Monday, April 29, 2013

Happy Birthday SCB


I made him this because he didn't want a
Cake... Just mint Oreo's. Who's the best wife
Ever... This girl!
Happy Birthday 
South County Boy!



I love you SCB and its AWESOME being married to you. Ever day gets better and as you turn another year older, I just find more and more things I love about you.

XOXO

Since he turns 27 today... I thought it would only be appropriate to list 27 things I love about him.

  1. I LOVE WHEN HE READS to me... nothing is better on this whole world. The man should do audio books and he makes the best character voices.
  2. I love that he is taller than me. I honestly couldn't have married someone shorter or similar to my height since i'm so used to looking up.
  3. I love how he rubs my feet after a long run and takes care of me when I'm pathetic.
  4. I Love that he likes my cooking and is willing to try new dishes when I ask him to.
  5. I love that he makes the bed in the morning so I come home to a tidy house.
  6. I love how he tucks me into bed at night when he's going to stay up later than me... and how he carries me to the bed when I fall asleep on the couch.
  7. I love how he will give me his rainbows to wear up/down the stairs when i forget that the pair of shoes I want is in the car so my feet won't hurt on the pebble cemented stairs that hurt really bad.
  8. I love how he will come over and just ask me to dance with him in the kitchen for no reason... and that he knows "our song."
  9. I love that he is creative and can make beautiful things.
  10. I love his taste in movies and that he will watch Disney and chick flicks just to make me happy.
  11. I love how he knows when I NEED chocolate and will go to any lengths to retrieve it for me.
  12. I love how he surprises me with a clean house when I have a horrible day at work and he knows about it.
  13. I love it when he shows up to surprise me at work with flowers on my birthday and a BIG GIANT bear seat belted into my car on valentines day.
  14. I love how he thinks i'm the most beautiful girl in the world and tells me all the time.
  15. I love that he can be playful and laugh at me when i'm being silly and wanting to revert to childhood and play with stuffed animals and make them talk to him.
  16. I love that he will do all the technology things I don't want to learn how to do like loading audio books on my phone whenever I ask.
  17. I love his tastes in books. I have discovered amazing authors and books I never would have picked up in a million years.
  18. I love how much he loves him family... and its just a bonus that they get to be my family too --- because of him.
  19. I love that he is always willing to hold my purse for me when I don't want to or when its easier for him to hold it so we can hold hands.
  20. I love that he carries in all the groceries each week. He actually has me "load him up" so I can just walk to the door and unlock it while he lugs everything inside.
  21. I love the fact that I know he will always protect me and will let no one tear me down.
  22. I love that he helps me water my plants when I forget so my garden doesn't die.
  23. I love how he takes out the trash 90% of the times WITHOUT me asking him to.
  24. I love how he always puts the toilet seat back down so I won't fall in at 4 am in the morning when I sometimes don't turn the bathroom light on right away. 
  25. I love when he prays with me... its just really cool.
  26. I love when he realized I need friends and i'm feeling all sad and out of sorts so he calls my friends and tells them they need to come over and help *fix* his wife.
  27. I love that he does the dishes. I hate doing them. Its my least favorite chore and i'm so thankful that he is willing to do them... especially when I make elaborate meals and make a lot of dirty dishes. 
Happy Birthday Bumpkin Bear! I love you!


Friday, April 26, 2013

Food in April

I have to say I'm getting pretty proud of myself and my ability to keep receipts (knock on wood) so I can keep track of what my family is buying and eating. So here's our April Update.


Costco
You'll notice the INSANE amount of onions and potatoes we bought... especially considering we are only 2 people. We were trying to run some errands really quickly and only wanted to make one stop... and we were out of onions and potatoes so we decided to "experiment" and see if buying these items in bulk is smart for us. We still have at least half the potatoes and onions leftover at the months end, but i LOVED not running out of onions. I like to toss them in a lot of things and having them around and not running out and having to pay $1.69 for 3 tiny ones each week is awesome. As for the potatoes, we are still trying to dent the bag... but SCB loves how big they are... and the fact that I made some really Delicious mashed potatoes one night for dinner. We also realized that its smarter for us to buy hot dog and hamburger buns in bulk since we don't buy bread in the store. The buns come in handy for pulled pork and shredded chicken burgers when we have run out of homemade bread and i'm too tired to make some. We just make sure that we make at least one "bun meal" a week and store most of them in the freezer. So far, so good there.

I'm going to rant now:
The only thing that makes me unhappy about shopping at Costco is the "welcome people" who make SCB take out his Costco card every time we enter the store. Our Costco card is our AMX card because we hate having 50 different cards in our wallet so we just store our AMX card since its got the Costco membership account stuff on it... and having to get it out and wave it around just makes me unhappy. 

Memo to workers-- we aren't going in to steal free samples or mess around. Sometimes SCB wants to go in there just to get milk and cheese and we don't need a cart but its annoying to have to take out our credit card to show we are members... you should recognize us... because its the SAME LADY EVERY WEEK who rolls her eyes at us when we go inside. It would be different if there was a sign saying you must present your membership card to enter the store... but its not there... and its not legally required for entry into the store. You can go in there for vision appointments and to buy liquor because there is a state law saying you don't have to be a member to go in there an buy liquor... so stop harassing us! End of rant.


Fresh & Easy
Again, I love how we would have spent almost $150 in groceries, yet got it under $100 by not clipping a single coupon. I literally saved $44 in coupons by installing an app on my phone and printing the weekly email coupon that comes into my inbox. I scan the bar-code of the coupon from my phone at checkout and BING money in my pocket. The only coupons that take a bit of effort are the "made for me" coupons since I have to scan them for each item that I buy.

The more we shop around and with the summer weather on the way, we will probably see less and less shopping for produce at F&E because Sprouts generally tends to have a better selection and better prices, but other than that we love the store. We finally broken down and bought burgers in the sleeve because at checkout I realized one day if we spent $5 more we could use a $10 off $50 coupon and would get them for $5 (our general rule for us to buy meat is that it needs to be $3.00 a pound... sometimes $3.50 and the burgers are WAY over that-- but with the extra coupon we could make it happen.-- I'm a burger snob... I don't like the costco sleeve ones taste because they shrink down and aren't as flavorful as ones from Fresh & Easy). We would like to just make our own burgers, but with our current grill, they don't stay together when they are fresh and its a fall apart mess.

Everywhere Else (Walmart, Sprouts, Target)
We bought an extra gallon of Milk at Target because SCB made both Congo bars and Lehi Roller Mills Double Chocolate brownies back to back and we went through almost 2 gallons of milk in a week and needed another one to get us to our next bi-weekly Costco run. 

We hit sprouts because they had strawberries on sale and a better price for lettuce... I also want to experiment with a few new veggies recipes so we bought some broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. (I'm just now seeing the typos but i'm too lazy to correct them)

As for Walmart, last month we just did a double run so we are just eating out of the pantry and will re-stock next month anything we used. I plan on taking some pantry pictures so you can all see how we store our food stuff and how much we keep on hand. I also made a lot of stuff with Greek Yogurt this past month so we had to pick up another container of it since I did a few smoothies and made onion dip for some veggies with the first one we had from last month. 

Monday, April 22, 2013

Busy Weekend...

I just came off another 3 day teaching weekend and i'm exhausted!-- Can't wait to have Friday off and to eventually see a happy 12.75 hours of overtime!

SCB has a Job interview on WED so please send us some good vibes...

There's also an important work meeting this week that we need good vibes sent out for on my behalf.... If it works out I'll dance and sing and tell you all about it here...

That's about all the updates I can muster at the moment... more details soon...


Friday, April 19, 2013

Refinance Updates

Welcome Packet and Closing Costs
My welcome packet came in the mail over the last weekend so on Monday I dropped off all the documents we needed to sign for the new loan...

It also listed out our closing costs and loan fees. Unfortunately they aren't able to match the WAY lower fees I was able to negotiate last time around when I was mortgage shopping, but we think its still a win for us... and here's why.

Estimated Fee breakdown:
Origination Fee: $1,085.00
Appraisal: $435.00 ---Paid Now
Credit Report Fee: $12.00 ----Paid Now
Flood Check Fee: $17.00
Tax Service Fee: $84.00---
Title Services: $926.00
Recording Charges: $175.00
Daily Interest Charges: $32.52

Total: $2,766.52

This saves us $45.63 a month right off the bat,  PLUS we were tossing an extra $54.22 at the mortgage that we don't have to anymore. I feel its okay for us to count the $54.22 as savings because we are going from a 30 year to a 20 year and to get anywhere near a 20 year payoff plan with the mortgage we have now, we would need to pay way more that that $54.22 a month-- so together we freed up $99.85 a month for us...

It will take us about 27 months to break even, or a little over 2 years. We will also be gaining equity a LOT faster which is why we aren't worried too much about rolling the closing costs into our loan... which lead us to the

Appraisal...
I got an email on Wednesday to notify me that our appraisal was in... and we made it. Our condo is worth $150,000 which meets the threshold we need to refinance and loose all our icky fees. It wasn't as high as the loan officer thought it would be, but I didn't think it was worth $180,000.... $150,000 seems more realistic when the 2 bedroom units have been going for $180k.

I learned some interesting information from the 26 page appraisal packet.

  • At present, the 124 units that make up the association are 59 owner occupied and 65 renter occupied. 
  • The guy who did our appraisal failed to notice I have a washer/dryer and a refrigerator in our unit... but saw the microwave...
  • There are 7 "comparable" properties for sale in my area right now from $162k - $265k... and 40 "comparable" properties that have sold in the past 12 months, ranging from $100k-235k.
The "comparable" units:
  • In my complex they used a two, 2 bedroom unit and just adjusted their value down $20k for the additional bedroom and another $14k down for the square footage. 
    • The first one placed my unit at $159,000.
    • The second one placed my unit at $125,000.
  • Down the road about 5 miles is another complex. They took tthree properties from here to compare. For each property they took off $4k for the carport and $5k for the complex pool/spa.
    • One was a short sale so they knocked off another $4k and pegged my value at $131,650.
    • The other came in at $158,500.
    • The third at $153,000.
Comments from the appraiser: "Subject is of average quality and appears to be well maintained. Project has proximity to local employment centers and has average market appeal. Inventory of active listings was shrinking in past three months and was limited at the time of valuation." 

I also looked at the pictures he took of our unit and I have to say... our place is going to look photo amazing when it gets time to actually sell our unit!!!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

What We Eat...

I've been posting our monthly food purchases on the blog for a few months now for all the world to see... and its got me thinking about what we eat... how we eat... and if the amount we spend on groceries is A) allowing our family to eat healthy... and B) if it's something other people can do.

I won't lie, I ran across a blog article by a gal I love to read that posed a similar question... "How well do people eat when they only spend $200 or so dollars a month on food."

While I'd like to say that the amount we spend each month on groceries has been decided because of our amazing ability to do grocery shopping... but the reality of the matter is we spend what we do because its what our budget allows us to spend... so we try to do the most and best we can with it. Some months are successful, others not so much.

It seriously helps that we are only a 2 person household at the moment... but in all reality, SCB doesn't eat as well as I do. He often only eats twice a day and just snacks on what is convenient and closest. When I plan out our meals, he does better but its not out of the ordinary for me to come home at 1pm and find that he hasn't eaten anything all day so I either make him a lunch and show him all his food options or we have an early dinner around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and then he has "second dinner" after i'm back in bed and he's hungry again. Since he hasn't really had a stable job in over a year, he's still in bachelor mode unfortunately.

I know I've been cutting down on portion size a lot. Its about a month after the 1/2 marathon and I haven't been doing the 10 plus miles a week anymore and yet I've still managed to not only maintain the 15+ lbs weight loss since November... but the scale keeps flirting even lower.

But that blog article I read got me thinking. Is our food well balanced and healthy? Would I be willing to post what we actually do with the food we buy?

So I'm going to try to post a few pictures of some of the stuff were eating. It won't be perfect because I know i'll forget from time to time to snap a picture and there just might be some really weird food things because we have a few crazy work-a holic weeks and the shopping just might not get done, but I think it will be good to give this a whirl...

Of course the first time i'm testing this method out is the week that my husband and I were unable to go to the store, so we just got creative with what we had on hand!

So, Stuff we ate week:
Breakfast Ideas:
Banana, Greek Yogurt, Gala Apple -- Sometimes I eat my
Apples with peanut butter... and sometimes I add Granola in to
my yogurt for variety.

Canned Chicken mixed with diced onion, Salt,
Pepper, and Fat Free Plain Greek Yogurt with Walmart Brand
"wheat thins"
Spaghetti with  Meat Sauce, Parmesan Cheese, mushrooms
Homemade bread with Monterrey Jack Cheese and 2 hard
boiled eggs (just the egg white part-- I toss the Yokes)
Natures Valley Organic Cereal with fat free milk

Tortilla with Green Bell Peppers, Onion, and Shredded Cheese.
Sometimes I add in leftover chicken, mushrooms, etc for
variety!

Home made smoothie (frozen
strawberries, Pineapple, Black Berries,
Greek Yogurt,  maybe a banana and some
generic crystal light mix from walmart.

Chicken Feta and Spinach Brats from Fresh and Easy
We also ate Burgers and Artichokes one night, A crock pot roast another, & did a "Loaded" Baked potato dinner as well...

I also had snacking veggies on hand with a greek yogurt dip... and we had a good salad in there too!

Were big on Frozen Veggies, Shake and Bake Chicken/Pork, & Drink Milk often. This week the hubby's "go to" food included Hot Dogs (because he loves them), Bean and Cheese Burritos, Cereal, and leftovers... (READ: Bachelor food!-- but were working on getting this better in the next week or so when we can get to the store to stock up and I have more time to help sneak in the healthier stuff!) 

So with a week or so of not being able to plan anything out, that's what we came up with... I'm going to try and do a better job of taking pictures of more things!

Monday, April 15, 2013

Mortgage Update (April '13)


Principle paid down: $170.03
Interest: $480.61
Additional Principle: $0.00

New Balance: $109,684.53

The pay off date is still November 2038 which is 10 months ahead of the initial schedule. If I continue to pay the minimum on my loan, I will pay $111,081.60 in interest instead of the original $116,404.23. The extra $1,646.77 I've tossed at the mortgage over the life of the loan has saved us $5,322.63 in interest to date.

Since we are aiming to re-finance our loan, we won't be adding any extra to our monthly payments until the new loan goes through! I'm still debating on whether we will roll the closing costs into the loan or pay the fees outright. 

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 also 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, when we subtract those costs from what we saved by living in our condo instead of renting, we came out ahead $494.04 (See Mortgage Update + Condo Costs December '11 for that break down.)  We also received a small $70 refund check from over paid closing costs. 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.
  • In 2012 we finished our Kitchen/Laundry door which cost us $103.24.. We also replaced both our glass slider doors which cost us $2,957.00... and repaired our dryer for $81.42....It ended up being $3,383.47 cheaper to OWN our condo than to rent an apartment on a monthly basis,  (See Housing Costs 2012 for the break down) so even after we subtract the windows and other minor repairs, we still came out ahead $241.81 by owning our condo instead of renting... 
  • In 2013 we got $52.53 back from challenging my property taxes in 2012.
Leaving us $13,062.89 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 $10,315.47 in equity...

Leaving us only $2,777.42 in the hole after 3 years, 7 months.

For 2013, we will again assume our monthly mortgage payments are a wash since its cheaper to OWN our home then to RENT an apartment. Check out Housing Comps 2013 for how we figured that one out.

Thus far for 2013 we have spent $4,424.46 to live in our condo, instead of $5,444.00 to live in the apartment.
  • Mortgage (including P&I, Property Taxes, MIP, & additional principle:) $3,374.46
  • HOA:  $1,050.00
  • Small Home Repairs/Improvements:
  • Earthquake Insurance: $0
  • Homeowners Insurance: $0
As of today, we have saved $1,019.54 this year by not renting.

If I sold the condo tomorrow, I'd have to sell the property for $119640.45 to break even... which is 359.55 less than what I paid for it! 
  • This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,178.43)
  • and enough money to refund the amount we are in the hole for ($2,777.42)

Friday, April 12, 2013

Appraisal Time

I feel so incredible productive this month. Not only did we finish the process of expunging SCB's old record... but we  are attempting to refinance our home.

After going in on a Thursday and first sitting with the loan officer and getting our questions answered, running some numbers and then later that day deciding to go through with it (i called and verified that we locked in our loan btw), I emailed him all the supporting documents he needed on Friday morning (W2's, paystubs, etc) and waited around for my welcome packet.

Then on Monday, I got a call from BOFA's home appraisal team wanting to come the next day to appraise our home. I was excited and set up the appointment for the next day. On Monday night we tidied up and cleaned the place (which really didn't take too long i'm glad to say), and we were ready and waiting for them to show up for our 3 pm home appraisal the next day.

At 3:05 pm an older gentleman came into our home with a camera...

and by 3:10 he was gone.

Seriously.

We paid over $400 for an appraisal and the guy spent maybe 5 minutes in our home and that was while introducing himself and me stalling him.

He took a few pictures of our home quickly... and one measurement (just one)... and drew one small pencil shape on his notepad.

At this point since he seemed like he was leaving so I made a point to tell him we had just put in new sliding doors (which he didn't look at) and only after I mentioned our newer deck on the patio did he take a step outside and snap one picture of the floor boards outside since they aren't wood.

When I asked if he had an approximation of value in mind (the loan officer asked me to ask), he said he would give us the highest he could because we had title and granite and most units like this don't have those things... but he wouldn't know until he did the comparable units...

Then he turned around and wandered out.

He maybe spent another minute or so measuring the outside of our front door walk up and then spent some time sitting in his car parked illegally in our complex (I know this because we passed him in our car on the way to go by some stamps). He was parked in the middle of the road, blocking 2 parking spaces...

I just hope our value comes back at $142,000.00 or more. That would allow our loan to be up to $113,600 and still have 20% equity so no PMI payments so we would have the option of rolling in our closing costs. At a bear minimum we need $137,000.00 because that gets us 20% equity but we would have to pay all the closing costs out of pocket.

Anyone else have some funny appraisal stories?

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

DONE and EXPUNGED

Today the USPS will be sending out 4 certified copies of my husbands expungement notice.

It's done...

It's finished...

He no longer has a record... its gone...

He can apply for a job!

Just to be on the safe side, he won't officially start the job hunt until next week which should hopefully give them enough time to receive the letter and update their files.

This is what cloud nine feels like and its awesome. Now to start looking to see who's hiring and needs a good man on their team :)




Monday, April 8, 2013

OMG we are going to Refinance... NO JOKE

Okay, so you have all heard me COMPLAIN and MOAN and GROAN about how we couldn't refinance because we missed that happy little window of opportunity with the new mortgage regulations and our fees would go through the roof and wipe out any savings?

Well, it turns out I found we have another option. A normal refinance!

On a whim, I walked into BOFA on Thursday after work last week and asked to see if a mortgage rep was there and available. As the lady was telling me he was gone for the day, he walked in, smiled and told me to come on over and he'd help me see what we could do.

Call that perfect timing or what?

Apparently property values in my area have soared and nothing, I repeat nothing, is going for less than $200,000.00 here... including 1 bedroom condos (if your new to the show, I bought my condo at $120,000.00 three and a half years ago).

After hearing about that we started looking at what rate we could qualify for a few different options (30 year fixed no fee, 30 year fixed with fees, 20 year with fees, 15 year with fees), and how much we would need our home to appraise for to make it all happen (about 140k).

Basically I also learned my idea to streamline our FHA loan once we paid down the balance enough to have 20% equity would be littered with fees and that we would be best off doing a basic refinance and kicking the FHA loan to the curb.

All of the options below eliminate our MIP/PMI fees all together because the loan officer thinks our home will appraise for at least $150,000 on the lower end... $180,000 on the higher.... so we would have 20% equity and not need to pay those.

Here are all our options:

  1. 30 year fixed at 4.25% with No fees. Mortgage balance stays the same.
    1. P&I- $546.05 | Taxes $102.00  Total: $648.05 a month (Monthly Savings: $154.93)
  2. 30 year fixed at 3.75% with approximately $2,348.19 in Fees.
    1. P&I- $519.15 | taxes $102.00 Total: $621.15 a month (Monthly Savings: $181.83)
  3. 20 year fixed at 3.50% with approximately $2300-2700 in fees 
    1. P&I- $657.36 | taxes $102.00 Total: $759.36 a month (Monthly Savings: $43.62)
  4. 15 year fixed at 3.00% with approximately $2,300 in fees
    1. P&I- $774.14 | taxes $102.00 Total: $876.14 a month (Monthly Savings: $-73.16)

I took all the print outs and went home to SCB to layout our action plan.

We decided that even though we currently pay an extra $54.22 a month to our mortgage that we needed to go with an option that lowered our monthly payment... so while the 15 year fixed mortgage was mighty tempting, we eliminated that option right away. We also eliminated the no fee mortgage because the higher interest rate didn't save us too much more on the monthly option since our mortgage balance is not so significant and we plan on being here a few more years at the minimum. So we had boiled it down to 2 options... The 30 year fixed rate mortgage at 3.75% or the 20 year fixed rate mortgage at 3.50%

The major question became about what is more important. Money now in our pockets, or Less over all interest and time.

After much debate, we decided to go for the 20 year fixed rate mortgage.

If this was a year ago, we would have gone the other way because money in our pockets would have been a much more important factor if we were facing a year of still waiting to apply to expunge SCB's old record. But now that, that process is almost complete, we should be able to increase our income soon with additional work and other expenses we plan on cutting.

Plus I also hated the idea of re-starting my loan back out to 30 years. We aren't sure if we would keep this place as a rental unit in the future so our goal is to pay it off as soon as possible so we would most likely continue paying the amount we are paying today... so we might as well get the slightly better interest rate and the knowledge that even if we didn't throw extra on the mortgage, we'd still pay it off faster than we would right now with us making an additional payment each year.

So the process has begun.

As of right now we are rolling the fees into the balance of the mortgage and the numbers above reflect the monthly rates with the fees rolled in . Our loan officer set the balance at $113,000 just to be on the safe side, but we won't know for sure until we actually get our home apprised and figure out all the nitty gritty details.... but we might pay the fees out of pocket. We aren't sure yet.

First step is the appraisal. After that we re-evaluate. This month we won't be adding extra to our mortgage because we will need to pay for the appraisal fee...

Here's wishing us lots of luck!

Think we made the right move with deciding on the 20 year mortgage instead of the 30?

Friday, April 5, 2013

Food in March

I'm surprised i'm still at it when it comes to keeping and recording our food receipts! So lets take a little looksie!

Pretty much the same as always for Costco. We generally buy Milk, Cheese, and eggs there and we make a point of filling up the gas tank so its not a total wasted trip. I think I may have forgotten to add in another milk purchase because we still have milk in the fridge... hmmmm...? I am also LOVING my costco eggs. They are way larger than the ones we get in the store and since i generally only eat the egg whites, i'm a happy camper with these.


We went to Ralph's once this month as a compromise. SCB didn't want to cook dinner and I didn't want to go to a restaurant, so we went by Ralph's so he could get some cheap frozen pot pies for dinner and I took my hand at cooking frozen Salmon... which turned out really well so we might see that in our meal rotation more frequently. We also hit up Sprouts because we were in the area and we might have to make it a weekly thing or an every other weekly thing because some of the produce is much better than fresh and easy price wise. Not everything is, but since I don't really like to buy lettuce at F&E, we might buy it at Sprouts instead. I can always walk there and carry a small grocery bag home on the weekends.


We actually did both this months and next months Walmart visits. We were going to end the month with a surplus in the food category, but I knew we were running out of other Walmart items and instead of having a tighter month, we went early and that's why we busted our food category for March and went slightly over. The personal items aren't included in this list, just food that we picked up. I'm slowly trying to get the hubby to eat better and eat less junk, but some times its hard with our $50 a week food budget.


Got to love me those coupons! We would have spent 25% more without them. I should have around $9 in fresh and easy bucks to use next month too so that should work out nicely. I'm going to try and be really good about not letting things spoil, but we did pitch a few items over the course of this month. Sometimes I'm finding that we just don't use the full amount before it goes bad, but that I can't buy things in smaller amounts (like bean sprouts) but I realized they are cheaper at sprouts so when we do pick them up, well probably pick them up from there so I feel less guilty when I pitch half the bag. Same with spinach. I can't go through a whole bag before its time has ended, but if i can buy a smaller bunch at sprouts for less, that might just be the best way to go in the long run.

I've also need doing really well with maintaining the weight I've lost and I'm noticing that it means we make different food choices than we used to. I'm trying to only eat grains at one meal a day, unless I exercise that day and you'll notice the over $20 we spent on Greek Yogurt this and last month... Eating healthier does cost more but if we are being careful and make the changes slowly we will begin to see savings in other areas that should help balance everything out in the long run... I mean, I am literally eating wayyy less food than I was and not feeling deprived. Cheese lasts a little longer for the most part since I measure out portions and i've been trying to good about how much fresh veggie items we keep on hand so that we don't end up wasting food because we don't get to it fast enough. This is why I think Sprouts might just become more of our friend.

So what is your family eating and buying?

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

March Re-Cap and April Budget

With such a busy month, its no wonder I'm just getting to our monthly re-cap post. With the Utah fees for the expungement, the LA Marathon, and the beginnings of birthday shopping, we went over budget all over the place.

We ended up paying for the overages with our left over tax return money, which has now shrunk down to $70.56. The remainder of this will be going to SCB's car's annual service check up next month so we can mark that off our to-do list.


What we have spent this month
He dropped the milk cap and it
went across the floor... it was a
little too early on a Sunday for
him to handle apparently.
Groceries:  $267.47
Car Registration: $108.00
Car Repairs: $20.00
Gasoline: $166.78
Health Insurance: $178.00
Prescriptions: $20.00
Housing: $1,119.70
Giving: $305.00
Birthdays: $101.61
Electricity: $45.12
Cell Phones: $137.97
Internet: $24.48
Eating Out: $83.46
Clothes: SCG- $15.00
Easter: $13.47
State of Utah CBI: $56.00
Certified Mail Fee: $6.31
Expungement Fees/copies: $180.50

I can't wait until we can drop SCB's smartphone. It makes me a bit queesy how much money we spend on cell phones each month and how its almost 3 times as much as we pay for electricity! We have decided once our contract is up we will cancel his line and he will go to a burner phone... we may keep mine a bit longer and try out the burner phone for a bit and keep my line off contract for a few months to see if we want to loose mine too.

Thankfully next month i'll have a good 13 hours of overtime coming in from teaching a 3 day lifeguard course so after getting some new running shoes since mine are shot from my half marathon, we will be putting the rest away in savings and/or to our next money goal. We went over budget in groceries, gas, and eating out largely because of the marathon and driving up to LA. We also re-stocked up on a bunch of house hold supplies like deodorant, shampoo/conditioner, pain killers, etc.

I did manage to not touch my holiday pay (195.93) that came in on one of my paychecks because I transferred that into savings the nano second it hit the account so technically we broke even this month because the amount I pulled from our tax return was almost equal to the overtime-- But we will need to be revising our annual goals a little... but i'll talk about that in a few minutes. 

What we spent money on in 2013:
  • Church Giving: $1,240 (part of 2012 is in here too)
  • Groceries/Household Supplies: $673.13
  • Car:
    • Gasoline: $406.96
    • Car Registration: $189
    • Car Repairs: $20.00
  • Date Night/ Eating Out: $194.47
  • Cell Phones: $415.90
  • Internet: $94.76
  • Electricity: $130.01
  • House: 
    • HOA: $787.50
    • Mortgage: $2,571.48
  • Clothes:
    • SCG: $43.27
    • SCB: $9.07
  • Medical/Dental/Dr/Prescriptions
    • Heath Insurance Premiums: $356.00
    • Prescriptions: $20.00
  • Holidays:
    • Valentines Day: $8.50
    • Easter: $13.47
  • Other:
    • Expungement Fees: $292.81
    • Tax preparation Fees: $56.98
    • Computer Parts: $297.32

April Budget:


My employer signed off on a benefit increase in our monthly cafeteria cash allowance since the amount had not be revised up in some time and our health insurance premiums had increase by over 60% during that same period...

This means that i'll be getting an extra $150 before taxes a month added to my paycheck...

Which is very welcome relief since we have had our salaries frozen for the past 3 + years. With the cost of gasoline still above $4.00 a gallon and with just the over all cost of living still going up, its a nice welcome addition to my paycheck.

We have decided to take the extra money and put a but more towards groceries to give us an even $50 a week, set aside the full $50 we want to each month for birthdays, holidays, and presents so we don't have to worry so much when SCB's birthday, my birthday, and mother's day all hit at the same time, and the rest is going to help with the increase in the cost of gas. Here's our new budget:


$1424.00 paycheck one

  • Giving $142.00 
  • Mortgage (P&I, Property taxes, MIP): $857.20 
  • Fast Offering: $10.00 
  • Groceries & Food: $250.00 
  • Prescriptions & Doctors visits: $50.00 
  • Date Night/discretionary $64.80 
  • Birthday savings: $50.00 

$1424.00 paycheck two 

  • Giving: $142.00 
  • HOA: $262.50 
  • Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $129.00 
  • Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00 
  • Gasoline/Auto: $198.50 
  • Christmas: $50.00 
  • Kaiser: $178.00 
  • Roth IRA: $234.00 

We will also be having SCB take Wanda in for her annual check up at the car shop to see whats going on with her and to make sure she is running well since hopefully SCB will be able to start applying for jobs next month since all the paperwork is finally in!

It's weird to think we are a quarter of the way through the year already... I honestly don't know how time is flying so fast!

Annual Goal Changes

We have decided to cancel our summer vacation this year because it looks like our entire family will be coming to us in August because SCB and I will be getting sealed in the temple. So instead of saving $500 for a trip out to Utah, we will be saving $500 for our sealing and family time down here. We will most likely be treating all our family to dinner for making the journey out here and we will need to buy proper temple clothes and other things in preparation for our sealing. I'm also sure the family will want to go a few things while they are out here so that seems to be the plan for now. We will head out to Utah in the winter to see family and friends out there anyway, so this seems like a better plan :)

I am also planning on sending SCB to the dentist next month for a cleaning and check up so we can figure out what the balance would be to get the rest of his dental work done.

Remaining Financial Goals

  1. Make one extra Mortgage payment this year:  ($162.66 / $650.64) 25%
  2. Put at least 15% of our income into retirement: 11.64% thus far 
    1. Deferred Comp: $30.00
    2. Roth IRA: $702.24 / $5,000.00
    3. Pension: $458.26
  3. Save $100 to fix a few things on Wanda "our 22 year old clunker"
  4. Save $500 for Sealing and Family coming to town.
  5. Save $1,500.00?????? for dental work for SCB
  6. Save $1,000.00 for future car repairs and the start of a car replacement fund.
  7. Save $300 for a winter trip out to Utah to visit family.
  8. After that, throw everything we have at our mortgage to try and get it under $93,600.00 so we can refinance and loose the MIP payments we currently pay. 

Remaining Fun Annual Goals Updates

If its in bold, i'm either working on it, or finished with it!
  1. Find something new to crochet-- sweater, pattern, anything
  2. DONE!!!!! Sew something from scratch or re purpose something I was going to toss out into something I'd wear. You'll have to wait to see the post on this!
  3. Cook or try to cook 6 new things or recipes
    1. Salmon! (I learned how to cook it in the oven)!
  4. Read / Enjoy 6 new books
    1. Sabriel by Garth Nix (audio book)
    2. Lirael by Garth Nix (audio book)
    3. Abhorsen by Garth Nix (audio book)
    4. Nothing to Loose by lee Child (audio book)
  5. DONE!!!!! Loose weight (or just get the scale to 148 lbs and stay there or under)
    1. at 148 clothed on my work scale at the end of the month! 
    2. Now i'm going to see if I can get down to 145 lbs on my work scale.
  6. Change my last credit card to my married name
  7. Grow a garden with my neighbor
    1. For any early birthday present, SCB let me get a tomato plant, 3 strawberry plants, and 4 bell pepper plants! My neighbor will be getting some more plants since my balcony gets the sunshine and we will share in our happy little bounty.
  8. DONE!!!!! Complete a half marathon in 3 hours and 30 minuets or less. DONE
    1. 2 hours, 41 minutes!




Monday, April 1, 2013

Expunging Updates

FYI and For the Record, please never steal anything. 

It's not worth the paperwork headache later and I promise if the fines and all the "not being able to get a job" thing don't do it for you... the paperwork will! 

My husband is so happy that I "helped" (read: did) the paperwork for him because in his own words "there was no way" he would have been able to do it on his own...

so with that being said, its time for an EXPUNGE UPDATE! 

We received our certificate in the mail on the 18th from Utah's BCI. I noticed there was a phone number on the form to call if you had questions but it was too late and they would be closed. I tried looking things up online but I couldn't find a set list of things to print and send in that seemed like it was updated...

I honestly wasn't sure what forms I needed to print out because I've never been arrested before... So the next day after work I took the computer from my husband and I called the number armed with a million questions... and i'm so glad I called!

I repeat. I am so glad I called that number. I would have done everything wrong and wasted the certificate and lost out on yet another $56 and probably would have had to refile and wait for approval and another certificate!

So after spending a half hour on the phone with one gal, who gave me the phone number to another gal at the justice department, I then spent another 45 minutes on the phone with her as she walked me through the entire process. NICEST PEOPLE EVER!!! Seriously if there was a government employee who deserves a raise, it was those two women.

Thank you ladies... you saved my behind!

I learned that before I could mail my certificate back to them with the 1st form (yup, there are more forms to fill out), I first needed to send a photo copy of the certificate with a letter and a copy of the application to expunge to the City Attorney in the arresting city to notify them that we were going to attempt to expunge SCB's old record... and we would need to mail it certified mail, return receipt requested, because that little green card needed to be attached to another form which we had to fill out, "proof of service"...

and then there was a findings of fact form... 

and then the $135.00 filing fee... 

and then we would also need to pay for a copy of the certificate of expungement for not only our records, but one for the arresting agency, the City Attorney in that city, the Utah state BCI, the drivers licence division, and possibly other agencies that she could try to help look up for me but in short she recommended we purchase 7 official copies because you can only order the copies with the application and its OUR job to them mail them out once we receive them to all the different agencies so they can record and file them with their records.

So yes, I'm glad I called.

I also had to call back to figure out how to fill out the actual petition to file because I had no clue if it was  district court matter or a Justice Court matter... and I also needed to find the correct address of the court because SCB had no clue and couldn't remember where he went for all the hearings and such...

It was a headache...

To top it off, once I had everything copied for the application just to send off to the City Attorney's office, SCB started whining because I wanted him to drop what he was doing to sign the forms and then run off immediately to the post office to get it in the mail... (In his defense I might have also made him sit through  a very in-depth and detailed explanation of the entire process and why he should love me because of all the phone calls and research I was doing for him... and I might have been a little annoying and long winded (and she was having a bad day and i am the typical person that it ALL gets taken out on) ....his words, not mine are in blue.)

So in the end he went and mailed off the envelope and we waited...

On the 29th we got the green slip in the mail saying they received everything on the 25th. They also mailed a letter we got on the same day as the green card telling us the prosecutor in the case was also notified (didn't know we needed to do that-- phew- glad they worked in the same office!), and that they did not object or recommend anything...

Then I had to get back on the phone to make sure that I filled out our civil cover letter, petition to Expunge, Proof of service, and findings of fact forms all correctly... enclosed the original certificate, and then wrote a letter explaining that we had enclosed our filing fee of $135 and were also requesting 7 copies (at $6.50 a piece) of the expungement and asked them to mail them to our current residence.

It went in the mail on the 29th...

Now we wait for the forms to reach Utah again, for the judge to render his verdict, and for hopefully 7 copies of the form to come back to us so I can mail them out to the police department, city attorney, Utah BCI, and the drivers licence division...  

I can't wait for this to be done with!