Spending Money To Save Money

Our savings account just took a big hit. The 16 months of prepaid gym membership that my awesome wife bought me expires this month. Thankfully, we were able to score the same great deal that she originally negotiated: 16 months for $828, plus a free set of boxing gloves ($50 value).

The membership is normally $65/month, but our special deal ends up only costing $51.75/month. That equates to ~20% discount! The gym is only a couple of blocks from our condo, allowing me to easily shoot of for a class or to lift weights after work.

At my heaviest, I weights 205lbs, but have been able to gradually whittle it down to 185lbs. So, not only do I really enjoy the training, but it is also slowly helping me shed some weight.

Insurance Shake-up

We have decided to get term life insurance to protect us financially in case one of us. . . well, you know.

My wife found $500,000 10 year term life insurance from Farmers for $20.68/month for me and $18.60/month for her. We made sure there is an option to increase coverage for when we buy a home as well as to renew the policy at the end of the 10 year term.

We are also switching our condo insurance and my truck insurance from AAA to Farmers. The condo insurance will increase $35/year ($451/year vs. $416), but my truck insurance will decrease $254/year ($626/year vs. $880/year). Both policies will have the same coverage and deductibles as before. The money we’re saving on the truck insurance will help offset some to the cost of the term insurance. Plus, it just makes sense to have all of the policies with one company.

Well Rewarded

I love cash back rewards credit cards! My wife and I both have cash back rewards cards that we use for business expenses (reimbursed by our companies) as well as a separate cash back rewards card we use for our household expenses. We are able to charge 30% of our total monthly household expenses to the cash back reward card each month.

If you don’t currently have a rewards credit card, and you are able to properly manage your credit card debt, I recommend looking into it. My wife was the mastermind behind getting us signed up for the cash back rewards cards and it’s really paid off. We have averaged $59/month in rewards from our various cash back rewards credit cards over the past 10 months. Annually, that would be more than $700, and over 20 years it would exceed $14,000. That’s free money! In addition, charging expenses to a credit card helps with our monthly cash flow.

After having been in a great deal of credit card debt previously and paid untold amounts of interest to the credit card companies, it’s nice to get a little payback. . . literally.

A great resource for comparing various cash back credit cards can be found at creditcards.com. It’s important to note that the balance needs to be paid off each month so that you don’t incur interest, otherwise cash back rewards don’t mean jack.

401(k) Increase Time

I just submitted paperwork to increase my 401(k) contribution by 1% next year (effective 1/2/08). This will bring us to a 4% total contribution to my 401(k) plan. This percentage is low because our first priority is to contribute the max to our Roth IRA’s each year ($5,000 each in 2008).

Based on my current income, a 4% contribution represents $2,646 annually. However, my annual review is also in January, and I would guess that my raise will be ~5% this year. If that assumption is true, the total 2008 contribution will be $2,778. In addition to my 401(k) contribution, I also receive company profit sharing into my 401(k) in September, which last year was $3,005.63.

Our plan is to increase my 401(k) contribution 1% each year until we reach the maximum contribution. By timing this increase with my annual raise, we don’t even feel the effects of the extra contribution money missing from my paychecks.

Vehicle Depreciation

You may have noticed that our vehicle values in the assets section of our Net Worth Updates have remained the same since March. We take good care of our cars, but they still depreciate. Therefore, we must make an adjustment to our balance sheet to account for the current value of the vehicles.

I had planned to adjust our vehicle values annually using the Kelly Blue Book value. However, now that I am faced with taking a $4,800 adjustment in one month. . . I’m rethinking my plan. For the first time since beginning this blog, we will post a negative change to our net worth in December.

To avoid this big hit and the associated sorrow every year, we will begin depreciating our vehicles in January at $200/month.

November 2007 Income Statement

At first glace, I was disappointed with how much money we seemed to have spent in November (click on spreadsheet below). It was more than last month and more than we earned. In fact, we had to dip into our savings to cover all of the bills. However, $1,296 went to paying for 12 months of our truck and condo insurance, $1,000 went into savings for my wife’s taxes while she is 1099, and $475 went to paying down our 0% interest credit card balance. If you subtract out this $2,771, we weren’t to far over budget.

In addition to our standard income, this month my wife received an extra paycheck (three total) as well as a $491.22 commission check and $182.87 in mileage reimbursements. We also supplemented our income with a $25 HSBC credit card cash back reward and a $50 Chase credit card cash back reward.

Next month should be a standard income month, 2 paychecks for my wife and 2 paychecks for me. My wife may also be receiving a commission check for a few hundred dollars next month which we will deposit into savings.

November 2007 Net Worth Update (+$2.01)

November has been a crazy net worth month due to the stock market volatility. Many times throughout the month, our net worth dipped over $800 below what we ended October with. We also had a few large annual bills come due this month including a $1,842.84 condo tax bill, $880 auto insurance bill (1 years coverage), and a $416 condo insurance bill (1 years coverage). That being said, we are thankful to have ended the month with a net worth increase of $2.01 over last month, for a total net worth of $27,174.69 (click on spreadsheet below).

What worked this month?
First, we feel great about paying our condo insurance and truck insurance for the year, rather than financing both over many months. Secondly, we’re thrilled to have completely paid off our 0% interest Chase credit card ($999.49), eliminating the last of our credit card debt. Finally, we fully funding my Roth IRA for 2007 ($4,000) by contributing the final $500.

What did not work this month?
Our 401(k) took a pretty good hit this month; it was down $1,105.63 from last month. Our savings also shrunk by $845.04, but only because we pulled funds out to pay off our Chase credit card. With the stock market volatility and our large bills this month, the damage could have been much worse.

What’s coming next month?
December should be a much quieter month. There are no large annual bills looming in the next 31 days and hopefully the market will settle down. We’ve been greatly blessed to have already reached our net worth goal for the 2007 ($22,000); any net worth increase in December will be going towards our 2008 net worth goal.

Paid Off Last Off Credit Card Debt

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. My wife and I just returned from spending the holiday with my family. It was a blast! Great food and good times.

In financial news, my wife and I decided today to pay off our 0% interest Chase credit card balance (the last of our credit card debt). This credit card had a clause that if we were late with a payment, they could back-charge us interest. We didn’t want to have that hanging over our heads any longer. Better yet, we also wanted to start 2008 with a little less debt.

Frequent Flyer Miles From My Trip To Europe

I just returned from my business trip overseas. It was a good trip, but, as always, it’s nice to be home. One nice thing about traveling is the frequent flyer miles that I earn. This trip, I earned 15,692 and now have 60,276 Delta SkyMiles saved up.

However, I learned that I was not automatically updated to Gold Medallion status when I hit the 50,000 mile mark. The update usually takes place the following Saturday. So, I only received a 25% bonus for my miles on this trip (Silver Medallion), not a 100% bonus (Gold Medallion). One bit of good news that I learned though is that my Medallion status will be good until December 30, 2008 – a year longer than I thought.

Our path to financial independence and retiring early.