June MM wins/losses

[midwestmama]

Thought I would start a new thread for us to share our wins/losses this month.

[midwestmama]

I will start, because I have a loss...

L:  I most recently had an iPhone 12 Pro. Friday night an iOS update was applied, and Saturday morning when I tried to use my phone, it seemed like it would not turn on, and then when it did, the screen was glitchy. Turns out the screen apparently died. I was out of town with my family for DS's baseball tournament, and could not go without a phone, so I had to trade it in (thankfully Verizon currently has a good offer that is even good on broken/damaged phones). $350 (plus the monthly cost for the upgrade) later I have a new phone. My birthday is in a few weeks, so I just told DH to count the new phone as my birthday gift.

ETA:  I realized I do actually have a win to add...

W:  The state of Michigan reduced the state income tax for now due to a budget surplus.  I just looked at my pending deposit for my paycheck tomorrow, and it looks like I'll get $45 more per paycheck now.  Hoping DH will get something similar (he makes a little more than I do, so maybe he'll get around $50 more per paycheck).  Almost $200 more per month will be nice!  It will go directly to paying for gas for our vehicles, since gas usually costs more in the summer and now I'm commuting to work at least 2 days a week (from maybe 2-4 days a month).

[trissie18]

W: I opened online savings accounts for both DSs and transferred most of the money that was sitting in their local bank savings accounts to take advantage of the much higher interest rates.
L: Woke up the other morning with no water and DH was out of town. $263 later the technician diagnosed the problem as the toilet in the kids bathroom was leaking just enough to keep our well pump empty. At least I now know how to leak test the house??

[sadlebred]

It's all losses. I'm waiting for more bad news.

L: I had a cancelled vacation. $650 for accommodations gone. The houses are rented out by directly by owners (not VRBO/Airbnb)-think like they do at the Masters golf tournament. Just for the week, not all the time. This was someone's home. No refunds. Plus $300 in other non-refundable expenses.

I came home to a dead dryer. Add this to the washer that the repair would have cost another $650. I opted not to do it a few weeks ago. The washer was functional but needed new bearings. The tech said I may have had 6 months with it if I could stand the noise. I used the last day of vacation to go to the appliance store and order top of the line Speed Queens. Delivery by a third party was $200.

I had to cash in a cd I've had for a few years and empty all of my savings to pay for them except $25 to keep the accounts open. I have $50 to last til next payday. They BETTER last 25 years.

W: I got paid for the vacation I did take and stayed home. The last few days were nice despite the dryer. A pair of Speed Queens are now in my laundry room. Someone I was splitting the house with found someone to spent 1 (or two?) nights in "my" room. She Venmo-ed me $200 unexpectedly.

Adding another L: The microwave died. I had to replace it.

[wildrice]

Mine is kind of funny but mostly super annoying.

L: When we were in Turkey on vacation a couple of weeks ago, we went to a pottery store and I found a vase that was really pretty and only $130. I don't know why I didn't question that it was that cheap for handmade pottery, but lots of things are less expensive there and it isn't huge or anything, so I didn't. Anyway, I did the math wrong and it was actually $1300. OMG. That is not a "break us" amount of money but it is definitely not something we would have spent that much money on, either - I can't think of any single item I've EVER spent that much on, outside of something like furniture or an appliance. And if I was choosing to spend $1300 I can think of a long list of things I'd prefer to buy.

The paperwork provided does say we can return it, but will have to pay for international shipping both ways (it still hasn't arrive here in the US, but is being shipped). I am probably going to return it because whatever that costs is going to be less than $1300, but I'm pretty pissed about it because I bet it is going to be at least $150 that I end up spending on nothing. (note, I'm pissed at myself, not at the company - they are lovely and did nothing wrong here).

I'm also slightly bummed because it is a really beautiful vase and would be very cool to keep as a memory of the trip.

[niq]

L: It's time to buy a new car, and the type of EV we're looking for is either a ton of money or not available yet. So we will probably lease until the cheaper EVs are on the market in a year or two.

On the plus side, new car shopping is fun?

[womet]

L: We close on our new house tomorrow. And in the next 2 weeks, we'll be replacing the flooring on the first floor, replacing the laminate counters with quartz, and getting a new fridge and also a drink fridge.

[Pom]

Jun 8, 2023 13:41:08 GMT -5 womet said:

L: We close on our new house tomorrow. And in the next 2 weeks, we'll be replacing the flooring on the first floor, replacing the laminate counters with quartz, and getting a new fridge and also a drink fridge.

Congrats on the new house!

[chpmnk1015]

Jun 8, 2023 13:41:08 GMT -5 womet said:

L: We close on our new house tomorrow. And in the next 2 weeks, we'll be replacing the flooring on the first floor, replacing the laminate counters with quartz, and getting a new fridge and also a drink fridge.

Congrats!

[chpmnk1015]

Well.. can't think of much

L: just bought 6 Adirondack chairs because our cheap mesh chairs broke and we have wanted them. Did find a lightening deal that saved 30 each but you could only get 1..so had 3 other friends order for me lol.

W: traveled for work this week so some points on cc that will be reimbursed and 2 good dinners out

[Roc A Bee]

W: My mortgage company says we have a surplus of $1800 in our escrow account, so they sent us a check. Just in time for vacation so that’s good.

L: they are approximating our escrow account will be short next year, so our monthly payment is going up $55. I don’t understand how we will be short when we’ve had a surplus the last two years, but ok.

[Roc A Bee]

Jun 7, 2023 9:21:15 GMT -5 wildrice said:

Mine is kind of funny but mostly super annoying.

L: When we were in Turkey on vacation a couple of weeks ago, we went to a pottery store and I found a vase that was really pretty and only $130. I don't know why I didn't question that it was that cheap for handmade pottery, but lots of things are less expensive there and it isn't huge or anything, so I didn't. Anyway, I did the math wrong and it was actually $1300. OMG.

Ok this is actually really funny because it wasn’t me. Ugh I’d be so frustrated with myself.

[quesyrah]

Win: our kitchen reno stayed in budget!

Loss: our summer vacation is unexpectedly costing more and my travel fund is no longer going to cover the trip. I can’t make up the difference between now and then by throwing extra savings at it, and the thought of pulling from savings to cover a vacation hurts. At least the money is there, but still.

[simpsongal]

L: We had to take some trees down ($$), and we're engaging an architect for our next reno ($$$$).

W: We paid for most of our non-routine expenses this year (camps, vacations, life insurance, fed taxes, 529s, etc.). Hoping the early outlays allow for more debt repayment and redirect for funds for above-mentioned reno.

I should get a step increase this pay period too.

[dcn]

We’ve spent money on upcoming vacations so I guess technically a loss but we have the money set aside plus it’s vacation so win?

I scored flights to Boston for under $1k for the 4 of us which is a big win.

[sent]

W: paid my first mortgage payment yesterday. I finally closed on the building where my business is located last month! I need to do some major updates to the outside but I'm out of money at the moment since I've been paying expenses left and right since January to close on the property.

L: I still need to get my accountant some info to finish our tax return from last year. It's so annoying to gather documents for them every single year!

[ny96]

Loss: I thought we would send the kids to the free school/neighborhood camp, but it ended up being not great, so I signed them up for a camp which is $500 a week each.

Win (sorta, for me): I finally got H to agree to pay down our credit card with savings. We have plenty of savings, but he didn’t want to use them to pay the card despite paying interest charges each month.

Also, we bought a new patio table and benches, and one of the metal legs on the benches is a bit wonky, so I reached out to our sales person and he’s sending a new bench and said we can do whatever we want with the old one. It will look nice in the back garden.

[chpmnk1015]

End of the month soo here I go...

W: hit an efund amount we wanted since we had drained all our savings to buy an investment property in Feb. Not where it was but whew, have something now.

W: met with one of our financial advisors last night and reached out to someone else today to get another perspective

L: have been spending a lot of stuff so we need to cut back

W: kids took 1k of each of their savings and started a Fidelity account. Now need to figure out how to use it

[gt7301b]

L: We had to buy a new car because ours was totaled by a drunk driver while on the street in front of our house

W: We were able to get a car under the MSRP and a loan at 3.9% interest rate. Most dealerships didn't even have the car we wanted in stock which made the car buying process very frustrating. In any other year I would have walked away from the car at least 3 times but we needed another vehicle. We probably could have made due with one car for a month or so but my husband is not so flexible about his schedule.

[sadlebred]

More Ls: Escrow shortage for my house was several thousand dollars. That took the last dollar I had in my checking and savings accounts-literally except $25/each to keep them open. Things should be ok in a paycheck or two. I'm trying not to raid the small pitiful ROTH or another small (really tiny) investment. My house payment still goes up $120/month since taxes went up 30% in 2021 and home owners also went up.

gt7301b Glad no one was hurt but sorry about the car.

[gt7301b]

sadlebred, thanks, Luckily our neighbor called the police and they caught the person so hopefully we will eventually get our deductible back from their insurance too.

[trissie18]

End of the month update:

Ls:

• We started finishing our mudroom which while I budgeted it is still a $$$$ outlay. We built our house 4.5 years ago and left the mudroom unfinished except for spray foam insulation. I am so happy we waited until we lived in the space before making final decisions on design.
• I was hospitalized unexpectedly last week and we have already used our FSA so we will be paying OOP all co-insurance. Hopefully we will meet my OOP max before my upcoming surgery.
• Related to #2 this has been a really bad year health wise for me and I have a lot of upcoming appts that we will be paying OOP co-pays. This is the first year in a long time we have ever used all of our FSA before December - and 90% of it was on me.