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Archive for February, 2017

Reallocating Funds & Goals

February 28th, 2017 at 02:42 pm

So since the beginning I have kept part of my emergency fund in my Roth IRA since we get the savers tax credit for contributing. On my sidebar I had been listing that money under EF instead of Roth, but as our numbers grow it is getting complicated to keep track of how much is for the EF and how much is not. So in order to simplify I am changing it. Everything in the Roth is now correctly listed under Roth, and the EF total is the only cash we carry in our checking/saving accounts. That said, if we really did have an emergency we could still pull from our Roth, but it is silly to not put the majority of our savings in there to get the tax advantages. We do also keep quite a bit of cash for other random short term savings which I do not keep track of on my sidebar that we could definitely use in an emergency as well.

For more info on why I put part of my EF in my Roth here is a good link.

Text is Roth IRA as an Emergency Fund and Link is https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Roth_IRA_as_an_emergency_fund
Roth IRA as an Emergency Fund

A goal that I don't see happening this year is the truck fund. We used $1,000 of it for a down payment on our remodel. We had originally planned to take that out of the loan and put the cash back, but it seems silly to be paying 6% interest just to have the cash sitting in a savings account. Husband is also wanting to focus on the remodel and has not been contributing faithfully to the truck fund this year. He says he can get a couple more years out of his car. So, we will continue to contribute to the fund, but it is on the back burner for now. No way it will get to $3,000 this year. We would like to have enough in there so that if something did happen to our of our cars we could afford to pay cash for a beater at least.


Home remodel is going well but money is getting spent quickly. We are up to around $11,000 already. It is so nice to see things getting done on the house though. Especially long lasting changes like siding and foundation repair.

With my payday today I sent $80 to the IRA. I will be getting an "extra" paycheck next month and will have $450 to put towards something. Perhaps the IRA.


Puppies are getting their shots this week, and will be ready to go to their new homes in just 2 weeks. :'(

My goats will start having babies this week!

Mortgage Payment

February 24th, 2017 at 10:12 pm

Today is husband's payday so I went ahead and paid the mortgage payment and the LOC interest even though they aren't due for two weeks.

Mortgage is now at $45,499.86.

Going Well

February 20th, 2017 at 06:52 pm

Well we are in the home remodel. It's going well, although it is really hard to write such large checks.

It's going a little slower than I expected, and I am worried about them needing more time/labor than allotted. Of course we are only on day 4 of a 10 week remodel. lol. So it's too early to tell if we are on track and on budget.

Money is/will be tight for a while. Things like lights, paint, etc, are being cash flowed. I am super excited to see my house looking better every day, and we have only just begun. Right now they are working on the front of the house, which included foundation repair, redoing the porch, new door, two new windows, and siding. This is the most complicated side, and I think the others will go faster.

After the exterior is complete, then they will start work on the actual addition/basement.

IRA & Gym

February 13th, 2017 at 03:01 pm

Got the money owed to me so I sent $170 to my IRA. Yippe!

Also, good news on the gym front. My mom is going to share a family plan with me and my husband so we can split the cost. She gets a discount through her job, also the owner gave me a discount because he knows/likes me.

All said my husband and I only have to pay $15 a month for BOTH of us. The normal price is $35 a person!!

The only downside is we had to pay for the whole year at once. But now it's paid for and over with and we can work out and get healthy. Yay!

Quick House & IRA Update

February 7th, 2017 at 02:39 pm

I need to deposit $650 more into the IRA before April 15th so I can count it on 2016 taxes. I was going to just save it up and send it in one large chunk. But with the remodel happening, I think it would be safer and less stressful to just sent a small amount every paycheck. There are ten weeks left, so if I do $50 a week that will almost get me there. I also have $150 of side income that is owed to me and should be paid in the next week or so. That will make up the difference. I went ahead and sent $50 today.

Got a $105 bonus this month for having happy customers. (BTW my web design boss is awesome and really encourages me/spoils me.) I used that along with my normal web design check to pay off one of my credit cards. Now I just have the $500 from the door left.

Siding and windows have been ordered, roofing will be ordered later this week. I talked to the crew and they are going to be starting in earnest on Monday. They got held up at their current job.

I am beginning to get deposits for the puppies despite me wanting to wait until they were 6 weeks old. They are only 4 weeks now, but people keep bugging me to pick theirs. As of now 5 out of 7 are on lock down. Have several interested people in the remaining 2 but not settled yet. (Not bad for not advertising any yet! These people all found me.)

Quick Mortgage Update

February 1st, 2017 at 04:07 pm

I went ahead and made my mortgage payment today a little early. Balance is now $45,693.06.

I am anxiously awaiting to hear how much the windows and siding are going to cost to know how close we are on budget.

I'm thankful that I ordered the door and handle and can cash flow that expense.

My HVAC estimate came back... $8,200. Eek! But spot on with the rough estimate he gave me a few years ago. That includes a new furnace, AC, and all new duct work. It's a huge job. He said if everything goes smoothly that the labor might go down because he planned worst case scenario, but I'm not going to bet on it. Our house is always worst case scenario on every single thing.

But oh how nice it will be to not worry about pipes freezing, having to run multiple oil heaters 24/7 to keep the house warm, and to have AC.