Big Changes!

Several months ago, my husband and I talked about selling our rental house.  This was our first home and was a great starter home when we first got married, but we outgrew it very quickly.  We currently rent to his aunt and she's getting a REALLY good deal, which means we are not making any money on it and may possibly be losing a tiny bit.  We hadn't made a final decision or even told anyone we were thinking about it and have had 3 people call about it, one of which was a Realtor!

We should know more by the end of this week, but right now it looks like a pretty well done deal :)   Once the bank is paid off we'll be making a few major home improvements, like new wiring :)  I'd really love to start with adding a master bathroom, but I suppose it would make much more sense to replace the 100+ year old wiring and finish replacing all the windows.  I am pretty excited that we are also planning to improve the insulation and put up new vinyl siding.  The best part of all these things is probably how much our gas and electric bills should improve!

Update...

Things were a little scary for a few weeks around the end of September.  My Dad was hospitalized for awhile, but things have been looking great the last few weeks and we are Thanking God everyday and praying everything continues to go well for a long time :)  During the time my Dad was hospitalized I was making lots of trips back and forth to Kansas City and started relying way too much on my credit card for gas and food.  I kept justifying it to myself because I have no interest on the card right now and it really was an emergency.  My 6 months of no interest is going to be up in January and now I've got some paying off to do!

Now that things seem to be settling back down, I plan to work on planning a budget again, especially since my husband is finally ready to work on a budget.

Why the FFEF is ESSENTIAL!

I've gotten a HUGE reminder over the last few weeks about just why the Fully Funded Emergency Fund is SOOOO important!  My Dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma, it is throughout his entire body, but fortunately has not metastasized into any organs at this point.  This was totally unexpected, he will be 54 in a couple weeks.

One of the worst things about having to deal with a disease like cancer is having to think about all the financial complications as if the stress of cancer wasn't enough!  I've learned over the last week that in order to receive a disability check you have to be disabled and unable to work for 6 months first.  So for that 6 months you don't have an income to pay your bills, while you're piling up huge amounts of medical bills and have possibly lost your insurance if insured through your employer.

I've always hated the saying, "You never think it could happen to you."  Honestly though I never thought it would happen to my Dad.  It's so hard to believe this is all happening and happening quickly with treatment scheduled to start on the 13th.    

Vacation Update

It turns out that after paying all that debt off, I really don't like having any!  The vacation charges on my credit card were really bothering me, so I paid it off this week :)  I still have nearly 5 months expenses in my Emergency fund, so I've just got a little bit of building back up to do there.  It's definitely way more money than I had last summer, when we went on vacation AND put all our hotel rooms on a credit card.  I don't plan to EVER do that again!

Debt Free Vacation, almost

I've been wanting to take the kids on a Disney Cruise for awhile now.  I was planning to save up the cash first before booking the cruise, BUT to get a Disney Cruise you need to book in advance! Yesterday I booked our January 2013 cruise.  The cost of the cruise plus insurance was a little of $2400.  We opted for an inside stateroom to save money and figuring we wouldn't spend much time in there.  I did use a Disney Visa card to book it, which means I'll get $50 on board credit and I have 6 months of no interest.  I plan to get it paid off within just a few months and if we don't get it paid off before the interest starts on it, then we'll take the money from the emergency fund.  I know it's not an emergency, BUT we have a little more than 6 months expenses in their now.  Baby Step 2.1, part of the expanded TMMO steps is take a vacation, if you can pay for it in cash.  This step actually comes before the fully funded emergency fund, so we're still doing pretty good if we do have to take money from the FFEF.

Payday!

Today was my first paycheck after increasing my pre-tax retirement contribution from 5 to 15%, which isn't near as scary as I thought it was gonna be.  It's also the first month I don't have to pay Verizon or Blue Cross.  The insurance company gave us some credit back on the car when we canceled the insurance, so that made a big difference in the bill this month!      

Baby Step #4

I just spoke with my Retirement financial adviser and upped my Contributions to my pension to 15%!  I also got information on college savings plans, which I will probably start putting money in next month when he returns.  College savings is one thing I have NO idea what amount to invest in.  It's also something my husband and I have very different views on.  He doesn't think we should save for college and make the kids pay their own way.  Can you guess which one of us actually went to college???  I do want them to work hard and help pay for their own college, but I also don't want them to graduate with a HUGE amount of debt when they're just starting out in the real world.