NDChic'sCents

Stocks

2021-01-22T04:35:00.001-08:00

We have a new president now which usually means an opportunity for different sectors of the economy. Since I like to buy stocks and make a profit, I watch this closely. No matter who is president, I am an opportunist and am always looking for the next place to make money.

Oil stocks--oil has historically done much better under Democrats. Oil was at an all time high under Obama. I have quite a bit of energy stocks. I'm hoping we see oil back in the $80 per barrel range. If oil booms to this price again, it will bode very well for energy stocks.

Health insurance stocks--Humana was up over 400% under Obama. Since Biden doesn't support a single payer health system, I think we will see quite a lot of opportunity with health insurance profits.

Financial Services--Janet Yellen is the Treasury Nominee. Yellen's policy are pretty well known from her time as Former Chair of the Federal Reserve.

Fast food--it is expected that more stimulus money will be pumped into the economy which I think will be good for the fast food market. The model of only drive thru fast food places can be more profitable than having a restaurant where workers have to maintain the interior. Fast food restaurants where I live are super busy.

These are a few of the areas that I see opportunity. Who knows? I could be dead wrong with all of them. Where do you see opportunity? I like to hear on why people pick what stocks they are going to buy based on policy or behaviors that they see.

Menu for the Week

2021-01-19T04:05:00.001-08:00

Monday--steak with spaghetti veggie pasta salad

Tuesday--my son has wrestling so DH and him will grab something, chicken Caesar salads for my daughter and me

Wednesday--brats with buns and southwest lettuce salad

Thursday--whole chicken in the slow cooker with rice and veggies

Friday--probably frozen pizza. I'm having dinner/drinks with a couple girlfriends

Saturday--I think I'm going to plan a family dinner out with bowling to use up a couple gift cards. We have a gift card for a local restaurant and for the local bowling alley.

It was great to have a day off yesterday for Martin Luther King Jr day. We all slept in until about 8:30. In the afternoon, my friend asked for my kids to come over to play with hers. They played for a couple hours. When I went to pick them up, my friend and I ended up drinking a bottle of champagne. It was lovely to catch up. I feel so much better about life in general when I socialize more.

Have a great week!

How We Budget

2021-01-17T07:39:00.000-08:00

I'm always curious how others budget so I thought I would write a post on how we do it. My husband and I have been married for 16 years and we combined all finances within 2 months of getting married. We have a joint checking and numerous savings accounts. We are paid on the same days monthly, the 15th and end of the month. All of our paychecks are deposited into one account.

On each payday, I have a number of items to pay. For the first paychecks, we pay for daycare (this used to be a huge expense), transfer to savings for large annual bills like life, auto and home insurance and property taxes, DH's phone bill, cable bill and a transfer to our investment account. For the second paychecks, we pay our mortgage, my phone bill, electric bill, 529 accounts, transfer to our car savings account and transfer to our investment account. After I account for those bills/transfers, I pay both of our credit card bills. We both have our own credit cards that I pay. I leave enough in our checking account to pay the credit card bills in one more week. Between paychecks, I pay both of our credit cards again. I do this so that our credit cards are paid off weekly. After accounting for the credit cards, I transfer the rest to our savings. I make sure to transfer to savings the day we are paid. If I wait, that money could dwindle away on other things.

I could probably pay our credit cards in full monthly now but when we changed our spending over completely to credit cards versus debit cards, I was worried that we wouldn't be able to afford the monthly payment so I set up this system of paying the cards weekly.

I don't budget as closely as many people do but I track our spending sometimes. It works better for me to pay ourselves first and not worry about the smaller details. Since we share all of our money, I don't nitpick at DH about his spending. He wouldn't do that to me because he doesn't know how much I spend. I like paying all the bills and tracking everything (probably because I really like to be in control) so it works that our system falls on me.

We also talk about our larger goals and what we're doing with different financial things. We accomplish more as a team that we do separately. Our likely move is an example of our financial coordination.

How do you budget? Do you use credit cards for discretionary spending?

Landlording

2021-01-15T10:31:00.002-08:00

I'm at work today at my regular job but I'm also taking care of some landlord items. One of my tenants is 4 months behind on rent and has applied for rental assistance through the state for Covid relief. She has kept me abreast of the situation but it's been a difficult process. She had to apply with all of her documentation. I had to log into a specific website and upload my landlord paperwork (LLC paperwork, bank info and W-4). I did what I thought was my responsibility last month and still no payment. I reached out to the tenant today and she just forwarded me a bunch of screen shots. I called the number listed for the state office with her reference number. I was then given a number for her case worker and emailed him. Hopefully, we can wrap this up soon.

I don't know the education level of my tenant but I would be surprised if she has any college. This is a lot for her to take care of. She's obviously smart but the documentation required for the Covid relief would scare off a lot of other people. I don't mind working with her as long as she continues to be upfront with me. The cops have been called to her place on two separate occasions. The last occasion resulted in her then boyfriend with assault charges and a restraining order. I tried talking to her about choices. We will see if it continues. I won't evict for non-payment during Covid but I also have to think of the neighbors if the cops are being called. What to do? This is the tough personal side of landlording that isn't all business.

Signed Offer

2021-01-12T10:43:00.005-08:00

We received an offer late last night for the rental property that we have listed. It was almost full price with us paying closing costs with a conventional loan with financing and inspection contingencies. It's as good of an offer that we hoped for. Being a negotiator, I wanted to counter. DH just told me to accept it and not to mess with the buyer. If it were up to him, he would have accepted much less. We signed the purchase agreement today so we are in contract.

We put a lot of sweat equity into this one. We will walk away with a profit of about $16,000 which will be taxed as capital gain. Closing for this one will be March 1.

We have another property that we bought as a flip that is already under contract. We close on that one on January 22. Between the two properties, we should net $180,000 as we own both outright. We need that money for a down payment on our new house.

Rentals and flips can totally be a pain but they can also be profitable. I prefer flips. Actually, I just prefer making money and I don't mind giving up my weekends to work on projects. I have my husband and kids with so its a family project. My kids whine sometimes about the work but it's good for them to see us work hard for our money. Plus, they are pretty good helpers.

2021 is turning into the best year. Things are really coming together 😀

Beautiful Weather

2021-01-09T14:13:00.001-08:00

This is a picture I took today of a small shed on our property. We have had a hoarfrost for many days now.

Frugal Friday

2021-01-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

I'm borrowing the idea for Frugal Friday from The Hawaii Plan. She is always coming up with something new to save and it inspired me.

Called Old Navy and asked for a refund for the $7 expedited shipping because the package took a month for us to receive
I called AT&T/DirecTV and asked for a reduction on my bill. They gave me $30 off a month for 12 months. Dang!
I went grocery shopping last evening and used both Ibotta and Fetch. I saved $4.90 on Ibotta.
DH won my Fantasy Football league. He won first place for a $120. Not too bad considering the $20 to get in was already spent
We ate all meals at home after coming home from vacation on Sunday. I just picked up some milk and basic produce for $26 instead of actually shopping on Sunday. We need to use up our pantry and freezer in anticipation of moving.

What about you? Were you frugal for the first full week of January?

Happy new year!

2021-01-02T21:30:00.001-08:00

We took a 5 day trip to check out Omaha over New Year's. We wanted to check out the area more thoroughly as we are still debating on moving. We have had a great time here. We drive home tomorrow. I've been so grateful to spend these days with my family without any work stress. I didn't bring my laptop and haven't taken any work calls. It's been lovely.

I am doing two sets of goals for 2021, one for moving and one set for staying. I still have to finalize a couple goals as I just came up with the two options.

2020 couldn't have been a better year for us. Our net worth increased by about 45%. A large part of the increase was my income as I worked way more. I'm only now coming back to normal from working so much. I find that when I work about 70 plus hours a week and it's complete chaos that my brain doesn't shut off at the end of the work week and it doesn't allow me to decompress. I need a month or two to revert back to normal.

I'm so excited about the possibilities for this year. I love the new year and the fresh start. Happy new year!!

Positives from Covid

2020-12-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

There have been a few positives in my life from Covid. The first one is that I'm no longer traveling to other locations for work. I didn't realize how much of a time waster this was until I didn't have to do it anymore. This has given me more time at work to do actual work.

Working from home doesn't stress me put like it used to. I used to do it when I had a sick kid or when I had to but was stressed out about not being in the office. I am back to physical work since July but I've been home for days of quarantine with my kid or no childcare. I seem to roll with it much better now. I've also proven that I'm just as productive or more productive at home compared to the office.

I'm much more organized when planning groceries and meals because I won't be getting anything in between trips. This cuts down on little extras that do make it in my cart. It has also given us a better attitude with making do with what we have.

I've given myself haircuts that look good. I have long hair but have never trimmed my own ends like now. I actually cut about 6 inches off myself in March. It takes a little more time and I have my daughter help make sure the back is even. I didn't see myself doing this previously.

We have done more outdoor activities as a family. This past weekend, we went tubing on both Saturday and Sunday. It's free and socially distanced. We have also been going on many more hikes, built a fort outside, fly drones outside, went disc golfing and done many scavenger hunts outside. I thought we did a lot of outdoor activities before but we've gotten much more creative this year.

I might be forgetting some things but I'm trying to enjoy this time instead of just looking forward to the future of Covid free existence.

Do you have anything that is a positive from this crazy year?

Update for end of December

2020-12-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

This time of year makes me so excited for the new start to the year with new goals. It's hard with so many things up in the air so I decided to make a couple sets of goals. I will try to do a different goal post.

We purchased a house to flip last February for $47,500. It needed new everything but was in a good location and a good size with an amazing shop. My husband's army buddy moved into it until this past September. His rent covered the utilities and insurance/taxes on the property. We put in new windows and new siding to the tune of $33,000. It became a struggle because DH basically didn't want to deal with the property. I reached out to a realtor and she sold it prior to it being listed. We will make around $15,000 on it. The profit will be nice. We paid cash for it and the improvements so we will be replenishing our savings. We need the money if we decide to move for down payment on a new house. It does feel good to be wrapping up that house.

We have the other rental in that town listed for sale also. It's been listed for about 3 weeks and only one low offer so far. I'm not in a hurry but it feels good to be done with the improvements after the terrible renters vacated it. One always wants to believe in the best in people until one deals with tenants. Not so nice but very true.

We are going to Omaha for 4 nights over New Year's to check it out. We are still undecided on what we want to do. I did get a new local boss and the changes are immense already. I feel much better about my employer and being supported sufficiently. This does change things for me at work.

Does anybody else get excited about the new year? Anybody else eagerly anticipating new financial goals for 2021?

Up in the Air

2020-11-05T08:01:00.001-08:00

We decided not to show our house. We're not ready to make a decision on moving just yet. We really need to see how this year goes for DH. I'm on board with whatever. I want to move and I want to stay. Either way, we have decided that I will be leaving my job as of May. It's just too stressful and I want to take a step back and enjoy more family time. But what does that mean? How will I function without my job? This shouldn't be so scary and it is.

New Credit Card

2020-10-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

I applied today and was approved for a Chase Sapphire card. This will result in 80,000 points after spending $4000 in the first 3 months. Our home insurance is due in the next month so that will go on there for about $1500. One of our rental properties will also have home insurance due so that will be another $800. The rest will be typical spending including Christmas.

80,000 points can be redeemed on Chase's website for an additional 20%. That will mean $1000 in travel. I have used Chase's website before and I like it. My husband has a Chase card and I had one about 5 years ago. The travel on their website is most commercial airline carriers but no discount carriers like Allegiant, Sun Country or Frontier. I have found that booking hotels on Chase's website is the best bang for your buck. (Costco is best for rental vehicles).

I usually average $2000 to $2500 in free travel a year by travel hacking with credit cards. This has allowed us to afford nicer hotels when we vacation. I have received about $14,000 in free travel over the last 6 years. I keep detailed records on when we open each card and when we close them. I don't pay interest but I have probably paid $1000 or so in annual fees over that time period.

Does anybody else travel hack? Any tips? I enjoy learning what others do to save money on travel.

Alternate Possibility

2020-10-25T05:41:00.001-07:00

My husband and I are talking through all options right now. One option is that we stay where we are. His job is going much better and he is having second thoughts about leaving. He is teaching at the college level in his field. This is his second year teaching and it's not incredibly stressful like last year.

We both agree that I will quit my job in May. I need to because of the stress and not being able to take uninterrupted time off. I will still need to work to do something. I don't know I will do but I can't stay home.

This all brings me to question what I really want in the future and what is important to me and my family. The thing that I want the most is to travel. I want to be able to travel internationally and to have the time to take some meandering camping trips. Both of these would be possible if I quit but my husband keeps working. We would have summers off, 3 weeks over Christmas and a week long spring break.

With this option, I need to back to the drawing board to see if that would work with our budget. We have more questions than answers right now. I know we sound a little crazy right now.

Showing our House

2020-10-22T03:41:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of September, I took pictures of our house and sent out an email to 4 people of our house. We hadn't heard anything so we has planned to wait until spring to sell. One of the people that I had emailed (a realtor) asked me about a week ago if our house is still for sale. She wants to show it this weekend. We do want to sell but I immediately had a pit in my stomach. It is hard to part with our house that we built and have so many wonderful memories of. We have wavered so many times with all of this.

We are going to go ahead with the showing this weekend and see what happens. The prospective buyers had many detailed questions and apparently are paying cash. The market has increased here in the last 6 weeks so we wouldn't be open to negotiating at this point. We shall see.

Why are we so emotionally attached to our house?

Botox Update

2020-10-07T07:26:00.001-07:00

I had Botox about 3 weeks ago and I love the results. My forehead is completely smooth. My big forehead line has pretty much disappeared. Overall I look less stressed.

One of the main reasons that I did it now is because I noticed my forehead had gotten worse in the last year. I didn't want to wait too long to have irreparable damage. I do notice that many women have huge lines in their forehead which will likely never go away.

The place I went to had a special for the first time of $99. I also purchased a skin retinol product that was $70. When I went back for my followup, I purchased 2 more Botox packages. They were $200 each. I'm ok with the cost. I spend about that on my skincare each year. It all adds up but my face is the first thing that people notice about me every single day for the rest of my life.

Readying the Rental for Sale

2020-10-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

The headache tenants moved out and I was able to get in the property yesterday. The good news is that they moved out before I had to hire an attorney. The other good news is that they didn't trash it on their way out. The bad news is that they left a lot of trash and didn't clean anything. It will likely be a day of cleaning to ready it for sale. I will also have to pay a trash company to come pick up all the trash they left behind and in the garage. When they moved in, it was super cute with all new paint, new outlets, new carpet, new sink, fresh trim.

My husband is sick of rentals and just wants to sell it. I'm in agreement with this property. I will likely contact a realtor as soon as we can get it all cleaned up.

I'm hoping to make around $20,000 on the sale but we shall see. Houses are flying off the market here so that will help.

Menu for the Week

2020-09-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

As soon as schools starts, I lean toward slow cooker dishes and this year has been no exception.

For this week:

Monday--bacon and veggie wraps

Tuesday--spaghetti

Wednesday--beef roast in the slow cooker with potatoes and carrots (we scored free potatoes thanks to our awesome neighbors)

Thursday--not sure about tomorrow, maybe leftovers

Friday--Chicken chow mein

Saturday--we are heading to a friend's house as a family that is about 3 hours away. We need to bring a veggie tray for a party in honor of her parents. Her parents are moving to South Dakota after living their entire lives in Minnesota. It will be a bittersweet party.

Sunday--not sure, some sort of easy football food. Maybe pizza. The Vikings are so bad this year we might as well have good food.

What are some easy slow cooker meals that you like? I'm always open to suggestions. Thanks!

Spending Money on Looking Good

2020-09-14T12:17:00.001-07:00

I have an appointment tomorrow to get Botox on my forehead. This will be my first appointment for it but I do plan to continue if I like the results which I imagine that I will.

I work out and eat very healthily. I wear sunscreen and have a good skin regimen. But it can't take away the increasing lines on my forehead so I made the appointment. I don't color my hair but I likely I will as I start going gray. My hair is a soft blonde with natural highlights. I don't get my nails done as I prefer a more natural look. I guess that I am justifying this totally unnecessary expense.

Has anyone else done Botox? What did you think? Did you like the results? Is it too vain for you? Have you done anything like it?

Selling a Rental

2020-09-11T20:08:00.001-07:00

I'm contemplating selling our first rental property. We bought this property almost 2 years ago as a rental. The day we bought it the tenants gave us notice that they were moving out. When they moved out, we had to do a complete remodel. We painted, put in new carpet, new sink, new outlets, electrical work and new windows. We also had to clean like crazy. It was alarming how the prior tenants were actually living due to their own filth.

The existing tenants moved out and his daughter is living there. He never actually told us that he was moving out. It was all very shady. I've given them notice but the actual tenant on the lease is already out. Bizarre situation. If they would have been honest, I likely would have worked with them.

We plan to use the money for the down payment on our new house whenever that may be.

Time Off

2020-09-03T12:21:00.001-07:00

One of the main reasons that I'm looking at switching my career is time off. I work off of commission so I technically have time off but if I'm not around to take care of something, it doesn't get done. In other words, when I'm not at work, I still get calls, check email and have to take care of things. Many of my coworkers handle this by constantly working on vacation. They bring their laptops with and work. I pretty much refuse to do this. The only time that I try to unplug is on our winter vacation for about 5 days. My boss even calls me numerous times during that.

This drives my decision to find a different career. I want to be able to take time off without getting calls constantly.

Do you get time off? How much? Are you expected to take calls and answer emails during your off time?

Yes, I am paid very well for my time. At one point, it made up for it but not anymore.

Big Talk

2020-08-20T20:32:00.001-07:00

My husband was talking to his mom yesterday and she mentioned that she was going to look at a new camper. We hadn't planned on telling her yet that we were likely to move. However, after she said that she was looking at a camper (which she would buy to accommodateall of us), he told her that this was his last year of teaching and we would probably be moving. Instead of being mad, she told him she had also thought about moving but she had only ever lived in our state. She pretty much told him that she was on board with moving with us. This was not the reply that we expected at all.

Hubs talked to her today and she asked him where we were moving to. He told her a couple options and she was excited. She mentioned that she would like a condo so she wouldn't have to worry about the lawn care and snow removal. That's what I would have had in mind for her also.

I'm ecstatic that she's up for this change. It also feels good not to be hiding this secret from her. She is a very sweet mother in law. She has had so much loss in the last few years. My brother-in-law died unexpectedly at 32 about 3 years ago. My father-in-law had been diagnosed with ALS about 5 and a half years ago. He passed this past April at home. She had remained his caregiver the entire time. Less than 2 weeks after FIL passed, her dad died. My MIL took care of his day to day activities like coordinating nursing home care, finances, laundry and daily visits. It was just so much all at once. She's only 64 so she has plenty of time to make friends and enjoy some hobbies.

I guess it goes to show that it's always better to come clean than keep a secret.

Where To Move To?

2020-08-17T16:45:00.003-07:00

We are moving without jobs so we are scoping out where we should live. These are the items on the consideration list:

Climate-- we would like a winter but want it milder than where we live. I don't want to put up with 30 below for more than a month. Something with 4 distinct seasons but a milder winter would be nice.

Education-- I'm a big believer in public schools so this is very important to us. The states we are considering all rank in the top 20 for Education.

Taxes-- Property and income taxes are the most important but sales tax also plays a role. We have no desire to move to a high tax state. South Dakota is high on our list due to having moderate property taxes and no income tax.

Crime-- we do look at the overall crime statistics. We don't want to move our family to a high crime area or next to a major metro with high crime.

Jobs-- We would like to move to a place with a strong job market. I do plan to work a less stressful job after awhile. My husband prefers to work sooner than later.

Proximity to my mother-in-law-- I wish that this wasn't on our list because it would open up more options but it is something that we will consider. My MIL is newly widowed. My FIL passed away this last April. She has a great relationship with my children and I don't want to take that away. We haven't told her yet that we are moving but it will not go well. We would love if she would move with us but we highly doubt that she will.

State Leadership-- it is so obvious due to this pandemic that some states are really struggling and others are doing well. We want to move to a state with good leadership.

Culture-- I love a city with great culture and I'm looking forward to having more options and a better community culture.

Metro-- we would like to be in more of a metro area than where we are at now. I would prefer to be in a suburb in a nice neighborhood.

Real estate market-- we are looking at house in the $4-500,000 range. We want to be in an area that will support the sale pretty easily in that price range.

As you can tell, we're not picky at all :) My husband is much more methodical than I am. We are going scouting over Labor Day weekend so we'll see how it goes. Did we miss anything?

Big News!

2020-08-15T05:45:00.000-07:00

We are planning on moving in about 9 months when school is out. We don't know where we are moving to yet but it will be at least 3 hours away. Let me explain.

My husband is a college instructor and he dislikes his job. He likes the actual field but walked into total chaos with this job. To give y ou an idea of how bad the program is one of the instruction manuals is from 1955. He is ready for a fresh start.

I'm still at my job in sales where I've been for over 9 years. I'm very good at it and have made more money than I ever thought I would but I'm always stressed to the max. I technically have 4 weeks of vacation a year but it's about impossible to actually take the time. When I do, I'm taking calls and things are falling apart. I'm ready for a less stressful future.

We are looking at this as a semi retirement move. We will still need to work but will be able to have a nice lifestyle with minimal jobs.

We have several things to wrap up in the next 9 months. We need to sell our primary residence, sell 3 single family rentals (one of which needs to be renovated), sell a 4plex, and sell a small trailer park. We need to decide where to move to and buy a house there at some point. There is so much to do that it's overwhelming at times and exciting at other times. Please join me for our next journey!

I'm Back!!!

2020-08-12T21:09:00.003-07:00

After a blogging hiatus, I've decided to come back to blog about a new chapter that I will be embarking on with my family. We have a crazy year planned and it will be helpful to have it laid out here. Is anybody still reading?

Hey There!!!

2018-06-06T16:57:00.001-07:00

Hey!! I'm still here but haven't felt like blogging. My family is well. Work is going well, getting busy which is typical for this time of year. I am still focused on my financial goals but just didn't want to blog about them.

Lil Punk turns 9 next month and is begging for a phone. She's in baseball, soccer, swimming, tennis and golf this summer. She's also doing a full week at a Bible camp this summer.

Lil G is all boy at 4 1/2. He's in t-ball this summer. He is kind and fearless. I've seen him jump over 6 stairs at a time. He is already asking to go over to his buddy's house all the time. He will be in preschool in the fall.

I've been working out a lot and making an effort to socialize. I go to the gym about 4 days a week. My goal is to be able to do a pullup. So hard! I can do one with a 30 pound assist.

Y is doing well. He's had some big changes at work. As a family, we've stumbled through the last year. With his brother's passing last June, it has been difficult. Y's dad is coping as best he can with ALS. He's in a wheelchair full-time now.

I may or may not blog again but things are well. I do try to still follow and comment on some blogs but I'm no longer glued to financial blogs the way I was a few years ago.