Money

[dancerjodi]

It is open enrollment time. My company is switching insurance providers earlier than usual and starting off with a calendar year for benefits (rather than 4/1/13). Our cost is the same for BCBS rather than THP, benefits are comparable, but the company will save a lot of cash. The plain vanilla HMO costs the most, but assuming we would spend the max out of pocket costs above our premium with coinsurance/deductible payments, the $ difference between that and the cheaper PPO/HRA option isn't substantial over a year. I like not having to handle paying bills and not having to track things, and so the tiny increase in cost is worth less hassle to me. I'm sure, that this kind of vanilla HMO option will be a thing of the past at some point, but for now I am enjoying it. We have no need for the PPO freedom, because we stick within our PCP's network.

We signed up for a 529 for Mina a while ago through our brother in law (not the MA fund, but one out of state that has a direct link to Upromise.com). We're putting $50 a month in there - hey it is something (we started with an initial $200 or $400 deposit or something like that - I am forgetting now since it has been a while)! If we receive any funds for her in the form of gifts with that intention, they will be going there. It is a drop in the bucket, but since we have debt to pay down (Brian's truck, a mortgage, and who knows how long my car will work for us . . . hoping to only have 1 car payment at a time but it may not be a reasonable expectation) we gotta self insure first (mostly) and all of that. It is one of Dave Ramsey's main key suggestions and for the most part his philosophy seems like a reasonable one to me.

A while ago I saw this piggy bank http://www.flickr.com/photos/tk7602/8145678565/in/photostream , probably on thesimpledollar.com. I thought it was a great idea as a tool to teach young kids about simple money management, and I saved a pic of it in my Pinterest.com page for future reference (an aside, I am love using Pinterest as a tool for this . . . I saved pics of toy kitchens there too, more on this later). A friend at the dance studio gave Mina $1 the day of the Making Strides walk, and Nana Jan sent her some Halloween $. The $1 went into the "Donate" section (I figured, since it was from Making Strides day, it would be a good way to spend it) and the $ from Nana went into the spending section (she wrote a note that Mommy and Daddy should buy her a treat with it). Brian calls me a huge dork, but I'm excited about her having her first piggy bank. And it is green! For money! We have a couple of ING accounts, one that has been our emergency fund and another teeny one (like $50) that I think I started a long time ago for our eventual to be had kid. For now I'll call that Mina's bank account until we are dealing with more cash flow and need to get her something more local. We love Watertown Savings Bank and down the line could bring her in there to 'see' her money, so we will probably go with them. I remember being so excited to have my own passbook account years ago from Pioneer Financial bank on Moody Street over between Ash and Brown, near the Dunkin Donuts.

It has been a crazy week with the storm and no power and Halloween. My dance teather was not going to be at class yesterday, and though I could have benefited from the review and exercise, I needed some family time to get back to normal - feeling very frazzled this week. We took a drive out to Ikea and bought Mina's toy kitchen! It is a birthday/Xmas present, but since we have made the space for it in our kitchen we have both been excited to get the thing in there. I had bought her a plush small grocery bag with some plush food, and we got some more plush food and some pots and pans at Ikea last night. We also got some Xmas shopping out of the way. Mina was up a bit later, but settled to bed well. Prep for daylight savings maybe? Brian could not resist putting it together and while he did that, I ran around the house trying to get some order: laundry, dishes, daycare prep, general hurricane mess piled up. There is still the top part (a microwave/shelf thing) to be put together and attached, but that will need a teeny bit of cutting down with a table saw to fit in its little cubby space (probably only 1"). Here is the bottom unit http://www.flickr.com/photos/dancerjodi/8147565552/in/photostream . This is the top thing that will go onto it http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90129800/ . And here is the stuff we bought her to go with it:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70185750/
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00130167/

Here is the first play food toy I bought for her at a cute shop in Melrose Center a couple of weeks ago http://www.amazon.com/Earlyears-Lil-Shopper-Play-Set/dp/B001R5VNYY . I had a meeting at the hospital and needed to get a birthday gift for a friend. This place http://www.beanstalktoyshop.com/ was close by and a lot of fun (as was its neighbor shop, http://www.beansproutgifts.com/ - great clothes and books there). Support your local businesses, yo!

Mina has an Amazon wish list now, mainly for me to keep track of things for her http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/registry.html?ie=UTF8&id=60271H6KV2OP&type=wishlist . Can you suggest any must-have kids toys/books that I should add there?

It is such a fun and strange experience sharing things I loved as a child with our daughter. We spent countless hours with our play kitchen (when we outgrew it, we donated to the kindergarden classroom at St. Patrick's School in Watertown). Books were a huge thing for me too. I'm trying to stick with simple, timeless, durable and natural toys that will help her grow her imagination and also her fine motor coordination. And trying to keep a reasonable amount of stuff. I see a future of a lot of recirculating things: one thing in and one goes out (donate or pass on to a friend). Thank goodness we have an attic to put the big awkward things in or the stuff she is yet to grow into (like Tiamatlady's old Nancy Drew collection, OMFG). Which reminds me, there are probably baby things in there she has outgrown that we could find new homes for. It is amazing how quick they cycle through things.

Looking forward to a weekend with being both out and about on Saturday and home on Sunday. Got to get our yard under control then! We finally called the landscaper and it is too late to do work, so we'll clear what we can and next year (around Mother's Day) they will tear out our side yard, level it out, and we'll start from scratch. I want to plant better/taller things near the back of our front yard (I am seeing Azaleas, just like at Gram's house) and we can grow food in the front - only full sun we get with 2 huge trees in our tiny side yard, and a paved/patio back yard). The big question will be seed or sod on the side. Suggestions?

Comments

[darthwk.livejournal.com]

The one-car-payment thing is most definitely a reasonable expectation, but impermanent at best -- for example, getting rear-ended at an intersection when the car behind is trying to avoid getting T-boned by the approaching fire trucks!

Totaled my Escape (the one that was paid off long ago), and now I'm driving that one that Lori drove and we bought another car for her....so we're back up to two car payments :(

We got a 529 for Henry, too. Felt very proud of myself when we opened it :)

[dancer.livejournal.com]

This has happened to us - twice!

My blue Impala was hit head on (totalled) and I only owed about $2k on it. I had been paying it down like crazy, and just paid a deductible on my insurance to have some body work done (I had been sideswiped and was all scratched up, but it was totally just cosmetic). Brian's truck was paid for, but then I had to take on the new (more expensive loan).

Then Brian's truck died and he got a new one. We worked on paying my Impala down, his truck payment was more. Paid the Impala off and started working on paying his truck down. Got a lot accomplished on that, until we had to turn it in for a bigger one so that we could fit Mina's carseat. Then daycare payments started and the big truck downpayment was scaled back. I'm hoping to get some life out of mine for a bit or least of all save so that when I buy something I can put a good chunck down. We'll see. We're far off from paying Brian's truck down, and though it kills me, I think I'll need to get used to it. Daycare, increased insurance costs, increased food bill all take out of the extra money we had to do that kind of thing before. But I can't complain . . . we can pay for this stuff and still save in our general fund (and still pay a bit more than the minimum on the truck loan).

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

That is the most adorable piggy bank!

My dad made me sign a contract when I got my driver's license. In it, I had to keep up my grades, get a job, pay my own insurance, and start saving. 10% of every paycheck towards insurance, 10% to savings. I also had to drive him to/from work, or drive siblings to things, if I wanted to borrow his car.

My dad, nor any of us, knew much of how to figure out the investing thing. I'm still trying to sort it out. (Got a 401k, Roth, ING, emergency savings & house savings...now what? Trying to sort that out.)

[dancer.livejournal.com]

I had a similar arrangement as a kid driving, though I had my own car. Paid to get it on the road (it was free from a friend - totalled and I needed to find and buy a new hood and grill to get it legal again). It was registered and insured in my name, and I had to pay for all of that out of my Burger King salary. Thankfully my parents did help me to pay for repairs (the thing was a piece of crap).

I'm still figuring out the investing thing. I know it is important, but I'm not excited about it and so when I start getting a bit more involved my eyes glaze over and I shut off. We have our emergency fund, 401ks, life insurance. We could do better but for now, we're doing 'ok' I think. My parents investment strategies didn't do much to help educate us. Mom has a traditional pension from New York Life who she's worked for, forever. Dad is self-employed, and his whole investment strategy has been to try and buy rental property (the problem is, right now they are just paying bills with that and sometimes in the winter with heavy heating costs which he pays are *not* covering expenses).

Life is hard, or something like that. :)

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

I keep most of my retirement $ in freedom funds (retirement-date-based portfolios that change %ages slowly over time, from more risk to more conservative), because they require no thinking about it. We also have Fidelity/TIAA-Cref guys we can meet with on campus anytime, so I check in about once a year. So far, they just tell me to keep going, and I keep trying to glean other investment options from them.

I keep my Roth (fairly new) and some 401k in specific funds, which are still a small % of overall, so there isn't much risk. That way I get to test what interests me, in a lazy way. There is also an online stock tracker game, called WeSeed, which I played with a bit, just to watch a couple of things at no risk.

I'd love to own rental property, and we nearly bought a multi-family, but that one got too scary. We still keep our eyes open, but want a place we also would want to live in, first.

The ING drop from 4% to .7% is frustrating, and I want a better short-term saving/investing option.

[sajuka.livejournal.com]

The ING drop from 4% to .7% is frustrating

That's what happens when interest rates tank (though that same effect helped the mortgage rate we got in 2010). It's still a lot better than my credit union, but I agree, good sub-one-year investments are hard to find...

I'll second the freedom funds (though our 401k provider calls them something different, it's the same idea).

Related to this topic of conversation, a year (and a week) ago I opened a Vanguard account to experiment with higher yield (higher risk) investments to try to get better return on money that was sitting in ING (it was a leap of faith, and I was quite nervous about it). Investing very conservatively (and basically the minimums for each fund) I'm currently up 12% on my initial investment (not accounting for taxes, so if I cash out that will go down a little). That's a pretty good result, but it is a bit scary thinking about scaling up from "experiment" money to "large portion of portfolio" money. I'll be playing with spreadsheets a lot in the near future I think!

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that the stock market in the last year has been headed higher and higher, and could be due for a reset soon...I think it is a bit overinflated, given the unemployment numbers. I think investors are taking advantage of low capital gains and bush tax cuts while they can, knowing they can't last forever.

I've actually been waiting for the market to correct and lower, because I want to amp up investments again. But then, I may not know what the heck I'm doing either.

[sajuka.livejournal.com]

The Bush era tax cuts are exactly why I'm thinking about extracting my earnings now rather than just sitting on them, but we'll see... When I opened the account I prepared myself for a Vegas bet, and only put in what I was willing to lose. So far things are going well, but I agree the current run up (and recent down turn; two weeks ago I was up almost 17%) is a bit bubble-like.

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

Also, interest rates have been set unnaturally low by the Fed—at 0% essentially, and for year after year on end, which is very unusual.

The problem with this is, it doesn't allow the market to correct itself. Also, though it aims to help consumers (and it does, those with high debts), it helps the banks FAR more than the public or the government. Banks borrow at 0% or refi loans at lower rates; but the Fed borrows from the banks at 0%+.5, so banks make money from the government, while saving money from their own sketchy, bloated mortgages. Wealthy investors can buy up all the cheap foreclosures & housing stock, or upgrade to a nicer home by taking advantage of lower rates and prices; but lending standards have become stricter for middle-income borrowers, so fewer people can buy in to the entry-level market. If interest rates rose, housing prices would have fallen farther (something many people didn't want), which would have leveled the buying field more for the average buyer vs. the investor. My credit card interest rate was much lower back when I had average credit, high debt, and interest rates were high. Now that rates are at zero, and I have excellent credit and no debt...the cc rate is still higher, due to the crackdown on lenders (which got sent down to consumers).

I'm in no hurry to see interest rates skyrocket. But I do have concerns that the unnaturally frozen 0%, coupled with a slow recovery, high stock speculation, and unsustainably low tax rates, could cause another big economic hiccup.

OTOH, I'm also trying to get into a good home SOON, while the prices & rates are stable and our credit is awesome, before that happens. :)

[sajuka.livejournal.com]

If you haven't read it yet, you might find The Great Financial Crisis very interesting. At risk of making myself sound naive, my summary is here.

[sajuka.livejournal.com]

The plain vanilla HMO costs the most, but assuming we would spend the max out of pocket costs above our premium with coinsurance/deductible payments, the $ difference between that and the cheaper PPO/HRA option isn't substantial over a year.

Really? Everywhere I worked the PPO plan is significantly more than the HMO. But then again, I guess we're in very different phases of family life right now!

It is one of Dave Ramsey's main key suggestions and for the most part his philosophy seems like a reasonable one to me.

So I never really got this philosophy. But today I finally dug around and found <a href="http://business.time.com/2012/08/16/the-verdict-is-in-tackle-smaller-debts-first/>this Time article</a>. I agree Ramsey's approach makes sense on a psychological level, but I'm always going to hold on to my math... I'm just too rational ;) But at least now I understand why there are two viewpoints and why I so often see conflicting information on this topic.

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

The Ramsey approach worked for me (didn't know it by name though, just liked to keep simplifying things by reducing the # of bills paid). Went from default to debt-free, and built up savings vehicles along the way. :)

Mostly, it help rein in lifestyle creep, by rolling any extra into the next savings goal instead of at the club/bar/restaurants.