Ah, Taxes.

The state of California has increased State taxes withheld from paychecks by 10%. Bah. I mean, I'm only losing 11 dollars a month. But STILL.

The Cost of Prevention

I'm not going to get into a debate about how much the US healthcare system SUCKS. But I will say this. If I had known it would cost me almost 1,000 dollars to get the Gardasil vaccine (on account of my insurance refusing to pony up? I would have skipped it. Not cool.  

Nearly November

I can't believe how fast this year has gone by! But November brings Thanksgiving (and pumpkin bread and mashed potatoes and bread and pies and all that yummyness) and then December brings our vacation and Christmas. Exciting. And with every passing month, I am one month closer to paying off my car!

Last weekend, I bought an elliptical! Now… it was more expensive than I originally hoped, but I got a fantastic model that I just love (it's super quiet too, so no bothering anybody in the wee hours!). I'm SO happy with it! I did manage to score it on sale (of course, I would never have paid full price for it… at 2,000 dollars. I got it for 700. I know I can't really afford it… but I truly think it was the best thing for my health. I wish I was the kind of person that could go for a run outside every day, but I'm not. So be it. Now I'm up early (5:45 to assemble boyfriends lunch and dinner [he doesn't get home from work til after 8, so he has to eat dinner there]/6-6:30, exercise/6:30-7, shower and dress/7-7:30, enjoy some tea, toast and a little tv time before work). It's actually really enjoyable, and I'm the furthest thing from a morning person.

I've also run out of checks. This is a problem, in that I hate the idea of paying money for new ones. I could just write all checks out of my electric orange account, but I do feel like I need paper checks for unexpected things that pop up (because they always do). I have NO room in my budget for such things though. So. ? Of course, I'm also out (nearly) of moisturizer too. And toothpaste. And… everything else.

Boyfriend has the ENTIRE weekend off coming up… for the first time in a really long time. I'm really excited! There might be a halloween party (I HATE Halloween… dressing up is the worst. but i love candy.) but we'll see. It would be super fun to take a drive out of the "country" and check out the sights. There's a park in the Malibu/Calabassas area that I've been curious about. And I haven't even seen the ocean since last October! Sad? I live just 30 minutes from the beach… so yes.

Sigh

I'm SO embarrassed by how much I've overspent in my food category this month. Like… goodbye 200 dollars over. Seriously. Part of it is my desire to buy pizza overpowering my good sense. Part of it is that we've been buying lots more groceries because boyfriend is on a VERY healthy eating routine and well, it costs (start up costs, since he started this month… and you know, buying real food is more expensive than pop tarts!). Plus… I kind of included misc. non food stuff in there as well that I didn't have budgeted. I seriously need help. I think I'm taking my gas credit card out of my wallet (seriously gets me in to more trouble than its worth at this point). Ugh!!!! I'm seriously upset with myself… the money has to come from somewhere, so bye bye (part of) short term savings fund. How lame of me. 

That being said… I'm considering buying an elliptical machine. See, I am lucky in that I can eat whatever I want (meaning, junk) and not exercise (at all) and not gain a pound. In fact, I'm borderline underweight. However, it's not doing my health any such favors. I'm getting to the point where I just feel like crap, and even though I'm not heavier, I feel fat. And I know heart health is not something to be scoffed at. I've considered getting a gym membership, but I honestly can't see myself going enough to make it worth it… and I think I'd talk myself out of going way too much) And running outside? EVIL. (for some reason I can run inside on a treadmill til the cows come home… but I can't run around the block without feeling like death.) So… if I have an elliptical in my house, I'll have NO excuses, right!? I've been getting up early, because my boyfriend goes to the gym every morning (seriously wish I had that motivation), so why not get my heart pumping instead of playing on the internet? I can't see any reason why not. And while I can't really afford it, I'm hoping to get one this weekend. I have been looking around and there are some EXPENSIVE (um, two grand!?) ones that I just can't swing. I need something small and inexpensive but not so cheap… (ly made). So, I'm hoping to do it for less than 300… we shall see if that's even possible. But I'm excited about my new motivation :-)

In other news, I sent my entire paycheck over to my emergency fund today. That felt good!

Car Payments

I have SUCH financial ADD!  It seems that just as soon as I make up my mind, I change it again. I had intended to put my car repayment monies into ING and hold it until I had enough to pay my car off in full. But… after three weeks of that nonsense, I decided that it was just not motivating to have money in the bank, while my car loan stayed basically the same. So, I've been paying Toyota directly. This month, I've made over 1100 dollars in payments. It's SO motivating to see the numbers drop… I was just over 10k last month, this month it's just under 9k! Progress! No, my job feels no more secure, but I've already had one bout of unemployment this year, and I didn't have to touch my savings once. I have over 8k in the bank. I should be fine, worst comes to worst. I thought about taking my savings and getting rid of my car loan, but THAT really wouldn't be smart. I might get impatient when I've got only a couple thousand left to go, and I may pull a little from savings to pay it off earlier. We'll see. 

I can't wait for my November payments to take steam! December will be a very slow month, with Christmas (and all the fun that comes with that), our Arizona trip (insofar as paying for golf, or something), my parking permit renewal, doctors appointments, etc, etc, etc! But… January will be a three paycheck month, and I'm looking forward to paying almost 3 grand :-)

One Year Later

Technically, my "blogoversary" isn't for a week, but it's been just over a year since I began to take hold of my finances. 

Things which I'm proud of:

• I've started using a checking register and it's been more than a year since I've overdrawn my checking account. This USED to happen often. As in more than once a month. No more. 

• I've saved enough in an emergency fund to tide me over for a bit if need be. 

• I've started saving for retirement (not a lot… but I plan to remedy that once the car is paid off!)

• I've become a master budgeter

• While I've had a few shopping sprees, I'm not the spendaholic I was. In fact, yesterday I went to a store with the sole purpose of buying a white t shirt. I managed to find an adorable cardigan, which I proceeded to try on and loved. But I ended up putting it back. I just couldn't justify it. 

Things I wish I'd done different:

• I lagged a lot in my savings for awhile. This never should have happened. In fact, my emergency fund should technically be more than fully funded at this point. 

• Even though I'm now taking great strides in paying off my car loan (It's gone down more than 1100 in the past month!), it's something I should have started in earnest, from the beginning.

The future:

• Our living situation may change soon… but it's not something we KNOW or have any amount of control over. We'll see, but I hope we can stay put… as moving is expensive, and it would absolutely kill my car repayment plan. Plus, we're paying next to nothing now. A move would require me to start paying rent. Ugh!

• Provided nothing major changes (like moving), I'll have my car paid off in full by June! I'm not sure at that point, what to do next. A big part of me wants to complete the emergency fund and start on the travel fund (After 6 years, boyfriend and I have only been on vacation (not counting trips with the parentals, which they pay for) ONCE. I'm dying to go somewhere!) However, another part of me knows that I could have my student loan paid off completely probably… inside of 6 months. So that's obviously VERY interesting…

• Boyfriend has been getting some job leads. Nothing has panned out as of yet, but I feel sure that he'll get a great position within the next few months. That would enable me to pay my car off at lightning speed, afford to have our own apartment (!) and start saving in earnest for a house.

Net Worth Increase

Today marks the first time in my adult life where my net worth is POSITIVE! Positive 8,000 to be exact. Thrilling! I can't wait until my car is paid off and those numbers climb even higher!

On another note. It's funny how with my new budgeting system, payday sneaks up on me. I used to count down the days… now I don't give it a second thought. It's actually refreshing!