One of my below the surface themes over the last couple years has been a focus on becoming more financially responsible. Not to go so far as to say that I’ve been totally financially irresponsible, but I knew there was more I could do to live up to my internal expectation of what it meant to be an “adult”. As if I hadn’t already figure it out having turned 30 last year really should have been a good queue.
Over the past year I started to be a little bit more diligent about tracking my spending primarily using Mint, including setting up budgets that closely matched my revamped “spending expectation” spreadsheet on Google Drive.* I did a lot of analysis when it came to the best way to deal with selling and buying a house. Figuring out expectations for what each new house option meant for Snacks and I in terms of what our lifestyle could/would be. And a couple of times, I even purposely used coupons.
Of course there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement. For instance, maybe this year I will remember to cancel my XBOX Live membership, I don’t use it anymore, before my (twice expired) card gets charged again.** And possibly I can find a way to restrain myself from belligerently spending a large sum of money if the Islanders by some miracle make it to the Stanley Cup.*** Aside from those couple of minor things there are a few bigger items that I’m consciously planning ahead on for 2015.
1. The Wedding – Debt Free Pay Off
A September wedding means there’s still time to be successful. Snacks has done a fantastic job of building a spreadsheet for us to follow. What we need and what it costs on average. What we’ve already paid. And what’s still left to be paid. On the bottom of the sheet there’s a big number, which is basically the only thing I see on that page, that says “HERE IS THE NUMBER”. The number that we expect to have to have in order to cover all of the outstanding, unaccounted for costs. Plus buffer. We have a plan on how to get that put aside by April 15th. For any of you stalkers that are interested in the wedding check out the updates at The Story of My Recent Life. #happilyeverbica
2. The renovation – Debt Free Pay Off
We moved in to our new house over Labor day weekend. Since it’s January obviously we’re all settled in and everything is exactly as we expected. And of course by that I mean we’re on pace to finally be moved in and have everything be exactly what we expected by around June 2016.
One of the things we knew when we bought the house was that the bathroom needed help. There are two bathrooms in the house but one is a half bathroom. The main bathroom could use a little bit of help. Another thing that needed to happen was some work in order to make better use of the space in the upstairs (master bedroom) of our one and half story. It’s a big space that in our opinion is not used as well as it could be. And there’s really not a closet. When we sold/bought we had an expectation on what it would cost to get it the way we wanted and made a plan.
Now the plan is starting to be executed. We’ve got our contractor. We’ve got our bid. We’ve got our start date. And he has our deposit. I know all of the numbers. I know the low end and the high end of the bid. I know what’s not included in the bid (I think.) And of course, buffer. Having already paid the deposit on each of the projects that means we have four more outstanding payments hanging over our heads before they are both complete. Since we started planning for this back in August we should already have this all taken care of.
3. The honeymoon – Prepay and enjoy
How much does a honeymoon cost? I have no idea. I still have no idea. But we need to start planning it. A couple of the issues: We haven’t decided on exactly where; We’re going on two. Two honeymoons? Seems a little grandiose considering this whole post is about financial responsibility. Well, we live in Minnesota. The time to escape Minnesota is during the winter. We’re getting married in the fall which in my opinion is the best time of the year here. But you have to do something after the wedding so that Snacks doesn’t leave work on Friday and return on Monday a Bica.
In the spirit of saving money the mini-moon will be cheap. For all of the travel we’ve done over the last couple of years we’ve built up a lot of points. Snacks has a ton of hotel points. And we both have more than enough Delta miles to get to wherever we want to go. So that should be a high value experience.
For the full blown event, once we figure out exactly what that means we need to know all the costs (plus buffer) and come up with a plan. Throwing it all on my AMEX (cash back) and dealing with it later is not an option. Knowing that it’s sitting there waiting for me when I get back will mean that I wouldn’t fully be able to enjoy it. Not an option.
4. Car and Mortgage Overpayment
Here’s the easy one. I’m in the process of reconfiguring my budget to look for a way to over pay these bills by 10-25%. My bill paying is a well-oiled machine. My spreadsheet is setup in such a way that the same amount of money comes out of every paycheck in order to cover monthly payments. The aggregated total is based on all of the individual totals. Obviously. And my billpay is setup up to automatically pay those amounts each month. So once I change the spreadsheet all I will see is the aggregate total, and once I change my billpay it will all automatically just happen. Adopting the new budget will become just the way it is. It’s like tricking myself into being financially responsible. After the adjustment, I won’t even notice it anymore. I get excited about the little things.
If anybody has read this far I’ll apologize as using you as a pawn in me figuring out a roadmap to deal with my 2015 finances, but I feel pretty good about it.
*Spreadsheets are fun. Spreadsheets for everything. Spreadsheets for everyone.****
**Seriously though, the card has expired two different times, has an address associated to it from prior to my short trip to Utah, and they can still get away with charging it?
***No.
***It’s a bit early. Footnotes on footnotes.
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