My birthday! :)

I’m in a Floetry state of mind today i.e. rather introspective, but in a very good way. I turned 24 last week and I had a special day with my husband. I felt thoroughly pampered as we went through the day. We went to the Goodwill store to pick up some crockery and clothing (3 shirts) for me (for under $30).  For the uninitiated, Goodwill is a thrift store that has everything except groceries. Their merchandise is from donations by people so they sell secondhand clothing and secondhand items. If you are looking for a recession-friendly budget, Goodwill is a place to check out. The Dollar store was next for some cheap & much-needed hangers for our closets. Then, we went to dinner at Ryan’s which is a kickass buffet-style restaurant. We gorged ourselves (literally) and had fun people-watching. I used a buy-one-get-one-free buffet coupon so our meal came down to $12, but we ended up spending close to $20 because we tipped our waiter pretty heavily. He was a good sport and made our time there very enjoyable. We also felt slightly guilty for the sins of another party of over 10 people that trashed their area. It was unreal. Granted, that party had kids with them, but couldn’t the parents or adults pick up after the children? Do you want to bet that that same party gave a shitty tip? I have just one word for people who abuse the generosity and good nature of others: Karma.

In retirement account news, I’ve have nothing to say other than constantly checking my portfolio is a bad thing. πŸ™‚ Thankfully, retirement is a long way off so I’m not too bothered. Matt’s accounts have also taken a hit, but not as bad as mine (his rate of return is in the negative single digits while mine are in the negative double digits. Ouch!). Our emergency fund is slowly, but steadily creeping upwards. As you know, a good emergency fund should be good for, at least, 3 months of all living expenses. We’re making some progress, but car troubles have put a dent in the growth. It’s somewhat depressing to keep troubleshooting problems that never seem to be solved. We recently purchased a used car from a friend of ours. We knew the car had had some serious trouble i.e. the owner even got the transmission replaced at one point, but because it was a solid car (Chevrolet Impala 2000), we went ahead and paid the asking price of $1,200. To date (and to my knowledge), we have put over $500 into that car and that amount looks to be growing. I know nothing about cars so I’ll defer to Matt’s knowledge & trust when he says it is a solid investment. πŸ™‚ It should be obvious that I hate spending money on anything except electronics. LOL.

That’s it for now. Have a great week!

Heating bills and financial lessons

Okay, breathe with me. Last month’s heating bill was ~ $44. This month’s heating bill = ~ $66. My jaw literally dropped and I instantly placed a call to my energy company to schedule a free high-bill re-check. Then, I called my husband and broke the news to him. lol. He claimed he wasn’t surprised, but I was honestly was. In retrospect, and if I’m brutally honest, the high heating bill was my fault. My usage of my small space heater was drastically increased (I’m talking about turning it on daily for ~ 12 hrs each day!). Being the argumentative wife I am, I argued with Matt that it must have been the 3 – 5 times we must have run the heater for the house or leaving lights on. In any case, this is a huge wake-up call for me. I cannot do things like run a space heater for 12 hrs daily and not expect my heating bill to bite me in the ass. *sigh*

In other news, if you have been living under a rock, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates further and while this is good  news for borrowers, people with money in savings account (i.e. us) are essentially seeing our savings rates slashed too. Right now, ING Direct’s Current Annual Percentage Yield is 2.75%. I’m not complaining though because it is still better than Wachovia’s saving rates. Now I’m on the topic of finances, I just have to say that we have done rather badly in terms of savings. This wasn’t because we went on a huge spending spree. We had strategic investments i.e. payments to make. For one, I finished making payments on my laptop and we also bought a used car from Matt’s friend (which was a steal). Nevertheless, I’m forging ahead and I clearly won’t make my saving amount of ~$5, 000 for the year (although that goal was set while at my previous job).

The Suntrust account is still 75% paid off and I’m disappointed that I didn’t do more to get this figure up. Nevertheless, my financial goals (going into the new year) will be:

  1. Keep making “payments” to our ING Direct savings accounts: Again, it bears repeating that everyone needs an emergency fund. Ideally, this should be 3 – 6 mths worth of money that will allow you to ride out the loss of 1 income source, a health issue, a car wreck, etc. We technically don’t even have an emergency fund yet because once I remove the cost of our current liabilities (just 1 credit card), we’re left with not much. These payments will occur monthly and the deposit will be at least $150 each time.
  2. Pay off Suntrust credit card before April 2009: This is a rather modest goal and definitely eases the pressure. We have enough room to keep making just the minimum payments, but I’ve been reading horror stories about people who saw their lines of credit cut in half & their credit scores plummeting. I definitely want to keep my score (~ 720 in all 3 credit bureaus) looking the way it is. πŸ™‚
  3. Resume payments to Fidelity ROTH IRA: Since the purchase of my laptop and other big ticket items, I put my payments on hold. I haven’t actually begun investing the current funds in my ROTH IRA because it needs to be at $2,500 or above in order not to incur yearly (not sure if they are monthly) fees for making investments in mutual funds. The only way to get around those pesky fees is to commit to making automatic payments of $200 or more in order to invest in mutual funds.
  4. Consolidate my retirement accounts: Actually, this is already done because I’ve got my employer’s matches going into a Fidelity retirement account as well as my contributions. Fidelity’s also the holder of my ROTH IRA. The consolidation largely refers to the previous holder of my retirement account. It should be interesting how this all plays out on my taxes filings.matt
  5. Figure out investment options with Matt’s retirement account: His rate of return is currently -26% while mine is -1.8%. Now, my low rate of return is largely because Fidelity (for some reason) has about half of my stuff in a money market account. I’m sure when all that’s migrated to actual investments, I’ll see my rate  of return get lowers. Now, Matt’s retirement account is managed by Merrill Lynch and while they provide a more hands-on approach, their selection is a little bit limited (not to mention confusing!). I just want to put his funds into an investment “bucket” (so to speak) because they takes the headache out of managing his account. I adjusted his investments to spread the risk so I’m hoping that it will stem the bloodletting. lol.

Enough of the money talk. πŸ™‚ I’m currently jamming to some Alicia Keys. Peace and I’m out!

Financial recap and other musings

So, I haven’t said much about savings, retirement planning et cetera. In fact, all that stuff seems trivial in the face of the real depression-style era that is looming ahead of us if things continue as they have in the US lately. The economy is in a free-fall as more people and investor panic and yank their money out of the system. I don’t blame them, but it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. *shudders* Anyhow, I’m not retiring anytime soon so I hope that my investments will stand the test of time. I’m sorely tempted to do the usual trick of investors i.e buying stocks at low prices, but what if they never recover? Well, that was not the sole focus of this post. I was going to talk about our energy usage and brag a little bit even about how two of us are keeping a low energy footprint in our apartment in the face of a hot summer and now, perhaps an unusually cool winter? Here’s a chart I whipped up in Excel:
As you can see, we haven’t even cracked $42 in bill payments yet! Clearly, we’ve shot up during the summer, but not enough to get me worried. My guess for this winter will be that we won’t hit $50, but I anticipate running some standalone heating elements because I’m really anti-cold. πŸ™‚ According to M, reason number 2001 to have more body fat. Here are the actual numbers:
Now, if only other areas of expense resemble our energy costs! In fact, our utilities are the most stable liabilities we have i.e. internet and energy. Food and Gas are the current major money guzzlers and we are working on a means to cook at home more. We are paying the price of eating out and constantly having excuses for not cooking at home. Heck, I can’t count how many items have gone bad because we didn’t cook them in time.

Payday is nigh and I’m already feeling pinched! Here is a quick breakdown of some of the pre-programmed expenses I have:

Jane’s expenses
HP Laptop Credit Card $500
SunTrust Credit Card $100
Roth IRA $200
ING Direct Savings $250
Rent $275
Cellphone $50

Now, in a sick and twisted way, seeing the expenses laid out gives me courage to keep going on because I know that my aggressive strategy will pay off! For instance, after another such $500 payment to the HP laptop fund, I’ll have an extra $500 to “play” with. We have slowed off on the SunTrust payoff, but I’ve been snowflaking little amounts to it so I fully expect to have a balance of zero by the end of the year. I’ve been making little contributions to a christmas fund so that I’ll be able to get little tokens of appreciation for people. Overall, I don’t think our financial outlook is dire. After I got my laptop, things got thrown off kilter a little bit, but I definitely don’t regret that purchase. In a couple of years, I see myself upgrading the laptop i.e. giving Matt this one and getting the next OS upgrade that Microsoft has to offer. On that sombering note, I’ll sign off and I bid you all a good night!

A financial update and some

Okay, this one is for the parents. I finally went to church, okay?! Happy now? lol. For the first time in a very long while, I attended a Catholic Church (St. Joseph). How it happened was totally unplanned, but I leapt at the chance when it presented itself. Mrs. JW has been having health issues so her dad was visiting her. He stopped by our apartment and told me of his plans to visit Mrs. JW and attend church. I was not doing anything so I quickly showered and slipped into one of the cute dresses I got from TJ Maxx with a pair of shoes I purchased from Rack Room Shoes. We went to see Mrs. JW and then headed off to church. It was a great feeling and I definitely intend to attend church more often. It was like being back home in Nigeria because I still remembered all the chants and responses. It really took me back down memory lane. πŸ™‚

After we went to church, we had a healthy Wendy’s meal of chili and I added a side salad to mine. I actually have foregone dressing in order to use my chili as the salad’s accompaniment. Wendy’s is still my favorite Fast Food restaurant to go to simply because of those two items. I thought my heart would break when Wendy’s stopped serving their yogurt with granola super value item, but I find that I am still visiting Wendy’s. My previous ordering combo would have been: a side salad, a small chili and a yogurt. Now, it’s just the side salad and chili, both which have seen price increases that aren’t enough to break my Wendy’s addiction. πŸ™‚ Which brings me to my next bullet point: finances.

I am proud to say I didn’t let the impending job loss prevent me from seeing the bigger picture vis a vis saving for the future. I continued dedicating a certain portion of my pay towards our emergency fund which reached a milestone this week. It is small, but it’s a start. To recap, the goal is to build an emergency fund that will be 4 months worth of living expenses i.e. rent, food and utility bills. In fact, the highly ambitious goal is to have that amount saved up by the end of the year which is highly feasible under the condition that we continue saving aggressively as we have been doing. Of course, one thing that will help this account swell faster is getting our credit card paid off. Right now, the balance is 15% of the total credit available to us which is pretty darn good. My credit scores from the 3 credit bureaus are finally on the same page i.e. above 710 so I am feeling pretty happy. Again, the strategy I used to help my credit score was: getting my credit card issuer to bump my credit limit to decrease my debt-to-credit ratio. Once that was done, I consistently made payments on the card even when my monthly statement hadn’t come. The aim is to get the credit card balance down to nothing by the end of the year. This is totally do-able and I cannot wait to celebrate when that day arrives. lol. There’s no better feeling that ‘paying’ yourself in form of savings, etc.

Part of what makes this month a particularly good month for debt reduction and a savings increase was the fact that I got paid for the vacation time I had accrued which, thankfully, meant that I was essentially being paid for the 2 weeks I was out of work. So I was able to dedicate a larger-than-budgeted snowflake to the credit card and give the savings account an extra $100 boost. I’m excited about my second chance at working for the same employer because this time, I will be given my choice of a 401(k) plan. Before I was restricted to a “defined benefits” style plan. Now, I can opt for a “defined contribution” plan and contribute more than the 5% I was previously limited to. They also instituted a background check, but I had nothing to fear (obviously). πŸ™‚

Lastly, have I told how much I love Anderson “The Spider” Silva? I watched the free UFC fight last night with M and I was so scared for Silva because of James’s wicked Knockout power. However, Silva showed him that he also had a few tricks up his sleeve. Damn, check the video out!

A Good Feeling

Things have been moving along even more smoothly than I hoped for. All I can say is God works in mysterious ways.  I had the chance to visit and I got along fabulously (in my humble opinion) so I hope, as M said, they make the right decision. πŸ™‚ Now, it’s just a waiting game. In other news, I might just get my wish to rollover my current 401(k) account. My first choice is Fidelity because it seems they have a good customer service base and generally better at providing guidance for first time investors. I’ll need all the help I can get, preferably for free.

I’ve been getting progressively better on the bike. I finally learned how to stand properly in order to power up hills. Apparently, I had been doing the stand wrongly so I was putting too much stress on my knees which will need to recover from the abuse. πŸ™‚ He’s taking his tutoring seriously and has gone as far as ordering the Mountain Biker’s bible in order to put me on a training regimen. lol. I don’t mind one bit because biking is a great way to stay in shape! My legs and arms are proof of this and all for going out for at least 30mins daily! M’s class is going along well although I’m a bit of a nagging wife in that respect. He’s got his learning style and I’ve got mine. They don’t overlap and I need to respect that.

With respect to financial stuff, nothing has gone towards the SunTrust credit card debt yet. Thankfully, nothing is being spent using the card so it’s stagnant. I’ll be sure to see some movement before the month ends i.e. sending some snowflakes towards that. Savings are also growing slowly, but surely. Even if it’s $10 a week, that’s still something. The point is that I am actively making the changes which will come in handy for when a larger source of income comes my way.

In yet other news, I find that I get bored online once I’m away from my feed reader (FeedDemon which I paid for, but turned around to become free!). I would use the online Newsgator service which has my feeds, but it’s painfully slow. I’ve resorted to constantly refreshing the pages of Google News in order to get my news fix or hunt for information. It doesn’t help that my science reading material is not at my apartment. πŸ™ When I get the new job, it should hopefully allow me to indulge in purchasing more books to increase my knowledge. Continue reading A Good Feeling

Just some thoughts

I’m sure you remember (or not) that I had a brief impromptu meeting with my boss. Well, it was very interesting. I am reticent about 80% of the time and that makes me be perceived as "still waters". Actually, his words were he "doesn’t have any idea what my plans are" and it was in a good way i.e. he didn’t think I was aimless, but that he didn’t know what was going on in my head. Lots of things. Today, I heard RS tell me that I didn’t want to be a techie forever. Amen to that! It is not financially possible to do what I’m doing at my current pay scale. However, he said that I was "doing it right i.e. talking less and doing more". That made me glad that I want to be felt and not just heard. I want people’s first words about me to be that I’m a hard and honest worker. Now, I understand that I will have to (and I do want to) receive additional education. Right now, what I ideally want is some experience and I mean, varied experience. I’ve been doing the research on several programs and a lot of them are sadly not in my current state of domicile! Now, you understand my seeming reluctance to do "anything" just yet. On the good side of things, I work at a school and obviously, it would be a seeming no-brainer to transition from worker bee to student. I’m blessed to have the kind of bosses (a husband and wife team) that I do because I know that despite misunderstandings, they will work with me whatever route I choose, just as long as I pull my weight. My 6-month anniversary for my place of work is coming up and I’m excited because I will be eligible for a tuition assistance program should I choose to take any classes or pick up a course of study. Now, I’m obviously limited as to what I can actually do because I will be juggling school and work, but it’s a nice thought to have.

In other news, thanks to our refund, we’ve been able to accomplish several things. Firstly, we took care of some pressing business. Next, M fixed up his car and his trunk now actually is secure! lol. He got his other car out of hibernation and with a new battery and a replaced fuse, it works like a charm!! He says he gets better mileage on this other car so sometime soon, we should be riding around in this other car and give "Old Faithful" a rest. πŸ™‚ Also, we gave our SunTrust credit card debt a hefty dose of relief. πŸ™‚ to the tune of almost $600. Let me take that back. We actually put $300 towards the credit card, but then when I logged into the website to see my balance, it was thisclose to a certain figure that I decided to go ahead and pay a certain figure to see it reach a certain balance. More for symbolic reasons. So that made it almost $600 put towards the credit card in just this month of February. I’ll be done paying for that sucker before summer rolls around and boy! will it feel good to not dedicate money towards credit card bills!

I am still socking money away in my ING savings account. I am still trying to convince M that saving is a good idea. πŸ™‚ Just  kidding. He obviously knows that already. He just really doesn’t like dealing with online banking. Additionally, I’m frustrated with ING’s slowness in taking funds from my checking account! I mean, how long does it really take? With my SunTrust credit card payments, I’ve been learning to fine-tune how I time my payments so that it gets withdrawn or posted to my account right away i.e. in a day or two. Thus far, I think if I make payments before the end of the month, it gets posted asap. Anyhoo, no sweat. I’m learning the fine art of juggling my payments and knowing when to hold off on any spending so that all pending charges are through and then, resuming the madness. J/k. I meant being the responsible saver that I am. πŸ™‚ 

Finally, I’ve got a fun weekend planned. Take a guess, people. Actually, don’t. I’ll be working. I don’t mind. It’s for a good cause. I got some bad news about a protein I’m working on which I "purified" and that we sent in for sequencing. For the lab’s sake and my sake/sanity, I hope to high heavens that the ball wasn’t dropped in my court. I am quite positive that I did things right, but like one of the bosses always says, it’s the simple things. My fingers and toes are crossed.

Feeling more positive

It’s amazing how things seem not to be a big deal anymore once viewed or experienced through the eyes of others. Apparently, my previous posts pertaining to financial matters seemed to be all “gloom and doom” which was far from my intent. After several exchanges with my esteemed father and loving husband, I think that they are right in several respects. So, I shall be talking finances amongst others, but with a positive twist. I don’t think I should delude myself as to the real state of affairs, however as much air time as I give to talking about the bad issues, I need to devote equal time to talk about the positive side of things! Like, having a husband who understands where I’m coming from and is doing his best to contribute positively to my life. He’s suffered the (hopefully) worst of my fixation of “aggressive” debt reduction. lol. It doesn’t mean I’m not going to be on my toes though. Still, I just need to not be obsessed about it. Financial freedom is achievable.

In other news, my sister’s wedding is coming up and we’ve been thinking of ways to contribute and the easiest would be sending some funds over. Now, Western Union has always been the way to go, but they are making a shitload of money and really shorting the receiver and the sender!! Here’s what they say: the current exchange rate which is set by them is 115 naira to 1 us dollar. On the black market, I’d hazard a guess and say it’s 130 naira to 1 us dollar. Do you see the first problem on how they steal money from senders by refusing to pay at the true rate? As if that’s not bad enough, they levy some steep fees on sending money i.e. say, for $600, you’ll be charged a $58 fee. It’s not hard to see that they could make a cool $120 per transfer! I shall pick me dad’s brain about this because I really want to not put money in some strangers’ pockets.

Life at the lab is going on as usual. I’m making moves and trying to make smart ones. My loved ones are coming to find out that I can be one heck of an impetuous and impatient young lady! I will confess to these vices and hopefully, put them in check. I just need to repeat my new year’s mantra: patience. With a capital P. lol. Anyhoo, I also need to get a better work-to-life balance. That’s funny considering certain other moves I am making that can’t be mentioned since googling my name brings up my blog first. In this case, I strongly feel I have the upper hand or at least, a bargaining chip to work with.

Here’s to positivity, career advancement and patience! Salut.