The personal finance blog for Life Balance

The first quarter of 2020 has passed so it’s time to check the status for my annual goals and plan my adjustments and/or next steps for this quarter.

(1) Get EF back to 3 months’ basic expenses – on target

For us 3 months of basic expenses would be $10,500. Currently the EF has $5050, which is less than half the goal, but it started the year at $3500 so progress has been made. My focus for unallocated dollars right now is on the soon-to-expire 0% CC. Once that is gone, the EF will be the focus so I still consider it to be on target for the year. The current economic situation illustrates the need for an EF and I wish I were in a better situation with mine. The reason I don’t fret (too much) is that the most likely emergencies that we would have that exceed my EF’s coverage are medical and unemployment situations. For medical, we have an HSA account that would cover costs and for unemployment, I know that my employer has historically been generous with severance pay. Still, I’ll feel more at peace when my goal is achieved.

(2) Adopt a permanent health-enhancing habit each month – on target

Oh yeah – I’m proud of this one. I have started 3 habits and kept them up. I can’t say that I enjoy fasting – it’s hard for me – but one day a month is doable. And in fact it’s really 24 hours so I only miss two major meals. Usually I start the time around 6:30p after an early supper. The current pandemic also illustrates the importance of a healthy immune system so I’m thankful that I made this an area of focus. I feel motivated to continue with my monthly habit additions.

(3) Renew my professional certification by the September due date – on target, maybe even ahead

Renewing my certification involves paying a fee which is not too onerous and earning continuing education units which is a lot of effort. I started the year being 38 units short of being able to renew. I’ve since earned 18 units so I currently have 20 units to go. If I can keep up the current pace I’ll finish in the summer.

(4) Pay no CC interest or fees – on target

In order to meet this goal, I had to deal with a CC balance on a 0% card (and continue to pay off our normal expenditures each month of course). I’ve written another post about my split strategy to move some of the balance to a new 0% CC and to pay the rest off. I currently have around $1900 remaining on the CC that must be paid by mid-May. My projections show that this should be completed in time. Then I’ll cancel that CC.

(5) Spend time with each kid to encourage his current area of growth – okay, but could be better

All-in-all I did fine on this. I helped DS1 create a budget and provided support for his job hunt which was successful though he hasn’t started the new one yet and there may be uncertainty now. DS2’s focus has become more about keeping up since his last semester of college is online now. I didn’t spend the time I’d planned helping him find housing. However, now that he’s closer to the job location since campus is closed (It’s 2+ hours away.) it’ll be easier when he does have availability. Good progress on DS3 as I reported earlier. He’s committed to a college and found a roommate. Now to see how he finishes high school with the school doing a nontraditional online format, possibly for the rest of the school year… I have worked with DS4 on his rank advancement but not enough. He’s so close to achieving the next rank of Star. And ironically working with DS5 has been easier with school off and then online. I’ve just got to keep it up.

(6) Complete identified home maintenance – behind

It’s always been my experience that I can’t have everything going well at the same time. What I have done is to get a quote for the pressure washing. I allocated funds for it so now I just need to schedule it. I requested a quote for the fan/light replacement some time back but the electrician never got back with me. Maybe the job is too small to be worth his effort. I need to look for another company. Most of the painting I’m doing myself (not the ceilings – I’ll hire that out). I moved furniture away from one wall in the living room to prepare to paint several weeks ago and it’s still like that! Maybe this weekend.

Overall, I’m happy with the quarter’s progress.

A couple of pieces of small positive financial news: While the company has announced that annual profit sharing as it’s implemented now is being discontinued, we did get an annual payment this year. I used a portion of mine to purchase a new laptop. I have been limping along with this one far longer than most would I think – it’s soooo slow and it crashes if I try to view a video. And the already replaced battery is bad so it must be plugged in. I’ve just ordered a replacement and it should arrive next week. I don’t look forward to the productivity curve for a new device but it’ll be nice to let go of the worry that I’ll lose things that are important to me suddenly.

A week or so ago I read a blog (I can’t remember the site.) that had a list of things that could bring in cash. One of them included a link to a site with the unclaimed property pages for every state. I checked our current and former state pages with our name and guess what? I have $20 of unclaimed property from our former state. I have no clue what it is. But I completed the form and just received an e-mail that there is a payment on its way to me.


Rambo, the office helper

Well I purchased Norton Lifelock for my computer’s antivirus protection since it was only $20 and I already have buyer’s remorse. I can’t get it to complete the install – it keeps requesting a reboot again and again – and the online technical support isn’t available because of the coronavirus according to their website. If ever there was a job that was conducive to working remotely, I would’ve thought that online technical support would be it, but apparently not. Needless to say, if I can’t get it working I’ll ask for a refund. I suspect that I may be told (if I ever talk with a live person) that my computer is too old.

We’re still being vigilant about vitamins to stay healthy. And DS1 who still is expected to work in a customer-facing role says that he’s receiving an extra $300 per paycheck for working during this outbreak. He’s taking the high-dose Vitamin D he received in his stocking and so far is symptom-free. We also talked about him using any stimulus money that might come his way to start his new EF.


Mine and boys

Tomorrow I’m invited to a virtual retirement party.

One positive piece of financial news in the midst of chaotic meltdown in our net worth otherwise: I received notice that some stock options I received from the company last year are 25% vested now. When combined with previous stock options, I have a total (only on paper) of $8k. I’m planning to wait 3 years until they are all vested before cashing out.

Our March spending like most others I’m sure is odd. We’ve spent $1200 in my grocery category! That includes toiletries and pet food, but still. Since it’s related to stocking up, in theory it should result in less grocery spending in upcoming months. ‘Kids’ activities’ is lower since sports and Scouts are canceled.

We had another game night – Hearts this time. Good fun! Many of our local restaurants have closed for the duration – no more takeout menus. I hope they’ll be okay.

Work continues as usual but having the kids at home is distracting. I have plenty to do but I feel like it’s tough to focus. DH has been like a drill sergeant, administering temperature checks and vitamins twice a day for us all.

My annual computer anti-virus subscription has just expired. I deliberately paid it with a CC that I wasn’t keeping so they couldn’t auto-renew. I hate that practice and I like to evaluate the purchase each year. Any recommendations?

I was beginning to think our state delayed the payment of income tax refunds because it’s been about a month and a half since our taxes were filed online. But this morning I see that the state refund is direct deposited in the bank account. As planned I directed it to the 0% CC that needs to be repaid by May. The remaining balance now is $2130.

We recently adopted a stray cat and today was its first vet appointment to get checked out and receive immunizations. The animal clinic sent a message a few hours before the appointment to alert us of the temporary protocol in place due to the coronavirus. After we parked the car, we called them to let them know that Bandit (The kids name our pets.) had arrived. I spoke on the phone with the technician to review concerns & health history just like we normally do in the exam room. Then when the vet was ready, we carried the pet carrier to the front door for a hand-off. We waited in the car until the vet called my phone with the exam notes and results. I paid with a CC over the phone then met the technician at the door to retrieve the full pet carrier.

I have to say that it was efficient in addition to being safe. It was strange though not to be with our pet while he was examined.

The total bill was $201. That included the visit, two immunizations, a fecal test, and a leukemia test. They’re only doing medically necessary surgeries for the next 2 weeks so I have to call to schedule the neutering for sometime later than that. We found out that he is about three years old! We guessed that he was less than a year.

The company has sent a memo that there will be no compensation increases this year. It’s disappointing for sure but understandable given the uncertainty of the economy. Now I know for planning purposes to count on my current minimum income.

We had a fun Monopoly game night last night after corn chowder for dinner which was a hit too.

Our state just closed bars and restaurants.

I’m a planner by nature so I’m directing any anxiety about the current situation to our logistics. The boys are off school for at least two weeks. DS2’s college extended spring break so he just extended his visit with our families in the south. He’ll fly home in a week. I’m hoping that travel is safer then with international flights discontinued. He also connects in Charlotte rather than one of the mega-airports. If his college makes a decision to complete the semester virtually and travel becomes more restricted, I suppose he could stay there. DS1’s current job is customer-facing so I do worry about that although it’s not in a big city. Fortunately, my job with the exception of occasional travel being canceled isn’t impacted much. I’m most productive working from the home office and that’s the typical work day for me. I will need to creatively replan some projects that have tasks normally done at the customer site though.

This weekend I’m cleaning. Our house is grubby most of the time. Women who value a pristine home environment would be appalled by our place. But with a crew of boys I learned years ago that I would be a ball of stress if I insisted on keeping the place like a showroom. Usually my cleaning efforts are focused on keeping dishes and clothes caught up with an occasional vacuuming. But this weekend I’m dusting, wiping, scrubbing, and disinfecting door knobs and light switches.

We’ve never had an emergency food stash despite the fact that we live far enough north that a snowstorm could potentially force us to be homebound without power. We once lost power but the snow wasn’t too deep to get out and we moved to a hotel for a couple of days. Every year I say that I’ll make one before the winter arrives and I don’t. Laziness I guess. Knowing that we could be forced to stay home for a month or more, we created a stash now. It includes an extra round of household items we purchase every couple of months – garbage bags, laundry & dishwashing detergents, and pet food. And some healthy food that can keep awhile – rice, beans, applesauce, figs, peanut butter, mixed nuts, carrots, onions, potatoes, and one box of Girl Scout cookies so we don’t feel deprived. I also ordered some organic coconut milk powder. Really I think we’d be healthier is we were forced to fast a couple of days or eat beans & rice only! I’m not saying that I hope it comes to that though.

In addition to the food stash, I created a small cash stash. That’s another thing I’ve always intended to establish. Eventually I’d like to have a month’s basic expenses in cash. Maybe I’ll consider that as a goal next year.

To prepare ourselves for exposure to the virus which may be inevitable, we’re all taking vitamins and an anti-viral herb each day. Last week I also ordered replacement filters for the Berkey water filter.

Since we’re hunkering down, I’d like to plan what to do with boys during their time off. Maybe working on scout merit badges with DS4. Or having a game night. I’ll check out our game cabinet and see if we have all the Monopoly pieces.

My 2020 goal #2 is to adopt a permanent health-enhancing habit each month. I’ve decided that my new health habit for March will be to stop storing food in plastic containers. I’m going to use glass containers instead.

I don’t think it’s unhealthy for food to just touch plastic but I’ve read that temperature fluctuations can cause plastic to leach into the food. I stopped microwaving with plastic containers years ago but the rest of the family will do it if it’s most convenient. My dad personally knew a woman who was taken to the hospital (I forgot the symptoms.) and the cause was her consumption of bottled water that had gotten very hot in the trunk of her car then cooled back down before she drank it.

NEW HEALTH HABIT #3:
Stop storing food in plastic containers.

BENEFIT:
Prevents consumption of plastic (microplastic) that is toxic to the body

COST:
Upfront – $95
Ongoing – zero

The upfront cost is the total for the purchases I made of glass replacements for my plastic containers. I bought a set of Pyrex containers with color-coded plastic lids for leftovers, six canisters for storing rice, pasta, & legumes, and two glass carafes with plastic lids to replace our yucky stained plastic pitcher.

This new habit is easy compared to the others.

2020 health habits so far:
(1) Fast one day per month
(2) Consume fresh organic juice at least 3 times a week
(3) Stop storing food in plastic containers

I’ve just returned from another business trip. It was an experience – especially the trip home. I loaded up on high doses of Vitamins C & D before traveling and used Airborne daily while I was away. Just in case. On the planes, many people were wearing masks and all of us used sanitizer repeatedly. Very few tray tables were used on the planes. On the trips home one flight was 2/3 full and the other about ½ full. I’m happy to say that I didn’t see anyone that appeared sick. The Washington Dulles airport was like a ghost town last night. While I was traveling, the company issued a memo banning all travel through the end of April. So that will be my last trip for a while.

On the financial front, I paid our spring property taxes today: $1300. That represents a 2% discount for paying earlier than the target date. We have two property tax bills – spring and summer. The spring is the smaller one. The summer bill is close to $4000 for us.

I need to go through my receipts and get my expense report submitted now. Also, I received notification from Ally that the online savings account interest rate is decreasing to 1.5%. I appreciate their transparency. They also are offering a 1% bonus for transferring more than $1000 into an Ally savings account before the end of the month. This might be a good deal for someone like CCF who has sizable amounts in a variety of banks. I’m not sure it’ll work for me given their timing coinciding with my paying off a 0% CC.

Last night DS1 finally made the time to come over to create a budget. I have been nagging him so his participation was somewhat reluctant. I asked him to bring his laptop and I started him with an Excel workbook that I created with sample categories populated. I preached my truth about budgets not being restrictive but instead giving control so the funds are allocated to the things we believe to be most important in our lives.

I am cautiously optimistic that the session was effective! He adjusted the categories and evaluated different scenarios just like I do sometimes. The spreadsheet is basic but it calculates totals by month, by category, and year-to-date. He got excited about having a vacation fund and an entertainment category. Once he had the budget balanced to nearly align with his minimum pay, he downgraded his Netflix membership, downgraded his health club membership, and deleted a Doordash app from his phone. I didn’t suggest any of those things!

He created a category for health insurance premiums so he doesn’t forget but the budgeted amount is zero for this year since he can remain on our health insurance plan through December. We also talked about removing comprehensive auto insurance coverage to lower his premiums once he gets his financed 2007 vehicle paid off which he said will happen by summer.

We’ve planned another session on Easter day when he’ll be home to open an HSA account with Fidelity and a Roth IRA account with Vanguard. He’s got budgeted amounts ready to auto-transfer once he gets those accounts established. Before then he’s going to open a savings account at a different bank than his checking for his soon-to-be EF.

My justification for being so assertive in getting him to sit down and work a budget was that I wanted to make sure he paid back his loans to me. That’s what I told him to make him feel obligated to meet. And that is indeed a category in his budget. But my motive was broader – I wanted him to be empowered, to feel like he controlled his finances. I’m hopeful. He did seem to own it by the time we finished. We’ll see how it goes. I think I’ll e-mail some links to blogs with budgets every few days so he can compare his with others. I know I always find that an interesting exercise.

Today was the day for my monthly net worth calculation. I time it each month to be just after the automated house payments. I expected ugliness so I actually was almost pleasantly surprised. I’m down $24k since last month. The retirement accounts did take a brutal beating but it was countered by the company stock price increase, house value increase, and debt payoff. The company is private and the stock price is evaluated only twice per year. That happened last month so the impact of the volatile market isn’t reflected in the price yet.

As much as I know that it’s risky to try to time the market, the three days of huge losses was too tempting. I spent a few thousand of funds in the money market to buy more index funds. (all within the retirement account). I must not have been unique in that thinking given the big gains yesterday. I don’t regret doing it since the (much) lower value of the account overall made the cash position a little lopsided.

In other financial news, DS2 just received an unexpected scholarship. It was $1500 so with our split arrangement that’s $750 for me. I had money set aside for his food costs for the remainder of the semester so I’m redirecting that money to the 0% CC to be repaid by May. The balance on that card will now be $4900.

I think I will be able to continue my new juicing habit without needing to increase the grocery budget. This is good news because I predicted that the budget would increase by $50/month. That increase would be realistic if I weren’t flexible about the veggies used. But I have discovered that Sam’s typically has 5-pound bags of organic carrots for only $3.50 and that carrots are a good base for most juices. My juice is usually mostly carrots with apples, celery, and/or raw ginger. Cucumbers are good with apples, but organic ones have been especially expensive. Perhaps in the summer when they’re in season the organic ones will be cheaper.

I’m not having any problem getting in 3 glasses each week – I usually have more. And while I’m at it I make extra and offer a ‘shot of health’ to another member of the family. I’ve gotten used to cleaning the new juicer too. It’s still not fun, but it’s not hard to do.

Maybe this is a morbid topic but FIL’s recent death along with our ages too I guess is prompting some discussions about our wishes for a time that we might not be capable of expressing them. I never have created a living will because I want to live! I figured that that is what doctors are supposed to do by default. But I didn’t think of more detailed aspects for a time when I could be bedridden and not able to either think clearly or communicate clearly. I decided that I am going to document how I want to be treated if I am ever bedridden. From getting fresh air, to music, nourishment, being at home, etc. I am going to write it down, tell my family, and show them where the file is kept.

We wrote wills almost 20 years ago. At that time we didn’t have much in the way of assets but we were concerned about our children (only two of them then) being cared for in the event that something happened to us. So we had relatively simple wills drawn up to name a guardian and to provide him with all assets and life insurance proceeds to use for providing for our children in the event that we both died. Otherwise we each left everything to the other.

Not only have we added children, but most of those children are 18+ so considered adults now, and we’ve moved to a different state. Watching both of our dads remarry after our moms died opened our eyes on how assets pass around. For example, if I died it would be fine with me for DH to remarry. But would I want my mom’s jewelry to go to his newer wife when he died later? No! I would not. So I’d like to have some possessions included in my will that would not go to DH in the event of my death if he outlives me. Also we’re seeing how very important it is that you appoint an executor that will carry out your wishes even if he doesn’t agree with them. I want to change mine now.

And on top of those things, we now live in one of the six states that has inheritance taxes for estates, even on assets (IRAs for example) that are not included in the will. The tax doesn’t apply to items inherited by spouses but it does apply to items inherited by children.

So actions for us now: (1) Rethink our second phase of retirement when we plan to downsize to a cottage. Let’s consider neighboring states that have similar climate and terrain but are more tax friendly for our family. And if one of us dies soon, God forbid, the surviving one should move. (2) Rewrite the wills this year. Plan to revisit them every 5 years – could be on all my milestone birthdays.

I’m curious to hear of your experiences with wills – creating your own or unintended consequences of others that you’ve witnessed. Anyone have a story to share?

College funding is a priority for our family. I hate student loans so much – it seems like they hold young adults back right at a time in their lives that they should be future-focused and optimistic. We communicated to the boys early that we would do everything possible to pay for college so they didn’t need to start their adult lives fighting debt. In order to do that, there are things we sacrifice but we’re okay with it because our priorities are in line with our values. So we don’t have cable, car notes, cleaning services, or annual vacations for example, and we don’t routinely eat out beyond celebrations. (though if you read an earlier post, you know we don’t execute this flawlessly) We don’t buy cars or cell phones for kids and we don’t intend to help pay for weddings or houses.

With that stated though, there is a requirement for the boy. He must provide a return on investment for the college spending in order for us to continue funding college. DS1 didn’t do that and I cut him off after his second year of college. This was a serious ‘tough love’ move on my part. So you don’t think I’m heartless, I should say that DS1 is an extremely capable intelligent kid. He could make straight As if he busted his rump to do it. Had he been putting forth his best effort and come up short, I’d have been more compassionate – I promise. Instead it was his social life that he unfortunately prioritized. He’s an extrovert (my opposite!) and he enjoyed parties and didn’t regularly attend all his classes. Of course he didn’t volunteer this info, but I figured it out. I told him that I hoped he finished up his degree but that he’d be doing it on his own nickel. And I told him that if he succeeded, no one would be prouder than me because I’d understand what it took for him to do it.

To his credit, DS1 didn’t debate and he didn’t play the victim. He knew he’d messed up. So for a year or so, he sat out while he worked full-time. He discovered then that the jobs available to him without a college degree were limited and didn’t pay well. Then he re-enrolled at the college and he got student loans. He hit an issue at that point. Even though he was no longer a dependent for our taxes, applications for loans beyond $7500 (I think that was the amount.) required that a parent either co-sign or take them out. So he came to me. I’ll be damned before I co-sign a student loan! But because I did support DS1’s effort to finish school, I offered to be the lender instead. Today he owes me $14k. One of the stipulations of my loans was that they have to be repaid in 3 years – not 10 or more like the government allows. I want him to bite the bullet and get the debt behind him.

DS1 graduated in December and just accepted a job offer. He has two roommates in a similar position that he’s known for years. Both have entry-level jobs and are paying off student loans. (They jointly celebrated sometime last year when one of them got his balance below $100k!) So now I’m reminding him about his payment obligations and offering to help him budget his new pay. Because of the precedent I set with DS2 on splitting scholarship money, I am giving a credit to DS1 for the small athletic scholarship he received one semester.

The payments I receive from DS1 will go to house debt.

I am very proud of DS1. He finished two years of college while working full-time to support himself. In my mind, his super expensive lesson had a happy ending.

Now you know why I’ll never state that all my boys graduated without student loan debt despite it being important to me.

My 2020 goal #4 is “Pay no CC interest or fees”.

Since I have a balance on a 0% card that expires in May, I’ve decided to do a combination of paying it off and transferring to another 0% card with no fee involved. I applied for a Bank of America card (I mentioned it on Amber’s blog earlier.) that has a 0% rate with no fees for balance transfers before mid-March. It was approved and they just completed the balance transfer.

The original total amount parked on the 0% CC was $19k. I transferred $10 of that, leaving me to pay $9 right away. I used the federal refund toward the balance; I will use the smaller state refund toward it; I used a portion of my quarterly bonus; Now I am diverting amounts from regular pay between now and May. I should get ‘er done.

I will likely just pay the minimums to BoA each month while I focus on other goals. My next focus is the EF. Then later in the year I’ll make a plan for what’s remaining on the BoA card. Its 0% special expires in April 2021.

I can see that our federal tax refund is expected to be direct-deposited in two days. We’re getting $2606 back this year which means I had too much withheld, but next year we’ll lose $3500 in child/dependent tax credits so I’ll need to adjust withholding to prevent owing a thousand bucks, assuming all other things are equal this year. I’ll take a closer look at that during the summer after I know whether there is any increase in income and after I take some time to research any tax code changes that could impact us.

Of course the $2606 is allocated. I budgeted $900 for our annual CSA membership and the rest to the 0% CC. I over-budgeted slightly for the CSA and I also got a discount for paying it early and in full instead of using a payment plan. It was $815. That’s a ‘full share’ size box of organic veggies every week from April 22nd week to the week before Christmas.

The local delivery site is easily walkable from my house so on veggie day I block an hour in my work schedule to leave my desk and go pick them up. I like having the commitment because it insures that I get exercise and fresh air that day. I bought a used stroller at a garage sale last year just for this purpose because the bag of veggies gets heavy in the middle of the summer.

Now that I have the juicer, I may try juicing some things this year. And by the way, I’m loving the juicer! My favorite so far is carrot-apple with a little raw ginger.

This week included payment of my quarterly bonus from the company. I used it to pay the remainder of DS2’s apartment rent for the 1-year lease period. The only remaining college costs for him now are food and electricity – about a thousand total, and I have most of that set aside. So DS2’s college costs are essentially done.

His apartment lease is an odd one to me because it is one contract for all the boys and requires every parent to be a cosigner. Apparently housing is scarce enough around this major campus that the property management companies can make these unreasonable requirements. That was not the case at DS1’s college where each roommate had his own contract with the property management company. DS2’s roommates are good kids from our town that he had already befriended before college. It’s been an education for him though to see how differently they approach money. One waits until he sees the rent is past-due before paying it. The notice is his reminder. And there is a charge – something like $5/day for each day it’s late. Because we pay ahead that’s actually helped him avoid late payments but he has told DS2 that he wishes we wouldn’t do that because it messes him up not to get the late notice.

Also this week DS3 signed his NLI (National Letter of Intent) for his college that included some scholarship money. It feels so nice to have the college decision official and behind us.

The only thing financial about this post is that it’s something for FREE.

Chris Wark from the Chris Beat Cancer website has the first of ten modules of his Square One program (which costs around $100 I think) available for 24 hours for free. So if you’re interested, the link to the video is here: https://squareone.chrisbeatcancer.com/first-things-first/ He only does this a couple of times a year.

My mom died of cancer at age 61 so I am all about prevention.

I know the media makes more money when they sensationalize, but I still get concerned when I see articles like this one posted yesterday on Yahoo Finance: U.S. Household Debt Exceeds $14 Trillion for the First Time

This chart of household debt from the article is interesting. It looks like CC debt is actually declining but student loan debt is multiplying. And auto loans haven’t wavered in popularity.



Link to article: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-household-debt-exceeds-14-160303784.html

This week I purchased dog food and entered it as part of our grocery expenses. It was a first – up until this point I’ve transferred money from DS3’s account to mine to cover the cost any time I purchased dog food.

About a year and a half ago DS3 had a GF and the two decided to get a puppy together. Well, it was not vetted with us and I was more than a little annoyed when the dog arrived. I love dogs (but not as much as cats!). And DH really loves dogs. I think DS3 knew that once we saw the puppy that we wouldn’t have the heart to tell him to get rid of it. He was right.



As typical of kids, even older ones, after the first week or so, DS3 was not the one tending to the puppy. DH did and still does the brunt of the work to take care of her and she’s high maintenance. We don’t have a fenced yard so she has to be walked and it gets COLD here on winter mornings. I was determined though that DS3 would take on the entire cost for this unplanned pet and I stuck to that. He didn’t debate it at first. He paid hundreds of dollars (some with help from the GF) for vet visits and vaccinations and then either bought himself or refunded me for dog food. I insisted that she be spayed, and that cost him over $600. He told me I should have shopped around. I told him HE should have shopped around.

Unsurprisingly, the relationship with the dog outlived the relationship with the girl. There wasn’t a custody battle – the dog became ours and stayed here. And to be honest, there’s no way DH would allow that dog to live anywhere else. The two have bonded.

So now DS3 no longer receives an allowance and he’s preparing to leave for college. My original intent was to make him take financial responsibility of the dog forever – even expecting him to find a place to live that accepts dogs after he graduates. Now, I’m rethinking because for one thing – DH considers the dog his now, and for another - I don’t want DS3 to feel pressured to get a job while he’s in college to support the dog. So after I grabbed that big bag of food this week, I didn’t transfer any money. I also haven’t said anything yet so I could change my mind. But perhaps this is a point we can agree that the dog changed owners. Now that my anger has subsided and she’s become part of the family.

I’ve just completed our 2019 taxes. I use an online service called TaxAct to create the returns and file them electronically. It cost $72 for the federal and state filings this year. Then I did the local taxes myself on their website. Those are easy because there are no credits or deductions. I used to do our taxes manually because I didn’t trust a forms-based wizard to care as much about my numbers as me, but after TaxAct found deductions/credits that I didn’t know about resulting in hundreds of dollars for us the first time I used it, I was hooked. It also stores all our data – personal and employment – so it’s defaulted for the next year’s tax form. That saves time and reduces the risk for inaccuracy for sure.

For several years now I’ve been running a couple of calculations after the income tax forms are submitted to see how much those taxes impact our finances. I calculate our real tax rate – the actual percentage of our gross income that went toward income taxes instead of the LB household. This year our total income tax burden – federal + state +local – was 10.9% of our gross income. Last year it was 11.2% so I did improve on reducing our tax liability because our income was slightly higher this year. The best we’ve ever done was in 2015 when it was only 8.1%, and it’s impressive because that was a time when our income was lower. But the boys were younger so we probably had more exemptions and credits. I may have been maxing the 401k then too. I couldn’t keep that up once I had to begin cash-flowing some college expenses.

Another way I look at it is to calculate the percentage based on net worth instead of gross income. My thinking is that if the annual income tax burden became a fraction of a percentage point of net worth, it would be insignificant. So in 2015 – our best year for reducing taxes – our total tax burden was 2.2% of our net worth at that time. In 2018, it was 2.1%. Now, for 2019, it’s 1.8%. That’s our best result yet for the ‘how much does it hurt us’ evaluation.

Next year may be a doozy for taxes as we’ll lose the child tax credit x2 since the twins turn 17 this year. And DS2 will no longer be a dependent. I’ll need to change withholding to prevent owing money but that will wait for another time, maybe in the summer.

My 2020 goal #2 is to adopt a permanent health-enhancing habit each month. I’ve decided that my new health habit for February will be to consume fresh organic juice at least 3 times each week.
We used to have a Jack Lalanne juicer but it bit the dust a few years ago. I’ve just purchased a juicer that’s a step up and recommended by some of the health gurus that I follow – the Champion juicer. It’s pricey so it’s only going to be a smart purchase if I really do make frequent use of it.

NEW HEALTH HABIT #2:
Consume fresh organic juice at least 3 times a week

BENEFIT:
Easily boosts absorption of vitamins, minerals, & antioxidants to provide energy and detoxification. Hydrates the body, improves digestion, keeps body in an alkaline state, promotes longevity.

COST:
Upfront – $350
Ongoing – $50/month

The ongoing cost is a guess. I already buy organic fruits & veggies but I do recall being surprised before at how much produce it takes to make a glass of juice. But on the other hand the juice will be a replacement for calories I’m currently getting elsewhere. I’ll update this number once I see the actual change in our grocery bill.

This new habit is an expensive one, probably the most expensive one I’ll acquire this year because it has both an upfront cost and an ongoing cost that are substantial. I was going to wait until later in the year to pull the trigger on this one since I have financial goals too, but I want the health benefits now. Expensive, but still cheaper than medical bills!

2020 health habits so far:
(1) Fast one day per month
(2) Consume fresh organic juice at least 3 times a week

Mostly out of fear for our upcoming college expenses over the next half dozen years, I made a plan over a year ago to get our house debt paid. Our house debt is a combination of a mortgage and a HELOC. The mortgage interest rate is 3.49%. The HELOC rate, which can change, is 5.64%. So every extra principal payment I make goes to the HELOC.

In order to make it doable when I started, and also to use a method where one bad month couldn’t blow it for me, I created a schedule with defined percentages instead of dollar amounts. The percentages increase over the course of time as I should be able to find additional money to throw at the debt. As you can see (I have to get the photos to work for this post!), I need to come up with $1779 worth of principal payments this month including my regular scheduled payment. That shouldn’t be a problem. But next month, I have another percentage increase.

Only people on sites like this would understand these games that motivate me to do the right thing!

As I said earlier, I was proud of him no matter what because he took initiative and prepared himself for this opportunity. I’m glad it paid off. He’s going to be a lifeguard at a local fancy-pants hotel.

The vet bill finally cleared on the Ally CC, so I redeemed my last rewards – 80 bucks to the Ally savings account. Ka-ching.

CB's recent blog entry (January Recap) made me think about restaurant expenses.

Sometimes we eat out because it's convenient or because I didn't plan well. For those occasions of course I'd like to minimize our restaurant spending. But as CB points out in her blog entry, sometimes restaurant meals are important times spent with those close to us. We wouldn’t want to stop or reduce the frequency of those occasions. Or replace them with the dollar menu at a fast food place. But the two situations are both captured in that one budget category - at least for us. Since I keep a spreadsheet of our actual spending, I went back to 2019 to see how much of our restaurant spending was quality time spent with family.

So last year we spent a total of $3172 for meals out. [It’s okay to gasp if you need to…it is indeed a lot of money.] Of that total, $1300 (even) was spent on family celebrations at restaurants. We have a tradition of eating out on each boy’s birthday and the birthday boy gets to select the place. [The twins have to agree though because we only do one meal out in their honor.] In 2019 we also went out for Father’s Day. The most expensive meal out was in honor of DS1’s college graduation and it included 3 people beyond our immediate family. It was the nicest restaurant our kids have ever experienced. So no regrets on the $1300 total spent here.

DS3 is a competitive athlete and we travel to tournaments for him. Sometimes the tournaments are close enough to drive back and forth but usually they aren’t. So it involves a hotel and meals out when we go. It’s just the two of us and I do select hotels that have breakfast included and a kitchen with the room so we can do minor cooking. In 2019, we spent $682 on restaurant food during tournaments. I include the hotel expenses in my ‘kids activities’ budget category, so this amount is just the food. This is a grey area. On one hand I don’t want to overspend on meals out when we travel, but I do want to support DS3’s talent and passion. Maybe $682 is okay.

That leaves $1190 worth of meals that were not family celebrations or travel-related. A grand of that is probably Subway – we keep that place in business. This is where it’d be best to scrutinize. In addition to just planning better maybe I could choose a couple of healthy and inexpensive go-to meals in the Instapot cookbook that the boys like and keep the ingredients on-hand. Then the meal would be just as quick to make as a trip to the too-nearby Subway.

For our family January ended on a sad note: FIL died yesterday. He was in hospice so it wasn’t unexpected but still tough to accept.

Yesterday was my fast day too (new habit – one of my 2020 goals) and I survived. Going for two days to get my February day in too was not an option though – 24 hours was as much as I could take. So I’ll plan for another day in February. And I’ve got to decide what my second new health-enhancing habit will be beginning this month.

On the financial front (since that’s the focus of the blog!), DS4 had an interview today for a summer job. He feels good about it. He was nervous but prepared. I’m really proud of him, no matter what happens. Hopefully he’ll get an offer after they check his references.

I’ve stopped using the Ally CC and I’ll redeem my points for cash to the online savings account once my last purchase moves from ‘pending’ – a nearly $300 vet bill for our feline’s annual check-up. Then I’ll be done with that account.

I’ve started doing taxes and hope to finish them within a few days. And I’ve sent principal payments to the 0% CC with a balance and to house debt. I’ve also just been reimbursed for my business trip earlier in the month so I need to send that to the CC before it’s due.

HR hosted a Medicare webinar this week that all colleagues were invited to attend. Though I’m a decade away from Medicare, I’m not knowledgeable about it and it’s an aspect of retirement planning I should consider. So I attended. I was surprised at how few people attended and I think I was the youngest one. The person presenting the information was not from the company but from an organization that offers Medicare consulting services. The positive aspect of that is that she knew the topic inside & out. The negative aspect is that she was presenting an informational seminar to sell their services, so it was clearly in her best interest to make the topic complex and to be biased toward over-insuring.

The seminar was informative and I did glean some information for my planning purposes.

As to the components and their costs, I took these notes:
Part A – covers inpatient hospital & hospice care. $0 premium. $1408/occurrence deductible + co-pays after 60 days
Part B – covers doctors & medical services. $145 - $492/mo/pp premium depending upon income (rolling 2-year look-back). $198 deductible, then 20% coinsurance. Covers Part A deductible.
Part C – supplemental medical insurance. 2 types & various choices. ~$160/mo/pp premium.
Part D – prescription drugs. ~$33/mo/pp premium. $435 deductible.

Enrollment is not automatic and the initial enrollment period is 7 months long – 3 months before the birthday month, the birthday month, and 3 months afterward. After that there are forever-penalties that are tacked on to the premium if you enroll late in a component that has a premium.

It’s not a high deductible plan so you can’t contribute to an HSA any longer but you can use funds from an existing one to pay expenses including the costs of the premiums for Part B or D and some Part Cs.

Based on my knowledge of Medicare now and my personal values, I plan to take these actions:
(1) Enroll in Medicare just before my 65th birthday
(2) Make sure our income keeps us at the base premium level for Part B, beginning the year DH turns 63.
(3) Skip parts C, D and plan to spend that money on health-promoting activities instead.

Is there anyone using Medicare now that has tips or gotchas for the rest of us to know for planning?

I noticed something financially wonderful today – the company’s stock value increased by $2 / share!

This helps me in two ways:
(1) I have company stock within my 401k account so the account's overall value took a jump in the right direction, crossing the next $100k milestone.
(2) I have some company stock options that are now worth more - on paper at least because most of them aren’t yet vested. But it has the potential to be a chunk of change in a few years.

I'm glad I'm blogging now. I'll revisit this entry next time I have a rough day at work!

A few days ago I went to make a cash deposit in person at a PNC branch. The teller behind the counter made the deposit as typical but then began asking me about credit cards. Do I use rewards credit cards for everyday purchases? Was I aware that PNC had a rewards card? Etc. “We want to make sure we’re meeting your needs.” Yeah right.

I don’t know if I’m just a grouch, but I don’t like being treated like a sales prospect while I’m conducting business. Sam’s Club has gotten this way too. You can’t just check-out anymore without getting a sales pitch for something else.