Updated "To-Do" List for this Past Week

Here's what actually got done on the To-Do List for this Week--

*  Finish cleaning #2 Son's room  done
*  Write 4 Letters  wrote 2
*  Call motel to make reservations for September   done
*  Call Boarding Kennel for October  done
*  Clean out my bedroom closet  no
*  Go through my Christmas gift box(yes I just said CHRISTMAS!)  no
*  Finish straps on the nightgown I sewed  done
*  Relist fabrics on listings that expired earlier this year on Etsy  done & I made 2 sales. 8-)
*  Put up another shelving unit to hold fabrics in spare bedroom.  done
*  Finish going through stuff in garage to put on eBay or send to Salvation Army  no
*  Pick out some fabrics to sew into clothes when I go through the tubs.  done
*  Order photo prints from relatives Shutterfly account  no
*  Clean out kitchen island and organize  no
*  Do Net Worth Statement for Sept. 1st  done
*  Calculate Food Spending for August  done
*  Calculate $24K Savings Challenge Results for August  done

Not as productive as I wanted to be this week.
Some of it I blame on the return of the humid weather and the a/c went on the fritz.  Not even a year old and it broke!  Serviceman isn't coming out until TUESDAY.  By then the weather is suppose to be cooler.  With the amount spent on this system it's been nothing but one problem after another and I am NOT happy with SEARS!

Anyway, too muggy to be upstairs during the day doing physically active tasks with no a/c this past week....especially working in closets up there.
That's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Did you get anything of note accomplished this past week?
Tell us about it.

Sluggy

How Ever Will We Survive?

#2 Son has been gone 3 weeks now.

Guess how many loads of laundry I've done in the last 3 weeks?
Go on!
Guess!

Ok, I'll tell y'all.
4 loads.
And no there is no mountain of dirty clothes in the house and I'm just being lazy and not doing laundry!!

Now guess how often the dryer has been going.
It use to be used at least once a day......if not to actually dry clothes, to fluff and warm #2 Son's clothes before he put them on.
The dryer has been used 4 times......to dry the wet, washed clothes.

Now guess how much the window a/c's have been used?
I'd say a total of 3 hours in 3 weeks.

The dishwasher gets loaded and run and unloaded promptly and I don't' have to nag to get it done.
Because I just do it myself now or hand wash the dishes.
I think we've run the dishwasher 5 times in 3 weeks.

We only run the shower 2 x a day now(1 for me, 1 for Hubs), instead of 4 or 5 times because #2 Son isn't here taking his usual 2-3 showers per day.

The electric bill halfway through the billing cycle is $48 and change.  Last month was $112+.
The water bill doesn't come for another week or so but I am confident it will be under last month's $53+ bill.

The pantry is staying organized since no one is taking items out of the stockpile, changing their mind, and throwing them into the pantry in the kitchen.

And we are not paying up to $200 a month now for private flute lessons either.  We pay for lessons at school but that comes out of #2 Son's college funds, not our regular income like they did before.

I think we can get use to this......lolz


And what is #2 Son up to?
I have no clue really.

He doesn't communicate with us much.
And that's ok.  We never were helicopter parents. 
We talk when needed and we have confidence in #2 Son to do what he needs to do.
He knows our expectations and we give him a long lead.
Until he proves himself other than responsible.  ;-)

Mostly he doesn't communicate much because he has a pay-as-you-go phone which he pays for and I don't "text and he doesn't "talk".
Hubs does text with him now and again.  #2 Son is busy practicing he says.  Marching band, concert band, flute practicum, etc.

All I know is what he posts on FB.

So far he's gone rock climbing at KFC(this is NOT the chicken joint as I thought at first), had a jam session at "the Hut"(whatever/wherever that is)and he had a good time during Band Camp.
Here is a photo of him with his marching band "harem".....

There are no flutes in the college's marching band so all the flutist make up the Piccolo Section.
#2 Son is the only male in the section.
Oh, the poor, poor guy......*snort*

As for going to class, studying, and work, I have no clue what he is up to.

I got a call from the campus bookstore 2 weeks back because #2 Son only picked up half his book order.  There was a whole other stack reserved for him that he forgot to take.
Sigh.
I hope he has picked them up by now.....

No calls home that he is homesick(not like I was ever expecting that!lol) or in jail.
So far so good.

I think we could get use to this arrangement..... ;-)

Sluggy

The Old Genealogical Curve Ball

In an effort to get a complete ancestral picture for my kids, I am attempting to do my Hubs genealogy as well as my own.
After all, half of their DNA came from him, right?

So in order to get a full panoramic view, my son let me have his Y DNA tested.
My Hubs wasn't interested in letting me test his, so by testing my son's we still get the Y DNA information for my Hubs paternal line.

My Hubs comes from a Italian American family from New Jersey.
He takes great pride in his Sicilian heritage.
Hub's father was one of the two youngest siblings born in America while the older siblings were all born in Sicily.
So Hubs is second generation American on his father's side.
As far as Hubs knows, or anyone still alive in his father's family knows, his father's family is born and bred Sicilian, ethnic Italians, as long as people have lived in that place.

Or so we thought.....

When the Y DNA test came back I assumed it would tell us Hubs paternal line was M172 or one of the other haplogroups that are predominantly found in the population of Sicily.

To my surprise his DNA came back as R-M269.  This is the predominant DNA subclade for those of Northern European/British Isles descent....not swarthy Mediterranean types.
(Most of the early Founding Fathers of America were white Englishmen with M269 Y DNA.)
R-M269 is my paternal Y DNA as well.

His admixture(mix of races you have in your genetic background)came back as 91% European, 7% Middle Eastern and 1% Central/South Asian.
Wow.....

Of that 91% number, 55% of that was specifically European Coastal Islands(United Kingdom/Netherlands/France/Belgium) so Northern European.
The rest of his 91% Eeuropean admixture was equally split between Northland countries like Norway/Sweden/Denmark and the North Mediterranean Basin countries of Spain/Portugal/Italy/Greece.

What this tells us is that Hubs Italian ancestry does not go way back to the earliest humans in Italy as he had thought.

If you consider human migration in regard to the history of this region of Europe Hubs' male line may have it's origins in Northern Europeans who migrated into the Southern environs of Europe many, many centuries ago.

History tells us that the Romans(ethnic Italians) invaded Britain, Austria, Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Sardinia, Sicily, Spain, Switzerland, Syria and Turkey.
Perhaps Hub's ancestor was an Anglo-Saxon, a Pict or a Celt who was conquered in the British Isles and brought back to Rome? 

As a blogger friend mentioned, and I had forgotten, perhaps Hub's ancestor was a Northern European/Englishman who invaded/migrated to Sicily in the 11th and 12th centuries.  Sicily was ruled by the Normans(French) until the 14th century and then the Kings of Spain in the 15th century.  Even before that Sicily was taken by the Vandals(a Germanic tribe)in about 400 AD.

Sicily seems to have spent it's entire history as the prize/possession of whatever tribe/empire was in power.  It passed through many hands and from country to country into the 20th century.
It was one of those places in the history of civilization that was a meeting and trading place for many cultures and peoples--a melting pot of humankind.

The bottom line is if we were to trace Hub's paternal Y DNA from New Jersey, USA back to Sicily via any paper trail that remains intact, it would ultimately lead us from Italian soil back to northern Europe and into the British Isles.

Needless to say Hubs didn't take this revelation too well and refuses to accept it.
Ever since we met we have thought that we were genetically VERY different.
But this discovery put that thought to bed and we are, in fact, very close together in our DNA origins, at least on our respective paternal lines.

The Old Genealogical Curve Ball strikes again!

Sluggy


 

$24K Savings Challenge.....August 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, annual etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, clothing  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 August report.....

I have posted my August 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 August with a tiny bit extra for savings.
The extra amount we ended the month of  August with?.......$323.64.

Income
In order to cover all the expenses in August I took $500 from Hub's bonus this year and added to our account from which all the expenses are paid.  Our bills were that high in August.
We had $115.75 left over from our income(and bonus money)after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in August totaled $207.89.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts and blog writing income.

This brought us to our gain of $323.64.
Since we have no debt anymore, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Flute lesson bill was only $80.....and this is the last one ever!
*  The water bill went down by $20.43 from July.
*  Cash spent went down by $170 from July.
*  The electric bill went down by $60.89 from July due to cooler Summer weather.
*  Our car insurance(though due this month)went down about $400 because of policy changes.  We expect it to go down again next month because we get rid of 1 of our cars late August.
*  Cable and phone charges were approx. the same as last month.
 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The credit card bill was very high at $3,831.68 due to furniture purchase, trip expenses and laptop purchase for #2 Son.  This was approx. $2,600 more than July's bill.
*  The homeowner's insurance was due and paid in August.
*  The semi-annual car insurance was due in August.

 

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

I was going to dip into last year's Savings Challenge monies as we didn't have enough income in August to cover all the expenses.
I use the previous year's total saved to cover any unexpected expenses in the following year, then I send whatever is left after that following year ends into permanent savings.  But I didn't need to this month since I still have some of Hub's Bonus, he received earlier this year, left and held in reserve.(I haven't counted that yet toward our income/expenses in 2014 or the Savings Challenge.  I have only taken my new car purchase from this Bonus check in May to this point in the year.)

The 2014 GRAND TOTAL.....
With 8 months accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2014 is $14,417.28

Our monthly average is $1,802.16 saved.
 

Only $9,582.72 left to meet the yearly goal and 4 months left to dig this up out of our income.
That comes out to an average of $2,395.68 for the next 4 months. 

Since I shoot for $2K savings per month and there are only 4 months left, we are $1,582.72 behind the eight ball.  That means besides $2K a month, we also need to come up with $1582.72 as well in the next 4 months.

Thankfully we still have a 3 paycheck month this year, so I feel we'll be able to catch up and still meet the goal for the year.

We typically have at least 2 months in any given year where we have very little leftover at the end of the month's bills to tuck away into savings or even go into the red for a month or two.  Take last year--In September we saved a whole $40.12 and in August we didn't do much better with $263.62.  Even in June of 2013 we only saved $844.79 when all was accounted for.  So we don't always have 4 figures of cash leftover each month.  The year before that we actually went into the red one month.

Life is like that.  Things happen.  That's why I like to save cash each month whenever possible, to help out in those months that aren't so great financially.  Some months are good some months are bad but overall, over the long run, if you have money leftover more months than you are in deficit, you can get ahead and win with money.
  

 

Looking ahead for September......


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

*  The school/real estate taxes are due the end of September.  There goes another $2K.  This is the last "irregular expenses" bill for the year, except for the garbage bill which is paid quarterly(Oct. 1st).

*  I am excited to see how much the water, electric and food bills will go down in September, since this is the first FULL month without the kids living here.

*  We've got some traveling to do the end of September but those bills won't come due until October so our planned spending this month will remain fairly low for us.

 

So how was your August financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in August?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings in an emergency fund or a retirement account?

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

Sluggy

Food & Toiletry Spending.....August Update

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

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for AUGUST 2014.

I have posted August'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 August.  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 3(2-3 at home this month)& 1 dog. No kids under 18.

******************

BAKERY OUTLET
OOP  $13.50
Value  $40.41
Savings  66.60%

BIG LOTS
OOP  $22.14
Value  $27.62
Savings  19.84%

PRICE CHOPPER
OOP  $75.24
Qs/Ads  $34.92
Value  $110.16
Savings  31.70%

RITE-AID
OOP  $34.57
Qs/Ads/+UPs  $466.76
Value  $501.33
Savings   93.10%

 

SHURSAVE STORES(small local independent affiliated stores)
OOP  $70.05

Qs/Ads  $52.66

Value  $122/71

Savings  43%

WEIS MARKETS

OOP  $210.70

Qs/Ads  $168.80

Value  $379.50

Savings  44.50%
 

*********************
My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 93.10%,  the Bakery Outlet at 66.60% and Weis at 44.50%.  My WORST savings rate was Big Lots at  19.84%.
I shopped at 6 different stores this past month.

TOTAL Out of Pocket........$426.20

TOTAL Coupons & Store Sales Savings...$755.53

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased............$1,181.73

TOTAL Savings of...................................64%

This closes out the August food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....

I came close to a $400 food month, going over by $26.20.
No where near the $300 I wanted to keep it under.

The monthly savings percentage went up by an astounding 23.24% in August compared to July's average.   I am surprised but happy about that.  8-)))

In addition the savings percentage went up for the year by 3.27% because of the stellar savings month that was August.  After July my yearly % of savings was 45.85% and after adding August in it stands at 49.12% for the year.
WOW!
But I am not expecting it to stay that high.....though 2013's yearly rate was 46.77% so who knows where it will end up in 2014.  8-)

Most months I have a store or two where I shop with a high savings % rate but it's usually a store where I spent very little anyway so it doesn't impact my overall % total for the month or the year.
But this month about half of my actual food spending was at Weis($210.70)and I still achieved a savings rate of 44.50% there. 

Even if I take my Rite-Aid shopping out my August totals that monthly total is $391.63 spent with a 42.44% savings rate. 
Awesome.

LOOKING AHEAD TO SEPTEMBER......

I am excited to see in September where our food spending ends up,  This is the first FULL month without feeding any children here......just Hubs and myself.
And the dog.
I am going to try for a $250 food budget in September.
I plan and the food gods laugh.  8-)

 

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

Total spend on food/toiletries so far this year after 8 months.....$3,328.19.
The average monthly food/toiletries spending to-date for the year so far is $416.03.  This is $1.46 a month increase from last month's total for the year so far.  Seems I spent more on average last month but I got better deals.

Hoping that September is the month we get it back under a $400 per month average.

 

*  How much did you spend on food/toiletries in August?
*  Do you track your yearly food spending?
*  If so, how are you doing thus far in 2014?
 

Sluggy