Stocks - ing stuffers - investing for fun

 Look investing/STOCKS can be fun/exciting/scary/to big/ whatever adjective you want to add.  Look most people that invest are not expects and are self thought.  I am on of those. Have I done well Yes. I have done poorly Yes.  Even the experts don't seem like experts most of the time.

I think it was around 2008 I really started to seriously invest which happened to be when I actually had more then a couple of pennies to invest. Which was probably around 10 thousand or so.  That was a lot of money for me. I did what everyone should do listen so some random advise for a friend. Wait no you shouldn't. Really you shouldn't.  Anyway he came over to my cube at work, because that is the best place for investing advice and said hey did you hear VISA is going to IPO soon. I was like WOW that is cool I know what Visa is and I work at a company that works closely with visa. So I put all my 10k into the IPO. Hindsight it was a good investment Visa is a very solid company and in 2008 the economy wasn't the best so it by pure luck ended up being a very good investment.  I wish I could tell you I've kept that money in for the entire time and have $189,090, but I don't.  I haven't figured out how much I've actually made, but I know I've cashed out some and reinvest in other things or paid for life with it.  The point of this story is that every dog has his day and a broken clock is right at least 2 times a day.  Just because I got lucky and made a good investment doesn't mean I was a genius or any better then the next person. My failures/missed opportunities are much bigger then any victories I've had.  10 years ago I found a conversation with a friend saying I was going to invest some of my Visa stock into in either Apple or Amazon. Spoilers I picked Apple and it was gone up and amazing 964.16% in the same time Amazon has gone up 1714.98%. As you can see even in victory I had a defeat. Investing in stocks will always leave you with the what could of been feeling. This is the same if you trying to play the buy the highs and sell the lows game. 😋

To be completely open here is a list of Stocks/Investments I've got right.

• Visa 14+ years
  
• Apple 10+ years
  
• Tesla 1 year
  
• Google 10+ years
  
• Disney - 1 year
• VTSAX - 10 years
  

Here is a list of stocks I bought and sold before any kind of income or lost money on 

• At&t - over 15 years ago
  
• BRK.B - over 14 years ago
• Netflix - over 10 years ago - made like $100 on there big dip
  
• Lulumon - over 15 years ago

 

As you can see I hit big in some places and missed in so much more.  I've never invest a lot of money I need that money to live life at that point in time.  Example would be Tesla I invested in Tesla because of there market position and diversification of the company. But I wasn't sold on the hype of company and the CEO seemed to be causing the company harm. So I invest 1 in one share. Now that one share has done well, but it crashing or taking off wasn't going to change anything. 

Most of my investing funds are from the initial 10k I started with and I follow the boglesheads of buy and hold.  Really I stared with Visa and Apple and only sold to diversify.  Any addition funds I add to my portfolio all goes into the index funds.  When I get dividends I usually put those into a stock.

Remember there is a lot to investing and you can get very deep into it.  You will not get rich doing it. Only the lucky or the once in a generation gets wealth from picking stocks.  If you have the itch or just like have a little fun. Do it, but set a max you will invest into stock like I did. My initial 10k was my max the rest doing into index funds or savings. 

Some quick stats from yahoo finance in 2018 the richest 1% owns 50% of American stocks. From Money.com the riches 10% owns 84% of all stocks.  The best quote I've read is "When you are buying a stock someone else is selling it, and when you are selling a stock someone else is buying it." - Unknown So based on the stats it is a good bet that someone wealthier than you is buying when you are selling and selling when you are buying.  This can be fun enjoy and learn.  Nothing is wrong if you are learning and improving.  If you have the itch scrach it and maybe you will make some money or have something to talk about with you friend on the time you almost became rich. 

Cooking on the cheap

 Ever since I moved our of my parents house, which was shortly after graduating college and starting my career.  I started to eat healthier.  I wouldn't of called it better just healthier as at time time a 20 something single guy can.   I didn't know it at the time, but it was very FI.  I only need a couple of ingredients and only a couple of appliances.   My breakfast if I had it was cereal Cheerios. Lunch and dinner was rice usually whole gain, with a protein (chicken, streak, shrimp), and veggie (frozen mix bad).  That was it no seasoning. To go along with running I got into good shape and saves a lots of money.  Now I did go out with friends and co-workers for lunch/drinks and such, but otherwise simple.  

Fast forward almost 20 years and here we are.  Lets talk about a real life not some post college living on the cheap, but lets talk about practical cooking and practical expenses.  

First lets talk about what appliance you need to have.  I used to say a rice cooker, but the more modern and more practical is a instant-pot.  Air-fryer. This can pretty much replace a microwave and oven.  Not only does it save on electricity compared to over it has so many uses.  A mixers like a nutribullet. The reason for this, is to mix smoothies or chop stuff up.  Good set of knifes. You can get away with just that, but to make your life quicker get a microwave, pots, and pans. You doesn't need much more especially for a family of 4.  If you feel like these are to small. It maybe time to rethink how you make dinner and portion sizes. Think appetizer sizes not thanksgiving sizes. 

A quick look

1. Instant-Pot
2. Air fryer
3. Nutribullet (mixer)
   
4.  Knifes
5. Microwave
6. Pot/pan/stove

Everything else is extra convenience.  Over and grill are also great things to have, but you can live without and find yourself not using very much. 

We all know cooking in bulk helps save money and your time, but what to do with all the bulk. You can freeze it, you can just eat it through the week, or like many make it,eat it, and throw away because you go tired of it.

Making old like new.  Ok we all get tired of left overs. Here what I like to do to mix it up. 

• Add different sauces I prefer buffalo. 
• Put it in a tortilla (make a burrito or quesadilla)
  
• Add the ingredients to a calzone
• Make a soup or stew
• Make them into a sandwich
  

Living in a bubble

The past year has change our way of life.  From a FI stand point it has helped us look at our spending and decide what is important. This is mostly due to the fact we don't know what tomorrow will be.  Something I've been reluctant to do is cancel my gym membership. One because I had a grandfathered price and two I've had it for 20 years.  But after not going for 9 months it was time even through for 3-4 months they didn't charge me.  Here are things I've done in the bubble to reduce cost. 

 The funny things is about doing these is it is something I should of always done or do every couple of years.

I've done things to cut back.  

• Refinanced Mortgage
• Changed cell phone carriers
• Cancelled Gym memberships
• Stop eating out
• Change car/home insurance
• Cancelled kids jump house subscription
• Cancelled various subscriptions like RoadRunner and Consumer Reports
• Ski passes

 

Most of these are permanent changes, but there are some if 2021 is better I will probably pick back up.   

What I have found living in a bubble is that my life really hasn't changed.  Beside not traveling to see family and kids sports life isn't that different.  I still get my exercise and for the most part living a full and healthy life.    I can't deny my kids life have changed a lot.  For one they are not going to in-person school and they are not hanging our with friends.  The couple of neighborhood friends don't want to wear masks and our kids do.  We have been exploring other options for them to hangout with friends like online game (minecraft) or going to friends parks that wear there mask.  To me it doesn't matter if you believe masks' work or not, but if you get in a routine with your kids then they will be good at wearing them when they have too. Think wearing a seat belt. 

Living of a bubble has forces be to think outside of the box to have my family have a fun and exciting life.  This goes true in protecting our lifestyle and prepare for the good and the bad.  For Halloween we created a haunted basement for the kids. It was fun and different. The loved it and didn't miss not trick-or-treating.  The hardest part of getting used to a new lifestyle in the bubble is not letting emotions take over.  The market has been crazy and I for one have been spending a lot for time reading articles on COVID and the market.  COVID looks bad and the market looks good.  How long will this last or do we have a COVID proof market. IDK and know one does.  My strategy is to just keep investing. I may shift things around a bit (re-balance), but otherwise what does up must come down.

I for one will feel weird once the world is mask free and things head back to closer pre 2020.  Let hope all the good habits everyone came up with stick.  Remember checking up on your finances and reducing your membership and change to lower cost services is always good.  Keep it up. O and keep washing those hands.

Silly thoughts on inheritance

 I was watching a video on nest eggs on how much income you would have in retirement if you had 4 million dollars and did a 5%, 4%, 3%, and 2% with draw.  The 2% withdraw was something like 80k a year.  

This got me thinking. If you did a 2% withdraw of you $4 million and you started at the normal retirement of 65 and lived until 95. You of of spend $2.4 million of that $4 million. Let just say you stick with a 60/40 split 60% stock and 40% bond with an avg 6% return. When you die you could have ... drum roll $13.8 million.   👀

OK now your dead and lets say your spouse was so broken hearted they died the same time. So you are 95 and lets say you had kids when you were 30.  So now your kids are 65 and about to retire and your grand kids are 35.  You leave your inheritance to your two kids. They both get $6.9Million.  That goes on top of whatever retirement they have saved which very well could be there own $4 million. Now I know 4 million is a lot of money for retirement and most will be happy if they get to a million, but it goes to show you that there is something to say for having to much.  In the scenario above one of two things should of happened either they should of retired earlier or took out a higher % in retirement. For many that is easier said then done.

It is sometime are to retire or spend more then you have ever done. You could be saving to donate to a cause you care about.  Everyone is different, but don't forget to enjoy the simple things before your time is up.  Get out; see thing and do things before you can.

Halloween good clean fun. Being safe

 We are not doing the tradition trick or treating.  We feel it isn't in our families or neighbors best interest this year. We did carve pumpkins and have Halloween costumes. We are going to have fun with the holiday just without all the people interactions.  

What we are doing and not only will it be safer, but also we don't have to buy tons of candy.

We will be setting up a haunted basement.  Using blankets we have around the house and tarps.  Having spook sounds and the traditional spaghetti worms and grape eyes.  We are also creating a whole bunch of decorations from balloons and streamers. Something fun that they will remember.  We are also doing to have the knock on the door and the wife and I will put on different costumes for them to "trick or treat".

The second part of the plan as been Harry Potter.  We have been reading then Harry Potter the Philosophers Stone. This is the illustrated version. They are really into the story and on Halloween we will watch the movie with them for the first time. 

Overall this wont be the traditional Halloween, but it should be one they can remember and enjoy.

End of year health plan selections

We never plan on getting sick, but like the election is coming.  Sometime it feels like all the time other times is sneaks up on you.  Now is the time to make your selection or forever hold your piece.  

 

                                                       

If you are one of the lucky ones where your family has a company that provides health care over the next could of week you will be making you health plan choice for the next 12 months.  

To make it simple unless you follow into one of these categories you should just pick a HDHP - High Deductible Health Plan.  The biggest reason if you can save tax free into a HSA - Health Savings Plan.  For the most part you will always come out ahead contained to the other plans.  This is important if you have the space to contribute to it. With the savings in the lower cost hopefully you can contribute some.  Remember HSA is great, but don't pass up on the free money of a 401k match.

Yard sales....everything must go

 Have you ever had a yard sale?   

I have never had my own.  I remember growing up we would have them or at least go in with neighbors and sell our old stuff there.  It was a time to meet neighbors and pass on old things.  As a kids it was also a treasure hunt for some unknown treasure.

 

Here we are pandemic and doing our best to lower our expenses and not live like a hermit.  My wife if very much against having a yard sale even if we didn't have the pandemic to worry about.  So my old solution is to sell online or donate.  

I've sold a couple of things in the past on ebay.  And Ipad when they were hard to get many years ago.  I think paypal/ebay made more money on it then I did.   This problem I'm trying to get around it one selling the items at a price the is fair and with all the fees taken out it is still good. Then trying to figure out how to ship the items.   This is easy for smaller items, but something big like a Stroller I have no clue.  My current solution is to pick up local, but I consider using bubble wrap and plastic rap.

 

Hopefully over the next month or so I can cleanup my basement from all the kids old things and have this all figured out with a healthy amount of cash to go along with it.

Letting go and embrasing the smarter move

So my 12 year car has been going into the shop more more over the last couple of years. Finally after my latest maintenance they quoted some repairs that exceeded the current worth of the car $8k.  Now my wife was been trying to get me to replace it for awhile. One because of the cost and second she couldn't really dive it; due to it being a manual.  So when a engine light came on I sadly came to the realization it was time. 

We talked about different ways to do it.  Can we go to one car. No even though we work close to each other our schedules were different enough it would of been very stressful.  Do I ride a bike to work. We live about 8 miles from work, but it is mostly street driving and trail would take over an hour to get to work. My wife didn't like that idea, plus it snows here. So only option is to get a new car. 

One of my many flaws is I like to get new things and keep them forever. With our current expenses and having a nanny this year I knew it wasn't in the cards.  So I looked at used cars in the Goldie Locks zone of 3-5 years old.  This is were the cars lose most of it's value, but still have warranty and have lower miles. I found one in great shape in the price range we were looking for with very low miles.  The only optical would be how much my car would trade-in for.  No matter what I buy I like to keep it in the best shape as possible.  If it wasn't for an older body style you would of sworn it was new.  Awesome car and I still like looking at it walking away.  This was truly hard and I've gone through so much in the car. I though I would keep it forever. Sadly timing made that not possible and the reliability was becoming an issues and increase cost of repairs. 

So I took a day off of work and now I have a new "new to me" car.  It is a great little car not as nice as my old one, but as my wife says the technology brings me into this century. 

I know in the FIRE community loans are not good and you should only buy what you have in cash. I was fully intending to buy this car in cash. This would of required me to sell stocks and wait a week or so for all the transferring. I went to the dealerships site and looked for discounts.  I noticed for the CPO (Certified Pre-Owned) they had $500 off if you previously took our at loan with them. Which is fine, but not worth it at a 2-7% interest rate, but then I see this cooperate discount of 36 month 0.9% interest rate if you previously finances in the past 10 years and get a CPO of 2017-2018 which I was. In fact I paid off my old loan 9 years ago. So I couldn't turn down .9% interest plus 500 credit.  That actually put me ahead by $150 since the total interest amount was $350. I don't think anyone can criticize me for that one. 

 

The family love the car and kids think it is great.  I feel like a lost a friend and miss that old car. But that is life and I'm sure I will grow to maybe not love the car, but at least enjoy it.  Being on the path to FIRE doesn't mean you can always do what you want, but making smart choices can help you live the life you want to live.

Create the path for 2nd Gen FI

 As a parent of two first graders I was thinking what I could do to help them along there life path.  The first and easy is to build credit history. If you didn't know this, but adding someone as an authorized users helps them build credit history. You are responsible for there spending, but they are building the history. Mean by the time the kids turn 18 they will have over 10+ years of credit history.  I know this work because this is what my parents did for me.  

2nd Gen Life Hack #1

 This is really the easiest this you can do for you kids.  I wouldn't not recommend this if you are working through credit card issues and have trouble paying them off.  There you have two options:

1.  Take an existing card that you plan to never close and add them as an authorized users. Note some cards that have a membership fee add a fee for each authorized user. This will create a card in there name. Once it comes in activate it and then shred it. 
2. Open a new card like an airline card to get the points, and then hit you spend limit and lock away the card or shred it.   

 

That's it.  So easy!! The kids will now have a head start on all there peers.   I am sorry Dave Ramsey. I know credit cards are bad and you should never get one.  Maybe it's just me but it seems credit/credit score all one of the key points used by everyone and are become more important everyday.  Employers to applying for an apartment look at your credit history to determine if you are a good candidate.  To me having good credit and credit score is an easy win in life.  I don't want to missing out on good rate, travel rewords, and getting that apartment.

 

The best example I have on this is a comparison with my friend. We both work similar jobs and pay.  He grew up in a household of Dave Ramsey devoted people. Which is awesome to live by all dept is bad and pay everything is cash.  He lived with no debt, bought car in cash, and only open a credit card in the last couple of years. While I on the other hand and not debt, could of bought car in cash instead tool a very low interest rate loan (.9%) and kept 2 years to build credit, and has a credit card since 18 and history of a card since I was 10. Both in the same place but got there in two different ways.  This difference came in when looking at mortgage rates.  I was able to qualify for best rates possible with good credit scores and credit history. Which he was able to get a good rate, but was told this credit history made it more difficult to get the best rate. I know this is a small difference and for some it doesn't matter, but how easy was it for my parents to give me a leg up by doing this small step.

2nd Gen Life Hack #2

Building a good family money philosophy.  My friends parent build a great philosophy that dept is bad and get ride of it as fast as possible.  I can see internal conflict with my friend when I talk about credit card reward and traveling for free and having a 30yr mortgage to build cash for opportunity gain.  He was told to pay off as quickly and aggressively as possible. Which is good and many should do this.

I feel for kids building in a foundation of responsible saving and spend early helps balance the two worlds.  It is important for kids to feel responsible about there money and not just get what they want. To not here no or telling them we can't afford that.  Build in delayed gratification and find what they value.  This can be done through allowance or chores.

What I've started to do is give them allowance equal to there grade level.  So first grade they get a dollar a week. They are required to save 50% in a jar and 50% is theirs free to spend.  They way they save and buy those Pokemon cards and can see there savings grow for the future.  Throughout the year I will introduce investing and compound interest.  Probably using some of chooseFi foundation education program. 

 

If you know anymore let me know.  I know there are what I can elite hacks. These usually take dedicated time and effort to pull off.  An example of this would be to have your kids help in your business and get paid for it. Then they can open an IRA to fund there future.

 Remember it isn't just that you found a way to live and are working toward FI it is you are creating a framework that is easy for you kids to follow.  The things that motivated you to start this path may not exist for them. You family may have struggles with money or you got into huge debt and decided you didn't want to live that way.  You kids may not have those obstacles and may see and feel that life is easy. They get what they want when they want and doing see that foundation behind the scenes.  I fully believe that is why 2nd and 3rd generation FI is so hard.

 

 

School is starting and the kids are not going - journey for a nanny - Reflection

 To start off we hired a nanny.  This was one of the most difficult things for me to do.  I find it very hard to hire someone to do something you can do for yourself as well as letting someone into our home that I don't know.  

Our decision came process  went like this:  REASON, NEEDS, AFFORD, WAN

• REASON: First school is starting and do we feel it is a good idea to send them with the uncertainty of school. Will school stay open all the whole time and will they be safe even though we know the school is doing there best and we are doing our best. We don't trust other families to do there best. Sad I know but true. Just walk around the parks or a store. 
• NEEDS: Second can we keep splitting our schedule like we did all end of last year and summer?  No! We did a great job helping the kids through school and summer. I took on most of the schooling and the kids showed progress, but I felt I was not doing them justice in working full-time and teaching them 80% time which my wife doing the other 20%.  We had a school teach friend help out for a few weeks over the summer and they really focused better and responded more to planned lessons. 
• AFFORD:  Can we afford to only go to a single salary to cover and do we want to do that.  In sort could be, maybe but it would of been tights and we would of basically put a spot on retirement savings. Then with the economy tanking we felt it wasn't the best time to make this big move. 
• AFFORD:  How much could we afford to get someone how could fill in as a nanny as well as assist with there education entering into first grade.  Lucky for us we had friends hiring there own nanny to assist with there kids as well. So we were able to leverage some of there resources. Two things we had to consider was number of hours worked and hourly pay.  Originally we talked about 30 hours a week, but it required us to still have a split schedule which negated some of the needs to decided on.  We ended up on a range 35-40 and depending on the hourly rate we would talk about the total which we settled on 35 hours a week.  For the hourly rate we leveraged hour friends and care.com that placement agency.  They performed all the background checks and posted our position.  We felt a nanny is pay what you get. With our needs and two kids with potential of being a full-time teach we were definitely will to pay more then what Glassdoor and such say are average salaries.
  
• WANT: He did have pretty high requirements since we were taking the kids out of school because of the virus we wanted someone that took protection seriously. Need some type of experience either teach, working with kids, or nanny.  We lucked out and interviewed two great candidates and hired one of them.  Did the whole negotiation on hours and hourly rate and signed a contract.  We settled on a salary and for us it will make the next year do able, but not easy. We will have to cut back, but we already were cutting back due to the lock down. 
  

 All of these things had to work our for us to hire someone. The worst part about this was we needed to make a choice about in-person learning or at-home learning pretty early on.  In fact the schools didn't know how they were going to handle in person learning yet.  Which didn't make the choice any easier. 

So far three weeks in our nanny is great.  She has similar teach methods and ideals as we do and she is able to compliment the online teacher very well.  She had previous experience at a per-school, worked over seas creating lesson plans for schools in 3rd world countries, and just earned her teaching certs.

Here are some hidden expenses that we didn't really put into our calculations

• Nanny tax which is Employer Social Security and Medicare, as well as federal and state unemployment insurance
  
• Worker compensation insurance. Some states require this. Probably best to just get it
• Food. Nanny has to eat and if they are staying in your house 7-8 hours a day and helping make meal for the kids. They got to eat.  Now this is kind of a write off since we usually have some small portion of food either expire or go bad. - we all have something to work on
• Payroll service - Since we were new and had a lot going on we farmed this out to a company called poppinspayroll.com 
• How to best save the money to pay the taxes when they come due each quarter.
  

Cutting the financial fat

Cell phone service shopping

Life is ever changing.  Sometimes events cause you to take a step back and reevaluate what you value. 

I recently jotted down a list of subscription and monthly payments we had.  They ranged from membership to a running club to cellphone.  We made sure to keep things we valued like the zoo and local museum even though we know were are not going to be using them as much this year. They not only provide us joy, but provides support to good causes.

 

Here is a list of things I either total cut out or reduced 

 

 

 

Cut 

• RoadRunner membership
• Football club membership
  
• Shampoo delivery
  
•  SkyZone - kids
  
•  Gymnastics x2 - kids
  
•  Yoga - Wife
  
•  hair cuts - now self cut
• Car wash subscription - usually only kept in winter
• Bullymake - dog treat subscription
• Consumer Reports
• Disney movie club
  

 Reduced

• AT&T Cell phone 98 pm (per month)  to 62 (total wireless)
• Mortgage Insurance - Changed companies
• Mortgage - Refi
• Internet - called company
• Amazon Subscribe and save - re-looked at what we have overstocked and cancelled
  
• Milk delivery - every 3 weeks instead of weekly

 

This are things I haven't closed, but I am considering

• 24hr gym - have a grandfathers prices, but haven't used it since COVID - maybe cut in half and leave the discount, but remove the bonus gym stuff
  
• Amazon FreeTime - tables we use for the kids are getting old kinda suck
• True Green (lawn care fertilizer) 
• Amazon Prime - probably keep, but no to look if it is still worth it
• Sirius Radio - The SUV doesn't have AM radio, but our phones can pretty much cover this
• Harry's shave club - probably keep due to being cheaper then buying at store

 

 

Our family has a lot of subscriptions now that I've gone through them. Mostly provide either convenience to our daily life or provide value.  Some we have had to long and needed to go.  This took a lot more time then I would of expected. I've wrote these all down with the cost in a google sheets doc.  This way when I update our quarterly net worth figures I can update these and make sure we still value them.

Mortgage shopping

 We we are about to close of our second refinance in as many years.   We bought our house with a 30yr @ 4.25% loan.  Then last year refi to a 15yr @ 3.25 which increased out monthly payment by 300ish. Really we didn't notice because we were already putting extra into our loan and didn't notice the difference. 

The only thing I hated about going to 15 was the less flexibility we had with the money. Opportunity missed, but paying off the home in 15 years sounded great.  So here we are a little more then a year later and we are at it again.  Got a couple of quotes and see if it was something we would do. We were thinking about going back to a 30 year loan to put more money in our pocket to help cover cost upcoming for this Covid year.  Anyway after shopping and negotiating we got to a 30yr @ 2.875% with a 2.9APR.  Which lowers our monthly payment by a whopping 👀 $1000 a month.  Yes the world is crazy. When things get crazy take advantage where you can.  Here is the funny thing.  Since we got a lower interest rate we could pay the exact same amount into the load and pay it off 14months soon and with $20k less in interest. 

 

How to do this and not lose your mind and just give up.  

• Know your current rate and amount you will need to finance.  
• Don't give out your SS just to get quotes.
• Know what your credit score is - look with up on one of the 100 sites if you don't know
• Be prepared to unfreeze your credit once you are ready to move forward.  

 

The most important part on picking a Mortgage shopping is being comfortable during the process.  This is a lot of money and if you don't feel like the are honest or making it easy on you move on.  Yes is may cost you money, but long term you will feel better about it.  Remember to not just go with lowest % look at the whole picture check APR% which is interest rate with the fee in.

What was important to me was, 1. Low interest rate and APR, 2. They wouldn't see my loan and I have to send my checks to someone else. I've heard horror stories of people missing payment because the company change and they didn't know. 3. Easy payment and service.  This is something these companies do all the time it should be smooth. 4. Don't have to give to much information to get a basic quote.  If they required credit checks and SS right away I moved on.  They should be able to give me an idea on fee and interest rates based on my loan and what I tell them my how good my credit is.  

So go out there get a couple of quotes. Don't try to time the market and be read when you make your choice.  Also get your best quote and go back to your current lender to see if they will match it.  Staying with the same company requires a lot of the same things as switching, but you don't have to worry about miss payment or a new system.  Good Luck!!

MINT and whats next - part 2

 Well it has been a week look at other tools beside MINT.  So far it's been tough and a lot of long days.

I first tried Personal Capital and I love it at first. I have been using it for a year to just track investments nothing else.  So I syn'd up all my account and went well. Love that it pull a few month and maybe in time the whole year.   Now the bad.   The budgeting part of this software is on the weak side.  Granted the main focus is tracking investments and keeping track of your financially allocation. So this was expect, but for what I want it for I was a no go.   Partial-fail - I will keep it as I was using it.  It was nice to have a place were all the other daily transactions were not clouding the investment picture. 

Second You Need a Budget (YNAB).  I jumped in and after watching a short video (which are amazing by the way) I basically matched my budget from MINT into YNAB. (Category based). Then imported all my account all worked except I havn't figured out how to make the accounts with CAPTCHA work better and the ones that require a PIN code from phone/email.  I really wanted to love this app. It has such a following and passion for the tool and budgeting.  I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it.  I'm used to seeing money come in and make sure I have enough cash in the checking to cover when the bills come in and if not I transfer from a savings account. 

 - Just discovered how I can put future reoccurring items in.  This helps a lot organizing. 

 

So far I don't know if I can give up MINT, but I'm going to keep going with YNAB to see what the roll over is like and going to sit down with my significant other to go over it.  

 

So sick of MINT

MINT RIP - you were great, then ok, not awful. 💣

 So I've been tracking my money since I started working at 15. Start out with MS Money until that was discontinued.  Was able to export that into Quicken.  

I liked Quicken for awhile because it was a lot more automated then MS Money and imports transaction was a lot less painful.  Eventually they added auto sync stuff to your accounts.  This big issue I ran into was one of my Credit Card wouldn't syn and things didn't always seem to work.  I know they had tax stuff in there, but it didn't seem realizable enough to use. Eventually I got sick of it not work correctly and all the manually work to get things to work. I moved to this cool new software called MINT

MINT is a online spending/budget tool.  It took awhile to go all in because I was very security focused and didn't like handing over my information to this unknown software.  After a year or so I started to trust it more and started to leave Quicken behind.  This tool was great an free.  All my accounts syn'd and for the most part the categories were correct.  The of course MINT became to good and free. Then in 2009 Intuit bought them.  I think they mostly did this because MINT was taking there business and it was better. 

So for the first 5 years or so MINT didn't change much just bug fixes and normal redesigns.  My guess the original development team was around the Intuit didn't get full control for a curtain amount of time.  Then the Intuit team took over.  You would expect better service and more security from a company like them. And they did. 😀  Then came the bad parts.  Ads started showing up and they starter to sell your data to help advertise and focus on your data.   I found the ads annoying and mostly I could work around for a great free product.  Then the bad started happening.  The rock solid syning started to fail.  In fact the checking account I've been using and categorizing started getting duplicates and going inactive off and on.  Then one day it just disappeared.  😱😱  So all this work was just gone.  Then the checking showed up on my wifes bank account, but duplicated.  One with only the last month expense and the other all the old data.  It's been like this for the past few months.   

I can't have unreliable software that I can't restore back to a good state. I'm using this software to budget and track expenses.  So with all the Ads and bad User experience for the past year or so I've reached a breaking point. I'm moving on.  Bye Bye MINT

I'm decided to go with either Personal Capital or YNAB.  I've been using Personal Cap. for about a year to just track Stocks and stuff for a rough net worth estimate.  While YNAB seems to be the go to app for people in the FI community.  I usually stay way from software I have to pay subscription services to.  I don't mind spending a one time buy, but not monthly.  Anyway I'm currently trying to setup both to see if I can transition to these. I was going to start with PC since I had some accounts already sync'd, but I ran into issue with it's retirement calculator not working correctly so I decided to try YNAB first. 

I need these tool to have these thing

Must:

• Secure
  
• Syncs with all my accounts
• Good User experience
• easy to use Budget tool. My wife is finally on board and need to keep her engaged
• Easy translations tracking automated as mush as possible. I don't want to keep having to change the same places to the same categories everyday.
  
• inexpensive (free is best)
• staying power
  

So far  YNAB has all the thing I want. 

1. Security and uses two-factor auth plus and using latest iPhone auth features
   
2. All my accounts sync with there service. I have one weird card that isn't supported by all
3. able to import all my transactions from MINT or the Bank software :) Major plus
4. Easy user interface. Wife needs to be able to understand
5. budgets
   
6. 34 day free trial 
   

Negatives so far 

1. Have to relearn how to setup budget since they do it a little different. All dollars get a job
   
2. $$$ 7-11 a month
3. Budget is the main focus as you would expect from a app called "You Need A Budget". It takes a couple of seconds to get to transaction screens
4. When you setup your accounts it comes in fresh with only current balance. It doesn't go back and get previous transactions. *plus above is a workaround - so for me at least for my checking account and Chase accounts only a minor thing.
   

 

Personal Capital - still need to evaluate with transactions and credit cards

Pluses so far

1. Good Auth using latest IPhone features. 
   
2. clean user interface similar enough to MINT that not hunting for features.
3. Sync up to a year in the past 
4. Big focus on net work and investing
   

Minuses so far

1. bug in there retirement calculator  
2. Advertisements for there CPA advice
3. They use the aggregated data (anonymous style) on account for there needs
4. Budget section has a lot to be desired.  You basically set total you expect to spend and you are given an arrow and color when you are above or below that mark.  It does give you a break down by % on what you've spent your funds on.  
• I don't like this. Mostly because it's harder to tell if we go over on an area. Like hey we budget $100 on water in a month and it's at $300. Maybe we have a problem at the house. This is obvious on MINT and YNAB, while on PC it may get lost since I'm below my budget.
• Budgeting is very much an after thought for this software. Kind of a widget some intern created and then left the company.  They though it was ok and just left it at that.

 

A couple of days in has been disappointing.  I really wanted to love YNAB. I do like it, but it has to blow me away to have me pay.  Personal Capital: budgeting section is very disappointing.  MINT is looking better 😖.   I've going to running all three for a month YNAB. or PC can answer all my needs. As of today PC looks to be a place I will only keep my stock tracking/network and not track transaction or budget let see if it can change my mine.  While YNAB has some work today to makeup for the price tag.   

 

 

Organization through chaos

This is completely self inflicted and a little crazy.  I've completely overloaded myself with what I call life financial maintenance. 

Like every owner of a home should do. I have a calendar event every year to check insurance rates. This mostly has me going to 5 or 6 major companies and putting in my information to match my current coverage.  Then comparing rates and going with the lowest, which is usually the current company.  The annoying part is the amount of email and phone calls we get doing this.

Something different happened this year instead of just getting the usually email/phone calls I got a quote in my email from one of the companies this a significantly lower rate in the amount of $1200 per year.  This isn't new and mostly a trick. The usually have this low quote and have high deductibles or lower coverage.  In this case is was spot on.  I emailed the agent back said I was interested and had a couple of question.  Unfortunately for me he wanted to talk on the phone to discuss options and to make sure I had the right coverage.   This is great for the agent. I don't really like it one I really don't like talking on the phone and two it is easy to see costs on the screen vs on the phone. 

Once I got this all figured out I contacted by current company to see if they could match it.  They couldn't so I switch.  Switching car and umbrella is easy.  Escrow is a little trickier specially if you get unlucky like I did and mortgage company pays your next years insurance right after you switched.  Now I have to pay the refund game and get a refund from my old company, make sure the new insurance is paid, and probably refund my escrow.   What a pain.  What I get to waiting until the last minute to change though.

While I was doing this I was also looking to refinance my mortgage again. We are planning on going back to a 30 year loan to be able to get extra cash in our pocket.  This is it's own topic on issues and best way to avoid. Always good to have two good quotes to have the companies compete with.

If this wasn't enough we were also looking at hiring a nanny this year, because the kids will be doing school from home this year.  - wow the things I learned from this experience.

Since all of these things were very time sensitive I was definitely feeling the pressure.  I used excel sheet to help me track the cost and which options were best.  I highly recommend to do something similar. Take a deep breath and relax. 

Prepare for big life changes

With the upcoming school year and with the current state of life (social distancing/virus) we don't know what is next.  

Our school district is experiencing a 40mil cut. The Superintendent sent out an email saying their are going to be changes staff cuts, bigger class sizes, and more.  As a parent is it responsible to send the kids to school if kids have to wear masks all that goes into social distancing.  Second even if we decide the risk is minimal to the kids and they are better off going to school making friends and having a trained teach instead of more home school; what about after-school care. 

We sat down and had a real look at the finances and options to come.  It was a tough night that revealed we have very different long term goals for our finances and very different definition on being financially independent.  But that is ok.  We now both know where each stands and we can work to be on common grounds.    More to come.

Why does wealth cause some people to treat others differently

Sometime I can't believe how people treat each other.  I'm hearing and reading about stories of people saying they will not give their wife her stimulus check of $1,200 because she will go spend it all. Instead she will get a few hundred. 

Whats is wrong with people.  Why do spouses treat each other like kindergartens. Why does the husband think he can mange their money better then his wife? Why does she have to have an allowance?

The problem is that she doesn't know or isn't allowed to know their financial picture. It is true in most couple one person takes on this pardon and the other either doesn't care/not interested or is excluded.

I work continuously to talk to my wife about our finances. I have varying degrees of success on this.  There are times she asking if she can I buy this $$$ thing or pay off this other bill.  I then got look at MINT and review our finances and tell her not this month or sometimes I give bad responses. One of my more famous responses "sure go ahead we have tons of money." What I really meant was based on how much we normally have in our checking and bills coming due we have an extra buffer before the next paycheck without transferring money out of savings.  Easy to see why says that can cause problems.

I have friend who are married and the keep their finances completely separate. Not sure how I feel about this, seem like it will causes more problems then it fixes. The big issue is people don't want to face the facts on how much they spend and what they spend there money on.  Either they don't want to do the work or don't care and feel like they work hard they deserve to spend their money. 

I think this sentiment is the reason why some people feel like they own their families money and only give their spouse an allowance.  Its like a marriage allowance for marring the person that they feel they are doing the right thing because their spouse don't have any self control like they do. 

If everyone has the same goals and talk through these goals having everyone stick to a budget is much easier.  Goals are defined

1. What you want to achieve   example (pay for college $150,000)
   
2. When you want to achieve it   example (18 years from now)
   
3. How are you going to achieve it    example (save $695 a month) or $160 a week or $22 a day (a price of a coffee at $tarbuck$)
   

The act of pivoting

Learning how to pivot then new information comes it is key to long term success.

Today I start my sprinklers then promptly forgot and let my dog outside.  Then he quickly chew off the head of the sprinkler.  So a minor flood happened in my backyard.  Now this isn't the first time he has done something like this.  This is the first time for something of this scale ( 6 of the 8 heads needed to be fixed).

I was frustrated because repairing these are annoying.  Not difficult or that time consuming just annoying.  So I pivoted and decided to use repairing the sprinklers as part of home school.  I got the tools out and show the kids how to turn on the sprinklers and how them how to fix the sprinkler heads with the special tools.   Was a quick 20 min learning exercise and the kids had fun. 

This is the same thing with your finances.  Heck even the most buy and hold investor Warren Buffet just sold all his share of airline stocks, because things changed when he first decided it was a good investments and the long term for airlines don't look good.

This can mean you need to change your eating habits or that vacation you were planning.  I was planning on going to Seattle with travel rewards to see a baseball game. We had to cancel that. Now it is looking like maybe no vacations this year.  Our vacation trips to see family are now in doubt.   Somethings are easy to pivot from while others are not. 

Right now change vacation plans aren't fun, but they are easy.  What happens when a birthday comes up or Christmas. Or long term things like saving for College.  If things are tight now what does it looks like next month or the month after that.

I know there has been lots of talk about stimulus or more stimulus money, but let me real.  What goes around comes around. And one day all this money is going to have to come from somewhere.  All I can say is start saving now.  Save a dollar a week for birthdays or Christmas.  Or start the conversations now that things are tough. Don't completely shield your kids they are smart and understanding.  Talk to your spouse and spending habits.  I'm going to have to do that soon.  One choice my wife decided was to help local business by ordering out once a week.   This has blow out dinning budget which is fine, but our grocery budget got a little fat as well.  We just need to refocus what we buy instead of buying acute things to make dinner for the next couple of days get stuff that can make multiple meals.

Stimulus check - updated

For most people this is a welcome boost and is very much needed to get them through the next month or so.


If you didn't know this money comes from the Phase-3 plan from the 2 Trillion relief bill that was passed. The idea is to give each American $1,200 to help them through these tough times.  And an addition $500 for each child under 18. Combine this with people spending less money it can be very helpful. For families who were laid off or have a stop work this probably isn't enough.

We got out auto-deposit check yesterday. I didn't think we were going to get one because my wife and I both work and I though our income would put us over the limits.

To break it down they have a phase out period.

• UPDATE for 2021 around - Change the check amount to whatever the Feds passed. As of 1/2021 it is 600 for individual, but this can change anytime if it does. All this mean is you will get less and phase out is much quicker. for the changes below.

Single:

• Make less then $75,001 on your 2018 return your get the full $1,200 (add 500 for each kid)
• If you make more then you lost 5% for 
• 1,200 - <refund reduction>  = (<income> - 75,000) * .05
• Example     100,000 - 75,000 = 25,000 - salary over
• 25,000 * .05 = 1,250  since 1,250 > 1,200 you don't get anything.
• 1,200 - 1,250 = -50    - you are over
• It turns out the phaseout max is $99,000 for a single filer
• If you are a head of house filer with one child $136,500 is the max

Joint Return:

• Make less then $150,001 on your 2018 return your get the full $2,400 (add 500 for each kid)
• If you make more then you lost 5% for 
• 2,400 - <refund reduction>  = (<income> - 150,000) * .05
• Example     160,000 - 150,000 = 10,000 - salary over
• 10,000 * .05 = 500  - since 500 < 2,400 you will get a return
• 2,400 - 500 = 1,900    - you will get 1,900 stimulus check
• It turns out the phaseout max is $198,00 for a joint filer no kids

 

Joint Return Kids
- Here is were it wasn't initally clear for me.  I didn't relize that the kids 500 is added into the 2,400 amount before they apply the max.  I assumed since our return have over the phase out we weren't going to get anything. It breaks down to check kids is the same as making $100 more on your 2018 return i.e the max with kids under 18 is $198,000 + (10,000 * # of kids). A max refund is $3,400 for a family with two kids and a max earned income of  217,999 for 2018.
Lets see the math.

• 3,400 - <refund reduction>  = (<income> - 150,000) * .05
• Example     217,999 - 150,000 = 67,999 - salary over
• 68,000 * .05 = 3,399.98 - since 3,399.98 < 3,400 you will get a return
• 3,400 - 3,399.98 = .05    - you will get .05 stimulus check
• It does work

This works the same for head of house or single families

I know money is money, but honestly I shouldn't have gotten a check.  Our jobs are not at risk and I know Feds wouldn't of known this. There is better uses for this money then going into my pocket.  What I looking into doing is donating the money through my work which will match 100% and will double this money to help others.  I pass this money on to our local zoo, museums and food shelters. All which I've never done in the past.

Be safe and enjoy

How to survive homeschooling and working

So I now have three full time jobs.

1. A parent to two kindergarten kids 
2. Teacher/homeschool professor to two kindergarten kids
3. my other 40hr week job which now I work from 1pm - 9pm 

Our first responsibility is to ourselves.   We can't do much if we get sick either through carelessness or accident.

Now the hard part has been telling the kids whats going on and why they are not going to school anymore.  Truth be told my kids have taken it very well and they don't seen scared or bothered by it. It did take some explaining to them on why they can't play on the playground, but they seems to get it.

😷
What we told them was their is a virus that is making people sick. Just like a normal sickness that any of us can get, but this one is new and they don't have medicine for it yet.  We can only catch it from other people or things they have touched. That why we need to keep our distance and wash our hand more often.  The asked if they could get sick. Our response was they can get sick, but they would probably not get very sick either would Mom or Dad. They people who would get really sick would be older people.  They said like their Great Grandmas. So we told them that we would be doing school from home for awhile.  And we couldn't go to the neighborhood park without having sanitizer with us.

Home Schooling

Now that I found out I am going to be teaching the kids the rest of the year let the fun begin.
First was coming up with a schedule.  My wife and I did a lot of quick searching to find  tons of different approaches to this.  So the first two weeks was just us. The schools were trying to figure out what to do and this happened during our Springbreak which delayed the schools responce .

We descided to make each day unquie, but use the same basic subjects.

Start the day about the same time as normal school hours 8am.

• Wake up at 7am and have breakfast
• 8:00am - school start 
• 8:00 - 8:30 - Circle time - start the day ask question on the previous day, weather, pleage of allegance.
• 8:30 - 9:00 - Yoga/Stretching
• - not this was way to much time and change it our second week to 8:00-8:30 for these two times
• 9:00 - 9:30 - one of these four (Math/Literacy/Social Studies/Art/Science)
• 9:30 - 10:30 - snack & recess (had to do it in the basement since it was cold or snowy
• 10:30 - 11:30 - two subjects (Math/Literacy/Social Studies/Art/Science) each for 30mins
• 11:30 - 12:00 - freetime
• 12:00 - 13:00 - Lunch Recess
• 13:00-14:30 - Nap/Quiet time
• 14:30 - 15:30 - two subjects (Math/Literacy/School assigned computer work) each for 30mins
• 15:30 - 16:00 - Snack & Stretching
• 16:00 - 16:30 - one of these four (Math/Literacy/Social Studies/Art/Science)
• 16:30 - 17:00 - freetime
• 17:00 - 18:30 - Dinner/Brush teeth/Jammies/Baths
• 18:30 - 19:00 - Family Game/show 
• 19:00 - 19:30 - Book
• 19:30 - Bed
• Parents - Plan any changes

This was our first week and it went well, but we felt we need to remove big gap of stuff in the middle of the day and the morning circle time/stretching was to long.   Our schdule change to something like this

• Wake up at 7am and have breakfast
• 8:00am - school start 
• 8:00 - 8:30 - Circle time/Yoga Stretching - start the day ask question on the previous day, g 
• 8:30 - 9:30 - (Math/Literacye)
• 9:30 - 10:30 - snack & recess (had to do it in the basement since it was cold or snowy
• 10:30 - 11:30 - two subjects - Literacy and one of these (Social Studies/Art/Science) each for 30mins
• 11:30 - 12:30 - Lunch Recess
• 12:30 - 13:30 - Nap/Quiet time
• 13:30 - 14:30 - (Math/Literacy/School assigned computer work) each for 30mins
• 14:30 - 15:00 - Snack & Stretching
• 15:00 - 17:30 - Freetime/quite time
• 17:00 - 18:30 - Dinner/Brush teeth/Jammies/Baths
• 18:30 - 19:00 - Family Game/show 
• 19:00 - 19:30 - Book
• 19:30 - Bed
• Parents - Plan any changes

Then the school stared providing material.  We only change a little. We include the Zoom meetings with teacher and class into the time.  Starting being flexible it lessons go over the time layout. Since we have breaks sometimes they are only 45min instead of an hour. It has been important to be flexible. I was very stressed the first week with the teachers material because allot of there resources required different login for different site and each kids having different ones.  I was spending all my time login and trying to get the site to work.  Sitting down with my wife and spending a night getting logins set and printout out the information helped out allot.

Games I've come up with to help my kids learn letters/words/numbers.  Zombie word shooter.  They get nurf guns where I am a zombie that can only be beat when they shot a word I'm saying.  We tapped words around a room.  Two kids mean both kids have to shot the word to defeat me.  If I catch them I eat their jelly-bean brains.  Jelly beans are the price after we are done.

Another variation is I used whiteboards with magnets letter or number and hold up words. I say a word and they have to tell me the magnet that is holding it up and shot the work to get a M&M. Or I can the magnet and they tell me the word holding it up. (i give each kid their own one to avoid one kid always answering).

Interesting times we are in.

Work has been very flexible, but not fun. I am required to go into work instead of stay at home like I was in the beginning.

Is this time different?

Wow life has gotten crazy.  That is probably the biggest understatement.

Obviously the virus of which we don't speak it's name is the headliner of all news.

So a list of things that has changed for my family in the past 2-3 weeks

1. School and daycare was shutdown or an additional week after spring break. Which they added 2 additional weeks - So we are homeschooling
2. Work has strongly encourages us to work from home if possible. I was able for 2 weeks until they wanted me to coming.
3. My work office is changing buildings to have our team seporated across buildings
4. Summer plans are all on hold
5. Tickets we bought for skiing are all in question
6. The stockmarket has fallen like a rock 
7. Whole state is on lock down

Here is a list of some nice things

1. Taxes are now not due until July 15th yeah I get to keep the money longer
2.  I accidently over bought toliet papper months ago.  I though we were out in Janurary so I push up out Amazon subscribe and Save order. I counted yesturday we had 120 rolls.  We donated 24 rolls to our friends who were on their last roll.
3. Went through a list of services we aren't using and cancalled 
1. Car wash (we only use in the winter)
2. gym - no point when you can't go
3. consumer reports - good resource, but not something we use every month. No real reason to keep it until you need it again
4. RoadRunner - havn't cancalled yet. It is nice when you have to buy shoes.
4.  One eatten out/in once since this all started. Really only to support local a business. They are hurting.
5. Bought flowers for a friend who was sick. They liked it and the flower store thanked us like 5 times
6. A lot more outside walking time with dog and family

Besides out dog who is getting like 10 walks a day since he is a year and half old Lab with so much energy it is required. This last month has pretty much sucked for the entire world.

Before I started back at work this was my schedule. We kinds skipped Spring break and just went straight into homeschooling. Sorry kids.

6:30 - Wait up at and get breakfast ready
7:00 - First try to get the kids up. Mostly they get up, but sometimes they need an extra 15
7:15 - Make sure kids are up and changed
7:30 - Eat breakfast and let the kids play until 8
8:00 - 9:30 - school (circle time, math, literacy)
9:30 - 10:30 -   snack and recess - we do this in the basement as it did snow a foot the first week, I  workout during this time. Either run on treadmill or weight exercises. Today the kids rode their bikes and I ran along side them.
10:30 - 11:30 - back to teaching - science and art
11:30 - 12:30 - Lunch and recess again (outside recess) - we have been playing soccer during this time in the driveway
12:30 - 13:00 - Switch with Wife (continues the schooling) who was working in the office and I walk the dog.
13:00 - 18:15 - Working from home
18:15 - 19:30 - Dinner and story time with the kids
19:30 - 20:00 - relaxe/recharge/bathroom/walk dog
20:00 - 22:45 - finish working
22:45 - 24:00 - looking leason plans for next day and figure out how to homeschool. and get ready for bed

So I have been pretty tired these first two weeks and they have been a learning curve.

More to follow on homeschool and how we are dealing with the food shortages.

Another day another emergency

Well on the work yesturday my car decided to die.  I've taken it in and the first estimates are $1,000 to fix turbo hoses. 

I called the wife and had a good talk about. Do we keep this 12 year old car or do we sell/trade-in to get a used car that works as a communter. Or do we keep it now and get it fixed and start looking to sell and in a year or so get a car after we have saved for awhile. 

I've kepts very good book  keeping on the car and when back to see over the life of the car how much I've spend on Servies i.e. things breaking.  In the 12 years I've owned the car I've spend $12k.  About $1k a year which isn't awesome, but it actually is worst then that.  For the first 7 years the car was under warrenty.  4 of it manufactures and 7 extended.  The extended was 3k.  So for 8 years of used I sent $15k to make sure it still ran so ~$1.9k a year.  After looking at these numbers it is becomig hard to keep my paid off car that I love.

Love live the three pedal cars.

I am every torn on buy a car.  For one I like buying very good things and keeping them a long time. I take very good care of my things and expect them to last forever.  So buying used it very difficult on me, but I know from an financial stance it is the best thing to do.

With two kids and a dog a sedan is becoming a little tough moving everyone around.  If I had my choice of new cars today I would want a Tesla Y, but those are expensive. I've looked at used model 3s and they seem to have kept there value so not much of a discount.

Current plan it is to start taking pictures on my car and look to sell it. Then depending on when it is sold; live off one car for awhile and then an a year or two buy a car that best fits out needs.  Maybe by then I will feel better (I'm smarter) about buying a used car. 

Life with Twins and the effects

Having twins is always a surprise. Not because now you have to change twice as many dippers and twice as much crying.  It really is you have to buy 2 - 4 times as much stuff.  This is especially true if both parents plan to work.

My twins are in kindergarten and as of today we have bought 10 car seats, 4 car seat bases, and 4 strollers and we got two others for free.  That is just to move them from place to place.

Car seats are a hard thing to get ride of.  The official stance is don't buy a used car seat because you don't know if they have been in a crash.  The other things about car seats are they expire.  They have a life I think of about 5-8 years. Which is roughly 2 kids back to back.

You have three choices

• Sell it (very hard) maybe to friends
• Gift it
• Take to recycle center (target takes them)

Lets move on to sleeping.  They have cribs, travel cribs, blankets, baby bumps.  Just to name a new.  Luckily for us we bought convertible cribs and are still use them in their full size form.

I believe we had 4 Travel cribs at the grandparents houses and they are still there. These should be sold and we also have 6 cots that we still use regularly.

The toys these kids get through the first 6 or so years is crazy.  So many books. So many matching games.  Not include all the plastic toy of he week they get at birthdays.

Books are easy. These can be donated. As long as the games are in good condition they can be sold or donated.  The other toys. Well depending on the condition it look for some to pass on and enjoy.

Clothes.  As the kids have gotten bigger we have saved there clothes by size and "gender"  this has made it easier to donate/sell/give away.  I haven't gotten into much selling of the clothes mostly because it seems like tons of work for little gain, but I know people make business out of doing this. 

Some days I look at our playroom and really feel like we should be a minimalist family.

Expect the unexpected

Sometimes you just have a bad week. Well I got one of those. Here is a quick rundown.  Daughter got an ear infection so a trip to Urgent care, Water heater leaking needed to be replaced, back window of my car decided to stop working and stay open (then it started to snow with 30mph winds), I got sick, dealer wants to charge an insane amount for window to be fixed.

Sometimes these things happen.  Well we came home from a day ski.  Good news kids made it to level 5 meaning they can do some blues. Bad news when I went into the basement to put the ski stuff away I see this ominous wet spot by the base of the water heater. 

Great just what I needed with Tax bill and maybe a tuition bill coming due.  I did a little search to see if it was something I could fix.  Short answer was no.  The leak was coming from the internal tank and only fix is a new one.

Off to Lowes and Home Depot to price shop and see what I need.  I took prices of the current one to make sure I got about the same and what the size of the current one is.  I was thinking this was going to set me back about $500.  I even heard Dave Ramsey talk about getting a new one for about $500 so I was pretty confident it would be around there.


I go to the stores after reading up on water heater from Consumer Reports.  With the size and capacity I needed it looks like they would cost $500-$750 for the unit.  I talked to the Home Depot buy and he said I could install it myself and save myself $900.  WHAT $900 for an install that is crazy.  Just to check it out I ask for a quote and what do you know it was about $900 for someone to install and take away the old one. Then during the install he said we would need a new vent step, because that’s what the city required so an extra $250. So all out the door $2000 just to heat some water.

Now for most people that would of been a bad week.  Not for this Fox that is only the beginning.  On Sunday my daughter started to complain her ear was hurting here so we took her to the Urgent Care and what do you know an ear infection. $300 later we go home with some medicine and miss one day of school.

Then on Tuesday I drop the kids off at school and head to work.  I'm in the car and hear more wind noise then usual.  I look in the back and see the passenger rear window down an inch. So I try to roll it up and it only wiggles.  Thinking it is suck I press down and up and it only went down.  So now I have a window that is half way down and it's like 30-40mph winds outside.  SWEET.  I pull over to try to lift it up and it no worky.  So I just drive to work not knowing what else to do.  I put a blanks to cover the window while I'm at work until I figure out what's next.

I can't find an appointment until Thursday. I email the dealer who was trying to get me to come in for service since I haven’t been there for a while.  Luckily they replied that I could get in today which was awesome since online the earliest was next week.  The other place I looked was SafeLite, but they could get to my car until Friday, but they quoted $260 for the repair.

I take the car to the dealer and at the end of the day they came back with $980 to fix the window. WTF the part was only $130 and it was something I could fix myself.  They also said I needed new tires and $700 other stuff. I laughed when they came back with $3800.00 in total repairs.

After talking to them and quoting other companies estimates at $260 they said the best they could do was $800. Needless to say I said no thanks. But the tires were a good price and I did need new tires, but I didn't want to pay $180 for nothing.  $760 for a set of run-flats was a good deal; plus they can do the alignment.

The next day the called back saying the called to the technicians and they can do it quicker then was quoted.  They can do it for $400.  My guess they may have done the work already :).  With OEM parts and getting it done I went with it. Next time I will go going to SafeLite for window repair.

Grand total week expenses $3800.00

Now this is where a emergency fund is great. Luckly for me I can utilize my credit cards to gain points on these purchases and pay off the cards with either points or emergency funds.

If you don't have it start an emergency fund of 3 to 6 months of expenses.  6 months if only one person works or if you aren't secure in your job or you are very risk adverse. 3 months if you have multiple source of income like spounse, Stable field for 10+ years.