I opened a money market account

Back before three year olds, I used to be more up to date on savings accounts, interest rates, and where was the best place to park my funds.

Well, now that time runs on a whole different circuit with little dude, I'm not so savvy and up to date. I was scrolling through my facebook feed in a 5 minutes for mom moment, and clicked on a random finance article otherwise know as "click bait sponsor ad thing"... and it actually had helpful info in it!

I found out that there were some money market accounts (MMAs) offering interest rates above 2%. The one in the article was from a bank I recognized at 2.10% so, instead of using those affiliate click bait links, I pulled up bankrate.com on our PC and did a quick check on their list of current high yield Savings/MMAs.

Sure enough, the link from the story was 5th from the top. Right underneath it, was capital one with 2% interest.

I already have my emergency fund with capitol one...

(and like 19 other savings accounts)... But that money is only earning 1% in a savings account.

After a quick browse through the top contenders, I could get a higher rate of return with a bank I've never heard of... but considering I had already wasted my 5 minutes of mom time, I opted for simple. I logged into to my existing account, opened an MMA, and had our emergency fund money moved over and instantly linked to all of my existing bank accounts with capitol one... and doubled my interest rate.

In a given year, we would have earned around $170 on our emergency fund because we keep the whole darn thing liquid like your supposed to do.

• It's just shy of 6 months of bare bones living expenses including paying out of pocket for health insurance assuming we both loose our jobs. 
• I don't believe in "investing" my emergency fund because an emergency can happen at anytime, and I don't want to watch it loose $$$$ overnight because someone in congress did something and the market decided to revolt. I like to sleep at night knowing my $$$ is still there.  
• Aa a general rule of thumb, any money you need to access for a purchase that isn't more than 3 years away, should be liquid. 
• Soap box rant complete.

So, since I refuse to invest that cash for practical purposes, moving it to an MMA is a no brainer, considering we will now earn about $340.00 for doing nothing.

Now sure what the difference between an MMA and a Savings Account is? You can watch the video on this website. It's straightforward and under 2 minutes long and it would take me way longer to type out what they did in an awesome video. (your welcome)

So for that little nugget of info, thank you facebook click bait.

2019 housing Comps - 2 bedroom

Each year we pick a benchmark property to compare the cost of living difference between owning and renting an apartment in our general area. As I mentioned in my last post, we have been hypothetically using my old apartment complex for our base numbers for 2018, and a number of years (See Housing Comps - 2 bedroom).

Being a natural "shopper" I browse the internet each year in search for comparable housing situations just in case something better comes our way.

The current hypothetical unit from last year is now renting for $2015- $2,125 a month, plus a $35 pet rent. Thankfully our dog is not on the restricted breeds list. Now, this apartment is not in the city we live in, but it is commutable distance to all of our jobs and its been a deal for a while year after year. But I pulled some local numbers too from the city we currently live in:

• Option B (closest distance wise to our current home) $2,161 + $50 pet rent 
• ($600 security, $500 pet deposit)
• Option C: $2,035 - 2510 + $50 pet rent 
• ($600 security, plus $500 pet deposit)
• Option D: $2,030 + $50 pet rent 
• ($500 security, $500 pet deposit)

Additionally, I actually found two units available for rent in our complex. Since I like to talk full disclosure, the rent for these two places was $1,700 and $1,875 a month, with the pricier unit closer to our actual living conditions than the cheaper one. Both of these units are owned by private individuals, have no AC, are on the top floor, and have a no pets policy. I'm going to be honest here.... we would not actually rent here.

• Parking is not ideal. No carports, or garages
• There are no amenities (pool, gym, etc)
• There is no AC
• Rental units have no upgrades and are stuck with original infrastructure, including backwards windows which are not efficient and do nothing for sounds. 

You might ask why we would OWN a place we wouldn't rent:

• It is within our budget and will ultimately makes us enough $$$ to afford a detached home. 
• As the OWNERS we can modify the floor plan to suit our needs (AKA built ins for more space, tearing out closets, fixing flooring, replacing appliances, etc.)... and we can improve the property like doors and windows for security, more comfortable temps and less noise from neighbors.... 

All of that combined makes the short commute to my work, proximity to a public park, etc worth it.

• Even more so, when I hated our bathroom shower even after re-surfacing the tub, we replaced it (blog to come on that project). Hubs doesn't have to duck to shower now at a full 6 foot 5 (find an apartment that will do that), and I can soak in a deeper tub at the end of a long day.
• another big thing was our windows and doors were horrible (backwards with jams on the doors that didn't seal properly). The front door didn't actually close well in the jam, and the previous landlord wouldn't even fix the heater... The house was cold, the sound from the neighbors was horrible.... so we did something about it. New windows not only provided temperature regulation, but now I can't hear the kids running around outside, and our home is well insulated now and not freezing in winter, or hot in the summer since they also reflect the heat from coming into our home...

When I hear the renter horror stories from those who deal with an individual landlord, I want to run for the hills and to the nearest apartment complex. So with that all being said, no we wouldn't rent here, but I wanted to include those numbers as a reference point because even those rates are higher than last year.

To make a long story shorter, we are going to keep using my "old" apartment as a baseline for our comparison. The $2,015 unit was right along a major 4 lane road, the other 2 "open units" were for $2,125.00, but i'm using the cheapest option there for our base.

Costs Associated with Apartment 

We don't include electric bills below since we'd have to pay for those at either place and both units had Electric stoves, but my HOA fee includes water, gas, and trash so those will be listed in the apartment costs. 

Security and Pet deposits were already paid in hypothetical 2017 ($400.00 + Pet Deposit $400.00), and these are refundable if you live there for 2 years, so if we ever "move apartments" we get this cash back. We will also assume the Washer and Dryer we "hypothetically bought" in

I also slightly increased the utility bills. My first estimate was for 1 person, based on 8+ years ago pricing... and we are a family of three. My numbers will likely be much lower than in reality, but I needed to adjust them somewhat.

We will also assume our now 6 year old washer and dryer (that we hypothetically purchased at the beginning of in 2012) will continue to function, thus eliminating the need for the coin operated laundry rooms at the apartment complex.

Monthly:

• Trash: $20 a month
• Water: $100 a month
• Gas: $50 a month
• Rent: $2,015 a month
• Renters Insurance: $15 a month
• Pet Rent: $35 a month

Total: $2,235.00 x 12 months = $26,820.00

Costs Associated with Apartment 

Monthly:

• Mortgage: $764.00
• HOA: $367.50
• Property Taxes: $285.00 
• Homeowners & Earthquake Insurance: $51

Total: $1,467.50 x 12 months = $17,610.00

Owning my condo is $9,210.00 cheaper than renting, and that's before the almost $3,000 in equity I gain through just making the minimum on my payments.

• How is my mortgage so cheap for a high cost of living area? Well, I bought a dump of a condo at near the bottom of the market 10 years ago, renovated it, and held onto it for 8 years before I SOLD IT.  We then turned around and dropped $160,000 from the sale of the first place and used it as our down payment to help us buy our new fixer-upper. So we are living and renovating it bit by bit and doing what we can ourselves while also paying others for their expertise since we have a three year old along for the ride.

We have spent a lot more on repairs and remodel since we bought the unit, but I promise, updates will follow. 

2018 living in our condo savings

I'm a firm believer that owning property is a good financial move if your planning to stay in one place for 8-10 years... and I wanted to prove it to myself. When I first bought my original condo at 23, I made a point to compare and track the different costs between renting, and owning... and I was shocked to find how much we saved by owning our residence.

So, each year we review how much it would cost us to rent a similar sized apartment, verses living in our condo. It's been awhile since I have updated our blog, but we have diligently collected our research and tracked our expenses despite failing as usual to actually post content on this space.

For 2018, we relied on our 2017 "apartment cost summary," which included a few things:

• I picked an apartment in a different city... however it was the same commute distance to our jobs. AND it WAS the city our day care is in, and it was a complex I used to live in so I was familiar with the "would I really live there" mentality. 

We "hypothetically" got a 2 bedroom there for $1905 ($400 deposit)  + $35 in pet rent ($400 deposit)

• The security deposit is full refundable if you live there at least 2 years... and we'd got a garage to make up for the modifications with some storage.
• We also assumed our "6 year old washer and dryer" (that we hypothetically purchased at the beginning of in 2012) would continue to function, thus eliminating the need for the coin operated laundry rooms at the apartment complex. 

Costs Associated with Apartment for 2018
We don't include electric bills below since we'd have to pay for those at either place, but my HOA fee includes water, gas, and trash so those will be listed in the apartment costs (the trash, water, gas amounts are based on actual #s from like 10 years ago, so I admit, they are low balled and not fully accurate)... and we assumed that our rent wouldn't go up for the 18 months this place was used as a benchmark.

Initial costs: 

• Deposit: $400.00 (18 month / 24 months for it to be refunded - paid in 2017) 
• Pet Deposit: $400.00 (18 month / 24 months for it to be refunded -  paid in 2017)

Monthly:
Trash: $15 a month
Water: $60 a month
Gas: $35 a month
Rent: $1,905 a month
Renters Insurance: $11.00 a month
Pet Rent: $35 a month

Hypothetical Annual Expenses: $24,732.00

Costs Associated with OWNING our Condo
Since we are still in the major "repairs and upgrades" mode to our condo, we are tracking all improvement expenses separately. Don't worry, they are contributing to our "in the hole" amount, but we don't want to count these costs TWICE in our housing expenses, so this is just basic operating costs. I figure in an apartment, I wouldn't be living with part of my house having no flooring... so those costs aren't listed here since that's a choice I'm making while we live AND renovate it at the same time. 

Monthly Mortgage: $764.00 (we round up $0.14 a month)
Monthly HOA: $350.00 - $367.50 (we had an increase in fees 1/2 way through the year)

• Mortgage: $9,169.00
• HOA: $4,305.00
• Insurance: $612.00 (Earthquake and Homeowners)
• Property Taxes: $3,418.67

TOTAL: $17,504.67

That means it was $7,227.33 CHEAPER to own our condo THAN rent an apartment... and that's with me skewing numbers in favor of RENTING...

I haven't blogged it yet, but that was what it cost us to put in a NEW shower/tub combo when we realized re-surfacing was not the solution! That's crazy!

Tax Time

We filed our taxes at the end of January... and as I alluded earlier, its a pretty significant chunk of change. We are getting over $4,000 back!

FEDERAL BREAK DOWN:
Adjusted Gross Income $ 85,706.00
Taxable Income $ 52,995.00
Total Tax $ 5,414.00
Total Payments/Credits $ 8,971.00
Amount to be Refunded $ 3,557.00
Effective Tax Rate 6.32%

STATE BREAKDOWN:
Taxable Income $ 66,776.00
Total Tax $ 1,048.00
Total Payments/Credits $ 1,972.00
Amount to be Refunded $ 924.00
Effective Tax Rate 1.23%

$4,481 back to be exact!!!!

So where is it all going? 

To savings cause we are boring people.

Specifically, $1,000 is going to replenish our medical savings account that we drained when we payed for hubs' dental work... which we still need to finish... and will soon...

$725 will go to replenish our vacation fund...

and the $2,756 remaining will be dumped into our Slush fund so we can finish Hubs' dental work. This move buys us a little time to to wait and earmark the $$$ for something more specific. We kind of want to wait to do anything with the money until we see what actually happens with his profit share check in March.

Regardless, February will be a good month for us. I sold over 100 hours of vacation time back and selected February as the month to receive it during last years "sell your time off" enrollment period.

We chose to sell vacation time for the first time to make sure we could afford to send little dude to preschool in the fall. We were looking into a few options and felt a month or so more in savings to cover enrollment and any deposits would be a good idea. I'll post more in more details on this decision at a later date.

I don't remember the last time this happened...

No, really I couldn't remember so I went back to my transaction history and did some digging... Well apparently my "history" only goes back to 2015 when ING was bought by Capital One.... which is really lame if you ask me... so I did some digging and here's a flash back to 2008 when you could earn 3.3% on liquid money... Holy Cow!

Savings Accounts

Now that we have received most of tax return (California has still not sent us our $600 back yet, which is kind of frustrating because we got our federal return back weeks ago and they has already accepted our return, so we aren't sure what the hold up is) and our glorious annual profit share check, it's time to get an update on our savings accounts...

All 19 of them....

Ya, we have 19 savings accounts... That sounds like over kill, but thankfully all are at the same bank but it makes it much easier for me to give every $1 a name in our budget. They are my virtual envelopes if your a Dave Ramsey fan. We don't keep one for everything (you won't find a grocery or a gas savings account), but they give me a place to stash our cash for intended future purposes.

We keep accounts for our once a year bills that we save for on a monthly basis to make sure we don't accidentally spend the money on other items and things; others  are "reserve" funds for specific items such as car repairs, cell phones (we use prepaid cell phones so we go a couple months, then spend $80 or $90 on minute cards); daycare (in case we have a small paycheck without overtime, or need to cover for a last minute babysitter) or smaller things like annual car registration and smog fees. This is also were we park of Emergency Fund so its 100% liquid.

I'm happy to report that all our sub savings accounts are at desired levels, minus our car repair fund -- so any extra cash we have at the end of the month will be diverted there until it hits $1k. 

• New Car Fund: $3,638.00
• Our "Extra Paychecks" get deposited here since both our cars are 10+ years old and are rocking over 100,000 miles.
• Medical Savings: $1,000.00
• Used for Doctors, Dentists, and Vision Necessities.
• Roxy: $1,000.00
• Our pup emergency fund. I'm glad we have this, we just spent over $400 on her at her last vet visit because she needed special allergy shots and some tests because she was vomiting and not well. We used our profit share check to bring it back up to $1k.
• Vacations: $1,500.00
• Trips to visit family or fun family local excursions. We replenish this as needed, but I love having it set aside so if an opportunity arises and we need to go see family immediately, we aren't worrying how to pay for it.
• Emergency Fund: $16,757.55
• You can view this post for how far it will get us. 
• Utility Bill Extras: $400.00
• Our buffer for high summer electricity costs. 
• Daycare: $838.79
• I like having a full month on hand saved up in case we have a sudden emergency, a job loss etc. since we have to provide written notice of termination of care.
• Slush Fund: $2,450.00
• Car Repairs: $348.18
• We have $100 a month out into this account each month, but we always seem to drain it and need our slush fund to cover repairs, so well be focusing on keeping this at $1k and then adding to it.

Do you use multiple savings accounts to keep track of our funds?

We made it! Emergency Fund Update

Despite the holidays and Christmas shopping, a $1,286.12 car repair bill, an almost $200 Vet bill plus medications and the itch to spend that always follows the holidays... I'm proud to say we were able to increase our emergency fund by the full $2,000 we were planning to do by years end.

For 2015 we will still need to add to it to bring it to about 6 months of expenses for our growing family.... but it feels good to make progress there. 

So what does 6 months of expenses look like for our family? (This assumes we both get laid off at the same time...)


Mortgage: $771.99
HOA: $295.00
Groceries: $300.00
Gasoline: $250.00 (to find a job)
Cell phone: $60.00
Utility Bills (electricity, burner cell, internet): $150.00
Insurance Savings: $ 157.99
Roxy Savings: $50.00
Doctors Savings: $50.00
Car Registration Savings: $25.00
Covered California Family Plan (Cheapest offered): $507.00

(the "savings" listed are our annual bills we pay broken down monthly which depending on when the layoff would occur, would could come due in a 6 month period.)

If we estimate diapers and baby stuff to cost us $100 a month and just round up a little...

We need our emergency fund to be $16,500.00.



If South County Boy were to loose his job tomorrow, we could get by with him being a stay at home dad to watch Eli and I could put the whole family on my work insurance plan, but it would be very tight since they only have fully covered plans. We would have to be VERY careful with not going over our budget and we wouldn't have money set aside for certain categories like we do now... so some purchases would end up coming out of our emergency fund and the only way to replenish that would be with 2 extra paychecks I get twice a year.

If I were to loose my job, after South County Boy adds the family onto his work insurance plan, we are only left with around $750.00 a month coming in, so we would essentially be pulling $1,967 out of our emergency fund each month.. and at that rate it would last us just over 7.3 months before it ran out at current levels. Once we get it up to $16,500 it would last 8.3 months.

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.

October Budget

Now that I've sorted through the last month of crazy, insane spending, its time to focus on October and set some good goals that will help us get back in track and inline. I have 4 goals for the month

Reduce Eating out to $200

Roxy "helping" with laundry...

We have been getting really out of hand with the dinning out... and part of that comes from being tired and pregnant... Since we have been spending $300 - $400 a month the past couple of months on eating out, I'm setting a realistic goal of spending around $200 this month on eating out. I'm still only budgeting $100 for it below because that is out ultimate goal, but we will use some of South County Boy's paychecks to cover the overage like we have been doing. I keep telling myself its better for me and the baby to make meals and SCB is trying to help me too.

Keep Groceries Under $400
We normally budget $300 a month for groceries, but in an effort to reduce the eating out and the knowledge that we aren't really stocked up with basics at the moment... I'm setting a realistic goal of under $400. This means if I buy a little more pre-prepared food to get us through the month, so be it. It will also give us a little flex to stock up on some items we have simply run out of. Again, we are still going to line item $300 for groceries and anything over that will come out of SCB paychecks since we don't spend those.

I love car rides & dad's Hat!

Finish the basics for Goobers "nook"
Our goal this month is to patch all the holes in the closet, sand, and re-paint the nook. We will need to replace most of the baseboards in there as well as get a rug to cover the parts of the carpet that were cut for the old closet. Then I want to get a baby gate installed instead of a door to keep Roxy out in case she ends up needing more time to adjust to baby goober once its here in March/April.

The glider worked out and we were able to pick it up second hand for $80 off Facebook, and we also scored a $40 pack-in play. Unfortunately its a lot wider than we thought it would be and we can't roll it from room to room like we planned... so it looks like we may end up trying to find a crib from the get-go instead of just getting a good mattress for the pack-in -play for a few months.

Stock Up on Essentials/Space
Finally, I want to stock up on Essentials. I know its a very "Mormon" thing to talk about things like "food storage" and being prepared... but when you have another person to think about, stuff just seems to become more important. We are hoping to create a small cash reserve to keep in the house outside of our emergency funds so we have some cash in case we need it for a quick baby sitter or just to have at home. We also want to add more bulk storage like wheat and some long term supplies that we can use for cooking from scratch. Now that I have a wheat grinder we want to take some of our flour containers and convert them to wheat storage.

We may have made a fort in the living room... 

We also need to continue to purge some of our house hold items and make better use of the space we have in our home. We are thinking we might install a Murphy bed in out bedroom so we can have more living and playing space through the day and for when the baby gets older. The Murphy bed system will cost us around $600 since we plan to cover it with nice curtains instead of paying another grand to hide it in a built in closet.

So here's the budget:

Spending:
Church giving: $636.00
Mortgage: $771.99
Groceries: $300

I have learned to love naps

Eating out: $100
Pocket Money: $80
Cell Phone: $60
HOA:$295
Gasoline: $250.00
Utility Bills: 150.00
Discretionary: $103.97

Savings:
Insurance:$143.00
Christmas: $50
Roxy: $50.00
Dr. Visits/Medical: $50
Roth?: $275.00
Birthdays: $50
Vacations: $100
Car Emergency Fund: $100
Car Registration: $25.00

SCB Allocated Paychecks:
1,040.00 - Goober, Projects, Savings, Overspending.

June Budget

After 2 months of basically having to cough up almost a grand in car repairs, you'll notice the new $100 monthly savings we have built into our budget for car repairs. I'm crossing that goal off as completed because we have already essentially saved and then spent $1600 this year on maintenance for our cars... and i'm sick of that goal... its haunted me for years so its just getting built into the budget at this point so I can just forget all about it.

The big focus is going to be my Roth this month because it was shorted last month in order to make our budget actually break even. June and July will be spread between catching this up, and saving a little extra for our vacation to see SCB's parents for a week. We can't get the roth fixed this month because my friends wedding is this month and I have to pay for my dress alterations, gifts, etc. So we are hoping to get at least half way there this month and then half way next month too.  

June Budget:

Spending

Mortgage: $771.99

Church Tithe: $580.00

Other Church offerings: $40.00

Groceries/Household Items: $300.00

Date Nights & Eating Out: $100.00

Pocket Money ($40 each): $80.00

Cell Phone Work Reimbursement: $60.00

HOA: $270.00

Utility Bills: $150.00 (Second cell, Electricity, Internet)

Gasoline: $250.00

Discretionary: $74.95

Savings

Christmas Savings: $50.00

Birthday/gifts Savings: $50.00

Vacation Savings: $100
Car Registration Savings: $25.00

Roth IRA: $275.00

Insurance Savings: $143.00

Prescriptions/Doctors Visits: $50.00

Roxy (Dog) Savings Account: $50.00
Car Emergency Fund: $100.00

Husband's Paychecks: Half for ROTH IRA CATCH UP, 1/2 for wedding and other monthly stuff that comes up.

Another Windfall

More money! Its just so exciting!

You see, I haven't turned in my mileage for work since November. For those of you who don't know, when I have to use my personal vehicle for work, my job will reimburse me based on each mile I drive. Some of my co-workers don't bother to keep track, but I do... It's generally just a few dollars, but rather a few dollars in my pocket then not I say.

If I have to run to another center to drop off money or pick something up... or say attend an offsite meeting... I just keep a little notebook in my car and write it down. It takes me just a moment to keep track of and I normally will turn it in every other month of so... only this time I hadn't turned anything in since November!

I know, I know... its really bad of me, but I have been so busy that every time I got a free moment to do it, I always got distracted and then it became this thing I never wanted to tackle and the list of trips just kept getting longer... which made me want to do it even less....

At the beginning of the month I thought we were still going to need to "find money" to make the Roth IRA deadline... so I bit the bullet and did all 6 pages or reimbursement requests...

...

and I got a check for $128.57

It might be a hassle for some, but $128.57 returned to my pocket is kind of awesome right now.

Profit Sharing

I wish their was a word I could type that would convey the sounds of angels descending into our bank account. You know those movie moments where the sound effects literally make the scene? So lets just insert one of those here:

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"

The profit sharing check arrived... and blew our expectations out of the water.

Now before I tell you how much it is, MOST of the check goes towards taxes because it's considered a "bonus..." and remember, this check is only for him working half the year.... so we can assume next year might be double the amount we received... which was

$2,200.00

or

$1,314.50 after taxes

YES! 

Emergency Fund Update

I got to dump South County Boy's entire paycheck in our emergency fund... and now its at $12,189.47... or $20.47 away from being 6 months of bare bones expenses for us! It feels so much nicer to see that 12 out in front...

Already the air feels nicer and fresher... its good to have money in the bank!

Below is our bare bones budget if we both suddenly lost our jobs:

• Mortgage $771.99
• Roxy: $50.00
• Groceries: $250.00
• Prescriptions/doctors: $50
• Bills (Cell + Internet + Electricity) $150.00
• HOA: $270
• Insurance: $143.00
• Gasoline: $250
• Misc: $100

Total: $2,034.99 a month (times 6 months) $12,209.94. Eventually we will just bump it up to $12,500 just to keep it at a nice round number.

Payday and No Spent Month Update

I got paid on Friday, which means our Emergency Fund got its first payment in operation no Spend Month/Save the Emergency Fund. 

$269.36 was sent to savings. 

This was comprised of the normal $100 we put aside each month for vacation and travel, our normal $100 which we use for eating out and discretionary spending, and $69.36... which was money that we didn't actually spend when we went out to Utah on gas. (With all the pending amounts from the various gas stations we stopped at, I rounded up at the end of my last post-- Real damage was only $172.06 in gas and tolls, etc--)

Which brings our EF to $10,237.90 / 12,227.94, leaving us only $1,990.04 away from getting it back up to 6 months of expenses.

SCB and I have been really good so far with spending too.

I had to take a few clothing items back to the store and exchange them for better sizes, so besides the $12.69 difference in price, we have only bought food, gas, and have paid our bills as they come in... and that's with attending a baby shower and a baptism this week too.

We adjusted our grocery spending to accommodate the items we were asked to bring with us for both occasions.  For the baby shower we picked up spinach and artichoke dip and pita chips from Costco (leftovers we rolled over to the baptism since it was the next morning) and I added a fruit and a veggie tray...

I also made the following items for the shower with some yarn I already had in the house.

Puppy Outfit. (Its a way brighter pink but I snapped
the photo late in the evening and the camera
on the tablet isn't that great when its dark.

An owl blanket that matches the bedding they picked out.

Both items were well received :) Its been 102 degrees for the entire week and we have been really good about not running our AC and using fans and cool water for both us and Roxy. We have been taking her out when it gets cooler in the evenings and I have been enjoying my evening cold water bath before going to bed and sleeping with an ice pack. 

Next Friday SCB will get his first 80 hour a week paycheck. After 10% goes to Tithing, 15% to Retirement and we take out $20 each for spending money for the next 2 weeks, then rest will be diverted to our emergency fund and we should hopefully see a good jump in progress. 

Back From Utah...

We made it back from Utah... It took us 13 hours on the return trip with all the weekend Labor Day traffic... but since SCB didn't have any vacation hours, we didn't feel right asking them to give him Tuesday off when he was getting Monday off already for the holiday.... so we bit the bullet and boy was it rough sitting in the car for 13 hours, even with our ample breaks for Roxy...

We got to visit with family and celebrate our nephew's 5 year birthday a couple days early... but this trip was really about getting things done.

Shopping.... Sewing... and Driving.... That's really what happened when we went out to Utah.

First, Shopping:
Since getting to go through the Temple last month, I have been having a lot of issues with my closet... which is a fairly common problem for most church Converts as I now wear more modest clothes to accompany the garments I received in the temple. My closet wasn't scandalous or anything like that before... but since i'm so short (I'm only 5'1"), my garments tend to run a little longer on me then they would on the average girl... even when I select petite sizes (petite sizes offer a shorter distance from the waist to the seam which is greatly appreciated, but they do not shorten in leg length from the regular ones).... and to make it worse, the fabric I like the best doesn't shrink in the wash like the others do so these things come down to my knee almost. I'm making it work and trying to make this a pleasant experience... but for the time being while I figure out what really works and what doesn't, we wanted to take the opportunity we had in Utah to shop and pick up some clothes from a few stores that cater to a more modest philosophy. Things like Cropped Shirts with a cap sleeve made for layering (they stop after your bra so they just add a sleeve without the bulk around your belly)... some Capri pants since I can't wear any of my shorts at present and its HOT in California... and a few tops I could toss on without having to layer...

Second, Sewing:
My whole shopping experience in Utah surrounded around wanting and needing a dress/skirt extender. if you have no idea what i'm talking about, here's a picture.

Photo from this etsy shop for $33.00

I wanted something to add just a little length to my dresses... but since my garments run longer, everywhere I looked I found the length was fine... if the added fabric WASN'T a see through Lace. Since I ran out of luck, I bought some fabric at Walmart and was able to make one in Black and one in White for only $25.00 for both!!!

Driving

Roxy hanging out in Wanda while we head out to Utah...
She was such a good dog and a little trooper the whole way

Oh ya, and yours truly drove a stick shift! I had about a 30 minute driving lesson with my brother in law on Sunday in an empty parking lot, and then back to his parents house... and then on Monday I drove around 140 freeway miles on my own!

• 140 freeway miles as in leave the gas station, hop on the freeway, get to fifth gear and just maintain speed for 130 ish miles, then slow down, get off freeway, navigate a "round a bout" and pull into a gas station... 

I'm proud to say that I not only was able to start the car on the first time (I peeled out a bit... but hey it started!!!) I ended up only stalling once when I had to stop on a hill and wait for cars to go by to get into the gas station... but I was able to start it up again on the first go... (I just burned a little rubber in the process... )


So i'll be learning more about how to drive a stick shift...

But we managed to trade cars, and get "Sally" back to California in one piece... We're still waiting for this "emission sticker" to come in before we can register her in California... but that should be coming soon. We ended up paying $2,000 for her and $1045 in repairs on the old car (his parents paid to fix the AC in the end, saving us that $600).

The Car aside,  Utah ended up costing us $551.50.

• $152.97 of that was clothes for me.. 
• $82.00 Clothes for SCB
• $38.81 on Eating out
• $46.04 on a trip to Walmart for fabric, a birthday present, and some odds and ends...
• $231.68 was gas, tolls and other car related expenses... 

Were taking $200 out of our vacation fund to cover the gas and the tolls (we rounded up since we are still waiting for some of the gas station pending fees to disappear)... and the Clothing money we were able to work into the budget since we didn't put any money into savings last month...

But with buying the car and doing the unexpected repairs to Wanda... our emergency fund is a bit sad...

6 Months of expenses for us is $12,227.94

• Monthly Mortgage: $771.99
• Dog: $50.00
• Groceries/House Items: $275.00
• Insurance: $143.00
• HOA: $270.00
• Cell phones, Internet, Electricity: $150.00
• Gasoline: $200.00
• Health Insurance: $178.00

Our Emergency fund is now at: $9,968.54... $2,259.40 Short... (We keep $1k in both our checking accounts as a buffer and that isn't included in this number...)

So were back in Savings Mode... Ideally because we are both working, i'd love to start working towards 6 months of base income set aside... which is a little shy of $35k... So we'll be working on a new budget soon.

Ditching the smart Phone part 2

If you remember back to last month, we mentioned how we were going to be Ditching our smart phones ... well, it finally happened and not a moment too soon...

Literally.

South County Boy began the process of "porting" (taking your old phone number to a new carrier) on July 8th. We waited until the 8th because our billing cycle would start over on July 13th and the process can sometimes take up to 48 hours to go through... and we wanted our smart phones for the last farmers market ---just in case--- while we tested out our portable internet on the go that we picked up earlier this month at Walmart to use with our square reader.

So we figured that would give us plenty of time since it normally only takes a few hours for the phones to port over. Sure enough, 4 hours later I was all set up with my Trac Phone.

But 24 hours later, South county Boy was not... and 48 hours later it still wasn't done and it was July 10th...

We called that evening after the full 48 hours and after hitting a slew of * and # keys to finally got someone real on the phone. We discovered our problem. South County Boy had typed in the wrong phone number to port...

Thankfully the gal was able to restart and open his ticket and told us it would take probably 4 to 24 hours for the transfer to go through...

After 24 hours passed we had to call again because we were worried.... I pressed a bunch more * and # keys... got hung up a few times... and then eventually someone told us we had to wait the full 48 hours before they could do anything since their computer showed it was still porting and being worked on.

That's when we started worrying... because the full 48 hours would end at like 5pm on July 12th... so if it didn't work, hello $100 phone bill for just a single day or two of service.

But we woke up and found out at 8 or 9 am on the 12th that number had ported over. I called Sprint to verify our cancellation and the lady wanted to know why we were not longer continuing with their service. When i told her we were going to trac phones for maybe $20 a month for both our lines with texting and we were just going to use our smart phones on a WiFi network for free she was a little speechless...

Heck, before my husband, I wouldn't have known that was possible and would have assumed that you had to have a contract and pay $50-$60 a month for a cell phone...

The only down side was having to enter in all our contacts since there is no little chip or disk we can insert. Other than that, its great. We have perfect reception and signal, the battery life is really good since its not a smart phone, and my old smart phone still updates my applications on WiFi and works like it always did-- its just not a phone anymore.

The bill I hate to pay the most is officially gone. I promised SCB that we would bump our home internet speed back up a level where it was before we cut it when money was tight now that we will have more things running off the home network. So next month I'll call Cox up and increase our speed a little bit. Well probably budget $30 a month for our phones. We have also been using our wall AC a bit more so when we get our next bill we will budget accordingly and take the extra after that and add it to our gasoline budget.

Guess I don't have to go to court on tuesday!

Sorry this post is a bit late today, but I had to re-write it now that i'm not going to court after all. Court you ask?Well if you remember last year, I petitioned my property tax value on our little condo:

• Challenging My property Taxes
• Challenging My property taxes part 2
• My Day in Court

and I won!!!! They agreed to reduce my condo's value down to $115,000.00 instead of $120,903.00 so I saved around $60.00 on my property tax bill.  When I got my property tax statement for 2012, I decided to petition them again.

• Property Tax Assessment Petition, year 2

I was planning on going to court on Tuesday to present my findings (based on property sales from 2011 values, up to March 30th of 2012 since you use the value the year before)... and instead I got a call from the assessors office. They said if I signed off on a value of $115,000 i wouldn't need to come into court... They would just process the change and issue me a refund.

Which works for me, especially since the lady told me the one "smoking gun" property I was going to use to state my case is outside the sell period i can use (its July 2012 and I need before March 2012-- I miss read the dates originally). Since the 2 bedroom units had such a degree of change (140k to 180k) she was fine signing off on $115K since that was the price the last one bedroom sold for.

The Details:

OLD:

Land: $77,093

Building/structures: $4628.00

Total taxable value: $123,321.00

NEW:

Land: $69,000

Buildings/Structures: $46,000

Total Taxable value: $115,000

I automatically get a $7,000 value discount for living in the property as a homeowner, so before the change, I'd owed $1,224.30 a year... and now I get to pay $1,137.53!

Which means I'll end up saving, $86.78 this year :) and now I get to just spend Tuesday at home playing catch up on blogs, crocheting some baby gifts, and getting some time with my pup-- instead of paying for parking and getting all nervous talking to a judge!!

It may seem silly to petition my property taxes over $86, but that's $86 I can send to my mortgage or put in savings... and if i'm being honest, I don't feel like I should pay more than I have to in property taxes if I'm willing to look into how the system works and follow all the rules and go through the process... which isn't that hard and the people at the office have been really friendly and informative. 

Most people don't even look at the details and just cut a check, but that's never been me. Speaking of bills, I got another notice in the mail from the tax assessor... but this time it was about 2013. They dropped my 2013 value from $125,787 to $123,321... and that's without me doing a petition. I was planning on petitioning because of the $100,000 property that sold in the time period, but since i did refinance this year I wasn't sure if I was eligible to petition. 

So I decided to call the assessors office and ask. 

I told the guy that I had successfully won my case the past 2 years and was wondering if I should go through the process again for a lower value for the current billing cycle based on the value of my property on January 1, 2013.  I told him I had refinanced in May of this year since the values had started going up after that date and he said he would have an assessor look into it and call me on Monday since I had already received a new lower rate notice and I was able to give them the properties I would bring with me to court over the phone. (it makes my research much easier when only 2 one bedroom units have sold in my complex since I bought my place 3.5 years or so ago.)

So who knows... maybe i'll save a bit for for this past cycle too and I won't have to fill out the petition! 

I won't be able to petition for 2014 since the values went up and i used that to refinance with, but if they drop mine for 2013 and just average the 3 properties (mine bought at $120k, another at $115k and the last one at $100k that would knock my value down to $112k -- so who knows! Either way their new notice saves me $25!

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.

Ditching the smart phones

Our cell phone contract comes up in July next month and SCB and I have decided we are going to ditch our smart phones and contracts all together...

The one bill I can't stand to pay is the $137 a month for our cell phones. It's almost 3 times our monthly electricity bill... its 4 and a half times our internet bill... and it was a dumb move to get them in the first place...

Since we don't have a land line, we need to keep phones for each of us (one for his business and one for me to use for work, etc), so we are getting burner phones... Yup, Tracfones to be exact.

We ordered 2 track phones from Amazon. For SCB the Samsung T301G Slider with triple minutes for life for $12.99 and since I wanted a phone with a full keyboard, the LG 505C with triple minutes for life for $22.99.

The triple minutes means each time we buy a card with minutes, it automatically triples. Text messages cost us 1 minute of talk time and we can get 60 minute cards (3 hours with our triple minute phones) for $20.00. That $20 card is good for 3 months and then it expires. If we run through that, we just buy a new card.

We know one card will last SCB 3 months and then expire based on his current usage... and if we figure we buy me a new card each month, at most $30 a month will cover our talking/texting time, based on current usage.

For the farmer's markets though, we need a smart phone to collect credit card payments. We have found a portable wi-fi device from Walmart "internet on the go" for $80.00 upfront and then we can buy 500 Mb for $10 and it never expires until we use it... So this will take care of our "data" for the company. There were other free and cheaper options, but they don't have coverage in the areas we need them to cover so this was the best one because it uses the same network as our phones so we know it will work at the market and in our area.

So for less than the cost of the phone SCB would want if we renew our cell phone contracts, we are getting 2 new phones and a WIFI device... and AT max will be paying $40 a month... instead of $137.00

The only thing I'll miss is the GPS tracker on my phone when i'm running. So with the money we are going to save, I will get a cool gps running watch... and with the rest, we are going to save up for a tablet because SCB really wants one.

I can still use my smart phone on airplane mode to listen to audio books and take pictures and SCB can use his old phone at work for an e-reader on airplane mode so it shouldn't be a problem there.

So soon we will be paying maybe $40 a month instead of $137 and saving roughly $1,200 a year. Sounds smarter than a smart phone to me... and if I break or loose my phone I just buy a new one for $23.00

So have you decided to ditch the Smart Phone? If so, what are you using?