Finally got into my ING account. I have several savings accounts adding to about $3000. And a stock account (with cash) of $4600. Need to invest/move at some point.

Had fun the last few days, but most of my financial things were about spending.

Disneyland was $240 (tickets) + $54 (mouse ears) + $60 Lunch + $7 (snacks) + $15 (parking)= $376. For 3. My niece said it was her best birthday ever so that's priceless.

I don't have an estimate on how much I spent for the time the girls were here, I tried to pay for everything. We ate out a few times, and went shopping. I bought the birthday niece who just got a job she needs to dress for, some clothes and shoes. We went to discount stores (Marshalls and Payless) and only spent about $100 for several outfits and 2 pairs of shoes. I bought myself a new shirt for $15.

Wrote a long post last night and lost it. I hit 'save and publish' and it went into the eithers. And I wasn't awake enough to save it.

I posted about my recent vacation with my boyfriend, we met in Vegas for a few nights. We live in different countries so don't get together often. I got a deal for $109 at the Venetian (from the email list, we've stayed before). He flew in on miles ($114) in fees. And I drove. We didn't spend much else, the fancy dinner I budgeted $100 was only $56, and we mostly won back the money we spend so we could get free Heinkeins in the casinos. I find gambling a bit boring so can't do it for too long. I think its more interesting when the outcome might actually change ones life. I originally budgeted $1500 for the trip, I need to see how close I came. And I have no money saved (I only planned the trip last month). I should have enough in my monthly discretionary funds to pay it all this month, but perhaps I'll have to dig into next months money.

I have 2 nieces coming on Friday for 5 nights. This trip has been planned for 6 months and back then I started a special account and put in automatic savings. I have already used it to pay for their airline tickets, and have $780 left. The only big thing we have planned is Disneyland for one of the nieces birthdays. (they are in their 20s so they will have their own spending money, but aunti likes to pay for things). I'm thinking the money I have saved should easily cover things.

TO DO - get actual figures for both trips.

Made a pretty graph to show our take home income. I knew I was bringing in a bit more than k, didn't quite realize it was 60:40.

I seemed to have already celebrated the new year.

I made a time line and figured out when I should pay what. I am going to change my automatic savings to be monthly and occur with a pay period.

This has all of my regular expenses. I have $1000/month for my credit card which is an over estimate, I only charged $700 the last few months. And often charges have funds designated in a savings account.

The only other bill on here is K credit card, but according to this I will have about $3000/month (plus any extra income) to put towards the balance. Minus any other bills or things that come up. We'll see how this prediction holds out...

Now to go change the automatic withdrawals...


(updated - pay dates switched)

A big part of the financial picture is income. My father used to say 'its better to make your income bigger than your budget than to try to make your budget match your income'. I got a lot of great financial advice from my dad.

Tracking my income is a bit tricky. I have several sources. I think for now I will just focus on income from salary. And just on 'take home', which isn't even 'net' because retirement has been taken out. But its what actually gets deposited into the bank account for me to use.

There are 3 sources (2 of mine, 1 of K) and they all get paid differently.

Me
$1,468 - every 2 weeks - $38,183/year, $3,182/month
$1,741 - twice a month - $41,788/year, $3,482/month
$1,000/month (consulting, not guaranteed past spring 2012)

K
$2102 - twice a month - $50,461/year, $4205/month

Total (not including consulting)
$10,870 per month, $130,432 /year

Timing for mortgage payments has been an issues (partly because I never wrote it out like this and thought about it, this blog has been helpful). Mortgage is $2600/month (includes $600 in taxes) and none of the income is enough to cover the entire payment. So I have a savings account that I use. I need to re evaluate how to use it, I should be deducting the full mortgage from paychecks I don't need for other bills. (first i need to study the other bills timing..) And I should study when the automatic savings gets taken out, they should correspond to income (some were set up with other income structures or just willy nilly - $25/week sort of thing).

... I started a to do page so I can keep track of all the things I think about when I blog. When I started this I was wondering what I would do once I wrote all my initial posts, and so far each post seems to end with things I need to do. Little bit each day. I have the rest of my life to work on it.

Went shopping at Trader Joe's today, bought about 2 weeks worth of my food and a months worth of wet food for the cats (they mostly eat dry). They like Tuna for Cats from Trader Joe's.
I got 6 bottles of wine (Italian), and more cheese than I usually get. I got cheddar, mozzarella, smoked mozzarella, creamy cheddar chives and herbs from New Zealand, cheddar & Gruyere (mixed), and a cheese fondue. I am way more concerned about the additional calories than the money for all this cheese:} But cheese is one of my favorite things in the world and one of the few things I indulge in.

The fake meat is two packages of Morningstar fake bacon. Its one of the few fake meats I eat regularly. Trader Joe's is one of the cheaper places to buy it so I buy 2 when I"m there.

The groceries is a pizza dough (1.29) and black olives. I also sometimes buy dried or fresh ravioli and tortellini for a few dollars that lasts weeks.

I need to do a lot in this category. I have vague ideas where my money goes and comes from, but its been a while since I've looked at specific financials.

Its hard for me to care in too much detail when my mortgage is so high. I pay $2600/month (includes taxes). So adding up my $3 coffees spent once a week seems a bit silly. But I really should do it so I can actually quantify this view, and perhaps the numbers won't actually be like my perceptions.


Here's a good place to start. Add to my TODO...