HisHersMoney

Last month we moved from our apartment in a high rise into a townhouse that we are renting. Overall the new place is larger and includes a third bedroom which allows both both of us to have our own home office space but the storage in the kitchen is definitely much smaller, especially the pantry. As a result we definitely need to reduce our pantry size. My plan is just to skip the grocery shopping trip and work through the fridge, freezer and pantry. This week’s grocery trip will cover just some basics, bread, creamer and a couple other perishables.

So, how does this relate to personal finance and living frugally? By skipping the grocery trip pretty much all together you actually free up some immediate cash. We usually spend about $75-$100 a week at the food store which covers three meals a day for two people combined with eating out usually for one lunch and one dinner a week.

Last week’s grocery food budget was around $15 and this week caps out at $50 while I work though what we already have. Though out the week I will post about what we come up with for meals to give you some ideas for your own money saving pantry clean out.  

Right now we have about $17,000 in savings. Some of this money is already spoken for, ski trips this winter, money towards our Roth IRAs, etc. I have to say it wasn’t as hard to get here as I thought it would be. I can’t tell you the last time I went clothes shopping like I used to, or the last time His went crazy buying electronics or video games.

The biggest enabler for us was learning to live on one paycheck so that the second one goes right in savings. We still have two checking accounts. His paycheck goes in the main account and Hers still goes in Her credit union. We live on His to pay all the household bills and insurance and the only things that comes out of Hers is one car payment and the ski condo expenses.

This is currently allowing us allocate $1850 from His paycheck towards debt repayment / savings and about $3500-$4000 from Hers paycheck each month into savings. Our goal is to reach $5000 a month in savings outside of our 401k and Roth IRa contributions.

I think it is completely in our reach!

We are almost debt free!! I can’t wait until we can say we are completely debt free. We have about $600 left on the credit card to pay and less then $2000 left on His student loan. We will be paying off the rest of the credit card in this upcoming month and have already stated paying an additional $100 a month on the student loan making our payments around $175 a month.

Side note: We do have a car loan. We made a decision over a year ago to have one car loan at a time. We would finance the car for four years and when it was paid off we would replace the other car. So yes, we will always have a car loan to pay on but we plan on driving each car for eight years. It’s the cost of having two cars for us. YMMV (your milage may vary).

So far since we have started this blog we have paid off one car loan, two other student loans and over $14,000 in credit card debt. It wasn’t easy but I don’t feel like we’ve had to give everything up to do it. Just buckled down and made it our priority.

Next goal is really working on the savings account!

Lots of people dream of owning a vacation home. Somewhere in the mountains, by the beach or maybe even in another country. But, what are the costs associated with such a property. Previous reading will explain how we came to be 30% owners in such a property. FOr us it was a ski condo right at the base of the mountain, just mere steps from the lift. We made the purchase with cash so we don’t have a mortgage to deal with but there are so many costs associated with it.

A lot of the costs we figured into our buying decision so they weren’t a surprise, but now that we are getting to our fifth month we are getting a look at the grand total.

Utilities / property management/pool, etc. = about $100 a month. This cost is not bad and we knew this going in.

Condo specific bills from the property (cleaning, maintenance to your specific unit, replacing kitchen items) = $500 a year. We really didn’t know about this entire bill. We figured probably around $200 a year as a rough estimate.

Furnishings, updating decor, large maintenance = around $3500 for the first year. This will not be a recurring cost as the unit was definitely outdated and needed all new furniture. Luckily the cost is split between the owners and we only owe our 30%. We knew that things would need to be updated but really didn’t know how much it would cost.

There are some other things in the condo that need updating that require some minor construction that are going to have to come either later this year or next year. I estimate anther $500 for those. This does not include the costs of a major kitchen or bathroom update that will have to be done in the upcoming years.

We had originally thought we could do a total rehab for $10,000 (our portion) but failed to take into account that with the unit being used on a consistent basis by not only the owners but also renters that the items purchased for the condo would need to be of a pretty high quality in order to not fall apart in just a few years.

The renovations and new furniture is complete for the bedroom. It involved some minor construction to move around the heating vents, new dresser, mirror, king size bed, headboard, frame and all new linens. Luckily the resort gets a little bit of a discount because of the quantity they purchase from certain vendors. It really helped us out.

We figure our total out of pocket expenses for the first year will be about $5700! That doesn’t even include a lift ticket or Apres Ski Beer!

As a result of our upcoming housing costs savings I spend a little time on the budget.   Currently between Him and Hers we get four paychecks a month. Usually our rent comes out of His paycheck in the amount of $1175 out of each check to make up our $2350 rent payment. (Rent is very high here!) Rather then split our rent payment in half each month we will just take it out of the last paycheck of the month in its entirety $1350. This will obviously fee up some additional money each month.

Our first priority is to replenish our savings since we raided them a couple months ago to buy the ski condo. We figure that we really need about $30k in savings as an emergency account as well as to have some cash on hand to do things we want to do. Another priority is our Roth IRAs. We are eligible to contribute the entire amount to a Roth IRA this year so we need to take advantage while we can, I’m afraid we will be phased out of our eligibility in the upcoming years.

Currently we only have $1300 put in to Hers Roth so far this year so that leaves another $8700 to go in order for both of us to max out at $5k each.

Our savings account is currently at about $3,000 so we still have another $27,000 to go there!

Our new budget calls for us to put around $1000 a month aside for out Roth IRAs with the final contribution to hit our max coming from Hers year end bonus