June Financial Stuff

It's the middle of June already....how did THAT happen?
Didn't I just get back from Louisiana?....no, it's been 2 WEEKS now.

June Income Update--

It's the 15th and I've paid all the bills that have come in this month so far....phone, internet, water, gas card, c/c.
That would just leave the long distance charge on the landline and the electric bill.

Hubs will continue to withdrawal cash for his personal spending this month.

4 days until the electric bill cuts and we are on track to owe $130 figuring our average usage per day so far. 

I had hoped for a lower than last month's electricity usage but College Boy is home and there a bit of unnecessary dryer usage now.
*ahem ahem*
I yell, cajole, demand, plead but nothing helps me get to this kid.  The only way I am going to get him to stop is to disconnect the dryer.

He is also an energy hog about the a/c.  We have a window unit for his room but I hold off putting it in the window as long as I can since he only knows one setting, HIGH.  I have honest to goodness walked into that room sometimes and left with an icicle forming on the tip of my nose.
He also leaves the a/c on when he goes to work or out for the night.  Shut the blasted thing off when you aren't in there for extended periods of time how about it!?!?!

The long distance is always about $7.50 per month so that's easily penciled into the spending chart.

We have one non-regular bills this month due to replacing the exhaust system in the CB's car.
$441.61

Savings Challenge--

Between that(and possibly another repair on Hubs new car this month-it's in the shop as I type)and a high c/c bill from our trip, the potential leftovers from this month's income that can go into my Savings Challenge for June aren't looking like much.

Looking at the last 2 year's of bills...June 2014 savings was over $2K but June 2013 was barely $800.  It's probably going to be a lot closer to that $800 year for June 2015.
Hey, as long as we don't go into the hole for June I am ok with it.  8-)

Medical Spending Update--

I just paid off the last of the medical bills before the high deductible kicked in for 2015 with the HSA funds.  We've got almost $1K left in there with still more cataract charges/surgery, a semi-annual OV, blood work for said OV, and possible charges/co-pays incurred for Hubs medical problem. 
Hopefully, once the other eye is done and Hubs problem is looked into, we are good to go with just normal rx refills for the rest of the year(plus 1 more semi-annual check-up for me)and can build a bit of a cushion in the HSA to help cover the high deductible charges that begin again Jan.2016.
We've got about $2,600 left to put into the HSA account this year so I am hoping we'll have close to $2K left in there Jan. 1st.  This doesn't take into account any other illnesses/drugs/tests/etc. needed for the rest of the year however so I am not counting on the HSA being that robust by Jan. 2016.

What's Ahead for 2015--

I'll be interested to see where we stand financially at the halfway point of 2015 at the end of this month.

As for non-regular bills coming up---July is college charges(but that's put aside already in it's own account and doesn't come out of the current income), August is house insurance, September is taxes(local, municipal) and November is car insurance.
Have to make sure we keep a cushion in the checking account in September for taxes as the other 2 bills we can handle readily.

By the end of June(beginning of July) we should be hitting that spot in the yearly income when the withholding goes down(thank you progressive taxing!)and what Hubs takes home in pay increases.  In 2014 that meant an addition $433 per 2-week pay period for 13 paychecks or $5K+ more for the end of the year in take-home pay.  If I can hold the budget/spending to current levels that might mean, since we have no debt, an extra $5K+ to potentially put into the Savings Challenge.
Or maybe I'll do something wild like fly to Europe and take a Viking River Cruise with that money.

Hey!
It could happen....lol

While lots of stuff is up in the air, things are looking good here at Chez Sluggy with the money. 8-)))

Sluggy
 

Something in the Air

This post title refers to the big news here for this week.

Once we got the minivan hauled off(and taken off the insurance thankyouverymuch!)it was time to take care of another long delayed project.

Having the driveway repaved.

Hubs called a couple of companies Monday morning before a dental appointment and around 11am a guy shows up at the front door.
It's the owner of one of the companies he called.  They happened to be working nearby so he came over to give us a quote.

I called Hubs with the quote and he said ok, let's do this!

About an hour later, noonish, the guy is back with workers to prep the driveway....

And then by 4pm they had finished with the job.....

And now we have a nice new driveway with no holes, cracks or potholes.
Rah.
Of course the bank account took a hit for this.

Usually I pull extraordinary expenses like this from my previous year's Savings Challenge funds.
But luckily for us I didn't need to do that since we still have a big chunk of Hub's Bonus this year leftover.
Yes, it was a nice fat bonus this year.  8-)))

So the Savings Challenge for 2013 funds stay intact(and I am hoping they end the year that way so I can put them into permanent savings status).

I still can't walk into the garage without the lovely scent of asphalt in the air in there.  It should  dissipate after a few more days.

I sold some more fabric last week/this week which has lifted my mood.
I still need to straighten up the house a bit before the brother in-law arrives to stay for the weekend.
I got brownies made to take to the family reunion.

I've been trying to write up some genealogy information for my mother's cousins, who we will see this weekend.
Of course every time I go to do this, I get sidetracked.
Today it was an email from a woman who's ancestor I put a memorial and headstone photo of on F.A.G.
She wanted to know if I am related and what information I have to share with her.
I feel bad every time someone makes an inquiry like this because I usually have nothing else to share beyond what I put up on the F.A.G. memorial.
I was able to help this person today.  I found her ancestors immigration information....the ancestor and his whole family came in 1854 as a unit from Germany.  This confirmed information she had and gave her names/birthdates for all the family members(which she didn't have)and gives her a town name in Germany to inquire to about birth records and may get her past this previous brick wall.  I just hope she speaks/writes/reads German now. lolz
I feel good knowing the little bit I did helped somewhat.

I was able to track down a few ancestors to hang onto my family trees this week too.  I found some "died young" ancestors, who were never in census records because of this, buried with their parents on F.A.G.  I also found an allied family to my mother's Fosters, McKay, which I didn't know about before.

I did a bit of research on my father's side and found another branch, the Schwartzes.  My 2 x Great Aunt Adeline Bowman married a Schwartz and I found a Schwartz cousin(well not a cousin but the nephew of the husband of my 2x great aunt) on F.A.G.  He seems a nice guy but we really don't have much ancestral information the other needs.  He is in contact with the granddaughters of Adeline(another branch of his Schwartz tree)and they live in the area of New York state where my great grands lived later in life(which was when these granddaughters were growing up there)so I am hopeful he can find some kind of information on my Bowmans through them.  They had to have known at least my great great grands!


Ok, I am off.  I still have to pack, pick up rxs, feed the dog and prepare mentally for company tonight.

Sluggy

How My Savings Challenge Works & Why We Save This $

Today I'm going to revisit my Savings Challenge and how I put money away each month for this.

I talked, in detail, specifically about this, way back in June of 2011.  If you'd prefer to read that again, go HERE.
So I'll go over this for everyone who hasn't been reading since that time.

Every year, since 2009, I have tried to keep a close eye on both the monies coming in and where the monies is going out.  You really can't have an accurate accounting of the finances if you don't know how much comes in AND how much goes out and where it goes.  Not keeping an eye on one or the other end of things is like only doing half the job.

I am old school.  I don't use a software program to track my income and spending. 
I could use one but I just find having to plug numbers into a program tedious.  I know it would save me having to calculate everything in my head but I enjoy using my brain where the math is concerned.  And being a woman of a certain age, my brain can use a little more exercise anyway. 8-)

I use a sheet of paper each month instead.

I make 2 columns on the paper.....
On the left side I list all the categories of spending for the month--water bill, electric bill, cable bill, credit card bill, music lessons bill, phone bill, medical bills, prescription costs and cash withdrawals are my usual items.  Months were I have those items that don't occur every month like car insurance, taxes, house insurance, garbage and sewage bills, I just add those to the list if needed.
On the right side I list all the categories of income for the month--paychecks, rebates, stock dividends, tax refunds, per diem reimbursements, side hustle monies(like selling something or blog revenue), etc.  Of course paychecks are listed each month and the other categories are listed as needed on the income side of things each month.

I don't have a food bill category since I use cash for groceries, so the grocery expenses are in the cash withdrawals(and on rare occasions in the credit card charges bill).  I do detail & track the grocery/toiletries spending separately in my notebook so I know how much of my cash withdrawals go toward groceries.

Back to the monthly tracking of income and outgo......
Once all the bills/expense items are paid and marked on the sheet I add them up.
Then I add up all the income for the month and subtract the total expenses, which gives me either a positive or negative amount, meaning I have either some excess money at the end of the month or I am in the red at month's end.

As for our paycheck amounts--Hubs has insurance premiums(health, dental, life and long term care), all taxes, withholding and retirement funding taken out of his pay automatically.  It's easier that way.  So whatever shows up in the bank account in the paycheck direct deposit is ALL fair game for me to spend or not to spend however I/we see fit.  I know those categories are taken out and put where they need to be before I even get my hands on the pay.  It helps me sleep at night.  8-)

So we just pay the bills as they come in each month and then if we have money left over at month's end, I sweep it into an ING(now Capital One)fund called Savings Challenge.  If we have a bad financial month where we need more funds than the paycheck provides to pay everything off that month, I can transfer a portion of what has been saved for the year back into the checking account.

Besides the paychecks coming in, we do keep a small cushion of money in that checking account for peace of mind and as a first line of defense against surprise expenses and so that the bank doesn't charge us a fee to have a checking account.

So I try to save what I can each year out of the incoming cash.
At the end of the year I throw that amount saved for the year into an account to sit.
The following year, if we have expenses that our regular income each month can't cover, we take money from the previous year's surplus to cover that.
When that year is over, and we are done having to possibly cover extra expenses incurred, then that amount saved in the previous year gets moved into a permanent savings vehicle or account.

Does that make sense to anyone? ;-)

For example--
In 2009 we saved $23,865.36.
That amount got thrown into the ING account over the course of 2009.
In 2010 we incurred some "above the usual" expenses that the regular paychecks didn't cover......a car purchase at $10,600, a new fridge purchase at $773.81 and 3 trips for a total of $2087.00.  We used $13,460.81 of that $23,865.36 we saved in 2009 to cover these 2010 incurred expenses.
This meant that at the end of 2010, when all expenses were paid out for that year that we still had $10,404.55 of what we saved in 2009 to now throw into a permanent savings fund.

While we were paying for these irregular/unusual expenses in 2010 with the 2009 savings, we were still saving a piece of our income from 2010 and putting that into a new Savings Challenge fund.

In 2010 we saved a whooping $34,019.88 from all our income sources.
In 2011, while we were saving money each month, we also used $427.81 of what we had saved in 2010 to pay on irregular/unusual expenses in 2011.
So at the end of 2011, when we were ready to throw whatever was left of the monies saved in 2010 into a permanent savings fund, we had $31,834.15 left of that initial $34,019.88.

In 2011 we saved $34,461.31 from all our income sources.
In 2012, while we were saving money each month, we also used $2,627.16 of what we had saved in 2011 to pay on irregular/unusual expenses in 2012.
So at the end of 2012, when we were ready to throw whatever was left on the monies saved in 2011 into a permanent savings fund, we had $31, 834.15 left of that initial $34,461.31.

In 2012 we saved $28,907.08 from all our income sources.
In 2013(so far), while we were saving money each month, we also used $25,574.22 of what we had saved in 2012 to pay on irregular/unusual expenses in 2013.
At this point we will only have $3,332.86 left of what we saved in 2012 to throw into a permanent savings fund come the end of 2013.
2013 has been a very expensive year at Chez Sluggy, but having put all this money away year after year, we've had enough to cover all our spending.

I know I could just dip into the current year's savings challenge amount instead of raiding the previous year's account when unusual expenses come up, but I like being able to see the pile of money get higher and higher without dipping into it.  There is a sort of "snowballing" effect when you aren't making withdrawals.....it makes it easier to not spend money emotionally when you see the cash adding up sitting in an account and not being tapped.
Or maybe that's just me.  ;-)

At this point in the journey of all the money we have "permanently" saved from 2009 until 2011(since I don't touch the savings amounts once the following year's spending is over)comes to $75,830.77.

Yes, we could have just upped our lifestyle over the last few years and spent what I've managed to tuck away into this fund.  Not buying used cars instead of new, going on expensive vacations, spending more on all those variable categories in our budget could have raised our lifestyle but I doubt that it would have discernibly made us happier as people.

The fact is the percentage of Hubs salary we actually live on each year is fine by us.  We are happy in our life as it is, and don't hunger after more, better or newer things.  More things and more money after a certain point doesn't make your life any better.  It just brings with it a whole other set of problems.

Being responsible type folks at our core(see "old fuddy duddies"), we thought it was a better plan to put this money away for when the day comes that we can't generate income.

This savings challenge fund is only to be touched in dire emergencies(like a job loss), as it's planned to be additional retirement savings for Hubs and I.

It is above and beyond what we are saving automatically from each paycheck for retirement income.
Once we retire (and Social Security kicks in), we'll have SS, our Cash Balance account(or something similar to a CBP), our Personal Employee Savings Plan account(like a 401K), any cash on hand or in checking accounts as well as this Savings Challenge fund to draw from until the day we kick the proverbial bucket.
This Savings Challenge money is the 4th leg of our retirement stool.  I figure a 4 legged stool is a mite better than a 3 legged stool any day. ;-)

Sluggy

 

Considering Some Changes

I've been pondering some changes here at Don't Read This; It's Boring!.
New year so time to change things up and put new lipstick on the old blog, right?

I've been considering discontinuing my Savings Challenge posts.  Oh, I'll still be here saving money and putting it away, but I don't get the feeling that posting about it is interesting to anyone, let alone, helpful to anyone.
I know I only post about it once a month but still, I feel like it's become a braggy thing.
Any thoughts on this?

And my Rite-Aid posts......anybody interested in keeping these or am I doing those for my own amusement? ;-)

One of the activities I'm going to set out to do this year is to journal about my life.  I'm no professional writer(ha!)and I'm not pretentious enough to call my scribblings my autobiography, but in fact this missive will accomplish two goals--help me sort out feelings about my past and leave a legacy for my children, good or bad, to help them try to understand the path I took through life and why. 

I'm fairly sure I don't want to share this roller coaster of family emotions with the interweb at large. Some of it is not pretty but at 54 years old, it's some stuff I need to finally deal with and stop burying.

 I'll probably set this Life Journal up as another blog and set it to Private so only those invited can behold Sluggy Gone Wild. ;-)  I feel that some of what I have to say may make some folks uncomfortable and I don't want to lose readers due to content.  There may be sections I can clean up and share on the regular blog and will.

Being close to retirement age, I want to talk a little more about preparing for that stage of life.  In the next 5.5 years Hubs and I will have a totally empty nest.  Hubs is on the downward side of his job trajectory now with retirement looming within the next 3-6 years.  How long he can stick it out depends on how much longer he can continue to keep his mouth shut and not tell these asshats at work what a load of horseshit this PC stuff they do is, and not have a stroke or have blood shoot out of his ears.  What ever happened to doing your work and being evaluated on how productive you are and being pleasant in your work place?  Now they have an agenda and want you to sit around a drum circle chanting and having workshops to make everyone feel good about their self-esteem and to go volunteer in a soup kitchen on Saturdays together on their own time and if you don't, you aren't an inclusive team player.  The Nanny State is bad enough, watch out for the Nanny Employer!
But I digress.....

I'll be talking more about retirement stuff this year and how to do retirement in a frugal style. 

Would anyone have an interest in hearing about what we did as a family in the earlier stages of life?
Like how we financially kept our heads above water as newly marrieds, with small kids, etc.?  I might have a pearl of wisdom or two to share for someone in those stage of life. 

Any thoughts or suggestions about the blog are appreciated.

Sluggy

My Savings Challenge...The Savings aren't Permanent for Another Year

I took on a Financial Savings Challenge at the behest of a member of the Compact Group back in Jan. of 2009.
I entitled that undertaking the $60K Savings Challenge.
Well, our name is NOT Rockefeller so we didn't even come close to saving $60K in '09. lol

We did however put away $23,997.24 for the year.....this amount is above and beyond any amount we put into retirement accounts for the year.  It's just a pile of money from the after tax/after retirement and insurance deductions paychecks we get that I manage to keep the family from frittering away on crap.
As you can see, I am getting darn good at keeping the family's sticky fingers off the money! ;-)

Going into 2010, I stepped down the savings goal to a more attainable $30K.
Throughout that year, I would on occasion use some of the 20009 Savings money toward big, not-everyday expenses we incurred in 2010 rather than using current income dollars.
Like buying a used car for cash.
Or buying a new refrigerator.
Or paying for the costs for 2 vacations we took that year.

We ended up using $12,991.45 in 2010 of that $23,997.24 we saved in 2009.
So in reality we actually permanently saved $11,005.79 in 2009.

In 2010 we saved $35,770.18 and we'll be using some of this amount when out of the ordinary large expenses come up in 2011.
We haven't used any of this amount for 'big hairy goals' in 2011 yet.
But we are planning on using some of that money soon for house repairs.

When 2011 is over, I'll be able to calculate how much of the actual $35+K we saved in 2010 that
we'll be able to tuck away permanently.
Well, permanently until some big expensive emergency comes along....and eventually they always do!

So the amount I save each year on the Savings Challenge isn't permanently saved until a full year after it ends.
I use the previous year's savings amount as a short term goal emergency fund.
And when that following year is over I dump whatever is left into a slot marked 'permanently savings'.
At least, that's how I organize it in my head. ;-)

Next Sunday Hubs and I will be having a financial meeting.  Among the discussions will be how much/what kind of home repairs we'll be having done this year.  I'm hoping that list won't eat away at that $35+K we saved from 2010 too badly.

Do you have a savings goal each year? 
Do you keep any money you save for the year into a separate account?

Sluggy