all4money with INTENTION

Ok, my parents just came back from an international trip. Dad lost his wallet somewhere along the way. He had $26 in cash, 2 debit cards, his social security card, medicare card, and both his and mom's drivers licenses in the wallet.

Cash - gone but not a huge loss
Debit cards - called the banks, no weird activity noticed, canceled the cards
SS/Medicare cards - ordered replacements
Drivers Licenses - ordered replacements

So, the question is this. Should we report the lost wallet situation to the credit bureaus? If we do, will this mess up their credit situation, i.e. make it difficult for them to get future loans if needed, and if so, for how long. It is unlikely that they'll need any kind of loans, but just in case, you know? My parents have absolutely no debt, no mortgage or loans of any kind, and do not use credit cards at all. They don't speak much English so I will have to call the credit bureaus for them -- is this something I can do online for them instead of over the phone?

What do you guys think? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Ok, so the house that we were interested in went under contract last Friday --- after just 7 days on the market --- knew it was priced well! I didn't want to get into a bidding war of any sort so we just stepped away from it altogether. Probably for the best anyway as rash emotional decisions are the most dangerous ones!

Now, as I've posted, we have been looking for investment properties for about a year now. Nothing really pushed our buttons until one that we saw a couple of weeks ago. This little house on .75 acres is listed at $119k. If we can get it for $95k, I think it would be worth it to get and rehab. We are estimating about $12k in renovation costs. Then we could rent it or sell it, either option would be good for the neighborhood it is in.

What do you guys think about this little house?





living room



kitchen

Ok, we've been looking for the right house to buy as ours sits on the market. All the other ones thus far have been a bit out of our price range (if we had to keep our current home) and had more cons than pluses. However, one just came on the market the other day and our realtor showed it to us today. Wow, it fits the bill so nicely. What should we do??? It's priced super well as the sellers want to sell it quickly so I'm afraid it will be gone if we don't act soon. In just the two days it came on the market, they've had 4 showings already. Here are some pics:

Front of house from end of driveway



Fenced in backyard





Our main criteria has been a level yard/lot close into town and this one has both. It just needs some cosmetic updating inside (like removing wallpaper) and the kitchen appliances need to be updated quite a bit, but overall, the house is in superb condition.

This house is 45 years old and is nearly 5000 sq ft big! There is a mother-in-law 2-bedroom apartment with full kitchen/laundry/etc on the lower floor that we could rent out to offset our mortgage. The area can be completely closed off to the main house with its own entrance and so forth.

The main drawing point is the location!! It's literally where we were wanting to be and the neighborhood is so nice. The fenced backyard is a huge plus for our dog.

Ok, so the dilemma is that we haven't sold our current home. We could buy this one and then if the contract is accepted and so forth, we could do a massive price reduction on our current home to try to get rid of it quickly. What do you guys think?? Aaaghh! I wouldn't worry so much except that the house is priced so well for the area that I'm afraid it will be gone...


basement/apartment kitchen


basement/living room with fireplace



front of house - another view


back of house

I can't remember who blogged about this, but I took the tip about recycling a plastic bottle and pantyhose and look at what has come up already. This is about 2 weeks worth of growth from cucumber seeds! I've never had this much luck growing from seeds before so thank you to whoever it was that posted this process!



Also, just for the fun of it, I have a small Christmas Cactus that I bought in January (I think) and it's blooming. It's pretty so I thought I'd share.

We filed our taxes back in Feb and just got our state refund this week. The state is in such a cash crisis that I really didn't think we would've gotten it this "soon" actually. Not complaining though! There are still quite a few coworkers that are scrambling to get to the HR Block or whatever today during their lunch hours. Geez -- talk about waiting til the last minute! Hope you guys out there have already done yours by now.

It was a such a nice evening last night. After we cleaned up from dinner, we all went outside to play in the nice weather. The girls were playing with the dog and DH and I ended up sitting on the small bank that overlooks our house watching the activity. We ended up talking about all the things we'd like to do with the outside of the house (flower beds, retaining walls, building steps alongside the banks) - that is if we were to remain living here (the house is on the market). Of course, all these things will cost money so we probably won't end up doing much of what we talked about. We also talked about how we will be debt free, except for the mortgage, for the first time in about 4 years, as soon as I make our final payment to the 0% credit card in May. The 0% rate ends July 1 and I'd like to pay it off within plenty of time to ensure no timing problems. The current balance is $20,000. It will be hard to part with that much cash, but it will be fantastic to be debt free. We had been setting aside $1,000 each month to pay toward this credit card and will continue paying the $1,000 to ourselves once the card is paid off. It's a great feeling to see the light at the end of this tunnel.

DD had to play in a soccer tournament yesterday at the local university. DH dropped us off at the gate and went to park. After the game, we went to the car and found a parking citation on the windshield. The place was packed so DH had parked on the curb along with several other cars thinking that it was legal but guess not... $30 fee!!! That's outrageous! Since it was issued by the University police system, is it a "real" ticket? We'll pay it and consider it a donation to the school, but curiosity had me going. If someone doesn't pay a parking ticket from a campus system, is that ticket on their background checks, etc.? Anyone know?

Wow, what a sale this week at Lowes Foods. Mt. Dew is on sale for $2.10 for a 12 pack here. I've gotten 10 packs so far and will go back for more. I haven't seen 12 pack sodas this cheap in YEARS, maybe even decades. I know soda isn't good for us but DH is addicted to the stuff unfortunately and drinks about 2 cans a day. This sale will last us for months and months... yahoo!

Ok, drum roll, please...

The total as of today, April 6, 2010 is $11,300!! I was hoping he'd make the $10,000 mark but he's surpassed that already and is still going strong. He still has quite a few of "A" pieces left to sell so who knows how much we'll end up totaling after it's all said and done.

I'm so proud of him!

Too cute not to share with all of you dog lovers!

Our house is listed via a flat-fee realtor for the MLS exposure but I also had listed our house on the for sale by owner website. I just received a request from FSBO from someone interested in seeing our house. Anyone here ever showed their own house before? I'm wondering if it would be best to just let them wander around the house by themselves. I know that when I look at places, I enjoy being able to walk about and take my time looking without the constant babbling from a realtor or owner behind my shoulder. Anyway, wish me luck!

We are thinking about going to Hawaii for the first time this July.

Lots of questions:

1) Is July a good month to go or will there be way too many tourists to contend with?

2) Which island should we fly to?

3) Where should we stay? Oceanfront would be just grand!

4) Do we need a rental car?

5) Is food expensive in Hawaii?

6) What is a must-do or must-see there?

We have a family of 4 and desire to go somewhere "tropical" this summer. If anyone has been to Hawaii and has any suggestions for us, that would be so great...or if you think we should go somewhere else, just let us know... thanks!

We just bought a Wii bundle last night from a gal selling it off craigslist. Very very nice system, hardly used at all. Did we need this? No, but it sure will help us with our healthy initiative for our family. Spent $300 for the console, accessories, games, etc. Thanks to all of you on the forums for helping me to negotiate to a fair price!

In keeping with my March goal of not shopping for clothes --- I walked away from Goodwill last night empty handed. I had an hour of time to kill so I thought I would stop in and see what they had. Oh, I found lots of stuff that I could have definitely bought but since I made myself that goal of not buying clothes this month, I just said NO. Then this morning, I get an email from my absolute favorite store where I buy clothes for work. They are having a 50% off sale. I went to their website and added some things to my cart. Then, I just said NO. Man, was that painful! But, here I am with no new clothes and I'm just fine. Guess I'll live.

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.

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!

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!

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

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!

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.

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!

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!

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

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:

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

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".

We looked at 5 different places last night with our realtor. We are very interested in a small townhouse (one side of a duplex). Built in 2006, it comes with all newer appliances plus a nice washer and dryer in the unit. The best thing is that there are already tenants in the place (a husband and wife) which means that we would have immediate occupancy. Calculating the current rent payment they pay vs. our costs in carrying the place would net us $250 each month. Since it's a newer building, I don't foresee a lot of maintenance expenses anytime soon which is also a plus. What do you think?? Oh, and it's only listed for $78k -- I would offer around $68k and see where we end up (I'd say somewhere around $72k hopefully).

Our realtor is going to show us 5 houses tonight. We are looking for a "cheap" place that we can rent out. I doubt we will actually bite the bullet and buy one but it sure is fun to look and dream. I am so anxious to try investing in hard real estate -- whether through rental properties or buy/fix/flip scenarios. In this current economy, I'm thinking the rental scene would pan out better and once the economy returns to 'normal', I will entertain doing a flip. I told myself that once I got schooling behind me, I would have much more time to devote to being a real estate mogul. Hee hee. We'll see what happens...

I love seeing pictures on here so thought I would share one of our pooch. He's a silky terrier and is 9 years old. We just got him about 6 months ago (his owner was just giving him away) and he's been a great addition to the family. We have 4 cats as well but those photos will have to come later.

I finally got around to taking back a purse that my sis got me for Christmas. It just was too little for me and not really my style so I thought I would exchange it for something else. Imagine my surprise when the lady said I was getting $40+ back on a gift card! Whoa. I really don't think my sis spent that much on the purse (it's a small Liz Claiborne). I was expecting more like $15 at the most. Wowsers.

Geez. My mother is driving me crazy.

Long story short is that my dad is going to start drawing down his social security benefits. He turned 65 last Spring but decided to wait til 2010 to draw. They go to the local SS office yesterday and my mom instructs the guy helping them to withhold 10% from my dad's checks in order to help save on their owed taxes at the end of the year (they make a TON of money via interest income).

My mother goes to work and talks to her co-workers about this. They tell her that she's crazy to tell the SS folks to withhold anything because all the SS income is non-taxable.

She calls me fussing at me! I wasn't even there with her nor did she ask me to research the issue beforehand or anything. She's even mad at me that the office is closed on Monday for MLK day. She wants me to email the guy to tell him to stop the 10% and thinks I can do this without having his email address (she's quite computer illiterate and doesn't understand the Internet, etc). I tell her that I will look into it and will call the office first thing on Tuesday.

I go off to have dinner with DH's side of the family. DH's sister's father-in-law was there - he's a retired CPA - so I asked him about the situation. He tells me that if half of my dad's distributions plus all his other income is greater than $32,000 for the year, then yes, the distributions are subject to taxes. I even verified this info on the IRS website when I got home just to make sure I heard what I thought I heard from him.

I tell my mother the news and she asks me why the federal government is taxing the distributions... like I know why the IRS and the federal government do what they do! Geez. She proceeds to tell me that I need to talk to her work friends so that they can explain it to her as I'm not doing a good job of it... I flat out say "NO". Why the heck do I need to explain anything to these people? My mother keeps telling me that I must be wrong because all her "friends" say that no taxes are supposed to taken against social security income.

Hello???!!! Let me put this in perspective. Nothing against factory workers, but my mom works in a small factory where hardly anyone makes even $20k a year. My mom and dad have always been savers so even though they may have "low on the totem pole" jobs, they have TONS of money in the bank - I'm talking around $40,000 in unearned interest income alone. Therefore, their situation is quite a bit different than their co-workers. I completely believe that her friends at work are speaking the truth as they know it because I doubt that they have family members drawing social security who have, with other income combined, to make the $32,000 threshold for married couples.

It drives me crazy that she would rather trust her co-workers who barely have high school diplomas instead of trusting her own daughter who graduated college with a finance degree and just got my MBA AND even a trusted CPA family friend (who used to do her taxes years ago before he retired by the way).

She kept telling about her friends' advice and lada lada lada... I was so frustrated that I finally just told her to get her friends to do her taxes for her as apparently I have no clue what I am doing (I usually do my parent's taxes). Well, that got her panties in a wad --- she's fuming mad at me now and ended our phone conversation telling me that she will take care of everything from now on and won't bother me anymore on anything (you know, trying to put on the big guilt).

I'm just done with it. If she won't listen to me, then why should I even bother? Am I wrong?