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September 3rd, 2021 at 02:08 am
I've been using a basically "dumb" cell phone on a prepaid plan with Tracfone for over a decade. In the past few years, I've coupled the dumb-phone with an iPod Touch, which has allowed me to access various apps as long as I am connected to WiFi.
I have been thinking of a while now of upgrading to a "real" cell phone and a monthly service plan, rather than the prepaid phone that I have now. I got a kick in the pants about doing this today when Tracfone messaged me that my phone is no longer supported on their networks and that I can expect to start seeing my calls dropped or unable to go through progressively more often.
I need the phone for my job (especially once we are out and about more; we still have 2/3s of our client meetings over Zoom), but I've never researched cell phone plans. Since I'm used to the iPod Touch, I'm planning to go with an iPhone, but I'd be curious to hear about what cell service plans people have and like and especially *why* you like --or dislike-- your plan.
It's just me, so I won't get any benefit from any family plan.
Any thoughts you care to share are appreciated!
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August 29th, 2021 at 01:53 am
My birthday was this past week. It was a pleasant enough day. Everyone at my office knew and wished me a happy birthday when I arrived at work. I have a couple of friends who have promised to take me out for a meal, but since my birthday fell mid-week, I didn't have any plans for the day itself. Rather than being upset at being alone on my birthday, I decided to treat myself to a dinner at a nice restaurant in town that I've always wanted to try, but one that is more upscale than I would pick for a meal that a friend was treating me to. The dinner was very nice; I was seated at a window overlooking our local extremely quaint historic district. (The restaurant was the 1741 Terrace, so that gives you an idea of how old our local history is!) I used the opportunity to do some reflection over my life to date. Since I just completed the CFP(r) and have spent a good chunk of the last 20 years focused on changing careers, it was a good opportunity to reflect over what I will want out of the *next* 20 years.
And I still have two meals with friends to look forward to during the next month. (Hopefully by then, the current wave of COVID cases will have peaked and be on the downswing again....I did read that if our pattern in the US follows what happened in the UK, Labor Day should be the peak of the current outbreak).
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July 24th, 2021 at 04:10 pm
I have a friend who has traveled to visit me virtually every year since I moved back to Pennsylvania from Vermont in 1999 (with two exceptions: last year due to COVID and 10 years ago, the year my mother died). We met because we taught at the same small (now-defunct) college in Vermont, she as an English professor with a special interest in the medevial period and me as a Psychology professor, and both of us owners of Basset Hounds. A local college sponsors an annual Shakespeare Festival with a mix of equity actors and students, and each year we have gone to a production at the festival as well as had time to catch up with each other and what has been going on in our lives.
So this week was my friend's annual visit, from Thursday afternoon to Saturday morning. Her visit prompted me to actually do greater cleaning and decluttering of several areas of my house than I have done since her last visit in 2019. I can actually see my dining room table top for the first time since March of 2020! Once we entered the COVID shut-down in mid-March 2020, my dining room table became my work station as well as my CFP exam study area, with extra piles for mail that needed to be dealt with.
The decluttering was only superficial--there are ten banker's boxes in the living room with papers cleared from the dining room and other assorted surfaces. Some of it will be kept, much of it will be recycled; at least it is now coralled to be dealt with gradually.
Thursday after she arrived, we spent an hour on the porch chatting over glasses of iced tea. The performance at the Shakespeare festival ("A Midsummer Night's Dream") was outdoors. It started at 6:30 and ended just as dusk was starting. One of the chores I had not had time for before my friend's arrival was grocery shopping, so we ate out beforehand at a Greek restaurant that we have previously eaten at. That restaurant had had a fire in June of 2017 and had been closed since then, finally reopening last December. We had missed being able to eat there in 2018 and 2019, so it was nice to get back to our usual pre-theatre restaurant.
Friday morning I was able to run out to the grocery store before my friend woke up. I had pulled together a list of local activities we could do and my friend chose to go to the arts trail in the next town over. We walked the trail, stopped for an ice cream at the small upscale mall/condo area where we had parked, then drove over to the local indoor Farmer's Market and browsed around there. We got home around 1:45 pm, had some sandwiches for lunch, then headed back out to explore the shops on Main Street in my town. By the time we got home, the Achilles tendon I injured a couple of months ago was throbbing, so we took an hour for me to ice my tendon while my friend worked some puzzles on her iPhone. Then I pulled out the sous-vide machine I bought myself last month and my trusty Instant Pot and made dinner (zucchini-fennel soup, salmon, potatoes, green beans and mushrooms, with chocolate truffles from a store at the Farmer's Market for dessert, as well as Sauvignon Blanc with dinner).
This morning, we went out to breakfast at a local cafe before my friend got on the road to drive back to upstate New York.
It was great to catch up and have some real time to spend with someone.
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In general, I still am very much "unwinding" and refocusing my perspective after having been laser-focused on the CFP exam since last October. Today, I may go back to an old favorite coffee shop along the Delaware River, which I have not visited since pre-pandemic. They have tables outdoors along the canal towpath, which provide a nice place to sit and write. That is, I'll go there if I can summon the nerve. I have driven so little since March of 2020 that this undertaking is a real endeavor. (Actually, when I took the CFP exam, I had to take it in King of Prussia, outside of Philly, and I was actually more nervous about doing the 55-mile drive down and back than I was about the exam.) Other than my trip to take the CFP exam, I haven't been more than 12 miles from home since sometime in 2019.
Now that my "goal #1" for 2021 (on my sidebar) has mostly been achieved (though I am still working on timeliness of meeting preparations), I am turning my major focus for the rest of the 3rd quarter to Goal #2 and building/rebuilding (new) habits to better support my health. I also want to continue with the home decluttering--now that the surfaces are cleared and the excess coralled, I want to sort through and winnow down what is in those boxes. I have a nearly-empty file cabinet sitting in my living room that I inherited from work when we went paperless and I have a general file system structure that I developed with the help of an organizational consultant a few years ago. Now I just need #1 systems and routines for better dealing with incoming material as it comes in (and systems and routines for maintaining my health) and #2, a chance to deal with the backlog.
"Refining systems and routines" is really my focus for the rest of Q3.
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May 16th, 2021 at 07:27 pm
Finally submitted my tax return. I had a recovery rebate credit based on my 2020 income being less than my 2019 income. I've heard that having this credit might slow refunds down; hopefully my refund will come in a reasonable amount of time. The amount of my refund will cover both my new washing machine and my new air conditioner. Hopefully I will receive the refund before the credit card bill is due.
The new washer and A/C arrived Friday. The new washer is more powerful than the old one, and revealed a plumbing problem that needs to be dealt with before I can actually use the new machine. The plumber comes Tuesday morning. What with COVID, I didn't call the plumber all year last year and a number of non-emergency issues arose--my list of things for the plumber to check totals 5, just one of which is the washing machine issue. I don't know that I can afford to get everything done that needs to be done, but I will deal with the most pressing stuff and possibly defer the things that can get let go, in particular fixing the outdoor spigot connection inside the basement. I don't really use my backyard at all; I just have a gardener mow the grass and I pull out the biggest weeds in the beds. But *next* year I'd like to do a little gardening, so if need be I can put that one repair, at least, on hold until 2022.
53 days until my exam!
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May 10th, 2021 at 09:32 pm
I moved into my house in 2005. The house itself is 106 years old, but the last owner had done a good job of keeping things up to date. Now that I've been there 15 & a half years, "durable goods" are starting to reach the end of their lifespans.
Prior to last year, the only real upgrades I had done were to replace the gutters. There have also been periodic large plumbing jobs along the way (two so far, and I'm worried that I may have another issue this year.)
I've also kept up with the roof. It's a flat roof that needs periodic coating. I have done that more often than suggested. The last time I did it, there was a new product out that had a 10-year warranty, so I chose that option. I'll still have to get someone to get on the roof and check it every year or so, though.
Then last fall I had a roof leak where the back porch joined the main house. This led to replacing the two porch roofs.
Now this year, so far, I have had to replace the hot water heater, a window A/C, and (today) the washing machine. Plus I need four new tires on my car by the summer, and I'm worried that there may be another plumbing issue.
So far the dryer is fine. The range died about two years ago but so far I haven't replaced it. (I do all my cooking in the Instant Pot and Air Fryer, and I boil water in a coffee maker and reheat in the microwave, so I get by.) I'm hoping that the refrigerator will last another couple of years but with my luck it will die this year. I am hoping that I can have it last until I am ready to do a kitchen refresh (new appliances, countertop, floor, backsplash, and resurface but not replace the cabinets), but that won't be for a copule of years, so I'll probably have to replace it before then. Hopefully not this year tho!
Also, knock on wood that the furnace lasts another few years. That's another thing that was replaced by the last owner. I see that furnaces can last 15 to 30 years; I do have my maintained every year, so I hope to eek another decade out of it--it's close to 20 years old right now.
The piper is finally having me pay his due.
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February 21st, 2021 at 07:01 pm
Wow, we're getting towards the end of February already. Tempus fugit!
The year to date has been busy, as the first and fourth quarters typically are at my firm. I've basically been working at home again since Thanksgiving (I was at home mid-March to mid-June 2020, then back in the office from mid-June until Thanksgiving). The COVID rates in my area are finally getting back to what they were back in October, so I am gradually beginning to go back into the office again, depending on who else is there. While I'm technically eligible for a vaccine now because of a health condition, I haven't yet found an available appointment slot. One of our clients pressed redial 137 consecutive times in order to get an appointment! Not being retired, I don't have that kind of time or patience, so I'm hoping availability opens up more by the end of March.
Other than work, I've been working on my CFP review--a self-study review that I am trying to finish in the next two weeks, having started it back in October (and I am pretty much on target for being able to do that), then signing up for the exam itself and a second review program that my firm will pay for (I paid for the first). The exam will be in July and I am targeting July 6th or 7th for taking the exam. I have also found a group of accountability partners off a CFP Board candidates board and we are meeting every Saturday morning to check in with each other, set goals for the coming week and report progress on the past week, and, eventually, go over tough review questions together. So far there are five of us in the group and we are all planning to use the same review provider, which means we will have the same study materials.
Other than that, I've spent a lot of time digging out from snowstorms the past month and I haven't spent very much time outdoors. I've had a couple of emergency expenses--my water heater went in January, and my car battery died Friday night when I stopped at a restaurant to pick up some take-out. Fortunately the restaurant was only 8 blocks from home, so I left my car and walked. Then yesterday, it took a good chunk out of my day to walk back to the restaurant, call road service and wait for them to respond, then drive my car around to let the alternator continue to charge the battery, then take the car for a battery test and replacement. But, the restaurant owner saw me pop the hood on my car and let me wait inside where it was warm, so it was really just a minor hassle on a Saturday when I have the time.
And thank goodness and knock on wood that so far there haven't been any veterinary emergencies yet this year. Both kitties are still holding stable, thank goodness. Buffy turns 16 on March 30th and Bridget will be 16.5 on March 26th, so they are getting up there. I pray I can keep them going for some time longer, since they certainly keep ME going.
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December 31st, 2020 at 11:37 pm
Assets up 14%
Debts down 6%
Net Worth Up 17% -- and just under 100k in one year, which is amazing to me. At age 60, I'm at long last seeing the real benefits of compounding.
What a crazy year in the markets -- and in life!
Right now I have one more chapter of my self-study CFP review studying that I want to complete before 9 pm, which will put me having completed 4 out of 6 of the review booklets, leaving the Investments book for January and the Taxation book for February. Then I'll sign up through my company for a second CFP review program in March, in order to take the exam in July. I want to feel very confident as I go into the exam that I'll pass. Then after the exam is done--I'll think more about what ELSE I want to do in life. But having the CFP studying has been a good way to make productive use of time during COVID.
I'll probably come back tomorrow to blog about other goals. Meanwhile--Happy New Year (and GOOD RIDDANCE, 2020!)
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December 18th, 2020 at 05:51 pm
I'm taking the day off today (and the whole last week of the year off, too), so I decided to do some catch-up on my records.
My retirement savings hit a new hundred-thousand mark, only 7 months after hitting the last hundred-thousand dollar benchmark. At this rate, I'll have a million by the time I am 65.5, but I'm not counting on that. I'm expecting we'll have another recession to dig out of that will slow things down, but I'm optimistic in the long term for Wall Street if not Main Street. There are literally trillions of cash dollars that have been sitting on the side since the pandemic and with low interest rates, they are coming back more into the stock market as bond rates are not as attractive. Main Street will take longer to recover, but the new administration gives me hope that they will help this part of the recovery. This is one of Janet Yellin's focus areas so I'm glad she will be in charge of Treasury. Less income inequality helps all!
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Today was supposed to be our holiday party at work, but with the COVID surge, we've canceled the regular holiday lunch. Usually we have two holiday celebrations: one in early December, when the company President is in town (he visits our office about 10x/year for about 3 days each time); that is always a dinner event at a relatively posh restaurant. Then we have the in-house lunch for the local staff. For the first 3 years I was with the company, that was accomplished by catering from a local grocery store (which I always found disappointing as a meal, but the point was the celebration, not the food); then last year, we started catering from local restaurants. We had this year's catering scheduled too, until the recent surge. This is the day when we do our two gift-exchanges: we all draw one person's name from a hat and buy a gift of no more than $25 for that person, plus we do a "white elephant" exchange of gag gifts costing no more than $5. I'll send my giftee her present as an Amazon gift card via email today, and if anything's been left for me, it will be on my desk the next time I go in. So this part of the celebration is emotionally unsatisfying but physically safe, which I'd druther.
I seem to have missed out on Chanukkah altogether--really no point in lighting a menorah all by oneself--and all the less so when your dining room table has been transmogrified into your desk. My congregation had a Zoom get-together for the final night last night, but I forgot and missed it. As far as Christmas, since I'm Jewish, it's never a big day anyways. My congregation will have a dinner get-together and Shabbat service on Friday evening. As a single person, the holidays have always been more of a pain to get through than a celebration anyways, although I really do enjoy looking at my city during the holidays--we ARE the Christmas City, and downtown is always a very cheery place during the holiday.
I have been catching up with some friends over the holiday season via phone, and that is very nice. Other than that, I've picked up my knitting again for the first time in a decade, and *my* big ritual this time of year is always doing an annual review and some goal planning for the new year. That--and some decluttering, and some CFP review--are what I will work on during my week off at year end.
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November 21st, 2020 at 08:54 pm
Last time I stopped by, it was the beginning of my buisiest time of year. Almost through! Once I get to December 4, things calm down a lot and I will actually have an unbelievable TEN DAYS OFF, from Christmas through the January 2, since the holidays are on Fridays this year.
I literally cannot remember the last time I had ten days off--other than being unemployed, which is not at all the same thing.
I have so many goal-related things I want to do, but I also need to schedule something FUN, inasmuch as that is possible in this pandemic day and age. I really have forgotten what fun is and I'm afraid I will fritter the time away on things that occupy my time and attention without providing greater dividends.
At least I'll have the four-day weekend over Thanksgiving to ponder this!
Other updates: since I last checked in, I've had most of the home stuff done--the two porch roofs replaced, the arbor vitae trimmed, the furnace cleaned and checked for the winter, both cats to the vet. The furnace check indicated that the expansion tank needs to be replaced, a job which will require draining all the water from the upper stories and which will cost an additional $700 or so. Buffy is still holding her own but the imaging showed some progress of her disease so her meds have been increased and she'll be going back to the vet again on December 1.
I have been working in our office since mid-June, since we have a large workspace and few people--I sit in a room that is about 30 x 40 feet and usually there are two other people at other corners of the room. But to be extra-cautious, the two weeks after Thanksgiving I will stay at home.
In preparation for more work at home time, I've upgraded all my technology--replacing my Chromebook (went from 2GB Ram to 8), router, iPod (which I use instead of a phone for our log-in apps) and upgrading my connection speed.
For Thanksgiving, the past several years, I have gone to a friend's house. This year, Elizabeth is still cooking, but we have all ordered what we want via email and will pick it up from her house the day before, then we'll come together for an hour or so on Zoom. Plus I'll need to spend some time connecting on video with my sister, who lives across the country. Hopefully the weather will be nice enough to go out and take some walks.
Other than that, my free time is still spent studying for the CFP exam (at a low level, just trying to keep the material fresh until I really start studying in March in preparation for a July exam), reading Amish romances (and mysteries, at the moment), taking the occasional walk, and cleaning or cooking.
The pandemic finally broke me of my eating out habit; I don't even do take-out very often. With all the home/tech purchases/vet costs debt is temporarily up 4k but net worth is still up about 31k from the end of Q3 due to the strong performance on the markets. My goal is to be debt free in five more years and as long as I am able to keep working, it is do-able.
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August 29th, 2020 at 09:07 pm
My house was built in 1915 and has very solid masonry construction.
A half-bath was added on to the back of the house at some point, probably 50 years ago.
A couple of weeks when Tropical Storm Isaias came through, most of my neighbors had water in their basements, but I was lucky; my basement stayed dry.
What I did have was water coming through the door frame in between the main house and the add-on. I put a pail underneath and checked the next day; once the pail went down, the floor on both sides of the door seemed dry, so I closed the door and didn't think anything of it.
I don't really use that room except as a storage closet for household supplies, so I didn't go in the room again until last Saturday when I needed a battery.
My nose noticed a smell first, and I looked up and saw mold on the ceiling.
My neighbor came by on Monday and painted over the ceiling with mold killer.
My other neighbor is in the process of selling his house and had a friend over who is a roofer who was doing some patching for him and did some patchwork on my roof too but he also told me that I should replace that roof.
So I am now in the process of gathering estimates. The first estimate was done this morning; $800 for the back porch roof only; and $1800 if I get the front porch roof done at the same time (a $200 discount from having the two projects done at different times). (The roofer who seal-coated my main roof last summer said that the front porch roof should be replaced in 3-5 years.) I'm getting two more estimates this week.
The last thing to figure out is addressing whether there is any mold growing in the space under the roof and over the ceiling. I'm just not sure about that. There is a drywall person who lives at the corner who the neighbor who applied the mold killer was going to talk to.
I always feel so completely helpless when there are home repairs but so far this one is reasonably in control, Still a bit nervous about the mold though. Not sure if it could get through from the attached structure into the main structure. And I just never know who to ask.
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August 16th, 2020 at 08:45 pm
I bought my house 15 years ago this October. Before that, I had had no long-term debt for well over a decade, only credit cards that were paid off monthly. The initial mortgage was $92,800, and, until this year, I had never gotten my debt total below $90k for more than a couple of months. A career change involving periods of unemployment, and the illnesses/deaths of several pets as well as my mother, meant that the debt would creep up and came to include some non-mortgage debt--a couple of low-interest loans (about 4%) and credit cards, typically with 0% balance transfer offers. This year I decided to get serious about paying down the debt.
I was able to get my debt below 80k for a brief period in February, when I got my 2019 bonus--but then the pandemic hit and I did some purchasing of some food and household stores, and it crept back over. I've been working it back down again, and it finally looks like it's below 80k for good, barring any major pet health, car, or home repair emergencies (knock on wood and prayers!). I'm aiming to get it to 70k by year's end and I think I'll be able to do it. I'm aiming to lop off 10k a year, more if possible (which basically means when I get a bonus at work). The mortgage is down to 47.5k now, close to half its starting balance (should be more than 50% paid off by October 1).
The mortgage payoff is steady, $400 a month (I round up the payment each month to make it that even number). In any case it will be paid off by the end of 2027 (22 years after purchase) and if I get a couple of bonuses between now and then, I should be able to make my goal of paying it off by the end of 2025. But first the non-mortgage debt! I am finally making progress there. Again, we'll see what the year has in store, as the best-laid plans go oft awry. In any case, it is satisfying that never this year has my total debt balance gone over 90k and now it looks to be firmly below 80k. After nearly 15 years of having debt over 90k, this feels like progress.
Net Worth is progressing too; up 6.75% despite the pandemic since the retirement accounts are now net positive for the year.
The house next door to me (other half of my twin) is in the process of being sold and the price was good, which only helps my home value. Another single woman is the purchaser, and I hope that we get along well. I'll be curious to meet her, probably next month. The closing date hasn't been set yet but I know they are aiming for the end of August.
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February 28th, 2020 at 01:31 am
Our company changed its system of granting bonuses and raises for 2019. Previously we were notified about raises for the next year and received any bonus at the last paycheck of the year.
Going forward and starting with 2019, they're moving the notification to the end of February. So I'll have a decent bonus in my 2/29/2020 paycheck and a raise starting with the 3/15 pay.
Also going forward, bonuses are being granted to everyone based on the company meeting its profit margin goal--either we meet it and everybody gets a full bonus, or there's no bonus. Up until now the bonus has been on a percentage of goal reached basis, so if we reached 80% of our profit margin goal, then we got 80% of the target bonus. So that will makes bonuses harder to come by.
On the other hand, to incentivize us, they gave us a 20% raise across the board (with a note not to expect this every year!). That brings my salary to its highest yet. I figure that I can increase my 401k contribution from 17% of salary where it has been this year (and with the 3% employer match, that's 20%) to a 22% elective deferral (25% with the employer match). As I turn 60 in six months, it's nice to be able to do that increase as I enter the "home stretch" towards retirement (not anytime soon!).
Oh, one more note; I turned 59.5 this week, so if I do have to make any draws from retirement accounts (NOT that I will), they would be coded as "normal distributions" with no 10% early withdrawal penalty. Not that I'm doing that, but nice to know that I can.
The bonus is going to let me pay down debt and get under my original 2019 year-end goal of total debt being at 80k (actually about 78k) just two months late, and despite the large unexpected vet bills I had last year.
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February 16th, 2020 at 02:08 am
After my regular mortgage payment (which I always round up so that I pay $400/month and keep my balance to a round number), the balance was $50,100, so when I got my paycheck yesterday, I allocated an extra hundred to the mortgage so that it's now at an even 50k, and should be at 46k by year's end. Total debt is now about 83.5k. They moved our annual bonus and pay raise to start with the last pay in February, so if we do get a bonus, I'll pay the debt down to 80k. 80k was originally my goal for 2019 but a very sick kitty who has cost me over 10k since she was hospitalized last June put my goal achievement a bit behind. In any case, my debt is now lower than it has been in quite some time. And with the stock market run-up, assets are as high as they have ever been as well. Net worth should hit another "round number" goal in March unless there's a set-back.
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October 27th, 2019 at 09:08 pm
I live in a house with a flat roof. The realtor suggested when I moved in that I should have the roof silver-coated every few years to protect it plus make it more energy-efficient. I have been faithful about having it done every 3-4 years. The warranty on the roof itself expired about 5 years ago now, but I have read that you can pretty much double the time on the warranty by taking good care of the roof, so I have.
The last time I had the roof coated was in 2015. Costs at that time were up from the amount I paid the first time I had it done, but only by a little bit more than inflation.
This time, the estimate was quite different. Every time I've had it done in the past, I was provided with one option: a fiber + aluminum coating. This time I was given three options, with different warranties depending on the product used.
The baseline fiber + aluminum coating was way more expensive than in 2015, more than doubling in price. The other two options were more expensive in total, but when adjusted on a "cost-per-year" basis, the 10-year option was cheapest. This is a new product called "Acrylabs," which is an energy-star rated "fluid-applied membrane."
It's more expensive than I had planned on, but doing this now is significantly cheaper than replacing the roof. (The last time I had the roof coated, I also had an estimate done for a roof replacement.) I am planning on moving out of this house in about 7 or 8 years, so the next owner can tackle the replacement. I'll also have to replace the side-porch roof, which is sloped and shingled, but the roofer said that he thought that roof had about 3 more years on it.
This is temporarily adding to my debt, but even after the job is done and fully paid for, I'll still have less debt than I did at year-end 2018.
This will be the biggest home maintenance project that I've done in the 14 years I've been in the house. The other big jobs were a couple of plumbing projects, replacing four windows, the gutters, and the water heater. Before I leave this house, I expect also to replace the range, refrigerator, washer and dryer, and front and rear doors, and have the stained yellow countertop in the kitchen replaced at the very least, plus I'll have the house painted and the floors done when I put it on the market, but I'll leave any major cosmetic or functional upgrades to the next owner. The furnace may also have to be replaced--but, as with the roof, I have it maintained annually in hopes that it will outlast its warranty. I like my house, but I really hate the stress of being a homeowner since I feel completely unprepared for it, and I'm not at all motivated to spend my mental energy learning what I really should know.
As a note, everyone's entries from mid-April until October were hacked. I had about half a dozen entries, but I can't recall what they were about, other than one in May documenting a day trip to meet up with "Fern" a/k/a "PatientSaver," and several in June documenting big expenses for my cat Buffy, who was hospitalized for a week and then fed at home via a feeding tube for two weeks, and who still sees the vet about once a month for testing as we try to find a medication regime that keeps her steady.
I finally got Buffy's sister Bridget to the vet on Friday. The last time I took Bridget to the vet's office, it took 3 vet techs to manage her, but with an herbal calming tablet, Feliway, and a vet tech who was fore-warned on what to expect, the visit went off surprisingly well. Bridget's kidney values and her white blood cell count are a bit off. I still have to talk to the vet about this, but hopefully I can keep both kitties going for another year or two. Bridget just turned 15 and Buffy is 14 1/2, so I suspect I'll lose them in the not-too-distant future, but I also pray I can keep them going for a while yet.
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April 11th, 2019 at 10:24 pm
I have been pushing very hard non-stop for the past few weeks (other than taking last weekend off and spending much of it in bed because I felt like I was coming down with a cold; fortunately the extra rest has seemed to forestall that illness, knock on wood!). So today and tomorrow, with both of the major lead advisors that I report to out of town, I decided to take some personal time off.
I was working until 10 pm last night finishing a tax estimate that one advisor had promised to a client, and with that behind me, I was able to take off with a free conscience.
First on the docket was an annual doctor's exam. I hadn't known when I scheduled it a year ago that I would be taking the day off, but that worked out nicely.
Then I went out to breakfast and then over to the local mall to do a little bit of clothes shopping because I have been feeling the need for a bit of a wardrobe update. Picked up 3 pieces priced at over $300 for about $195 that will be good office wear.
Then I went to one of our local banks. I had received a postcard from them promising a bonus $50 for establishing a new checking account with at least $1,000 that stays in the account for at least a week. This particular local bank has an excellent reputation for service and a commitment to stay local, so I've been meaning to establish a relationship with them for a while. Checking is free for life with no monthly maintenance fees and their rates are competitive. At the moment, all of my other banking relationships are with Wells Fargo, whose reputation I have been dissatisfied with (although personally, things have been fine). What I would like to do once my schedule calms down is to transfer my main relationships over to this bank--set up direct deposit for the paycheck, establish a savings account as well, and then move the mortgage and HELOC (balance $0) and safety deposit box over as well. They have a long-running special that does a refinance with closing costs of $525. They promise not to sell your mortgage. My current mortgage is a 20-year (in year 9) at 4% and I could refinance to a 10-year (cuts one year off) at 3.625%. I will probably do that in another month or so. The only pain will be that they don't handle the escrowing of the tax and homeowner's insurance bills, which I'll have to handle myself anyways after to mortgage is paid off. (I'm still feeling good that it will be paid off by December 2025 at the 20-year mark.) I'll probably keep at least one small checking and savings account open at Wells Fargo as well, just because Wells Fargo has a branch just down the block from where I work and they also have lots of branches in Los Angeles, where I am from and where I still visit occasionally.
Those few things were the main accomplishments of the day. I also handled a couple of emails at work and listened to an online professional educational webinar for an hour.
Tomorrow I need to make a dentist appointment because I broke a small piece off a tooth last night--it's not painful but the sharp edges are annoying. Then I need to finish my own taxes--I drafted them back in February in order to figure out my IRA contribution, but now I need to dot all the i's and cross all the t's and submit.
Then I'll work on getting a bit more organized at home--there are too many piles of paper on the dining room table, on the desk, on the coffee table, and on the dog crate, and I need to toss some and file the rest. Being able to see the tabletops will make me feel more relaxed here at home and I'll buy some flowers to put in a vase on the dining room table when it is clear again (which it has not been since Thanksgiving).
I'll also be working on my next CFP class over the weekend and I'd like to take a drive out to a coffee shop I like that sits on the banks of the Delaware. I visited there at least monthly over the summer but haven't been back since September. This is just a weekend to catch my breath and recapture some sense of spaciousness or margin in my life than a weekend where I will really "do" anything. Just getting a chance to spend some more time reading will be a pleasure.
I'm supposed to be attending an orchestra rehearsal in an hour. I should go since I have slacked off during tax season but part of me wants no more commitments today. Whether or not I go, I'll end the day by watching one or two episodes of "Boston Legal." I was delighted to find that it is once again free to wach on Amazon Prime, after having been available only with a charge previously. This was one of my favorite series so I am enjoying re-watching it. I like James Spader and it is nice to see him in his prime. He seems to have aged a lot lately. He's about my age so seeing recent pictures of him makes me feel my own age more acutely. I'd like to think I am aging better than he is! But then, so much of our first impression of faces is about the hair and he has gone semi-bald recently. This is one reason I find it worthwhile to pay to have my hair colored! I grew up believing in substance over form and that image didn't matter so much, but while I still believe strongly in substance, the real world and my education taught me that appearances matter a lot, too!
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January 20th, 2019 at 02:38 pm
Thanks to Patient Saver for pointing this out to me via email
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January 3rd, 2019 at 11:46 pm
12/31/2018 Net Worth: $515,242. Down about 20k from last year due to market losses.
Debt on 12/31/2018: $91,282. Of this, $55,975 was mortgage debt.
As of the new year, of course there's been another mortgage payment, getting the balance to $55,600 (I always throw a little extra at it to get the balance to an even number). I'm going to throw another $600 at it from savings this week to get to $55k. I'm still confident that I can pay this off by the beginning of 2026, when I'll be 65, paying it off in just about 20 years.
I also took some savings to pay down my HELOC balance, and I'll make some more payments over the next couple of days to get the debt to 85k (55k mortgage and 30 non-mortgage), which will be the lowest debt total since I bought my house in 2005. I hate having the non-mortgage debt, but with the HELOC paid off, the highest interest rate on any of it is a bit over 4%, so the interest is not horrendous, and the large majority of it is on 0% credit card balance transfers. Much of this stems from the 7 months I was unemployed during 2014. That's when I racked up the additional debt (as well as accruing some in 2010-2012 when I was changing careers and working very low-wage jobs while my mother was dying on the opposite coast, so I had lots of cross-country travel.)
I'll update my goals for 2019 this weekend.
Brief recap on goal progress for 2018:
1. I completed two more of the CFP courses; 3 more still to go. 2019 will be the year, I pray!
2. Health: ate pretty well except too much eating out at restaurants; did not exercise consistently, meditated consistently for the first 2/3s of the year, then fell off the bandwagon.
3. Home: had one session with an organizer and organized part of my kitchen; other than that, no progress.
4. Debt progress--once I get it to 85k, I'll be just shy of my 10k goal.
5. Social life: maintained plus joined a community orchestra so expanded as well.
6. Vacations: Two overnight trips away from home, and I only have two PTO days from last year to use up this month (before they are lost, although I may lose them to medical issues rather than vacation--thyroid saga is outstanding and I have a surgical consult tomorrow, though I am wavering--will write about this separately and later).
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December 31st, 2018 at 12:38 am
Wins: 1. Decrease in debt (I’ll calculate the total on Jan 1), but good progress. 2. Good retirement savings contributions (13% withholding + 3% company annual contribution plus a nice annual profit-sharing-plan contribution from the company totaling close to 15k. Also, contributing nearly 8% to HSA & LPFSA for additional tax-deferral. 3. Made some progress on reducing a few recurring expenses—changed trash hauling services, changed individual disability policy, cut a few recurring unused services and contributions. Will do a bit more of this tomorrow and Wed on my time off. 4. Did some reallocating of my portfolio to be a little more conservative over the summer, moving from a 40%/60% allocation closer to 45/55. 5. Maxed out my HSA contribution for 2019 and also added $300 to a limited purpose FSA to cover purchase of new glasses. 6. A big engine repair in my car came in under warranty, saving me a lot of money compared to if the problem had shown itself after the warranty expired and upgrading the “short block” to a newer one, hopefully adding to the car’s longevity.
Falls: 1. The market fell in Q4, wiping out all gains for the year; I’ll recalculate at year end but looks like net worth will be down by about 5%. 2. I still haven’t gotten my tracking of spending on track; I do retrospective analyses and only the roughest of budgeting, and I still spend too much money eating out. 3. Kitty vet expenses were exceptionally pricey this year. Both girls are now teenagers so I hope this is not the "new normal." Both girls were sick last month, which involved a lot of testing (on the other hand, I now have confirmation that everything looks good), plus one cat had 8 teeth extracted.
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December 27th, 2018 at 12:26 am
Today (my last day of work for the year) was the annual compensation adjustment announcement--a 3% raise and a 10% bonus. This bonus is the firm-wide one based on the firm's, not individual performance. Last year we got 20%, but there had been rumors that we wouldn't get anything this year, so 10% is good. It will help towards the debt payoff goal. The bonus comes on 12/31, and then on 1/1, I'll take my RMDs from my inherited IRAs (already set aside in cash back over the summer, so fortunately I don't have to sell in a down market to get the cash). I'll use the bonus and RMDs to pay down some debt and am pretty sure I'll have the debt total (including the mortgage) under 80k by the beginning of January. (This would be a 14K decrease from last year, and my goal for the year had been to decrease it by 10.5K, so 33.3% over goal.) My assets have currently taken an 8% downturn from the beginning of the year with the current stock slump, but my debts should be down 15% as of 1/1, so my net worth will be down but only by about 6%.
I'll do a final tally on 1/1.
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December 19th, 2018 at 08:52 pm
I had my last client meeting of the year this morning, and my next is not until January 8th. I'm taking Thursday & Friday off this week, then Monday (Christmas Eve) is a half day, and I'm taking off a full week from 12/27 thru 1/2, so Monday the 24th and Wed. the 26th will be my last working days of the year.
It will be nice to have a chance to rest and regroup, do some research on my health issue, and possibly get a little reorganization done at home. Then it will also be nice to have a week at work to catch up on all the follow-up tasks that sometimes just end up getting punted to the following meeting. I really love my job but also sometimes I feel a little drained from the pace of it, especially since that is out of my control.
Tomorrow I have organized a get-together of a few friends to go see the local Chriskindlemarket (like the German ones) and to have dinner at a Maylasian restaurant nearby; then I've organized another dinner on Friday the 28th at a Ghanaian restaurant that just opened across the street from work. And last week my boss took us to the local city hotel with its fancy Christmas decorations to a nice dinner sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. And then there's a CoC breakfast on Friday, and an in-house holiday lunch on Friday, so I'm getting plenty of celebrating in and will look forward to some time to myself!
Last weekend, I went to see "The Green Book." I highly recommend that movie if it is showing in your area.
I have just one more holiday gift to buy and then I am done with shopping--not that I do much--just my sister, two gifts for the office (one a gag gift for a white elephant exchange and another $25 gift that we draw names for) plus a gift for the neighbor who insists on giving me $100 cash for Hanukkah every year.
I'm sure I'll be back to post another blog before the new year as I review my goal performance this year and set next year's goals.
But for now, happy holidays!
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July 2nd, 2018 at 07:05 pm
My city does not provide trash hauling service, although they do recycle--something that's different from every other place I've ever lived. Every other place it was either a city that provided both trash and recycling, or rural, where you paid for an annual tag at the local "transfer station" and hauled your trash and recycling there yourself. I've been thinking about changing my trash hauling service for over a year, ever since they added a $5/quarter "administrative fee" for the cost of billing us (and the bills aren't even mailed; they're sent online). But it was a low-level, out-of-sight irritation so I didn't act until now, spurred by a $45 charge for an unpaid bill that led them to temporarily cancel my service.
I've seen some discussions during the past six months on the "Next Door" app when new city residents would ask advice about who to use for hauling. Although there were a few services recommended, one in particular seemed to get more kudos than anyone else.
That service also offers a month of free service if you pay your bill annually rather than quarterly, so I just signed up for a year of trash hauling for $253 ($23/month), and canceled the other service that was charging me at last invoice over $144 a quarter--$33 a month PLUS that administrative fee PLUS a fuel and environment fee PLUS a regulatory cost recovery fee. That's 44% of the cost, and now I don't have to think about that bill again until NEXT July. And in addition, the new service is locally owned and operated while the service I canceled is a national company that operates in the lower 48 states, so I feel good about supporting local business as well. Woo-hoo!
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June 29th, 2018 at 11:50 pm
June was one of my most social months of the year, with a visit to Patient Saver and my annual visit from a friend who is now a snowbird. It was lovely to socialize, and I also look forward to some time to myself during July and August to catch up on other projects.
I also took my annual summer arts & culture class offered as a fundraiser for the local charter arts high school. This summer’s series was on outsider art and was a lot of fun, concluding with a tour of the local “secret art park” designed by our course instructor along with artist Mr. Imagination and a reception and showing of a private collection at the instructor’s home. There still may be a field trip to NYC later this summer.
I went finally to hear a concert by a community orchestra which three friends of mine participate in. I am planning on joining them next Thursday for the rest of the summer at least. I also went to the theatre twice and will go one or possibly two more times during July.
One surprise event during the month was that my car failed an oil consumption test and Subaru replaced the “short block,” a major component of the engine, for free since the car is (just barely!) still under warranty. The part itself costs nearly 6K not to speak of labor, so thank god for the warranty or I’d be car hunting right now. As it is, I will look into renewing the warranty this month. I really enjoyed driving the Forester they gave me as a loaner (my previous car was a Forester and when I bought the current car, I bought an Impreza). If I had any sort of real commute, I would seriously consider trading in my car, but I have lived a mile from where I work for 3 years so upgrading the car is kind of ridiculous. That drive from PA to CT to visit PS is the furthest I’ve driven in a few years. In any case, they said to treat the car as if it had a new engine in terms of the oil change, because in essence, it does--and a new engine for free on a 6-year old car is certainly a good thing!
Right now in terms of work goals, I am working on catch up. I still have a lot to do and hopefully will make more progress in July than I did in June. I also need to work more on studying for the CFP, although I am proud to note that I *finally* understand the basics of A-B trust planning, something which I’ve struggled over for years.
I’m doing very well this year in terms of debt reduction—down about 8.2K for the year and my mortgage will be at 58K even after the July payment hits, something which I should easily pay off in 7-8 years as long as I keep my current job. 7.5 years would make the total payoff an even 20 years.
I actually finally! even made some progress on the “peaceful home environment” goal. I have an acquaintance/friend who is a personal organizer, and I have referred clients to her who have benefitted from her services. Last month as thanks for the business, she gave me a gift certificate for a free 3-hour consultation, which I had today. My work doesn’t allow me to accept the gift, so I paid her her normal fee at the end of our time together, but we organized all my food storage and developed a plan for much of the rest of the organizing work, to be done in bits and pieces this year and next.
The last big issue that will continue on during the month has to do with my thyroid. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis 4 years ago by a chiropractor. Most MD endocrinologists, unfortunately, don’t believe in “treating” the thyroid: their presumption is that diet and lifestyle have no effect and they will just monitor your thyroid levels until they fall and then put you on Synthroid (and I have heard this from at least six MDs). But I figured I should at some point get an assessment from an MD and I did see an endocrinologist this month, who sent me for an ultrasound which reveals that in addition to the Hashimoto's, I have a large nodule on the right half of my thyroid (5.7 cm). I asked about the “watch or wait” approach and my doctor said that, if the nodule were under 2 cm he would be ok with that, but since mine is nearly 3x that size, he very strongly encouraged a biopsy, which I will go in for on the 16th. There’s an 85-90% chance that it will be non-cancerous and we’ll just watch and wait and track it, but there’s also a 10-15% that it could be cancerous and I’d need to have the gland removed, which I am praying doesn’t happen. My followup appointment to get the biopsy results is on July 30th, so if you have some spare prayers between now and then, I’d appreciate them!
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June 3rd, 2018 at 08:54 pm
Looking back at my goals for 2018 (in the side bar):
1. I'm falling behind on the CFP coursework--started out strong but the heavy workload at my job from the beginning of the year until now overwhelmed me. Still a work in progress and hoping to catch back up with the CFP over the summer.
2. With the heavy workload came a lack of focus on health. As things have now calmed down, I am turning my attention here as my weight has crept up to the highest in over a decade--ugh. I'm back to intermittent fasting, which worked for me well in 2016 and have lost about 5 pounds in the first 10 days. Water weight, I know, but always nice to get a good start. I am also experimenting with something else that I will blog about eventually if it is successful.
3. The home environment, as ever, ends up on the back burner. I'll really work on it after I'm done with the CFP. But for now, I had the yard cleared out and I'm getting a few big items out of the basement, and my annual visitor comes on the 23rd so the house will get back to its status quo by then, but I'm not sure if I'll make progress on the big decluttering I need to do.
4. Debt reduction is going well so far, although I always make the most progress at the beginning of the year. The mini-milestone is that I'm now back under 88K which was about the level my debt was when I left my teaching career and started the difficult decade of changing careers along with loss of my mom and three pets. So in a way it feels like beginning again, and hopefully it's just downward from here on out. I am making good progress on the mortgage, paying extra each month to get the total down to an even multiple of 100, which amounts to about 1.5 full extra mortgage payments over the course of the year, and I'm feeling relatively certain that I'll pay it off by 2026 and hopeful that I'll meet my goal of paying it off in 2025 (a total of 20 years).
5. I've maintained although not expanded my social life. June is a relatively social month. I'm going to visit Patient Saver next weekend and I have my annual Shakespeare Fest visitor coming on the 23rd.
6. I took a full week off ending with Memorial Day. Just sat by the river and read!
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May 19th, 2018 at 02:50 pm
It's been crazy at work the past two months, but after Monday, I'll be over the hump and life should calm down considerably until September (when it will pick up and be busy until the following May).
After working in the tax world for a few years, I got used to a little bit of a break after April 15 (or 17, as was the case this year), but since I'm now working at a wealth management firm, there isn't the usual decrease in work after tax day. In fact, it's been busier than ever since then. A confluence of things have led to an exceptionally busy time (about 3x my normal workload this week, which was the worst of it), but I am pleased that my supervisors noticed and have taken some measures that should help in the future. No promises, because there are always unusual situations and unexpected confluences of events, but at least some steps for better communication.
I'll be working most of this weekend to meet a Monday deadline, but then I am taking most of next week off!!! Tuesday afternoon thru Memorial Day gives me 6.5 consecutive days!!! I'll be spending them at home, trying to make some progress on decluttering.
In other news: I replaced my two window ACs this week--the ones I'd been using were about 15+ years old. The new ones are Energy Star, so hopefully my summer electricity bill will go down. I bought them from a local store 5 blocks away that has an excellent reputation. They took away the old ACs, and, for an additional $50, also took the two left in the basement by the previous home owner. For a reasonable service fee, they'll also come and take them out and put them back in again each fall and spring. My neighbor has been doing that the entire time I've lived here. He was 62 when I moved in, so 74 now, and I don't want him injuring himself doing favors for me.
I also got started experimenting with the ThriveLife foods that Lucky Robin has posted about on her blog. I ended up doing 3 orders in a month, for over $400, but the food will last (one year after opening, 25 years in the #10 cans unopened), and it does save some time grocery shopping and considerably on food wastage--which happens a lot as a single person. No more hairy carrots, limp celery, or sprouted tear-inducing onions. Right now on this rainy morning I am cooking up a pot of cream of chicken and mushroom soup using mostly freeze dried ingredients. Hopefully eventually this will cut down on my eating out, which gets out of hand when I am superbusy as I have been.
Kitty Buffy had her thousand dollar dental work and recovered nicely; kitty Bridget still pulls the hair on her sides and belly out, but her bloodwork is good and she seems happy enough, so I'm not going to stress myself out too much over the behavior, which apparently is neurotic.
Finally, it is looking like I'll take a short trip in June to visit Patient Saver, whom I've met F2F twice before. I'm looking forward to the trip!
I'm working most of today, but will go see the new film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg this evening.
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March 19th, 2018 at 12:10 am
I have the vet coming to pay a house call tomorrow morning. It's $90 for the vet + a vet tech, plus the usual exam and lab fees. But the kitty for whom I scheduled the appointment completely freaks out at the vet. I've only taken her once since I adopted her, and that time, it took 3 vet techs + the vet and me and a sedative to get her examined. It stressed her out so much I decided just to let her be until something was clearly wrong.
That time has come. She's been dropping weight and a couple of weeks ago I noticed that her fur was looking patchy too. Plus her digestion--which has never been as good as her sister kitty's--has been worse. The *best* outcome would be a diagnosis that she is hyperthyroid, but chances are it is something worse than that. She is 13.5, her "sister" (from the same home but not biologically related) turns 13 on the 30th...and the only other two cats I had lived to be 13 and 14, which makes me anxious. The first two kitties were fed on dry food and both developed kidney disease--one had to be put down immediately after diagnosis and the other I kept going with sub-q fluids for 2.5 years. I learned a lot about feline chronic renal disease over that time and these two kitties have been fed mostly with canned food to try to prevent it.
Anyways, I am quite nervous about what news tomorrow morning will bring.
The other cat gets taken to the vet regularly, and I'll be able to have the vet examine her as well as long as he is out here. I know she needs dental work, which will cost about a thousand. She's been eating well and there is no sign that the bad tooth bothers her, so I've let it go for six months since I was told she needed the work done, but spring is time.
So I transferred about $1,500 from my sinking fund account at Schwab to the bank so that costs will be covered.
Prayers for Miss Bridget are appreciated! I hope hyperthyroid is all that it is. If it is anything that needs regular intervention by me, she is too scared of a cat to adapt easily. When Teddy needed subcutaneous fluids for all that time, he fought the first few weeks, but then realized that he felt better after the fluids and stopped fighting. When Buffy was diagnosed diabetic, she hated getting the ear prick tests but there was a while there where it became easier to do. (Now that her diabetes is well controlled with diet and she needs the test only occasionally, it is much harder to do.) But Bridget was the cat who hid in a box for two months when I first adopted her, whom I've never even dared to pick up until the past month (and only extremely briefly), who spends an entire day hissing at me and at Buffy whenever I take Buffy to the vet, so I don't feel as tho anything that requires daily administrations from me is going to go over well with her.
On another front, I got an email from Credit Sesame today that I found informative, on suggested credit usage. The one thing that always dings my credit score a bit is having high balances relative to the limit. Mostly that's due to the one 0% balance transfer cardI maintain. But this time I got a link to actual balance limits and percent utilized, and discovered that the maximum you should use of any card is 10% of the your limit. After finding that out, I went and requested a credit limit increase on my Discover card, and I was granted an immediate $6,300 increase. The 0% balance transfer card is still going to knock things off, but I'm going to have to do another transfer by May, and I'll check out the limits before I do so this time. I didn't know before that 10% of your limit is the most you should use before they start counting your usage against you.
(On the other hand, they *also* ding me for not having enough TYPES of credit open--just a mortgage and the credit cards, no auto loan, student loan, or personal loan, so *that* brings my score down a bit too.
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March 3rd, 2018 at 01:46 am
When I took out my mortgage at the end of 2005, I started by owing $92,800 (at 5.875%). I refinanced in 2012 for a lower rate and changed the term from a 30 year to a 20 year. And whenever possible, I've paid some extra principal in, usually down to the next "round" number.
At the beginning of the year, I started by owing $60,700. Now that the March payment is made, I'm down to $59,900--I threw an extra $65 in this month to get down to a multiple of $100. Feels good having broken the $60K barrier. I'm 57.5, so it feels doable to have the mortgage paid off by the time I am 65.
I am not planning to retire at that age at this point, but having the freedom to be able to afford to would be nice. Once the mortgage and other debt are gone, I'll be accelerating my savings into a brokerage account, building a bucket of "safe" money I can live off of during any market downturns in my early retirement years.
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February 28th, 2018 at 09:26 pm
I've spent the past three evenings at the movies. On Sunday, I saw "I, Tonya." On Monday, I saw "Citizen Jane," about Jane Jacobs and her activism with housing projects. That one was followed by a panel with a couple of local college professors and the head of the local council on economic development.
Then last night, I saw another documentary: Fix It: Healthcare at the Tipping Point. It provides an argument for "Medicare for All." You can actually watch this one online (https://fixithealthcare.com/). But what was extra special was that the producer and director of the film were both there and spoke after. It was also kind of neat that, even though the film speaks to national and international issues, it was made locally and you can see some nice footage of our city, the downtown (where I work), and the former mayor, who is interviewed and who works in the building next door and is still quite active locally.
The big roadblock to single payer isn't so much it being a conservative vs liberal ideological issue, but the lobbying money that the insurance industry and big pharma throw at the issue.
The producer and director also made two other films, one on Big Pharma, which they'll be showing locally next month (and which you can see online at https://fixithealthcare.com/big-pharma-movie/) and a third documentary, which they'll be releasing in about a month--no local screening or online access yet, but I expect there to be.
I feel so fortunate to currently have employer insurance, but I paid my own, first under COBRA and then outright (individually and then on healthcare.gov) from 2009 thru 2014. I don't really look forward to getting older but I can see the benefit of getting to Medicare age with my friends and clients.
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February 13th, 2018 at 03:34 pm
A client of mine who works outside the home only one day a week told me about a credit card feature that I have never heard about before: Price rewind. She has it on a Mastercard through Citibank, where she gets a 1% reward on purchase, another 1% on payment, and, if she can find an item she purchased for a lower price and uploads a picture of the lower priced item to the site, they refund her the difference between what she paid and what she COULD have paid elsewhere. It has been quite lucrative for her, although it does take time. I don't have the time to do anything like this, but I thought I would mention it for any of you who do have the time and haven't heard of this feature. If you google, you will find articles about this idea by NerdWallet and other frugal living bloggers.
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January 20th, 2018 at 11:15 pm
I had this brainstorm, which I am going to implement for myself and wanted to suggest this to others as well: If you are not already maxing out your pre-tax retirement contributions, ask your HR/employer to increase your 401k/403b contribution by an additional percentage point when they change over to the new withholding tables, which should be sometime in February. Without taking any action, the change in withholding should make your take-home pay go up by a bit--a small amount, maybe easing the pressure a tiny bit if you are living paycheck to paycheck, but not enough overall to really make you feel wealthier. If you are not living paycheck to paycheck and you have gotten used to living on your current take-home pay, take advantage of the change in withholding tables to divert that extra amount into long-term savings rather than spending it on extra consumables. Your take-home pay should remain similar to what it was and your savings will increase. You could wait until after the change takes place and compare your January and February paystubs, or you could try to figure out the change from IRS Notice 1036 with the new withholding tables vs Pub 15 2017 if you are an accounting geek, or if you have a bit of wiggle room in your budget you could just take it on faith that one change will offset the other by an amount that you won't really notice. I'm not a master of payroll but I did calculate for myself that the decreased withholding will be about 1% of my takehome pay and thus a good opportunity to increase my 401k contribution from 11% to 12% (I also have a set dollar amount taken each pay and put into my HSA account, some of which I spend during the year and some of which ideally gets saved; between the two set-asides I will be putting away over 16%, although last year I did end up spending about 2/3s of what I put into the HSA for out of pocket medical expenses. In a healthier year I'd be able to save more of that, and at least the healthcare expenses were paid for with pre-tax dollars.)
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November 5th, 2017 at 06:36 pm
I celebrated my one year anniversary at the (no-longer) new job on Halloween. Halloween was also my 12th anniversary of purchasing my house, so it's a day with positive associations for me.
I still have to get my formal year-end review, coming up sometime this month, but I am cautiously optimistic (knock on wood, of course!). And hopefully there will be a wage increase that goes along with it. My understanding from the others who hold my position is that there usually is, which is nice to hear. If I get a 3% raise, I'll increase my retirement contribution to 11%. With the company match of 3%, that's 14%, almost to my target savings of 15%.
I also contribute $2,400 per year to my HSA, and the company gives me enough (partly through an outright contribution and partly through matching) to cover the deductible on the high-deductible health insurance. Last year that amount was $2,000 and for 2018, we're changing insurance and the new policy's deductible is $1,500. If I were able to save the money I put in the HSA that would be another 6% of income to savings (for a total of 20%), but this past year, my medical expenses were high (partly my long-term care insurance premiums, partly the chiropractor whom I saw weekly from April through September), so I only have about $500 left in the HSA account.
The big unknown at work (other than the details of the yearly performance review and salary adjustment) is the year-end bonus. This is not an individual thing but is based on the company as a whole meeting its profit goals, and employees don't hear about whether or not there will be a bonus until the very end of the year, so it's hard to plan. More often than not, there is one, but not always. If there is, it can be as much as 20% of wages, which would do a great amount of good for me in terms of paying down my debt. I had paid down a chunk at the beginning of the year, but it's now crept back up what with the traveling I did to Las Vegas and Los Angeles over the summer, as well as a couple of weekends away here in PA. While my debt has thus only gone down a couple of thousand since the beginning of the year, my assets are up over 40K, so it has been a good year for my net worth.
If we do get the full bonus, I'll put all but a couple of hundred of the after-tax amount towards paying off the debt, which will finally bump the amount down signficantly lower than it has ever been since I bought my house and took out a mortgage.
It's been a good year at work, and while I think that my job performance has been satisfactory, there have been some parts of the job that have taken longer to master than I had anticipated, and I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked at studying for the CFP. But that is something that I will double down on in 2018. This year really had to be about mastering all the details of the job itself, and pretty much, I have.
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