Share your money/life news...

[brooke77]

I paid off my SLs! I graduated with about $180K from undergrad and law school. Some had interest rates of 7-8%! It feels so good to be done.

PDQ -
We are like 75% sure we will be relocating from Boston area to Atlanta area. My work has suddenly shifted its attitude about WFH and HR is ignoring my request for a meeting to discuss my extended WFH plan. If my request is denied, I will be searching for a new job. I’m really disappointed by my work and their reasoning (they signed a long-term lease), but equally excited about the prospects of a new opportunity. I have wanted to move south for years and now the timing just seems right.

[Beeps (WOT?*)]

Congratulations brooke77 ! Paying off SLs is an amazing accomplishment, and it feels great when that last check is signed, sealed and delivered. We still celebrate (and mourn that we didn't do the in-person delivery and flip them the bird as we drove off into the sunset, lol.)
Best of luck with your plans. Except for the heat and humidity, I really liked the area. I *loved* my daughter's house and development, and there are a lot of opportunities in the area. Sad that she moved to Jax, although there *are* beaches and she lives basically in a resort community now and there's less traffic.

We're debating on getting a weekend/second home. It's a lot easier to just be able to pack up and go "let's head out to the weekend place" and just head out without needing to worry about stuff like who takes dogs and the like. Problem is, we can't decide between a cabin in the mountains or a place at the beach. They both have their positives and negatives. I'm not really a beach person, but there's one town that has a *lot* available and is on miles of canal, with the beach on one side of town and bay on the other. Or there's mountain cabins near two lakes we like...which are also a mid-point between us and my son and grandkids. They'd drive eight hours to stay at the beach with us though, if we had a beach house. lol. Both are within 2.5-3 hours from us. Also, do we go now, even with a hot sellers' market, or wait until it cools off a bit, probably next year? So many questions.

[chpmnk1015]

Been on mm a long time too.. 2004? Come a long way since then. Our only debt now is house though ill need a car in the next year.. though ive saved a few k to that fund so far. I am unemployed for the moment as of end of april for the first time since well ever. So im looking hard and hoping for something good. Long term we are saving for a lake house... hope maybe when things slow down in a year or 2.

[Pom]

May 22, 2021 18:20:22 GMT -5 artichokie said:

Hey, where do you go? I’m in MI!

We are 30 minutes south of the Straits. I lived here before we were married and my H is a native Michigander from Gaylord. Where are you?

[trissie18]

After listening to MM advice for many years we finally feel like we are making progress and seeing our hard work pay off. We paid off my SLs in January this year, we paid cash for gutters on our new house last month, and we paid cash for a new to us boat last month as well. We are super focused on being able to buy the property next to ours in the next year or two so trying to balance obtaining that goal while also still doing the things we enjoy. We exceeded a big net worth milestone last month and our retirement is less than $10k from achieving an even bigger milestone so I am pretty excited about that.


I spent a couple weeks of freaking out about news that DH company is being bought out (completely unexpected and so far all of the news about it has come from other ppl in the industry - the company themselves have yet to announce the buy-out but we do know the rumors are true). We are going to ride it out for now and hope that DH's request last week for a raise is approved so I can sock away the savings. He has the advantage that two ppl are leaving DH's company to go to a new big company that moved to the area and is paying $20k more per year. DH's boss is pretty nervous he will lose more ppl so he is hopefully more motivated than he was back in February when DH received a very tiny raise. We aren't interested in DH pursuing the new job opportunity quite yet as it requires overnights but it would be an option if push came to shove. We are also confident that he could easily find other jobs in his field that is experiencing a huge shortage even before the pandemic. The hardest thing we will be giving up is the major flexibility DH currently has so we are trying to take that into consideration before making any drastic decisions.

[sent]

I've had a strange turn of events in my financial picture. Five years ago, I became disabled out of nowhere. I filed a claim on a private disability policy I had held since I finished grad school. My diagnosis is that I will remain disabled for the rest of my life. My policy is apparently a unicorn policy that began paying me when the disability started but will also pay me my benefit for the rest of my life because of the relatively young age when I became disabled. Mentally it's a strange place to be. On the one hand, I've lost the ability to practice my profession with my hands. But on the other hand, this career ending event opened up doors for me to build on my degree and do other things as an entrepreneur that I would not have otherwise pursued. And the monthly financial cushion really helps.

Otherwise, we're both doing well financially in our careers and will hopefully continue to only do better through our 40s and 50s. I recently set us up with a financial planner person because I was just getting lost on how to plan for the future. We are taking a vacation this summer to some posh resort in Cape Cod and using $7K in my CC rewards to pay for it. The fact that I don't have to pay that in cash makes me giddy LOL.

[dcn]

H got a promotion in April and a raise which is nice. We are closing on our first house next week! We used a VA loan with zero down and it was such a smooth process (knock on wood).

We are also moving next week and are currently camping in our empty house until Friday. I’m looking forward to a fresh start for all of us.

[jwright]

I posted in the last update about all the house repair/project costs that we were undergoing (entirely new siding and gutters, new HVAC, new to us cars a few months ago) and I'm happy to say that is mostly behind us and I can mentally re-group and organize our financial plan. The tax deadline came and because of our investments and ownerships it is always complicated, this time of year is when we make distributions from our businesses to pay taxes and also pay ourselves. I'm happy with the amount that we netted after taxes.

I have our quarterly meeting with my financial advisor/mentor (he really is so much more than an FA, he is close to family) next week so I'm excited to get back on track.

[deadwing]

I usually lurk on this board, but this seems like a good place to post an update to the question I asked recently about refinancing during a home improvement project.

I was able to move forward with the refi. I'm going from 30 years (25+ remaining) at 4.125% to 15 years at 2.125%! Closing is scheduled for tomorrow.

I'm glad I locked in the refi rate when I did. Even though I'm paying my contractor by check, I've made a number of related purchases on my CC recently and the increased usage brought my credit score down a bit (although it's still in a very good range).

[lolalolalola]

Whelp! We just signed on the dotted line to build a house. I am excited and scared because it is a LOT of money!

I also got an unexpected raise today. It wasn’t much but I’ve been feeling taken advantage of by my company so it helps to be recognized even if it’s not what I fully deserve.

[dr.girlfriend]

May 26, 2021 12:15:22 GMT -5 deadwing said:

I was able to move forward with the refi. I'm going from 30 years (25+ remaining) at 4.125% to 15 years at 2.125%! Closing is scheduled for tomorrow.

Did you calculate out how much you'd save in interest over the life of the loan?  Just curious, since I'm sure it'll be a very satisfying number!  :-D

[deadwing]

Jun 13, 2021 12:32:11 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

May 26, 2021 12:15:22 GMT -5 deadwing said:

I was able to move forward with the refi. I'm going from 30 years (25+ remaining) at 4.125% to 15 years at 2.125%! Closing is scheduled for tomorrow.

Did you calculate out how much you'd save in interest over the life of the loan?  Just curious, since I'm sure it'll be a very satisfying number!  :-D

I have a ballpark number. I've been paying more than the required amount on my mortgage for awhile, so the calculation didn't account for that. It was definitely a satisfying number!

[mich1]

My dad's house just sold, and I'll receive 25% of the proceeds - about $50K. Our retirement is very well funded, so am thinking of taking this money and investing it to supplement my brother's lack of retirement planning. Not about to give it to him outright, as he'd blow through it (like he will likely blow through his share he receives).

[mich1]

Jun 16, 2021 16:17:44 GMT -5 kellady said:

mich1    I liked your post not because your brother would blow through money, but because I think it's really nice to set up something to supplement his retirement.

When my mom passed away, one brother and I helped get our oldest brother set.  (Fighting against three other brothers.)  He passed away of Covid this spring, and I'm so glad we helped his last years be so manageable.  

And I'm in MI too.  Now I'm curious as to where you are.  We are SW very near the second largest city, lol.

I don’t live in Michigan, I’m in WA.  Mich is a nickname a lab TA gave me when I was in college.

[keweenawlove]

I was officially promoted to director of my group last Thursday. Feels good to finally have it official. Big shoes to fill since my previous boss had built the lab up from nothing and had been there over 30 years.

Also, I had to calculate our net worth for some adoption stuff and depending on how we value our house (I know Zillow is far from perfect), we may have just passed a million in net worth.

[keweenawlove]

Pom jealous you're so close to the UP. We try to make it up there a few times a year.

[Pom]

Jun 20, 2021 19:44:47 GMT -5 keweenawlove said:

Pom jealous you're so close to the UP. We try to make it up there a few times a year.

We went up to Hessel Saturday. We’d really like to live in the Les Cheneaux Islands or Grand Marais or….so many awesome places. We finally made it to Lake of the Clouds last year. Loved that entire trip.

Congratulations on your promotion and your new NW comma! Amazing!