Happy Dance!!!

Today when I got home from work I had a nice fat check waiting for me. I knew I would have a reimbursement check from escrow for prepaid property taxes. I had a number in my head around $300. The check was for $770.13. Woohoo! That brings my E-Fund up to $875.55 and my goal is $1000, only $124.45 short.

Since I had to get work done on my car I did not think I would be able to put money in savings this month and I would never reach my $1000 minimum for my e-fund. I still will not be able to make a larger than normal payment on my car but will start doing that in January.

Someone accepted a position at my company today and starts on the 16th. This will greatly ease the amount of work that I have been doing and relieve some of my stress.

Christmas is coming!

My Car Is Well Again

Originally I was planning on putting what would normally go to my mortgage in to savings since we refinanced and get to "skip" a mortgage payment this month. I had also planned to put an additional $400 on my car payment this month. I took my car in for service today.

• New timing belt
• New water pump
• New pulley's & tensioner's (for timing belt)
• Transmission flush
• New radiator cap & random hoses
• Car rental for the day since we are down to one car
• Brakes were checked but they are good
  

They forgot to do the oil change or forgot to charge us. We will call on that tomorrow. This is all stuff that needs to be done and is the way I am going to be able to keep my car alive until I can pay it off and buy my Mini Cooper S in chocolate brown.


Total damage - $1349.67.
Total budgeted - $1360.00
Total left over - $10.33 boo ya!

Even though we have debt. It's a pretty good feeling to be able to pay for this "emergency" with cash. I say emergency because my dad thinks I could have gone miles on that bad axle. Such is the opinion of a man who for the better part of his life has had to fix something or other on his daily driver (old Studebaker's) . Now he owns a nearly new Porsche and doesn't have to worry - too much. Well, we actually used a credit card since we don't get paid until Friday. But...we will pay $900 the next payday and $400 the following payday to zero out the card.

I could use money we have in savings from the sale of the hubs old car. But, that money is earmarked for some stuff that needs to happen to his new car so I don't want to get us in trouble there.

The reason for this is that he needs his car up and running by mid December. Right now we carpool but in mid December to early January my office is moving and we will no longer be able to carpool. If he can't drive his car - it's the bus.

Don't you think the above is a better alternative (not our actual car but a stock photo)?

Visions of Sugarplums...

Halloween is over but even before October was officially out the door I started to see advertisements for Christmas. I think that is totally crazy and "they" should wait for November 1st. Even if I do start my Christmas gift planning in the summer, I don't expect to see holiday decorations out until at least November.

I have ramped up my efforts for Christmas gift buying. I have no idea what to get some people and I'm hoping for some suggestions...

The hubs and I already have the kids figured out and the big ticket items purchased for them. We don't have a ton of money available to us and I want to not use a credit card if at all possible. We were successful last year and I think only used a credit card for one purchase. I was at my wits end and used my Macy's card to get my mom a gift card cause I couldn't find ANYTHING on her list.

We have my parents, my sister, BILL and their two kids, my brother, the hubs parents and hubs grandparents and a few friends we exchange with .

The only thing I plan to make this year are new stockings. I have some brown velvet that looks like fur that I use to trim them. Just need to get some brown fabric.

Sidebar Updates

First post of the new month and I have updated my sidebars.

Progress Not Perfection

This month for my espresso challenge I will attempt to go 24 days without buying from Starbucks. I am limiting myself to Sundays and Thanksgiving day.

My emergency fund goal for right now is only $1000 until I can get some things paid off. I would prefer my emergency fund to be around $3000 at all times. Because of our refinance we don't have a mortgage payment this month.

The car rehab fund is for the money the hubs made selling his 87 BMW. That $2400 is going towards a few repairs and the purchase of an 89 Porsche the hubs is buying from my dad. This fund should go away by the end of the year.

The travel fund is set for $2000. This is a number I pulled out of my head. The hubs and I are going to Savannah next spring or summer for a long over due honeymoon. We think we can do the trip for around $2000. The money for this fund this year will come from our tax return.

The hubs and I would eventually like to have two laptops and no desktop machine. We are going to start with one laptop and an external hard drive. We have a budget of $600 for the laptop and will be looking to buy around Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving). We are due some money from our old mortgage for prepaid property taxes in escrow. That money, plus any money we make selling things on Craigslist will go here.

Debt Reduction

We have used our credit cards since paying them off in August. Some things were necessary and some were not. I do make more than the minimum payments on them. The ultimate goal is not to use them but they are available now until we can get things paid off and money saved to free up more of our take home pay. We have only used 14% of our available credit.

The personal loan from my parents is something I want to aggressively pay off once I have my car & credit cards paid off and more money in savings.

My car loan is about half paid off and this is what I am focusing on right now. This month I plan to put an additional $400 on my $200 payment.

The hubs student loan is something we are going to continue to put a minimum payment on. It has the lowest interest rate of anything (except the loan to my parents) but because the balance to my parents is so much larger I would prefer to pay that off first.

The mortgage and home equity loan have zero percentage pay down because we just refinanced a couple weeks ago. Our first payments are due in December.

The Christmas knitting projects are pretty self explanatory.

I'm Ba-ack! - October Warp Up & November Goals

Life for the paisley penguin has been pretty hectic and crazy lately. My supervisor was let go about a month ago and I have been an army of one at work. I met the final two candidates today and a decision will be made next week. One of them will be employed by Thanksgiving. I love that I was allowed to meet with them to give my impressions as that will be taken in to consideration for their decision.

This week has been even more hectic. Wednesday was the hubs birthday. The kids, a friend, the hubs and I went to Bucca di Beppo for family style Italian food. There are only two in the state of Washington and both are within easy driving distance of my home.

One of my favorite things about Bucca is their decor. All of the walls are filled with framed photos. The main theme is definately anything Italian. Photos of Sophia Loren are hung right next to random photos of everyday people. If you look long enough you will see other photos tucked in here and there of every shape, size and subject. Just above the table we ate at I saw photos of

• a kitten
• three priests
• an Italian villa
• several people eating spaghetti
• Sophia Loren
• a bunch of men that looked like gangsters
  

One of my favorite photos from Bucca is this woman in a wedding dress kicking a soccer ball.


The walls at Bucca are the inspiration for something I want to do in my dining room. I am in the planning stages of but will reveal soon.

Thursday night the hubs and I were lucky enough to go to the Sounders FC playoff game for free against the Houston Dynamo. It was a draw (in football speak that means tied at zero). The other team was super aggressive. I also thought the officiating was a little one sided and they were not siding with us. We had tons of shots on goal, spent a majority of time on their end of the field and actually got one in but it was denied due to an earlier penalty in the play. Total crap!

The month is almost over and I have not managed to post any photos of my Halloween decorations. I plan to do that tomorrow.

I thought I would do my wrap up for the month finance wise.

• Income - $4,100.49 (paychecks)
  
• Coffee - $68.73 (down $58.94 and $1.73 over budget - budget adjusted to include hubs b-day and day trip coffee spending)
  
• Eating Out - $89.81 (up $53.16)
  
• Groceries - $372.36 (down $25.55 and 172.36 over budget)
  
• Gas - $217.16 (up $64.37 and $77.16 over budget - due to additional extra driving)
  
• Save - $2609.20 (up $2459.20 due to sale of hubs massage table & car and cash back from condo refinance)

Goals for October were...

• Reduce CC balances by $336 - $207.49 less than planned
• Save $150 - oh yeah, and then some
• Follow grocery ($200), coffee ($67) and gas ($140) budgets - good and bad here
• Add one more workout day a week using Wii Fit or Jillian Michaels - NOT (does watching Biggest Loser count?)
• Make better effort on drinking four glasses of water a day - can't really tell you as I need to define this with better metrics
• Limit coffee (Starbucks) purchases to Sunday only - caved but not too badly (adjusted for day off and hubs birthday)
• Continue on eating at least five servings of fruits/veggies a day - did really well bringing a large salad for lunch and pieces of fruit as well as at dinner
• Actually take a multi vitamin - fail
  
• Paint living room - fail
• Install tile on hearth & possible mantle - started working on it
  
• Start SS fingerless gloves - fail
• Complete at least three knitted ornaments - almost done with one more (could finish that tomorrow
• Finish refinancing condo - we closed on the 21st!!!
• Blog at least fifteen times this month - yeehaw this post makes 18
  

I think I need to streamline my goals with better metrics to measure against. I also don't want to have a huge long list to measure against. Since we are headed in to the holiday season I want to keep things pretty focused on a few areas.

So, goals for November.

• 6 days of Starbucks (5 Sundays and Thanksgiving day)
  
• 9 workouts (5 walking Sundays and 4 workout Wednesdays)
• $400 extra payment on car (decided to focus on that to pay it off)
  
• $900 in savings (no mortage this month)
• loose 10 pounds
• knit SS fingerless gloves and three more ornaments (not inclduing the one I started)
• buy Christmas gifts (need to define list)
  
• either paint the living room or tile the hearth
  

There you have it - here's to another great month!

Lazy Sunday

The third day of my three day weekend. I'm gearing up for month end at work and planning a pretty lazy day with the hubs at home.

Yesterday we headed out to the thrift stores. We found some bits and bobs to take apart and make some steampunk ray guns for our costumes. The hubs found a few DVD's he wanted. My greatest scores were some amber Mexican wine glasses and three bunches of dark purple grapes.

My mom loves amber Mexican glass and since St. Vinny's had them for so long I got four for $2 plus tax. I had been to Michaels for grapes a couple times and they never had the color I wanted. I got the three bunches of grapes for $1. Perfect for my dining table centerpiece.

I have my house about as decorated as it can get for Halloween. Stay tuned as I will post photos.

Last night we went to a party held by someone we both went to high school with . There were a few others from high school there. Not everyone could make it but it was so nice to meet up after all this time being as how neither the hubs nor I went to our ten or twenty year reunions.

It's crazy what time and space can do. It was so interesting hearing out their lives and people we knew and remiscing - looking through yearbooks and such.

The great thing about it is that I have probably made some new "old" friends.

Happy Friday!

The hubs and I are taking the day off.

It's really nice to just take a day to do whatever we feel like. We are planning to go to a pumpkin patch and maybe carve pumpkins tonight. I want to hit some thrift stores and a few antique shops up north and my favorite tea shop as I am out of my chocolate tea.

If you still need some Halloween decorating ideas click on over to Eddie Ross. He brings sophistication to holiday decorating which is what I try to do. That is why I drag all my silver, crystal and glass out every year.

Here is a teaser.

Have a great day!