Missing Sock Pairs

I discovered the mystery of the missing socks that come out of the wash.
You need both socks to go into the washer in the same load to get an entire pair to come out!

Happy Halloween.

Challenge: Can we spend less than $X,000 per month?

For example:
$7,000 -Yes
$6,000 -Maybe
$5,000 -No

HOME
Mortgage
Snowball
Insurance
Lawn Care
Improvements
Repairs
Furniture
Decor Items
Landscaping
Pest Control

UTILITIES
Cable
Phone
Cell Phone Plans
Cable Modem for Internet
Oil
Sewer / Trash Pickup
Electric

CAR
Car Payments
Insurance
Inspections
Registrations
Maintenance
Gas
Repairs

SCHOOL
Tuition
Snacks
Lunch
Uniforms
Shoes
Gym Uniforms
Class Pictures
Class Trips
Holiday Parties (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines, St. Patty's
Day, Easter, End of the year parties)
Technology Fee
Supply Fee
Fund Raisers
School Supplies (backpacks, lunch bags, stationary)
Presents for Teachers

MEDICAL
Medical Plans
Flexible Spending Plans
Co-Pays
Pharmacy
Medical Products
Hospital Co-Pays

HOLIDAYS (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter)
Decorations
Food
Drinks
Holiday Cards
Stamps
Presents

BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
Decorations
Food
Drinks
Presents
Party Games
Birthday celebrations outside the home

RELIGIOUS EVENTS

CHRISTENINGS
Presents
Food
Outfits
Decorations
Invitations

YOUNG CHILDREN (NOT POTTY TRAINED)
Diapers
Wipes
Burp Cloths
Bottles
Formula (1st Year)
Car Seats

FOOD
Dining Out
Take Out
Fast Food
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Snacks
Drinks
Desserts

CLOTHES
Casual
Formal
Work
Shoes
Bathing Suits

PERSONAL CARE
Hair Cuts
Personal Care products

HEALTH CLUB / SWIM CLUB
Memberships

PETS
Food
Checkups
Tests
Grooming
Vacation Pet Care

VACATIONS
Travel
Hotel /Accommodations
Meals
Amusements
Entertainment
Souvenirs

TECHNOLOGY
Computer upgrades
Printer
Television
Paper
Ink

VIDEO AND PHOTOGRAPHY
Cameras
Film
Developing
Printing
Paper
Albums

DONATIONS
Church
Charities

CHILD CARE
Babysitting
Toys
Videos

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

CONTINUING EDUCATION

SPORTS
Registration Fees
Uniforms
Pictures
Snacks for teams
Tuition Fees
Equipment

ENTERTAINMENT
Movies
Admissions
Seasonal Supplies
Books
Music

How Do You Mentally Prepare For 4 Weeks Without A Paycheck

--Due to taking four weeks of family leave this issue is upon us.

Prepare ahead of time
1) Take the rest of the paychecks and make up the difference. For example $26,000 per year becomes $24,000 per year. During the weeks without a paycheck you need to draw from previous paychecks. If you normally live on $500 per week you need to live on less, approximately 7 or 8% less. For every thousand dollars you make you need to save $80 or 8%.
2) Assuming you do not know ahead of time regarding the non paid leave or you are not prepared you need to draw from a separate source of funds. You need to repay that source within a set amount of time. Use the money to pay expenses. Return a set amount each paycheck to the borrowed upon source. This method would work best if you have some type of savings or emergency fund. A key is to pay back the source so your source of extra funds is not depleted next time you need to use the funds.

Cut down on expenses.
If you need to fund certain weeks with other weeks paychecks try to cut down expenses. Do you regularly donate to charities? Obviously you can't contribute without the necessary funds. But if the transfers and payments are automatic withdrawals you need to consider changing these before the transfers and withdrawals are set up for payment.
In our case this would mean revisiting saving accounts and retirement account transfers. In addition, charities and church donations need to be evaluated. Due to our family leave situation, we would not want to make any or as large a donation or transfer in the weeks where the paychecks were not present.
Now that a few weeks of no paychecks is looming upon us the time to prepare ahead of time is past.
We decided to take the unique opportunity of having both parents at home while caring for our newborn twins and their three siblings.

Financial Makeover

It is always good to revisit your finances when changes in your life occur. In our case, we need to adjust for additions to the family, paycheck changes and school tuition increases.

Snowball Payments
Recently we bought a new house and set up snowball payments. Should these weekly payments be stopped because of a lack of paycheck? This dilemma is greater because this will affect when our home is paid off. My gut reaction is to definitely make the snowball payments because more interest accrues without the payments being made. Snowball payments are certainly voluntary but they are a form of debt reduction and still considered important to pay on a regular basis to pay off our house early.

Church Donations
If we regularly contribute a portion of our income (ex. 10%) to our church; what should we do during the weeks without a paycheck? Do we not make payments at all or do we reduce our payments by a percentage because our total income for the year has decreased? Our options are
A) No payments for 4 weeks
B) Reduced payments for the rest of the year
C) Combination of A and B

My instincts say that B is the best option. This way the church maintains a steady stream of income and there are no additional decisions to make such as when to start making the payments again.

Savings Transfers
We make 2 savings transfers each week. $40 for a savings account and $120 for future tuition payments, pool membership and funding a retirement account. Since the bills are going to be the same (no reduction); these transfers need to remain the same. The $120 amount needs to be revisited because this weekly amount was based on a lower tuition amount. Now we need to adjust the amount based on the higher tuition rates and based on additional students in school.

As we go further into this discussion, another item comes to mind. The reality of the downturn of the economy is that everything cost more. Many of us have broken the rule of spending less than we make. During this overall financial transformation we need to keep in mind that for the last year we have been regularly supplementing our income with our savings. Rather than waiting for the breaking point, lets prepare now for the ultimate goal.
Spend less than we make ALWAYS!

Investments

A couple years back, Americans were afraid to open their retirement savings statements for fear of knowing how much they lost. Was that true? Wouldn't you want to know if your statement said zero? Is now the time to revisit those statements and try to pick up the pieces? Many people reported that their retirement accounts were not as much as they anticipated and they would need to work for a longer amount of time.
How can we learn from the turmoil of the last few years? Are we ready for more risky investments or should we stay with small but practically guaranteed returns? Should we continue to be risk averse?
Normally it is a good time to buy when markets are down if there is going to be an upswing in the near future. Has the economy rebounded enough to start investing again?

Brother John

Are you sleeping, are you sleeping
Brother John? Brother John?
Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing
Ding, dong, ding. Ding, dong, ding!

We all love baby, yes we do. Yes we do.
We all love baby, yes we do. Yes we do.
Baby is going to sleep now.
Baby is going to sleep now.
His belly's full. His belly's full.
His diaper's clean. His diaper's clean.

Our 3 cribs

1st -over 15 years old
2nd -less than 10
3rd -unknown, 2nd hand

*all pass the soda can test for the bars

When you have three children under 3 more cribs become essential but how many do you actually need? Our two year old rolled over at a month in a half making her bassinet unsafe for her.

With our 1st child we had 1 crib and 1 bassinet. He slept overnight in the bassinet and took naps in his crib. The problem was where to put him during the day. Son 2 rec. his own crib which he stayed in until age three. Even though we had a convertible crib, he rec. a plastic toddler bed similar to his brother. That left an extra crib. Good thing that crib did not get purged since we are now in the market for a third crib.

Now we are the happy owners of 3 cribs, 1 of which is a convertible crib. I would estimate that we spent about $550 for all 3 cribs realizing that the 1st was passed down.

Conversion beds are helpful but not always practical. I doubt many children will want to admit that their college dorm bed has the bars from their crib as the headboard. I can see using a crib as a toddler bed but beyond that I think the child probably needs an upgrade.

Next step is to find some mattresses. One of the allergist's questions for my son was how old was his mattress. So I guess that is an item that is worth buying new or fairly new.