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Archive for January, 2018

day 5

January 19th, 2018 at 06:52 am

Good day eating I guess. It's boring.

Day 5
1/2 oatmeal
salad with 4 oz of chicken alfredo - lunch
1 cup split pea/ham soup
butternut squash roasted for dinner
blueberries and strawberries 1 cup for snack

Day 4
1/2 oatmeal
salad for lunch
fried rice 1/2 cup measured
2 dumplings = 2 oz weighed
roasted butternut squash
1 cup watermelon
1/2 strawberries

I saw a friend post on facebook they bought this food plate from amazon for $20.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071GT5XZW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_m9wyAb8E30HMT?th=1

It sorts your food and portion controls. My DH said if you use it for 1 year and lose weight it's worth every penny. I am going to think on it until after hawaii. Then I'll come back and if i'm losing weight i'm thinking I'll buy it.

As it stands I think I've lost 3 lbs. But I feel like that's my normal flux and I also feel like I gain and lose the same 20 lbs all the time.

My mom comes next week and we tend to eat out so that will be interesting.

Fire Success Rate

January 18th, 2018 at 06:52 am

So I calculated that maxing out our 401k and IRAs for the next 15 years will give us a 100% success rate of retiring for 45 years with a $90k/year income. This is with $0 SS income coming in.

2032 retirement gives us a 2% chance of failure. 2031 retirement gives us a 14% chance of failure. So if we continue down our path the earliest I think we could retire is 2031.

However if increase our savings to $40k/year, saving $10k/year outside for 13 years the failure rate is 2% in 2031. And in the year 2030 it's 12% failure, and in 2029 it's 18% failure.

Also adding back SS does nothing to the success rate. Because we're assuming a lower SS and taken at age 62 even if we retire at age 55.

I think it would be easier to lower the number we need to retire not $90k/year. If we lowered it to say $60k/year we can retire in 2028 or 10 years with 1% failure rate saving $30k/year and 50 years of retirement. That would take us to 100 years old. About what I guessed off the cuff.

I have always said DH and I are about 5 years away from FI. According to Fire Calculator we are. If we save $100k/year for the next 5 years and spend $60k/year, we would have a failure rate of 1% of living on $60k/year for 50 years to age 95.

But the reality is while I know we spend around $60k/year and live well, we need more because we aren't done with say college. Plus I'd rather know that everything above and beyond is gravy rather than cutting it so close.

Have you ever calculated?

day 3

January 17th, 2018 at 11:02 pm

Another good day with eating. Same old same old.

Oatmeal 1/2c
Salad for lunch with 3 oz of smoked salmon
salad for dinner with 4 oz of quiche
1 cup watermelon
1 cup strawberries
Broccoli, bell pepper, and asparagus

So far today day 4
1/2 C oatmeal
salad with 2 tbsp dressing
1 cup watermelon
1 cup strawberries

The breakfast and lunch is super easy but I was hungry last night interestingly. I hadn't been in awhile. I am busy at work so I have to hurry and eat at 2 before getting kids.

day 2

January 16th, 2018 at 04:30 am

It is day 2. Yesterday was not a great day but today was better. Last night I weighed out my chicken alfredo 4 oz. Tonight I weighed out my 4 oz of Broccoli, ham, cheddar quiche I made.

Dido made me look back at what I cook make? Do I eat bad? Here and there. But overall not terribly. I made chicken teriyaki, tacos, chicken salad, etc last week. We did eat out one night but that was it for the last week.

The real problem? I know what it truly is. I overeat. I eat portions way out of control. I know the right size is a fist, but I probably eat 2 portions.

Usually until now I never weigh my food. Meat is definitely not a deck of cards, nor is it even close to 3-4 oz. Instead it'll be 8-12 oz of steak at home. It'll be that much of salmon I'll bake.

I also do not eat half a cup of rice or pasta. I probably eat 1-1.5 cups if I'm being honest. I don't snack really but then I will eat what is an improper portion size of carbs and protein.

I found it hard even doing weight watchers and nutrisystem. The portions were hard. I really need to get used to eating less. I mean seriously do people eat 4 oz of meat? Or starch? Probably not or we might not have a weight problem.

I'll have a soda once a week. I drink a lot of water and tea. But a glass of wine? Sure 1-2x/week. And I know it's not a 4 oz pour either. It's a generous 8 oz pour at home. So I'm not just having 1 serving it's more and it's I believe 200 calories for 4 oz.

So I know where my problem lies. Not necessarily what I'm eating or cooking. But honestly not eating everything I make. I also have admitted this I find it HARD to waste food. So I eat my kids leftovers on top of what I eat.

Sometimes I leave it there and finish it later in the evening. Tonight I scraped the plates and threw it away. No more.

This morning I had 1/2 oatmeal (usual), salad for lunch with a bell pepper, 4 oz of quiche I made. That's it. No leftovers from kids.

I am also aiming to drink more water. Baby steps. NO more eating kids leftovers. And I'm going to be honest and conscious about my portions. I am also going to try and avoid all alcohol to prevent the extra calories.

turning into a health blog not spending

January 15th, 2018 at 03:43 am

So 6 months ago I had "high" cholesterol. I have been trying to avoid red meat and fried foods. It hasn't worked. I haven't also lost the weight. So I have a two fold problem.

I am still in the high zone at 205 cholesterol. I'm worried. I need to get serious about this diet and losing weight. Perhaps it won't change my cholesterol alone losing weight. I probably need to change more of my eating habits. But it's a place to start.

I have to be accountable so I might as well start here. I am going to post everything that goes into my mouth. My small goals are to lose 10 lbs in the next 6 months and get my cholesterol under 200.

If in 6 months I'm successful I'm going to get myself a treadmill. I haven't found a gym that works for our new house. But I will try to use the insanity tapes I once used and walking.

I'm also debating weighing in everyday. I do want to lose weight. I'm going to try myfitnesspal. I am not joining any weight watchers or anything special. I just have to commit to doing this.

I am going to do it.

Today I had half a donut for breakfast, samples at costco for lunch with a hot dog with a diet soda, and a salad/veggies with 4 oz of chicken alfredo I made. Yes I decided this after lunch today but still I have to make good choices.

And I can't do a crash diet like before lose 20 lbs and then gain it all back when I go back to being "real". Diets haven't worked. I've tried them all.

snowflaking success!

January 14th, 2018 at 10:49 pm

So my new floor mats? Well I have found $65 in snowflakes so far. $45 bonus at work on prepaid CC which I'll use to pay another bill. And a $20 rebate from Black friday pillows. I am debating counting coupons I use.

I also am very excited we finished Roth IRAs for 2017, 2018 and kids ESA for 2017, 2018. Very solid beginning.

Next time I am going to move the Kids ESA to the same place we have our Roth IRAs even without a bonus that I've been waiting for. Because it's a pain to have accounts all over the place. I use TD Ameritrade and they are good.

Third I am opening a savings account at our local credit union for the kids. They pay 6% for kdis accounts up to $500 and DH hates the idea of more accounts, but we just became members because they offered me 2.24% on our 4 year car loan $24k. So i figure we already have an account why not?

Besides the kids will have fun seeing a real bank book and real bank to deposit money. All the rest of their money we have online somewhere. I think they are both doing pretty well. DK1 has $28k for college and Dk2 has $18k. They also have about $2k in savings. Not too shabby. I have been talking to DK about earning money and investing.

As soon as they start babysitting I'm going to have them start to save into a Roth IRA. Right now I told my DKs anything more than $5 gift they should save 50%. Then 50% to spend

Staying Invested

January 12th, 2018 at 07:04 pm

I'm curious who on this site is not investing. Or cashing in their chips now to take some of the risk off the table. I've been thinking a lot about it. We're dumping quite a bit into the market right now and I do worry it's high. This is a big topic if you can imagine in a tax office. We're all discussing whether we think the market has another year of gains. So it's on my mind.

Well I decided the other day that we're staying invested. We are sticking with the plan. I am going to put more in and hold it. I'm not going to sit in cash or buy more bonds. I will put rebalance being the beginning of the year, but I'm not going to hold back or change our aggressive stance.

What made me decide this? PS wrote that. Well as I perused our previous net worth and years of record keeping. I know we kept investing in 2007/2008 when we had less than we saved. But then it paid off gangbusters afterwards.

So now yes we have a more invested. And yes we are 10 years older. But talking with DH, he's in it for 10-15 more years. He's not planning on retiring until 15 years when our youngest should be done with college. If they lay him off that's a different story but as of right now it's in our heads he's going to work 15 more years.

That being said I think with a 15-20 year time frame of investing we risk it now. We stay in an aggressive investment strategy of 85% stocks/10% bonds and 5% cash. I don't think we cash in and take some of the returns off the table because we could miss out on more gains. My thoughts are until we are 5 years out we keep on investing aggressively. At 5 years out we switch more to preservation. And perhaps because at 5 years we can make a year to year decision to retire if the market is down maybe work 1 more year.

Do you think you'll keep on investing? Or is it better to take gains off the table?

good news in 2018

January 11th, 2018 at 08:51 pm

2018 has been good so far. Today I deposited 2017 and 2018 IRA contributions for DH and I. $5500 each for each year for $22k in contributions to our Roth IRAs.

Second it's weird but we ended 2017 a bit short of $800k and now it's powered through. We are at $810k, I think the company match came through for DH's 401k at the beginning of the year for last. And now we just contributed $22k. I wonder if I should rethink our stretch goal?

I also wrote down all our investments and I'm going to clean things up this next month.

E-File Cabinet Organization

January 11th, 2018 at 06:57 am

So we have an electronic file cabinet. We scan in everything, keep electronic copies of all statements, all tax documents, important receipts, etc. It makes very organized every month statement of investments, checking/savings/CC, loans, etc.

But it does take quite a bit of while. I have been working 1.5 hours tonight and I'm still not done. I'm doing monthly statements pretty much for every account we have for 2017.

I already have our 1099 for Chase for our checking/mortgage documents because of this. But loading each pdf can take awhile. Then saving it and cleaning it up. Further scanning in bills that are not electronic like our water bill takes time. Also invoices or receipts for our remodel takes awhile as well.

I used to try and keep up 1x/month. Usually in the 1st week I download all credit card bills and statements and sit and make payments as well on the 1st. This usually takes 1-2 hours. I also log each payment and copy the confirmation code into an excel spreadsheet. But today I am doing all statements for investments mostly I've missed in 2017.

Then after I'm done my DH comes along and backups our electronic file cabinet, that's what we really call it, onto an external hard drive along with our photos from our phones. He also do a cloud backup as well. So we have a few different copies of everything. Included our file cabinet is scans/photos of birth certificates, passports, visa, all important documents.

I will admit has become quite time consuming. Sometimes I wonder if I should just kick it off. But it really helps us keep all bill paid on time.

What do you do

2017 earnings for me

January 6th, 2018 at 05:48 pm

I made around $3200 working for the year. I'm happy. It's not a lot but it's a lot of snowflakes. Considering I did the bulk of it when my kids were in school and I paid $0 for childcare it's gravy.

I've been thinking a lot about it. I could probably go back and land a full time job of $50k starting. But I'm not sure that's the path I'm meant to go down. I like being busy. I love having adult interactions. But at the same time I like have the freedom to call in if the kids are sick. I like not bringing work home. I also like being with them.

But let's say I start now making $50k. And work another 10 years and make $80k by the end of 10 years. Not an unreasonable goal I believe. But out of the $50k the biggest savings would be the $18.5k 401k savings I manage to work at a full time job with one. So we'd save an extra $185k in 10 years. But then the rest of my income let's assume 60% ($30k would go straight to taxes). I'm in the 34% bracket or higher so $15k would go straight to federal taxes. Then assuming SS and Medicare I'm looking at another 8% gone. So working full time I will make around $10k/year to spend on after school care since I'll be working full time. That $10k will be gone with 2 kids and after school costs $500/month during the year plus the summer costs? I won't be making $18.5k savings probably closer to $15k/year.

I believe I can make around that much working part-time where I. I can make $15/hr easily and if I make $20-25/hr part-time why not? I'm thinking still of doing the CFP and going out on my own. Writing off expenses would work better.

Anyway I think having more time this year to work out the numbers of my earnings I think it still makes more sense to work part-time and flexible for less money.

new recipe goal

January 5th, 2018 at 08:12 pm

I was thinking of keeping it easy. I want to make 1 new recipe a month. I'm not the best cook and I make a lot of the same meals. My family eats very boring food.

Plus I'm trying to lose weight so I'm trying to eat more veggies. The kids eat a lot of the same veggies and aren't super adventerous with vegetables. I've felt like it's a losing battle because at least they eat broccoli, carrots, celery, cauliflower, chinese broccoli/bok choy, bell peppers, edamame. But they aren't interested in asparagus, artichoke, snap peas, kale, spinach, etc. They also eat very boring apples/berries/watermelon, etc fruits. Sometimes they will eat a banana or pear but they aren't super into new foods.

I know it's more diverse than most of our friends but I feel like we eat a lot of the same meals. So I am going to stretch the kids and my cooking skills this year and make 1 new dish a year.

This week I am making ham bone soup. I have chicken noodle soup on for tonight after rotisserie chicken these past two nights. Tomorrow the plan is short ribs and then ham bone soup and then ham/broccoli quiche. Also clam chowder is on the agenda for dinner next week.

My other plan is to make beef broccoli at home in a slow cooker (new recipe) and twice cook pork. I've made them but I want to make something less labor intensive and I want to try slow cooking it or something. I also want to try a beef taco bake because we eat tacos about 1x every 2-3 weeks. Or switch it to fajitas?

Is there any easy meals you make that is ethnic? I do a slow cooker curry but my kids eat the same 3 curries I can make Japanese, Chicken tikka Masala, and panang. I would like to expand my repertoire.

I might make also for the first time sloppy joes something I loved growing up.

$350 car accessory -snowflake

January 4th, 2018 at 04:39 am

So I want weathertech floor mats for my new minivan. Very extravagent. They already put it in the trunk. But I want the rest The question is how do I buy it? Yes I can afford to buy it. But I want to not just pay for it.

I'm thinking I might try to make it a challenge and see how I can snowflake my way to it. Maybe coupon clipping? Maybe ebates? Pinecone surveys? What else could I do?

I don't want to use my paycheck. Or maybe giving myself the cost of a meal out if we skip eating out? I'm actually trying to not eat out because I want to lose weight.

Do I count borrowing books from the library? Or anything free I can snag? Or selling stuff at the consignment? What can I do to make this happen? Skipping a starbucks?

What do you consider snowflakes? My ticket savings to hawaii? Or our trip at the end of the month?

cars got me thinking

January 3rd, 2018 at 07:47 pm

After we bought the cars I got to thinking about how I've changed my mindset about cars quite a bit. I have always been a buy new and keep car till it dies sort of person. But recently I've started to change. I'm wondering if it's okay to not keep a car until it dies. I am starting to think that it's worth being okay buying a car that you can afford at that moment in time for a purpose. And when that purpose is done it's okay to sell the car?

Cars are depreciating assets. So in the ideal world people would only buy used cars and keep them till they die. But that still raises the question, how used a car do you need to buy to be uber frugal? To maximize the frugality of cars, which are SUPER expensive does it have to be 10 years old and you drive it for 3-5 more years? What if it's only 1 year old and you drive it 10 mores years? Why couldn't you keep it longer?

I guess it's a sliding scale. Right? That to each person the valuation of car is what they put on it. Some would argue any used car is a deal. While myself included might argue perhaps it's gotta be at least 5-6 year old to be worth? But I did save a bit buying a 2-3 year old used car.

Reflecting back on our cars we've now had I've come to the realization that we can just make the best choice at the time we make the decicion.

My first car was a 99 toyota corolla bought for $11k including taxes/fees we sold in 2012 because my DH really wanted a car with latch and airbags. It had 150k miles and still running super strong and if my DH didn't want newer safety features I'm sure it'd still be running! We sold it for $3500. We bought a 2006 Hyundai Sonata in 2012 for $11000 taxes and fees.

He had 2000 ford focus bought new for $13k including taxes and fees we sold in 2010 because it broke down. We sold it for $2500. We bought a new subaru outback base model for $23000 including all taxes and fees.

In 2015 we sold the Hyundai Sonata for $6500 and leased a 2015 Subaru Legacy for $28k. DH wanted the car so we did it. What will happen I'm unsure.

Now in 2017 we ended it buy buying a used 2015 Sienna Minivan for $31k. We aren't selling the Subaru Outback 2010 instead we're giving it to my mom and i'll call it $7k value.

Looking back the best value of depreciation was the new Toyota Corolla for $576/year. Then the Ford Focus $1050/year deprecation, then the Sonata $1500/year. I'm not sure what our current 2 cars will end up but I've decided that you can't always make the best decision with cars.

You have to make the best decision with the information at hand. That means what sort of car do you need or want? Can you afford it? Do you think i'll serve it's purpose?

Have you reflected on all the cars you've owned? How would you judge your purchases? Wise? Unwise? Okay? Did it make you happy and serve a purpose?