Finance Gets Personal

There’s been a lot of stuff going on in Finance Gets Personal land, so much so that there hasn’t been much time to write!

So, let’s get caught up, shall we?

The Vacuum
While on the hunt for a cheap vacuum, we managed to break the vacuum we’d been borrowing from my in-laws. Can you freaking believe that?!?! We think we may have figured out why we are the vacuum serial killers though.

My stepson has a lot of Webkinz, which are little stuffed animals that you can also play with online (or something - I’m too old to understand this crap). Sometimes, our dog kidnaps one and it becomes his new toy. AND, since our dog destroys all his toys, we’ve discovered that Webkinz have a little packet of tiny plastic balls inside of their stuffing. The packet gets chewed open, and tiny plastic balls are lodged in the carpet throughout the house. We think that when the vacuum sucks these up, they melt and cause major problems!

So, no more Webkinz for the dog!

We went to Target to buy the in-laws one of the vacuums that was on clearance there for $65, but when we called to see which one they wanted, they insisted that they don’t need one. They’ve been replacing all their carpet with hardwood, and only their bedroom is left. They’re planning on replacing that within the next month, so I guess we got lucky!

So, back to our vacuum. While I last wrote that we were going to buy a cheap one and use the American Express in order to extend the warranty, we ended up getting the Dyson Animal I wanted through Frys. It’s refurbished, and I’m not sure if the warranty extends beyond six months, but it was only $206 (including taxes and shipping), included all the attachments and arrived just like new. I LOVE it so far!

My Sister’s Financial Peace University Classes
I’m really not sure how this is going because we haven’t talked about it since the first class. But I’m going to be seeing her tomorrow and hopefully will find out more then. As I reported earlier, her husband is going with her and they are at least halfway through baby step 1 ($1,000 emergency fund).

Layoffs at My Husband’s Company
While the layoffs were originally scheduled for March 12, that date was moved up to March 6 (today). But they found out yesterday that his group was not affected by the layoffs at all! So that is wonderful news!

Meanwhile, my company announced that we probably won’t be having quarterly bonuses this year and were getting 3% raises across the board (we wouldn’t have gotten anything, but they felt bad about not giving people raises last year either). However, we are currently SWAMPED with new projects, and should be until at least June.

So, it looks like the ramen noodle budget will not be necessary. We’ll probably be moving most of the money we have in savings (beyond the $1,000 emergency fund) to the second mortgage balance in the next week or two.

Taxes
By stalking SlickDeals.net, I found a free download of H&R Block Tax Cut with free e-filing and used it to prepare our federal taxes. We’ve already received our $635 refund and can now submit our state return, which will swallow that $635 plus another $55. Did I mention we have to file two state returns? I’ll be doing the second one on paper so we don’t have to pay to download an additional state (not sure how we’ll come out on that one, though last year we got back $130 or so).

I guess I should get on that, so things don’t turn out like last year.

What I’ve Been Doing for the Past Month (i.e., Spending Money)
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I have a “life list” of things to do before I die. Some of them (play blackjack in a casino) are easier and less expensive than others (own a photography studio). One of the items on my list is to have an Oscar party. So, I did!

Of course, being the freak I am, everything had to be on theme. I had food and drinks for each movie, a ballot contest with prizes, a red carpet and decorations, gift bags (hello, drugstore stockpile!), paparazzi, etc. It was fun, but expensive (for example, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button featured caviar with creme fraiche on toast points and vodka shots)!

Then, I had a business trip (love getting mileage reimbursement for traveling to the airport, by the way) and party-planning for my stepson’s upcoming birthday (they’re going to a movie theater to see “Mall Cop” and play laser tag).

So, things have been busy! But I think we’re all caught up now, and I look forward to posting more soon.

We still don’t know if my husband will get laid off, but now we know when we can stop not knowing:

March 12.

Apparently, his manager said this is when the layoffs will be announced, and she’s been given a number of how many people have to go.

So, will my man get a rose? Or will he be crying in the limo on the way home?

Last week, after news that my husband might get laid off, I prepared an “oh shit” budget.

As in, “oh shit, we lost half our income” budget.

It’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

If he gets laid off, we can continue paying our mortgages, car insurance, life insurance, utilities and telephone bills, and also manage to buy groceries and household products (hooray!). However, we will no longer be able to save for retirement (or anything else), pay extra on our debts, go out to eat (though we rarely do that now), buy new clothes, give gifts, pay for before- and after-school care (which we would no longer need), contribute to our health care flexible spending account, subscribe to the newspaper, subscribe to Netflix or have cable and Internet service.

The good news is he’s eligible to receive six months of severance pay and health insurance. He’s also eligible for seven months of unemployment.

So our plan is to cut everything to the bare minimum and live off my income while he looks for a job. If he found a new job after six months, we’d have about $38,000 in savings by then! After six months, his company would stop paying his and my stepson’s health insurance, so we’d use the seventh month of unemployment benefits to cover that cost. Anything longer than seven months would require us to dip into savings to cover their health insurance premiums (I can get health insurance for them through my employer, but we’d be responsible for 100% of the cost).

And if he found a job right away - well, that would be awesome, because we could use his six months of severance pay to pay off the second mortgage!

I’m feeling *much* less panicky.

It also helps that he got an excellent performance review at work last week. His boss even said he’s his most valuable employee! Good news! (Unless the boss gets the axe, of course.)

In other news, I still haven’t heard back from CVS (hello?), I still have my in-laws’ vacuum (getting dusty?) and I’d be done with my taxes if I weren’t waiting on the interest statement from my second mortgage (hurry, before I start procrastinating!).

Well, fate has decided which vacuum we’re going to get.

Thanks to my husband’s employer’s plans to lay off 20% of its workforce, it looks like we’ll be buying a cheap vacuum with our American Express card (for the additional one year warranty) and paying it off immediately.

That’s right - my husband thinks he’s going to get laid off.

And this time, I actually believe him.

Even if he doesn’t, things aren’t looking too sunny. All 401(k) matching has been stopped, raise freezes have been extended by another year and tuition reimbursement has been stopped. And get this - although his company no longer gives matching 401(k) contributions, any profit sharing (which occurs only if they meet specific goals) will be based on the amount of money employees put into their 401(k). What a crock of…

Needless to say, we’re preparing for the worst.

Thankfully, we’d already begun directing our extra debt payments to savings, so counting our emergency fund, European vacation fund, new computer fund and basement finishing fund, we have over $7,000 saved up. And with no debt besides our first and second mortgage, we should be able to live off of my salary if necessary (with mortgage payments at 49% of my monthly take home income, it will be tight, but do-able).

Of course, that will mean no more Netflix, no more newspaper subscription, no more landline, no more clothes, no more gifts, no more cable, etc.

So we’re going to go ahead and start cutting back a little.

I’ll cut our weekend newspaper subscription down to just Sunday (for the coupons), we’ll cancel Netflix, stop our 401(k) contributions and look into getting a cheaper Internet/cable package (or maybe just a slower Internet service with no cable). We’ll also be looking into other ways to cut the budget, like ditching our landline and reducing our discretionary spending to the bare minimum.

So folks, I’m off to watch some free movies online with Netflix…while I still can!

Yesterday, my husband sent me the following email:
Despite not getting raises last year, it appears I made more money than the year before. That going to ruin our taxes?

I replied:
I don’t really know. I think I might have made a little more too. Last year I think we about broke even on the refund from federal and amount owed to state. I donated a lot more stuff this year too.

Given that I didn’t actually know how much money I made last year, I decided to finally open the envelope with my pay stub in it.

$55,816.

Hmm, I think that’s better than last year.

So, when I get home, I ask, “How much did you make last year?”

$65,000.

Wow, that’s like $120,000!

I think we made about $105,000 in 2007. My husband didn’t get a raise last year, and I didn’t get a raise until July, but I guess our bonuses were bigger than the previous year?

However it happened, I guess it’s a good thing. But now I’m a little worried about what our taxes are going to look like. Despite both of us claiming zero exemptions, somehow our state taxes are always a mess and we usually owe $600-$800 to the state we work in. Last year was only $180 or so, but now I’m scared!

I realize that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense since the more you make, the more you pay in taxes, so everything should work itself out. But I’m sure it’s still screwed up somehow.

At least the next tax bracket doesn’t occur until $131,450.

I’m also feeling a little lame now in “only” having paid off $26,951 in debt last year given that our income went up by $15,000. I’ve got to sit on this one for a while to try to figure out why we didn’t pay off more, since we’ve been living basically the same lifestyle as before.

Photo Credit: My Bling by nicora, used under Creative Commons licensing.

Things have been soooooo slow at work lately. There are days when I don’t have ANYTHING to do except entertain myself at my desk.

The Internet is my main source of entertainment, and unfortunately, CNN, MSN, TMZ and my favorite blogs don’t always update every five minutes (horrors!).

That leaves me way too much time for shopping online.

I’ve found a lot of great bargains from deal sites like dealnews.com and slickdeals.net, but with my upcoming anniversary and outstanding speeding ticket, I seriously need to lay off the bargain shopping. I try to do other things like plan my weekly grocery trips, create a family calendar, schedule veternarian appointments, etc., but I am running out of ideas of things to do while I’m at work with nothing to work on.

At least you can look forward to more frequent blog posts!

This week, my husband started telecommuting two days per week.

It’s really great since his work is about 25 miles away and his car gets less than 20 miles per gallon. And, I figure he’ll also be spending less on dress clothes (since he will only have to dress up two days per week - Friday is casual day) and lunches out.

I’m not sure how the arrangement came about, but it’s something one of his company’s directors got approval for his entire group to do.

If you’re feeling the pinch of rising gas prices, you might want to consider talking to your employer about it.

Nearly 10 years after getting my first credit card as a freshman in college, I’ve paid off my last balance.

Although I had my Citibank card locked in at 2.99% for life, it is still a great feeling to be done with it!

Last night we went to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate. Now, it’s on to the student loans!

In other news, I got a 8% raise today (yea!)

Photo Credit: Buffalo Wild Wings by Keegan Jones, used under Creative Commons licensing

On Thursday night, I decided to put some extra effort into getting to work on time.

What does that have to do with finances, you ask?

Everything! Being chronically late can cost mucho dinero in terms of lost raises/promotions, missed appointment fees and the like.

So how did Operation Get Out of Bed go?

It was a mild success, and has potential.

On Friday morning, I was supposed to get up at 7:00, but hit snooze until 7:30. I remember hitting snooze, which is an improvement, and also got up about half an hour earlier than normal (also an improvement). I didn’t hear my cell phone alarm, which was supposed to go off every five minutes starting at 7:15. I also didn’t smell the coffee, because the bedroom door was closed. But I read the paper, ate my waffles, and it was quite enjoyable! I was 10 minutes late for work, which is a major improvement and about standard in my office.

This morning, I made sure the door was open when I went to bed, and made sure my cell phone alarm worked. But I didn’t need the cell phone alarm because I got up the first time my bedside alarm went off! Having the light on a timer at 6:30 is really helpful in waking me up. However, I was still 10 minutes late, so I need to work on figuring out what time I have to leave by to get to work on time.

I must say, getting to work (sorta) on time really makes my whole day go better. And I also understand why people drink coffee now - I’m so awake!

I’ve mentioned before that I have a problem with being chronically late.

I’m not sure exactly what’s causing me to be late almost every day, but I do know one thing: I hit the snooze button in my sleep.

Like this morning, when my alarm clock was set for 7 a.m. I remember waking up at 6:00 a.m. and thinking, “It’s not time to get up yet.” Then, I think I remember hearing the alarm at 7:00 and pushing snooze. The next time I wake up, it’s 8:24, and the alarm clock is still showing that it is in “snooze” mode (which means it should have been going off every 10 minutes or so).

I’m not really sure how to resolve this, but I need to. I’ve always heard advice about putting the alarm clock across the room or down the hall, but that doesn’t work for me because I run to turn it off and get back in bed. So, I have an experiment for tonight:

I programmed our coffee pot to start making coffee at 6:45 a.m. Although I don’t usually drink coffee, I’m hoping the smell/chance of fire will get me out of bed.

I bought a programmable timer for my bedside lamp at Target for $10. I’m going to set it to turn on at 6:30 a.m. I’m hoping this will simulate sunlight and help me get up.

I’m going to set the alarm clock on my cell phone too, just in case.

We get the newspaper on weekends, so I’ll wear something decent to bed tonight that I can go out and get the paper in the morning and read it over breakfast.

I bought frozen strawberry waffles and syrup to eat for breakfast, since I usually just eat a cereal bar in my car on the way to work.

If I’m on time tomorrow, I’m going to reward myself with a glass of wine during intermission of the play we’re going to that night.

Here goes nothing…

Photo Credit: Maker of the day - Matty Sallin, Bacon-cooking alarm clock by pt, used under Creative Commons licensing