Bloom Where You Are Planted

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $9.28. I have received yet another $25.00 credit from WFHM Rewards Visa. My new balance is $169,475.00.

Chips to date: $1,707.33

Interest savings this month: $6.10

Interest savings to date: $81.36

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,718.54, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full. Which I won't. :P

Cash is up.
Debt is down.
Investments are up.
Home value estimate is up.

That's what we like to see.

My fifth scheduled car payment has posted. I have updated the spreadsheet on my "My Car Note" page, if you care to take a peek.

This month extra principal payments included $500 from my seasonal overtime pay, $30.00 from two wallet sweeps, and $3.92 from credit card rewards.

Notice nothing applied from my part-time job this month. That's because I haven't been paid yet for the work I did in March.

Nine payments have now been eliminated from the end, leaving 58 payments to go.

I love to browse on realtor.com. I have spotted several condos in Reno which might suit me fine.

Here is one:

http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/959-Flatcar...

This place is in Sparks. Sparks is just east of Reno and the two cities have grown into each other. It is a 2 br. 2 bath with 1088 sq. ft. and has a 1 car garage. The asking price is 95k. If I were to purchase it at 95k with 20% down and took a 15 year mortgage, my PI payments would be $526 (according to the calculator on realtor.com). The HOA dues are another $195. There is still property taxes and insurance to pay. But still, total housing should be under 1k per month, with a big drop when the mortgage is paid in full.

If I can land a job paying at least $15 an hour, something like this should be doable. Not a lot of wiggle room, but worth it I think at my age to be done with the mortgage in 15 years. If I have to stop saving for retirement, the money already saved will continue to grow, and I should still end up in OK shape.

Hopefully, I will be able to earn more than that and will continue to save. I am trying to be realistic. I am approaching age 50 and will not have any business contacts in the area. I have to be prepared for the possibility of a significantly lower income.

At this point, I am planning to move with BF. If we are sharing living space, we will also share expenses. That will provide a bit of budgetary wiggle room too. However, I only want a mortgage I can afford completely on my own.

In other news, tax season is mercifully over. Between my overtime and my bonus, I cleared an extra 4k. I have sent off 1k to my traditional IRA, $500 extra to my car loan, $300 extra to emergency fund, and $200 extra to Roth. The other 2k I needed for expenses. J's car got new brakes and a major tune up (120k miles), and I paid the IRS $987. Additionally, my annual matching of $1632 was sent off to my Simple IRA. Looking forward to seeing those account balances rise a bit on 4/30. Of course, will just have to see if Mr. Market cooperates.

Mrs. M180 and I are planning a 3 day weekend in Seattle. We were able to get airfare for $156 each. We will stay one night with my childhood friend (who stayed with me last September), and two nights on Vashon Island visiting my birth mother, her sister, and the sister's new husband. On the final day, we are hoping to spend some time with my niece who lives in Tacoma. She is only 5 years younger than me, so is actually more like my baby sister.

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $10.34. My new balance is $169,800.00. I'm pretty excited to be under 170k!

Chips to date: $1,673.05

Interest savings this month: $5.95

Interest savings to date: $75.26

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,649.73, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full.

Cash is up.
Debt is down.
Investments are down.
Home value estimate is up.

My fourth scheduled car payment has posted. I have updated the spreadsheet on my "My Car Note" page, if you care to take a peek.

This month extra principal payments included $160 from my part-time job, $37.50 from credit card rewards, $20.00 from a payday loan, $10.00 from a wallet sweep, and $3.00 from Hausernet.

Seven payments have now been eliminated from the end, leaving 61 payments to go.

Well, once again the nut trees are all in bloom and I cough day and night. Cough until I am dizzy, cough until I vomit, then cough some more. Last year in spring I coughed for only one month and I was euphoric. (Last year was my first spring on allergy shots.) This year it has been almost two months already and the cough is still here. So I don't know if this spring is worse or the shots become less effective over time or what.

Once the cough is finally gone, I will have several months without it until it is time to harvest the nut trees, then the cough will be back.

I am ready to leave this nonsense behind and plan my exit. I intend to list my house for sale next spring come what may. Once it is sold, I will move into an apartment and then begin my long-distance job hunt. If I have to accept a lesser job with a lesser salary, that is what I am going to do.

I am planning to relocate to Reno, Nevada. The high elevation and dry air are exactly what my allergy doctor says I need. The relative proximity is great as I will still be able to visit with my mother. (About a 4 hour drive from Reno to my mom's house). There will be some adjustments, but I choose to look at it as a grand adventure.

BF intends to move with me. Everything is very good between us. He has a part-time job here in my town now. His bridge loan did fund but I was not repaid as the proceeds were much less than planned. He was required to pay 12 months interest up front, which was sprung on him at the last minute. That came out of his proceeds and did not leave him with much. (The first six months is non-refundable, the second six months is). However, the contractor and all sub-contractors were paid in full to date, so the contractor is moving ahead with the last few things. Fingers crossed that the house goes on MLS shortly.

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $11.45. I received another $25 credit from WF Home Rewards Visa. My new balance is $170,100.00. An exciting milestone is on the horizon.

Chips to date: $1,662.71

Interest savings this month: $5.80

Interest savings to date: $69.31

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,578.75, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full.

Cash is up.
Debt is down.
Investments are up.
Home value estimate is up.

My third scheduled car payment has posted. I have updated the spreadsheet on my "My Car Note" page, if you care to take a peek.

This month extra principal payments included $160 from my part-time job, $50 checking account opening bonus from Discover, $26.72 from credit card rewards, and $4.00 from Hausernet.

Six payments have now been eliminated from the end, leaving 63 payments to go.

I have been promising these for a long time. Here is a confession: I am not the world's best photographer. I did not even come in second in that competition! And of course, the house is still not done, so it is not staged at all.

Nonetheless, I tried to capture some of the best features and a sense of how the house flows together.

This is the fireplace in the living room. It is between two floor to ceiling windows.



Here is a shot of the living room. See that ladder outside the window? It is the same one as in the shot of the fireplace. The fireplace is just out of range in this shot.




Here is a shot of the front door. We have shifted just a bit to the right from the previous shot. The doorway on the right leads into the kitchen.





And now I've turned 45 degrees, and this is the view from the living room into the pool room.




A shot of the kitchen.



Here is a shot of the sinks and counter in the master bath. This is the same bathroom with the huge oval tub (shared previously) on the raised platform and the walk-in shower for two. The bathroom also features a separate counter with lighted mirror for make-up, his and her water closets, an 80 sq ft walk-in closet, and an area with built in drawers and which could be used for linens or as dressers.



This shot is from the far end of the pool room looking back towards the kitchen. You can see the stairs leading to a room above. There is a bedroom, sitting area, and bathroom tucked away up there.



From the last shot, I did a 180 turn and snapped a shot of the back yard. The field beyond the trees is not part of BF's property.

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $12.50. I enjoyed a $25 principal payment from Wells Fargo Home Rewards Visa for the second month in a row. My new balance is $170,425.00.

Chips to date: $1,626.26

Interest savings this month: $5.74

Interest savings to date: $63.51

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,555.33, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full.

Cash is up.
Debt is down.
Investments are down.
Home value estimate is down.

Here's another overdue entry, nest egg projections based on my end-of-the-year balances.

I take my tax-deferred balance, then compound it at different interest rates until I am age 65, and see how it turns out. If I assume 6k per year of new money, it's OK. If I work until age 67, my Social Security full retirement age, it gets even better.


I'm really hoping to hit 600k, as that will replace about half of my current income. If I do better than 600k, well, I'll just have to find a way to live with that. If I have less than 600k, I will really have to think hard about whether or not I can afford to retire.



And here's the Roth. I intend to use my Roth solely for funding large, irregular expenses. Think new roof or new (to me) car. The idea is to pay for what I need without taking on debt or raiding tax-deferred (thus permanently reducing my monthly income). I had been shooting for 150k. Now that I am nearly 100% certain I want to buy a small condo as my final home, I think 100k will be more than sufficient.

I have been saving 3k annually in my Roth, but for this projection I used 2k for my "current savings rate". Beginning in 2015, that is my contribution plan.



So all in all, I feel that I am in OK shape. Not fantabulous, but OK.

Just for you, Foscavista.

Cash is down.
Investments are down.
Debt is down.
Home value estimate is up.

My second scheduled car payment has posted. I have updated the spreadsheet on my "My Car Note" page, if you care to take a peek.

This month extra principal payments included $320 from my part-time job, $36.82 from credit card rewards, $15 from a wallet sweep, and $3.25 from Hausernet.

Five payments have now been eliminated from the end, leaving 65 payments to go.

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $13.59. I enjoyed a $25 principal payment from Wells Fargo Home Rewards Visa. My new balance is $170,750.00.

Chips to date: $1,588.76

Interest savings this month: $5.60

Interest savings to date: $57.77

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,478.65, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full.

Last week, I did a wallet sweep and had $3 to apply to my car loan. A client who usually sends me a holiday card with a crisp $100 inside came through yet again. I applied that $100 to my car loan too.

So, my first scheduled car payment has finally posted. My extra principal payments thus far have eliminated 3 payments from the end. All told, that is 4 down with 68 to go.

I have updated my Car Note Page, if you care to take a peek.

And I had an unexpected surprise. According to my statement, my loan rate is 3.49%. My contract plainly says 3.697%. So I guess the 3.697 quoted includes the $99 fee which was tacked on? That is the only thing I can think of. Not that I am complaining, mind you.

If they want to reduce my rate further, I am OK with that.

I have been enjoying the holiday shots of people's children so much, I thought I would post one from when mine were little. Of course, my pics from this era were not digital, so I had to scan this in. I am afraid I do not have a color scanner. (The kids are dressed in red and white). And of course, it looks like a newspaper photo, which detracts from their cuteness.

But here are my kiddos at Xmas time, 1996. MrsM180 was 6 and J was 1. MrsM180 is making a face because I kept telling her to smile. If I had just let her be, she probably would have smiled beautifully. But I had to keep saying "smile", and she kept trying. J is very suspicious of the entire affair.



I miss the little people days.

If anyone has any tips as to how I could get this looking like a photo, please share!

Update: Still not picture perfect, but so much better! Thank you for the technical help, Starfishy!

Just plodding along with the car loan.

I did a wallet sweep on payday and had $17 to throw at the principal.

I redeemed another $15.15 in rewards from Capital One Quicksilver, and threw that too.

New balance is $15,526.45. Still 17 days away from my first scheduled payment.

I have made my scheduled mortgage payment, along with an extra $14.73. My new balance is $171,075.00.

Chips to date: $1,550.17

Interest savings this month: $5.44

Interest savings to date: $52.17

Eventually, the interest savings on the chips I have already made will compound to $3,399.23, provided I own this house until the mortgage is paid in full.

Cash is down.
Debt is up.
Investments are up.
Home value estimate is down.

(It's just a grading system. I'm actually not unhappy!)




Wells Fargo valued my "new" car at 15.8k on 11/1. I started there, but intend to write it down $300 per month for now.

In my career as a music lover, I have seen the following musical artists in concert:
38 Special
Air Supply
Ambrosia
Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Boney James (jazz)
Bonnie Raitt (surprise appearance in Jackson's set)
Brian Setzer & His Rockabilly Riot
Cheap Trick
David Cassidy
Eddie Money
Fleetwood Mac
Foghat
Foreigner
George Thorogood & The Destroyers
Honeymoon Suite
Hootie & The Blowfish (2 times)
Jackson Browne (front row once, 2 times total)
James Taylor
Jimmy Buffett & The Coral Reefer Band
Journey (3 times)
Kansas
Kool & The Gang
Little River Band
Loverboy
N'Sync (took MrsM180 when she was a 'tween)
Night Ranger
Pat Benatar
REO Speedwagon
Rick Springfield
Styx (2 times)
The B-52s
The Doobie Brothers
The Eagles (2 times)
The Outfield
The Zac Brown Band
Three Dog Night
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (front row)
Some of these cost me dearly; others were very inexpensive (like free with fair entrance). I'll have to keep thinking, I might be missing some. I've seen plenty of other local artists, who have never charted but nonetheless put on a great show. How about you? Who have you seen? Spill it! 

A few days ago, I received an offer from Discover. Open an online checking account, receive a $50 bonus. Um, yeah, OK. Come to think of it, I would like a free $50. So, I funded that today ($25) and will wait patiently until January for my free $50. It is going to look just smashing when I apply it to my car loan.

My mom came down with a bad cold, so we did not go car shopping or Bingo playing after all. Perhaps the weekend after this coming one.

I love a good concert. I was super excited when one of my all time favorites released a new album last month. I was hoping that meant a concert tour was soon to follow. And, it did mean that! I bought my tickets Saturday to see Bob Seger in March. Can't hardly wait. Treated myself to the new CD too.

I pulled out my most recent paystub to see what I will gross this year. It looks like $54,111.47. My aim is to stash 15% of that in retirement accounts somehow, which means $8,116.72. By the end of the year, I will have contributed 3k each to both my Roth and Simple IRAs. Another $1533 was contributed by my employers to my Simple. That leaves $583.72 to go. Round it up a bit just for giggles, and I intend to contribute $700 to my traditional IRA before the year is out.

I received a refund of $19 from CarMax for my car tags; I have applied it to my car loan. The balance is now $15,558.60.

My mother has been wanting to go play Bingo. I have found a Bingo hall we are going to try tomorrow. It is $25 per person to play. Afterwards, she wants to go look at cars. She has a full sized truck which was my step-father's (he is now deceased). It is very nice and has low miles. But she has been thinking she wants a small car with good gas mileage. So, tomorrow will be a convenient time to take her to look. I think she will ultimately decide the price of the car would pay for a lot of gas, but we will go look anyway.

Here is an update on BF's house. It is still not listed, but he has decided to take a bridge loan to pay the contractor in full to this point. When I heard this, I piped up to say I would like to be repaid in full at the same time. He agreed. The loan should fund within the next two weeks.

Originally, I lent him 6k from E Fund. Later, I lent him an additional 1.7k from CurveBall. Since making that first loan, I have repaid E Fund 4.5k. This is my plan for the repayment:

1.5k E Fund
.5k Mini E Fund
1.7k CurveBall Fund
4k car loan

I am excited to be repaid. I don't really like mingling finances. I'm glad I could help him avoid disaster, but I am ready to be "unmingled". And frankly, I like my money in my accounts rather than someone else's.

And you know, I don't think I have ever gotten around to posting more pictures of BF's house. The remodeling project grew bigger and bigger, and is still not entirely done. I happen to have this pic on my phone, so I will share it. This is the bathtub in the master bathroom.



It has tiny bubble jets all around the tub, towards the bottom. The tiny garden outside the window is walled in, so the bathtub (and anyone sitting in it!) cannot be viewed from outside. Just to the right is a large shower, room for a crowd in there, with the main shower heads on opposite walls, and 6 body spray jets under one of the shower heads. The only trouble is, you just don't want to ever get out.

Well, I managed to get my replacement paycheck in the bank this morning without losing it. Yay me! My boss had a good laugh at my expense, so at least something positive came from it, I guess?

I had $10 left in my wallet from last payday, and a $160 paycheck from my part-time job. That is another $170 towards my car loan.

I will wait until tomorrow to give my paycheck time to clear, and then I will make an additional principal payment of $248.65. That is the amount of my monthly car payment, and one is not due this month. However, I may as well get used to it. After I make that transfer, my principal balance will be $15,577.60.

I lost my paycheck yesterday. My boss handed it to me about 10:30am as he was leaving for the day. (This was the senior partner. The junior partner normally does this task, but he was on vacation last week).

As usual, I separated the check from the stub, placed the stub in an envelope, which I keep in a file in my desk drawer, entered the amount of the paycheck into my check register, inserted the check into my checkbook, and put the checkbook into my purse.

At lunch time, I went to a CVS to get a passport photo picture taken, went to my allergy doctor for my shot, while there I paid my bill and made my annual appointment at the receptionist's desk, then bought lunch at a nearby Panda Express. At each of those three stops I was in and out of my purse.

Later in the afternoon, when I was doing client banking, I intended to deposit my paycheck while I was there, and discovered that it was gone. Bleah!!

I called all three places, but no one had turned in my lost paycheck.

So on Monday, I get to tell the junior partner what I have managed to do.

J's phone has been acting up. Last night, it stopped working all together. Perhaps it will magically begin working again, who knows? I ordered him a new one. The phone was $149. I went ahead and bought him a car charger too for another $18 (was $20, but I Googled and found a 10% off accessories code). With shipping, it is setting me back $187.65.

I browsed both Ting and Republic Wireless plans. RW is still the better choice for him, even though the $19 per month plan we had is no longer available. Because I am ordering a new phone, I have to choose from the plans currently being offered. We went with the unlimited for $25 per month.

My ex-husband has retired from the sheriff's department. Because he is retired, his share of cost for medical insurance has changed. Our divorce decree stipulates that he is responsible for providing J's medical insurance. The cost for J has risen to approximately $800 per month. We looked into adding J to my plan, and I can add him for just under $400 per month. Of course, that is what ex wants to do. So, we have submitted the paperwork. I will have the cost deducted from my paycheck, and ex will reimburse me. I hope he will regularly reimburse me promptly, but history suggests otherwise.

I wish we could insert spreadsheets into our blogs. I had posted my amortization schedule for my car note into a "page", but the spaces are eliminated and all of the numbers run together. I figured out how to insert an image into a "page". It took three images to show the entire schedule, but at least it is legible. (You load the images to a draft of a blog entry, then just never publish it. You can paste the image number into your "page", and voila, Bob's your uncle).

I received $3.75 from HauserNet, and so made my first tiny extra principal payment to my car loan.

My car loan is finally showing up when I log on to Wells Fargo's site. And, I noticed that my balance was 16,099.00. I knew that I would be charged a $99 loan fee, but I was expecting it to be deducted from my checking account. Nope, it got added to my loan balance.

According to my trusty spreadsheet, if I were just paying as scheduled, I would make 72 payments and then still have a balance due of $124.05! Can you imagine? You make the payments you are supposed to make, think you are done, but no, you still owe more money. No thanks, Wells Fargo. I made an immediate transfer of $99 (just love having my checking account, mortgage, and car loan all at the same bank) and we are right back to 16k even.