The Toyguy's Blog

I haven't posted anything in a couple of months. Nothing much new going on. I'm progressing pretty well with my goals for the year. I will make a separate post about my goals.

Anyways I have a little mutual fund problem that I would appreciate advice on. I have two mutual funds that I originally purchased from an investment broker
in the 1990's. I was happy with them for a long time and the paperwork involved was pretty simple.

Then with various stock market crashes and the recession and so on my mutual funds depreciated a lot and also somehow became more complicated. They snuck in a maintenence fee. Due to my slacker ways I barely noticed. I did call them to find out what was going on but they just insisted that i always had paid the fees. Now I just found out that the fees only started in 2009. They also passed my funds through to several different investment companies. I called the guy that I thought was my broker and it turns out that he didn't want to handle my account anymore so he had turned it over to their Customer Service Team. I spoke with them finally the other day because i had a tax question and actually it
the first time that the brokers seemed to give me any straight answers to my questions. So I think the fact that my old broker didn't weant my account was a good thing.
But the problem still is that the company charges me a maintenace fee of $60 a year and this year its going up to $85. My Mutual Funds are just starting to recover from all the bad things that have happened over the years but are basically pretty close to what
the original base was. I'm thinking of closing it all up completely. That would elimate the fees the brokerage firm that hasn't done much of anything for me. I am thinking of putting the money into Vanguard because that seems to be the most highly praised Mutual Fund company from people on Savings Advice.

So does that seem like a good idea or what should I do? And what Vanguard fund (or any other fund) would you recommend? Its not an IRA. I had Growth and Income Mutual Funds.

Thanks in advance. And I'm sorry if this post was pretty boring to read. I really could use the advice. Especially for the best Vanguard fund to look into.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a good start to the new year.

Overall 2010 was a pretty good year for me financially. I do not think that the relatively small amount I have invested in Mutual Funds will ever completely recover but otherwise I've done fairly well. I accomplished most of my goals, paid off the mortgage on my house 11 years early, and saved $1200 towards an eventual cruise to Antarctica.

I finally posted these goals on my sidebar so its easier to keep track and compare them. I did miss out
on one of my regular goals and one of my "lofty" goals.

Now for my 2011 Goals:

- Pay myself back into my savings account the money that I used to pay off my mortgage.
- Put $3000 into a Traditional IRA again.
- Put $1000 into a Roth IRA.
- Add at least $2000 to my Antarctica fund.
- Add $400 to Emergency Fund (At end of 2010 I have $2526 in this fund)
- Put at least some money into my car fund. I have a car fund created at ING with about $25 in it but need to start saving for a future car purchase.
- Go to Scotland for a week in May for a ghost tour and stay a few days in New York city.
- Might have to have another expensive roof repair. Last year or so I had to have half the roof done and was very satisfied. But I think I have to have the rest of the roof done now.
- Take a short trip to New Orleans for Halloween.

Thats all I got. A few things will be easy but some are going to take some effort. I might add a goal or 2 later on depending on how things go.

Paid off my mortgage this week. 11 years early on its 30 year loan. I actually think I could have done better but still a good thing. Just have to wait for the paperwork to go through to make it all official.

I'm also on vacation right now. Not doing anything special. Mostly watching scary Halloween movies.
I'm hoping to take 2 trips next year though.

Hope everyopne is doing well. And have a great Halloween.

Well I did not turn on my heat but it got rather cold and kicked on on its own. It does this thing were it it blows the pilot light off the first time it runs. So I had to fiddle with it and let it run a little in
order to make sure its working ok. So I'm officialy out of the contest but I'm still going to try to keep my heat off as long as possible.

I decided not to post any more of my payday updates. At least for awhile. They helped me at first but I just can't keep up with it. I am doing well with my budgeting goals though. In a couple of weeks I'm going to pay off my house. Then I will be completely and totally debt free.

I also plan on saving at least $1200 by the end of the year for my Antarctica fund. Not even close to what I'll need but I have time and its pretty good considering that it wasn't an actual goal for this
year. So far I have about $800 in that account.

Looking forward to Halloween coming up. I always take
a vacation for it. Not going anywhere as far as i know. But the time off is nice and I always have a little scary Halloween movie marathon. I know that I am a strange one.

Thursday was my payday. Its actually a little confusing cause I actually get my pay now direct deposited on Weds. But Thursday used to be payday so I stick with that. I usually go to the ATM machine on friday to take out my spending cash.
Just my weird way of thinking I guess.

From this pay after deducting my regular budgeted expenses and taking out $120 spending money:

- put $100 towards my extra mortgage pricipal instead of my usual $50. I will very soon pay my house off.

- Put $30 towards paying my new cable bill.

- put $10 to Travel Fund

- put $8 to my Antarctica Fund.


Nothing else much going on today. I am enjoying the new high speed internet. But its a bit of an internal conflict in my heart that it costs so much.
At the same time I was in need of making some personal improvements to myself and my home and my recent spending is helping me with that. Just need to keep some kind of balance.

Been spending a little more recently.
I added $30 the other day on my prepaid cell phone.
Got cable TV and internet about a week ago. Then purchased a router for that for about $79.
Today I bought a few little items from Marcs with cash and not expensive but still mainly just wants. Then decided on getting a GPS Tom Tom at Target that was on sale. I really don't feel too bad about it though cause these things were not totally frivolous. And my hours have been a lot better at my job.
Definately have to get back to my old frugal ways though.

I'm hoping that I can somehow figure out a way to make a few extra dollars with my new high speed internet. Thats something I'm going to work on.

Well once again I'm behind posting this but its cause of internet problems. I still had dial up and under normal circumstances it has served me well for a very low cost. But something went wrong with my phone line or something and my dial up still don't work. The phone itself works though. I eventually gave up and decided to get a little closer towards the 21st century. I got cable TV and cable internet. Its very nice and I get a sale price for a year. Still feel like I'm being wasteful though.
When my year is almost up I'll tweak the service to cut down the cost some. But I think the time has come that I will probably have high speed internet for the rest of my life.

From my last paycheck on 8/5/2010 I took out a bit more spending money than usual cause I had a week's vacation and went camping for a couple of days. Went to Mohican and took the 18 mile canoe trip that has become an annual thing with my nephew and his son.
After that and my regular budgeted expences I put an extra $100 towards my mortgage payment. Put $75 towards my travel fund and $73 towards my Antarctica fund. That took care of that check.

About 4 months or so ago I got a Virgin Mobile Pre-Paid cell phone. I had gone a good while without any cell phone but wanted one just for emergencies and such. Well last week it was time to "Top Up" my card to continue service. As soon as I did that I got an email from them that said if I Top Up I could use a promo code for an extra free $20 of service. I called them and told them how it was sent right after I already did it. They were very nice about it and gave me the extra $20 anyways. I had them shut off the text messaging too cause I don't use that feature and keep getting texts that just waste my minutes.
I give them high marks for their customer service.

Well I have to return to work todaty after my week of vacation. Dreading that. It wont be too bad once I actually get there. I hope. :-)

I was so far behind from my slacking that I had no idea of how to catch up on my blog. So I'm skipping the past couple of months of payday updates and starting fresh. Over the time that I skipped everything financially was going ok. I made a few puchases but nothing major and everything was paid in cash or on my credit card and paid off in full.
I bought a new vacuum cleaner recently. The one I had still worked but it did a terrible job and sort of blew dust back out. So I bought a nice Dirt Devil for about $88. Like it a lot so far. I can't see paying 500 for a Dyson or such even though I was tempted.
The only slip up financially that I've made was I was a day late paying my credit card bill and got charged a penalty. They wouldn't take the penalty off but it truely was my own fault. Thats pretty minor in the scheme of things.

So yesterday was payday. I made more than usual because I scheduled some Personal Days and for some reson they didn't give me my normal dasys off in addition. So I ended up getting an extra days pay. My next check will have 2 extra days as well. So I feel rich.
After deducting my regular budgeted items I kept out $120 for spending money. That also includes groceries and such. Gasoline is on the Budget and I use my credit card for that.
Put $98 into my Travel Fund.
Put $100 into my Antarctica Fund.
Put $60 for my IRA.
And put the usual $50 into extra Mortgage Principal.

That pretty much covers it. It might sound like pretty measly amounts to most of you but for me this was a good paycheck. My checks are measly. LOL.

Yeah I've been missing in Action for a good month or more. Since I don't blog a lot most of you probably didn't notice.

I don't have a good excuse really. I was somewhat keeping up with everyone elses blogs but fell way behind on that. I don't really like this site as much since they changed the format a couple months ago. It
somehow makes it harder for me to follow.

Anyways financially things are going pretty well. My hours have improved at work and it seems like I have been having extra money lately. So thats good. Also I think i'm quite a bit ahead on my goals for the year. I just haven't been keeping a very good track on it.
I even have a couple hundred dollars saved so far for eventually taking a trip to Antarctica. It will be a while before I get to do that. But ya have to start somewhere.

The bad news is that my boss at work truely does hate me and I know she would love it if I were fired. She also gave me a lecture the other day that me and the other person in Toys don't do a good enough job. They are also starting a lot of new stuff that is very hard to get used to. I'll probably survive but I'm really in a struggle to keep my job. I spend more time at work explaining what I'm working on to various
bosses and looking for equiptment to do my job than actually working. There is literally sometimes 4 or 5 bosses running around and only 1 or 2 workers. The bosses usually wont help customers but run over to me and tell me to help. So i might have to sell bullets and mix paint at the same time. Its very frustrating.

Well thats all I have to update for now. I hopefully can start my payday updates on here again cause it does help me keep focused on my budget.

Had my dental checkup on tuesday. It went well except had a tooth that chipped and needed a filling. So I had that done yesterday. I don't know what it will cost after insurance. I had set some money aside for it and thought I'd have some leftover but probably now I'll be a little short. Nothing major. I have the money just not money that was meant for dental expenses.

I booked part of my vacation for next month. I'm just driving to West Virginia. I reserved 2 nights camping
and I'm doing a canopy tour and a rock climbing class. I'm a little fearful of the rock climbing. Its just a beginners thing though so I think I'll survive it. I think will stay a couple of nights in a hotel.
I hope I can also go caving. That was my real purpose for going there anyhow. But I read something on the rules that you have to go in groups of 2 or more. So whether they can partner me off with someone else or not I'm not sure. One of the many pitfalls of being single.

So far my goals are starting to come together pretty smoothly now. A lot better than things looked a month or so ago. Hope everyone has a great day.

Thursday (4/15/2010) was my payday. Like a lot of people on here I get paid every 2 weeks so I get 3 paychecks this month instead of the usual 2. Yay! So I can divide this check up slightly different than usual.

- Put $20 into Antarctica Fund.
- Put $77 to pay myself for the car repair from January. Its now paid in full.
- Put $50 into Travel Fund.
- Put $70 in E-Fund
- Put $200 in 2010 IRA.
- Put $63 aside for my next Dental visit. It shouldn’t really cost that much.
- Leave $100 in checking just as cushion.

I also deposited my Federal and State tax refunds last week.
From these checks I deducted what I paid HR Block and will put the rest :

- $33 Antarctica Fund.
- $300 Travel Fund
- $300 2010 IRA Fund
- $300 E-Fund
- Putting up to $160 into a new camera. (a Want)
- Left with $240 that I don’t know how to use. Will decide later.

With the extra check this month and the good tax refund I feel like I'm finally catching up a bit and making some headway. Hopefully this month builds up some steam to get through the rest of the year.

Hi Everyone. I hope that you all had a great Easter.
I am going to have to change my name on here from Toyguy to Slacker guy. I went over 2 paychecks again without posting. I'm continuing on with my goals OK
though. Just moving along slowly is all. The good thing is that April and May are better financial months for me than some other months. I did get my taxes done and get a pretty good refund from
Federal and $114 from the state. I already received the check from Ohio.

On my paycheck from over 2 weeks ago (3/18/2010) I also received my quarterly bonus. So thats a couple extra hundred dollars. From that check:
- Put my usual extra $50 into my Mortgage Principal.
- Put $50 to my IRA
- Put $200 to my Travel Fund.
- Put $50 to my car repair from January ( bring the total I owe myself to $117)
- Also put $10 to start an Antarctica fund. Boy its going to take awhile to get there. :-)

On my most recent paycheck (4/1/2010)
- Put $50 to extra Mortgage Principal.
- Put $40 to my January car repair (now owe myself $77)
- Put $20 to my IRA fund.
- Put only $4 to Travel Fund.
- Put $10 in my Antarctica Fund. I feel the cold breeze already.

Thats about it. I'm trying to get outside more now that its nice and wanting to walk more. I love walking but have been slacking at that as well. I want to do some fairly physical stuff this year for vacations and such and need to get myself in better shape.

Thursday was my payday. I'm not making much progress on goals but I am working on them as much as I can. Things will progress a little bit better as the year goes along.

Put an extra $50 again towards extra Principal of my mortgage.
Put $20 to my IRA funds.
Putting $3 from check (thats all I had extra) and the "cell phone money" towards re-paying myself for the January car repair. Now I still owe myself $167.
Thats pretty much it.

Went to see "The Crazies" on friday.
Probably not going to be a big hit but it was actually a pretty good movie. Also went to a fish fry dinner with a bunch of friends. They basically go there every friday now and the group is getting bigger each time. It was kinda nice but I can't and wont do it every week. For one thing (even though it was a reasonable price) I can't afford it all the time. Plus I work most friday evenings. Once in awhile isn't too bad though.

I still have a $10 gift card and some money I set aside to go to the Outback Steak house. Thats starting to burn a hole in my pocket. LOL. I want to go there so bad but it seems every time I think about it its just bad timing. I need to set a time and date and just do it. Do any of you have so much trouble
planning a simple trip to a restaurant? LOL.
Well thats all I got for now. Hope everyone is doing well.

Well it seems kinda late but finally posting my 2010 goals. Nothing very exciting or drastic.
I pretty much made them before the new year but it took me this long to post them.
Its going to be difficult getting much accomplished this year. Its hard just keeping my head above water most of the time. Last year's goals were accomplished but had a lot of setbacks. Things mostly just kept breaking and needing fixed or replaced. I bought a new laptop, HAD to buy a new washing machine, had several small car repairs. This year already had a small car repair that I am paying myself back for.
But I am thankful that I am able to do these things and still be able to get my little goals done without
incurring any debt. I also have a roof over my head and haven't starved to death as of yet.

So without any further ado here is my list of 2010 goals.

- Pay myself back for latest car repair (rear breaks)
- Add $400 to my E-Fund
- Continue putting whatever money I can into IRA fund for 2010 and 2011.
- Put $3000 into IRA for 2010
- Have income taxes done before end of March
- Continue paying at least $100 extra on Principal of my mortgage each month
- Continue putting whatever extra I can afford into my Travel Fund
- Have to call Tours of Terror to make arrangements for Ghost Tour in Scotland for next year.
- Try to take a trip to west Virginia in Spring or early summer.
- Take a short trip to Phoenix Arizona if I can get very low cost tickets.
- Figure out exactly when I can pay off the rest of my mortgage. It might be this year or the end of next year.


-----------------------------------------

I also want to post what I call my Lofty Goals for 2010. These are goals that I am highly unlikely to actually do. But I'm hoping by posting them that they may give me some incentives to work on.
If I accomplish anything at all off this list it will be all gravy.


- Pay off my house completely by November. This one is not so lofty cause I will be paying it off sometime regardless. November will be the absolute earliest though.
- Start an Antarctica Fund and save at least $1000 in it. I want to go there someday but its very expensive and my Travel Fund alone will never be able to handle it.
- Put at least an extra $1000 into my 2010 IRA than stated above but put it into a Roth instead of a Traditional.

Thats all the lofty goals I can think mof for now but its going to be tough just getting the regular ones done.
I still have to post my goals on my sidebar later on.

Yesterday was payday such as it is. I still don't get very good hours despite changing my schedule and everything that they wanted me to do. But I survive.

After all my normal budgeted expenses
I put an extra $50 towards my mortgage principal. I used $21 for a new pair of shoes that I desperately needed.
Have $100 for my spending money. $100 is a little low for me but it will do. My spending money basically covers any entertainment for 2 weeks and groceries and eating out. Gasoline I use my credit card and its covered on my regular budget.

That all leaves me with only $9 extra money. That goes into my checking account
to help pay myself back for the last car repair I had done. So now I still owe myself $209.

I recently received a rebate check from an electric razor I bought quite a long time ago. Its for $8. I'm going to put that Travel Fund I think.

I'm off today which is very unusual. I don't think I've had a friday off since
that last time I took a vacation. I'm going to a fish fry place this evening for supper with a group of friends. I'm kinda looking forward to that.

Hope everyone else has a great weekend.

Got paid on Thursday. Put $50 as usual towards extra mortgage principal. I'm doing well on that part and still plan on paying off my house in the next year or so. After all my budgeted things were taken care of left me with only $25 extra
from my check which will go to paying myself back for the last car repair I had. I still have my cell phone in my budget even though I canceled it a couple months ago. I'm going to put that money ($29) towards my car repair too. So now I still owe myself $218. The repair was already bought and paid for when I had it done but i'm just re-paying myself for it as though it was a loan.

Got the new washing machine FINALLY today. Its a simple basic Maytag and seems to work wonderfully. Really happy and relieved since washing my cloths has been such a hassle the past few months.

It snowed here a lot last might. I'm a little bit burried in my driveway buit I'm about to dig myself out soon. I don't think the roads are bad right now though.

Well everything was finally taken care of (in my favor) about the washing machine that I bought and had problems with. Everything except for the fact that I was left with no washing machine at all for a few weeks. Fortunately I had enough cloths and re-wear most of my cloths before washing.
Today I went to Best Buy and ordered a new one from them. Its just a basic old fasioned washer so I don't think I'll have the problems that I had with the other one. Its being delivered this coming Saturday. I was also so very lucky that this was the first Saturday I've had off in years and thats the day its getting delivered. I hope everything goes well this time.

I also splurged a bit on some things. Relatively small splurges, but still splurges. I think I need to be a little easier on myself anyways cause mentally I've been feeling beaten down. Yesterday my computer mouse
completely broke. Its been on its last leg for awhile. I made sure to put it out of its misery and relieve a bit of my stress by smashing under my foot into a dozen or so pieces. That felt pretty good.
I replaced it with a mouse from the store I work at for under $10. I also used my spending cash so it doesn't really have any impact on my budget.
I've also been looking at voice recorders.
While I was at Best Buy for the washer I decided to look at them there. They had the one I wanted for about $10 cheaper than anyone else. So I splurged again.
I used a small amount of my spending cash again and put the bulk on my credit card.
Fortunately the new washer was a good bit lower price than the one I returned. So I come out out in pretty good shape overall.
The reason I wanted a voice recorder is cause of all the haunted places I like to go to. I've been wanting to try to record EVP's. I still plan to go ghost hunting in Scotland next year so I really hope I can figure it out.

Nothing much else going on. I'll be posting a payday update in a few days. Mostly I'm just trying to hold in there.

As I wrote in my last post that I've been
having all kinds of problems with washing machines lately I finally got some good news. After putting a dispute on my credit card and calling their home office the manager from Home depot called me and said he wants to make me a happy customer and let me return the washing machine.
As long as there are no hidden catches when I go there I guess its finally settled. Boy what ya have to go through sometimes even when you are right.

Got way behind on blogging again. But I didn’t really vanish like I sometimes do. I kept reading other’s blogs. Just haven’t had the time or energy to actually write anything myself. I think I’ve mentioned briefly before that I get depressed sometimes. I haven’t been diagnosed with anything but its something I’ve dealt with for a very long time. Some times are better than other times. Lately has been rough. A lot of personal things have made me feel more depressed than I normally do. Anyway that’s the main reason I sometimes just can’t focus enough to write anything.

I’ve been having a great deal of problems involving washing machines. I finally purchased a new washer from Home Depot in December. I was extremely disappointed in it. It simply doesn’t wash cloths very well. I complained and complained and complained and so far they will not let me return it. I put a dispute on them with my credit card and I’ve talked to a number of customer relations type people. The manager from the store called me today ( but I was at work) and left a message that he wants me to call him about my washing machine. I hope after talking with their home office that they were told to let me return the thing.
I’ll return his call tomorrow and find out.

I also had a sudden surprise car repair a few days ago. Something rather suddenly made a huge clunk when I hit my breaks. The emergency brake cable broke and got stuck somewhere. It cost about 300 dollars to fix. I wasn’t really too upset on this one cause it could have been a lot worse. The repair was done in a couple hours and its working fine now. But its always SOMETHING. That’s going to be one of my first goals for this year is paying myself back for another car repair. I have my goals for 2010 pretty much already figured out. Not too much different from my usual. I’m just still not up to posting them on here yet. I promise I will though.

On a good note. I got rid of some clutter this week that has been bugging me for a long while. I gave a monitor to a friend. And I took another monitor to our county recycling place. Felt good to have them gone. I also dumped off old phone books and what was left of my old laptop. I have 2 old TV sets and an old desktop computer that also need recycling but I didn’t realize at the time that they accepted them there. So
I’ll make another run up there when its convenient.

Ohhh and I also have a new niece named Molly. She’s about 3 weeks old and I tell everyone that she resembles a holiday ham. LOL. Im hoping that her and her 3 year old brother will be my camping buddies someday.

Two weeks ago was my first paycheck for 2010. Otherwise nothing notable about it.
Most of the check went to regular budgeted expenses. Had an extra $70. Put $40 towards 2010 IRA. Put
$10 to my Travel Fund. Left the last $20 in checking to help with the cushion.

Today (Thursday) was payday. From this check after deducting all budgeted expenses and spending money I had $66 extra. $36 is staying in checking to go towards paying myself for the brake repair. That leaves $272 that I still owe myself.
I’m going to put $15 into my 2010 IRA fund and the other $15 is going into my travel fund.

Thanks to anyone who reads this. Theres still a lot on my mind but this is all I can write at the moment.
I hope everyone else is having a good year so far and staying well.

Merry Christmas to everyone on Savings Advice.

I had to work till almost 9 pm today but I'm off Christmas day. I'll be going to my brothers for Christmas dinner. I complain every holiday that I'd rather just stay home. But everyone feels sorry for me or whatever and want me to come to their house. So I go more to make them happy than myself. The food at my brothers will be good though.

Today was payday. It was actually deposited in my account yesterday but I like to count thursday as payday.

After deducting all my regular budget items and spending money I had $59 extra.
I'm going to transfer $20 to my IRA savings and $20 to my travel fund. The extra $19 can just stay in my checking cushion. So that puts me ahead (just a little) for my 2009 goals. Next pay will be the start of my 2010 goals.

Hope everyone has a great holiday and a great new year.

My luck as far as finding money has changed for the better lately. I used to find money all over the place. Then suddenly I was lucky if I found a penny on occasion. Wednesday I found a dollar bill and Thursday I found a 5 dollar bill. Whoever lost it had it crumpled up
about the size of a quarter. Only bad thing is that it probably belonged to a little kid. I think its a shame how I see people all the time letting their little ones run around with cash crumpled up in their hands. The odds are that they are going to lose it.
In this particular case the money found a good home. ME! :-)


My nephew that had a stroke a short time ago had surgery yesterday to fix whatever caused the stroke. He had 2 options and chose the surgery. The other option was
free experimental medicine. He chose the surgery cause he wanted it over and done with. I really don't know which choice I would have made myself. It would definately be a tough choice to make.
Nephew's surgery went well to the best of my knowledge, but I haven't had contact with him today. He should be already home, resting right now.

Well I'm heading to work very soon. Its a bit nightmarish at Christmas time working in the toy department of a Wal Mart store.
I'm sure that this is all part of the punishment for past mis-doings in this or some previous life.

My boss made me change my work schedule.
Most everyone else doesn't think its a big deal. But to me it is a big deal and
adds a lot to my stress level. They used to be very happy that I work in the evenings and on weekends. At one time that worked in my favor. Now they say things changed and they want me to work earlier and no longer have Mondays and Tuesdays off. I'll get whatever days off they decide to give me. And I wont really be "The Toyguy" anymore. Technically I am still in toys but they don't really want anyone working in toys so i'll be working all over the place. They are nice about it in that they gave me total control about changing my hours. But that control means either changing it to what they say or not working. Makes me feel so good to have choices.

Take care everyone.

This past Thursday was my payday and of course I'm only getting around to posting it now. LOL.
There isn't much to post except that I got about $419 as a Bonus added to this check. And I got a Christmas Bonus of $50 added to it too.
I can't really do anything very special with the extra money because it basically just is going towards all the extra money
I've been spending. But at least I'm not broke and at least i've accomplished this years goals. I'm going to see if there is anything at all I can still accomplish in the next couple of weeks before the new year. If I do i'll post about it. And I'll be posting my 2010 goals very soon too. They will be pretty simple basic ones but I do have the new twist on it this time that I talked about on my last blog.

I've been spending (wasting?) too much time over on Facebook. Especially they have a new thing going on with the game Vampire Wars and I'm trying to keep up with that. I think the whole concept behind their gamnes is to keep people logged on as long as possible. At least I only do the one game. Most of my friends do 3 or 4 different ones. I don't know how they manage to go to work or anything.

Thanks for checking in. Have a great week everyone.

I figured now is as good of a time as any to post the results of my 2009 goals.
Even though my goals were not very grand by comparison to some of the things others on here have accomplished, it was still a somewhat of a challenge for me.
Especially with all the extra money that I've had to spend as of late in various repairs and replacements.

I hearby declare that all my goals were achieved. Yay!

- Re-paid myself the money that I spent
on the Dec. 08 muffler repair. In addition I also had to make a few repairs to my car since then and have also re-paid myself for those.

- Added $400 to my E-Fund which brings the current total to approxamately $2097.

- Saved for my 2009 IRA and put $4000 in for the year.

- Started saving for my 2010 IRA. I wasn't sure how much I could save but I ended up with $690. That goal will continue through the new year.

- Had my first ever yard sale. It didn't go well at all but it was something I wanted to try.

- Took my vacation to Costa Rica.

- And have paid at least $100 or more every month on the Principal of my mortgage.

- Although my Travel Fund was not specifically included into my goals I managed to continue saving into it. I currently have $2,840 in it. And the trip to Costa Rica was paid for before I got on the plane.

I haven't decided on my 2010 goals yet except to continue adding to my IRA and
continue paying extra on my mortgage.
With times being tough, and may get even worse I'm not going to make very aggressive goals. But I'll see what I can do with what I have.

Finally bought a new washing machine today. My old one still works BUT just barely. The cloths are drenched when they are done. It takes forever to get them dry. I can't complain too much cause the washer is somethong like 17 years old.

The new washer wont be delivered till after Christmas but I'm not in that much of a rush. I think I got a great deal on it. It originally was $499 but was on sale for $449. Plus they took off another 10 percent on that. They will deliver and haul off the old machine for free. So I'm (a little to) excited. :-)

Nothing much else financial to report except they fired quite a few people at my store on Monday. Basically they say that the store made good money but not what they wanted so they were told to eliminate a bunch of new people. They also say that we are getting our hours greatly reduced after Christmas. Thats WITH the store making good profits. We are getting a bonus on my next paycheck. Just think if we were losing money.

I was missing in action again for awhile. I do have a good excuse this time. My laptop broke. I have an old Desktop computer that I used as a backup for awhile but its so outdated that I could just barely check email and a few things with it. So I purchased a new laptop. I think I got a descent price on a descent laptop. It was an HP on sale at BestBuy for $449.

So that was just one more thing added to all the things I've had to spend extra money on recently. I still owe my Dentist
about $150 for the $1100 dental work I had. And I still need to buy a new washing machine in the near future. Its going pretty well all things considered.
I've been keeping my head above water and still have no need to go into debt.

I also survived Black Friday. I did work on that day but it was in the evening so I missed the majority of the insanity. And our store made the highest sales in our district which is kind of nice.

For my last Payday update (that I was offline for) I basically just covered my regular budget and put the rest all into checking as cushion to help cover all the recent expenses.

I also got paid this past Thursday. After my regular budget expenses and my spending money I had $84 left which will also all go into the checking cushion. Soon I can start putting some money back towards my various goals again. I'm also due in December a bonus from work which is something like $429 extra. That will help out a lot.

I recently called my cell phone company and cancelled the service. Unlike most everyone else I do not love cell phones. I really dislike them immensely and have only had one because my sister had health issues and I wanted to be able to contact her. But we don't keep in touch that much even with the phone and she is doing well now. I can't justify the expense even though I had the bareboned plan that cost me about $30 a month. Once I pay my final bill I can start putting that $30 to good use. I'm going to leave it in my budget but I'm going to use it towards some small investments. Each month I might try something a little different with it.

In other good news I found a dollar bill yesterday. I hardly find money anymore so I was pretty excited. :-)

I think I covered pretty much everything I wanted to. Hope everyone has a great day.

My vacation is dwindling down and almost over with. Today was a fairly tame day again but overall a pretty good day.

I voted today. The only really important thing was Issue 3 about allowing Casino gambling in Ohio. I voted for it. I'm not much of a gambler myself but I think people should be able to if they want. Besides lots of people head to the 5 states that surround Ohio to gamble there.

I also browsed at washing machines cause I have to get one fairly soon. I'm waiting for the cash for clunkers thing to start cause I think that will save me a little bit. The washer I liked best at Home Depot was a GE for $499.

Then I went with a friend and his son that were used car shopping. I think they ended up with a pretty good one considering the amount of money they had to spend.


Ohh and the big news for today is that I cashed in some credit card reward points for a $10 Regal Cinema card. I want to see the new Nightmare on Elm Street movie when it comes out. But I was thinking I might be dissapointed in it. At least now I'll basically get to see it for free.

Haven't been on this site hardly at all for a few weeks. I hate it that I missed reading so many posts.

Anyways I finally got the dental work done that I've been dreading. It was fairly minor stuff but EXTREMELY expensive. Insurance paid close to $1000 of it and I still have/had to pay over $1100. I'm paying it in 3 parts. I paid $450 for my first payment and used my credit card so that I at least get some
rewards points.

I'm on vacation right now. I always take some kind of Halloween vacation. I didn't travel though. On Friday I went to a haunted house ($10 for about 15 minutes)
and went for a good 8 mile walk near there. That was a good night and the weather was wonderful. My sister and I also ate at a Mexican restaurant that I like that night.

Today (Sunday)for some reason I was completely out of it. I wasn't exactly sick but didn't feel good and slept most of the day. I'm feeling pretty good but Now I'm hoping I can still sleep tonight.

Well I missed making my payday update on my last paycheck from roughly a little over 2 weeks ago. I completely messed up on tracking it but didn't really do any damage. So I'm letting it go that whatever extra I had after my regular budgeted items just stays in checking for the cushion.

I also had a payday this past Thursday. After taking out my spending money and accounting for my regular budgeted items I had $194 left. Instead of dividing it up its just in my checking as more cushion to help cover the $1100 dental bill I owe. Next payday I'm going to do a little better dividing up my money. But the dental bill and a few other upcoming expenses don't leave much to work with.

Well I'm still off work until Thursday. Its going to remain a pretty tame vacation. I dread going back to work only because they have made some drastic changes at my store and I think I'm going to be miserable working there from now on. Its not going to be easy for me as I don't deal with changes well unless I truely believe they are good changes. And these are not good.

Thanks to anyone reading this. Hopefully I can keep up reading everyones posts again.

Well I caught a cold Sunday night. Been fighting it off the past 2 days with aspirin and Airborne. I always get sick as temps change. I am still in on Fern's heat challenge even though its been cold in here. My heat tried to kick on once but turned it off. I also had some strange
electrical troubles in my house the past couple of weeks. I finally got ahold of the electric company today and they sent a guy out that I think fixed the problem. There were some old wires outside the house that were pretty much shot and were overheating.
My nephew who is 36 years old had a stroke last week. It was very strange but good news because he recovered right away. They said he has a hole in his heart and it got plugged up or something so now he will have to take blood thinners the rest of his life. I'm just glad that it wasn't worse.

This past Thursday was payday. This was what I consider my extra check so I divided it up a little different than usual and tried to be as thoughtful about it as possible.

I put $20 towards the extra Principal on my mortgage. That will actually mean that I will pay about $140 or so extra this month.

I finished paying myself back ($100)for the last car repair that I had.

I'm putting $200 into my vacation fund.

Putting $100 in my 2010 IRA account.

Used $20 to buy a black ink catridge for my printer.

Leaving $110 in my checking for the cushion and upcomming dental bills.

And that left me with just my regular spending money.

Not really so crazy. But I did buy a couple unexpected things cause they were just too good to pass up.
Last night when leaving work several people were buying kitchen blenders. They were reduced down to one dollar. So I got one. I've never had a blender believe it or not but its something I can use.

Today, shopping at Aldi, they had one of those metal colindars that have extended arms so they fit over the sink. I've wanted one of those for a long time but it was about 15 dollars at Wal Mart which was just too much to me. But Aldi's price was $6.99 so i got one. Not as good a deal as the blender but still not so bad.

I think I'll survive the spending spree.

Well Thursday I got my first ever direct deposited paycheck. It was pretty easy and painless but for me I would rather still get a paper paycheck and take it to the bank. Maybe I'm old fashioned.


I deducted my regular budgeted amount and took out my spending money. My spending money was $120 but varies each paycheck a little. I use that money for eating out, any fun activities (like movies, etc) and groceries. So $120 doesn't really go too far for 2 weeks.

I put the usual $50 towards the extra Principal of my Mortgage. I'm sticking to my plan on that but wish I could do a little better.

Put $40 to my 2010 IRA.

Put $60 towards payback for the car repair from July. I now owe myself $100 for that.

Put $18 for the step ladder I wanted to buy. I used my credit card but that 18 bucks is in the bank waiting to pay it off.

That left me with $17 extra money that just stays in my checking as a cushion.

Next paycheck is what I consider an extra check cause I get 3 instead of 2 in October. Yay! I budget my extra check a little differently but nothing drastic.
It will be nice being able to use some of it towards my travel fund.