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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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.
Monday Accountability
1. How MM was your weekend?
2. Any progress towards goals?
3. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Re: Monday Accountability
1. $76 Groceries, $2 dollar store for movie candy, Free movie courtesy of a work program, H spent $15 for popcorn and a soda there ugh!!
2. Nothing, we get paid this week. I realized we missed H's car payment in December so now we owe double this month with a $10 late fee! I could call and battle the late fee because we didn't get a December statement emailed to us because we had extended H's lease that was up in December so technically it could be their fault.
3. Love cookies and cream! But only certain brands make a good one...
1. How MM was your weekend? It was ok. I spent $177 on groceries on Saturday...BUT...that $177 covered groceries for 20 freezer meals (and $10 on a bottle of wine, plus dinner for that n). I know DH spent a little money at the hardware store on materials to rescreen our attic gables but I don't know how much.
2. Any progress towards goals? I got paid on Friday so I moved money into savings. I'm waiting for DH to get his W-2 so I can calculate our AGI in order to determine if we're still eligible for a full Roth IRA contribution or not. I'm semi-concerned we're on the cusp of needing to do backdoor Roths (for as long as they are legal anyway) so for now I'm just holding on to cash.
Non-MM goal - I finally got a response over the weekend from Brides Across America that they are willing to accept my wedding gown as a donation. They take gowns and accessories and give them to brides who are active military or marrying an active member of the military. So it accomplished a 2 part goal of clearing a really really large box out of one of the closets and being charitable. My mom is pretty upset with me for doing this but I don't see the point of dragging my dress around for the next 30 years in the case that a daughter or niece POTENTIALLY wants it for her own wedding. I'd rather see it go to someone now who could actually use it.
3. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? Mint chocolate chip forever and ever and ever!
2. H is paying more attention to what he eats now and trying to be healthier so I think we are going to see an increase in groceries.
We booked a trip to FL for next month and so far it is coming in at the budget I set for it. Our friend is going to dog sit so that might be about a $150 savings vs the kennel.
3. My favorite is chocolate chip cookie dough.
Way back in the day I scooped ice cream at the student union in college. My most popular flavor there by far was mint chocolate chip.
2. Not a pay week so no news here. We are down to just one remaining Care Credit charge to pay off after last week's payment. We also communicated a bit about our joint budgeting strategies, which should help. I had to explain to H that I'm pretty low mental bandwidth right now and really need his help with the budgeting, and he totally got it and said he'd take more responsibility.
3. Cookies and cream. I actually just had some for breakfast dessert. No shame in my game.
I sold about $120 worth of stuff we don't use anymore and more will be picked up this week.
Chocolate Malted Crunch from Thrifty's/Rite Aide Ice cream counter.
2. No pay week for me, so nothing there.
3. I'm not a huge ice cream person, but I like sorbets and sherbets sometimes. My favorite is rainbow sherbet, as long as it is the pink/green/orange kind (like the kind Thrifty's/Rite Aid has).
2. Just $150 to savings this week. Not much, but better than $0. And $50 to our cash stash.
3. I could really take or leave ice cream. There are too many other sweets that I like better!
2. We were tempted to eat out Friday evening but resisted the urge and went home instead, which is big for us. Set up a meeting for this week with a potential financial advisor. Also found out that H got a pay raise, which should cover the increase in medical premium and 401k deduction (increased by 1%)
3. I'll take custard instead of ice cream any day
1. How MM was your weekend?
$17 lunch on Friday with a regular on the Wedding Woes TK board. She was in town for a conference, that was a lot of fun.
Saturday was NOT good. My car battery died. That set me back 2 hours and a surprise $210. Spent $68 at the grocery store. Nothing on Sunday.
I did get an unexpected check in the mail for $93. So that at least paid for almost half my new battery, lol. It was a refund on an overage paid during closing for my latest duplex.
Though I'm, yet again, side-eyeing that awful title company. I've had title overage refunds before. It usually gets figured out and I receive the check within 4-6 weeks of closing. Not 4 months later.
2. Any progress towards goals?
Paid down my CC debt $2200.
3. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Spumoni, because it has cherry and pistachio ice creams in it. Chocolate makes the third flavor in Spumoni, but that's only okay compared to the other two. I also like chocolate chip cookie dough.
Why, yes, it is a recording overage refund. Thanks for the feedback. I didn't realize this kind of overage normally had that timeframe. I'll let them slide this time, lol. But they were awful to deal with and I would never use them again for a host of other reasons.
1. How MM was your weekend?
Pretty good for a long weekend out of town. I haven't done the official final tally but I think it was about $400 for 3 nights at the cabin, our grocery contribution (we stayed with 6 other friends), and gas for the drive up. We also have a decent amount of leftovers so between those and the freezer/pantry I should be able to skip the grocery store this week. Plus we just had a blast playing board games and watching football and cuddling doggies all weekend so that's always money well spent!
2. Any progress towards goals?
Still going strong on the no-takeout challenge. Husband wanted to order in after the drive home tonight but I put my foot down since we have plenty of food in the house. He also got paid on Friday and this check had some OT for working a winter storm so I was able to put an extra $500 into the new stairs saving fund.
3. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Probably neopolitan. I also had a friend make mint chocolate chip cookie dough once (a mix of 2 of my other favorites) for my birthday and it was to die for!
1. How MM was your weekend? It started out fine.. Friday night we got pizza $30, Saturday I got a facial but used a gift card so $20 for tip and H bought dinner Saturday night it was around $40 after using another gift card. Sunday I can't even remember what we did? Hmm.
Then yesterday was terrible. I had off for MLK day so I went to breakfast with H, my sister, BIL and cousin at this awesome place in Baltimore that was $45. On the way home we were in a car accident due to a girl running a red light and hitting us as we were turning left (with a green arrow). So I spent the rest of the day dealing with that calling insurance companies, setting up the rental, clearing out my car at the junk yard, etc. Thankfully H and I are OK. Sore today, but other wise no major injuries. My car did not fare so well, I wouldn't be surprised if she was totaled so it's likely I'll be re-doing the budget entirely for 2017 to include a car payment. Definitely not in the plan, but we'll see what happens. Luckily the girl claimed fault for the accident (thou I'm sure the insurance company wasn't happy) because no witnesses stopped at the scene and I would have had a hard time proving she ran the light. My sister and BIL were just 45 seconds behind us but didn't see anything. He is a cop so thankfully he was able to get everything squared away by calling his barrack and taking a lot of stress off me in the moment.
2. Any progress towards goals? The complete opposite of progress unfortunately.
3. What is your favorite ice cream flavor? A local place by me has a delicious snickerdoodle ice cream which is hands down my favorite! It has chunks of cookie in it. Yum.
from H was the rest of the night spent cleaning the house!
2. Just a puny $50 extra in side hustle money towards the mortgage.
3. Not really an ice cream person, but I'll eat the heck out of cookie dough toppings!
@abrewer5, I'm so glad you all are okay! I was in a similar accident almost 3 years ago to the day. It wasn't at a light, but a person turned left in front of me. I didn't even have time to brake. My airbags deployed and that was the main reason my car was totaled.
If the insurance decides to total your all's car and you all have car rental insurance, I just want to give fair warning that it will probably only be for one week they'll allow the car rental for. Though I was able to talk my insurance into two weeks, so that is worth a try. Also, 28 states require insurance companies to also reimburse for the state sales tax for the value of your totaled car.
However, if you live in one of the other 22 states...like me (sigh)...you can usually recover the state sales tax from the other insurance company, but you have to really push it. Threaten to take them to small claims court over it, because courts will almost always grant it. The insurance companies know that. They just hope you don't.
Sometimes, I really hate speaking from experience, lol.
@als1982, happy late birthday! I'm glad you had a nice dinner.
Thanks for the input! That's good to know. My car is valued at around $6K private party (according to KBB and Autotrader) and based on the front end damage I have a feeling it will be totaled. The entire frame shifted to the passenger side, but the air bags didn't deploy so there may be hope. It looked like all the oil came out of the engine and the transmission wasn't working when we moved it from the middle of the intersection. I doubt I'll get close to the $6k thou, which stinks. Honestly, I have no idea what to expect since this is the first time I've ever had an accident.
Right now they said I'll have the rental for 20 days (if the car can be repaired). I'm doing light research just in case. The timing is awful considering my SLs are so close to being paid off!
I will definitely look up the laws in MD relating to paying out taxes on the value. That would be a great help. Thanks for the heads up!
Ironically, insurance companies will give more time for the car rental if the car is being repaired as opposed to being totaled. I guess from their perspective they expect people to just pop off to a dealership and buy another car, smh.
I'm with Progressive and, when they total a car, they actually use the high retail NADA amount. I think most insurance companies use NADA. It is similar to KBB.
You could probably buy a decent used car with cash for $6K (I suspect you'd get more). You could even buy an after market warranty, if you're worried about reliability. It's definitely stressful though; however you slice it.
H was in a minor accident in my (7 month old) car a couple weeks ago, and while it's still driveable (cracked headlight that doesn't affect the light itself, dented up front fender), it's a complete pain having to deal with car insurance, getting quotes etc.
He didn't call the police (ugh), but he did get the kid who hit him on a video on his phone admitting fault LOL
Thankfully the other driver's insurance has been very easy to deal with, and we found out today they're going to pay out the total amount of the bid we got, without any issues. I was surprised because it's some company out of Washington State that I've never heard of. I'm glad they're making it easy, because the bid was close to $3,000. The cracked headlight alone is $1200! Unfortunately the shop can't fix it til March 13th, and I leave for a road trip April 1, so hopefully things will go smoothly there.