Small Mortgage Paid Off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just balance my budget and my small mortgage is paid off!!!!!! And so is my credit card!!!  Woohoo!!!!

I bought my condo with 2 mortgages: 1 for $299,000, and the other for $56,000 because I didn't have enough for a down payment as well as closing costs. The small one was a balloon mortgage that was very close to an interest-only mortgage (yuck!).

These are the windfalls I got that allowed me to pay off the small mortgage, finish off the credit cards, AND have enough cash to get hubby his new work clothes:

• The T-Bill that matured (that I had forgotten about): $1000
• The rental income from the condo. My budget had called for that money going into repairs, but it turns out all repairs were completed last month: $1520

In other news, I decided to cash in a CD my mom had bought me for Christmas years ago. I sent it to Jeepy (the car loan). So now I only owe $8700 on the car. Woop Woop.

Flight Home - The Cost of Seeing My Neice

I spent $246.40 today to buy a flight back home to meet my new niece before she is 1 day old.




I wasn't going to do that. I had already bought (and budgeted) a flight for November - when my neice would be 1 month old - so that I could help my sister after all the relatives and dust have cleared. I imagined my sister being alone in the house after all the hoopla was done, and I figured that's when I would be most helpful.



But I talked with my sister on the phone yesterday, and my mom too, and an overwhelming melancholy overtook me. I miss my brothers, I miss my mom. I want to be part of the family, even after all the struggling I do to be left alone.



So I'm going.



Plus, it'll be nice to have a few days off of work ;-)

My Love Affair with Savings Bonds

Today my 5-year T-Bill that I had forgotten about matured. As I do every payday, I checked my bank account to make sure my paycheck made it to where it's supposed to go (yeah, ok, so I don't trust anyone, including the big no-name corporation I work for who is trying to outsource my job to India every time I'm not looking).


I was very puzzled over the extra money for a few seconds until I remembered the day, 5 years ago, to celebrate finally paying off my $20k of debt that I had accumulated, I splurged and bought myself a T-Bill with the portion of my paycheck that I had been throwing at my credit cards.


It reminded me of a MySpace blog I wrote in 2006 on a slow day at work. Here it is.....


It's a Beautiful Thing


Category: Jobs, Work, Careers


Since I don't want the top blog on my blog list to be such clear evidence that I have a tendency to freak out once in a while, I wanted to post a blog - any blog - to bump that last one out of the spotlight. And since it's rainy and sucky out, I can't write about sunshine and daisies, so the next best topic I can come up with is something helpful.


So here's my something helpful. I hope it helps....


(Try and stay awake. I know you think this is going to be boring, but try anyway).


The Beauty of Savings Bonds


Savings bonds are a beautiful thing. Really. Poor savings bonds have held the title of mind-numbingly dull baby-gifts for as long as I can remember, but what most people don't realize is that they're baby-gifts for a reason. Sure, they're cheap, they take a looong time to mature, and they fit very nicely in the junk drawer, ready to be forgotten until you're packing up your house to move somewhere else. But what makes them so boring also makes them handy.


The great thing about savings bonds is they're not liquid so you have to let them mature (for the most part), they tend to pile up, so before you know it you're sitting on a pretty pile-o-cash (eventually), and...yeah, well, they're cheap.

They make ideal gifts. Check it out:

What's the best wedding gift you can give? Something that says "I have faith in your marriage. I truly believe that you will be together for at least the next 30 years." Voila! Savings bond! You buy one with both people's name on it and you are declaring your faith in the couple's marriage - they'll have to stay together for at least 30 years if they want to share the full value of the bond. Of course, it has a nice little loophole too: To get two people's names on a savings bond, you have to have an owner and a beneficiary. So the person that you're actually close to in the wedding is the owner. If there's a break-up, the beneficiary can be legally shit outta luck (hehe).

Heading to your 5th baby shower of the year? Had enough of spending your hard earned money to outfit someone else's nursery? Savings bond! You hand over a savings bond that has $50 printed real big right on the front....but you only paid $25! Woohoo!

Ok, so savings bonds make great gifts, but guess what - they are great for your own retirement too. On http://www.treasurydirect.gov/ you can have as little as $25 periodically taken right out of your bank account to buy one of these handy little puppies. AND, having those $25 automatically coming out of your account each month (hint, hint - have it taken out ON PAYDAY), you actually forget you ever had it. Look:

If you put away $25 per month, every month for the next 30 years, you will have saved $9000. Eh....not much. But if you had those $25 going toward a savings bond each month, each of those bonds will double its value after 30 years. Assuming you're about 30 years old when you start, that means that between the ages of 60 and 90, you'll have a continuous (albeit small) cash flow amounting to $18,000.

Yeah, ok, that's essentially nothing ($1.67 a day). But when you're retired and your entire social security check (if you even get one) is going towards the rent, then your savings bonds will at least buy you a cup of coffee and a donut every day between 60 and 90 years of age. And really - do you want to retire without enough funds for a cup of coffee every day? If you had simply stuffed those $25 per month in your mattress, you'd only have $0.83 a day every day for 30 years.

HINT: You don't actually have to cash the bond in after 30 years. You're allowed to hang onto them for up to 60 years, allowing them to quadruple in value. But that's no fun...

Sure, it's not much. But with social security dwindling and corporations throwing pension plans out the window, every little bit counts. After all, you don't have to only buy $25 bonds per month. You could conceivably buy $100 bonds per month. Or more. It's all up to you and how much you expect to accumulate in your 401k....if you have one.

The biggest shining beauty of savings bonds? TAXES!!!!!
First of all, you don't pay taxes at all until you cash in your savings bonds. That means that the interest that is accumulating in your bond (which is what makes the bond double its value over 30 years) does not get taxed until you cash out the bond. Is this good because you're just delaying paying those taxes? Well, yes, but it also saves you money. If you were paying taxes on the interest as it accumulates, it would take longer than 30 years for the bond to double its value. Why? Because the more money accumulated in the bond, the more interest you get paid. If you're paying taxes as you go, then there is less money to pay interest on - hence it would take longer to double the value of the bond.

Secondly, savings bonds are exempt from state and local income taxes. That means that even when you do redeem your bond, the state and local government CANNOT tax you on that income (federal only taxes you on the interest accrued).

--By the way, if you use savings bonds to save for your child's education, NONE OF IT IS TAXABLE - NOT EVEN FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!

--If you use bonds to supplement your retirement, since you'll be redeeming them at retirement age, you'll most likely be taxed at your lower retirement age income tax rate.

--You can transfer your partially matured bonds to your child's name. If you cash them out under your child's name before your child becomes an adult, the interest will be taxed under the child's LOWER tax rate.

So, you see, savings bonds are a beautiful thing. I love them - they are a foundation in my repertoire of gifts, and I currently am sitting on several thousand dollar's worth of bonds just waiting for me to retire. I absolutely have money automatically taken out of my bank account just to buy some of these beauties every month.

PS - Can anyone tell it was a sloooow day at work today?

Driving Free Day

I am happy to say that Saturday was a driving free day for us.

I walked to the community garden (30 minutes each way) and it not only felt great physically, it also felt great mentally. It gave me a chance to think and mull and daydream.

I didn't have to pay for gas because I didn't use any and I got a little exercise to boot.

Of course, I can only have drive-free days on the weekends because I have to drive 20 minutes to work every day. I'm considering moving to the downtown area where I would be able to walk to work and really save on gas money.

I still have my $6 in my pocket and tomorrow is payday.

Clothes for Work

My husband was laid off last December and has been  out of work for almost 10 months. He found a job and will be starting on the 21st of this month.

But since he's been out of work for 10 months, we're not so sure his work clothes still fit. Today is go-through-his-work-clothes day to see if we have to go shopping. The bad news is, we probably are going to need to spend about $400 to update his work wardrobe, and of course that's going to go on the credit card. His interview suit ($600) is still on the credit card!

I get paid on Tuesday, and I have $6 in my wallet.

Doing Laundry

I've been dropping my laundry off for wash & fold as well as wash & press for the last few months. The dryer in my apartment building doesn't work, and I had gotten annoyed with hanging wet clothes on those wooden folding drying racks.

Yesterday I picked up the wash & fold and it really sunk in that I was paying $26.75 for someone else to do 1 load of laundry! I also paid $10.06 for someone else to wash & press 2 pairs of pants! Unbelievable!

Obviously, I will be doing my own laundry and using those annoying drying racks from now on. As a matter of fact, I did a load of laundry this morning at the shockingly low prive of $1.25 (plus soap).

:-)

Update on the year's worth of condo mortgage payments

So far...



I already have $12,000 in company stock that is going towards the 1 year's worth of mortgage payments.


I set up automatic money transfers to go from my checking account to the mortgage checking account. I'll do this until I have $6000 (3 months of payments). I'll leave that in cash in case I need to replace a heater or something in the condo.


I set up automatic money transfers to go from my checking account to my Charles Schwab account - $100 monthly. I figure I'll keep this up until I have $6000 in there. In the meantime, I'll go ahead and invest that money until I need it. So far I have $200 in there.


So, for the year's worth of mortgage payments, I have $12,200 already, and I have $11,800 to go!

I Hate My Job

I fucked up.

I fucked up real bad.

Just out of school, I chose the path of greed: I accepted the job that would allow me to move out of my mother's house instead of the job that I liked. And now I'm paying for it in stomachaches, stress, grey hairs, and pudginess.

I hate my job and I want to quit. Desperately.

The way I see it, I have 2 options:
Option 1: Get rich. Yeah, right.
Option 2: Wean off the paycheck.


Background
I have a condo that is rented out in NYC.
I am renting an apartment in the Midwest.

My husband says that if I want to quit my job, I have to sell the condo. I don't want to sell the condo. I like the condo. I like the fact that I have a condo in the middle of New York City. So I choose to interpret his condition as this: In order for me to quit my job, I have to make damn sure that the condo will pay for itself at least long enough for me to sell it in a calm, reasonable, and hopefully profitable manner in the event that keeping the condo is costing more than it is worth (i.e. the tenants stop paying the rent).

The Goals
1. Make the condo self sufficient with a large cushion so that I can pay the mortgage for a full year even if there are no tenants in it.
2. Pay off my car completely.
3. Find another stream of income.

The Plan
Goal 1. Pay off the small mortgage on the condo so that the monthly payments decrease by $400 per month: $2300
Goal 2: Pay off the car: $9800
Goal 3: Save up a year's worth of condo payments: $24,000