over to the Church to prep for my baptism.... It was a really great ceremony. One of my old sister missionaries drove down from Arizona to speak at my baptism, My brother in law Carlos performed the actual baptism, and SCB's mom also spoke and gave a talk after I shared my testimony. All my close friends in my bridal party were there, my friends from church who could make it, and members of our local ward... At one point it was standing room only and it made me smile and feel loved. I wore a cute all white outfit (instead of the jumpsuit they have as a clothing option), and it went over well.

While my mom, sister, and her fiance were in attendance, my mom was drunk (yup, you could smell it on her), but on the upside, SCB's mom thought she was nicer drunk at my baptism than sober at my wedding. Oh, and they left the nano second they could afterward. My friend took photos and i'll post them once I get them from him, but I just have a post baptism shot with our friends from Utah.

Friday we spent down at the farmer's market selling pens and my crochet flowers in the morning, and then grabbed lunch and walked the mall to take advantage of the AC to help beat the heat before we hit chipotle for dinner with the family. I'll do a separate post on the breakdown from the farmers market a bit later.

Saturday we did a family trip down to the discover science center. I had never been there, but SCB had fond memories of the place from his childhood... and we had a pretty good time. The place is kind of neat and if I had kids that were old enough to enjoy it, i'd grab that $99 annual family pass they offer.

Wind Tunnel!

I'm a "smart" shopper!

I'm laying on a bed of nails.. It wasn't all that pleasant

yeah for fake screen backgrounds!!!

PIN WALL!!!

 After the discovery Science Center we hung out at the campsite and got little Cesars cheap pizza for a quite and not clean up dinner. There were more electronic devises (ipods, tablets, smart phones) than people at one point. I heart my new family.

The next morning was my confirmation at Church. My father-in-law conformed me a member and all South County Boy's brothers (and himself), plus the elders and a few members of the ward joined in. Allen even wore a tie for the occasion :)

My old sister missionary :)

 All in all, a good Sunday! Many family members had to leave after sacrament service to head back home, but I was so thankful to have them come out and be there. Family is good!

Todays post will come a bit late...

I'm puppy sitting this week and I can't get their Mac to link with dropbox and blogger to actually post pictures in my post (for some reason it tries to download pictures from Itunes?????)

It worked the other day, so who really knows anymore, but I just can't post the week with family post sans pictures... its just not right...

So i'll be posting later this afternoon/evening from my house before I run over for a meeting on that side of town :)

Annual Insurance Premiums

I was really excited when I opened my mail the other day and found my statements from state farm for my annual Earthquake Insurance and Homeowners policy renewals.

Why was I excited?

Because my earthquake insurance premium just went down $70 a year… and my homeowners dropped $1. Since SCB and I have been trying to lower our annual bills, this is just an unexpected surprise. When I called the Insurance Company, they just said all their earthquake policies were lowered across the board so it wasn’t anything we did on our end to save the $70 a year.

Earthquake Insurance Breakdown: $187.00

• Building Property: $25k with a $3750 deductible
• Personal Property: $25k with a $750 deductible
• Loss of Use: $10k (no deductible)
• Loss Assessment: $25k with a $3750 deductible.

Homeowners Insurance Breakdown: $321.00

• Building Property: $26,200 with a $500 deductible  
• Personal Property: $26,200 with a $500 deductible  
• Loss of Use: Actual Loss Sustained with a $500 deductible  
• Loss Assessment: $10k with a $500 deductible  

*We get a $10 discount for Home Alert, $56 discount for having our Auto Insurance with them, $41 discount for being claim free *

As most of you know, South County Boy and I treat all of our annual and semiannual bills like monthly bills and put it in a separate savings account at ING so when we don’t get sticker shock when the bills come in May, September, and November.  Here’s the price break down:

Earthquake- $187 a year ($15.58 a month)
Homeowners- $321 a year ($26.75 a month)
SCB’s Car- $155.67 every 6 months ($25.95 a month)
SCG’s Car- $362.51 every 6 months ($60.42 a month)

So now we only need to put aside $129 a month to cover everything instead of the $135 we were saving (which used to be $143.00 earlier this year).

And… since we have been tossing more money than we needed to all year long into this account, we have $117.94 EXTRA sitting there that we can divert to the ROTH IRA to help cover the shortfall we are experiencing!

This also means that we can bump up our monthly Roth IRA contributions by $6 to $167.90…

Right now we have contributed $2,902.00 to the Roth… If we add the $1,125 from my extra paycheck that we will drop in the Roth in December when I get it… and our monthly amount of $167.90… are only short  $33.38 a month from maxing out the Roth IRA this year—which seems so much easier to find then before.

WOOT

Lunch with my mom

After last weeks post Its been a bad few days, I took some of your advice and went out and grabbed lunch with my mom just to hang out and hopefully let her understand my decision to be baptized and join the church and try and squash some of the damage my sister had done with her lies.

I told my mom i'd drop by her house after work and we went out and headed over to Lucille's for lunch and we actually had a pretty pleasant time. I was able to explain how South County Boy didn't pressure me to join the church (it was actually quite the opposite because if I decided to join he knew he was going to half to figure some stuff out on his own), and once I went over the story with how I started meeting with the sister missionaries, and then the elders, how I stopped the lessons and restarted them later on, I was not only able to answer some of my mom's questions and concerns about the church, but I was able to really get her to genuinely believe that I was joining the church for me and not for my husband or my "in-laws."

Ya, not because of my in-laws. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

Apparently my sister had done more damage then I knew of and it kind of came out over lunch when my mom told me she was under the impression that South County Boy's family was trying to take me away from her. My sister has apparently (for months) been filling my mom with ideas that SCB's family was making me join the church and was brainwashing me into their own little lifestyle.

***cricket cricket***

I really don't know how I've yet to contact my sister and just let her verbally have it... I must be growing up and maturing... especially considering that I didn't let her have it when she called me up the other day to get details for the baptism. But i'm really starting to believe that my not lashing out at my sister (whom my mom tells everything I say to) is actually killing her lies with kindness and its upsetting her that I refuse to bring up the topic even when she baits me.

But back to lunch.

When my mom told me about how she thought they (SCB's Family) were forcing me to join the church, I got to share with her about how SCB's mom actually called the California missionary president and told him to stop having the missionaries come by my house because it was doing more harm then good because the pair we had were really pushy and I didn't feel comfortable with what they were doing. I also got to tell her in a respectful way about how we were always invited to participate in things when we visited, but that it was never forced upon us to attend or do anything with them.

She also brought up that she didn't think his family liked her or wanted anything to do with her. I reminded her of the wonderful little lunch we all had before the wedding so they all could meet and how well that worked out... and when she told me that she felt like they weren't trying to engage her at the wedding, I was calmly able to point out that she and my sister left the reception right after the cake and toasts (They went to a bar to get drunk), so they really were not given the opportunity too.

But at the end of everything, I think we made some progress, and while I think my mom now understands that the church will not take anything away from me if she leaves me something when she's gone, I no longer believe that my mom will split her estate 50/50 because of my sisters influence.

Its sad to wonder what my mom would be like if my sister wasn't around... I wonder if I even know her?

Weekly updates

Our neighbors foster puppy!

Wow! What a week and this next one is just as busy!!!!

We just got done with having South County Boy's Family come in town for almost a whole week for my baptism, but so much went on that i'm leaving those updates for another post all on its own.

We are actually doggie sitting this week and away from our home and just trying to recoup from all the family festivities of the last few days. While this month has sure turned into a bad month for a "no spend" month, at least we aren't beating ourselves up about it and we have been able to cash flow everything thus far.

Despite asking Home Energy Masters to NOT contact me, they have already phoned me once and one of their "sister" companies has tried to contact me as well... If they contact me one more time, they will force my hand with contacting the BBB (because once you get on a list like there's is almost impossible to make the calls stop it seems)... But in good news, my windows have been approved from the HOA to be installed by my friend Ralph and one of his contractor buddies. His friend came out and measured and I should be getting the installation & materials quote any day now. South County Boy and I decided to cash in the savings bonds I have floating around from way back which ended up equaling $512. With our $2k slush fund, the $512 bond money, and the $150 we will have from puppy sitting that we can take and put aside, we are hoping that that will cover the windows and we won't have to slip into the emergency fund at all for the job.

I'm also proud that we only ate out 2 times with the whole family here in town. We used a BOGO coupon to grab lunch with our friends who drove down from Utah to see us, and then the hubby and I split a burrito at chipotle on a night where it was just too hot to cook. We literately had triple digits almost every day his family was in town.

Our neighbor fosters puppies from a rescue shelter occasionally and this week she had that sweet little doggie in the picture with SCB. We are thinking about signing up to be a foster family for the shelter so we can test drive the idea of getting a pet without the added costs and final commitment all at once. The shelter will pay for the animals necessities (Food, potty pads if needed, toys, etc) and you just love it knowing you will have to give it up when someone adopts it. But it sounds like a really good option to test drive getting a pet.

I also owe you a post about the farmers market, but i'm uber exhausted after packing up and getting here after saying good by to our family that i'm going to have to leave that for a later day!!!!!!

Weekly Spending:
August 13:

• $23.75 Walmart (Clothes for SCB)

August 14:
August 15:
August 16:

• $19.20 Propane (Home Depot)

August 17:

• Jersey Mikes: $7.75
• Chipotle: $7.22

August 18:

• $24 Discovery Science Center
• $40.52 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)
• $12.73 Sprouts (Groceries)

August 19

Money Goals:

1. 2012 Roth IRA SCG $2,902.00 / $5,000.00 (58.04%)
2. Car Fund: $32.58 / $1,000.00 (3.25%)
3. Paying Extra on the house: $121.76/ $1,301.28 (2 additional Mortgage Payments) (9.35%)
4. 2nd Roth IRA: $0.00 We will just add up all of SCB's earned income for the year and at the end of the year just put at least 15% into a Retirement account for him... 
1. Apple One: $140.00 earned this year.
2. RDS: $135.40
3. Labor Ready: $0.00
4. I don't think his business stuff counts as income until there is a profit and right now his wood turning business is in the red right now for the year.

My day in Court

If you remember back to this post, and this one, I finally got a court date and the ability to contest my property tax value for the 2011 year.

After getting lost and parking at the parking structure for Jury Duty, eventually I walked the three blocks down to the "old" court house and found the location of my court room.

I got there really early because I wasn't sure about traffic and parking, so I had plenty of time to kill. I found the court room and I noticed that i was case number 48 on the docket list... my heart sank. I was going to be there for a long time....

But I was glad I wouldn't be going first.

When they commenced the court, there weren't 48 people in the room to my relief, but after roll call I realized I was going to be last for my type of case... But I learned some valuable things while waiting.

Apparently you can contact the Assessor who has been assigned to your case before the court hearing to try and make a deal. (I will remember this for future years, considering I didn't know I would actually have to fight against someone and not merely just present my findings to the panel-- but this is key. You can get the addresses of the places they are going to bring with them to the court so you can argue why they aren't good or realistic).

You don't get an answer that day. They are only going to decide to either throw your case out, or investigate it in closed session based on the facts you and the assessor have stated.

So, in order to move everyone along as fast as possible, the people who were an automatic yes (they cut deals with the assessor) were sworn in and agreed to the statements provided by the assessor and then left on their merry way.

Since I didn't contact the assessor, I got comfortable and waited the 3 hours for my name to be called since I was last on the docket for appeal and there was one guy after me who had previously requested a continuance.

The court room was really pretty looking... no wonder they
were filming a TV show outside. Apparently the building
will be an insane asylum for some TV show soon...
Hey man, only in California!

But I did learn a lot of good questions to ask and how the system works.

You should try and bring 3 comps with you... I brought only 1 comp (which was actually on the assessors paperwork to start out with...) and a copy of my home sale price showing that the unit that i wished to compare to mine was an upper unit with an identically floor plan and remodeled kitchen.

You want to bring 3 comps that are in the correct time frame.

• You can go as far back as you want (even out of the year your contesting), but you can only go 90 days ahead of January 1st of the year you are contesting. Which meant March 30, 2011 for me). 

You should find out if the assessor viewed the homes they used in the comps. (9 times out of 10 they haven't and they are unaware of the condition and most people made arguments that the assessor choose remodeled places when there's was not-- and brought pictures of their homes and the homes the assessor choose.) For me, this wasn't an issue because my place (while crap when I bought it) is a lot nicer now and was similarly inline with the conditions of the unit that did sell.

Be polite
There is no need to bite the hands of the people who are going to decided to lower your value or not. No need to yell and call people "air heads" and if they only used half their brain they would know my "home isn't worth half this much."

So I sat and watched people use "comps" outside of the time frame, bring no evidence what-so-ever, and be really mean to the panel... some appeals got dismissed and some people got their appeals put in the "decide in closed session pile"

But lets fast forward three hours to where its just me and the last guy in the room, the assessor, and the panel of people who will decide our case.

They skipped me.

I don't know if people of my age and height that they expected me to be ill prepared or whatever, but the chairman of the court was trying to cut the guy a break and do him a favor so he asked for his case first over mine.

And oh man, was he a baboon. He accused the assessors office of not doing their job and went wayyyyy off in left field. So off in left field that if I tried to describe it you all would be confused. It was like someone trying to tell you that cats have always been the inhabitants of Mars... (ya, that crazy)

After his case was tossed out, they called me up, swore me in, and my case started.

When they asked the assessor what she thought my home was worth.... and then me... the judge looked at the assessor and said, can't we just make a deal (it was about a 6k difference). His comments helped clear the air and tension for me since and I said I hoped so cheerfully and the guy smiles and looked toward the assessor. She said that while she would love to agree with me, she couldn't get her boss to sign off on it because she couldn't base a comp off one unit and needed 3... so with that, the chairman had the assessor present her case since the unit is owner occupied.

The units she tried to use for my comparisons were:

• 2011-$115,000 Single Bedroom, exact model and square footage. (the property I was going to beg the court to weigh more heavily upon)
• 2011- $166,000 2 bedroom unit (comped $8,470 in square footage, and discounted $10k for a second bedroom) Taxable value $148,000
• 2010- $169,000  2 bedroom unit (comped $8,470 in square footage, and discounted $10k for a second bedroom) $151,000.00

Some how they took all that and claimed my property was worth $136,000 and because that amount was larger than $120,000, they raised my value to $120,903.00 for tax purposes.

Then it was my turn.

I presented a copy of my sale information on my condo and a more detailed printout of the 2011 $115,000.00 unit. I argued that the units were identical in square footage, bedroom, and location (both upstairs with units on both sides). I even argued that the conditions were similar since it had a remodeled kitchen that had been expanded.

I Then argued that the different between a 1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom unit was more than $10k, especially in a condo Association. I said that a 2 bedroom unit is more desirable because you have more time before you outgrow the size and space of the unit and it allowed for built in flexibility since you could always get a roommate if times got tough. I also brought up that for landlords, 2 bedrooms are easier to rent because people have a roommate option, and therefore that adds value to a property. I was also a little smart and said if the difference between a 1 bedroom and a 2 bedroom was 10k, no one would buy a one bedroom model because it wouldn't make sense in the long run.

I also went into detail about how I agreed with the assessor that the $115k unit was a very good representation of the value of my property and i asked the court not to allow me to be penalized because in the almost 3 years that have passed since purchasing my condo, only 1 other one bedroom unit has sold and it is the comparison that I and the assessor would like used. I ended asking them to please rely on it as an accurate comparison for valuation of my homes worth.  

All three judges/panel members agreed to hold my case for further review.

They said I would get a notice in the mail for a few weeks with the decision.

A week later it was in the mail...

I won.

But that's not the end of it. Apparently my new property value will not automatically roll over and i will have to petition the larger increase to my property value for the 2012 year.

Apparently between January and April 30th you can call and request an informal review to avoid a court challenge... but since I missed that, I'll have to re-file to change tax year 2012... but since I won my case for 2011, most likely when i call the assessor assigned to my case (now that I know I can call), i should be able to get an approved deal and might now even need to show up in court to contest value.

So, moral of the story, be kind, play by the rules, and give it a whirl!!!!

Can't wait to send my $50 rebate check to my mortgage and save me some interest.

New windows... not from Home Energy Masters

Its hard to see, but that's the tape
SCB put up to keep our windows in
place better...

If you haven't heard, California is currently experiencing a heat wave of epic proportions and South County Boy and I have been soooo good about not turning on the little wall unit in our home because of the increase in energy rates and because we have horrible windows that I think we deserve a standing ovation.

It's been absolutely horrible. I'm tempted to stay at work and work out just to stay in the AC building...

Which leads us to the same issue I think about every Summer and fall.

I want new sliding glass doors.

The ones we have now are the original windows that came with the property and the builders were so cheap and "speedy" that every window installed in the entire complex was put in backwards. Yup, Backwards.The door that should be inside is on the outside and the outside door on the inside.What's worst then that is that last fall when the "Santa Ana Winds" came blowing on through, we realized just how bad our slider doors were when they literally lifted out of the frames with the wind, and then kept crashing back into the track with each and every major gust...

Since the window panes don't fit in the frames, there's actually a gap that SCB has taped up and crammed a chop stick or two in to try and ward off unwanted visitors and to keep the windows from falling out. Since its been hot out, the idea of watching what little happy AC our wall unit can produce go straight out the gap in the window makes me cry and has made me so stubborn that we haven't turned it on once this year.

I've always known the windows needed to be replaced eventually, but it seems like more and more of a priority with every hot day we have and every day we get closer to October and the horrible winds... But before I figure out how much we need for the job, I knew I needed to get a few estimates to see how large an undertaking this was going to be.

My friends dad is a contractor, and when we offered the job to him he told me my place was too small to give me a good deal and that I would be better off going to home depot instead...

My neighbor did his windows from Home Depot and told me not to go there... and after their guys measured my kitchen wrong and did the plans up wrong and forgot necessary items in the order (thank goodness my friend Ralph --who put in my kitchen-- is a genius and fixed it for me), I have to say I agree with them. Home Depot is great for parts and stuff if you "do it yourself" and not pay for their contractors to install.

But I wanted an in-home estimate done because I needed a licensed contractor to do the job according the my HOA association. I filled out an online search through MyPoints and I was contacted by Home Energy Masters so many times that I finally made an appointment for them to come out to my home and take a look and give me a free estimate since they were so eager and had a good rating with the BBB.

I scheduled them for 2:30pm on a Tuesday afternoon and the company called to confirm the appointment not just once, but twice on Monday.

By 2:45pm the representative failed to show up.

I called their number and after a brief hold, the woman who scheduled my appointment came on the line and said she was going to try and contact the guy in the field to see what the problem was and if he somehow got lost. I waited 45 minutes before she called me to say that he got caught up at another quote and wouldn't be at my place until 4:00pm... (We're talking an hour and a half late...) But since I had already freed my evening up, I agreed.

At 4:10pm the rep still hadn't arrived from Home Energy Masters and I instead got a call from the "guy out in the field" and he apologized and said he just wasn't going to be able to make it to my home today, despite my appointment and their confirmations, and my flexibility...

Since i'm reasonable and they mentioned offering me a discount for their mistake should I decided to order with them, I rescheduled for the next day at 3:00pm. The field sales guy assured me that they would be there and that He had his entire day free and clear and thanked me for allowing them another opportunity to bid on my project.

And he didn't show up again!

At 3:15pm the next day I had to call the offices to yet again inquire about where my rep was... and after another 40 minutes I got a call from a different sales/field man explaining to me how he wasn't aware of what happened yesterday, but that he was assigned to come out to my home today and that at Noon he had sent a message to his boss on his cell explaining how he wouldn't make my appointment because he had someone ordering... and that his boss failed to follow through with that message and contact me. He tossed the other guy under the bus and said that he was going to be fired because this wasn't the first time he had failed to make an appointment on time... etc etc. He even offered to send me a screen shot of his phone to show me he had notified them he wouldn't make it.

After politely listening I told him flat out but nicely that I didn't care what the reason was for his absence and who's direct fault it was that no one was at my home and no one had contacted me. I told him it didn't matter because this was not the first time their company had done this to me and their behavior was creating a very disturbing pattern.

I tried to be as nice as possible as I explained that normally when a business makes a mistake and a potential customer is willing to reschedule, that, that company should be proactive and not reactive to the situation. They should have contacted me at 3pm to see that you had arrived, not the other way around. Their lack of concern for me as a potential client screams volumes about the character of their company.

But again, I'm reasonable so I told him if he or another sales rep from his company could be at my home and gone by 6:45pm, that i would at least look over the information when I compared my other estimates... I also told him that should Home Energy Masters not be able to make it out today, that they should not contact me at all for further business because someone who can't value my time does not deserve my business nor my money in this economy.

He thanked me and told me he would call me one way or the other if he would be able to make it while he finished up his order.

He called at 6:35pm to tell me he wasn't showing up...

Which by that time I already knew... While he was apologizing, he told me that it was their policy to over book schedules and that he was sorry I got the short end of the stick because they don't expect people to purchase on the spot, etc, ect...

I told him that I don't believe that's how customers should be treated and that if their company contacted me again for services that i would file a complaint with the BBB for harassing me since they made so many phone calls trying to get these very appointments that they failed to keep.

Lesson for today:
If this is how a company treats me before I pay them, imagine what they are going to do after you give them money...

I hung up the phone with him and I called my friend Ralph and asked for a referral for one of his friends who can install windows and Ralph will be coming by personally to take a look and give me an idea.

Mortgage Update (August '12)

Mortgage Update:
Principle paid down: $163.38
Interest: $487.26
Additional Principle: $6.54

New Balance: $111,209.04

The pay off date is December 2038 which is 9 months ahead of the initial schedule. If I continue to pay the minimum on my loan, I will pay $111,623.75 in interest instead of the original $116,404.23. The extra $1,457.95 I've tossed at the mortgage over the life of the loan has saved us $4,780.48 in interest. 

All in all, it took me $7,057.08 to get the keys to my condo... and another $17,672.29 to remodel and repair it...

In short, I was -$24,729.37 in the hole on day one... 

But thankfully the hole is getting filled in a little bit each and every year.

• In 2009 I got the First Time Home buyer's Credit giving us $8,000.00. I also got to write off some of the property tax I paid in addition to taking the standard deduction. This gave us an extra $90.10... but then I had to pay an Electrician $95.00 to fix an outlet... We ended 2009 with a refund from my botched tile job that gave us  another $1,265.00.
• In 2010 I saved $1,087.00 on my federal taxes and $461.00 on my State taxes from itemizing my homeowners expenses. (This is what I received ABOVE what I would have with just the standard deduction). 
• In 2011 I spent $12.97 at home depot, and $72.29 on a kitchen door, but I received a small $70 refund check from over paid closing costs. We also saved $494.04 by living in our condo instead of renting (See Mortgage Update + Condo Costs December '11 for that break down.) Since we tied the knot in 2011 we won't be able to itemize our housing costs so there's no savings there for us.

so this leaves us $13,442.49 in the hole...

• If we assume our home is worth at least what we paid for it (which in this market you never really know...), then we have $8,790.96 in equity...

Leaving us about $4,651.53 in the hole after almost 3 years.

We also assume our monthly mortgage payments are a wash since its cheaper to OWN our home then to RENT an apartment. Check out Housing Comps 2012 for how we figured that one out.

Thus far for 2012 we have spent $8,671.93 to live in our condo (Instead of $11,150.80 for the apartment).

• All Mortgage Payments (including principle, interest, property taxes, MIP, and additional principle:) $6,468.69
• HOA: $2,100 ($262.50 a month)
• Home Repairs/Improvements: $103.24
• Earthquake Insurance: $0
• Homeowners Insurance: $0

As of today, we have saved $2,478.87 by not renting.

If I sold the condo tomorrow, I'd have to sell the property for $131,766.56 to break even.

• This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,905.99)
• Enough money to refund the amount i'm in the hole for ($4,651.53)
• and enough money to cover the first time homeowners tax credit i'd have to repay for not living in the property for 3 years. ($8,000.00)

But if I wait out the credit, in November of this year (just to be sure the $8k bill goes away) I'd be able to sell for $122,336.89

• This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,340.21)
• and enough money to refund the amount I would be in the hole for 3 months down the line assuming I make just the minimum payments till then ($4,157.07)

Goodbye Nationwide! (part 2)

As I have been trying to simplify my retirement accounts (See 1st post here) we last left off with Nationwide apparently mailing me the wrong form to finalize the transfer of funds from my account there, to  ICMA-RC (apparently the form I filled out for this transaction was correct, so go ICMA-RC  for not dropping the ball on that transfer too!)

I had my HR rep on the phone with Nationwide and myself and we had just listened to 2 different people tell us we needed to submit 2 different transfer out forms and it was clear we were getting very frustrated.

My HR rep took over and explained that we had already submitted one form, that I had called yesterday and was supposed to have been emailed a form to fill out and wasn't, and that now 2 different people said we needed 2 other forms to make it happen.

The guy at Nationwide apologized up the yin yang for all of their internal mishaps and put us on hold for another 10 minutes because he was trying to get permission to just honor the form I had originally submitted.

When he came back on the line he told us he had submitted my file and a form to honor the form they had and to cut a check to ICMA-RC  so the transfer could finally go through and I could close out that account.

Seems simply, right? There couldn't be anymore hick-ups, right?

Wrong.

A week later and the funds weren't showing up

I went and got the mail and found out that they had cut ME the check instead.... Me, no where on any form did it say send the money to me, but rather  ICMA-RC ...

Its clear to say I freaked out at this point... I know that if you take money out of a retirement account you get fees up the wazoo and you only have so much time to get it back into a retirement account before you get nailed... and since all my forms were dated back to April and May, I was in full freak out mode.

I emailed my HR rep and told her about the check and she contacted their assigned rep at  ICMA-RC  and asked her to contact me directly about what I should do with the check and explained all the problems we had been having and she asked her to make this her number one priority...

She didn't call me... So I called her and left a message and mentioned the email... and waited... I tried the line a few other times the next day to no avail.

So, I asked my HR rep if I should call nationwide and have them cancel the check and resubmit it to the correct place since I didn't cash it.

She contacted them and i sighed in relief when the agreed.

So as of right now the funds are not sitting in my nationwide account, and they aren't sitting in my ICMA-RC account either...

and i'm praying they will pop up in the account this week!

Weekly Updates

The excited face of my husband
when I get home from work :)

While it's our first week plus of our no-spend month, it hasn't been perfect by any means... but we did make some progress and we didn't eat out the first week (just once the second week because it was too hot to cook at all...) In case you didn't know... we have a huge heat wave crawling through California.

We did do a small walmart run for a puzzle and some fabric material the first few days... and with SCB's family coming into town next week, there are talks of sea world so we might end up with a low spend month instead of a no spend month... I forgot about all the family we have coming into town for my baptism and now i'm thinking August wasn't a good idea for a no spend month... But maybe a low spend month instead?

I also need to get something to wear to my baptism (i have to wear all white.... everything white, AND i'll need to layer white clothes so they don't get all see through when I do get dunked in the water)  because i just can't do the communally shared white jumpers/pants things they have at the church... it just wigs me out and I worry about my mom's reaction to the jumper (if you have never seen one, they don't strike people as normal, especially when most baptisms in other churches take place in the pastors spa in a bathing suit).

Any who, I spent last Saturday morning and this Saturday morning re-fixing some of my budget spread sheets because my husband accidentally broke my budget flash drive so I had to recalculate a lot of information and it just makes me so happy that I blog because I was able to pull a lot of the information off here that I needed. We are still crossing our fingers that his brother will be able to fix it while he's in town because I do NOT want to have to re-do all our business records... it will just take hours... and it won't be any fun at all.

Despite being in uber crafty mode and deciding to teach myself to sew and read patters, I also decided to go to a church cooking class on Saturday and learned how to make jam and pie crust among other things. I can't wait to make freezer jam now. As soon as we get the recipes via email I might just have to jump all over that!

I've also been finishing projects too.

Since SCB will be heading back to the farmers market this month (WOOT for vendor cancellations), I finished 20 crochet flowers and made them into cute hair pins that we are going to test out at the market. I might make a few more to get a good variety going but we think we will sell them for $3 each or 2 for $5 in hopes that they will cover the stall fee and just add to our bottom line. So far i've just been using the yarn I have around the house and if they sell we will start to document the costs of anything we buy for them from here on out and use them to supplement the pens the hubby makes. What's really funny is that I actually took the Friday of the next farmers market off work to spend with family (They are coming into town for my baptism), But since we got the call about being vendors, I'll actually be able to help SCB with the market this time and we are sure his folks will want to swing by and see what our operation looks like. After the market sale on the 17th, we will put whatever inventory we have left on Etsy and begin opening our online store!

I've also finished my second crochet pillow so now our couch has a matching set. It feels so good to finish up loose ends and I've enjoyed having both on the couch since it evens things out now.

In terms of bills, we had our Costco annual bill come in for $55.00 and it makes me wonder if Costco is really worth having. Considering the drive away from our home to get items and the fact that their gas pumps don't adjust for HEAT when they dispense fuel, (so the last time I filled up there I got pretty jacked with my mileage...) I think i'll have to do a good numbers run down to see how much we are actually saving and if its worth it to keep a membership anymore... Maybe it will be more convenient to drop our membership when they finish the new Walmart (it will be a super Walmart with food items), but on to some numbers:

Weekly Updates:

August 1:

• $55.00 Costco membership Fee
• $33.84 Fresh & Easy
• $9.89 Ralphs
• $6.80 Walmart (Fabric and odds and ends -- this was $10 more, but I used a gas rebate check from work to cover a portion of the cost so I only listed the amount coming out of the budget.)

August 2:
August 3:

• $18.22 Walmart (Fabric + Puzzle)

August 4:

• $22.33 Walmart (Groceries)
• $5.92 Sprouts (Groceries)
• $26.44 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)
• $58.51 Gasoline

August 5:

• $5.70 Groceries - Church Cannery

August 6:

• $43.38 Electricity

August 7:

• $809.40 Mortgage

August 8

August 9

• $11.82 Walmart (Business expense)
• $13.60 Chick-Fil-A

August 10

• $77.63 Walmart (Clothes-- stuff for my baptism and a shirt for SCB)

August 11

• $42.63 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)

August 12

• $156.00 Giving

Money Goals:

1. 2012 Roth IRA SCG $2,902.00 / $5,000.00 (58.04%)
2. Car Fund: $32.58 / $1,000.00 (3.25%)
3. Paying Extra on the house: $121.76/ $1,301.28 (2 additional Mortgage Payments) (9.35%)
4. 2nd Roth IRA: $0.00 We will just add up all of SCB's earned income for the year and at the end of the year just put at least 15% into a Retirement account for him... 
1. Apple One: $140.00 earned this year.
2. RDS: $135.40
3. Labor Ready: $0.00
4. I don't think his business stuff counts as income until there is a profit.

Experiments in Sewing

My dress fabric at $1 a yard!

I've been experimenting in the land of sewing and messed up on my dress in a big way and needed to do some fixing...

I apparently didn't read the directions on the pattern box correctly and needed to purchase more fabric to salvage my dress attempt. I forgot to wash it before I cut it and I accidentally laid it right sides facing up on both layers so the original cuts were half right and half wrong (and not pre-shrunk)... Thankfully the fabric I picked out was $1 a yard on clearance at Walmart ($6 initial cost) and they had one other roll on the rack still, so I was able to pick up enough fabric to re-do the whole dress for $7.25...

I also figured out from attempting to assemble the not pre-shrunk fabric that there are things out there called interfacing and lining too...

So, I bought 2 packages of interfacing for $2.17 each ($4.34)... and got home and realized they were going to be 2 small for my project so I had to buy even more last night at Walmart. I was able to find it sold by the yard and picked up 3 yards just to be sure for $8.91 ($2.97 a yard) and I think I will have enough for more than one dress if I survive the first one.

I also found a nice white fabric on clearance for $2 a yard that I can use for lineing and bought 2 yards of that because it was 90 inches wide and should be helpful for the rest on my sewing attempts. Total, $4.00.

At present my dress is now preshrunk & cut again! I even transferred the pattern lines onto the fabric and I took the time to preshrink the lining and the interface (you soak it in hot water for 15 mins and then let air dry!) and i've actually started to sew it together.

At times the pattern kicks my butt and if it weren't for you tube and google, I would have given up long ago, but video tutorials are amazing!

Total Cost to make my dress so far:

• $6.00 for original messed up fabric
• $7.25 for new green fabric
• $8.91 for New interfacing
• $4.34 for too small interfacing
• $4.00 for lining
• $1.37 for zipper
• $2.00 for spools of thread

Total: $32.87 ... If I hadn't messed up and bought the wrong stuff, $23.53 with leftover lining and interfacing too!

Why do I try to refinance...

Back when I was calling BOFA to get a check for my property tax over payment, I talked to them about refinancing my mortgage.

Up until now, refinance has been out of the question because they have changed the rules of FHA mortgages and the mip payments have doubled so all the money we would save resetting our mortgage would be eliminated by the fee increase... and since I bought 3 months too late for the new program they have out now, we were stuck.

But I discovered another option. There's the possibility of kicking the FHA to the curb completely and trying for a 20 year fixed rate mortgage at 4.25% with no fees.... for the SAME MONTHLY PAYMENT WE ARE ALREADY PAYING...

OR we could do a 30 year regular mortgage and get a smaller monthly payment...

Only hic-up is that we would need to pay our mortgage down to 90% loan to value.

The loan officer was going to look around and see if she could get a better idea of the market area and what our place is worth, but I found out I have a 780 Credit score... which is pretty darn good if I say so myself. If the place was worth $120k, we would only have to toss in $3k in principle reductions... But realistically we are guessing our place was worth around $115,000.00 so we would essentially pull $8k out of savings to give us a smaller payment since SCB isn't working and our mortgage is our largest monthly expense...

Our MIP payments and PMI payments would be nearly identical and since this is a pretty big deal and there is a lot about BOFA I don't like (and I think I can get a better rate elsewhere), I also contacted Churchhill mortgage and Chase Bank to get information on 30, 25, and 20 year mortgages...

But no one would ever call me back after they took our info.

I'd call back and get referred to another person... and start over.

Then a month passed... and then 2.

Part of us was just looking to lower the monthly payment and interest rate... but if that couldn't happen and we could keep our payment and knock off some time on the loan, we'd still be sitting pretty.

I was all set to go into a bank in person since I was tired of the phone run around when I found out that a unit in our building sold for $100k a week ago...

$100k.... ***shakes head in shame because she knows we don't have that much money...***

I guess I was right the first time...

We really can't refinance our home.

:(

Goodbye Nationwide! (Part 1)

It’s been forever since I really looked at my annual goals for the year, but I’m proud to report I’ve finally made some progress with all my millions of accounts.

Over the past 3 months I’ve been trying to eliminate my old employer accounts that are no longer funded into a new 457 account that I can actually put money into for simplicity sake. The goal is to take my 401a account and drop it into the 457 account at the same place… and move another 457 account that was opened for  me when I was 16 at a separate agency, and drop it into the other 457 account…

And its been bad… so bad that I haven’t even bothered with trying to clear out my 2 Roth IRA’s and combine them until this nightmare has ended!

First, let’s start with the 401a
A year or so ago, my work put 1 or 2% of my salary into this account as a perk and after the first year or so they stopped doing it. All I wanted to do was take this money and put it into my new 457 account at ICMA-RC (Yes, same company that holds the 401a), all to no avail. I was sent multiple copies of different forms and after filling out over 3 different forms, I hit my breaking point when I went to the mail box about a week or so ago and in the same day I received 3 different letters asking me to do three different things to make the transaction happen.

I called the 1-800 number and begged for someone to help me and after finally getting someone on the phone they told me I would need to have a conference call with the person who has signing privileges at work, along with myself, and a member of ICMA-RC so they could get verbal permission for the funds to be moved with everyone all together. They even gave me a super-secret phone number to call and everything.

Sounds legit, right?

WRONG

The next day at work a gal from HR, me, and the director with signing powers all got on a conference call and called the number… and they were absolutely clueless as to why we were asked to call…

Then they started going on and on about the forms I needed to fill out and when they found out I’d filled out over 3 different forms to just make this one transaction happen, they just took my number and said they would call me back later that day with an answer as to why they were running into so many issues…

Eventually it was determined on my lunch break that they couldn’t move my 401a at all because it was employer money and was only allowed to be given to me if I quit/sever my employment… I can understand that, but can you imagine my frustration after spending how many hours and not to mention involving the big wigs at work to transfer an account that I was told was transferable by at least 8 people?????

So it looks like I'll still have a 401-a account and a 457 account, but there is a little silver lining when it comes to my old 457 account.

& now, the story of the 457 account...
While my HR rep and I were waiting for the call back about my 401a, we also called Nationwide about my inactive 457 account that I’ve had since I was 16 (with absolutely no investment options available)… that I have for the past 3 months been trying to move to my other 457 account so I can at least invest it in some target date funds.

So my HR rep called the employer line and then they had me verify a bunch of junk on the phone and then we got the final word that there was yet another different transfer out form we needed to complete that wasn't the one form they mailed to my house after receiving a request from IMAC-RC to take my money...

(Why can't people mail correct forms... that's what they are paid to do, is it not?)

Anyways, he said he would email the new correct form back to us, but he was going to transfer us to someone else to make sure he was absolutely sure since they had already made me fill out the wrong form once.

Fast forward after a 20 minute hold where the guy had to read all the notes in my file from all the calls that had been placed and the forms that had been sent in and the guy we were transferred to said it was yet another form that we needed to complete (not the form the other guy mentioned, nor the one I had already submitted)...

We were back to the 3 form shuffle folks...

Its been a bad few days...

There were a few days this week and last where I was just really frustrated and kind of stressed out. There has been a lot of family drama lately because I've decided to join the church we have been attending and this is not something my sister is thrilled about. We told them at that birthday luncheon we went to a week or so ago, and they were originally really supportive and I was excited about it and shocked.

But since this decision is something my sister does not like, she has been secretly dropping huge bombs of horribleness around my mom since then and i'm only now beginning to find out about it. These acts of awfulness have lead to phone calls of my mom crying her eyes out to me claiming these wild accusations and falsehoods to the point where my husband was having to walk out of the room while I was on the phone because he couldn't stand to hear the lies my sister had told my mom.

I think the most hurtful thing was my sister actually trying to convince my mom that she needed to write me out of the will she's been thinking of drawing up by telling her things like "the church will take it from me and not allow me to have anything she tries to leaves me."

I can handle my sister telling my mom i'm posting things on Facebook and taking them out of context, just to upset her.

For instance, like how I'm excited SCB's mom will be speaking at my baptism. My sister took this fact and reworded it to point out that MY mom is not speaking but HIS mom is and everyone knows it because I posted it all over Facebook just to be hurtful... 


Of course when I explained that only church members could give a mini sermon "talk" at the baptism and that if it wasn't SCB's mom it would be another family member or a friend of mine from the ward, reality set in for a few minutes... and I also took the time to calmly  point out that I was excited because people were willing to volunteer to speak because its normally hard to get people to give a talk at church...  Then i apologized for unknowingly hurting her feelings (considering how she doesn't have a computer, can't access the internet, and doesn't know what facebook is... how could I have purposefully tried to hurt her with that?)... 

But this twisted behavior of hers is just low. Very low... 

The idea that my sister would take time to sit and work out a way to twist my words and the situation for her own selfish gain and purposefully hurt my mother and bring her to tears just so she can possibly be left an old home when she dies is just sick, manipulative and cruel.

Who does that???

(and just for the record, i don't expect anything when my mom passes because i don't expect her to have anything. Despite the fact that she hasn't planned for retirement and besides $50k in the bank will be living 100% on social security in a paid for house, I think she will actually need us to bail her out... not leave us her house... but if i'm wrong and she's okay on her own, she's always said things should be 50-50 and my sister has always countered and added after that 70-30, because i'm older and you love me more mom.)

So it's been a rather rough week or two for me.

I haven't called my sister because that would make it worse... (her just knowing i'm bothered by it will add passion to her efforts and she'll try even harder)...

I can't un-friend her on Facebook either because that's the same as calling her up and asking why anyone would lie and purposefully hurt our mother like that... that and she'd tell my mom instead, causing another fight and bad phone call that I don't have the emotional ability to handle...  so, instead, the hubby blocked her, her fiance, and his brother from seeing my posts.

I've also been trying to only respond to my mother's emotional outburst with kindness and calm reasoning to explain things the best that I can...

Any good ideas for how I should go forward?

Challenging my Property Tax, part 2

If you remember all the way back to August of last year, you might remember this post "i'm challenging my property taxes".

Essentially the County thinks my property tax value went up in 2011 and priced the base at $120,903 because no one bedroom units had sold in my complex and they took the average price of the 2 bedroom units and adjusted the square feet and came up with a slight increase in value.

I was initially going to contest the property value by using some specs from the condos directly adjacent to my complex until I discovered that in March of 2011, one unit identical to mine sold for $115,000.00 in my complex and since March 31st is the end of the cut off for the claim, I'm going to use that property at my hearing for proof of value.

I called the county today to ask a question about my new property tax notice and the clerk gave me a bunch of attitude when she found out that i was contesting my 2011 valuation "for a mere $50..."

I really wanted to give her a piece of my mind for being so judgmental, because to me, $50 is a lot of money, especially with how I plan to use it.

If I take that $50 refund and apply it to my mortgage, I save $150 in interest ... AND they move my property tax value down to $115,000 as a base. Since I know they are increasing my tax value by 2% for this year and I have no good comps in that time frame to refute it, 2% of an increase on $115,000 is less money than a 2% increase on $120,903....

$86.00 less.

So, when you look at the $150 I will save in interest and the $86 I will save on my property taxes this year, that's $236.00 in my pocket and a lower value for life on my unit...

Ya, i'd say that's worth something... and if I knew I could have kept my cool with her on the phone, I might have informed her how big of a spiraling effect $50 could have... but it wasn't worth it.

So cross you fingers and wish me luck for a good hearing with sensible people!

August Budget- The No Spend Month

I will be the first person to say that the hubby and I forgot what the word budget meant last month and went a little crazy in certain areas. While we spent the least amount of money we have on eating out and groceries, that number is skewed by our vacation and being away from home since those outings didn't count in the final figures. So we have decided that its time to rein things in and invoke our first married No Spend Month!!!


For the Month of August we will only pay our bills and buy groceries and gas. It's our goal at the end of the month to be able to fix SCB's trunk and try and really get the car fund off and running since we depleted it last month with maintenance repairs. 

As for ongoing items, we still need to get SCB to the dentist and the slush fund is sitting still over $2k despite last month. 


We have also been seriously considering getting new slider doors for the condo so if we do run our wall unit AC it all won't suck the wonderful cold out the door... that and I want them replaced before the fall when the Santa Ana winds come and lift our slider door off the ground and then drop it back down everyday since it doesn't fit in the jam properly.


We have the money set aside for our holiday trip out to Utah ($300 to cover gas and tolls), so all that's really floating around of concern is the dental work, the windows, the car fund, paying extra on the mortgage, and maybe replacing the vent in the bathroom... and maxing my Roth IRA. (when I lump it in like that it seems less intense).


Here's our August No Spend Budget:

Paycheck #1:

• Mortgage (P&I, Property taxes, MIP): $809.40
• Giving $120.00
• Fast Offering: $10
• Groceries & Food: $240.00
• Prescriptions/doctors appointments: $20.00
• Overtime (give 10%, the Roth, Birthdays, & savings)

Paycheck #2:

• Giving: $120.00
• HOA: $262.50
• Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $135.00
• Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00
• Prescriptions/doctors appointments: $10.00
• Gasoline/Auto: $150.00
• Christmas: $50.00
• Roth IRA $161.90

We have $80 that normally would be spent on eating out, and that will hopefully go towards my roth and other savings goals.


How we spent our Money Last Month:

• Groceries/House Supplies: $167.41
• Eating Out: 60.17
• Gasoline: $130.21
• Car Repairs/Other: $237.00
• Giving: $276.94
• Prescriptions: $0.00
• Housing: $1,071.90
• Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $226.18
• Gifts/birthdays: $38.22
• Clothes: $0.00
• Other: $464.26
• Medical/Dental/Vision: $0.00
• Vacation: $425.24

How we spent our Money thus far in 2012: 

• Groceries/Household Supplies: $1,598.04
• Eating Out: $942.21
• Cars
• Gasoline: $978.98
• Car Repairs/Smog/Registration/INS: $1035.01
• Giving: $1243.29
• Prescriptions: $113.00
• Housing: $7600.03
• Re-occurring Bills 
• Cell: $960.56
• Electricity: $299.46
• Internet: $255.40
• SCB's Wood Turning: $812.21
• Gifts/Birthdays/Holidays: $474.40
• Medical/Dental/Vision: $333.95
• Vacation: $941.81
• Utah
• $85.52 Shopping
• $168.88 Gasoline / Tolls / Transportation
• $119.98 Food/Eating Out
• Disneyland: $142.19 (Parking, Food, & Shopping)
• Utah/Great Basin National Park
• Gasoline: $194.05
• Tolls: $12.00
• Souvenirs: $48.27
• Campsite: $18.00
• Cave Tours: $16.00
• Food/Going Out: $136.92
• Clothes/Other: $1,256.56