30 Going On ... How Old??

Where did all the time go?

2007-10-26T12:35:00.000-04:00

I guess I didn't not do a great job of updating this blog. Like most things in life I get really charged up, but I eventually move on to the latest and greatest project. We are doing well financially though. We both received nice raises in the last year, bought a house, and paid off 80% of our consumer debt. Of course, the house we bought is a money pit. Hey, a new direction for this blog.

Weekly Update

2006-08-22T10:18:00.000-04:00

Not much has been going on since last week. We have completely blown our going out / eating out budget. Even using a mulligan we have gone over by almost 100%. Now here is a bit of justification. We haven't spent as much money at the grocery. If you take the combine budgets for grocery and going out (plus add the mulligan), then we are still over budget with one trip to the grocery left, but not as bad. We are going to sit down next week and look at everything. I think we are under budgeting our going out fund. That definitely needs reorganizing (eating out vs. going out). Mostly, we have to do a better job. A future obstacle is football games. We have season tickets to our local university football games. So, tailgating becomes a factor as well as $6 beers. We are looking at bulk foods for tailgating and possibly sneaking in flasks for the game itself. Of course, getting completely wasted tailgating is cheaper than $6 beers, but I actually enjoy watching the games. CC is going on a well deserved trip this weekend to Chicago. She will be visiting friends that she hasn't seen since we left. This money comes from our "Short Term Savings". Even if it was overboard, it is something that is worth the expense. Fortunately, it's not.

Last weekend I did do a formal net worth analysis and completed adding everything to Microsoft Money. Not as bad as I thought, but with buying a house and a car in the next 12 months its going to take a dive. Also, adding student loans for both of our grad school. It's going to get worse before it gets better. That's depressing.

Short term sacrifices for a long term goal!!

Oops!

2006-08-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

Well, that didn't go so well. Friday night went from an $8 bottle of wine to an $80 dinner w/ drinks. Funny how not wanting people to know that you are trying to save causes you to spend way too much money. That and a few margaritas will sway your judgement.

Long story short between Friday and Saturday we completely blew our entire month's budget for going out. So for the month we are over $109. It's the 14th. Not good. We are giving ourselves a mulligan for Friday. That leaves us about $20 over and we will take that out of next months. We are also planning to distribute the "entertaining" budget a little differently. Should going out with friends for dinner really come out of our "Eat out" budget. That's more for lunches and dinners from us, not going out to celebrate a friend's birthday. We get together with several different groups of friends at least once a month. So, we are going to spend more than are alloted budget for eat out just on those occasions. The solution maybe to take money from our "Fun Money" budget and move it over to our Eat out budget or to simple consider those night a "fun money" night.

I don't want to set us up for failure. I also feel this is the transition time and that the sacrafices are going to be tough, but we need to stick with them!!

This is really helping me work out issues.

Weekly Update

2006-08-11T10:54:00.000-04:00

It's been a week since I posted. I am forcing myself to do it today. I figured once I got going I would benefit from doing it. The main reason is there hasn't been a whole lot of new developments. Two weeks ago we were implementing the new plan and we were getting paid. Now we have another week before we are getting paid. The next big step is to decide which online bank to use. ING / HSBC / Capital One/ Emigrant Direct. I don't know. There is a lot of conflicting info out there. They all seem similiar from the outside. Maybe .05% here or there. Trying to get a clear cut view to which is better from the inside is much tougher. Right now I am leaning towards ING Direct. We shall see in the coming weeks.

The last 8 days have really put our new budget to the test. As I last mentioned my in laws came in last weekend. It ended up only being my MIL and my new (to me) little brother. It was a nice time. My little brother is 7 so I did my best to keep him out of the small condo we live in. To ensure that we wouldn't blow our budget we decided beforehand that we would do a lot of inexpensive things. Most importantly we cooked at home two nights in a row. Nice. That was a huge money saver. We did spend some money on alcohol, but the was minimal and was less than we would have spent waiting at the bar in a restaurant.

One of the more difficult challenges that we are facing is what do we do with the money just sitting there. Granted it's got a purpose, but since we went to a single account instead of separate accounts there is a lot of money just waiting to be spent. It should be spent on gas, groceries, etc. Maybe we should have weekly goals. This week I have faultered a little. I went out with some friends on Wednesday at the last minute for drinks and dinner and spent more money than I would of liked. We are going out to a planned dinner tonight with one of CCs friends. Tomorrow we have a dinner / bowling extravaganza. I am very concerned about spending too much. I am still keeping track of where we are in the month. It's the 11th and we are about to spend the entire month's "fun money / eating out" by Sunday. Not good. The question is will we still keep to our guns and call it quits for the rest of the month. That is the way it should be.

I will not spend too much money this weekend. I will not spend too much money this weekend.

Do You Have To Take 1 Step Back ...

2006-08-03T11:23:00.000-04:00

to go 2 steps forward? Well that is what happened to me today. As I mentioned, I am juggling our 5 bank accounts in order to begin our new budget plan. Call it a miscalculation or a just a straight slip, but I let one of our accounts get overdrawn by a whopping 67 cents. It happens to be the one that we are going to primarily use. First question one might asked is where is your overdraft protection? We have overdraft protection for both of our individual accouts, but not our joint account. Until today we have never needed it. It was actually on my to do list, we were waiting for CCs other accounts to have her new name. Excuses, excuses - just plain procrasination. So, I called 5/3rd and surprisingly got someone friendly. They will waive the overdraft fee - a whopping $33. Surprise, surprise. I didn't even have to haggle, he just said yes. This is not a normal experience that I have had with 5/3rd. I then connected my savings account to the joint account. This leaves my personal checking account uncovered. Still a problem, but I am planning to phase that account out. Another perfect example of having our money too spread out. Not effective, but we are trying to fix it.

This does make me think of how difficult it really is to change banks. I don't hate 5/3rd, but would probably be marginally happier somewhere else. With 5 accounts and several automatic withdrawls, it just doesn't seem worth it.

I did really well being alone. I spent $16 while CC was gone. That was $12 for dinner for two days and $4 video rental. Not too shabby considering I was invited out both nights. I did spend last night downloading and fighting the lastest version of Norton Internet Security. I feel like I need to go to a tech school so I will be able to use my home computer. I will have to work on it more tonight. It will be a good excuse to bail on the in laws coming in tonight.

My favorite part of this week is that it's 97 degrees outside and I have a cold somehow. Nice.

When the Cat is away ...

2006-08-01T10:03:00.000-04:00

the mouse will stay at home and not go out for wings and beer with his friends.

My wife is leaving out of town for a few days on a business trip. The good news is that everything she does will be considered a business expense. The bad news is I am missing my partner in money savings. I have made a deal with myself to keep busy while she is gone so I don't go out with the boys. They aren't bad, but our MO is to drink, eat and stay out late. Especially since my best friend is going through a divorce. He has reverted back to our college days - going out late and, yes, spending lots of money. While I don't envy him, the reminiscing is quite nice. He owns his own business so showing up late or hungover isn't questioned. Even though he has been taunting me non stop for the last few days I have preservered and told him no. I offered for him to come over to the house to watch a game, grill some chicken and drink a beer.

Another good reason to be cheap (I mean frugal) is that my in-laws are coming into town on Friday. We tend to spend quite a bit of money when they are in town. This is mostly due to pride. I refuse to let them pay for everything. They are comfortable with money, but they are a "look what I bought you, so now do what I want you to do" kind of in-laws. The last straw was the wedding gift incident. Maybe I should thank them - it was that incident that made me become extremely focused on money management / PF.

Oh, one note to PF is that I set up our account on Microsoft Money last night. I thought I needed a finance degree to get it going. I made it, but it took longer than I expected. I couldn't get the account balances to work out. I do hope that this tool will help. I know there is a lot of functions that I am not familiar with, but I will definitely get into it.

Also, life goals are WIP. I created a "life goals" list while being delayed at BWI a couple of Fridays ago. Not just financial, but personally, socially and physically. It was pretty insightful. I know as I get older it will shift and change, but it gives me something to strive for. It gives me a purpose for things like books, vacations or leisure activities. I am looking into organizing them and putting them on a time line or priority/importance catagory. I am encouraging my wife to do the same. Eventually, we will also be able to create a common list we want to achieve as a family. Some people may argue that we should only have one, but we are firm believers in having individual lifes that we share with each other.

The Dawn of a New Era

2006-07-31T11:23:00.000-04:00

My wife and I had our financial summitt this weekend. It went well. We think we have worked the numbers to fit the new budget. Sacrifice is tough. We will be starting on August 1st. We decided to use the calender month as our fiscal month. We will meet again at the end of the month to see how it went and what changes need to be made. Important notes:

* All surplus will be rolled into DP fund.
* All deficits will be deducted from next month's allotment.
* Allowed 1 Mulligan PP for the first 2 months.
- A Mulligan is defined as a momentary lapse of budget conscienceness. The funds will be supplemented from emergency cash. After two months, will be treated as a deficit.

Some of the most intense conversation came from the biggest change in this budget. We are converting from a 3 account system to a singular account. Previously, we both deposited a set amount into a joint account that was used to pay for bills and the remainder went into individual accounts to be used as we wanted. It worked perfectly as we first merged our finances. The big problem now is - its not working for our common goals. No savings. Now we are accountable for what we spend for individual pleasure. The funny part is neither of us really cares what the other spends, but we don't want to be seen as the majority money spender. Those greens fees cost what?!? This aspect will take the most patience and discipline. We have always been great communicators and we have agreed to talk about any ill feelings about individual expenses. One potential fix is dividing the Fun Money into 1/3s. That way we can spend our part of the fun money without feeling like we are taking away from the other. I don't really want to do it this way because I want us to be accountable for our spending and get into the mentality of OUR money.

This weekend we gave it a test run.

Friday - greens fee and 19th hole dinner and beverages. Maybe walk in the future instead of taking a cart.
Saturday - Did not eat out for lunch or dinner. We ate at one of CC's restaurants and cooked dinner at home. Brought beer and a flask for street festival. We did splurge on a intoxicated pizza at 1 am.
Sunday - Did not go out for lunch. Did not buy margaritas for poolside treat. Tap water is not as enjoyable as a lovely glass of margarita, but it was cheaper.

** Weight loss note - I began playing Sunday morning basketball with the boys. I cancelled my gym membership in a money savings attempt and I am looking for free exercise indoors during the oppressing heat. It also achieved detoxing from previous night.

All in all, I am actually excited. It is going to be a challenge to get to our goals. We are notorious big spenders especially during the upcoming holidays. So the most difficult is about to come.

Notes for the upcoming week. Look into ING account for DP savings and mail out the wedding thank you cards.

Oh, that's how much I spend?

2006-07-28T10:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend my wife and I are going to have a serious meeting of the minds and implement a new budget in our househould. After reading on a few sites I ran into the article about the 60% Solution. I believe it originated on MSN Money. If I new how to do cool links I would add it HERE. In simple terms it's making sure that 60% of your gross income goes to your "Committed Expenses". This is Rent, bills, insurance, grocery - the necessities to not have collectors calling you. The other 40% is divided into 4 - 10% catagories. Short term savings, long term savings, retirement savings and fun money. It seems to be the most functional and, honestly, the easiest to follow budget plans. So we are going to give it a shot for the rest of the year. Our meeting will be to modify it to our needs.

First, I am not a big fan of financial plans that use your gross income. I don't have my gross amount to spend. So, I am going to adjust the numbers to work off of my net income. I will guarantee the 60% will not work. Also, I am in sales so I don't have a consistent monthly income. Some months are better than others, so that is another matter to contend with. We typically try to live off our salaries and my commission check is cream. Or "shoes", as my wife puts it.

I have 3 six-month goals. I will be adding them onto NCN Network as soon as I figure that out. First goal - down payment. I am looking at 5% for a down payment. We are shooting for additional 5% gift from our parents. More on that later. Second - $1000 emergency fund. We are almost there. Third - eliminate all credit card debt. We are currently riding around $5,000. Most of this is from our wedding. Hey, it was a nice wedding and these are the consequences.

The million dollar question - "Is this attainable?" As I mentioned before we had a budget. Its only function was to make sure that our income was more than our "committed expenses". No savings plan, repeat, no savings plan. The honest truth - we have $800 in savings. No retirement plan, no IRA's, no investments. Our motto has been "Living on Love" or "Sweat Equity". That and a nickel will get us, well, nothing these days. Really, I feel like I truly have my life long partner, so everything else is about finding the way to be as happy as possible together. BMWs and beach houses aren't free, are they?

We do a decent job of saving all our receipts. So, last night I entered every receipt for the last two months into a spreadsheet to see what numbers we have to work with. We wrote down what we thought we spent and what we would like to have our new budget look like. You know to see where we would have to make sacrifices. I quickly loss my appetite. Side bar, this could be the new weight loss fad - finances before dinner. In the catagory of Food which holds groceries, fast food and eat in dinners: we were 400% higher than we thought we would budget. Gas and travel expenses (which my wife argued should hold trips to Starbucks) was 125%. Lastly and the hardest to catagorize is Fun Money. It holds everything from vitamins to ridiculous bar tabs, but mostly golf and salons. It was another 300% more than we were going to budget.

Good news - we have something to work with. We both know exactly where to we can cut out the fat. Bad news - what the heck were we thinking. How do two people who feel like they are being frugal flush so much money down the toilet? I don't know but to answer the question, is it attainable? - it is.

This is what I am going to present to my wife. Taking 30% of our net income and throwing that towards the 3 goals. First, fill the emergency fund. Second, determine whether I should pay off the credit card first or save for the down payment first. My initial thought is to do both. I am going to open an ING or HSBC account for our DP savings. There is a lot of conflict info out there that says go both ways. We will have to see what is possible and what is attainable. We have a small time frame for the DP, due to our lease ending. We already pay our CC early and at least 2x the minimum due. The interest rate is not entirely out of hand considering my past credit problems.

One day I will have to rant about the in-laws and the dissappearing wedding gift (cash). Lesson learned - don't adjust your finances for something that hasn't happened yet. Or simplier yet, don't spend money you don't have. I thought I would have learned that by now!!

Wish me luck.

Better late than never ...

2006-07-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

That's what I always say, but I think thats what all people that our consistently late say. Well, I have been on blogger a lot lately. I have mostly been reading Personal Finances sites. I have found fantastic one called MapGirl's Fiscal Challenge. She is fantastic to read and offers several links to other sites. Since my last post (last year) I have gotten married and lost several more pounds. Hurrah! Marriage is fantastic and I couldn't be happier. BUT!! Now I am consumed with planning our financial future. We have always talked about money and have been great communicators, but I have taken it to a new and quite disturbing level. My wife nows when I am about to talk about finances and she walks in the other room. My wife and I have not had the best background with finances. I was a spender who found new and exciting ways to spend money and more interestingly enough *find* money (spend next week's check before you get it)that I didn't have. After a rough tenure in Chicago I filed bankruptcy. No good. My wife was different. She was supported by her family while she was in college and worked for fun money. When we first got together she had never paid a bill or balanced a checkbook. Sounds like a disaster in waiting, right? It's amazing what a great love will bring to the balance of your life. We are preservering and slowly, but surely making headway. A lot of the advice that I have been reading from other PF sites have really help me shape where we COULD go.

We face a lot of challenges for our financial future. I am passionately motivated to accomplishing several financial goals. I plan to list them here soon in order to face them often and help to stay on course. First things first. We need to make a budget that makes sense. We currently have a budget, but its not functional. It basically lets us know that we make enough money to cover our fixed expenses. It stops there. Now it has helped. For the last several years I have been saving for a goal. Not being able to acquire things on credits forced a level of frugality that I never knew was in me. My budget was easy - pay for all the expenses and what is left over goes towards buying an engagement ring, then a wedding ring (now suffering, but that doesn't require money) and half of our wedding. The next big thing is a house. I am affixated on creating a smart budget for two graduate students with not a lot of money who want to buy a house.

255

2005-11-18T14:29:00.000-05:00

3 pounds in two months, not what I would call "knocking off the weight". Here come the fat guy's dreaded time of year. An abundance of food, football, and cold weather. Peanut brittle mixed with a turkey sandwich while watching the Bears kick butt, sounds pretty nice, right. No, I dread it! I will love every euphoric minute, but I am going to gain weight unless I find some preventive measures. There is no shortage of helpful tips. Eat a spoonful of fiber mix, yeah if I want to throw up. There is also drinking a lot of water before hand. I am not sure if this is to take up space in my stomach or to burn calories from numerous trips to the restroom, but I not going for it.

What I really need is some help. I will let you know how it goes. I am going to be at the in-laws to be. Which is worse. They have an unlimited amount of food and liquor. Not good.

I am also going to visit some of my customers in the Michigan area. I am not looking forward to this, but I did get a company car for the week. Nice. The weather in Michigan is really great this time of year. It's cold, but not freezing. It's perfect "having intimate relations with your daughter in her parent's hot tub" weather. I am definitely looking forward to that.

I am kind of rambling now, I am the only one at work on a Friday afternoon. It's not too motivating. I started to go through people's blogs. Once again, very interesting. I do lead quite the boring life compared to these people. It does lead me to the fact that I don't do anything anymore, nothing. I used to be quite the partier, but now I spend the evenings negotiating with CC to see what show we are going to watch. What the hell? I used to not even watch shows, but now I could tell you a complete schedule for any night of the week. LOSER! I feel like my main problem is I have no great passion. I am quite contempt to eat dinner and watch TV. I do go out on the weekends, so I am not a complete homebody, but by Zeus' beard, do I have to stay home every night. I am currently trying to create a poker night or a Texas Hold 'Em tourney, but my friends are just as boring as I am. Speaking of friends, if my friend's don't start dating some girls or the married wifes don't stop sucking, then I am going to be spending a lot of time with CC's friends; talking about NPR and defending Bush all the time. Trust me, that ain't pretty. Especially after a few glasses of bourbon.

Okay, that's all I got for you. I am going to leave work.

What Ever Happened To Crazy?

2005-10-19T10:08:00.000-04:00

This is one of my favorite Chris Rock sayings. Sometimes I get a little fed up with people that make a lot of excuses for other people. Sometimes there is no "innocent misunderstanding", the bitch is crazy. I have a best friend who's girlfriend just left him after several years. Now, he's not perfect, but she is just a little off scale (crazy). He is a "Crazy Girl Magnet." He is trying to justify the situation, blaming himself, wondering what he can do to calm her restless soul. After he rambled for a good 45 minutes. I said, "you know, that girl is just crazy". It wasn't the most appropriate thing to say, but you know what, call a spade a spade and get on with finding the real reason. He smiled and was probably trying not to knock my block off.

"To have a good enemy, chose a friend. He knows where to strike." Henri II mistress

Fantasy Football

2005-10-12T09:59:00.000-04:00

I do pretty good in life with addictions. I don't have many vices other than food (I'm still working on that one). I do have one disturbing addiction of late, that is just growing - fantasy football. I am currently in 2 leagues. I have been in one league for a long time, 6 years to exact. I started a new league this year and I have been invited into another league next year. Sundays have become a disaster to those around me and to my computer, who I blame for my players not performing. I dominate my house with every TV on games and I am unbearable when I (my fantasy team) is losing. After every score update or a hint that a player may have scored, I run to my computer. Now, I have been trying to control my addiction. I have completely turned my computer off and not checked fantasy scores until the end of the day. I just sit there yearning to find out. I feel like a junkie. My fiance has gotten me out to eat, but I go to the bar to check the scores. I justify it because she goes to smoke, which is her addiction.

Has this become the Dungeon & Dragons for athletes? I'm not a RB that is actually scoring, but I live and die on Sundays by those that do.

Help!

Where have I been?

2005-10-11T10:18:00.000-04:00

It's been a week or two since I last posted. I always think about writing, but the only real time I have is at work. I am sure if they knew what I was doing they would frown on this activity. I don't feel comfortable writing here at home. This is a experimental process for me. It's not that I am keeping this from my fiance or I have some deep dark secrets, but it's something I want to do for me. A space for my inner thoughts regardless of their content.
We have been doing a lot of wedding planning the last two weeks. Booking vendors, tasting food, finalizing guests lists. What a pain in the ass and we still have 7 months! I love my fiance, I would be happy to marry her tomorrow at the JOP. This is really a process that is for the bride and her mother. I am convinced my monster-in-law to be is bi-polar. She flips constantly and my poor fiance handles her so well (practice). I, on the other hand, want to strangle her. I try to justify her actions by remembering that if I was about to drop 20 grand on something not entirely for me, I would want a little control too. I keep hearing my older male friends saying, "you are not just marrying her, you are marrying her family." Fortunately, she's worth it.

I also have been extremely busy at work. As I posted before, up until about a year ago, I have been an underachievers. When I moved back home, with my tail between my legs, I decided to right the ship and go forward. I have been working at a small company and trying to impress upon them or my usual trickiration that I am a viable future leader of this place. I am a salesman, not the scum kind, but still the same family. I have been a solid performer, surprisingly enough to myself. I am trying to do the over and above things as well. In my head I want to do nothing short of jumping up and down doing cheers for myself. Instead, I work past when everyone is gone and try to get notice as much as possible. I chose this place because of the management. I don't make near enough money (who does) and we are without benefits, but the leaders of this company are amazing people. I am hoping some of their classic overachieving will rub off. It's funny, I talk of the things I do, yet I am hear writing.
This of course leads me back to why I'm hear. I talk a lot, it's why I do what I do. I have the problem of being a little to open and honest. I am trying to keep from getting openly frustrated with people and 'letting them know about it'. So, I can write here about some of the things I think, without the reprecution of people's, important people's reaction.
Back to work ...

258

2005-09-28T14:33:00.000-04:00

258 represents my body weight and not in the Arnold "I can bench your VW" sense. In the Papa John's at 3am sense. I started with that because everything that I think is negative in my life revolves around this number or this ever changing number. I am in my most recent attempt to lose weight, hey it's working today. I am approaching it like I should my drinking, "one day at a time". I have always wanted to create a blog. No one may ever read this or maybe they will, I don't know. I know my first message is pretty lame, but maybe it's more like a mission statement of trying to accomplish something other than not screwing up today.

I spent the last day since I created my blog looking at randomed blogs. There are all kinds of blogs, most I don't understand. I mean it's tough to creat a name for something you know nothing about. I chose The Faceless Many. This term always makes me think of a pamphlet or instructions that have humans without facial features, kind of mindlessly going around doing what they are told. A lot like myself. I am envious of the design of some, I do not know how to link to others yet, but I will eventually. I am a reasonably intelligent person. I do not know however the slightest bit about "code". I know that Neo was a badass in the Matrix, but that is the extent. Wow, people really have a lot of things to say. I am trying to remember a few that really caught my eye. There was this one about an attorney or it seemed public defender who gave anonymus accounts of her day's work. That was interesting. She called it fight court.

I know that before I started writing I was trying to determine how I wanted to sound. What type of person I was going to be on this blog. It made me think of a quote from a Tool song that now happens to be my profile statement, "All you know about me is what I sold ya!". How true. I am worried about spelling, or if you will think I am an idiot. Then I started thinking, you could be a college professor or you could be my friend's little brother. The point is this should be the one place I should be whatever goofy, jackass I want to be. I am basically a classic underachiever who has somehow convinced most people in my life that I am more than I am. I am trying to rectify things. I am getting married. I am trying to clean up my alcohol laden school record, so I can somehow be accepted back. I just moved back from Chicago, where I thought I was going to somehow take over the world without knowing anyone or having a great background. Also, I do not have a important sounding name. I was told by a well to do executive that makes a difference. That was a perfect example of why I moved back to my friends and family in Louisville.
So here it is. All out in the open ...

The begininng

2005-09-27T11:45:00.000-04:00

I have been waiting to do something like this for quite sometime. I hope this is a positive experience and I am interested in learning more about blogging.