Keeping The Reins Tight….

Despite my trip to California still being in infancy, it’s been a financial success. I’ve managed to be bumped from my original itinerary, get a $400 ticket voucher on my favorite airline, get food vouchers that will cover my meals for today AND I get into California two hours earlier. Score!

As if that wasn’t enough, I still credit for the frequent flier miles on the first airline. Since I purposely booked the most circuitous route to maximize miles earned, the original booking puts my account over the threshold for a free ticket to Europe. Time to start stashing $100 / month into a travel fund!

This is going to be a wickedly awesome trip.

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When Sears decides to give away $75 dollars in gas and a $10 gift card with a $100 purchases of Docker products, an A gets giddy. That is, until he drives to the store for it’s opening on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to discover that there is nothing in his size.

Apparently, I need my inseam to grow by 3 inches (to a 34) or have my waist increase by 5 inches (to a 34) to have any shot of buying clothes that fit off the rack. Being 5′10″, in shape, and rather slim makes buying a clothes an absolute nightmare.

I usually surviving by having my pants tailored but that’d require Sears have something that fits my waist. I’m heading back tomorrow to see if I can order a suit. I could use a black suit for the upcoming wedding season (five in six months) and the $75 gift card takes the sting off of the $150 tailoring bill.

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with Quicken.

After spending the last three months not tracking my finances, continually missing a monthly goal and having a not-so-great idea of where my money was going; I canned the tracking spreadsheet and switched to Quicken.

This switch should revolutionize my ability to stay in budget and track incoming / outgoing money to the penny. I’ve fallen head over heels for the ’savings’ goal feature. In essence, you create a place to hide money within your real bank account, creating sub accounts in essence. I will be able to consolidate my savings accounts into my HSBC account (woot! for the recent rate increase) and still keep the money divided properly.

Furthermore, I could move all of my bill expenses into a second checking account and earmark the money when I get paid. In this scenario, my BoA checking account would simply be for my ‘play’ money and I could gain some interest on the buffer money by moving it into a savings account. There’s a big difference between .25% and 3.50% interest.

Quicken does a great job tracking investment accounts. I can quickly check the Market Value, Cost Basis, Gain / Loss ($ and %), Day Gain Loss ($ and %) for each mutual fund in my account at Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. Should I be checking these account on a daily basis? Probably not, but I’m still learning how the market reacts to world events.

Quicken is a good program; it’s user base makes it a great program, there are websites, forums, and mailing lists dedicated to using the program. This reference material will come in handy when I want to track my Savings Bonds or business expense that will be reimbursed.

Now that I’ve got things set up, I’d better make my June goal of tracking all expenses.

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Did you know that a Chase Freedom Card only earns 3% cash back on the first $600 of purchases in your top 3 purchase categories? I certainly didn’t and was utterly disappointed upon discovering the gross miscalculation of cash back earned a $900 tire purchase.

With gas prices going through the roof, I’ve thought about getting a Citi Driver’s Edge. The 6% cash back on gas would be of great help. I’d be able to shop around for the cheapest gas instead of finding the cheapest Shell station to earn 5% back on my Shell Mastercard. An extra 1% (with Driver’s Edge) + an additional 3 cents per gallon savings (the usual difference between the Shell and BP), would shave a few extra bucks off the gas bill.

As soon as I move, I’m going to buy a decent road bike. I can then bike commute (~15 minutes to work) and my savings rate will no longer vary inversely with the price of gas.

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I lasted eight months without touching my medical fund. Alas, in the last few weeks, I’ve managed to drain the entire thing and there’s a chance I’ll need to dip into the emergency fund.

The main culprit?

An MRI of my knee, it’s been a horrid 6 weeks since I went down with an injury. Despite following an extremely cautious rehabilitation plan and allowing ample time for a recover, my calf / knee is still not right. I’ve mentally set aside $1,200 for this expense (the cost of last year’s MRI) and anxiously await the call back from insurance with my final bill. I paid a measly $10 to see the Specialist (in endurance sports medicine). The doctor described the need for an MRI as a medical emergency, will insurance see it this way? Only time will tell.

On top of my knee troubles, my contact lens prescription expires on the 24th. I plan to change eye doctors but have not had research/find a new one. Thus, it was imperative that I stock up before my prescription expired. My vanity and love of athletics cost a cool $191.92. Despite my zillion different budgets, I never thought to set aside money for contacts.

May’s been a rough month for my bank accounts (medical expenses + $915 tires), being unable to run is also making extremely unpleasant.

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