Long weekend time!

Yayy it’s the weekend! I just finished all of my work for the day, just in time to head out at 4pm!

Tonight M and I are going out to eat to celebrate my raise & bonus. After dinner, we’re going to go see WALL-E. I hope it’s as good as I think it should be! I’m really the most excited to get movie theater popcorn and a big diet coke! Yum!

Everybody out there have a fun 4th and enjoy the long weekend!

Budget Rework

I had the brilliant idea yesterday that I should get quarterly and year-to-date averages for my various budget categories. This way I know what our average monthly power bill is at a glance. With various costs rising and with my frustration of going over budget in certain categories every month, this quick addition to my budget spreadsheets will let me put our budget in more realistic terms.

You see, in all of my budgeting, I’ve never looked at averages from the past to determine a realistic budget amount for the future. In the past I’ve just kinda said to myself “we’re always over in x category, maybe a $10 increase will be good enough”.

Saturday marks the start of our 3rd quarter so some budget adjusting is definitely in order. Some of our categories are new from last month, so I don’t really have enough data to adjust them by. But, now I know that we’re are averaging an astonishing $70 per month in alcohol purchases (to bring home, not drinking out), a horrible $149 on eating out, and an even worse $341 on auto gas!

Talk about an eye opener.

I’ll be spending some time looking over everything, deciding which categories should get a boost, and talking with my husband about trying to trim some fat- because there seems to be a lot of it!

Bonus & Raise

I got an email a bit ago with a memo from one of our founders/principals about my raise & bonus. Since I haven’t told anybody about this blog (not even my husband!), and since I don’t care if people in general know what I make (friends and coworkers are a different story), I might as well spill the beans here.

For the past year, my salary has been $62,000. I got an $8,000 raise to $70,000. I got a bonus of $7,000.

I’m really excited. I just did some number crunching trying to figure out what my new take-home pay should be. I think my twice-a-month paychecks should be about $2,258. I think my bonus, which will be on Saturday’s paycheck, will be about $3,800.

Unfortunately, right now I can’t access my favorite debt-snowball calculator website to see how this will speed up our debt reduction. Hopefully I can check that out later this afternoon.

My plans for the bonus are to fill out our revolving account to where it should be for mid-year (about $1,500 is needed there), and the rest will be going into our HSBC account for saving for furniture. Also, I’ll be trying very hard to put my raise straight to savings. If we can do that, and stick to our current budget, we will be able to save/put towards debt and extra $2,000 per month.

Now I’m going to do a happy dance in my head, and get back to work!

Running out of Steam?

I feel like I don’t have a whole lot to say personal finance related.

I’m anxious to find out about my raise/bonus- hopefully on Friday. I’ve already decided in my head what number I need to see (in terms of a raise) or else I’m going to have a discussion with the big boss about it. I’m expecting at least an 11% raise. It sounds like a lot, and it is, but it’d be consistent with what I got last year and consistent with what I should be making with my skills and in my industry. I feel like in my line of work (software development), my pay should rise sharply the first few years as I rapidly gain skills and experience, since I started here straight from college with no experience and not really any enterprise level skills.

I’m trying to plan out the next steps for my career and get some more involvement to set myself up for a promotion next year.

I get frustrated thinking about paying off our non-mortgage debt. It is much more difficult to manage money when you have somebody else to deal with in how to manage your money. Sometimes it’s just nice to kind of go on auto-pilot with the finances and not worry about every penny. That’s kind of how I’m feeling. But sometimes, doing that leaves me with a feeling of defeat. My husband and I don’t argue about money, but he’s more pessimistic about getting out of debt than I am. But, we’ll never get out of debt if we don’t reign in our spending.

Ack. What a pain. Can’t we just win the lottery and pay everything off?

Wardrobe Rework Part 2

Stacking Pennies mentioned a sale going on at Banana Republic in a post yesterday. So, I went. And let me tell you, going on Day 1 of a sale is the way to go!

I got these shoes in brown. I’m wearing them today and they’re taking a bit of a toll on my heel to break in, but they’re so worth it! ($49.99)

I got a black skirt. It fits like a dream! ($39.99 maybe?)

I got this turquoise top. I’m wearing it today. And I’m in love. ($24.99)

I got this button down short sleeve top, but with green stripes, not yellow. I really liked the yellow, but I would have had to wear a tank or camisole underneath. ($24.99 I think, maybe around $30 though)

I also got 2 v-neck tops that I can’t find online. I can’t wait to pop one on this weekend. ($24.99 each)

So not too bad! I feel like my wardrobe has been invigorated!

M got a pair of suit pants for $33! He needs to get them altered, but BR charges $10, so that brings these pants to $43 total. They were originally over $100 I believe.

He also got a blue short sleeve polo and a button down shirt, both on sale.

Wardrobe Rework

I haven’t really bought new work clothes since I graduated college and started this job, 2 years ago. At some point before the year is over, I want to overhaul my work wardrobe and add some classic items. I think my budget will be $500.

Here are some things that I have already:

1. Black pants. They need to be altered, but I still like the style of these
2. Gray wool pants. They need to be altered.
3. Black heels
4. White button down shirt. I also have other button down shirts that fit appropriately
5. Khaki pants
6. Skirts. I have a gray a-line skirt, a gray/white wool skirt, a khaki skirt, and a black/white silk-ish skirt. I don’t really wear skirts much, but mainly because I have no tops to go with them.
7. Linen suit. But this needs to be altered.
8. Wool suit. The pants need to be altered. I don’t know about the jacket.
9. Black belt.

Some things that I know I need:

1. Brown heels. Preferably around 1-1.5inch
2. Black low heels. We’re talking .5-1 inch. I had a great pair from Target but the heels are shot and the insoles slide out. Unfortunately, they were a bear to break in, so I’m not sure if I want to try to get another pair from Target or not.
3. Brown belt. I have one now, but it’s more casual than I should be wearing.
4. Work appropriate dress. Definitely nothing too revealing.
5. Tops that aren’t button downs. I pretty much only wear button downs and a company-polo shirt now. During the winter I have 3 sweaters that i add to the rotation.

Any other suggestions? I really need Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style to return so I can get his list of essential items. I know he has a classic trench coat listed, but they’re so expensive! But I totally lust for one. Oh, and I totally need new bras. But getting into that might be TMI.

So help me out people! I want to form a list and try to estimate costs so I can get the best bang for my 500 bucks.

Lazy Life

I’ve been pretty lazy all month. I have this issue where when I’m not on a project at work I lose motivation in pretty much every other aspect of my life. I really enjoy being busy and having lots to get done. I enjoy having so much work to do that I’m up late, programming away.

Alas.

I started a new project for a new client last week, but they haven’t had anything for me to do! They’re a major electronics retailer and I’ll be working with the team in charge of their website. They have an install tomorrow early morning, so everybody has been pretty busy with that. Hopefully I’ll get some actual work tomorrow.

Perhaps that will motivate me to get off my bum and get things done. Let’s see what I need to get done:

1. Clean the wood floors downstairs. Our charming dog has scratched them up and I’m hoping that some wood floor cleaner will reduce their appearance. If it does work, I’ll be rushing out to buy some, ANY, type of rug to place at the front door, where the scratching is the worse. He gets really excited when we drive up.
2. Go to the craft store. I have a $50 gift card to a local craft store. I want to frame 2 paintings that I did awhile back.
3. Go to the fabric store. My sister and I have been wanting to sew something. This requires having fabric!
4. Prepare for our summer party. We’re having a party with M’s friends and pretty much everybody will be coming in from out of town and staying at our place. We need to get some folding chairs or something so we have enough seating for people. Also, I’d really love to get a fire pit to put out in the back yard. That probably wont happen though.
5. Get more frames. I need to frame my latest programming certification and I want to frame/hang a set of personal pictures in our family room. Hopefully before #4
6. Finally get around to washing the sheets on the guest bed. And getting the cat hair vacuumed off of the comforter. And do this before #4.

Eesh. That’s really not so bad. But who knows. It could be another week or two before the motivation strikes me. But I’m actually being productive tonight! I spent 1hr reading blogs, then a solid 30 minutes working on a class that I’m going to be teaching for work. And now this blog post.

In other work related news, my review meeting with my manager is tomorrow. I’m not really nervous, I’m pretty confident that it went well, but I’m still  bit anxious to read what people had to say about me and my performance!

Everybody have a great night!

Monday Monday

So I had a pretty standard weekend.

Friday:
My sister and I went to a Buffalo Wild Wings to watch one of my ex-coworker’s band play. They were pretty good. I got one beer and split a sampler platter with my sister. Cost to me (not including gas): $11

Saturday:
I woke up with the animals, fixed coffee, and prepared for a grocery store trip. I hadn’t been in 2 weeks(eek!). This was my first, and last, grocery store trip of the pay period. I spent $188, but that included buying some household items, beer, and wine- all of which have their own budget items. I think once those were taken out, the grocery total was about $150. Not too bad. I filled up my gas tank at Kroger also. By using your Kroger card at the pump you get 10cents off per gallon. Not too bad! I need to get M to start filling up at Krogers.

I also stopped by Wal-Mart to get some caster thingies for our tomato plants so we can wheel them into full sun more easily. Too bad the ones I got didn’t fit. I’ll have to make another trip and get a different type. That totaled just under $12.

I’m trying to remember what I did the rest of the day. I think I watched TV until M’s friend came over for the dogs to play. We fixed ribs for dinner, in the oven, which was the right choice since we got a bit of rain.

Sunday:
I went to the pool for about 3 hours. M joined me for the final hour. I got burned in some places where I managed to miss putting sunscreen on. Like the top of 1 foot and a circle on one knee. It’s nowhere near as bad as the other weekend though. Thank goodness!

Sunday night presented a moment of weakness. We went to Wendy’s for dinner. We were both really drained post-pool and the idea of cooking was very unappealing. After dinner, lounged around while M did some computer stuff. We watched part 2 of the “When We Left Earth” miniseries on the Discovery channel. We managed to stay awake for the whole thing this time!

So other than Wendy’s and my mega-grocery run, we did pretty good money wise.

Go forth and blog…

…and ye shall receive…

a lunch date with my manager, that is! He just emailed me setting up lunch for Tuesday to go over my annual review. Yayy!

Now if only I could blog about winning the lottery and have that actually happen…

Friday, Friday, Friday!

FINALLY!

Friday is here. And it’s Friday afternoon no less. Last night M and I went out to dinner. I had a gift card, so the dinner was free-to-us, though we left cash for tip. After dinner, we headed over to GameStop where I checked out Nintendo DS Lites and we pre-ordered our copy of Rock Band for the Wii, set to be released on 6/22.

My husband is SO excited about getting Rock Band. It’s pretty pricey ($169.00 I think), but it’s on our newly formed ‘wish list’, so why not. We won’t be getting any other wish-list items for awhile after getting this.

In other news, I’m pretty sure that the evaluator meeting was held last night. If so, that means that my performance over the past year was discussed. Hopefully I’ll hear from my manager sometime soon to set up a date/time to go over the results of my review. Very unfortunately, I won’t find out about any raise/bonus until the end of the month. At least this year I know that I won’t hear anything until the end of the month, unlike last year where practically every day after I got my review results I was checking for emails from HR.

I’m glad the weekend is finally here. Time to hit the pool (with my sunscreen lathered on) and have some drinks!

Happy weekend, everybody!