Medicated Money

2006-10-16T20:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks for stopping by Medicated Money! Unfortunately, if you are reading this here, then you may not know that we have moved! Come check us out at our brand, new site:

Medicated Money

Another Damn Good Question

2006-10-10T21:08:00.000-04:00

JLP over at All Financial Matters posted another great question of the day.
Should home equity be included in figuring net worth?

As some of you know, I recently had a post that discussed what should and should not be included in one's net worth. Unfortunately, we currently do not own a house, so we do not face this question on a daily basis. However, if and when we do own a home, our plan is to not include the home equity into the equation. Why? Well, I'll answer that question with a question: How do you determine that number?

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Here's To You, Mr. EBay Buyer!

2006-10-08T09:45:00.000-04:00

Being in the medical field, Mrs. Medicated and I have spent a few Ben Franklins on books that we needed to study with while in school. While in school, we were just dating, not very financial savvy, and poor students living off student loans! We didn't spend much money, but we did spend a lot on different medical textbooks. We both needed to purchased the same books for the same classes to learn the same material. Why do I bring this up? Well, fast forward now years later and our bookshelf in the office is filled with medical book after medical book from top to bottom.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Getting Back To Work!

2006-10-07T14:45:00.000-04:00

We are happy to announce that Mrs. Medicated has found a job and is planning on starting this Monday. As you may remember, we moved from Texas to the Northeast so Mr. Medicated could take a new job. This job has been going extremely well.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Determining One’s Net Worth: Honey, What’s The Dog Worth?

2006-10-04T21:17:00.000-04:00

So, honestly, what should be included in one's net worth? Just the basics? How about everything and the kitchen sink? The reason I bring this up is that I love reading the net worth postings (like here, here, and here) that always come in at the beginning of the month. When we decided to start posting our net worth, we wanted it to represent not only our financial status, but a monthly reminder to get our ass in gear and clean up our financial mess. At least this is what I would tell Scott if I was asked "why do you post your net worth?" The thing is, the more and more I read, it seems like many people count everything when they calculate their net worth! However, Mrs. Medicated and I are a little different. We do not tally everything when it comes to our net worth. Why would we do that? Well, there are a couple of reasons, but let's first talk about what we do and don't count.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Net Worth - September 2006

2006-10-01T14:15:00.000-04:00

After a rough hit to our Net Worth in the month of August, we were determined to make up the ground lost and then some. Our net worth this past month did extremely well due to 2 main factors.

Instead of paying for unexpected expenses (not completely unexpected in knowing that we were going to move, but still cost more than expected), we were able to get back to paying down our debt and saving money.

Even though I am the only one working (Mrs. Medicated starts her new job in 1 week, but more on that in a different post), we did receive extra pay from our old employee based on our PTO (paid time off) which off-set the fact that we received just one new check in the month of Sept.

With that stated, let’s take a look at the numbers:

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Auto Insurance: Unfortuanely Revisted

2006-09-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

“You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windshield that said ‘Parking Fine!’ -Tommy Cooper

With the move from Texas to Pennsylvania, we knew that we were heading into a increase in cost of living from one to the other, and we would need to adjust our monthly budget due to this. With that being said, we needed to switch our Texas auto insurance to a Pennsylvania policy to complete the registration of our cars. Needless to say, many people warned me to be ready when I saw the rates jump considerably between states.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

The Price Of Higher Education

2006-09-26T20:30:00.000-04:00

In the latest version of CNN Money's 'Millionaires In The Making: The Marchbanks,' a young couple very similar to Mrs. Medicated and I in age and salary are featured. To be honest, I love reading these articles as do many other pf bloggers. The Marchbanks are kicking ass and taking names with their financial status, and worth this, they should be commended for this (hence the article).

If you are unfamiliar with this series, these articles are a nice little recap of people doing it right and how they do it. For the most part, it is the same basic pf advice stated by all. Yes, you know that one should save as much money as possible. Yes, you know on should max out retirement savings. And yes, you know I should own a home to get the equity created from home ownership. Very basic advice plus very basic financial commitment equals millionaire status, right? Wrong and here's why!

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Hasta La Vista, Car Loan #2

2006-09-23T12:45:00.000-04:00

This past week was another crazy week at work, and with that, we did not have the chance to get around to posting. Yet, riding on the coattails of lamoneyguy, we also have great news. We have finally finished paying off Car Loan #2. This car is Mrs. Medicated's car, and she swears that it has been driving different since we paid off the car. A little more smoother and comfortable!

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Are You Missing Something?

2006-09-20T21:15:00.000-04:00

After 3 weeks of working at my new job, I forgot about something very important. You see, at my last position, I was paid twice/month and only on certain days of the month. To be honest, it was definitely annoying at first, but after almost 4 years of it, it became so normal that I barely thought about it. I would know that money would be deposited in the account on these 2 days, and I knew to always check our accounts a few days before and then a day or two after. Well, one of these days came and went this week and with my mind still processing the normal routine, I did what I normally do on this particular day.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

I Think I Just Heard Our Budget Scream

2006-09-17T20:00:00.000-04:00

Do you ever have your budget set with everything in place and are doing so well by the middle of the month, and the next thing you know, the budget is blown to pieces from an unplanned event? Well, this weekend, we had one of those experiences!

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

Rolling Over Our Retirement Accounts

2006-09-14T20:00:00.000-04:00

Today I completed the paperwork needed to complete our rollover to a IRA. We both our rolling over our 403(b) accounts as well as our Work-Retirement accounts into a IRA account.

This is posted on our old site! To read more, please come visit us at our new site: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/!

We Are Moving!

2006-09-13T20:59:00.000-04:00

Well, after 6 months of blogging on Blogger.com, we have decided to make a change! We have enjoyed blogging so much; we decided to take it a step further! Unfortunately, here at Blogger.com, we felt that we were limited in everything that we wanted Medicated Money to be. Because of this, we are proud to announce that we have moved!

Our new website is: http://www.medicatedmoney.com/

We are extremely excited about this new change and would love if you stop by and pay us a visit. After much hard work, we are finally up and running!

So, with that, we would like to thank Blogger for hosting us, and look forward to continuing on at our new site, http://www.medicatedmoney.com/

New Retirement Plan

2006-09-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

With the start of my new job this week, I needed to attend 2 days of orientation. For the most part, it was your standard ‘this is how we do this’ orientation. I did my best to pay attention to all of the speakers, but to be honest, after a couple of hours of hearing about hospital protocols and procedures, I was lucky I didn’t fall asleep. I did perk up though when retirements and benefits were discussed.

Overall, I am both happy and disappointed with my new company’s plan. They offer a 4% base plan and a 50% matching plan on employee money contributed up to 5% of your salary. On the whole, one can receive up to 6.5% of their salary from the institution. The bad news is that you become eligible for these plans after one year.

Due to the one year waiting period for enrollment, we have decided to not make any retirement contributions in the 1st year of employment. We plan on completing our debt repayment plan, and then banking enough money for a down payment on a house. As for the wife, she is currently still looking for a position. We hope that after a very good interview this week, she will have a job offer early next week. If that stands true, her position does offer a 3% matching rate on contributions to a 401(k) that starts immediately. We definitely would take advantage of this offer and contribute just 3% and put the rest of her salary to the plans already mentioned.

Expenses For August 2006

2006-09-05T21:15:00.000-04:00

I think for the record I am going to just erase the month of August 2006 from my memory. Not only did we get killed from the expense of the move, but our general expenses were out of control. But you have that monthly budget, right? Well, the monthly budget was put through the ringer because we didn’t even come close to staying on budget. Here are the numbers:

As you can see, our spending was out of control. Hard to believe this statement is coming from this couple that was making so much progress the last couple of months. We are planning on creating a new budget for our new home, hopefully something around the $3k mark. We should be able to do that once the dust from everything settles. As for explaining this month, let’s just forgot that we even brought it up and move on!

Net Worth - August 2006

2006-09-02T23:30:00.000-04:00

We knew that this month we were going to take a serious hit in our Net Worth. With our move across the country, we decided to stop our debt repayment schedule and just pay minimal amounts. We also decided to tap into our emergency fund to help pay for the move. Even with these financial moves, we still took a serious beating to our net worth. We were hoping to not lose too much ground; hoping to maybe stay where we were at. After completing the calculations this afternoon, it looks like we lost roughly about 1 good month’s progress. Here are the numbers:

As you can see, we had a nearly 9% negative loss in the month of August. Granted, if you remove the moving expenses that are a one and done expense, we actually had a positive net worth of 2%. Unfortunately, we have to be fair to ourselves, and we wanted to include this to get the whole picture, even if it meant, taking a negative hit!

We only paid $1,000.69 towards our debt repayment plan. We have been averaging closer to $4,000/month. We hope we can get back on track in the month of September with vengeance.

As occurred in the month of July, negative change in the Work Retirement– Wife account is due to a recent inquiry which resulted in a wrong amount being calculated. The value now is the correct amount.

The negative change in the Student Loan #1 as well as 0% credit card are due to up-to-date statements instead of just using Quicken software. The 0% credit card also was affected thanks to Bank of America.

The Debt Repayment – August 2006

2006-09-01T16:00:00.000-04:00

We knew coming into the month of August that we were going to suspend our repayment plan and just pay the minimal amounts on each bill. It still was disappointing to see that we only paid $1,000.96 to our bills. I was getting use to seeing the total debt get smaller and smaller each month. As for our goal of paying off $36,500 by the end of the year, this will definitely make it even more difficult.

In the month of August, we paid $1,000.96 to our repayment plan lowering our total goal to $17,547 left to pay off. This means we need to average $4,390/month to reach our goal! My guess is that we will not be able to reach this goal due to the expense of our move and we are running out of time. However, I am optimistic that we may be able to complete this goal. We'll just have to wait and see!

A Little Vacation!

2006-08-30T08:15:00.000-04:00

After driving 1,500 miles, the last thought on my mind would be drive another few hundred miles. However, like always, Mrs. Medicated was right in saying that I would definitely look forward to it after the move. Why would she say this? Well, we are planning on driving to the beach for a 3 day mini-vacation. After the stress of our move, the Drive, and the unpacking of the past 3 days, we are ready to just sit back and relax. So thinking ahead, Mrs. Medicated planned this small vacation before the stress of the move really kicked in 3 weeks ago.

Yes, financially speaking, it may not be the smartest decision to go and spend money on a vacation after spending close to 5k to move across the country, but you know what, we need it! After doing this blog since March, I have realized that you can only worry about money so much, after that, it is time wasted. Sometimes you just have to live a little, and if that means spending some money on yourself instead of waiting for a rainy day, so be it! So, I apologize if this goes against the grain on the personal finance advice, but we need some time to just unwind and get ready to start a new job! I promise we’ll kick it into financial ass-kicking gear starting next week!

The Expense Of Moving Cross-Country & Getting Back On Track

2006-08-29T17:15:00.000-04:00

I estimated that our move would cost us around $2,500. Boy was I wrong! All in all, by changing jobs and moving 1,500 across the country, our bill was around $4,000. Add in the fact that in this month we ended up paying 2 different rents for the majority of the month, we are looking at roughly a $5k bill. For the majority of this bill, we put most of it on credit cards to be able to buy some time in paying for everything; however, we need to pay it this CC bill to avoid interest. We are going to take a serious hit in our net worth and debt repayment due to this move.

As of right now, I am planning on starting my new job September 5th. Mrs. Medicated is still currently looking for a position after having a couple of leads fall through. We are not worry about her situation, though we would like her to find something sooner than later. We still have 2 paychecks each coming from our old employer that we will help for the month of September, as well as receiving our security deposit back from our old rental house. All in all, we are planning to pay off the credit card as soon as possible, place the remaining money from these checks in our debt repayment, and hopefully be back on a dual income by October. From there, it is our goal to try to finish paying off our remaining balance on our debt repayment plan, and then beginning saving for our house down payment.

Our goal is buy a house in the next 12 to 18 months depending on the location, price, and amount saved for the down payment. We are extremely happy with the decision that we have made to move, but as you can see, it has changed our financial progress. We need to just get settled into our new house, new job(s), and then determine how fast we can get the train back on track! Thanks to all of the well-wishers especially D over at Divorce To Financial Freedom for the encouraging words and support!

Home Sweet 'New' Home

2006-08-28T22:14:00.000-04:00

“What is more agreeable than one's home?” -Marcus Tullius Cicero

We made it to our new home yesterday and are happy to announce that everything went safe and sound. We have spent the last 2 days unpacking, unpacking, and some more unpacking! I did take a time-out today to get the computer set-up and get back to being online. Definitely need our internet access!

So the big question of the day for us is: How did this move affect us financially? Well, to be honest, the hour is late and the day is almost done, but we will answer this question over the next couple of days as well as get our ‘financial house’ in order as well.

Moving Day!

2006-08-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

We finished packing up our stuff and crammed everything in the truck to head out across the county. Hard to believe that moving day is here! We probably will be out of commission for the next week with the move and everything, but we hope to have the blog up and running shortly after we move into our new home. Until then, thanks for reading.

-The Medicated’s

You Got To Roll With It!

2006-08-21T23:04:00.000-04:00

With this past Friday being our last day of work, we spent today finalizing everything with our now previous employment. We had meetings with HR, Payroll, Benefits, and underwent exit interviews. We are planning on signing up for COBRA, but this will not occur until September 1st due to our health insurance continues for the rest of the month. We plan to discuss this in another post!

One important item from today’s meeting was to decide what to do with the money we have invested into our pension fund. With our employer, one becomes vested at 5 years of service. Unfortunately, we did not reach the five years; therefore, we have decided to roll the money into an IRA. I contacted our financial institution that we invest our 403(b) into, and because we like their services, we have determined to stay with them. We plan to roll our pension money into an IRA as well as take the money from our 403(b) and roll that in as well.

I must say that I was very impressed with the service our financial institution provided. They spent the better part of an hour going through the online application and answered every question that I had. I am unsure what financial institution options we will have with our new company; however, we are hoping that our current group will be an option.

As of right now, because my new company does not match any contributions for the 1st year, we are currently of thinking of not investing any money in order to fund our housing account that we plan to start after we complete our debt repayment plan. Yet, that topic is for another post!

Pack, Pack, Pack

2006-08-20T23:55:00.000-04:00

After a long 2 days of packing, we are about 75% finished with our preparation for the move. Our to-do list was filled with tasks and things that we need to complete before we move, and unfortunately, we were unable to make a dent in it due to the never ending packing of boxes and bins! It truly is amazing how much stuff you have when you start going through it!

However, I just wanted to say thanks to the members over at the Money Blog Network Forums. I thought I would be able to do a little Medicated Money site updating this week after a discussion with members on the Network, but alas, it was not to be.

I really appreciate the advice given and plan to implement it when I have the time! Thanks again to Flexo, Kewee, My Money Forest, Tricia, Pfblueprint, and Financial Reflections!

More Preparation Before The Move!

2006-08-16T22:45:00.000-04:00

In preparation for the big move, I decided to take our car into the shop for its 30k tune-up. We are planning on renting a 24ft truck, towing one car with the rental truck, and driving our second car. All in all, 1,500 miles of open road lay between us and our new home.

It definitely will be an exciting trip, but definitely a long one. We are figuring that we will be able to manage around 50mph with the truck, and our goal is drive 500 miles/day. This means we are looking at most likely 3 days of driving. The car checked out fine, but more outflow of our money to pay for this. $600 all said and done! I keep telling myself that it is better to have the car checked out and ready to go then hit a problem on the road that could possible cost us not only much more money but more importantly, time!

Thanks again to D over at Divorce To Financial Freedom for reminding us to not get too stressed out from this entire ‘move’ thing!

Medicated Money Is Hemorrhaging Money!

2006-08-14T19:49:00.000-04:00

"Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears." -Robert W. Sarnoff

With our upcoming new employment and move across the country, we are currently hemorrhaging money from all possible gaps. We knew going into the month of August that things were going to get a little tight, but this is ridiculous. I am constantly online checking accounts, sliding money from here to there to still try to maximize interest rates (why try!?!) As of right now, the blood loss is somewhere around $5k with everything. Include our normal monthly expenses; it seems that everyone has their fingers in an almost empty cookie jar.

From paying 2 rents plus security deposits to buying supplies to move, the damage is mounting! The good news is that we are still afloat, but we are taking on water fast! Hopefully, we can dig ourselves out before we completely sink!

Six Degrees Of Medicated Money

2006-08-13T14:15:00.000-04:00

I love personal finance blogs. Absolutely, positively, love them. I am constantly on the look out for ‘new’ blogs to me. Currently, I read 72 different blogs through my second love (second, only to Mrs. Medicated) Google Reader. I try to comment on interesting posts and love the community aspect of the personal finance blog world. Many of our readers stop by and read a little because they see us on a bigger, better blog. We love the comments we receive because of this, and the different conversations that arise from these readers. So in a way to pay it forward, I have started the Six Degrees of Medicated Money.

How does it work? Well, I start off at a blog currently on the Medicated Connection list, and go out into cyber-world. Those on the Medicated Connection are very familiar to me, but many blogs on their blog-roll list are not. So I choose a blog from this blog-roll and try to read as much as possible. When I have a good idea of what the blog is about, I choose another blog from THEIR blog-roll and move forward. I repeat these steps until I go through six different blogs! Why do I do this? To be honest, I love reading many different opinions on the same topics. Many of these blogs have many readers and others don’t! I figure we’ll give a little love to all and support the personal finance community by making our readers aware of these sites. So without further ado, here are the initial blogs of Six Degrees of Medicated Money:

1st Degree: A Medicated Connection: No Credit Needed

2nd Degree: Crazy Money – A fellow Texas pf blogger, Matt @ Crazy Money posts great information on a personal level. I especially like his plan of a 24-month mortgage.

3rd Degree: Yet Another Blog About Money – This blog is on the reading list already, and I love Miserly Bastard’s attitude towards personal finance, New York housing, and poker. I’m just scared of meeting him on an online poker game!

4th Degree: Chipping Away: Busting Debt In Boston – Miserly does not have a blogroll on his site, so I found Chipping Away through a comment on his site! A fairly new blogger (like us) who is determine to say good-bye to his debt! Looks like he is well on his way!

5th Degree: 2Million – Another blog on our list for reading! The man is on a mission; a mission to reach a net worth of 2 Million plus the value of his home. Looks like he is well on his way!

6th Degree: Our Money – Another blog on the list and fellow Texan blogger. Brian at Our Money is a man of few words, but a well-develop financial plan. With his wife, he is on an unbelievable track to hit all of their financial goals!

Well, there you have it. The first Six Degrees of Medicated Money. All of these blogs are excellent reads and I would highly recommend you stop by and check them out. If you are interested in being added to the Medicated Connection, let us know! We are always looking for a little cross-linking between friends!

Workin' For A Livin'!

2006-08-12T18:00:00.000-04:00

“Somedays won't end ever and somedays pass on by, I'll be working here forever, at least until I die. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't. I'm supposed to get a raise week, you know damn well, I won't.” –Huey Lewis & The News

Well, it was our goal to try and write a post-a-day. The problem with this goal, just not enough time in the day. This past week was one of those weeks where every time you look at the clock at work, it was past 5 and you realize you have another 3-4 hrs left to go.

With this being said, it brought up an interesting question between Mrs. Medicated and I as we ate dinner last night at 8pm. When you are work in a salary position, and you put in more time than expected, does that bother you?

I calculated that this past week I worked roughly 70 hours. However, my pay is based off a 40hr/week. So that additional 30hrs I am working for the hospital, is never financial accounted for. Granted, I knew going into this career that I would be doing this, and I think this is why it does not bother me! Yet, I have colleagues that will complain until the cows come home how much time they are working and how they should be compensated for it. With my position, I do not have a boss that is breathing down my neck. I do not have to sit at a desk and do paperwork for hours on end. My job consists of me seeing and talking to people that are in need of answers. Many of our patients are scared, unsure, and looking to me for the answers. Granted, there are difficult days when I cannot provide the answers to there questions or give them assurance that everything will be okay. But at the end of day, I walk out knowing that I made a difference in their lives, and no financial value can be placed on that. So, working 70hrs/week does not really bother me. But I am different; I don’t think I could say the same if I was an accountant or electrician. So, where do you fall in this discussion?

Employers, Employees, & 401(k) Participation

2006-08-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

The need to get more workers involved in their retirement plan at work is a difficult task for most employers. From a personal standpoint, we fell into this category for 3 years. Less than one year ago for us, we were serious debating whether or not to put money into our 403(b). The reason for not contributing was that we seriously thought we could not live with reducing our take-home pay. The scary thing is it looks like we were not alone. Like many individuals, procrastination and the inability to live below your means was a stronger force than the fear of retiring without a financial plan. Luckily for us, we learned early from our mistakes and have completely changed our financial future.

It now looks like many employers who are worried about their employees are trying to change those employees financial future as well! This is an excellent article that discusses this fact.

Employers getting creative with 401(k) participation

With the extinction of traditional pensions, many employers know that the only retirement salvation for employees will be their 401(k). Due to this, many employers are making contributions mandatory. I agree with this plan of making contribution mandatory. I also believe that workers should be educated about the importance of these plans and what it will eventually mean to their financial future. If employers do not educate their employees, many workers will be lost in the financial confusion.

A Medicated Milestone - $50K In Investments

2006-08-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

We are very excited to announce that we have reached the $50k milestone in our investment accounts. We hit this mark yesterday with the addition of our monthly contribution to our 403(b) accounts.

We know that this is just the start of milestones for us in this category, and in relation to the big picture, $50k is not that much. Yet, we are excited about it!

We truly believe that in personal finance you need to set goals and celebrate milestones to help stay focus and discipline. As in many things in life, it is 10% action and 90% reaction to be successful!

A New Card & A Little Rant

2006-08-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

We just received our new 0% Balance Transfer CC today in the mail. As you may remember, Bank of America decided to screw us over. So with that, I just want to send a quick thank you to Bank of America for screwing up our Debt Repayment Plan, and making us spend our time fixing a problem that arose from their terrible customer service.

Good thing they have a logo of ‘Higher Standards!' I would hate to see what they consider 'Lower Standards' after their bait and switch scams and poor customer service.

A Texas Holiday Weekend!

2006-08-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

Starting today and continuing through the weekend, shoppers in Texas are free from paying taxes on certain clothing and footwear. For those of you who do not know, the current sales tax is 6.25% plus local jurisdiction tax in Texas. For most, this means an average of 8% sales tax. August 4th, 5^th, and 6^th are considered a holiday in Texas due to the tax break on most clothing and footwear under $100.

Mrs. Medicated is excited to hit the stores early Saturday morning. The best part of this is that most stores offer early-bird sales as well, as it is definitely a reason to get out early and take advantage of the deal.

We have set a budget of $250 on our expenditures. Hopefully, we can get some very good deals and really stretch the dollars!

One "Caution: This Thing Makes Wide Turns" Sticker, Please!

2006-08-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

Well, today we booked the rental truck for our move home. Add another $1,000 to the continuing growing moving expense tab.

We have decided to move ourselves due to an atrocious personal experience with a moving company plus the many horror stories from others with their dealing with movers. In the end, we figured that we would pay less moving ourselves with the help of friends and family then going with professional movers, or at least break even.

We have decided to rent a 24ft truck, equipment to tow a car, and then drive the 2^nd car. We are planning on this trip taking us approximately 3 days. So with the cost of the truck and trailer plus the expense of gas, food, and accommodations, we are hoping to stay under $2,000. That would make the total cost of moving close to $2,500. Not too bad for moving across this the county!

Expenses For July 2006

2006-08-02T09:30:00.000-04:00

For the month of July, we did much better in keeping close to our budget compared to the month before. We missed our targeted amount by roughly $100, or 2.7%.

Not bad considering the fact that we this was our best month in monthly expenses. That’s the good new; now the bad news. In preparing for our upcoming move at the end of the month, we needed to begin purchasing flights home, flights for our family to help us, and the added cost of paying the security deposit for our new town house. All in all, this category, which was not budgeted for, cost us roughly $1,300.

As explained in our last post, we used money from our emergency fund to cover this expense. We are going to tentatively plan to use this budget for August, but it would not surprise us if some categories are just blown out of the water due to the expense of those both here at our old apartment and our new one, plus the added expenses of the move!

Net Worth - July 2006

2006-08-01T20:30:00.000-04:00

It is that time again where the personal finance community toes the line, stands up straight, and publishes their net worth. And in keeping with ‘status quo,’ we get to toe that line and put out our financial worth in this post.

Here is our financial chart:

And in keeping with our routine, here are a couple of comments on this past month’s performance:

The negative change in the Work Retirement – Husband account is due to a recent inquiry which resulted in a wrong amount being calculated. The value now is the correct amount.
Car Loan #2 is our next victim on the Debt Repayment plan, and we have paid this debt down to $1,800. We are planning on suspending the Debt Repayment Plan for the month of August due to our upcoming move, but we hope to have this paid off in the month of September.
The emergency fund is lower, but you can read more about that here.
Finally, we were able to increase our net worth by 8.53% for the month of July. Since the creation of this blog, we have increased our net worth by 37.62%.

Emigrant Direct & Our Emergency Fund

2006-07-31T14:45:00.000-04:00

"What we fear comes to pass more speedily than what we hope." -Publilius Syrus

The Emigrant Direct Website updating did two things for us last week. First, the fear of all hell breaking lose over there made me nervous in having that much money wrapped in a bank that I may not have access to for an unknown amount of time! To be honest, I never cared for their old website (and I guess neither did anyone else, hence the change), but it was so basic it made me nervous about whoever hires the IT personal ED. Secondly, the fact that their rate was only 5.15% and our car loans are roughly the same, most would call it an even draw on whether or not to use this money to pay off these loans. The way I see it, I probably am breaking even money with the taxes I pay on the interest accrued from the ED account and the car loans, yet the emotional feeling of having those cars paid off is getting to the point of sheer desire. Because of this, we decided to change things up.

To take care of the first issues, we transferred $1,650 to a money market account at our credit union that recently changed their interest to 4.85%. We have access to this money immediately as it is tied into our checking account and takes 15 seconds to transfer the money instead of the 3 days that it takes ED. That took a little of the stress away from not being able to have access to this money.

We decided then to take $2,000 and put it towards Car Loan #2. We figured this would help pay off the account a little faster and keep us on track for our debt repayment plan. I truly feel the emotional benefit of this is worth the little financial offense it may be.

As discussed before, we knew that we may eventually need this money for relocation back to the Northeast. With the purchases of flights as well as a security deposit for our new town home, we took an additional $1,200 out of this account to help pay for these unscheduled bills.

All in all, we are pleased with these decisions. And, don’t worry, our emergency account still sits at a nice little cushion at ED, however we may need to tap into it a little more to help pay for the move. However, we first decided to suspend the Debt Repayment Plan for the month of August, so hopefully it will not need to be touched! We’ll see, though.

The Debt Repayment Plan - July 2006

2006-07-28T00:30:00.000-04:00

With the plans of our upcoming move back to the Northeast, we decided that we would suspend the Debt Repayment Plan for the month of August. Due to this, we then decided to try and pay off as much as possible in the month of July. Our goal is still to pay off a total of $36,500 by the end of the year.

In the month of July, we paid off $4,924 in debt. As you may remember, last month we paid off Student Loan #1, and we are now close to paying off Car Loan #2. Since the start of this goal, we have paid off $18,548. We will need to pay off $3,560/month for us to reach our goal by the end of the year. It definitely will be close after looking at the numbers for this past month, and knowing that we will most likely suspend the repayment plan next month due to the move across the US.

If You Play With Fire, You're Going To Get Burned...

2006-07-26T21:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I just got burned! Burned rather badly, by my opinion, by the almighty Bank of America. You see, we have been so busy that I just have had many things on auto-pilot in order to make sure that things hopefully run smoothly while I don’t have the time to address them. And because of this thinking, I got burned.

I recently set-up bill payer, which has been a God-send, (but that is another post) and have been paying down our one credit card on an automatic basis. This particular card was with Bank of America at 0%. For 9 straight months, the due date of this bill was the 14th of every month. So like a good financial blogger, I set our automatic bill payer to pay the bill on the 9th. Unfortunately for us (fortunately for BoA), BoA decided to change this date to the 8th. By doing this, the billing cycle changed as well to start on the 10th.

Well, guess what, I paid the June bill on May 10th, and thought the payment on June 9th would pay the July bill. Ah, no! It was credited to the June payment. So in the month of June, I made 2 payments, and for the month of July, no payments. Due to this, BoA decided to change the 0% rate to 15.99%, and charge me $39 late fee. All in all, $80 for the slip up. I immediately contacted BoA and spoke to one of their robots, err, Customer Service Reps.

Mr. Medicated: I am calling to contest a late charge, plus receive an explanation for the rate change.
BoA Robot: I’m sorry sir, your account show a late payment, hence the rate change and late charge.
Mr. Medicated: I realize that, hence the phone call. The payment was received and credited on the 10th. The billing date starts on the 10th, so it was paid the same day the cycle started.
BoA Robot: Yes, the bill was paid on the 10th, but our computers cannot credit an account for the same day the payment was received!
Mr. Medicated: You’re kidding me, right! In today’s world of technology, your computer cannot credit an account for a payment, but can remove the money from my bank account and place it into the hands of BoA. Even more, it can then add that payment to my last payment cycle even though that ended on the 9th, and the money was received on the 10th, the first day of the billing cycle!
BoA Robot: Err, um, yes, that is correct!
Mr. Medicated: Well, please remove the finance charges as well as late fee because of the incompetence of your computers.
BoA Robot: Um, I cannot do that, sir, the computer does not allow us to remove a finance charge, but I can remove up to $20 of the late fee.
Mr. Medicated: Good thing your computer knows when it is working for BoA and not the customer. Can I speak to your supervisor?

Long story short, I ended up talking with this robot’s boss, supervisor mega-robot. After pretty much the same exchange, I could not get more than the $20 refund of the late fee, even after I played the ‘if this is not fixed, I will cancel my account and go with another credit card!’ card. I swore to her that I would never use Bank of America and would tell every person my experience with their company, leading to her response of ‘I’m sorry to hear that!’ So am I.

After hanging up, I immediately contacted a new card service for 0% balance transfer and will be transferring all funds in a matter of days to this new account. Amazing how fast these credit card companies screw people over.

To be honest, I was surprise that they would not fix the problem, but since I never once used the card (was a 0% balance transfer deal almost a year ago); they probably figured I would transfer the balance anyway after the special deal was up. They guessed right, but still, you would think they would at least do a better effort in trying to keep us. Now I have to go and find some ointment for this burn!

Place To Live: Check

2006-07-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

After a long weekend of searching, we were able to secure a place to live for the next year. We traveled home this past weekend for the search, and were able to find a very similar townhouse to the one we currently live in. We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our search. Our new landlord appears to be a very nice guy. Our personal belief is that is important when one is renting to rent from someone who cares about the property and appears to be involved.

We are also happy that even though we are moving from the Southwest to the Northeast, our monthly rent expense will decrease from $1500 to $1250. We were expected to pay at least 10-15% more due to higher cost of living in the Northeast as well as the rise in interest rates places more people renting column due to cost of housing than in the past 2-3 years, but we are not going to complain!

Our goal for the next year is to decrease our everyday living expenses in order to continue our debt repayment plan and save for a 20% or more down payment. Renting this townhouse is our first step in accomplishing this goal.

We'll Take That One?

2006-07-20T21:45:00.000-04:00

We flew back home to the Northeast today to begin our search for next place of residence. We are planning on looking for a place until Sunday, when we will return to Houston.

As of right now, we trimmed down our prospective list of apartments to 10. We feel that one out of these 10 should be a good find and a good place to live for most likely 1 year. Our plan is to be able to rent a place for one more year, then determine an area that we would like to buy a house, save a decent down payment, and purchase a house roughly 1 year from now. We have talked about the possibility of renting for more than 1 year if we find the right situation, but we would decided this later.

Due to all of this activity, we probably will not post anything until Monday of next week. Thanks for reading, and we'll update you on what we find.

For Rent!

2006-07-18T22:15:00.000-04:00

Aside from a busy work schedule this week, we are in the midst of trying to find our next place of residence. We have been searching through Craigslist, trying to find that apartment or house to call ours for probably a year. We decided that it would be best if we rented for one more year in order to continue our debt repayment plan as well as develop a healthy down payment, for when we do buy a house.

Overall, we have found that Craigslist is excellent for trying to find an apartment from out of town. However, there are difficulties. The most intricate part of this process has been just arranging times to see the various apartments. The reoccurring problem is that by the time that we set a time and date to see one apartment, another landlord can show us a second place that is completely across the city an hour after the first appointment. We do not know the driving time between places, and we do not want people to end up waiting on us. Also, the fact that for most people, evenings work best, we have 3 straight evenings filled with apartment viewing. We now are trying to convince people to show us places in the afternoon or morning, which is no easy task. It definitely will be a long weekend of spending many hours in the car, apologizing for running late, and trying to figure out Mapquest's directions. But we are definitely excited!

As for what we are looking for; our goal is to find a place that will give us the space we need, yet in a budget that will not break the bank. We are more incline to go with private owners versus apartment complexes due to the human factor involved. We feel that most private landlords are more involved with the property compared to property managers. Personally, I think that you normal can also find a better deal with private properties, but that is just my opinion. All in all, we are most likely going to look at around 8-12 different apartments. Hopefully, by the end of the weekend, we will have a place and will not need to do this again. We are planning on taking the digital camera to help keep everything straight as well as the good old pen and paper to write everything down!

What The Hell Are You Driving Here?

2006-07-16T11:00:00.000-04:00

State Trooper: What the hell are you driving here?
Del: We had a small fire last night, but we caught it in the nick of time.
State Trooper: You feel this vehicle is safe for highway travel!
Del: Yes, I do. It's not pretty, but it will get you where you want to go.
State Trooper: You got no outside mirror. You have no functioning gauges?
Del: No, not one. However, the radio still works. Funny as that may seem, the radio's the only thing that's really working good!
-From Trains, Planes, & Automobiles

In starting off in this post, let me just state this disclaimer: I am not a car person, and therefore, know very little about cars. Well, that is not completely true. I think I know probably just about the same amount as the common American male; which Mrs. Medicated likes to point out is considerably less then I think I do.

With that being said, I am smart enough to know that a car is, for many, one of their largest investments (even though we do not include it on our net worth statement, but that is for another show...), and that routine maintenance is the key to keeping it running well. Unfortunately, Mrs. Medicated's car decided to shut down this week. To make matters worse, being a foreign car, my mechanic or any mechanic close to us could not fix the car. We ended up taking it to the dealership mechanic, who did every system check possible, tightened a few screws, and said they thought it was fixed with that. Great, nothing major wrong, and the car is running fine. I think the car gods were just having a bad week and took it out on her car for a week. Anyway, because we never took the car to this mechanic, they told me that they were going to do a 'multi-point inspection report' to get the 'state of the car' in the system. "How much does this cost?" I asked. 'Oh, nothing at all, this is a complimentary service.'

So we go to pick up the vehicle and the service manager comes out and proceeds to tell me about the 'bad news.' Long story short, the car is running fine, but thanks to the multi-point inspection report, the brakes are '3mm close to the disc' and the front tires are shot. He goes on to tell me that to replace the tires, they will need to special order the tires to replace the front two (these are the ones that came on the car new, and have 27,000 miles on them) and will cost $140/tire plus installment fee. To replace the brakes, it will cost $75 for the brakes and close to $225 for time to install it. So in other words, the inspection found roughly $600 worth of problems. Now, granted, the car was in the shop for 2 days being checked over and they only charged me $30. A part of me feels that in their eyes, they need to make up for that service with these services. I told them to do nothing, that I would think about everything (aka search for a better price), and let them know. The manager went on for about 10 minutes about the risk of driving the car in this condition and all the warnings of not driving the car to try and scare me into just having them do it. I said I understood the risks and left.

So after doing a little research, I definitely need new front tires. Why they are so bad I cannot figure out after 27,000, but they are. As for the brakes, they seem fine, but I will issue my disclaimer written above here. So here is the dilemma: Does the car really need these services or was it a ploy to make a couple of bucks by the dealership? And if the car does need these services, are these prices fair and competitive?

I figure I can research tires, find a better price, and go with that store instead of the dealership. For the brakes, I am stuck because I don't know of other mechanics to get price comparison from. I thought of taking it to a store like 'Just Brakes' and have them tell me a 2nd opinion, but I figured they are in the business to sell, and probably will also recommend a replacement. If this was my car, I would have it done not because it is mine, but rather the mechanic I take my car to, I trust completely.

Any suggestions on what I should do? Oh, if you think I stuck Mrs. Medicated with a bad car, don't worry, she stated that until I figure out what to do, her car is now my car and vice versa. As she joked, 'Since we are married, there is no yours or mine, just ours. And because I am the girl, I get first choice!' I think I just learned the meaning of marriage.

The Tipping Point

2006-07-15T12:30:00.000-04:00

After reading couple of posts about experiences with retail workers, I had to add my $0.02 into the conversation.

The other night, Mrs. Medicated and I stop at a local sandwich shop on our way home from a long day of work. The shop is very similar to the set-up at Subway, but in our opinion, makes better sandwiches. Anyway, the guy working behind the counter appeared to be in his later 20's instead of the normal, teenage kids we see working behind the counter at this store. I couldn't help but think maybe this guy is picking up a second job to pay down debt or increase his savings. Anyway, the guy looked tired, but as soon as we came in, he was up and ready to serve. Mrs. Medicated is very particular when ordering, and I seem to always joke around with her about it. As she is picking out the various ingredients to add to her sandwich, the employee is hand-selecting each item. After ordering cumberers, he looks up and says 'these have been sitting here for awhile. If you don't mind, let me go in the back and cut some fresh ones!' To be honest, I was floored. Here was a guy probably on his second job of the day, about an hour to closing, offering to do extra work to make the customer happy. When he returns, he states, 'I wouldn't put anything on a customer's sandwich that I would not eat!' After finishing our order, the price came to $9 and change. I gave the guy a $20, and he handed me back a $10 bill and the right change. I used to bartend during my college years, and I know that if you expect a tip, you always give the customer small bills so they have the opportunity to give one. Yet, handing me a high bill made me realize that this guy did not expect to receive a tip for his good service, even though a tip jar is sitting on the counter. He did it because he knew the value of good customer service. I handed him back the $10 and asked him to break it for me. He gave me the change, and I tipped him $5.

He looked at my shocked that I just tipped him that much for his service. Yet, in my opinion, it was well worth it, and I wanted him to realize I appreciated the good service. I think that in this situation, many workers would just have thrown on the bad ingredients without a second thought of it. This guy didn't, and therefore, deserved a good tip. Some would argue that this much was just too much, but I don't think so. I normally tip 20% for all service. However, I am more than willing to tip much more when someone goes out of their way to make our experience much better. Maybe it is because I once worked in the service business, knowing what a good tip really meant to me. Maybe it is because I think everyone I meet or see is living paycheck to paycheck after reading so many financial doomsday articles. Either way, the guy deserved it and hopefully, it help made his job a little more rewarding.

Any Questions?

2006-07-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

Recently when we go anywhere, I end up nagging Mrs. Medicated with questions like: what do you think he makes, or do you think she is saving anything for her retirement. Normally, Mrs. Medicated just gives me the look of 'would you knock it off!' Now, for clarity purposes, this was the exact same look she would give me when we were in medical school and I would try to diagnosis people as they walked past us on the street.

My problem is that I love to know details of other people's lives. Whether that is medical, financial, or social! Maybe this is why I read so many different personal finance blogs, or listen to the Dave Ramsey show when I can even though I know his financial advice before he states it.

I love to hear the daily situations of the everyday American. And I don't think I am alone as evidence of the popularity of pf blogs.

So do you ask these same questions day in, day out? Or am I just a little weird when comes to things like this?

Positive: New Job...Negative: Financial Uncertainty

2006-07-11T23:30:00.000-04:00

After celebrating our recent good news, we needed to try to sit down and determine a to-do list of financial items that will need to be address with our upcoming move. We just sat down and brainstorm ideas, so this is in no particular order.

We will need to roll-over our 403(b) account into a IRA. From everything that I have read, you should remove your money from the old company's plan to a separate IRA. What I do not know is can/should this be done if you are planning to stay with the same financial institution? We also have a pension plan that 6% of our salary is invested in each year. One must be with the company for 5 years to become vested, and we do not meet this criteria. I am planning on rolling-over this account into the same IRA? To be honest, I am not sure of the technical details of this, but I believe you can roll both accounts into one IRA at the same, current financial institution that our 403(b) is with. If you know this answer, your help would be appreciated!

We plan to continue our debt repayment plan as schedule. We are on pace to complete this goal by the end of 2006, our target date. We are currently thinking about tapping into our emergency fund to pay it off sooner. We are thinking that we may take an additional $5,000 from the EM and put this towards the debt. This would allow us to pay it down faster and then be able to begin saving for a down payment for a house.

We are planning to rent for 1 year after moving home, however, we both are at the point that we are extremely tired of renting. Our theory for renting vs buying here in Houston was very similar to Miserly Bastard's at Yet Another Blog About Money's excellent posts of why they rent in NYC. However, we are just getting to the point in our lives where we want to be home owners rather than tenants. With saying this, we are currently thinking of not funding a 401(k)/403(b) at our new positions. Now, before you crucify me, here are our reasoning. The main reasons for this is that we do not receive a company match until after 1 year of employment with our 403(b). Secondly, we will receive a pension plan that the employer invests in for us. We are feeling that this is a way for us to save for retirement for 1 year. Finally, we would like to have a rather large down payment for a house that we are currently planning to purchase after 1 more year of renting. I have to do the math again, but to come up with a 20% down payment on a house in an area we would like to live, all of this may be worth it for 1 year.

Speaking of renting, we are planning on finding an apartment that is just big enough for us to be comfortable in for one year. We hope that we can find something for no more than $1,200. Our current rent is $1,500 and we would like to reduce our overall monthly spending to help build our future down payment. Monthly rent is our largest expense category, so to limit this as much as possible will in turn allow us to save more.

As you can see, we are continue to keep our short-term goals into being out of debt excluding our student loans and save for a down payment as close to 20% as we can get. To do this, we know that it may go against many personal financial commandments. However, with interest rates continuing to rise and the raising of home prices (although they are plateauing), we feel that the faster we get out of consumer debt and have a large down payment, the faster we can be able to purchase a home and begin starting a family.

A Sort Of Homecoming

2006-07-07T19:30:00.000-04:00

“Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.” -Bernard M. Baruch

After receiving their first offer, I wanted to negotiate a few of the details such as a relocation package and health care. I needed to determine the cost of COBRA for the 3 months that we would have no insurance if we decided to switch jobs. After contacting HR, it was determined that the total cost was about $800/month for Mrs. Medicated and I. We are planning on moving ourselves, so I figured about $2,000 for this. All in all, I figured $5,000 would be a nice combined package. After discussing these findings with the prospective employer, I assumed that at least they would offer half of this estimate. They said that they would definitely pick up the medical insurance; unfortunately, they were not able to offer a relocation package due to limitation in the budget. At this point, I asked for a day to think everything over again. We again went through all of the pros and con; and in the end, we kept coming up with the same conclusion. So, we are excited to announce that we are going to accept the position. We definitely are excited for the opportunity. Overall, the deciding factor was the possibility for growth as well as the chance to be closer to family and friends.

We notified them yesterday afternoon of our decision. Today we began telling some of our current work colleagues. We are planning for an early September start date which should allow us to complete the necessary paperwork such as medical licensing, credentialing with the hospital, and all of the other stacks and stacks of paperwork that is required.

In our next post, we need to determine what all of this means to our financial goals, but for today, we are going to take a night off from all of this financial business and celebrate!!

Is That Your Final 'Offer?'

2006-07-05T09:00:00.000-04:00

On Monday, I found out that I am being offered the job that I interviewed for 2 weeks ago. They called and I discussed the details of the offer with the HR representative. We were excited to hear their offer, and for the most part, it was a solid offer. There are 2 areas though, that are concerning. But first the good parts:

They came very close to matching my current salary, which I said would be a must and they thought would be difficult. The difference comes down to roughly 6% decrease. Overall, I am willing to accept this due to the fact that at the interview they thought it would be closer to a 15-20% decrease.
They offer a work-sponsor pension plan, vested at 5 years, that the company puts in all of the money. It sounds like a pension defined benefit plan with contribution by the employer, at least that is what it sounds to me. If you have a similar plan, please leave a comment and let me know what you think of the plan. The HR rep. was unsure of the details and the 'retirement specialist' was vacationing this week. On top of that, they offer a 403(b) plan with matching contributions of 50%, up to 5% of total salary, matching starts after 1 year employment.
4 weeks of vacation, 10 National holidays, 1.5 accrue sick days/month, 4 personal days/year, and 5 days for work-related time-off.
They will pay for two annual conferences/year or $2,500 for CME hours, on a use or lose basis.
Full medical, dental, and vision; small fee for additional family members

Unfortunately, there is 2 issues that are at this time unresolved:

At this point, they have not offered any relocation package. I spoke with the HR rep about this, and she stated that she will look into it. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed that with moving across the country to accept this position, they just offered a package. I read that a normal package is roughly 8-10% of your yearly salary. What do others think? It definitely will not break the deal, but still, would be nice if it was offered?
Secondly, the health care package option will not start until 90 days of employment. I discussed with them the possibility of paying for the Cobra insurance during this time period. This also is up in the air on whether or not this will occur. Should I make this an issue or just pick up the cost? Debt Hater recently had a similar post on whether or not she should pick up this expense. We definitely will pay for it if it is not covered due to the fact that being in the medical field, I know how fast things can easily change.

As you can see, the little details need to be hammered out, but I think things for the most part are looking very good. We are definitely excited about the offer and plan to discuss everything over dinner tonight. Hopefully, we should have an answer by the end of the week.

Happy July 4th!

2006-07-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

Happy July 4th!

We just wanted to wish everyone a safe, happy July 4th holiday. When you stop and think about it, it is truly amazing what has come here the minds of our American Fathers who were determine to form a government for the people, by the people!

America....The Land Of Free, And Home Of The Brave

Expenses For June 2006

2006-07-03T10:00:00.000-04:00

The month of June we did very well for our Net Worth. As for our expenses, unfortunately, we were again just above our monthly budget. We are okay with this mostly because we did so well in other areas, however, we know that for every dollar we take in and do not send out, increases our net worth. So the goal is to continue to work hard in staying under our budget to give us more money in our pockets instead of others.

Here is our expenses for the month of June:

As you can see, we need to do a better job on the our spending habits. These are those expenses that we have direct control over such as grocery shopping and clothing compared to those indirect items such as electric, gas, and auto fuel.

We have faith that we will get under budget as we continue to monitor our finances and post in this blog.

Working For A Living? - Job Update

2006-07-02T11:00:00.000-04:00

The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more. -Jonas Salk, MD

We recently each had the opportunity to meet with prospective employers back in the Northeast, were we both are originally from. Our meetings went extremely well, and we are in the process of trying to determine if it is the right move for us.

In Mr. Medicated's situation, I have spoken with the practice and they are very excited about the possibility of me joining them. We spoke at length in what is expected and it is very similar to my position currently held. From everything discussed, it sounds like a great opportunity. Due to the similarities, the new practice stated that they would match salary, benefits, and work-related expenses such as funds for conferences, licensing, and other expensive that my current employer offers. To be honest, it sounds like a great deal and we think we are going to accept the offer.

'So why does this post have a question mark' one asks. Well, we are having a rough go with Human Resources at the hospital. To be honest, I don't know what to expect from them. In talking, we discuss that a formal offer would be made this past week, and the a possible start would be in the middle of August. I am reluctant to give a verbal confirmation without a formal offer. HR has been dragging their feet and the more time they take, the more time it may push back the start date. The practice wants me to start ASAP. I told them probably would be mid-August. We were hoping to know because our yearly lease ends after this month, we need to start planning a 1,500 mile relocation if it is a go. I contacted the HR department through phone as well as email and have stated my concerns, but still want to hold some cards if we need to negotiate. To be honest, I don't know what else to do other than wait and see.

As for Mrs. Medicated, she has interviewed in person with 2 different practices and has spoken to 2 others. She is looking for a September 1 start date (to spend a little time with family and friends if we move home). One of the practice has offered her a position but will make it official after their monthly meeting in July. For her, we are just waiting to see what will be the best offer available.

With all of this going on, we have many factors that we will need to decide if we do accepted the jobs (when the offer finally is offered). We will have many financial issues to sort out over the next few weeks, but we are in a holding pattern for now until we know something.

Net Worth - June 2006

2006-07-01T17:00:00.000-04:00

We look forward to the first of the month due to the fact that the pencil and paper get broken out and our net worth is determine through numerous calculations. Actually, we have a good idea of our net worth throughout the month thanks to Quicken, and the calculations are provided by Bill Gates and his wonderful program, Excel. Thanks, Bill!

But in all seriousness, the 1st of the month means we get to pay attention to that net worth by writing a post on it! So, without further ado, we present our net worth for June 2006:

As always, we would like to make a few comments on this past month's performance.

We are ecstatic that we have paid off Student Loan #2. This bad boy was never consolidated with the other loans because of some technicality with the State of New Jersey. The interest rate did fluctuate and was at 7.61%. Ouch! So, we completely paid this loan off. Please exit stage left, and don't let the door hit you in the ass. Good Riddance!
We decided that our next victim of our debt repayment would be Car Loan #2. We gave it a good hit with $2,000 this month.
With the craziness of the market place, we, like everyone else, lost some ground in our 403(k) but this should not deter us in future contributions.
We are extremely please to announce that this past month we made the largest jump in our net worth since the start of this blog (and probably ever). Our net worth increased by 11.39%. Our previous highest was the month of April's net worth were we increased it by 10.70%.
And finally, our net worth has increased by 31.80% since the creation of this blog.

The Debt Repayment - June 2006

2006-06-29T10:15:00.000-04:00

We step it up in the month of June for our debt repayment plan. As you may remember, we are trying to pay off $36,500 of debt by the end of the year. With our new possible job opportunity, we may not be able to reach this goal, but we are still going to try.

We did exceptionally well this month by paying off a total of $4,129.41. We have completed paid off another student loan, which we are ecstatic about! Since the start of this goal, we have paid a total of $13,624. We need to pay an average of $3,812 to reach our goal.

It's A Family Thing - The No Credit Needed Network

2006-06-28T10:00:00.000-04:00

Over here at Medicated Money we see our fair share of visitors, and we thank all of those that stop by, read a post or two, and maybe make a comment. We spend more time reading other personal finance bloggers than we do creating post of our own.

One of our favorite sites to catch up on some of these pf writers is at the No Credit Needed Network. NCN over there has done a tremedous job putting together a network of pf bloggers who are committed to setting goals and accomplishing them.

If you have the chance, take a look at the new insigna here at Medicated Money to your right, and then click on it to travel down cyberlane to the No Credit Needed Network! Read an update on one of the members or go and check out their blog. Also, if you like what is going on over there, let NCN know or just thank him for all of his hardwork!

Medicated On The Job?

2006-06-27T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well, we have returned from our trip home to the Northeast. We both were able to meet with future job prospects as well as had a great time at our friend's wedding.

Both job opportunities would be a lateral move with the bonus of being closer to friends and family. The downside is leaving incredible positions here in Houston. We sat down last night and wrote out the pros and cons of the situation, and to be honest, still left the conversation with a feeling of uncertainty.

Leaving a stable situation were we are thriving to take on the unknown of a new job can be a nerve-racking process. At this point, we are waiting to hear from these places with an offer. Both places we interviewed at discuss with us the strong possibility of seeing an offer, but we need to see those offers to make the decision. We expect to see those offers by the end of this week or early next week. Until then, we are trying not to over-think the situation, and continue carrying out our daily life not worrying about it!

Unfortunately, that is something that is easily said then done!

Medicated, Back On The Road!

2006-06-20T16:52:00.000-04:00

Well, we head out again today for another trip. We are heading back home for a friend's wedding as well as a possible employment opportunity. We plan on bringing everything back up to speed when we return, so look for those posts. Many different topics have been sitting on the back burner which we will address when we return. Thanks for reading and we'll be back next week!

A Possible Change?

2006-06-18T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well, as we stated in our last post, this past week has been considerably busy for the both of us. So with this post, we hope to play a little catch up.

The first order of business is that the Medicated's may be seeing a big life change in the next few days. We both moved away from the Northeast when we finish school to start our careers. We ended up in Texas and have loved it ever since. However, it still is not home. We always joke with family and friends from the Northeast that we will be home soon, but our timeline was always 2-3 more years here in Houston. We felt that now was the time to work on our careers, and that when we began to have children, we would start the plan to move home.

Two weeks ago, we were in San Francisco for a meeting, when Mr. Medicated was approached by a colleague from back home looking to see if we were interested in a possible job opportunity. To be honest, it caught us completely by surprise. We discussed the opportunity, our future goals, and the pros and cons of the situation, and decided to go ahead, and meet with the practice. We are schedule to meet with them this week. We had to laugh because when asked if Mrs. Medicated was okay with leaving her job to move and possibly not working for a period of months until she found something, her response was ‘let me call a few people!’ Long story short, she called some of our colleague friends, and she currently has 2 interviews set-up this week as well.

Things for all of this have really come together well in the sense that we were heading home for a friend’s wedding already and planned to be home for a short vacation to see family. All in all, we did not have to take any additional days off. We did have to change our flights, but both practices said they will pick up the expenses of these flights!

After setting everything up, we sat down this weekend and discussed what all of this may mean. On one hand, we absolutely love the hospital we work for. Our jobs are great, the hospital treats and pays its employees well, and things could not be better. On the other hand, this opportunity will allow Mr. Medicated career to grow in ways that his current job cannot. The opportunity will be more difficult, yet from our discussions, the rewards will make up for these difficulties. In addition to this, we will be closer to family which is important for us when we start a family. It will be a very difficult decision for us to make. We left off with knowing that we each need to go and meet with these respected offers to get a little more information to make a decision.

With all of this, our financial plans will need to bend and change if the interviews go well, but we are excited for these possible opportunities and the chance to be closer to both of our families!

Thanks To Our Many Friends

2006-06-17T16:45:00.000-04:00

As in many things in life, time dictates everything. This past week found the Medicated's with almost none of it for anything else then work. For some strange reason, this past week was one of our busiest weeks even though on paper, the schedule didn't look like it would be.

With this fact, little attention was placed in Medicated Money. We try to post a few times a week about our daily financial decisions and dealings as well as other topics that catch our attention. We normally average a mere 70-80 readers a week with these postings (tracked by sitemeter).
We appreciate our daily readers as well as those that stop by for the first time.

So, what is the point of this post. Well, this week, even though we had no new posts, we still had roughly the same amount of readers. We were amazed to see this! One nice thing with sitemeter is you can see how your reader was referred to you! I am sure many of our readers following us by a blog aggregator that will update them when we post a new article. However, this past week we saw many referrals from other bloggers who have mention us in their blog or have us linked on their sidebar. We would like to take a moment and thank those that have sent traffic our way and would like to repay the favor! We have updated our blog to represent these 'friends' of ours, and strongly suggest you take a visit to each one and spend some time reading their wonderful blogs.

Thanks again to all, and we hope we captured everyone (if not, let us know and we'll include you to our list!)

Cutting Those Bills - 3 Month Recap

2006-06-11T17:45:00.000-04:00

Back at the early stages of this blog, one of the main subjects we discussed was the conscience ability to decrease our reoccurring bills. It was difficult at first to actually see any difference in those bills after 1 or 2 months of changes. Now, we are at the point where we can make a 3 month analysis to see if our changes really made a difference and if so, by how much.

Electric Bill – In comparing our last 3 months to the same 3 months from the previous year plus realizing that in 2005, we were in a 900sf apartment and in 2006 we are in a 1800sf townhouse, the average for these 3 months in 2005 was $147. The average bill for the past 3 months in 2006 was $137. Even with the fact that our living area has doubled, our electric bills are actually less. We believe if given enough time and comparable numbers for the same residence, we have lowered our energy significantly. Goal – Completed

Grocery Bill – This was a huge problem for us when we started this blog. All in all, we just wasted too much money at the grocery store. We bought things we wanted rather than shop for sales. We never used coupons or the weekly flier! Since our posting, we have cut our grocery bill by $282. For the 3 months before we started this blog, we average a monthly spending of $918. Yet, the past 3 months we have average $636. Goal – Completed

Telephone Bill(s) – We thought we were saving money here but as it turned out, there were better deals out there. We switched to Vonage for $19/month, and found out we could get a better deal with a company discount for our cell phones. We now pay roughly $80/month for the 2 services compared to the $120 we were paying. This saves us $40/month or 33% of what we were paying. Goal – Completed

Auto Insurance – We both liked our respected companies and to be honest, I never thought about this. Yet with the start of this blog, we began to question monthly bills we never thought of questioning before. Turns out by doing some research, we were able to change our monthly cost of $196/month for auto insurance to $145/month. It will be lower when we begin to pay the on a annual basis rather than monthly installments. This has saved us $51/month or 26% on auto insurance. Goal – Completed

Gas Bill – By lowering our water heater’s temperature and taking shorter showers, we have decreased our gas bill by 29% from $35 to $25/month. Goal – Completed

Entertainment Bill – We began looking for free entertainment sponsor by the city we lived in as well as looking for 2-for-1 coupons in the paper and entertainment book. We were spending roughly $250/month. We now spend close to $100/month on entertainment without missing a beat in going out and having fun! This is a saving of $150/month or 60%. Goal – Completed

In just these six categories, we have put $540 back into our pockets. These changes were fairly easy to complete, however, required a little more focus on how much we were really spending and being discipline in not overspending. Overall, the best advantage from this is the ability to constantly be looking for a better deal, which in turn, helps us spend less on a monthly basis.

Book This - Smart And Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People

2006-06-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

Our third book we decided to review is 'Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People' by Jane Bryant Quinn. We decided to read this book after it was a book that was on the 'Color of Money' book club in the Washington Post. Overall, the title fits the book perfectly. Quinn offers personal finance advice on a simple and concise platter. From how to get starting in organizing one's personal finance to buying the right type of insurance, 'Smart and Simple Financial Strategies' explains just enough for the common person to get buy.

It is hard to determine if this book is too superficial for most readers due to our personal feeling that one needs to spend a considerable amount of time to make sure their financial house is in order. However, Quinn feels that most people want the simplest, straightforward plan to reach financial stability, and this book provides that plan.

She preaches the benefits of automated deposits; set it and forget it. She recommends Target Retirement mutual funds and Lifecycles mutual funds exclusively over all other investment vehicles. Everything that Quinn talks about and recommend is the fundamental advice heard all throughout the personal financial world. With her guidance, you are not going to see results immediately. However, after years of following the smart, simple plan, you will have financial goals met.

To be honest, we didn't find any of the information new except for one small, important concept. Quinn discusses the importance of reallocating investment accounts often. After market prices change, Quinn recommends rebalancing your investment portfolio to stay at your home base. Your home base is the asset allocation you feel comfortable with. She recommends for most a 70% stock/30% bond portfolio. She does go in more detail about how each % should be broken up. Personally, we created our asset allocation; however, we were planning on revisiting it on a annual basis. However, with Quinn's advice, we are going to be looking at it a little more closely.

Overall, we would give 'Smart and Simple Financial Strategies for Busy People' by Jane Bryant Quinn 4 out of 5 stars. We would recommend the book for those who are looking for a beginning step into the personal financial world. It is very basic, but like the title says, it is a smart, simple plan to winning that is needed in today's world of financial confusion.

You've Got To Be Kidding Me, Right?

2006-06-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

On our flight home from San Francisco this past week, I was sitting in my seat, listening to the iPod, and began to read an article in the June issue of Money. Half a paragraph in, I stated rather loudly, 'Ladies and gentlemen, Tyler, TX has found its village idiot and his name is Don Cruz.' Not realizing how loud I said it, I got a 'Are you crazy?' look from Mrs. Medicated. Trying to play it off, I finished the article without saying another word even though inside I was screaming at the subjects of the article.

One Family's Money is a monthly article that Money prints that tells the financial story of a certain family, their problem, and then offers advice on how to fix the problem. The month of June's family is quite interesting.

Long story short, Don Cruz and his family win the HGTV's annual Dream Home Sweepstakes and all of its glory. In short, Don & family won $250,000, a $51,000 GMC Denali SUV, and a gigantic, fully furnished mansion estimated at 2.5 million dollars. All in all, they hit the jackpot. Just in time too, for this family of 3 who currently do not have a substantial income due to a work-related injury for Don and a back-to-school student in Shelly, Don's wife. This winning will allow financial security for Shelly to finish school, pay off their house, and set them up for financial stability for life. Unfortunately, Don and Shelly are not the sharpest tools in the shed.

Instead of selling the house and profiting a cool $2.13 million dollars, this family's financial future is going down the drain fast. Don and Shelly decided to keep the house, purchase a few more cars (they have 7 in total), and live off the $250k and in the mansion because it is their life long dream to live in a large house. Unfortunately, they refused to accept reality and realize that a 6,000 sf mansion will cost a pretty penny to maintain. One year later, after $2,900/month housing expenses, $7k/yr insurance, and $1,000/month on car maintenance they are barely treading water. Oh yeah, add in the fact that they decided to keep the house they previous lived in located in Illinois for an additional $1k/month mortgage. At this point, any reasonable person would realize: sell the damn house, cut your lost, and invest what is left. No, not these people. They go on to spend $11k to fix a boat that gets little use, $6k for a dog run for their dogs, weekend entertainment bills running $1k a pop for family and friends, $40k to charity (for the tax write off, I guess), $5k on Christmas gifts for the 3 of them, $2k for scuba lessons, and $2k on a go-kart (go, speedracer, go).

What's left from the $250k, oh, about $36k. And to top things off, they have not paid any of their 2005 taxes. That little bill is just a small $672k. Unfortunately for the Cruz's, the dream of a lifetime in winning the sweepstakes has become a living nightmare.

Even with the terrible decision making, the family should still benefit from the winnings. Best case scenario, they walk away with $1.6 million. A more realistic outcome will be walk away with $1 million. This should allow the family to live off $50k to allow for Shelly to complete school, and then be able to allow the investment to grow. Worst case scenario, they walk with $250k. If this happens, say goodbye to both houses, future school ideas, and back to the daily grind actually worse off then started. Even with the best case scenario, it is nowhere close to the $2.2 million if they sold the winnings and investing the profit. Unbelievable how people who come into good luck make the dumbest decisions. This family could have been set for life if they would have continued to live a normal lifestyle. Instead, they convince themselves that they deserve everything under the sun and fail to realize that the well would eventually go dry. Worst is what they have taught their son about financial responsibility. I can understand splurging a little of the winnings, but to walk away with (best case scenario) half of what you could have had is just plain ridiculous. Situation like this always amazes me to see how fast people change their attitude from humbled to a sense of entitlement.

The best part of the article is in the last paragraph, though, when they say Don is watching this year HGTV's winner, Donald Cook, on his big screen TV. In a interview, Donald Cook tells the TV world, 'The house is absolutely gorgeous, first class! But I'm not in a (financial) position to live in a $2 million house!' Well said, Donald, well said!

Expenses - May 2006

2006-06-04T15:55:00.000-04:00

As stated before, we continue to monitor our expenses in this blog. We know that for the most part, these posts are as exciting as watching the paint dry, however, we like to post it for us to be able to keep tabs on all aspects of our financial status.

In May, we unfortunately did not stay under budget for the second straight month. We were thinking of revising the budget to allow a higher allowance, but would rather have the pressure on us to try to make it in the black by reducing our spending instead of changing numbers to have us reach this goal.

Here is our expense report for May:

Through our 'cutting the fat' from many of our recurring bills, we are beginning to see the difference in our monthly budget. However, our budget got destroyed with the purchase of additional clothing, dining out, and the increase of fuel. We were 7.01% (238.09) over our budget.

Overall, we still hope to reach our goal of staying under $3,300 for the month of June. We will see if we reach this goal next month.

Net Worth - May 2006

2006-06-03T19:48:00.000-04:00

Even though we saw some set backs in the middle of this month, we were very pleased with our progress for the month of May. We are happy to report that we continue to keep marching forward with progress in our financial situation.

Here are the numbers for month of May:

As always, a couple of points of interest:

We saw a decrease in our emergency fund this month. We decided to stay on pace with our debt repayment plan and therefore, our money from our emergency fund helped us reach this goal this month.
Even though our retirement accounts took a hit this month, we continued to place the maximum allowed in our 403(b) accounts. We are on track to reach our goal of $15,000/year for each account. On top of this, we are required to place 6.4% of our salary into a retirement account created by our work.
Since the start of this blog, we have seen an increase of 23% in our net worth.

Book This - The Number

2006-06-02T16:00:00.000-04:00

What is your Number? Why should you care? If you have no idea what the answer is to either of these questions, you are in the majority of most Americans.

We just finished a book by Lee Eisenberg called ‘The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About The Rest Of Your Life.’ In continuing with our reviews of financial books, we sat down and discuss the good, the bad, and the ugly of 'The Number!'

The premise of the book is to discuss reaching the ultimate goal, financial freedom, which is the driving force for many personal finance bloggers and their readers. In the end, it comes down to one simple question that everyone must answer: How much money does one need to secure a retirement that is appropriately called ‘the golden years?’

The author is intended to answer this and many other questions in his search for 'the Number!' The author has many good points discovered through conversations with the financial experts that give him a creditable soapbox to voice his points. However, Eisenberg seems fixated on discussing the financial issues of Baby Boomers and the imminent tribulations that they will face in their so-called retirement years. Eisenberg misses the boat for those readers that are not Baby Boomers trying to get back into the game, but rather those Generation X’ers & Y’ers trying to prevent those very catastrophes that are being shown on the nightly news.

Overall, I would give this book 3 out of 5 stars. The positives are that Eisenberg discusses with financial experts the most common financial traps that keep people from obtaining their Number. They also discuss many that are uncommon that will still sabotage one from reaching their Number. Yet, he spends too much time on how so many from the Baby Boomers generation are lost in the financial woods, even more time on how they got there, and then how they might be able to find the road out. The problem is that we have heard it all before and there is no magical wand that will fix the problem, especially this book.

I would not recommend the book to those looking for a discussion on reaching the number for financial freedom. I would say it is a good read for a lesson in financial history, especially for many Baby Boomers to compare their financial decisions to others from their generation.

Overall, they say that the Baby Boomer's drive the financial market, and this book gives the feel that Mr. Eisenberg is just trying to tap into that.

The Debt Repayment - May 2006

2006-06-01T23:53:00.000-04:00

The month of May was a difficult month in personal finance for us due to unexpected expenses. We paid $3,501.25 in the month of May towards our overall goal of $36,500. We were hoping to increase our payments to $3,800/month, yet were unable to find the additional $300 to reach this goal this month.

We will need to pay $3,858/month to reach our goal by the end of this year.

Medicated In San Francisco

2006-05-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

"I have always been rather better treated in San Francisco than I actually deserved." -Mark Twain

We are heading out to San Francisco today for a conference this week. We are looking forward to the many good restaurants, Napa Valley, and to see some of our old friends from school. We will be there until Thursday of next week. Have a great Memorial Day, and we'll talk to you next week.

Book This - The Total Money Makeover

2006-05-25T08:30:00.000-04:00

For our first book review, we wanted to start with the book that started it all for us! I found Dave Ramsey by mistake, but it probably was one of the best mistakes of my life. After listening to his radio show, I purchased The Total Money Makeover. I read it from cover to cover in 6 hours. Not to hard of a read and that is what makes it a great book. Dave Ramsey does a great job of breaking down personal finance, which is probably not a top priority for 99% of Americans, into a simple, basic plan that is easy to understand and just as easy to carry out.

The Total Money Makeover preaches that personal finance is easy if you understand a few simple ideas. First, take everything that is discussed in personal finance forums, credit card reward articles, and the search for low interest rates discussions and throw it out the window. Next, you need to learn to understand that financial discipline is 90% action, 10% reason. Dave Ramsey believes (and we believe it) that most Americans will continue any action if they see positive results. The Total Money Makeover teaches the reader to perform simple actions that will show quick results. Thus from these positive experiences, the reader will continue to perform the same actions over and over.

The Total Money Makeover talks about financial denial, the myths of debt, the importance of starting a small emergency fund, paying down debt with the debt snowball, maximizing retirement investing, and paying off the home mortgage. What is interesting is that Ramsey throws in many personal experiences and experiences of his listeners to help the reader understand that if they can do it, so can you.

What I love about The Total Money Makeover is the fact that it is the quick and dirty entrance key into the world of personal finance. If one reads the book, they will have a written game plan that shows results immediately and does not confuse the reader. Dave Ramsey stays away from the complexity of finances that in my opinion bring many people down. Granted, most readers reading this and personal finance bloggers will find that The Total Money Makeover is too simplistic. The Ramsey's theories of becoming free from all debt, basic investing strategies, and funding retirement are not all mathematically correct and go against many personal finance theories. However, The Total Money Makeover shows the average American, who is more interested in discussing who is the next American Idol then their finances, the path to financial security is obtainable with financial discipline, living below your means, and becoming/staying debt free. For this, we give the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey 4 stars out of 5 for personal finance information and knowledge.

To Know Is To Read

2006-05-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

The more that you read,the more things you will know.The more that you learn,the more places you'll go.~ Dr. Seuss ~

Mrs. Medicated and I laugh quite a bit when we sit back and remember the hours and hours we spent sitting in our medical school library, reading and studying. It was typical that we would spend 50-60 hours/week at the same desk, in the same chair, reading and studying. After graduating, our readings cut down, but we still spend a good amount of time reading articles and journals in our respected fields. The reason for this entire information overload: knowledge.

Since starting this blog, we have spent endless hours trying to learn the ins and outs of personal finance. Most of our knowledge has been gain through reading online articles and personal finance blogs. One source of knowledge that we have just tapped into is personal finance books. We decided to start a reading list of books that range in the personal finance world; from budgeting to investing to taxes.

We are planning on starting a little book review of these personal finance books to discuss what knowledge we have gained by reading the topics discussed and how it may affect our current situation. Our first book that we plan to review is: The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.

What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been!

2006-05-23T16:53:00.000-04:00

First things first, we have been extremely busy for the past 2 weeks, and therefore, our postings have significantly decreased. We are trying to get back into our normal posting schedule, but it has been difficult. Thanks for stopping by and reading though!

This past weekend we headed back home to the Northeast for a graduation party as well as an engagement party of our friends. We take the same scheduled Continental flights every time we go home. We check in online for each flight hours before the schedule departure time and for the most part, we are extremely please with the service with Continental. Unfortunately, for our return flight, this was not the case!

We arrived at the airport for our flight home an hour before the scheduled departure time. We had our printed online check-in passes in hand and needed to just drop off our luggage (I hate carry-on luggage and believe it should be banned. I have been on too many delayed flights because some idiot decided that his/her 3 pieces of luggage could fit in an area of 2 x 2 feet. But I digress!) After swiping our ID to finish the information, the computer screen and corresponding ticket agent told us to stand off to the side until she was ready to help us. We waited a good 15 minutes until she was ready for us (she had to finish telling her co-worker about her brother’s crazy wife), and we told her our destination and need to check our bags. She then proceeds to tell us that we will be unable to get on this flight due to the fact that our tickets were given away because we did not check in on time. Okay, when did this policy begin at Continental? When we tell her we checked in online and had our tickets in hand, she told us we did not ‘officially’ check-in 45 minutes or earlier from the time of departure at the airport. I laughed (bad move) and told her we were waiting for the past 15 minutes for her assistance per her request. She immediately got upset and tells me that she never said that to us. Trying to defuse the situation, I tell her that we are not going to check our luggage, go straight to the gate (we had e-tickets in our hands), and board the plane. She then tells that we could board the plane, but they have no room for luggage. I guess another new policy at Continental! Unbelievable! She then proceeds to tell me that Continental has the right to refuse e-tickets that you print from THEIR website, and that they will do this in this circumstance. She tells us that our only way home that night to Houston is through a different city. She said that we were very lucky she was able to do this for us because most times, they make you travel the next day. The final new policy just started that day at Continental. Instead of fighting with her and realizing it would go nowhere, we agreed to the re-routing. Instead of a 3 hr flight home, we were re-routed to Cleveland on a flight 2 hrs from our departure time with an hour lay-over, then a flight home to Houston. All in all, a 4 hr delay.

After arriving in the terminal, we immediately went to seek out a Continental Customer Service Desk and explained our circumstances. To his credit, this manager listened to our compliant, and apologized for the situation. He tried to get us on the flight to direct flight, but unfortunately, the flight had just left. He again apologized for the situation and ticket agent. He then compensated $175/each for the missed flight. All in all, we were amazed by the difference is professionalism of the two Continental employee’s. Had we been offered the compensation right from the beginning, we probably would have given our seats up. The fact that we missed the flight due to Continental overbooking the flight, dealing with and not be given a direct reason for the situation with the ticket agent was upsetting. However, we felt that the manager did everything he could at that point to help us from this situation. We joked with him and told him that because of his assistance, Continental would keep two more customers. He laughed and said the US bankruptcy courts would be happy to hear that!

One Step Up & Two Steps Back

2006-05-17T21:30:00.000-04:00

Somewhere along the line I slipped off track. I'm caught movin' one step up and two steps back -Bruce Springsteen

Well, the month of May is killing us. Financially, that is! Unexpected expenses this month are putting a serious hurt on our monthly budget. Here is a list of just a few of our big ticket items that may put us behind this month:

In June, we are heading home for a good friend's wedding. When you include the flight home, the tux rental, and a wedding gift, we are looking at a total of about $1,200. Yet, we both feel that we would not miss it for the world.
We have our annual work conference coming up at the end of the month, and our work decided this year to reimburse all purchases (flight, hotel, and daily expenses) after the conference. All in all, about $3,000 that we will pay this month. We will be reimbursed in a few months though for these cost.
We have been extremely busy at work this month and with this we have been falling into those bad financial decisions; such as eating dinner out, not packing lunches, and just being undisciplined in spending

We still are planning to keep to our debt repayment plan, but our emergency savings may take a small hit to accommodate the additional expenses.

Quick Thanks To pfblogs.com

2006-05-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. -Rudyard Kipling

We just wanted to take a moment and say thanks to the folks over at pfblogs.com for adding us to their site. pfblogs.com does an excellent job of keeping track of many different personal finance blogs out in that place that they call the 'world wide web!'

Thanks again from your friends over here at Medicated Money!

Long Term Goals - Part III

2006-05-13T15:45:00.000-04:00

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is. -C.S. Lewis

After getting the numbers correct (I think) thanks to MonkeyVersusRobot, we wanted to sit down and talk about reasons why we may not reach those numbers. It definitely is very easy (as I didn't show) to sit down, figure out what you should do in financial planning, plug those numbers into a calculator, and be amazed at what the results show. The problem is that in actuality, life happens and hitting those numbers many are quite difficult.

After discussing the numbers, we created a list of life events that could negatively affect these numbers. Our list included many personal problems such as job loss and health concerns as well as national concerns such as the stock market crashing and burning. In the grand scheme of things, it is quite difficult to plan for every twist and bump in the road to retirement. Our plan and, therefore, our 'Number' are very difficult to put our thumb on, and almost impossible to predict at this stage of our life.

After much discussion and 'working the pencil,' instead of finding our 'Number' and long term goal, the goal found us. We decided that our long term goal should be divided into two segments and involve ideas instead of numbers!

So without further ado, we present our long term plans in order for us to achieve these goals:

Our first goal is to raise a loving family with Ms. Medicated as a stay-at-home mother and working part-time when our schedule allows.

Our second goal is to be completely debt free by age 35. This includes everything from our current personal debts, student loans, and future mortgage. In order to do this, we plan to use the following financial plan to obtain this:

Retirement - 25%
Taxes - 21%
Living Expenses - 27%
Paying Off Debt - 27%

Our last goal is to retire from our current working situation at age 60. At age 35, we plan to switch our current percentages to look like this:

Retirement - 25%
Taxes - 25%
Living Expenses - 30%
Savings & Investments - 20%

With this plan, we anticipate that our true 'number' can be fairly close to the 'Number' discussed in our previous post. We feel that with this plan, it will be easier to take each twist and turn in the road easier because we are not trying to hit a goal, but rather living a lifestyle that is comfortable at the moment yet is planning for the future. Only time will time, though, whether this is a solid plan or not.

Are Any Of These Numbers Right?

2006-05-10T06:30:00.000-04:00

I like to think as myself as someone who is fairly good with calculations and forecasting numbers based on certain assumed numbers. However, after our last post, I spent a good 2 hours last night starring into the darkness thinking if the calculations for our long term plan were right. We used all the ‘trendy,’ (read: basic) calculations to determine our numbers. Yet, something does not ‘feel’ right! So we are asking our ‘trusty’ readers to help correct or point out any oversight or miscalculation that we may have made in our forecasting. To help, here are our predicting numbers:

All of this based on 25% tax rate, and inflation was not included:

Pre-Tax: 403(b) currently at $43k, contributing at least $30k per year for 32 years, at 8% rate of returns, and 0.5% expense rate/year
Post-Tax: Investing $37,500 in investment vehicles, at 6% rate of return, for 25 years
If possible, minus from total $8,000/year to Roth IRA’s, 8% rate of return, for 32 yrs

I recheck the numbers this morning, and everything seemed right. Maybe we feel this because to state these numbers is one thing, to actually produce these numbers is another.

Let us know if you see problems or oversights, though.

Long Term Goals - Part II

2006-05-09T07:00:00.000-04:00

In our last post, we discussed our long term goals. In order for us to achieve those future goals, we need to create a plan to give us the financial backing to live out those goals. As previously stated, our current long term goals are the following:

Raise a loving family with Ms. Medicated as a stay-at-home mother and working part-time when our schedule allows.
Completely debt free by age 35. This includes everything from our current personal debts, student loans, and future mortgage.
Retire from our current working situation at age 60.

In order for us to achieve these goals, we need to create a 'financial number' that will sustain our retirement years (planning for 30+ years) with an annual income that provides a comfortable living situation. Our plan comprises several different accounts to achieve this goal.

The first account we will discuss to help us reach this goal is our current 403(b). We are currently contributing the maximum in these accounts. We are planning to continue to contribute the maximum allowed for both of us over the next 32 years. Currently, we have $42k in these accounts. With an additional $30k/year for 32 years, at a moderate 8% return on our investment, 0.5% annual investment fee, our 403(b) could be worth $4,346,000

Our second account that we plan to take advantage of is after-taxed money investments. We plan that after subtracting 70-80% (of which 20% is 403(b), 20-25% in taxes, 30-35% in living expenses) from our net income, we hope to save 20-30% of our income in these vehicles. At a moderate 6% rate of return for 25 years, 25% tax rate, our projected investments would be $1,746,400.

The third account is a mixture of retirement vehicles and post-tax investment vehicles. If we our eligible to invest in Roth IRA, and we do invest the maximum in Roth’s, then our numbers change to the following:

Post-tax Investments (Same criteria as above) - $1,373,800
Roth IRA Investments (Calculated at 8% rate of return for 32 years) - $1,435,600

If everything holds true, we are looking at the following investments when we retire at age 60.

403(b) & Post-tax Investments: $6,092,400
403(b), Post-tax Investments, & Roth IRA’s: $7,155,400

In discussing the two much different numbers, our goal is to be able to reproduce the second number. This is just a rough estimate. In our next post, we want to look at what major decisions can effect that number, what retiring with that number means, where does Social Security fit in to this calculation, and what we need to do now and in the future to achieve this number.

Long Term Goals - Part I

2006-05-08T16:05:00.000-04:00

While currently reading 'The Number,' we sat down and discussed what our number is and what it should be. As the book discusses, the Number is the 'amount of money you need to secure the rest of your life.' That is definitely a difficult answer to derive! This discussion has led us to try to determine our long term goals. Most financial advisors argue that without a true plan, you will never get to a 'financially secure' location. The first step is to determine where you want to go.

We both love our careers and the work that goes with it. However, we both are very family orientated and our first long term goal is to raise a loving family. Money can buy many things, but the love of a family is one it cannot, no matter how much you have. In saying this, we feel that one parent at home with children is a must. This will be difficult due to the fact our education was both expensive and long; some would argue that this is not financially the wisest move. However, we both feel that it is most important that our children are raised by us instead of by others. In discussing this, we feel that Mr. Medicated will most likely continue to work full time while Ms. Medicated will most likely work part-time to help stay current in her field. Our goal is to arrange our work schedules around times when one parent is at home with the children at all times, and/or both be working when they are in school!

Our second long term goal is to become completely debt-free by the age of 35. As many of our readers know, we are currently undergoing a debt repayment plan. This does not include our student loans and/or our future house purchase. Our goal is be completely debt-free by the age of 35 to allow for 25 years of financial growth without debt. At that point, our goal is to have our net income to resemble this:

30-35% - Living Expenses
20-25% - Taxes
40-50% - Savings

Our third long term goal is to be able to retire at age 60. This word 'retire' is probably not the best to use in our plan, but for us, it means to reach a point where working is by choice, not by mandate. We both will most likely continue to 'work.' Mr. Medicated would like to eventually go into the academic world of our occupation, while Mrs. Medicated sees herself working in under-served areas. Our goal is to be able to still have a paycheck available as well as some benefits, but to give back to our field as well as enjoy our 'retirement' with family and friends

In order for us to 'retire' at age 60, we plan to have a certain Number to allow us to live for 30+ years and not having to worry about our money running out or downgrading our lifestyle significantly. In Part II of this post, we will discuss what we think our Number is and how we plan to get there.

Expenses For April 2006

2006-05-04T09:00:00.000-04:00

"Beware of little expenses: a small leak will sink a great ship." - Ben Franklin

In continuing to monitor our net worth and our monthly expenses, we are using this post to discuss the expenses of April 2006. As discuss in our March Expense report, our goal is to lower our everyday bills as best as possible month to month. Here is our expense report for April:

At the beginning of each month, we discuss our budget together and make any changes to the numbers as we see fit for the month. Our budget goal this past month was $3,395. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed in staying under budget. We were 6.96% ($236.17) over our budget. We are still looking to see some of the benefits of our 'cutting the fat' from our bills over the next few months. So far we have seen the results in:

Our hope is to create a post showing 20% decrease in many of our bills in the near future. Our next goal is try to lower our monthly expenses to under $3,000.

To Sell Or Not Sell, That Is The Question

2006-05-03T08:30:00.000-04:00

I (Mr. Medicated) bought my vehicle as a rush decision after moving to a city that encourages driving by offering poor public transportation options. Fortunately, I was smart enough to realize that even with a new job about to start in the upcoming weeks and with that, my first real paycheck, buying a new car and dealing with the high monthly payments was not an option I was willing to entertain. After much negotiating, I struck a deal for a 1-yr old SUV that was in great condition for a total price of $17,500. To the dealer's dismay, I already had financing through my bank for a loan of the total price at 4.5%. All in all, I am very happy with my decision, however, if I could do it again, I probably would have bought a older, cheaper car, and have the loan paid for after the first few paychecks. However, that is another story. Well, 3 years later and undergoing some life changing events, ie marriage, personal finance awakening, moving closer to work, I have realized that maybe we don't need the car anymore.

We currently live 1.2 miles from our workplace. Mr & Mrs. Medicated actually work at the same location, and since Mrs. Medicated car gets better mpg, drives better in the city, and easier for Mrs to drive, we drive her car 85% of the time. As for my car, it sits in the garage except for those times when we need 2 cars (rarely ever), when we need the extra space it provides, or if we are going on a trip due to its extra comforts.

So the question: Is it worthwhile to sell 1 car and live with just 1 car?

So far I see the pro's to selling as:

Selling the vehicle would eliminate the $8,428.59 we currently owe on the car. The car is currently worth $13,325, a difference of $4,896. The monthly payment of $346 could be applied elsewhere to our debt repayment.
We would be able to lower our current auto insurance by only having 1 vehicle on the policy.
Our auto maintenance bills would be lower by eliminating 1 car from scheduled maintenance costs
More space in the garage where Mr. Medicated has free range to decorate the only place in the house without asking the wife :^)

The con's of selling:

We would have only 1 car and any auto emergency or accidents would put us without transportation.
We live in a large city and enjoy the ability to each have a car to drive when needed.
The car we would like to sell is an SUV and may be difficult to sell due to the current gas situation and mpg of the car
We love the SUV for trips, and we enjoy going on day trips/weekend trips.
Eventually, we will need a second car, and the plan is to have the car paid in the next 6 months. Having a solid running car available when the time comes is a strong feeling to hold on to the car.

As you can see, we are unsure if we should sell or just keep it? What do you think?

Net Worth - April 2006

2006-05-02T17:00:00.000-04:00

The month of April was a really good month for us. We both received raises at work, we reach our budgeted amount towards our debt repayment, we were able to go on 2 small vacations for minimal costs, and our net worth increased by 10%.

Here is the breakdown for the month:

A couple of comment regarding this past month's progress:

We changed the format of this spreadsheet this month. Instead of looking at the Rate of Return of our money, the last 2 columns represent the monthly % change over the past month, and the yearly % change is in comparison of our money from the beginning of this blog (March 1, 2006).
We are extremely happy that our net worth increase over 10% this past month. Our goal is to have our net worth increase between 9% - 11% per month.
We were able to make a total of $3,678.10 towards our debt repayment plan this past month. We would like to pay at least $3,500 to $4,000/month towards this goal.
We are hoping that we can pay off Student #2 ($3,061.43) by the end of next month. We received raises during the month of April. With this additional money and the difference from our emergency account, we are thinking of paying the loan in total!
We are thinking of possibly selling one of our cars, which in turn, would be a major factor in our debt repayment and overall net worth. As you may remember, we do not include the worth of cars in our net worth. Why not? Well, see here! We look to discuss this issue in our next post.

Overall, we are happy with our progress this past month, but we are determined to do better.

Medicated In The 'Big Easy'

2006-05-01T18:57:00.000-04:00

We had a great time in New Orleans this past weekend. We drove to New Orleans after work on Friday afternoon, attended Jazz Fest Saturday, and then headed home Sunday. We spent some time walking around the French Quarter as well drove around some of the harder hit areas of town. Overall, the city is definitely rebuilding, but it looks to be a slow progress. We think the French Quarter will get back to pre-storm status, but it is hard to say the same for the other areas. On the way home, we discussed with our friends if we were from the city, would we move back? The majority of us probably would not go back! If everything was lost, we all stated we would move on in a different city. It is sad to say this, but the destruction is that bad. Yet, the people of New Orleans seem determined to rebuild and this was readily apparent at the festival! A few photos of the festival and the destruction of the city!

Jazz Fest 2006

The Rebirth of New Orleans Stage

One of the marshals of the parade

Dave Matthews Band

New Orleans - Post-Katrina

Rite Aid is reduced to this trailer:

The Super Dome

The Debt Repayment - April 2006

2006-04-27T12:45:00.000-04:00

We have completed our debt repayment for the month of April. In total, we paid $3,678 this month to our current debt. We paid an additional $178 more this month than our budget amount of $3,500. We have a current goal of paying off $36,500 by the end of the year. We have currently paid off $5,994 in the past 2 months.

To reach our goal, we need to pay off an average of $3,814/month over the next 8 months! It will be difficult to achieve, but we are up to the task!

Just This Close To Free Money!

2006-04-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we flew home for a family member's wedding as well as Mr. Medicated parent's 35th anniversary! We decided to catch a flight home late Thursday night and leave shortly after getting out of work. As is normal, nothing ever seems to go exactly as you planned, and we found ourselves rushing to the airport with about an hour until the flight left. After running the 5k sponsored by the airport terminal, we made it to our gate as the flight was boarding. In between trying to catch our breath, we heard that Continental overbooked the flight by 2 seats and were looking for volunteers to offer up their seat in exchange for compensation. Not knowing what the compensation would be and the fact that we were trying to just recover from the run (at least Mr. Medicated was; Mrs Medicated looked like it was nothing!), we didn't even consider ourselves as possible volunteers. Yet, as we were walking to step in line to board the plane, the gate attendant announces, 'Excuse me travelers, but we are looking for just 2 passengers to give up their seats for this flight. Each passenger will be compensated with $400 Continental money, night in a hotel (this was the last flight of the night), and meal vouchers will be included.' Well, to be honest, when we heard the $400/ticket, we looked at each other and said let's do it. The funny thing is before this blog was created and money was our last concerned, we would have tuned out the announcement, and boarded the plane.

Yet, this was a deal! After confirming what we heard, we signed up for the deal and took a seat as others boarded the plane. We kept laughing thinking we were going to make $800 dollars plus stay at a hotel plus a meal voucher for leaving 10 hrs later (we were able to rebook the flight home for the next morning at 7 am). This was great: quality time for us to just relax for the night, plus our next couple of flights home paid for! Everything was blue heaven until we heard, 'Mr. & Mrs. Medicated, please come to the desk immediately!' That didn't sound good. Unfortunately, we were told that a flight that they were waiting for was 30 minutes late, and they decided not to hold the plane for those 2 unknown passengers we gave our tickets up for! 'You must board immediately, but here are 2 drink vouchers as a way for us to say thank you for volunteering!' We went from a nice night of being paid $800/dollars, hotel accommodations, and meal vouchers to being that person that boards the plane after it has been waiting already 30 mins to leave. You know what I mean, the stares, the comments of we made everyone leave late because we were late even though we were sitting just outside the plane for the past 30 mins!

Here & Back Again

2006-04-24T18:24:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything. -Charles Kuralt

The past few weeks have been quite busy for us as seen in our decreased amount of postings. We have been traveling the past 2 weekends for vacation as well as family obligations. We are planning on heading out again this upcoming weekend for Jazz Fest in New Orleans! We have a couple of current topics on our minds, just have not had the time to write them up yet. We are looking forward to the early part of May when things settle down for a little while until our summer traveling season starts up again. So, thanks for reading, and bear with us while we continue to go here and back again!

Where Does yours Rank? And Does It Really Matter?

2006-04-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

In continuing with our comments about our work, Money has just put together a list of the Top 50 Best Jobs In America. We are please to discover that our profession ranks rather high on the list. The synopsis of the profession is very general, but that statement is probably true for every profession listed. It is interesting to see the progression of one's career. We can truly remember sitting in the university library on a Friday night going on the 6th consecutive hour of studying asking ourselves if this would be worth it. To be honest, we still ask ourselves that question. Our education was very expensive as can be seen by our current student loan debt, yet we both would answer ultimately yes if ask would we do it again. However, at the end of the day, the positives still outweigh the negatives. And for us, the best part is that we love the fact that on a daily basis we are making a positive difference in the lives of perfect strangers.

After finishing the Money article it occurred to me that the worth of one's profession really can not be summarized by a few different categories, but rather a profession that allows for complete growth. One can not just measure the financial rewards or the annual job openings and declare a winner. We believe that for each person, the most rewarding profession allows one to grow as a complete person: financially, socially, spiritually, and mentally .

Good News From Work

2006-04-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

"A Sign in an office: This job is only a test, had it been an actual job, you would have received raises, bonuses and promotions!

Well, we received good news this week from work. As you may remember, both Mr. & Mrs. Medicated work for the same company, and therefore, many financial merits that are achieved by the both of us become available to us at the same time. We discovered that we would each be receiving a 3% pay raise over the next fiscal year as well as a cash merit reward that will be seen in our next paycheck. Overall, we are extremely please with our current employer and the annual increases in pay we are awarded.

We plan to use this extra money to help pay off our debt reduction and continue to save any additional money. One great advice we hear to do with raises is to increase one's 403(b) contribution, however, we are currently each contributingng the maximum allowed for our 403(b) accounts. If there is a negative from this (and trust me, there is not), but we will most likely will not be eligible for a Roth IRA in 2006 due to this pay increase.

Nice To Be Back!

2006-04-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

For the Easter Weekend, we decided to go on a cruise with our family. We left last Thursday morning and returned Monday morning. The cruise we went on was the Carnival Ecstasy. We had a great time with our family enjoying the Easter holiday, however, we were disappointed with the overall experience of Carnival.

Our main complaint with the cruise was the amenities the ship offered. We felt that the ship had limited activities that did not involve spending more money. Our expectations were that an all-inclusive trip would include many different activities to spend one's time while out at sea, quality dining selections, and impeccable service. Instead, we felt that Carnival offered no activities other than sitting around drinking very high priced drinks or making a donation to the casino, less than average dining selections, and excluding our waiters at dinner, a staff that either could not answer our questions or just did not seem to care to.

Although the cruise did not meet our expectations, we did have a great time with our family, and in the end, what we paid for the trip was definitely worth the experience. In hindsight, we would most likely look at the amenities of the ship more instead of just the price of the trip. Many friends and family that we discussed this with have stated that one should not base this experience on all cruise lines, and that we may be more satisfied with one of the more prominent lines. We would love to hear comments about other's experience with Carnival and other cruise lines.

Going Sailing!

2006-04-13T09:00:00.000-04:00

In the early part of February, we decided that we needed a vacation from the daily grind of life. We found a great deal on a cruise that leaves from a city fairly close to us. We went out on a limb and decided to go ahead and book the deal! The deal was so good that our family from the Northeast decided to join us on the cruise and will be joining us for this trip. We definitely are looking forward to this little vacation! So, Thursday we embark on our voyage and will be back at the beginning of the next week! So, to all of our readers, have a great Easter and we'll talk more next week!

Cutting Those Bills - Netflix Gets Net'fixed

2006-04-12T14:00:00.000-04:00

We love Netflix. Yes, at times, it feels that we get 'long wait' listed for the new releases. Yes, at times, they seem to suspiciously slow down there 'processing & sending' of DVD's. Yet, one of our favorite enjoyment is to sit down in front of the big screen, make a bowl of popcorn, and watch a good movie. We enjoy it so much that we prefer to watch movies at home rather than going to the movies. Besides, at our house, we don't have the distraction of ringing cell phones, annoying talkers during the movie, people yelling at the characters (FYI: they can't hear you), and the staggering costs of going to the movies (currently around $25 for tickets, popcorn, and a drink! And Hollywood still can't figure out why people are not going to the movies for terribly writing and acting movies!)

So it is fairly obviously why we like Netflix. It is hassle-free other than dropping the envelops into a mailbox to mail back to Netflix and opening the envelope to watch the movie. Unfortunately, with our recent effort to cut the fat from our recurring bills, we realize that paying $32/month for Netflix is just too much. Because of this, we have down-graded our subscription to just 2 movies out-at-a-time. This will change our monthly bill to roughly $17/month. The difference is a 47% savings. We are excited with this due to another recurring bill down by 20% or more.

Cutting Those Bills - Can You Hear Me Now?

2006-04-10T13:00:00.000-04:00

Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance. -Ambrose Bierce

We recently read and heard many good things about Vonage. One of those good things was the cost. We currently have digital phone service through our cable provider. We signed up on a package deal that included digital cable, digital phone, and broadband internet for $99/month for six months. February was our last month of this special, and the month of March revealed a whopping $175/month for these services. We knew the bill was going to be obviously more than the special, but $175 for all of these services is just ridiculous.

We signed up for the Basic 500 Plan for $14.99/month. For our situation, we do not use our house phone for that many things other than to have a local number. Due to this, we are sure that we do not need more than 500 minutes for outgoing calls per month. We thought of just eliminating the house phone, but decided that we do not want to give out our cell phone numbers when a phone number is needed. We feel that for $18/month (including taxes), this is a great deal considering the fact that we get all the features plus long distance.

In the end, we lowered our phone bill 38%! We are excited with that fact that we lower another recurring bill by 20% or more!

Expenses For March 2006

2006-04-09T14:36:00.000-04:00

Very similar to other bloggers, we use this blog for two main factors:

To allow others to accompany us by being able to read and comment on our path towards financial freedom.
For us to be able to see where we are going on this financial 'path' by seeing where we have been.

In saying that, this post falls under Category 2 of those factors. Our monthly expenses for March were:

As you can see, our budget calls for a monthly expense amount of $3,345. We were 19.41% above this number. Factors that attribute to this is the fact that many of the expenses that were paid for in March were services that were provided in the month of February. We started this blog in March, and we are hoping that many of our actions to 'cut the fat' from our expenses will begin to be seen in the month of April. We plan on changing our budget monthly based on upcoming expected expenses, however, we would like our expenses to remain less than $3,500/month. Many of our expense lowering can be found in post titled Cutting Those Bills

Cutting Those Bills - Car Insurance

2006-04-07T13:56:00.000-04:00

"You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windshield that said 'Parking Fine!' -Tommy Cooper

After re-aligning our renter's and personal property insurance, we decided that we needed to update our car insurance. After searching many insurance websites, and getting numerous quotes, the 2 best quotes came from the company the Mr. Medicated was with and the company that Mrs. Medicated was with. In the end, Mrs. Medicated company was able to quote us a price 20% lower than all other quotes. We decided to make the switch and we are now currently on one policy. We are definitely excited about the fact of lowering another reoccuring expense by 20%.

Net Worth - March 2006

2006-04-05T13:30:00.000-04:00

In response to the fact that the month of March is over, and that many post their net worth faster than the speed of sound, we decided to do the same. First, we must say a quick thank you to 2 Retire At 50. 2 Retire had an excellent excel net worth worksheet. We liked it so much that we decided to use a similar format. So, thank you. Here is our net worth for March:

A couple of comments for this month.

Our net worth increased 6.73% in the month of March. We are happy with this number, but feel we can improve it closer to 9-10%/month
The month of March we paid $2,032.66 towards debt. Factors that cause this number to be lower than expected was additional insure added, paying off living expenses from February, and surgery for our 1 pet. We plan to have this number between $3,500 to $4,250 per month.
Car Loan #2 was not paid due to a 6-month deferment by the bank to make the loan a full 5 years. We did not realize this, and will begin repayment immediately.

We are on track for our current goals of 2006. We hope to continue to keep moving forward; slowly but surely.

Do You Hear The Train(Wreck) A'Coming?

2006-04-04T14:35:00.000-04:00

"I hear the train a comin'; it's rollin' 'round the bend!" -Johnny Cash

One of our financial fears is the status of the economy in the next 20 years. Baby Boomers are getting close to retirement age, and with that, comes many individuals that are not prepared for retirement. However, it seems that many are not worried about it, so maybe we should not worry for them. Yet, it makes us wonder who is going to be paying for their care as well as all the other bills we are passing on to the next generation, such as the National Deficit.

The Debt Re-Payment - Revolution

2006-04-03T13:05:00.000-04:00

The second part of our re-evaluation of our debt repayment plan was to determine which plan was the best for us. We first determined a list of conditions to help us make the decision:

We do not want to live so frugal that we resent it
We would like to be debt free as soon as possible
We want to be able to retire in our fifties
We are willing to compromise being in debt in order to achieve other life experiences

With these guidelines, we re-aligned the table to be debt free in the shortest amount of time to the longest amount of time. The rearrangement looked like this:

As you can see, Debt Monster is correct in believing that for us to be completely debt free, we should follow Dave Ramsey's advice and stop our 403(b), use all of our emergency fund except $1000, and start pinching pennies. If we did that, we would be debt free in August of 2007. 16 months of hardship, but in the end, debt free. However, in looking at our conditions in doing, this represents only 1 of the 4. To be honest, we know we could not do this. Some things you can do, some things you can't. This is one we just don't think we can do. We know that we would probably kill ourselves if not each other if we were consistently worried about where we spent money. Due to this, we eliminated the 4 plans representing 'penny pinching!'

Our next focus was on whether we should stop the 403(b) plan. The plan does 2 things for us. The first, the obvious, is that we are able to save for retirement. In comparing plans with the 403(b) vs non-403(b) plans, the average time of debt free is anywhere from 17 months to 22 months (again, the penny pinching plan option has been removed). In that time period, money invested would be from $42,500 to $55,000. If we retire when we are 59yrs/old, that money would be worth $741,600 to $959,717 at 10% annual return. The second factor with the 403(b) is that it lowers our taxes from total taxes of incomes from 20% to 17%. It also should allow us to be eligible for the Roth IRA. Factoring in the Roth IRA for 2 years, the $16,000 invested would yield us $279,190 of after-tax money. With these factors, we decided to continue the 403(b).

The third item we focused on was the emergency fund. This emergency fund is important because of 2 factors. For one, we have very good jobs, however, we are living in the Southwest and would entertain a move back to the Northeast if the opportunity presented itself and seem worthwhile. We are currently not planning any move, but the emergency fund represents the ability to move even if we go a month without a paycheck. Second, we are strong believers in the importance of a emergency fund. Also, the difference in our calculations, for the remaining plans, is equal to one month payoff difference. Due to this, we are going to keep it.

The last area we focused on (with the remaining plans: current plan vs moderate living, 403(b) & emergency fund plan) was truly how much can we put to our debt per month. When we first figured $3,500, we decided that this amount represented a consistent amount that we could reach every month. With this, an extra $700/month would be available for savings, life events, and our enjoyment. As you can see, there is a statistical difference between paying $3,500 or $4,250/month, in that being debt free 5 months earlier. In seeing this, we decided to try to increase our debt repayment per month closer to $4,250.

As you can see, we definitely analyzed many different plans and determined that in the end, we could and should increase our debt repayment plan a month. Thanks to Debt Monster for her comments to help stimulate our thinking. After completing this exercise, the main thing we realized is that it is easy to determine how much you should pay towards debt, however, it really comes down to what you feel comfortable doing and what you can live with to make it possible.

The Debt Re-Payment: Reloaded

2006-04-02T21:30:00.000-04:00

We recently received a comment from one of our friends in the NCN Network, Debt Monster, discussing our 2006 goals and if we knew of Dave Ramsey and this financial advice. As many of you know, Dave Ramsey is a financial counselor that is the host of the 'Dave Ramsey Show' that is syndicated throughout the country. His philosophy is broken down into 'Baby Steps' that allow one to achieve small, simple financial goals one step at a time. Through completion of many of these baby steps, one can achieve financial freedom over a period of time. (Read more of these baby steps here.) After reading our blog, Debt Monster recommended this plan for us. We definitely appreciate our readers comments, and this weekend, we sat down to re-evaluate our debt repayment plan.

In re-evaluating our plan, we decided to factor in many different ideas. We looked at 12 different plans. These 12 different plans are a combination of ideas that we took from many different sources. Some of the ideas came from what we have learned from Dave Ramsey, others from reading other blogs, and others from advice from friends and family.

In each plan, we looked at what our monthly debt repayment would be, whether we would use all available money except $1000 for a baby emergency fund for repayment, when the entire amount (-$122,345) would be completely paid off, total interest paid during the payoff time period, and payoff of our 2006 goal of $36,500.

Here is the evaluation of each plan:

In our next post, we will discuss our evaluation of this chart and our decision on which plan to proceed with.

This Is Just Sad!

2006-03-29T16:13:00.000-05:00

I saw this article today while reading some of our bookmarked sites. Hard to believe this many American's claim bankruptcy. Whether filing for Chapter 7 or Chapter 13, bankruptcy ruins your financial future. What's more upsetting is the fact that under the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, most of these American's are still in store for a whole lot of hurt and not much help. I understand and agree that this law was passed to get financial deadbeats who have taken on debt they can't afford to pay up. But, unfortunately, they are getting the same treatment as those Americans who are in debt due to finances that have occurred because of loss of their job, high medical bills, or major catastrophes. And the fact that so many Americans are willing to file and give in to the pains of bankruptcy, this is just sad!

Cutting Those Bills - Insure My Insurance

2006-03-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

A little story to start today's posting:

4 Insurance companies are in competition. One comes up with the slogan, "Coverage from the cradle to the grave." The second one tries to improve on that with, "Coverage from the womb to the tomb." Not to be outdone, the third comes up with, "From the sperm to the worm!" The fourth insurance company really thought hard and almost gave up the race, but finally came up with, "From erection to the Resurrection!"

Yesterday after work we headed to a local insurance agent that came highly recommended by a personal friend. "Best rates in town!" we were told. We both use very competitive companies for our car insurance, but we needed to add renter's insurance as well as personal property insurance. We figured that with having all of our insurance under one roof (Car, Renter's, and personal property), the overall premium would be less than paying for each separate. Unfortunately for us, this was not the case. First, the price quoted for the combined car insurance for the both of us was approximately 25% higher than our current, separate plans. We were very surprise with this! We assumed that they could beat each of our rates with the other companies, but the agent said that the best she could do was cut a few of the matching perks we already have to lower the overall premium. Um, no thanks. The renter's insurance was what we expected, and the personal property insurance was 10% lower what we were paying at another company. We decided to just add renters and personal property to our plan.

As for the renter's and personal property, it was painful to write the check for something that we probably will never need, but it needed to be done. As financially difficult it was to write the check, the financial pain we would experience if we did not have these policies is leaps and bounds above this immediate pain. Truly, the real kicker was that we did not budget for this money which in turns may make the rest of this month tight! Now we know why they say financial discipline is difficult! We plan to continue to research car insurances to see if we can find a lower, combined plan. If you know of a good website to compare quotes, please let us know!

Want That Pension, Work For Your Favorite Uncle Sam

2006-03-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

We have been enjoying the recent conversations over at Our Money Matters regarding the topic of pensions. For one, we enjoy John and Jane's subject matter, and two, both Mr & Mrs Medicated have pension plans through their work. After reading this recent topic, we realized that many of our parents, (who are near the retirement phase of life) and their friends, all have pensions. Not all, but many. Yet, on the contrary, we could not make this same statement about friends and family of our generation. This lead us to believe that pensions are the way of the past, and with the recent news of the automobile industry, we can understand this.

Pensions are expensive to companies, especially competitive companies. It is hard to keep a company in the black when so much of profits are going to the pension fund. It also doesn't help when the CEO's and VP's are rewarding themselves with lavish salaries, but that's for another story.

In just a short research period, it occurs to us that the only companies that can take on such a financial burden is a few large companies and the government. Both the Mr. & Mrs. here at Medicated Money work for a very large hospital, that is owned by a very large university, that answers to a very large state government. So, in around about way, we are government employees. And because of this, we have a pension.

Our pension invests 6% of our yearly salary into a general fund that supports the entire company's pension for all. Our direct employer matches the 6% as well. We become vested in 5 years, and payout begins at retirement, and as early as age 55. Payout is based on total years of service (employment) x 2.3% X Average of highest five annual salaries.

The pros of this system is that we are forced to save 6% of our salary for a very good pension system. Secondly, if we spend the rest of our careers in this current system plus invest in a 403(b), we would be sitting very pretty. The cons is that you have to stay in the system for your entire career. The likelihood of this occurring is very small. Most employees are no longer working just for one company their entire career. It just does not happen anymore. The second problem is that the 6% money is not currently being invested for us, but for the support of the pension.

Our plan is to eventual transfer the 6%/yr into a IRA when we do leave the company. As you can see, we are very confident that we will eventually work elsewhere. We do enjoy our work and the company we work for, but we know that we will eventually have a career at either another institution or in private practice. We do wish the company would allow us to op-out of the plan, and allow us to invest that 6% into a no-load mutual fund(s). Yet, we understand that to offer this plan, they must have a way to support the plan or end up like the many companies that are having the government, aka taxpayers, bail them out.

Our 2006 Goals

2006-03-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try! -Homer Simpson

In our last post, we looked at our net worth from 12/31/05-2/28/05. By doing this, we were able to determine that although our net worth did increase in that time period, we had no real plan to be able to repeat or even do better. In the wake of many other pf bloggers posting their short-term and long-term goals, we decided it was a good idea to create a game plan of our own. Here are our 2006 goals:

Retirement - We plan to both contribute the maximum amount allowed ($15,000) to our individual 403(b). Along with these contributions, an additional 6% of our salary is placed in a employer sponsored retirement program. Finally, it will be difficult, but we plan to invest ($8,000) in a Roth IRA as well, if we are eligible.

Emergency Fund - We currently have $1,800 in our emergency account at Emigrant Direct. We plan to place $150-200/wk in to this account. We would like this account to have 3 months of expenses by the end of the year plus money for the Roth IRA if we are eligible.

Debt Re-Payment - We recently joined the No Credit Needed Network, and we plan to pay off $36,500 of debt by the end of the year. We plan to make $3,500/month payments to our debt as well as any additional money we have at the end of the month. This will be difficult, but we are up to the challenge.

Net Worth - By the end of the year, we would like our net worth to be $-36,000. This would be roughly a increase of $50,000. We truly believe that this will be the most difficult goal to accomplish. However, we are willing to set the bar high, like many of our pf blogger counterparts.

A little late in the year to start the 2006 goals, but it's better late than never. We are currently working on our long term goals. We hope to have them set in the near future.

Goodbye Mr. Greenback

2006-03-27T16:59:00.000-05:00

"I wish I had a dollar for every time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo!; I'd have all my money back!" -Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy

Our money flow this weekend only went one way: Outward. Since the beginning of this site, we have had a more 'money conscience' attitude. Unfortunately, that seem to not reflect this past weekend. A total of about $700 went out the door faster than we definitely expected. From dinner to celebrate a friend's birthday to our one pet having surgery, the money was exiting stage left. Hopefully, we'll get back on track this week and still make it under our monthly budgeted amount of $3,300.

Net Worth Recap

2006-03-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

"Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that." -Homer Simpson

Along with the ability to create open discussions on financial issues with readers, one of our main goals of this blog was to be able to see and track our progress as we dig ourselves out of debt, invest in our retirement, and cure ourselves of 'Docitis!' We previous discussed our net worth in a earlier post. We wanted to add a post to see our net worth from the beginning of the year. With the use of Quicken, here are those numbers:

First the good news; since the beginning of the year, our net worth has increased by 9%. Also, as you can see, we were able to pay off a student loan of $11,529 straight off. The bad news; analysis of this chart shows that we did have money just sitting in banking accounts with low interest rates. Our retirement savings was only the mandatitory 6% our employer required us to save. No 403(b)'s or Roth IRA for either of us. Lastly, our debt is just ridiculous. We are okay with debt of Student Loan #1, at 3.625%; the others are just cement blocks tying us down.

So, what does this all mean? Well, for one, we are typing this, so we think we have plugged some of the holes that were sinking the ship just by being honest with ourselves. Secondly, there was no logical to our finances. One day it was pay off the loans, next day it was just put it on the card. Due to this, we needed to create short term and long term goals to help keep us on track. In our next post, we will discuss our short-term 2006 goals. Stay tuned...

How Do You Read?

2006-03-26T11:35:00.000-05:00

"To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company?" -Andre Gide

We are always curious about our fellow bloggers; who are they reading, what are they listening to, and what are their main reasoning for writing a personal finance blog. For us as well as others, the answers to these questions have been easier to obtain thanks to a few different sources.

One of the main sources that we read on a daily basis is pfblogs.org. We absolutely love pfblogs.org! The person(s) at this site has allowed many different personal finance blogs to come together and be one, simple resource for readers to view the personal finance blog world in one sitting. We would like to just say a quick thank you for their hard work that is taken for granted often.

The second resource that we absolutely love is Google Reader. In essence, this resource allows one to create a daily reader that captures those blogs you love to read! We use this resource to keep up with our favorite bloggers, capture new bloggers we want to follow on a more closely basis, and be able to follow those that our not apart of pfblogs.org! To create a account with Google Reader is free, and is definitely worth it's weight in virtual gold!

....Just Don't Drink The Kool-Aid

2006-03-24T17:53:00.000-05:00

“They have the Internet on computers, now?” -Homer Simpson

We are proud to announce that we have become members of the 'No Credit Needed Network.' We have enjoyed reading NCN for the past few months and listing to the NCN podcasts. NCN does a great job of discussing his battle to be debt free and other financial adventures. We have started a fairly aggressive goal of paying off $36,500 in about 10 months. Check out this goal here, and we look forward to becoming a valid member of this group!