Although we were a little worried about the cost of traveling, it was a wonderful weekend. My grandma is in her 80′s, but she is still very active. She had a pillow fight with my son on Saturday (not an all-out pillow fight, but still an official pillow fight) – this alone made the trip worthwhile. We were also able to spend a lot of Sunday outside, which was really nice. Now it’s time to return to the daily routine, but I’m so glad we took the short trip. Even with gas and food (I picked up Subway for...
Personal Finance
Stay-at-home mom salary projections
I’m just going to say that I have a real problem with these projections. Articles like this one at MSN try to put a salary tag on a stay-at-home mom. Here’s my salary projection for the stay-at-home mom: Priceless. Guess what? I would also put the priceless tag on the stay-at-home dad, the working dad, and the working mom. There is no way to place a dollar sign on the sacrifice every parent makes for their child (or children). Whether we choose to stay-at-home or work, most parents are just trying to do what is best for their kids. ...
Benefits to carpooling
I have mentioned in some previous posts about how my husband’s old job is being relocated to China. He recently found a job with the same company in a different building, and things are going ok. The commute is still long though – about 70 miles round-trip per day. He used to commute to work with a friend in the same department, but his friend had to find a different job as well. My husband and his friend have decided to start carpooling again – their new jobs are relatively close in terms of distance, and are settled into...
We’ve met our savings goal – almost!
Our stimulus check arrived last week. I just transferred about $540 to our emergency fund to bring it up to $5000 again. This was our first Dave Ramsey goal that I talked about in a previous post. So it’s not official yet (since technically the money isn’t in the account), but it’s in the process! It feels great, but I will feel better about it once I have secured another part-time work-at-home job to bring in income over the summer (I currently tutor online, and the hours will be decreasing soon). I don’t want to have obtained our goal...
Angel Food Ministries
Wow – I wish I had heard of this sooner! With the rising costs of gas and food, I know of quite a few people who are having trouble making ends meet. Please let others know about this program – I am including information below that is taken directly from their website: Angel Food Ministries is a non-profit, non-denominational organization dedicated to providing grocery relief and financial support to communities throughout the United States. There are no qualifications, minimums, income restrictions, or applications. Everyone is encouraged to participate. Some churches even encourage participants to apply the money they saved...
MagicJack review
I mentioned before that I ordered a MagicJack. I would highly suggest not wasting your time with one. After receiving ours, I followed the directions. I couldn’t get a local number, so went with one in Pottstown PA – this was amusing to my friends when they looked at their caller ID. I placed several calls, and all of them sucked. It was like talking to that Max Headroom guy from the late 80′s. Not only did the voices get digitized, but there was a lot of stuttering and cutting out. Although it may work well for some, my...
Where’s that stimulus check?
I know, I know. Everyone is wondering where theirs is. I can’t wait for ours to arrive – it is already allocated as follows: $600 – brings savings back up to $5000. Yippee! $350 – gas for traveling to OH in 2 weeks, and then western NY over Memorial Day. This is all to visit family. $25 – donation to friend who is doing pancreatic cancer walk. She lost her stepfather last year, and is such a sweet gal. $35 – basketball shoes for the husband. He just started playing again, and his old shoes were, well, really old. ...
Thoughts on Dave Ramsey
I recently finished Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover, and it is a quick and easy read. I would recommend getting it from your local library – I would not buy it just because there are enough blogs and information on his methods on the web (and you can use the cost of the book as your first snowflake!). I think that Get Rich Slowly has a nice synopsis of the book here if you want to get the basic idea before investing your time reading the whole book. Is Total Money Makeover going to change our lives? I’m not...
Get $10 off a $25 purchase when using a Visa card at Lowe’s
I thought that I would share this – we’re not spending a lot on home improvements right now, but this will definitely help to fill the kids sandbox and get us some mulch for the yard! The coupon is good through July 30,2008, and will be e-mailed within 24 hours, according to the website. Here’s the link: http://www.loweswinners.com/LifeTakesVisa/ Enjoy!
Decreasing 401k contributions to offset health plan increase
After finishing the taxes, we decided to decrease my husband’s 401k contributions from 20% to 10% with the intention of putting this money into our Roth IRAs. The next day, we get a letter in the mail with regards to our health care plan. They have changed the salary tiers and the contribution limits. My husband now falls into a higher tier (if he made $1 less, he would still be in his lower tier). The contribution limits have also increased. When all is said and done, he is now making less than he did before his raise after...
