Gertymac's Personal Finance Blog

We're doing pretty well at mid-month. We're going to run out of cash in the checking account due to the unexpected car repair. Originally, I was just going to move money from the EF to the checking to round out the expenses for the end of the month. But I think it might be better to just charge our expenses (food and gas mainly) to the CC and pay it with our paychecks at the end of the month. Is this a better plan than using the EF?

Some other financially relevant points:
-We've bailed on the TSO concert. BFF can't go and J and I went last year, so we'll sit this year out.

-Our utilities are shockingly low in the new house. Like, less than half of my old house despite this house being much larger. Yay for energy efficient homes!

-We went to the library book sale on Saturday. I picked up "Your Money or Your Life" and "Total Money Makeover". I've seen lots of positive reviews and recommendations for these books on lots of PF sites. We bought 8 books for a total of $14. We may head back there again before the sale is over.

-I found $200 in an enevelope on J's desk. It was the cash left over from our trip to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend. I was very stressed with our move and work at that time, so now I'd like to think I wouldn't just forget about $200. We've been using the cash for daily expenses to avoid using the house checking account, and thus avoid using CC or EF.


Now a vacation question for the hive mind: where should we go? We'd like to take an international vacation in spring of 2010. Originally, we were thinking about Europe, but my brother will most likely be living there from August 2010 to May 2011. Might as well go when we have a free place to stay! So, Europe is pushed back to 2011.

Where is a relatively inexpensive place to go on an international vacation? Our next thought was Mexico or South America. If heading south, is summer their "off season" and a little bit cheaper?

Was doing a little unpacking and came across my old Atari. We had it hooked up in college but I haven't played it in years. Why not put it on craigslist?

I check out craigslist to find someone posted early today looking for an Atari. Sent him an email and viola! Atari is gone and I'm a little richer. Awesome.

Had an unexpected $500 car repair come up. Boo.

It irritates me to tap the emergency fund, even though this is exactly why it's there. And our EF is near $18,000 now so $500 isn't a big dip...it just bothers me.

Oh well, we're going to try to keep costs low for the rest of the month to see if we can avoid taking money from the EF or take less than the full $500.

We are going to splurge on tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra the day before Thanksgiving. Will be my third time, J's second, and my BFF's first. AWESOME.

I like to set goals and track my progress. But, our financial goals for the remainder of 2009 are simple: finish funding the EF. We're on track to do this through the end of the year and use part of our tax refund to finish it off.

I've set four non-financial goals for the month of November that could or should have financial consequences.

Firstly, I have a terrible time getting to work on time. Luckily, I work in a very awesome office where no one really cares if you're late. As long as you get your work done and it's high quality, you could come at noon and no one would care. However, I am afraid that my chronic lateness makes me look lazy and will result in poor supervisor reviews and loss of promotions/raises. So, goal number one is to get to work by 8:30 every morning.

For my second goal I have instituted "Productivity Hour". My problem is that when I get home from work, I sit on the couch with the intention of just playing one computer game or watching one Tv show...and then it's midnight and I have to go to bed. I would love if I could do this guilty free but I've got two monstrous tasks hanging over my head. We moved to a new house in August and STILL aren't unpacked. It's a bit ridiculous. And I'm also writing my master's thesis...and have been for about 3 yrs. I need to get this done. The impact it will have on my earning power will be awesome. More importantly, my quality of life will be exponentially improved by having it done and gone from my mind. So, for "productivity hour", I make myself spend one hour completing task around the house or working on my thesis before I relax. Then when I do relax, I can do so guilt free. I've been doing this for about a week and so far it has worked wonders on my house, my thesis, and my stress level.

Goal #3 is to eat at home more often. We have been eating out almost every meal for MONTHS. Mostly because our kitchen hasn't been unpacked and the house is a disaster. Eating at home will be a money saver and better for our health. We've had dinner at home the past three nights. Tomorrow we break the streak with our weekly bar trivia trip, but I'm proud of us.

The final goal is to read a chapter of something non-thesis related everyday. Sometimes I get some reading in on my lunch break, otherwise it's right before bed. Right now I'm reading 3 books: The Procrastinator's Handbook, The Everything Personal Finance Book for your 20s and 30s, and The Margrets (sci-fi novel).

If these four goals go well, I may be adding some gym-going goals before the end of the month, or at least making the gym a "productivity hour" option.

J. and I got paid today, so it was money organization time!

My paycheck is auto divided 3 ways: some money to my brother (we don't even count this as income in our budget), my checking account, and our household account. What goes into my checking is my "allowance" for the month. J.'s check gets divided into his allowance in his account and the rest on the household account.

Throughout the month, I track our spending and enter the totals into a budget spreadsheet just to keep an eye on where we are. At the end of the month, I wrap up the spending tracking and budget spreadsheets and make a nifty graph:



To be clear, these are the percentages of the money we SPENT not the money that we MADE. They tend to be close to the same thing but not always.

First thing's first, we normally do not save 51% of our income (or spending, for the purposes of this graph). We normally end up saving 20-25%, but anything left in the household account gets "swept" into the EF at the beginning of the month. We saved so much in October because J. got a bonus in September and we underspent our budget that month, so it was all "swept" into the EF with our regular Oct savings. Go us!

Now, a look at the other categories. Housing is just our mortgage, taxes, and insurance. Our escrow payment is going up next month to make up for a raise in property taxes, but the percentage should stay well below 30% and nothing we can't handle. The cars were well behaved this month so no repairs were needed. We spent very little on gas...I'm really not sure how. J. works from home but I commute about 35 mi a day. Huh.

No debt! We don't use credit cards for household use. Sometime J. or I will use our own cards for something but we always pay it off before the end of the billing cycle.

We have been concerned about our food budget. We eat out A LOT. We've been trying to cut back, with mixed success. We also go out to bars A LOT. We like it. We've been trying to keep that to two nights a week (one is weekly bar trivia!). We spent less on food this month than I had anticipated. Keeping our food spending at this level would be good, if we could redistribute the spending toward "grocery" and away from "O'Charley's". Curse you, sweet potato fries! And household bills (utilities and the like) are coming in at a respectable 5%.

Our "Everything Else" spending was way to high this month. We expected it though. We went to a wedding and stayed in a really nice B&B with the wedding party and we purchased our tickets for next year's Dragon*Con. The dog also got sick and needed a moderately expensive trip to the vet. These three things account for 2/3 of our "Everything Else" spending.

Based on the analysis of our spending this month, we need to shift how we're spending money on food (really, more for our health) and spend less on "Everything Else".

All in all. Not bad. And we had $300 left to sweep into this month's savings.

I'm a planner. I make to do lists like it's my job.

And this is good, right? Goals are good. They give you direction and purpose.

Well, not if you don't actually do the stuff on your to do list.

I've been pretty good about the large goals, and a lot of those are specific financial ones. Like working on the emergency fund.

I'm not as good with the smaller, everyday goals. Like right now I should be writing my aunt a letter.

An important part of goal setting is accountability. Nobody can see the to do lists I scratch everyday on a steno pad in my purse so even though I feel bad about not completing those tasks, it really lacks a kind of punch.

One of my tasks for the weekend will be to post a separate page for my goals, both specifically financial and some more general life goals that directly impact financial success (I have an idea for a blog post about those types of goals coming up later).

Also, since J. and I get paid at the end of the month, this weekend is money organization weekend! The planner in me loves this. Move some stuff around, watch some auto pay bills get paid, and make a cute little graph of last month's spending. I'll keep you posted.

And, yes, I do like purple and grey. Why do you ask?

I've started this blog because I am concerned about my financial future. Not concerned in the sense that I am panicking about bills and debt. My partner (J.) and I are very grateful to be in privledged positions when it comes to income and debt. Concerned in the sense that I want to get it right from the get-go.

That being said, here's a breakdown of the current financial situation:

-Purchased a home in July with a $170,000 mortgage @ 4.75%
-Approximately $42,000 in student loans for my undergrad and graduate education (not in repayment until next year, and not currently accruing interest).

We're both working full time jobs with decent salaries and benefits.

We're currently saving approximately 20% of our post-tax (and deductions) income to our EF. The EF will be complete with roughly 6 months worth of expenses by the end of the year.

I'm pleased to have found this community and look forward to making good finanical decisions and tracking our progress in a supportive atmosphere.

But, this color scheme has got to go.