Money Matters
als1982
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.
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.
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.
April/May monthly check-in
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
HeartlandHustle | Personal Finance and Betterment Blog
Re: April/May monthly check-in
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Our current goal is student loan payoff, so we try to put as much extra as we can toward our student loan. Unfortunately, this month I had a pricy root canal, plus we had a small plumbing issue and an expensive bridesmaid dress unexpectedly pop-up. We were able to still put $1,200 extra towards the loan, but not nearly as much as we'd hoped.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Keep aggressively paying off the student loan while maximizing all available retirement accounts. My recent promotion came with a nice $10K raise, so that will help!
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Short: Payoff our student loans. $17,000 left to go, which we hope to have paid off by September 1.
Medium: Save up $10,000 and upgrade H's car. Save up another $10,000 and upgrade my car. Save 6 months in an emergency fund.
Long: Double mortgage payment and have our current house paid off by 2020.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We're not traveling as much now that we're TTC, but we used to churn cards for free flights and hotels. Now we just use our cards for cash back. We love our Barclay Arrival Plus which nets us anywhere between $50-100 a month. I also have a Southwest card which I use for work expenses, and is always good for a few free flights per year. When we were doing more international travel, I liked the United card.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
Totally one of my favorite holidays as a kid. We would make pretty baskets out of old wall paper sample books, fill with candy and flowers and then leave them on our friends' doors before ringing the doorbell and running. So much fun!
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Get federal tax return ($960) added to vacation fund as well as $1,100 more from misc extra money (bonus from work, DH's health insurance waiver from his old job), save $1,000 to general savings, change DH's 403b contribution to 10%, my 401K from 11% to 12%. All complete for this month! I got an 8.2% raise and promotion so that helped a lot- also was able to buy myself a new car (traded in a 2003 honda civic for a 2016 subaru forester).. love it!
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them? Save $1,000, start buying pieces for the upstairs bathroom gut (toilet, sink, tub are easy purchases). Need to finalize tile, fixtures, and price out a new built in cabinet/closet for the space that we have (current: 30"x30" closet with metal wire shelves and a bi-fold door- want to get a built in cabinet with drawers on the bottom, shelves on top for towels and other things).
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
short: cash flow the upstairs bathroom gut this summer, fully fund Roth IRA for 2016.
middle: girls' 529 plans (change to $220/month for DD#1 and $200/month for DD#2 - current is $182, $168), up 401K 1% each year, vacation savings account, other home improvements.
long: retirement, girls' college
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We use them for everything- easier than carrying cash for us and we manage them fine. Always paid in full, use points for amazon prime membership, gift cards to stores, etc. We have also financed some things at 0% for the year (example: $15,000 full kitchen gut, $8,200 new sewer line)- we have the savings for it, but we decided to finance it for 12 months, pay it off, and keep the cash in savings for true emergencies (long term job loss).
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it? Never did anything for May Day. DD#2 turns 4 on Tuesday so we'll have her favorite dinner, cake and then her birthday party is on Saturday.
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
To cash flow the repairs to our roof. It's been a mess to get a roofer out there and serious about the damage, so we haven't had it repaired yet. We were able to take $700 and put it aside for it though. So we'll carry that over to next month.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Cash flow a ton of things. 2 weekends away, hopefully extra money toward drywall in the garage, and the expenses for opening up the pool.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Right now we're working on short term goals. Cash flowing a bunch of things. So we've been cutting our eating out and entertainment so that we can do larger things like little weekend trips to see family.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We live plastic free. We use debit or cash.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
Just did what the teachers put together in school.
TTC since 1/13 DX:PCOS 5/13 (long, anovulatory cycles)
Clomid 50mg 9/13 = BFP! EDD 6/7/14 M/C 5w6d Found 11/4/13
1/14 PCOS / Gluten Free Diet to hopefully regulate my system.
Chemical Pregnancy 03/14
Surprise BFP 6/14, Beta #1: 126 Beta #2: 340 Stick baby, stick! EDD 2/17/15
Riley Elaine born 2/16/15
TTC 2.0 6/15
Chemical Pregnancy 9/15
Chemical Pregnancy 6/16
BFP 9/16 EDD 6/3/17
Beta #1: 145 Beta #2: 376 Beta #3: 2,225 Beta #4: 4,548
www.5yearstonever.blogspot.com
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
My financial goal for the month was to get my duplex rented out. I accomplished some of it! I got the smaller unit rented out for $800/month. Yay! Finally! The larger unit STILL isn't quite ready to be advertised (ugh!). But I ended up renting the small unit out to the first people who saw it, so hopefully I will have the same luck with the larger one, lol.
The house is across the street from the play field for one of the best public schools in town. Every single potential tenant (who had children) commented on that (yes!). The unit that is left is a 4 bed/2bath, so it is certainly for the "family demographic".
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Get my other unit rented out. My H should be finishing the last few details early this week. Than I can start advertising.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
My middle term goal is to pay off my HELOC. I've been putting most of my excess money toward that and paid down $2800 last month. In the long term, I want to achieve $5,000/month cash flow from my real estate investments. I keep checking the MLS and Craig's List for good deals on real estate. I put a couple offers in this month, but no more takers yet.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
I use credit cards for most purchases to maximize for points. However, unless I am in a 0% interest sign on bonus time, I pay them off each month.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
I just, in general, LOVE spring. But I don't do anything specifically to celebrate May Day. I didn't as a child either.
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
I think we did a better job of tracking expenses this month which was kind of a goal. I don't think we had anything special for April.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Continue tracking expenses. Focus on making lunch more and less eating out. We've consistently blown our restaurant budget every month since we revised our budget.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
My shortest term goal at the moment is to pay off my car. I just created a calculator on excel and my balance after my October 15th payment will be approx. $1,200.00 which will be low enough for me to feel comfortable paying off the rest outright. Since our wedding anniversary is October 18th, I texted H and said our anniversary gift to ourselves will be to pay off my car and own it outright!
Mid-term - I suppose contribute to my Roth IRA account. I'll put in the money for my 2015 contributions once my car is paid off so it's just in limbo right now. On the plus side, I'm back in the positive for my Roth IRA. It had been losing money for awhile and now its value is higher than the cash I've contributed.
Long-term - Continue saving for retirement. Open up a Roth IRA for H once we have more liquid cashflow (aka after my car is paid off). Rebuild our cash savings.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We use our credit card for almost all of our purchases because of points, but we pay off the balance each month, sometimes we pay it off more than once in a month if we feel like the balance is getting too high.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
I've never celebrated May Day but I LOVE spring! I took this picture of my peonies yesterday. I guess they're celebrating May Day since two of them popped open all at once on the first day of May.
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
April Sucked! DH got laid off, and I went back to work as a substitute teacher. Add to that all the flooding in Houston and it just made for a month we need to forget. Good news from the flooding is that a history job in the district I'm subbing in opened up and I got a long term job for this year, and possibly a real job for next year. Horrible part of that is because the guy died in the flooding, so definitely not a job I ever wanted. Like I said- shitty month, with no goals accomplished.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
staying afloat, and figuring out a budget that works for us. DH will start getting unemployment soon, and between that and my substitute teaching we should cover the bills, but it won't be fun. The goal is just to draw as little as possible from our savings until he lands another job.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them? none right now, just surviving
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
Stay away from CC. We use mostly cash, and so that helps. I can't imagine how much more I would be stressed right now if we had to deal with CC bills on top of basically no income.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
We had a birthday party, and the direct sales company I'm joining turned 3 on May 1st so I had a fun pair of birthday party leggings to wear to celebrate. Other than that, nothing traditional
For DH to pay off his cc debt. Yes, he accomplished this. His open ended temp contract continues and we are in better financial shape as a result.
May 1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Now that we are doing better financially overall and because I got a large bonus last month I think we are in position to pay of H's SL this month. This has been on the back burner but with the market as it currently is, I decided we should just get rid of the 3.5% SL now and then get back to retirement savings in a few months.
I also think it is time to get a cleaning person. We decided to hold off until H got a permanent job, but that was two years ago. Given our current financial situation we can swing this expense and it will make me really, really happy. Not sure how long it will take to find someone though....I have found in the past it can be hard to find someone for a good price that meets my standards.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
We are moving from "stay the course" this month to debt payoff and then redoing the budget. We will have to work on new goals this month.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We use cc for most of our purchases. We typically use one and try to maximize the category points but now I am experimenting with trying to use 2 different cards to further maximize category points.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
No
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Our goals were to save $ for vacation, save for sidewalk, pay off furniture and keep adding to Roth. We were able to save for vacation and we booked and paid for our rooms for the Sept wedding. We paid off the furniture bill from savings and are just about finishing saving up the cash for the sidewalk and mulch bed edging that will be done in 2 weeks. We stopped adding to Roth's for now until the sidewalk is all set, but we are opening accounts during the week we are off this month.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
We will pay off the sidewalk/yard projects (mulch and plants) in cash. We also ordered 2 new storm doors for the front of the house so those will be financed to be safe but we will have those paid off pretty quick. It should be less than $600 and I have a coupon so we scooped up the deal. We will open our ROTH's this month and add more to those once the sidewalk is paid for. We also need to add more $ to vacation and e-fund accounts.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Short- Pay for yard projects and doors, open up ROTHS's, add to savings/vacay accounts
Long- We need to replace 3 solid doors on our house so that will be an end of summer project. Keep saving for vacations and house projects
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
We have many credit cards and only use maybe 2 or 3 of them regularly. We always pay them off in full. We pay for smaller items in cash, but bigger items by credit card. We use our points for gift cards or cash out the money earned.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
I've never heard of May Day?
I remember when you were talking about your H might be laid off, sorry to hear it happened!
And, while that's great news about finding a temp job for the rest of the year, what a horrible way for it to have come about.
Are you all okay from the flooding? Did you have any damages?
April
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
Lets put it this way- We had an extra paycheck month so we budgetted 700 for a mattress and an extra 1350 to my Student loan.... The end result is we have no mattress and only 180 left toward one... and we're paying 1250 extra to the student loan. Everything adds up.
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
We are trying to be better at sticking to our budget in order to pay more to debt. In the past we have made the budget together at the beginning of the month and then just kinda sorta tried to see how close we could get....and at the end of the month we'd look at it and see what actually happened. We always said "we gotta look at it at the middle of the month" but that never happened. Now we are planning to look at it again together every sunday to keep us accountable for the week ahead.... We'll see how that goes. We also have a meeting with an investment advisor next week. And I'm going to be working a few days a week from home so that will help save us money on gas and daycare.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them?
Long term is total debt freedom but in the meantime we'd just like to get my one student loan and car paid off in the next 12-15 months. Thats 25k.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? Do you maximize for points? Keep stored in a block of ice for emergency use only? Or, are you completely free of plastic and live on cash only?
I have just started using my Credit Card again for points a few months ago. I have a Chase Freedom so I have the quarterly 5% and I only use it for those categories or large purchases. I have already redeemed 20 back from it and paid it directly to my student loan as soon as i got it. I have 30 waiting to do the same with. I'm not going to get rich from it but right now i could use every extra dollar i can get to get these darn loans out of my life. I pay it off every few weeks. I have it connected to my YNAB so it yells at me (shows us as debt) if i have a balance and i go in and pay it.
The rest we keep with us in case we forget our debit card or something.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it?
Well My birthday is tomorrow and my dads was yesterday so May was always a birthday celebration month.
1. What were your financial goals for the month and were you able to accomplish them?
April was a 3-paycheck month for both of us, so honestly, we had plans for some bigger purchases (bicycles, flooring, etc) that I wanted to be positioned in April so that we wouldn't be so crunched in May. Well, none of that happened and actually we spent very little on extraneous purchases. Which is a good thing, but still! We still want to purchase new bicycles so May is going to be a bit tighter.
BUT - because there was extra leftover at the end of the month - we used it to pay off H's SL's! So we are officially SL free, and have no debt except the mortgage!! We're going to celebrate with tacos & margaritas tonight
May
1. What are your financial goals for the month and how will you accomplish them?
Our goals are to cash flow new bikes and the gazillion gifts we'll be getting (between Mother's day, my mom's birthday, graduations...)
I also want to talk to H about putting our former SL payment toward our retirement accounts...I broached the subject last night and he doesn't think we need to put extra towards retirement beyond what we already contribute to our 401ks. This will be a challenge.
Status of Ongoing Goals
1. What are your short, middle and/or long term goals, and what are you doing to accomplish them? Short - still need to get more life insurance, and want to look into a HELOC for our renovations.
Middle - have enough saved up for start-up baby costs.
Long - a long term goal is to eventually sell our current home. Selling is potentially quite a few years away, but the renovating we're doing now will help sell it for a higher price later.
GTKY Bonus: MM Lurker Advice
1. How do you handle credit cards? I use my credit card for pretty much everything. The points are nice, but I mostly like having an electronic record of my purchases because I am very bad at tracking cash purchases.
GTKY Bonus: Seasonal
1. May Day - did you as a child or do you currently do anything to celebrate it? No.