Banker Gurl's More Bang For Your Buck!

We got our flight for Vegas booked yesterday. Got $59.99 each way, which I am happy with, it had been $119.99 and $99.99 the last few weeks. Crappy thing is Allegiant Air hits you hard with fees. $40 in fees each way. DH got a lot of fees taken off of the bill...ground transportation, seat selection fee, and we will share one suitcase to take $60 bag checking fee down to $30. The day after we booked I heard that you can save about $13 a piece by going out to the airport and buying the tickets instead of buying online (convenience fee), did not know that before, but now that we know we will definitely go do that next year as the airport is only 5 min from our house. So flight costs came out to $400 total and hotel was free.....I am happy with a $400 5 day trip to Vegas! Yeah! Now I am sooo antsy to go!! Counting the days!

DH had worn his khaki shorts out, one pair he got bleach on (have no idea how he did that!) and one pair he has got holes in the butt pockets. He suggested that we go to a thriftstore to look for some new ones. I was surprised at this as I never normally go to thrift store unless I need stuff for Halloween costumes....but thought it would be fun to go check it out. We have a brand new Goodwill store near our house so we went to check it out and I was really surprised at how nice, clean and organized it was, it was really more like Plato's Closet then a thrift store. Everything was sized and color coordinated! DH found 2 pairs that he liked, tried them on, and was happy! They were $3.50 per pair, so I was totally happy to pay $7.00 for 2 prs of shorts for him. But when we were paying the cashier told us the one pair was on sale for $1 and the other was on sale for $2! So 2 prs of shorts = $3!!! Soooo excited! Usually when we go to get clother for DH we go to Target or JCPenneys and it would probably be about $30 for a pair of shorts so I was psyched about the savings. We went to 3 other thriftstores in town, but they were all kind of dingy/dirty and too hard to find anything worth buying. But we were tickled with our initial finds and I will definitely be checking them out for future purchases!

Also that day we went to Coldstone for ice cream and the girl made too much for DH so he got an entire extra ice cream cup for free!

Go hubby!

Our total for the rummage sale came out to $47, so I transferred $50 to ING. Also had interest from ING.

Current Balance $7,575.00
+$30.00 Random Deposit
+$3.45 ING Interest
+$50.00 Rummage Sale
+$21.55 Even Out Amount
New Balance $7,680.00

Happy to report we made it all the way through June without turning on the air! It's been rough since it has been extremely humid here and in the mid 90's. Yesterday was horrible as it was 97 degrees and we had softball! So I was dying at night from heatstroke. But since we met our goal of making it through June I did turn it on today and it is over 95 again so I am holed up with the air on!
FIL is in town to visit and brought DH 8 bars of soap, 2 cans shaving gel, pack of 52 disposable razors, 3 tubes toothpaste, laundry detergent, new tennis shoes, pack of socks, toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, dishwashing soap, mayo and salsa. He takes such good care of us! Tonight he is taking us to Red Lobster and Saturday we are taking a little trip to the casino!

My 26th BD was last week! Yeah! Had dinner with family and presents last night. Got a couple of nice little gifts and a digital camera which I am very excited about because I was one of the few people left still using a camera that takes film. Also got a nice new blanket and some pampered chef items. Oh and the movie The Hangover, lol can not get enough of that movie!

We had another rummage sale this weekend. Did not sell too much, only about $50.00. But we did not put anything new out in this sale, and this is our 3rd one this summer. So I am still happy that we made something. Once we get paid from my Mom (she keeps everything organized for who sold what) then I am going to put that towards my Maid of Honor expenses. Then we will have $175 towards my $500 MOH goal! Also that is about 15 less books, couple less misc and couple less clothes we have to pack up.

Current Balance $7,315.00
+$5.00 Birthday Money
+$50.00 Discover Cashback Reward
+150.00 Emergency Fund
+200.00 Vacation Fund
-$145.00 Transfer to ROTH IRA
New Balance $7,575.00

Ok, before I had posted about how we got some comps in the mail from Hooters Hotel and Casino in Vegas about a month ago. One of the comps was 1 week night free, 1 weekend night free and 1 night at $9.99. Both my husband and myself got the comp package, so each offer would be times 2. Well we are going in August and staying Monday - Thursday nights, so we would each get 1 night free and 1 night at $9.99, since we are not staying a weekend night we would not get the extra night free. I called today to book our hotel and the reservation desk said we could have all 4 nights we are staying FREE! YEAH! I am pumped! Now if only we could get the flights free...LOL. We are still waiting on those to go down some more....they are still at $99.99 each way and I would really like to see them closer to $59.99.....just have to be patient!

Happy early Father's Day to all the Dads out there!
For FD my bros and I are taking my Dad bowling. We used to go bowling once in awhile when we were little and it was always a lot of fun. They have one of those bowling alleys here where they have the black lights and the music so we are doing that tonight. It's $15 per person for 3 hours of bowling so we will each pay $5 a piece for my Dad and then pay for ourselves of course. I also got my Dad a cake from DQ (where else!?) so am very excited to eat some! I found a $3 coupon for that so whoo hoo for savings!

OK, so basically we have been completely out of control with little trips here and there, going to the casino, and eating out. Since we have no kids, and the mortgage is our only debt we have a hard time with self control cause it is so easy to say "Hey we are only young and childless once, might as well have fun while we can!" Well that attitude is ok once in awhile, but we have really been stuck in a rut with this unneeded spending constantly. We have come up with a plan for summer to not go on anymore random spontaneous trips. We have a trip planned to Vegas in August, that we have planned for and saved for, but until then no more going crazy. Also need to focus much more on savings for now, and less on the mortgage as I recently realized that a large percentage of our savings is earmarked for future vacations and the EF is pretty miniscule from us stupidly using the EF for non EF things. So savings it is! And large it will be!

Well the weekend was super fun. Friday night we drove to a casino about 1/3 of the way to Minneapolis. Unfortunatley we did not win, but we did have a lot of fun, and I did drink way too much! Then Saturday we drove the rest of the way to Minn and checked into our hotel and then drove to the game. I was really worried that the game would be cancelled because it was raining alllll day. But they did play so I sat in the rain for about 5 innings before it stopped. It was a really good game, very close and Braves won! We sat in left field. Then we were driving home and found a White Castle burger place! So we hopped in there to check it out, it was tasty and cheap! Then Sunday's game we sat by 3rd base and it was a blow out for awhile, Braves up 7-0....by the end of the game score was 7-4. So YEAH double win for Braves! Only sad part was my favorite player, Chipper Jones, did not play. I did get to see him do batting practice on Sunday. But was really hoping to see him play since he will probably be retiring within a year or so. Then Sunday we drove home after the game and stopped at a very nice resteraunt on the way home for our "official" anniversary dinner.
All in all a very fabulous, but expenseive weekend. Had to take some out of savings for now and may have to take some more out when out CC statement comes.
Current Balance $7,755.00
-640.00 Minn Trip
+100.00 Anniversary Cruise Fund
+100.00 Vacation Fund
New Balance $7,315.00

I am super excited for this weekend! Next week is our 3 year wedding anniversary (been together 8yrs) and we are celebrating this weekend. We had plans to go to MN and watch my Braves play the Twins. DH decided he wanted to do a little extra surprise.....so instead of leaving Saturday morning....we are leaving Friday after work and DH secretly had booked a night at a casino on the way to MN. So we will stay the night and have some fun, they in the morning drive the rest of the way, then go to a game Saturday night, and another one Sunday afternoon. YEAH! Gonna be an expensive weekend but of course all paid in cash. Can't wait to go celebrate with my baby!

Good news: Every year when DH switches from school year pay to summer time pay there is always a little "lapse" since his pay periods change and we have to go an extra week or two till the first summer paycheck. We know this will happen every year and always have to take money out of savings to cover it. Well last week I got a bonus for $800 that would help bridge that gap, and then today I got another one for $800!! One of them was a special yearly bonus and the other was my performance incentive for 1st Quarter 2010. I will use the first bonus to cover the time without DH's pay, and the 2nd bonus to pay for our trip to MN next week. We are going to watch 2 Braves/Twins games and between the tickets, hotel, gas and food it will be $500+, which will probably be almost exactly the amount of my bonus after taxes are taken out. It will be our anniversary present/my BD present to us! (both are in June).

Regular Savings:
Emergency Fund $700
Anniversary Cruise $2505
Home Maintanence $290
Cushion $950
Vacation 2010 $1945
HSA $300
MOH $70
Laptop $600 - Complete
King Mattress $750 - Complete
Total Regular Savings = $8,110.00

Retirement Savings:
Roth IRA $2750
Rollover IRA $1450
401K $10200
403B $8700
Total Retirement Savings = $23,100.00

Total Savings = $31,210.00
Up $345.00 from last month. Hoping for the summer to just stay around $30K.....no big goals of going up till September.

So the last BL ended on 6-1-10. I lost 2 lbs and got 4th place out of 8 people. Not so good.
The new BL started on 6-2-10. This time there are 9 people, so $90 to win! They are doing it a little different this time. There will be 2 mid term wins, one in July (win $10), one in beginning of August (win $20) and then the finale in beginning of September (win $60)! I have been trying really hard and even drank a DIET pop today! I am super addicted to Moutain Dew so that was a big step for me to voluntarily drink diet. Also had celery and strawberries for snacks. Found out DH's 10 year reunion is in Aug and just 3 days before we go to Vegas......incentive anyone?!

Current Total = $8,065.00
+-......Ummmm????
New Total = $7,755.00

So not sure I could figure out the math right now since it has been at least 2 weeks since my last $20K count. We went on vaca for Memorial Day Weekend, so took some out for gas, hotel and entertainment. Also made a transfer from savings to my IRA. Then had regular paycheck deposits as well as interest and even out deposits. So glad I have my internet back so I can keep accurate track again!

Mortgage for June

Balance $133,400.00
+$541.94 Interest
+$345.57 Escrow
-$1286.00 Regular Payment
-$631.51 Principle Payment
New Balance $132,370.00

Additional Principle Payments 2010 = $3294.76
Current Position on Mortgage Amortization Schedule....September 2015...5 years and 3 months ahead of schedule!

Whoo hoo this was our biggest principle payment yet!
We paid our reg $500 extra, plus our "mortgage pig" had almost $100 in change in it....AND we took in our aluminum cans and made $38 off of that which we threw at the mortgage too! Party! The next 2 months will be tough to make any extra payments since DH will be on summer pay, but we are hoping to at least pay down to the next $100 mark.

Sorry I have been MIA! I wasn't feeling well this last week and the laptop that we thought we were going to use for the summer has a virus and we can't use it anymore, it won't let us on the internet! Bummer! So we went and took my old laptop in today. They were not able to save anything off of it or turn it on.....they said they may be able to try to do some more extensive tests to try to get my info back, but would cost $170 just to try. Since I have had that laptop for 7 years I really think that I have gotten my use out of it (I use it EVERYDAY!). So we shopped around town and got a new laptop. It was $330, plus spy ware package, Microsoft Office Suite and warranty came to $641.00. I am really excited as it is really fast and also has a number pad, which I have never had on a laptop and since I have worked at banks in the past I use the number pad much more efficiently! We did 18 months 0% interest at BestBuy. As soon as I got home I transferred $600 from one ING account to a seperate ING account and labeled it Laptop. Now it can sit there and earn interest till December 2011. I am so happy to have a working laptop again! I will try to get caught up with posts this week. Hope everyone had a safe and happy Memorial Day!

Well after reviewing the budget for the summer it sadly is a reality that we will not be able to put much extra at all to the mortgage till September. DH is a teacher and gets paid 9 months of the year. In the summer he works at a daycamp and makes about $600 less per month.....and as is I have been pulling from savings occasionally because of overspending and not planning ahead. So our choices to make it work were either lower savings contributions, lower retirement contributions, reduce spending (which we need to do anyways) or reduce extra mortgage payments. We are going to have to cut expenses already to make sure we don't have to take extra money out of savings. But we don't spend enough to have $600 to cut, so the next lowest priority would be the extra principle payments to the mortgage. We are going to try to still pay $100 or so but it will be very tight. That will put our actual mortgage decrease each month at $400 - $500.....not where we want to be, but still going down. I think for June we can swing the extra payment, but July and August will be minimal.
Summer Budget
$3200 Monthly Income (After retirement is taken out)
-$1300 Mortgage
-$1200 Cutback Expenses (car insurance, cell phones, internet, cable, gym, fuel, groceries, household, electric bill, water, misc everything!)
-$700 Savings Contributions
=$0

We got a comps letter from Hooters Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas today. I am very excited since we are going to Vegas again in August!
Here is what we got:
4 Free Nights
2 Nights for $9.99 each
4 Free Poolside Drinks
$100 in Free Play
8 Free Show tickets
20 Free wings

We are waiting to book our flights till they are a little cheaper. Right now they are $99 per person one way. We have seem them around $59 per person one way so we are gonna wait for awhile and see if a better deal comes along.

Got another free coupon for VS undies. That is the 4th one I have gotten this year and I have still not bought anything from there. I just walk in, get my free undies, and walk out. The pair they gave this time cost $7.50.
Also picked up my Mom's BD present. I had a GC that I had bought for her for Christmas, but then I found a better gift, so I saved the GC till now, and used it to buy her BD present so only had to pay $1.97 for the difference.
Had my ring cleaned and inspected for free to keep my warranty active.
Also went to Target, I was out of body wash. I had found a $5.00 coupon in the coupon box at work. $5.00 off 2 Nivea body washes, they were $3.99 each, so after coupon came to $1.50 each! Then also saw some clearance and found 2 Pantene conditioners, Liter bottles reg $8.29, on clearance for $4.14, 50% off! And for a liter bottle that is a great price! So bought both of those too.

Well we had a very successful rummage sale weekend. It had been raining here for the last 3 weeks and miraculously it was warm and sunny Friday - Sunday! So that was surprising and awesome! Friday we made $34.50, Saturday $37.75 and Sunday $9.00, plus my husband made $39.65 on his sports cards. So DH and I made $120.90. The rummage sale as a whole made $1114.75, my brother, SIL, Mom, and 2 friends were in the sale too, most of the money made was my Mom's as she has never ending stuff to sale. She really could have been on that "Hoarders" show at one time. She is doing a lot, lot better now, but still has garages full of stuff to sell and is working on getting items cleaned up, marked and boxed for the next rummage sale. We will probably have another one in a month or so. Our goal was $200 which we did not make, but I am happy with the $120 considering the most expensive things we had in the sale were only $5, most things we had were $2.00 or less. We put the .90 in our "pig" to add to our house payment (our pig is very full right now so June should be a good payment!) and I am saving the $120 for our trip to Deadwood in 2 weeks.

Well I have not gotten around to taking my laptop in yet to see if it is repairable at all. But we have a temporary solution. DH has a work laptop that we can use for the summer as long as it is just for internet (no downloading or saving anything) so that is good enough for me for now. In the meantime we will research finding a new, cost effective option.

We are having a rummage sale with some family this weekend. We are hoping DH and I will make $200 for ourselves. We don't have much for big ticket items, mostly just books and clothes. We are also going to sell snack and pop. Usually there is a good turn out and $200 is pretty average for us. So hopefully it doesn't rain and we have a good turn out. I will keep you posted on our $200 goal!

Current Total = $7,660.00
+1.03 King Mattress CD Interest
+3.97 Even out Amount
+$50.00 to EF (DH payday)
+$50.00 to vacation (DH payday)
+$50.00 to EF (My payday)
+$50.00 to vacation (DH payday)
+$100.00 to ROTH hold account
+$100.00 Anniversary Vacation Fund
New Total = $8,065.00

Into a new thousand bracket so that is exciting. We are going on vaca in 2 weeks, but only for Memorial Weekend so only 3 days should not be too much. Keep moving forward is all I ever hope for. DH is a teacher and receives his paycheck 9 months of the year. He does work in the summer, but it is about $600 less per month then during the school year. So I think we may have to pull back on something this summer. We really are not very comfortable with the amount we have in savings right now, so I imagine we will have to pay a little less towards the mortgage till school starts again starting next month. I do have 2 bonuses coming up though, so we will wait it our for now and see how it goes. I always want to "make" us have enough to do everything we want, put tons in savings and pay hundreds extra on the mortgage.....too bad it doesn't exactly work like that!

Week Seven
Pounds Lost this week = -2
Total pounds lost = 0
% weight loss = 0%
Place = 6th out of 8 people
Total down since original BL = 2

Sigh. Up 2lbs from last week. I have been doing so good too! I finally got back to the gym last week and had great 20-30 min runs on the treadmill 6 days in a row. I took one day off and then had our first softball game last night. I did super good, 1 walk, 3 base hits, 1 double and 1 triple.....so I was R U N N I N G my butt off. Apparently not doing enough. Blah. 2 more weeks to try to make some headway, but I think winning is out of the question now.

My husband's laptop died a few months ago and apparently mine died yesterday. I am very bummed. I had a few things of mine saved on a zip drive, but unfortunatley most were saved on the laptop. I think I will take it in tomorrow and see if they can get it to work, or at least enough for me to access my files....otherwise I have a lot of work to do with spreadsheets to get my info back in place. Let that be a life lesson to me and hopefully anyone that is reading this is backing their files up right now! So if I am MIA for a week or two that is why. I have access to a laptop on the weekends, so at least I can check in then. We will most likely be getting a new laptop either way because mine was 6 1/2 years old and used an average of 5 hrs a day, probably more....so at least we got our moneys worth from it! It was getting realllllllly realllly slow, especially since my husband's died so we were both using mine. I am trying to decide if I want to take the money out of savings for it, or do a 0% interest deal, i know we can get 0% interest anywhere we go, or can just pick one of the 0% offers out of the mail that we get daily.....have not decided which route to go yet. I really just need a laptop for internet access and Excel, so if we need to wait a little bit to get the best deal we can. I know my job also has some discount programs for computers/laptops, so I am gonna check that out tomorrow.

Regular Savings:
Emergency Fund $1620
Anniversary Cruise $2405
Home Maintanence $260
Cushion $920
Vacation 2010 $1740
HSA $100
MOH $65
King Mattress $750 - Complete
Total Regular Savings = $7,860.00

Retirement Savings:
Roth IRA $2900
Rollover IRA $1425
401K $10100
403B $8400
Total Retirement Savings = $22,825.00

Total Savings = $30,685

Down $395 from last month....not happy about it, but the damage was not as bad as I thought it would be. We paid off our TV which was at 0% interest so that was a positive. We are also still working on our bathroom remodel and trying to take as little out of savings to get it done. We really need to focus on getting this EF met once and for all. We are going on a mini vaca to SD at the end of the month so hopefully we can keep the costs down on that.

Current Goal - EF $5000

Saved up and Spent:
$250 Bathroom Remodel
$475 Big Screen TV
$600 Mexico Trip
$1200 MN Trip
$1500 Wisdom Teeth
$1700 from HSA
Total Saved and Spent = $5,725

Current Total = $7,430.00
-$112.00 to ROTH IRA
+$50.00 to EF (DH payday)
+$50.00 to vacation (DH payday)
+$50.00 to EF (My payday)
+$50.00 to vacation (DH payday)
+$100.00 to ROTH hold account
+$25.25 Even Out Amount
+$2.00 Even Out Amount
+$14.50 April Interest
New Total = $7,660.00

Kinda confused because I could have sworn I already posted this update.....but it is not showing up anywhere....huh??

Week Six
Pounds Lost this week = 0
Total pounds lost = 2
% weight loss = 1.17%
Place = 6th out of 8 people
Total down since original BL = 4

No change for me this week. But some others have gone up so I am in 6th place instead of 7th. I am VERY excited to report that I finally started back at the gym this morning. My goal was just to run for 5 min as I have not been to the gym in close to 3 months and was sure I had lost all stamina, so I wanted to start out slow so that I would not get discouraged right away. Well I ran the 5 min and was still feeling fine, so I kept going, 10, 15 and ended at 20 min! YEAH! 20 min run on my first day back, really couldn't be happier with how that went! I have set up a new workout plan to make sure I reach my first goal and keep going to be in amazing shape by the time I have to be a MOH in May 2011. I added some goals below. Of course this session of BL will be over by then.....but the ladies at my work are always up for another round!
1)Down 2 more by 5-27-10 (Deadwood Trip)
2)Down 25 more by 11-20-10 (Guest at a wedding)
3)Down 20 more by 5-14-11 (MOH at wedding)