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From what I understood my husband's work would 100% match the first 1% you contributed and then 50% match up to 5%. But going through our retirement accounts yesterday for the end of the month I noticed that it said 50% up to an additional 5% contribution. So a total of 6% to get all the employer matching. Ugh!
 
That means we have been missing out on free money all this time. I am wondering if they didn't change it at the last union contract because I originally thought...
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Today's payment for my student loan was $386.10, falling just $201 short of dipping below the $30k balance mark. It's alright – I'm determined to keep pushing forward.
Admittedly, I've veered off the financial path lately and need to regain control before things get messy. While I can't pinpoint my triggers precisely, exhaustion seems to play a role, and wants take over.
Considering this, I'm contemplating incorporating a monthly budgeted splurge to prevent such lapses...
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We are getting close to maxing out on the 401K.  We've already hit the normal max out, but since DH is over 50, we are going for the catch up amount, which is $30,000.  Unfortunately, we are still waiting for payroll to make the contribution from November 10th and of course they have not made the one from the 25th yet, either, so we are waiting for them to deposit at total of $2104.73 that they did deduct from the paychecks.  DH checked.
Once they do it, and DH...
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Debts
Mortgage -$113,171.44 (-$240.27)Land Loan -$8,778.12 (-$191.07)Hospital Bill -$516.41 (-$75)
Savings
Roth IRAs +$27,735 (+$2,448)401K +$56,006 (+$5,387)Emergency Fund +$6,782 (-$329)Animal Fund +$1,031 (+$253)Car Fund +$240 (+$20)HSA +$1,633 (+$894)
Overall: +$9,179.34
The numbers seem really skewed from the large market increase.
Overall my cash is down, and I owe some to myself for Christmas presents which thankfully are all pretty much already purchased.
I...
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Yesterday I signed docs, visited a notary to stamp the Deed of Trust, and sent the docs to the title company via UPS.  This morning I made a trip to the bank and wired the funds.  We will close by the end of the week. 
I ended up borrowing 25k, putting down 50k plus closing costs.  My monthly payments on the mortgage are $225.00 for two years and then the balance is due.  I will owe just under 23k at that time.
Very soon now we will be hitting the road...
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Can you login now?
My login/SA problems are all fixed now.
 
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I'm back at home after a really nice Thanksgiving trip to my brother's house. I spent $80 on gas and food, and $5 for a special Christmas card for a friend. When I got home I spent $6 on a car wash and $4 on laundry. I've spent 98% of my variables (my spending allowance.)  But today is my son's birthday, and there are plans afoot to either go out to dinner or get takeout, so I'm not going to be able to stay under 100%. At least I already have his gift.
In two more days, when...
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Our finances are always in a better place when we pay attention to them, which makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make perfect sense is that we aren’t always on top of our finances. Anyway, the one downside I always feel when we are paying strict attention to our finances is the whole “payday high to next day low”.
Every payday that comes around brings with it this high of financial success. Paying bills, paying down debt, cash stuffing envelopes, tallying...
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Just found out a friend that I went to school with died a few days ago...that is the 2nd school friend we have lost this year...what is happening these girls were only early 50s....makes life real knowing that it can happen to anyone..anytime...I just can't think straight about it....we are all far to young to be losing friends like this already....thought we would have like another 20 plus years before things like this happened....she is australian but lived in the US so they...
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What is happening?  Are the forums freaking the heck out for everyone else?  Are the blogs?  My blog says I am logged out and I couldn't get logged in until I left a comment on Monkey Mama's blog and then it said I was logged in, but when I went to all entries or back to blogs I was logged out again, but then when I was able to get to my blog it has the control panel, so I am trying this to see if it will post.  And the forums page is just spazzing out, blinking...
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When my auto insurance renewed in Septmember my rate was raised by 30% with no changes to my driving record. I know that USAA has never been cheap, but this rate is almost triple what I get when I look at Geico or Progressive. So after 23 years solely with USAA I am thinking about leaving them. Who do you have auto insurance with and what do you think about their service?
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Hello, everyone! I hope you are all having a Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for my friends, family, and coworkers.
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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 
I have so much to be thankful for, thank you gif, for all you have done.
 I pray that your holiday was full of joy, laughter and love. 
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I hope your holiday has been a good one. I hope you gobbled till you wobbled! 
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A friend posted on Facebook that her car registration expired without her realizing it & I immediately realized that mine did the same. It expired in July. We both had moved since our last renewal. I still don't understand how they couldn't locate me since I have updated both my driver's license & my voter registration to my new address. She ended up paying $70 to renew her registration. I'm not even worried about it. I'm off the week of my birthday (I have so much annual...
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I'm pausing now as I get ready to travel tomorrow for our family get-together in Michigan. I have promised to bring green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and a dump cake. This morning as I assembled my ingredients, I realized that I forgot to buy the yellow cake mix for the dump cake, so it's back to the store. Yesterday I spent $44 for ingredients. I logged that expenditure in Gifts/Charity. As it is a gift to the family, similar to hosting, just not at my house.
Since my last...
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It’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post but a lot has happened this year. 
 
In January we changed around our mortgage payment for our house we’re living in to monthly payments instead of weekly and were able to clearly see just how much the mortgage payments for two properties had become and realised that we could not afford to pay for a large mortgage on our house and the balance of the mortgage payment for our rental property (our old house)...
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It was a very productive day here. It was also the likely last day it hit 61 degrees for quite some time, so I decided in advance to get as much outdoor work done as possible. I wound up:
* Mowing front and back, not completely, but the parts where the grass has gotten long since my mower's last mowing, which I guess was in October. In the process, I chopped up a bunch of leaves with my mulching blade.
* I also blew clean all the leaves on the driveway; they tend to get trapped...
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This debt update is based on our most recent credit card statement which posted on 11/16/23. I do these mid-month because our credit card closes on teh 15th. I can't wait until we are credit card debt free!
As always, we are not paying off our debt as fast as I would like, but I am happy to say that our debt decreased! It actually went down by a pretty good chunk, and by more than I was expecting this month!
Here is our current credit card debt totals:
     ...
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