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Wishing all the SA Family a wonderful Christmas; I hope it was a good one.
Concentrating on our positives and blessings.  Despite contract being cancelled on our primary home for sale and the nasty Covid virus coming to my house.
We are fortunate that those infected aren't doing horrid and have oxygen saturation levels at 99% (despite one having asthma).  And the house will sell.
Rejiggered the budget for less aggressive savings goals and need to be serious about a...
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It's been awhile. I will update on my finances shortly. First and foremost, Merry Christmas everyone.  I hope you can enjoy this holiday season to some extent.
I am still NED (remission), so that was one good thing in this horrid year. I would also appreciate good thoughts/prayers for my best friend who is in the hospital with covid. She is currently on oxygen and steroids. Long story, but she was so careful. Her husband let his guard down once, and that was all it took....
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I was half dreading today, knowing I'd miss my usual Christmas breakfast with my Minneapolis friends, and then Christmas with my brother and his family.  But it went very well with just the three of us home.  It's been a food-centered week.  On Tuesday I drove out to our admin's house.  She's been the only one in the office since March, but was recently diagnosed with cancer.  A bunch of my co-workers made food.  I made chicken soup and squash soup...
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I fell asleep, but fireworks woke me up.
I got my last two paychecks from first & second jobs. We got our performance awards on this paycheck and I maxed out my TSP with a final contribution of $700. Next year I will be back to contributing $750 per paycheck. This year I had decreased, then increased, contributions to accelerate debt payoff. With my debts largely paid off I can go back to my usual equal contributions.
I worked today, which was declared a holiday, so I'll...
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$318.46 Tithe
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_300.00 Medical Envelope
_100.00 Household Envelope
_375.00 Emergency Fund
__71.99 Life Insurance DH
__60.46 Life Insurance Me
_100.00 Spending Money Adults
1276.93 Citi
_100.00 Car Maintenance Envelope
_120.00 Allowance Kids
----------------------
$3222.84 Total Money Out
I had $50 left from the previous payday that I added to the $325 I had planned from this paycheck to the EF.  After this payday the Citi card will go into...
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This is our last paycheck for the year, and this will be our last paycheck with 5% being taken out for retirement.  From here on out we will be attempting a budget with 15% taken out for retirement.  If it makes things feel too tight we will back off to 10%, but I've done the budget and the numbers will work and we will still be able to save $1075 a month to the EF, assuming we stay disciplined with the no eating out of our own pocket thing.  MIL gives us $120 a...
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I had an extra $50 in my checking acount and I added an additional $325 from this paycheck.  It feels good to be making progress again.  Next month should be better if I can keep it under control.
$9,090.32 Previous Balance
+_,375.00 Amount Added
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$9,465.32 New Balance
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Merry Christmas to you and yours. As I type this, it is Christmas Eve. We are looking forward to Christmas Eve services -- we had to make reservations since we have a limit of how many can attend and we will socially distance and of course wear masks and use hand sanitizer both coming in and leaving. But, at least we have some sort of normalcy and can attend church. Easter just didn't seem like Easter when we had to worship online. 
We have two couples are friends with and...
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I figured with the end of the year looming, it was time to unload one loser in our portfolio: ARLP.
I bought it in 2019 for an average of $14.76/share.
I sold it for $4.46.
Yes, I should have dumped it sooner but it was a very small position so I kind of ignored it. It had dropped as low as $2.30 a few months ago and at least crept back up a bit. But selling it now will let us take that loss to offset some of our 2020 gains so that's useful.
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Hi all
Writing to keep myself accountable.
Current net worth for year attached
Next years goals
1. 500k total investments between taxable and tax deferred
2. fully fund IRAs for 2020/2021
3. Contribute max to regular or solo 401k (dependent on job)
3. Practice financial freedom. Fully live off rentals from Feb 2021. All earned monies go towards savings, giving or fun.
Towards this end I am looking at decreasing monthly costs first
1. health insurance is $540/mth (ouch,...
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We took care of the 403(b) so it was time to do the 401(k). I downloaded the transfer form and filled it all out. I had a couple of questions that I was pretty sure I knew the answers to but wanted to be 100% sure so we called them this morning. Then she signed the form, I made copies of everything, and I have it ready to mail, but I'm going to wait until after Christmas since the post office is such a mess right now.
I'm hoping that by the end of January, both the 403(b) and...
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HI all
Above is my house fix up debt payoff. goals to actuals. I am so grateful for this group. I am looking forward to setting goals and  investing more. My past 6 years most of my money (though not all) went towards the rentals and this crazy house fix up.  I DID continue investing automatically every month through out but not as much.  Still figuring my goals but here are some updates.
1 I paid off ALL the house fix up debt and I did not have to sell any properties...
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I picked up groceries at Aldi yesterday, fulfilling the second Instacart order.  It wasn't quite as bad as the first time I picked up at Aldi, but was still glitchy.  The first time, I followed instructions on the app to let them know I was on the way.  The shopper seemed to assume I was there, and phoned to ask where I was.  I told her I was on the way and would be there in a few minutes.  By the time I got there, she had disappeared.  I waited a...
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I have to admit it is pretty and it makes the Christmas lights look even prettier, but I am not the world's biggest fan of snow.  One day snow is just right, in my opinion.  Then it can melt and go away.  The roads were bad and we went early to the chiropractor to try not to be on the roads after dark.  I am bummed about missing the "Christmas star" today, though.  Jupiter and Saturn were in alignment for a couple of hours today and were supposed to create...
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Well christmas is a couple of days away my sister and her hubby will be staying with us for a couple of nights since my other sisters house burnt down and she is staying at my moms...so that will be interesting...but nice to catch up with them. We have almost everything we need for christmas...just a couple things food wise to pick up christmas eve...and then to make salads.
We do have a lot that we need to do in the next couple days...we are trying to sort out our shed and put...
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It looks like both parties have agreed to a second stimulus package. This second round will be half of the first round at $600 and based upon the same income limits as the first round. I haven't read how quickly it will be sent out, but I thought the idea was to have something in place before the end of the year. I suppose I can use it to either shore up savings or put towards my IRA. That's not really stimulating the economy, but that may be the wrong word for a relief package....
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I've finished grading all the projects which seem to have been better than I expected.  There were some awful ones, but far more excellent ones than I usually see.  I don't know what that means, but I'm happy about it.
And speaking of good news--my DD got her French grades back from her first semester.  Very nice praise and a grade A n French.  She's so relieved.
I spent nothing today, leaving the house only to go for a midafternoon walk.  I finally got...
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I've delighted in recent years in getting really good/creative gifts for my Dad in like the $10 range.  One example: a lifetime senior pass to the National Parks.  Others were more creative.
This year we went the complete opposite direction.  MH noticed that one of their favorite musical artists is doing private concerts.  The gift fits in the theme of recent gifts (very unique and special) but...  Went the polar opposite way as far as cost.  Was...
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I got my 2021 raise and so am able to start planning out next year.  
I am completely ignoring college, for now.  That is the giant question mark that will take some re-figuring mid year.
For now...  
I presume that MH will have no income.
I think it's possible his job will come back next fall, but wouldn't hold my breath that his company survives all of this. 
His unemployment expired this month.  He's not looking for a job, so I just presume...
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At the last minute I did end up opening a 529 plan for MM(17).  I always presumed we might utilize if MH took on a full-time job or we had some other sort of windfall.  Otherwise, it's just a lot of red tape with absolutely no benefit to our personal tax situation.  In addition to that, want to keep things flexible.  Our public colleges cost pennies, so want to be able to use this money potentially after college.  
In the end, while in complete limbo...
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