Making Money Journal

All you runners out there better be thinking twice about how much you are putting into your retirement accounts.  According to some new research results, you are going to live longer than non runners.

A study published on Monday shows middle-aged members of a runner’s club were half as likely to die over a 20-year period as people who did not run.

Running reduced the risk not only of heart disease, but of cancer and neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, researchers at Stanford University in California found.

“At 19 years, 15 percent of runners had died compared with 34 percent of controls,” Dr. Eliza Chakravarty and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

I think it is great that running improve longevity.  It might be the push I need to get back on the road.  I last ran nearly 2 years ago, but continue to weight lift and use a recumbent bike.  My problem is that I can’t get up early enough in the morning to run and my workouts are usually at night, when it is a bit dangerous to go out for a jog.

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It has been a quiet week over at the MMJ household.  We are prepping some rooms for a new paint job.  This is going to take quite some time as there is a lot of “junk” to move around or get rid of.  I expect several weekends of painting.  We have also been throwing out the thought of moving into a bigger house as we are being overrun with special needs equipment.

Here are some of my favorite reads from this week.

• Everyone’s favorite ProBlogger Darren Rowse discusses The iPhone 3G as a Blogging Tool - My Review:  I have no use for the phone right now, but if I were a profitable blogger, a phone like this with a keyboard sounds like an ideal.  Sony Ericsson is coming out with the Xperia X1 later this year and if marketed well, could make quite the blogging tool.
• Patrick at Cash, Money Life asks Do We Need Another Stimulus Check?: If it does happen, I would be replenishing the emergency fund with it.
• glblguy at Gather Little by Little asks How is your Christmas savings fund doing?:  Umm, yeah, see above.  Haha, just kidding.  Seriously, we have been discussing scaling back this year and hope to pull it off.  I have taken this post to heart and have begun saving a little extra to one of our MM accounts that we only use for our daughter’s  tuition.  We can tap into that without worry.
• Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog offers Microsoft Live CashBack Promotion: 70% Off Magazines and More: Looks like another alternative to eBates, which I love.  I will have to give it a try.

So there you have it.  Have a good weekend and I hope to continue my blogging activity next week.

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Today I did some more number crunching in my budget spreadsheet. The picture looks rosier than before, but depends on some important variables. I will outline them here as well as show the breakdown in our monthly budget. It is interesting to look at how, when you shift some variables here and there, you can make things happen. Well, at least on paper it looks good. Implementation is another story.

Important Variables:

1. Mrs MMJ can get to 30 hrs per week at the job or find some other source.
2. I can find a job that will fill the rest of the gap. While I love my current employer, it may be to move on since I have seen better paying offers in the market. This is something we have been mulling even before the decision to find a new house.
3. We can get enough out of the sale of our current house to help payoff our auto loan. This is a $278 per month savings.
4. Our 2009 Tax return and work bonus level remains the same as previous years.
5. The housing market does not rebound too soon. If the prices on the homes we are looking at rise, the game is over.

The above 4 variables are nail bitters for sure. We will try to tighten our budget as much possible and hope that the variables we can’t control(Housing market, wife’s current work situation) will work in our favor. The key is that for us to succeed, all the variables have to play out positively. The changes we have made in the last year have given me a positive view.

Now for the Budget

The one thing that bothers me is that the loan payment in our new house would be over 50% of our projected income. That number is double the recommended percentage and as I look at it, it is the one thing that would hold us back even if the above variables worked out.

Here is a look at the our current budget and 4 potential ones that are explained in the top row. Please click on the image for a proper view.

Maybe Hold Off

Our original idea was to plan or the move by the beginning of June. This would depend on the selling and buying to occur perfectly. Now that we look at that future mortgage more closely, it makes sense to either squirrel away as much money as possible over the next 2 years or pay off as much as possible on our auto and home equity loans. Both options make a lot of sense. We would be able to add more to our down payment and cut down on a future mortgage.

Decisions, Decisions

As you can tell, this is no small decision. As I write more about it, maybe some of you readers can offer thoughts that can clear my mind. The one thing that is great about this is that as I look at our current budget situation, it is not as bad as we were a year ago when we were spilling over $1000 a month onto credit cards.

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Yesterday, I wrote about my wife’s and my desire to settle into a bigger house. We figured that the new house would be about $200,000 more than our current abode. This is no small change for us, but we feel that we need to make the jump somehow. Our current family situation dictates that and we want to stay in the same town. Also, we did discuss an addition to our current house, but we don’t have the money and land to do that. Either way, we would be increasing our budget and moving seemed the more sensible option.

Today, we talk about the finances behind such a move. I figured that a house of our dreams would add another $1600 per month to our budget. This would include not only the increased mortgage and taxes, but also the extra utilities(gas, water, electricity). Wow! That is not chump change. This number was also derived using a minimal down payment, since we have our debts that we would be paying off.

The optimum thing to to would be to find extra money for the down payment. This would allow us to cut down future monthly payments or have extra breathing room for savings. That is what we are wrestling with now. In future posts, I will layout our plan of action as we make our decisions. Do understand that this is a large undertaking for us, but we hope to be a success story.

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Mrs MMJ and I have been think a lot about getting a bigger house. We currently live in a 3 bed, 1 bath, 2 story house that we purchased 7 years ago. We did a refinance 5 years ago that reduced our payments quite a bit, but earlier this year we took out a home equity loan to help straighten our debt situation. We love our house and location, but are starting to fell cramped with the 2 kids. There are several reasons for this.

1. Our youngest is disabled with an as yet undiagnosed condition. Because of this, she requires a bunch of medical equipment such as a stander, special feeding chair, seat, adaptive stroller, etc. These items are starting to take over the house. You can’t move from one room to another and not run into something.
2. We only have one bathroom and it is VERY small. We cannot store the little ones bath seat in there, so have not been able to use it properly. Also, we fight for bathroom use, especially when guests are over.
3. My wifes family is overseas and they visit quite often. Currently, her mother is sharing a small bedroom with our oldest daughter. It would be nice to have an extra bedroom for a guest. Believe me, it would make a world of a difference.

There are other reasons that I have not listed, but these are the major ones. I think that an ideal house would have 4 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms. Also the living and dining rooms would have to be a bit bigger than we currently have to allow for the extra adaptive equipment. The problem is that in our location, top city in the state, a house with those features run $200,000 more than our current one.

We have committed to finding a way to afford an upgrade but understand that the journey will be tough. Currently, my wife’s hours are scattered, but getting back to a good amount. We hope the trend continues up. We are going to commit as much as possible to our savings. I will document steps as we take them, and also document how much extra a month we would need to add to our budget for a more expensive house.

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Ahhh.  The en of another week and month.  While I did not keep track of July expense, I look forward to staying on target for August.  Lets hope we can stay out of the hospital.

Anyway, there were a great bunch of articles this week that showed up in my reader.

• Jonathan at MyMoneyBlog discusses Umbrella policies in Reasons We Have An Umbrella Liability Insurance Policy. This is something that we should get into, what with the rotating therapists and nurses that visit the MMJ family household.
• LuLuGal at howisavemoney.net offers her Three Principles Of Personal Finance. She has some good points and there are some extra tips in the comments section.
• Uncommon Cents offers some More Frugal Travel Tips: Spend Less, Make Better Use of Time in the Airport.  This article is a very good read especially with all the airline changes in regards to weight limits in the past few months.

That is it for now.  Have a good weekend.

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July was a wash in terms of budget tracking.  With the hospital stay(plus sleepless nights before and after) and vacation, I did not keep track of day to day spending.  From the state of our checking account, I can see that we will need to dip into some of our emergency money.  Thankfully, this fund was well established a few months back.  Without it, we would have to had to carry some credit card debt again.  Who wants to go back there?

We were expecting to use the emergency account since a bit of income this past month.  With August looming, I look forward to getting back on the budget train.  Hopefully my wife can sneak in some more hours of work so that we can layoff the emergeny fund.  With school ramping up soon, I am hoping that more students are looking for extra help.

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We are all home from the hospital now.  Of course the older one is now sick as well, but that is par for the course.  Guess somehow it could be worse.  Anyway, I had a chance to read some good posts this week, as I had more time for web browsing.  Here are some good ones.

• Patrick at Cash Money Life is a offering a series on How to Become A Millionaire: It a great series so far and states a very simple plan.  Good work Patrick.
• PaidTwice offers Five Ways To Get Back On Track :This is a very timely article of me as this month has been a wreck financially.  We have lost some of our income stream and have had a vacation and hospital stay that has interfered with our budget tracking.  Hopefully we will get back on track in August.
• ChristianPF writes about The worst gift cards to have:  Sign of the times, I guess.  Better check my wife’s wallet.  She seems to always have a bunch of cards on hand.

Well, that’s it for this week.  Lets hope we have some quiet time at the MMJ household.

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We are in the midst of our 4th hospital stay for our little one in the last year.  This time we is fighting possible pneumonia.  While stuck here during the day, I have thought about how I could save money while here.  Eating is the big issue while here.  While thinking about this I also realized that there are other savings and earnings involved.

1. Brown Bag your lunch/dinner.  Just like going to work, you can bring in your own food.  The cafeteria here is quite cheap, but can add up.  My wife and I split time here, so we usually come in with food from home.
2. Utility savings.  If most of the family is not home, then less energy is used at the home.  Now that it is summer, the air conditioning and fans that we normally use, are turned off.  Also, no TV is on and the computer is off.  These savings can add up depending on the length of hospital stay.
3. Taking Surveys.  While I am here, and the little one is sleeping, I go online with the free wireless email and catch up with all the survey sites that I am subscribed to.  I normally can’t find the time to keep up, so have been able to rack-up quite the points.

I am sure there are other things that I have not thought off and I know that the medical cost can outweigh any savings or earnings I have outlined.  In our case, the hospital stay is covered 100%, so the latter is nulled.

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I am still here somewhere.  Life is getting settled after a crazy month with many doctors appointments, a vacation, 3 birthday parties and the first day of school for our little one.  As to the doctors appointments, we still have not done our return to Cleveland yet.  It keeps getting delayed because of results needed some blood tests that are not complete.

Anyway, I was still able to capture data for June and we did alrgiht, but it may be the last good month for a while.  My wife’s hours are scaled back by 1/3, so we need to hit some of our emergency savings until summer clears.  I hope that the beginning of the school year brings back some more students.

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