Money Matters
als1982
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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.
Week/end Accountability
1. How MM was your week/end?
2. Any progress toward goals?
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life?
2. Any progress toward goals?
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life?
HeartlandHustle | Personal Finance and Betterment Blog
Re: Week/end Accountability
1. Spendy, but we also hosted a picnic. $13 Panera, $26 grocery store, $50 BJ's, $18 Gas, $63 Dog grooming, $32 Liquor store, $40 dog food, $20 Hardware store-needed new rakes on sale
2. $377 to vacation, $377 to savings
3. I have a sister and no nieces or nephews. H has a brother, no nieces or nephews yet, but maybe next year. We have small families overall which I kinda like. H isn't very close to his family, they talk maybe once a week and we see them a few times per year. We are very close to my family and see them probably weekly, sometimes more. I facetime/call my sister and parents almost every day!
We were allowed to take leftover food home so we had leftovers for dinner Thurs and Fri and did nothing both of those days....which was nice because we were tired after our two recent trips
Sat we had our neighbor friends over for dinner. We used a lot of food/drinks that we already had and only spent about $18 on groceries for the dinner and then $20 on other groceries.
Sunday we ate leftovers from Saturday's dinner. I went shopping with my girlfriends and spent about $40 (fun money) while H stayed home and watched football.
We made about $200 on BnB. And we got $50 as an anniversary present so we may still have a little celebrating to do
2. Since it was a net positive week we were able to build savings.
3. Family is very important to us and we spend vacation days visiting with them. H has a brother and I have a brother and SIL with 3 kids. We love being an aunt and uncle.
From a MM perspective we don't talk finances as everyday conversation but I have always felt open going to family as a sounding board. My brother was helpful when I did my refinance and when I was younger and trying to figure out how much to give as wedding presents, etc. my mom and brother gave me their two cents when I asked them.
1. Pretty good. Got my nails done at a new place on Friday - $23. Then went next door for to-go lunch - $9.
Saturday: To-go lunch at an awesome Vietnamese place we recently discovered - $11. Super flavorful, decent sized sandwiches that are only $3.25. Big sticky buns filled with meat and other yummies - $1.85.
2. Bolstered my e-fund back up after raiding it for repairs last week.
3. I have one younger sister with one niece and one nephew from her. My niece is 9 and my nephew is 6. Unfortunately, I live halfway across the country from my family and have for many years. We all love each other and there isn't any bad blood or anything like that, but we're also not very close anymore because of the distance and none of us are very good about keeping in touch.
My H was adopted when he was 4 by a couple who, at the time, were in their mid 40s. They had two daughters, but both "girls" were already teenagers when he was adopted, so he has never been that close to either one. He also lives halfway across the country from where he grew up. His parents died a number of years ago and he stopped even the minimal contact sometime after that. I get the impression there is a little bad blood, but the losing contact is much more due to distance and the fact that he was just never that close to them anyway.
2. Any progress toward goals? Just the usual. I love weekly paychecks because I get to see the savings inch up every single week, where it used to be biweekly at my old job.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life? Yes, I have one sister but she was killed in a car accident when we were in high school so no biological nieces and nephews for me. My best friend's daughter calls me auntie (well...we're still working on that word, the one time I thought she said it I said "did you just say 'aunty'?!" and she replied "no - Elmo". Sigh. I think it will happen soon though haha). For me family is SUPER important, but the family we choose for ourselves is more important than anything else - some of them are blood related and some are not. My mom and I are great friends. I love my husband's zany extended cousins. And that niece is one of the most important people in the world to me and I would to anything for her even if we don't share a blood line.
2. Any progress toward goals? No, we got derailed this summer and haven't had the conversations to get back on track.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life? I have a brother and new sister-in-law, and H has one sister. No nieces or nephews yet. Family is important to us but we have learned that boundaries are also important, so we're working on finding a balance. Ironically, we live closer to my parents (10 minutes away) and we have better boundaries with them, versus H's parents that live 1.5 hours away and have no concept of boundaries.
2. Any progress toward goals? Payday this week so I'll probably be able to throw $2000 into savings. I swear, now that we've paid off our debt it feels like paydays are stretched out even further and I'm so anxious waiting on them because I want to see our money grow.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life? I have two younger sisters and two SILs. My middle sister has an almost one year old whom I love with all my heart. She is seriously SUCH a joy and I feel so blessed that I live close to them and get to spend a ton of time with her. This is from yesterday.
My middle SIL has an almost 8 year old girl and an almost 6 year boy. They live about 12 hours away so I only get to see them once or twice a year but I love them so much! H and I are both pretty close to our families. I talk to my mom and sisters every day, usually through texting and we call H's parents once every other week or so. Family is very important to us and it was definitely one of the first things we noticed about each other when we first started dating. Our family is definitely our priority.
2. Any progress toward goals? Yes! I sold a desk to a friend for $100, so that money will be going straight into savings.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life? I have an older brother. He says he's never having kids (he's 37 so he's probably right) but he told me this summer that he expects me to have one so he can be an uncle :-P But, we aren't super close, he lives in Oregon, our relationship consists mostly of sending each other funny texts and teasing our mom LOL! I'm super close with my mom even though she lives in California (they want to move out here). We talk multiple times per week, usually on my drive home from work. My mom and stepdad will be here for Thanksgiving, maybe brother too. My dad passed away in 2000.
H has an older half sister that he doesn't talk to (I've met her once and am friends w/ her on Facebook), and a younger sister that he's not super close with either. The older one has 3 kids and the younger has 2 boys. She just moved from Wyoming to Washington so now we won't get to see the boys as often, which is a bummer, they're funny kids. But we see his folks pretty often, a few times a year. Both his mom and stepdad, and dad and dad's GF came down for our party last week, and we're going to Vegas with his dad and dad's GF in October. We always go there for Christmas too.
2) I should be getting a big reimbursement for my most recent tuition payment today, and that's going to savings until the end of the year. Otherwise, not much other than being well on track for the month. It looks like we will have a good bit of extra leftover for savings, which is great.
3) I'm an only. H has two brothers (he's the middle child). H is close to his little brother, but the relationship with the older brother is a bit more tense, even though we see him more often since he lives closer. For some reason H's parents decided that all three boys needed to play the same sports, the same instruments, etc. H and his older brother overlapped in high school, and H ended up beating older brother at a few things even though he was younger. Older brother has never forgiven him for it, and he's been jealous for as long as I have known him over really stupid stuff. Sigh. Thankfully, little brother had a big enough age gap that he never competed directly with H or big brother.
Older brother is having their first baby in a couple weeks, so that will be exciting, and I'm hoping it serves to extinguish some of the sibling rivalry once the focus moves to kids. Who knows. Not going to lie, I'm happy to be an only child because that sibling dynamic stresses me out when I see H engage in it. I am very close to my parents, and I talk to them most days.
2. Any progress toward goals? $500 moved to savings last week, bathroom just needs 1 more tub wall tiled and then we can grout. Also got our mirror and it looks great.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life? I am an only child, DH has 1 brother so we have 4 nieces. They live in FL so we see them once every 2 years or so. I am very close to my cousins so their kids kind of feel like nieces (3) and nephews (3) and cousins to our girls too. Family is super important- I can't imagine living far from them. DH's parents are about a mile away and having them help out has been awesome. My parents are about 90 minutes away and it drives me crazy.. which they were closer.
Very good. I got bulk groceries and toiletries to last us 2 weeks and I'll just need to get produce and milk this week. Yet still stayed under my budget for it.
We also had my brothers' scholarship fundraiser on Saturday. We gave a sizeable donation and it felt great to know we just funded 2 more scholarships for the kids. However, our bar bill for the entire day and lunch was $160. Woof. We budgeted more than enough for the whole day, knowing it would probably get out of control, but it's been at least 5 years since we've had a bar bill that big.
2. Any progress toward goals?
Yes. I received a bonus on Friday and H got a sizeable raise. The bonus went straight into our Hawaii fund and H's raise will go straight to his Roth.
3. Do you have siblings? Nieces and nephews? How does family play a role in your life?
I had a brother. He passed away 1.5 years ago in a car accident. He was 4 years older than me and single. He didn't have any children.
Family plays a huge role in my life. HUGE. We have a family farm that has been passed down for 3 generations now and I'm next of kin. So I talk to my mom daily and see them at least twice a week. We're very involved in the day to day operation even though we both work full-time jobs.
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2 - $100 to savings and $100 to retirement.
3 - Both DH and I have Zero siblings so that's why it's important for us to have another kid. DD has no aunts, uncles, or cousins. We have my parents and DH's parents are divorced but remarried. They help us out a lot watching DD when we need them to because of our work. 2 sets of parents are in town and 1 set is out of town. Holidays are always fun. They spoil DD.
We do however have drama with MY 2 living grandmas. My dad hasn't spoken to his mom since 1995 and my mom hasn't spoken to her mom since last fall. The drama with my mom and her mom has been kind of stressful. I wish they had a normal relationship. I had to distance myself from my grandma recently because she was calling me making crazy accusations about my mother. It makes me sad that it's turned out like this.
2. Not this week.
3. I have a brother who has a 5 year old daughter. H has a sister with no children. We're not especially close with either of them, but not for any real reason. We're all just really different people. There's no "bad blood" or harsh feelings. And I'm 100% positive that we're all there for each other should anyone need anything, which I think is all that matters.