Happy Independence Day!

Over a year ago we bought our daughter a used Subaru to drive. She had her license two years prior, but never had a need for her own vehicle. The purchase price was around $11K and it has a been a really great car so far. We put $3K down and she used the proceeds from a UTMA account she had which was maybe $3400. I'm being lazy, I don't remember all the exact numbers.

We did take out a small loan ($5,700 at 5.75%!) because we did end up buying a more expensive vehicle than we originally planned. The cars we found we could buy for cash, were just not good to buy for a young person living across the country from parents, at least in our minds. The loan was to help bridge the gap so that she could take over payments when she got a job, and at the same time get some credit in her name. She is still looking for a full time job in her field, but has an internship that increased her hours recently.

We are pondering paying off the balance of the car which is owned jointly between her and my husband. The balance is $4,293, with three years left. We have so much cash and now earning very low interest rates. We would then have her pay us back with interest. I'm thinking 3% interest, and we are open to a longer payment term if she wants. A lesson in how that changes the payment and the total interest she pays would be good I think. The vehicle would be owned jointly until the loan is paid back.

I will be running the numbers and offering her a proposal. I think she can start making the payments even on her low income since she is currently staying with my parents. Such an interesting time we are in.

Contributions to our Pot of Possibilities (POP) for June!

Paycheck 6/1 $260
Paycheck 6/15 $260
Oldest Allowance $100
Total Interest $92.85
US Bank $12.32
Chase Rewards $17.87
Amex Rewards $51.39
Discover Rewards $0.37
USAA ATM refund 3.50

June Total $798.30

YTD Total $4,593.16
New Big Goal Total $76,677.09

Potentially could have included an Army Travel payment made to us this month which was over $1000, but for now we are holding it seperate for some potential expenses. I may reconsider however!

It's time to report interest income. Interest rates are far lower, and we lost a great rate when a recent CD matured.

FNBO $27.20
NFCU $65.43
USAA $0.22
Total $92.85

That's about $70 less than last month. Interesting times. The good times don't always last do they? However, we are very grateful for what we do have.

These funds have been added to our Pot of Possibilities!

It's the time of the month where I redeem credit card rewards and add them to our Pot of Possibilities!

I redeemed the following:
US Bank Visa $12.32
American Express $51.39
Chase Freedom $17.87
Total $81.58

Our US Bank Rewards will drop next month by about $8 since I will no longer use for our cell phone bill. We have been able to use a credit card to pay our rent the last three months, as the office staff has waived the associated fees since they are not working on site.

I decided a couple months ago to stop messing around with Swagbucks. It is a bit of a time suck, although I did limit the time I spent on it. I decided I do not support their advertising content, that I am clicking on to raise it's prevalence to the public. I can find other ethical ways to bring in another $300 a year. It was a good run of bringing in some cash however and I am thankful for the times it helped us out.

Everything seems up for review these days!

My husband returned home on Saturday from his three week trip. I'm very glad to have him home once again!

He has submitted his travel claim voucher and it is waiting approval. Hopefully we will have funds by Friday or very early next week. The portion coming to us is $2,066.58, which is per diem and mileage. He spent $927.07 in a three week period. So after paying those charges off we are left with $1,139.51.

A nice little windfall that is tempting to spend on a few things we have been talking about for awhile. Of course, I do like the idea of putting some or all into our Pot of Possibilities, which if we do put some there, will be reported at the end of the month.

Yesterday, I switched our cell phone plan to their lowest cost unlimited plan, which ended up saving us about $22 a month. I did have to switch to paying our bill with our checking account. I had been using our US Bank Credit card to receive 5% back, however the math still worked in our favor to switch. I think I had seen this offer before, but the math didn't seem to add up in our favor. I'm wondering if something else changed or if I just didn't do the math right last time!

I may close the US Bank credit card if I can figure out if another one of our credit cards gives 5% back on internet. I think one of them does. That will be the only charge going to that card, so I'm interested in consolidating if I can and still be getting decent cash back.

We also get Disney+ for one year for signing up for our new cell plan. We will use it I'm sure, but I wasn't wanting to add another streaming service when it first came out. The value of that is $6.99 per month, so definitely a nice bonus.

The other financial change is setting up some new Certificates of Deposits. I'm not thrilled with the rates as they have fallen. But I we have a lot of cash on hand and I have to have it earning something! I opened one for $25K, and will probably open a second one in a week or two for a similar amount. We decided we didn't want the a large $50K CD, as the interest rate doesn't benefit us. Instead we will have two $25K CDs, as a way to keep our options open a bit. I locked one today for 1.25% with Navy Federal. I unfortunately missed their last 'special rate'.

I started a batch of sauerkraut yesterday(first time ever) and today I began working on growing a batch of sourdough starter (also my first time). We all can grow and learn anything at any time.

Have you found a service to change or stop recently? Have you ever made any fermented food?

We make automatic deposits to our money market savings account each pay period! For nearly a year I had been directing extra funds to paying ourselves back for the downpayment on our daughter's car. This month I can add those to the Big Goal progress!

April Big Goal Additions
Paycheck 4/1 $260
Paycheck 4/15 $260
Total Interest $156.31
US Bank $12.33
Chase Rewards $3.35
Amex Rewards $66.92
Swagbucks (Paypal) $10
Ebay Sales $7.46
Utility Refund $35.18
April Total $811.55

YTD Total $2,880.99
New Big Goal Total $74,964.92

Goal is $200,000. We are at 37.48% of goal. I celebrate every deposit and every milestone on the way there!

I'm a little frustrated as I thought I could open a new NFCU CD and add to it. I did apply to start it off with a $1000 that we have there, but now I find out that I was wrong. We cannot add to this particular CD. I'm going to try to cancel it as it is still in the application process. Worse case we have a small CD! I just like all things neat and tidy, but at least it would be earning more than it had been.

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $33.83
NFCU $122.32
USAA $0.16
Total $156.31

All interest is saved towards our Big Goal.

The VA finally made their payment for our oldest daughter's tuition this semester. She had 18 days of benefits. The school usually estimates the amount they expect to receive and bills us for the remainder. This semester they underestimated the amount by over $1000! The actual amount they were off by was $1,129.72.

We have received that money back in our checking account, along with her refund of her parking permit which was $94. Her housing refund was $953.79. In total she has received $2,177.51. This is such good news, since she did take out loans this last year totalling $5,500. That will be a significant amount to put towards the balance. It is interesting how things work out sometimes.

She has had one interview, by Zoom, but the person interviewing seemed to be giving advice than trying to hire, specifically telling her she didn't have enough experience. So odd, as you would think the interviewer could read that this is a college graduate. She probably has more experience than some new graphic design grads, as she has been working on campus doing design for four years and has almost completed a year long internship. Of course, there are more experience people who have been in the workforce for awhile. Just still odd she even had the interview in the first place! I know she will find her path and a job eventually. She is blessed that both her part time jobs are allowing her to continue until she finds full time work.

My husband should know very soon if he is on the promotion list. It would be shocking if he was not. Last year we were hopefully, but knew it would be ahead of schedule. This year he would have to be failing considerably on all metrics to not get the promotion. It's simply his year to be promoted if that makes sense. We don't know how quickly it will be effective with all that is going on, but hopefully sooner than later.

The stimulus money is pending in our account. We are getting $2,400. Our children are over 17, so we do not get, nor do we need the extra $500 per child. We do not even need the $2,400.

We have not made any decisions on this money. I think I'm waiting to see how this plays out a bit. I do think it will get spent in some form or another, which is the point. I have quite a few ideas of things we could invest in to make us more self reliant, but may need to help our daughter or some nieces and nephews.

Our oldest daughter is close to freaking out about graduation and not finding a job. Job postings are minimal. She is looking in multiple states. There is one that is more local that I really want her to get. No word on that yet, and I could see it be a situation where they may be on a hiring freeze. She does have an internship that started back up this week online. She was asked when she graduates and when she said in a couple weeks, he said she can stay on after graduation until she finds another job. That would be really great, although if they go back to in person, could create a housing issue. As it is now she is living 45 minutes away from work with my parents, but they still might work for her. This organization is also in a hiring freeze, so not being able to replace her would be noticeable. This organization also paid her four weeks when they closed down and she didn't work at all.❤️

And interest rates begin to fall...

FNBO Direct is at 1% APR as of this writing.
NFCU is our certificate with a 3.20% APR until June 10, 2020.
We can add money to this one.

I will be looking for the right combination of certificates for this volatile time, currently seeing new ones at NFCU for 12 and 18 months for 1.65%. If I can add more money later, I may open one of these. May open one regardless if we can add. Just makes my decision easier! Will do more research soon.

Here's the interest we earned on our cash savings last month:

FNBO $46.95
NFCU $126.06
USAA $0.13
Total $173.11

All interest was saved towards our Big Goal.

It is so interesting to see the contrast of these times we are in. My husband is actually working more now...a home deployment of sorts. I don't even get the mission and even he says it seems off and strange. But we are both thankful he has a job, when so many do not.

Stimulus money. Absolutely do not need it. At least in the short term. If we are on the edge of a depression who knows what we might need. I pray the everyone can go back to work very, very soon. I did have the thought tonight that buying a generator might finally be a good investment. We ponder one every hurricane season, but never pull the trigger. We have only been without power about 32 hours at the most and maybe only twice. Not pleasant, but not dire either. But then I go back to donating the money too.

Waiting to see about dorm room refunds. One daughter will get one, the other daughter's school is still figuring it out I guess. No money has been received yet. The oldest should probably put it on her small student loan, but then I wonder how long it will take her to get a job in this economy.

Dave Ramsey always says if you see a storm you stockpile cash, until the storm clears. I then wonder if I have been saving towards the Big Goal for a whole other reason! Of course, there was no way to know this was upon us. But I do have a pretty interesting intuition about things. I'm really trying to hear what it is telling me.

The loving kindness meditation I happened on this week was:
May You Be Well
May You Be Happy
May You Be Peaceful
May You Be Loved

Take care of you! We as humans are strong and resilient!