Friday, December 19, 2014

A long overdue financial update...part 1

I am going to update the sidebar for Jan 1.  I have an estimated total based on a few more payments this month, but would rather just get through it all before I declare an absolute number.  I will say that the total number is lower.  We were shooting for about 52k total by year end, and no...we didn't make it.  It was in range, but the move threw some of that off, along with some miscellaneous overspending on a few things.  But we are heading in the right direction.

Salary

My salary hasn't changed any.  December/Early January is traditionally a low salary month time for me, as our office is closed 5 days for holidays between Thanksgiving and New Years.  Since I don't have paid time off, I don't get paid.  I am sometimes able to make up a few of those hours, but not 40 of them.  This year, December ended up being a 3-paycheck month....so that is offsetting things a little.  It would have been nice to have a whole paycheck as "extra" though.

G-man's first paycheck since the move is Dec 22 so we will find out what a new "normal" paycheck will look at.  No night differential, no overtime or holiday pay.  Just 80 hrs of regular pay.  One thing we did to offset the pay cut is.....


Retirement Loan Adjustment

We thought long and hard about this, but we extended the loan by one year.  When the loan originated, it was for 4 years (we could have made it 5 then and had a lower per paycheck amount taken out, but wanted to get rid of it faster).  This was the only loan we had any wiggle room on, so we changed the terms.  It was supposed to be paid off in April/May 2016....and now it is 2017 based on current repayment.  We can always pay it off early.  But this allowed us to have about $300 more cash per month.  We made the adjustment in October, which allowed us to save up $500 for G-man to take with him as "back up" money while we were still getting the night differential and such.  Now that we are in full on "new job" mode, that money will go toward our regular monthly expenses if need be.  If not, it will get put aside to be used for another purpose.


Moving Expenses

We spent about $800 ($300 was for a window repair!!!) getting the house ready to sell.  We used cash.  We had a pile of money that we were planning on putting to debt, and I hadn't  pulled the trigger when the move came about.  So we were able to use cash and not go into any more debt on this one.  But it all adds up....power washing the house, cleaning the carpets, landscaping, repainting a few things.

G-man drove his car from CT to NC, so we can claim his mileage/gas on our taxes in February.  But our MAJOR moving expenses will happen in 2015, so those won't be claimed until 2016.  We know we will get some money back....just no idea how much.  We are saving every receipt so we will see how it goes.

The major expense will be the actual MOVING of the household.  Estimates are at $4500 for a moving company.  Yes, we are hiring a moving company. We have never done this....always moved ourselves.  But at this point, we have more stuff (even with all the purging that has been happening since summer)  And we ain't as young as we used to be.  We won't have anyone to help us, so we decided against doing it ourselves.  We put our dues in...we have moved ourselves 4 times....this one will be on someone else.  And we can claim this on our taxes.

However we do have some money that we are debating about.....more on that next week!!!

6 comments:

  1. You are doing good, Mysti. Don't blame you on hiring movers. My husband has made it clear that should we ever move again, we are hiring movers. Some things are worth the money.

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  2. I agree with using movers. You don't save any money if one of you hurts your back or breaks a TV.

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  3. Yup, use movers, worth every penny and if something happens to your stuff insurance will cover it.

    Can you adjust the loan back to 4 years later on once you are settled and have a better financial picture?

    HS

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    1. Yes and no to the adjustment. Yes, we can adjust it...but then the per paycheck amount will go up higher than where it was before to make up for the time it was lower. Does that make sense. The more likely scenario is making a big snowball payment, which we can do at anytime. The interest rate is so low, it doesn't really impact anything.

      It will be at least 6 more months before we move...and then we have to let the dust settle from that. If I get a baller job, and I am raking in the bennies....we may adjust it again. We are now paying $221 per check....down from $380 per check.

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  4. I think that was a good move on the 401k loan. You need to hoard all the cash you can for the move. I hope you're able to pay the full $4500 in cash. Can you get a discount with the mover because of the federal employer? Never hurts to ask.

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  5. Definitely a smart move to hire movers. Sounds like you're getting your ducks in a row. Hope the house sells soon!

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