Weekend flew by!

We both played as giant chess pieces!

 I spent the last week working 8-5pm at another building, then pulled almost a 12 hour work day on Saturday... add in church, & a visit with a couple friends on Sunday and my entire weekend disappeared. I need to refuel my batteries, but I don't think i'll get the chance to until mid week...

But I'm hoping to take the last few days left this month and refocus and get caught up. I owe you all a big end of month spending post (and boy did we spend money this month... Stupid desire to sew again...)

But my work event was fun and SCB really enjoyed the symphony music so I was glad he got to enjoy that... and i'll love the overtime from that first paycheck next month... (Which will make me feel much better about the gobs of money we spent this month and the hit our slush fund is taking).

Sitting before the concert!

Business Taxes

So its the end of the second quarter and I need to submit our business taxes to the good old state of California.

The electronic forms were pretty easy to file, but because we didn't sell a large volume of items, some of the areas were I had to fill out took me a few minutes to figure out what they wanted in which line and where.

All in all, we submitted $27.00 to the state and paid $1 processing fee to pay with our company card because I couldn't figure out our US BANK ACH routing number at 7 something in the morning before I ran out and off to work for the day.

So far our little pen turning business hasn't been bad. We almost had a large custom order but while I was showcasing some of his work, we ended up selling another pen and letter opener so we only have a few of those to offload.

I decided we should keep one of each item he makes as a "sample" product so people know what he's capable of making should they be interested at a later date :) It looks like we might have some corkscrew bottle openers around Christmas time for a custom order from some of my co-workers.

So far we have sold and collected $384.32 this year from SCB's wood turning and have spent $840.21on anything and everything wood turning related that we can deduct for tax purposes (This includes some tools and "pet projects" that weren't actually for selling, but given as gifts to let people know that he makes things and to practice his turning before we went to the farmers market).

So, as of now we are $455.89 away from breaking even and the cool thing about that is we have enough inventory on hand that we could get break even if we get a chance to sell everything he's made/can make.

And that my friends is the ultimate goal for now... to just have his business pay for itself this year while we test out inventory and prices :)

Mortgage Update (July, '12)

Mortgage Update:
Principle paid down: $162.63
Interest: $488.01
Additional Principle: $6.54 + 62.91

New Balance: $111,378.96

The overage paid to my property tax account was credited as a principle balance this month, which is where that extra $62.91 came from.


The pay off date is now December 2038 which is 9 months ahead of the initial schedule. If I continue to pay the minimum on my loan, I will pay $111,647.20 in interest instead of the original $116,404.23. The extra $1,454.32 I've tossed at the mortgage over the life of the loan has saved us $4,757.03 in interest. 

All in all, it took me $7,057.08 to get the keys to my condo... and another $17,672.29 to remodel and repair it...

In short, I was -$24,729.37 in the hole on day one... 

But thankfully the hole is getting filled in a little bit each and every year.

• In 2009 I got the First Time Home buyer's Credit giving us $8,000.00. I also got to write off some of the property tax I paid in addition to taking the standard deduction. This gave us an extra $90.10... but then I had to pay an Electrician $95.00 to fix an outlet... We ended 2009 with a refund from my botched tile job that gave us  another $1,265.00.
• In 2010 I saved $1,087.00 on my federal taxes and $461.00 on my State taxes from itemizing my homeowners expenses. (This is what I received ABOVE what I would have with just the standard deduction). 
• In 2011 I spent $12.97 at home depot, and $72.29 on a kitchen door, but I received a small $70 refund check from over paid closing costs. We also saved $494.04 by living in our condo instead of renting (See Mortgage Update + Condo Costs December '11 for that break down.) Since we tied the knot in 2011 we won't be able to itemize our housing costs so there's no savings there for us. 

so this leaves us $13,442.49 in the hole...

• If we assume our home is worth at least what we paid for it, then we have $8,621.04 in equity...

Leaving us about $4,821.45 in the hole after almost 3 years.

We also assume our monthly mortgage payments are a wash since its cheaper to OWN our home then to RENT an apartment. Check out Housing Comps 2012 for how we figured that one out.

Thus far for 2012 we have spent $7,600.12 to live in our condo (Instead of $9,756.95 for the apartment).

• All Mortgage Payments (including principle, interest, property taxes, MIP, and additional principle:) $5,659.38
• HOA: $1,837.50 ($262.50 a month)
• Home Repairs/Improvements: $103.24
• Earthquake Insurance: $0
• Homeowners Insurance: $0

Saving us $2,156.83 so far this year over renting.

If I sold the condo tomorrow, I'd have to sell the property for $132,128.20 to break even.

• This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,927.69)
• Enough money to refund the amount i'm in the hole for ($4,821.45)
• and enough money to cover the first time homeowners tax credit i'd have to repay for not living in the property for 3 years. ($8,000.00)

But if I wait out the credit, in November of this year I'd be able to sell for $122,218.62

• This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,333.12)
• and enough money to refund the amount I would be in the hole for 4 months down the line assuming I make just the minimum payments till then ($4,163.74)

Our Vacation!

Sorry for the delay, but as we all know, the first full week back from vacation is filled with nothing other than good intentions as you spend most of the week playing "Catch up" all over the place. So I now present, Our Vacation.

All in all we stayed in our trip budget of $500 of less and because South County Boy got paid for those 2 half days of work onto a debit card (there wasn't enough time to set up direct deposit), we were able to creatively use the card to get the cash off it and apply that money towards our little trip budget, so when we came home, a lot of the money we had earmarked for vacation didn't really need to leave our account! Bueno for that!

Trip Cost: $425.24


Gasoline: $194.05
Toll Fees: $12.00
Souvenirs/keepsakes: $48.27
Campsite: $18.00
Cave tour: $16.00
Food/Going out with friends/family: $136.92

As always, gas and food take up a large portion of our budget, but I'm really proud that we stuck to our guns and spent under $500 for our weekly get-a-way!

Our trip started out with our usual pit-stop in Baker California... Not for gas, but for our traditional stop at Alien Fresh Jerky for Root beer & a picture next to the worlds largest thermometer.

Upon our arrival in Utah, we got some good time in with family in friends... I finally got to meet Baby Alice, spend time with my brother-in-law's kids (George and Allen), and hit some of our favorite Utah haunts like Iceberg, Kneaders, and Bridal Veil Falls. SCB and I spent our anniversary eating breakfast at Kneaders and then getting sandwiches from Win-Co and eating them down at Bridal Veil Falls (essentially re-enacting one of our earlier first dates!)

After leaving Utah, we went to the Great Basin National Park where we spent a few days camping, exploring, hiking, and doing a pretty nifty cave tour. My brother in law popped a tire somewhere along the trail, and it did rain one day while we were camping, but even with those small hic-ups, we had a really nice time. My Mother-in-law was able to take us around everywhere and tell us the history of the area and how her great greats founded not only both valleys surrounding Wheeler Peak, but how they helped change and form the different areas. We went to a few historic cemeteries where her family members are buried and just tried to absorb the setting and all the family stories.

Watching Deer intently from the hammock!

Baby Allen can walk now!!! He's a toddler!

Old farm house where my MIL's ancestors worked in...

George Exploring our our campsite...

Inside the Lehmann Caves which we tour'd

Finally achieved a state sign!

look, he's making a spoon

Setting up camp...

And another state sign...

  

Me on a hike...

Ancestor's grave marker...

My father in law "improving" the
walking stick

Its my goal to make all my family members like pandas...
I'm winning

Making fire in the rain...

Another trail head/overlook

Makes me wish he was a daddy...

The abandoned, person-less working gas station with only
4 pump stations...

The Nevada flood on the way home through Vegas...

Just cause Road art is really cool!

Someone took over my old blog...

So back in the day, many years ago I used to blog at a different web address. I started blogging around the "woman in red" message boards and MSN and I eventually decided to roll my blog archive over here as "South County Girl" when the message boards ended and I felt it was time to just change things up a bit.

After awhile (maybe a year?), I deleted the old blog and just kept blogging over here. Fast forward a few years and that brings us to today... where I finally had some time to go through my Google Reader.


I was trying to get caught up on the blogs I follow that I missed over vacation... and I started seeing all these fashion posts that I had "subscribed too..."... over 27 posts in a week...


But I never subscribed to them... I'd never seen the blog before...


A few clicks later and I had my answer. Someone took my old web address from my old blog and uploaded their fashion blog/content to take advantage of my old subscribers and not updated links...

I removed the blog from my feed, but it was a bit creepy to see my old web address like that.

Some days I wish the internet wasn't so creepy.

Back from vacation!

and finally getting settled in and embracing the new week and all of its business... Photos and updates soon to come!

2nd Quarter Retirement Update

Another quarter down, and it’s time to look at how my Retirement Accounts are doing. I’m still in the process of merging some accounts together… just mailed off another form last week so it’s a process I hope to have half way finished by the end of the year. If I can get to the point where I have just one account at ICMA-RC and my two Roth’s I’ll call it a victory.
Investment Accounts

Vanguard Roth IRA--- All in Target Date Accounts. I just dropped $1750 into the account today so that kind of skews the growth rate since that money hasn’t had time to do anything yet.

• Current Value $7,581.63
• Amount Invested: $7,250.00
• Grown 4.5% since inception.

ING Direct Roth IRA--- This was my initial Roth IRA that I used to learn about investing in different kinds of funds. When I learned enough and broke even, I transferred the funds from share-builder to this account and stuck the money in savings and cd’s. Now that my vanguard account is open, I need to start transferring the liquid amounts of money from this account to Vanguard… but I haven’t yet.

• Current Value $19,764.83
• Amount Invested: $19,000.00
• Grown 4.2% since inception.

ICMA-RC 457 Account: This is my brand new 457 account that I opened at the start of this year so I can roll my 2 inactive work accounts into. For the time being I have it set to take $5 out of my paycheck since that’s the minimum amount. I have filled out the paperwork to transfer both accounts to here… but nothing has happened yet.

• Current Value: $60.50
• Amount Invested: $60.00
• Grown 0.8% since inception

Nationwide 457 Account: Waiting for this to roll… (all employer contributions from when I was 16.)

• Current Value: $1,037.52

ICMA-RC 401A Account: Waiting for this to roll…

• Current Value: $1,061.09
• Amount Invested: $898.62
• Grown 18.07% since inception

Total: $39,505.57

Pension:

The cash value of my pension currently sits at $19,219.05 as of June 30, 2011. New statements are made available in October of every year, so I have to wait until then to see how much it has grown over this last fiscal year with contributions and interest. If I were to quit today I could take this money and run with it or let it sit in the account and earn an automatic 6% interest until I wanted to just take the cash and invest it (and pay taxes on it)… OR… since I've been with my company at least 5 years, I could leave it in there and pull a pension at 55.

If I quit my job today and left with the intension of drawing a pension at 55, I would get $8,154.51 a year for life until I die.

But realistically, I plan to continue working here and take a full retirement option at 55. Based on our options, SCB and I decided that Option 2W would work best for us. It basically means that I will get a certain amount of money each year and if I were to die before SCB, he would continue to get the same amount I we would have been receiving already… and if he dies first, my amount would continue to be the same. (we basically choose to take a bit more now, instead of having

So, if I retire on my 55th birthday, my annual pension in today's dollars would be $33,618.00 a year.

@ 56, its $34,373.00… @ 57 $35,079.00… @ 58 $35,816.00

2nd quarter income comparison 2012

As we end the second quarter of 2012, it’s time to check in and see how my income is stacking up. In case you have forgotten, we have had a lot of changes take place income-wise between this time last year and now. The main change is that I’m no longer able to cash out my unused benefits since I’m now paying for health care for the hubby and myself.

2011
At this time last year, I had earned $23,423.76 before taxes and deductions. Of this money, $2,299.22 came from Overtime & $2,135.38 came from cafeteria cash.

2012
For this year, I’ve earned $21,711.62 before taxes and deductions. Of this money, $1,717.15 came from Overtime & $0.00 came from cafeteria cash.

The 2011 figure doesn’t include an extra paycheck… but the 2012 figure does. If I figure that in and add another $1,400 to my 2011 number, I’m really down about $3,182 in income from what I earned this time last year.

Considering $2k of that number is from the additional health insurance costs, the other $1,046 I’m short is due mostly to the fact that I only taught 2 lifeguard courses this year instead of 3 and there have been a few city events I wasn’t able to work for because of Relay. I think by the end of the year, I might be able to catch up some since I’ll be working more holidays this year than last. So far I’ve earned $744.06 from working on actual holidays as compared to only $289.00 last year and we still have a few of those floating around.

While a lot of the tasks I’ve picked up over the year from work can’t be paid out in overtime (Like Relay activities), it’s still nice to know that I’m not too far behind where I was at this time last year. Yes $3k is daunting and our lives would be so much nicer with that in our accounts, you can’t really cry over spilled milk… Plus, there’s that whole pile of paid vacation I have. Even after my week long vacation trip which I’m currently on, I will still have 299 hours (almost 7 and a half weeks) still stocked away. It’s nice to know that if something happened and I had to take a whole month off for some freak emergency that I would be able to do it without losing a paycheck.

After my week off, My 299 hour vacation pot will be worth $5,516.

Last year I only had 200 hours of vacation at this time & it was worth $3,721.00… which is almost $2k right there.

July Budget

If you remember back to last month, how we spent 66% less on eating out... well we cut that down another 18%!!!! We are getting a lot closer to our $80 a month dinning out budget. Thankfully we had lots of Chipotle BOGO coupons to help us do it!


We also spent the least amount of money on gas ever last month which allowed us to cover some other spending (like a cooler for camping and a grill to go with our stove that we got as a wedding gift). 

I'm glad that we are also giving again. I really missed that about our old budget, but it didn't seem right to give when we were getting unemployment for some reason... but I wish we would have looked over out budget while we were getting unemployment... we are being more careful with out money now that we are tithing then when we were before, and I wish we were only just as careful then as we are now.


As for ongoing items, We still need to get SCB to the dentist and other than the minor pull from the slush fund, we still have $2500 left inside it. Since we have tried to get in contact with our dentist on multiple occasions to get them to list off the remianing work left to no avail, we are getting a new dentist and SCB will be calling around this month to get it set up for us. 


After the dental is done, we'd like to replace the fan/vent in the bathroom, get that car fund to $1,000.00, set aside gas money to go out to Utah over the holidays ($300), and toss a few extra bucks at the mortgage if we are able.... Mind you that all comes only after we max out my Roth IRA... and I really want new glass slider doors for our condo...


We have amphibious goals... and to be honest, they are a bit daunting at the moment, but meh. You gotta push yourself, right? 

Here's our July Budget:

Paycheck #1:

• Mortgage (P&I, Property taxes, MIP): $809.40
• Giving $120.00
• Fast Offering: $10
• Groceries & Food: $240.00
• Prescriptions/doctors appointments: $20.00

Paycheck #2:

• Giving: $120.00
• HOA: $262.50
• Insurance (2 Autos, earthquake, homeowners) $135.00
• Utility Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet): $230.00
• Prescriptions/doctors appointments: $10.00
• Gasoline/Auto: $150.00
• Christmas: $50.00
• Date Nights/ Spending Money $80.00
• Roth IRA $161.90

So if you can do the math, our Roth IRA is going to come up short by 105.46 a month (assuming we dump $1,000 of each "extra check" I get into the Roth this year) & we still don't have a birthday savings fund ($50 a month). 


So any overtime and extra windfalls will first go to the Roth IRA to catch it up before its applied anywhere else. We will see how it works next month. I know I will have holiday pay and overtime on a paycheck in July so that will help if we run a bit off with the new budget (I worked on the 4th).

How we spent our Money Last Month:

• Groceries/House Supplies: $219.50
• Eating Out: 87.17
• Gasoline: $84.72
• Car Repairs/Other: $0.00
• Giving: $421.51
• Prescriptions: $10.00
• Housing: $1,175.14
• Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $214.28
• Gifts/birthdays: $0.00
• Clothes: $0.00
• Other: $157.74
• Medical/Dental/Vision: $15.00

How we spent our Money thus far in 2012: 

• Groceries/Household Supplies: $1,430.63
• Eating Out: $882.04
• Cars
• Gasoline: $848.77
• Car Repairs/Smog/Registration/INS: $798.01
• Giving: $966.35
• Prescriptions: $113.00
• Housing: $6528.13
• Re-occurring Bills 
• Cell: $822.85
• Electricity: $246.13
• Internet: $220.26
• SCB's Wood Turning: $812.21
• Gifts/Birthdays/Holidays: $436.18
• Medical/Dental/Vision: $333.95
• Vacation: $516.57
• Utah
• $85.52 Shopping
• $168.88 Gasoline / Tolls / Transportation
• $119.98 Food/Eating Out
• Disneyland: $142.19 (Parking, Food, & Shopping)
• Clothes/Other: $792.30

70,000 mile check up

Well folks, the sad day is finally upon us all. My little Camry's warranty has finally expired... No more dealer fixes for free (like my gas tank), shuttle rides home, or parts always in stock...

Nope, the Camry is now free to go to any mechanic it wants to... so its going to our friendly neighborhood "I won't rip you off" guys.

The place that actually has to take appointments because they are that well known for not ripping you off and helping keep your car actually running without dinging your pocket book.

So, little stitch (what we call the Camry), went in and got its inspection and oil change. The only thing they needed to change/fix on it was my cabin air filter... and a cracked engine torque mount.

Other than that they said I had a really good car and I had taken really good care of it!!! (Which is what one wants to hear  right before a long road trip and when all they have ever done is take it to the dealer).

The cracked engine torque mount part cost $97 but if we didn't fix it now, it could have turned into a $600 job later down the line so we got it done.

All in all, parts cost $145.71 and we were charged $90 for Labor, got a $10 coupon/discount, and ended up paying $237.00.

Thankfully we have that car fund set up to cover expenses like this one... but it means its pretty much empty now. Eventually when we get and keep $1,000.00 in it we will use that money to replace Wanda (SCB's clunker) but until then, it exists to help with these facets of life.

Happy one year anniversary!

Last year, SCB and I said "I do" on 7.9.11 and we have hit our first anniversary! We made it a year and we still like each other (which is longer than a whole lot of celebrities out there and it makes me appreciate our lifestyle all the more.) 

Were out in Utah on our trip today so i'm not sure what I will be doing today, but I thought a few nice photos from our wedding would be a good way to mark this out on our blog :)

Weekly Updates (Belated Style)

I'm just now finally finishing out our end of month spending for July, but after today at 5pm we will be driving up to Utah for a few days to visit with friends and family before hitting the Great Basin National Park for a family camping trip! A beautiful week of vacation, and paid for in nice pretty cash thanks to my extra paycheck this month :)

We've been cleaning out cars, gathering belongings, and just trying to make it to the end of the week so we can go. It's been like SCB has been on sugar 24-7 jumping like a little kid anytime the trip actually comes up or is mentioned.... That's how he is about our trip, and why I decided we should change a few things up and make it longer. We were going to leave on Tuesday and just go camping till Friday in Nevada... but since Utah isn't very far from where we were going to go camping, we figured we'd extend our trip a few days and really make our gas money worth it in the long run and swing into Utah as well. I will finally get to meet baby Alice too!

I feel really accomplished with everything I was able to do this week. My car is actually clean. Vacuumed and empty for a change... I've seen my mom twice (once to borrow her truck for the home remodel weekend... another to borrow an electrical outlet so we could actually vacuum my car clean). I actually finished my kitchen project --- that was 9 months in the making! and I even mailed off a form to finally get one of my retirement accounts liquidated and transferred to another place (I've mailed soooo many forms that I pray that was the last one they needed).

Heck, I even cleaned out my kitchen and SCB and I tossed out some stuff that we haven't touched really at all since we were married/I moved into my place. (So much more counter space now!)

While I like to think we kept our spending pretty well inclined, we did end up having to pull $118.87 out of the slush fund to cover our home improvement weekend (and a meal or two that day during painting since cooking was not an option).

But in good news, we should get a few extra dollars from SCB getting two half days of work through Apple One the other week or so helping assemble some shelves in a warehouse.

Hopefully next month less things will go wrong and we will stay in our vacation budget and our monthly budget

***Crosses Fingers***

Weekly Spending:
June 23:

• $137.73 Cell Phones
• $25.91 Fresh & Easy (Groceries)

June 24:

• $32.66 Walmart (Groceries + House Supplies)

June 25:

• $262.50 HOA Fee

June 26:

• $15.00 Doctor's Visit to renew prescription (which we still haven't been billed for?)
• $3.49 Ralphs (Groceries)

June 27:

• $35.14 Internet

June 28:

• 6.73 Chipotle (Date Night)

June 29:

• 33.18 Mary Kay

June 30:

• $14.70 Chick-fil-a
• $47.93 Walmart (Camping stuff)
• $103.24 Home Depot (Home Improvement stuff)
• $145.51 Giving
• $13.41 Jack In the Box
• $11.06 Home Depot (new desk fan)

Money Goals

1. Vacation Fund: $500/$500 (100%)
2. 2012 Roth IRA SCG $2,401.79 / $5,000.00 (48.03%)
3. Car Fund: $269.58 / $1,000.00 (26.96%)
4. Paying Extra on the house: $45.77 $1,301.28 (2 additional Mortgage Payments) (3.51%)
5. 2mnd Roth IRA: $0.00 We will just add up all of SCB's earned income for the year and at the end of the year just put at least 15% into a Retirement account for him. We should be getting a decent savers credit this year so anything we can dump in here will be amazing! We might not be able to open an account for him at Vanguard (might not have $1k) so we may need to open one at ING and then transfer it over there eventually.

My friend walked through our slider door... part 2

New door going in!

I'm not sure what compelled me with this, but I just didn't feel right about home depot advertising for something and not carrying it in their store or on their website.

I got up early on Saturday since I was supposed to be walking with my friend for a few miles (and I honestly can't sleep past 6:30am on any given day because I get up at 4am for work normally) and started looking through Home Depots website. I found the two doors my husband saw online, one $52 the other $60. I put in our zip code since the item was an "in store pick up only" and hit pick up at store on both items.


I started with the nicer door. The first 6 closed locations showed "out of stock/Not available at this location."
The next 6 stores were out of stock as well, and so were the next 24 stores across a 30 mile radius.We liked the more expensive door because it had a metal brace that ran across the middle so you could see the door... but no dice.


I then clicked on the cheaper door which looked almost like the one my friend plowed through. 13 stores later and this one location had 6 in stock!!!! It was about 20 miles away over three freeways but the gas we would pay would be cheaper then getting a custom made door.


I tossed the credit card down and ordered one for $56.03


My friend didn't show up for our walk (she slept through her alarm, my text, and a phone call) so we decided today was going to be home improvement day and made plans to borrow my mom's truck and drive the distance to get the new screen door.


then my phone rang...


It was Home Depot telling me they didn't stock the door I bought online...


But thankfully, they did have one that would fit for a few dollars more so I told him we'd take it and they promised to put it aside for us.

Excited, we picked up my mom's car and drove out there. Apparently our destination was a SUPER home depot and SCB drooled in delight.

While pursuing the store I decided it was finally time to actually finish my kitchen door as well. I'm not sure if you remember, but as a nice present to me and in honor of owning my home for 2 years, I finally bought a door for my kitchen to hide the washer/dryer and to help muffle the noise of the loud machine. While I love my door still to this day, I never bothered to paint it or put up the matching trim on the door frames.

Trim and base boards secured!

So, we picked up painters tape, nails, door trim, a can of paint, a few brushes, that thing you use to hit the nails all the way into the board, and some of that white goop you use to cover the nail heads and patch stuff.... and some caulk to seal it all up.... and one of the boxes with the saws that lets you cut the proper angles..... oh ya, and our slider patio door, all for $120.00.

Prepping for Paint!

I spent the afternoon helping SCB put in our new door... and then painting my heart out in the kitchen. I'm proud to say I put down a tarp, taped everything up correctly, and did a really nice job. I still haven't put on the caulking yet, but while I was doing the project I realized I had already purchased paint so we got to return the new stuff and a brush we didn't use, so our real home improvement weekend only cost

$103.24! 


So now I have a new screen door and my kitchen is finally done! SCB got 2 half ways of work and got paid $74 for them so only about $30 will be coming out of our slush fund since we ended up spending the rest of that $80 we had left over on other stuff that just happened.