| 01/05/2013
The Fiscal Cliff has been averted. Up we go.
With the Payroll tax back to normal my 2% raise showed up as a $20 increase in my paycheck. I'm good with that. When the program was instated, the rate was 6.2%, not 4%. Really kind of annoyed with all the articles shunning the recent agreement with headlines like "Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households." I'm not an Obama lover, but hello people, Social Security isn't free...
Updated the home value to reflect Zillow's latest. Down about 3% from last quarter, but kind of in line with this time in the annual Real Estate cycle. It's all water under the bridge anyways, as we need a roof over our head, and a place for BBQ's in the Summer. :-)
Still hacking away at the mortgage. Under $130k now... More recently I've started looking at a new metric, which is our Mortgage Balance vs. Savings (which I have termed as out "Mortgage Break Even Point"), currently we are $31k in the red. This value stood $47k one year ago today. So, while the long term goal is to pay off the mortgage, the short term goal is to zero out this number as quickly as possible. Past history would tell us we need another 18 months to get there, but as always, we will be aggressive to see what can be done to get there sooner.
Looking at major expenses for 2013:
Car??? - My car has 270k on it. Will shoot to hold off til 2014, but really we are on borrowed time. When the time comes, I think I will budget $5k for the new vehicle.
Vacations - Heading to Disney and Hampton for sure. The cost looks to be about $4k. I've cashed out $2k in savings already to pay what we can in advance, the rest will likely get taken care of on Credit Cards.
Elective Surgery - We have some one time medical expenses coming up. Not sure what the cost will be for that.
College Savings - Will be putting $2k into our daughter's Roth. We currently have $37k put aside for her, so if things are tight, we may forgo this...
House Repairs - Would like to get some work done on or fireplace - probably less than $1k, unless we go crazy.
01/17/2013
I tried my best to argue against it, but my mother, who recently retired is hell set on paying for our trip to Disney, and so it's done...
What's more, she said she plans to start gifting the gains from her retirement fund to myself and my brother. While I'm really not in favor of it, she says she wants make things easier for her family. I talked with her husband about it, and he says it's all part of the master plan. Ok... While I voiced my opposition, if they are both in agreement I'm not going to argue.
Not sure how much we'll be receiving, or what we will do with the money, but, as my mother has said, it will make our lives easier.
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