a guppy and her money

Friday isn't even here yet but I've added up my totals for next paycheck! Approx. 6,600 in savings now! Getting closer to paying off that car and breathing a sign of relief. Baby keeps growing inside me, but all I feel is like I'm getting fatter. I'm only 3 1/2 months along but I feel like I should be like 6. The drawback of getting pregnant after steadily gaining a ton of weight over the past 2 years. Blahhh.

I was just thinking last night how amazing it's going to be once these debts are paid off. Like I seriously hadn't even comprehended how when all our debts are gone that money will be ours! No, not that I'm going to blow it all. I'm going to beef up retirement to an awesome level (We're at 10% now, but I'd like to make it 20% once the non-mortgage debt is gone) and after that we'll still have money leftover! I mean, in all honesty, my student loan is probably going to take 3 years. If we had our previous gazelle-like intensity it would take 18 months, but with a baby on the way I can't guarantee that other things aren't going to steal a bit of that money. So even worse case scenario it takes 3 years, I'll be 28/29 - sweet! I'm totally psyched to say we're going to be putting 20% into retirement. Sadly enough it's one of my life goals. Sorry, I just love feeling prepared . I wonder if I'll start feeling the pressure to move again. It's always the nagging thing in the back of my head. Like I can't truly be successful if I'm still living here. Not like it's a dump, but it's not the crazy modern weirdo home sitting on a couple acres of land that I always wanted. It's just way too conventional and we've received remarks on how it's small (1650 livable SF, but only 1250 "counts" cause its not basement) We'll see..Ok, done blabbing for today!

I know, I know. Every moment is a gift. I need to appreciate what I have right now. It's hard though when you're less than 6 months from having your first child and 3 months from eliminating yet another debt and getting soo much closer to your financial goals! All I need is a couple months to pass by quickly. Is that so much to ask!?

But I remember feeling like this when we were in 5k of credit card debt. It was roughly July '08 and I felt like time was NEVER going to pass. But alas it did and that 5k was paid by January. Gotta learn to enjoy the journey, both my pregnancy one and the financial one.

Lame.

Went in for my 12 week NT scan to check for down syndrome. I have an uncle with DS so I've been more than a little concerned. From what they could see things looked "normal" so far. A fully formed nasal bone and 1-1.5mm measurement at the back of the neck are good signs. I gave bloodwork as well so I'm interested to see how that comes back. The other news is they thought I was closer to 11 weeks pregnant instead of 12 based on the overall size of the baby. That made sense to me since I don't think I conceived on the normal dates. My cycle was always like 34-35 days long instead of the normal 28. But yeah, so this means I'll potentially be pregnant for another week more than I previously thought. Ack! Get this over with! Oh well..

I spoke with HR at my job and I think the reduced work schedule is going to work out after all. For 3 months I'll be off full-time from work. Then I'll start working 3 days a week from 7-12 and continue that for the next 6 months before I have to return to work full-time. This helps the situation with daycare for the time being. My mom works her job from 3-6 so that gives us plenty of time to pick up the baby after work for those 6 months. Then once I go back to work full-time she'll be off on the summer. We'll have to figure things out for that next fall but by that time the baby will be like 11 months old. So I've bought myself some time and my mom's saying that her work situation might be different at that point so things might not be as complicated as I was previously thinking. Woohoo!

On the financial front, taking into account my work schedule as written above, I'll need to set aside 5,500 (which includes 2,000 emergency money) to cover my leave/reduced schedule after the baby is born. This is totally doable for us. In fact, we've already got more than this saved already. So it turns out I can pay off the car after all! Baby will be born to parents who only have 3 debts to their name (mortgage, rental prop mortgage, and my student loan!). To think that only 1.5 years ago we were nearly drowning. We were breaking even every month and never getting ahead on anything. Fast forward to today..T and I have $1000 surplus each month to put on debt and are putting 10% of gross into retirement! I know compared to these other bloggers out there this is chump change, but I'm so proud of our progress. If we hadn't made some crummy car decisions and had some crummy car luck we could've dug out of the hole a little quicker. Oh well, it's all a learning experience. Our ultimate goal is to live totally off of my husbands income. I figure we can comfortably pay off my 20k student loan in 3 years and around that point we're hoping T makes enough money we can live soley off his income. I then plan on taking all my paychecks and putting them towards paying off the rental property mortgage. The sooner that is paid off the sooner we get to use the lake condo as a vacation/weekend home instead of renting it out. Ahh dreams .

I'm so excited for baby!! Why does pregnancy last so long?!?!

More money to savings/baby fund but none extra to debt. For the time being I'm holding off on putting any additional towards the car. Lately I've been stressing about baby. When we were planning for a kid it things all seemed to fit into place really well. Now that it's a reality in only 6.5 months I'm starting to stress a bit. I'm not sure how I'm going to coordinate with my mother as far as daycare is concerned. My parents are in debt up to their eyeballs and she can't afford to stop her part-time job. Previously we thought she could take the baby with her to her job (it's before/after child care) but there's rules that won't allow that if you are not the primary guardian of the child. So now we're a bit stuck. I'm just a bit bummed lately. I was expecting the pregnancy "glow" but there's hasn't been too much of it lately. And now I've gotta get back to work...more later.

For so long I've been in this crazy debt elimination mode, I can't handle going into savings mode for the baby. That 7,000 I talked about last post? I'm down to 4,700 since I HAD to pay of the last of T's student loans. That felt like such an achievement. I believe he had approximately 12k when he started paying them off. Unfortunately he doesn't have the degree to make it all seem worth it. He left school after a year to start working full time when he decided he hated electrical engineering. He's now going to community college part-time for his mechanical eng degree but at least we're paying for all that with cash.

ANYWAY, it was a big weight off my shoulders once the last of his loans were gone. If only I hadn't gotten into that car accident a couple months ago, we wouldn't have this car debt hanging over my head. I want so badly to pay this off as well, but I know I should keep with the savings for my 6 month baby vacation . I'm thinking I'll do a compromise (with myself.. haha, I'm weird.) and put 5k towards the car, leaving the balance at around 3k and then use all the other money for my 6 month leave. We should have enough to reasonably and comfortably do this. Then once my 6 months are up, I think they'll only be a 1500 balance and I should be able to pay that off within a month or two. We could ALMOST ALMOST ALMOST pay off the car and have enough for my leave, but we'd be living insanely cheap and that wouldn't be accounting for much emergency money. It's soo tempting, but the thought of having to use a credit card in the case of emergency is enough to not make me want to do it. Oh well.

As far as baby news: Just had my 8 wk ultrasound and saw the fuzzy lookin' lima bean!! And got to hear a heartbeat!! So cool!!!

Ok, so we've got approximately 7,000 in savings for baby. I would like around 11,000 before I take my leave to cover all expenses and a few emergencies as well. Since I have another 7 or so months to accumulate this 11,000 I'm thinking we might have enough time to pay off T's student loan (~3250) and still save up that 11,000 before October. I'm still not sure if I want to put that money on his loan now, or keep saving and pay off the loan right before I take my leave, just to make sure we don't need it. Decisions, decisions!

Yep yep, that's right, I'm pregnant . I guess the saying isn't true..What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas! It seems that last months visit made a baby and I'm pretty darn thrilled!

On Wednesday I decided to take a home pregnancy test like I've been doing a zillion times at the end of the month for the past half a year or so. I was waiting for the results on Wednesday night when I decided to just start a shower in the meantime. I hopped out of the shower to check, thinking "Of course it'll be negative AGAIN" but instead it came back positive! So then I took another 1 that night and 2 the next day and they were all positive! The gynecologist decided to do another urine test instead of a blood test since they said that wasn't necessary and they confirmed it on my appointment the following day. SO happy I didn't make the massive payment to my car loan. I was just getting ready to put 7,000 on it the other day but there was something telling me to just hold off for the time being. Now we'll use that as savings for me to stay home with the baby for 6 months. I figure if we save 10,000 that'll be enough for all bills and 3,000 in emergencies. One of my co-workers said that I might be able to work a day or two a week and extend that 6 months leave out to like 8 months. I'll have to talk it over with my human resources. Whatever we end up deciding, I can honestly say I've never been so excited in my life to spend money!

Last post I mentioned what I was planning on doing with our tax refund. I spoke things over with T last night, and he seems on board with my new idea: get rid of that stupid car loan!

The plan is to put 5,300 onto the car loan, reducing our loan to 3,375. This means we'll be able to pay it off by April 16th. That'll save us $210 dollars a month and mean we only had the car loan for 3.5 months before paying it off in full! Now if anything decides to change (see previous post, I don't feel like going into it again here) we may rethink this strategy because we will want to start saving more and not throwing so much at debt, but we'll see.

Since we changed our payroll deductions a month or so ago, this was our last big refund that we'll be getting.

We ended up with 5,280.

5,280
-3,300 last of T's student loans is GONE!
-1,000 Savings
- 500 Pontiac G6 loan
- 480 to T for civic repairs & tires
--------
0

Easy come, easy go!

The Pontiac G6 will now be down to 8,000 owed! We should have the car paid off in 5 months if no baby decides to show itself.

T and I spent 5 nights in Vegas and after not being at work for over a week now I'm really dreading my return tomorrow morning. $930 included 2 round trip plane tickets from PA, 5 nights at the luxor, and a 3-day powerpass for free admission to select exhibits/shows. It was awesome! We also ended up spending another $900 or so when we were there on food/entertainment/souvenirs/gambling. It was all paid for before we ever left the house which made the trip even better!

I'm so antsy since I haven't gotten all of my tax documents to e-file. Last year I had my refund by this time. This is the last year I anticipate a refund, so I'm eager to get that money to throw at our debts. Bank of America please send my info pronto!!!

I posted a similar question for % of income that goes towards mortgage. There were some interesting responses, so I figured I'd ask the same for retirement.

Currently my husband and I have roughly 8.5% going to a combination of pension/401k/403b for retirement. We try to increase contributions by 1% each year. We are in crazy debt payoff mode so I've held off on doing anymore. As soon as T's student loan and my new (used) car is paid off, we're going to open up a Roth IRA.

I still haven't figured out what our retirement goal is. I have a pension so it's difficult to know what my pension will look like in 22 years and I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what my retirement goal is when I'm only 25 years old. I'm currently thinking our goal should be 20% to retirement and then our rental property to supplement. Ask me again in 5 years, I'm sure I'll have a different idea then.

I revised my financial spreadsheet (AKA The Spreadsheet of Life :P) and started listing the % of net income that goes to each and every payment.

Now that my husband and I have refinanced, our 15-year mortgage is 28.7% of our net income (this payment includes homeowners ins. and property taxes). I was just wondering how that compares with all of you? Unfortunately since we're paying on part of our rental property as well, we're paying 6.3% there in addition to 28.7 for our primary home. Hopefully in the future that will be lowered/eliminated.

Hooray! Found a way to track all of my different accounts!

I previously posted about the difficulty dealing with Quicken. I remembered seeing something while doing online banking at BOA's website so I logged back in to take a closer look at it.

In the tab "My Portfolio" you can link all your accounts and view them all within my online banking session with Bank of America. I was able to link everything except my Deferred Comp. I ended up manually entering that information in so now I have a complete view of our finances outside of my google doc spreadsheet. So excited!

Now to tackle the fact that we have a -20k net worth! Stupid rental property and student loans!! I estimate by next year we should be at 0 net worth and then it's onward and upward from there!
BTW, it looks as if the government made some sort of mistake and we will continue receiving the rent check for the rental property! I'll post more later as I find out additional details.

After years of hearing my dad talk about Quicken, I decided to take the plunge today and check it out.

HORRIBLE. It froze on me twice (I've never had this problem with other software I've installed on my laptop) and it turns out not all of my information can even be added. My husbands ING 401k with his company and my Deferred Comp or Pension has no way to connect to Quicken. As far as Quicken is concerned we have no retirement.

Since we just financed a car and refinanced our mortgage I don't even have that information yet to enter into the program (this is not Quicken's fault but still frustrating as I only have a fraction of my financial information at hand).

I think I was better off using my excel file (AKA The Spreadsheet of Life). My husband is laughing at me but I swear, it has everything i need (except for automatic updates, but typing those manually hasn't killed me yet).

Oh well...

I posted in the message boards on Thursday about getting in a car accident that left the volvo not worth salvaging. A towing place came today to pick it up and donate to the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philly.

I was horribly depressed but T kept reminding me that the car was on it's way out anyway. Lately we've been thinking the head gasket was going bad and we had a couple pricey repairs on the way. T and I spent Thursday, Friday, and today looking at cars and settled on a Pontiac. We got the 2007 G6 GT Sedan (in red!) It only has 40k miles on it. This is by far the newest car I've ever owned I'm so excited! The price tag was $9,995 and we decided to finance it. We're planning on paying it off within a year (we took the loan out for longer just in case a baby decides to enter the situation in the next year; it'll be nice to have the option of lower payments). Let me try and see if I can post a picture. It's not ours, but looks exactly like it. Here goes...



Now to start paying this baby off! I'm thinking I focus on T's student loan until that's gone which will free up another $60 dollars a month to put on the car.

Ok, so I have this issue with keeping money in savings. Whenever I get a few extra bucks I'm always throwing it at one debt or another. Just yesterday I threw another $500 at T's student loan, so it's down to 3300 owed. My savings is always around 1500. I never allow myself to get any further with savings because I always have this need to pay an oustanding loan off. Luckily I have a very stable job (government) and my husband's is a fairly stable job as well, but every once and a while I wish I would make it easier on myself and build up the EF. I know, I know, stop talking and just do it!

$1,000 went on T's student loan today. Approximately 3,800 left and then it's on to the next debt!

We did receive some bad news regarding our tenants. Turns out they won't be receiving government assistance and will need to pay us out of pocket. I hate to make assumptions, but I doubt they will be making the payments. My mother has already called and their phone number is disconnected. In the next few weeks we'lll have to see if eviction will be necessary. This means we have to come up with our total mortgage payment of $665. We were already kicking in few hundred since the government assistance wasn't enough, but this was not in our plans. It'll slow down our debt payoff plan, but I guess that's how it has to be for now. It's a shame the place has lost so much value since we bought our half from my parents. Selling isn't an option since the value is so low (and my parents depend on their half they receive in rent). I'm just so grateful that my husband and I got our finances out of the hole 1.5 years ago and can afford these nuisances. Once my student loan is out of the way we can focus on paying off the rental property.

The past few months I've been so wrapped up in getting the house refinanced that T and I haven't really focused on anything else. Now that we've locked in our rate for 15 years, I can look forward to the next debt payoff: T's LAST student loan!

It's hovering around 4900 last I checked, but I think we'll be able to have it paid off by February 5th. (I'm posting that date here so I'll have to be accountable!) I think we should be getting a few thousand back on taxes. Our payroll deductions have since been changed so that won't happen next year, but this year I'll use that money to put on the loan (and fix the volvo-grrr).

Once his last student loan is paid off, next to focus on is my student loan. But with that at around 20,000 it's not going to be as easy. I'll have to figure a plan of attack once I cross the 4900 off the list. Slowly but surely we're getting there!! I can't wait to only have 3 debts to our name!!

4.5% Interest, 15-year loan, no pre-payment penalty! Including taxes, our monthly payment is 1650. We plan on paying an additional $355 a month to pay off this place in 10 years! If all goes well, I'll be 35 and T will be 37 when we own our own home! We then plan on saving a down payment for a second home and then rent out this house while we buy another. T wants to put even more on the house each month and I keep trying to tell him that as we continue to make more money we need to pay off the rest of our student loans, increase retirement contributions and SAVE. Luckily he gives me control over the finances so we don't have to argue too much.

Well that was a waste of time! Of course I didn't know it at the time, but that 12,000 dollars I thought I would need to refinance won't be necessary! Turns out this appraisal came in 15,000 higher than I expected (the house is supposedly worth 175k) and I won't need to bring any money with me to closing!

I plan on paying back all 12,000 that I took the loan out for at the end of the month (or whenever I get my first bill).

Now we can focus on saving for nonexistent baby money and paying down the LAST of T's student loans! HOORAY!

Paperwork is processing for my 12,000 loan (9.9% interest - ugh. Will have to pay that off ASAP.)

Called three banks about refinancing. I think I am going to stick with PNC. If the appraisal comes out like it did before, I'll have to bring 11,900 with me to closing since there isn't enough equity in my home (this also includes the closing costs). But I'll end up with a 15-year, 4.5% loan! T and I are planning on making extra payments to make it a 12-year loan so the house will be paid in full by the time he's 40!

Woohoo!!

So if you've read my previous posts, you've seen how bothered I am by our horrible interest rate on our mortgage. Currently have 22 years left of the 25 year, 7.24% mortgage. After our appraisal a few months ago it was determined we'd need to bring 15-20k with us to closing to refinance since we didn't have enough equity in our home. We didn't have the cash at that time so we dropped it.

Fast forward to now. I called my credit union and talked about a few personal loans with them. Since my husbands credit score was borderline for the loan previously, I figured we cannot take out a loan in his name. So I applied for a 15,000 personal loan in my name and was approved! My credit score was around 770 the last time I checked, so even if it takes a large hit, it should be high enough for us to qualify for the FHA loan refinance. We were looking to get a 15-year loan for 5% or lower (I need to look into what rates are currently at.) If we got it at 5%, it looks like a 15-year loan would actually be roughly $30 LESS a month then what we're paying now!! I would refinance for a shorter term but with babies on the brain I'd like us to have more wiggle room. The bad news is the personal loan is 9.9% (fixed) which is very high. I figure if we're as disciplied as we've been with paying off debt the past 2 years then we can have this paid off in approximately 18 months. When we get the loan down to a more reasonable amount, we might ask T's parents for a no-interest loan and pay it off.

I pay all of my bills online and inadvertently made my $365 oil payment to the electric company! I was thinking I could make a stop payment, but it's already gone through. Thank god for that extra padding in my checking. Now I've got to make the real $365 payment for oil! Ahh!

I have a pension with the state that I work for. 6.25% of my gross pay gets automatically deducted for this pension. Once I hit 5 years I'm guaranteed a pension (very small one). At 25 years I get healthcare + a percentage of my pay that I'm not sure of and at 35 years I get healthcare + 85% of my pay. While it would be nice to make full retirement, I can't guarantee it, so I am preparing with a separate account. Currently I am only contributing 2.5% to this 403b (like a 401k).

I have researched and seen a good number to start with retirement contributions is 15% if you're still in your 20's. Can I count what I'm contributing to my pension as part of that 15%? or should I aim for 15% to 403b + the 6.25% pension?

Canceled the gym membership today. I've been saying the past year how great a deal it is, but no matter how little the monthly membership fee is it's still a waste of money if you never go. So that's $20 saved between my husband and I to go towards something else. We're also trying to sell the fixer upper RV that we never fixer uppered. I'm hoping to get $500 for it and then we'll save another $30/month on insurance. Oh and then T got a promotion (Assisant Manager) last month. Only net $60 more a paycheck after upping his 401k. A little bit here and a little bit there and we're inching our way towards a 1-income household. I don't think I'd ever want to not have a career, but it's nice to think we might have options when we get around to having kids.

I've heard a few times now from others that my husband and I live in a very tiny house; essentially a "starter home". Our home is 1,260 sq. feet with 3 bedrooms, 1 full bath, dining room, living room, kitchen and an additional 350 sq ft finished basement. At a little over 1600 square feet of livable space I don't think we'll have any problems when we have our 1st child. Am I being naive?

The only issue I see with even 2 children is the bathroom situation might get a little difficult. We are thinking about paying cash for a family room addition in a few years (and trying to do most of the work ourselves) that would include a half bath in it. Is it so ridiculous that my husband and I plan to stick it out and try to pay off this house in 15 years while raising a family? Sorry to rant, but hearing the word "starter home" makes me feel like people are implying we're a failure for not moving to something big and grandiose once we have kids.

Some days I find myself getting overwhelmed with all of my financial goals. I know I have to just break it out and take baby steps, but it's so hard.

Right now I'm at the point where we want to seriously consider children. I wrote in the last post about staying home and needing money to cover my lost income for 6 months. I also wrote about the SUV which I got beaten up a little bit for. I understand the SUV (even a used one) is a bit of a luxury so I agree it isn't necessary at this time, but the 7-8k to cover expenses is. For some reason paying off that much in debt is do-able for me. Once I put money on a debt I know I'm not getting it back and I see immediate results when the balance goes down. For some reason I don't feel that way with money saved so I know it's going to be harder to build this fund up. I know I know, it's all mental. I'm' sure as soon as I find out I'm pregnant I'll be more motivated to save, but at the moment I know I'm not so it sorta feels like this thing that may happen in the future and I'm not as dedicated. We'll see..I'll keep you updated on the progress!

T and I were thinking about little ones and I started crunching the numbers. If I want to stay home for 6 months after having my first, we'll need to have 7-8k to cover expenses without my income. I figure two 2-door cars won't be of much use, so I figure we should sell one and go with at least a sedan. Since we're into home repair and at Home Depot more often than we should, we figure a SUV would be roomy enough for kids and a few pieces of drywall should we need it. We're interested in a used Kia Sorento at the moment. Even if we sell the volvo for 4k (thats generous with all the miles it has) we're still going to need at least 4-5k to buy an SUV without to many miles. So much money and I don't even have any kids yet!

I've been down this road before. I want to refinance and I can't. It's so frustrating to see all the money I'm losing every month by not being able to. Here's the quick recap...

-Bought home in Feb 2006 for 166k. They had to break it into two loans 8% and 11% to avoid PMI? I was still in college and my husband had next to no credit either. We took what we could get.

-By December 2007 our home value went to 225k and we refinanced our two loans into one home equity loan at 7.24% fixed for 25 years. Looking back we should've refinanced into a mortgage at that point, but we were stupid and didn't realize you could roll the closing costs of the mortgage into the loan and would've had a better interest rate.

-So now, 2.5 years later I'm desperate to refinance to a 15 year loan but our equity has dropped to 0. Just had an appraisal done last week and the value came in at 160k. So disheartened. All the work we did (building deck, knocking down walls, reconfiguring kitchen, painting, etc.) and the home is now worth 2 thousand less than what we owe. The mortgage consultant at PNC is trying every avenue, but so far no luck. Right now we need to bring 15k to closing and that's not going to happen. I've tried refinancing at every other bank in the last 6 months and nothing has panned out. We're not behind on payments. We bought a house we can easily afford. Why am I penalized for trying to be responsible??

My husband likes to make fun of me. He thinks it's a little strange that I carry this excel spreadsheet with me everywhere I go on my USB keychain. I think it's a little strange that he is content to go through life without the slightest idea of what our finances are. On occasion I bring up the spreadsheet on my laptop at home and indulge in my fantasies and have him watch. "See - look what would happen if we put all our excess money on this loan?! Or or if we pay down the house!? Look at that!" "Right..yeah..great." On occasion, when I feel like we've made great strides with reducing debt, I break out into song and sing The Circle of Life from Lion King (of course replacing "circle" with "spreadsheet" whenever I can).

Yep. I guess you could say I'm a little bit crazy.

Since I am a state employee, I know what all of my pay increases are based on our current contract, and in one tab of my spreadsheet, I've listed all the increases and on what date they occur. I've guesstimated the increases for my husband as well. I deduct taxes and retirement contributions and figure out our current and future net income.

Another tab is filled with all of my expenses. A column for necessities and another for supposed "necessities". My husband is a smoker, so unfortunately I have to budget for his vices. I tried enticing him to smoke by saying he could keep all the money he didn't spend on cigarettes for 6 months and buy himself something but so far that hasn't panned out. Moving on..

A third tab includes a breakdown of future paydates with allocation of moneys. We pay all the monthly bills and the mortgage and the rest plunk on debt.

A fourth tab shows all debt incurred since I graduated college (3 years ago) and what we've paid off so far.

A fifth charts (or should I say charted) daily exercise. Sadly that has not been updated in a while.

A 6th and 7th tab even breaksdown... dare I say it? Maybe not. Perhaps I'll divulge another day.

As you can see this has become a rather unhealthy obsession. Since I've started these spreadsheets around a year ago I've becomed much more disciplined and organized and motivated.