Bloom Where You Are Planted

So I continue to mull over the Harp 2 refinance thing. I have learned that the loans are at market rates and the fees are typical. So I could snap up a 4% 30 year fixed or 3.3875% for a 20 year fixed.

I have to say, that 20 year loan is tempting. The rate is unbelievable, and even with no prepayments, I would be done with my mortgage shortly after my 65th birthday. The payments would be slightly less than now (about $10 - $15 per month), and I could stop looking for ways to chip at my mortgage and instead look for ways to save a bit more.

On the other hand, going with the 30 would free up $177 per month due to the lower payment. I could use those dollars towards retirement savings and really give my nest egg a boost. Once my IRA is maxed for the year, there would be nothing preventing me from paying down the mortgage some. Having a lower minimum payment would also come in handy in the event I become unemployed at some point.

I make up my mind one way, then change it again.

Today I did a wallet sweep and chipped $4.07 from my mortgage. Not much, but something. I chipped a little interest I received, too. I hadn't mentioned it, but I have increased my budgeted monthly payment from $1274 to $1284, so a little more will be gained there.

In Harp 2.0 news, it seems that Wells Fargo will not be ready to roll until March now. Unfortunately, new fees for Fannie and Freddie loans (which are funding the Jan - Feb payroll tax cut) begin in mid February. That will add about 1k to my cost if I decide to do the refi. I suppose I should do the refi even so, as dropping from 5.25 to 4.0 on 180k of debt is significant.

I have to say, I do not relish the idea of starting over AGAIN with a new mortgage. I bought my first home in 1989 and diligently chipped away. That equity eventually went into my second home. I didn't chip much on that one, but that mortgage was much smaller than the one I have now. My ex-husband has a very sweet pension too, so I wasn't particularly worried about making the payments. Now at nearly 45 and divorced, the thought of a brand new 30 year mortgage is a bit icky. So I think, well, I'll do a 20. But then I look at my nest egg and think hmmm, maybe that new lower payment would be better because I can feed my nest egg more. I don't know that I am going to live here forever, anyway.

Well, eleven days into the new year and so far, I have been careful with my spending.

I was looking at my checking account balance, and looking forward to my first paycheck of the new year, when I realized it will be a 10 day paycheck. Bleah! January will be a little tighter than I had thought. Thankfully, the second paycheck of the new year will be a 12 day paycheck.

I received an email from Geico that my next car insurance policy is available for my viewing pleasure. I logged on and was very pleased to note that the price has dropped approximately $100! Yay. I can't complain much about that.

I am getting ready to get J off to his dad's, his first day back to school tomorrow, and myself off to work. Last year, I racked up 78.25 hours of OT. This year, I expect to rack up more as my responsibilities keep snowballing. (At times, I find this frustrating.) Last year, between OT pay and my bonus, I cleared 4k (just barely). I have my income tax refund on the horizon too. It is time to begin considering how best to use this extra 6k - 7k. I will give $300 to J (his annual "allowance"). But other than that, every cent of it will go to some savings account, retirement account, or debt. My task is to slice it up wisely. I must send a minimum of $1800 off to my Roth, as that is the shortfall between my budgeted monthly contribution and my planned minimum annual contribution.

So I suppose I am thinking:

$1900 CurveBall
1800 Roth
1000 Traditional
700 Vacation
300 Mortgage
300 J
-----
$6000 Total

I "borrowed" $700 from Vacation a few months back, and would like to repay it.

BTW, J tucks his allowance into his mutual fund account and his savings account. What a good kid.

A few small chips this month from interest and Lending Club. Next month I will break 180k! That will be fun.

It has been a full year of blogging and budgeting now. I started using Mint in December 2010 and started this blog for good measure. Even though I am 44 years old, 2011 was the first year I kept a written budget.

When I began, I had $4460.69 of credit card debt. Now I have $1523.00. If I had not enrolled in a CPA Review course and charged it, I would now be credit card debt free again.

(Have I sat for the exam? No. Am I ready to sit for the exam? No. So the books and I have a study date. I can't focus on that right now, but once another tax season is behind me, I have to hit those books. I want to pass and be done with the exam in 2012.)

How has it worked for me? Well, I feel both the budget and blog really helped me rein in my spending. It's not that I didn't overspend, it's that when I overspent, I recognized it. And overspending was typically followed by penny pinching to ease some of the fiscal pain. There is still lots of room for improvement. In 2012, I want to find more dollars for saving/investing/prepaying the mortgage. And let's face it, if I can penny pinch after overspending, then I can penny pinch without overspending. I still want to have fun and enjoy myself, but I also want to make more significant progress towards my ultimate minimum financial goals (600k traditional, 150k Roth, no mortgage).

I will turn 45 in 6 weeks, so I'm just 20 years away from the time I would like to retire.

I have been plugging my budget numbers into a big spreadsheet all year. Now that the year is over, I can look back and see how I did. The spreadsheet is big, so what I am sharing here is my YTD Variance.



What this means:

Wages - I earned $482 less than budgeted
Child Supt - I received $452 more than budgeted
Miscellaneous - I received $11,733.43 more than budgeted. (This is my bonus, my seasonal overtime, my income tax refund, and all small streams of income.)
Mortgage - I paid an extra $442.43
Groceries - I spent $3 less than budgeted
Utilities - I spent $224 more than budgeted
Visa - I spent $700 more than budgeted
Savings - I saved $288 more then budgeted
Cr Crd Debt - I paid $2476 more than budgeted
Cash Allow - I spent $200 more than budgeted
Roth - I contribued $2550 more than budgeted. (My budgeted amount would not allow me to hit my target of 3k per year. So this is necessary)
Medical CoPays - I spent $200 less than budgeted, but I did away with this category and lumped it into "Everything Else".
Travel - I saved $400 less than budgeted
Pest - Exactly as budgeted
Gym - I spent $17 more than budgeted, because of the partial month at sign up.
Life Ins - Exactly as budgeted
Everything Else - I spent $5593 more than budgeted.

So all in all, I spent/saved $11,887.43 more than budgeted, and received $11,703.43 more than budgeted.

In 2012, I want to work on not spending more than budgeted and trimming expenses so I can find more dollars to save/invest/prepay mortgage.

This time around, "Everything Else" includes $1410 for my fence, $479 for car repairs, as well as lots of miscellaneous. Doctor co-pays, J's yearbook, Christmas gifts.

I was way over on groceries.

This is a little something I like to do at the end of the year. I take my ending nest egg balance, I assume different rates of return, and I see how I am doing. In this first chart, I assume I contribute $3240 per year to my tax-deferred accounts (that's $1800 plus $1440 match) and $3000 per year to my Roth. That is what I am doing now, so I assume I simply continue.



I would like to retire at 65 with a minimum of 600k in traditional and 150k in my Roth. It is possible I will reach that with what I am doing right now, though it is far from certain. Looking at the chart, it seems to me that right now, if I have extra dollars to contribute, they should go into traditional. However, I also want to have no mortgage. If I hit age 65 with a mortgage, I will feel comfortable withdrawing any amount over 150k from my Roth to apply to the mortgage.

If I simply am too far from my goals at age 65, I will have to keep working, assuming I can find work. Working until age 67 won't be horrible, but I would rather not.

And if I completely stop contributing right now, this is how my nest egg might look down the road.



Traditional doesn't look too much worse, does it? The bulk of the growth in the future will come from what I have accumulated already. My Roth looks awful.

Conclusion: I have to keep contributing.

My new fence was installed today. Yay! I wrote a check for $1410. Hopefully, at some point, I will be reimbursed $630 from the neighbor. Last week, I learned that my neighbor's "main objection" to paying her share is her dislike of my nephew. I am not certain what one thing has to do with the other. At any rate, her son stated he will try to talk her into it, and if possible (he is unemployed) he will pay it himself. I am not going to do anything for now, but when tax season is over, I will contact her again and state that if it is not paid, I will proceed with the legal remedies available to me.

What else? I received a crisp $100 bill in the mail inside a Christmas card from a client. This is the same client who sent me $100 last year. What a nice man! I would love to tuck it into my Roth. However, since CurveBall is poor and since January's Visa bill will include a $479 charge for my new brakes, I am going to tuck it into CurveBall.

I decided to close my Betterment account and will tuck that money into CurveBall as well.

We had a lovely, low-key Christmas. I never did get around to putting up the tree or opening my Christmas decoration storage tubs. On Friday as I was leaving the office, I realized that we would be throwing away the poinsettias on Tuesday. Therefore, I took 5 of them home with me. I put 4 of them on the "shelf" (a wall which does not quite reach the ceiling) between my living room and kitchen, and the 5th one on the kitchen table as a centerpiece. That was it for decorations.

Christmas Eve night is when my ex-husband's family does their gift exchange. After ex-husband picked up J to take him to his grandparents' house, I wrapped his iPad2 (only present) and put it under the poinsettia on the table! I had a card with a Microsoft points card for my nephew and put that under it too.

Christmas morning my mom and ex-husband came over. J opened his present and BF and I made breakfast. After breakfast ex-husband left. We played cards, watched Phantom of the Opera, and put our dinner in the oven around 4. My mom had made a pork roast, sweet potatoes, and a peach pie the day before and brought them with her. I made a salad. When everything was warm, dinner was served.

We had our company Christmas party this past Saturday night. It was fun and my dinner was delicious. I received a Christmas bonus of $1750, same as last year. For now, I used it to pay bills. On payday, I will send $1450 to CurveBall. I do have a fence to replace and my car insurance is due in February. BF borrowed $300 last week which he will repay soon and that will go to CurveBall as well. More on that below.

I bought J's iPad2 on Sunday. With a cover, 2 year warranty, and tax it came to $825. I used $500 of Best Buy giftcards bought with credit card reward points. Ex-h is contributing $150 so my out of pocket is $175. Also, for purchasing the cover I received a $50 Best Buy gift card which I used to buy Microsoft points for nephew for Christmas. (That's what he said he wanted). I will send my daughter a check for $150. And that is it, I am done Christmas shopping.

BF was here over the weekend but left this morning to go back to his house. He has a meeting tomorrow with a real estate agent at the house. He had his mother's jewelry appraised and is in the process of selling it. She had some collectible guns which he has taken to a gun store to sell on consignment. He has been gathering up items of value to sell on e-bay, some are already listed and receiving bids. He has been working on getting the corporation documents in order (family business, now defunct but still owns real estate). So he has been getting the ball rolling. He says it feels really good to finally be making some progress. He will be receiving a check next week which represents the last of his IRA money. I lent him $300 to hold him over until he receives it. His checking account was overdrawn. He has also decided to sell his car. He has a car and a truck. He loves the car but needs the truck, so the car has to go for now. He has lost a great deal of money by procastinating dealing with all of this and living off of his savings. His reasoning was that he didn't have time for a job until he settled the estate, but he wasn't doing a thing about settling it. And so here we are. Fortunately for him, he should still come out of this with a significant chunk of cash and his share of the corporation. I told him when the house sells, he needs to take his share and set it aside, investing it sensibly. Then get a job rather than live on his little nest egg. He says he will. I hope that he does, but that is entirely up to him.

My brakes were making a funny noise, so I dropped my car off this morning to be checked out. The verdict: I need new rear rotors and pads, and in the front just new pads. The estimate is $479.

BF has been getting a lot done each and every day, he texts me updates through the day. I am so pleased that he is moving ahead and making real progress with his huge "to do" list.

Our company Christmas dinner is tomorrow night. It should be fun.

Another mortgage payment down, just a wee bit of chipping progress. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed when I look at this big number.

The "unspent" money went to paying off last month's credit card purchases. The charges are all categorized as they are made.

A few days after we broke up, BF sent me a long email taking responsibility for his inaction and told me that he has been struggling with depression. Looking back, I realized that he had tried to tell me about the depression before but that I didn't "get" what he was saying. He doesn't seem depressed at all when we are together, but looking at it in that light, I can see that many of his actions (or inactions) fit with depression symptoms.

His life is a big mess right now, and much of it is his own making.

We are going to work things out, but on the condition that he seek professional help for his depression and stop procrastinating in....settling his mother's estate. His mother died 5 years ago, he is the executor, and this is still not done.

He is finally taking steps with both of those things.

Wish me luck!

I paid the last two November bills tonight. I have been very careful with every dollar all month and I was able to send Citi MC the $124 regular payment plus the new charges in full! So that train has not been de-railed at all. Yay!

I paid Chase Freedom in full only by pulling $700 from vacation savings. So that is not so yay.

I did not contribute to Roth or any savings, other than the few "extra" dollars I sent to CurveBall (credit card rewards, class action lawsuit, change from my wallet).

My monthly budget report will be good news for a change.

In other news, I broke up with my BF last night. I am sad and angry, but know it is for the best. I have been waiting for 17 months now for him to move in, and he just won't make any progress at all. It has been 2.5 months since I told him I was very tired of waiting and if he wanted to move in with me, he needed to do it. He promised no more video games until he moved in. I'll bet he has spent 100 hours playing video games in the past month, yet not 1 single hour doing anything move related.

Last week, when BF and I were at my cousin's for Thanksgiving, he casually mentioned in conversation that years ago when he broke up with a particular girlfriend, he moved out of their place in 24 hours. I said "Really? 24 hours?" and he said yes and launched into details. That remark made me very angry but I don't think he realized it.

Last night when I got home from work, I discovered that he had done nothing much all day yet again. And that was just the final straw, I felt very angry and I knew that I was done waiting. So I told him I had decided it would be a mistake for him to move all the way in and he should start moving out. I also said it was not fair to me that he makes promises but does not keep them. He was surprised and then I think a little angry, and he just looked at me. He slept on the couch last night, was still asleep this morning when I left the house, and is gone now. He hasn't moved anything that I can tell, but he had driven his car and left his truck and trailer at his house the last time he was there.

(That is another story. He has some important mail waiting for him at his p.o. box. The week before Thanksgiving, he would say each morning he would be gone when I got home, he needed to go get the mail and attend to the matter. Each evening he would still be at my house. Finally, when I got home that Friday, he was ready to go. I said "Tomorrow is my 1 day off this week (I had to work last Sunday), and NOW you are ready to go?" So he did stay, then went home on Monday. He came back Wednesday night because we were leaving Thursday morning for my cousin's house. Guess what he hadn't done? That's right, he hadn't gotten the mail. He went to the post office, discovered he must have lost his key, spoke to an employee and was told he needed a certain document (the p.o. box is in a corporate name, not his personal name) to get a new key. So he went home to get the document but was not able to find it. This is the sort of thing he does which makes me CRAZY.)

Do I sound angry? I am starting to have a lot of anger towards him, and I don't want that. He really is a lovely person with some fabulous qualities, but he is extremely unorganized and cannot manage his time at all. The breaking promises is a deal-breaker for me. If I was OK with that, I'd have just stayed married.

What I am most worried about is how my son J will take this news. He goes to his dad's house on Sunday afternoons and gets dropped off back here on Tuesday evenings. So in an hour or so, I will have to tell him. He and now Ex-BF had really bonded. I'm not going to make that mistake again.

Looking good on the spending front so far this month.

This was a good week for class action lawsuit settlement checks. In addition to the one from Dell, I got one for $18.04 from the credit card foreign transaction lawsuit as well. That one took a long time to settle. I went to Ireland in 2003 and was charged some foreign transaction fees on my Visa. I was notified about the lawsuit about 5 years ago. I have already tucked that into Curveball.

I received another $20.00 rewards check from Chase and will tuck that into Curveball today.

A few days ago, my niece and her husband drove down from where they live (Willits), picked up my nephew, and took him home to stay through Thanksgiving. This niece is his sister.

I have nothing else to report.

I got an email from Chase today, I have been approved for the Chase Southwest card! Whoo-hoo!! Now I hope that I can qualify for my gift cards in time to use them for J's iPad for Christmas. That probably won't work out, but I am hoping anyway.

Today I received 10 more decoy mail pieces! My biggest day yet (this time around). I have racked up $16.25 in earnings now.

I chipped my $8.00 from Dell today and updated my sidebar. Does my mortgage look exponentially smaller now? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Oh well, one chip after another and eventually I should get somewhere.

The best think I can say about my tax update class today is....my lunch was delicious!

Yesterday in the mail I received an $8.00 check from Dell for their class action lawsuit settlement. I happened to buy a laptop from them during the period covered in the lawsuit. I am going to use it for a mortgage chip tomorrow, even though I should just be saving it. I look at it as pleasure spending, because it gives me great pleasure to mortgage chip!

Tomorrow is the day more details about HARP changes are supposed to be released. I will be in a tax update class all day, so I won't get to read about it until tomorrow night. I have been thinking about my situation. While I would love to have a lower interest rate, I don't want to start over again with a new 30. So I was thinking I could calculate a 25 year payment and simply pretend that is my payment. My payment would still drop and I would be shaving a year or so (depending on how long the refi would take) from the end. What is not to love? Then I started wondering if they wrote the note for 25 years, would I get a slightly better rate? Will they even agree to write it for 25 years? I don't know, but I think it is worth asking. And of course, all of this is supposing HARP rates are not at a premium.

Since I became a HauserNet decoy mail agent again last December, my volume has been pretty low. I haven't been paid even once yet, because they won't cut a check for less than $10. Lately my volume has been picking up. Thursday I had 5 pieces, and yesterday I had 9! I now have 55 pieces in my stack, at .25 each that is $13.75. I expect I will get a check after this quarter ends.

So I got my 3 estimates, and I took copies next door to my neighbor. No one would answer the door, even though I am pretty sure they were at home. So I wrote a note and left it along with the estimates inside their security door but outside of their front door. It has been about a month, but no response from them.

So one day BF saw the neighbor's son in front of his house, BF asked him what he thought about the estimates. The neighbor's son denied ever having seen any estimates.

Two weeks ago, a fence board from another section of the fence fell into the neighbor's yard. I did not know this, and let the dogs into the backyard one evening. When I let them back in, there were only two dogs. I went into the back and observed the fallen board. I went into the house and reported this to BF, we walked over to the neighbor's front door and knocked. The neighbor's son came to the closed door and yelled "who is it?" BF yelled back "your neighbor". The son yelled "I can't open the door." So I yelled through the door "there is a board down. I think you have a dog in your back yard." He yelled back "no, I don't". I yelled "I think you do. Do you want to check?" he yelled "OK". BF and I waited. And waited. And then we waited. He never came back to the door to say anything at all. Eventually BF and I realized he had no intention of coming back, so we went back to my house and got a strong light and looked into the neighbor's back yard. The dog was gone. I think the neighbor let my dog out.

An hour or so later, I got a phone call from a woman living several blocks away, she had the dog (he has a tag on his collar with my cell number). We went and got him so it turned out fine.

We upended my picnic table to block the gap in the fence from the fallen board and braced it. The next morning we went to the hardware store and got another sheet of plywood to nail up. Now we have two. The fence is so ugly with the two sheets of plywood nailed up, but it does keep the dogs from escaping.

So, I think this is a tactic to get me to pay for the fence myself.

Yesterday I used my county assessor's website to look up her parcel and name. I didn't know her name, but now I do. I made more copies of the estimates, I printed out a copy of California Civil Code Section 841 which states that property owners are equally responsible for maintaining fences, and I wrote her a letter. I am going to send it certified mail with a return receipt on Monday.

In the letter, I state that I would like to know when she will be able to afford her half. I tell her my opinion on the estimates and ask for hers. I refer to the law and state that we are equally responsible. I state that while the plywood is ok for now, it is not an acceptable long-term solution. I tell her she is welcome to come to my house, write me, call me, or email me.

I think she is going to be very surprised that I found out her name. I think she is ignoring me and refusing to communicate on purpose, thinking I will just go away.

If she does not respond, then I will know my options are to forget about her paying her half or sue her. If I sue her and she still does not pay, I can put a lien on her house.

They are such yucky people! Bleah.

Since I am feeling blue about not making the financial progress I would like to be making, I pulled out my last checkstub and guesstimated my 2011 income tax returns. It looks as though I will be refunded a bit over 2k. That made me feel better! What to do with it? Easy! At the moment, I have contributed $2,950 to my Roth for 2011. Another $1,050 will be a nice little boost, and then 1k to traditional.

This will be nice, because it will be 1k more than planned to each, improving my chances of hitting my targets. Yay!

Well, here I am yet again with more expenses than cash on hand (in checking) to cover them. So far this month, I have been sticking carefully to my budget. Poor consolation after last month!

At the moment, I have $593.06 in checking. I have paid my mortgage and deducted my gym membership for the month. Still to receive in this month are two $1,512.41 net paychecks and two $226 child support checks. Still to pay out this month are utilities, my $1,326 Chase Visa bill, and my Citi MC debt payment. I put some of my charges on Citi MC, which I had resolved not to do, but there they are. So I am looking at increasing my revolving debt. I will have to increase my minimum payment to Citi as well, as I still intend to keep my Dec 2012 payoff date.

At first blush, it looks as though I can cover everything. But wait, I can't draw checking down to nothing as I will pay December's mortgage payment with my second paycheck of November. I need to leave a cushion.

What to do? Well, I will transfer some money from vacation savings and pay it back with my approaching Christmas bonus. I hate relying on a bonus to cover my overspending. I would much rather have the whole thing to save/invest. But this is the pickle I put myself into.

I dug out a purse from my purse bin and transferred my stuff into it from my summer purse. Guess what I found? A $50 Visa gift card from last Christmas. I remember Ex-H gave it to me (from J) and I wasn't able to figure out how to use it. I called and got it set up, and will use it the next time I buy gas. That will help me in December when it is time to pay for November's charges. J is turning 16 tomorrow! I plan to tell Ex-H that I think we can stop giving each other gifts from J now. This will make life simpler for both of us.

Every day after school, J walks to a friend's house. I pick him up there after school. I also swing by in the mornings and give that friend a ride to school. I think tomorrow I will take a long lunch and pick up some bakery cookies or other treat and swing by the friend's house, so that the treat is waiting as a surprise when J gets there after school. I will speak to the friend's dad tonight about it.

J has been having some acne problems, so I ordered him some Proactive (my cousin suggested it). It was worth every cent, it is really working. But that is another recurring expense for me to cough up.

I have been Googling for Cyber Monday deals. I have found an HP notebook for $399 from Amazon. I think it might be a great substitute for an iPad. I would want a cover for the iPad (more money) as J would be carting it around. I think a notebook would make more sense as it snaps closed. It is still lighter and smaller than a laptop. I think I will take J to look before we decide, but I will buy online to get a better price.

If I am approved for the Chase Southwest card, I will use my bonus points for giftcards and buy the notebook. Ex-H plans to contribute $150 to J's present, so I could use his cash elsewhere since the giftcards would cover the entire cost. I might not be approved, though. Chase might be tired of giving rewards away to me.

Speaking of, I hadn't received my 2,500 rewards points for opening a stamps.com account. I messaged a rep yesterday and today the points are in my account. I was able to cancel stamps.com without incident as well, so I feel the effort was worth $25.

It's very ugly. In addition to the items I mentioned in an earlier post (Blue Man Group tickets, Alcatraz excursion, replacing carpet padding, repairing & cleaning carpet, new winter clothes), I also had a big tune-up for my car (75k miles).

I am expecting a large Visa bill this month. I will not be able to pay in full unless I dig into savings, which I do not plan to do.

Well, what do you know? Remember when I said I had opened a Chase checking account to get $150? Well, apparently when you have a Chase checking account, you earn extra rewards points on your Chase Freedom card. Instead of earning 1% on everything, you earn 1.1%, plus 10 extra pts on every purchase. I had no idea! They have really been adding up. Just cashed in another 3,000 pts for $30.

I am very frustrated with my BF. He has so many wonderful qualities, BUT (you knew there was a "but", didn't you?) he is very unorganized and he has a habit of ignoring problems in the hope that they will just go away. We decided early last year that he would move in with me in June of last year. He has moved in most of his clothes, some of his kitchen stuff, and a few pieces of furniture. In 16 months. The bulk of his belongings are still at his house. He will stay at my house for 2 - 3 weeks, then go home for a few days. I told him about 6 weeks ago that I am tired of waiting. He has made one trip to move stuff since then. Just one. He did have a matter come up recently which required his attention, and he was gone for 2 weeks tending to that. The matter is not settled, but he did put in work on it. I don't want to say too much about his finances because they are his and not really my business, but it concerns me that he isn't terribly motivated to tend to them. He told me over a year ago he has some pressing things he must do, but he has yet to do them. Meanwhile, he has a lot of free time. He has a small business which he is trying to grow, and he does book a job from time to time, but I wouldn't even call it "part-time", it is more like "sometimes". He could be 100% moved if he wanted to. He could take care of his business matters if he wanted to. He would rather wait for the good fairy to come along and wave her wand and magically do it all for him.

He did release my cell phone numbers so that I could put my lines into my name. (One is mine, one is my son's, one is my mom's.) So now I will be paying $133 per month for that. That was the only bill of mine BF was paying. He does buy groceries sometimes. We had agreed he would pay me $500 per month towards expenses once he has moved in, but doesn't have it now because he is still paying for everything at his house. The same house he told me when we first met 2.5 years ago that he needs to sell. The same house which is full of stuff and not even ready to list.

Finally getting around to posting this one. Budget is next (sniff).

Have you heard the latest news from HARP? On 10/24/11, it was announced they are eliminating the 125% LTV cap. That was the one requirement which disqualified me from doing a refi under HARP. More details are to follow on 11/14/11. I am anxiously awaiting those details!

I already know that my lender is participating, that Freddie Mac owns my mortgage, that I have no late payments in the last 12 months, and that I have sufficient income. What I don't know is...will being upside down mean I will have to pay a premium rate? I only want the refi if I can snap up a nice 4% fixed rate loan. Otherwise, I will stick with what I have. I will have to wait and see.

I have been doing two things lately: neglecting my blog and spending money. Is there a direct correlation? I think so.

I bought both J (my son) and myself some new winter clothes. I spent about $250.

I spent $97 getting the carpet in J's room cleaned. It stunk to high heaven after my daughter and son-in-law left. After cleaning, it stunk less, but still was too stinky. I spent another $274 buying new padding, having it installed, and having one corner of the carpet repaired (I had a strip from last year when it was installed).

The Blue Man Group is coming to town. We wanted to see them last November when we went to Vegas, but the timing didn't work. I spent $192 buying tickets for J, BF, and myself to see them.

Last weekend, I went out to with some former co-workers to a nice dinner and drinks. We had a lovely time. Spent too much on the evening, though. They wanted to order Dom Perignon. I don't even like champagne, but they ordered a bottle and we split the tab. Yikes!

Tonight we (J, BF, my Mom, and myself) are driving "over the hill" to my cousin's house, she lives just a bit south of San Francisco. We will spend the night then go to Alcatraz in the morning. My cousin has a friend who is a docent at Alcatraz and we are getting a private tour. My cousin's daughter and her two teens are down visiting from Oregon, my cousin's son and his wife and daughter will be joining us too. We will be a motley crew. The tickets I bought were $102.50, my Mom will reimburse me for hers.

My cell phone was shut off on Oct 4th. On Oct 5th, I paid $345 to get it turned back on. Here is the scoop on that: My BF is about half moved in with me. He pays no rent. He buys groceries sometimes and he added my cell phone line, J's line, and my Mom's line on his account and has been paying the bill. When I had no phone service, I discovered that he hasn't paid in several months. We have very different approaches to money managment. I do not enjoy having my cell phone shut off. So I asked the phone company to put my 3 lines in my name. They won't until BF "releases the numbers" to me. He says he will do that. I reminded him yesterday and am still waiting. He frustrates me.

Ex-h and I had been planning to buy an iPad2 for our son for Christmas (splitting the cost). But now that the Kindle Fire is out, at a price $300 less than the iPad2, we are giving that a look.

Any tablet owners out there with an opinion?

EDIT: My son does not have his own laptop. So he borrows mine or BF's or his Dad's (when he is there). He loves to play games, and would also surf. Possibly, he might even do some homework. (Yeah, it could happen.) For word processing, he would just use my laptop.

Tonight the BF and I are heading south for a concert. Journey, Foreigner and Night Ranger. My third time to see Journey, but have never seen the other two. Really, at this point, Journey and Foreigner are tribute bands in my opinion. Even so, should be fun!

What has this to do with my finances? Um, nothing.

Update: The concert was great! We had a rocking good time.