DONE- 2013 ROTH IRA

We did it folks. I just transferred the $61.07 we needed from South County Boy's last paycheck this month and BAM we have all the money for his first ever Roth IRA.

It feels like such an accomplishment... But there's more...

We had enough money leftover from his paycheck to cover my January and February Roth IRA savings amounts... ($275 each month)... and we had $136.46 left over from Gasoline, utility bills, etc...

Combine that with the $128.54 gas rebate check from work and $10 of my fun money and that's another $275.00

Which means we end March with my Roth IRA all caught up and back on track for 2014.

WOOT WOOT!!

Roth IRA Update!

When we last left this adventure, we were trying to figure out how to get South County Boy's FIRST EVER Roth IRA maxed out by the April 15th deadline. At 27 years of age, its about time we started up some serious retirement funds for him and since we like to go BIG or go home, we told good old Uncle Sam that we maxed out not just mine but HIS on our 2013 taxes. So we need to get it done.

I first opened my Roth IRA back in 2006 when I was only 20 years old and every year since then, even with college tuition bills and rent payments I have been faithful to cause of maxing out a Roth IRA ever year. That's $39,500 over the past 7 years. Not bad for a 20 something eh?

But this will be South County Boy's first real jump into putting retirement a priority... and unfortunately even if we were perfect with our budget, we were going to come up short $134.43.... But then the glorious profit sharing check arrived giving us $1,094.50 that we could take to use for the Roth! After tithing that's basically 2 EXTRA paychecks.... 

*** Happy dance***

So, we were at $3,593.76 at the end of last month... with that $1,094.50 we come to a shiny $4,688.26, meaning we only need $811.74 to complete his Roth THIS month... and we have $1,275 budgeted in!

That means that not only can we finish his Roth, but the regular $275.00 that supposed to go to my Roth IRA can this month!!!!!!!! and we should have around $150.00 hanging out that we can use for some car maintenance and our little vacation out to Utah for our friends wedding!!!!! (and so the pinching pennies feeling South County Boy has been suffering from can be slightly alleviated.)

SCORE!!!!

With one check from South County Boy in April, my Roth IRA will be caught up and we can look at the rest of our savings goals for the year.

Operation Roth IRA 2013: Feb Update!

South County Boy's paycheck hit the checking account on the 27th so we officially closed out the February Budget a day early to make sure we didn't spend the coveted cash so I could set up the transfer.

We are up to: $3,592.57 of our $5,500 goal... and South County Boy is getting antsy at the idea that we still have 2 more months to go without dipping into his paychecks... (I guess he's forgetting that we are trying to live like we don't have that money coming in and start saving it for the future little goober we one day want to have).

But we will make that April 15th deadline if it kills us since we told Uncle Sam and the IRS that we maxed out 2 Roth IRA's on our tax forms. If we stick to our plan, we will only be short $132.43, instead of $174.95! We were able to end February with an extra $42.52. 

• How'd we find $42.52 in our budget?
• We had a few dollars leftover in our gasoline fund
• a couple dollars from groceries
• I cashed in some Credit card rewards as a statement credit when I paid our bill
• and I made a math error in our favor and magically found around $10 that I thought we had spent but hadn't!

To make the April 15th deadline we are planning to drop $1,000 from SCB's paychecks and $275 from my paycheck in March... and we should get one of SCB's paychecks before the deadline, so that's another $500. 

• March - $1,275.00
• April - $500.00

If we can't find the $132.43 we need to in our budget in March, our current plan is to float the extra from our emergency fund (since SCB gets a paycheck the following week to replenish it), or use the mysterious "Profit Sharing" check to seal the deal...

SCB's job does profit sharing by individual store, and they cut everyone a check sometime in March.... The problem is we have no idea what kind of money to expect, especially since he wasn't with the company a full year (which means they technically don't have to include him) and he's just the warehouse guy. (I guess they give the sales men and office manager's a larger cut?)...

But all we know is the word of mouth from his boss that they were going to include him and he'd get half of what he normally would based on the years figures because he was there 1/2 the year... 

It could be $50.... $100... $500.... $1,000.....????... all we know is one of his co-workers gets excited because the money they get makes a big difference....  I hope we find out sooner rather than later, especially since we have been shorting my Roth IRA contributions just to make the deadline in time. (As we enter March, My Roth is short $825 that we will need to also "catch up" after his 2013 is all set).

Operation 2013 Roth Ira... End of January Report.

So how did we do after buying a vacuum and paying over $400 to register for the Disney Half marathon...? I'll tell you.

We made our January benchmark goal of sending $1,275.00 to the Roth IRA fund.

I have no idea how we did it... we over spent on groceries and I knew we spent more then just that one extra paycheck we knew we were getting from SCB since we had to register for the 1/2 marathon (and not the Dumbo Dash because it sold out).

So how did we get to $1,275?

I knew we had budgeted $275 from one of my paychecks to go to his 2013 Roth, because we normally have that money go to mine. As soon as that paycheck hit my account, I transferred the money over and deducted it like a bill so I wouldn't forget... We also had a few dollars of interest sitting in the savings account that we normally use to hold the money before transferring it over to Vanguard. With that we were at $278.27... which meant $996.73 to go.

Since SCB's last paycheck wouldn't hit out account until Friday the 31st, on the 29th I cut off our monthly spending and added up the damage because I knew nothing else would be spent until Feb (our next date night was scheduled for Feb 1st).

After all of our spending and budgeted itemized saving was taken care (transferring money to insurance, Christmas, birthdays, vacations etc), we had, to my surprise $481.82 left in the checking account.

That's almost all of SCB's second paycheck (well minus the tithing check).

I went back to look at our budget numbers and despite overspending on groceries, we had a low gas month, didn't go crazy on eating out, & only had one cell phone bill to pay, so the lower other expenditures created a little cushion in our budget to help absorb the marathon costs...

Mix that in with the fact that we were able to swap out the vacuum from Costco for the cheaper identical one at Kohls made it all work out, especially since the 1/2 marathon was cheaper then the Dumbo Double Dare.

So if we send that $481.82 to his Roth IRA, we need $514.91 to meet out goal... and his last check will give us around $520 of disposable income after tithing...

Woot! It's like magic!

We are still on track for our goals for 2014!