all4money's financial journal

Plan for Christmas with Charity angle

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:44:56 PST

Thanks for the responses to my recent post about how I wanted to go "charitable" this year at Christmas time concerning gifts. I am a huge Somaly Mam Foundation supporter (fighting child sex trafficking in Cambodia) and found that The Body Shop sells reusable tote bags for $5 where...

One year later and back to the same house...

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:28:16 PST

I posted a year ago about a house that we were interested in...well, that house still hasn't sold yet and they've lowered the price by $86,000 now. We would still love to move into it but want them to go down another $100,000. It needs a lot of work and DH and I just don't think...

Christmas gift idea

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:22:26 PST

So DH and I would really like to go "non-material" this year with our gift giving. We'd like to donate money to charities in honor of our family and friends. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on junk that no one wants or needs, we just would love to have our money go toward...

Oct wrapup!

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:01:35 PST

Here is a reposting of our estimates of what Oct was going to look like with actual expenses in bold.

1st Weekend in October:

1. Fall Festival at the kids school. Will cost around $20 or so to let the kids go and enjoy the activities -- fundraiser for the school so no biggie....

got a lowball offer -- almost

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:42:05 PST

Ok, our house is on the market not out of necessity but just because we'd like to move to a different house/neighborhood.

I just got a call from our realtor that was interesting. She said a buyer's realtor contacted her and before her clients even want to look at our house, they...

iTunes and Paypal are crazy!

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:20:35 PST

DH gets 3 consecutive emails from Paypal late Sunday night around 11pm. They were receipts for payments for purchases made at iTunes... DH hasn't bought anything off of iTunes in over a year or more. We knew immediately that someone must have hacked into his iTunes account, purchased...

October is full of "non-essential" expenses!

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 06:30:54 PST

1st Weekend in October:

1. Fall Festival at the kids school. Will cost around $20 or so to let the kids go and enjoy the activities -- fundraiser for the school so no biggie.

2. A co-worker gave me 2 free tickets to a Halloween event at a local amusement park. We have 4 in...

Help me pick a vacation spot!

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:14:48 PST

Ok, I'll be graduating with my MBA on Dec 18, 2009. I want to go on a huge vacation to celebrate. My only problem is deciding what to do and where to go.

We don't travel much at all so we are a bit foreign to the whole "planning a big adventure" idea. Help?!

Some info... we...

FSBO?

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:01:03 PST

Ok, I've posted about how we have our house for sale. We put it on originally for $349,000 and about 2 weeks ago, lowered it to $325,000. Our contract with the realtor expires next week and we are going ahead and withdrawing the listing now (our realtor says it looks better on the...

My sister's financial mess

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:56:50 PST

I spoke with my sister the other day about her finances. She's a SAHM with two kids under 3 years old. Her husband works 45-50 hours a week just to make ends meet but they are barely getting by. He brings home NET around $420 a week or about $1,600 a month. Ok, do the math here......

Our 'real' summer vacation plans...

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:04:22 PST

We had taken a mini-vacation a few weeks ago over the 4th Holiday. Now, it's onward to our real summer vacation that we'll be taking in NC beginning next week...

Day 1: Carowinds (amusement park)
Day 2: Great Wolf Lodge (water park)
Day 3: Great Wolf Lodge
Day 4: Camping (just...

Signed up on Facebook

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:54:45 PST

Well, I did it. A couple of days ago, I signed up on Facebook and it's been fun. I've "connected" with several folks that I went to high school with. I found one girl that is now a fairly successful model. She's done a lot of print work and has been in a few commercials and a movie....

vacation update

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:54:29 PST

So, we decided to stay local for our 4th of July vacation.

Friday, July 3: We went canoeing for 10 miles - took 5 hours, stopped for a picnic and had an overall great time.

Saturday, July 4: Spent the entire day with family at cousin's house - cookout, fireworks, etc. Cousin...

last minute change in plans

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:04:01 PST

We decided to nix the Busch Gardens trip for the 4th. It would've cost around $1500 for us to spend 3 days there -- just didn't seem worth it. Instead we decided to take our kids canoeing tomorrow for the first time. The oldest DD has wanted to go forever so we decided to go for...

June wrapup

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:11:48 PST

1. Wasn't too bad on the weight loss track even though I didn't make my 5 lb mark (lost just 3). Oh well... will do better in July! Notice how it varies sporadically each day -- but I just worry about the first and last day's weigh-ins.

2. I had been awarded a $1,000...

The house we want...

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:11:54 PST

I always love seeing pictures posted so I thought I would post this one of the house we are seriously looking at buying...

What do you guys think? And just for fun, how much would you pay for this house just based on this one picture? The house is over 3400 sq ft, 0.77...

Busch Gardens Williamsburg

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:57:39 PST

Summer vacation plans -
DH and I are planning to take our kids to Busch Gardens Williamsburg VA in late July. Anybody ever been? We've not and think it should be a fun trip. Ticket prices on their website are outrageous though. Geez, when did it cost so much to take a family of...

Tidbits and Updates

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:21:32 PST

1. Started on a health/weight-loss kick back on May 1. I lost 5 lbs in May (attached a graph tracking actual weight per day). Glad to see the trend going down instead of up! I hope to lose 5 more in June...

2. My first summer school class is killing me. It's regression...

Obsessions (and other Ramblings)

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:04:58 PST

Ever wonder what makes us go crazy at times for certing things? I was just thinking about my current "obsessions"...

1. The Twilight book series... I went to the beach with my in-laws over Easter and MIL brought the Twilight book with her. I picked it up one morning since I...

"Making Work Pay" tax cut effect for us...

lymarze@yahoo.com (all4money) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 08:30:25 PST

It looks like the "stimulus" for 2009 will hit our paychecks starting with our March check (we get paid at the end of each month). Between DH and I that means an extra $133+ in net income each month. Now, what should I do with this extra money? I'm back to the question of whether...