All posts by 1MansMoney

I am a guy pushing 40 that is married to a beautiful woman in her 30's. If I can only have as much luck with our finances.

Dinner And A Movie At Costco

Last month, my wife and I enjoyed our 2nd wedding anniversary. We decided to celebrate is special occasion by having dinner at the waterfront restaurant where we were married.

To save us some money, my wife bought a $100 gift card for the restaurant at Costco for $80. I had never even heard of this before. That’s a 20% savings! My wife is so smart. We also recently bought movie tickets at Costco and saved 20% once again.

So, if you have a Costco card and enjoy going out to eat or the movies, you might want to consider buying gift cards at Costco. Oh, and if you find the girl of your dreams, don’t let her get away.

2nd Raise For 2008

As I posted about previously, my company is resetting everyone’s review date to the anniversary of their hire date. Most employee reviews already fall on the anniversary of their hire date, but, in the past, if you received a promotion, the date that you received your promotion became your new annual review date.

I received a promotion in January of 2006, thus, changing my annual review from my April hire anniversary to January. Since my company is resetting everyone back to the anniversary of their hire date, I received another review this week.

I was blessed to receive a very positive review that included a 2.07% bump up in pay, from $69,030/annually to $70,460/annually. Combined with my 4.5% increase in January, I’m up 6.57% this year.

We’ve decided to increase my 401(k) contribution by 1%, to a total of 5%. The reminder of the raise money will be used to help us try to keep up with the cost of living.

March 2008 Income Statement

It’s scary sometimes how much we can spend in one month (click on spreadsheet below).

Thank God for the extra money we brought in above our standard income. The largest amount of money was brought in by my Wife’s in the form of a $1,292.50 commission check and a $188.54 mileage reimbursement check. We also received a $384.44 property tax refund, $60 from my parents, and $60 from selling a few things. All of this extra money kept us from spending more than we earned in March.

Needless to say, we went over budget in most areas. Some of the larger expenses were $832.46 for household items (including a new home theater system), $585.67 for groceries, $129.01 for pet care (including pet care while our condo was being worked on), and $166.00 for car registration.

We have vowed to spead less in April. My Wife may get good commission check in April and I have a review that may result in a small raise.

March 2008 Net Worth Update (+$82.80)

The roller coaster stock market continued in March. Thank God we were able to eek out $82.80 ahead of our net worth last month, bringing us to a net worth total of $27,776.61 (click on spreadsheet below).

What worked this month?
Thanks to my wife’s $1,292.50 commission check, we were able to contribute a total of $800 to our Roth IRAs for the month. So, even with the rough stock market, our Roth IRAs are up $490.20.

What did not work this month?
While we contributed $212.40 to my company 401(k), we ended down $216.664 for the month. Our savings account also took a 14.55% hit because we had to pay the 2nd installment of property taxes ($1458.40).

What’s coming next month?
Next month is a pretty typical month for us in terms of income and expenses. The big question mark is the stock market. Who knows what will happen?

Change in 2nd Mortgage Accelerated Payment Plan

We have been on a good roll with our 2nd mortgage accelerated payment plan, paying down an extra $1,930.53 in principle since January 2008. The extra payments to our 2nd mortgage were great to pay down the principle, but cannot be pulled back out in case of an emergency (it’s not a HELOC). So, due to the current U.S. economic situation, we have decided to deposit future funds earmarked for our 2nd mortgage accelerated payment into our savings account.

We’re doing this to temporarily increase our emergency fund during this volatile time. That way, if the economy gets so bad that people start losing jobs, we will be a bit more prepared. Once the economy straightens out, we plan to pull the earmarked funds from savings and apply them to our 2nd mortgage.

I hope we never have to touch the money, but know we will sleep better with a bit more of a cushion right now.

Property Tax Refund Received

We’ve been eager to receive our property tax refund check, but didn’t expect to receive it so soon.

The tax assessor’s office told us it could take 60-90 days to receive the refund; it only took 21 days. In addition, we were expecting ~$354, but received $384.44. Thank God! We deposited the $384.44 into our E*TRADE savings account to help bolster our emergency fund.

Since property taxes in San Diego County can only increase 2% a year, we just saved ourselves a bunch of money while we own the condo. And, if property values continue to fall, we will likely ask that our condo be reassessed again next year to further reduce our property taxes.

I Can Tell You My Net Worth Within $1,000,000

I enjoy listening to talk radio, primarily the business talk radio. Yesterday, I was listening to The Ray Lucia Show when he received a call from a gentleman that wanted to discuss saving money on taxes.

The gentleman is 45 and owns his own company that profits $250,000/year. While he does not have any retirement savings, he owns his home outright and has rental homes and a commercial property that are nearly paid off. Pretty awesome, especially for a 45 year old. What threw me off was when Ray asked him his net worth, the gentleman replied $3,000,000 to $4,000,000.

I didn’t even hear Ray’s answer to the tax question because I couldn’t get over the insanely wide range of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. Granted, the gentleman was put on the spot and, with the instability in the housing market, it is difficult to know exactly what property is worth. But not knowing your net worth within $1,000,000 seems incomprehensible to me. For us, that would mean the difference between retiring and not retiring.

Time Flies By

American Airlines informing me that my 11,316 American Airlines Aadvantage miles were in jeopardy of being lost since I have not flown with them within the past 18 months.

I have been flying almost exclusively with Delta and racked up a number of Delta SkyMiles. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to loose my American Airlines Aadvantage miles because there is a chance I may fly with them in the future.

I checked their website and determined that if I use my miles to redeem something, I get another 18 months before the miles expire. Unfortunately, I did not have enough miles for a free flight, but they have special offers online that you can trade your miles for. I used 1,700 of my miles to order a 1-year subscription to Time Magazine.

Not a bad deal. If I never fly with American Airlines again, I have enough points to keep a free Time Magazine subscription going for another 5 years or so.

Saved Money On Property Taxes

Our original property tax bill was for two payments of $1842.84 ($3,685.68 total). We just received our revised bill for two payments of $1,458.40 ($2,916.80 total) after having our property value reassessed. That means we saved $767.20 on our property taxes this year.

We mailed a $1,458.40 check for the second installment. Since we paid our first installment for the original amount ($1,812.84) back in December, they will be issuing us a refund for $354.44 within 60-90 days. Good stuff!

I Can’t Afford A Stay At Home Wife

Why? Because my wife is way too profitable.

She just received a $1,292.50 commission check from her company. That’s some serious extra cash. Instead of going out and buying a home theater system (because we already did that last week), we’re going to be more responsible with the money. Our plan is to tithe a portion of the commission, put a portion into savings for taxes, and the rest will go towards funding our Roth IRAs.

If my wife keeps this up, maybe I can be a stay at home husband.