Friday Financials

It's been a long time since I posted one of these.

Our credit card has been creeping up.  Not a lot.  I think we have about $400 on it.  We haven't accumulated any interest.  But my goal is to get the account back to zero before that happens and start watching it more closely.

• Paid $127 on credit card balance
• Paid $300 on my car (regular payment is $232)
• ELECTRIC BILL WAS ONLY $133!  That's the lowest it has been in about 2 years!
• Added $40 each to Little R's and Big R's Savings accounts
• Paid $400 to the rental property mortgage (regular payment is only $350)

We've had a spendy few months.  I need to start keeping track of expenses and spending better. Lately we've been paying for more and more things with the credit card instead of using our personal spending money.  That needs to stop.

Financials

What makes a great Saturday Morning?

Waking up to find that both our federal and state tax returns have been deposited into our account!

We had 3 extra bills come in that need paid this week:

• $12 doctor
• $33 doctor
• $105 Mr. R's old lease - Somehow we didn't pay enough when the lease ended, I think it was because it hadn't been evaluated yet for "wear and tear"

Added $376 to emergency fund, bringing my total emergency fund savings for 2015 up to $1202.  I'm 30% of the way towards by goal of adding $4,000 this year to the emergency fund.

I was also able to add $376 to vacation fund and plan on making a pretty big car payment next month with some of the tax return money.

My goal for today is to go through the cupboards and refrigerator to make a shopping list.  But that's after I take the girls to Chuck E. Cheese to use up some coins we have and maybe to get some ice cream.

Food Waste, Grocery Spending and Budget Updates

Food Waste:
We wasted a lot before and after our vacation.  I'm going from memory here but I'm pretty sure I threw away:

• 1/2 box of cereal no one wanted to eat - $.75
• 1 orange & 2 apples - $1.20
• 1/2 gallon of milk - $1.50
• fruit snacks and dum dum suckers in the snack bag after something sticky leaked all over it - $2.00

Ummmm. That's all I can remember.  So here's the total so far:

2015 Food Waste: $20.19

Grocery Spending:

Mr. R did a quick shopping trip on Monday to hold us over for the week until I could get a plan together.  He spent $73 at Aldi.

I stopped in at Acme today to get some more produce and found some great deals on meat.  I got:

• 2 - 1.25 lb packages of  Jennie O ground turkey - $2.50 each, plus they each came with a coupon for $.55 of turkey bacon
• 2 packs of Jennie O Italian Sausages - $2.50 each
• 2 packs of Jennie O Turkey Bacon - Regularly $3.49 each, on sale BOGO + 2 coupons from above = $1.20 each!
• a little over 2 lbs. of chicken breasts - $1.99 per pound

Some other great buys: fat free cheese slices - 2 for $4 (I bought 6 as we go through a pack a week), cake mix and icing - $.88 each (I bought 3 mixes and 3 icings), pasta $.88 per box (bought 2)

I also picked up some produce and a few other items we needed, spending $73.  We received a $50 Visa gift card for test driving Mr. R's car that we leased a few weeks back.  So out of pocket, I only spent $23.  I'm hoping to have $50 left in the food budget because of this next pay day that I can move over to our savings account.

Budget Updates

• Electric bill just keeps getting higher.  It came in at $373.
• Water bill was down slightly for both our house and the rental.
• Extra Money: Received a check for $46 from ebates and $50 Visa gift card that I mentioned above.
• The girls are taking the next 6 week session of gymnastics off mainly because when I tried to sign them up the classes we usually have them in were already full.  I like to be able to take them on Saturdays right after bumper bowling.  I really don't want to have to take them after work, especially when the weather is like this.  Next session hopefully they'll be openings, if not then I'll just have to suck it up and take them in the evenings.  But that gives us $152 that we aren't spending on gymnastics that can go to savings this month.

Financial Updates, Reworking the Budget & Revising Goals

Financial Updates:

• $100 was set aside for car fees.  I wasn't sure how much I would end up having to pay for transferring the plates to my new car or any other car related expenses.  It ended up only being $3.50 so I paid out of my spending money.
• Electric Bill is $349 and some change this month! So that extra $100 that I didn't need for the car fees will go towards electric.
• We received our $50 refund check from the insurance company since the new car is cheaper to insure.  The $50 was moved to our savings account.

Revising Goals for 2015

I wrote about my original goals for the year here.  But things change.  We recently purchased a new car for myself and our plan is to buy out Mr. R's lease.  Since both are cars are newer and under warranty we won't need to save as much towards car expenses and a new car but I want to pay extra on the cars to get them paid off sooner.

My car payment is $232 per month for a 75 month loan.  Payments start in March.  I know 75 months is a ridiculously long time to pay on a car so the plan is to pay it off way before then.  It's the most expensive car we have ever purchased but I absolutely love it.  I've never had a car that has driven this well on ice and snow before.  I love the features of the car, it's very comfortable and has plenty of room.  But the reason I love it so much is that I feel safe driving it in the bad weather.

I'm estimating that our payment to buy out Mr. R's car will be less than $200 per month.  My goal will be to pay Mr. R's car off first as it will be the smaller loan.

Reworking the Budget & Goals for 2015:

• Save $50 per month towards car repairs to cover:
• oil changes
• brakes
• tires
• Pay $530 per month in car payments: 
• $232 my minimum car payment
• $298 towards paying off Mr. R's car quicker
• Increase mortgage payments on rental property: Starting in April, we will have an extra $60 per month from our mortgage income.  When we purchased the condo, I pulled $500 out of each of Mr. R's and My personal savings accounts to put towards the down payment.  I have been paying our accounts back $30 each per month out of the rental income.  Our accounts will be completely paid back in March.  With the extra $60, we plan to:
• Save an extra $30 towards repairs
• Pay an extra $25 per month on the mortgage
• Bump water bill payment budget to $55 if needed.  Used to only budget $50 but this past month it was a little over that.
• Add $4000 to EF in 2015
• So far this year, we have already added $587 to the EF
• Vacation Savings: 
• There are some small trips that I would like to fund this year and then start saving for our 2016 family vacation.  So far we've saved $772 but part of that was to finish paying off our 2015 cruise.
• Winery weekend with some friends
• Put in Bay with the kids
• Family Camping weekend at Camp Tippecanoe 
• Taking the girls tent camping for a weekend
• At least 1 night away for Mr. R and my anniversary
• The money to fund these trips will come from:
• Extra projects that I pick up at work that I earn commissions on
• Mr. R's overtime/holiday pay
• Ebay Sales
• Ebates Checks
• 3 paycheck months

Pay Day Financial Updates

This should have been an exciting paycheck.  Mr. R had holiday pay on his and I received an extra check for $300 for an extra project I did at work.  Unfortunately we had some expensive bills.

• Car - Mr. R took his car in to the dealership to fix 2 items that were under warranty.  But he also needed a new tire.  It wasn't patchable. Big shock there.  We probably should have shopped around but since the car was already at the dealership, we told them to just replace it.  $140
• Cell Phone - The bill this month was $222.  Crap!  Wasn't expecting that one.  $60 was the upgrade charge for our new phones.  I knew about this charge but we've had the phones for a month now so I forgot that it would be on our bill.  And because I switched plans 1 week into the month our bill is really confusing.  But it looks like we ended up going over our data even though we tried to be really careful.  That cost us an extra $15.  I also went over in texts.  Our new plan has unlimited but, again, the way they prorated the usage I ended up being charged $.70 for text and Mr. R bought a game for $1.99.   Hopefully next month it will be the $145 that I'm expecting it to be.

We were able to add some to our savings:

• $40 to Little R's account
• $232 vacation fund
• $200 EF 

2014 financial review and results of $12,000 savings challenge

Today was the last pay day of the year for Mr. R and I.  He received a $100 bonus and a ham which was nice.  We'll be taking the ham to his parents house on Christmas Eve.

Not that much excitement going on with this pay check.  I was able to move $425 to our savings account. My goal for this year was to save $12,000.  I picked that number just because it sounded good.  Wouldn't it be awesome to save $1,000 a month?!  I knew it was a stretch going into this challenge.  I mean, how could we possible have $1,000 a month extra just sitting around?

There were times during the year that I was extremely focused but way too many times this goal just fell to the wayside.  Getting to experience new things and traveling are both very important to me and my husband. I know this is our main weakness money wise. We see a great deal and think "That would be so much fun!" And then we book it.  Could we have completed the $12,000 savings challenge? Probably.  But we would have missed out on so many great adventures and so many great memories.  Some of the great memories from 2014:

• Went to the zoo lots of times with our zoo membership
• Took a day trip to the Columbus Zoo (something I've been wanting to do for years)
• Took the girls and a friend on an overnight trip to an indoor water park
• Our family camping trip that included so many great memories like dancing with the girls at "teen dance night". And one night when our waiter was really slow at the camp restaurant, we started playing a version of charades that had all four of us laughing so hard that it just made us all laugh even more.
• Mr. R and I spent 3 wonderful nights on a mini trip for our 10 year anniversary
• Spent a week in California visiting my Dad
• A chauffeured winery tour for Mr. R and I while on our California Vacation 
• Disneyland
• Big R's 7th birthday and Little R's 4th birthday pool party at grandmas
• Little R catching the 1,000 ticket in the ticket blaster at Chuck E. Cheese on her birthday
• The first time we took Little R roller skating
• Breakfast with Mr. and Mrs. Clause
• Playing Mall Madness (my favorite game from when I was young) with Big R
• When Big R got 3 strikes in a row at her bumper bowling league

Not all of our memories this year cost money.  I just wanted to point out things that we could have given up if we hadn't wanted to spend the money but I'm glad we didn't.   We also do a lot of things that don't cost money like reading together and playing games on the Wii.  The girls love to help me bake and cook. We watch movies together and, recently,  go driving around to look at Christmas lights. Every other Saturday when Mr. R has to work all night, the girls and I have a sleep over in the living room.  We pop popcorn, they get to have juice boxes and we stay up late watching Goosebumps.  

Back to the money talk: I also spent a few hundred dollars taking some continuing education courses to help in my job search that would have went towards the savings challenge.  Hopefully those classes will look good on my resume and help me find a better, more secure job in the future.

So, I guess you figured it out by now... Did we save $12,000 in 2014?  Nope.  But we did save $8,502 towards our goal.  The goal was to save $4,000 each for a new car/car repair fund, Emergency fund and vacation fund.  Not only did we save $8,502 towards the challenge but we also:

• added $20 per month into each of the girls savings accounts (I know it's not a lot but its something.  I figure once we're done budgeting $600 a month for childcare we can bump this up quite a bit.)
• saved $100 per month in a home repair fund
• saved $130 for this winter in case our electric bill jumps up quite a bit 

Even though we have an emergency fund, I hate to touch it so I find myself stashing money aside in smaller "funds" that have an actual purpose.  Then I don't feel so bad when I have to take money out.

Altogether, we were able to save a total of $10,312 this year.  I'm pretty impressed that we put an average of $859 per month into savings towards some of our goals.  It amazes me because I feel like we definitely don't have that much money just sitting around at the end of the month.  

We've already spent some of this money but that was the reason we saved it.  Like the vacation savings money paid for our upcoming cruise and our anniversary weekend back in October.  Our brand new sliding glass door that was paid for out of our repair fund had been on the to do list for years. It's so nice to have a door that doesn't get stuck when we try to use it and actually closes all the way so there isn't a constant cold draft coming in anymore.

I have a plan starting for 2015.  I'm going to set more realistic savings goals to bump up the emergency fund, increase the amount of money put into each of our girls' savings accounts, pay some extra on both our mortgage and the rental property mortgage.  But we will also be saving for some more weekend trips and a family vacation.

Friday Financials

• Day Care Bill for November - only $455 out of $600 budget!
• Received $87.90 commission check for extra project I worked on
• We had money left over in the gas budget and the "extra expenses" budget that will be moved to savings
• Need to pay off $1990 on our cruise by December 8.  We $929 left in the vacation budget after our anniversary trip.  So that leaves $1061 that we need to come up with in about 6 weeks.
• Was able to move a total of $414 to savings to go toward our cruise.  Now we just need to save another $647 to have the cruise paid off by December 8th.

Financial and Other Updates

Savings Challenge Goal: Save $12,000 in 2014.  
Added $150 to goals:

• Emergency Fund: $2235
• Vacation Fund: $2229
• Car Fund: $2235

CD:

Ally has a 5 year cd with a 2% interest rate.  My goal for this week was to deposit $1,000 in a cd.  But I can't get their website to let me open an account.  When I click on the button, nothing happens.  GE Capital has better rates but not so great reviews.  So at this point, not sure what I'm going to be doing with this money.

Mr. R's Birthday was last weekend.  We met with all of the family at a Chinese Buffet.  The only cake mix and icing I had on hand was a funfetti cake and a container of pink icing.  I could only find yellow and green food coloring.  The girls and I experimented and ended up with a pea green cake!  

We spent $88 at the buffet.  Mostly everyone paid for themselves.  We have a 19 year old niece who is in college and works part time.  She brought her best friend with her.  Her dad wasn't going to pay for their meals.  I didn't want them to have to spend there money so we bought there meals.  Same with our other niece who is 22, just had a baby and just started a new job.  I never had to pay for my meals when eating out with family until I was older, out of school and had a decent job.  I probably sound spoiled, but even to this day if I go out with my mom she won't let me pay. 

I'm pretty sure I paid for an extra meal and my 7 year old was charged as an adult.  But the waitress barely spoke English and since we had a table of 18, she was having a hard time keeping track of everything.  I was originally over charged for 2 meals but got them to take 1 off and didn't feel like trying to keep arguing with them to get the second meal removed.

10 Year Anniversary

Mr. R and I will be celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary.  We are taking a trip to Port Clinton, OH for 3 nights.  I'm really really excited.  Our plan is to drive up Friday and have a nice dinner at the hotel. Saturday will be spent at Put-in-Bay and Sunday at Cedar Point.  Monday after breakfast we'll head home. The hotel room has a refrigerator so I am going to take snacks, pop, wine and stuff to make subs to help cut back on the eating out expense.

Job Search Update

I had a 3rd interview yesterday at a large company.  I hope it works out.  I am so sick of looking for jobs, wasting hours applying online, the stress of interviews and getting my hopes up.  If I don't get this job, I think I'll take a break from looking for a while.  Maybe wait until the spring after our cruise.

Grocery Shopping and Meal Plan

I really really need to get back into this.  The girls have gymnastics this morning, so I am going to go through the refrigerator and cupboards before we go and while I'm waiting at gymnastics, I'll work on a shopping list and meal plan.  

Friday Financials

I started this on Friday but never posted it.  I don't know what's wrong with me.  I think its just the weather getting colder and it getting dark earlier but I am so unmotivated lately.

• Both Water Bills (our condo and rental) came in under budget. 
• Electric Bill also went down a little this month.
• Finally transferred the $1226 in cash sitting in my sharebuilder account to my bank account. Keeping $226 for myself as I've done a bit of shopping lately.  The remaining $1000 will go into a cd.  Goal for this week: Open a Cd.
• Things I've been spending money on for myself this week:
• Payless sent me a birthday coupon (my birthday isn't until December) for 25% off with no restrictions.  I purchased 4 pairs of sandals, 2 pairs of flats and a pair of boots for about $80.  Not bad for 7 pairs of shoes.  I need to clean out a lot of shoes that are looking worn out or that I don't really wear before these new shoes arrive or else Mr. R will be complaining.
• I'm taking the girls to a princess party at the Melting Pot.  My mom, grandma, step-sister-in-law and her daughters are all go.  It's going to be so much fun and I love the Melting Pot.  I'm budgeting $75 for this.
• Cardigans.   I wear these a lot for work and most of mine were looking really worn out.  I picked out 4 on Target's website.  Most were on clearance and I get 5% discount and free shipping for using my red card.  Total was $55.
• We still have $37 in the food budget and Mr. R just went to the store today.  My goal is to not buy anything else food wise this week so that we can add that $37 to savings.

Interviews and Financial Updates

Interviews:
I took the day off work yesterday.  I had 2 interviews.  One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I was hoping to catch a nap in between interviews but the first one was 1 1/2 hours long and the second was 2 1/2 hours.  Plus both of the places were 20 - 30 minutes away.  I had just enough time to run home and eat lunch in between.

Both the interviews went really well.   I'm really really excited about the job at the first place.  The position would be a step up from what I'm doing now and it sounds like a great company.  It's a pretty small company and I'm used to working for a large corporation so that would be a bit different.

The second place is with another large company, but I feel like I'm over qualified for the position. But since its a large company there would be lots of opportunities for growth.  Both jobs would be an increase in income but also my 3 minute commute would increase to 20 to 30 minutes.

Financial Updates:

• Added $230 to savings
• Dealt with missing condo fee check.  The bank is saying they issued it.  Condo Association never received it.  I feel like I shouldn't have to pay the late fee since it was sent but haven't gotten out of it.  It was originally $100 in late fees but I got it down to $50.  From now on, I will be calling the condo lady every month on the 10th of the month if my check hasn't been cashed to verify that she has it.  She's usually about a month late depositing checks so I really had no reason to doubt that she had received it in August.
• Day Care bill for October is $600 which is the amount I budgeted.  Usually it comes in under budget and I have some extra money for savings but not this month.

2014 $12,000 Savings Challenge Update

• Emergency Fund - $2182
• Car Fund - $2185
• Vacation - $2170

Total Savings so far for 2014 - $6537

Friday Financials

I love playing with money.  I look forward to it every pay day.  It's the first thing I do when I get up on pay day.  Transferring money to savings, paying off more of our debts.  It makes me happy.

I woke up late this morning and didn't have time and I couldn't wait to get home and lunch and get started.  Here's the Friday Financials Fun today:

• Added $163 towards our $12,000 2014 savings goal.  Our total savings so far is $6307 for the year.
• Paid $50 for car tags.
• Our electric bill was only $172 again this month.  When I was on budget it was creeping up to $250 per month.  I've been adding a little of money to savings each month to help pay for the winter electric bills.

That's about it.  Nothing really exciting.  Just glad that I was able to add some to our savings.

Financial Updates

Big R's Birthday Spending

I don't know what happened to my post about Big R's birthday plans but we had a whole day planned of fun adventures for her.  Here's what I planned to spend vs. what I actually spent:

Dinner: Marco's pizza, salad, cake and ice cream: Planned $18, Spent $15
Hair Cut: Planned $7.99, Spent $15 with tip (I thought they had a $7.99 sale but apparently they didn't)
Jewelry Making: Planned $10, Spent $18 (Big R has some expensive tastes in beads.  She picked out some that were over a dollar that I told her she couldn't use.  Still a lot of the beads were over $.50 each.  I did talk her in to using some $.05 beads to help offset the more expensive ones.)
Mani Pedi: Planned $35 + tip, Spent $30 including tip.  I was charged a lot less because Big R didn't like the massaging or trimming cuticles and didn't want that done.

Planned $81, Spent $78

Grocery Shopping

I put off going to the grocery store for about 4 days longer than I planned to.  When I finally went I spent $204.  Not all of it was on groceries though.  We needed a new scale and Aldi had some for $10 plus a few other things we needed.  So we have $20 left in the food budget to last us a little over a week.  Our freezer, refrigerator and cupboards are stuffed so that should be plenty.  I'm going to try to not spend the $20 but we'll see.

Other Expenses

• Life Insurance Bill: $864, I had only saved $850 so I had to use some of our extra money towards this bill
• School Supplies Shopping for Big R: So far I spent about $10 at the dollar store and we have about half of the supplies she needs.
• Online Class: $119, I had $125 out of last pay check to add to savings, but I'm going to use it for this class instead and the extra $6 will just go towards Big R's school supplies.
• Cord Blood Registry Bill: $125. We banked the girls' cord blood when they were born.  On each of their birthdays we are charged an $125 annual storage fee.  I always set the money aside out of our tax return for this so I'm ready for it when it's charged.
• Electric Bill: Our bill kept getting higher and higher so I took us off of Budget for AEP Energy, but we are still on budget for the part of the bill from AEP Ohio.  Our last month we had budget for both, it was $244.  This month without it, the bill was only $170.  I'm going to start budgeting $200 a month and whatever is left after paying the bill will go to savings for our winter bills. 

Friday Financials

Pay Day!

Luckily Mr. R had a nice paycheck because of 4th of July and I received an extra check for a project I worked on.  It wasn't much extra but it helped to pay for all of the extra bills this month.   

Nothing else exciting.  Bills, bills, bills.

Friday Financials

Unexciting - not pay day :(

• Doing really well on the grocery budget.  Still have $84 for the next 7 days and that's after Mr. R ran to the store for milk, flour tortillas and chips today.  Still have lots of fruit but will need to get more vegetables for my salad bowl. 
• Here's how we are doing on using up what we have in the freezer:
• Frozen Sloppy Joe meat - Gone
• Dinner Rolls - Gone
• 1 Bag of Frozen Shredded Chicken used today for dinner
• 1 Bag of chicken stock used today
• 1 bag of frozen strawberries used for smoothies
• Still need to use: 
• 2 packs of pork chops
• 1 bag of black beans
• pizza dough for 1 pizza
• 1 bag frozen shredded chicken
• lots of chicken stock
• 1 bag frozen strawberries
• 2 lbs. 90% lean ground beef
• Plenty of food left to work with for the next week.
• Paid $65 to renew Mr. R's nursing license and $20 for his program to earn education credits.
• Spent $20 on a groupon for a Valvoline Oil Change.  It's only a couple minutes from our house and Mr. R's car is about due for one anyways.
• We only have $40 left of our "extra misc" money which needs to last 7 more days. I think we can, I think we can...

Friday Financials

Not too much going on in Financial news at the Ripples' house.  My 2 online classes started on Wednesday.  I put $240 on the credit card to pay for them so the money that I would have used for savings is paying off the credit card instead.

Our "extra miscellaneous money" is getting pretty low.  Hopefully we can make $62 last another two weeks.  This time of year is so hard.  With Mother's Day in May, Father's Day in June and then we have about 6 birthdays between May - July.  It gets quite expensive even when I try to not spend too much and shop ahead to be able to scout out good deals and clearance items.

My mom's birthday and my sister's birthday are 3 days apart in July.  We're hoping to get all the husbands to watch the kids and have a day to ourselves. Thinking of either spending the day at Put-in-Bay or if the weather isn't nice maybe a drive out to Grove City Outlets.  I found my sister some really cute items that were on clearance at thinkgeek.com.  She loves unicorns and my little pony.  Yes, this is my older sister I'm talking about.  I got her unicorn ear buds and a pinkie pie coffee mug for, both items only cost me about $15 total.

I want to buy my mom a Curl Deva starter kit.  It's about $35.  Although I think I might have some money in points at the salon by my house that I can use towards it to brink the cost down a little.

Friday Financials

I decided not to pay the car lease.  I have the money set aside but right now the balance on the account is -$1.72.  Every month the balance due is negative.  The payment due date is 6/24.  I'm not sure how I got ahead on the lease payments, but I'm going to wait until the 24th to see if maybe they just haven't updated the total or if I really am paid up a month ahead.  If so, that $205 will go into savings this month and I will get back on scheduled payments in July.

Other Financial News:

• Condo fees will more than likely be going up to $125 per month from $110. Since we own 2 units this will cost us an extra $30 per month, $360 per year.  But the money will be used to make the common areas nicer so it will hopefully be money well spent.  We still have to take a vote so the increase won't take affect for a few months.  We haven't had an increase in about 6 years so its probably time.
• Grocery Shopping: There are more rumors of even more layoffs at work so I need to get my butt in gear and buckle down on the budget.  We have tons of food in our cupboards and freezer.  I will be making a detailed grocery plan and grocery list.  I'm going to go back to Aldi shopping once every two weeks.  That will keep me out of the store and help me to stick to the budget better.  I'm a sucker for all the discounted items whether we need them or not and I always end up going over budget because of it.
• Savings: Added $100 to our repair fund which I do every month out of our rental income.  It's at $1040!  Added $265 to Savings towards our 2014 Savings Challenge, here are the totals:
• EF = $1630
• Car Fund = $1630
• Travel Fund = $1685 (spent $250 of this for our camping trip)
• Total Saved in 2014: $4945

Friday Financials

• Decided against purchasing a pool membership for Big R.  I had $65 set aside for this.  If her day camp goes once a week for 12 weeks, it will only cost us $60 and usually there are a couple rainy days that they don't end up going.  That $65 will go towards renewing Mr. R's nursing license which is due by July 1st or else it almost doubles in price.
• Got the June Daycare/Day camp bill, total is $810 for both girls to go 3 days a week.  We will pay the $5 swimming fee out of our weekly budget whenever the day camp takes Big R to the pool.  I set aside $332 over the last couple of months to help pay for the increased child care costs over the Summer but we are able to cover the June bill without having to dip into the extra savings.
• Added $75 to each of our savings goals: EF, Car Fund, Vacation Fund, bringing the total amount saved to $4735.  The goal is to save $12,000 this year.
• Paid $105 for both the girls to take gymnastics.  My mom usually pays for Big R's gymnastics which always makes me feel bad.  It's not like we can't afford it but my mom is very generous and wanted to pay for and take Big R to her lessons.  I paid for both girls for the next session to give my mom a break.
• Added $20 to each of the girls' savings accounts.

Friday Financials (on Saturday)

Nothing Major going on this payday.  Adding $246 to $12,000 savings goal. Here's the savings totals:

• EF $1342
• Vacation Fund $1387
• Car Fund $1342

We've saved $4071 so far this year!

Some how our savings account has an extra $317 in it unaccounted for.  This makes me nervous.  If I can't figure out what the money was for then I'll add it to the savings for our $12,000 goal.  I've spent two days trying to figure it out.  I don't know how there's extra money in there.  

Money Monday!

Since I totally missed Financial Friday last week.  Here's what's been going on financially:

• Booked indoor water park package with gifted money.  Total with tax was $206 - $25 coupon code = $184! And since I went through ebates, we'll get $12.34 cash back. For $184 our family of 4 plus 1 friend are going to stay over night in a suite, dinner of pizza, pasta, dessert and pop is included and so is a breakfast buffet.  We go in less than two weeks, I'm so excited!
• Took Dinner to a friend.  I have a friend that is very very sick.  She only gets to leave her house once a week to go to the doctor's and she has to be moved by ambulance to get there.  Her family can't afford a wheel chair capable van and she isn't able to ride in the car they do have so she never gets to leave the house.  She is only in her mid thirties and will probably never walk again.  Most doctor's have told her basically that her health is so poor that she will probably die soon and some doctor's have refused to treat her because her medical issues are so complex, they feel that she'll die anyways.  We took dinner from Bob Evans over to her house on Sunday.  I always take a lot of food over so they will have leftovers since I know the medical bills are really hurting them financially.  I found a $20% off coupon code for ordering online and spent $49 on dinner.  Then my friend was saying how much she would like to see Frozen.  I decided to order the movie and have it shipped to her house as a surprise.  With my target red card, it was only a little over $15 with free shipping and I used ebates so I'll get some cash back.
• Our tenants paid their rent check.  The water bill this month for the rental condo was $74!! Ouch.  Ours is always around $50.  They must have been doing a lot of laundry.
• Mr. R had an eye exam and bought glasses, paid for with "found money". He spent $240 at the eye doctor.  I recently realized that I saved $250 to pay the condo insurance on our condo.  But when we refinanced last year, they added the insurance payment into our mortgage payments so I don't need to pay it separately.  That $250 will pay for Mr. R's doctor appt and new glasses.

Friday Financials - Paid off student loans!

Today was a great Pay Day! Mr. R had some over time and I earned a little extra for some extra projects I worked on at work.  Here's how its being spent:

Number 1 most exciting thing EVER: Paid off remaining balance on student loans: $218.30!!!! I now own my MBA.  I feel like singing or throwing a party.  Must. Do. Something. To. Celebrate! Maybe I'll just pull out my degree and dust it off to admire it. :)  

I have 4 degrees and no more student loans... I'm tempted to take them all to work and decorate my cubicle with them. Think that might be a little show offish? Hmmm. My job doesn't even require a college education.  Most of us have them, but it's not in the job description.  Oh well.  

• $50 of the extra money went to my credit card to pay the balance for our Chuck E. Cheese and Friendly's Lunch last weekend.
• Completely paid off credit card - it was creeping up again.
• Went to the grocery store yesterday.  I did a lot of cooking over the weekend to put off grocery shopping.  We had $33 left from last pay period and I spent $109 but bought a lot of groceries so we are good for a while. Mr. R spent another $6 at the store.  $113 left in the grocery budget until pay day 2 weeks away.
• $25 of extra money is paying for our adult bowling pass through kids bowl free.
• Added $20 each to Big R and Little R's savings accounts.
• Used $45 of our Vacation Savings money to pay for our camping groupon.
• Added $320 to savings:
• $120 summer day camp
• $40 vacation fund
• $80 car fund
• $80 emergency fund

New totals for 2014 challenge of saving $12,000

• EF $1273
• Car Fund $1273
• Vacation Fund $1277
• Still need to Save $8177 by the end of 2014