2019 Income & Spending Report.......the April Edition

Now that we are living on an annuity and 401K$ withdrawals, I am still going to keep track of our monthly spending and income, and hopefully we'll still be able to live BELOW our means and I'll have some leftover monies each month to tuck aside.

Two changes we implemented for 2019 at our financial meeting in Jan.--

* Hubs wants to take $150 per person WAM(aka Walking Around Money)in 2019.  I found last year's $100 per month adequate but Hubs chafed at that little so we are upping it this year to $150 per person per month.
                                                                                                                                                       
*As for our 2018 Slush Fund, this is how we are going to handle it in 2019......
We won't be taking a quarterly 401K withdrawal in 2019 until we "need" to, instead of taking one each quarter as we had planned back in 2017 when Hubs retired.  Why pull 401K monies out when they are earning more than our other regular bank funds?  Use those instead for now!

Since the Slush Fund ended 2018 with $23,164.17 in it and the Sinking Fund ended 2018 with $468.37 in it, we are, for now at least, not taking any more 401K withdrawals and using what is in the Sinking Fund and/or Slush Fund to cover all irregular bills that come up in 2019.

I have set up a page to track the Slush Fund.  Click on the tab marked "Slush Fund 2018-2019" at the top of the blog.

  I am trying to be as transparent as I can with how much is coming in and how much is going out.  8-)

On to the April report---

I had 2 goals for April......
The 1st is to actually finish the month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to try to have a little cash leftover at the end of the previous month to tuck back into a slush fund.  This slush fun may be to apply toward unforeseen bills that are coming due in subsequent months, to spend on "extras/wants" during the year or to just sit there and grow until the end of 2019.

I can report that we finished up April in the BLACK!
The amount we ended the month of April with?.....$414.19

Income or Funds We Can Access

The "income" in April---

* Monthly annuity payment of $3222.24(after tax withholding)
* RMSA(Healthcare account)reimbursement of $1848.67
* Interest earned on non-retirement accounts of $573.85
* Blogging Revenue of $100.51
* Deposit into checking for M/C charges reimbursed of $100.82
Total "Income" for April....$5846.07


Expenses in April---

* Healthcare Premium for April was $1,848.67(paid for with RMSA reimbursement)
* Variable Expenses in April came to $2611.31
* Irregular Expenses in April came to $971.90
Total Expenses....$5431.88

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

*  Phone charges and internet were approximately the same as in March.(Within $2 or so).
*  The water bill was $7.83 lower than last month.
* The c/c bill was $286.76 less than in March.
*  The electric bill was $87.60 lower than last month.
*  The health insurance premium was the same as in March.
*  The WAM/cash withdrawals were $185 lower than the previous month.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

* There was a $14.21 higher charge on the gasoline credit card.
*  Hubs had $641.16 doctor bill(we have now met the deductible for 2019).
*  I had $223.07 in charges on my Amazon card.
*  I had a $31.67 fat lady clothing company bill.
*  I had a $76.00 dental bill for a filling repair.

The Food Budget costs for April are in another post, which is located HERE.  Food costs are included in the credit card payment(mainly but sometimes our WAM cash too).

So we end April in the black with a $414.19.  Added to the Slush Fund going into April at $20,673.38 makes it go into May at $21,087.57.

The Sinking Fund goes into May 2019 standing at $468.37 since nothing was paid out of it in April.

FINAL THOUGHTS on April---
It was a good, lower spending month.  We mostly sat home and didn't spend out of the ordinary this month.  No irregular bills were due.  We finally hit our healthcare deductible OOP so lower medical charges going forward.

THOUGHTS going forward into May 2019----
May should be pretty low in the spending department too.
Electric will be lower as the heat is off.
No more big eye doc bills for the rest of 2019.
The c/c bill should be much lower than in April.
The only "ugly" bill is the semi-annual car insurance bill is due in May and Ex-College Boy pays his cut which is about 1/3 of that bill.
The daughter graduates and moves out so electric/water/food consumption will go down going forward.
We still have not needed to make a 401K withdrawal in 2019 to this point.  We still have a nice cushion of Slush Funding so 401K can sit and make us interest. 8-)))

So how was your April financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in April?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
What did you do with any money leftover at the end of the month?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings, in an emergency fund or a retirement account?
Or did you blow it on a want?

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 or commiserate with you!


Sluggy

Be Careful What You Wish For....

I know someone who decided to do a DNA test.  I had already done her family tree(the paper trail)for her and a distant ancestor on the tree is supposedly Native American.

The reason she wanted to do the DNA testing was to "find" her Native American ancestry.  She wanted to find that ancestry so she could apply to a tribe and be among the folks who could reap some sort of benefit(casino monies, health benefits, etc.).

First off, there is no record of this NA ancestor recorded in any tribal roles that anyone can find.  The fact that she "is" NA is only through family stories-both in this person's family and I have found it attached to other family trees that this ancestor is in. 

This direct ancestor is a 3 x great grandparent of the person who wants to know and she was born circa. 1810.  Having a lone NA ancestor stretching back 200 or so years ago means that chances of having any of their actual DNA recombining into what got handed down over 4 generations to her is a slim chance at best.

The only sure fire(easy)way to know you have NA ancestry is if it's your Y DNA line(your father's father's father's on back line)or your mitochondrial DNA line(your mother's mother's mother's on back line)puts you into a NA haplogroup.  If you are lucky enough, being male and your Y haplogroup is Q or C with certain mutations or being a female and your mtDNA haplogroup is X2 then you have proof easily of NA ancestry even if your ethnicity breakdown doesn't show any % of NA ancestry.
Ok this is getting too complicated but you get my drift(I hope).

We can narrow down(if this ancestor was indeed Native)potential tribes she could have belonged to according to where this family in question was from.  Ancestor in question was born in North Carolina so she could have been  Chowanoke, Croatoan, Hatteras, Moratoc, Secotan, Weapemeoc, Machapungo, Pamlico, Coree, Neuse river, Tuscarora, Meherrin, Cherokee, Cape Fear, Lumbee, Catawba, Shakori, Sissipahaw, Sugeree, Waccamaw, Waxhaw, Woccon, Cheraw, Eno, Keyauwee, Occaneechi, Saponi, or Tutelo Indians.  Some of these tribes are extinct and only 8 are recognized by the state of NC(and only Eastern Band of Cherokee in NC are recognized federally).

Not being found in a tribal role means there is no way to know which tribe she belonged to either so even if her DNA test came back and found any NA ancestry there is no way to know which NA tribe she should apply to.

The only way at that point to pinpoint the ancestors tribe would be if another person was a DNA match to my friend AND they had NA ancestry too(and the match was on that line of her family)AND documentation for that other person's NA ancestor was available.  Add in the fact that very few people with Eastern NA ancestry have DNA tested and it becomes a real big crap shoot to find any information that would help my friend in her NA search.

"Belonging" to a NA tribe nowadays is more cultural and not just genetic, according to your DNA markers.  This friend did NOT grow up in any NA culture or on a reservation(much like Elizabeth Warren did not)so really her applying to a tribe, if she could find which tribe, to reap some sort of monetary(or other)benefit is IMHO inappropriate.

Anyway this person took a DNA test for this reason without me knowing about it until after the fact.

So I am on the phone with this person, she is, for lack of a better term, "very white" and she opens her DNA result while on the phone with me, and there is no NA DNA(but then again, it's the Ancestry company test which isn't thought to be very accurate by professional genetic genealogists).

Crestfallen, she reads off her % of each ethnicity and at the bottom she comes to an ethnicity that is 2% Benin/Togo.

Um, WHAT?!?!  She didn't even know what that meant so I had to break it to her that Benin and Togo peoples are from Africa.

Yep, I don't think she believes it even now, months later.  She went looking for her inner "Indian Princess" and found out she's a "Soul Sistah".  ;-)

Just a warning that if you go digging into your DNA and/or Ancestry be careful what you wish for and be prepared for anything!

Sluggy

Frugal Friday.....the May 3rd Edition

Taking a look around Chez Sluggy and here's what "frugaliciousness" I see.............

*  Y'all already saw the Rite-Aid haul for this week......

Nothing OOP, just burning some Bonus Cash.

*  Plus a couple of freebies from Rite-Aid............

*  I also walked out from Rite-Aid with this...........

$5 in cash for $5 in Coupons from the 'mangled by the cashier' transaction.  8-))
And speaking of money.........

*  I found money too!

A penny leaving the Rite-Aid parking lot last Friday.

A nickel in the washing machine.  I claim all laundry money...lol

Another penny at Rite-Aid in front of the register counter another day.

And a penny in the nasty parking lot of the Weis in the city North of here.

*  I got some deals at Weis.  Here are the ones worth noting.........

At a Weis in a city nearby I found these on sale for 3/$2.  Cost OOP was $3.34 for all 5 and I got back $5 in Ibotta rebates so a $1.66 moneymaker.  Even if Ex-College Boy doesn't want all these I can haul what's left to the Food Bank. ;-)

I did the .88¢ items when you buy in groups of 8 Deal one time.  4 x Lipton rice sides, 2 small cans of pineapple and 2 Powerades came to $7.04 except I had a .65¢/2 Dole pineapple Q(good on this small size can)which doubled to $1.30 off so I paid $5.74 or .71¢+ for each item.

Weis brand cheese was $1.97 each when you buy 2.  I bought two, $3.94.  I had a .75¢/1 Weis cheese Q that they snail mailed me so all totaled the cheese cost me $1.22 a bag.

The Lebanon bologna was $6 and had a $3 off discount meat sticker on it so half price at $3. 
The OM lunch meat meat was on sale at $3.50 and had a $2 discount sticker so $1.50 out the door.  The Smithfield "Prime" brand of ham lunch meat was on sale BOGOFree(reg. price of $6 each)and each had a $3 meat discount sticker on them so FREE!!!  (The Prime ham is in the freezer now slated to go into a Chicken Cordon Bleu dish in the future.)

*  I think it was on Saturday I got a notice about texting a word to Lowe's for a $Mystery amount Coupon.  The amount ranged from $5 to $500.  I got a $10 one good on anything in the store but had to be used that day.  Hubs went up to Lowe's and got new metal tents that go over the gas jets in the gas grill which were sorely in need of replacing.  They were $10 each and we needed 3 so it was still worth going to use it as it saved us 1/3 of the cost of the items.  8-)

*  I received $11.20 in digital cash rebates between Saving Star and Ibotta this week. 8-)

That's about it for here this week.

What frugal wins did y'all have this week?



Sluggy

2019 Food & Toiletries Spending......the April Report

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

Here are my FOOD BUDGET spending totals for APRIL 2019.

I have posted April's totals on the Total Grocery Savings Page located HERE and have updated the Totals there.
I am listing subtotals for each store I purchased from in April.  If you aren't interested in that much detail, just skip to the bottom for the Totals Sum.  My spending includes Food, Toiletries/HBA, Cleaning Products, Paper Goods & tax where applicable. We are a family of 4-5(4 at home this month). No "kids" under 23.
*****************

BREAD OUTLET
OOP  $7.79
Value  $41.92
Savings  81.42%

BIG LOTS
OOP  $35.48
Value  $72.52
Savings  51.08%

CVS
OOP  $2.42
Ads/Qs  $31.62
Value  $34.04
Savings  92.89%

DOLLAR TREE
OOP  $5.00
Value  $13.25
Savings 62.26%

MAINE SOURCE
OOP  $10.36
Value  $19.80
Savings  47.68%

RITE-AID
OOP  $0.00
Qs/Ads/BC/Visa Prepaid Rewards  $261.60
Value  $261.60
Savings  100%

SHURSAVE MARKETS
OOP  $29.42
Qs/Ads  $22.71
Value  $52.13
Savings  43.56%

WALMART

OOP  $22.48

Value  $39.63

Savings  43.28%

WEIS
OOP  $274.77
QsAds  $362.57
Value  $637.34
Savings  56.89%

*********************
My best 3 Store Savings Totals were Rite-Aid at 100%, the CVS at 92.89% and the Bread Outlet at 81.42%.  My worst savings rate was at Walmart with 43.28%.  Worst rate over 40%?  That's a ok with me! ;-)

I shopped at 9 different stores this past month.  

TOTAL Out of Pocket for March.........$387.72

TOTAL Coupons/Store Sales.................$456.21

TOTAL Value of Items Purchased.........$843.93

TOTAL Savings of ................................54.06%

TOTAL Out of Pocket for March w/R-A.............$387.72
TOTAL Coupons/Store Sales w/R-A...................$717.81
TOTAL Value of Items Purchased w/Rite-Aid....$1,105.53
TOTAL Savings with Rite-Aid items.....................64.93%

This closes out the April food/toiletries spending.

THOUGHTS & COMMENTS for this month.....
Well we stayed under the $400 budget with $12.28 to spare.   I thought we'd do a bit better but then the Target Deal they ALWAYS have before Thanksgiving and Easter on food(Spend $50/Get $10 Gift Card)didn't happen this year so I didn't "deploy" my free Target gift cards(or the discounted ones either)so I didn't shop there for food(or anything else for that matter).  Not complaining(ok, maybe just a little bit)and it's all good since we stayed under budget.

The monthly food spending savings percentage went DOWN by 8.23 % in April 2019 to 64.93% compared to the March 73.16% savings average.
Plus the Rite-Aid haul in April was quite small so that kept my savings percentage down too.


With 4 months accounted for, I have spent a Year-To-Date Total of $1534.03 on food/toiletries in 2018.


2019 Yearly Total Spent To Date....................$1534.03

2019 Yearly Total Value of Items To Date....$8154.45

2019 Total Saved To Date...............................$6620.42

2019 Yearly Savings Total To Date of............81.19%

The average per month amount spent so far is $383.51 in 2019.

LOOKING AHEAD To May 2019.......
May is going to be a strange month.  First off there is Mother's Day.  We don't go out then but I ain't cooking either so who knows what will happen! lolz  Will they buy groceries that I have to account for? or get take-out which doesn't come out of the grocery budget?....stay tuned.

Daughter is also leaving in May and there is a graduation.  She doesn't want us to take her out for a graduation dinner(she and her BF are going out instead).  The BF will be here from late Friday night until they drive off on Sunday so I am not planning on extra groceries to feed him.....we'll just make do with what is here.

After they leave I am going on a diet of sorts.  The reason why is to reset my metabolism, jump start my new eating plan and do some allergy testing for my HS.  I will be on a very restrictive food eating plan for at least 2 weeks to flush my system and then who knows how long this will take(the allergy testing, etc.)  This could go terribly wrong or be great but either way I won't be cooking for the folks here and they both will be on their own to make food.  I am hoping they eat up what is here so I don't know what I'll be buying this month after the 18th, or what the cost will end up being but I hope to stay under that magic $400 threshold in May for food and toiletries.

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

*  How much did you spend on food/toiletries in April?

*  Do you track your yearly food spending?

*  What was your savings percentage buying on sale and/or with coupons vs. buying at regular retail price last month, if you track that sort of thing?

*  What are your methods for keeping your food spending in check?

Is anyone out there up for tracking expenditures and trying to spend less but still eat well?


Sluggy

Wellness Wednesday Rite-Aid Stuff

May is the second month now when there were no Load2Card Wellness Wednesday Only coupons again.
sigh.

No more wonderful opportunities to stack both L2C WWQs with the paper WWQs in the store(+ ManuQs for items if available)for overage and lots of freebies anymore.

I never understood why R-A made the WWQs digital anyway.  I know there are many Senior Citizens who are computer savvy but I think the last age group a company would go after with techy Qs would be this age category? ;-)

I got a couple freebies on the WW table when I went into the store...........

a sample of a new Band-Aid product and 2 samples of a L'Oreal cream w/Qs.
In other news our Wellness Ambassador is moving to Texas!  I doubt she will be replaced with a new Wellness Ambassador so the paper WWQs may be a thing of the past once she leaves.
She's a great person but she's leaving the state for new opportunities.  I am sad to see her go but I wish her all the best.  8-)))

Anyway I figured out a couple of things that would be a moneymaker on Wellness Wednesday so I bought this...........

2 x Thermacare on sale BOGO50%=$11.38
2 x Centrum on sale BOGO50%=$19.03
SubTotal.............$30.41

Coupons Used
2 x $3/1 Thermacare IPQ=$6.00
2 x $3/1 Thermacare WWQ=$6.00
2 x $2/1 Centrum IPQ=$4.00
2 x $4/1 Centrum WWQ=$8.00
Coupon Total.....$24.00

$30.41-$24.00=$6.41 OOP paid with Bonus Cash and earned $10 in new BC(these items were part of a Deal this week "Spend $30/Get $10 in BC".

Except, something went very wrong.
I had $11.71 in BC on this card and I think the cashier hit the "use my points" button on the register before she finished scanning all my Qs.  At some point I was left still holding 3 of my Qs and the cashier was telling me I owed $1.70 cash as she had applied ALL my BC already.
WTF?!?

So I added a candy bar(.59¢)and my total was $2.29 and she took another $2/1 Q to use.  My total was now .29¢OOP and I still had $5 in Qs yet to use.
I paid the .29¢ w/one of my many R-A gift cards and went to find the manager.

We put our heads together and yep, the cashier had "prematurely ejaculated my Bonus Cash" onto this transaction and had used all the BC before using all my Qs. lolz

Instead of returning everything and re-ringing the transaction I had planned to do, she just went ahead and did a "post coupon" sale for my $5 in Qs and handed me the cash.

So my transaction looked like this in the end..........

I paid $11.71 in BC, .29¢ on a gift card and got back $10 in new Bonus Cash and $5 in cash for the Qs not used.
I will also get $5 in cash rebates on Saving Star($3 Thermacare, $2 Centrum)for buying 1 of each of these items which makes me $8 ahead in the end on this.

($12 total in BC/gift card spent, $10 in new BC earned, $5 for Qs, $5 in cash rebates=$8 overage)

Oh how I will miss those Wellness Wednesday of the good ol' days......*sniff, sniff*


Sluggy