Updates on our yearly goals

Thanks to Mr. TCoP’s recent bonus and Mrs. TCoP’s vacation payout from her previous job we are now at 66% ($6,600) for our emergency fund goal of 10K and 80% ($3,200) for our investment fund goal of 4K.  If we do get the North Broward rental rented for October 1st we’ll have a really good chance of making it to our goals.

We’re still here!

The last couple of weeks have been crazy.  Mrs. TCoP has started her new job which requires more hours in part due to a longer commute.  And the North Broward rental has been vacant and requiring much work.  Our weekends and evenings (especially for Mr. TCoP) have been consumed with getting the house ready to rent.  The good news is that Mrs. TCoP’s new job is going very well and we are confident that we may have a signed lease by this weekend.  Whew!  Nothing like a busy couple of weeks to help you realize where your priorities are.

Life in Paradise

Florida avocados

We spent a three day weekend working on the rental house in North Broward.  There is much to do to get it ready to rent: painting, landscaping, plumbing, and a laundry list of small repairs and improvements.  We’ll be spending all of our spare time in the next month getting it ready to rent.  It is a lot of work, but we enjoy the work and the results.  And we take full advantage of the little pleasures the house and it’s location provide.  After a long day of working we relax with a swim in the pool and sometimes eat at one of the wonderful restaurants in the area.

We returned home after threee days of working and spent a few minutes weeding and harvesting in our own yard.  Baby TCoP found a ripe tomatoe to pick and toddled around the yard eating it while Mr. and Mrs. TCoP harvested 20 okra and a dozen Florida Avocados.  The okra will be boiled for dinner this week (we just boil it whole with a bit of vinegar in the water).  We don’t know what we’ll do with all the avocados yet, but we still have a few days until they ripen to decide.

And hurricane Ike is projected to stay South of the peninsula and head into the Gulf.  Life is good in paradise.

Your sensitive financial data sitting by the curb. Free for the taking!

Sunday night we receive a call from our real estate/rental agent.  As our tenants were leaving the North Broward house at the end of their lease they left 15 boxes by the curb for trash pickup.  This itself was not a problem.  The problem was that these boxes contained the sensitive financial information of many, many individuals.  One of the tenants had worked as a mortgage broker in the heyday of the real estate boom in Florida.  What he was leaving by the curb were his files of credit reports of customers. 

Somehow the police had been notified of this and were trying to find our previous tenant to request that he move this data off the curb and to a more appropriate location.  By the time we showed up the next morning the boxes were gone (hopefully by the tenant and not someone looking for identity theft targets)  There was one file left behind on the grass so we were able to see for ourselves the information he was offering to the world.  It was a complete credit report and score including full names, addresses, all financial account information, and social security numbers. 

It is quite alarming to realize that this information was in the hands of someone as irresponsible as these tenants (not just irresponsible for this incident but also for the failure to maintain the yard or pay the rent and utilities, etc., etc…..).  Why was it in his residence and not in storage at a mortgage broker’s office?  Why was it not properly shredded if no longer needed?  Yow, there are so many concerns here.  And something to think about next time you authorize a credit report or give away your data….  where will that financial info eventually end up?  Kicked to the curb for the taking?

Gustav raising gas prices

Hurricane Gustav is headed for the Gulf and gas prices are already risin’:

Gas prices zoomed higher in states along the Gulf of Mexico as workers on offshore oil rigs abandon ship ahead of Hurricane Gustav which became a category 3 storm on Saturday….

Gas also rose by about 4 cents a gallon in Louisiana. Alabama saw a daily increase of about 3 cents. In Texas prices rose more than 2 cents, and in Florida prices rose by more than a penny, according to AAA. In New Orleans, gas prices rose by just over 4 cents a gallon. All of these areas are dependent upon oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as a major part of their oil supply.

In comparison, gas prices declined overnight in New York, New Jersey, California, states that are not directly dependent on the Gulf.

Is it just us, or does this seem a bit pre-emptive?  If I buy gas at the corner gas station last night or today, it is the same batch of gas.  Why is it higher today instead of a week from now when the refineries actually see the reduction in oil from the affected oil rigs?  Sigh, I think we are going to look back on this years from now and realize how much of a scam these fluctuations in gas prices were.  Anyway, glad we filled up both cars and renewed the hurricane/lawn mowing stash yesterday.

Walgreens coupons

I am signed up for emails from Walgreens and for months now have been getting emails announcing coupons (X dollars off if you spent X dollars).  These are usually good on one day only.  This week was a $10 off of $40 and was good through Friday, August 29th and Saturday, August 30th.  If you are out and about today and have drug store items to buy, here is the printable coupon.  You can check the sale flyer in your area from the Walgreens website.  The coupon is good on photos and they have already have Halloween candy and decorations stocked. 

What did I buy?  Two large canisters of Infant formula, a $10 toaster, 3 Kraft Mac & Cheese, 5 sugar free jello, 3 10-packs of Quacker Instant Oatmeal.  All for $30.

Happy bargain hunting!!

TCoP Monthly Budget

One of our fun Labor day weekend activities will be to reassess our budget!  With Mrs. TCoP’s new job we’ll need to adjust for a bit more gas, an increase in withholdings, and we may ease up on her maxed out retirement savings in order to get some more cash in our emergency fund.  We’ll also want to consider the idea of increasing the amount we put into our rentals monthly.  We haven’t been realistic about this amount which results in our not meeting our savings goals regularly.  Here is our current budget:

Total Income (including rental income)	11155
Savings
ROTH IRAs (31K/yr 401Ks not included here)	200
Other Savings	1400
Debt Repayment
Student loan (paying approx. 100 extra/month)	450
Mortgage payment	2540
Rentals (mortgages & expenses)	3510
Auto — fuel	400
Auto (insurance/repairs & maint.)	315
Travel	150
Childcare	650
Home maintenance	100
Gifts given	65
Groceries	300
Health (copays,prescript,eyeglass,etc.)	225
Recreation (YMCA)	60
Walmart (household, diapers, etc)	125
Insurance (personal property, liability)	65
Discretionary (everything else, including eating out)	250
Electric & Gas	125
Internet (Comcast)	60
Cell phones	90
Water/sewer	75
Total Expenses	11155

Any suggestions on where we can save?  Any line items that appear completely out of whack?

2008 Tax Assessments are in

The total value of our 3 properties has dropped from $780,000 to $758,000.  The two Broward county properties dropped 13% and 6%. Less than expected.  And the assessed value of the North Florida property rose about 15%. 

We use these tax assessment values in our net worth calculations.  So starting next month the value of our properties in our net worth calculations will be updated to reflect the new assessment.

Americans are saving more for retirement

The Miami Herald reports on a retirement savings study by Fidelity which reports good news:

A rotten economy and a depressed stock market are not stopping Americans from saving for retirement, according to a study by Fidelity Investments. In fact, Americans are saving slightly more. And that is similar to findings from the 2001 dot-com bubble as well.

 

Fidelity, the country’s top provider of workplace retirement plans, analyzed 16,723 401(k) plans representing 11.5 million participants and found that the average pretax employee contribution increased by 1.4 percent in the first half of 2008, to $3,187.

If you limit the sample to employees who participated in retirement plans in 2007 and 2008, the average annual contribution grew by 7 percent, to $3,512.

The article offers a couple of theories for this increase: the increasing popularity of auto-increasing contributions, and Boomers making last minute savings as they get close to retirement.

Our reason for increasing our retirement savings this year?  A panic in realizing we hadn’t saved much in our 20s and a pessimism about how little social security will provide for us.

Financial Aspects of Changing Jobs

Mrs. TCoP will be starting a new job soon.  With a change in jobs comes many changes to our financial picture.  We still do not have the full benefit information, so there are many things we can’t make decisions on yet. Just to get it off her chest, here is the laundry list of financial aspects we’ll be dealing with in the next few months:  (we’ll post more about each as we deal with them)

1) Retirement Savings rollover.  Mrs. TCoP currently has a 403(b) with TIAA-CREF.  We’ll need to research whether or not to keep this in TIAA-CREF or rolling it over into a Fidelity IRA.

2) Clothes.  A change to a corporate office from an educational institution will require a bit more polished dressing.  No more bermuda shorts, sandals, and comfy cardigans.  This will require a few hundred dollars in new clothing.

3) Accrued vacation.  Mrs. TCoP has almost three weeks of unused vacation that will be paid out after she leaves.  This nice sum will either go in the emergency account or the car saving fund.

4) Cost of gas.  The extra miles to work, at today’s gas prices, will set us back about $100 a month.  This will most likely speed up our desire to buy that more fuel efficient car.  Then we will switch and Mr. TCoP, with the shorter commute, will drive the minivan and Mrs. TCoP will drive the small fuel efficient car.

5) W4.  Even though Mrs. TCoP’s pay is the same, this will be a good opportunity to re-evaluate our tax withholdings.

6) Retirement Savings contributions.  One of our accomplished goals for the year was to max out our retirements savings.  We have done that and are currently on track to each save the full $15,500 a year.  Plus about $1500 in our Roth IRAs.  We’re rethinking this contribution with the new job.  There are a lot of future scenarios and one is moving which would require an outlay of cash for a downpayment.  In general we have much less cash than we would like.  Would we be better off reducing our max on retirement and putting more towards liquid funds?  We also have to weigh the aspect of having that money going into our retirement accounts without us seeing it.  And the tax implications.