Bloom Where You Are Planted

I received $44.91 today in my Paypal account, for secret shops I did 2 months ago. I have already transferred it to Mini E-Fund. I have not received any repayment from daughter this month, nor any reimbursement from ex-h for J's summer camp last July.

I decided not to completely drain CurveBall in order to pay Chase Freedom in full. Instead, I drew it down to 1k, then did a balance transfer from Citi MC for the rest. The terms of this most recent transfer are 0% with a 3% balance transfer fee. This will increase my Citi MC balance up to approximately 1.7k, 1.6k after I send them their $100 payment.

In each of the past 2 years, I have received a Christmas bonus of $1,750. If that happens again this year, I will pay Citi MC in full and end the year with my savings too low, but no credit card debt. I will have an additional $100 per month to use towards re-building my cash accounts. It also means I will not hit my 3k Roth goal for 2012. I will have contributed 2.1k to Roth and nothing to traditional. But, I am ready to be D-O-N-E with credit card debt.

Fastforwarding to next April 15th, between overtime and my tax season bonus, I should net 4k and change. I guesstimate my income tax returns to total a 1k refund. The first $3,200 will go to my traditional and Roth IRAs. Along with my $150 per month automatic transfer to Roth, that will max them for 2013. The rest of the tax season money will go to savings.

Right now, when I buy groceries, I swipe my debit card. I also have in my wallet a Wells Fargo credit card which earns a 1% rebate towards my mortgage. I think I am going to switch to swiping the credit card instead, then transfer funds when I get home. By adding the extra step of transferring funds, I can accumulate points towards a $25 mortgage chip. I should average two such chips a year. I am online checking my balance all the time anyway, so it is not much effort to transfer funds from checking to my linked credit card. And mortgage chips do not hurt my feelings.

It is just me again at work today. The senior partner does not work on Fridays. Our receptionist is still out, and the temporary one we had over the summer went back to school a month ago. The other staff accountant is part-time. She was been coming in every day to help (she and I have to absorb the receptionist's duties) but had no work at all today to do. Fridays are slow, so it seemed silly for her to come in just to answer a phone call every hour or two. Plus, while I do have work to do, I am pretty current on everything, so nothing is pressing. I told her I could manage fine, there was no need for her to come in too. Well, the junior partner cracked his tooth last night. He came in at 8, called his dentist, and the dentist said come on down. So, he left and doesn't think he will be back today. He told me to close at noon if I wanted. That sounds like a plan to me.

I am paid by the hour, kind of. I am paid for 8 hours per day. I am not paid extra when I work more than 8 hours (except during tax season), and I am not docked when I work less than 8 hours (including our half-day Fridays all summer long.)

Most pay periods are for 11 work days. There is the occasional 12 day (hoorah!) and 10 day (boo!) pay period.

I budget based on 11 day pay periods. So if there is extra pay or less pay, it impacts my checking account cushion, but not my budget.

I have recently enjoyed a 12 day paycheck. However, I am about to experience three 10 day paychecks, in a row. This is unprecedented in my little world. And more to the point, this shortfall is going to have to come from somewhere.

I have just received my Visa bill, ridiculously large this month (car insurance, emergency vet bill, and new lap top in addition to regular charges). I had been thinking I would pull from CurveBall to cover it. Along with my budgeted $420 CurveBall deposit in September plus the $400 + utilities I would normally pay that would just about cover it. But wait, this assumes I receive the income I have budgeted, and I am not going to receive the full amount of income.

Bleah! I do not want to transfer a single additional cent to Citi MC, but this is what I am facing.

So it's going OK without Mint. I am finding Wells Fargo's budgeting tool to be less than ideal. It has preset categories, and you cannot edit them or add new ones. You cannot split a single transaction into more than one category. And you cannot import any transactions from any account which is not a Wells Fargo account. So I'm not going to be using it. Instead, I just used Excel and entered all of my cleared transactions into my spreadsheet (I summed them in the column to the right of what you see here). I had to do this for both my checking account and my Chase Freedom Visa.

I changed my "Visa Allowance/Everything Else" combo to "Gasoline/Everything Else". They still total $600.

August was so ugly. "Everything Else" includes $623 for the emergency vet bill, $558 for my car insurance, $406 for my new laptop, $110 for J's yearbook, student ID card, & gym clothes, $71 to file my small claims suit and have the defendent served, and $47 in medical copays.

I am starting September with an almost full tank of gas.

My office was closed yesterday too, so I am enjoying a nice 4 day weekend.

Yesterday I went to get my eyebrows done. It had been 2 months and it was time. I have a girlfriend who has 2 small children and we just don't get together like we used to before she had children. We go together to be threaded and use the time to catch up. She reminded me that the last time we went, she didn't have any cash and so I paid for both of us. I had forgotten that. So, she paid for me yesterday. So far, my cash allowance which must last until next payday 9/14 is still untouched.

On Friday, my paycheck was for 12 days. I was pleased, until I looked at the calendar and saw both of my next paychecks will be for 10 days.

Also on Friday, I did a wallet sweep and added $15 to Mini E-Fund.

My daughter texted me yesterday saying money will be tight this month, so was it OK if she repaid me another $120 instead of the remaining $240. I agreed. That will go into Mini E-Fund and then it will be back to $500. I believe I will begin adding my small deposits to E Fund.

Tuesday is my daughter's 22nd birthday. I will be taking her out to lunch on Monday to a mid-Eastern restaurant. They serve the most delicious sun-dried tomato hummus, as well as a chicken dish made with saffron and grilled veggies. That is what I will be having.

Debt is down.
Cash is up.
Investments are up.
Home Zestimate is down.

Firstly, Nala is doing very well. Here is a pic taken this morning:



And just for good measure, here is a pic of Bree, taken one day when BF had left his laptop on the couch. I guess she was checking her Facebook page.




I have decided to sue the mother (homeowner) for the fence and the son for the vet bill. I don't expect to win on the vet bill, but I am going to sue anyway. While the burden of proof in criminal court is "beyond a reasonable doubt", civil court is "preponderance of the evidence". Hopefully he will realize that if he is accused a second time, there is even more circumstantial evidence against him. I want this incident to be well documented, in the hopes there will be no further incidents.

Mini E-Fund is coming along. Recent additions include $14.25 from a wallet sweep, $11.20 from a secret shop, and $7 from Beezag.

I bought myself a new laptop last week. My old one was failing regularly, requiring trouble shooting and restarts. It was getting to be an every single time I turned it on thing. I bought a fairly nice Gateway laptop for $406 including tax.

I played around with Future Advisor some more, then decided to ignore their advice. I still like the tool, I just prefer the excellent investment advice available on The Bogleheads Index Forum! I did alter my target allocation slightly. Here it is:

25% Total Stock Market Index
10% Small Value Index
10% REIT Index

20% Total International Index
5% Small International Index

15% Total Bond Market Index
15% TIPS

And lastly, Bobbie Bushman is no longer blogging! She wrote a final entry, basically stating she no longer had the time to keep up her blog. I will miss Bobbie's entries. For now at least, the blog can still be read.

Yesterday as I was getting ready to leave work about 5:15, BF called and said "Where is your vet's office? We need to meet there." Nala (my nephew's beautiful yellow lab) was vomiting and seemed to be dizzy. She was slobbering and wheezing. Her head was soaking wet with some sort of chemical (BF thought it was pesticide, the vet said it was gasoline). Here is the thing: this happened to her in our yard. There are no chemicals, no pesticides, no gasoline in our yard. She went out the pet door the picture of health and was back inside 5 minutes later, vomiting and in obvious distress.

The good news is, she is doing much better now and it seems she will make a full recovery.

The bad news is, the vet bill was $624.53. They washed her eyes with a rinse, put her on an IV, and did some blood work. They kept her about 6 hours, then said she was OK to go home. They gave me some meds to keep her tummy settled so she doesn't vomit.

My conclusion is, the charming gentleman next door has made good on his threat to poison her. This is also eerily similar to the poisoning and death of my daughter's cat, which happened just a few days after said neighbor threatened Nala. I called the police and two officers came to the house. They took our statement, then called in to get a report number. Then they went next door to speak to the neighbor. I don't know how that went, but I suspect he simply didn't answer the door. He wouldn't answer the door to speak to the two officers who came out when he called to report my nephew was playing his music too loud, so I don't think he would answer the door when I called the police on him.

I am so disgusted. What a revolting human being he is.

I am definately suing his mother now, for her half of the cost of the replacement fence on our property line. The dollar amount she owes me is $630.

In other news, I read recently on the Boglehead's Index Forum that if you log in to your Vanguard account from a third party site (such as Mint or Future Advisor) and your account is hacked as a result, it is your problem. This caused me some concern, so I have deleted my Mint account. Wells Fargo has a budgeting tool on their site. It is inferior to Mint, but I am going to figure out how to make it work for me. As far as Future Advisor, I deleted the link to my accounts and then just plugged in my holdings manually. I will have to update it myself, but it will still analyze my holdings for me.

I need to post pics of Nala, Buster, and Bree, our canine tribe. Nala is beautiful, Buster and Bree are mutts, but so loyal and sweet-natured.

I stumbled upon this free planning tool recently:

https://www.futureadvisor.com/signin

and wanted to share in case anyone here is interested in giving it a whirl.

You link to your retirement account(s), kind of like Mint, or you can manually enter your holdings. You enter how old you are, how much you are saving annually, how much you earn, and how much income you want to have during retirement. It calculates your odds of success and makes recommendations. It is similar to Financial Engines.

I have played around with it a little. I wouldn't consider all of the recommendations, but I did consider and decide to implement some of them.

Note that Future Advisor is a fan of low-cost index ETFs (also available as funds). I am also a fan, so this is a good fit for me.

Some of its recommendations:

-Have 9% of portolio in REITs, an additional 9% in foreign REITs, for a total of 18%! I think that is too much, and I don't want to invest in foreign REITs. I did however buy some VNQ, Vanguard REIT Index. I am passing on VNQI, the foreign REIT index.

-Buy some ETFs in my Simple IRA. Um, I'm not able to buy any ETFs in my Simple IRA. I don't see anyplace where I can input this information, so I can't get any recommendations which are actually possible. If I bought the fund version, I would be paying additional fees since the amounts in each recommendation would be much less than 10k. Also, I have to pay an annual custodial fee per fund, so I prefer to have just 1 fund. I did sell Target Retirement 2030 in favor of Total Stock Market. This was a good idea. TR 2030 is composed of 3 index funds. To rebalance, I needed to know the percentage of each. By holding only 1 index fund, I have eliminated this step. I should have done it this way from the start.

-Sell my VXUS (Vanuard Total International) in favor of VEA (Vanguard Tax Managed International). A tax managed investment inside a tax advantaged account? This perplexed me for a while until I noticed that the expense ratio of VEA is slightly lower. A-ha! They are trying to save me a litte money. I haven't done it, though. VXUS has a bit of mid and small, VEA doesn't.

-Add some emerging markets. At first I rejected this idea as I know my VXUS holds some emerging markets. I examined its holdings and saw that it has only 5% in emerging markets. I had thought it was more than that. Since it has only 5%, that means about 1.25% of my entire portfolio is in emerging markets. That did seem too low, so I added some, although less than the recommendation.

-Sell small cap value in favor of small cap. Hmmm. Maybe. I haven't done this.

-Add a large value and an international large value. I did add a bit of each.

-Reduce bonds. This is probably the recommendation with the most impact. I considered for a few days, then I did it. The tipping point for me was looking at the amount of bonds in TR 2030. It is less than the amount of bonds I had.

So that is how I spent my Happy Friday afternoon this week.

Would you consider it? If so, what countries would you consider, and why?

According to International Living, there are places where an income of $800 per month will provide a comfortable lifestyle. If the area is scenic and local infrastructure is in place, yes, I would consider it. Especially if my income is such that I could afford to travel back home to visit every few years.

So this is something to keep in mind as I plan future vacation travels. Two countries which I think I might want to investigate are Uruguay and Ecuador. A conversational Spanish class might be a good idea.

Last week, I did 3 more secret shops. These required an initial cash outlay, but I will be reimbursed plus paid $5 each. All 3 were for the same fast food chain. There are more of these shops available, but I am done eating their food for now. The free (after reimbursement) meal is part of what makes the shops worthwhile.

My daughter has repaid $260 of the $500 I lent her. As you can see on my sidebar, Mini E Fund is looking a little more healthy these days.

Beezag is in some sort of transition. There are no new videos available. I received an e-mail about this and was asked to cash in my points. I had 7,226 pts, and was able to redeem 7,000 of them for $7.00. I hope that the other 226 follow me to their new site, but who knows what will happen? The e-mail was rather vague.

My son J started his Sophomore year today. Last Thursday at orientation, I shelled out $110 for his student ID card, his yearbook, and a new set of gym clothes. Today I sent him off with a $40 check for his lunch account, and $5 in case he needed to ride the city bus home, or buy a cold drink if he decided to walk to a friend's house. (Neither of these things would cost $5, but J will only spend what he needs to spend.) His best friend from last year is going to a different high school this year. Last year they would walk to the friend's house and I would pick J up after work. In return, I would pick up the friend in the mornings and drive him to school.

And it was a welcome surprise, too. It is not a large raise, it equates to an additional $60 per month in take home pay. It is going into savings.

In other good news, I was able to buy my replacement car remote battery for $1.38. Thanks, Lucky Robin! That was a great tip.

I have been thinking about my circumstances, and I have decided to make no mortgage chips whatsoever at this time. Instead, I will focus on increasing my cash accounts and my Roth. Now, paying my mortgage online makes it difficult to resist rounding up a bit. To avoid this temptation, I set up an automatic transfer for my mortgage payments. They will be paid on the 5th of each month, without a single extra cent.

So here is my budget for August and going forward:

Utilities are over again. I expected this as the charge for my early termination fee posted. I expect it next month too, because this month I switched from AT & T internet to Comcast internet, and they will bill me $120 for a modem. Why would I do this? Well, even though I am paying $48 some months and $58 other months for high-speed internet, that isn't what the test says. The test says I am getting less than 1 mbps. Less than 1! No, thanks. My new Comcast internet is much faster (haven't tested it, but it is a noticeable difference) and I will be paying $33 per month, but plus taxes I think. So I will save the cost of the modem in 6 or 8 months, and then be ahead. And much better service all the while.

Still need to improve on groceries, or admit that I can't and budget accordingly.

Everything else this month is just 2 items, my car registration ($138) and my garage door repair ($168). I needed a new spring. I could have replaced only the broken spring for $116, but it seemed smarter to replace its twin at the same time. I went over, but I did not pull from CurveBall to cover either of these.

Debt is up.
Cash is down.
Investments are up.
Home Zestimate is down.



What is that? Is that a new low for my home value? Yes, I believe that is what we are seeing.

Millions of adoring fans e-mailed me asking how I liked my Ting service. (OK, Ruthie asked today in a comment.) But she is right, I should give some feedback. I heard about Ting right here at Saving Advice, on someone's blog.

I switched to Ting on June 19th, just over 1 month ago. So far, the service is absolutely fine. No dropped calls, no problems getting service out of my area, and that includes Honolulu and Kona.

With Ting, you choose a package size for your minutes, your texts, and your data. You pay $6 per phone line per month.

I have 3 phones, and we chose 1000 minutes, 1000 texts, and no data.

My first bill was $29.95. It should have been more, but they only charged me for 1 line instead of 3. I called and asked, and I was told I would be charged the next month.

When I called, a real live person answered. I don't mean they eventually answered after I navigated a menu tree, either. I was stunned.

My second bill was $49.27. This included the missing $12 charge from the first month, two $1 charges for directory assistance (in Hawaii), and a credit for $9. We didn't use all of our minutes the first month, we used only 456 minutes. The next smaller package from the one I chose is 500 minutes. I suspect if I had gone over 500 minutes, I would not have received any credit. There are no rollover minutes.

I expect from now on, my bill will be right at $44 per month. Unless I keep getting those $9 credits, that is.

Anytime you wish, you can go to Ting's website and view your dashboard, which shows you clearly how many minutes, texts, and megabytes you have used, and how many days until your next bill.

You may change any of your packages whenever you like. The changes will not take effect until your next bill.

And they have finally added another flip phone. (So people won't have to troll for a used one in Ting's forums like I did.)

So yes, I am very pleased with my new cell phone service provider. I would recommend Ting to anyone trying to trim the cost of their cell bill.

I emailed Wells Fargo's customer service yesterday about my escrow account, asking for an analysis. I received a reply today that there is $854.09 too much in there and I will be receiving a check in a week or two. When that comes, I will go ahead and send it on to my Chase Freedom Visa. So it looks like no further balance transfer checks nor dips into CurveBall will be necessary. Yay! Now I have to tackle that Citi MC.

I did my secret shop this morning, and have another one scheduled tonight. The one tonight pays $10 plus reimburses me if I have to buy the product. (I may not need to, that is the point of this particular shop. They want to know if the store is selling popular items before the actual release date.)

My garage door has decided to stop opening. I suspect it needs a new spring. I have scheduled a repair person for Friday afternoon.

I have a situation in my hall bathroom. Someone installed the tub/shower combo incorrectly, and water was leaking into the wall. The gap has now been sealed, but I am suspicious about what may be lurking in the wall. I am going to have someone who knows what they are doing come and take a look. I hope there is no expensive repair required, but if there is, then there is. I don't think it is wise to put off a repair of that sort if it is warranted. I'm not sure how I will fund it, but first I need to find out if there is damage or not.

The battery in my car key remote has died. I have had my car 7 years now, so that is reasonable I suppose. I can lock the car just fine by, gasp, inserting the key and turning my wrist. However, I can't set the alarm. I'm not certain how much that will set me back.

So now you know everything.

On Friday, I did not leave work until 4pm, even though we closed at noon. I continue to fight an uphill battle trying to keep everything caught up.

Friday was payday, so I did a wallet sweep. I had $9 in bills plus coins to deposit, but the line was so long I just deposited the bills at the ATM and saved the coins for another time. This wallet sweep went to Mini E-Fund.

My paycheck was for only 10 days for the second time in a row! The next one will be for 12, but I still lose one day on the deal. My net pay went down exactly $20 as I expected, due to bumping up my Simple IRA contribution by $25.

Yesterday I drove up to camp to pick up J. The camp is located a bit more than 3 hours away. It was his third year and he had another fabulous time. By the time he shows me around and I chat with counselors, a few hours slip by. So picking him up is an all day event.

Today I sat down to pay bills and make transfers. It felt great to transfer $359 to CurveBall. It did not feel so great to write a big check to Chase Freedom. I paid most of the balance, but wrote a balance transfer check from Citi MC for $433. They are no longer offering me 0%, but did offer me 1.99%. I could have looked for another 0% offer from someone else, but I don't want to have a balance here, there, and everywhere. I also have to pay a 3% balance transfer fee. Mathematically, it would have made more sense to skip the CurveBall transfer and just squeeze out another $433. However, my savings is already below my comfort zone, so I didn't do that.

When I get my August statement, I will be facing the same choice. Not all of my vacation charges had posted before the statement cut off and I do not pay charges which are not yet on the statement.

My car insurance is due 8/5. I will charge it just before it is due, then that charge will show up on September's statement. Car insurance money will be coming from CurveBall.

I also received my last AT & T wireless bill! I was expecting it to be for $114, early termination fee on J's contract. It was for $122, which was a $110 early termination fee plus $12 in "taxes". It will automatically bill my credit card at the end of the month, and that is it, all done.

My car registration was due this month to the tune of $138. I did not pull from CurveBall for this, it fits neatly inside "Everything Else". I just have to watch my Everything Else spending this month, since there isn't much left.

So lots of money out. What about money in?

When my new mortgage closed, I expected a new escrow account would fund and my old escrow account would be returned to me. Instead, the new escrow money went into the old escrow account. A few days after closing, they transferred my old escrow account into my new one. It now has way too much money. I expect they will refund about 1k.

No payment from daughter and son-in-law yet.

Ex-h will reimburse half of J's camp ($242.50) at some point.

I need to decide if I am going to pursue recovering half of the cost of my new fence ($630) from my neighbor or not. Even though by law she should share the cost, I know it will make her angry and she will likely try to cause more problems. I'm not sure it is worth it.

I signed up for a secret shop this morning. I don't do them often but this one is for a business just 2 blocks from my office. It is a fast food restaurant. I will have to spend my own money, but will be reimbursed plus paid $5. It is an easy shop.

I should spend the rest of my day doing chores around the house. We'll see if that happens or not.

Well, it's not my best month, but here it is:



My comments:

Wages - Had a 10 day pay period.

Utilities - This includes the cost of J's and my new Ting cell phones. It also includes a month of Ting's service on top of a month of AT & T's service. With AT & T, you pay after you have received service. With Ting, you pay before. I am still expecting an early termination fee of $114, but I haven't been billed for that yet.

Groceries - Not as great as it seems, since we were gone for the last week. We purchased groceries on vacation too, but I threw that in with other vacation expenses.

Visa allowance - I picked up a few clothing items for J and for myself. I did not count these under vacation.

Everything Else - Wowza. This includes $485 for J's summer camp, $101 for the dentist, an oil change, and $3745 on vacation. This number includes the $800 cash I withdrew from Vacation Fund before we left.

The biggest single expense in there was a decision I made after arriving. One of the main things J and I really wanted to do was to go on a Lost tour. We are fans of the show, it was filmed mostly on Oahu, and you can take a tour of many of their shoot sites. Well, since we arrived in Oahu around noon on one day, planned to see Pearl Harbor the next, and were flying on to the big island at noon on the third day, there just wasn't going to be time. This was a huge mistake on my part, I should have had the agent book us one more day on Oahu and one day less on the big island to start with. But, I didn't. So on the day we arrived, I made the decision to change our accommodations and take the 8 hour Lost tour. Between the tour, changing air tickets, and paying for another night at the hotel at the regular rate (the package rate didn't apply), it was expensive. I regret the extra expense I caused myself by not planning better, but I don't regret that tour; it was fabulous. I think I would have really regretted going to Hawaii and not taking that tour.

The second biggest expense in there was scuba diving. My cousin's family was going, and J really wanted to do it too. I was a little hesitant for him to go, so I asked BF to go along and I treated him. That was only right as BF had not planned to scuba dive. I felt reassured to know BF would be J's diving partner and would be keeping a close eye on him. There are instructors diving too, of course, who also monitor everyone. So the scuba diving for two set me back $500.

Even though some of my vacation spending did not post until July, I have included it all in June. I thought it made sense to have it grouped together.

So, there you have it.

Well, I've been home for a few days. We had fun, but did more activities and less lounging about than I would have liked. I worked Thursday and Friday, took it easy Saturday, drove son to camp Sunday.

What can I say about the trip? We had a great time, and I spent too much money. My camera was in BF's jacket pocket, and he left his jacket in my cousin's dining room! So I did take pictures, just not with my camera. I have to wait for others to share with me. It is so frustrating!

We did a lot of snorkeling. We went ziplining and scuba diving. We went to Pearl Harbor. We did the 8 hour "Lost" tour. We went to a luau. And, I had a delicious mango margarita at a Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.

Hawaii certainly is beautiful. Our condo rentals on the big island were very luxurious. Our hotel rooms in Honolulu were right on Waikiki beach. My son had the time of his life. We made a lot of wonderful family memories. I'm so glad my mom went.

I have been waiting for one more vacation expense to post. We had a limo service bus pick us up from my cousin's house and take us to the airport. She paid. When we returned home, the same service met us at the airport and took us back to cousin's house. I was supposed to pay. However, they have never charged me. I suspect that they charged cousin's credit card again. I called the limo service today and they are looking into it. Once that posts, I will have my final tally.

My remaining vacation fund balance will not cover my Visa bill; not even close. I think I will be doing a balance transfer to Citi MC and limping along with credit card debt a while longer. I will divert my vacation savings deposit towards credit card debt until it is paid in full.

Today, BF listed a piece of property his mother owned with an agent. (Not the house, 40 some acres of timberland.) I hope it sells quickly, I want my 6k back!

My new mortgage did fund right on schedule.

I actually took the time to note my net worth figures on 6/30/12, while I was on vacation in Hawaii!

Debt is up.
Cash is down.
Investments are up.
Home Zestimate is down.

I activated the two phones I purchased new from Ting this evening. UPS says my package is arriving tomorrow. So assuming the seller didn't just send me a box of rocks, I should be able to activate that one tomorrow. My new monthly cell bill will be $41 plus taxes. Buh-bye, AT & T!

Here is my new monthly budget starting in July (except that in July I will pay off Citi MC and pay for Ting phones and breaking contract with AT & T, since no mortgage payment is due).




Isn't this a nice change? Look at that new monthly deposit to savings number! This is much, MUCH better.

Other changes:

*smaller take home pay, since I will be bumping up my Simple IRA contributions by $50 per month. I estimate this will cost me $40 in take home pay.

*new lower mortgage payment

*new lower utilities budget, which I totally think I can do!

*gym membership is gone for now. I am walking the trail near my house and using Wii Fit instead.

*monthly Roth contribution is going up.

I am so tickled about these changes. I am looking forward to updating my sidebar under "Debts". That's how you know for certain that I am a nerd.

Well, I was able to purchase a flip phone for my mom used, from another Ting customer. He made a small profit at my expense, but I am still ahead, so I am OK with that. The phone shipped today and should be in my hot little hands in the next day or two.

I was a bit nervous about the transaction, because what if the other party stiffed me? But he forwarded his confirmation email from Ting from when he purchased the phone, so I knew that he had one a few weeks ago. That made me feel better. He emailed me Saturday that he had received the cashier's check I mailed him, and that he would ship the phone today. I checked with UPS and he did ship me a package this afternoon. So I guess my gamble has paid off.

Tonight I need to charge the phones I bought for J and myself, then make sure I have a good list of all my contact phone numbers. I don't know if I can simply transfer the data or not. But I don't have a whole lot of numbers in my phone, so if I have to key them in again, its no big deal.

I am anxious now to get my service switched over and start enjoying my new much lower cell bill.

Yesterday I bought myself a big floppy hat and some water shoes, as well as a couple of brightly colored shirts. I picked up a few things for J as well. I paid for them with gift cards I got for free as a credit card sign up bonus. I just love credit card rewards!

Tonight I plan to swing by Target and pick up some snorkeling gear. It will be cheaper to buy our own than to rent by the hour. Maybe I will try to sell it as we are leaving. I surely don't have much use for it at home.

I transferred $800 from vacation fund to checking, which I will withdraw over the next few days. I will try to spend no more than that, so that the rest of the money in Vacation Fund will be the start of our next vacation. But if I go over, then I do. Some of the activities are expensive. I try to choose wisely, but can't say no to everything. If I did that, we might as well just stay home.

I pulled $485 from CurveBall for J's camp. I had put it on my Visa and it was time to pay up. Ex-h says he will pay half but it will be over the next few months. Whatever.

My brother had 2 new grandbabies on the same day last week. The babies are cousins. One of my nieces had a c-section scheduled, her sister went into early labor the same day. The babies were born in the same hospital, too. We have some sweet pictures of them all swaddled and lying next to each other. Both babies are perfectly healthy. That makes an even dozen grandbabies for my brother! And 15 great nieces and nephews for me. If I never have a grandchild of my own to spoil, I will spoil the greats instead.

Still waiting for Ting to have a flip phone available.

J's phone arrived yesterday. I looked it over, and you know, I think it will be just fine for me. So I ordered one for myself.

I went to AT & T's website, and apparently I can switch my Mom to a prepaid plan using the same phone she has now. So that is what I am going to do in the meanwhile. Hopefully, Ting will come through with a flip phone soon.

I have AT & T for internet too. It is so slow, and I pay $48 some months and $58 other months. It is supposed to be high speed, but that is a laugh. I did a test, and I download at a rate of less than 1 mbps! Comcast is available in my area. I can get service with a speed of up to 20 mbps for $33 per month plus taxes, no contract. So a little less than I pay now and faster internet. Sign me up.

Went to my notary appointment on Friday. The docs are signed, notarized, and shipped via Fedex. I won't close until June 29, but that's fine.

On Sunday, BF and I were doing some yard work, and he said to me "I have an idea. Why don't we use these rocks to make pavers?" What a good idea! I want some pavers, I don't want the rocks, and I want to spend as little as possible. All I need is cement mix and a form.

My daughter and son-in-law got their keys today. BF will be helping them move tomorrow while I am at work.

Work is so hectic right now. The other staff accountant is on vacation, so I am covering for her. We have hired a just-graduated-from-high-school girl to be our fill-in receptionist. She was off today, so I covered for her too. She will be there tomorrow though. In two weeks, the other staff accountant will be book at work and I will be off on my vacation! Can't hardly wait.

I called Ting's customer service line today. They don't know when the flip phone will be available. The man I spoke said it could be today, or it could be a few weeks. Apparently, they are having supply issues.

Based on that, I went ahead today and ordered the Kyocera Brio phone they have available now for my son. I haven't ordered any service, just the phone. The price was $70.00 plus tax, free shipping. It has a QWERTY keyboard for texting, and I didn't want to risk them running out of that by the time they get the flip phone in stock.

I decided to just get a simple flip phone for myself as well as for my mother. The Brio doesn't close, it's kind of like a Blackberry. I don't think it would do well in my purse. And truthfully, I will be just as happy with the simple phone.

So I will just keep checking their site each day for the flip phone. As soon as they have it, I will order two of them and sign up for service.

My sign-at-home mortgage docs arrived yesterday.

My new principal balance is $180,415.20. My new PITI payment is $1081.62.

Why the difference? Well, despite telling me they would transfer my existing impound account, they have added the funds for a new impound account to my balance. This means I will not have to make an additional deposit in a few months. It also means I will receive a refund from my existing impound account. The balance in the account is $1036.15.

If I look at my current principal balance, it is $178,617.49. The interest which will accrue in June will be $781.46. The new impound account is being funded with $1,243.47. Those three numbers add to $180,642.42, which is $227.22 less than the principal balance of my new mortgage. So, there really are no fees with this streamline refinance.

My AT&T contract is now up (on 2 of our 3 phones), so I went to Ting's website last night, intending to sign up. They have eliminated the simple flip phone! I did find a thread in their forums stating they have replaced the one they offered (a Vero) with a different simple flip phone (a Samsung m370). However, it does not appear on the screen as a choice. So I'm trying to find out what the deal is with that. My mother will not use a phone with a million buttons. She just wants something simple with large buttons.

I'm not too displeased with how I did in May. The huge overage in "Everything Else" is due to paying for vacation (planned and saved for), paying for son's summer camp (planned and saved for), and lending $500 to daughter and son-in-law (unplanned). If not for those, I would be under $200. What is left is the dentist and medical co-pays.

But I've been slipping in groceries. I've been a little too willing to pick up convenience foods at the grocery store, and even take n bake pizza at Papa Murphy's. And it shows. So, I've got to knock that off and stay under $450.

Well, my Simple IRA money ($2,215.35) did not make it in time to show up on this net worth statement.

My cash is down due to paying for our Hawaii trip.

Investments are down due to market movements.

House value is down.

Car value is up. This continues to surprise me. I've done much better on the car I purchased new than the foreclosed house I purchased at a steep discount! Lol, who'd have ever suspected such a thing could be true?

Debt is down, but will soon jump up a little.

All in all, my net worth is sagging. It is frustrating, but ups and downs are to be expected. I am looking forward to my refi being done, switching my cell plan from AT & T to Ting, and switching my gym membership. Between the 3, I will be able to make nice increases to my monthly savings deposits.

My boss gave me checks for last year's matching and this year's contributions; I mailed them off yesterday. I hope they will hit my account before my next net worth statement, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter. Either way, the money will be invested soon.

My daughter called over the weekend and said they don't have enough cash to drive out here, rent the house, and get settled, so can they just stay with me for a month? I asked how much she was short. Basically, another $500 would make it work. I had a better idea. I sent a $500 cashier's check to the property manager yesterday, towards their deposit. I raided Mini E-Fund (Piddly Fund re-christened) for most of it. Daughter and son-in-law are to repay me $250 July 1 and $250 August 1. They are finishing packing today and will hit the road early tomorrow. They should be here on Saturday.

I have nothing else to report. My life is kind of boring. :P

I was just looking over my bill book and I see that I have paid everything this month except for Citi MC. (That bill barely makes it before the 30th!) I looked in my checking account and saw that I had $783.76. A balance like that makes me feel rich. Feeling rich leads to spending splurges.

I don't like my balance to get too low, but I don't need that much sitting there. So I transferred $50.00 to the old E fund, and $83.76 to CurveBall. That leaves me $650 and 1 bill to pay with 8 days of May to go.

(I like some "slush" in checking because the first of the month is much tighter than the middle of the month for me. If I actually spent that entire $650 during May, I'd be in trouble.)

I saw this today. It made me chuckle, so I thought I would share.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/couple-has-nest-egg-of-debt...

I received my good faith estimate and some other documents. In 2-3 weeks, I should receive the loan docs in the mail. I need to sign and have them notarized (will make appt for this at the local WF branch), then send them back. I am supposed to close June 30th! They are adding on June's interest to my balance and I skip a payment in July. They will transfer my existing escrow account, so I will be short one monthly deposit (from skipping in July). They will do an analysis a month or so after closing, and I will need to send some money.

My new PITI is $1077.92.

My daughter found a house to rent in a small town about a 30 minute drive from here. Her father met with the realtor today to view it (he is a deputy, and is currently assigned nearby). He said the carpet is a bit worn, but otherwise it is a-ok. New appliances and linoleum, and clean. The realtor emailed the lease to her today, she will overnight it with the deposit, and they will hold the house for her until June 15. She should be moved in before then. Yay! They will stay with me for a day or two after they arrive from Indiana, but then will be moving into their rented house.

I did a wallet sweep today, and sent the proceeds ($4.62) off to CurveBall.

I found this blog recently, and am fascinated. This family of 4 lives on one part-time income. They paid 13k cash for their fixer-upper house in a very rural area.

http://www.budgetingwiththebushmans.com/

I don't think I would like living in a town of 100 people unless a much larger town was close by. However, it makes me wonder...could I save up some cash and buy an inexpensive small home for myself? Like a little 900 sq ft place with hardwood floors built in the 40s? Hmmm.

This morning, I discovered that Admiral shares are not available in Simple IRAs! Hmmmmph. So I am just sticking with the Target Retirement fund. Oh well, it isn't as if the TR fund is expensive. At .21, it is one-fifth the cost of the American Funds TR I had at Edward Jones. And of course, I have escaped that nasty front-end load. All in all, still very pleased to have moved my Simple to my beloved Vanguard. Now to get my contributions (via payroll deduction) flowing into my new Simple regularly. My boss still has not cut a check to Vanguard. I didn't want to have to ask, but here we are. I know he does payables on or near the 15th. I am all set up, so I want my contributions deposited promptly.

Remember when I cancelled my land line a few months back? Remember my saying I must have overpaid my last bill because AT& T sent me a check for $.05? Well, I have receieved another check marked "overpayment refund", this time for $3.99. I'm not complaining, but I really don't know how that is possible. I have added it to CurveBall.