Our power went out last night for the third time in the last four months. We never know how long it will be out. One of those recent times it was out for 21 hours. At a minimum it is inconvenient, but usually longer than four hours, food has to be tossed, so we lose money when this happens.

We all hopped in the van and headed to Home Depot. My husband had one generator in mind when we went, but turns out they did not have that one in stock. We ended up with a Ryobi 4000 Watt Inverter Generator which was priced at $549. Home Depot offers a 10% military discount which usually offsets the sales tax. My husband picked up a gas can as well. We used to have a few when we had a mower and a snowblower, but all of those were donated when we moved a year and a half ago. Total cost out of pocket at Home Depot was $563.11

We came home and the power was back on! 😀 From the clocks it appeared it probably turned back on ten minutes after we left or about an hour after it went out. Of course, we would rather have electricity working in the home than rely on a generator! We have no regrets that this small outage pushed us to finally pull the plug and make the purchase. A purchase that we expect we will use and gives us peace of mind in the future.

I hope you are all healthy and safe! Enjoy your Independence Day and if you can take time to watch Hamilton and or read up on the Federalist Papers, which are essays that explain a lot of the thinking by a few of our founding fathers as they promoted the ratification of the Constitution. Even I need to brush up on the details, as it has been awhile. Here's a brief

Our youngest daughter had her four wisdom teeth extracted last week under anesthesia. Our insurance covered all but the anesthesia, so our portion was $651. I think this is in line with what we paid for our older daughter. She has breezed through recovery with very minimal pain medication. The opioid med made her nauseous, so I picked up anti nausea medication which she took once. And after that first day she has taken just three ibuprofen. Swelling continues to go down each day. The medications were all generics and under our insurance varied from $1.60 to $2.44! Glad those didn't cost much, because they are all going to be tossed soon.

In other news, my husband is still not home from his work trip. It has been extended another 1 to 3 weeks. We are not happy with how the military has handled their personnel during their CV mission. The only positive is that we might make more money because of per diem...all though I think my husband handles stress by eating...so lots of food and snacks being bought.

It's only a week until payday and my daughter and I are not spending much being home most of the time. There is bound to be some savings from that!

My husband is out of town for work. He finally had two days off in a row on Saturday and Sunday, but worked Monday (Memorial Day) Strange times we are in, where the time off happens away from the family. But this is really like a deployment for many, so I have to look at it through that lens and be thankful that most days I have been able to see him.

They gave him the option of flying or driving to the destination. He could also have rented a car. He decided to drive his truck, which then prompted us to get some maintenance done that we knew was going to be needed soon. He got four new tires, rear brakes, brake fluid flushed and an alignment for about $1300.

The destination is about 900 miles each way. Mileage is paid at 57.5 cents per mile. This will give us a payment for about $1,035. I think we will bank this money in our Pot of Possibilities once it arrives. We had already been saving for the maintenance and that account is still flush with funds.

Don't worry planning for the second wave is happening, as is planning for hurricane relief in the age of CV. My husband, along with his team, have submitted these plans to higher ups multiple times. There are so many inefficiencies in government, so frustrating to observe. The Army Reserves is rarely deployed on the homeland, so a whole new era of responsibility.

My husband IS on the promotion list for Lieutenant Colonel. Now we wait for orders to make it official. It may take 6 months to get those, as only so many are processed and approved each month. We are grateful for increasing income and feel very blessed to have employment in a time when many others do not.

And on a completely different note, I'm buying a slightly used Crockpot today for $20. The one I had from our wedding (24 years) ago went out around Christmas. I have been pondering an Instant Pot, but haven't found the right price. So a crockpot it is for now. I have a lot of dried beans I have been putting off making because of it. Yes, I know I can use the stove and a pot, but I'm so used to the CrockPot! I am excited.

(Multiple posts today...check them out!)

I just reported on our Big Goal progress for April. We are very close to the milestone of $75K. I have been thinking for awhile about changing the name of our goal. There is a bit of a negative connotation to the term 'big goal' almost implying that it is unattainable or that it would take a miracle to reach. I truly want to believe that it is possible, so I need a new name. I don't know what it is, but if anyone wants to make a suggestion I'm sure open to ideas. The money was originally intended as a downpayment on our next house, so it could be home related. But in these unknown times I simply see it as cash that can be used to sustain us in the hard times. But again the term I use has to have a positive vibration to it. Because I know things are going to work out and this is an attainable goal. I'm also open to not having a number attached, because of course, if more is supposed to come our way it will!

I might also be hurting ourselves by not throwing every penny toward the goal. I did not include the stimulus money in the goal, or any housing refunds, or the money we were able to save this money simply by not being as active in the retail world or driving as much (specifically able to set aside $1,030.24!)

I have a feeling that health and sustainability are going to be big lessons for many of us in the coming years. We actually just had a power outage of 21 hours this week. I was grateful once again to the neighbor who let us hook to their generator for our fridge and to charge our devices (our daughter was trying to still do homework!) I think sharing in that way is beautiful, but I also think some self reliance is important too. We may be using some (or all) of our stimulus money to buy some things that help us be more self reliant, such as a generator or a camping stove. We may also use money to invest in more glass food containers, or having a bigger stockpile of foods on hand. I don't have it all figured out, but it seems like that investment may be helpful in addition to keeping cash.

In another note, I'm glad we don't eat a lot of meat or dairy. We do use some and it would be missed, but we are able to live without it. I do find it sad for the farmers who are forced (or choose) to kill their livestock before getting it to market. So many repercussions of the actions taken. But again I believe this will all work out. It will be bumpy for awhile, but we will collectively come to a better way of living in the world that is sustainable and healthier for everyone. We all want health and vibrancy and our natural world can provide it! We just have to come back into balance.

May you be well. May you be happy. 🦋

Graduation for our oldest daughter is coming up soon in early May! I just happened to think to look for flights the other day and there were some decent prices for the dates we needed, so I booked them. We also have a one way flight for our youngest daughter to return home for the summer. Our oldest daughter can move here with us if she wants, but none of us think that is the best idea because she ultimately does not want to live here knowing we will eventually move again.

Back to the tickets. We paid $670 for these flights. I did charge these to our Southwest credit card, as I always do. I have $500 from this pay period that I can apply to pay off. The bill won't be due for about three weeks, thus I can find the rest from the next paycheck.

I'm looking forward to the day when hopefully we live much closer to our girls and we don't need to fly. But I am also grateful that we have this mode of transportation so we can get to them fast!😀

I have not been good at focusing on much of anything lately, including getting a blog post together. So this is all just random.

I paid our youngest daughter's tuition and housing bill. I had saved $500 a month for the last five months to pay the tuition out of pocket. I used her ESA to pay $5700 to pay for room and board. No loans for her yet!

Our oldest daughter's tuition and housing bill is at about $9,294. She is only taking six credits to finish up this May with her two degrees. I have $6,170 in our account towards that and I believe her loan and a couple small scholarships total $3471. So we will have nearly $300 left. I will likely give this to her at graduation to put towards the loans. No point in doing it earlier, as the loans are subsidized interest.

We got a utility refund for being under the average. That was $27.30. This program is likely going away at least in the short term while they do a military housing wide evaluation, due to complaints. I can see the next refund will be larger at $32.11 and appears to be pending now. I save this money towards our Big Goal.

I redeemed credit card rewards recently. Amex $67.30 and Chase Freedom $3.82, and US Bank $13.00. It all adds up!

I earned an Amazon gift card ($25) from Swagbucks since January 1. I earned $506 in gift cards in 2019. Many of which I think I failed to count towards our Big Goal.

I have kept my eye out of for some Christmas cards on clearance and finally found a box of 14 cards by Papyrus for 90% off. I paid just $1.89 at the local exchange store. This is the only Christmas item I was in need of.

This weekend I went to Dollar Tree and bought 9 cards for $6. 8 were 2 for $1. The valentine card my husband picked out for me was $1. This is a win, as he probably would have ended up elsewhere for a card and paid $7! I also bought some of those foil containers with a lid for food. I put a meal in the set of three for a neighbor who is recovering from surgery. Great deal so they won't have to worry about returning dishes.

I did decide to keep YNAB for now. It is a time saver as far as reconciling accounts, and helps me keep good records of our spending and savings. That will be charged to our account today for $75.59. I have looked at other options but will say they don't quite add up to what YNAB can do.

I think I mentioned this once but my husband raise for the year (not the likely upcoming promotion), is going to end up covering our oldest daughters insurance premium. It sort of doesn't feel like a raise when you don't feel like you get to decide what to do with it. But in reality I'm grateful the money came at the right time for the additional expense and didn't have reduce our savings.

It's going to be a busy year. Lots of travel for my husband. Our oldest daughter will graduate in May (with unknown plans after). Will she move elsewhere? What job will she get? She just seems very focused on finishing up. We will travel to her town for graduation. I just made a hotel reservation and probably am lucky I found something at a reasonable price at this late date!

Our youngest has talked about study abroad for this summer, but I'm insistent that any classes she does take must count for her major or minor. So far, we may be striking out. While the experience would be great, it doesn't make sense to pay for a class that doesn't count.

My parents will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary just after Christmas this year. They have talked about wanting to take a trip with my family and my sisters family on a trip. We have said we will definitely go, but we have no idea where or what the trip may cost.

That potential trip has me wanting to sock away more money in 2020! I mentioned before the year end that some are looking to save $2,020 and I'm thinking of adding that to my savings plans to help with this trip. Hopefully in my next blog post I can try to have it flushed out where I will find this money! I think I just have to make it happen like a bill ($2,020/24 pay periods is $84.17 or $168.34 a month).

Thanks for listening to my brain dump! I didn't even mention taxes...I will save that for another time, too.

Both of our daughters have taken off for their respective schools. We are empty nesters once again. Amazing to think our oldest will graduate in May. Time to make plans for that and spring break!

I still need to do my ten year look back financially. I didn't forget!

I've thought about some goals, but not ready to write them, nor are they that much different than past years. Just plan to save MORE!

I'm not specifically doing Uber Frugal Month, but trying to be conscious of spending going forward. I did buy some groceries at Target in the last week using the gift cards I bought at 10% discount in December. So there will end up being less spent in the grocery budget.

I did spend some money recently to get items to start growing my own broccoli sprouts. I do like sprouts, but can't find them very often. They are really good for you, so I'm going to grow my own inside in jars. Do you grow anything inside your home that is edible?

That is not my word of the year, but the description that popped into my mind when thinking about our retirement growth this year.

We ended 2018 with a balance of $488,534.97. Those funds along with contributions grew to a final total of $660,822.27!!

That is $172,287.30 change in ONE year!! Yes, expansion!

We contributed $13,000 to Roth IRAs in 2019 and $10,657.56 to my husband's TSP (Thrift Savings Plan). Or in total $23,657.56.

Not too shabby! Wouldn't we all love if every year could be like this? Let's see what 2020 brings!

On this last day of the year I thought I'd reflect on a few things, but expect more detailed financial posts in the coming days.

It was an unpredictable year.

I didn't plan for buying our daughter a car, yet the writing was on the wall. That lack of planning resulted in a loan in her name with my husband as cosigner. We are currently making the payment of $133.50 per month because our daughter has a very part time internship. She uses her earnings to cover groceries and gas on the vehicle. The balance is currently $4,949.50. We are not currently making extra payments. I'm mixed about this loan considering we have the cash on hand. But on some level this should be hers to complete once she has a full time job.

We did put $3000 cash down on the vehicle and are currently paying ourselves back for this. I will have an update in a couple days on our progress on this.

Our oldest daughter also has taken on two student loans, each $2750. One is just about to be disbursed for spring. This are the first and only loans she has had to take out. I'm also mixed on these because yes we have the cash, yet I think it is okay for her to have some skin in the game. On the other hand she double majored and we will have supported her for five years by the time!! It's still amazing to me that we were able to get her through school with this small amount of debt.

Our youngest daughter did not need to take out any loans. She still has ESA funds, a least a year of Post 911 GI bill eligibility. We currently save $500/mo (or $6000/yr) towards her tuition.

Our retirement balances have skyrocketed this year with returns exceeding 25%. It was a great year to be in the stock market. We increased my husband's Roth IRA contributions to account for his catch up eligibility since he turned 50 this year.

I'm still impressed with our ability to handle the travel costs associated with having our girls living over 1000 miles away. I think I'm making plane reservations every three months on average!

We did make progress on our Big Goal this year too, which I will report in detail in the next few days. It was an average year towards that goal. Sometimes the effort seems so slow, yet at the same time I'm grateful that we have this goal. I think this money would just slip away without it!

In non financial news, I lost about 15 pounds this year and have been able to keep most of it off all year. I did really well exercising at least 5 days week. I drink a good amount of water regularly. Healthy habits and progress towards a little more weight loss is the goal in the coming year too.

I'm going to count 2019 as a success! Happy New Year!!