2021 Annual Goals

I've always been the gal to outline and set a goals to provide some direction and accountability with my finances. It makes me feel better to have a plan and something to work towards... so while the internet is being flooded with lots of new year resolutions, here's the run down on our annual goals for 2021.

1. Rid ourselves of a car payment.  

This marks the 2nd time in my life I've had a car payment. The first car loan I had was for my second car, the Camry I drove into the ground until we replaced it recently with the Subaru Outback "Suby" recently... the car I drove for 13 plus years.  I had that loan for one year and busted my butt to pay it off... and we are going to do the same thing in 2021 with the car loan we took out for hub's Forester. I just sleep better not owing money. So despite our 0.99% interest rate, we are gonna make that our number 1 priority. 

• Our loan was for $18,794.20 when we purchased the car in October of 2020.
• In November, we paid $403.50 ($387.75 Principal / $15.75 Interest) Balance: $18,406.45
• In December, we paid $403.50 ($383.58 Principal / $19.92 Interest) Balance: $18,022.8
• In January, we paid $2117.00 ($2106.26 Principal / $10.74 Interest) Balance: $15,916.61

In December I got "an extra paycheck" so we tossed the whole thing at the car payment this month. Our plan to eradicate the car loan is to pay $517 a month, apply all of our "extra checks" we get throughout 2021 to principal reductions... Send our stimulus checks to the debt... and other windfalls like the $1100.00 escrow check we got back from refinancing our mortgage... and monthly extra cash we may get that survives the month. We aren't dumping all of our windfalls at once at the car, but rather this month I sent that extra paycheck... next month, i'll send the escrow check in Feb, and then in March we will toss the stimulus checks at it if we haven't needed the funds for something else because by that time we will have filed our taxes and know if we owe or will have a refund, and we will know what to expect for profit share from Hub's work, which had a record breaking year. 

So without Profit share and possible tax refunds, if all goes according to plan and we send the escrow check, and the stimulus checks over the next few months and with our extra paycheck and $500 a month plan, we should have around $3,000.00 left to pay down at the end of the year... which we hope to eradicate with any tax refund or part of hub's annual profit share check.

2. Pay our refinanced mortgage like its a 20 year loan instead of a 30 year.  

When we refinanced our mortgage to lock in a cheaper rate (2.75% instead of 4%), we did not opt for a 20 year or 15 year mortgage because the rate saving was not significant with our smaller mortgage size and it would increase our payment naturally (We were offered 2.65% for a 20 year). Instead by opting for the 30 year loan, but adding additional principal each month like it was a 20 year loan, we now have the flexibility should pandemic conditions change our jobs significantly, to reduce our expenses in the future if need, while reducing our interest rate over all, to allow us to pay down the balance owed much quicker. 

We refinanced our Mortgage into a 30 year at 2.75%. Our new balance was $152,600.00. Our minimum payment is now $622.98, but we are planning to pay $824 a month instead and treat it like a 20 year mortgage (sending $201.02 extra each month). 

• In December, we paid $824 (474.29 principal / $349.71 Interest): Balance: 152,125.71 

So our goal for 2021, is to hopefully keep these payments going all year. 

3. 15% deductions for retirement without counting matches and social security

Hubs is already there. We have 15% of his paycheck put into his roth 401a every check, and do the same with his annual profit share check. He gets a 4% match on contributions, also pays into social security on top of that. Since my pension kicks in at 55, we both plan to retire together, so we want to make sure we are putting enough aside to make this a reality. Without matches but counting his social security, hubs put 21% of his income away for retirement. With matches, its 25%.

I on the other hand pay 9.5% of my salary to my pension, and don't pay into social security. I get $150 match on my 457 contributions, by putting in $150 a month. This girl does not leave free money on the table, but this $150 a month is about 2-3% of my salary before the match... so I'm a little short of the 15% marker, and since my pension is taxable income and my 457 is a taxable account, we are going to put $118 a month into my Roth IRA, as that should get us near the 15% marker. (If I could employer pension payments as "matches" they put over 9% of my salary away, and then I have the 2-3% matching 457 contribution, so that will put me around  the 25% marker as well with matches. 

4. Restore "sinking funds"

Usually with our tax return and profit share check, we restore our savings accounts that we spent money out of over the year. We pulled money out of some of our sinking funds accounts with the car and tile projects last year, so a few need to be topped off:

• Vacation Fund: Restore to $1500 | Currently $502.12

5. Evaluate the Emergency Fund and Checking Account Padding.

Right now, I moved half our emergency fund to our checking account when we were dealing with the car purchase and home improvement issues so I wouldn't have to worry about paycheck timing and other things. By the end of 2021, I want the emergency fund back in its account, and to have at least a 2,000 buffer in our main checking account so I don't have to worry about when bills hit the account as I've grown accustomed to paying bills early with the money that just kind of sits there, but I also know it can be easier to spend money when you see a larger number in your account. 

Assuming we both lost our jobs, our bare bones emergency budget would be $3,329.71 a month.

• $30 year payment on the mortgage ($622.98); $300 property taxes; 367.50 HOA; $260 gasoline; $50 little dude; $100 non food items; $190 Insurance (car/house/earthquake); $100 utilities (just electric); $65 internet; $400 groceries; $40 cell phones; $834.23 Bronze Kaiser health insurance thru Covered California.

Its a no thrills lifestyle because this assumes No money coming in. We drop Little dude from daycare and go on total lock down as we would be living off our savings completely. Now in the real world, Hubs would qualify for unemployment initially, so we would have that as well. I also have over 500 PTO hours at present that would have to be paid out if I lost my job but this is just the outline we have to earmark how much money we should keep liquid if we needed 6 months of paired down expenses.  With the smaller mortgage payment after the refinance, a $20,000 emergency fund would still be valid for a bare bones budget.

In the real world, if Hubs were to loose his job completely, we can survive on my income if we cut daycare out as I cover the health insurance and we make sure our basic needs (food/Clothing/shelter etc) can be covered on one income cause we are old fashioned folks who don't buy into societies I NEED the latest i-phone mentality. I like to spend my time playing board games and going hiking cause i'm a social homebody at heart. If I lost my job, 

Now if I lost my job, while hubs and I make a similar income, most of his comes from profit share, which is never guaranteed. So if we talk about his base pay and our savings, we would have a year to figure out our next plan.

So by the end of 2021, I'd like 20,000 sitting in our emergency fund and around $3000 in our primary checking account. 

6. If we manage to do all of that, then we would start on any of the following:

• Buy and build the rest of the living room built ins 
• Add a metal deck ceiling/roof for the patio and possibly privacy shades
• Add baseboards back to the house since we don't have those yet
• Upgrade Little dudes closet to one floor to ceiling Ikea Unit to add more storage since he and his clothes are getting bigger.

Annual Goals Update from 2020

We set some goals for the year, and then we had 2020 -- the year of the unplanned EVERYTHING. Which naturally affected the progress on our annual goals... but before I update you all on what we spent for the year (ya, I tracked it), and set some new goals for 2021 and attempt to update the blog regularly again, lets all laugh back at what we thought would happen in 2020 before the pandemic.  

Put all of our savings accounts we borrowed from back. Emergency Fund: $5,175 & Vacation: $1,500

Well, we managed to get this done by March with extra paychecks and tax returns... and then in October, we had to buy hubs a new to us car... Our amazing mechanic was finally unable to source parts to replace worn out pieces on the car. After a new water pump went in and an oil change in May, we knew that would be our final repair. Our mechanic said "you got between 6 hours and 6-months and it will just die... and when it does, your towing it to a junk yard." So we kept our eyes peeled on SEVERAL different car types and in prices because we didn't have the cash to buy a long term car like we wanted. After test driving several cars, we faced the inevitable. Hubs WANTED a Subaru Forester and I couldn't find a car in our budget range that he actually FIT into that wasn't a Subaru Forester. 

We ended up finding a used 2019 one with 9,000 miles on it -- and we bought it 2 days before we would have had to pay the renewal DMV stickers on the Escort -- which was also the same day the car almost didn't start on his way home from work. The Dealer gave us $100 for the old car on a trade in and we forked over $9,000 in cash and have an AUTO LOAN for the balance.

I know what your thinking... how could you get a car loan, right?

1. It's Temporary.
2. We planned the payments.
3. We CAN pay if off right now if we have to... but this is our 2021 mission.  

First off, this car loan is temporary. We may have a four year loan, but we plan to have this paid off by the end of 2021. It's  $18,794.20 at 0.99% APR for 4 years. Because we bought used and a base model, we got a very low interest rate (and have good credit), but because of Covid, we didn't want to drain our emergency fund to pay cash right away in case we needed cash... and we didn't want to buy another clunker only to have to replace it in 5 years.

• We plan to remove most of this loan with our tax return, extra paychecks, regular monthly car payments, and our 2021 profit share check from hubs work -- which should be substantial as they haven't had a year THIS good since before the great recession. His boss also just told us last week that he's getting a 5% raise cause it was such a good year and he's been busting his butt!
• Over the course of the LIFE of the loan, we will pay only $382.33 in interest. This was a fee we were HAPPY to pay, to have our savings stay in our account until the profit share check comes in to knock out most of the loan, if not the whole thing. Its a peace of mind fee that we are chalking up to 2020. (it's less than $20 a month in interest right now and it shrinks over time, no joke). 

Secondly, we controlled the payment. WE TOLD the dealer what the payment would be, and asked how much they needed down to make the payment work. We didn't accept a payment and a 6 year loan or whatever. We have regularly been saving over $400 a month towards a new car for several years (first it was mine, then it was saving $9k towards his) -- so we know we can handle that amount on a monthly basis with flex. To keep the payments at $399 and change a month, they needed $9k -- which was what we had saved up at the end of October with hub's extra paycheck.  

Third, we could take the $20k in our emergency fund and write a check tomorrow --- but that would make me nervous. I wouldn't sleep right at night, and I listen to my gut on those issues, so our 2021 goals will be eliminating the car payment. 

Start saving for hub's next car.... (ya, kind of bought it already) Meet Tess :)

Old Car....

New to US Car

Finish painting the interior Doors - Ya'll, this actually happened!

Just before we did the tile floors, I got everything painted!!!! 

Seal our Concrete - Yup, our floors got sealed. 

I just posted the re-cap update on that one, but we have sealed floors and tile now... no longer walking on concrete is a step up if you will mind my pun. 

Things on hold:

• Purchase living room built ins -- and then do base boards: These are on hold as we now have a car payment.... and had to pay almost $8,000 for the new floors in our condo.... So we are cash strapped at the moment and don't spend money unless we have it.  

After those goals were supposed to be done, our plan was to Jack up retirement to 15% without counting matches and make our mortgage a 15 year term to pay it down faster...

• We changed hub's retirement contributions to 15% at some point during 2020, despite still paying $700 a month for daycare cause virtual school half day and weird schedules and no remote options means extended daycare for little dude. But we stopped Roth IRA contributions to my account after 2 months for more flexibility when the car was on the fritz. 
• We also refinanced our mortgage to take advantage of better interest rates, so a full post on that is coming soon. 

So not too shabby from the year we never thought would never end. 

Annual Goals 2020

It's been a year since we made our annual financial goals for 2019, and its time to check in on these and see how we did... and set goals for 2020!

We broke our goals up in three categories:

1. Things that don't cost us money
2. Things that cost us money
3. Long term goals

1. Be more purposefully with our spending. When I was going through what we spent in 2019 I didn't have any bad gut check reflexes that we spent too much or on the wrong stuff. I feel great about the purchase of our Subaru, even though it was a year earlier then planned, and made a mess of all of our other annual goals for the year. This is how I like to feel at the end of the year, not guilty about what we spent. Sure there were things we purchased last year that don't have a place in our home now, but we realized by buying a cheaper item, what we really needed to "get the job done," and then spent funds on that to make things easier. In terms of tracking our finances with more detail we ended up with more un-categorized receipts by the end of the year, but we also spent more money over all. I also added more categories to itemize, and with the year we had, i'm not going to beat myself up about it.

2. Replenishing our savings accounts (vacation, expansion of 6-month EF, new car fund), all of these were initially completed, and then we drained accounts to come up with an extra $10,000 to pay cash for our Subaru, a decision I don't regret one bit. Despite the bigger car, I get better gas mileage then I did in my old camry and we finally all fit in a car without feet kicking us. We were able to put back the money we "borrowed" from our Medical, Pup, and electronic accounts already, while cash flowing through the holidays... but we still need to put cash back into our expanded EF, and the vacation fund. We would have made more progress, but we took things one step further with my last raise and began regularly adding more money to our mortgage payment on a monthly basis, paying it down as if it were a 20 year mortgage, instead of a 30 year mortgage. We have a habit of doing this when we hit year two of a property, even though we aren't done with our renovation. As for 15% going to Retirement,  we kept this going strong and counted employer matches to get us there.

3. We had hoped to finish painting interior doors and trims, remove all of our tile, get our stuff into storage, to put in new flooring, and figure out how to fix the kitchen so that we could get a second pantry and more shelves and match all the doors.... take our stuff out of storage... build the rest of the built ins and install our base boards and paint them... But... since we cash flow repairs and realized the kitchen cabinet expansion would need to go in first before the floors, we got the tile out of the dinning room area, gave the kitchen a face-lift with a second pantry, floating shelves, swapped some cabinets for drawers, and put new doors on everything that are solid construction and easy to clean.  WE LOVE IT.... but that's all we got done this year because in the process of removing our tile, we noticed our bedroom carpet getting wet in the summer where our chair protector plastic mat was placed. After 2 plumbers came out and confirmed no slab leak, we had a few meetings with the HOA, and their lawyers.... and a geologist taking a walk through of our place..... The result is that our concrete might not be properly sealed, and the HOA lawyer has determined that this is their responsibility to fix... which means they may be on the hook to rip out all of our flooring at their expense, and seal the concrete. We would then file a homeowners claim on our insurance to replace our baseboards and flooring.  SO, due to this discovery, we stopped ripping out our own flooring after this was reported in June to our HOA...

So what are we going to do in 2020??? Well, A LOT  

I'm determined to actually finish the first 6 things by summer... and i'm a motivated gal right now, because the finish line is practically here.  So here's hoping for a smooth process.

1. Put all of our savings accounts we borrowed from back. 
1. Emergency Fund: $5,175
2. Vacation: $1500
1. We sold some of my extra PTO hours back in January, and we have an extra paycheck week in January as well, so we are hoping to do some serious denting on these numbers by the end of the month.
2. Tax returns are coming around the corner, and I think we are on par for a refund based on my initial numbers, which will help, and hopefully get these back and stocked up before profit share time.
2. Begin saving money up again to replace Hub's car once initial funds are set up. We hope to do 10,000 a year for 3 years so he can get something he will have for the next 10 years. We won't get 10k this year, but we will start it back up, with the idea that in 4 years, his car is replaced. 
3. Finish painting the interior doors before new flooring goes in, cause its easier to do now when we know all the flooring is getting ripped up...
4. Get our concrete floors sealed, and figure out what I have to do to file a homeowners claim for new floors... Which means eventually moving all of our stuff out into storage since we don't have a garage, getting the floors sealed... and then navigating install of new flooring through my homeowners policy... and getting all of our stuff back from storage... and you know... hopefully staying in our condo while all this takes place.
5. Purchase living room built ins and install them on new flooring, which is our last inside project!
6. Do baseboards if home policy won't cover their install... and paint them.

After those goals are done, we plan to do the following to set us up well for our futures:

1. Jack up retirement to 15% without counting matches. 
1. How are we going to do this? We will be done paying for preschool/daycare in September. Little dude starts Kindergarten at the public school and the city runs a low cost after school program on campus until 4:30 or 4:45, when Hubs will pick him up... which means we only have to manage summer camps now!
2. Jack up the mortgage repayment to equal a "15 year" loan when we are done paying for Preschool.
1. This place isn't our forever home, that one will include space to garden and a garage... so we want to pay down our loan for the increased equity. 
2. That way when we sell, we can roll over the money to help pay for another home. We hope our next purchase will be our last... but depending on where we want to retire, it might not be. But we are hopeful that we will be able to move when we can still enjoy our time in the place and hopefully have around 10 years there to make the buy/sell worth it. SO paying it down now, we give us more flexibility and a 4% return, which is better then we would get parking funds in a savings account.

2019 Annual Goals

For 2019, we are keeping things a bit basic here again in terms of our goals. 

We do have some savings targets for certain accounts which will be easy to track if we do them or not, but since we are not sure we will get all the home improvement items checked off because we don't know if we will have the funds to finish everything this year, we are breaking things up differently. 

What I hope we will do that doesn't cost us anything: 

1. Be more purposefully with our spending - As in, try not to regret purchases, but rather spend in a way that enhances our life or time spent together as a family. We are REALLY trying to make a list of what we need, limit trips to the store, and pick things up ONLY after we have decided we actually need them. If we don't need them, then they should fall into the "fun money" category and not household spending on crap we don't need.   
2. Track our finances with more detail - I say it every year, but one of these days i'm going to have an actual list of everything we purchases instead of "Target" "Walmart" or "Amazon" and a random amount tacked on to it in our year end report.

What we will do that costs us $$$$$$:

1. Replenish our savings accounts-  
1. Get vacation fund back up to $1,500
1. This will be done with our tax return.
2. Top off our 6-month emergency fund - Last time we ran numbers, we needed closer to $19,000 instead of our $17,000. (hey, stuff gets more pricey over the years)
1. I sold extra vacation hours. We should get a nice bonus check in June and we think this should be almost enough to fill this in after our tax return comes.
2. Add to the New Car fund: Get the account up to $20,000 (starting from 11,000.00
1. We are planning to save $425 a month, plus use our 4 "extra" checks this year and drop them entirely to the new car fund.
3. Maintain at least 15% of our income going towards retirement. 
1. We are going to count any matches we get. Hubs already has 10% deducted to his roth, gets a 4% match, and pays into social security.
2. I pay 9.5% to my pension and I stick about 3% into my 457 to get a 3% match from my work. 

What we hope to finish but we have a three year old and limited funds:

1. Finish some home improvement projects. 
1. Paint interior doors and trims....
2. Remove all the tile from our condo ourselves to save $$$$
1. Pack up our crap and take it to storage.
3. Figure out if we are adding a second kitchen pantry cabinet/shelves that can match our existing kitchen, etc. 
4. Get flooring installed
1. Move our crap out of storage and back home.
2. Purchase, build and install living room built-ins.
3. Install baseboards and paint them.

2018 Annual Goals - How we did

We posted some lofty goals for 2018 and now its time to look back and see where we are at with meeting them.

Goals for 2018

1. Be more purposefully with our spending - I'm not sure if we actually accomplished this one. We tend to be good for a month or two, but then slack off... kind of like updating the blog (lol).
2. Track our finances with more detail -nope, didn't happen. I think we got better this year than last, but we can still work on this.
3. Replenish our savings accounts- pretty good. We will need to top a few off with our hopeful tax return though.
4. Roxy Fund - done and at $1,000
5. Medical Fund - done and back to $1,000
6. Vacation Fund - Hoping the tax return will re-set it for 2019. We had it back to where it was, but then we didn't cash flow our vacations this year either, so we need $800 to get it back to $1500. 
7. Clean up some savings accounts - We did. we consolidated others, but Capitol One 360 won't let me re-name them to use them for other things....  and I think they are trying to force close some accounts. I mean I guess they didn't intend for someone to have 17 savings accounts, but they have a purpose. I just don't appreciate not being able to re-name them.
8. Maintain at least 15% of our income going towards retirement. 16.6% if you count matches... 13.66 without matches.... 10.9 % if you don't count social security. 
9. Spend less money on stuff (outside of the reno) then we did last year.  I don't think this happened because we embraced the world that is REI.... and spent more there then we did last year on all our discretionary purposes.
10. Finish the rest of the home improvement projects. hahahahahahhahaha no.... this did not happen.  but we got 5 out of 9 done.
1. I need to paint our ceiling and sand it ------ Done
2. I need to paint our living room / kitchen / dinning room area. -----------Done
3. I need to get the rest of our bedroom closet purchased, built and assembled... -------Done
4. We need to replace interior and exterior doors -------Done
5. Finally unpack the rest of the boxes in the house. ------- Done

Not Done:
Paint doors and trims....
Put in new flooring
Install baseboards (and paint them).
After that, we can purchase the built ins for the living room... and assemble and install them...

All in all considering we had a three year old, I think we did a good job on the list where the remodel is concerned.

2018 Financial Goals

It's a new year and a good time to check in on our finances and set some goals. Reviewing where you are, where you have been, and where you want to go can make living a leaner lifestyle a little easier to manage.

We all live frugally for a reason. It may be to pay down debt, save money for a large purchase such as a car or a down payment on a home... or it could be for something greater, like reducing your expenses to allow a career change, to become a stay at home parent, or to just afford daycare and a growing family.

Whatever your reason for building a budget and sticking to it, goals can help you keep your eye on the prize and help you make priorities with any windfalls that may come your way. The finish line might be hundreds of thousands of dollars and many years down the road... and it may seem unattainable on the grand scale... but tackling things on a yearly basis and setting annual benchmarks can break it down and make it more manageable.

There's also something satisfying about achieving a goal, no matter how small.  Over time, achieving smaller goals can help keep your focus on the large picture. I mean come on, we could all use some  "wins" in the motivation column.

So with that, it's time to take a look at where we've been and where we want to go.

Goals for 2018

1. Be more purposefully with our spending - The less time I spend in stores, the more money stays in our bank account, so for 2018, I want to be more purposeful in how we part with our income. I want to make sure hubs and I ask the question, "what line item is this coming out of..." before we make a purchase, instead of me making it work afterwards or declaring a "no more spending" decree mid month. By doing this it will make sure we are communicating together and not just impulsing our way through stores.
2. Track our finances with more detail - I used to keep track of everything we spent with more detail then I currently do (More than just categories, but itemized categories)... and  I want to go back to actually knowing what our "discretionary" purchases are at the end of the year instead of marking them "walmart" "target" and "amazon" followed by a bunch of question marks because i'm too lazy to itemize receipts... Sure I know what the purchases were that month, but by December, I couldn't tell you if they were computer items, legos, house supplies, etc.  
3. Replenish our savings accounts- in an effort to make sure our home improvement fund stayed for home improvement, we ended up dipping into a lot of our savings accounts to cover car repairs, and take care of hubs dental bills towards the end of last year. Normally we just cash flow a lot of things and don't touch the savings accounts, but since we don't know what a lot of our pending projects will cost, we have been uber conservative and have been doing projects one at a time.. so towards the end of the year, we used our slush fund to cover expenses and pulled items out of their extended savings account. 
1. Roxy Fund - We keep $1k in a savings account as a pet emergency fund... We almost have this back up, but need to add $37.76 to the account. Hoping this will happen by the end of January.
2. Medical Fund - We normally keep $1k in an account to cover co-pays, and expenses we can't cash flow if we have a tight budget month... we emptied it completely last year...
3. Vacation Fund - We keep $1500 in an account in case we need to unexpectedly travel and it also allows for us to do at least one trip out to Utah to visit family each year.  We need to add $628.51 to get it back to its normal since we didn't cash flow our trip to Utah this year. 
4. Clean up some savings accounts - I have a lot of savings accounts, and i'm going to begin merging a few to make it a little easier on myself. I'm going to keep just one account for automobiles. I currently have 3 (one for car registration and smog... another for car repairs.... and another for our future replacement cars...) Only problem is I keep raiding the new car fund when the repair fund comes up dry, and its just annoying. Simplifying the accounts down to one will make it a bit cleaner for me to organize... which reminds me that I also need to change my car registration with the DMV....
5. Finish the rest of the home improvement projects.
1. I need to paint our ceiling and sand it
2. I need to paint our living room / kitchen / dinning room area.
3. I need to get the rest of our bedroom closet purchased, built and assembled...
4. We need to replace interior and exterior doors
5. Then I need to paint doors and trims....
6. We need to put in new flooring
7. Then I need to install baseboards.
8. After that, we can purchase the built ins for the living room... assemble and install them...  and then
9. Finally unpack the rest of the boxes in the house.
6. Maintain at least 15% of our income going towards retirement. I think we are about 15-17 percent depending on matches at the moment, but i'll run some numbers after we get a couple of paychecks for January and adjust as needed. 
7. Spend less money on stuff (outside of the reno) then we did last year.  At least with the categories we can control...

Annual Goal Revision & Update

I thought it was time as i'm getting back on track to review our annual goals and make some amendments now that we are pregnant. This way we can get a good look at what we want to do with our income instead of somehow letting it slip through our fingers.

The original 14 for 2014:

1. Max out a Roth IRA for SCB for 2013 
2. Respect the Dirty Dozen and buy Organic 
3. Keep our EF in tack and round it up to $12,500.00
4. Participate in the Dumbo Double Dash w/ SCB 
5. Max out my Roth IRA for 2014
6. Max out SCB Roth IRA for 2014
7. Try to live off my income and save/invest SCB's. 
8. Visit family in Nauvoo Illinois
9. Save $1,000 towards a new car
10. Remodel our bedroom and closet.
11. Try 3 new vegetables
12. Toss a little more money to the mortgage
13. Be an awesome bridesmaid
14. Be better about doing more "Mormon" things.

I crossed off the items we have finished or are still doing...

We did meet the deadline for the 2013 Roth IRA for SCB and transferred $5,500 into a brand new shiny retirement account for him.

In an effort to get healthy, we have been buying mostly organic items, but definitely those from the dirty dozen list. There may have been a month or so in my pregnancy were it wasn't 100% followed, but I say its been a good change for us.

Our emergency Fund is sitting at $12,500.00, which is 6 months of a bare bone budget scenario where we pay just our mortgage, groceries, gasoline, 1 cell phone, utility bills, and save for our annual insurance, dog savings, medical savings, and our car registration savings. If you factor in the additional $2k we have as "padding in our checking accounts" we have a realistic 6 month Emergency fund if we were to both lose our jobs at the same time. The only thing this doesn't factor in is health insurance... which now it needs to with the new legal requirements. If only one of us loses a job, our emergency fund will stretch much further since we would still have income coming in and access to some type of health insurance for our family, so I won't worry about that for the moment. The problem would be if we both lose our jobs because we would only have one option for health insurance... Covered California.

• The cheapest plan would be $507 a month based on our area prices, which means we would need to save an additional $3,000 to have a true 6 month emergency fund since I don't like to include the checking account padding in the figures... (looks like I have our first 2015 goal in mind.)

We had to cross off the dumbo double dare when it sold out... and we ended up eating over $300 in our 1/2 marathon tickets because of our little goober and the august heat that made doing the 1/2 marathon a bad decision for me and SCB.

We also removed both goals for 2014 Roth IRA's. Its more important to get things done now and to save up cash if we can for the EF and for the baby for 2014 before attempting these items again. We are still doing SCB's 401k 6% with a 3% match... and my Pension which is about 8% of my income.

I think we have done well with only committing to expenses that fit within my income (AKA living on my income and saving SCB's)... I'll admit that we had a few spendy months recently, but we are getting back on track and its a good thing too with the holidays coming around the corner.

Some of our goals this year did focus on spending. We went on a vacation to visit family, finished most of the bedroom and closet remodel, spent the money on being an awesome bridesmaid, and spent more than 1600 on automobile repairs this year. I'm proud to say we have $400 in car emergency fund now. It might not be the full $1,000.00 we want, but considering how much we had to spend, i'm calling that goal achieved.

We did try 3 new veggies this year.. Jicama, Kale and fresh green beans. Technically I've had fresh green beans at restaurants or at friends houses, but I'd never cooked and prepared them and I did this year so for me, that counts.

As for more "church/Mormon things" we have been to 4 different temples this year besides our home temple in Newport (Nauvoo, San Diego, Mount Timpanogous, Draper, etc). Did some work and family history for my ancestors, and have made a point to make daily prayer with each other a bigger priority. Always room for improvement, but I like what we have been up to.

I didn't mark off "send some extra to the mortgage" because while i add a few cents each month, i've only tossed around $14 to the mortgage in extra and I feel in order to do that goal justice, it needs to be a bit more significant.

So where does that leave us?
Kind of done, (other than sending a bit of cash to the mortgage which doesn't seem as important at the moment so i'll probably just ignore it for the year...)... which is why its good to check on your goals throughout the year. Sometimes they change... and sometimes you blow through them early by being diligent. Sure, we deleted 11,000 in saving that we wanted to do... but we realistically knew that would probably need to carry over into 2015 again.

Since we still have 2 and a half months left of 2014... and we want to make the most of them, here's kind of our game plan.

• In October, Goober's nest/nook will be ready for furniture and baby stuff. 
• In November, SCB will get the murphy bed frame for our bedroom... and we plan to do a large food storage order to stock up on some better and more diverse basics now that we will have a bigger family and we like the idea of having more basics around the house to help keep costs down throughout the year. 
• In December I plan to have our carpets professionally cleaned because we have had the carpet for over 5 years and its never been cleaned before and some spots and walk ways are really showing their age and some stains. 

But here's the kicker. We would also like to add $2k to the emergency fund by the end of the year. 

• We are going to take the Roth IRA money we normally save and put it towards the Emergency Fund: October, November, December = $825.00
• We have $300 sitting in the Roth savings account right now after pulling most of the money out for our IKEA run... $825 + $300 = $1,125.00
• I have an extra paycheck coming in this month. We are hoping to take $800 from it and apply it to this goal. 
• That means we only need $75 to make it there and we are hoping by being good with our budget that we will be able to come up with that cash by years end.

If we save more, awesome... but we aren't planning to since we don't know how much we will end up spending as we finish projects up and we hunt for some more second hand things for the nursery nook.

14 for 2014 (Annual Goals)

I know we are a bit into January already...  and I've yet to do a "goals post..." but I've really had a hard time trying to get into it.

I just feel really blessed when we look at our finances right now. South County Boy and I are starting our first year of marriage where we both have full time jobs. We aren't worried about making ends meet with a solid emergency fund of 6 months of expenses under our belt and with no debt (well minus the now 20 year mortgage on the condo) we feel really free. We even upgraded/replaced a car last year!

I keep remembering back to the things I used to try and struggle to accomplish, like maxing out my Roth IRA every year or sending more money to the mortgage.... and now it's just built into our budget... all I have to do is send the money over there once it comes in each month and its taken care of... For a personal finance nerd, it may sound boring, but it's kind of cool to me. All we have to do is stick to our plan.

Since "Building Wealth" isn't about being handed a wad of cash but rather doing small things regularly, our list may seem "Same old same old" to you but that's our plan for the year. Keep it simple and have a back up plan.

Our 14 for 2014

1. Max out a Roth IRA for SCB for 2013. Since we have a few months left to go until the deadline, it doesn't make since to start a 2014 Roth IRA for either of us until we work on a Roth IRA for 2013 for South County Boy since you can't go back in time to deposit the money later on if you end up having it. But, we aren't going to pull money out of our emergency fund to make it happen... so, to help this along, the money we normally would send to my Roth IRA each month is going to go to his 2013 until we either hit the deadline, or drop $5,500.00 into it. Lets cross our fingers guys!
2. Respect the Dirty Dozen list and buy ORGANIC... We finally have an income where we don't have to eat crap anymore. While I don't want to spend a ton of money on groceries, i've read enough and seen enough online to realize that there are more pesticides and crud in our food now then ever before... So our goal is to purchase organic foods on the dirty dozen list and others when they fit into our budget of $300 a month for groceries/household stuff. I REALLY want to get healthy this year because we think we might try and have a goober next year and I want to get myself ready to be a healthy home for a future little one this year.
3. Keep our emergency fund in tact and round it up to $12,500.00
4. Participate in the Dumbo Dash WITH SCB. (A 10k followed by a half marathon the next day).Which was his idea since we both would like to loose 25 lbs a piece (I lost 15 last year and then gained it all back....) so this time were going to try together and make good changes TOGETHER so we stick with it.
5. Max out my Roth IRA for 2014. 
6. Max out a Roth IRA for SCB for 2014.. (may dip into 2015 to finish it)
7. Try to live off just my income and save/invest SCB's. We may use a little hear and there for a few things like the Dumbo Dash and for a wedding i'm going to be in... but for the most part we want to save it and pretend its just not there for regular things.
8. Visit family in Navoo Illinois for our 3 year anniversary! We'll be couch surfing with his folks while they are on their mission, but Illinois here we come!
9. Save $1,000 towards a new car since our cars are now the same age, we really need to get on a future replacement fund.
10. Continue to slowly remodel our bedroom and closet. (Eventually we want to get rid of my current furniture and buy more space appropriate stuff from Ikea since we hope to be able to completely empty our walk in closet to convert it to a future baby alcove in a year and a half when we start attempting to have a goober. (which means ripping everything out of the closet, putting in a ceiling fan for good circulation, and removing the door permanently... after of course getting all our stuff out of there! We will use SCB's income for this hopefully after the Roth IRA is done and mine gets caught back up.)
11. Try 3 new vegetables and incorporate them into our diet. We already tried Jicama and its pretty tasty! 
12. Toss a little more money to the mortgage...
13. Be an awesome bridesmaid to my friend Amy!
14. Go to the temple every other month and try and be better about doing "mormon" things like Family Home Evening, reading the scriptures together, and dong family history stuff.

You may be wondering about the "baby alcove"... and why we are thinking about putting our future some day to be conceived goober in the closet like Harry Potter...  and it all comes down to the fact that when house prices increased, we got priced out of the 2 bedroom market.

We want to afford all our obligations on one income to allow for more flexibility when we start a family and we can't afford to go from a $120,000 mortgage and property tax level to a $300,000 mortgage and property tax level. Even if we sold our place for $200,000 we would only realistically be walking away with 75k after closing costs, etc... which would give us a 20% down payment and closing cost money on a new place, but we'd have a $240,000 mortgage... which is DOUBLE our current mortgage and triple the property tax rates we currently pay... and even then were only getting a 2 bedroom townhouse... and we would have to deal with a higher interest rate...

So we have come to terms with the fact that we are staying put a little longer than we planned. 

July Budget and Annual Goals

July Budget...

I'm posting one large combined budget this month instead of a paycheck by paycheck break down. Hopefully I'll be able to share more details with you all about this later this month, but for now you can all guess at my aloofness.  

• Giving $454
• Fast Offering: $10.00 
• Mortgage (Includes Property Taxes): $771.99
• Additional Mortgage Principle: $220.00
• Roxy "Dog" Savings: $50.00
• Groceries & Food: $275.00 
• Prescriptions & Doctor Savings: $50.00 
• Birthday Savings: $50.00
• Discretionary/Clothes/Things/Eating Out: $160.00 
• Vacation Fund: $100.00
• HOA: $262.50 
• Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $129.00 
• Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00 
• Gasoline/Auto: $200.00 
• Christmas: $50.00 
• Kaiser- Health Insurance: $178.00 
• SCG Roth IRA: $275.00
• SCB Roth IRA: $192.00
• New Car and Auto Maintenance Savings: $355.00
• Long Term Savings: $220.00 
• Pocket Money: $40 SCB, $40 SCG
• Technology Upgrades: $220.00

You'll notice some distinct changes from last month to this month besides making sure every dollar now has a name instead of just savings. *wink*

• We have added a $50 a month pet savings account for our little pup. This will also be what we will pull from for food and other items we need to buy for her. 
• We are also upping our grocery budget a little bit more ($25) now that we have some more money coming in and i'd like my husband to stop eating so much junk and convenience food. 
• We have also combined our clothing, eating out and discretionary budget to $160.00 a month to help us balance eating out and buying things. 
• For this next month, we are keeping our cell phone and bill allotment the same because we haven't cancelled our smart phones yet and we'd like to have this money just to cover any accidental fees that may happen. Once our cell phones drop off, we are going to up our internet speed, keep a bit more for electricity usage and actually use our little wall unit to stay cool this summer. Once all the changes are made, any leftovers will be added into our gasoline budget.
• We are bumping up my Roth IRA contributions because we will now be aiming to put the full $5,500.00 away for me this year. We have also decided to add a Roth IRA for SCB with him putting in 15% of his income. 
• There is a new Long Term savings account. We will be using this money after we get SCB's dental work done to beef up our Emergency Fund. Essentially this money will be the start of our future Baby, Bigger house, home improvement, etc savings account. Once we get our $400 escrow check returned to us, I think we will already have enough money for SCB's dental work.
• We are also going to be adding in a new car/auto maintenance savings account because that's the next large expense that will need to be replaced in the next few years... and our last goal for the year. If we start paying the monthly payment to ourselves now, we will be able to pay cash for a new car down the road. This will also help us budget in those pesky once a year car registration and smog fees to just have money every month going in to savings... (more on that later)
• I promised SCB if we cancelled our smart phones that we would start saving up for tablets, a gps running watch for me, and some various other things like a portable WiFi system if he is still able to make and sell his pens at the farmers market now that he's working full time. So we have added a temporary technology savings account.
• We added a small vacation and trip fund to our budget so we can start to save up for a nice vacation for SCB and I... or just a bunch of little day trips throughout the year.
• Pocket money. $40 a month for each of us to spend however we want with no accountability... because everyone needs a little mad money. 

Phew! Talk about some changes. Essentially after making sure tithing and retirement are covered, we are taking each of SCB's weekly paychecks and putting them towards 4 over all areas. 

• Big ticket item - A new car.  We have committed to no new loans or borrowing money with one exception, a house. Everything else can be done by saving money and being patient. We don't want to owe people money... which leads to our next area.  
• Paying down debt - Our mortgage is our only debt. Period. While the interest rate is low because we just refinanced, 3.75%, we should still be trying to pay off our loan obligation faster to build up some equity for 2 reasons. First, we can't get that type of return on liquid money right now (money sitting in a savings account or a CD) and with where we are in life, our money needs to be liquid and easy to get to if its not for retirement. Secondly, we would like to keep our options open to either sell our place and use the proceeds for a down payment to get something bigger in a few years if the market is in our favor at the right time, or continue to pay it off to have the flexibility and equity to either refinance again and rent it out for a positive cash flow and move somewhere cheap to wait out a bad market if prices go down, etc. 
• Long term savings- I mentioned that we are currently in a position where our money needs to be liquid... and here's why. First, SCB is currently a Temp worker. His income could disappear at any moment. We may also want to start having a family in a year or two... and kids are expensive and there is only so long you can have a kid in a one bedroom condo before you need more space for sanity... and if that were the case, most likely SCB would either be a stay at home dad or work part time and take care of our future bundle so having more in savings to get us though that transition period is important. We may also need to replace some home appliances and get some new furniture (considering all my furniture is almost a decade old, are hand me downs, or garage sale and freebie finds).
•  Spending/technology- There's always something you want to save up for that's a few $100 once or twice a year. This will help us do that!

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: 10.16% thus far 
1. Deferred Comp: $50
2. Roth IRA: $965.15 / $5,000.00
3. Pension: $791.06
3. Save $1,500.00?????? for dental work for SCB
4. Save $1,000.00 for future car repairs and the start of a car replacement fund.
5. Change the last name on my credit card.

Refinance- DONE

Actual Fees: $3,146.35
Paid by us:

• Appraisal: $435.00
• Credit Report Fee: $12.00 

Rolled into the loan:

• Origination Fee: $661.25 (we got $423.75 discount off the original $1,085.00)
• Flood Check Fee: $17.00
• Tax Service Fee: $84.00
• Daily Interest Charges: $208.98
• Initial Escrow Account deposit (property taxes): $612.12
• Title Services: $1,035.00
• Recording Charges: $81.00

New loan starting balance: $113,000.00
Since I made that May mortgage payment the other day we will no longer be needing to pay ANY money at closing. In fact, BOFA will be paying us $747.20 at closing and in 2 weeks we should also receive an additional $489.74 from our current property tax escrow account...

Our new loan is a 20 year fixed rate mortgage at 3.75%. Our Monthly payment (P&I plus Property tax) will be $771.99 a month instead of $802.98. We get to drop 7 years off our mortgage (since we are already 3 years into the original) and save $30.99 a month in the process.

WOOT.

We will also get to skip a June monthly payment because our first loan payment will not be due until August 1st so we will pay that next month in July.... so that's another $802.98 we don't have to spend that we were planning to spend this month!

and SCB should be getting his first paycheck any day too... It's weird having extra money... Looks like we should get pretty set-up with our annual goals this month... especially since i'll have holiday pay and overtime on my next 2 paychecks.... and were puppy sitting for a whole week as well.

Money is crazy... May spending

I'm was going to hold out and wait on our full monthly update because our money is a mess right now... but if I can't be transparent and admit that somehow we have either a $97.36 short fall... or a $705.62 windfall.... I really have no excuse for blogging... especially because I can explain it...

First, there is the Mortgage/Refi Business
We haven't paid our mortgage for May yet... but I still have the money set aside for it... It's technically due June 1st and late by June 15th... but the bank said that they are planning to close our new loan on June 3rd, the loan will most likely fund on Friday June 7th... so I should be able to see the new loan online by Wed the 12th at the latest... and if that's the case it looks like we may not have to cut them a check for May... or even June for that matter because our first mortgage would be due August 1st so we would pay for that in July. Which means technically I have $802.98... so we technically have a surplus of $705.62 after I take off our overage... which is also enough money to happily re-fill last months Roth IRA shortfall and cover the money we want to set aside for our next annual goal... but...

I'm worried that I may need to pay the mortgage after all... our loan may not close on time... and if we don't sign the papers on Monday, I'm paying the mortgage to be on the safe side. But here's where things get tricky. If I end up paying the mortgage, there's a chance we won't have to cut a $400 check for our escrow account for property taxes, because the amount we are short could then be rolled into the loan... possibly--- But on the other side, even if we don't pay the loan for May, we will need approximately $400 to fund the property tax escrow account (or $400 on top of the May mortgage payment).... but, 2 weeks after the loan closes, they will refund the money that's currently in my escrow account right now... Which kind of makes the $400 a wash in the end...

Second, its a three paycheck month
YUP folks, its a 3 paycheck month and that check comes with OVERTIME TOO. The check comes in today so it may in fact have enough money in overtime to cover the current months shortfall and bring us to even (minus the Roth shortfall from last month)... but I don't know because i'm writing this before it hits my account.

Normally I take $1,100 from the extra check i get 2 times a year and dump it into the roth ira... but with all the uncertainty with the mortgage, we are going to keep the money in our checking account in case we need it... and then try and refund the Roth after the refi...  which could make our windfall even larger... like $1,800.00

Third, we broke down and did some shopping...

We kept track of everything and all the receipts, but we did some shopping and strayed from the budget this month. I had overtime and we spent it... We puppy sat over the weekend and spent it... and i'm not mad about it at all.

SCB lost some weight and needed to replace all of his shorts from last summer... and with his new job now, we may need to get him a few more new things... and while it doesn't show up in the budget since I got cash for my birthday from my mom and my aunt, I myself have been doing some serious wardrobe updates since i've lost that 15-20 lbs. Add in last minute grocery runs for SCB so he can pack a lunch for work and trying to fit into our new routine, its not surprising that we exceeded our eating out budget... and I let SCB order us 2 awesome backpacking packs so we can finally use to update our emergency kits.

Fourth, my birthday 
Then there was some of the special carryover birthday spending that happened. SCB didn't realize he needed to do something special for my birthday on my birthday because we celebrated earlier in the week with my family... so the "i'm sorry" birthday tokens appeared... including wonderful cupcakes for the office from nothing bunt cakes....  Then later that week we went to disneyland and just hit the atm for $100 so we would have spending money.... and while we didn't spend all of it at disneyland, we spent some of it on Relay and odds and ends... which brings me to....

The HUGE project I've been working on... the Relay For Life fundraiser that I'm in charge of... that's already raised $97,000 for the American Cancer Society--- that i'm sure we will be spending more money at between food and prizes, and games... so....

All in all, things just aren't so final this month... In fact, they feel more fluid than ever because there just doesn't seem to have a cut off point. But I technically did keep track of all our spending... so here it is... just way skewed...

What we have spent this month

Groceries:  $239.83

Gasoline: $187.42

Car Insurance $520.34

Health Insurance: $178.00

Dr Bill: $8.00

Eating Out: $96.90

Housing: $262.50

Giving: $323.00

Mother's Day: $23.73

Birthdays: $26.82

Electricity: $47.80

Cell Phones: $137.91

Internet: $28.99

Clothes: SCG- $0.00

Clothes: SCB- $62.51

Other: $43.25 (Resume Copies, Plant Container, Relay for Life Fee, Craft embroider)

Camping Supplies: $113.38 two nice camping backpacks from Woot

Craft Yarn for Relay For Life: $93.24

Disneyland: $115.00

What we spent money on in 2013:

• Church Giving: $1,872.00
• Groceries/Household Supplies: $1,072.56
• Wanda and Stitch (our '91 Ford Escort & '04 Toyota Camry):
• Gasoline: $697.01
• Car Registration: $189.00
• Car Insurance: $520.34
• Car Repairs: $109.20
• Date Night/ Eating Out: $388.26
• Cell Phones: $5691.72
• Internet: $152.74
• Electricity: $222.91
• House: 
• HOA: $1,312.50
• Mortgage: $3,374.46
• Refinance: $447.00
• Clothes:
• SCG: $91.74 (does not include my birthday shopping spree funded by my mom and aunt.)
• SCB: $129.31
• Medical/Dental/Dr/Prescriptions
• Heath Insurance Premiums: $712.00
• Prescriptions: $50.00
• Dr Bill: $8.00
• Holidays:
• Valentines Day: $8.50
• Easter: $13.47
• Birthdays: 320.31
• Mother's Day: $23.73
• Other:
• Expungement Fees: $292.81
• Tax preparation Fees: $56.98
• Computer Parts: $297.32
• Stamps, Toothbrush heads, Grill Hose $81.52
• Resume Copies, Plant Container, Craft embroider, Relay For Life Fee: $43.25
• Camping Backpacks (2): $113.38
• Yarn for Relay For Life: $93.24
• Disneyland: $115.00

June Budget...

This probably won't be accurate, but its a best guess... especially at this point...

1. Pay back May overage if there is one... 
2. Pay any out of pocket mortgage refinance costs without dipping into the Emergency Fund... 
3. Get Roth IRA Balance to $2,500.00 since we are 6 months into the year... Currently Need: $1,534.85

How am I going to do all that? With SCB's paychecks, holiday overtime, and hopefully my 3 paycheck from May once the mortgage refinance goes through. Our goal for June is to NOT inflate our life style with SCB's additional income coming in. We will just Tithe and Save it until all the above mess is balanced.... which is going to be REALLY hard to do... especially for him. Right now it looks like SCB will be stationed at 

a local site nearby my work so we aren't sure how big of a gasoline budget we will have to expand our current budget by, so I've added some of that in and made estimates. We also might have to change his paycheck withholding to make sure they are pulling enough out for taxes too. For July we will have a better budget with retirement savings for both of us and better ear marks for savings.

$1424.00 paycheck one SCG

• Giving $142.00 
• Mortgage (P&I, Property taxes, MIP): $802.98
• Fast Offering: $10.00 
• Groceries & Food: $250.00 
• Prescriptions & Doctors visits: $50.00 
• Date Night: $50.00
• Birthday savings: $50.00
• Discretionary/Clothes/Things: $50.00 
• Savings/Surplus: $22.90

$1424.00 paycheck two SCG

• Giving: $142.00 
• HOA: $262.50 
• Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $129.00 
• Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00 
• Gasoline/Auto: $200.00 
• Christmas: $50.00 
• Kaiser: $178.00 
• Roth IRA: $236.38

Estimate $160 paycheck one SCB (not a full week of work, training)

• Church giving: $16.00
• Savings: $144

Estimate $250 paycheck two SCB (again, not a full week of work due to Relay)

• Church giving: $25.00
• Savings: $225.00

Estimate $320 paycheck three SCB (first full week)

• Church giving: $32.00
• Savings: $238.00
• Gasoline? $50.00

Estimate $320 paycheck four SCB  (another full week)

• Church giving: $32.00
• Savings: $238.00
• Gasoline: $50.00

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: 10.16% thus far 
1. Deferred Comp: $50
2. Roth IRA: $965.15 / $5,000.00
3. Pension: $791.06
3. Save $500 for Sealing and Family coming to town in August. ($217.41 / $500.00) 43%
4. Save $1,500.00?????? for dental work for SCB
5. Save $1,000.00 for future car repairs and the start of a car replacement fund.
6. Save $300 for a winter trip out to Utah to visit family.

Remaining Fun Annual Goals Updates

Wow! I've cleared through most of my *fun*annual goals already!

1. DONE!!!! 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 because i'm going to have to take in more clothes and do more work!
3. DONE!!!! Cook or try to cook 6 new things or recipes
1. Salmon! (I learned how to cook it in the oven)!
2. Home made Pico Salsa
3. Tomato and Cucumber Salad
4. Broccoli Cakes
5. Tri Tip Kabobs
6. Cauliflower Cheese Sticks--- it was gross... we ended up eating pizza instead that night...
4. DONE!!! 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. The Hard Way by Lee Child (audio book)
6. The killing Floor by Lee Child (audio book)
7. Die trying by Lee Child (audio book)
5. DONE!!!!! Loose weight (or just get the scale to 148 lbs and stay there or under)
1. The scale is at 146 WOOT-- and that's fully clothed on my work scale at the gym. Now i'm going to see if I can get down to 145 lbs by the end of June.
6. Change my last credit card to my married name
7. DONE!!!! 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! The strawberries are sooooo Yummy!
8. DONE!!!!! Complete a half marathon in 3 hours and 30 minuets or less. DONE
1. Finished in 2 hours, 41 minutes!

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!