Cash is Back!

Welcome to my little corner of the internet where I talk about our personal finances. If you scroll back, you will notice I document each month where I find extra income. 

For many years we were moving around with the military and I was dreaming of putting down roots. I decided to start saving for our next home down payment. I made a Big Goal of $200K saved! In late 2021, we made an offer on the home and I made a final post about where we ended up with our Big Goal. You can read about it here.

Spoiler alert, we didn't meet the Big Goal, but we saved over half! In the end, we had $112,487.84 saved towards our goal. That was ALL of our savings outside of retirement. We put about $80K down on our mortgage and then spent another $25K on some needed upgrades, specifically a new deck, siding repairs and painting of the exterior. All money that has been well spent!

Today, I was making note of the cash we have in our savings accounts and noted that it was over what we had saved in 2021. It has taken us over 4 years to get back to that large of a balance. Today we are at $114,100.37. We even bought a new Honda Odyssey in during that time and paid it off in full. 

At this time, we are embarking on a transition. My husband (age 56) officially retires from the military at the end of this month (February 2026). He will be receiving a retirement check that we can live on, but our budget will be tighter than the past. Thus we have a lot of cash we can supplement from as needed. I am so grateful to the habit of saving. The ability to live on less than we earned. 

For anyone that comes across this and reads, please know that saving provides a safety net, breathing room, and options. If you look for money to save from your income, or in unusual sources, you will find it. What we focus on expands! Keep track...it helps so much!!  

Pot of Possibilities - August 2021 - Final

This will be my last Pot of Possibilities post, at least for awhile! We are buying a home, which is what much of these funds were meant to support. The original goal was $200,000 by end of 2023. Not sure we would have made it, but we really might have been close. Let's see where we ended up!

Paycheck 8/1 $1,022.77

Paycheck 8/15 $1000.77

USAA Rewards $3.20

Amex Rewards $88.73

FNBO Interest $12.87

NFCU Interest $42.76

August Total $2,167.90

YTD Total $20,427.46

POP Total $112,487.84

I really wanted to reach the original goal, but it's time to put down roots. It's time to spend and invest in our home. These years of savings and tucking funds away have allowed us to get to this point. And it's quite gratifying honestly. After the move I will be back with new goals, new plans. Keep saving! It's all worth it. 

Pot of Possibilities - June 2021

First half of the year of savings complete! We are looking to roughly save $30,000 towards our Pot of Possibilities this year. We are on target and slightly ahead at this point. 

6/1 Paycheck $858.82

6/15 Paycheck $1029.84

NFCU Interest $55.08

FNBO Interest $12.45    

USAA Rewards $6.13

Chase Freedom $4.28

Amex Rewards $76.80

June Total $2043.40    

YTD Total $15,621.31

POP Total $107,681.69

I usually have a US Bank reward of $3.50. The bank now requires a minimum of $25 in rewards before redemption. I'm currently only using for our AT&T internet bill for 5% off. The small amounts add up, but I'm getting less interested in keeping this card. 

Interest is declining as two of our CDs matured this month and we cannot get anything close to what we had for interest now. It really isn't the best time to be holding cash. I plan to open a money market at Navy Federal rather than having the proceeds from the CDs in regular savings account. That will help a little. 

How did you do with your savings this month?

POP Contributions November 2020

These are the contributions to our Pot of Possibilities for November:

11/1 Paycheck $310

11/15 Paycheck $310

Interest earned $80.10

USAA reward $6.00

Chase reward $6.71

US Bank reward $3.50

2 Chase settlement cks $150.00

Wells Fargo refund $5.00

Ibotta reward $20.30

November Total $891.61

YTD Total $9,716.44

POP Total $81,800.37

I made a prediction last month that we will get to $82,500 by the end of the year and we are still on track to do that. Who hoo!

I'm still pondering a way to get to $85K. We have the $2,400 we received as stimulus money in April. I set it aside to potentially assist with our daughter's education. I have other money to use first, so it seems silly to not add it. That alone will get us to the $85K goal. 

Okay, let's add it!!  Revised list of November POP contributions. 

11/1 Paycheck $310

11/15 Paycheck $310

Interest earned $80.10

USAA reward $6.00

Chase reward $6.71

US Bank reward $3.50

2 Chase settlement cks $150.00

Wells Fargo refund $5.00

Ibotta reward $20.30

Stimulus $ (April) $2,400.00

November Total $3,291.61

YTD Total $12,116.44

POP Total $84,200.37

Now look at that! Just under $800 to make it to the $85K goal. We seem to average close to that in contributions every month, so I expect we will make it. Even if short by a little bit, I will add to it and make it happen! 

See you in January to report the end of 2020 POP contribution results!

2021 Financial Planning: College, Promotion and Taxes

I've been running lots of numbers over the last couple weeks to help us plan for college and to adjust for my husband's promotion which should be effective on December 1. It remains to be seen how long it will take to get the correct pay. 

Just a little update, slightly unrelated, our oldest daughter graduated college in May with about $5,500 in student loans. She starts her first full time job on November 30. She has been preparing a budget and asking about things we pay for that she will take over, which is primarily auto insurance. Her paycheck in comparison to ours which has grown over time is stressing me out and giving me flashbacks to our early married years! I'm proud that she is thinking ahead and trying to figure it all out. I reminded her that some of what she has saved was a housing refund from the spring and should be applied to her loan. While I don't think she wants to see her savings go down, she seemed to be relieved about a much lower balance to work on! 

Our youngest daughter just took her last final of the semester. A few weeks ago she signed up for spring classes and determined that she can't keep up the 18 credit hours per semester as an engineering major. This means she will be extending her time at the university by one semester. For us that means four full semesters of tuition and housing left to pay. She has just under $12K in an Educational Savings Account (ESA), around $4K in a UTMA and 8 months of Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits to use. We also save $500 a month for college expenses to cover at least $4000 in eligible expenses so we can take advantage of the American Opportunity Tax Credit(AOTC). We do seem to find a way to spend the full $6000 we save each year towards her expenses. 

The current plan is to pay out of pocket for tuition in January, using her ESA to pay for housing. We will begin using the Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits in August 2021. It will cover all of January 2022 and possibly a small portion of her final semester in August 2022. The final semester will be a larger bill as her scholarship will have run out, but we have figured out that we will have the money on hand to pay it as we continue to save the $500/month. We might have extra funds that we won't use, but that will be determined by how much tuition rises over the next two years. I started the process to start using the GI Bill benefits this spring, but when we realized she was going to need an extra semester it made sense to wait, primarily so we could also get benefit of the AOTC in 2021, very helpful as we adjust to the raise my husband is getting. In 2022, we will no longer be eligible to use the AOTC, but the Lifetime Learning Credit is an option and also provides some tax relief. 

In reviewing our taxes for this year and next, I had to calculate my husband's future pay and how taxes would affect the increase which is significant as he is being promoted to the next rank. We have maxed out our Roth IRA for quite a few years now, including the catch up amount for my husband because he is over 50. We have been in the lowest two (I think) tax brackets and it made sense to pay the taxes now knowing we aren't likely to be in even lower tax brackets at retirement. Without any deferred retirement we most definitely hit the 22% tax bracket. However, I am considering putting the amount he puts into his Roth IRA all into a Traditional IRA or adding it to his TSP (Thrift Savings Plan). We save on taxes now and will likely be in a lower tax bracket when these funds are withdrawn on these funds and their earnings. I think that is the plan anyway. I may go back and see if I can figure out a smaller amount to add to the TSP to keep the taxes low, but also put some into the Roth. Just takes time to figure out and I do feel good that I have a plan for now at least! 

The next step is to determine what we do with the extra income. Do we just save it? Should we save it in a mutual fund or look for a great CD rate (do those exist?!)? I feel like we are in a new place with our income, so it's time to start dreaming what this extra money could do!

Have you made any adjustments to your finances as you look ahead to 2021?

The End of Saving Advice, Starting Over

I've been blogging at a site called Saving Advice for over 11 years. The site was suddenly taken down, or as the owner said in an email, all blogs and forums were deleted! Yikes. Obviously, this is very disappointing to have information I have written wiped off the internet completely.

Of course, all of our banking information and accounts have no connection to the writing, but I did use that blog to document our goals. At first I thought I had no information to recreate our current goal balances, but as my luck would have it, the history on my phone calculator has my September 1 calculations! So excited!!

On the first of every month, I record the interest we earned from our savings accounts, as well as our progress on our Big Goal, to save $200,000 towards our next home. And in the last four months or so, I have also been tracking our progress on paying ourselves back for a $3000 down payment on our daughter's car. I had been putting these into separate posts on Saving Advice. For this month, I will post all of the progress in one post since I am restarting this blog.

September 2019 Interest Earned
FNBO $63.39
NFCU $120.39
USAA $0.02
Total Interest $183.80

The original down payment on our daughter's car was $3000. As of the end of August, we the balance we had left to pay ourselves back was $1,880.55.

This month I found several extra funds to apply to this payback:
US Bank $14.60
Chase Freedom $2.54
Amex Rewards $55.66
Amazon Gift cards $48
Pinecone Survey $3
eBay Sales $18.40
Tuna Class Action $2.38
Hair Care Class Action $11.79
Total Towards Payback $156.37
New Car Down Payment Balance $1,724.18

It was a slow month accumulating extra funds to apply to this goal. The truth is some months are easier than others in finding extra money. It was also expensive this month buying airline tickets and few extra purchases at home. I'm very thankful we do have extra funds to put towards our goals each month!

The original Big Goal balance at the end of August was $69,945.35. Our year to date balance was $6,959.90. We are currently applying $175 twice per month towards this goal in addition to the interest earned on our savings.

September Big Goal additions
Paycheck 9/1 $175.00
Paycheck 9/15 $175.00
Total Interest $183.80
Total $533.80
New YTD Big Goal Total $7,493.70
New Big Goal Total $70,479.15

So excited to have exceeded the $70K mark! We are now 35.2% complete on our $200,000 goal.

Thanks for reading! And if you are here from Saving Advice, comment down below and let me know where you are blogging now, so I can follow you!