Today is payday and I’m really happy with how things shaped up.

$1000 to BoA VISA. This is the second payment this month and this one goes completely to principle since the one I made last week was to cover all of DH’s work travel expenses and the monthly interest charge.

$1000 to Mom’s 0% interest loan, dropping the amount we now owe her to $91,000.00. We have 7 years and 8 months’ worth of payments to go. We have paid off $19,000.00 so far. This was originally all medical debt.

$300 to Mom to help her with utilities.

$34 to the EF and $1 to the holding tank since the electric bill for the old house was $1 less than I’d budgeted for. That brings the holding tank to $204.30 and the EF to $7468.65, with $1000 of that in the safety net at the local CU and the rest in ING.

$20 for the electric bill at the old house

$212.66 for term life insurance for me and DH, house insurance on old house, and car insurance

$39.37 security system on old house

$131 to storage

$200 to AMEX

$375.86 to mortgage on old house

$407.75 on propane

I have a couple hundred left for groceries and miscellaneous items for the week. I doubt I will spend it all. Any extra will go to the laptop fund. I did spend $60.11 on Chinese food from the no MSG place. I got enough to have several meals out of it so I don’t have to cook while I am still so sick. I really wish this cold would leave. I am just too out of it to cook like normal. I hate spending that much money but it’s good food with lots of veg so I don’t feel too bad about it.

Out of next week’s payday I will pay an additional $500 to AMEX, $500 to the holding tank for medical, $124 to renew AAA, $1000 to the EF and $1000 to the holding tank for the two week period of no paycheck. There should be about $600 left and $300 of that will go to the property tax portion of the holding tank, $100 to the laptop fund, $100 for groceries and $100 for miscellaneous. If there is anything beyond that it will go to the laptop fund. The payday after that, which is only two and a half day’s pay will also be for stretching across the two week period of no paycheck.

I took back the 3 cans of chicken and rice soup I bought on Tuesday by accident and got 3 cans of chicken and stars soup in exchange. The price had dropped 10 cents a can on the new sale week, so I got 30 cents back in change. Also at the Chinese place the lady didn’t want to use so many pennies by giving me back the 14 cents she owed me so she gave me 15 cents instead, so that’s a total of 45 cents to the coin jar today. I also grabbed some penny wrappers while I was at the CU paying the mortgage, so I can roll coins today and add that to next week’s laptop fund deposit.

All in all a satisfying payday and I can’t wait until next week when everything posts and I can update my numbers again and see some real progress this time.

Oh, and DH has heard from three different people, one his direct supervisor that he’ll be getting a raise in April at the six month mark. It will add $525 to his gross income for a six week pay cycle if the amount he was told is correct, so I’m thinking we will at least get $400 of it and that can go to debt repayment probably. If I’ve done the numbers right, with that extra amount we should hit the end of the year no problem with having BoA paid off completely. I’m not counting it yet, though, in my budget. It’s one of those things where I’ll believe it when I see it.

The BoA VISA should now have a little over $3000 between what we owe and what the limit is on it, so with that cushion there I am going to now switch to paying only $1500 on the BoA VISA each month (expenses, plus interest, plus about $100 to principle) and take the extra $1000 and add it to the $400 payment we make on the BoA Master Card. That will pay it off by the end of May and then we’ll be able to pay $2900 to the VISA each month until it is paid off. I may try to scrape up an extra $100 each time to make it $3000. We’ll see what’s available.

Once that is done the money will then go to finish paying off the car, unless DH talks me into trading in the Matrix for a Sienna sooner than we planned.
If we stick to the plan, we should be out of debt, except what we owe to Mom, by the middle of 2012, possibly sooner if he gets the raise.

Mom doesn’t want us paying her back any faster than $1000 a month because she is using that to supplement her income from social security (and saving as much of it as she can for the future). She likes having it come in steadily and our system seems to be working for everyone.

Edited to add: I was cleaning out an old purse and found $1.95 in coins. I then rolled coins and I have $7.50 to add to the laptop fund.

$467.94 beginning laptop fund balance
$=07.50 amount added
---------------
$475.44 ending laptop fund balance

I love it when the first payday of the pay cycle gets here and I still have money left in the account. That isn't always easy because that final paycheck of the cycle stretches across three weeks instead of the normal one. I had $100 left so I transferred that to ING to be added to the Emergency Fund. That makes $6,231.35 in the EF at ING. I also transferred some money to be held there that isn't part of the EF. It's part of what I call my holding tank.

The holding tank is for short term savings. I just started it. It will have things in there that are paid bimonthly or every six months. I transferred $100 in there for property tax. I'm not sure what my property tax for the year on the old house is, because they still haven't sent out the paper work, but last year it was just over $1000, so I decided to go with $1200 and put $100 a month aside. I didn't do it in January, but I'm not worried about it. We'll catch it up one way or the other. Maybe from the safety net if we have to. That's what it is there for. But more likely we'll just pay less on the VISA in April.

Also in the holding tank is $6.30 for garbage (I budget $50 a month and the bill is bimonthly and was less than that, but I pay garbage pick up for the old house (that will end soon) as well as garbage pickup here. So I'll save the extra and add it to when the bill for here comes due. Any extra will carry over and just build a cushion for garbage when we have to make dump runs from the old house.

I also put $80 in the holding tank for water/sewer at the old house. It's paid bimonthly and I think it's only $72 per month, but I can't remember, it might be $76 so I built in some cushion. And I put in $17 to go towards the HOA dues that will be due in July. So altogether the ING holding tank has $203.30 in it and the total amount of money in ING is $6,434.65.

As for the safety net, it has $1,068.65 in it. We used $1000 of it to pay some medical bills off.

Other than all that out of today's paycheck I paid:

$1500.00 to the BoA VISA (will pay more next week)

$400.00 to put back in the safety net that I used yesterday to pay on the Master Card

$51.91 for phone out at the old house (still hating on Comcast for that amount)

$65.55 for cable internet

$43.70 for garbage

$490.75 for the car payment

$60 for DD six week allowance ($10 a week)

$36 for DS six week allowance ($6 a week)

$100 for groceries

I will pay out $90 for physical therapy Monday and that will leave me with $116.56 in the checking account until next payday.

Other than that I added $2 to the laptop fund and $1.06 to the coin jar.

$430.94 beginning laptop fund balance
+002.00 amount added
--------------
$432.94 ending laptop fund balance

I finished reading America's Cheapest Family by Annette and Steve Economides. It was interesing enough, but the book is pretty dated at this point and a lot of the ideas won't work for our particular situation. A few of them will, so I walked away with something. I think for the beginner, new to trying to be frugal it would be a good book to read. (Not as fun or entertaining as Amy Dacyzn's Tightwad Gazette, though). I also started and finished reading Live Well for Less than You Think by Fred Brock. It was okay. Again, for anyone living the frugal lifestyle for a while it didn't really have all that much to offer, but it was a bit more current than the other book. And the newly frugal would learn a lot for it.

I'm about a third of the way through Jean Chaztky's From Debt to Wealth on $10 a Day: Pay it Down. This one is a bit more relevant to me, but even so, it's got several things I've heard before. Still, I really like the writing style and the way she presents things, so I think I'll definitley get something out of this book by the time I am finished.

Last night when I was trying to figure out what to do about the taxes, whether to take it out of debt repayment or the EF, I went over the budget again. I was letting myself get a little panicky. I kept looking and looking for places to cut and then I realized I'd allocated $1000 for savings each month. I thought I'd allocated $100 for savings each month.

I am not used to this new pay grade yet and in my head I'd fixated on $100, but obviously when I set the budget up with the actual numbers, I'd put in what we could scrape up each month. So I'll have $2000 from that before the April 15th deadline and can take the rest ($4000) out of the EF and then immediately pay back $1000 of it to the EF at the end of April when there is a payday. Then I'll only have $3000 to payback to the EF, and with an allocation of $1000 to put in each month it'll be back up to where it is now pretty soon.

Although I didn't sleep great last night it was better than the night before and I think I have definitely turned the corner on this cold. Of course DS decided to come down with it instead. He's all fever, snot, and cough and walking around like a zombie. I've covered him with Vick's vaporub and have the vaporizer going with the inhalant poured into the litte cup thingy and he's taken two steamy showers this morning to help him breathe. Poor boy. So no school today for him.

Mom is going to watch him while I go to the produce sale later and I will pick up some saline mist for his nose. He won't use regular nasal spray or I'd be able to clear him right up. Fortunately I still have plenty of the dye free cold and allergy medicine. Walgreen's has their own house brand and even though it is dye free it cost less than non-generic cold and allergy medicine. But I stocked up on it several months ago and have a couple bottles of each on hand.

As for meal planning:

Breakfast for 3:
Soft-boiled eggs (free from chickens)
Toast and free jelly from aunt (.50)
Milk ($1.50)
$2
Total Breakfast: $4

Lunch for DD
Leftover slice of pizza (so free, accounted for cost last night)
baggy potato chips (.50)
orange (.50)
water

Lunch for Me and DS
TJ's chicken noodle soup ($1.29)
Crackers for DS (.20)
Grilled ham and cheese sandwich (split between us) ($2)
Oranges ($1)
$4.49

Total Lunch: $5.40

Dinner for 4 (Mom is eating with us):
Whole Roasted chicken (free, bought with gift card)
Olive oil and herbs (.50)
Baked potatoes (with the sale price this will be about .13 for a pound) so (.20)
Butter (.50)
Green beans ($1)
Milk ($2)
Total dinner: $4.20

Total daily food: $13.60

DH finished doing our income taxes and for the first time ever we are going to owe money. We also didn't qualify for any of the child credit this year. We knew it was coming because of the contract buyout lump sum. They did send a substantial portion of it to the government in taxes, but we figured it wouldn't be enough. They warned us it probably wouldn't. It'll be almost $6000. Our EF is $8200. I don't want to touch that.

On the other hand, if we take it out of our credit card repayment plan for the next 3 months we wouldn't have to. We are currently sending $3500 to debt repayment each momth. The problem with doing that is interest is at .9% in savings and the credit card we are repaying is 11.4%. If we paid the almost $6000 out of the EF we would still have $2200, plus whatever we contribute the next 3 months which will at least be $100 a month and whatever else I can manage to scrape up. So $2500 at the very least will be left in the EF if we do it.

I think we probably will even though having $8000 in there was something making me feel very secure. I just can't see hobbling our repayment plan. Maybe I can go halfsies. Take $3000 out of the EF and $3000 out of the debt repayment plan. Still that interest. I don't know. I guess I have some time before I have to make the decision. We don't get paid until the 18th so I'll spend some time seriously thinking about it between now and then.

First I had to find the swing before I could make the attempt to get back into the swing of things. I pulled my CU statement off the internet today and balanced my checkbook for the month of December, so that's a positive step in the pay attention to my finances category!

Tomorrow's big step will be sitting down with the bill box and paying bills. Okay, more than that because I've been paying bills all along, but getting that aspect of my life organized. I'm going to be getting this nifty organizer thing from Lillian Vernon for my birthday in February. It's a box that has slots for every day of the month that you organize your bills into and then a couple little drawers for miscellaneous bill paying items like envelopes or stamps or whatnot. Always have a hard time keeping track of my whatnots, after all! But it should come in quite handy.

I'm working on my 2008 Budget Spreadsheet, too. Now I know that medical has not gone up for the first year in forever and that car insurance has actually gone down ('bout time, DH hasn't had an accident since '94 and I've not had one since '88 when I was 18 and that was only a parallel parking mishap!), and they've finally gotten the clue we're safe drivers! Security system monitoring has gone up by a buck a month.

Lots of little things. Property taxes should go down a bit this year as a levy came off.

Tomorrow I'll be making a trip to Costco and getting gas. Don't think I'll buy anything else there, except produce if it looks good. I've got plenty of canned goods and meat in the freezer. Well, maybe eggs, milk, and cheese. And dishwasher tablets. I think I'll make a list before I go. Since things seem to be magically popping into my head at the moment.

Just wanted to say thanks again for the warm welcome back. It was lovely.

And this is just how badly I'm not thinking. I paid my property taxes today, well, techinically yesterday since it's after midnight. Pretty big thing to forget about, isn't it? Well, at least I didn't forget to pay it. Now that really would have been bad.

So $335.88 out the door for half year taxes. Yes, those are low. We're not a city out here. More like a blink and you missed it, with the accompanying services (few, mostly volunteer), and most of it goes to the schools anyway, which are good.

I also added 2 handfuls of change and $7 in ones to the coin jar. Didn't count the change. Still too apathetic at the moment, but I'm trying, anyway.

Well, obviously. Everyone else does, too, I'm sure. DH found out why they took so much out of his bonus check this year. Apparently our wonderful IRS branch of our government has a new tax law in effect. (If you didn't recognize it, that last sentence was dripping with sarcasm). Bonuses are now considered income and are taxed at the higher 25% rate as well.

But you know what really sucks? Reimbursements are taxable this year. Reimbursements? How the heck can they consider the company giving you your own money back as taxable income!?! And at the higher 25% also. I mean come on. This one is utterly ridiculous!

I know we will get it back with a few thousand dollars with the next refund. But they already take way more out than they should. As I've moaned about many times before, we can't do anything about it. Because he works 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, he only gets paychecks for 2 weeks out of every four, but they have to tax his checks as if he were making the same amount all four weeks (which would like double our income and put us in a way higher tax bracket). Our lovely IRS does not allow exceptions to this rule. And that extra $3600 each year would have come in handy during the year. That's $300 a month more we would net if we could have it through the year.

I really wish something could be done. We already take the maximum of allowable exemptions, just to get as much as we can. DH plagues HR each new tax year to see if it has changed, but nope. Of course it is in the government's best interests to not change the laws, they get a whopping (to me) $3600 a year from us that they get to earn interest on.

Anyway, just a rant. I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Our tax return showed up in our bank account today. This is the fastest we've ever gotten it. Just 3.5 weeks.

I haven't done anything with it yet, but the plan is:

$2000.00 to a credit card
$1000.00 to Vacation fund (but will send to ING until needed)
$ 458.13 to education fund (but will send to ING until needed)

Might as well earn some good interest on those last two things. I am setting up a spreadsheet to keep track of what's in the ING account so nothing ends up in the wrong place.

I forgot to mention that I mailed off our tax refund papers on the 2/12/07 so we should be seeing a refund within 5 to 6 weeks. DH makes too much for us to qualify for free online filing, our taxes are too simple (we don't deduct, we check but standard has come out better every year so far) to purchase tax software to efile for free. So we deal with having to mail it in and wait. We do have it direct deposited each year so that makes the wait about one week less.

We are getting back a little over $500 more than we expected, when DH figured stuff out based on last years forms. I like this years forms much better! We will use the extra to either fix the dryer or buy a new one and anything leftover goes into the summer sports camp fund.

Our property tax bill came in the mail. First half is not due until the end of April. I was really excited as the taxes have dropped by over $100. The school bond on our elementary school expired, so ten years later it is now paid for. That's kind of an exciting thing, too. I'm sure the school district will be putting up a bond for either a new elementary or a second junior high within the next year or so.

The population is exploding out here, probably because it is one of the few places in western Washington where you can still buy a house for less than $100,000. Of course, the developers are working on changing that, building really out of character for the neighborhood, fancy shmancy two story houses with double garages that dominate the 3/8 acre lots. That type of house needs at least 2/3 of an acre to look right.

Most of the houses out here are simple one story 2 and 3 bedroom houses, though ours is a 4, and most people do not have garages. You can really tell which houses were built before the last 4 years because they blend in well with the rest of the houses out here. There were no two story houses in our division before 4 years ago. But neighborhoods evolve, even it it doesn't mean getting better. Not that it is really getting worse, just out of character. Property values are up according to the realtors and banks, but not the assessors, so far.

DH's W-2 finally came today. 2 days late. If I recall correctly all tax information is supposed to be in your hands by January 31. His company is always a couple days late. Drives me crazy. DH comes home tonight and I am hoping we will get our taxes done tomorrow and get that refund on its way ASAP.

We are planning to use $2000 to pay on a credit card. The rest goes in the vacation fund.