Money, Love, and Change

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photo credit: craigCloutier

What’s a gal to do?  After a long conversation with the husband yesterday, we decided to ditch the idea of a netbook and shell out the extra money for a new desktop.  I had been researching desktops for awhile, and we took the plunge (We got a solid deal, which I’m sure I’ll talk about in another post).

Why so soon?  A big part of it has to do with my husband’s scanning project that he has been working on.  His grandfather was a photographer, and he is creating a digital archive of all of his work.  Not to sound morbid, but there are only a couple of relatives left who can help us document some of the images, and they really look forward to our trips home so that they can see the work my husband has done.  This is something that we can’t put a price tag on, and the laptop (MacBook) was giving us a bunch of compatibility issues when we would name and transfer files from one operating system to the other.  He has actually stopped working on the project for awhile, and has been anxious to start back up.

Second, I got a call yesterday from a friend who I have been wanting to collaborate with for awhile now.  It’s been one of those things where we get together and toss ideas around, but due to conflicting schedules, nothing has really materialized.  His schedule has freed up, and this is the kind of motivation I need to get back into programming.  He works on Macs exclusively, and I will need to upgrade to Leopard in order to work with him effectively.  Having another computer in the house will make the Leopard upgrade a little less nerve-wrecking.    In addition, with VMWare Fusion (which allows other operating systems to run on a Mac) taking up a whopping 40GB of my 60GB hard drive, it was time to put it on an “application diet” and reinstall it.  Having a new Windows machine makes this about 1000 times easier.

But now, I’m dealing with the nasty repurcussions.  Vista 64 has no interest in running my XP applications.  That’s a lot of fun.  Then, VMWare Fusion vomited today, (ironically, it was immediately after I tweeted someone about how great Fusion was) and I lost my OS.  Recovery was pretty lame, and reinstallation of the .NET framework to run the one program I need for tutoring was a complete failure.  Awesome.

Not to mention, we have guests coming for New Years, and I need to set up all my sites with HostGator within the next couple of days.

Any suggestions to deal with the technological chaos?  I’d love to hear them!

photo credit: milele

In a previous post, I mentioned that we hoped to spend $250 total on Christmas this year.  We had $95 dollars left and quite a bit to still get.  So in the end, how did things turn out?

• We actually ended up with $105 to spend, since my mom wanted to contribute to the gift certificate for my stepfather (we had budgeted $20, but only spent $10).
• We spent $15 on my brother – we redeemed $20 in gift cards from Amazon, and split the cost of a Wii game with my grandmother.
• We didn’t get my sister-in-law anything.  Things have been tough for her this year, and she didn’t want to exchange gifts.
• We spent $48 on the tree, which was $13 more than we expected.
• We spent $20 on a gift card for my sister-in-law’s boyfriend, and $20 on a simple train to put under the tree for the kid.  I also spend $5 for some alphabet foam stickers (the kids only request to Santa).

Overall, that put us at $3 over budget for Christmas.  I can live with that!

I would highly recommend a Christmas budget for everyone.  It really forced us to pick and choose what was most important to us, and as an added bonus, we don’t have a ton of useless crap after Christmas!

Did you follow a budget this year?  If so, how did it go?

photo credit: Lisa Brewster

I know, it’s been more than a week, but it’s Christmas!  Time to break things down:

Oh no!  Despite making one student loan payment and putting $50 in savings, our interest accrued on our other student loans (bringing down our $80 payment down to $18) as well as one of our credit cards.  I also am including the $115 we picked up in American Express charges for the $180 in Walmart gift cards, since this was an extraneous purchase on a credit card we don’t normally use. When all is said and done, we are actually almost $100 MORE in debt. Yikes!

Things aren’t looking so great right now, but we do have a couple of things to look forward to.  First, I was fortunate enough to receive some money for my birthday, so I’ll be depositing that soon.  I also got a $15 rebate check in the mail.  Most importantly, however, will be my husband’s raise and yearly bonus that comes at the end of next week.

In terms of our “immediate future” finances, we really want another computer, and we were considering using part of the bonus for a new one.  However, after our truck scare, I would feel much better if we had some more money in the emergency fund first.  Time for a family discussion!

photo credit: Stuart Chalmers

This is one instance where I am so glad that I was wrong.  Yesterday, I was wondering if our truck had finally reached the end of the road.  It turns out that the rear brakes had iced up (it’s a pickup, which explains why warming up the truck for 45 minutes had no effect).

In addition to a free tow (thanks AAA!), our auto shop didn’t charge us anything.  Maybe they felt sorry for us, or are full of the holiday spirit, but I am so thankful that we didn’t have to shell out any money.

This did serve as a huge wakeup call, though.  I don’t like the fact that we don’t have a huge down payment saved up right now, especially considering the economy.  I’ve been thinking about our 2009 goals, and am reassessing our priorities based on yesterday’s experience.  I really don’t want any car/truck loan if we can help it!

photo credit: clspeace

I woke up this morning to find that the car was gone, but the truck was still parked in the street.  My husband always takes the truck to work, so I knew that this wasn’t a good sign.

I called the husband.  He thought that the truck just needed some time to warm up, since it was cold this morning.  He said that he couldn’t get it to move.

I went out and let the truck warm up for 45 minutes.  Basically, it will start and shift into gear, but it won’t move.  At all.  I called AAA, and it’s been towed to the repair shop.  According to the tow truck guy, “The transmission’s locked.  That’s never good.”  Hmmm….

My husband is in denial that anything serious is wrong, but I have a feeling that the truck may be at the end of its road.  After dumping $1500 into it earlier this year, ponying up for transmission work on a vehicle with about 200,000 miles on it falls into my “money in the toilet” category.

We’ll see what the auto shop says.  Luckily, we can easily do with one car until at least the end of January.

Anyone got a nice reliable car for sale?

photo credit: bettyx1138

I have to admit, it is nice to have all of our Christmas shopping done!  The only thing left that I might look for is alphabet stickers (when I asked the kid what he was going to ask for from Santa, this was his response.  Who knew?)

We did pick up some good deals this week.  I ended up getting gift cards from Walmart using their $20 off $80 promotion.  I got $80 in gift cards for $60.  We combined this promotion with the American Express wish list gift certificate on my husband’s card, and we were able to get $100 in gift cards for $55.  Good stuff!  We’ll be saving these cards until we need them, but we did give one away – one of my husband’s coworkers is part of the Big Brother program, so we gave him a gift card to buy stuff for his “little brother”.

Other than a trip to the craft store for some yarn (we just found out our friends are having a baby boy – time to put my new knitting skills to use!), it’s going to be a cozy weekend at home.

How about you?  Will you be braving the malls this weekend?  If so, please follow a budget!

photo credit: mcmorgan08

I am a little behind the times, I guess.  I just found out that if you make 2 $40 purchases using your American Express card when you shop at Walmart or Walmart.com, you will get a $20 statement credit.  This offer ends at 11:59PM on 12/18, so there’s not much time left to take advantage of this deal.

To see if your card qualifies and to register for the credit, you can go to http://offers.amexnetwork.com/walmart.

For more information from people who have done this already, visit this Slickdeals thread.  At first, there seems to have been some questioning about whether or not this offer was valid, but people are getting their statement credits.

I just registered my card.  I also talked to my mom, who shops at Walmart frequently, and she said that she would definitely take any gift cards I don’t use.  I’m going to stop by Walmart tomorrow, and if there are gift cards available (coupled with short lines), I might take advantage of this deal.

If you’re still doing some holiday shopping or get your groceries from Walmart, take a moment to see if your card qualifies!

photo credit: Dan4th

Financially, it has been somewhat of a depressing year.  Retirement accounts have gone in the crapper, home values have gone down… blah, blah, blah.

While these are more universal concerns, and are important to consider, my husband and I have some financial concerns that are on a more personal level.  First, we really need to start saving for a replacement vehicle.  His truck has had over $1600 in repairs this year, and has roughly 200,000 miles on it.  Let’s face it, the old beast isn’t going to last forever!

Second, and perhaps more importantly, my father-in-law may be in need of a “financial bailout” of his own soon.  It’s a really long story, and I am not sure if I want to talk about any details yet, but we need to consider the possibility that we are going to be responsible for another member of the family.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am impressed with how easy it is to breakdown our debt and savings using Mint.com.  I am going to use this data to post our weekly financial breakdown.  I am leaving out retirement accounts and 529 plans (we make regular contributions, but these funds are not going to be used in our immediate future).  I am also leaving out our credit card that we use for food, gas, and other monthly expenses.  We always pay it in full, and I am not concerned about it since we use it responsibly.  My immediate goal is to increase savings while reducing debt, and I like this simplistic view:

Loans (includes mortgage and student loans): $160,460
Credit card debt: $29011
Savings: $2072

I am interested to see how things shape up over the next couple of weeks!

photo credit: inoc

Wow – it’s environmentally friendly, and it’s free!  Treat yourself to a one year digital magazine subscription from The Read Green Initiative. All you need to do is pick your magazine and enter your e-mail address.

Then, sign up for an account with Zinio, which provides sales and distribution of digital content.  When I signed up for my Zinio account, all I had to do was provide an e-mail address and create a password (no physical address or credit card information was required).

Being a personal finance geek, I picked Kiplinger’s for my free magazine, but there is definitely something for almost anyone (US News and World Report was one of the choices, for example).

I also installed the reader so that I can download the digital issues to read at my convenience (sans internet connection).  If you’re really into supporting the green initiative, you can also purchase subscriptions from Zinio.

If you decide to try this out, please drop a line and let me know what you think!

photo credit: ArtemFinland

As the year comes to a close, it is always nice to take a look at the finances.  Although I love tracking our finances using Microsoft Money, the level of detail doesn’t always provide a clear look at the underlying picture.

For example, our net worth is approximately the same as last year, but this is due to losses in our retirement accounts, which I am not overly concerned about.  Since we are in our early 30’s, we make regular contributions and reallocate our holdings twice a year.  It’s pretty much on auto-pilot.

But what about our debt?  And our savings?  Are we doing better than last year?  Again, it is hard to tell with Microsoft Money.  I have all of my business accounts listed, as well as our credit card that we use to make our monthly purchases (and then pay off in full each month).  These accounts can give a skewed representation of our financial picture depending on the circumstances.

This is where Mint.com enters into the picture.  Basically, it allows you to track your financial accounts online.  This morning, I spent some time entering the login information for all of our accounts.  Then, I used the “hide” function to get rid of all the accounts that were causing “financial static”.  Now, when I log in, I can easily see the totals for the accounts which represent our true emergency savings, our credit card debt, and our student loan/mortgage debt.

As an added bonus, I am also able to quickly look at our credit cards that do not carry a balance to make sure that no mysterious charges have appeared.  Given our recent experience with this, this feature alone makes it worth taking a look at Mint.com.

I wouldn’t use Mint.com for making a budget or tracking our detailed spending – I have already spent too much time with Microsoft Money to tweak it to my liking, and our finances are tracked in the program from 1999.  But now I have another financial tool in my arsenal to help us keep focused on debt reduction, and I’m really excited!

Have you used Mint.com?  If so, what do you use it for?  Are you happy with your experience?