family finance Archives - Page 3 of 6

November 2016: Our Money Went Where?

November, the month of high spending, at least around this household. I realized mid-month that last year we also had a big overage in November due to an errant $1200 grocery bill that month $350 of it was a wine/liquor restock that got moved to “shopping/misc” lol). This month looks like a similar high spending month, though not due to groceries. My thoughts for this recurring phenomenon are two-fold. First, I think we do a pretty good job of staying on track most of the year, so we’re bound to have some “off” months. Secondly, I think November is the month that we let down our guard because we’ve been doing so well relatively speaking from the rest of the year.

Like me and Calculus – as long as I diligently did the 2-3 hrs of home work every week, I could get A’s on the tests. As soon as I stopped doing homework because I thought, “I’ve got this, I don’t need to do the homework”, I get D’s on the tests. I only got A’s because I was mindful and worked hard at it, and staying on track with our spending requires a similar effort. I think this is why so many people find tracking spending or trying to stick to budgets so discouraging. You can’t be perfect all the time. Except, I’m okay with that, just not every month, lol. Without further ado, here’s how our November spending broke down.

By Mr SSC
Posted on December 1, 2016
40 Comments on November 2016: Our Money Went Where?

Our Flexible Spending Account Rules Suck: Do Yours?

We typically don’t shy away from free money, especially when it’s offered through work. The Flexible Spending Account (FSA) is something we take advantage of every year. This year is the first year we participated in it at my current company and OMG, I’m not participating next year. Yep, I’m paying taxes on that money and using it how I please, because they have made it so cumbersome, that even tax free, it’s not worth the hassle. That’s it, rant over, thanks for stopping by. Kidding, but if you want to find out how bad it really is, read on.

October 2016: Our Money Went Where?

October, us such a great month. You have Halloween, the leaves change, and you start to get cooler temperatures outside as well. Now that the month is over, a lookback on our spending. Overall, it was up about $1200 compared to September due to some big ticket one off purchases, and our 6 month car insurance renewal coming due. What else happened in the SSC household this month? Let’s take a look!

Time Changes Everything: 2 years blogging!

I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since we started the blog! Okay, it’s actually 2 months late, but, close enough for me. Going back thru all of our earlier posts and reading them (yeah I read almost all of them – again) I realized, “Holy Cow some things have changed a LOT since we started writing. Here’s what I found has changed in our Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) mindset, our myriad of plans, my comfort level with leaving the workforce at my peak earning years (who does that?!) and even how our timing has changed over the years. Before we get to the changes, I just want to say THANK-YOU to everyone that’s followed the blog, makes comments on the posts, and retweets the scant few things I put out there! You guys are an awesome community and I’m glad to be a part of it!

Our Money Went Where? September 2016 Update

What a month September was for us! It was our lowest monthly spend so far this year – with daycare reduction being a YUGE part of that (couldn’t resist…). Beyond some minor one-offs everything still seems to be on track with usual or even below last year’s benchmarks and the plan is still a go for Summer 2018 for at least me to quit anyway. I’ll discuss how that plan is evolving and more details of our last months’ spending. Enough of that jibber jabber, let’s get into the details!

By Mr SSC
Posted on October 5, 2016
35 Comments on Our Money Went Where? September 2016 Update

August 2016: Our Money went where?

August, what a great month! It’s my birthday month, yeah Leo’s, it starts the slow trend toward cooler weather around here (it’s still supposed to be 92 today), and now we have school starting to add to the list for August since our oldest started kindergarten this year. How did all this affect our spending though? There were some minor upticks in spending due to kindergarten, life, and oh yes, the allure of a new grocery store. For the full report out and comparison spending chart read on.

By Mr SSC
Posted on September 7, 2016
29 Comments on August 2016: Our Money went where?

How we got FIRE’d Up!

Recently, Nick over at The Money Mine put out a challenge for people to describe how they got “FIRE’d Up” and what were the catalysts for your change in life to achieve that goal.

“What if everyone in the Personal Finance community could write about how they found their goals? Maybe newcomers would relate to one of these stories and decide to make these goals their own? What if that could help someone FIRE?”

Since this blog has been around for a while now and we may have newcomers that haven’t read some of our initial stories, here’s our version of how we got “FIRE’d Up.”

Our money went where? July 2016 Update

Ahhh, another month and another budget update. Although budget is such a non-term around here, since it’s really more of a spending tracking update. Overall, the numbers look good though! No big surprises anywhere, which is always awesome. So, without further ado, here’s our July recap.

Do good fences REALLY make good neighbors? And who should pay?

We live in a master planned community of ~3000 homes and as such, we have a fairly thorough set of HOA covenants. They’re not idiotically written, but they can be a pain at times when you want to do something simple like put in a playset in your backyard. Recently, they sent out their monthly newsletter notifying everyone that they would be “focusing on fences”, as there have been some homes that are staining their fences (not approved – sealing is fine, staining is a no-no) replacing their cedar fences with non-approved woods other than cedar (gasp-the horror!) and have rundown fences that need repair or replacing. We didn’t think anything about it as most of our fence is in good shape. Although Mrs. SSC and I disagree on this, because our views of “good shape” are highly divergent. However, one of our neighbors want to replace their fence and split the cost to replace the side we share with them. Now we’re arguing discussing which one of us is right. Oh brother…

May 2016: Our money went where? It went Bye Bye!

The painful wrap up of May. A lot of big rather unexpected expenses popped up, mostly in the form of auto related expenses. Although as a surprise, we did not dip into savings for these expenses and we still had $953.75 left over, Lol. I’ll highlight the big hitters, gloss over the little hitters and even more importantly, tell the story behind the really big expenses. Let’s start with the little stuff.