About once a week I get an email from a Twin Cities concert promoter that announces all the upcoming shows in the area.  Usually I scroll through and delete, but last week, it caught my eye that the Shout Out Louds were coming to Minneapolis in May, so I made a mental note to look into it.  If you don’t know about them, you can check out that link to their wikipedia page.  Their album, Our Ill Wills, technically came out in the Fall of 2007 but I didn’t discover it until 2008 and it quickly became my favorite album of that year.  And I still love it. 

They just put out a new album a couple of weeks ago and my friend gave me a copy of it last night.  It’s a bit of a departure from the poppier previous album, but I like it (after one time through).

All this to say, I bought the concert tickets this morning and I couldn’t be more excited.  And the best part is, they were only $12 (of course, after fees they were closer to $17).  I’m so used to paying $30 or $40 dollars to see bands I love that this feels like a real steal of a deal.  I’ll be taking Bird along with me, so two tickets came out to about $34.

There’s nothing better to help me get over the Wild’s loss last night than waking up this morning and finding myself $2,000 richer!

Today is my two year anniversary at work which means I’m now completely vested in my 401k plan.  Last night when I went to bed my plan was worth $9,232 and this morning it’s sitting pretty at $11,282.  Love that!

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that my MN Wild whooped up on the Calgary Flames last week and then in turn got whooped up on by them a few days later.  I’m hoping they can turn that around tonight against the Florida Panthers.

Tonight, I’ll be attending my final Wild game of the season (that I know of…if you want to give me free tickets, I’ll take them!)  This is the second pair of tickets that I bought at the charity auction back in November.   I paid $150 for them and it was for a great cause.  Better yet, they are $85 club-level seats so I even got them for less than face value.  Bird needs to catch up on her schoolwork after the action-packed weekend we had, so I’ll be attending with my good friend, David.  Here’s hoping for a good game.

Expenses should be limited since I already have the tickets and they even came with a parking pass.  I’m expecting to buy a hotdog and a coke at crazy sporting event-inflated prices….so probably about $8 to $10 for dinner.

Here we go, Wild!  Here we go!

Here’s a snapshot of our finances as of March 1st.

SAVINGS (Checking, ING Savings) +710 to $32,119

A decent bump but I would have liked to have seen it go up even more.

INVESTMENTS (Fidelity,  Zecco, Edward Jones, Prosper and ESPP) +$1,946 to $13,077

This was mostly market, but I did finally learn how to access my ESPP to see how much is in it, so that bumped us up another $1,300 or so.

I am still missing Bird’s ESPP account info.  Figuring it out is not high on my priority list.  She thinks she has around $1,500 in hers.

RETIREMENT (Roth IRA, Current 401k, Former 401k, Bird’s Former 401k, Bird’s Current 401k) +$2,077 to $52,437

Markets helped us out here.

STUDENT LOANS  +$77 to $27,290

I can’t figure out how to report on my loans.  They moved down 77 dollars but does that get a minus sign and red or a plus sign and green.  I’m going with green for now because it seems more positive.  It’s sad when you pay almost $250 though and your loan only goes down by $77.  At least it’s going down.

Overall, our net worth was up 7 percent to $70,343.

Not too shabby considering we had to pay double rent this month on top of paying the tenant back her security deposit.  Pretty cool to break the 70k mark!!!

Here are my book selling stats for February

Selling Stats

Number of Sales:  47

Sales:  $347.52

Shipping Credit:  $179.55

Inventory Costs:  $34.79

Amazon Commission:  $112.93

Shipping Costs: $112.13

Amazon Marketplace Membership:  $39.99 (Recurring monthly fee)

Brother’s Commission:  $5

Friend’s Commission:  $16

Total Profit: $179.45

Best Sale of the Month was:  Learning and Behavior by Paul Chance – I paid $4 for this textbook and sold it the next day for $48.50.

Compared to January, this month wasn’t so hot.  We had a lot going on though, including moving, so I didn’t get out shopping nearly as much as I would have liked.  I think I only went shopping once actually (note the $34.79 in inventory costs).

I also saved 30 bucks this month by canceling my scouting service because I knew I wouldn’t be shopping as much considering all that goes into moving.

Overall it’s not great, but it’s not too shabby either.  I love when books I bought months ago finally sell.  It makes my day.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time this past weekend on the cable company’s online chat feature discussing my options with a representative.

I love companies that have the chat feature.  It’s perfect for people like me that don’t like to talk to sales people.  I could take my time and research the competition, etc. all while still chatting with her.

Anyway, we went over all kinds of deals, specials, bundles and promotions.  After almost an hour, I decided to sign up at a promotional rate for 6 months.  She really wanted me to lock in for 24 months (it was the best deal) but who knows where I will be in 24 months.  She then offered the 6 month deal and said when that is up, then I can do the 24 month deal.

Long story short, we’ll paying about $115 every month for cable and internet for the next 6 months.

Today is payday and it’s the day that my $700 bonus got added to my paycheck.  After taxes, I netted just over $379 more than usual.  I know I complained last week about getting a bonus and not a raise, but today I’m even more appreciative of the bonus because I survived another round of layoffs yesterday.  My department lost 4 more employees in what was the third round of layoffs in the last 1.5 years.

In other news, my work from home dream has been officially put on the backburner because the department doesn’t have the budget for it, however, I did finally get issued a laptop as sort of a consolation.  Now I can work from home during blizzards rather than having to risk my life and waste my time trying to get to work.  This is a small step in the right direction and I’m thrilled about it.  It’s also one small step towards working from home which I think will still happen eventually, just not any time soon.

It’s a little late, but here is the state of our finances as of February 1st.

SAVINGS (Checking, ING Savings) +615 to $31,409

Just a tiny increase here.

INVESTMENTS (Fidelity,  Zecco, Edward Jones and Prosper) -$47 to $11,131

Investments were down along with the market.  I don’t think I really put anything new into the investment accounts in January.

Still missing from the investment calculation is my ESPP account and Bird’s ESPP account.  Still haven’t really looked into figuring out how to access those accounts.

RETIREMENT (Roth IRA, Current 401k, Former 401k, Bird’s Former 401k, Bird’s Current 401k) -$968 to $50,360

Again, the market didn’t help us much..

STUDENT LOANS  +$199 to $27,367

Nothing special to report.

Overall, our net worth was down less than 1 percent.

There were a few reasons we didn’t see much positive action on our net worth this month.  One of them was our trip to Florida which cost right around $1,500.  The other one was the fact that we paid Bird’s first semester of Grad School tuition which was right around two grand.

As you all know Bird and I moved across town and into the townhouse last weekend.  Let’s take a look at what the actual move cost us:

Truck Rental: $90 ($29.95 + .99 a mile)  – saved $15 by opting out of the SafeMove insurance thingy

Bagels for the am moving crew (friends):  $18

Pizza for the pm moving crew (different friends):  $36

Gas for the truck:  $25

Total Cost:  $169

I learned a few things on this move.  First of all, it’s nice to have a lot of friends.  Also, it was nice to get a truck.  It was my first move with a truck and it was very convenient to have just make one trip.  Previous moves were conducted with multiple minivan trips.  It was worth it to pay my friends with food.  They would have done it for free because that’s what friends are for, but it’s tradition to pay in food for moving help.  A mere fraction of the cost of a real moving crew and without them the move would have taken MUCH longer.  Plus, they didn’t break anything or scuff any walls or anything.

Moving Tip: Here’s a sneaky trick for you that I discovered on Saturday.  When you arrive at your new place…unload the truck into the garage and then tell your friends that you have to return the truck immediately.  By the time you get back, all your stuff has been moved from the garage and up two flights of stairs and you’ve gotten out of all the heavy lifting.  I swear I didn’t do this on purpose (the truck did need to go back) but it worked out great.  My friends are the best.

Now let’s cover the mental cost of moving the couch that the tenant left in the living room only to find a used condom underneath it.  SO. GROSS. I’m still calculating that cost.

Tomorrow morning at 8 am I pick up the U-Haul and Bird and I move to our new place.  I’m so, so, so excited.

That being said, I’ll be without internet for a while as we get settled in, etc.  Not that you’d ever know it with my sparse posting as of late.

Wish us luck that it doesn’t snow on our moving day!