HisHersMoney

Well we finally received a payment we have been waiting for from His past-past employer paying his unused vacation time. After taxes the amount is about $3700. We instantly put $3400 towards the stupid credit card bill bringing it down to just under $1300.

We kept the other $300 in the checking account. His just started a new job and his last paycheck is not quite a full paycheck so this kind of evens everything out.

Keep an eye peeled for an upcoming “we’ve payed it off” email which we hope will be arriving soon!

Just opened up a bottle Chimay Ale (Red). In case you haven’t heard of it before, Chimay’s origins reside with the Trappist monks of Chimay Belgium. It’s made from historical methods and ingredients even though they use modern technology alongside. Some friends had gotten it when we were out this past week and it was the first time I had tried it. Fairly appalling was the price at the bar. $28 for a 750ML bottle, or roughly double or more the price of a regular beer.

I happened to see it at a wine store this weekend when HERS and I were walking around Annapolis, MD after going for a drive with the top down to enjoy the nice weather. I decided to purchase a bottle after seeing the much more reasonable price of $10.49. For an occasional drink of a special variety for about the price of a bottle of wine, this is good value in my opinion and I’m looking forward to trying more of the Chimay offerings.

We are in the air flying to Chicago as I write on this Christmas Day. As Hers wrote previously, we were on a ski trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We had a phenominal trip and I experienced some of the best skiing of my life. It’s hard not to as it snowed almost every day we were there including 19 inches in one night at the summit!

I grew up about 5 miles from a small ski hill in Pennsylvania. Both of my parents worked there at various times and so I skied for free every year. We also all had our own equipment. For those unaware, skiing is similar to golf in that both the initial barrier to entry and the long-term costs are expensive. Of course, since I went skiing probably 30-40 times at the minimum every year it ended up being cheaper in the long run to purchase equipment rather than buy.

Today, it’s probably not so. We don’t live very close to any ski areas, the closest being about a 2 hour drive. Last year we actually only got a single day on the slopes. This year I’ll probably ski somewhere between 8-12 days and Hers probably 18-24 days. She already owns all of her equipment due to previously wintering in Steamboat as a ski instructor. My equipment has long since become outdated and misplaced. So should I purchase new equipment now that we plan to make skiing a higher priority in our lives?

First off, I would love to get all of my own equipment again. The advantages are thus:

• Better quality and condition of gear
• Custom fitting for boots
• No waiting in line to pick up rentals
• Being intimately familiar with performance of equipment

However, there are cons as well:

• Cost of flying with or shipping own gear
• Over many years, equipment will become outdated
• Initial cost of equipment which will easily cost between $1k-$2k for good quality

For now we’ve decided to keep renting equipment for me. At this point we can’t justify the full cost for the amount of skiing that I do. Next season we possibly will purchase some boots and get them custom fitted at our favorite shop in Steamboat. Boots are actually the most important part of the equation as no rental will ever fit as well. This will take away some of the performance disadvantage of rentals but will still save money over the cost of the skis, bindings, poles, and helmet.

As a last note, when looking to rent ski equipment, check the local shops in the area of the resort that you’ll be going to. Many times you get better quality rentals at lower prices by using these local shops instead of renting at the slopes.

As you can tell, both Hers and I have been remiss in posting for a long time. I think we just got burned out, especially Hers. For me it was always coming up with topics to write about. I mean, there are only so many stories about using coupons that you can write! I think that I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re really not into what most would consider ‘frugal’ living. We both make above-average salaries since the median household income is currently $61,500 according to the IRS.

I’ve been reading RichSlick’s blog a lot lately. A lot of what he writes about doesn’t directly apply to us since we only invest in mutual funds in our 401k’s and IRA’s but there IS a difference in your life when you have disposable income. We’re lucky enough to be able to max out our retirement accounts while at the same time finally getting out of debt and putting money into an account for a down payment on a home. For us, budgeting means putting money aside so that we can go eat a $200 meal at one of the country’s best restaurants if we want.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are growing pains and issues. I’ve always been too much of a big spender and just now have my credit card debt under control. I have Hers to thank for that. She started being fiscally responsible right out of college and has continued down that path to this day. Early retirement is in sight, we’ll be almost debt-free this winter with only a single car loan left over, and we are going to start looking for an investment/retirement property in Colorado. Life is good. It always could be better though. So we’re going to continue this blog while we continue our life journey together. We hope you’ll join us.

In order to fund our retirement dreams we, like most people put money away each month towards our retirement. So, the question is how much? After reading Grace’s post When it Rains, It Pours, and No One Believes Us where she says “We have retirement funds that demand a whole lot more than $100 a paycheck if we’re going to have any kind of life after work.” I thought I might post exactly what we put away each month towards our retirement.

His Roth IRA: this is a new investment for Him. This year it looks like His Roth will not be fully funded as we are just starting it, but we are setting it up to take $400 a month out. Next year we will be starting in Jan and plan on continuing with $417/month

Her Roth IRA: $417/month in order to fully fund it this year.

Both His and Hers are putting $1200/month in our 401k’s for a total of $2,400/month. That gives us a grand total of $3,034 a month in retirement savings.

$500 more per month goes into our retirement home fund.

All of these amounts are automatically taken out of our paychecks and/or checking accounts so we never even have the opportunity to spend even a cent of it. Our grand total each month is $3,734 for a yearly total of $44,808. We have a financial planner who tells us how much we need and keeps us on track.

We also have monthly savings that go towards other things which I will get into in my next post, but this wraps up our automatic retirement savings.

We haven’t posted anything here on the site about Him being out of work but he has actually been out of work since July 15th. He is in the Army and was mobilized for the past year. Luckily he was mobilized here locally so we didn’t have to deal with long distance pressures. When his orders ended he was left in a state of limbo where he didn’t know if his orders were going to be renewed and if they were when it would happen.

Financially things haven’t been that tight as he was paid through the middle of July and then was also cashed out for his remaining vacation time and was also still owed two reimbursement checks for housing. UNfortunately we still haven’t received all of the payments owed to us but we did manage to squeeze by without having to put anything on the credit cards or dip into our savings.

We decided to look at other employment options for Him. I work as a Defense Contractor (like a large portion of the professional population in the Washington DC metro area) and we decided that maybe moving from the Government side so the contractor side might not be such a bad idea. So fast forward a couple weeks to today and he has received and accepted a job offer to be a contractor doing almost the same exact job as he was doing before and today is his first day!

He will still be part of the National Guard and will work his one weekend a month and of course could possibly be deployed in the future but for now he will go to work M-F like the rest of this town in a shirt and tie.

Over the next week we will be looking at how to merge His paycheck and retirement savings into our overall financial picture and will keep everyone updated.

We choose a 5pm basic ceremony with a few coworkers in attendance which was conveniently scheduled right before a optional company cocktail hour which started at 6pm. I got my dress on craigslist for $280 and spent $70 on alterations. The dress had never been worn or altered so I got a great deal. It was a basic cream colored strapless gown with quite a bit of stitching and beads / crystals on it.

We bought two sets of roses at Costco at a cost of $30 total. Two dozed orange roses and two dozen pink roses. I then picked the best six of each, cut down the stems to just the right length and then wrapped the stems in a white ribbon. I really have to brag on my flower job because it came out really, really nice and I received multiple comments on it.

My shoes I had found on the discount rack at DSW (what a great store) and I paid around $30 for them, I don’t quite remember the exact amount as I got them awhile ago but it was around $30.

Our wedding rings didn’t come with any great discount unfortunately but we got what we wanted. Him wanted the silver and titanium band that matched the ring that I had asked for and received my previous birthday. I wanted a diamond ten stone band that looked really nice with my engagement ring. Both were simple and reasonably priced and came to about $1000 total.

Our cocktail hour gave us an opportunity to mingle with everyone was free as it was company sponsored. It was so much fun to show up to the cocktail hour in our wedding attire and see quite a few employees do a surprised double take because they were unaware of our wedding plans that weekend.

We had dinner reservations at 7:30pm in the main dining room which was absolutely elegant and the food was wonderful. The management sent us some champagne on the house and a coworker and his wife sent us some more champagne as well so we spent absolutely nothing on drinks. The dinner was covered by the company so our five course meal also cost us nothing. The was live music in the dining room with a dance floor so we completed our “first dance” while a couple hundred people looked on.

We were originally booked into a standard room but when we arrived it seemed that the air conditioning wasn’t working in our room so once they determined that they couldn’t get the AC working they upgraded us to a suite. The suite was really beautiful and had a wonderful view of the grounds form the balcony. We ordered breakfast in on Sunday morning (on the company) and ate outside at the table and chairs that was on the balcony. It really was the prefect way to eat breakfast on the first day of your married life!

We still have to meet up with our local photographer to take our formal wedding pictures to get the shots we want but that’s already paid for and in the meantime my coworkers took a couple hundred pictures for us with their digital cameras.

It may not have been conventional but we had a great time, got married in a great location and didn’t break the bank!

Yes, we did it, we got married! I know we really didn’t post very many (or any) details of the wedding planning, wedding budget or financial choices here on the blog, but there’s a pretty good reason why. Each year my company takes all of it’s employees away for a long weekend to a really nice resort. The only requirement as to the location is that it must be within a reasonable drive and be big enough to hold approximately 300+ guests. This year we went to The Homestead in south western VA and it was absolutely gorgeous. Both the building and the grounds were breath taking beyond description.

We were to arrive midday on Friday and leave Sunday afternoon. We had a company dinner as well as a Saturday morning company meeting but other than that the time was ours and all the bills were pretty much covered. So, we decided to get married while we were there! Our goal was to have a wedding that would have cost us an absolute bundle for pennies on the dollar.

We worked with the resort to choose the perfect location on the property to hold our wedding ceremony which ended up being next to a little pond. The resort didn’t charge us anything to use the location since we didn’t require and set up or tear down and we weren’t service any food or drink down there either.

Our entire wedding costs total $1077, Wedding Rings were $1000 and our honeymoon was $3200!

Here’s the break out:

Dress: $280

Alterations: $70

Flowers: $40

Shoes: $30

His Shirt and Tie: $57

Wedding Rings: $1000

Honeymoon: $3,200

Photos $600 (including engagement pics)

So as you may have read previously in this space, Hers and I will be heading to Jamaica in less than two weeks for a much-needed vacation. Neither of us has been there before and we are very much looking forward to. In order to be able to relax more we decided to go the all-inclusive route and will be staying at Sandals.

The price is most definitely not cheap. However, if we do it right and do not go adding on extras once we are there then I think it is reasonable. We get 3 meals a day and all drinks included while at the resort. Our plan is to mostly just relax on the beach or by the pool for the majority of our time there. This is not one of those vacations where we have a strict schedule of things to see. We just want to sit and enjoy each others’ company.

Now about those extras. Sandals offers everything from guided island tours, horseback riding, dinner ON the beach, and in-room massages. These are all great and obviously we would love to do them all. However, that is where most people make the mistake. They think “We’re on vacation, we should enjoy ourselves and do whatever we want!” The problem is that usually this is where they will pull out the plastic to pay for it as these were unplanned expenses on the trip. If you have things that you absolutely MUST do while on vacation make sure to budget for those expenses so that the month after you get back there is not a huge charge on your credit card that you can’t remember what it was for.

Once we return from our trip I’ll share with everybody how well we were able to limit our expenses.

As you had read before, we had set up a Smartypig account recently. I like the idea of it. I think the extra money from retail stores is really great for when you already have a specific item already in mind. However, if you change your mind or an emergency comes up, then you are stuck as the funds are not liquid.

Smartypig has stated that at some point they are going to allow you to EFT the funds back into the account from which you originally funded from. This was not the case when I went to close my account on 15 May. I was planning on getting Amazon gift cards as there is a speaker set that I’ve been saving for there. The process was easy and I was notified that any extra funds left over from the gift card purchase (they only allowed $25 increments) would be funded into an electronic Smartypig gift card that I could put towards my other savings goal.  That’s a nice feature.

My big complaint is that it supposedly will take 7-10 business days to get me a gift card! If they are indeed partnered with these companies, it should only take 1-2 business days to get the card in the mail to me. As of now I have not received the card. Now granted, we moved and the mail is forwarding so I will check the postmark when it comes but it’s disappointing.

In the future I’ll be forgoing Smartypig and just creating sub-accounts with ING. It will be slightly less return but it’s worth it for less headaches in using my money.