HouseHappy's Personal Finance Blog

I'm all excited. I met with the bank guy about opening an ira to switch my 401k over to. I knew what I wanted going in, but after talking for a little bit, and answering a couple of questions he had some good recommendations.

I'm getting the account set up, now I"m waiting for paperwork from the 401k, once that happens, I'll request the check & then give the check to the bank.

Now that I'm getting that settled, what I need to do is think about opening a Roth IRA for this year. Its one of my goals for the year & definately doable. I just don't know if I want to wait until I have the money set aside, or if I want to start making monthly contributions until I get to the annual limit... decisions, decisions

The best part of the meeting was when the Financial Services guy told me it sounds like I've "really got my act together". Its always good to hear feedback about my plans

... National Teach Your Children To Save Day!!! My work is sending volunteers to teach 3rd & 4th graders about saving. I wish I could volunteer, but I have an appointment that day Oh well, its still a great of idea!

It was on my financial goals list this year. I wanted to get it done in January, but I prioritized overtime above making the appointment. NOW I'm finally getting around to it.

I have an appointment with my bank to set up an IRA. Once its set up, I'll submit the paperwork to my previous employer to move my 401k over. I'm excited because I also want to talk about contributing for 2007. I hope to make the contribution limit by April of 2008. To be honest though, its all dependant on overtime. If it keeps going, I might make it, if not, I'm going to have to get that 2nd job to make that goal.

I've started listening to his show on XM. I don't always agree with what he says, but its definately interesting. He also offers the shows online for free. If anyone's interested, just go to this website for the links.

Today was interesting, he had this one guy who was up to his eyeballs in personal AND business debt and the guy was talking about after he sells some assets, he'll owe about 200k to business vendors and about 200k to family. The man clearly stated that the family is going to need the money back relatively soon, but Dave tells him don't worry about them. They'll get paid when he's ready to get paid. Let them wait.

I dont' agree with that. Obviously, the family shouldn't have lent money they can't afford to lose, but these people are in need of some of the money and he should make it a priority. Because he told them he would. And now Dave's telling him to tell them to wait.

I feel bad for both parties here. The man is lying to family and his wife about the situation and if he isn't going to honor his family loans in a timely manner, their relationship is only going to get worse.

My sister is bad with money and I worry about my parents situation. IF it comes to having to lend them money... its only going to be what I can afford as a gift. If I get the money back, thats great, but if not, I haven't put myself into any financial stress.

No spending today, packed all my food. I'm sticking to my meal plan for the week... Yay!

I"m waiting for my electric bill to come, I should see it in the next week or so. I'm curious to see what the programmible thermostat has done to my usage. Now, the thermostat wasn't installed until the 2nd week of the cycle, but I'm hoping for a good difference anyway. I'll let you all know as soon as I do!

Well, I was going to go in for overtime today, but I just really needed the day to relax. I worked 17.5 hours of OT last week and even with skipping today, I can probably work about 10 this week. I did pretty much nothing all day and it was great!

Yesterday I did some deep cleaning in the kitchen & living room I did all my laundry over the weekend. And while I had a few things to do, non were pressing. So I vegged all day. Even got an afternoon nap in

Obviously, since I stayed in all day, it was a no spender And I've already premade my food for tomorrow. So tomorrow should be a no spender as well.

I deposited more money into my savings after I was paid on the 15th, so because I like to see the big numbers--- I totaled the amount I've added to savings this year.

January $300.97
February $1345.43
March (so far) $1014.00

I've been working a lot lately, so I've been eating breakfast, lunch AND dinner there. Plus I'm doing the Weight Watchers, so I'm really trying to follow the plan. So, tonight I'm working on a mealplan tonight to make prep each day as minimal as possible. So here's a tentative plan:

Breakfasts will mainly be fruits and cheerios or oatmeal

Lunches will be: Big salads, tuna sandwiches, peanut butter on crackers

Dinners: Mon: Wheat pasta w/ sauce and salad
Tues: Shake n Bake chicken, baked potato
Wed: Chicken taco salad (w/ Tostitos baked scoops)
Thurs: pasta salad, with MorningStar Chick'n strips
Friday: Sloppy joe and baked fries.

Most of the dinners will be made tomorrow. I'll make bigger batches & freeze the extras. I can premake 2 days of salads at a time, then switch lunch the next 2 days to tuna sandwiches (1/2 can each day), then have peanut butter and crackers & do a salad again for Friday.

I've premeasured snacks-- honey nut cheerios, baked cheetos, ect to grab n go. I'm just trying to make this as easy as possible for myself.

Over 8 months ago, I had ordered a subscription for Kiplinger's through Mags For Less. It was a great deal. The order was from over 8 MONTHS ago. About 3 months ago, I finally remembered the order & realized I never received any issues.

After multiple emails and unsatifactory answers, I started requesting a full refund. They had generic email responses, requesting that I request a refund by hitting a link to cancel. Then nothing would happen. I requested the refund about 4 times for a response. Right after I threatened to contact the Better Business Bureau. About 6 weeks later, I got my refund.

FINALLY. I knew going in that the deal was sketchy. So I figured I was taking a gamble with my $6.90. But it was the principle of the matter. And now I have my money back... YAY!

I had a no spend day today. Packed all my food. And even got to leave work early today due to hailing ice! Woohoo!

I got paid today and used most of my overtime money towards savings and student loans. Since I've upped my 401k, my take home was a bit lower, but thats what I wanted I've upped it again to continue through overtime, and since I don't want to lose the extra take-home, its actually motivated me to do even MORE overtime.

Anyway, I put $300.00 directly into savings, $50.00 to student loan principle. I also used some of the funds to replenish a few of my cash catagories that I had used to pay for my IKEA trip last weekend. All planned, all good

My goal for March is to do an average of 10 hours of overtime per week. There's 5 weeks in March, so I should make 50 hours. I'm hoping to beat that figure. We'll see how it goes. I'm getting a bit burned out from the overtime.

Today was a no spend day, packed breakfast, lunch AND dinner for work. No money spent on vending machines or the company cafe! Yay.

Packed my lunch again today. Well, since I worked 9am to 8p, it was really breakfast, lunch AND dinner. I'm working hard to keep eating right and eating frugally.

Funny story from work... I was talking to one of my coworkers about the fact that my remote hasn't been working properly with my tv in my bedroom. Its hit or miss if it'll work and its definatley not the batteries. So he said to me "well, I guess its time for a new tv". I started laughing and I said "Actually, its time for a new remote!" And I bought one for $7.99 on my lunch break. Tv's working good as new

I think its funny that his first thought was to replace the tv altogether. That would have been a VERY last resort for me.

Had no spend days yesterday & today. Packed my lunch both days and I'm sticking to my Weight Watchers plan. It makes it easier to stay with the WW when I'm paying for the online priviledges. I feel that I have to follow the plan and lose weight to get my money's worth.

I worked 7 hours of overtime yesterday and a 1/2 hour today. I would have done more this morning, but I wasn't feeling too good, so I slept in a bit instead.

On Saturday, my nephew spent the night & he woke up sick with a fever on Sunday. He's doing better now, but I hope I"m not getting what he had. I'm taking a LOT of vitamin C.

Sunday, we went to IKEA. I spent more than the limit that I had set for myself. UGH. But I got some fun stuff. And I paid cash, no credit. I got a duvet cover set, which definately was a want, not a need. I got a clock for the bathroom. A few small things for the kitchen (like a fun looking spoon rest).

The only other big purchase is a lamp for my nightstand. I have no overhead light in my bedroom and I do have a big lamp on the other side of my room, but I really wanted a bigger lamp for my nightstand.

The one really fun thing I got 2 Dracaena Bamboos, which I put in a rectangular vase with decorative rocks. I tend to kill plants, but apparently this stuff is foolproof. We'll be testing that theory here at my house The plant is also called Lucky Bamboo.

Since I'm getting so much overtime, I upped my 401k withholdings to utilize the extra income in retirement savings as well as my regular savings. Since I've been with a new company, my 401k matching doesn't start until 1 year, so It'll go into effect in June. They match dollar for doller up to 5%, per paycheck. I can't wait!

$7.75 for lunch out with coworker. (packed my lunch every other day this week). Tonight my nephew is coming to spend the night. We'll be playing games and watching a movie. Fun for a 6 year old

Tomorrow is the IKEA trip. I'm doing a little research online to see what I might want.

I got a $5.00 coupon towards lunch at my work cafe. I used it for lunch, but really wanted a cafine soda, so I spent .80 cents today because my lunch plus 20 oz soda came to $5.80. It came out of my spending cash, so no worries.

I'm heading to IKEA on sunday with some friends. Mostly to do some wishing. I'm looking for a small clock for my upstairs bathroom. Just to be able to keep an eye on the time while I'm getting ready for work. Also, I'm looking for some small organizational things and I'd like to get some ideas for stuff for the house too.

I'm going with my spendy friends, so I'm setting a dollar amount limit $40.00 and if I really want something more expensive, I'll take down the tag info & hold off. That way there will be no impulse buying. I can go back on my own later if I decide to get it. The IKEA is about 40 minutes away, which helps on the impulse buying too.

I had this whole nice entry about budgeting & paying bills... then I lost it before I published it. And yes, it was human error

ANYWAY... I really like it when people show how they budget & pay their bills...its always interesting to see other people's processes, so here's mine.

I get paid bimonthly on the 1st and 15th. I have 2 checking accounts, which get direct deposit. ONe is for regular bills (gas, groceries, spending, student loans, medical, personal, car insurance, gifts, oil change, cell, cat, and clothes), the other for house bills (mortgage, cable, netflix, water, sewer, electric, trash).

On the first, I take 1/2 of my monthly budgeted amount for gas, groceries, spending & mortgage. Then I pay 1/2 of my bills. On the 15th I take the other 1/2 of my monthly gas, groceries, spending & mortgage & I pay the rest of my monthly bills.

This way, I pay everything on time, because A,B,C are paid on the 1st and X,Y,Z are paid on the 15th. It works nicely for me.

Sometimes I move money from one catagory to another, but I never had to dig into my savings. So if I'm under budget on gas, I may use the leftover for groceries.

Well, thats my system & it works for me!

Overtime Update: My goal has been 10 hours a week. I had 14 last week and only 6 hours this week, but it balanced out. It looks like our overtime is going to extend through April too (this has never happened in our department before). But its GREAT for me!! Mostly I'm sacking the money away, but I would really like a better digital camera (than the freebie I got from the bank). Its something that I've been wanting for a long time, so I'm going to put some of my overtime towards it. And I'm going to do a lot of research to find the best price out there

Today was a no spend, no soda day. I packed my lunch today. Apple, Banana, baked cheetos, salad, tuna sandwich & baked fries. Yummy. I also got a free soft pretzel for meeting a goal at work! Free is good!

I listened to her show today (on the Oprah & Friends channel). I've never listened before, but today she was interviewing 2 Personal Finance Bloggers. I really enjoyed her first interview w/ the founder of No Credit Needed. The second interview was more fluffy. Then Chatsky spent the 2nd half of the hour talking about other stuff.

I really feel like she could have done more to explore PF blogs...like using the whole hour, maybe interviewing more than 2 people. (please note sarcasm). NCN brought up some great points about learning from other blogs, holding oneself accountable through blogs and encouraging others.

I really feel that communities like this one serve several purposes. SavingAdvice.com means a lot to me and I really feel like I've found a group of people who understand my financial ways more than friends and family can.

So Thank you all for your support, advice and for each of you doing your own thing and sharing it with us.

NO spending today. I packed my food for work. Yesterday I worked a 1/2 day of overtime, then ran some errands. I spent the rest of the day organizing. I finally finished organizing & cleaning my basement. Then I organized all my financial papers. Things are a lot easier to find now

I"m going to officially join weight watchers online tonight. I made the decision yesterday, but I'm going to join tonight. Then I'm going to preplan my food for the week & premake some of the food tonight. I was going to do premake more food yesterday, but I got distracted by the paperwork.

The place I buy my expensive anti-crystal cat food has a frequent buyer program, which I never remember to get stamped for. Well, the girl ringing me up noticed this, and went back through my records. I ended up getting 2 bags for free! Sweet!

I packed food for work today. 4 hours of overtime from 9am to 1pm. Then I'm off to get cat food & litter. I also want to stop at the dollar store for sandwich bags.

I've decided to rejoin Weight Watchers online. I've been doing it on my own, but I've been struggling. I think having the support is what really helps me to stay focused. Kind of like the support here

When I get home, I'll be making some sloppy joe to freeze. I'm also going to make some chicken to take for lunch tomorrow & premake salad & other food for later this week.

I installed that thermostat on Monday & I am LOVING it. I can set it for 5 days & 2 days (work week vs weekend). But what I really love is the hold feature where I can change the current temp, regardless of where the settings are automated. I can put a temporary hold on where it will go back to the auto temps at the next scheduled change, or a perminant hold that can only be turned off manually.

So tonight I'm heading to bed earlier than I normally do, so I set the temporary hold to what I keep it set at during the night. That way, when the morning hits, the heat will be up again through the automatic settings. But my heat will go lower earlier than normal since I'll be snuggled up in bed.

And tomorrow when I leave for work and will not be home for at least 8 or 9 hours, I'll put the perminanat hold on to 60 til I get home.

Obviously, I'm easily entertained... but I couldn't help sharing, because I think its neat

Yesterday was a no spend day. Today I packed all my food for work, but I am stopping at the grocery store on the way home. Just a quick stop, will do the bigger shopping once I have a meal plan in place for the week.

I'm working 11am to 3 pm tomorrow, so I'll pack a sandwich for lunch. I may go to the matinee movies tomorrow, which I'll pay for out of my enterainment budget. If not, maybe I'll get to the movies next weekend.

My mini-goals for this week are to pack my lunch/dinner & snacks every day this week and to work a minimum of 10 hours of overtime. (My workweek runs Monday through Sunday)

I worked 40 hours of overtime in February and I"m going to beat that figure for March.

Yesterday I packed my food for work. I'm working so much overtime, I'm taking both my lunch AND dinner at work. I didn't spend a dime on food at work. However, I did stop at the grocery store for some salad stuff. Spent $12.01.

Today I packed again & I'm heading straight home after work, so today will be a no spend day.

I've been doing ridiculous amounts of overtime. Its getting to the point where people are teasing me for working so much. I'm averaging about 10 hours a week. I've already met my 10 hours for this week, but I"m thinking about coming in Sunday for a few extra hours. Probably 11-3.

I increased my 401k witholding, while I have the OT & I'm looking to keep it there even when the OT runs out.

I've been throwing all my extra income straight into savings, but I think I'm going to put some of it to paying down my student loan. I really want to get that one down since my parents cosigned for it. They don't mind it, but it bothers me that they're associated with that debt. I have always been aggressive with the payments, but less so since I bought the house. Its time to step up on those payments!

Since I recieved my latest & highest electric and gas bill, I've been looking at ways to lower it.

I installed a programmable thermostat. I set them really low, but now I'm in the middle of a nice sinus problem, so I've actually increased my settings. The cold weather can seriously effect my sinuses, which can easily turn into an infection. So I'm keeping the heat up a little higher at night in an attempt to avoid medical expenses and time off work.

I normally leave all the extras in the kitchen unplugged, so only the fridge, dishwasher garbage disposal & kitchen clock radio are plugged in all the time. (I don't use the microwave or toaster that often).

I have no lamps in the living room currently and the ceiling light works off a switch. Currently, I have my tv, dvd player, stereo, and cable box all plugged in. But I"m going to swich the cable box to a direct plug in to the wall & all the others into a surge protector that I can turn off at night. I can't leave the cable box off because it'll reset & be a pain in the butt.

Upstairs in my bedroom, I have a tv, vcr & dvd player. I also have the cable, comcast phone & internet box which needs to be plugged in all the time. So I will leave that plug & my wireless router plug in the wall & put my tv, vcr & dvd player on the surge protector, which I will unplug during the day when I'm not home for 10 hours at a time. Hopefully, it'll help a small bit.

I have nothing plugged in either of the bathrooms. I don't leave my laptop plugged in, unless I am home & the battery needs to be recharged. I leave the lights off unless I'm in the room. I dont leave the outdoor light on when I'm not home because my neighbors provide plenty of light for when I come home.

I wash only full loads of laundry & I rarely use the dryer.

I hand wash my dishes by hand mostly, and only use the dishwasher about once a week when I do a bulk of my cooking.

In an effort to conserve heat, I always keep the doors to my downstairs bathroom & walk in closet shut, since they don't have heating vents. No need to heat those tiny rooms.

I am really trying to look at all the 'automatic' things I do & see if I can do them differently. We'll see how it goes for March's bill.

Just a quick update on my February #s. I'm still totalling the spending, but I've already calculated the amount I've transferred into savings: $1,344.61!

Some of this was my state tax refund (122.00) & an inherited insurance dispersement ($470.00). The rest is all from my overtime and any misc. savings. This is a great number!

I know I way overspent on eating out this month. So my goal for March is to make up for it.

I'm continuting with my overtime, I did 21 hours in January & 40 hours in February. I'm trying to do about 10 hours a week through the end of March. Every little bit helps!

Got my electric/gas bill today. Its the first month in the house that I had the heat on the full month. WHEW it was high. $149.00. UGH! I have the money in my budget, but its really the principle of the thing!

Part of the problem is that the thermostat the house came with was unreadable. I couldn't tell if the temp was at 65 or 75. I had to go with my comfort level as a guide. So I'm sure it was higher than I wanted. Plus, the heat was on at higher levels when I wasn't home.

So last night, I installed the $29.00 programmable thermostat that I bought at Lowes last week. Now I have it set at 60 when I'm not home & 65 when I am. I'm planning on bundling up & we'll see how that goes for my bill for March. I should see a big difference.

We got a few inches of snow, then it turned into sleet. But it was over after about 3 hours. I was able to clean off my car, as well as shovel & salt my walkway & a path to my car. Unfortunately, we had sleet again afterward, so my driveway is a sheet of ice.

I am going to try to go into work tomorrow for some overtime. Becuase people around here seem to have a mass hysteria over snow, I am going to wait and go in around 9 or 10 when there are less people on the road.

Tomorrow, my family is coming to dinner. We're having spaghetti. And my dad is going to take a look at my icemaker & hopefully help me install the programmable thermostat.

I spent a good part of my afternoon cleaning my house. I deep cleaned the kitchen, the living room and the downstairs bath. My major accomplishment though, is that I installed my kitchen clock radio all by myself. Its one of those ones that hang under a cabinet. I am so proud of myself over such a little thing, but hey... I did it by myself!

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about things to do around the house. I'm trying to do a little at a time and to use the most out of what is already there.

Well, the ice storm is headed this way, set to start a little after 1pm here. I'm at work (yes, on a Sunday). I leave at 1. I'm hoping to stop at Lowes right before the storm to pick up some salt. Then if it hasn't started snowing, I'm going to the grocery store. I just want a few veggies, so I'll be able to go through the quick lane.

Its a miracle, but my work is still offering overtime & will continue to do so through the end of March. I'm hoping to do 10 hours a week during that time.

I will have 357.00 to add to savings from Wednesday's paycheck. I also have $478.32 from an inherited insurance payment, which will also go directly to savings.

When I have my taxes back, that will also go directly to savings ($936.00)

I've roughly figured that if I continue to do overtime through march and I put all the overtime into savings, then after that,I will have less than $1500.00 to save by the end of the year to meet my goals. Which would be awesome.

However, I am not going to let myself get burnt out. If I can't do the 10 hours without overstressing myself, then I won't. But I am really going to try to do so, with the minimum amount of stress.

I just transfered $16.52 to savings as overage on my water bill. I'm working to get the water usage down, but first I have to fix a sometimes running toilet. Its on my to do list. Since I'm not too familiar with fixing things, I'm going to ask a friend to help.