Well, I'm back to my normal routine this week with kids. It was sure nice to have a light week last week, but I did miss the kids that weren't here.
Last night was the FPU lesson on saving for college and retirement. As for the college savings, it seems that ship has pretty much sailed for us, with Serenity in her second year of college, Josh getting ready to start college, and Natasha a freshman in high school. However, we did qualify for and apply for the OHLAP program on all of them which has helped. With grants and scholarships, I guess they'll muddle through. I can't help but feel a tiny bit guilty about not having saved for their college. The other part of the lesson was about saving for retirement. We have a 401K through Tom's work but of course we have borrowed against it several time, which Dave says is "dumb". The last time we borrowed against it was almost 2 years ago and once that is paid off, we don't plan to ever do it again. I have to just keep reminding myself not to focus on all of our mistakes, and just to focus on what we're doing right.
Some updates:
1. We have the gift account established and have regular deposits going into it so that by Christmas we ought to be way ahead of where we've ever been on that. In the future, we plan to use it as a gift account to buy gifts year round but right now we're trying not to touch it at all so that it can grow until next Christmas.
2. We are still doing good at avoiding Sonic drinks and eating out. I did meet Tom for lunch on Friday since I was off, and it was yummy! Oh and I must confess, I did get Tasha & I lunch at the Peppermint Pad on Thursday and Tom took a friend out to lunch on Thursday. The friend takes him out to eat almost every week and sometimes Tom tries to reciprocate. Sometimes, the friend lets him. LOL. However, even with all the homework I had to do this weekend, we did not eat out once over the weekend. I can tell you that is a huge accomplishment!
3. The emergency fund was up to $350, but I took out $55 to pay the roofer so it's back down to $295. However, I still need to put a part of my REWARD money in there and that will bring it up some more.
4. I am planning our meals and Tom or I are cooking them, even when we don't feel like it.
5. We have all of our regular monthly bills caught up and paid on time this month and we are working on getting some other stuff paid off.
Keep praying for us! It's working!
2 comments:
I am so impressed with how good you are doing! Keep up the good work. Oh, I am doing pretty good at typing with my left hand. Just hunt and peck.
You are doing good! We do have a 401K and pension plan etc through the PD, but yea we have never started putting back for college either even though we should.
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