He Has Already Checked Out of High School

It's been a good few days here at Chez Sluggy.
No, I am not talking about the snowy weather....Lord knows that is pretty but a bear if you have to go out in it....plus it's too danged cold for me this year.

I am talking about #2 Son here......he's had a good few days.
And you know what they say--If your teenager is happy, YOU are happy.
Or rather, YOU are relieved that you don't have to deal with as much drama, eye rolling, 'tudes, obstinance, defiance, and the like.

#2 Son had 2 college auditions this past weekend.

While many college-bound kids this time of year have already completed their applications and some even HAVE heard back on whether they are accepted or not, if you have an artistic type kid, they are still in the throes of the process.
Among the many hoops the college "dog and pony shows" make teens jump through, the art(fine, music, theatre, dance)student has an additional hoop to tackle--the Audition or Portfolio Submission.

#2 Son got 1 acceptance letter weeks ago(about 3 weeks?)from one of the four schools he has applied to.
One of our fine state schools, Mansfield, welcomed him into their fold, even before he had an audition.
Of course, this was just a general admission to the University, NOT an offer of a seat into their Music program, which is why he has to audition.
So even if he isn't accepted as a Music major, he can still go here as some other kind of major other than a Music one.  This was NOT welcomed news to #2 Son at the time.  He's an "all or nothing" type of fellow. 8-)

But I digress.....

This weekend began the month long audition process for #2 Son.  He has 4 auditions at 4 schools spread out over the first 3 weeks in February.

Saturday was the first, at Temple in Philly.
I was so anxious that it go well, being the 1st one AND the fact that Temple is his #1 choice at the moment.  It is also the school with stiff competition and not exactly a sure thing for him to get in.  He has the grades but his SAT's aren't the best and the music program is tough to get into.

His dad took him on Saturday and #2 Son thinks he did well and he came home with his spirits high.
Nothing more to say here as nobody gave him any indication on whether he gets the "thumb up or thumb down" on admission here.  We just have to watch and see what arrives in the mail.

Then on Sunday, they left for an overnight to that state school I talked about earlier, Mansfield University, so they would be there Monday morning for his scheduled audition for that school's music program.

While it's a state school with rolling admissions(not exactly tough to get into academically), reading about this school's music department online got me nervous about his odds of making it.

From the college's music program website.....
"We target enrollment for every studio, with an average of four or five seats opening up in each studio annually. Our average freshmen class is approximately 70 students."

That means each year they take 4 or 5 freshman per instrument and the music department's freshman class is about 70 in total, from a pool of about 300 applications.  So #2 Son had a 30% shot at getting in but that could be made better or worse depending on how many of those 300 others prospective students want to study flute.
And flute tends to be a very popular instrument for study. 8-(

So I crossed my fingers for him and waited until Hubs called me when it was over and they were on the way home.

#2 Son feels very positive about how he performed at this audition as well.
It didn't hurt that I let him attend the Summer Music Performance Camp they held last year and he worked with the Chair of the flute program then.  Plus she remembered him from that.

#2 says that they had a conversation and things were said to lead him to believe that he should be expecting a FAT envelope about their decision by the end of March. ;-)
I so hope that's true for his sake.

Which now means, going into the last 2 auditions #2 Son possibly has one in the proverbial bag already.
Though it's not his first choice if he gets into all 4 schools.
That would be Temple....at least it is, this week.
Next week?....who knows?! 8-)

So in 2 weeks Hubs takes him down to Richmond to his audition at VCU.
Virginia Commonwealth U. has what is considered one of the finest arts programs in the country at the moment.
It is his stretch school so we are just hoping for the best there and I'm hoping no matter the outcome, he has a positive experience.

Then a few days later it's time for #4 on the Audition Hit List at a local private school, Marywood University up in Scranton PA.

That's his "safety school".....sort of.  But we have hit a complication snag of sorts there because #2 Son doesn't "test well" and they are quite arbitrary about their statistical "requirements".  He wants to be a music education major at that place, however the education department has decided that he is 20 points from an arbitrary SAT score and will not admit him as a freshman education major...even though he has a 3.75 in his high school academic work.  He would have to go in as a music performance major and after successfully completing his 1st semester with a 3.0(B) average, he could transfer into that program and change his major.  So basically he has to prove himself because he doesn't test well on standardized exams.

#2 is NOT thrilled by this and I just rolled my eyes.

Between this "wrinkle" and the fact that he would have to live at home(what 18 year old wants to hear that?!LOL)to be able to swing this college financially, Marywood is on the bottom of his Favorite's List.
Can you blame him? ;-)

At any rate that is were we are with the Audition process at the moment.

#2 Son is having a hard time staying focused on high school at this point.  He has already checked out of high school emotionally.  He's spent a lot of time dealing with working on his pieces for these auditions, in addition to 2 school bands(concert and jazz)rehearsals, his garage band in his free time, plus keeping up with private flute lesson work.  Plus he had District Band auditions and practicing for that thrown into the fray!

He's having a hard time concentrating on his academic high school work now too.  He just wants that be done already, even though we keep telling him he has to "run through the tape" and not just meander up to the finish line to his high school diploma.

He is SO ready to just get on with the rest of his life, no matter where he ends up going and what he ends up doing.

I am ready too for him to be in college I think(living AWAY from home), if I don't think too hard about all that money we'll have to pony up when he goes.
Yes, we will get to spend a lot of money so he gets a degree that guarantees that he will be unemployable.  ;-)

Now it's time for me to get that FAFSA done, though in our case, it IS rather pointless......lolz

Sluggy



 

$24K Savings Challenge.....January Update

Every year I keep a close eye on our monthly expenses and our monthly income.
Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, health insurance premiums, long term care insurance premiums, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.

Once the automatic savings amounts, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision premiums are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2014 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount slightly to $24,000 this year, $4K more than my goal for last year.

On to the January report.....

I have posted my January End of Month $24K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $2,000.

I have to report that we finished up January with very little spare money to put aside.
The extra cash amount we ended the month of January with?.......$205.32.

Income
We had $142.78 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in January totaled $62.54.  This brought us to our gain of $205.32 for January.
Since we have no debt anymore, this goes into savings.

Outgo

As for the expenses this January, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Water and Phone were the same as December's totals.

*  I spent under $300 for food/toiletries in January.
*  The credit card bill was $300 less than December's bill.
*  The Cash withdrawals were $531.50 less than December.

 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The cable bill went up $5 per mo. after having been reduced by $5 for the last 6 months of 2013.
I believe they need to be called up and talked to.

*  The electric bill was $67 MORE than December's bill.  Ok, it's a Polar Vortex thing.

*  The garbage bill(which I pay quarterly)was paid.
*  An unexpected car repair bill of $982.59 paid in January.
*  Some extra credit card charges(store card & Hub's Discover) of approx. $94.

 

The Food Budget costs for January are in another post, which is located HERE. 

The 2014 GRAND TOTAL.....
With 1 month accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2014 is $205.32. 
Not a very auspicious start to the new year and nowhere near the $2,000 I need to put back each month.
Usually we do better in January and have at least $1,000 extra income after the bills are all paid.

In other financial news--
I figured out how much of my Savings Challenge from 2012 is left now(since in 2014 it is no longer being used as an emergency fund, like it was in 2013)and can be put into "permanent savings" mode.
Of the $28,907.08 we saved in 2012, $23,611.66 was spent in 2013, leaving us $5,295.42 to throw into our permanent savings.  Not very much savings realized at the end of it all.

Our new emergency fund is the amount we saved in 2013, which totaled $24,033.60.
So we are off to 2014 with a nice sized fund for all those nasty surprises that might happen during this year.
 

 

Looking ahead for February......

*  I will continue to do this Savings Challenge and report in each month on how it is going.
 

*  Hubs and I still need to sit down and go over how we did with the bills/savings in 2013 and see if there are any areas we need to cut back.

*  The car insurance is due in February and the bill is here already.  It's over $1600 for 6 months.
bleh.  We have been paying our oldest son's car insurance bill for the last 6 months(as he transitioned into the workforce full time and being on his own).  He was suppose to start picking up the tab on his share in February.  This might not be happening as he is looking for a new job and he may be unemployed very soon or even more underemployed than he is now.
If anyone wants to tell me that the economy is improving, just go tell someone else because I don't want to hear it! 8-(

*  February, historically, has been a higher expense month for us.  Besides 6 month's of car insurance being due, we usually have a fairly large credit card bill(that gets paid off) and of course, paying out of pocket for all medical bills still, since the deductible hasn't been met for the year.  And our deductible went up $1K this year so I am not very hopeful that February will end with us still holding much cash.  But there is always March and a new month to do better if February bombs out.

 

So how was your January financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in January?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out your progress too and celebrate with you!

Sluggy

Food & Toiletries Spending.......January Totals

Onward to January's food spending report.......

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for JANUARY 2014.

I have posted January's totals on the Total Grocery Savings for 2014 Page located HERE and have updated the Yearly Totals there.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in January.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Summary.

My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Pet Supplies, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 4(3 at home this month)& 1 dog. No kids under 17.
******************

RITE-AID
OOP  $1.71
Qs/Ads/+Ups  $75.37
Value  $77.08
Savings  97.78%
 

SHURSAVE STORES(small local independent affiliated stores)
OOP  $106.10

Qs/Ads  $68.24

Value  $174.34

Savings  39.14%

WALMART
OOP  $0.00
Qs/Ads/Gift Card  $86.90
Value  $86.90
Savings  100%

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $189.56

Qs/Ads  $147.66

Value  $337.22

Savings  43.78%

*********************
My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Walmart at 100%, Rite-Aid at 97.78%, and Weis at 43.78%.  My WORST savings rate was 39.14% so I think I did exceptionally well in January on the value of what I got!
I shopped at 4 different stores this past month.

TOTAL Out of Pocket........$297.37

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$298.17

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$595.54

TOTAL Savings of...................................50%

This closes out the January food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....

I went into January wanting to cut my food/toiletries budget by $100, to $300 budgeted for ALL purchases.  I accomplished that feat in December so I wanted to try again this month.
I met that challenge.
Go me! 8-))

That $100 on a long ago paid for gift card I spent at Walmart went a good ways toward achieving a 50% savings rate in January.  Don't be expecting me to have more months as good as this one! lol

(Of course I DID withdraw some Feb. food spending funds the last few days and used it to get some deals on the February tab that weren't going to be around to get in Feb.  But that spending will be accounted for in the February Spending post.)

LOOKING AHEAD TO FEBRUARY......

Of course, I doubt I can sustain a $300 monthly food budget long term. 
I am going to try to come in under $300 on food for February but if I go over into the $400 range I won't be too upset, since $400 is my normal spending set point.

I will say that I found eating relatively healthy AND still keeping your food spending under $300 is HARD WORK!
It takes more planning, comparing and getting to certain stores, it takes changing your eating habits at times(having the same thing over and over or something you didn't really want to eat).  If I had to keep on a strict regiment of $300 a month due to income restraints it would wear on me.
To have to do it in the short term is interesting and a challenge and something I can get "into".

I don't know......am I just plain crazy to want to try to reduce our food spending by 25% of our usual budgeted amount....and amount which seems fairly LOW to begin with?
I have always been up for a money challenge I guess.

I figured with spending under $300 on food/toiletries this month, my Entertainment/Eating out spending would have been proportionately higher, right?

I tallied up our Eating Out spending for January and it came in at $96.86.
We ate out 3 times this month and had take-out twice, plus there was $ I gave to #2 Son for a run to McDonalds accounted for in that total.

Much of our meals out was paid for with free birthday certificates and one whole meal for 2 was comped at Lone Star.  Even with me eating for free at 3 restaurants plus a free pizza at one of those 3 restaurants, we still spent $55.93 at those 3 places.  That amount was for tip & drinks at one, just the tip where the meals were comped, and tip, salads and drinks at the third location.  Then $7.93 for #2 Son at Mickey D's.
$96.86 is not a lot to spend for 11 individual adult sized meals out + tips, but if it hadn't been for birthday meals we probably wouldn't have gone out/ordered in 6 times.

We have substantially cut down on our eating out spending for January.  That is a good thing..... 8-)

Without the Rite-Aid totals added in, my January Savings Rate is 43%.  Achieving a savings rate in the 40's is what I shoot for, with or without shopping at Rite-Aid.
 

If you have other ideas or guidelines you follow please leave a comment and share yours with us all.

 

The average monthly food/toiletries spending this year so far is $297.37.

 

How much did you spend on food/toiletries in January?
Do you track your yearly food spending?
 

Sluggy

Spending $ Left & Right on Food & Toiletries

That's been me the last couple of days.......spending cash left and right!

As you may have read here already, I withdrew some February food budget $ before January was over in order to take advantage of some deals at Rite-Aid.
1 trip there and I was OOP $20.01 but received $15 in +Ups.

Here's how I spent that $15 in +Up Rewards I got earlier in the week from Rite-Aid.
I went back Thursday evening and did this......

5 Tide detergents
1 Dawn dishwashing liquid

I'm glad I didn't wait to do this until Friday, as they had 1 bottle left on the shelf of the size that was on sale after I took these 5.
I spent $10.69 OOP after Qs and +Ups.
When was the last time you got 5 bottles of Tide for less than $2 a pop?
Never did I hear you say? lolz
I'll save these for the really dirty duds or mix it in with a cheapo detergent to stretch this stuff out.

I received a $10 +Up back for that transaction.

So I went back Saturday morning and spent that $10+Up thusly......

I did the Unilever Spend $15/Get $5 +Ups Deal on the BIL's card.
The axe face washes were 50% off, $3.74 and paired with my $2/1 Qs they came out to $1.74 each.
The Clear 'Poo was on sale for $5 and I had 2 Qs(VV and Manu)to stack totaling $3.50, making that item $1.50.
There was a L2C Q for $2/1 Tresemme which did not come off.  It was for the Tresemme 'Poos that were on sale for $5(higher price point ones), but the store was out of them, so I had to get this $4 item and get no further discount.  But that's ok since it is a huge bottle and will last me quite awhile.

The Unilever items came to $16.48 pre Qs and $8.98 after, but I had to spend at least $10 to use my +Up Reward.
So I threw in 2 Pantene on sale for $7/2, a $3/2 L2C Q came off the transaction and the total was at $12.98.
After $10 +Ups was applied, $2.98, add in the tax of .18¢ and I paid $3.16 OOP for all.

I received back $7 in +Ups.....$5 Unilever wyb $15 and a $2 Pantene wyb 2 bottles.

Not a bad day at the ol' Rite-Aid.

I went to the small independent grocer next(sorry no picture)to pick up 2 whole roaster chickens for .99¢ lb. and the bread I like for $2.50 a loaf. 

While in the store I did a Kraft deal (Spend $25, Get $5 off).  All the qualifying items were on sale and because they also had a few in-ad Qs for Mayo and Planters PB it made this an even better deal.

I got--5 bags shredded cheese, 1 block of Swiss, 1 large container sour cream, 4 bottle of dressing(sometimes I think #2 Son drinks this!), 2 jars Mayo and 1 jar PButter for $20.

I also picked up 1 quart of ice cream, a 1/2 gallon of milk & 3 frozen pizza w/a B2G1Free Q.
Total was $53.64 with a savings rate of over 60%.

Then I hit Weis(PMITA)Markets.  I went in for the Purex laundry detergent($1.77 and I had a $1 Q)but I came out with all this.....

4 lbs. of diced rutabagas and sweet potatoes 50% off-$3.99 total
2 bags of collards for 50% off-$2.69 total
1 bottle of Purex-$.77 after Q
1 bakery hoagie onion rolls 50% off-$1.64
2 OM turkey deli meat w/$5 in Instant discount stickers + $1/2 IPQ off-$3.98 total
Pepper $1 on sale, and Mushrooms were regular price-$3.27 total

Total spent was $16.37.
Savings rate?  53%  8-)))

So going into next week(which starts for me on Sunday), can you guess what will be on my meal plan?

Roast chicken-using the one in the freezer already and putting the 2 I bought today in it's place.
Some leftover chicken will be fajitas another night(using the pepper and mushrooms, plus more pepper, onion and tortillas I have here already and some of that Kraft deal cheese & sour cream.)
We'll have smashed rutabagas, roasted sweet potatoes with sea salt and olive oil, and collards cooked the proper Southern way.
I bought Kielbasa a few weeks back so we'll have those on the discounted onion hoagie rolls one night.
The rest of the leftover roast chicken combined with the 2 containers of turkey deli meat will keep me in turkey/chicken sandwiches all next week(as will 1 of the loaves of bread).

As far as my $300 food budget goes for February, I've spent $33.86 of it at Rite-Aid, mostly buying toiletries and detergents....if you don't count that pizza and tortilla chips "junk" food.
Add in the $70.01 I dropped at the grocery stores today and we are at $103.87 spending for February and it's only the 1st.

While it's crazy how fast you can spend on food/toiletries in a few days I'm not worried about overspending this month.

Spending this much on toiletries/cleaning stuff in one month is unusual for me, I won't be spending any more of those categories in February.  And I have $7 in +Ups to use if I find the need for something that isn't food in the next 2 weeks.

As for veggies, I'll continue to shop the 50% produce items at Weis or loss leaders at the independent grocer.  I have chicken breasts, steak, fish, a premade meatloaf & meatballs, chops and that duck breast still in the freezer, so if no meat deals appear, it's all good.

Ok, enough rambling.
I've got stuff to do now and then it's off to watch Suze deny a bunch of people who just "don't get it"....lolz

What did you do on Saturday?

Sluggy
 

Health Insurance Under ACA

Here's a short video where, a few days ago, a local news station filmed an employee meeting, in a small town near Pittsburgh, where the people working in this small business found out how the ACA has affected their personal coverage(monthly premiums and co-pays and deductibles).

Nobody in that room looks very happy about the financial changes, do they?
I can imagine this scene was being played out at many businesses in January.

I really feel for "Judy" in this clip.  She's about my age and her premiums went up by $431 per month from last year to $1360 a month this year, plus her Deductible went up to $4K a year.

This means with just premiums, she is paying $16,320 a year and if she actually uses her medical coverage up to the deductible, she will have spent $20,320 minimum on her health care.  After that huge yearly expense, then she gets the added joy of paying for co-pays, co-insurance and the %s of health related expenses that she will still be responsible for.
And you know, working at a small body shop business, "Judy" is not earning big bank.....

We paid $5892.12 in premiums last year for our insurance.  Add in another $1,158.56 for Vision and Dental premiums and it comes to $7,050.68.   Hub's employer does chip into help on the cost of the premiums so it could be worse on that score if he worked elsewhere.  Heck, we could be paying as much as "Judy" will this year if not for the largesse of Hub's employer!

You can tack on another $2K for last year's deductible, another $1500(at least)for prescription copays, and other OOP we paid of $2,967.99 and our direct medical expenditures for 2013 came to $13,518.67.

Our deductible went up in 2014 to $3K, and like I found out earlier this month, our prescription plan is NOT exempt from meeting this deductible(meaning we use to not have to meet it with money spent on rxs)so we are going to be paying through the nose toward this deductible right from the start.
But when we crunched the numbers of a high deductible plan with lower premiums versus a lower deductible plan with higher premiums, this coverage will be lower overall for us.....we think.

But it is still going to be more expensive by far than last year's plan.  Between the premiums and that $3K deductible we are already $9,285.00 in the hole for healthcare before we receive ANY benefits on the coverage.

Since we(or rather me)uses out coverage on a regular basis throughout the year for my chronic conditions, that means we need to come up with $3K pretty much in the first few months of the year, since I'll be getting drugs, having office visits and using durable medical equipment every month from Jan. 1st onward.

We have the cash set aside in savings(plus are dumping salary into a HSA) to cover this $3K right away(though I hate the thought of using the after tax basis savings if there isn't enough in the pre-taxed HSA by the date a deductible has to be paid)so we don't have to worry about not being able to go to the dr., get medicine, have tests done, etc. until after we've received enough paychecks this year to cover those costs.

Imagine someone who has little to no emergency fund having to meet a deductible amount like this(let alone pay out hundreds in premium money from their paychecks)when there is little money leftover each pay after you pay the fixed bills(including those premiums), taxes, the utility bill and put food on the table.

Just another reason why we all need to live BELOW our means and put away as much as we can for emergencies and the unavoidable unexpected costs in life.

 

Sluggy