Banker Gurl's More Bang For Your Buck!

So I went to deposit our Deadwood money in the bank today and when I got my receipt I was surprised at how much we had in our checking account. So when I got a chance I went online and checked our internet banking and saw that our mortgage payment had not come out yet! We mailed it on 3/1/11.......so I called the mortgage company and they said that they had not received it. So I could pay by phone ($17.50 fee) or by internet ($12.50 fee) or I can wait and cross my fingers that somehow the payment gets applied by tomorrow otherwise I get a late fee ($50.00). UGH! So I paid by internet, but just made the regular payment, and did not make my principle payment because if the checks are received then they will get cashed too and I didn't want like $4K coming out of my checking account at once. The rep I talked to said if they do receive the checks they will cash them and apply them to Aprils payment. BLAH so irritated by the whole deal. Guess we will wait and see what happens now.

We decided what to do with the last $500 from the trip
$200 to Super Secret Stash
$200 to Lawn Mower/Vacuum Savings
$100 for DH to play with

Current Balance $13,030.00
+$200.00 to Lawn Mower/Vacuum Savings
New Balance $13,230.00

ING $9200.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $600.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $13,230.00

We are not tracking the Super Secret Stash on here as part of savings, but it is up to $1000 so that is awesome!

We are back from Deadwood and had a great time! It was super fun and I am sad that it is over already. We ended up bringing home $1500! YEAH! And that is all extra money for savings! We are still deciding what to do with all of it, but I have $1000 of it already transferred to savings.
We almost always play penny games. We had 3 awesome wins. $270 on Lord of the Rings betting $1.20 a spin, $300 on The Big Money Show betting .60 a spin, and $436 on Fortunes of the Caribbean betting .60 a spin.
I sent $750 to our "New Car" savings to meet the goal for the year, then sent $250 to the EF, which is the next goal on the list. So $500 left to decide on. I will talk to DH tomorrow and decide what to do with that.

Current Balance $12,000.00
+$750.00 to New Car from casino win
+$250.00 to EF from casino win
+$30.00 Even Out Amount
New Balance $13,030.00

ING $9200.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $400.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $13,030.00

Wow, so we just got to $12K a week ago and now we are already over $13K, plus ING accounts hit $9K!
P A R T Y !
Plus we still have $800 in the Super Secret Stash and $500 to decide on from Deadwood. We are really rolling towards the $20K goal!

Yeah the day is finally here! We are off to Deadwood today! We have all of our money set aside already, so don't have to take any out of savings for the trip. Everything we bring home we will put into savings for our next goal which is the "new car" fund. The goal for that account right now is $2000 and we are currently at $1250, so I am hoping we will bring home enough to finish that account, but we shall see! Fingers crossed for good luck!

I went and used my Victoria's Secret coupons. Good for 1 Free Incredible Hip Hugger, the 2nd coupon was for $10 off any purchase. So the first pair was free, $11.50, then I used the $10 off coupon on another pair for $11.50. So I got 2 prs for $1.50 OOP!

My upstairs bathroom has a nice fresh spring theme. The walls are a spring green, shower curtain is white, spring green and lavender. All of the accesories are lavender, rugs, toothbrush holder etc. It's super cute and probably my favorite color scheme in the house. So DH was cleaning the bathroom while I took a nap (ok that makes me sound like a jerk already). I got up from my nap and went into the bathroom and the rugs went from lavender to grape koolaid while I took a nap. Apparently he washed the lavender rugs with the black rugs from the second bathroom.....the black rugs had never been washed as we just remodeled that bathroom about 6 months ago, and we never use it. So blah. I am super bummed out and we got in a fight about it, I was way more irritated then I should have been. The rugs were a house warming gift from a friend and had been purchased at Kohls, but I know they no longer have that color because I had checked before and was told it was clearanced out a few years ago. I went to Target and the only purple they had was a Royal Purple. My Mom suggested I go look at Walmart, so I will try there too, but it's not looking good. And I know from buying the black rugs they are expensive...I got those on a great sale and it was still like $50. Anyways I guess I am more sad at the way I handled it then at the actual rug situation. I should have sad, "Oh dang, it was an accident, thanks for cleaning the bathroom" Instead of "Awwwwww......and it doesn't look like you swept the floor?!" Well you live and learn. I apologized to DH and am gonna work hard to not over react next time.

My husband and I went to the movie Rango today. It is an animated movie and it was really cute. It has a lot of adult humor, but those jokes would be way over most kids heads so was good for kids or adults.
We used free movie tickets I had earned for donating blood. Then we used a rebate we had for Menards to get candy, and the candy was even on sale too! So the only thing we spent money on was one pop for me and one popcorn for DH - $7.50. Ouchie! Someday I will break the habit of having to have a pop at a movie.

2 Free Matinees - Saved $13.00
4 Boxes of Movie Candy, paid .06 OOP - Saved $3.62
Total saved = $16.62

Total spent $7.50 for popcorn and pop + .06 for candy = $7.56

$7.56/2 = $3.78 a piece for movie and snacks

5) Don't use stamps, and if you do, buy forever stamps. I bought 100 forever stamps in May 2008. I still have about 20 left, and right now we only use 1 per month and that is for our mortgage payment. Everything else we pay online for free except for our electric bill. They do not have an online payment option, but they do have a drop box at the grocery store by our house, so rather then mail it in with a stamp we just drop it off there when we are getting groceries. When these stamps are gone I will buy another 100 forever stamps and they should last me another 4 years or more. Also watch for stamp prices to go up and make sure you buy before the increase.

6) Don't spend money on personalized items that you can get for free or cheaper for normal items.
Examples:
- License Plates - You already have to pay registration fees, don't waste money paying for vanity plates.
- Checks - Many banks offer free checks if you get the plain blue or gray checks. Why pay for ones with the Flinstones or puppies on them?

7) Avoid bank fees. Overdraft fees, ATM fees, LOC (Line of Credit) fees, interest. They are all stupid ways to spend your money. An easy way to avoid a lot of fees is to just keep a checkbook register. Either paper register or on Excel or mint.com. Whatever works best for you to make sure you know what is in your account. A LOC will keep you from becoming overdrawn, but most have either a yearly fee, or a fee every time it is advanced. LOC also usually accrue interest while you are using the funds. I avoid this by keeping my own LOC called my cushion (see my post called "My Cushy Cushion") so if I make an error in my register or we just are a little short when a bill is due I know I have an extra cushion in there to cover it till the next deposit.

Current Balance $12,080.00
-$112.00 to Roth IRA
+$7.00 Even Out Amount
+$25.00 To keep above $12K
New Balance $12,000.00

ING $8170.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $400.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $12,000.00

One of my auto deposits to my ROTH IRA came out today and took us under $12K....awww! Don't want that to happen, so I made a random deposit just to keep it at the $12K mark.

March 2011 Savings update
As of March 1, 2011:

Regular Savings:
Emergency Fund $1045
Anniversary Cruise $3430
Home Maintanence $90
Cushion $1380
HSA $3750
New Car $1205
New Lawn Mower (cash) $400 - Complete
MOH $515 - Complete
Laptop $605 - Complete
Washer and Dryer $1200 - Complete
Vacation - $2530 - Complete
Total Regular Savings = $16,150.00

Retirement Savings:
Retirement Hold Account $970
Roth IRA $3170
Rollover IRA $1375
401K $13,815
403B $10,000 (est)
Total Retirement Savings = $29,330.00

Total Savings = $45,480.00

Up $2165 from last month. Wow it is amazing to think we could hit the $50K mark in just a few months! Feeling very proud of DH and I right now.

Current Balance $11,890.00
+$20.00 to New Car Fund
+$85.00 to Retirement Hold Account
+$6.19 ING Interest
+$28.81 Even Out Amounts
+$50.00 Detention Money - to Lawnmower fund
New Balance $12,080.00

ING $8250.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $400.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $12,080.00

Whoo hoo! $12K! Feels great to get past the next $K mark! Also am happy cause even if we had to take some out of savings for something we would hopefully be able to stay over $10K now since we have a little wiggle room.

Balance $134,680.00
+$420.88 Interest
+$307.59 Escrow
-$1311.16 Regular Payment
-$527.31 Principle Payment ($40 in change)
New Balance $133,570.00

$133K = 133 months = 11.08 years left!

(VS1/2011) Got my first free undies coupon of the year from Victoria's Secret. Good for 1 Free Incredible Hip Hugger, so I will have to go in the next week or 2 to get my free chonies. Normally these coupons come with a 2nd coupon good for $10 off any bra, but I never use that because I don't buy my bras at VS, they are way to expensive, and can get just as good or better quality at department stores. But this time the 2nd coupon was for $10 off any purchase! So I will probably use that one too, try to find some undies for $12 or so then I can get 2 prs of undies for $2. That is the plan, we'll see what I can find!

Also I have been seeing some commercials for P&G Brand Saver coupons coming out in Feb 27th newspaper. We don't get the paper (free online) so I am going to try to get to the gym early on Sunday so I can get the coupons from their newspaper.

I have a Super Secret Stash (SSS) of cash. It started with just keeping a $5 here, a $10 here....then I added some $20's, some of DH's Christmas money and now we have $500 in the SSS. I didn't want this money to have to have any label. It's not savings, it's not to go on the mortgage, make a large purchase, or go on a trip....I just want it there for if we want to buy/do something we would have money that was unaccounted for so it would not come out of savings.
Last night DH and I went to the casino. We were trying to hold off till we go to Deadwood in a few weeks. But we both had a long week and thought it would be fun to go chill out for awhile. So we took some money out of the SSS and went up, and the very first game we played we put in $10, we were betting .50 cents and hit $80! Whoo hoo! The night kept going like that and we ended up coming home $380 ahead plus a bucket of change! Yeah! So I am putting $100 into the ING New Car Fund, putting the change towards the mortgage and putting the remaining $280 back in the Super Secret Stash! SSS is now at $780.00!


Current Balance $11,790.00
+$100.00 Casino Win - To New Car Fund
New Balance $11,890.00

ING $8110.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $350.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $11,890.00

Next week we should hit $12K! So excited!

Current Balance $11,815.00
-$28.00 to Roth IRA
+$3.00 Even Out Amount
New Balance $11,790.00

ING $8010.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $350.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $11,790.00

So while we were waiting around at CVS for DH's meds we found some good deals. Valentines Candy was 75% off!

$.97 Kleenex - Saved $1.02
$.97 Kleenex - Saved $1.02
$1.25 Big Heart Strawberry Chocolates - Saved $3.74
$1.25 Big Heart of Mini Candy Bars - Saved $3.74
$1.25 Big Heart of Mini Candy Bars - Saved $3.74
$.75 Mini Heart Box of Chocolates - Saved $2.24

Total Spent $6.83!
Total Saved was $15.50!

Now the chocolates we definitely not needs......but 75% off of Valentines Candy is a great deal. All of the candy was for DH except the Strawberry Cream Chocolates were for me (just had one and it was AH-Mazing!). DH will freeze the rest and eat them for the next month or two. Of couse we were out of Kleenex again since I was sick for so long, but am feeling lots better, so these should last for more then a week this time.

I also signed up for their "extra care rewards" card. So starting in April I should get 2% back from any purchases made in Jan - March 2011. I don't shop at CVS very often, usually only when we are getting an RX, but every little bit of savings helps!

Here is my DH's ankle

My husband only weighs 140 lbs, so you can imagine how fat this ankle is!

Ewww...nasty bruise!
He went to the Dr today and luckily it is just a bad sprain. Happy it is not broken! Looks horrible though...office visit, xray, crutches and rx. Don't know how much the office visit and the xray are yet, but the crutches were $60, and the generic rx was $4.16 (brand name would have been $53!!). Wish I would have been with him, cause I would have told him not to get crutches with the dr, could have got them at CVS for half that price.....oh well, the crutches are for adults 5'2 to 5'11, so either one of us can use them, and we should never have to buy crutches again. And the rx was super cheap so that was good.

DH and I went out of town for the weekend. He was in a basketball tournament about 100 miles away. I thought it would be a resonably cheap weekend. We were riding up with another player, and also rooming with 2 other players, so that and food and shouldn't be more then $100 for the whole weekend. Well we gave $25 a piece for the hotel room, paid for a tank of gas $33, snacks $4, breakfast day 1 $5, admission to the tournamant for me $5 (!!), $21 lunch day 1, $14 lunch day 2, $25 booze. So that's already $157!! Then the very first game DH and a big guy from the other team got tangled up and fell, and the big guy rolled up DH's foot and ankle. That was yesterday morning and he has been severly limping since then and his ankle is humungous and bruised. We were going to go to the walkin clinic when we got home, but the weather was bad here and by the time we got back to town the clinic was closed. So I think he will need to go in tomorrow to get it looked at. So after that the weekend will most likely cost over $300....ouch to that, and ouch to DH's ankle.

Checked my medical claims online and saw that my claim for the walkin clinic was received. $180!! Yikes! My insurance's negotiated rate is $162, and since I am on a HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan), we are responsible for the whole amount until we get to $3200 deductible. Luckily we have our HSA, which is at $3500 so we will just pay it out of that. But it is still pukey how much it costs just to be seen for 4 min to get some cold medicine.

Current Balance $11,730.00
+$85.00 Retirement Hold account
New Balance $11,815.00

ING $8035.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $350.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $11,815.00

Yeah, my ING accounts are over $8K!

DH did not get the detention pay on this paycheck, so no extra to put in yet, but next paycheck he should have at least $100 in detention pay. Half of that will be for him for "fun" money and half will go into the lawn mower/vacuum fund.

Ok, normally I am not one to be like "Oh the credit card companies are evil" and yadda yadda. I believe if someone chooses to borrow from a credit card company that is their choice and their decision and every person needs to learn to use this "service" responsibly and not blame their credit card if they have to pay interest or fees cause they didn't follow the guideline. Ok, off my soapbox.... the point of this post was, I feel like our Best Buy CC is trying to trick us into fees! We have a Best Buy CC that we got our laptop on for 0% interest for 18 months. The agreement is to pay at least the minimum payment every month, and pay the entire balance before 12/11 and there will be no interest and no fees. We have done several 0% deals before and have never had any trouble with them as we always follow the agreement and make sure we pay the balance at least a month before the 0% runs out. The minimum payment on the BB card was $10 a month. I was paying $20 a month every month, and even set up a auto pay online to pay $20 everymonth, that way when it was due we only had $200 left to pay and that money is already sitting in savings. So for 8 months now we have been paying $20 a month on auto pay....la la la....everything is fine. They I get this months statement and the min payment has gone from $10 to $25? HUH?! I have never seen a min payment go up as the balance went down......usually if your balance is going down then your minimum payment would go down, or at least stay the same. So I am so lucky I noticed that, cause I could have easily opened it and thought "oh BB is on autopay, so don't need to worry about this bill" and then I would have gotten slammed with a fee plus all of the deferred interest would have hit the card. UGH So really don't get what that was about. Lesson to all, make sure you check your statements even if you know what they are SUPPOSED to say!

I didn't have much to do today.....DH turned on some Netflix and I sat at the kitchen table and made a Mortgage Meter. I took a few large pages of accountant lined paper, taped them together and labled each line from $160K - $0 in increments of $1000. Then I drew a large thermometer going through all of the pages. Then I took a pink highlighter and filled in the lines from $160K - $135K. Everytime we get under another $1000 mark (we should go down at least $1000 each month) I can highlight the next row. Dorky I know, but visual motivation helps me. I put it on the side of the fridge and DH laughed at me.

Current Balance $11,580.00
+$100.00 to Anniversary Cruise
+$25.00 to New Car Fund
+$25.00 to Home Improvement Fund
New Balance $11,730.00

ING $7950.00
Lawn Mower/Vacuum(cash) $350.00
HSBC $3430.00
Total = $11,730.00

DH gets paid on 2/15. If he gets paid for his detention hours on this paycheck I will be able to put some more into the lawn mower/vacuum fund.

Feeling restless.....

We got our federal return today, $1574.00. YEAH! For now we are just holding on to it since most of it is going with for our trip to Deadwood in March. I already put $100 out of it into savings last week on anticipation of getting the return. I would like to put the rest in savings, but I would have to take it out in 3 weeks, so I will just hold off and hopefully we will bring a lot back from Deadwood!

It's time for me to start tanning for my MOH job in May. As I am from the Midwest, my mother is a red head, and I am a freckle faced girl.....I need to start getting my tan on 3 months before my friend's big day. So I called several tanning salons today to get some price quotes. I want to get an unlimited monthly package so I don't have to worry about minutes/sessions. I have to start out really low so I don't burn, like 3 min the first time, so if that is counted as a session it would be a rip off for me. My gym has unlimited tanning for $10 a month, which is really cheap, but you can't tan on the weekends, you ALWAYS have to wait in line to get a bed (they only have 3) and the beds don't seem to be as effective as the beds at tanning salons (they probably don't change their lightbulbs as often).
So the quotes I got were:
$18.88 plus buy a bottle of lotion ($10 - $15)
$36.95
$40
$55 - $75 depending on minutes
So looks like the cheapest I could get would be about $30 a month. Our I could go to my gym and get all 3 months of tanning for $30. Hmmmm.....I guess that helps me make my decision, even if I have to wait in line, paying 1/3 of the price is a good deal. Plus maybe it will make me go to the gym more!

At home sick again today. My cough and nose are still annoying, but overall feeling better, and my attitude has definitely improved..
So I decided to actually get out of bed and be a little productive today. I put away all of my 2010 papers that were in my file, took them all out, stapled everything together and put it in my long term file. Also stapled together all of the 2010 tax papers and put them in the long term file too.
Then I tackled my bedroom which was a total disaster. I had clothes everywhere. I am NOT good at putting away my laundry. So I spent a good 3 hours folding clothes and organizing my closet. I will admit, I am a clothes horder. I find all kinds of reasons to keep clothes that don't fit me, or that I haven't worn in years. I could probably purge 50% of my closet and not notice. Well I couldn't bring myself to do that, but I did get some things pulled out.
I threw away a cardigan that was my favorite cardigan for work when I worked at JCP (in 1999!), it had a hole in the shoulder seam, my favorite jeans from highschool that I have had patched at least 3 times and have a hole in the crotch again...and a belt, also from when I worked at JCP and it was cheapy and the backing was completely unglued.
I found several things to put in the rummage sale, 2 pairs of sweatpants, 7 shirts, 2 tanktops, 2 bras, 1 book, and 1 carabiner (which I found in my bra drawer...have no idea where that came from??).
Being productive definitely helps me feel better when I am feeling sick. When you lay around all day then you just feel worthless and that makes me feel worse. So I am glad I got something done today!

I don't think I mentioned it on here. But I am sick. And I have been sick for over 2 weeks now. And I am SICK OF BEING SICK! Awww! I know it's that time of year and everything is going around, but enough already! So I am home in bed today. I also missed 3 days the week before last. So I am bummed cause not only do I feel like butt, but I am burning up my 2011 PTO, and my work does not have an employee friendly attendence policy. Blah. I have some kind of bronchitis sinus infection hybrid crap. Usually I fight through things on my own, but I couldn't take it anymore so went to the dr yesterday and got some meds. Hopefully I won't be knocked on my ass forever!

Had a few coupons to use today and found a really good clearance deal!

Coupons
$3 off Venus Razor refills (wow razors are expensive!)
Buy one get one free on Mens Gillette deoderant
The cost of the deoderant was $4.24 each, so after coupon $2.12 each.

Then I found womens Secret deoderants on clearance. A 3 pack for $4.66! Super deal! Regular price for 1 secret deoderant is $4.23, and I got mine for $1.55 a piece! So I bought 2, 3 packs (6 deoderants). Definitely won't need to buy deoderant for either of us for a long time.

Total savings for the day:
$3 off razors cartridges
$4.24 Free Gillette deoderant
$2.68 X 6 = $16.08 Savings on 6 Secret Deoderants
Total $23.32

February 2011 Savings update
As of February 1, 2011:

Regular Savings:
Emergency Fund $1040
Anniversary Cruise $3330
Home Maintanence $60
New Lawn Mower (cash) $350
Cushion $1340
Car $760
HSA $3490
MOH $510 - Complete
Laptop $600 - Complete
Washer and Dryer $1200 - Complete
Vacation - $2525 - Complete
Total Regular Savings = $15,205.00

Retirement Savings:
Retirement Hold Account $900
Roth IRA $3140
Rollover IRA $1370
401K $12,700
403B $10,000
Total Retirement Savings = $28,110.00

Total Savings = $43,315.00

Up $1145 from last month. I am really excited that we were able to go up considering we took $750 out of savings to pay for our King Mattress, plus had a very large credit card bill for Christmas and overspending to handle as well. Closing in on $45K!

Balance $135,740.00
+$424.19 Interest
+$307.59 Escrow
-$1311.16 Regular Payment
-$480.62 Principle Payment ($55 in change)
New Balance $134,680.00

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!
I love that we are going down over $1K a month now! We hope to keep that up, so that means $134K = 134 months. Which is only 11.1 years left......or less! So if we stay at that pace I would be 37 or less! Yipee!