August Wins/Losses

[midwestmama]

Ready to kick off the new month. 

W:  DH and I are paid 26 pay periods a year, and this month is a 3-pay month for both of us.  Woot woot!  We budget based on 2 paychecks a month, so the 3-pay months usually help with higher expenses in the summer (traveling) and Christmas.

L:  We had to have a tree taken down as it was growing too close to our septic tanks.  We also had them do some other tree trimming, and in total it was $1500.

ETA:  L:  DH is sending the payment that we owe $1700 as the amount insurance does not cover for the rental van we had on spring break which got hit in the condo parking lot.  (We're not too happy with the insurance adjuster...he told DH that because we used a cc to rent the vehicle, there might be a possibility that the cc would cover some of the out-of-pocket cost.  The adjuster told DH to wait until everything was final to check with our cc company.  Once it was settled (about 1.5 weeks ago), DH and contacted the cc company and they said that we were literally 1 day past the timeframe to submit such a claim.  So that sucks.  Lesson learned to contact the cc company in parallel to learn about claim deadlines and then push the adjuster to finalize before then.)

ETA:  L:  Took the dog to the vet last Friday (8/2), and after 2 shots, a Cytopoint injection, visit fees, and paying for a senior dog test panel, it was $650.  Our dog is only 4 years old, but he has chronic skin issues.  For a long time, the vet thought it was due to allergies, but with a few other symptoms, she wants to do the senior dog test panel, as one of the diseases it covers is Cushing's, which our dog has a few symptoms which align with that disease.  We love our dog, but man, is he a money pit.

[heygrey]

Win: we came in under budget for our vacation this past week by ~$500!

Loss: we arrived home at noon and immediately took our dog to the vet. She got a piece of spear grass in her ear and it caused an infection. $330 and three medications later...

At least we're still ahead.

[starburst604]

Wins: I got a payout from our marital estate that allowed me to pay off my car loan and some other random debts with some left to save. Also, managing my budget is SO much easier now that I no longer share finances with STBX! He messed up every single thing I tried to do to manage our budget with his overspending. I can finally pay bills with credit cards to earn rewards without him running up the balance. It's so refreshing to not log into the accounts and be like WTAF.

Losses: None right now!

[moonpie]

Win: I just paid for my last month of preschool tuition for DD2. So excited to get back that $1100 each month in our budget.

Loss: DH had to have surgery on our vacation in June. The medical bills just started coming in and we are up to $60k in bills before insurance. I’m expecting our share will be around $6k. I have it in our HSA but don’t love the idea of spending it.

[sadlebred]

Let's start counting my losses b/c we know I never have a win.

L: $300+tip for transportation to my hand surgery Monday. I also have to go COBRA. I spent about $50 on bandages, waterproof cover for the shower, and other medical stuff for the hand. I'm not sure what I'll do for the 2nd surgery. I can't swing another $300.

W: Hand surgery is free since I met my insurance OOP max. The other hand gets done in a few weeks before I don't have any insurance.

[laterz]

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

We're replacing our water pipe.
It is not cheap.
It is not sexy.

I just want it done so I can never think about it again.

[noodleoo]

W: moonpie , you just reminded me that we are also on our last month of daycare! Wahoo!!!! Been waiting for this milestone for 9 years!

L: just as DD2 starts elementary school, the afterschool program has changed to no longer include care during school vacation weeks and professional development days. That increases our yearly cost by $2500. My friends all told me not to get too excited about the savings dropping daycare and they were right.   Between that and paying for summer camps for DD2, we will not be saving much which is insane.

[simpsongal]

L: Car tax bill came in at nearly $1000.....ugh. More vet bills keep coming in too. Waiting on the water bill - we have a leaky hose that I've put off fixing, bc $$, but seeing what that's costing us may push me forward w/a fix.

W: Ditto to a 3 paycheck month, we're inching closer to paying off that CC due in October. I should be getting a bonus soon too, hopefully this month.

[midwestmama]

W: DH and I are selling some of DS's outgrown baseball and football equipment. So far, we've made $170, and we still have a football helmet to sell. Crossing my fingers the helmet sells on Marketplace. (We can sell it to a used sporting goods store, but of course won't get much for it.)

[themoneytree]

Wins:

1: We are currently on our 4th home exchange so far this summer. Two in July and two in August. About a month travel in Europe in all. I think value is prob $10,000 plus.

2: Our spare garage re-rented without a single down day. New tenant paid for 2.5 months in advance which is very handy in covering some costs on the new house.

Losses:

1: School fees due. Groan. I decided to pay the $100 fee and pay monthly this year.

2: Stock market? I can’t log in to my account from here but last time I looked it wasn’t great.

3: Eating out spend is still ridiculous. We are going to do an eat at home September (unless we are out with friends).

[Susie]

W (or at least, last L of this nature):  LAST DAYCARE CHECK EVAR!!1!  

W (or at least, deferring the L):  I posted a few months ago about my car, either on MM or ML.  Basically, it's a 2017 VW Jetta with now about 48k miles... that needs a stupid and frivolous and annoying and high touch point repair... that costs $2k.  The touch screen that controls the entire infotainment, BT, Apple CarPlay, backup camera, etc. system isn't working properly and needs to be replaced.  Without it, I can't make the screen display a Waze map even if I use my phone to plan/start a route.  I can't answer a phone call, or change a radio station, or listen to music via my phone.  It malfunctions more, the hotter it is outside, so obviously it's been a real pain lately.

I started mentally shopping for a new car when we found out the price of the fix, for a whole bunch of reasons.  But long story short, I didn't repair the Jetta, and I didn't buy a new car either.  I defaulted to the one solution I said I didn't want, which was to just live with it.

IDK how long I'll make it, but every month I don't do anything about it is a month's car payment saved.

[heygrey]

W: H lowered our internet bill by $32/month and increased the speed/quality/something I don't understand.

L: My 10 year old is going to literally eat up every dollar of savings. I made him two eggs for breakfast and then he asked for 2 more. RIP my grocery budget.


Susie , I've thought about your car several times this summer and wondered what decision you made. We had car issues (engine) at the same time and I thought we'd do the repairs and wait it out, but we ended up buying a new (to us) car at the end of June.

[Susie]

heygrey, I still have no idea what I'll actually decide to do.  I pretty much decided not to decide for the summer.  We had just committed to a $$$$ yard project when this repair initially came up, financing rates were high, and I just honestly didn't have time to go test drive anything.

I'm planning to reevaluate this fall.  I'm hoping to test drive a few possible replacement options and see if I feel meh or love them.  That's likely to tip the scales.  I still like the idea of a hybrid CRV, or a plug in hybrid RAV4, but haven't driven them yet.

[heygrey]

Aug 15, 2024 9:03:42 GMT -5 Susie said:

heygrey , I still have no idea what I'll actually decide to do.  I pretty much decided not to decide for the summer.  We had just committed to a $$$$ yard project when this repair initially came up, financing rates were high, and I just honestly didn't have time to go test drive anything.

I'm planning to reevaluate this fall.  I'm hoping to test drive a few possible replacement options and see if I feel meh or love them.  That's likely to tip the scales.  I still like the idea of a hybrid CRV, or a plug in hybrid RAV4, but haven't driven them yet.

The plug in hybrid Rav4 is basically my dream car right now. My friend drives ones and I love it. She was the reason I looked seriously at Toyota and we ended up with a Corolla Cross. It's the right size SUV for our small family and it gets better gas mileage than my Hyundai Elantra did. If we had time to order I would have gotten a Cross Hybrid, but we had a short timeframe to buy and had to take what was available. So far we're really happy with it.

[sadlebred]

L: My county property tax went up by $500. There goes an increase for my house payment next year. I'm assuming that means my city tax is going up, too.

W: My 2nd hand surgery of the month will cost me $0 for an $18,000 15 minute surgery.

Let's see what blows up on me in the next 2 weeks. (Still looking for that job....)

[ssmjlm]

Susie, I've put probably $4k into my 2014 pathfinder this summer between air conditioning repair and brakes, but we're still paying on DH's truck, my car doesn't even have 100k miles, and I just don't want to either have a 2nd car payment or go from one paying off his truck to having a payment for mine.

I'm hoping to get at least another 3 years out of the car at this point. I'm also not a car person, so I don't really care that's "older."

[Susie]

Aug 16, 2024 7:37:26 GMT -5 ssmjlm said:

Susie , I've put probably $4k into my 2014 pathfinder this summer between air conditioning repair and brakes, but we're still paying on DH's truck, my car doesn't even have 100k miles, and I just don't want to either have a 2nd car payment or go from one paying off his truck to having a payment for mine.

I'm hoping to get at least another 3 years out of the car at this point. I'm also not a car person, so I don't really care that's "older."

Yeah, I get all the reasons to either just repair, or live with it, basically anything but replace, and I've been in that camp on many occasions.  I actually can't think of a time when I ever got rid of a car <100k miles.  But there are also some reasons peripheral to the car itself that push me in the direction of replacing as the eventual solution.  I don't want to sink $2k into a car that isn't the right fit right now, KWIM?

- Both of our cars are paid off.
- Our cars are sub-ideally close to the same age:  The Jetta is a 2017 with 48k miles bought in 8/2017, and we have a 2018 Atlas with about 60k miles bought in 11/2017.  We had almost completely overlapping finance terms on those, which wasn't great.  It was a long story involving offloading a TDI VW that pushed us to do it anyway on that timeline.  Replacing the Jetta early, while it still has some trade in value, will allow us to get closer to an offset schedule for replacement.
- Functionally, I think I would rather have a wagon or a small SUV than a sedan now.  We travel with our dogs (for weekends, for vacations), and our 1 yo dog needs to ride in a crate due to behavior, car sickness, etc.  That has created stress points when the Atlas has had a critical recall, a required service, etc. at an inconvenient time.  Having some redundancy in ability to travel with him reduces pressure on the Atlas as it ages.  Since the Atlas is the bigger, more expensive car, it's also financially helpful to build in whatever redundancy is needed to allow us to push it to higher mileage before replacement.  I'd feel more comfortable going from 100k to 150k+ with the Atlas if my backup is a small SUV vs. a sedan.

We bought the Jetta when we had two calm older dogs that could handle rides in a sedan, and only 1 kid.  We've since lost a calm dog, added a wildling, and had another kid.  The Jetta just doesn't fit as many of our needs as it used to.  I would miss my stick shift, but I think our family would be better served by spending the money on something else.

[brooke77]

W: We have had my ILs and various guests staying with us since May. At one point we had 8 extra adults in my house for over 3 weeks! Now everyone is finally gone and we are back down to my family of 3. My win should be a lower grocery bill. Feeding 5-11 people for the last 3 months has been $$$$.

L: Our backyard project just keeps getting more and more expensive. But it will be worth it.

[niq]

W: YNAB is working! It turns out a lot of the money panic was happening b/c I would pay off the credit card too fast. Now I know what a realistic payment is each month. Spending is on track with most categories except for "msniq discretionary"

W: O has outgrown her bike, but we get to swap with her cousin. The cousin accidentally bought one size too big.

L: The PT bill (about $700) was not in the budget. Things are better than when I started, a lot of stuff that used to "hurt" is now "uncomfortable" and I guess that's going to have to be good enough.

L: Still have not gotten rid of the sedan ... I really need to finish that before school starts.

[chpmnk1015]

L: DH got a new truck.. so, thats a car payment a little earlier than we thought. but hoping to pay off extra each month and pay off.

L/W: just went down the shore- so spent some money.. but worth every penny

[shaynaatl]

W: Due to the extra Friday in the month, this will be a 6 paycheck month for our household.

L: We have a new automated irrigation system installed, and the lawn guy recommended an aggressive watering schedule. Our monthly water bill is now close to $300.

[Susie]

To elaborate on my W of no more daycare:

Now that we have the bills for after school care for 2024-25, I can calculate how much we're going to save by DS moving from preschool to public kinder + after care.  This year he is in K and DD is in 4th grade.  

The answer is that we're going to save $1,180/month for Sept-June, even after adjusting for rate increases vs. last year for DD's after care.

I hear from a lot of people that you don't actually save money when your kid starts school because you just spend it all on activities.  With firm numbers I am here to say hell to the naw.

DS is going to do the same activities he did before:  swim lessons and rec soccer.  Swim lessons are $162.50/month, but rec soccer is negligible, and he was doing that stuff back in preschool anyway so those costs are not "traded" with preschool tuition. 

DD does swimming, track, and XC, which probably cost around $3k/year.  She's also taking violin through school, so there's a rental there, not sure of the cost.

That said... it's not close.  We're going to save $11,800 in 10 months, as the difference between (2023-24 after care for DD + 2023-24 preschool tuition for DS) vs. (2024-25 after care for DD + DS).  We'll probably also save a few more dollars in the summer because DS will move to summer camp with DD and the ratios are eased at school age so it's not quite as pricey as preschool age.  I think it's a fair estimate to say we'll save $12k/year on tuition all in, just from one kid transitioning from pre-k to K.

Clearly we're not even spending that much on two kids' activities, let alone one!  

It's time to sit down and figure out how to use the extra, because I'm not sure.  Increase 529s?  Pay off our SLs?  Decisions.

[noodleoo]

Susie, that's awesome!

DD2 is starting K in 2 weeks (wahoo!!) but I work part time, so we only pay for daycare for 3 days, so the savings won't be quite as dramatic. Summer camp will probably cost at least as much as daycare (possibly more if she wants to do full week camp), but assuming it's a wash, we will save $7500 for 10 months paying for afterschool vs. daycare. That works out to $625/month annually. Not lifechanging but still pretty awesome! I could see that getting eaten up pretty quickly tho. Afterschool changed how they bill for next year in that PD days and school breaks are now an extra charge, that could add about $2K to the cost for the year, but I think we are going to try keeping the kids home while we WFH instead and see how that goes to save that money.

My plan was to increase 529 savings when daycare ended, but I actually did that last year to get ahead on saving. My car is 15 years old, so this may go into my new car fund.

The other thing I realized is that DD2 is going into 4th and she probably doesn't need to stay in afterschool much longer. She likes it, but she's starting to get more HW and she's old enough to walk home from the bus stop. I'd be pretty happy to take her out next year and save $350 a month there!

[heygrey]

Susie, we saved a similar amount when DS was done with daycare. There is not a chance in the world that I am spending $12,000+ a year on kid activities. His daycare was $1100/month, we have no after or summer care expenses and the activity expenses decreased because of covid for a couple years. Even now that he's going into grade 5 and into some pricier activities (hello Track and Field! I was not prepared for that to be so expensive) we couldn't even come close to touching the cost of daycare.

We bought a house 16 months after DS finished daycare and a significant portion of our downpayment was from those previous childcare payments. The shift from our rent to mortgage increased by $700 which still left a big cushion in our budget above and beyond what we were used to saving.

[EvieEthelGarland]

Susie, are you factoring in summer care? My cost savings were negligible when DS started school with $$$ care for breaks and summer. But yeah, now that we're on the other side it's amazing! I was also told his activities would eat that up. Nope. We've treated him to some nice equipment for mountain biking and fishing and almost bought a kayak last night, but nope.

My Labrador currently has a higher cost per month that my human child.

[Susie]

Aug 22, 2024 11:25:38 GMT -5 EvieEthelGarland said:

Susie , are you factoring in summer care? My cost savings were negligible when DS started school with $$$ care for breaks and summer. But yeah, now that we're on the other side it's amazing! I was also told his activities would eat that up. Nope. We've treated him to some nice equipment for mountain biking and fishing and almost bought a kayak last night, but nope.

My Labrador currently has a higher cost per month that my human child.

Yes.  I'm basically estimating that we will see a savings of $11,800 for the school year over the prior school year, and that the summer will basically have no major cost change.  For 2024 we had one in FT summer day camp and one in FT preschool, similar cost, so transitioning to two in day camp for 2025 won't add much to the savings, but it won't eat into it either. 

[noodleoo]

My boss said the same thing about daycare costs going straight into activity costs. But, his kids played club/private sports to the tune of $3k -$4k per season in fees!!! Luckily my kids have no interest in that. DD1 graduated from swim recently and doesn’t want to do swim team, so our activity spending actually went down by $140/month recently!

[Pom]

W/L: H wanted a new four wheeler to plow snow with and use for ice fishing since last year. I said absolutely not to $12k but he got a used (not that old)$5k model with plow. I feel like I saved additional $5k I budgeted in my head, but refuse to tell him that.

W/L: we purchased a new back door/storm door. $1500 on sale. H installed along with our neighbor. Saved the install cost. This repair has been needed for 2+ years.

W/L: we had to rip a giant hole in our driveway to run electric to our garage/polebarn. It’s been that way since last October due to no available contractors. We got many quotes and while I thought the number would be $2200, it ended up being $900 due to patience. So sort of win.

[midwestmama]

noodleoo, this is so true about club/private/travel sports. My DS plays on a local travel baseball team (meaning we usually play in tournaments in our metro area, and maybe play 1-2 tournaments which require overnight stays). Because it's a local team, the season fee is usually around $1000-$1200 for the association fee + tournament fees. But once you add uniform, gear (e.g., cleats, batting gloves, bat, etc.), private lessons, and travel costs for the out-of-town tournaments, we definitely get close to $3K-4/season. But we had a few good years of savings between being done with daycare and when he started travel baseball, lol.

[simpsongal]

Aug 7, 2024 10:36:26 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

L: Car tax bill came in at nearly $1000.....ugh. More vet bills keep coming in too. Waiting on the water bill - we have a leaky hose that I've put off fixing, bc $$, but seeing what that's costing us may push me forward w/a fix.

W: Ditto to a 3 paycheck month, we're inching closer to paying off that CC due in October. I should be getting a bonus soon too, hopefully this month.

The vet bills are over, since we lost our beloved pup this week: pandce.proboards.com/thread/642921/dog-passed-away-monday