Yesterday I received my "incentive" for particpating in the survey Vanguard emailed to me, a check for $25! Cha-ching!

I would like for it to be mortgage chip money, BUT, as I will spending money on my fence soon, I decided to add it to CurveBall instead.

There is not enough money in CurveBall for the fence (no surprise there since CurveBall is nearly bankrupt), so I think I will "borrow" the money from vacation savings when it is time to pay. Meanwhile, I am going to scrape every dollar into CurveBall that I possibly can. My October budget will reflect this.

My mortgage will still be there when my fence is paid for.

Gravity certainly DOES take its toll on my bank accounts.

I have dipped into CurveBall to pay my Chase Visa balance in full this month. I went back and forth on that, then finally decided that it would be silly to not pay in full. So CurveBall is poor now. Poor, poor CurveBall.

As of this moment, I have $635.73 in checking and will deposit $226.00 tomorrow. I have paid all of my bills for the month except Citi MC which has yet to arrive. I will pay them $124 towards my debt. That leaves me $737.73 for the rest of the month. I shouldn't need more than $100 of that for groceries, so that leaves $637.73 towards my early October bills. Tight, but doable.

So far this month, I am on track with spending. So that is my silver lining. Next month's Visa bill will not be so steep, and thanks to balanced bill pay, my electric bills won't be either.

In other news, my daughter and son-in-law will be moving out of my house and into their new place on Oct 1st.

Well, I did it. I signed up for balance bill payment plans for both PG & E (gas) and my local utility (electric). With PG & E, I got to enroll right on their website, and they already told me that my bill will be $54 per month. With the local electric company, I have to mail in the paperwork and wait for them to get back to me. My last twelve bills average $193.05 (counting the last two, which are the HUGEST electric bills I have ever had in my entire life). So as long as I am in the neighborhood of $200, that will be fine.

Cash flow planning friendly, but I have resisted all of these years. I suppose I like seeing my conservation efforts rewarded in the form of a lower bill. Lately, my utility usage is out of control. Every morning when I get up and every evening when I come home, I find:

1. televisions and/or gaming systems left on, no one using
2. lights left on in empty rooms
3. the a/c turned WAAAAY up

No amount of pointing this out has any impact at all, as NO ONE does these things. Go on, ask everyone. Did you leave this on? Nope, not me. Can you please turn things off when you are done with them? I do. I always do. I NEVER leave anything on, someone else must have done it. Apparently, there is a malovelent villain breaking into my house, turning things on, and leaving, all in an attempt to run up my utility bills. It is very frustrating. I do wish the villain would GO AWAY.

I also set up my AT & T internet to bill my credit card directly. This should be good for a few reward points.

Today I had an e-mail from Vanguard asking me to please take a short survey. I decided to take it. It was short, but based on my answers I was asked to take a longer survey and they dangled $25 in front of me. Yeah OK, that seems a fair trade. At the end I received a message that I will receive my "incentive" in approximately 4 - 6 weeks. So if you receive a similar e-mail from Vanguard, open that baby up.

I just redeemed some credit card rewards points for $30 cash.

Mortgage chips.

On Sunday, I took my mother to visit her sister, it is about a 2 hour drive. We got an early start and made a day of it. We had a great visit, I think everyone enjoyed it. My aunt's lifelong good friend and one of her granddaughters came by, we played cards and giggled all afternoon. On the way home in the car, Mom gave me $50 to help with my OOP nephew costs. It was so nice of her, I surely do appreciate it.

So far this month I have not bought anything unplanned.

As I mentioned, my next electric bill has already arrived and it is $384.98. My entire utilities budget is $400, so there is no way I will stay under that.

I considered signing up for their balanced bill payment plan, but it won't help me this month because they have already billed. I could start it next month. I don't really see the benefit of doing that, I think I would rather just leave it as it is.

So I considered fiddling with my budget, but then I decided, nope, I'm not going to do that either. Instead, I'm going to try to come in under on other categories to compensate. It's a lofty goal, but I think if I really try hard, I can do it.

My son went to the eye doctor and he needs glasses. We have to pay $150, the insurance picked up the rest. My ex-husband has already paid, so I need to reimburse him $75. That's an "everything else" item.

My daughter's birthday is Sunday, so I plan to give her some cash. That is also an "everything else" item. EE is getting very tiny, and today is only Sept 2nd!!

So as you can see, I really have my work cut out for me. All right, September, let's dance.

Everything else this month includes my car insurance, flashcards I bought to help me study ($300 + shipping from Becker, found them on eBay for $169.50 including shipping), and son's back to school expenses.

I just squeaked by on groceries, but those utilities! Waaaaahhhh! (that is me squawling like a baby) That's not even the awful part. The awful part is my next electric bill was in my mailbox yesterday. It is even bigger than the last one.

Well here we are with one more day of August to go. I intend to have a no-spend day tomorrow.

So where are we? Well, my electric bill this month was enough to make me cry. $374. Really looking forward to fewer people in the house. I'm also really, really tired of walking into an empty room or empty garage and all of the lights are on. Groceries aren't too bad this month because everyone pitched in. They certainly weren't cheap, but I think I am on budget there.

When my car insurance was due, I put it on my Visa in order to hang on to the cash a little longer. (I never get any rewards points for my insurance. Humph.) Chase will cut off my billing cycle in a week or so and send me a big fat bill, so I will be parting with the cash soon enough.

Everything is paid for August and I have $1,201.51 in checking. That is less than I would like to have, especially considering my Visa bill will be bigger than usual. Tomorrow is payday, and it is a 12 day pay instead of 11. So that will help some.

I have finally received the rest of summer camp money from my ex-h, so my checking account has recovered from that particular shortage.

I have not one red cent in my wallet. I cleared it out at the bank today. Tomorrow I will withdraw another $60 cash. My Piddly Fund broke $400, and I "swept" the excess to my mortgage. I think $400 is enough in Piddly. I intend to sweep all of my change into the mortgage from now on, the interest from Piddly too. Will that be an incentive for me to spend as little of my allowance as possible? I believe it will.

My EF is not budging as I am sweeping EF interest into CurveBall. I have been thinking about how much I want to keep in CurveBall. I am thinking once I have 2k in there, I will redirect that money towards IRAs if I have not hit 5k for the year. That happy dilemma is still in the future. At the moment, I am just hoping CurveBall doesn't go down in September. I hope I can swing everything in September without dipping into it. I may end up making my budgeted deposit only to pull some money right back out. We will see, though.

My Chase Sapphire statement closed yesterday, and I have an extra 50,000 bonus rewards points. I am not planning on cashing them in right now. Instead, I plan to use mine towards a plane ticket (extra 25% if you use your points this way) when we go on our trip to Hawaii next year.

Have I mentioned that a lot of family members have gotten on board? My Mom says she will go. My cousin to whom I am close (and with whom I went to China) and her husband want to go. Cousin's son and his wife and daughter want to go (their daughter 1 year younger than my son). Cousin's daughter and her husband and their 2 kids are considering.

I am a late life baby, so I am roughly the same age as the generation after me. My cousin's son is 1 year younger than me. Most of my nieces and nephews were born when I was in grade school.

Yesterday I received a $20 credit cards reward check which I have already transferred to my mortgage. This month I have chipped $21.85. I am already thinking I will not chip my expected $150 bonus for opening a checking account. I am thinking I will stash it in my Roth instead. I have in the back of my mind that if I hit retirement with more than my Roth goal of 150k, I will be willing to use it towards my mortgage. You know, if I have one at that point. I am still up in the air about what exactly I will do. I may sell my house, take my equity and move elsewhere. At least, I certainly hope I have some equity again at some point. Maybe I am being presumptuous. So anyway, overshooting my Roth goal will not be bad, but missing it will be bad. So if I overfund my Roth, I can always use the extra towards my mortgage later.

I spent some money last night which I shouldn't have. BF and son and I had been invited to dinner at my ex-nieces house. (She was married to my nephew at one time, they have a daughter together.) Something came up in the late afternoon with her son (she is remarried) and they had to cancel. So there we were, all dressed up and no place to go. On a whim, I suggested we go out to dinner. We went to Applebee's. Afterwards, we decided to go see Cowboys & Aliens (we really liked it). When that was over, we decided to see Rise of The Apes (loved it). So it was an expensive night. I paid for everything. BF and I have a policy that s/he who suggests an outing pays for it. We have been together almost 2 years now, so are past the point of "dating". The first few months he paid for almost everything, but then I said that it was silly that one person should always pay. For awhile, we would tussle from time to time over who was paying. At this point, we just go with the person who suggests also pays.

At Applebee's, I had pineapple glazed shrimp served on white rice with a spinach salad on the side. It was delicious and only 310 calories! Applebee's has quite a few low calorie entrees.

This is how I did in July:



As you can see, my grocery bills were HUGE. Part of the overspending is from 2 additional people in the house, part is from the additional cost of NutriSystem foods. I will not be purchasing more NS food, and my expectation is that the 2 extra people will be gone before August is. Let's all keep our fingers crossed!

Everything Else this month included my vehicle registration ($142) and my required smog inspection ($46).

Other than those, nothing else was too awful.

Beginning in August, this will be my new zero based budget:



My credit card debt is now all at 0.0% until January 2013. If I pay $128 per month, it will be paid in full December 2012. This is fine with me and I don't feel I need to pay it off any faster.

I have been gaining weight lately, so.... I joined another gym. No initiation fee, no contract, $25 per month. Also, I joined Nutrisystem. It costs $300 per month, so I have increased my food budget.

To help compensate for these new costs, I have cut my cash allowance by $40. Sometimes I save up cash from my allowance and treat myself to a mani or pedi. I have decided to stop those for now, and therefore can afford a cut.

I have been concerned that my traditional IRA isn't growing enough, so I will begin contributing $50 per month. That will help a little. Not a whole lot, but a little.

After all the dust from the above settles, I had a bit of cash to bump up my monthly savings.

So here it is, my re-re-re-re-rearrranged budget.

More of my endless budget tweaking.

The results are in. Here is how I did:



With 2 extra people in the house, my grocery spending was way over budget.

Cash allowance was over due to a planned outing this coming weekend.

I paid all the rest of my bills for June. I will need some more grocery money, but that is it. I had $2,244.36 left in my checking account. I like to keep $1,500 sitting there, and I still have $400 earmarked for my planter, but that still leaves me with some extra. So, I transferred $100 off to my CurveBall savings account. This was over and above what I had budgeted!

I had budgeted $373 for credit card debt. I paid $65 to Discover (my new debt for my CPA review class) which left $308 for B of A Visa. I added the $20 rewards check I received last week and paid them $328. My balance is down to $897.11. Yay!

The cost of my class was $3,065. I paid $65 last week. Since then, I have received $1,532.50 from work to pay for half the class. I transferred $32.50 to CurveBall and sent Discover $1,500. This leaves a balance of $1,500 on Discover.

Right now, the rate on Discover is 0.0% but that will not last forever. I think I may focus on Discover to get it paid down as much as possible before the rate goes up. I'm really not sure what the regular rate is, but I am reasonably certain I don't want to pay it.

My ex-husband says he will have to pay his share of summer camp over the next few months. I said OK, but in truth I find this very annoying. Our son went to this camp last year and it was a great experience for him. We agreed last July we would send him again this July. Last November we talked about it again, still both agreeing that we would send son to camp this July. Then when May rolls around and it is time to register and pay, he has no money set aside for camp and I get to pay the whole thing and wait to be reimbursed. Mind you, my ex-husband makes significantly more money than I do. The entire cost is $465, making his half $232.50. He had 10 months from July to May to set it aside, that is only $23.25 per month. If I can plan ahead and have the money ready to go on my salary, I don't see why he can't do it on his. How I look forward to the day I no longer have to deal with ex-husband at all.

So with a little nip here and a little tuck there, I plan to send $373 towards my credit card debt this month. Also, since my planter plans have changed, I am going to send $300 of the $700 I have set aside. The remaining $400 is probably still more than I really need, but I don't want to cut it too close. Hopefully by next month the planter will be DONE and I can send off the rest of the planter money.

This is how May went. In general, I am pleased with my spending.

"Everything Else" this month was son's graduation outfit, field trip, and summer camp. Ex-husband is supposed to reimburse me for half of summer camp. To date, I have not had any trouble collecting from him. However, I haven't seen the camp money yet.

I sent $800 to B of A Visa and $800 to my Roth; the rest is sitting in my checking account. I will have to pay my half of summer camp soon, so that is where it will go.

For the rest of the year, I have to contribute $100 per month to my Roth to hit my 3k goal for 2011. That shouldn't be a problem, so I am pleased to be on track with that.

My B of A Visa billing cycle closed yesterday. I just logged on to view the statement, and I see that I was charged $2.46 in interest this month. I expect it to go up next month, as my "1.99% until July 2011" apparently ends after my May billing statement (???). I think that was the gist of the vague letter they sent me two months ago. My balance is down to $1779.61 and my minimum payment is down to $20. I'm glad, because in a pinch, $20 isn't too hard to cough up. Also, I'm glad I got the balance significantly lower before the 1.99% promo rate ends. My regular rate is variable, currently at 7.24%. So not too awful, but of course I would rather pay no interest at all! With my most recent budget revision, the balance will be gone by the end of the year.

My brother is supposed to show up sometime tonight, to visit our Mom for Mother's Day. I'm looking forward to catching up with him.

I brown bagged it 4 days this week, ate out 1 day. I had been slipping into my old habit of eating out every day, which I simply can't afford. But 1 day? Sure, I can swing that. That money comes out of my "cash allowance" budget category.

As you can see, I have tweeked my budget further. I have eliminated my medical co-pay category, and basically folded it into "Everything Else". I have trimmed a bit here and there, and have bumped up my credit card debt payment.

So here is how I did in April.

The life insurance money is now safely tucked into my Roth.

On Monday I will be receiving my seasonal OT check (about 80 hours) and my bonus. I expect to clear about 4k.

I am going back and forth on what to do. Please help me decide!

Plan 1
Pay off B of A Visa. Balance approximately 3.2k.
.3k to son.
Remainder to checking towards yard maintenance.


Plan 2
1k to B of A Visa
1k to Roth
.3k to EF
.3k to Egypt savings
.3k to son
.3k to Trad IRA
Remainder to hold until yard maintenance complete, then pay down B of A some more with what is left.

It would feel GREAT to pay off B of A. But without that extra boost to Roth, I may not hit my 3k goal.

Opinions?

Here is my latest tweaked budget. Bring it on, April.

Here is my report card for March.

My wages were a bit more than budgeted due to a 12 day pay period. I also managed a nice bit of extra income.

I paid extra on the mortgage with some of Feb's extra income, as planned.

The groceries and utilities really did come in with the same total. It's a coincidence not an error. We did good in both catergories.

This was the second month my water bill was based on usage, not on a flat rate. My water/sewer/garbage bill was $98 per month, but the past 2 months it has been $87ish. So not a huge difference, but definately nice.

I overspent on my Visa. Again. As well as my gasoline and Netflix, we ate out a couple of times, I bought son some needed new shoes, and I made a donation to the American Red Cross for Japan relief efforts. Eating out continues to be a problem spending area for me.

I made my regular Roth IRA contribution, then opened a new Roth at ING (thanks, Ima Saver!) with an additional $200 contribution. After I receive my $50 bonus, I will transfer it to Vanguard.

That was my last gym membership payment.

I paid $420 on my Visa debt, some of which was from extra income.

I haven't paid any medical co-pays in a few months, but the time will come when I will go over.

That's it, end of report.

Yesterday, my Mom spent the day at my house, along with son, nephew, nephew's son, and BF. So we were chatting about the sad state of my backyard and the current unkempt state of my front yard. I haven't done much at all with my yards since buying the house. There were other priorities, but the time has come to spend a little money and a lot of elbow grease and get them looking nice. (And I really do want to spend a little money!)

There are a few other items around the house I need to address. I sense some of my B of A Visa money slipping away. {sigh}.

When I bought my house, it was in rough condition. It was a foreclosure, and it had been owned by someone with very questionable taste. I wish I had taken a bunch of "before" pictures! Some of the "selling features":

1. There were bathroom tiles hot-glued onto one wall in the living room, in a sort of checkerboard pattern, but not touching each other. They weren't lined up neatly. Some were brownish, some were gray, some were a metallic copper color. They were about halfway up the wall. Underneath, someone had painted vertical stripes of peach and brownish-red. They hadn't used a ruler or tape or anything. I mean, why would you?

The wall had to be re-textured after the tile came off.

2. Someone had rag-rolled the kitchen walls, and done it badly.

3. The hall bathroom had been painted a very bright green. They had painted the walls and ceiling. They hadn't bothered to remove the mirror, cover the tub enclosure, etc. So in addition to re-painting, there was a lot of paint removing to be done. Good times!

4. One bedroom was painted a bright red. A very, very, bright red. It hurt my eyes. The theme of failing to do any prep work was repeated in the bedroom. They had not covered switch plates, protected the carpet, nothing. The carpet was not salvageable, too many large paint splotches.

I think I will find my camera, take a few "before" shots of the yards, some "in-progress" shots, and some "after" shots. I have some very simple improvements in mind, but I think they will help both curb appeal (in the front) and our enjoyment (in the back) a lot. I really want to keep it low-cost and low-maintenance (in the future).

So last night was bill paying evening, after paying everything, I have $1200 left in checking, and I have another $226 coming in next week. Not bad at all, considering the small 2/28 paycheck. I have decided I will not keep surplus greater than $1500 sitting there, but will instead transfer it to savings.

This month I paid $420 to B of A Visa. That's $85 budgeted, plus $149 from EF (sent it $1), plus $78 from selling a credit card reward gift card, plus $8 from Beezag, plus $100 received from someone who owed me $100. My new balance is $3,330.53. I think I will be able to pay it in full next month.

My 3/31 paycheck will be for 12 days, so that will make up for half of 2/28's shortage. My budget is based on 11 workdays per pay period, but the occasional 10 and 12 days do happen. That 9 though was really ugly.

I have decided something else too. I am not going to chip the $128 in credit card rewards I expect any moment now. I am not going to add any new money to my main savings account. I am not going to use my bonus money next month towards savings, Roth, mortgage, etc. Instead, I am going to kill my B of A credit card debt.

I should be able to kill it next month. Following its demise, I will have a bit more free cash flow to use towards savings goals.

So after careful consideration, I have decided to ditch the gym membership. BF and I have decided to start taking bike rides together. I live near a nice walking trail which I utilize when I have a walking partner. I own Wii fit, and Netflix has tons of workout videos for streaming. I am going to miss it, but I really could use the money elsewhere.

It is not a slam dunk gain though, as I have been paying for BF to be on my gym membership in exchange for him adding my cell line and my Mom's on his plan. Since I am cancelling the gym membership, I feel I need to reimburse him for the cost of our lines.

So once again I am pleased with my overall results. My paycheck income was short due to 2/28/11 being a 9 day pay period, instead of the usual 11. And of course I received those beautiful income tax refunds. While at first glance I exceeded quite a few places, it was all planned.

I did fine with groceries and utilities, but I went over on credit card spending.

I went to a baby shower last weekend and bought a gift. Another friend who I thought might be attending had a baby 3 weeks ago, so I bought a gift for her and took it to the shower as well. She ended up not attending, so I will have to make other plans for delivering that gift. A third friend had a baby in January, so I brought a gift for her new baby. That same friend has a 2 year old, and there was some snafu with my attending that shower. Long story short, I brought a gift for the 2 year old. The four gifts did add up.

A few weeks ago, I bought tickets for son and BF and I to see a stand up comic who did a show in my city. Paula Poundstone. It was a great show!

So the gifts and the comedy show together, along with my gas and Netflix, were too much for my credit card spending budget.

"Everything Else" was my 6 month car insurance premium.

The last joint account that my ex-husband and I have is a universal life insurance policy. The benefit amount is 300k on him, 130k on me, and 5k riders on each child. We are still splitting the cost and it has a small cash value (I think right around $1900). Our daughter is 20 and married, living in another state with her husband who is in the Army. Our son is 15. As we are no longer married, the chance of us dying together is quite small. I feel we no longer need this policy. I told ex-husband this several months back, but he wanted to keep it.

Additionally, I have a 50k term policy with ex-husband being the beneficiary. I would like to change that to 50% each child. They are already the primary beneficiaries of my retirement funds.

Ex-husband called me today and says he wants to cancel the universal life policy. He needs his half of the cash value and doesn't want to keep paying the premiums. He says he will up the term policy he buys through work. I said that is fine with me.

So, he will be cancelling that soon and I will be receiving my half. I have thought it over today, and I think I will put my half into my Roth.

Also, my life insurance costs will decrease by $28 per month. I plan to send $25 to my emergency fund and allow another $3 for "everything else".

My emergency fund should break the 10k mark in April. I think that is enough of an e-fund for someone with credit card debt, so after breaking 10k, I will direct those dollars to B of A Visa.

So last night was bill paying night, and when I finished making transfers and writing checks, I was shocked at my balance. I have just over $1100 in checking, though I still have to pay for my pest service (bill hasn't arrived yet). Also, I will have to visit the grocery store before the month is over. Wow! I'm very pleased. This is much more than I typically have after mid-month bill paying. It's a good thing too, since this pay period has only 9 days in it, my paycheck will be smaller than usual.

Also, when I went to the bank to deposit my paycheck and take out my $80 cash allowance, I looked in my wallet and saw I still had $57 from last time! I withdrew $60 and transferred $20 to my spending savings account. Ideally, I would like the cash allowance to fund all clothing and grooming items, for both me and my son. I started with $0, so it may take some time to build up enough to cover all such expenditures.

I'm excited and encouraged about tracking, it really is helping me to cut back!

I decided to go ahead and tweak my monthly budget. Since I spent $360 out of $500 budgeted grocery dollars, I am going to cut my grocery budget to $450. I am going to save an additional $20 in my emergency fund, pay an additional $5 on my credit card debt, and bump "Everything Else" from $163 to $188. Ideally, I won't be spending much of "Everything Else" and so will have some surplus built up in checking to handle unbudgeted expenses.

"Groceries" is really for groceries and household items such as cleaning products, lightbulbs, etc. I have to feed myself, my 15 year old son 5 days a week, my 34 year old nephew, and 3 dogs. One dog is my nephew's, the other two are dogs my ex-husband let my son adopt. When my ex-husband lost his house to foreclosure last year, he couldn't find a rental which would allow him to keep the dogs. My son loves those dogs, I couldn't let them go to the pound, so I have them now.

Also, I count my son's meals at school as "groceries".

I think I can do better than $450, but I don't want to adjust my budget down further based on only 1 month's grocery expenditures. I'm still new to this tracking business, so I don't have much data for analysis.

Here is how I did:



My comments:

Net Pay - Short this month due to a 10 day pay period.

Groceries - I did much better than I had guesstimated! I'm not going to lower the budgeted amount for now, but if I can consistently come in lower, then I will cut it and use some of those dollars elsewhere.

Utilities - I came in under on the variable bills.

Visa Allowance - I went over a little. I had the car battery issue in January, so I'm pleased that I didn't go over much.

Everything Else - The only expense here were library fines.

All in all, I am pleased with my spending in January. January gets a