Finance Gets Personal

After a year (on and off) of trying and two cycles of charting, I am finally pregnant!

I personally think that taking 50 mg of vitamin B6 to lengthen my luteal phase is what pushed things over the edge for us, but I can’t say for certain. Either way, I am 4 weeks and 5 days pregnant (you get two weeks “extra credit” for the time between your last period and ovulation). My due date is April 10.

While we’re ecstatic and relieved that things occurred naturally, I didn’t realize that my fears about being unable to conceive were about to be replaced by a bigger fear: fear of miscarriage.

Approximately 25% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is most common in the first trimester (especially the first part of the first trimester). Knowing this, we haven’t told anyone except my stepson about the pregnancy, and I’m regretting doing even that.

I’m feeling a little bit better these past few days though because I asked my regular doctor to give me a blood workup to check my progesterone levels (low progesterone is often a cause of short luteal phases, and can result in miscarriage if you don’t get progesterone supplements early in pregnancy). Luckily, all my levels are good so far. We go in for my first prenatal appointment next Thursday, and hopefully we will be able to see the heartbeat on an early ultrasound. If so, I’ll feel more comfortable telling our families at that point (plus, I can’t expect a 10-year-old to keep a secret very long!).

I also need to wrestle with the decision of whether to continue taking my antidepressant during pregnancy, and am already working hard on kicking my caffeine habit.

My symptoms so far include extreme fatigue (which could also be related to sudden lack of caffeine), tender and larger breasts, increased sense of smell, more frequent urination and backache. I haven’t had any food aversions or nausea, but those symptoms become more common in week 6.

For those of you who have been pregnant before, how did you keep yourself from becoming anxious about miscarrying (or were you able to)? And, random question, if I am 4 weeks and 5 days pregnant, am I already considered 5 weeks (because I’m in the fifth week), or am I considered 5 weeks at the end of the fifth week?

Here is my chart from the successful cycle. You’ll notice there is a temperature drop today, which is freaking me out a little - I might have to stop temping at some point, just to avoid the anxiety

Unfortunately, my 8-Week Home Cure has quickly turned into the 3-Month Basement Cure.

For a while, I was able to work on cleaning and organizing the upstairs while my husband worked on the basement. But now he’s needing my help more and more, and the Cure has fallen to the wayside.

Maybe the reason I haven’t been blogging lately is that I feel like a hypocrite. Every time I set some lofty goal, I end up abandoning it halfway through. I think the only goal that I’m actually making continuous progress on is getting out of debt. But even with that, it’s hard to feel like I’m making a lot of headway…

I guess it’s hard to stay motivated when your only debts are a pair of mortgages. I’m still making my minimum extra debt payment of $1,974 a month. But what ever happened to snowflaking every extra dollar toward debt? Instead, I’ve become sidetracked with home renovations, vacations, weight loss, trying to get pregnant, etc. Which I guess is to be expected. But I’m feeling a bit like a Jesus Freak that’s fallen off the wagon. Am I headed toward the dark side, or just human?

Maybe money became such an obsession that it’s just ingrained in me now. I’ve learned most everything I can learn (roll eyes here), and know what I should be doing. Now it’s just a matter of whether I want to.

If you’re feeling this way too, check out this post from Get Rich Slowly: Should Repaying Debt Be an Obsession?. My answer is, I’m not sure. Am I a J.D. Roth, who paid off $35,000 over the course of three years, or a Money Saving Mom, who is quickly saving up to buy a house outright?

Maybe I’m somewhere in between.

Photo Credit: Thomson’s gazelle by [PS], used under Creative Commons licensing.

for a Garage Sale!

As you might have guessed by the lack of posts this week, I have not worked on the office for Week 5 of The Cure. Instead, I’ve been busy getting ready for our garage sale on Saturday.

Last year we made about $240 in our garage sale, and this time (with the help of my CVS/Walgreens stockpile) I’m hoping to crack $500, which will go toward this home theatre system for the basement.

I cleaned out what was left of my old bedroom at my parents’ house, and also have a bunch of stuff to sell that was moved out of the basement when my husband started finishing it. Now I just need to finish labeling a couple boxes of stuff, make signs, find my banker’s bag, ice up some drinks and set everything up in the garage so it’s ready to go Saturday morning! Oh, and hope that it doesn’t rain…

Note to Self: In the future, it would be much easier to put things in a big “garage sale” bin as you clean the house and price them right then and there.

Since my house is now once again a disaster (I’ve really been trying to keep the rooms I’ve done so far clean, though) I’m eager to get back to the cure after this weekend is over.

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.

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.

As 2008 comes to a close, I’d like to share the progress we’ve made on our goals to get out of debt and change careers.

We started the year with $3,479 in low-interest credit card debt, $6,623 in car loans, $14,401 in student loans, $35,179 on our second mortgage and $139,604 on our first mortgage. Our goal was to pay off everything but the first and second mortgages, and we did! In total, we paid off $26,951 in debt this year with an income of approximately $105,000 before taxes. In 2007, we paid off $22,100 in debt, so that’s a slight increase.

I feel we could have done even better had we not had a multitude of home repairs throughout the year (sump pump replacement: $172, heat pump replacement: $3,467, hot water heater replacement: $647, exterior house painting: $2,992, termite treatment: $650).

Our goal for 2009 is to pay off our second mortgage, which currently has a balance of $34,806. We’re already $1,812 closer to that goal due to the remainder of my $5,000 Christmas bonus that is currently sitting in our emergency fund. Since there’s a possibility my husband will be laid off in the first quarter, we’ll be directing our extra debt payments into savings until the layoffs occur, then transfer that money to our second mortgage once we’re (hopefully) in the clear. While my husband would like a new career, we’d prefer to wait until after our debt is paid off (note to husband’s company: could you please pencil in some fat voluntary separation packages for 2012?)!

We’re also trying to get pregnant this year and limit our baby expenses to what’s available in our current budget. Additionally, my husband has the goal of finishing our basement himself for $3,000-$4,000, which we are budgeting $150 per paycheck toward beginning in January.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank everyone for reading this blog. When I started writing in February, I wasn’t sure anyone would be interested in the thoughts of an anonymous office drone with big dreams, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Happy New Year.

Yes, that’s right, everyone. I have something special to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, and it ain’t turkey.

It’s termites.

No!!!!!

Monday night, my husband and I went to the Smashing Pumpkins concert. On our way out, we ran into a friend he used to work with. So, we joined the friend and his girlfriend at the bar next door for a drink. Only they knew the bartender…and people kept handing me free drinks…so pretty soon I was trashed.

It was not pretty. Since I have no alcohol tolerance anymore and since I’m on medication that I technically shouldn’t be drinking with, I proceeded to throw up in the passenger’s seat of my car on the way home. And again in my bed. And in the earshot of my father, who was babysitting for us. Again, it was not pretty, and I’m extremely embarrassed about the whole thing.

My husband cleaned out the car as best he could that night, but I needed to give it a more thorough cleaning. So after work tonight, I went to the car wash with the free vacuum cleaners, and took one of each type of cleaning supply I own. My stepson was dying to get out of the house, so I took him with me.

Of course, after going through the car wash and vacuuming, my stepson was about ready to pee his pants and there was no bathroom there. So, we headed home.

Of course (again), it’s dark, cold and my side of the garage still has a lot of leftover crap from our June garage sale in it (Yes, June. Have you seen the Oprah episode about the Messy House Tour? I’m totally working on that now). So, in order to have enough light to clean up my crusty car, I needed to make room for my crusty car in the garage.

One hour into cleaning the garage, I discovered intruders…termite tunnels running up the side of the garage foundation behind some ladders.

This is horrible! Horrible, horrible, horrible! And what timing!

But I don’t think they’ve been there long since we just reorganized the garage in the Spring, and I’m sure I would have noticed the tunnels then (there are just three of them).

So, I guess you could almost argue that getting so drunk that I puked in my car and called in sick to work the next day might have actually saved me a lot of money.

We shall see.

Photo Credit: angel by ilselieve, used under Creative Commons licensing.

Yes, it’s already November 10! I suppose my procrastination has something to do with the fact that my net worth is continuing to fall despite my extra debt payments…

Net Worth as of October 3: $67,364
Net Worth as of November 1: $64,030

Here are October’s highlights:

• At the beginning of the month, I discovered the concept of the anti-charity. With that in mind, I decided that I would contribute $25 to the National Rifle Association if I did not maintain a calorie intake of 1679 each day for the month of October (which would put me on track to lose one pound a week). Well, I did very well for the first half of the month, but then I started sliding. And once I knew I’d gone over my limit for two days, I figured there was no point continuing (stomach’s logic, not brain’s). So, did I donate $25 to the NRA? No, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Yes, I know - I’m a bastard. In the future, I think daily rewards/punishment might be more effective (i.e., $5 for every day I go over). Along with greater accountability.
• Fourth grade tackle football turned out to be a big expense, especially since my stepson broke his finger at practice. Luckily, we managed to finish the season without too much more financial damage - other than the pizza party where we got screwed by the whole “split the check” thing and *probably* ended up paying the coaches’ and other parents’ bar tab (never actually got to see the bill because there were so many people - and we drank Coke, people!).
• I was incredibly excited when gas fell below $3 a gallon on October 2, but now it’s down to $1.65. That has definitely helped with the budget!
• October was a three paycheck month, which means that I was able to get a head start on Christmas shopping. However, I’ll be transferring prescriptions for gift cards like crazy for the next two months to supplement our Christmas budget, which has run into a little snag - I forgot about our $588 personal property tax bill that’s due by the end of the year (how do I always forget about that when it happens every year?!?).
• Oh, and there is one other possible reason why our Christmas budget is tight. After spending a lot of money on clothes and home organization, I’m now operating on a cash envelope system again.
• One other reason for the budget shortfall: I think I got ripped off when I had my brakes done. At least, that’s the only logical explanation I can come up with for why it ended up costing nearly three times what my coupon was for.
• Despite all that, my student loan balance is down to $4,280 and will be paid off by the end of the year.

Our retirement accounts are bringing down our net worth, so I’m now going to take this opportunity to remind myself that we paid off $2,754 in debt last month. Yea!

Photo Credit: Good Wine, Bad Economy by MotherPie, used under Creative Commons licensing.

Another month has come and gone…already?

Net Worth as of September 5: $69,091
Net Worth as of October 3: $67,364

Here are this month’s highlights:

• We paid off my husband’s student loan on Friday. I can’t wait to go to Buffalo Wild Wings this week! Now, we’re putting all our efforts toward my student loan, which has about $6,800 left on it. We should be able to get that knocked out by the end of the year without using our Christmas bonuses, which will go toward the $35,000 second mortgage (or, “the idiot’s down payment plan”).
• My work got new computers for everyone and offered to let us buy the old ones. I paid $100 for a Dell that’s much faster than my current 6-year-old Mac (well, actually the $100 is coming out of my next bonus), but I still need to buy a monitor for it. I’m trying to see if I can hold out for Black Friday because LCD monitors are supposedly going to be on sale for $99. I’m a little sad about not getting a new Mac, but it’s really not worth $1,500 to be brand loyal in this case!
• While we don’t do a lot of “back to school” shopping (I try to buy items at the end of each season for the next year), we’ve been bombarded by the fall onslaught of school fundraisers, school pictures, book fairs, charity requests and football costs. What is it about fall that makes everyone think it is the perfect time for raising money?
• I relaunched this blog with my first-ever giveaway, and have a goal of posting at least four times a week this month. Hooray!

Now, can I please recover some of the money my 401k has been losing?

Photo Credit: Suitcase II, Carl Street by heather, used under Creative Commons licensing.