Firefly's Personal Finance Blog

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.

I took my car to the dealership for an oil change after the maintenance light came on at 15%. I try not to delay any scheduled maintenance as I'm hoping my paid off car lasts many more years. 
 
Of course, my routine oil change turned up more problems including brakes, leaking valve cover, and filters needing replacement (listed from most to least expensive). I opted to take care of them all in addition to the oil change. The cost was $1080.

I don't know much about cars and most likely overpaid, but I prefer to let the dealership take care of my maintenance. This is the first significant repairs that I've had on my 2015 Honda CR-V. At some point they start needing a little more expensive work. I'm at 77k miles. 

But I am blessed that I can handle this unexpected expense without it causing me any worry.

Well after finishing my last blog I checked Capital One & saw that they had a 5.00% 11 month CD rate until 3/14/23. I moved $10,000 in and will hold the rest on my 360 savings until I get my sign-up bonus.

Happy Black History Month! The January market was good to us. I'm not at my highest number, but I'm not terribly far off either. I gained $86,805 last month including contributions which were $3,750.

Net Worth $1,221,125

I am reading that we can expect the feds to continue raising interest rates into the late spring/early summer. If Capital One has paid my bonus for opening my 360 savings account by that time, I can move some money into CDs which will hopefully be at their peak rate. Their 360 account seems to be stuck at 3.3% while CD rates continue to rise. I may need to move back to my credit union.

Happy Groundhog Day! What is your prediction? A short or long winter? Winter is a relative term in the Deep South, but I'm definitely okay with longer.

My H&R tax professional (my dad) finished my taxes. I owe $455 federal taxes and $309 state taxes. Not bad at all. I don't foresee my income going down significantly anytime soon and this paycheck I got a very unexpected cash award. I am very blessed indeed.

I plugged in my numbers into the H&R Block calculator because I was anxious about having to pay a lot this year due to increases in income. It looks like I will owe less than $100 to federal, maybe a couple of hundred to state. It doesn't seem to calculate state taxes so I'm only going off my own rough calculations.

I didn't realize that the state income tax rates went down last year. That's a huge thing as they've remained unchanged for as long as I can remember. I don't know how I missed that news. Our high sales tax rate remains unchanged.

I received my W-2 for my primary job as well as one of my 1099-INT forms and was able to upload it to the H&R Block website for my dad to work on later. I don't think he can do my family & friends tax return until after the rush anyway.

My iPhone X finally started dying on me. It's the same each time. Right around year 5 it will start running hot & running through the battery. I visited both Verizon & AT&T (my current carrier), before returning to Verizon and buying the phone as well as switching carriers & trying out their home internet service. I got the iPhone 14 Pro. 

I got $10 off by signing up for auto-pay. My plan also includes Apple Music which I was paying $11 monthly for, as well as subscriptions to Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu. I was using my sister's subscription for Hulu. I also got a free trial of their home internet service. If I decide to keep it is is $25 monthly, which is half of what I was paying for Cox cable internet.

I paid way too much for the 3 accessories even with the 20% discount, but all in all I'm happy with my purchase.