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Savings Goals Updates

November 18th, 2009 at 05:15 pm



Updating sidebar to reflect latest totals -

as of 11/18/2009:
RV Land Travel $260.22
Houseboat $428.78
Dream Car Fund $743.82

Stirring the Pot

October 30th, 2009 at 11:52 am



As I'm often likely to do towards the end of the month, I went online and rounded up these accounts, just to stir up a bit of the juice in the old interest pot and decrease the leftover flotsam in my personal checking!

RV Land Travel Fund - strictly in savings form
$232.34 10/9/2009 balance
+002.66 eye of Benjamin
_______
$235.00 new balance

Houseboat Fund - riding the waves of DOW
$407.54 10/9/2009
-019.70 investments down - hex on the WallStreet gurus & their Congressional familiars (not to worry I still have the shares in good stuff - think DCA, steady DRPs)
+002.16 root of Money Plant (come on, 7 come 11, baby needs a new pair of deck-shoes!)
_______
$390.00 new balance

I used to own one of these cool granny pots pictured above. I paid $80 for it and used it for years and years in my yard for Harvest parties & other picnics. We'd build our fire INSIDE of it and use it to roast weinnies & marshmellows and keep our backsides warm and our fingers de-iced! Great fun. I sold it a few years ago, but I wish I still had it - I think I'd like to hold our elected officials feet to the fire over the current economy!! And I'm sorry to say to all her fans, but Nancy Pelosi* is looking rather witchy to me lately!

*Might as well stir the political pot while I'm at it!

edited later to add:
Pelosi - Can't always get what you want
Text is
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28919.html and Link is

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28919.html

Updating Houseboat Fund

October 10th, 2009 at 12:55 am

Updating Houseboat Fund

$407.54 10/09/2009 new balance

Round Up Sunday - Not A Church Activity

September 27th, 2009 at 09:48 pm



Many churches have a western wear day that they call Round Up Sunday where they make an effort to 'round up' members who've been absent for a long time by making a concentrated effort to invite them. This is NOT what I'm talking about.

But, this is...

After lunch today, I'm cruising into my online savings accounts just looking around, checking rates, etc. and decided to play Round Up. Do you ever do this?

Here's some for examples:

Driver's License Renewal Fund (for me & Hubster)sitting there with $45.05 in it and I made an online transfer of $4.95 to round it up to $50.

Clothes Fund for me (I could care less about clothes) was sitting at $10.01 so I sent off 2.49 to round it up to $12.50. One of these days I'll need a new pair of tennis shoes, and this is where the money will come from. Recently bought 'foundation garments' so it's rather low at the moment.

I rounded up the RV Land Travel Fund by $1.51 making it now have $142.50.

I rounded up the Houseboat Fund by $7.19 making it $375.00.

...and so on in various and assorted accounts.

Of course these numbers won't last as we're getting ready to end the month and interest will be added, and my automatic contributions will be going in too, but usually every couple of months I just go in and toss some random 'Round Up' number in there to keep it growing. I'm rather broke at the end of this particular month, so there's not much going, but every little bit counts.

These are all accounts that I make regular monthly contributions into anyway as they are part of my regular budgeting process. I know it makes for additional banking entries but it's not that big of a deal, ya' know?

Do you ever play Round Up into savings accounts? Why or why not? Are you doing this regularly or randomly?

Today is a No Spend Day.

Hubster sold an old stereo piece of equipment today on Craigslist for $15.

The Open Roads Are Calling ME!!!

September 24th, 2009 at 08:55 pm



Are you guys watching the PBS series on the US's National Parks? Watched an episode or two last night about it and the lodges that are in them and am re-inspired for more land travel. As discussed in a previous post about having a houseboat I mentioned that I'd like to one day own a small Toyota type RV and I stated that this desire/goal was going unfunded.

Today while I was out on the web looking around rate shopping (still have money sitting in Money Market account earning diddly that needs moving) I looked at my ING account. You know I had a big hoo-ha with ING at one time, BUT, I've been having $12 a month autodrafted into there for a while now and it didn't really have a goal. So, today I went in and gave it a new nickname and goal - RV Land Travel.

Current balance is $140.99. It's earning 1.30% APY. Meaning about .15 a month right now. Ehhh, well. It now has a reason for being!

Going over to the sidebar to set up a new tracking section for it. I am ready to hit the National Parks trail.

Unfortunately my wallet isn't quite as ready as I am! Oh, and have you noticed? All my current goals have to do with travel or motion of some type? I, being gypsy-hearted like to go go go, yet Hubster could care less if he ever gets out of the yard!

Updating Houseboat Fund Numbers

September 16th, 2009 at 02:30 am



Houseboat Fund-w/Sharebuilder

This money is invested and has been being added to at the rate of $5 a month. Because it's invested in can flucuate up and down. As of today 9/15/09 I'm upping the monthly automatic investments to $30 a month, so it might begin to grow a bit faster. Big Grin

$250.36 12/31/08
$254.57 01/31/09
$260.37 02/31/09
$265.38 03/31/09
$294.34 04/30/09
$327.81 05/31/09
$313.39 06/30/09
$333.76 07/31/09
$342.58 08/31/09
$373.94 09/15/09 today's balance

edited to add picture for Land Travel Dream which is currently going unfunded!


Today and yesterday were no spend days - making up for all the spending done while my California relatives were here visiting!

Updating the Houseboat Fund Totals

January 6th, 2009 at 12:33 pm



What happened to my sweet little ticker? Hmmmm...I never could get that thingy to work for me like it does for the rest of you!!

Anyway, new Houseboat Fund Total is $270.65.

Backstory is here:

Text is http://luxliving.savingadvice.com/2008/08/13/new-category-4-me-houseboat-savings_42131/
and Link is
http://luxliving.savingadvice.com/2008/08/13/new-category-4...

Do you have a future dream that you are funding NOW? What is it?

Adding to My Houseboat Fund & Etc.

August 16th, 2008 at 05:01 pm



I added $2.00 to the Retirement Houseboat ticker over on the left! New total $177.00.

Also new on the left is the Grrls (Lux's Personal) Just Wanna Have E-funds! ticker. See below for a more detailed explanation. New balance $335.00.

Spent $11.05 yesterday on new black t-towels and those multi-color candles for the Frugalis Wine Cellar. What wine cellar would be complete without a Chianti bottle with a candle and all it's drippings hanging about? Will post a pic of it when we drink the Chianti and get a decent amount of wax built up! Who knows maybe it was a 70's thing?

I also signed myself up for a FREE wine-making course in the next couple of weeks. I want to see if I really would enjoy a full on wine-making setup before expending dollars on the equipment. The wine I've made in the past was done in my kitchen w/gallon pickle jars, plastic wrap & rubber bands.

Currently brewing is a bottle of homemade rootbeer. I'll let you know how it turns out. The extract I had is kind of old so it may be a waste of sugar water.

I did finally get pictures up the other day of the wine cellar before we got the floor mopped (this area gets run-off from the hole in the wall when it rains heavily):

Text is
http://luxliving.savingadvice.com/2008/08/08/dressing-the-wine-cellar_41970/
and Link is

http://luxliving.savingadvice.com/2008/08/08/dressing-the-...


Scroll down for the pictures of my hole in the wall!

----
I also added a new ticker as well called "Grrls Just Wanna Have E-Funds!"

This is a checking account I recently started at Fidelity and it didn't really have a purpose. I've been married for 25 years so I don't really think I'm gonna have to fend for myself as in a divorce situation but I figured I'd take the going apartment rental rate here as a good figure to start with. Small studios are renting here for $450 a month. Add another 900 to cover first and last months rent and a 50 to round it up gave me the 1400 figure to start with.

Hubster and I have our combined years worth of emergency fund at another bank. I doubt he's running off* anytime soon (likely NEVER) leaving me stranded but I needed - in my minds eye - to give this account a goal. That's it. It's my personal emergency fund. If I never need it so much the better. (Plenty of women have never seen it* coming!)

I plan to update and adjust the rental rate figure each year on Hubster's birthday which is sometime soon this month.

I have this checking account set-up with an autodraft addition of $10 a month out of my hometown personal checking. Mainly

I started it because I wanted to see how Fidelity's SmartCash checking accounts work before we eventually use them to withdraw from our retirement funds. I've had the account three or four months now and have never written a check on it.

Somehow it has an auto-leveling feature that pulls from one account to keep the balance at a minimum that you set. Checks were free, but it currently pays only 1.49% interest a month. Ehhhhh & Bleck!!

I need to write a small check some time and see it in action. I started with $50 in there in late April. I deposited $250 a day or so later and I earned 5 cents interest on 4/30, .38 on 5/30, .37 on 6/30, added $10 autodraft in July and earned .39 on 7/31. Added another autodrafted $10 on 8/1 and yesterday I added $13.81 in there to round it off to a nice even number of $335.00.

Feeling generous with myself while at Fidelity yesterday I also rounded up my 2008 Roth IRA contributions by $12.00.

Today's mission - clean up my sidebar! I'm doing that by adding some of my historical stuff to the "My Pages" section of our blogs. Did you know we could do that?

New Category 4 Me-Houseboat Savings

August 13th, 2008 at 04:41 pm



I didn't make it over to the junk booth yesterday so I'm going to try again today and THANKFULLY CashHappySon's ex-girl-i-o had the good graces not to show up last night.

I'm going to add a new category over to the left - Houseboat Savings. This is my retirement dream - but definitely not Hubsters. Anyway, I'm going to try and add one of those slide-tickers. Stand ready all you pros to help me, please? Every time I've tried in the past they turn out gigantic and throw my pages off.

Today's Houseboat savings balance $175.00. It may fluctuate a bit as it's invested over at Sharebuilder. For now my goal is to add to it monthly at the rate of $50. The $30,000.00 is totally an arbitrary figure. I would assume that I would be buying a used one and not paying nearly that much, but who knows. That's a pretty plain jane new model w/only the basics and no frills.