Vacation leftover funds

I guess I can consider the leftover from my vacation funds as extra cash, since it was supposed to be spent, but wasn't. The total amount left in the pot is $400 (give or take $5). If I am to stuck to what I had said to do with extra cash, then it would fall into the car fund filter, slush fund filters and IRA filters. How I distribute it doesn't really matter a whole lot, but I was thinking $100 to car fund, $200 slush fund and $100 IRA. That's option 1.

Option 2: Free for all! Just use it/spend it in whatever I want. HAHA. Yeah, no. But had to put it out there for comedic relief...

Option 3: My vacation fund is mostly made out of bonus money or extra paycheck money (from 3-paycheck months, twice a year). Starting next year, I will not use the extra paychecks for vacation funding, and instead, they will go solely to debt or savings. Option 3 is to keep the $400 to save for next year's vacation.

Notice how Snowballs doesn't make it into any of my filters? It's intentional. The reason for this is because snowballs are built into the budget, and I think they're big enough (they're the highest item in my budget, beating rent by $150!). I could make option 4 go for snowballs, but I don't feel it's necessary.

I'm leaning towards #3 because next vacation will be a recon mission... that'll be when I go to IL and scout places to live, maybe visit a few choice neighborhoods and check out the apartment complexes. I'll need to stay somewhere and rent a car plus flight. As of this year, the total cost was close to $700 just to get there and stay. No food, hanging out or anything. Yeah, not fun. And considering I didnt go to Chicago this year, I sure want to do something fun next time I am around.

But yeah. 1, 2, or 3? Half half? Pretend I never said anything and go for option 2?

Everybody's working for the weekend

And that includes me. 5pm on Friday just can't come fast enough. Though I have to work on Saturday, I have big plans that do not just include doing laundry, cleaning and grocery shopping for my parents' house. My mother is somewhere out of the states, so it's just me, one of my younger siblings and my dad at the house. Which means I can actually hang out. Who would've thought?!

I'm planning to do some burgers and try the recipe that M Ripples posted for Chicken and dumplings. Attempt #2 at crockpots, hope I don't mess this one up as well!

Slowly but surely, I am adjusting to the new schedule of mostly studying, mostly exercising during my time off. It leaves very little time for anything else besides food and entertaining the 4yo "roommate". Which is great! Who needs to spend money when you are busy enough to forget you were supposed to eat 4 hours ago? Oh, yeah. Me. Especially with going back and forth to my dad's and spending money for that household. (Don't worry, it's all in the budget.)

Today I'll try to take a snapshot of my spending for August. It will look unusually high because of the dentist appointment, auto insurance and I overpaid my student loan by $140. Yeah, it will look awfully high, that's for sure! But oh well. Nothing's overdue, nothing was left unpaid or underpaid. It's all good.

Anyone else has big plans for the weekend?

Cooler weather and exercising

As much as I hate to admit it, I am back to my pre-weight loss weight. Ouch!

I completely stopped exercising when the whole moving started, back in mid June. I haven't picked it up since. I also have been eating a lot of garbage (or not eating at all) with complete disregard to what my diet used to be. Couple that with stress... and it doesn't look pretty.

 

"Finding" time or type of exercise has been nothing but a long excuse and procrastination. A thing about being on your own/single is that all motivation falls on you. And boy, can I come up with excuses of all sorts. I wont be exercising that much that it will distract me from my studying, but it is a compelling argument. I just need to be more efficient with my time. So, starting Monday, I'm going to dig through and find the exercise DVDs (Slim in 6) and get to it.

 

I also have this idea of getting back to running. I used to be a runner in college, and always enjoyed it. I don't like running in place and much prefer doing so outside, but I've honestly not done so once since graduating. Shame on me, I know.

 

But before I start making more grandiose plans and procrastinate my way to September, I'll start small with the videos, which are kind enough to begin with just a 30min workout per day, moving to a 1:30hr workout after a few weeks. I'll definitely make it a goal to run at least once in September.

 

Do you have a favorite exercise/routine? Morning or evening workout?

"Good debt", "bad debt"... shades of debt?

I got into a bit of a discussion with a friend, and had all to do with the title. "Good debts" vs "Bad debts". I personally don't think there's such a thing as good or bad. It's like saying there's "good cancer" and "bad cancer". I think it has a lot to do with how taboo finances and personal debt is seen for a lot of people; nobody wants to admit to doing or being involved in a bad thing, so by making it sound... different or even better, it creates a different outlook. We ended the discussion on a "let's agree to disagree" note, as I don't think there's a thing like "good debt", but more of a "better-than-the-alternative debt"

Now, I do believe debts differ from one another, but more on a 'malign' and 'benign' way. I could sound like I'm really bickering about shades of gray in the issue. Debt is debt. But what if your car breaks down and you don't have the funds available? You still need to get to work. Sure, you could quit your job and blame yourself when you can't pay your bills because you didn't plan ahead... but to be honest, nobody can really plan ahead for everything. People make mistakes. Home ownership is a dream for many, and very few can actually save enough to buy a house with cash. It is an investment that can give you much in returns if used wisely. And that's what I think is one of the main difference between different shades of debt.

On the darker end, you have the debt that pulls you in further. The typical credit card which gives you tingles in your fingers and urges you not to settle for a lesser/cheaper product or shop around, but to get what you want, right here, right now. Bigger, better, more expensive. And when you can't meet the payments, just borrow more money.

On the lighter side, you have investments in yourself or your property, which may give you returns in the future. There's also those debts you may take to avoid an even deeper fall (such as buying a car with a loan to avoid losing your job because your current car died).

Do you differentiate between debts at all? How do you classify them?

No surprises - another miscalculation

For a budget that is written in stone (well, on paper), I seem to make a lot of mistakes. They're rarely "bad", but they're mistake nonetheless. I've been driving myself mad trying to find how come I am missing another $150 for August. Try as I may, I just can't find what became of that money. I've followed all of my notes and yielded nothing. Money just doesn't go missing from accounts like that!

Then updating my spreadsheet, I found why. It seems I had written that $150 of the extra money (from August being a 3 paycheck month) was to be paid for student loans, making the total paid in August $820 vs $670 which was originally plotted. I didn't really need that money for anything in particular, but I don't think it was supposed to go into that fund. Oh well. At least it went to a good cause, even if by a miscalculation.

My budget book ends in October, as September may see a raise, however small (if any) and may need some recalculation. I will try to be more careful, but all this shuffling of funds is hard keep track of. As long as the money isn't being thrown into a black hole, I shouldn't be too upset. But I am.

What do you do when you overpay something by a little or a lot? Something that won't just issue a credit so you can skip next time's payment?

Books I've read this year

Here's the list of books I've read this year:

1. Living Rich by Spending Smart by Gregory Karp
2. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Remit Sethi
3. How to Manage Your Money When You Don't Have Any by Erik Wecks
4. Firmin by Sam Savage
5. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
6. The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews
7. Gift of Magic by Lynn Kuriand
8. El Enigma de los Ilenios I, by Pedo Urvi (in Spanish; part 1 of 3, but I'm not sure I'll buy the next two installments)
9 Everflame (lost interest in it as soon as I saw a misuse of "then" when they meant "than", but finished it anyway, 1 of 3 books, highly doubt I'll read the rest)
10. The Book of Deacon by Joseph Lallo (loved it, part 1 of 3)
11. Battle of Verril by Joseph Lallo (part 2 of 3)
12. The Great Convergence by Joseph Lallo (part 3 of 3)
13. The White Tree by Edward Robertson (part 1 of 3)

That's 13 books in all, which was my yearly goal. Woo hoo! Quite painless and very enjoyable once I started reading what I like vs what people think others should like. I can't help it if I'm not a fan of non-fiction and find biographies, though inspiring, uninteresting. I will continue to read after I'm done with my current book, and probably continue reading thereafter. Not all books were winners. I've started 4 books I just couldn't get into and abandoned them. You win some, you lose some.

Something that helped tremendously was getting my hands on a Kindle tablet. I paid for it partially with my "new phone" budget, since I decided not to go for the big upgrade and settled for an older model. It only cost $90+shipping or so, and it's definitely one of my best investments to date. Good thing about Amazon (and having Prime) is that they have such a wide range of books for free. Most are the first book in a series, and the rest can be bought if you want to continue to read. This deal is perfect for me, as I am not a fan of "classics" or highly popular books, and these smaller ones fit my interests all the better.

Onto another goal!

Curious about shopping and deals

A site I check rather often is Slickdeals, when looking (or not looking) for things. It can be really bad when I am not supposed to be spending money and a super deal for something I want comes up. No, not promoting, but just sharing. Every so often, I luck out and am able to get something I needed or was looking to buy for extremely cheap (ie, soap, laundry detergent, tooth paste, almonds, books, games), so it's really worth while. Do you have any such sites you follow for deals? I'm curious if there are any other deal-seeking sites anyone follows with any frequency.

I know some have already started their Christmas shopping, and it makes me feel like a slacker, since I will most likely end up doing all the shopping in last minute, if at all. The alternative is always cash when it comes to gift giving during holidays.

On a random note, for those of you that have experience with 'care packages' for college students, can you share with me what exactly goes into those? I was asked to put one together and I have honestly not a clue what goes in. Candies and sweets? Reading material? Toiletries? Call me a child, but all I had envisioned was crayons and coloring books. I know that's what I'd want when buried in mountains of books.

I'll go and enjoy the beautiful weather we've been having this week. 60's in the morning, low 70's in the peak of noon. Absolutely beautiful for August. Hope it's nice wherever you are as well!

Hello, Monday! Not glad to see you!

Wow, what a busy day. It's amazing how much can go amiss when you take a few days off from work! I'm almost terrified it's so late in August. Though it is a 3 paycheck month (yay!) and it means 1 more month will be taken from my final count (T-22 months before moving time!), September is looming by. What is September? Employee evaluation time! Wee... not. Evaluations always make me nervous, though so far I have been doing alright at work. It's hard to do much when your work depends on other people doing their jobs. And once nagging has been fully assimilated and people start ignoring you, things just get tough. Stuff gets lost. People start whining. Fun stuff! But with so much going awry so close to evaluations, I won't lie and say it doesn't stress me out. The halo/horn effect can be quite scary and powerful.

I had a good return to vacation. Did my laundry, actually cooked something (Sluggy sent me with some food, so I wasted no time and used some of it), but to be honest, I'm already exhausted. And guess what?! It's only Monday!

I'll go drown my sorrows in another study chapter. But before I go into that, I finally entered in Quicken all of those wandering receipts from using cash-only. Then quickly decided that I am done with cash months! I know and admire those that can deal with the tracking, but I'm just not a cash person. I prefer to use my credit cards same-as-cash, knowing always how much is left on my bank account, and paying it right off. It helps me keep track of things. It makes it a world to analyze my spending. And it makes my money work for me, even if it's just a few cents at a time. So yeah, now that I've accumulated 4 months doing cash-only, I won't do it again. Not for the remainder of the year, anyway.

Stay well!

Back from vacation @ Sluggy's!

I'm back! And alive. And quite shameful I haven't posted anything since the end of July! Oops. So much for my goals. I have some catching up to do.

I was at Sluggy's house from Wednesday to Saturday this week. So, a big shout-out THANK YOU for having me! She has all the incriminating photo (and *gasp*, video!) evidence. I forgot to feed her camera to the dogs. This bad memory will be the end of me, I swear!

So a summary of the trip... we chatted a lot, played with fire, did not rob a bank (I know, shame on us), ate awesome meals, and went to a train museum. I love trains. I work for a company that deals with them, so I've always been fascinated. That she took time from her busy schedule to shuttle me around was more than appreciated!

They also provided cake. I don't like making big notes about my birthday, since I'd rather let them slip by unnoticed and move along, but somehow she knew and she and her husband bought me a cake. It was awesome! Very exciting trip that came together in the nick of time. So yeah, next time you're in the area, hit her up and stop by for lunch. It's really a blast!

Now, I will try to get back on schedule. Lots of studying to do, boring budget stuff to consider, and in a month, an application to submit for my certification. Yikes! I'll try to catch up with you all today and through the week. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!