Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Networth

It has been a long time since I have checked my net worth .. So long in fact that I don't have any old benchmarks to see what my progress has been over the long haul.

As I've been trying to catch up on blogs I used to follow before I checked out on the world, I came across this post at Give Me My 5 Bucks Back and realized it was time to "check in" and run the numbers on my Net worth.

For those of you who aren't sure what Net Worth is, I'll explain briefly. Make a list of all your "Assets" -- anything you could sell for money, including money, and then take all your "liabilities" ---things/places/people you owe money to, and subtract the Assets total from the liabilities total.

That number folks, is your net worth. 

Since I didn't have an old bench mark to compare myself to, I followed the link to the CNN calculator to see what someone my age (26), and someone with my income (approx 43,000) was doing. to compare.

The results are on the side here. In case you didn't pay attention in STAT'S class in college, the "Median" Value is the "middle number." If you listed all the networth values for someone my age, or someone with my income, in a line, the Median Value would be the number in the middle of the line.

EX:   -10....8....12...10....15......20....20....21....46

In that list of numbers, the Median number is 15. This math method is nice because it tosses out the really off numbers of negative 10 and 46 from the list which could really throw off an "average."

What do the charts tell me?
Apparently young people don't have a whole lot of money at this stage in the game. My emergency fund alone is more than the amount that someone my age is worth, so I know i'm rocking and surpassing that bench mark.

But what about income? Apparently by this point, if i'm "in the middle," I need to have $34,375.00 to be normal... But we all know PF blogger's aren't really normal... We save, we focus, we accomplish...

But $34k?  I was honestly a bit curious if I was near that. When I think about cash on hand, I knew I didn't have that much money just sitting there in my bank account, waiting for me... but what about my retirement accounts... and my condo value.... It's actually been so long since I looked at my retirement accounts collectively instead of individually to gauge what they are doing and how much I have in assesses today.

So, I added it up...
$91,063.00 
Who deserves a party??? THIS GIRL DOES!!!!

I have almost triple the net worth of the CNN benchmark... Dang! I'm literally floored right now and it still doesn't seem real yet. How did I get almost $60k in my retirement accounts??? I know a huge hunk is my pension, but that's my cash value amount. If I quit tomorrow and take the money in the account, I get that in a check (which I would then need to pay taxes on, but that's another thing all together.) Seriously, when did that happen and where was I??

Monday, January 28, 2013

January Farmer's Market Rundown

South County Boy had another opportunity to sell his handmade crafts at the local farmers market in January... and again did really well!!! You can see from the picture off to the side that we now have more display stands and a larger table since we picked up the one he left in Utah at his parents house over Christmas (well technically his mom "bought" that one off us so we could buy a folding one so it would fit in our car for the drive home-- Thanks Mom).

SCB has been able to consistently sell around $100 in merchandise on each visit-- even when the weather has been temperamental and the crowds few and far between. This steady opportunity has allowed him to finally start slowly expanding the items he can make to now include pencils in addition to the pens and the custom order letter openers and the 2 types of bottle openers he makes. 
matching pen and pencil sets ($30 for the pair, or
$18 for pencils and $15 for pens)
We have also found the key chains he makes and sells for $5 have been popular, which is good for us since they don't cost us much to make, especially since we use odd ends of scrap wood or leftover blanks that shatter on him while he's turning. 

This month he debuted a new stylus pen and they seemed fairly popular. We have also been adding a clearance section where he has been selling some of his early work or slightly flawed work at a discount and this seems to help us move inventory along. We now have a good set of what we order and what we don't anymore, and he even gets to experiment with some new items every so often. 

What's really starting to be a blessing is that we are finally getting to a point where we don't have to make sure all our funds from our last sale are in the bank before placing an order for more materials ..  and that means that we can start to slowly stock up on supplies so we can keep a larger inventory so he can either create an Etsy account online and list his items there or pick up venues where he will need a larger inventory (like the 4th of July street fair or the holiday boutique at the community center)!

 So what did he sell at the market?
  • 1 stylus pen
  • 2 clearance pens
  • 3 slimline pen
  • 1 Key chain
  • 1 Pencil
Pretty much at least one of everything in his regular inventory...

This month we also had a couple custom orders from some friends and people at our church which included:
  • 1 Bolt action Pen
  • 2 stylus pens
  • Matching Pen/Pencil Set with Case
  • 1 Fat-line pen
Not too bad if you ask me...and things might be looking up! Since the market has lost a lot of people due to the Friday morning time slot, it looks like they will be changing it to Saturdays in a month or so and then I can go with him and possibly sell some of my crochet items if I want to!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Mortgage Update (Jan '13)


Principle paid down: $167.24
Interest: $483.40
Additional Principle: $54.22

New Balance: $110,300.47

The pay off date is still December 2038 which is 9 months ahead of the initial schedule. If I continue to pay the minimum on my loan, I will pay $111,392.68 in interest instead of the original $116,404.23. The extra $1,538.33 I've tossed at the mortgage over the life of the loan has saved us $5,011.55 in interest to date.

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 also 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, when we subtract those costs from what we saved by living in our condo instead of renting, we came out ahead $494.04 (See Mortgage Update + Condo Costs December '11 for that break down.)  We also received a small $70 refund check from over paid closing costs. 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.
  • In 2012 we finished our Kitchen/Laundry door which cost us $103.24.. We also replaced both our glass slider doors which cost us $2,957.00... and repaired our dryer for $81.42....It ended up being $3,383.47 cheaper to OWN our condo than to rent an apartment on a monthly basis,  (See Housing Costs 2012 for the break down) so even after we subtract the windows and other minor repairs, we still came out ahead $241.81 by owning our condo instead of renting... 
Leaving us $13,115.42 in the hole...

If we assume our home is worth at least what we paid for it (which in this market you never really know...), then we have $9,699.53 in equity...

Leaving us only $3,415.89 in the hole after 3 years, 4 months.

For 2013, we will again assume our monthly mortgage payments are a wash since its cheaper to OWN our home then to RENT an apartment. Check out Housing Comps 2013 for how we figured that one out.

Thus far for 2013 we have spent $1,119.58 to live in our condo, instead of $1,361.00 to live in the apartment.
  • Mortgage (including P&I, Property Taxes, MIP, & additional principle:) $857.08
  • HOA:  $262.50
  • Small Home Repairs/Improvements:
  • Earthquake Insurance: $0
  • Homeowners Insurance: $0
As of today, we have saved $241.42 by not renting.

If I sold the condo tomorrow, I'd have to sell the property for $121,006.97 to break even.
  • This assumes a 6% total commission ($7,260.42)
  • and enough money to refund the amount we are in the hole for ($3,415.89)

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Annual goals for 2013

Once a year my husband and I sit down (after much convincing and prodding on my end... and lots of promises to be brief) to draft our annual goals and work together on figuring out what we want to be doing this year...  and how we are going to get there.

This way we both get a say in what's going on... and we have a financial plan that only has to be reviewed once a month for about 10 minutes at "our family budget meeting"... which is just about all SCB can handle when it comes to talking about money.  

So what are these lofty goals? Well in our monthly budget post, we hinted that this will be the year of the mortgage and man are we hoping so! SCB will hopefully get a job this year and when that happens it will be all about paying off our mortgage as fast as possible to finally take a shot at refinancing our mortgage. 

Our annual goals are going to be a little bit different this year. We made a list of priorities and are going to work our way down and stick to it! The first 2 goal are so important that we built them into our budget to make sure they don't fall through the cracks:
  • Make one extra Mortgage payment this year: $650.64
  • Put at least 15% of our income into retirement & at least $5,000 into a Roth IRA.
The next goals are going to hopefully be met as we are able to live within our means, find ways of getting extra money coming in, and hopefully blasted away when SCB can get a job.
  • Replace the money we borrowed from savings for the 2012 Car Repairs: $571.83
  • Put money aside to cover the annual bills we just paid or shortly will:
    • $81 SCB's Car Registration
    • $108 SCG's Car Registration
    • $60 Car SMOG Check 
  • Save $300 to upgrade our computer that's been having issues lately.
  • Save $100 to fix a few things on Wanda "our 22 year old clunker"
  • Save $500 to go camping with the family in southern Utah this summer
  • Save ?????? to finally fix and finish the second half of SCB's dental... because i'm a bad wife and totally forgot about this last year for some reason...
  • Save $1,000.00 for future car repairs and the start of a car replacement fund.
  • Save $300 for a winter trip out to Utah to visit family.
After that, we will be throwing everything we have at our mortgage to try and get it under $93,600.00 (it's at $110,521.93) so we can refinance. 

But what would annual goals be without the fun no financial goals? So in 2013 I will:
  1. Find something new to crochet-- sweater, pattern, anything.
  2. Sew something from scratch or repurpose something I was going to toss out into something I'd wear.
  3. Cook or try to cook 6 new things or recipes
  4. Read 6 books
  5. Loose 6 lbs
  6. Change my last credit card to my married name
  7. Grow a garden with my neighbor
  8. Complete a half marathon in 3 hours and 30 minuets or less.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Snow Day & Opportunities

My dad's old place.

Even though we just came back from Utah and 12 inches of powder, my friends wanted to go up to big bear for the day and make a snowman and do some sledding--- so we had to oblige.

The neat thing was I was able to drive through the old town on the mountain my dad used to live in and not only visit his grave marker off the mountain, but find his old home and drive though the town I'd spent 2 years calling home every other weekend.

It brought back some nice memories...

We also stopped off in Big Bear to make our snowman, do some sledding, and ate at a hole in the wall pizza joint. We took more pictures, but they are on my friends camera, so no snow man pictures for show and tell.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Saturday and get away. But man was it cold when we got back... Winter has officially arrived in So-Cal and so have the winds and the chill apparently.

Big Bear Pizza Joint :)
I'm glad that I've been baking all our bread just to have an excuse to turn the oven on to try and warm up the house! I even made cookies the other day and that's normally an activity that I leave to SCB because he's the better baker (but I'm getting a lot better-- no more melt downs in the kitchen.) but I was cold and tackled the project on my own just to heat up. 

It got so cold the other day that we actually were debating about turning on our heater that's some how attached to the boiler system... but we didn't because we haven't used it in 3 years and the boiler has had so many issues of late that they up and replaced the whole unit-- and when they did that a few people lost all their hot water... and I don't think its wise for us to try and use it until we have someone come out and inspect it to make sure that it is in working order before we burst a pipe and are in over our heads with water damage.

For some reason I thought our little wall AC unit had a heating function on it... but apparently it doesn't... so we might buy a small space heater as a short term fix. While fixing our windows has done a whole lot to help insulate our condo, these below freezing temperatures at night are making everything just so darn uncomfortable-- And apparently our front door is so drafty that you can feel the cold air blowing in by standing a good foot away from it. We never noticed it before because the glass windows were so poor that the front door never bothered us...

But now it does... but before we start drooling over getting a new front door with a window and taking off the ugly black rod fence thing and getting a nice hide a way screen door--- we have a lot of other things that must come first--- especially since we would need to re-do the whole door frame itself because its very old that the people who lived here before liked to slam doors and have the cops come over and bust them open.

So space heater it is! If we can find one. They were all out at Walmart and Target's selection was nil.

In other news, 

I tossed my hat in the ring for a new job with the City. It's in another department, but it looks to be something not only up my alley, but something I would enjoy doing. It also comes with a much welcome increase in base pay...(like $10k a year) not to mention I would no longer be doing more than one job and I'd feel a real sense of direction with my career.

Three other people applied for the position, but I'm not sure who the other candidates are and what department they are coming from. I actually applied before I left for Utah and when I got back earlier this month the scheduled the pre-interview assessment testing. While I passed all the tests but one (I missed one too many questions in an advanced portion of the Microsoft Word assessment)... they thought my stronger skills in the other areas allowed me to advance to the first round of interviews.

I ended up interviewing with three individuals from 3 different cities who work in the department I'm applying for... and while I only spent 20 minutes in the actual interview itself, they must have decided I merited further inclusion in the process because I was directed to the final round of interviews.

It's now between me and two other individuals for the position... and I had the final interview on Friday. I thought it went incredibly well and I'm really proud that I was able to not only answer all the questions easily, but that I was able to be "me" throughout the whole process. I honestly think that if I'm what they are looking for--- that the job is mine. If I'm not a good fit, then they will choose someone else and I'll just go back to the normal rhythm of things.

But I feel really good about knowing that I gave it my all, that I was honest, and myself. I didn't panic and I felt like I was able to effectively let them see who I was and what I had to offer.

So, let's send some good vibes my way!!!!

Friday, January 18, 2013

Housing Comps, 2013

Each November I look at the old apartment complex that I used to live in and I find out what a one bedroom unit would rent for had I not purchased my condo. 

If I hadn't purchased my condo, I'd be living in that same apartment complex today so its a really good benchmark to use to what I would be paying for had I not purchased my condo.

My old apartment complex is also pretty much an equal commute to my work and while the apartment is smaller in terms of square footage, it makes that up in the fact that it has a single car garage. 

If you remember from last year, SCB and I theoretically "moved" into a slightly bigger one bedroom unit with the "help" of our friends (so no moving costs) that matched our condo's square footage a bit better since our home is 753 square feet and the apartment would be 672 square feet. For 2013, we will assume that we will stay in that unit and not move to insure our security deposit of $400 would be returned (a deal that they have if you stay in the same unit for at least 2 years).

Last year that unit rented for $1,225.00 a month... This year its going for $1,240.00. They have another identical unit with the same floor plan renting for $1,290.00 in a better location, but since they also offer a slightly larger one bedroom with 719 square feet for the same price in a poorer location, we will go with the $1,240.00 rental price and assume a one year lease to lock in the rate till the end of 2013. 

We will also assume the washer and dryer we hypothetically purchased last year are still happily functioning so we can remove that from our expenses since they would have been paid off from that zero percent loan I would have "qualified" for.

Costs Associated with Apartment for 2013
FYI- I don't include electric bills since i'd have to pay for those at either place, but my HOA fee includes water, gas, and trash so i'll account for them here using the fees I used to pay.

** UPDATE**
In June of 2013 we welcomed Roxy into our family. The apartment complex charges a $400 pet deposit and a $35 monthly pet rent. 

New monthly average: $1,406.41, New Annual: $16,977.00
**with Pet Deposit & rent from June-Dec.

  • Trash: $15 a month
  • Water: $60 a month
  • Gas: $35 a month
  • Rent: $1,240.00 a month
  • Renters Insurance: $11.00 a month
  • Pet Rent: $35 a month (June - Dec)
  • Pet Deposit: $400
Costs Associated with Condo for 2013
If we add additional principle to the loan, we count it as an expense at the end of the year and subtract it from what we saved by renting because we benefit from it in added equity. Additionally, we also track any expense we wouldn't have in an apartment and count it against the amount we "save" by not renting at the end of the year. 

New monthly average post refinance: $1,082.32 | New expected annual: $12,987.88
  • Mortgage: $650.64 Refinanced to $669.96 a month.
  • MIP: $50.31 a month Refinanced eliminated this charge.
  • HOA: $262.50 a month Increased to $270.00 a month.
  • Property Taxes: $101.91 a month  Now $102.03 a month after re-fiance.
  • Earthquake and Homeowners Insurance (187 + 297) a year
Our condo on average, saves us $332.42 a month!

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

January Purge Fest

Our disassembled bed, dresser
drawers, and SCB cleaning off
our Ceiling fan like the tall manly
man he is. Cleaning is Sexy :)
I don't know about you, but I think I might have a little touch of OCD because every January I make my husband help me go through everything we own... and I mean everything.

Every drawer gets emptied, wiped down, and then filled with the items we wish to keep. We move our bed, vacuum underneath it and go through every storage bin, every closet... every inch of our condo all in an effort to evaluate if our belongings deserve the prime space they take up in our condo.

I guess the years of dorm moving and apartment swapping made a very strong impression on me. Back when I was moving every year I was forced to come face to face will all my belongings as I boxed everything up, carried it down the stairs, and stuffed it into my car, and my loving friend's assorted pick-up trucks.

While I know that I'm not moving anytime soon, the habit has been hard to break because the reward of a clean house with less clutter is amazing. Truly! You have no idea how great it feels to walk into a house and not be stressed out by what you find (ie junk and clutter everywhere).

I also like the annual purge because its nice to go through all my sentimental keepsakes and remember the fond moments they remind me of. It's also a good gauge to see if those items still hold a spark or if I should pass them on because they no longer remind me of the things they once did.

This years example is my grandpa's gnome.

You see, back when I wasn't talking much with my mom, my grandfather passed away, and I wasn't invited or allowed to go up to palm springs to say my farewells or take any memento's to remind me of his awesomeness. At the time I was talking with my sister and I told her to to get something for me... anything really... and I jokingly told her to nick one of the random yard figurines if she had to & she did...

She brought me back a gnome... a faded, dirty garden gnome... and I kept that gnome on the small side table in my living room next to his picture... just to have something that was my grandpas (it didn't matter to me that it was creepy and seriously need a new coat of paint... nope it just stayed there).

Eventually later down the line my mom (via my sister), sent a few of my grandpa's santa's village houses to me to have to be reminded of him. I gradually added to the few I was given and had a small village I could display each year. As time went on, the Santa's Village began to give me the warm feelings of remembrance I needed for my grandfather, and the gnome no longer did. Instead it reminded me of my family not letting me say goodbye to my grandpa. The gnome made me bitter...

and this year I decided to pitch it.

(I forgot to take a picture of it to show all of you before it left, but SCB was too thrilled to see it go to keep it a second longer to snap its picture.)

So what else got pitched? Some clothes, books, DVD's we never watch nor ever will, a few nick-knacks, trash & junk... and some items we just haven't used and or had replaced with better versions that more suited our needs.

Along with the discarded items and the gnome was our patio chair... Yes. SCB managed to break another chair.... again.... making it the 5th chair he has broken since he moved to California. He has gone through 2 office chairs, one dinning room chair, and 2 folding/camping chairs... I don't know what to do with him anymore...  he always manages to break them right along the arms or possibly the back if there is no arms....

So now we have one camping chair, and one folding chair... I think the next ones we get won't have arm rests. I think after 5 chairs he has lost that privilege.

But I'm proud to say we are almost done. All we have left is the computer desk to clean and de-clutter!!!!!

Monday, January 14, 2013

January Budget

I wish I could have posted this earlier in the month, but I had to wait for my first paycheck to come in to see what our take home pay would actually look like in order to make a budget... Why?

Well, for starters, we took SCB off my work insurance plan because they wanted almost $550 a month for me... and another $550 for him... plus dental... and even with the generous benefits I receive at work (I get $825 in cafe cash to select my benefits with it) we still couldn't afford it. It was just going to be too much out of pocket for us to pay.

It would make us a paycheck to paycheck family and I don't think I'd sleep well at night if we had left him on there... but we have to have insurance... and SCB takes medications daily just to breathe so we had to find a plan with good prescription coverage too.

SCB got an individual plan at Kaiser for $178.00 a month. It's a hybrid plan that gives us a $40 co-pay for a doctors visit and prescription coverage, while also being a high deductible plan. This major change means that instead of paying out of pocket for his medical after using all my benefit money like we did this past year, we'll actually be cashing out the extra benefits to pay for his plan and...

drum roll please....

Have more money leftover at the end of the month then before! I'm kicking myself for not researching this last year and doing this sooner!

We ended up keeping me on my work plan because its like the "Austin Martin" of health insurance plans (and we were worried about cutting my insurance in case we unexpectedly started expecting)... plus we would have only gotten an additional $90 more added to my take home pay a month and there was no way we could find me a comparable plan for less than $90 a month.

We also have built our budget around our 2 main goals for 2013... Our Mortgage and Our Retirement.

We have decided that at a minimum we will make one additional mortgage payment this year. Without property taxes and mip payments, that means forking over $650.64 to Bank of America. The easiest way to do that is to to add $54.22 to our mortgage payment each month.

As for Retirement, this will be the first year that I don't max out my Roth IRA... Why is that? Well the government expanded the maximum amount you can put in there from $5,000 to $5,500... and while I would love to be able to toss in an extra $500, between the $5k we already plan to put in there and the almost $1700 I'll have to put into my pension--- we are already putting in a bit over 15% of our combined income into retirement... and we have more pressing matters to worry about.

We have dubbed this year, the year of the mortgage. The only way we can refinance and have it make since is to get our loan to value down to 78% so we wouldn't be required to pay any fees... and that's a large undertaking. I think the only thing we will be doing this year outside of trying to pay down our mortgage is saving up some money for SCB's dental work and putting together a Car emergency fund.  

So without further ado,

The January Budget:

Paycheck 1: $1,355.88
Mortgage (P&I, Property tax, MIP, & $54.22 in extra principle): $857.08
Giving: $136.00
Fast Offering: $10.00
Groceries/Food/House Items: $240.00
Prescriptions & Doctor' Visits Fund: $50.00
Date Night/Discretionary Money: 62.80 (We keep this in here because even when money is tight, its important to invest in our marriage and sanity... Nothing extravagant mind you, but having money to grab a frozen yogurt or a quick bite after a long week can do a lot for morale...)

Paycheck 2: $1,355.88
Giving: $136.00
HOA: 262.50
Insurance (2 Autos, Earthquake, Homeowners): $129.00
Bills (2 Cell Phones, Electricity, Internet: $230.00
Christmas Savings: $50.00
Health Insurance: $178.00
Roth IRA: $233.34 (we make 2 one time payments of $1,100.00 from the "extra" checks I get twice a year since I'm paid bi-weekly.)
Birthday Savings fund: $12.96

Even with that all laid out there, we are currently trying to replace $571.83 that we had to take out of savings for some last minute car repairs so any "extra" money left at the end of the month will be diverted to filling in this hole.

Friday, January 11, 2013

My 12 for 2012... Annual Goal Review

So back in 2012, I set 12 goals I wanted to accomplish by years end... My "12 for 2012" so to speak... and it's time to check in and see how I did.
  1. Put $5,000.00 into a Roth IRA. -- Accomplished. I've been making a point of maxing out my Roth IRA ever since I heard about this awesome gem in 2007 back when the contribution level was only $4,000 a year.... and boy did that seem daughting. I was 21 years old and in my first full time job and didn't have a clue how retirement worked. All I knew was that the internet was telling me I should start saving money now because Retirement is expensive. Little did I know that the Roth IRA would become my best friend with the pension system. I put in after tax dollars and it grows tax free... so when I'm old and I need money, I pull it out and don't pay taxes on it all... which is great because if my pension is still around for me to take when I retire, that will be all taxable income. To date, I've put in $29,000 into my Roth IRAs (split at 2 places--- i'm still working on merging them into a single account at Vanguard now that I understand how investments work.) As of today, they total $30,813.03   
  2. Add $1,200.00 to our emergency fund. -- Accomplished. Our emergency fund is finally fully funded and sits at $12,500.00, which is slightly over 6 months of expenses for our family on a bare bones budget. Additionally, I keep a short term EF of $2,000 split between my 2 checking accounts to make my budgetting easier so I don't have to worry about my paycheck "clearing" before sending in our monthly mortgage payment.
  3. Pay 2 additional mortgage payments this year. -- Fail. We did pay extra towards our mortgage in 2012, but it wasn't enough to equal 2 additional payments. We made sure to send a few dollars here and there, but we decided to cash flow the replacement of our windows in our condo instead of paying down the mortgage because I couldn't take the old ones anymore (they didn't sit in the frame right) and we realized we couldn't re-finance our mortgage that year. But hopefully 2013 will be the year of the mortgage meltdown!
  4. Open and put in $5,000.00 into a Roth IRA for South County Boy. --FAIL. SCB wasn't able to really work much in 2012 and unemployment money doesn't count as "earned income" and we only recieved it for a few months. We amended this goal to have him put 10% of his "earned income" into a Roth IRA, and if he has any income that qualifies when I do our taxes then we will try and set up an account for him since we should be elligible for the Saver's Tax Credit which will give us a 50% tax credit on every dollar he puts in there, up to $2k. 
  5. Save $1,000.00 to start a "new car" fund. -- Fail. We started out with a "new car fund" when we thought my mom was going to let us buy her Truck off her for $2k-- and that we would need to turn in SCB's 20+ year old clunker due to smog standards... But my mom ended up selling the truck to my sister's fiance's twin brother for $1,800.00... and then SCB's car passed California Smog standards so we can keep her for another 2 years if she runs.... so we abandoned this goal... 
  6. Change the rest of my accounts, etc to my new last name. --- Fail I forgot one... Just one measly account... I so badly want to say I accomplished this goal... but I have one credit card in my maiden name still... sniff sniff.
  7. Loose and keep off 15 lbs--- HAHAHAHA FAIL But I did manage to loose the weight I gained when I was all depressed from the birth control pills and my crazy family... but unfortunately it was not close to the 15 pounds I wanted to loose. I ended up loosing a net of 5... not 15....
  8. Finish a Marathon.-- Accomplished I did the LA Marathon for Child Share for a third time and finished :) For 2013 I'll be doing a half marathon because I'm too busy to train for a full, but i'm going to push myself to try and run and jog more of it then ever before.
  9. Read at least 6 books.-- Accomplished I actually read more than 6, but who's counting!
  10. Crochet a sweater--- fail.... But I did start learning to tat and I did sew 2 skirts... and learned about pintrest.
  11. Attempt to bake/cook 12 new recipes--- Accomplished:
    1. Meat balls
    2. Spinach bites
    3. Chicken Enchiladas
    4. Bread, rolls and pizza dough
    5. Fried Rice
    6. Crock pot beef stew
    7. Turkey... I roasted my own Turkey!
    8. learned to cook bacon in the oven and made my own breakfast sandwiches
    9. Roast Chicken breasts 
    10. Authentic Gyoza (potstickers)
    11. Experimented with Greek yogurt as a swap for Mayo and Sour Cream
    12. and we tried a number of new prepared foods like soup and orange chicken (and I can count that because its my blog and i'm soooo close to this one that I get a freebie.)
  12. Attempt a small vegetable garden on my patio this spring/summer-- half win, half fail..We didn't start a garden because of our finances, in the fall my neighbor gifted me 2 plants, a tomato and a bell pepper and we now have an arrangement for spring to share my sunlight and produce if she buys the plants and I take care of them :)
Phew! 

So while I didn't fully meet all my goals for 2012... (and i'm okay with that) I think we had a fairly good year and I can't wait to see what happens in 2013...

Let's vote... shall I do my 13 for 2013??? Anyone want to make some suggestions for the list?

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Money-- and what we did with it in 2012

So you'd think with all the craziness of the last few months and the holiday hoopla, that it would be natural for us to take a side line to our spending and just forget it all and start fresh in the new year... right???

If your nodding along with me, your wrong. Even though it wasn't easy, we still kept track of our 2012 spending--- even if I didn't post about it at the time. It's not perfect, but for the first time ever I pretty much tracked our spending for an entire year.

Sure, there were moments when we ate out more than normal out of sheer exhaustion, and stress... but we tried to cut back in other areas to make up for it, or we figured out ways to bring in more money to try and balance everything out.

Looking back, we did pretty darn good. Money went into Retirement, things were cash flowed the entire year, and our emergency fund is more or less still intact. (I say more of less because we had an unexpected auto repair bill just shy of $700 come a few days before driving to Utah... and we paid for it with our checking account padding-- An extra $1,000.00 I keep in there so I never have to worry about bouncing a check waiting for pay day to come around-- and since that money isn't technically counted in our emergency fund total, the EF is intact, but my checking account will need to be replenished... so we will be pinching pennies in January & February to make up the difference.)     

But this is actually the first time ever that I've kept track of almost every dollar we have spent all year long. I'm just really pleased with myself right now. Normally I burn out and never keep track of the holidays and just crumble under the pressure... but i'm proud to say I was able to do it. Sure, our Holiday shopping budget isn't 100% accurate because my mom bought a lot of stuff "off us" for presents and I wasn't good about writing down on my spread sheet how much we got back--- but even an estimate is better than nothing!

So how did we do?

Here's our Money in October:
  • Groceries/House Supplies: $287.32
  • Eating Out: $50.42
  • Gasoline: $68.00
  • Car Repairs/Other:
  • Giving: $252.00
  • Prescriptions:
  • Housing: $1,071.90
  • Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.57
  • Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $59.25
  • Other: $173.07
  • Medical/Dental/Vision:
  • Vacation:

Here's our Money in November:
  • Groceries/House Supplies: 198.96
  • Eating Out: $115.08
  • Gasoline: $148.11
  • Car Repairs/Other:
    • Ins- 520.94
    • Smog- 60.00
  • Giving: $425
  • Prescriptions: $45.00
    • Insurance Prem for Jan $178.00
  • Housing: $1,153.62 (dryer fix - $81.42)
  • Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.20
  • Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $720 (estimate and includes decorations)
  • Other: $44.15
  • Medical/Dental/Vision:
  • Vacation:
Here's our Money in December:
  • Groceries/House Supplies: $238.56
  • Eating Out: $86.54
  • Gasoline: $143.35
  • Car Repairs/Other: $684.24
  • Giving: $159 (we forgot to cut checks before we left, so Jan will be much larger)
  • Prescriptions:
  • Housing: $1071.90
  • Re-occurring Bills (Cell, Electricity, Internet): $222.66
  • Gifts/birthdays/holidays: $105.82
  • Other: $165.02
  • Medical/Dental/Vision:
  • Vacation:
    • Gas: $142.17
    • Tolls: $12
    • Food/going out: $97.03
    • Train: $14.00
    • Souvenirs/Shopping: $56.17
AND ALL of 2012:

  • Retirement:
    • Roth IRA: $5,000.00
    • 401A: $120.00
    • Pension: $1,630.98
  • Groceries/Household Supplies: $2.572.14
  • Eating Out: $1,281.05
  • Cars
    • Gasoline: $1,753.13
    • Car Repairs/Smog/Registration/INS: $2,300.19
  • Giving: $2,661.29
  • Prescriptions: $158.00
  • Housing: $16,503.75 (including new windows) 
  • Re-occurring Bills
    • Cell: $1,689.89
    • Electricity: $539.64
    • Internet: $431.11
  • Gifts/Birthdays/Holidays: $1,377.42
  • Medical/Dental/Vision: $2,285.30 ($1,773.35 deducted from paycheck)
  • Vacation: $1,287.18
    • Utah
      • $85.52 Shopping
      • $168.88 Gasoline / Tolls / Transportation
      • $119.98 Food/Eating Out
    • Disneyland: $142.19 (Parking, Food, & Shopping)
    • Utah/Great Basin National Park
      • Gasoline: $194.05
      • Tolls: $12.00
      • Souvenirs: $48.27
      • Campsite: $18.00
      • Cave Tours: $16.00
      • Food/Going Out: $136.92
    • Discovery Science Center: $24.00
    • Utah (Christmas/New years)
      • Gas: $142.17
      • Tolls: $12
      • Food/going out: $97.03
      • Train: $14.00
      • Souvenirs/Shopping: $56.17
  • Any Other Spending (Clothes, things, etc): $1,859.79

Monday, January 7, 2013

I'm back (Part 2)

Our tree topper this year was a
panda, wearing a red Santa hat
that I made, holding
a Halo gun from the video game...
All because the star wouldn't stay
up and I decided it could play
second fiddle to the Panda.


I had to break the last post up because it was getting frightfully long. I last left you all about a week and a half before Christmas, and I have to say, it was a nice holiday season for the South County Family...

(hey look at that, I used the word "family" without gagging! 2013 is looking up already!)

I managed to get 2 weeks off from work and for the first time in I don't know how many years, I didn't have to work New Years Day. Christmas was festive. We went and saw a live demonstration of the Christmas story complete with real animals which really helped set the mood for me.

I really enjoyed being apart of the Christmas Concert at church, even if my mom didn't come. It was lovely, moving, and powerful... and I was proud of myself for putting myself out there and jumping into something new. I learned to read music, push myself to be a better singer, and really feel the holiday music the night of the performances... It was a moving experience.

We went to "Candy Cane Lane," one night and walked around the really drastically decorated homes (pictured below). They had fake snow falling from their houses, and even some kids were out selling cookies and coco to buy toys for kids who were in the hospital.
Candy Cane Lane....

We even enjoyed the time when my mom came over and we celebrated our own mini Christmas on Christmas Eve as planned. She came over at Noon and we had fun snacks and munchies. I prayed her "Christmas CD" and SCB and I stayed in our PJ's all day and had a nice visit. She only stayed for an hour and a half, but it was still nice and pleasant and left fond memories of a good and drama free Christmas. The mood wasn't even dampened when my mom would talk about or mention my sister.
Me embracing my inner Taylor Swift at the
Christmas Concert...
Red lipstick Required,
and yes, SCB went CraZY!

I didn't get bitter... or angry... or even sad...

Somewhere along this journey over the past month or so I just let it all go...

I'm not sure when it happened... or even when that moment came... or if it was even a single moment and not small moments all over the place... But I realized that things would be okay for me with or without my biological family members.

Simply removing the drama, stress, and worries that had always been in my life ... apart of my life... the center of my life--- just removing it all gave me such a sense of peace that I felt like I was finally living. Finally moving on and starting fresh and new.

I felt free and burden-less.

It was my holiday, on my terms. We were free to make new traditions, and to bring back some old ones.

When my mom left, my husband and I dragged out our mattress and put it on the floor in our living room right by the tree...  We turned on our fireplace DVD and listened to it crackle as we watched Christmas movies and camped out in the living room with every stuffed animal I owned crammed onto our couch.
The stuffed animal sleep over... Yes, I have a thing for
Pandas and bears...
I swear I only bought 2... the rest were all gifts.

As a firm believer in Santa I made my husband sit through miracle on 24th street too many times this year while I jumped up and down in my seat saying
"I Believe" ... "I Believe."

I even made him watch both versions of the Grinch even though he isn't a fan of the Jim Carrey version.

Ya, we forgot about a few things, like making Santa cookies, and reading from Luke 2 on Christmas eve, but we modified our traditions and left Santa some of the yummy peppermint bark a friend from church brought over randomly.
Christmas with my mom...
and the best stocking ever...

and I love that.

That someone would feel welcome to just knock on my door and say hi. I've always wanted to have friends that just show up at your door without feeling the need to call and see if you are at home just to spend time with you and participate in the thing we call life. I seriously love the church I go to and the people in it. I've never felt so welcomed and at home-- even as an "outsider."

They really restore my faith in human kind.

We had a night that can only be described as ours. And I liked it. I even liked the fact that the christmas bark we left out got nibbled on and while SCB swears it was him... I know it was Santa.

On Christmas Day we opened our home up to the missionaries again to open presents, skype their parents, and eat yummy breakfast sandwiches I made.

My favorite thing... playing in snow!!!
Its even fun to shovel it.

That afternoon when they left, we loaded up the car and headed straight to Utah. We arrived at 1:00 am the morning after Christmas, and by 3:00 am it started snowing and dropped a good 6 inches of fresh powder. Over the next week we got another 6 inches and it was like living in a snow globe.

Snow was a constant companion and I loved it. Snow is perfect. No one can convince me of anything different.


Ya, it's not a family trip without one
day of shooting.. This is my
brother-in-laws AR-15.
We spent time with family, friends, and had a wonderful vacation. We went to temple square via the new train that they have that runs locally and goes all the way up and back for less than the gas it would take for us to get to salt lake City and back. We got to see the lights at temple square and I made sure we revisited "the spot" where SCB proposed to me...

We went to our favorite Utah places... thrift shopped at the local D.I. stores where I found SCB an actual suit jacket for $10.00... It was also where I was reunited with a skirt I had gotten rid of 2 years ago because it was too small on me, only to found it in the now perfect size for me for $5!!!

We spent an afternoon doing the annual shooting gathering/experience... It was snowing the whole time we were out, but despite the cold, i'm pretty decent when I aim and each year i seem to get better and better. I shot mostly a 22 riffle and my sister-in-laws 28 special, but I did take a round or two on my brother-in-laws new AR-15... and hit my target on the first shot.    :)
My friends kid... isn't she cute???












All in all, it was just what we needed when we needed it.

Sure life hasn't been all that awesome at times, like in November when our Dryer heating element blew out and we thought Christmas was going to be cancelled as we tried to figure out how to replace it. But eventually SCB was able to find the part online, get the missionaries to come over and help him move the sucker out of the tiny storage area, and then later install and put the whole thing back together all on his own, --- all for $80 instead of the hundreds it would have cost us to replace the entire thing.

Reuniting with all my utah friends who moved away...
Oh ya, and then there was the fact that it cost us $700 to get my car fixed just days before we headed out to go to Utah (I needed new breaks and had 2 holes in my power steering line)... but that's what emergency funds are for, and why i'm glad I have one :) How else could I make memories with the people I care (like my good friends pictured above who I miss all the time).

Oh and then there was the fact that I spent an entire 24 hours over new years eve and new years day getting so violently that i literally rang in the New Year puking my guts out on the front porch of my Mother-in-Laws house right onto one of her frozen planter boxes because the bathroom was full of people and that was the closest acceptable location to get sick in... Which I did wearing only socks on my feet with snow on the ground and a high in the single digits.

But that's all just life, and we live it. Each day has opportunities to remember the good things and laugh at the bad and I can't wait to see what 2013 has in store for us.
  
My favorite Utah Neighbor... Blue... Such a nice doggie!

SCB and his dad on the train back from temple square.


Pretty...



 Eating at Kneaders... Yum!
I didn't know it could go negative!

Post Christmas Sale finds for $5 each!!! Can't wait to put
these up next year.


I'm Back (part one)

I know its taken me some time to return to the blog-o-sphere... (but rest assured-- I'm back and ready to come back regularly). Again, thank you for all the comments and the "I miss yous." I guess I just really needed time to let all of the events of the last 2 months happen and heal from them before reliving them for you all... so lets get to it shall we?

My amazing Turkey!!
Thanksgiving...
Since I last posted, my sister contacted me to "officially" invite us to thanksgiving at her house. She then followed up with a series of voice mails saying that "she probably won't call me again if I don't reach out to her" and that she needed us to "formally" let her know if we would be coming to thanksgiving or not and then later mentioned how we'd be "missing out" on all the "exciting" things going on in her life...

I didn't bother replying to anything, but since i'm polite (and knew it would irk her), SCB took pleasure in denying the invitation for us via text message.

I guess you can say I've hit the point where I've just become numb to her threats and pleas. I just have become so used to missing out on family events and feeling detached that I don't care if they set a date for their wedding, announce that they are starting a family, or if they decided to buy a house.

So I held my ground and had the best thanksgiving of my life. I even got my mom to come over for a half hour for some munchies on her way to my sister's house. I tackled a 21 lb turkey to perfection, spent time with my husband and let our house be "home base" for the missionaries for both lunch and dinner, sending them on their way piled high with to-go boxes (the 21 lb turkey was made for only 4 people so there was plenty to go around). When they left, we went Black Friday shopping, hitting all the stores we wanted and made it home in time to crash and get some zzz's before I went to work for the closing shift to get some nice overtime.

After the holiday when we were dropping off things we picked up on black Friday for my mom, she admitted she was quite sad that she hadn't spent more time with me on thanksgiving. I call that a victory.  

Cause this picture is better than the
story I'm about to spew. 
My Sister's Birthday... 
My sister's birthday was in December... and I knew it was going to cause trouble. If I ignored it, I was evil... If I did something, no matter what it wouldn't be good enough... and I was at a conundrum.

The birthday situation escalated further when we found out that my sister would in fact be in town for the Christmas holidays (their trip to El Salvador was cancelled because they ended up closing escrow on a town home and couldn't afford both), but this meant we knew we wouldn't be able to go over to my mom's house on Christmas morning now...

Quite frankly, I wasn't sure how far i'd be able to "push" my mom in a small time span of a week or two without getting disowned and branded the evil child, for now there was a birthday and Christmas gathering that I was not going to attend.

But I owed it to myself, and I owed it to my husband. I couldn't let my sister ruin another holiday. It was hard fighting off my mom's protests. After all, it was "her year" for Christmas since we spent last year in Utah... and she kept mentioning how the festivities would be at her house so my sister "would have to" behave... my sister's birthday wasn't mentioned much, but I knew it would come when my mom relented and agreed to celebrate with us on Christmas Eve... a concession that was made right before my sister's birthday... (oh the cunning of my family...)

You see, my sister was going to be spending her birthday alone because her fiance was going to be on a work assignment traveling (something he couldn't say no to with them buying a house so suddenly), and my sister can't stand being alone and not feeling special and that the world revolves around her... especially on her birthday. So my mom decided to try a new angle with me... guilt.

She tried to guilt me into talking to my sister because it was her birthday. First she wanted me to stop by her house and wish her happy birthday, which I flat out refused to do... and when she finally figured out that I was serious, she then begged me just to call her (how awkward would that be??? Hey, we haven't been speaking for 2 plus months, but happy birthday, bye!).... then she begged me to text her and there was no way i'd touch mode of communication with a three foot pole considering they have this great habit of taking things out of context....

So I told my mom that nothing I did would be right with the current situation and environment but i'd think about it because I knew it was important to her... and in the end I ended up buying her a birthday card and writing a note inside, a note I had SCB read and re-read to make sure it couldn't be taken the wrong way... even then knowing that it would... I even picked a nice $5 card so she couldn't complain that I bought a cheap one... Instead of just signing my name and happy birthday (which I knew i'd get yelled at for doing--- you can here it now: "Really SCG, you couldn't just write something nice inside it-- it wouldn't kill you ya know!!!???")... So with that in mind, I wrote this in the card,
Dear ________,  I know we aren't speaking right now, but I didn't want to let your birthday pass by without doing something. I hope you have a wonderful day and that you take some time to really enjoy your birthday. Congratulations on the new house and I wish you all the best. Happy birthday, ---SCG
2 days later I got a call from my mom complaining about how I ruined my sister's birthday, reduced her to tears, and how dare I write anything so negative in a card.... there were mentions about how I could have just wrote happy birthday and my name and left it at that... and that I was mean and how my mom had to spend the next day trying to console my sister in her loneliness...

I took it in stride... told her no matter what I did it wouldn't have been good enough...and tried to make her see reason... I think I failed because a few days later my mom hadn't called me about carpooling or coming to the Christmas Concert I was performing in at Church... a concert I had been rehearsing for since October that required matching outfits and hours upon hours of rehearsal.

Again, a better "happy" picture to make this
more uplifting. He keeps me sane... I
heart him.
Another Family Let down...
When I called my mom up to remind her, she went off about how she had just got back from my sisters house, helping her move and trying to deal with her being so upset about her birthday that I ruined, that she wasn't coming... She made excuses that contradicted herself... and she didn't show. Over 1,200 people came between the two performances (there was even a blurb about it in the local paper), but my mom didn't show up. Instead I came home to a half apology, half "your probably just refusing my calls and ignoring me" voice mail from my mom. I returned it that night after the concert when I had access to my phone again and left her a message telling her that my phone had to be off during the concert and that I wasn't avoiding her...

She apparently didn't get that message because I got 2 missed calls and a voice mail in the span of one hour at work while I was life-guarding outside. It was a sad message. She was on the verge of tears begging me to call her and not let all the "progress" we had made over the past year or two dissolve..

When I called her, she was so thrilled to hear me on the phone that I didn't know who I was talking to at first, nor what to expect... When I pointed out the voice mail message I left her, she went sheepish. I told her that while I was pissed that she chose not to come to the concert I'd been working on since October just to be mean to me on purpose that it hurt... but I realized she was sorry since she had called to apologize and then I stayed on the phone and let her apologize. She went on and on about how she was just wrapped up in the moment of my sister and was sorry. I told her that i accepted her apology and she was bonkers happy when I told her "of course were still having Christmas together on Christmas Eve..."

I then used the next few moments to tie everything together in a happy little bow.

I told my mom that unlike my sister and I, that we (my mom and me) had a more adult relationship where people can admit they are wrong, forgive one another, and move forward... but that my sister and I were not capable of having an adult relationship together because there was no respect there. I reiterated how I didn't want to do anything for my sister's birthday because nothing I did would have gone over well. If I had just signed my name to a card, it would have caused a verbal frenzy.... and instead writing a nice note was thrown in my face.

and she agreed.

She agreed with me and then admitted that my sister hadn't really "changed" at all these last 2 months, despite her claims to me that she was sorry--- and truly didn't know why I was upset.... and wanted to change.

She admitted that she had just been trying so hard to believe that my sister could change and convince me of that that she didn't really see what my sister was trying to do. Still trying to get my mom mad at me and side with her.

I was then able to let my mom know that the only adult thing to do with the present situation was to let my sister and I just have space from one another since we cannot act appropriately together... and she agreed to back off and not try and shove us into an agreement. It also helped that I told my mom that I wish no ill will towards my sister and that I hope everything works out well for her, but its just best for us to lead separate lives until she comes to a place where she can see why what she's doing in hurtful and make steps towards making amends.

While you might find this a bit odd, but everything in the above paragraph isn't B.S. I have finally come to a place and a period in my life where I can let go and forgive her for the rotten crap she's pulled--- but that doesn't mean I will sit down and let it continue to happen... Which is why she doesn't need to be in my life right now.