Firefly's Personal Finance Blog

July is shaping up to be an expensive month, but I am enjoying myself. I had my trip to NYC earlier this month, I attended an Alicia Keys concert this Sunday, and I just booked a trip for October to Napa Valley & Lake Tahoe yesterday. I'm really looking forward to it. 

Since the laboratory where I PRN at may be bought out by the end of the year, I may not have a second job beyond December. That is fine by me. I will have more time to visit home. I have started to look at new homes being built. I supposed I should also look at existing homes, but I am excited about the idea of picking out just what I like in my home. My lease ends in one year so I would like to time my next move around the end of my lease.

I really want to encourage my parents to get a house cleaner at least every two weeks. My dad has so much on him as caregiver. I will bring it up this weekend. I might have to call in the troops (my sisters) for support.

My investments & net worth are at an all time high of $1.361 million and $1.429 million respectively. I just want to see $1 million in my TSP. Just once, even if it doesn't stay there. I am at $982k so I'm close. 

Yesterday I got my paystub for my biweekly check. We got our raise as well as backpay. It was a nice little bonus. 

The market is up this week & I'm inching towards $1 million in my TSP. My high this week (before my biweekly contribution Thursday) was $979k. I am at $1.35 million in all investments.

I also hit a liquid cash high of $50k. I don't keep that much in cash as I always look to have my money invested. Even when I was saving for my first home I didn't have that much saved.

My net worth on Mint hit a new bench mark this week. I am currently at $1,401,489 in net worth. It's the first time I can recall that I've hit $1.4 million. This includes all cash & my car value.

I've also recovered the $1.33 million I had in investments at the end of 2021. I now have $1.34 million in investments. Though my TSP & IRA are quite where they were, I now have a larger brokerage account than I had at that time. We'll see how the rest of this year plays out!

I mentioned back in May, I believe, that we got another 5% raise. Well, it takes a little while for everything to be filed. On Thursday night we got the notification in our employee file of the raise. Whether we'll see anything on this week's paycheck remains to be seen, but we should get back pay dated to early April when the raise was effective.

I had a wonderful trip to New York! My friend & I took direct flights from New Orleans on Friday, and flew back Tuesday. Four nights was a perfect length trip. Friday night we got in late due to weather delays. We had a late dinner at a Cuban restaurant & celebrated my sister's birthday the prior day. She took the Megabus up from Union Station in DC. 

Saturday we met my sister's friend who lives in Harlem. We did something very touristy that despite our many trips to NYC, we had never done. We took the double-decker hop on hop off bus. We didn't hop off however. We took the full downtown route, had lunch, then took the uptown route. After that we headed back to the hotel for showers. We had dinner at a restaurant right at the Lincoln Center. We then attended the ABT performance of Giselle.

Sunday we had two shows, but first my sister & I utilized our bus tickets for free entrance to the Museum of the City of New York. I loved this museum. We had a snack in the cafe, then we took a Lyft to drop me off at the theatre for my first show while she went shopping. First show was Lea Michelle in Funny Girl. Then we headed back to the hotel for about an hour where I met up with my sister again. We went to dinner then headed to New York, New York. I enjoyed both shows.

Monday we took the subway all the way downtown so we could hop on the ferry to Governors Island. It wasn't very busy as there was a lot closed. Apparently the time to visit is on the weekend, but we still enjoyed it. We headed back across the water & had lunch at a taquiera. Then we walked around Battery Park for a while. We took the subway back to our hotel & got ready for our second show at Lincoln Center. We walked through Central Park & had dinner at a French restaurant before heading to see ABT's Swan Lake.

The next day we headed home. A great time was had by all. 

Thursday I was sitting in my living room and I thought I heard water dripping. I knew I had not left any water running so I figured maybe that's just what it sounds like when water is going through the pipes. I live in a second floor apartment. There are three floors. Not fifiteen minutes later I'm talking to my manager on the phone when all of sudden I hear water running inside me apartment. I get up & start walking around my apartment. 

I find water pouring through the sprinkler system in my master bedroom as well as running down my bedroom walls in two spots. In the bathroom water is also pouring out that sprinkler and leaking through the ceiling. I call the rental office immediately then run upstairs.

My neighbor's door was open (so strange when there is a heat advisory out). It's nearly 100 degrees outside! I knock & when he comes to the door I inform him that water is coming through my ceiling & ask if he has any water in his apartment. He says that he turned off the water valve & walks away to check. He comes back & says he has an inch of water in his bathroom because he forgot to turn off the sink faucet. Unbelieveable!

So anyway maintenance comes & assesses the situation. I'm glad I was at home because usually at that time I'm at work. I was home early because I worked an earlier shift. The damage wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. I have a dehumidifier that they brought to prevent mold & they will come back later to repair the sheet rock.

What a mess! I still can't believe he just left his sink running. Why?! Was the stopper plugged? And how could he not hear the water running? I do have have renter's insurance, but thankfully had no damage to my personal property.

We're now half-way through 2023! The second quarter was a very good quarter.

I'm almost back to where I was at the end of 2021 in my investments. I have about $30k to go to get back to where I was at Q4 2021. That's not including my contributions as I've been maxing my TSP & IRA, as well as contributing to a brokerage account since my personal investment high 18 months ago. I was at $975k in my TSP and I just knew that $1 million was around the corner. Then 2022 came and the market started its downward trend.

Investments 1,312,264

Cash Savings $27,761

Total $1,340,025

Monthly Gain $82,465

Our colonoscopies went fine. My mom's prep was difficult with her limited mobility, but we made it through. The procedure itself was so quick! They really function like a well-oiled machine. In & out!

My mom had no polyps (had polyps at previous colonoscopies) and I had one tiny one which the doctor wasn't entirely sure if it was a polyp. But of course, she took it anyway. A big relief to have both of them done. My mom will need another one in 5 years, while I will get another one in 7 years. She'll push me back to 10 years of the tiny polyp turns out to not be an actual polyp.

I was wondering last night if the Finance Buff had released their 2024 predictions on contribution limits for various retirement & tax advantaged plans. It is usually released in June. Sure enough when I looked this morning they had released them last week. Again, these are just projections.

There is a lot to look at, but for me being under 50 with no HSA, I focus on the 401k & IRA contribution limits. The FB projects that both will rise by $500 next year for $23,000 and $7,000. I did glance & see that they did not predict an increase in the catch-up contribution limits. 

https://thefinancebuff.com/401k-403b-ira-contribution-limits.html#:~:text=in%20these%20limits.-,2023%202024%20Traditional%20and%20Roth%20IRA%20Contribution%20Limit,same%20at%20%241%2C000%20in%202024.

June 20th makes two years in my current position. I know I've said it a lot, but this promotion was the best thing for me both professionally & personally. And while I worry a lot with my mother's Parkinson's struggles, I don't have the stress at work that I did which makes it easier to shoulder the personal struggles.

It was definitely a situation where I just kept my head down & did the work and I ended up reaping the benefits. In addition to getting to work in a less stressful though busier environment, I get to work with really great people. I've had several raises & cash awards. While I won't get a step increase on this anniversary, I got one last year & will get another next year. Depending on when I retire I should be at or near the top of the salary scale. I'm so thankful everyday for this opportunity.

In health news, I have my first colonoscopy on Monday. I took the screening test, which was positive, so I now need the colonoscopy as follow-up. My mom has her colonoscopy on Wednesday. I will stay to be there for my mom. I pray it goes well for both of us. My dad definitely doesn't need anymore put on his shoulders. I am reading how some of you are dealing with your own health struggles, whether it be yourselves or your loved ones. I pray for better times ahead for you as well.

Are you a car person? I'm not. Sometimes I'll go to an automakers website & "build a car". I never actually follow through with buying any of those cars. I'm on my third car after 23 years of owning cars. I hope my current car lasts me several more years. If I'm ever tight on money it won't be because I bought more car than I could afford. It will be because I took too many trips!

I have a friend who is really into cars. Even though he's not in the best financial shape he always has nice cars. His son has picked up on his love of cars. My friend was telling me several months ago how his young son kept changing out cars because he kept seeing other cars that he wanted. Recently he came to me & told me that he lent his son $200, now he's not returning his calls.

Now I understand liking what you like. I'll always spend money on travel & attending the theatre. I don't begrudge anyone their indulgences. I just believe that you need not put yourself in a position where you can't meet your needs due to those indulgences. Of course, his son is very young & will learn. I know I was still making money mistakes even a few years ago. I will always have room to learn & grow on a great number of subjects.

Yesterday the markets went wild on the news of the debt ceiling deal, but too late to improve my May numbers which show a loss from April. Again, this does not including my checking account cash which hovers around $15k or my car value.

Investments $1,230,403

Cash (not including checking) $27,157

Total $1,257,560

Loss $6,985

Additional contributions in April $3,250

Got two notices that my rent will rise by $20 on July due to increases in water collections from two elections. Not an issue, especially considering my recent raise. I just wish they would do something about my noisy neighbor, who thinks his apartment is a music studio. 

I really can't believe it, but we had another raise announced this week. It was 5% this time. I never would have expected another raise after the 16% raise we received last year & the 4% annual raise we got in January. I think we are also going to get retroactive pay for the raise back to April. What makes this better than the 10% retention is that it goes toward your pension calculation & your match calculation.

I have no plans to increase savings. If I end up with a lot of cash in my checking account - like I did last year - I will make a contribution to my brokerage account, but otherwise I just plan to enjoy the money for once. I max out my TSP & IRA every year. I contribute monthly to my brokerage & savings. This time I'm going to learn to relax & enjoy the present rather than save for the future.

Happy belated Mother's Day! I worked yesterday, so this morning I drove to BR & took my parents out for brunch. It was a nice brunch & we had an awesome waiter. I usually pick a 20% tip by default, but he was such a nice young man that I picked the highest percentage that they offered for a tip, 25%. My mom had the Spanish omelet, I had the shrimp omelet, and my dad had the Southern breakfast.

We stopped at Trader Joe's after brunch & picked up a few things. My mom & I love Trader Joe's. This afternoon we had a family video chat since it was my nephew's 10th birthday. Time sure does fly!

Saturday was a fun day. I met my friend for lunch and although we've been to this restaurant several times, I've never enjoyed lunch as much as I did this weekend. I had a delicious salad followed by a shrimp pasta dish. We then went to the local ballet and saw Romeo & Juliet. It was very well done with a modern twist and beautiful costuming. The costume designer actually passed away two days before the performance so it was a poignant feeling to the performance.

After the ballet my friend & I walked back to the hotel where we had lunch and stopped into their cafe. We got coffee drinks and sweet treats to go. We walked back to our cars and said our goodbyes. She headed to BR & I headed down the street to work to meet with my co-workers.

I had about a half-hour to spare. I freshened up (it was hot Saturday!) and did something quickly on my computer while it was on my mind. Then my co-workers & I carpooled to a different theatre to see Trevor Noah. It was awesome! I'm such a fan of his and he was hilarious, as was his opening warm-up comedian. We really enjoyed it, even though we kept taking shop while we waited for Trevor. 😆 

Sunday I had to work. Usually ask off for Mother's Day, but I got it confused with Fatger's Day, forgetting it was the second and not the third Sunday. After work I went to the library, watched Jennifer Lopez in The Mother on Netflix, and got in my one hour walk.

I also bought us tickets to NY, NY on Broadway for our July trip. My friend got the tickets for Funny Girl. So we have two ballets and two Broadway shows booked. I will leave Friday night open in case we have travel delays. Maybe I'll get to use my Broadway gift card that night. My sister gave it to me for my birthday in December 2021, but this is my first trip to NYC since then. Last week I booked my nonstop flights for only $218!

So it's been a good few days, though spendy.

I enjoy following your budgets so much that I thought I'd give it a go at sharing mine. I know that I put more on credit cards than this budget accounts for, so I really need to get better at actually accounting for my expenses. Now that I write that, I realize that I had nothing in my budget for travel or shopping, which is definitely not correct. In fact I just spend $800 on booking ballet & plane tickets for NYC in July. 🩰 ✈️ 🚖 

rent $1712

utilities $100

auto insurance $143

cell phone & internet $143

food $400

travel $300

shopping $300

church $100

charities $100

Apple $1

IRA $500

savings $500

brokerage $500

Expenses $3399

Savings $1500

Total $4899

I now realize that in posting a budget how vulnerable you feel opening yourself up to others' scrutiny.

Since I don't know if I'll be able to recover my lost entries, let's try this for a third time. Third time's the charm, right?

Retirement investments $1,156,452

Brokerage investments $81,542 

Savings $26,551

Total $1,264,545

My brokerage account is set aside for a future home purchase and my cash savings is earmarked for future car purchases. I put $500 into each every month.

I hope to not have to buy another car until 2032, which is when all cars are projected to be electric. I know a hybrid CR-V today will cost approximately $35k with the trimmings I desire, which are nothing extravagant.

Not included in my net worth is my cash in checking accounts and car value, which amount to approximately $35k.

I got an email that my new checking account is now paying 5.25% interest which may finally motivate me to start using my debit card. I haven't used a debit card for a very long time. I have to make 15 credit card transactions in order to qualify, which seems like a lot!

Just testing because I'd hate to type out another lengthy blog only to lose it again.

Even though they cut me an off-cycle check all of my retroactive earnings were shown on this paycheck along with my current earnings. Thankfully, my match was accounted for from both pay periods. My premium for both health & dental were doubled up, but the FSA pro-rated for the missed paycheck. It will be just a few dollars extra every check for the rest of the year. All fine by me.

Investments are up for April, just waiting for monthly interest payments to post before my final tally.

I just checked Capital One's 360 performance savings went up 0.10%. I think it was 3.20% when I first opened my account then it went to 3.30%. So far it's just been very small incremental rates increases. I also noticed that their CD rates have not gone back up to 5.00%. I was worried when I opened my two accounts, after listening to Suze Orman speak, that they would have big rates increases right after I opened my accounts. The term was only 11 months, so it's not like I'm locked in for a long time either way.

I wish I had gotten some I-bonds when the past two years. Now it seems like inflation is finally slowing down. I can't remember exactly why, but there was a reason I was hesitant to invest in them initially. Maybe I was worried about cashing them out early? Not quite sure.

Well I did get a paycheck from my PRN job, but there was a snafu at work with processing time cards so I didn't get paid at my full-time job. No biggie. I'm actually carrying a little extra cash at the moment as I've been receiving reimbursements for planning work events. And since I got out of debt in 2021, I've kept a good amount of cash on hand.

I'll get a double paycheck on the next paycheck. I'm most concerned that they get my match on my retirement contributions correct since my contributions that should have been on this paycheck will be doubled up on the next paycheck.

The stock market ended on a high note Friday to end the first quarter.

Net worth for March was $1,247,432

Investment savings $1,221,478

Cash savings $25,954 

Contributions were $4,125 for the month

Total gain was $28,593

Obviously still off from the highs of late 2021, but headed in the right direction this quarter. I haven't seen that the latest interest rate increase affected any of my savings accounts, however. 

So I did end up having a drop in income due to the loss of the retention incentive at work. We continue to lose & gain emplpyees at our lower salary ranges, but have been pretty good about gaining & retaining staff at the higher salary levels. We hired 3 employees for a section, then lost two. Que sera sera... We are at least in a much better place than we were a year ago. We can breathe a bit not feeling like everything could crumble at any minute.

My married girlfriend dropped out of the trip we were thinking of taking this fall to take a trip with her husband. I guess that's to be expected. It's nice to have a spouse as a traveling partner. Another girlfriend & I are trying to decide where we would like to go. My younger sister enjoyed Spain & Portugal.  I keep thinking about Australia or somewhere in Africa. Something outside of Europe.

You may recall at the beginning of the year I posted about how it took weeks to get my Clark's return credited to my account. At the time I was just thankful it was received after I didn't get the tracking info (silly mistake on my part). Well, apparently it was a system wide issue because I got a mass email from the CEO. I copied a brief part of it below. It's so unusual for a large company to issue this sort of apology & I really appreciated it.

"It is unacceptable that you had to wait so long to receive your order from us, or had a delay in receiving a refund, or experienced difficulties getting through to our customer care team."

Often in the evenings I'll watch the Dave Ramsey show on YouTube. On today's show they had a young postal worker from LI, NY named Patrice. She was there in front of the live studio audience in Tennessee to do her debt-free scream. She was absolutely amazing with her go-getter attitude. I loved her mindset that she didn't want to be like everyone else. I always admire people who aspire to be true to who they are & embrace not being ordinary. Patrice from Long Island definitely inspired me today. 

I opened an American Airlines credit card last year. I've done so before, but then ended up closing it once I was charged the annual membership fee after a year. I called this evening with the intention of closing the card again, but then thought about possibly traveling with my parents this summer. The benefits of not being charged for luggage both ways for 3 people outweighs the $99 annual membership fee cost. So I think I'll hold on to the card a little longer. Do any of you take advantage of an airline travel card? 

My net worth was down for February, though not as much as expected. My investments were down & cash savings slightly up.

Net Worth: $1,218,479

Change: $-27,325

I don't include cash in checking which is about $15,000 between the two accounts. Nor do I include depreciating assets like my car.

Capital One paid my promo bonus of $100 for opening my savings account, so I took out another $10k to open a second CD while the rate is at 5.00%. I didn't want to pull anymore until I was sure that I would earn my bonus. 

My paycheck tomorrow will be my last paycheck with the 10% retention bonus. I will be fine financially, but it was a nice boost while it lasted. I'm happy that we're now recruiting & retaining staff, and we now need to focus on recruiting & retaining other positions. On the bright side, if things go as proposed we will get an 8% boost in January. Yes, it's a while away, but it's nice to know it's in the works.

I don't know if you recall, but about a year ago my medical center signed a 10% retention bonus for my occupation because we kept losing people. We later received a big boost after a salary survey which equates to a little over 16%. We've been able to hire some employees since then so I expect that the retention bonus will lapse this month. This year we also got a 4% annual increase & they are already discussing an 8% increase  for next year. 

The extra money was very nice, but I think I'll be fine without. Of course, I wouldn't turn it down! With it, I've been able to accumulate more than $40k in my cash accounts which is the highest I've ever seen, plus add another $5k to my brokerage account at the end of last year. Now I'd like to give more to church & charities. 

It's a federal holiday so I'm off. Not really a true long weekend as I worked at my PRN job. I slept in, then got a text from my co-worker a little after 8:30 asking me to call him. He had gone in to work on an annual report & encountered other issues. We spent 45 minutes on the phone going over how to pull reports in our server & other miscellaneous things.

Then I had my cup of coffee and my favorite cheese pastries from Trader Joe's. I tried to make a TJ run yesterday after I got off work, but they had closed early due to a Mardi Gras parade. Speaking of, Happy Lundi Gras as well! 💜💛💚

The only other things on my agenda today is to mop my floors, fold some laundry, and maybe see the new Ant Man movie. 

I contacted Mint & realized why my CD wasn't linking. With Capital One you have to authorize the linking of each account, so when I opened this account it wasn't going to link. Easy fix. Now my accounts will be ready when I do my end of the month assessment.

In my new efforts to make my money work for me, I opened up a new checking account at my credit union. This new account is paying 3.01% APY, dividend rate of 2.97% on balances up to $10k. I haven't closed my original checking account. I will still use my old account for deposits & check writing, but I may eventually migrate it all to the new account. As long as I maintain a $5k balance across all accounts I avoid any fees. That should be easy to do as I currently have close to $12k. I had $15k at the end of last year & moved $5k to my brokerage account. So I have accumulated another $2k in less than 2 months. I will try to keep around $5k and send the overage to my new account periodically where it can make a little interest.