1. Received our federal tax refund of $963 today in our account! Geez, that was fast!
2. DH got another $434 transferred to our savings account from his sales of 'A'. That makes the total now $7,434 in that account (goal use of the money is still undetermined right now).
3. Our contract with the flat-fee realtor expired March 1. The renewal fee with her was supposed to be $200 for another 6 months but she surprised us by offering to renew the listing for free --- we took her up on it, of course!!
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I have to say that life is pretty good right now. Financially, we are in a fairly strong position (for us) and I am very grateful for what we have. Sure, we can definitely do things to save more money toward this or that... we all can and should. However, we all know that life just gets in the way and what we should do is not necessarily what gets done. So, all in all, for our little family, I can't complain too much from a financial standpoint.
I've decided to get naked with all of you and post exactly what we have (and don't have) for the first time:
Debt -
Mortgage $268,000
Credit Card (@0%) $21,000
Total Debt = $289,000
Savings (NON-retirement) -
Mutual Funds $10,000
Emergency Fund $13,000
Short-term Savings Fund $1,500
Savings Fund (DH's sales) $7,400
Total Savings = $31,900
We so need to increase our savings and have done so steadily over the last couple of years. We currently have $970 taken out automatically each month from our checking to our savings accounts which is a huge increase over just a few years ago. This equates to about 15% of our NET monthly income so I guess that's about right? I would love to increase it to $1200 sometime this year but can only do so if DH and I get raises this July... chances are unlikely as our state's budget crisis continues but we'll see.
Some financial postings & getting naked
March 3rd, 2010 at 05:02 pm
March 3rd, 2010 at 05:30 pm 1267637411
How does it feel to come clean (naked) with your situation?
March 3rd, 2010 at 05:33 pm 1267637588
March 3rd, 2010 at 05:44 pm 1267638286
March 3rd, 2010 at 06:20 pm 1267640458
March 3rd, 2010 at 07:19 pm 1267643960
Ok, to answer some questions:
1. Yes, we do have Roth IRAs. We contribute to them monthly, albeit not the maximum allowed, but that is a work in progress. We also have a mandatory 6% taken from both our gross pays for retirement and we both have old 401K's turned IRAs that are sitting there in our retirement accounts.
2. The 0% lasts until July 2010 so only a few more months for that. We have been paying $1000 each month from our paychecks to whittle that down and will pay the balance off in June. The plan is to use our tax refunds, some savings (probably DH's sales money), and the bulk is from my supplement pay from work (I get 2 supplementary paychecks, one in June and one in Oct on top of my normal monthly pay).
Once that CC is gone, we won't owe anything to anyone (except for the mortgage) and the feeling will be great so that is our number one goal right now.