Spending Report for March 2011

Okay, I’ve been putting this off long enough. The original reason for not posting March’s numbers was because Henrik was born on the 31st.

When I finally had the time to sit down and put the numbers together, I was so horrified and ashamed of my findings that I just didn’t want to post them sooooooo…I didn’t.

But here they are now — better late than never.

• $1139.68 : Auto Repair
• $1075.00 : March of Dimes
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $483.67 : Hockey Jerseys
• $224.87 : Natural Gas
• $210.00 : Credit Card Transaction Fee
• $189.45 : Gas
• $159.14 : Electricity
• $156.35 : Allstate Insurance
• $123.96 : Cable/Internet
• $92.38 : Business Expenses
• $40.00 : Cash
• $23.50 : Cool T-Shirt
• $21.20 : Cell Phone
• $20.91 : Magic Jack
• $10.25 : Airport Parking
• $6.58 : Finance Charges
• $3.00 : Bank of America Check Image Service Fee

Add it all together and you get $4468.66.

The top two expenses are what killed me.

It didn’t take long for me to learn first hand that Land Rovers are, um, incident-prone.

The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree mid-month and it cost me over a grand to fix it. Something about a green serpent belt (pictured above) and a thermo-something. I don’t know… Take my money and make my car go. Thanks.

Obviously, I’m not a gear head.

The next item doesn’t look like anything to apologize for. Well, in some ways, there is something crooked about the March of Dimes…

Did you know that the mission of the March of Dimes is to cure polio? I’ve never personally met anyone with polio and I’m thinking that it’s probably because there’s been a cure for polio for nearly 60 years now?! The March of Dimes, though, is *still* running strong and collecting money…

What’s up with that?

Okay, okay… Their mission these days to collect money for premature babies or something, and that’s great and all, but this “donation” was really a hockey jersey purchase that I had no business making.

For charity or not, it was still an ill-advised purchase.

The rest of it is pretty self explanatory.

The Credit Card transaction fee was for the convenience check I wrote to myself to pay for the Land Rover back in February.

The cool t-shirt is, well, totally cool. It has Abraham Lincoln fighting Big Foot on it and it’s awesome. I’ve gotten a great reception from the folks in Toddler Room 3 while wearing it.

I found it interesting that we’ve been with MagicJack for an entire year now. I have to say that it’s been one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

We’ve saved so much money and haven’t noticed a difference in service from when we were with AT&T (and paying over $70 per month).

If you’re on the fence about MagicJack, well, get off the fence. It works and it will save you a ton of money. Oh, and telemarketers will never find your number either.

And I don’t really want to talk about it cause it makes me angry but, as expected, Bank of America dinged me with that $3.00 fee again.

Argh?!

Posted on May 16th, 2011 at 7:36 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 5 Comments »

Spending Report for February 2011

Wow — only 8 more days to go until we add another smurfling. Where does the time go?

Well, February was supposed to be an extra frugal month but it turned out to be the complete opposite.

One thing came up. Then another. You know how it goes…

Same old story.

That’s okay. I’m cool with it.

Here’s where the damage was done last month…

• $11971.10 : Land Rover
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $300.96 : Natural Gas
• $214.39 : Business Expenses
• $201.00 : Dentist
• $184.34 : Babies-R-Us
• $183.63 : Electricity
• $172.70 : Gas
• $156.00 : Hockey Jerseys
• $135.64 : Allstate Insurance
• $123.96 : Cable/Internet
• $113.02 : Taxes
• $112.21 : Water/Sewer
• $104.97 : Macy’s
• $80.00 : Cash
• $30.34 : Finance Charges
• $10.00 : Bank of America Transaction Fee

All together that’s $14592.98.

Hardly frugal.

But if you take the car purchase out of the calculation, it was pretty much the same as January and I’d consider that month pretty frugal.

I think I’m off to a pretty good start this year…

Okay, breaking down the irregular expenditures: the car has been covered, the dentist is pretty self explanatory (since we’re not carrying insurance anymore — a wise move), we have a baby on the way which explains the Babies-R-Us spending spree, the hockey jerseys are my vice, I went to Macy’s for new jeans cause I’ve lost tons of weight since my last denim purchase, and the transaction fee was for getting a cashiers check to pay for the car.

Wrapped it all up in one sentence this month. Maybe I should start tweetering instead?

You may have also noticed how much I spent on gas this month. No, it isn’t because the price of gas has gone up — it’s because this new car drinks gas the way my wife drinks Diet Coke.

And speaking of Diet Coke — did you know that it recently took the number 2 spot in soda sales (behind regular Coke) knocking out regular Pepsi?

Yep, Coke is it.

Posted on March 23rd, 2011 at 4:35 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | No Comments »

Spending Report for January 2011

I’d bet that you’d thought I’d forgotton to list out my expenses for January. Actually, you could probably care less but I didn’t forget…

Okay, maybe I did, but better late than never…

Here’s what I threw money out the window on in January:

• $515.00 : Hockey Jerseys
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $315.00 : Drum Corps International tickets
• $280.04 : Natural Gas
• $233.25 : Electricity
• $200.00 : Cash
• $149.43 : Business Expenses
• $135.64 : Allstate Insurance
• $124.50 : Gas
• $123.96 : Cable/Internet
• $39.04 : Finance Charges
• $14.00 : Bank of America Maintenance Fee
• $12.71 : Toys-R-Us
• $6.78 : Stop & Shop

All together that adds up to $2648.07.

And now I plead my case…

The hockey jersey thing is inexcusable. I know better and I’m getting better.

In a nut shell, I’m trying to limit myself to a budget of $250 of disposable income per month — if I want to buy something frivolous for $500, I can, I’ll just have to wait two months to feel comfortable doing it.

So far, that strategy has been relatively successful as these were my first purchases since October.

The mortgage is such a bargain. It makes me smile every time I see how small the payment is.

The Drum Corps tickets are part of our planned summer vacation. Kinda made sense to start paying for it months in advance. We got crappy seats even purchasing this early but it was sorta on purpose as we’ll have two young ones in tow and kinda want to sit on the fringe for that reason.

The utility bills are way up. We had over four feet of snow in January — not that that means anything but it does indicate that it was pretty cold outside which always leads to higher utility bills.

I’m still fuming over the Bank of America Maintenance Fee.

I had to buy Duncan a train at Toys-R-Us. We picked Toby (in the picture above). Okay, fine, I didn’t “have” to buy him. I wanted to.

And while I pretty much never buy the groceries, my pregnant wife had a craving for ice cream sandwiches so I made a quick trip to Stop & Shop.

Posted on February 26th, 2011 at 12:25 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for December 2010

Another expensive month in the books to close out the year.

Unlike November, though, I knew that December would be costly as the second installment on my local property taxes needed to be paid and that Christmas would have it’s own set of expenses.

Here’s the breakdown:

• $2004.05 : Tax Collector
• $1650.16 : Family
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $403.17 : Christmas
• $294.13 : Business Expenses
• $213.68 : Credit Card Transaction Fee
• $208.74 : Electricity
• $177.30 : Natural Gas
• $135.97 : Cable/Internet
• $135.64 : Allstate Insurance
• $117.28 : Gas
• $95.37 : Finance Charges
• $14.00 : Bank of America Maintenance Fee
• $21.20 : Cell Phone

Grand total is $5969.41. That’ll take the wind out of your sails.

The tax bill is what it is. In the past, I had them built into my mortgage payment but since re-financing back in June, I took it upon myself to pay them. Every July and December is going to hurt from here on out. And it’ll only get worse.

The family expenses are just a continuation of last month — I don’t really want to talk about them and I don’t think they really need explanation anyway…

The tiny mortgage payment still makes me smile. It’s not paying down the total balance very quickly but it’s such a small payment that it doesn’t bother me.

Spending just over $400 on Christmas presents seems really high considering how little there seemed to be under the tree (from me) this year. I don’t know how the total got that high (Thomas the Train stuff is a wee bit overpriced) but I have a feeling that Amazon’s crazy shipping fees may have had a little to do with it.

Yeah, it’s great that you can buy everything under the sun from one website. It’s not so great that they ship from thousands of different places and hit you with numerous shipping charges over and over and over.

Business expenses were a bit high this month as last month $1300 worth of equipment was destroyed. I frugally replaced it on the cheap just to get by — so, technically, this should have been around $1000 higher. I have a feeling I’ll be purchasing a more adequate replacement when the funds are available — so my frugality on the short term might not have been such a thrifty decision in the long run.

Utility bills continued to climb as the temperature fell. No surprise there.

My cable bill went up a bit as a result of that new television I bought back in October. Seeing as we finally got with the times and got an HDTV, we needed to get the HD service to go along with it.

At first, I thought it’d be a 1-2 month tryout but HD really is all that. I don’t think I can go back.

The finance charges make me angry. I’m not in denial that I’m carrying credit card debt again — I’ve got it under control (even though the transaction fees make it look worse than it is) but it’s been sooooooo long since I’ve paid finance charges that it really feels like flushing money down the toilet. Probably because it is flushing money down the toilet.

Oh, and don’t get me started on that BoA Maintenance Fee again…

Posted on December 31st, 2010 at 3:29 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 2 Comments »

Spending Report for November 2010

Well, it wasn’t as opulent as October (when I spent $18k+) but I still ended up spending a lot more than I’d expected to this past month.

Here are the details:

• $1190.61 : Toyota (auto repairs)
• $721.00 : Homeowners Insurance
• $535.39 : Family
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $211.12 : Electricity
• $143.67 : Water/Sewer
• $135.64 : Allstate Insurance
• $116.14 : Cable/Internet
• $114.44 : Natural Gas
• $113.60 : Business Expenses
• $91.70 : Gas
• $85.00 : Connecticut DMV
• $69.55 : PODs
• $55.93 : Finance Charges
• $23.30 : Bed, Bath & Beyond
• $7.39 : Home Depot

All together, that adds up to $4113.20.

The car repairs were a budget killer, for sure.

The homeowners insurance premium was something that I’d forgotten about. It hurt the wallet too but I’m still so thankful to have conventional insurance finally. It’s been two years now since that whole problem kept me up at night.

The family expenses, well, there are a number of expenses that I combined into one heading that made up this number (and more to come in December) and, well, I just wish the circumstances that led to them were different.

Mortgage is the same old story — a great deal! Still can’t believe that I get to own this place for less than half of what a rat infested apartment goes for.

All of utilities were all up significantly since it’s gotten quite cold outside.

The POD storage container is finally out of the driveway — so this month’s bill was the final one.

And I have no idea what I bought at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $23. I remember being in the store but can’t remember what I walked out with. The Home Depot charge was for an overpriced light bulb.

Posted on December 18th, 2010 at 7:36 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for October 2010

Are you ready for this?

Now I knew coming in that October would be an expensive month and I even went out of my way to spend a bit extra on the very last day just to get it on the books and in the past but I didn’t think it’d be as crazy as it turned out to be.

Here are the numbers:

• $9212.72 : Contractor
• $2534.09 : Ashley Furniture
• $2201.63 : Business Expenses
• $1607.98 : Hockey Jerseys
• $1261.35 : PC Richard & Son
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $473.82 : IKEA
• $168.95 : PODs
• $152.94 : Clothing
• $135.64 : Allstate Insurance
• $116.14 : Cable/Internet
• $107.65 : Electricity
• $80.00 : Cash
• $78.90 : Gas
• $49.09 : Natural Gas
• $19.22 : Ocean State Job Lot
• $6.33 : Home Depot
• $2.00 : Hartford Parking Authority

All of that adds up to $18708.17.

You know, for $18k, I’d have expected a longer list…

Anyway, now I’ll try to defend my spending…

The $9212.72 payment to the contractor was expected and worth it. Our house doesn’t suck anymore.

The $2.5K furniture purchase was for a couch. Everyone needs a couch, right?

The $1261 purchase from PC Richard & Son (an electronics store that took over most of the empty Circuit City buildings here in Connecticut) was for a television to go with the couch.

And the $473 IKEA run was for a rug between the two.

These four expenditures alone make up nearly 75% of the total — and they’re all one time expenses so things aren’t really as bad as they look.

Regarding the $2201.63 in business expenses, well, I made the decision to upgrade my camera body.

The good news is that income to cover that purchase is just on the horizon. It’s even been invoiced — I’m just waiting on the payment at this point. It’s one of those “it-costs-money-to-make-money” snafus.

The hockey jerseys, well, I happened upon a great deal that I couldn’t pass up a couple of weeks ago.

Okay, it was more like 4 great deals.

Yeah, can’t justify this line but let me just say that when I knew that it was going to be a freespending month, I figured that I may as well pick up something nice for myself. And I did.

The rest is pretty much just the regular stuff, you know, mortage, utilities, gas, that sort of thing.

The Ocean State Job Lot purchase was for a bunch of those felt stickers that you put on the bottom of furniture to keep them from scratching the floor. Of course, before the renovation, we never cared about that sort of thing but now we do.

I’ve mentioned the store in the past and for those that have blanked it from their memory, I said that Ocean State Job Lot “makes Walmart look like Neiman Marcus” but hey, their felt stickers are a deal!

Posted on November 7th, 2010 at 8:10 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for September 2010

Is it just me or did the month of September go by really quickly?

I can’t believe that it’s October already…

• $6000.00 : Contractor
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $250.00 : Allstate Insurance
• $168.95 : PODs
• $140.00 : Cash
• $130.36: Toys R Us
• $116.15 : Cable/Internet
• $111.20 : Electricity
• $109.75 : Gas
• $99.01 : Business Expenses
• $26.85 : Boston Bruins
• $22.99 : eBay
• $21.20 : Cell Phone

Total comes to $7,695.18.

It’s times like this that I wish we weren’t having all of the work done on the house. I mean, subtract $6k from that number and, well, I’m not really spending that much these days…

So, here are the expenses that I feel the need to comment on…

The Allstate payment is a lot higher than it was supposed to be. See — back in August, I signed up with their auto-pay feature for this billing cycle. They’d automatically take out a certain amount each month and I’d never have to worry about paying the bill again.

Sounded pretty appealing since I couldn’t afford to pay the entire premium up-front this time.

Well, my first auto-payment fell on Labor Day — September 6th. When payments fall on holidays, they process the payment on the previous billing day which, this year, would have been September 3rd.

Now, apparently it takes them 20 days, which is utterly ridiculous these days, to “turn-on” the autopayment for any given account. Based on when I signed up for the auto-payment plan on August 16, that was in time for my first payment. Because of the holiday, though, the payment ended up needing to arrive inside the 20-day window.

Long story short, the payment was never made (though I had confirmation that it would be made) and my auto insurance lapsed. Not needing to be dropped by Allstate for no good reason (again), I frantically submitted a $250 payment and a nasty note to their customer service department (who explained the whole 20-day window/holiday scenario to me a few days later…)

The PODs storage container should be gone in the next few weeks. The renovation is all but done so we should be able to start moving stuff back in (or to the dump) before I get dinged with this rental fee again.

The trip to Toys R Us was a spur of the moment thing. Duncan seems to really enjoy toy stores these days and Daddy just happened to notice a “Buy Two, Get One Free” special on Lego sets. Let’s just say that Duncan got a Duplo set and Daddy got two Lego sets for himself.

The Boston Bruins expenditure was for a t-shirt. I don’t even like the Bruins but I wanted the t-shirt.

And that eBay purchase? Well, yeah, it was a hockey jersey. But this time it was for Duncan.

Posted on October 3rd, 2010 at 7:04 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 2 Comments »

Spending Report for August 2010

Oh boy… Here we go…

Do I have to?

I mean, I’m just warning you, you know, before you read on, that this month was off the charts. I mean, totally out of control…

Here goes:

• $6000.00 : Contractor
• $600.26 : Alamo Car Rental
• $498.72 : Mortgage
• $448.84 : Cash
• $400.00 : Punch-Out!! Arcade Game
• $340.43 : Black Knight Inn
• $327.66 : Ramada
• $285.50 : Hockey Jersey
• $222.03 : Gas
• $217.36 : Radisson
• $205.86 : Hand Truck
• $191.26 : Pocahontas Bungalows
• $186.05 : Delta Hotels
• $183.60 : Best Western
• $168.95 : PODs
• $156.20 : Super 8 Motel
• $138.00 : Airport Parking
• $116.20 : Water/Sewer
• $116.15 : Cable/Internet
• $106.48 : Business Expenses
• $105.99 : Waffle Maker
• $97.77 : Clothes for Duncan
• $85.00 : Dentist
• $83.27 : Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fee
• $79.64 : Electricity
• $74.18: IKEA
• $69.86 : Home Depot
• $20.00 : Corporate Filing Fee
• $31.89 : Natural Gas
• $28.54 : Lowe’s
• $21.49 : Green Electrical Supply
• $19.61 : Chicken Wings

Added up all together, that’s $11,626.79.

Eleven freakin’ thousand dollars?! Can you believe that?

I started doing these reports, following frequent commentor DD’s lead over on Happy Rock, over a year ago now and I have never ever even come close to the five-figure sum I’m reporting this month.

I mean, I’m glad that I’m sitting down as I type this…

It’s almost comical that I’m going to do my regular breakdown and then try an justify the expenses line-by-line as if spending this much is “okay” but here goes…

I wrote a $6000 check to our contractor. So far, we’ve paid him $24000 total. I wrote a $3000 check back in May and my wife’s credit card offer took care of the other $15000. We still have around $10k to go but, hey, it’s looking great!

Up next are the vacation expenditures which I’ll group together. Quickly, and in order:

• Alamo Car Rental ($600.26) — What a freaking ripoff. Sure, the Nissan Sentra was nice and all, but holy crap?!
• Cash ($448.84) — 99% of this was just money taken out for “stuff” while on vacation.
• Black Knight Inn ($340.43) — Do not stay here. Do not *ever* stay here. What a freakin’ dump. An expensive dump.
• Ramada ($327.66) — Just north of Calgary, this was the same Ramada mentioned in last month’s spending report. We liked it so much, we stayed there again!
• Gas ($222.03) — It is what it is. Two years later, I still don’t think gas is overpriced.
• Radisson ($217.36) — I don’t even remember staying in a Radisson. Yep, it left that much of an impression. You’d think a nightly rate exceeding $200 would leave an impression, no?
• Pocahontas Bungalows ($191.26) — A last minute destination, this was for a night in a rustic cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Let’s just call it an “experience” and leave it at that.
• Delta Hotels ($186.05) — This was the hotel connected to the Calgary Airport. It wasn’t exactly where we wanted to say but with an early morning flight out, well, it was definitely convenient and it saved us an extra day’s worth of car rental.
• Best Western ($183.60) — I’m not usually a big fan of the Best Western chain as they’re mostly dumps on the east coast but this one just west of Edmonton was beautiful. When I checked in I thought it was overpriced but now comparing it to the other rooms we stayed in, it was definitely one of the best values.
• Super 8 ($156.20) — I broke one of my own rules on this one. See, I’ve often stated that I will never stay in a hotel with a number in the name. I would have stuck to that rule too had it not been 10 o’clock at night without another reputable hotel within a 4-hour radius. Let’s just say that the northern interior of British Columbia isn’t a hot bed of nice hotel rooms.
• Airport Parking ($138.00) — It’s funny how when you pull into the long term parking lot, the sign reads “$75 Maximum” but when you insert your ticket, the attendantless machine demands $138. Funny how that works.
• Credit Card Foreign Transaction Fee ($83.27) — I freakin’ hate these. You could have a TD credit card and you’d still get hit with these. For the record, TD stands for Toronto Dominion. Yep, they’re Canadian. And you’ll still get hit with Foreign Transaction Fees if you buy stuff in Canada. My card issuer isn’t TD, but I’m just sayin…

So, all together, the August portion of vacation cost $2563.27. More than we’d have liked but not too bad.

Now to fill in the gaps (while ignoring the regular utility bills), again, in order:

• Mortgage ($498.72) — This was the first mortgage payment since the refinance went through all the way back in June. I still can’t believe my mortgage is less than $500 per month.
• Punch-Out!! Arcade Game ($400.00) — I don’t care what anyone says, this purchase was so awesome that it warranted its own post. I don’t regret it for a second.
• Hockey Jersey ($285.50) — This addiction just won’t die. It’s getting there, though…
• Hand Truck ($205.86) — So now that I’ve got two arcade games along with a ton of heavy furniture in the POD, it only seemed like a good idea to go out and buy my very own hand truck. I can’t tell you how many times in the past we’ve said, “It’s too bad that we don’t have a hand truck” as we huff and puff some piece of furniture up the stairs. I didn’t skimp on this purchase either cause there’s nothing worse than an inadequate tool. This puppy is rated up to 1200 pounds and will make moving everything back into the house so much easier. Safer too.
• PODs ($168.95) — Yep, that portable storage unit is still in the driveway and full of stuff that used to be in the rooms being renovated. It’s looking like this could be the last month we have it but if things get tight, we’ll keep it around another month.
• Waffle Maker ($105.99) — Now my sister will probably think that we bought this because she got one as a wedding gift (while we were up there on vacation) and felt the need to rightfully gush about it. But the truth is, that Best Western that I referenced above had one of these and that sold us. It’s a nice one that makes two belgian waffles at once. Yep, I’ve had waffles for dinner at least 10 times this month.
• Clothes for Duncan ($97.77) — While looking at some of the pictures we took of Duncan when we were on vacation, I realized that he needed a more trendy wardrobe. Mission accomplished. He’s the coolest looking kid in the Toddler 2 room.
• Densist ($85.00) — I don’t think I mentioned here on PIAC but back in June I dropped our dental insurance. This $85 cleaning charge would have cost me double if it’d come directly out of my paycheck as an insurance premium…
• IKEA ($74.18) — This was for a few light fixtures for our renovation. They’re not great but they look neat.
• Home Depot ($69.86) — More light fixtures. These things can get expensive but obviously we didn’t buy anything too pricey.
• Corporate Filing Fee ($20.00) — Sure, it’s only $20 but it’s one of the reasons that small businesses avoid the State of Connecticut. I gave the state $20 for nothing. In April, I’ll give them another $250. Again, for nothing…
• Lowe’s ($28.54) — This was for a pair of work gloves. And one of the light fixtures that we bought at Home Depot had a broken globe. I bought a replacement at Lowe’s and it didn’t fit. Go figure. I’ll return it one of these weekends.
• Green Electrical Supply ($21.49) — But wait, there’s more. In addition to having a broken globe, the fixtures that we picked up at Home Deport are über green. I mean, they don’t accept Edison-mount light bulbs cause they’re too darn inefficient or some such nonsense so… it’s darn near impossible to find lightbulbs that are more powerful than a lightning bug in any store. Thankfully they’re available online though, so that’s what these are. I bought 4 bulbs that should be brighter than the sun itself. I only needed two but figured that ordering lightbulbs online was a wee bit risky. I all but expect two of them to be broken during the shipping process.
• Chicken Wings ($19.61) — You almost never see food expenditures here on PIAC because my wife usually buys all of it and her finances aren’t reported here. She would have bought this too, you know, had she remembered her purse.

So, in an attempt to make it seem as though I didn’t spend as much as I did, I’m gonna pretend that we didn’t go on vacation or have our house worked on.

Adjusted spending for the month of August now comes in at $3063.02.

Yep. That sounds good to me.

Posted on August 31st, 2010 at 9:32 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for July 2010

I did a pretty good job last month.

Most of our vacation expenses will fall into my August report, which lessens the damage, and besides a big tax bill, well, I think I kept my spending in check.

• $2371.24 : Property Taxes
• $275.97 : Ramada
• $232.98 : Sears
• $168.95 : PODS Storage Unit
• $120.00 : Cash
• $116.15 : Cable/Internet
• $116.00 : Gas
• $112.18 : Electricity
• $110.12 : UPS
• $97.78 : Home Depot
• $94.95 : RunningShoes.com
• $80.37 : Clothing
• $74.19 : Luggage
• $47.31 : Natural Gas
• $40.17 : Lowes
• $49.98 : Business Expenses
• $8.00 : Car Wash

That all adds up to $4116.34.

Not that taxes don’t count as spending, but without them, the total is only $1745.10. That’s even less than June!

Granted, there wasn’t a mortgage payment in July and I didn’t write any of the checks to the contractor working on the house, but still…

Here’s the line item breakdown of the anomalies…

Property Taxes – I hate ‘em. Always have. Connecticut is one of those states where we need to pay local property tax on our vehicles.

This year it’s so high because it also includes the property tax on my house. When we re-financed a couple of months ago, I stepped up to the plate and deciced to pay them myself.

Reason being — I’d rather have a super low mortgage bill each month and a huge tax bill twice a year rather than have a high mortgage bill *every* month.

Ramada – I have rule when it comes to hotels. I won’t stay in one that has a number in the name. Ramada passes that test and this specific hotel — which I might mention if I do a vacation specific post — was top notch.

Sears – Of course, as luck would have it, the lawnmower died just before we went on vacation.

Combined with the fact that we’ve got some major sums to pay the contractor and had a vacation looming, well, I didn’t want to have to buy a lawnmower.

I settled on one of their returned/refurbished models. Hey, it was 50% off and it’s still new to me!

PODs – Things are progressing on the remodel (pictures soon, I promise) so it’s possible that we might need it for one more month.

On the other hand, we’re not sure we want to move any of our crappy old furniture back into the house. We’ll see…

UPS – Holy shipping charges Batman! This was the charge to ship a high-end baby carrier (one of the external frame backpack kind) to Florida so my parents could drive it up to Alberta (it’s complicated) where we could pick it up to use in the mountains.

It cost so much because it’s a pretty big and it’s not supposed to be disassembled — so it stays pretty big. That’s the main reason that we couldn’t check it as baggage on an airplance.

Well, upon arrival in Florida, my dad took it apart anyway so when we picked it up in Alberta, the confidence that we’d had in the sound and sturdy product (that cost a fortune to ship) was totally lost.

Major bummer — so we didn’t use it nearly much as we wanted to cause we didn’t want Duncan to slip out and fall off a cliff.

The good news is that he didn’t fall off a cliff. The bad news is that we didn’t venture near any cliffs, or even off of an over touristed well-beaten — borderline handicapped accessible — trail because of it. Sigh…

This one ended up being another expensive vacation expenditure that wasn’t worth the expense.

Home Depot – Related to the renovation, we decided to replace our old thermostat (remember that thing?) with one of those new programmable touchscreen ones. It even lights up!

RunningShoes.com – Back in 2008, I got a super bargain on a pair of sneakers from these guys. Back then, the shoes were for vacation.

So I thought I’d treat myself again — but this time, pay full price. So worth it.

Clothing – I bought myself a few pairs of shorts. Exciting, huh?

Luggage – No, this wasn’t a luggage handling fee from the airline. We actually didn’t own any luggage. I’ve always been the if-it-can-fit-into-this-backpack type of packer until now. Now we have real (el-cheapo)luggage.

Lowes – More renovation stuff. This was for a new doorbell. It’s not fancy but it sounds nice and it’s better than the wireless hunk of junk we’ve been using.

Car Wash – I’m not one of those that believes that a clean car runs better (one of my friends from high school seriously washes and hand waxes his car weekly cause he believes that — and it’s a Honda Civic?!) but I can’t stand it when a bird poops on the door handle.

Posted on August 15th, 2010 at 7:51 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for June 2010

Well, you can throw consistency out the window…

Since the refinance went through, I’ve had money to burn. Seriously, when you manage to cut your mortgage bill by 60%, well, suddenly it’s as if there aren’t any big bills anymore. It’s a strange feeling.

But with the renovation still not paid for, well, I’ve chosen not to spend like crazy so as not to dig myself into a huge deep well of debt.

Either way, my spending pattern can hardly be called a pattern any more…

• $786.51 : Hockey Jerseys
• $414.56 : Clothing
• $245.01 : Business Expenses
• $168.95 : PODS Storage Unit
• $116.15 : Cable/Internet
• $101.65 : Gas
• $88.68 : Electricity
• $80.00 : Cash
• $57.22 : Baby Gates
• $57.06 : Natural Gas
• $25.00 : Mortgage
• $21.20 : Cell Phone
• $10.00 : Zombie Keychain
• $9.53 : Home Depot
• $8.00 : Car Wash

All together, that’s $2189.52.

One year ago, I spent more than that on the mortgage alone. Crazy.

At the top of the list are the hockey jerseys. It’s a hobby that’s tough to explain — and I won’t try to explain it.

I added two jerseys to my collection this month — both pretty difficult to come by and both that I consider worthwhile purchases.

One was a white New York Rangers Liberty jersey which was a style that they only wore for one season. Stuff like that adds to the collectability — kinda like limited edition beanie babies or whatever.

The other was a Swiss National Team jersey worn in the 2010 IIHF World Championships that I purchased direct from the Swiss Ice Hockey Association — an experience on its own.

First off — I’ve dealt with monetary transactions from Switzerland a few times but it’s always been money coming in. Sending money to Switzerland, on the other hand, is a royal hassle.

In short, Switzerland doesn’t do the whole euro thing — they want their payments in Swiss Francs. Not a problem, conversion is simple, but they also don’t accept checks.

You’ve gotta wire the money into their account which, obviously, is a Swiss bank account which, in turn, makes you look like you’re financing some sort of Al-Quaida operative when you’re trying to wire money from an American bank.

Would you like a DNA sample with that? Sheesh…

Yeah, the bank on this end of the bargain made it feel criminal. To say the least, it was a learning experience. And I’m probably on some sort of watch list as a result.

Up next, and somewhat out of the ordinary, is the clothing expenditure. I’d worn myself down to one pair of shorts last month. I *had* three pairs at the start but some poorly situated holes developed and put me in a position where, well, I needed a new line-up of shorts. I threw in a few shirts too.

I also found myself sucked into watching the World Cup in June and ended up purchasing a few soccer jerseys for me and my son. Sadly our team, Germany, didn’t make the finals but we’ll still wear our cool new jerseys regularly.

Business expenses were high this month as I finally jumped on the wireless bandwagon. We purchased one of those NetBooks last month (my wife bought it so it’s purchase not accounted for here) so it was time to make our home network wireless too.

The hardware wasn’t really that expensive but it did bump me over the $200 mark with all of the regular expenses thrown in too. The worst part about it was that I had to venture into Best Buy… Ugh.

The Baby Gates purchase was for a couple of those gates that you put in doorways to keep toddlers from, well, escaping. Duncan is walking around now so we kinda need to keep him outta the construction zones — not that they’re any more dangerous than the house was a couple of weeks ago, but still…

A ten dollar Zombie key chain? What is wrong with you? Actually, a friend has been getting into the whole arts and crafts thing and I was feeling generous. Besides, it’s awesome.

And the last non-regular purchase was that $9.53 purchase at Home Depot. It was for a HUGE screwdriver (that I’ll probably never see use again — much like that mandrill back in 2007) that helped me take apart (or destroy) the piano so we could get it out of the dining room. I’m just glad the stupid thing didn’t cost more.

Posted on July 10th, 2010 at 6:40 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for May 2010

With so many things up in the air (mortgage re-fi, mega pay cut), my spending this past month was far from ordinary.

• $3000.00 : Contractor
• $1346.10 : Mortgage
• $445.00 : LenderVend Appraisal
• $241.81 : PODS Storage Unit
• $200.00 : Cash
• $114.14 : Cable/Internet
• $112.19 : Gas
• $106.96 : Water/Sewer
• $102.37 : Target
• $100.00 : Capital One Bank
• $99.28 : Electricity
• $93.76 : Natural Gas
• $92.84 : Business Expenses
• $52.95 : Flowers
• $15.66 : Walmart

All together, that’s $6123.06.

Okay, so the total isn’t so out of the ordinary but the breakdown certainly is. If you took all of the renovation and re-finance related expenses out of the equation, I actually had a pretty thrifty month as they alone made up for over 60% of my spending.

Cash was as high as it was because I took a bunch out for the day we took Duncan to the zoo. Sure, it was supposed to be FREE but it wasn’t.

The Target trip also related to Duncan‘s big day. We bought him a leather easy chair, a pool, and some clothes.

I made a $100 payment to my wife’s Capital One account to ensure that her balance was $0 (or less) for when we wrote that $17k check to ourselves. While the card is in her name, I’ll be adding it’s balance to my net worth updates this coming month.

The flower purchase was for a girl that asked Duncan to go to the prom with her. He couldn’t make it but we ordered her flowers on Prom day anyway.

And I can’t believe I stepped foot in a Walmart but that purchase was for a wrist brace after I totally messed it up at the zoo wrestling a hippo…

June’s spending should be even wackier, I’m thinking…

Posted on June 6th, 2010 at 8:53 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | 1 Comment »

Spending Report for April 2010

Well, I thought this month would be one for the records books but I seem to have come up just a bit short.

That’s good news… but I still spent too much.

• $1850.00 : Mortgage
• $1823.22 : Hockey Jersey
• $1769.56 : Air Canada
• $240.00 : Cash
• $146.04 : Natural Gas
• $138.13 : Electricity
• $111.33 : Cable/Internet
• $252.40 : Business Expenses
• $90.00 : Gas
• $60.00 : U.S. Department of State
• $56.05 : Phone (Last One!!!)
• $40.00 : U.S. Postal Service
• $36.99 : GAP Online
• $12.53 : BoA Transaction Fee
• $5.16 : Lowe’s
• $5.00 : New Alliance Bank ATM Fee
• $2.50 : Vending Machine
• $1.00 : Hartford Parking Authority

Total for the month is… $6639.91.

An improvement over last month (barely) but still far too much.

I mean, last year, I only spent $2500 total for the month of April…

Making matters worse, unlike last month when most of the spending was on stuff like insurance, auto repairs, and debt payments, most of the spending this month was for non-essentials like, um, hockey jerseys and plane tickets.

Breaking it down a bit, err, explaining the irregularities, well, the hockey jersey number probably looks absolutely ridiculous to most people and makes it seem as though my priorities are way out of whack.

I can understand that.

One of my financial goals for 2010 was to curb my hobby expenditures and for the most part this year, I’ve done that.

Sure, I blew it this month, but I’ve been a lot more reluctant on purchases than in years past and, this time, I’m certain that I got my money’s worth. That probably doesn’t make sense to most readers either…

The Air Canada expense was for plane tickets to my sister’s upcoming wedding — unfortunately not on Easter Island which would be cool though, right?

It hurts to see that number as high as it is as there are definitely more pertinent things that we *should* be spending the money on (no, not hockey jerseys — the HOUSE!) but it is what it is.

Best of all, the trip isn’t for a few months so by the time we’re handing over our boarding passes this purchase will seem so ancient that it’ll feel free…

That is, until the charges for the rental car and hotels come though… Ugh.

Seriously, I booked a few more things, they’ve put a hold on my credit card but nothing has gone through…

The last few lines on this spending report, while small, are all irregular too and are worthy of a little explanation.

The GAP online charge stems from that jacket purchase and then return/credit and then exchange. I bought a couple of t-shirts and a onesie as well which is why the numbers between the two posts don’t all add up (for those keeping score at home).

The Bank of America transaction fee is a foreign transaction fee that they hit me up for on the Air Canada tickets. The upsetting part is that Air Canada (when purchased in the United States) bills out of Atlanta, Georgia which happens to be in the United States.

Yeah, explain that “foreign” transaction fee to me again? Whatever — I’m learning not to sweat the small stuff.

The purchase at Lowe’s was for a plumbing emergency. The trap under our kitchen sink “fell” off. Not sure how it happened, or why, and it doesn’t relate to that time I fixed the leaky faucet but I’m just glad it only took $5.16 to fix.

ATM fees really piss me off. Thankfully I didn’t get bookended with a fee from my own bank too. This was one of those moments where you get caught with your pants down (not in a can) at a place takes cash only.

What type of place only takes cash these days?

Anyway, it was one of those situations so I had to bite the bullet and use another bank’s ATM. Yep, took out $20 and paid a $5 fee to do it. Think about it — that’s 25 percent. Outrageuous.

At our last hockey game of the season, we used the neat vending machine that takes credit cards for two sodas.

I’m sorry — even vending machines take plastic. No, really, I’ve seen lemonade stands run by 5 year olds that take plastic… What type of place is cash only these days. Okay, I’m done now.

No… wait.

That last one…. The Hartford Parking Authority. Yep, that was a parking meter and guess what? It took plastic too.

Posted on May 9th, 2010 at 10:00 am by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Spending Report | No Comments »