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Quiet day at work

August 10th, 2015 at 05:00 pm

It's alarmingly quiet for me today. I know I have a lot of active projects but nothing seems to be on my plate at the moment. Ah well, I've managed to get some flex spending receipts submitted and other bits of financial and organizational housekeeping. And now I guess I've got time to blog!

Lots of little financial bits of news.

- AS has still been booking work but we've been in one of those "dead zones" where checks aren't coming in. However, I'm proud of us that we're using the shared spending spreadsheet and, if there aren't available funds, no one is spending money. I like that we didn't need a big discussion: When the shared spending balance was big, we spent freely. When it was small, we pared down to things we really needed or wanted. Now that the shared spending fund is mostly wiped out, we've simply denied or delayed our wants until more funds become available. Very encouraged by how seamless and mutual the process has been.

- AS's annual salary has passed the $50K mark! Although she'll be slowing down in taking freelance projects now that her teaching gig (already figured into the $50K income) is starting up in a couple weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if she makes it to $60K this year. If so, she'll surpass NT's salary. She'll have to make it to $65K to surpass mine. It could happen, but I imagine this first year of teaching especially will take a lot of her time!

- AS still hasn't heard from Vanguard as to whether they can reclassify her mistaken IRA contribution so she can contribute up to the true limit in her Roth. I sent them another message today since it's been a week or so since the first query.

- In the meantime, I decided to contribute some to my Roth. I can always fill hers in later if it opens up again. I have enough float room in the budget to contribute $800 of the September Roth money, so I put that toward mine.

- A few weeks ago AS got notice that she's available for new healthcare coverage. She didn't ask for it, but she got it. It was very strange and disorganized; she got a letter daily for about a week, one saying she had until X to choose an option, then the next day saying the option had been chosen for her, etc. Her new premium is $71 per month instead of $172, so that's very welcome. However, if it's income-based and they see her salary next tax season, I don't think this great deal will stick around. But we'll enjoy it while we can! She'd already paid her August premium on her old healthcare, but we're supposed to get a refund at some point.

- This past weekend I took AA out to get the last of the school supplies from her list. I also let her pick out a new outfit for the first day of school. Besides shoes, socks and underwear, we really don't ever have to get the kids new clothes; between hand-me-downs and grandparent gifts, it's not necessary. But I remember how exciting it was to buy a new outfit every year for school, and I wanted to pass that experience down to my kids too. AA had never been in a changing room before! She really enjoyed it, but I think she gets that it was a special occasion. She also picked out a new full-size backpack and a lunch box (these days they're made of material similar to backpacks, not metal or hard plastic like in my day). All told it was $80-some (including the school supplies). I think we spent another $50-$60 the other trip, so in total, school stuff came to about $130 or $140.

- This will be the first month of reduced daycare tuition! It's only $190 less since we're still paying for AA to go to daycare after school and on school holidays, but it's now under $1000 for 2 kids, which is insanely good rates for our area. The rate goes up again over the summer when AA will be at daycare full-time, but we'll enjoy the break to our budget during the school year. When I saw how many school closures there are in a year, I was really glad we'd decided to go for this vs. just having AA come home after school -- not only does it help because AS doesn't have to worry about coverage when she's at her teaching gig, but she won't have to worry about watching AA on school closures; we'll just send her to daycare on those days. (Some days both daycare and school are closed, but that's around holidays where it's easy for one or all of us to get the day off work.)

- Our contractor is still not done with the living room, but only because the place that's making skirting to match existing, to cover the places where archway was removed and door was walled up, has been taking longer than expected. He thinks he'll get that done this week.

- Contractor isn't sure what we need to do to get our basement bathroom up to code. He suspects the walls will need to be broken into to prove that everything is properly vented. NT has left a message with the plumbing inspector in hopes of confirming that. We still don't know what our options are and how much they would cost, so I'm keeping that last $4000 of WV money in reserve for the time being.

- I'm thinking about starting to formulate my annual budget for 2016 today, if it stays slow at work. For both 2014 and 2015, I've created a 13-tab spreadsheet that has each month mapped out and an annual budget snapshot on the last tab. Even though things fluctuate, this makes it much easier to make those changes whenever they come up. And I don't have to save up incrementally for once-a-year items, such as Xmas gifts; I just put the amount we need on the December tab. That way they're already taken out of budget surplus and it doesn't feel like a surprise or a burden. I'm going to put in "real" utility numbers based on the past year's monthly costs (with a little padding on each number in case of fluctuation) rather than having a flat $400 each month. That means utilities will be higher in winter months and especially low in spring and early fall.

6 Responses to “Quiet day at work”

  1. RRR Says:
    1439228311

    Do you feel like you're limiting your children by very rarely buying them new clothes? Buying new clothes was not an experience that I had growing up and when I finally started making my own money, all I wanted to do was shop for new clothes.

  2. ceejay74 Says:
    1439244072

    At this age? I don't really think so. I imagine the hand-me-downs will ebb away as they get into tween years, and at the same time they might want more say in their wardrobe. We'll probably let them shop a bit more often then.

  3. Joan.of.the.Arch Says:
    1439246837

    AA is already school age!? Amazing!

  4. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1439261570

    That's great your daycare rate is reduced!

    Hope AA has a wonderful first day back!

  5. MonkeyMama Says:
    1439301385

    I always absolutely LOVED hand-me-downs. It was the only time I ever got any clothes I ever liked. I would think it would only be a negative if it is perceived as a negative. There was nothing negative, to me, about getting piles of "new" clothes.

    It must be exciting to start school!

  6. ceejay74 Says:
    1439315368

    She does get really excited when NT brings home a pile of new clothes from a co-worker, or we open a vacuum bag of hand-me-downs that are the next size up! Big Grin I think that's just as exciting as getting new clothes in the mail from the grandparents. However, I could see her wanting more say in her wardrobe and wanting to seek out clothes vs. taking whatever she can get from others. We'll see once she does enter school and starts getting more perspective from other kids. I definitely don't think AA feels deprived at the moment.

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