Money Matters
formerlyjessica490
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Tuesday Accountability
1. How MM was your weekend?
2. Any progress towards goals?
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12?
Re: Tuesday Accountability
1. $212 TJMax, $20 Gas, $32 ocean state w/$22 gift card back
2. Nothing, we get paid this week
3. We went to the in-laws for the afternoon but was home by 9pm to watch all the new years shows, but we did make it to 12..... even though I was in bed half asleep lol
2. Meh. I moved $30 from side gigs to the mortgage principal, but that's pretty puny. My goal is at least $100 a month, so I need to beef it up in January!
3. Nope. We went to the casino with H's family, but just played with their money (which is weird for so many reasons, but whatever...) Then we went home. I watched a little of the train wreck that is Jenny McCarthy and then went to sleep before the Mariah Carey debacle. Got up early the next day to write and then cook a roast and side to serve at the women's shelter where I'm on the board. It was pretty great to have a productive, nonhungover day!
1. How MM was your weekend? Good! We spent $20 on gas on Friday and $15 on an unplanned for grocery run to pick up dessert since we met up with friends at the last minute. I spent another $45 on a new ornament storage box, some masking tape, binders, sheet protectors, and zip ties. The binders and sheet protectors went towards reorganizing all my recipes and consolidating them and then everything else is to help with reorganizing my Christmas stuff and the garage.
2. Any progress towards goals? I got my last paycheck of the year on Friday and received an extra $500 net since I hit my 401k max in my previous check. I'm planning to put that money in my IRA sometime this week.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12? It was ok. DH was on call and I had to work/monitor my email because of quarter end. We did manage to stay up until midnight but when it was time for bed it was like my mind couldn't relax and I had a very tough time getting any real sleep that night. We hung out at my parents house all day on New Years and had dinner with them.
Anyway, 3 kinds of antibiotics and $200 later we were out of there, and my foot is going to be fine. But yeah, that wasn't exactly expected. Other than that we spent about $30 on gas to/from Atlanta for NYE, another $30 getting lunch with some friends, and about $120 on groceries for the week.
2) H got a second bonus unexpectedly because their firm did really well this past year. No plans for that money, so we are just going to stick it into savings.
3) Other than the urgent care thing, NYE was OK. I took a short nap that evening and then managed to stay up until midnight. On the bright side, I did not drink at all for various reasons - not least being that I felt woozy from all the antibiotics - so I woke up New Year's day feeling much better than usual!
1. How MM was your weekend? Not terrible but could have been better. $180 on groceries, liquor store, and some take-out for our NYE party which includes plenty of leftovers for us for the week. $90 on a movie and dinner date night yesterday which was part of DH's holiday presents.
2. Any progress towards goals? Increased the weekly savings transfer to account for the savings on our wine subscription and my raise which will be effective this week. DH also had $1,175 worth of OT pay on his check last Friday which we put into the savings account to redo our falling apart front stairs.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12? It was nice and low key. We had our friends and all their babies over. Our niece is nearly 2 and learned the dreidel song at daycare so my husband taught her how to actually play and do the candles for the last night of Hanukkah. She loved it and it was so cute!
1. How MM was your weekend? It was pretty good- groceries ($78), gas($31), HD (returned $12, spent $13), sent a quilt to be long armed ($13 to ship)
2. Any progress towards goals? HELOC was pre-approved, $ we usually transfer to savings is being kept in checking to pay for the exterior renovation deposit that was charged/due in early February.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12? We went on a day trip to visit family about an hour away, got home around 8:30pm, girls went to bed, DH and I watched TV, saw the ball drop.. not very exciting!
1. How MM was your weekend? So-so. On NYE day H and I exchanged a couple gifts, and we actually got $4.73 back in cash from one of them (I had expected adding some $ to the exchange, but this alternative is much nicer). $18 at Target (Cartwheel + 5% off), $52 on groceries. Paid our property taxes and owed $470 in addition to escrow. $130 for dinner on NYE, which is expensive but it was soo delicious and it's less than paying for a dinner-drinks-dancing event, which we had thought about doing.
2. Any progress towards goals? We have many financial goals this year, but first and foremost the 2016 expenses need to be rectified and H and I need to discuss our plan/goals for the year (especially regarding spending). Yesterday I entered December expenses into Excel and in the coming days we'll dive deeper.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12? Dinner was nice but we went back home to play games and we both fell asleep :S We did wake up in time for midnight, however. We were pretty boring this year.
2. December was a three paycheck month for me, so we made an extra principal payment on the mortgage and put an extra $250 in the house account.
3. H had to work nights NYE, so I did the shopping and cleaned the house. I was in my jammies by 9 pm. I woke up when he came home at 11:15, but was back asleep before midnight. Hahaha.
I hate escrows, but I'm too cheap to pay the fee the bank wants to avoid it.
Virginia does their tax years July-June, so right after July any property tax rate adjustments go into effect, but the escrow doesn't adjust until later in the year. So instead of having a small shortage, I'm several hundred short. My first thought being why didn't you adjust after you noticed the difference?
1. How MM was your weekend? Not too horrible. Saturday- $30 at the grocery store for random stuff and shrimp for NYE. Sunday - Went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse to celebrate 11 years together. H paid for that, but I paid tip which was $10. Monday - Got a manicure/pedicure done with my 2 friends using Christmas money $65 with tip, lunch out with them $20, and $175 at the eye doctors UGH.. but I'll have the glasses for at least 2 years so I guess it's worth it. Today I deposited $80 of my Christmas money to pay towards my CC.
2. Any progress towards goals? Put $250 of Christmas money in our e-fund and then just regular stuff. I upped my student loan payment this pay check to get that paid off, so I'll be putting $700/month toward that.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12? NYE was great. We went to our next door neighbors/friends and had dinner, played card games, and drank. Shockingly I did stay up until 12! New Years day was nice, we lounged around the house mostly and then went out for dinner.
My bank charges 1pt to do away with the escrow. Just not worth it.
I debate paying the shortage each year and each year I just let them increase it.
I didn't even know not having an escrow was an option but I think it's something we want to explore for our next home purchase. I get why the bank wants you to have an escrow but it would be nice to not have to worry about maintaining x balance.
1. How MM was your weekend?
I didn't spend a dime at all over my 4-day weekend. But then, I also put off much needed gas and grocery shopping until today.
2. Any progress towards goals?
Not really. Just $285 toward my Window World bill.
Speaking of property taxes. Let me tell you a negative of owning investment properties. When I got home from work on Thursday, I was greeted with all FOUR property tax bills. All arrived the same day. All due on Jan. 31st. It wasn't unexpected, but $3600 to come up with in one month is galling. That's for three of them. The one for my personal duplex is escrowed with my mortgage.
However, I already have plans to cash flow two of them this week with my Section 8 rents direct deposit. And I'm going to cash flow the third one with some of my Section 8 rents Feb. direct deposit.
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12?
NYE is always a mellow evening in our household. I stayed up until 1AM, but my H can never stay up that late. I think he was in bed by 9PM. I "protected" our puppers from the sound of fireworks, lol.
2. Standard savings deposits. January is a tough month with car tax, car registration, and a medical bill all due but it looks like we can stick with our standard savings plan, which is good news. I also figured out the conglomeration of PTO and state benefits (STD and an actual state ML program) that I'll use for my maternity leave and it looks like I'll have some income for all 12 weeks, which is great. Feeling okay about where stand overall come crunch time.
3. I made it! We went to my friend's comedy show, came home around 11:30, and watched a little bit of the countdown shows until we crashed. We were feeling pretty old when we recognized none of the current popular musicians that came on after 12:00.
ETA Monday $24 on breakfast with friends and $6 to feed the parking meter. The $6 made me mad because when we made the plans I had assumed meters would be free on Monday.
And we won our family fantasy football league! Our first place winnings are $65 ($55 after we pay ourselves back our $10 entry fee). However, I'm considering this partial replacement of the money we lost when H lost his wallet earlier this month.
2. H and I discussed our 2017 budget. I think we have a pretty good plan and goals in place.
3. This is the first time I can remember not staying up until 12. We went to a party that ended at around 9 (lots of kids at this party) and then decided not to go to the later party. I think I'm off to a better start this week because of it.
2 - I did book a last minute wedding for this coming weekend so that's good.
3 - I found a restaurant that was having a new years eve party for kids so we took DD to that. They had a ball drop at 9pm. It was fun. We then came home and this is the 2nd year she has made it till midnight. It's fun celebrating that with her. She loves it. I probably went to bed close to 1am.
1. How MM was your weekend?
2. Any progress towards goals?
3. How was your new years/eve? Did you stay up until 12?