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WOW this year has flown by, so much has been happening will do a little update but I am ready for next year.
We had to move this year as the owner of the last house wanted to renovate..they didn't they just upped their price andmoved someone else in..Funny thing is they wanted $640pw for the house they only got $595pw..funny thing is we would have paid that so we didn't have to move..but that is life. Our new rental came with a lot os isssues that we either didn't know about or...
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MOVIES:
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$100 Fandango
$  20 Regal
 
RESTAURANTS:
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$50 Cracker Barrel (small balance left)
$ 15 x 1 Jamba Juice
$ 10 x 1 Jamba Juice
 
RETAIL:
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$50 Target
 
REGIFT:
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$10 Starbucks
 
Note: Edited over time to remove used gift cards. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I had a couple of big gift card years at work, which was nice.  But this year they...
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I have a good idea where things will land this month.  
Pay cash for college ✔
$10K to Savings ❌
Final tally was $7,633. 
The plan was to use this money to pay cash for college.  At the end of 2024 we had roughly -$0- cash plus emergency funds.  So that's about how it sorted out.  That we had just enough to cash flow college.
We most definitely failed at this goal.  But I just copied the commentary from last year and it still...
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This historically has been the time of year that I plan for upcoming financial goals in the new year. It’s a different perspective now that I’m retired and not contributing to accounts. Of course, I hope to see some growth but it’s almost completely out of my control. So, my planning is about managing money rather than growing it.
 
2025 is a milestone year for me financially because I will turn 59 ½. I’ve kept my 401k account open since I...
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So yesterday another of my very dear friend passed.  A week ago I found out my boss.  And yesterday I found out the lady who manned the front desk of my office passed.  She was old and in poor health but still it greatly saddens me.  She was 87 years old. 
She fell in March and went into a rehab facility.  She was also so kind to me and my girls.   In fact in May during of our lunches I was telling her about our car being "totalled" and...
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It's the time of year when my oven gets a workout. We had our church bazaar and one of the big draws is the cookie walk. People line up early to get in to buy cookies by the pound. Prices have not been raised in a few years so it was $7 a pound. 
There is an insurance company that is sort of affiliated with our church synod, and I wrote for a grant to help cover the cost of some of the baking supplies. The insurance company was generous and gave us $250 to buy flour, sugar,...
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2024 has been a crazy year.  So much has happened.  And more to come.  So yesterday I found out that my old boss died a week ago.  He was 57 years old and I thought in good helth.  He died of a heart attack 12/4 at home alone.  He was single and lived alone and his work partner went and found him on Thursday.  He was a wonderful guy and super great to work for. I stayed longer than I needed because he was so good to me.  He let me bring in...
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This is kind of a financial question but not sure how or if this is possible and can't really find out any information online and dealing with the IRS is hard from over here.
So not sure if many of you know but since the pandemic our dealings with the irs has been so exhausting...we can't do it online and after this last year I am just over it. I have an itin, purely for tax purposes, I have never lived/worked or bought any property etc in the US ever. Hubby has retirement income...
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Life has not gotten any better since my last life update.  This past week was particularly exhausting.  
I am not going to bore you with the details, but I am compiling a list of 2024 'crazy' that I will share at the end of the year.  The one thing that I do appreciate is at least there was some (big) good things thrown into the mix.  
Which I guess is what this post is about.  The good and the bad all rolled into one.  I am just seperating...
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Oh, wow, I see everyone is posting their net worth. Since the market is doing so well, I may as well post mine, which has risen to $1.6 million (including the house). Nice. This figure does not include my monthly-for-life annuity payments or Social Security, which I won't claim for another 4 or 5 years.
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season. I must confess to a bit of a spending spree starting, I guess, in November. Here's what I've purchased so far that "feels" wierd just...
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TSP $1,319,624
IRA $379,382
Brokerage $8,194
Sub-Total Investments $1,707,200
Savings $12,699
House Equity $139,000
November Net Worth $1,858,899
October Net Worth $1,762,802
Monthly Gain/Loss $96,097
Other Assets:
Car $11,000
Checking $5,207
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Last month we lost about $16K in net worth and this month we gained about $38K, so it's like we gained an average of $19K per month over the past two. About $7K was getting an annual update on one of NT's UK retirement accounts, which I don't have online access to so only get updates when they come in the mail. Another $2K was paying down our mortgages.
This month I'm going to start putting together my annual budget for next year. It's going to be hard to predict because NT might...
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Great to be back!  The kiddos have been on their own for years now, so money is not as tight as it used to be!  Also, I am still working at nearly 69, so that has really helped prep for retirement.  Still waffling on when to retire since it is so hard for me to walk away from a good job. My quandary du jour is trying to decide whether or not to get a financial planner. 
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I completed the kids' FASFAs on Friday.  I thought the beta version wasn't working because it didn't ask anything about our assets or the kids' assets.  What the heck!?  I quickly figured out that we don't have to report our assets because MM(19) was eligible for food stamps.  That's a completely random loophole that I wasn't expecting.  I had decided that this might eke out an extra $1K in grant money (for DL) next year but otherwise didn't expect much...
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Housing
784


Vacation/Travel
692


Gifts/Charity
585


Car
462


Utilities
219


Medical/Health
174


Groceries
113


Eating Out/Takeout
102


Phone
49


Entertainment
43


Personal
33


Fees & Services
24


Gas
23


Clothing
18


Furn/Equip/Décor
15


Laundry
10


Home Repair/Maint.
2



Grand Total                  3348  
The big ticket...
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The DMV finally reinstated my license!  Of course, they could have done so much earlier, but instead, decided to take their sweet time through the ENTIRE 90 day period.  Still though, after spending yet another day standing in line at the DMV again, and after cycling through three different DMV reps, they finally reinstated me.
First thing I did was, well actually go downtown and update my other legal documents that required my driver's license to also get approved haha. ...
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2025:  A new year.  A new president.  A new economy?  
It's hard to tell.  President Elect Trump has made many statements about his plans for his presidency, many of which will have huge economic impacts if they come to fruition.  Everything from tariffs, immigration, interest rates, taxes and government spending levels could influence our future economy in the coming months and years.  From a personal finance perspective, having a budget...
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Recently I watched the program on Netflix called "Buy It Now." It was touted as a way businesses encourage consumers to purchase things. It was both a frightening program and enlightening.
Sadly we do not have a recycling program in the county where I live. I try to reuse and repurpose as much stuff as I can and use a lot of containers and things over and over. But even so, the amount of stuff disposed of is considerable. One of the speakers went into a grocerty store and showed...
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MH was just trying out a new recipe app.  He liked it so much that he went ahead and ordered the windows version (more my speed).  All versions are half-off through the end of the month, FYI.
https://paprikaapp.com/
I was just testing out a few recipes I had saved on my computer.  It works by saving recipes from websites.  But I had an old family recipe saved and looked it up.  That was neat because I pretty quickly found a similar recipe (on google),...
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So we're in western washington and unfortunately day 4 of no power.  We lost power Tuesday afternoon and it hasn't come back on yet.  Typically we are pretty good.  Usually we're close enough to the city that we never have a problem with storms or snow.  But this time we got hit badly with a lot of trees in the area down.  A midwest friend said it's like a tornado.  We happened to be in the very narrow path and got super unlucky. I'm pretty sure...
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