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Archive for February, 2010

March goals

February 26th, 2010 at 03:18 pm

Non-financial:
Just signed up with our workplace healthy "Be Active" group - Starting March 1, we are all taking the initiative to move more. DH and I are a smidgen away from buying a Wii bundle from someone so that would definitely help us get up off the couch. And, I will make a conscious effort to walk around our office building more during the day rather than just keeping myself parked behind my desk all day. I'm motivated to begin as I need to shed about 10 pounds before June! Also, our DD has been signed up with a program called Girls on the Run for a couple of weeks now. At the end of April, she will be running a 5K and parents are encouraged to run with the girls... so I need to be in shape for that too!

Financial:
*Getting our federal tax refund next week - money will go straight to our savings. Our state refund will be delayed a while because of state cash flow issues. Thank goodness I don't ~need~ the money right now.
*NO spending for clothing/accessories: Every member of the family is just fine with what they have so I'm making it a goal to not buy a stitch of clothing for anyone in March (I usually am a sucker for sales but I must just say NO!)
*Gotta spend some money to get the dog groomed. He's needing his nails trimmed and I've tried to do it myself but am afraid to go too deep. Haven't had him groomed since we got him back in August so guesstimating it might be around $30?
*March is a long month til pay day (4.5 weeks) UGH!! Going to have to curtail the daily spending for food, gas, etc so that our credit card bill won't be excessive once it comes due as we charge EVERYTHING.
*Our DD is going in the middle of March for an orthodontic consultation. I know she needs braces but am hoping that it can be delayed a bit longer --- she's only 8 years old, for heaven's sake. If not, I guess it's another few thousand that we'll have to cough up. Her baby teeth aren't falling out quickly enough but her adult teeth are trying to come on through so there may be extraction costs -- poor thing has always had 'bad' teeth (from dad's side).
*Hoping that DH will be able to sell the rest of his "A" stuff which will give us hopefully another $3K. We've made $7K thus far and that would be super nice to reach the $10K mark!

Can't wait until tomorrow!

February 25th, 2010 at 03:08 pm

Ahh, Friday, February 26. The last working day of the month = payday for both DH and I. Yes, I look forward to the last day of each month just for this reason... however, this one is special. In our state, we get bonus pay starting at the 10 year anniversary month of when we started with state government. Feb 2010 is my 10 year anniversary month! Therefore, I will be receiving a net of $929 after taxes in bonus pay tomorrow. Also, tomorrow, my employer is giving me a check for $601 in travel reimbursements. That makes an additional $1,530 that I will be receiving on top of my paycheck tomorrow --- I love getting money!

Filed our taxes

February 24th, 2010 at 03:24 pm

Sent in the e-file last night to get our refund of:

Federal $963
State $923
TOTAL $1,886

We try not to get a hefty refund (or owe) too much each year, but I wasn't sure how to calculate the effect of the Making Work Pay credit so we adjusted DH's exemptions up to 0 for half the year (just playing it safe)... guess we withheld a bit too much after all. Oh, well... still not too bad. DH's sister's family is one of those that WANTS to get a huge refund each year - we're talking in excess of $8k or so. That's just plain ridiculous!

Just for fun, I pulled out prior years' returns to see how this one compares:

2008 refund $2,348
2007 refund $1,415
2006 refund $1,564
2005 owed $299
2004 refund $492

Another $1500! (again)

February 23rd, 2010 at 04:28 pm

DH just transferred another $1500 from his paypal account to our savings account! That makes a total of $7,000 so far that he's put into our household account from his sales of "A". He thinks he can get $4-$5k more before he's done. I'm so proud of him!

Need some crossed fingers and toes our way!

February 16th, 2010 at 12:35 am

Our house has been on the market for nearly a year and a half. NOTHING is selling in our county at all so this isn't out of the ordinary for our area. Of course the neverending snow that we've gotten since Christmas is not helping our situation at all these past few months. Anywho, we got a showing this past Sat (the first one in 4 months!). Even though our driveway was not driveable with the 2 feet of snow in it, the realtor and her client still wanted to come see the house. So, we got the feedback today from the showing and it sounds so promising. The realtor showed her client several houses that day and says that ours is her favorite. The client is finalizing a job opportunity in our county and once that comes to fruition, she will move forward on buying a house. Please send us your positive thoughts, well wishes, and good luck charms! We really want to sell our house and move forward with other real estate ventures. Smile

Update on snow wi/picture

February 10th, 2010 at 07:54 pm

I posted a while ago a picture of my back deck... now compare this picture to that one and see how the "blizzard" of 2010 has hit us hard! Today is definitely a NSD as we are stuck at home!

Another $1500!

February 10th, 2010 at 03:43 pm

DH has transferred another $1500 from his paypal account to our savings account. This added with the $4000 he transferred last week makes a total of $5500! He's keeping $500 so that he can buy something but he still has a lot of stuff to sell so we'll see if we hit the $10k mark for sales of "A". So far, $6k total is great!

February 10th, 2010 at 03:40 pm

Woke up to MORE snow falling!

February 6th, 2010 at 02:46 pm

It sure is beautiful but we sure are stuck at home! Guess it is a good thing since that pretty much means NSD's. Smile

I know you can't see in the pictures but the snow is falling steadily and so calmly -- very peaceful feeling to be outside since it's so quiet as no one is out and about.


Pictures from my front porch:



craigslist sales adding up

February 5th, 2010 at 04:41 pm

Sold:
$50 curio
$30 futon
$10 dishes
$22 new mary kay makeup lot


Still not sold:
$280 upright freezer


Still to post:
$10 ficus tree

Now I'm looking around the house for more stuff to sell since I took the day off due to the foot of snow we got last night!


The back deck


View of our driveway



My DH is selling stuff!! Woo Hoo!

February 4th, 2010 at 09:12 pm

As I've posted before, my DH is a super sweetheart but he has one financial weakness --- he is extremely OCD when it comes to his interests. Once he gets to liking something, he goes "hog wild" and has to buy everything ever made of that whatever. Well, over the past couple of years, he's bought a ton of stuff related to what I will call "A". Let me tell you that he's probably spent a good $7K or more on all this stuff. And what's worse is that the company that promotes "A" comes out with a new product every month or so with each item costing at least $200 and up! It's crazy. Dear DH finally realizes a few days ago that he just can't keep up with all the new releases and decides to just keep his most favorite pieces and to sell the rest! He's sold $4K worth in just 2 days! And, he's only a third through his stash! He's aiming to make around $10K once he's done with it all. We are keeping the money and deciding whether to put it down on buying the rental property we've been talking about or going on a super nice vacation with the kids this summer. I will leave the final decision to him as he's sacrificing a lot in selling all his stuff. I'm very proud of him -- this is a very huge deal as he's extremely emotionally attached to "A".