Do finances affect friendships?

Do finances affect friendships? I think it does. The people you socialize with plays a large role in whether you attempt to keep up with the joneses (KUWJ). This weekend I had a glimpse of different circles of friends and KUWJ.

When we lived in the West Coast most of our friend were just like us. They had just finished school and were starting to work, or going on to graduate/professional schools so they were broke. No one in our circle had any money. Hence, hanging out mostly consisted of free or cheap activites. We often had potlucks for lunch/dinner at our house with friends bringing food and beer. We would sit and watch a movie or play video games. Going out to bars, clubs, movies, restaurants were major luxuries in those days. But we often saw our friends every weekend, even sometimes during the week days.

When we moved to the East Coast, we had moved into a different financial situation and were able to afford a better lifestyle. However due to self-imposed budgetary constraints we chose to live a lesser lifestyle in hopes of saving for retirement, paying for tuition, and having children. Unfortunately this meant turning down people's offer of eating out for lunch and dinner quite often. My DH made during these past two years of brown bagging lunch everyday and so did I. We also ate out infrequently during the weekend, and we still don't go to the movies, sporting events, etc. For us those things are still luxuries, which we plan for and go to, but just frequently.

Yesterday we had a BBQ at our house, and our friends enjoyed themselves. However, most of them do not cook, nor do they really live in large apartments for entertaining. Instead live a very trendy and hip lifestyle of eating out pretty much every meal. Thus reciprocating will be them inviting us to eat out at a cool place and splitting the bill. Realize that these are mostly 30-something people who work and make a great salary. They are well able to afford any lifestyle they choose, especially since none of them have kids. Some are single (after divorces), some are married.

Thus, I guess I realized that we haven't changed all that much from our frugal student days. And I guess it's part of the reason we haven't made any close friends out here is that we don't socialize as much. What we have in common with these new friends is less. But we could build deeper friendships if we hung out with these people more. But that would require us to change our lifestyle and I'm not ready to KUWJ.

So do finances affect your friendships? I wonder if I can find other frugal friends? Our new roomie appreciates our frugalness because he's still a post-doc. So we often eat at home and going out is a treat.

So definitely finances affects our friendships...

Expecting an Inheritance?

Are you expecting an inheritance? How much will it be? Enough to afford a nice vacation, buy a home, or retire? Will the inheritance be in the form of college for your children? These are examples of inheritances people talk about on message board.

On one message board a woman said she didn't worry about retirement because as an only child, she expected to receive a rather large inheritance which would allow her to retire. Also her children's college tuitions were already taken care of by her parents and in-laws. She said her and her DH were the only "poor" ones.

This lead me to think, do people really expect to receive inheritances? I don't and neither does DH. Our parents have substantial savings but with early retirement, longevity, and rising costs of medical care, I doubt they'll be able to leave us anything, nor should they.

But are people overestimating what their parents really have saved? Do they think their parents have a fabulous lifestyle when the lifestyle is being provided for through a company pension and Social Security, rather than assets generating income? Let's say someone has $8k month with $4k being from a pension, $2k from SS, and $2 from investments. That means they only might have $500k in savings to generate that income. And when they die if that $500k wasn't eaten up at the end of their lives that would be split amonst their heirs.

The SS definitely and usually the pension do not support their heirs till death. Thus the luxury retirement today's retirees have is often supported through a pension. But how many 20 and 30 and even 40 somethings can count on a pension? And how many who even have one will have as generous a pension as their parents?

I guess it's possible that people will be inheriting enough for retirement and college. If you think you are getting an inheritance please explain if it'll be enough to retire on or just a vacation.

Poll: How much do you spend on Groceries

The poll closed yesterday on how much do you spend on groceries. A whopping 39 people voted, although I'm going to include myself in the survey to make it an even 40 people.

0 people spend less than $50/month per person
11 people spend between $50-$100/month per person
12 people spend between $100-$150/month per person
10 people spend between $150-$200/month per person
7 people spend more than $200/month per person

The majority of people between $50-200/month per person. But looking at the numbers I think perhaps I can assume, perhaps people who voted can comment on this, that it's more likley people spend between $100-150/month per person with the 11 and 10 people voting in the two categories next to this one are very close to the $100 and $150 marks rather than the $50 and $200 lines.

This is great, I spend about $150/month per person on groceries. Sometimes as low as $100, but on average about $150. I also do eat out, so it probably should be a higher number, but just for groceries that's not bad.

This month should be terrible both eating out and groceries. With all of our guest, however our new roomie is fasting so we no longer hvae to feed him.

immigrants = success?

An interesting article by MSN about the success of immigrants as business owners. A lot has to do with taking risks, working hard, and living simply.

I have meet some very interesting people online who feel that immigrants have taken their jobs away from them. That these people work much too hard and for too little money which makes it difficult for them to compete.

But I question, wasn't everyone an immigrant at one point in time? Also why are people so upset over immigrants taking their jobs if they aren't working hard enough? I say this honestly because I married someone whose and immigrant, have immigrant parents, immigrant in-laws, and immigrant family and we've honestly hit the American Dream.

My kids will have a lot because DH and I were provided so much by our parents. They worked typically 3 jobs in college, and not fun or easy jobs. Our parents in their 50s (boomers), worked as a taxi cab driver, barber, maid, dishwasher to survive when they came over. They paid for college themselves and helped their parents.

And yet all are easily able to send their kids to college, travel every year, and retire at 55 without breaking a sweat. So how were they able to make it just working 9-5 jobs, raising children, coming with nothing, and still manage to be successful?

I think it's the attitude. The entitlement many Americans feel about what they are owed. How they expect to live at 28. I know this because a few of our friends who are Americans complain about not being able to buy a house where we live (very common). Yet not one other person/couple made the sacrifice DH and I made to buy a 1 bedroom condo and live there for a few years to build equity. Now we own a townhouse, none of our coworkers are willing to buy a townhouse, they want a Single Family Home. Again we sacrificed and made a choice for what we could afford.

This entitlement extends farther, we drive decent, older cars. Not fancy, but not junkers. But many of DH's coworkers/classmates drive cars worth at least 2-3x what we drive and yet they feel it's not enough. Many wonder how broke we are that we both drive compact cars. But it's a choice we're making to be flexible in our financial decisions. I would love to drive a Lexus, to vacation for a week in the caribbean, but we can't afford everything we want (well without charging it). Hence we aren't entitled to it just because we work hard. This entitlement might also stem from Generation X being spoiled by their Boomer Parents. We bought our cars, our home without a penny of help. We're the only couple we know who did so, most people had Down Payments or a car bought in full by their parents. We had to take out loans for everything.

Right now I could quit, have a baby, and stay at home without changing our lifestyle much. We can afford our house, our cars, and retirement maxed out without my income. My income is gravy, it mostly pays our taxes. Yet, we are still trying to save money so we can increase our lifestyle on one income.

People who blame immigrants for all their problems need to examine their own lives. They need to question why they spend time looking at others when they should be working on improving themselves.

Thank you...

For my recent guest posts by Frugal, Boomie, and Linda I would like to say thank you very much. I am very grateful for the help.

Also with the guests visting, I would not mind a few more guest posts please.

Single or Married Life?

I had a fun weekend. It was enjoyable seeing my brother and cousin. They are about the same age born 3 years apart on the same day, with my brother being the elder. But they live two very different lifestyles and it pretty cool to be able to observe the differences.

First my brother is married with one child, townhouse, and a stay at home wife. He lives in the suburbs and is planning on selling his townhouse and buying a single family home in the country with a yard. They have a 10 year old Jeep and 3 year old Acura TSX. They eat out maybe once a week but in general stay at home with their 2 year old son. My brother's one indulgence is a Harley he bought right before he got married, although there was talk of him selling it since he rarely rides it. For the record he's only been married about 3 years so marriage hit him late.

Then my cousin is a 35 year old divorced, single guy who lives in the city in a very trendy neighborhood. He owns a 700 sq ft loft style condo without a parking spot, but is walking distance to public transit and many restaurants. Within the last week he bought a 2007 Chevy Corvette and enjoys going out with friends and family. I think he's lonely, so he's always hanging out.

I can definitely see the benefits of both. However many single people talk about how married couples save money by being married. The biggest money saver I can tell is they no longer feel the need to go out and do activities with other single or married friends. They have a companion to stay at home with for free. But single people often hate going home to an empty house and will instead have dinner out, or go to a movie, or coffee, bar, pretty much anything.

Second I think that single people unfortunately also are still are working on maintaining their attractability to the other sex (or same). Where they buy new clothes, date, work out a lot, etc. This is natural and unfortunately I think can become quite expensive.

However singles also get things their way. They make all their own financial decisions, they have no joint financial goals. They are the only ones controlling the purse strings. My cousin decided to buy his dream car now because he can afford it, has no future wife or kids. It strangely I think paralleled my brother's purchase of the Harley. While single they were or are able to indulge in spending money, that would never happen to a married person.

The married person would have to consult with their spouse. They would have to ask the question is this purchase selfish? What does it contribute to our goals?

So when I'm questioned by friends is it better to be married or single? I'm still debating. I love being married, but I can definitely see the good points of being single. I also can see why singles complain about spending more money than married couples. But I also realize that married couples make more sacrifices for marriage and money.

Gotta Drive it 15 years...

Geez, it appears that I have to drive my car another 7 years. According to Consumer Reports, it says driving your car to death saves you $31k. Specifically the article says to keep your car 15 years or 225,000 miles of driving before it's considered a goner. I assume they mean it begins to cost more to repair the car than it's worth.

I was hoping to get rid of my car in another 3 years. Consumer Reports compared the cost of keeping a car for 15 years versus replacing the same car every 5 years. Of course the magazine does acknowledge that the car needs to be properly mainted to last that long. Another major factor in keeping a car for 15 years is the brand of car.

On their list of cars likely to make it to 200k miles are either a Honda or a Toyota. However the cars least likely to make it to 200k miles were mostly foreign european cars. I guess this means my corolla will run until it dies, but our ford focus could have trouble making it to 200k.

Well I'll never say I'm selling it or buying anything until it happens.

Stop Paying Late Fees

In my final guest post is from editor Linda Burros of Creditorweb.com. She has written a great post on "stopping paying late fees."

Stop Paying Late Fees

Late fees are a pain for credit card holders, but they’re big business for the credit card companies!

Your credit card company won’t tell you if it’s strategically mailing out bills late in the billing cycle to maximize the number of late payment charges – but it’s a common tactic. You really need to act upon the bills right away (if you’re mailing in your payment) to ensure it’s in on time. The law requires credit card companies to send the bill out at least 14 days before your payment is due – but count up the three days for it to get to you and the three to five days for the payment to arrive, you may only have one week’s wiggle room.

Although the Fair Credit Billing Act requires lenders to credit payments as soon as they come in, each issuer is able to set its own guidelines for payment, and if you don’t follow these guidelines to a T it could take an additional five days for payment to be credited.

For example: your credit card company may require your payment to arrive in the preprinted envelope included with your bill. Make sure you read all the policies stated on the back of your credit card bill and follow them exactly.

Alternatives to Mail-In Payments

Or you could pay online or by telephone. Many online and telephone banking packages are very inexpensive and when you eliminate the cost of sending out paper checks, they’re practically free. Although your payments online are usually processed the same day, you still want to make payments a few days before the due date, just to be sure.

Automatic withdrawals from your checking account are great if you’re forgetful to pay online, but beware that you have money in the bank at the right time or you could get hit with an overdraft fee. You also don’t want to make JUST the minimum payments unless you want to pay INTEREST through the nose, so automatic payments are a bit trickier as you may not
be able to forecast your bill amount and how much you can afford to pay – much more difficult to “set it and forget it.”

Perhaps your due date falls at a time of the month when you’re typically cash-strapped. You can also call and arrange with your credit issuer for a different date.

Double “Check” your Checks

This may sound silly, but like your teacher used to say “always double check your work.” Sending a check without signing, or writing the wrong amount can make your check useless, even if it made it on time. Write legibly, and avoid writing memos on the check like “I’m making an extra payment” as this can cause the check to circulate from department to department further delaying its clearance. Oh, and make sure if you’re using your own envelope that you use the correct address!

Reversing the Late Fee

Many late fees go unnoticed by credit card holders who rarely double check their statements. If you’ve been charged a late fee, you can contest it if you call your credit card lender and ask them to waive your charge. They’ll most likely honor your request provided you’re not habitually late. If you’re consistently sending out payments on time and still
frequently get dinged with late fees, (you suspect your credit card company’s not being honest) you can protect yourself by sending your statement with a return receipt or certified mail to prove you are sending your payments at least ten days before they’re due.

Linda Bustos is an Editor for CreditorWeb, where you can learn about personal finance and credit cards.

The Establishment Always Wins

Today's Guest Post is from Boomie at the Wastrel Show. She is a commentor in this blog with her own great blog, please check it out. But for now she's writing about

The Establishment Always Wins...

A few weeks ago I had the displeasure of logging onto a blog site that has dedicated itself to hating Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964). Being born in the mid 1950’s and a Baby Boomer myself, I was curious to find out why the generation of love and peace was now the root of national hatred. My investigation revealed a Generation X (born 1965-1980), approximately 51 million people, most of whom are hell bent on blaming my generation for their woes. Generation X’s main complaint is the stress the now aging boomers will place on the Social Security and Medicare programs. Generation X, as they put it, doesn’t want to foot the bill on a carefree, irresponsible generation of boomers.

I found web sites such as “Die Boomer, Die” and others dedicated to the death and destruction of ‘The Flower Children’. It’s as if the Baby Boomers themselves should be eliminated just for being born. These web sites are convinced that if all the Baby Boomers died, the Generation X’rs own lives would be better. Gen X’rs would have more jobs available to them, wouldn’t have to pay larger taxes, have better choices of homes, etc. Such hatred, to me, is remindful of the Jewish Holocaust and maniacal rants of Adolph Hitler. Hitler thought the world would be a better place if all the Jews were wiped off the face of the earth. Such trains of thoughts are very, very dangerous and frightening.

I concluded my research by viewing the movies of the late 1960’s when the hippies (Baby Boomers) were in full force. You can find out a lot about a generation by watching the films of their times. The one film that most accurately depicts the Boomer Generation, in my opinion, is the Academy Award nominated, “Easy Rider”. The movie filmed in 1968 but released in 1969, starred Peter Fonda as the free spirited black leather-wearing motorcycle hippie, ‘Captain America’ (who produced the film) and Dennis Hopper (who wrote, starred and directed the film) another free spirited, natural leather-wearing motorcycle hippie, ‘Billy-The-Kid’. The two actors epitomized the Boomer Generation perfectly. From the opening credits, the hippie couple couldn’t rent a room, eat in a restaurant or be treated with respect. They were spat upon, discriminated against, hated, called faggots, thrown in jail and finally casually but brutally killed in the end by two local rednecks that happened to pass them on the open road. The generation of peace and love, who finally stood up and questioned authority has always, even to this day, been criticized and silenced.

We Baby Boomers watched our beloved leaders; our hopes for a new, changed society get blown to bits. The Establishment always wins. We watched our beloved President John F. Kennedy brains get spilled out onto Jackie’s pretty pink dress in 1963. We watched the greatest peace activist of the century, Martin Luther King get gunned down on an Atlanta balcony in 1968. We watched our next great hope, JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy killed in 1968 after winning the presidential primary. Do you think it a coincidence that so many men were assassinated during this period? Over 60,000 of our peer’s lives were lost in the Viet Nam war while we listened to the lies of our then government. And now today, the woes of the current generation are being blamed on the Baby Boomers. It’s not the Baby Boomers fault, people! It’s the Establishment, stupid. The Establishment always wins! We hippies found that out the hard way. You can’t change the system. The House always wins!

In the movie, Easy Rider, the counter-culture tried to find another way. We set up communes, tried to live off the land and tried to change the system. But as Jack Nicholson, who played an ACLU attorney in the movie, who later gets hacked to death by some local townspeople said, “the hippies are feared, because we represent freedom, and that’s what they fear the most: the fact that we can be free.” That statement was true then as it is true today. The Baby Boomer generation meant freedom. Freedom from the rules and regulations. Freedom to think a different way. Freedom to live a different way of life. Freedom to live anti-establishment. As I have said before and I will repeat one last time: The Establishment always wins. You’re doomed. Stop blaming us for your problems. The problems were there before you came on the scene and the problems will be there when you leave.

And so it goes.

You deserve it?

Fantastic Guest post by Fabulously Broke in the City. Check out her website..

Most people want a lot of things, without having to sacrifice or save for it. It's just an observation, but no one wants to give up their expensive toys, their daily lattes or their vacations to the Caribbean to accumulate wealth. They'd rather it just be given to them, with as minimal effort and work as possible.

It's the same for weight loss. That's why the weight loss industry is such a trillion dollar money maker. Everyone wants the magic pill that will speed up their metabolism, and make them lose weight in two weeks, without having to diet, cut back on high-fat junk foods, go a little bit hungry, and exercise. They all want the magical potion, lotion, pill and solution, but what they don't want to hear is how much sweat and effort that goes into losing weight because they aren't wiling to work for it.

Husband was asked half jokingly for money by a friend who had wanted to try and turn her finances around, because she felt that their family income of ~ $60,000 was not enough. She knew I made a good amount of money, and we were still able to sock away a sizeable retirement fund as well as pay down our debt. Considering Husband didn't work, she wanted to know how we did it. After Husband explained what I did, and we managed to accumulate $12,000 in retirement thus far, as well as pay down about $14,000 in our debts in the past year, and the plan was that we would be clearing another $26,000 by the end of 2008 if we stayed on track, his "friend" said: "If you guys are so damn rich, give ME the money". Husband was a bit stunned. First, she had asked for his advice in how to make $60,000 go a long ways. He didn't offer up the information without prompting. Second, this was coming from a girl (I refuse to call her a 'woman'), who had a house bought and given to her as a wedding gift by her father, never had to really work for anything in life and yet she still had the audacity to ask us for money. Even half jokingly.

Well, joking around in good fun is one thing, but as we all know, jokes or good natured jibes can be taken too far. Husband relayed a recent event about what happened between his mother and his uncle. See, I had never understood why in the last couple of years, his uncle had stopped coming over with his family for the big Christmas dinners, and Easter gatherings. They used to come over with their 3 kids, have a great time, open presents for one another, and generally, just get together.

And all it took was a single comment to ruined his mom and uncle's 50-year old family bond.
Husband's cousins (in their mid-twenties) were sitting by the fire in his parents' home, stuffed to the gills with the food that their aunt (Husband's mum) had been preparing since 4 a.m. that morning, and his cousin had the nerve (probably bolstered by all the stuffing and turkey, being a turkey himself), loudly proclaimed with a lazy smile: "Aunt Em, you and Uncle Paul have so much money. You should you give our parents some of it, so they can pay off their credit card bills. You and Uncle Paul don't need it as much as we do. You both are just being selfish."
His mum froze in shock.

See, even though Em was not a rich millionaire, she had enough money to do what she wanted in life, having earned a $40,000 salary most of her life, she saved as much as she could and was a very frugal woman. Since she felt blessed and had a good generous heart, she wanted to share her savings with her family if they were in need, and had been subsidizing her brother and his family for many years, a fact I am sure her nephew and niece were aware of. Not only had she had given cash gifts to her brother knowing he could use the money, but she had also co-signed a loan for his son, her nephew, so he could attend University, and his cousin reciprocated by defaulting for so months that creditors got frustrated and started to hassle her for the money. It wasn't until she threatened to call the cops on her own nephew, that he finally started paying his loans, but made it clear that he resented paying it every month, because she had "so much money" that she should've been able to clear his loans for him, but she was just being stingy.
But it was soon clear to us that it was not her brother's influence on the children that had prompted them to boldly ask for money, but it was her sister-in-law, Lindsay who controlled the family. She had told her children since young to ask their Aunt Em for more money because she was so "rich". Later, we found out that she had told her nephew NOT to pay his student loans, because "Aunt Em will take care of it, because she and Uncle Paul are rich".

Even though Lindsay was aware that Em did not make much money (probably as much as her brother), she began to believe her own lies and concocted an outrageous figure in her head about how much she thought Em and Paul had squirreled away. So instead of accepting that her family had a financial problem, and were unwilling to cut back and save, over the years, she shifted the blame to Em, citing her sister-in-law's unwillingness to give her own brother money that was the cause of why they were in so much debt. But even if Em had cleared their debts for them, it would not be the last time. That family would've run up those cards again, and had been at Em's door asking for more cash.

So, Em had decided to let that one co-signer incident slide and just vowed never to co-sign for relatives again, chalking it up to a bad experience. But that one comment was the final straw on the proverbial camel's back. Being blatantly treated like a bank, and asked for money at a family gathering that she had worked hard at preparing with love for her family, was too much. She was so visibly upset (and she's normally a calm, collected, sweet woman), that when Husband's father, Paul asked her nephew to apologize and take back the comment, and they refused, citing that she and their uncle was just being stingy and selfish with their money and they couldn't understand why they didn't want to help out their family. Paul was furious, and told them to get out of their house and to never come back again.

From that day onwards, the family cut all ties of communication with her brother (which is sad, because Em's parents had died recently, and he was all she had left). But all it took was that one comment, even if it was originally said in jest. Now she hears from other mutual friends and relatives that her brother's family is in a lot of financial trouble and may have to sell their home to pay creditors because they couldn't come up with the money.
As the Gimme-Gimme Generation, we've grown up with instant gratification, thanks to our instant cash credit cards, and the whole notion of spoiling and treating ourselves however we'd like, because we only live one life, and we deserve it.

But do we really? Well, I for one, strongly believe that we certainly deserve what we get in life, even if it isn't what we want.

-- Fabulously Broke in the City

Avoiding talking about money...

Want to know a trick to avoid talking about money with people in real life? Well I have the one that works for us. Have your spouse who has no clue about money answer all the questions. What? Well most people reading this blog and blogging are probably the finance nerd in the house. They probably pay all the bills, budget, and invest the money.

Honestly it's a double edge sword. I have a lot of financial responsibility because of it. But would I really be willing to give it up? I don't know.

But back to the topic of how much do you earn and what did you pay for your house? Well for some reason in real life there are a lot of people who ask these questions. I was raised that it's rude to ask such questions and I would never dare. But a surprising number of people ask us.

I look at my DH to answer these questions and he says "I don't know." Then he turns to me and I just shrug. The people asking then look at DH and he says "I just signed on the line when told, and she does everything else." He even says I can't tell you what our mortgage is, what our insurance cost, what I'm really paid, because I've never seen a paycheck. As people gawk, he says the last time I paid a bill was in 2000.

So the conversation ends because it becomes obvious that DH really has no idea or we're just willing to discuss such personal issues.

HSBC New Account

Okay I gave in and decided to open a new online savings account. I chose HSBC because they have this online bill-pay which can be linked to the savings account. The savings account pays 5%, which is fine.

The bonus I think is they have this online bill-pay which would be great because I hate transferring money between online and my Bank of American Checking Account. I find it takes 2-3 days to transfer the money then I have to mail my payment off asap all the time, so the amount of time my money is lost in cyberspace has not been worth the effort of the interest. I know others may find it worth it, but we do pay a lot monthly to our mortgage and to DH's tuition.

So we need ready cash during the year. I also don't like scrambling looking for money in 5 different places. Though HSBC doesn't have seperate accounts like ING, it does have a lot of ATMs worldwide. So we travel we'll be able to access our cash internationally without fees. Something I thought about doing before we travelled last time, but we were lazy and didn't set it up in time.

We'll see how it goes. Minimally we have to leave it open for 6 months. Then we can close it.

Couples Money Management

In our marriage DH and I are like the CEO and CFO of a company. But I've found that as the CFO, I manage and pay every single bill. Previously my DH attempted to pay one bill a month, but it was perpetually late, irritating me to no end. Hence I took over the bill paying completely.

When I read about couples who segregate their money I wonder how can they do it? How can they manage 3 different checking accounts for mine, yours, and ours? I have enough trouble staying on top of 1 checking account such that I think I would probably lose all three. Plus how would you delegate who pays the bills from "our" checkbook?

We ended up going with a joint everything because we didn't have enough money to keep things seperate. We made so little as graduate students and our mortgage, etc was so high that it took two paychecks to make ends meet. And if we didn't want our checks to bounce then we needed to pool our resources. We were making $42k gross at the time.

So DH ended up being like a CEO, where he helped make major decisions. But I would pay all the bills, make minor decisions, and oversee our general finances as a CFO of our company. This may not work for many couples. It relies on trust especially on the CEO's part that the CFO is paying all bills on time, and not overspending.

I can see how this could strain a marriage because often time the "saver" in the relationship manages the books, but the spender doesn't care. In our relationship I'm the spender so it's probably a bit skewed that I manage the money. But I think because I do, it curbs my spending tendancies because I know exactly how much money we have.

Hence my suggestion to spender/saver couples, make the spender pay all the bills. They'll soon curb their habits when they start to see the big picture. If you want to get out of debt, make the spender see how the debt is affecting your family finances directly and the point will hit home fast.

Guests Costs

I think we'll be having a wild spending month in September. My parents for 2 weeks, my in-laws for 10 days, my BIL for 1 week, and friends for 4 days all staying with us. Between more food, utilities, eating out, and activities, I have a feeling this will be a ridiculously expensive month. Arrgh.

What are the costs really associated with guests? I've found that besides a little increase in hot water, lights, etc, mostly it's eating out because you are too tired to cook. Increased gas usage from driving to see things or going to do activities. And basically paying for entertainment. Even if you pay for just yourselves, it's money you normally would not have spent on fun activities.

I think my budgeted $75/month fun money will be used up completely. Typically we don't spend it and we mostly use it during snowboarding season. But with this month I'll be going above and beyond in spending. Sadly I've already allocated an extra $1k for spending this month.

I guess I should add that for DH and I because our parents live far (over 3k miles one way), our visits are never weekend visits. And we have to do more and see more during that time. But it is nice to see family, I miss mine a lot so I consciously make a choice of spending more money on trying to see them whenever possible. To me it's just another line item.

I wonder if others spend as much when they have guests?

August Net Worth

We increased our net worth by .24%. Mainly we added $1195 of Credit Card debt buying a sofa in August on a 0% CC. However this weekend I sold our old couch for $230, great deal when you consider we paid $350 5 years ago. I'm going to send the $230 + $100 extra planned payment. I also cashed out of a stock so I may pay off the sofa in full next month because I don't like the idea of the debt weighing me down. I have the money in savings but it's a mental thing.

However overall our mortgage decreased another $685 (.15%). We increased our retirement through investments and contributions $3561 (6.32%), our EF increased $810 (5%), and we decreased our cash on hand by $3545 (22.63%).

Unfortunately we carry a lot of cash on hand at any given time because we're cash-flowing a lot DH's tuition approximately $20k/year. So we build it up and pay it out for 2 semester and 2 summer sessions. Each semester has cost $20k, and each summer session $5k. We did take out an $8500 subsidized stafford loan last year and probably this year as well. The tuition last year was paid Augut $2k, December $2k, February $8k, May $5k, June $8k, July $5k. So we keep the cash in our bank savings account and pay it out as required.

Any suggetions for a better method than just keeping the cash on hand would be great. But I'm not sure we should invest it.

Bad haircuts...

Well last week Thurday I got a haircut for $35. Unfortunately it was a terrible haircut. It looks nothing like the picture I took into the salon. I've been going to the salon for 2 years and have been very happy with the person who typically cuts my hair. Unfortunately he left, and so I decided why not try someone else?

Well it was bad. Definitely not worth the $35. But then I come home with my butchered hair and my DH says "Why'd you pay $35 for the cut? Why not pay more to get a better haircut?" He says I've noticed over the years that you spend $25-40/haircut on average. However about 25% of the time the cuts have been bad. Why not pay more at a better salon and get a cut?

My answer? I don't know if this is how other women do it, but honestly I would pay more for a cut if I like the hairstylist, but finding a person you go loyally is tough. For some reason, everytime I find a hairstylist I like they change jobs, move after a 2-3 years and then I'm SOL. So I have to investigate and find a stylist other people reccomend, which is how I originally found this guy.

In CA it was the same thing I only found someone by referral. When you test out different places, I've found it's more often a waste. Although I'm typically driven my desperation. I like to wear my hair pretty short, so used to go every 2-3 months.

But now I'm stuck without my regular guy and I am unsure what to do. I don't think the more expensive salons are necessarily better. But I do need to find a stylist who is familiar with Asian hair. Or else. I've found my hair doesn't exactly look right when it's cut by a non-asian because of the texture, density, people are not usually experienced with cutting Asian hair.

But it will grow. However it pains me and my DH to have paid $35 for a bad haircut. sigh. Please don't tell me to cut it myself, because it doesn't work. I have hair that is more than an inch in diameter when in a ponytail. Also it's very fine and oily. It's not easily cut to look nice, although it is cheap to grow long and whack it off ear length. But even then it's too hot to wear with layers and thinning.

Mortgage Mess?

The mortgage industry is in shambles. In a story they feature 4 families in mortgage trouble. Are they really victims? Or do they have a case of wantitis? Where they want the better things in life NOW!

Are the lender predatory? Yes. But is it entirely their faults? No way. These people probably need to take a look in the mirror and acknowledge their desire for new cars, larger homes, etc. The first family refi their home to pay off two new SUVs. The second family wanted a home but didn't care to sell their trailer first. The third family were renting but the landlord selling the home caused them to rush to buy anything. Thus all three families knew they were getting Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM) but none cared. They only cared about getting into the house, then once they were in, suddenly the payments were unaffordable. The fourth family was the only one which claimed they thought they were getting a fixed rate mortgage but it was switched on them at the close.

Um, hello? If you know you are getting an ARM, how can you be a victim? If you know what your payment is and you accept it, and are told it will change why do these people move forward with buying the home anyway? Is it because they just have to have a house now???

I have to admit the first time we bought a house in 2002, we were wet behind the ears. We did it behind our parents back and without telling anyone so we had no advice, no experience, no wisdom given to us. We were fortunate to have a wonderful RE agent who guided us to buying a house within our means. She agreed with our "parameters" for purchasing. She even guided us to a 30 year fixed loan, discussed with us about putting a 10% down payment, and closing costs. I realize looking back we didn't get the best rate or best closing costs because we used a mortgage broker she reccomended instead of a bank, but he was honest.

I wasn't happy with the mortgage we ended up with I think it was 6.25%, 30 year fixed, with no points but it was decent. After that I learned how much cheaper banks/credit unions are. And with our credit scores we could have used either. However we did have a problem with DH's visa status, hence a mortgage broker was willing to put us with a subprimer lender get circumvent the J-1 Status. We weren't married (yes another stupid mistake) so our loan was difficult to push through. When we refinanced with Washington Mutual we took DH's name off the loan.

Anyway we knew what rate we were getting and though it wasn't perfect we ended up better than expected. Thus I feel these people are unfairly crying "victim". How can they really claim to be victims when they chose to purchase homes they knew were expensive? Or were refinancing a house they could afford into something unaffordable?

We've become a nation of wantitis. We want to constantly keep up with the Jonese, without ever considering we don't have the means to.

Paying for College Poll Results

The results from the poll are in.

11% (3 people) said No way to paying for college
23% (6 people) said Yes, Unconditionally paying for college
30% (8 people) said Yes, but with grade conditions
34% (9 people) said Maybe, depends on finances

Very neat and interesting. I am pretty sure we're going to pay for college for our kids 100%. But it will require certain grade conditions be meet. DH is firmly that college is their job, like it was for him. Mine were conditioned on grades but my parents paid and I had a job to pay for my own expenses.

If I had to answer the poll though, I'd say maybe depending on finances. I think right now we'll be able to afford it, but who knows what the future holds. We could die, become disabled, or ill. So I would really like to help my children and I've already started saving a small amount for them, but I do realize that you can't plan out your life so thoroughly.

A disturbing trend...

Twice in one week very strange experiences happened. Something that makes me wonder about the trends of debt in the US. I once wrote that it my CC would have to be pried out from my cold dead hands. I still think that, but I'm wondering if Americans aren't getting worse about CC debt and we shouldn't be forced to take basic money management classes in high school and college?

First we went out to dinner on Friday at a Chinese Restaurant. It was a nice place, pretty reasonable $30 for the two of us. Anyway we were sitting next to this family of 4, who I think were travelling. Anyway they were out of money and had trouble paying for the bill. They began to ask the waiter (who didn't speak english well so we helped to translate), to split the bill on to 3 CC and put down some cash. The cash from was from their two children. The conversation was rather startling, that they could only charge $10 on this card, then $10 on another card, and $10 on another card and $20 in cash. It was very confusing. I thought well maybe they overspent on vacation, but still it was bit surprising.

Then last night I was waiting to pay for my groceries in the express line. It was surprisingly busy, but the woman in front of me couldn't pay for her groceries. She also split a $14.07 bill on to $5 one CC, $5 next CC, and $5 cash. It took forever and the cashier was grumbling a bit because she swiped more than just 2 cards which did not go through before finding cards that worked.

These two experiences were eye-opening. What is going on? I don't recall the last time I saw someone splitting the cost of something on different CC. Or even trying to put things on a CC which was rejected. Personally I rarely notice so I wouldn't know if it were a debit card versus a CC (who can really tell because debit cards are used as CC a lot when you are given a choice). But is abuse of CC getting worse? Are people spending more than they have?

Betting on the Market

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR/INVESTOR NOR AM I RECCOMENDING BUYING ANY OF THESE STOCKS....



I decided to jump into the market right now. I put a bit of money into starting a new portfolio for fun. This is to see if DH is right that stocks pay more than mutual funds or try to prove him wrong that mutual funds do better in general than the average investor. I've mentioned this before that DH is dead set that investing in stocks pays bigger dividends than picking mutual funds. I think index mutual funds are the way to go and I prefer mutual funds in general over individual stocks.

DH's current fun money portfolio isn't doing so well right now around 5% but his 401k and our Roth IRAs which are in mutual funds are doing about as well. Last year our mutual funds for the 401k and Roths crushed his stock portfolio which had a terrible year considering the great market.

So my goal now is to see how the last 4 months of the year goes and revamp our entire portfolio at the end of the year. I don't know if we'll position ourselves more into individual stocks or into mutual funds but we'll see. After all being married is compromising and sometimes people just have to learn the hard way about investing. FWIW, DH is getting more into index mutual funds after being burned last year with his stock picks.

DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A FINANCIAL ADVISOR/INVESTOR NOR AM I RECCOMENDING BUYING ANY OF THESE STOCKS....

What I decided to do was buy these 10 stocks SBUX, TNH, BQI, ELON, POT, PKX, ZOLT, BBY, PNRA, and RL. I'll update the blog periodically on how I'm doing.

Dental Update

Ugh...Followup after my letter to them the dental office responded. The dental office said they had no documentation about my change in insurance providers. Obviously my word is not good enough so I am having a letter from BCBS and Delta stating the date of coverage termination and initiation. It will be pretty obvious that we changed 6/30/07 coverage as I told them over the phone.

Second they said that they DO NOT get preapproval of work done from the insurnae provider. They said I was misinformed by the DD representative (word for word from the letter). DD representative said that a pretreatment form should have been submitted and both the dental office and myself would receive copies of the coverage. Thus I would be aware of the charges and it would be approved. However this is for Delta in-network providers only. Thus the dental office was correct in stating they didn't need to because they were not in-network providers. However they should have informed me they were not an in-network provider.

Thus I had a broken an appointment and they were charging us for broken appointment $350. And the carryover fee was to be applied to future visits so they did not have to return the money to me from 2 years ago.

In the letter the office did not state that I had to pay the $350, though they did state they had a right to charge for a failed appointment. Thus they charged for 2 hours of time at $175. Does this mean I owe them the $350? I plan on determining exactly what I should pay for the cancelled appointment. I wonder if I keep arguing with them they'll just let it go? Or if it's already been let go?

Comparing Housing Costs

I'm going to check out my sibling's homes these next few weekends. One lives in OH, the other in VA, and the last one lives in HI. So our lives vary and our homes vary as well.

I decided for fun to put our homes into Zillow to get an estimated price and find some details about the homes. I think it's neat to see what you get depending on where you live. So 2 of us live in townhouses, and the other two have single family homes. Of course the younger two are the ones in townhouses. Also my older two siblings have 3 kids each and live in the single family homes, while I have none and my brother only has one child. So it appears lifestyle plays a role in housing choice.

Starting out west in Hawaii, my sibling has a 5 bd/3 ba, 2801 sq ft house with a 7637 sq ft lot (.18 acre). It is estimated to be valued at $968,976. It is worth $346/sq ft. Pretty good deal when you consider that it's a single family home. By the way my sibling got it for substantially less because he worked for the builder.

The second sib's home in OH has a huge single family home with 4 bd/2.5 ba. It is 4514 sq ft with a 49057 sq ft lot (1.1 acres). The house is estimated to be worth $447,373, making it worth $99/sq ft. Of course having seen the location and the neighborhood, I'd have to say it's a much more beautiful home than the HI home.

My other sibling's townhouse in VA is 3bd/2.5ba and 1400 sq ft. There is no yard and it is estimated to be worth $399,642. This works out to $286/sq ft. The house is cute, but not well laid out it's a split-level townhouse with psuedo three stories. However this particular sibling bought 10 years ago for less than 1/3 the price and almost a paid for home. Unfortunately they've been trying to sell it for 2 years now and no bites. The market is terrible unfortunately, but they haven't leap into a single family and tried to sell while already buying another place is a smart move.

This is a pretty nice comparison of the different places to live in the US. Would I live in OH? No but I'd considered in VA. Definitely HI. I wonder what would happen if I picked more places to examine. Of course there are many other factors such as school district, lot size, etc that should be built into a regression model to determine price of the houses, but that would take more time and analysis. So if you are thinking of moving there are many variables which cannot be measured like proximity to family, lifestyle, jobs, etc.

Where would you live?

Vacation Time

I read that the US has the lowest amount of time off in the westernized countries. The average time off is 13 days/year. However most people start out with an average of 8.9 days/year. This is about half what most European countries allow their workers.

I get an uncounted number of days off a year being a student. I make my own schedule, as long as my work gets done and I'm not abusing the system. However DH gets I think a pretty generous amount of time off.

In his last company he got 4 weeks or 20 days/year. Currently however he gets 15 days or 3 weeks/year with an opportunity to take 5 days or 1 week unpaid. The 1 week is deducted off his salary with every paycheck and if he doesn't use the 5 extra days it's paid out at the end of the year. I think he's super fortunate to be able to even take 20 days/year. However he is only allowed to rollover 5 days/year or else he loses the vacation days.

Also DH gets a very generous 4 personal days a year as well. These are use it or lose it type of days. He also gets I believe 12 days of holiday as well. So basically he gets 15+4+12 = 31 days year. Plus unlimited sick days, with anything longer than 3 days with a doctor's note.

Also he gets 2 weeks of paternity leave. I thought this rather amusing. But very generous. So in all I think DH gets a very generous amount of time off considering the typical corporate vacation policies.

What do most people get?

Guest Bloggers

I'll probably be on 2 weekend trips with family in September. Hence I'm looking for some guest blogger to write a post. Anything financial would be great. I'll happily link back to your site and add you to my blogroll. Email me at livingalmost@gmail.com

Thanks...

Priceline

I wonder if I'm one of the few people who enjoys using priceline for hotels and car rentals? Most people I've talked to won't use priceline because they hate not knowing which hotel they will get. But I've found it makes it a bit more interesting not knowing what you'll get.

Last night I booked a hotel for the weekend in Washington DC. It was $60/night for a 3 star hotel which turned out to be a Hilton. The place looks nice, is 5 miles from my brother's house and seems convient. When I had checked out hotels in the area using orbitz, hotels.com, expedia, etc most were running $100/night. I'm not hotel loyal and we don't travel enough to make it worth being brand loyal to earn points.

I also used priceline to get a rental car for the weekend. We got a full-size car for $15/day which turned into $25/day including taxes. That's not bad considering taxes are 10% for rental cars and 15% for hotel rooms.

All in all my experiences with priceline have been excellent. I'll report back on the hotel, but in June when we went to Toronto and Niagara Falls we used priceline and got great hotels for the price. The locations were fantastic and the quality of the hotels were superior to what we would have booked based on price.

Online Bill Pay

Why does online bill pay take so long? I'm frustrated because banks say to have a date to deliver by but it never happens. For every single bill I pay using Bank of America I have to make sure it occurs immediately because there is always problems.

Apparently they still mail actual checks to companies. What sort of companies? Like CC, utilities, cell phones, anything. I can't believe they mail out an physical check 5-6 days before the delivery date.

This really confuses me as to why this happens? Why isn't everything electronic? Why aren't the banks just zapping the money over immediately and it appears that day? A money transfer between two banks (ING and BofA) takes 2-3 days? Do you ever wonder how and why? Or when you roll money from one investment account to another? It takes 10 business days to allow things to happen.

Do you use online banking? Do you find it is convient or inconvient? I find it convient in that I don't have to write checks, but that waiting for the company to actually cut a check is sometimes more frustrating. It feels like for all progress we have made in technology we still haven't done anything in the banking industry.

Calculating my Retirement Number?

I've thought a lot about this, the problem is I'm not sure what we really need because I'm not working and earning an income so our living is based mostly on one income. Will we scale up our lifestyle later? Will we have more income use to save? Or will our needs change with kids? This is too difficult to predict. So I just picked a number and decided to use the 4% rule.

What's the 4% rule? It's where you withdraw 4% a year from your portfolio and you approximate how much you need. So for example I decided $100k/year in todays dollars would be adequate. I then though why not 30 years until retirement at 58 and 60. So using a 3.5% inflation rate, I calculated that I will need $280680/year in order to match $100k in today's dollars.

This number multiplied by 25 gave me the amount I would need at retirement to live off of 4%. I will need 7.0 million dollars in 30 years in order to maintain a lifestyle of $100k. That is a lot of money.

According to my current savings rate for retirement of $23k/year @ 8% rate of return I will only have $3.3M. This is a bit worrisome. So what do I need to be saving? I should be saving $54k/year. That's probably a bit much right now and possibly even later.

So what should I do? Well I guess it might be easier later to save more as our income increases. I don't know what else to do. Well I guess I'm better off shooting for the moon and hoping to land on a star than not trying at all. After all if a ton of people are saving nothing for retirement then why am I worried? Something is better than nothing.

Depreciation of Cars?

I was wondering what is the depreciation costs of cars really? Is it worth to buy used? I think it is, but how used? Is it worth it to buy a 1, 2, or 3 year old car or more? What depreciation hit has our two cars taken?

First I bought a 1999 Toyota Corolla VE brand new. It was $11k when purchased, and current resale according to KBB private party sale good condition $4895. Hence the depreciation was 55.5% over 8 years equalling 6.94%/year. That's not terrible, but most of the depreciation was probably done in the first 1-3 years rather than a set rate each year.

Our second car is a 2000 Ford Focus which was purchased for $14k and is now worth $4775. It took a 65.9% depreciation hit over 7 years. That equals 9.4%/year. Which shows a difference between american and japanese cars.

I was told we don't drive very fancy cars, but the truth is that I can't seem to justify even buying a used car because it'll cost too much. For instance a used Toyota Highlander is probably what we would get. But don't worry this is probably 2-3 years out if not longer.

Right now according to KBB if we bought a new 2007 Highlander it would cost $23.5k, but a 1 year old used 2007 would cost about the same. Ridiculous. Why would anyone buy a 2007 model when the 2008s are coming out and the new 2007 costs the same? I did the exact same models and trim of SUV.

So I thought maybe the older models. A 2006 Highlander according to KBB should be $19805 or a 15.7% hit for one year. A 2005 Highlander would be $16675 or 28.6% less, while a 2004 Highlander would be $14510 or 38.2% less. And so forth until 2001 when the Highlander was first introduced.

I plotted this on a graph and determined the slope of the trendline was -8.76%, so the car depreciated on average about 9% a year. But the biggest slopes were in the first 2 years, after that it appeared to depreciate at the same rate.

So I guess if I were to buy a car I'd buy a used car of at least 2 years. Although you never know, so I'll address it when we have to buy a car.

Subprime Mortgage Fallout

Last week Federal Bank President William Poole commented on the state of the subprime economy. He stated that the subprime mess had not yet necessitated an interest rate cut nor was it harming the US economy. He was of the opinion that unless the economy took a major dive a rate cut was unnecessary. He also stated people needed to realize the fallout of the subprime mess was bound to happen.

I wonder whose to blame in all this mess? Is it the borrowers? The lenders? Should the Federal Government step in? And if so will it really work or will it be a band-aid solution?

I am going to comment on my mini-poll. There were 49 voters, and it appears that 62% of borrowers spend less than 20% of gross income on housing. Another 20% spend between 20-30%, 8% between 30-40% and 10% between 40-50%. So if this were representative sample of the population, one could say that the people who fall in the 30-50% range are probably subprime or risky loans.

But that represents ~20% of the population. So out of that 20% the question would be why do they have such loans? Are they able to easily manage it? What made them choose such a large mortgage?

I think that a lot of responsibility for these subprime mortgages needs to fall on the borrowers. Much like credit cards people need to realize that buying a home is the single biggest purchase you'll ever make. How can you spend less time choosing a house/mortgage than buying a couch? Or TV? Or anything? Buying a house without being educated is crazy.

But maybe I'm wrong, maybe people shouldn't bother to even read information before buying a house. Maybe it completely is the lenders fault. However I wonder if you see the mortgage number on the line, how can you believe you can afford it? If it's already 50%+ and an ARM how do people justify it?

Financial Update

Hmm.....I guess I should a few things. One I don't like spending money more than the another person. So I like to complain about it here on the blog because I wouldn't do it in real life. Money talk is weird in real life.

Two, couple of misconceptions also need to be cleared up. I did not finance furniture because I couldn't afford it. I can but I wanted to use a coupon and I had to use the store CC to do it. They gave me 0% financing for 1 year so I decided to use it. I haven't made my first payment yet so maybe I'll pay it off since I have so many people online whining about it.

Second, my DH goes to a private MBA because where we live there are mostly private universities. This costs part-time $30k/year, which is what we spent for 2 semesters and 2 summer sessions. Yes we borrowed $8500 but we paid the rest cash out of pocket. And yes we're borrowing another $8500. So maybe I should be exceptionally frugally and not eat out again until the day he graduates and stretch our food budget thinner. But to be honest I don't want to.

What is the financial plan? Well miraculously I've been thinking about that, if we paid the school loans at the same rate we're paying for his tuition now we can pay off his school loans in less than 1 year. Chances are we might be in the position to pay them off within 6 months.

I'll know more as we both get closer to graduating and our real income is known. What I do know? We max out retirement savings, we eat out, we try to carefully buy furniture and big ticket items, and we try to care for our condo so it doesn't fall into shambles. We make a nice income but we also live in a very expensive area.

We're trying our best together to move forward and get ahead. I have no idea if we'll make it and I don't think it will be easy certainly. But at least we're trying. Maybe debt free lifestyle would be best, but I think that we're setting ourselves up to get jobs that make us happy and fufilled and will provide a stable financial basis.

Parental Condo Update...

I'm a little nervous because my parents are buying another condo. Yes this is without selling either of their other homes. It makes me nervous because they are taking out a mortgage at their age. I'm really frustrated and banging my head on the table.

I just don't get it, they don't like the house I grew up in because they let it rot. So it needs a lot of work and my parents hate doing home maintanence. So they just would prefer to sort of leave it behind and move into something new and worry about it later.

It's just financial decisions like this that worry me. Poor financial planning. One example the condo they almost purchased in Februaryof this year was $377k for a 1 bedroom on the 30th floor. Now they are purchasing a 31st floor 1 bd for $349k. I was constantly yelled at over the phone by my mom (she's going through late menopause), about how much they wanted to buy that condo.

Now when I bring up they almost paid $30k more for a condo 1 floor below she says "Oh the market's coming down." And yet they still are interested in buying. She says things with a serious disconnect that if they had to flip it they could sell it breaking even. Also that she had to rent for 8 months at $1500/month so she lost money renting. Nevermind that the condo lost almost that much in value.

I haven't quite figured my parents out yet but one day...by the way after talking with my mom I nearly reached through the phone because she said "well the housing market can't go down, all the realtors say it's an island. When does RE go down?" Well I hope things work out.

Bathroom Issue...

Sigh, I'm getting really tired of our developer. So many things happened where she shortcut problems. So we're going to have to discuss with our lawyer more issues which have cropped up. And no you cannot find this out with a home inspection unless you are prying tiles away from a shower. Also you cannot predict that when someone says they will pay for things to be repaired in a written contract that they will try to not pay. Most people do not practice those types of business skills.

Our master bathroom the tiles are coming off the walls in the shower stall. This is because it was probably improperly constructed. Having been a new renovation in a former attic which was dormed, the bathroom is brandnew. The shower stall is made of marble tiles, which unfortunately were glued to sheetrock. Yikes. The developer/contractor should have used concrete or baseboard. Second mastik glue was used to attach the tiles instead of thin-set cement. However neither of these can be told from an home inspection unless you pry the tiles off the wall which is unlikely when they are in good condition. But after a few years the glue wears away and the sheetrock disintergrates, leaving a non-waterproof shower.

So basically the developer built a shower which disintergrates with water. Of course we called contractors and building inspector and was told it was improperly built and now we have to go and ask the developer for more money. If I weren't already asking for our money from the retaining wall I think I'd not do it, but at this rate, what does it matter? We're already having to get money out of her for our parking pad retaining wall (also in our sale contract), but she refuses to pay until all reciepts are tallied and she sees the final reciept.

The developer is infamous where we live for going to court and losing because she doesn't like to pay contractors. More than one contractor has filed suit against her. And yes she's very, very rich.

The cost of repairing this shower is probably around $2500-3000. One part which varies the price and is a bone of contention between DH and I is whether to replace the marble tiles with marble or with porcelain. DH wants porcelain because it's easier to clean. I want marble because of resale value. I don't want to care for the marble and would prefer porcelain but I'm not sure it's a good financial decision. I suppose we'll be tossing it to a RE agent.

Right now as it stands with our fireplace, I won the argument about keeping our original mantle when over 5 contractors and fireplace installers said to keep the original mantle. DH hates it wanted to tear it out, I said no. I don't think it's lovely or anything but it's value is in the resale. Sometimes home maintenance is not worth the hassle.

House Payoff versus Large Savings???

OMG. My best friend from childhood lost her job yesterday. Of course she was in the mortgage industry and did sub-prime loans. So these past 5-6 years she has been rolling in the money. Fortunately my nagging did some good. We're like sisters, she's an only and well I'm closer to her than my own siblings. We've known each other pretty much since birth.

What you say? In college my best bud use to be deeply in CC debt and ran up a ton of bills. However since she meet her boyfriend 3rd year in college, he cut up her CC and made her pay them all off. Since then she never abused CC again. I also nagged her about savings, starting her retirement, and putting money aside. So I told her how to invest her retirement money and stuff and got her turned onto coupons for makeup.

Anyway I was a bit worried but my nagging worked. She can live for 3 years at least at her current spending habits without changing a thing because of her money in the bank. A nice $100k. Yes! So while she'd rather not touch her savings, she can not work if she chooses.

I'm hoping she instead chooses to go back to school and retool her career. Right now what would have happened if she had followed Dave Ramsey's advice and put that $100k on her mortgage and only had 6 months of living expenses? Well she'd be desperate to find a job and her mortgage payment would still be there because her mortgage would not be paid off, only the amount of time shortened. Right now she's in the position of choosing a job. And pretty much any job she works at will supplement her savings, and she's getting unemployment. Plus her BF is picking up some slack on the household bills.

But what would most people do? Do they really pay off their homes? I realize we're in unique situation of buying $500k townhouses, but still money in the bank buys time to choose a job without stressing as much. I'd personally rather have 3 years of potential job hunting and retooling than going back to work within 6 months. Plus it's longer if you trim the budget.

How long could we live 6-12 months depending on how frugal we are. I'd really like to have more cash, but we keep spending our "savings" right now on school. It's eating up $30k/year which we would be saving otherwise.

Moral of the story? Stockpile cash until you can pay your mortgage in full, otherwise you tie up too my liquidity in the house. I guess overall it's personal choice. Will you choose to tap an EF for something like home repair or would you have saved cash and touch that and leave an EF basically for sacred things like death and job loss?

Fortunate in Housing???

I realized the other day we really got lucky in our housing. We have a really exceptionally cheap mortgage, and with 20% DP we bought way more house than we could have afforded without a DP. The downpayment is really important I realize because it gives you the choice of selling if you need be and taking a loss if you must.

Many people are being forced to refinance or short sell but are unable to come up the cash to do so. By having equity present we can do either without too much worries. Why am I bringing this up?

Well our two neighbors had a complete meltdown Wednesday night, where a screaming match ensued betwween them. Fortunately we were not present although we received irate phone calls late at night from them about the other one. But they are no longer talking with each other. They are only communicating through us and they are becoming very nitpicky.

So DH says to me, let's move. Eat the loss and leave. We're losing control of our situation fast. Our neighbors are just making our lives misery, but our house is nice. When you buy a condo you never know who your neighbors will be. In a house at least you can avoid them and threaten to shoot if they step into your yard. In condo well there's no escape.

I don't think we can afford to move however. We will have a terrible time renting with two dogs and buying another place would again have to be a condo. So my vote is no we're not moving, we're sticking it out no matter how miserable they make us. I may have to grouse about it for the next two years. This is my only outlet for venting because I can't yell at my neighbors about how stupid they are.

Plus we have a phenomenal deal on our condo. We pay $2263/month mortgage with $650 going to principal. So $1600 is interest, with 25% being tax deductible because of our bracket. So in essence we're renting for $1200. Then add in our property taxes, HOA, and insurance and we're paying $425 property taxes, $25 insurance, $200 HOA. So every month were renting our place for $2250, with $500/month tax break for PITI. That means we're renting it for $1750 for a 3 bedroom townhouse. This does not include repair and maintenance of course.

However DH best friend has looked recently at renting 2 bd apartments for $1600-2000/month so I think we're ahead of the deal. Our rent for a 3 bd that we can have two dogs in is $1750. It's not apples to apples because we have to upkeep the condo. But a lot of places he's looked at are older and their furnances are inefficient so the heating bills cost more than ours for a smaller 2 bd apartment instead of a 3 bedroom townhouse Also their windows are older, and in general the appliances are older. Also most places don't have an in apartment washer/dryer/dishwasher. So we have a lot of bonus comforts.

I don't count principal paydown because hypothetically we should be saving that money even if we were renting, not using it to eat out and stuff. But $1750/month to "rent" our place is too good to pass up. Hence I feel super fortunate in housing. DH is just going to have to play mediator and we're going to try to hide from our neighbors. One day we're going to be kings of our kingdom and no one will ever bother us again.

Also as a sidenote, DH's friend might be living with us indefinitely. But I feel it's okay and good karma. He's helped us out in the past and now we're returning the favor. Plus it's good karma to return the favor. He's paying rent and helping out around the house, and very clean. He does the dishes, does his bathroom, vaccums, and will help reseal the deck, finish the backyard, and work on the painting. In exchange he was thrown over by the girl he was moving in with so now he's considering buying a condo. But the catch is it's a wait-list till next year and by living with us he's not trapped in a lease. And we feel we're going to help him get ahead so he can buy a place.

When we first bought a condo in 2002, he loaned us money because we needed more than we expected, $2k actually because our earnest money check cleared but the mortgage company lost it, and the money was already gone from our checking account to cyberspace. Good karma and now I hope he can buy a place too. I feel better because he's paying rent and at the same time potentially going to be able to buy with our help and has a plan! Plus we don't require a deposit or lease and the money he gives us is just a bonus. It's below market value but whatever. He's a good person and if he buys this place it will be an awesome way for him to get a foothold in the housing market.

Baseball game

We went to a baseball game yesterday, and it was awesome. First one we've ever been to at Fenway. Lovely! But holy cow the tickets were super expensive for crappy seats. No wonder it's the most expensive seats in the major league. Fortunately DH won the tickets in a lottery at work or else I doubt we could have swallowed paying $45/seat for a pair of tickets.

On top of that we only bought 1 soda for the bargain price of $4. We had a quick burger beforehand, and went to a pub to have a beer afterwards. Decided to cheap out since it was an afternoon game.

The people in front of us were just downing the beers. They were also from DH's company which gave away 50 tickets/day for the Red Sox's 8/13-8/15 home series. A beer cost $7/pop for Bud, which is quite expensive. Granted it was a hot day but I don't think I could be downing beers at that price. I had trouble even buying a soda.

But for a sport that has 180 games and most stadiums have $5-10 cheap seats usually, Fenway is unique for the prices of it's tickets. NY charges more for the concessions and extras, but Fenway's tickets are the most expensive in the US because it's the smallest park with one of the largest fan bases. So the ambiance was nice and the game was exciting.

Would I go again? I don't know, my cheapskate soul says probably not, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to catch a game at Fenway and see the big green monster. We have to try to catch a Patriot's game and a Celtics game. I have a feeling the Patriots may be too out of our league.

Following Dave Ramsey...

I was mulling over someone's comment on a message board, how when they reached Baby Step 6 - paying off the house, they felt that squeezed tight in the budget. They felt as though their lifestyle was worse than it had been before. They couldn't put a finger on why, but did suggest that it was due to the extra savings.

I think that Dave Ramsey does an excellent job getting people to pay off debt. BUT what many people probably think is once they pay of the CC, student loans, HELOCs, etc and only have a mortgage then they will be rolling in the dough. Basically after Baby Step 2.

Where's the disconnect? Well there are probably two reasons for this, one during baby step 1, 2, and 3, following Dave Ramsey, you aren't saving 15% for retirement. That's 15% gross, not net. Right there that's a huge chunk of money.

Second big chunk of money saving for sinking funds. Those are things like replacing a car, home repair, vacations, etc. Those things you didn't do or put off in baby step 2, are now back with a vengence. So all the money once used for snowballing is now turned to saving for things a person in debt never had the cash to pay for.

I've found that living responsibly is hard. It's a lot easier to charge and live with free money. It's so much harder to save. But that's my reasoning why after Baby Step 2 the money doesn't appear to be so free.

Unexpected home maintenance

So we are installing our gas fireplace. However the plumber is unable to tell where the gas line is (because we are a condo), hence he'd have to cut a 12" x 12" hole in the wall to check. I mentioned we were considering tearing out the mantle to either rehab it or replace it because the wall was buckling.

The wall the mantle is attached we assumed, incorrectly of course, that it was plaster chipping. Nope. We took off the top piece of the mantle, look inside the wall and determined that the drywall is coming off the studs. Eek!

Because we haven't taken off the whole piece we don't know if something is wrong with the studs or if it's just the drywall pulling off. Hence now we are going to have to get a quote for rehanging the drywall. We are considering doing this ourselves, which we've done before, however DH is worried because this drywall is easily pre-WWII. So we might open up the wall and see things we're not expecting because of the age of the house.

Hence, I am going to get a quote about the rehanging the drywall. I might rehab the fireplace because it does match our mouldings, but DH refuses. He doesn't understand why you would want to save an old mantle painted over 20 times. But we live in an area where people want the charm of an old mantle. Ugh, this is going to take a professional telling him what I'm saying for him to listen. That should happen on Thursday when the fireplace guy comes in to examine the mantle and determine if we should rehab or replace it.

This repair is absolutely necessary. We can't have our pipes burst again from the cold because of inadequate heating of our bottom floor. We left the furnance on to heat to 50, but because it has to pipe down 4 stories (attic to third floor), it was working 100% of the time and still having trouble heating to just 50 on the bottom floor. We also used space heaters but it did not help. Thus we feel our only alternative is to install a gas fireplace and attempt to heat the bottom floor as a mini-furnance (though it's radiant heat). It's better than nothing.

We didn't realize this was such a huge problem. Cost will probably be I'm guessing 2x what I budgeted of $4k. So hopefully we can get away with it costing $8k?

Tax Free Weekend Spending

So how'd we do as far as savings go? I think we did pretty well.

We bought the sofa official on Sunday for $1194. We used a $100 coupon and 0% financing, they went hand in hand. The store mailed the coupons with their catalog and to be used with their CC. It was officially expired but they did us the favor since we were "loyal" customers. This is th first and only time we shopped there. Our neighbors gave us the coupon. The $1194 included $99 for delivery and $103 for scotchgard warranty. Trust me we'll use it with two dogs. So the actual price of the sofa was $992. Not a bad deal.

Second we purchased our valor Legend G3 fireplace. Total cost was $2709 including face, unit, installation, chimney liner, etc. The unit alone was $2109 and $600 for installation. We shopped around at 4 different stores and this was the best deal overall for installation and unit purchase. However it turns out well be spending a lot more because of other issues.

Third we purchased our bedroom set from IKEA for $667 - $25 coupon for a grand total of $642. This included the bed, two nightstands, and chest of dressers. It should last until we move out of here, and because it's assembled furniture we were able to get it up the stairs although we are somewhat worried about having to disassemble to get it down.

Finally we bought a shopvac from home depot for $69 - 10% discount = $62. This was a necessary purchase for the installation of our fireplace. I guess I'll discuss our financial options later.

So we spent $2709 + $1194 + $642 +$62 = $4607 tax free. That means we saved $230.35. Is it a lot? I guess so, it's enough to have paid for the shopvac and some of the bedroom set. But it really made me feel better about purchasing all of the items that we have wanted and planned on buying this year. The only impulse purchase might have been the shopvac, but it turns out that as we work on the gas fireplace it'll be necessary.

Bedroom Set..

My hubby is a SUPERMAN! Woohoo. In less than 7 hours he put together our whole bedroom set from IKEA. We got the Hopen set from IKEA, with a bed, two nightstands, and a chest of drawers. Not bad, considering he was home alone, dragged it up 3 stories, vaccumed and moved everything out of the way.

I won't complain about his housekeeping skills which are sorely lacking because he does a lot of stuff like this. I'm going to finish off by buying the hopen dressers either used or next year. Right now we're fine and we have to see what sort of space we have left.

As of now our houseguest may be staying longer because he was ditched by the person he was suppossed to move in with. Instead she bought a condo. So he's stuck looking. But he is considering purchasing as well, in which case he would just live with us until he buys a place, which as long as he pays rent I'm okay with. So our space issues are compounding.

Tomorrow I'll write what we bought and what we saved this weekend.

Living Like a Student?

So I keep reading people telling other people to live like students a few years after graduating. I've been mulling that question over a lot because we pretty much still live a lot like students, but this week, we finally started upgrading our lifestyle.

What does it really mean to live like students? I don't really know because our student lifestyle did not really feel like a student lifestyle. We had nice furniture, not necessarily new, but nice, good quality stuff. We had bought 2 new cars, not extravagent, but new. And we have taken care of these cars so after 7 and 8 years they still look relatively new and run well for their age/mileage. We have a new flat screen TV, a nintendo Wii, and a few other toys. We have cell phones, and have recently gotten HDTV.

So our lifestyle I wonder can it really be called "student"? During our leanest years of being students, we never used coupons too much. We haven't even changed our eating habits that much, except now we can afford seafood and better cuts of meat. Before we'd eat mostly chicken or ground beef, but I've never bought much prepackaged foods or processed meals. We used to cook entirely from scratch stuff like bread, pasta, and still prefer it if we have the time.

So our lifestyle has been simplistic rather than studentish. We never really sacrificed a good quality of life for a cheaper lifestyle, we just tried to the best quality items we could afford. I think that's what's helped us keep our lifestyle pretty reasonable. We didn't buy newer cars, we didn't buy a single family home (only townhouse), we didn't immediately furnish our home, and we did not just start eating out all time. Our lifestyle has slowly grown up. After about 6 months we bought a matching dish set. And we have a couch that can now fit more than 2 people.

We also bought a gas fireplace, but that was something even during our poor student days we would have deemed necessary, and if financing was necessary so be it. But now instead we just set some money aside and have upkept our house relatively simply.

So would we go back to living like students? I don't know, maybe. But it really feels like we haven't yet left the student lifestyle.

Tax Free Shopping

Tomorrow and Sunday are tax free shopping day. This is our chance to save 5%. Is it a big deal? Not really, but since we were buying the sofa, gas fireplace anyway I'll jump on the chance to save 5% on purchase I would have made otherwise.

We have to call in tomorrow to get the tax removed from the sofa, because it was a "pre-order" finalized when we call in tomorrow. Then we'll buy our $2800 gas fireplace and that's a savings of $140 in taxes on top of the $60 from the couch. We also are buying a bedroom set for $1k, so we'll save another $50 there. So just those little savings add up.

I wonder would others wait and plan on buying things at the same time? We have been planning the fireplace since May, but have been slow in moving forward. But we had to do it this summer before the next winter. After all last January our pipes frozen and burst even with the heat on!

Also the couch we wanted but hadn't bothered shopping for it. But with our new roomie and my parents visiting the need for a bigger couch became more pressing. Plus we had a coupon so everything seemed to be pushing us to the direction to buy things now. So I guess I'll take our money and just save an extra 5% on things we normally would have bought.

CC debt Forgiveness?

I question the ethics of "settling" with a CC company. As someone who always pays my CC in full and has not paid CC%, maybe I don't understand what is going on. But it really started to bother me on the WIR message board, when someone mentioned trying to settle with a CC company to forgive their debt.

They felt unable to pay the debt back in full and would like to pay less than what they owe. This did not sit well with me. I do not understand how someone can chose to do this. I do understand at least the CC gets something back instead of nothing, ie the person files bankruptcy. But how can people feel it's okay to buy things they cannot pay for?

Also I don't believe it's entirely interest they are paying. There obviously was charges for things they purchased. Perhaps it was just a meal eaten or something intangible. But where do you draw the line? Do people settle for the amount they charged at least? Or is everyone else left holding the bag who uses CC?

June and July Spending Updates

I was very bad about inputting and tracking our spending for the months of June and July. Probably because I wanted to hide from what I knew would be terrible months. But it turns out we managed pretty well.

For June we spent $311 on groceries which caused our 5 month average to be $312. We spent $223 on eating out, averaging $220 also these past five months. We spent $65/gas, because I did not count our trip gas, which brought our monthly average to $102. We spent $16 on fun with our monthly average being $65. So in all our month was a pretty good month considering we had a couple of day trips and a weekend away.

For July, well we did a bit worse on eating out. We spent $306 eating out, bringing out average to $234. We did save a bit on groceries probably because of the eating out spending only $278, bringing our average to $306. We spend $148 on gas, raising our average to $109, however this could be solely due to the rise in the price of gas. As for fun we spent nearly $200, most of which was on the Wii.

I really want to get around $250 for groceries and $250 for eating out a month, down from our highs of $400-500/month each. That's probably our biggest vice. However realize that in July we spent 2 weeks with my FIL staying with us, eating our food and going out to eat a lot. I shopped end of June in preparation for that. And then as soon as he left, our new roomie moved in and has been eating our food. So I think that our grocery/eating out budget of $584/month for food pretty good for 3 adults.

Especially since our roomie eats a lot (about what DH and I eat combined), he bikes all the time and is about 6'3", 190 lbs of muscle. So we could have had a lot of leftovers and not needed to buy so much food. Until he leaves we definitely are eating way more both at home and out. I can't imagine what teenagers do to a food bill.

Gas Fireplace insert

So the cost of the gas insert into our fireplace will be $2800 + $1000 for plumbing. But it will probably run more because we have to take off the mantle and do some demolition work.

Unfortunately the gas line is not necessarily right below our fireplace. If it was it would cost $500 to run the gas line to the fireplace. But instead again our condo is giving us headaches because we can't figure out where our gas lines are. I do realize that we will not really be saving a ton of money by doing this, but I do feel we will more efficiently heat our home. Also we will be able to heat our bottom floor to a reasonable temperature during the winter instead of 50F. Even at 50F we have space heaters going to help the furnance.

Another small financially issue is that running water lines to the backyard from the crawl space could be a problem. Because of the construction of the third unit we apparently lost common space. Very frustrating.

And tonight we need to get moving forward on our retaining wall. So all in all our house is costing us a fortune. arrgh. I wish I had a single family so all the cost would be ours sure, but we'd be kings and not have to wrestle with neighbors agreeing to do the work!.

Carnival of Personal Finance #112

The #112 edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance is up at the frugal law student. I submitted my post about "Frugal Causation". What causes you to be frugal?

Interesting posts include "retire rich driving paid for cars," at my money, my life. This post should have been mailed to my parents 20 years ago. If only...I will probably have to rant about their car buying habits later.

Also Chief Family Officer asks where to keep your EF? Honestly I probably should not be keeping my money in my bank but I'm too lazy to set up another account with ING or HSBC, and I often find I need liquid dollars to pay for large expenses way too often like property taxes, tuition, etc. Money cycles for us too much to keep going back and forth.

Anyway it's a full carnival enjoy!

Sofa Debt...

Yes we bought a sofa. In fact we went with a sofa which I did not post about before. Instead we bought a microfiber sofa with a chaise, so a slightly smaller sectional sofa. In the picture, it's a loveseat with a chaise, but we chose to 3 seater sofa so an extra 30". This will fit perfectly in our living room.

We bought it a week early but will get the sofa tax free in anticipation of tax free day. So we saved $60. We also used a coupon I had for $100 off the sofa which made it an even better deal. The original price of our sofa was $1092. Then we added on scotchguard treatment/5 year warranty for $103 making our subtotal $1195. Then delivery was $99 and tax should have been $59.75.

But with the $100 coupon we got free delivery and tax free because of the state law. So $1195 for a sofa seems like a deal to me. We also got free financing for 1 year 0% APR. Okay, now again DH wanted to just pay it off but I decided it was okay. And yes I've already set the money aside. So I may pay it off though at the end of the year when I cash out some stocks, or next week depending on csco, but for now I think we're fine.

So now I just increased our debt by $1195. I wonder if this is me treading the path of debt? To be honest I already feel the weight of the debt across my neck, but I still continue down the path. I wonder what a year will bring? I may not be able to take it and may end up just paying it off asap.

But it really is all about behavior, not the debt. I've financed stuff before on 0% CC and I often think about it and want to pay it off. But I discipline myself to pay $X every month and it's paid off 1 month before the date. Done this 6 times, and it's all the same. Guess it's like money already spent, but it's still weird feeling.

Payment Plan for MBA?

Right now I'm sitting here deciding whether to do a payment plan on DH's tuition. We are given the option of paying 25% upfront and 75% in Feburary 2008. The amount of money is about $10k. So it's $2500 now and $7500 later.

However there is a fee associated with this, $50 to do this payment plan. This is a 1.3% APR to float $7500. I would prefer to do this because we are going to take out another $8500 subsidized Stafford loan. So we only have to pay $5850 for the semester instead of of $10k. And it will give the loan time to process.

Is it worth it? DH wants to completely drain our cash savings and pay for it. I don't think this a good idea. We have a lot of fluctuating income with the ESPP and stuff that I use to balance our budget. I also use the ESPP to pay for the tuition, and during the summer when we pay an extra $10k cash I find it's better to be saving all year.

DH hates the fact we have to pay $50. It drives him insane to pay "interest". It's so frustrating because I worry if we are cash poor and something happen we'll have to cash out investments and then be in dire straits.

I am not sure what we're doing but I think I'm going to win the argument. Because cash poor is never a good situation to be in.

17th Child for duggars..

The Duggar family just had their 17th child. They are very well off and debt free. What? Let's tell you a couple of facts about ther family. They live in a 7000 sq ft home, which by any reasonable standards is large.

But how do they afford a huge home and no debt? Well the father Jim Bob Duggar was previously a US state congressman. So he was earning over $158k/year in say 2004, and they live in Arkansas. Which most can assume is a pretty reasonable cost of living. However he currently is self-employed insurance salesman, and one could logically conclude he did not leave for a lower paying job. Hence supporting a family approximate 4x the median salary seems more reasonable.

But also realize their oldest child is only 19 and they have not yet started to pay for college. This could be a deciding factor in whether or not they stay debt free and are able to retire. It was previously mentioned that they did not achieve debt free status until child #12. This is still an amazing feat.

Well I guess if you want a lot of kids, make sure you make a great income. And try to be debt free.

Restaurant Week!

Okay following on my foodie theme, I have a feeling that we'll be eating out a lot these next two week. It's restaurant week (or 2 weeks) in Boston. Yipee! That means these awesome restaurants are serving prix fixe menus for $20.07 for lunch or $33.07 for dinner. These prix fixe menus are 3 course meals with an appetizer, entree, and dessert!

We've gone to this a few times and each time the food has been delicious. These are upper class restaurants which we normally could not afford. We've eaten at the 2x Elephant Walk a cambodian/french fusion. Harvest, an organic style eatery.

This time I think I'd like to go back to Ruth's Chris, an american steak house, Lumiere, a french bistro, and McCormick's a seafood joint. I have no idea which places we'll eat but I'm sure the food will be great and I'll definitely enjoy the price.

One of the benefits of this restaurant week is many of the places participating donate money to charities from the event. They give a portion of each meal purchased to a charity. This is a cheap way to eat out at 5 star places, while eating a large selection of appetizer, entree, and dessert for a really great price.

Restaurant.com...a review

Okay after last night's dinner I decided that Restaurant.com is definitely not worth it for us. We've used two certificates in NE, and a few places in SD. When we lived in SD it was definitely hit or miss and we only used the certificates on specific places we had tried before.

Out here, we decided to try a new places, and it turns out? It's soooo not worth it. What a huge waste of money. Last night we went to an italian place Ricardo's and had a $25 certificate. After tax and tip it still cost us $20. So the dinner out cost $23 with the $3 gift certificate we purchased from restaurant.com. Which sounds like a fabulous deal in the city, but honestly, I wouldn't pay $20 to go the restuarant.

Our meals were $19 Calamari Linguini and $21 Gnocchi Spazza and it was overpriced. The food was not good, the bread was cheap, and the service average. I think it would have been better tasting food if we had gone to Olive Garden to be honest.

Our previous meal again cost about $23 after tip, tax, certificate and it was terrible. The service was the best part of the meal. We had gone to an Asian fusion restaurant and the fish dishes we ordered was overcooked. Hence we've decided to not use restaurant.com again.

Though we have one more certificate bought super cheap, I can guess the food will not be worth it. I think the problem with restaurant.com is that these are restaurants in good areas which are bad. Thus they need to drum up more business, so they participate in restaurant.com. Thus I've decided it's not worth spending $20 on a meal you don't enjoy. Yuck.

July Net Worth

We increased our networth by 1.94%. Unfortunately our networth took quite a hit in the markets this week. So the big part of our networth increase was due to mortgage paydown.

Also we lost more money in our 401k than we put in for the month, so I guess that is a bad sign. Anyway we're still on track to max out all retirement for the year.