money money money...

It's been a while since I posted about money. Good thing I'm tagging the posts appropriately - frankly, reading some of them, especially this one, is kind of surreal - I don't really remember the money crunching session and results very clearly at all! So it's a good thing I wrote it up so tidily and left it where I could find it. Actually I think that's pretty typical librarian behavior - I don't keep much in my head, but I know how to find the information when I need it. Or, I'm becoming senile already!

Debt
My credit card is still showing a zero balance (hurray!) but I HAVE been using it - I donated to my local public radio station, and I bought a plane ticket for a December Portland visit (2nd saturday, cookie party, stay tuned for more!), but I've already paid the balance off. I'm still doing double payments on my car loan so it'll be paid in full in May. I've pretty much resolved to pay the basic payment on my school loans forever - the rate is low and the monthly payment isn't a hardship, so though it's tempting to try to get aggressive and pay it off, it makes more sense to get money in the bank for non-retirement needs and goals (house down payment (ha!), travel, better-funded emergency fund, etc.).

Spending
I'm working on tracking all my spending, and have a spreadsheet from uncagedbird that I'll use to get a visual representation of my spending. Things already of note:

...food spending
I think I'm going to do a special version of the spreadsheet to cover grocery spending only, just out of curiosity. I pretty much shop at four places: Trader Joe's, the farmer's market, a full-fledged but small and somewhat upscale independent grocery store that is two blocks from me, and a small and somewhat-scrappy market that is on the same block.

I like Trader Joe's for reasons that probably don't need elaboration (fairly inexpensive, interesting options, close to work), but I don't like it because it's a chain, it's always CRAZY-busy, and all the food is quite packaged.

I like the full-fledged grocery store because I can walk there, it's been in that spot for over a hundred years, it's a locally-owned non-chain, and their food is all high quality. On the down side, it's always really (really really really) busy, and the prices on the food can add up. But... see high-quality. And SO convenient. And not ridiculously huge.

I like the somewhat-scrappy market because it's NEVER busy (at most I have to wait in a two-person line... an extreme rarity in the bay area), and because the owner and his wife work there, and because it almost always has what I need (except meat, but I don't buy that often). Plus, they're newish at the business and I feel like they really need and appreciate the support of my meager dollars.    
 

Gas/transportation
I bought gas the other day, at $3.059, and I have no idea if that's good or bad because the last time I bought gas for my car was in early August! (I love my short commute and the fact that I can bike it, or walk a mile and take a free shuttle.) I'm also going to track my public transportation and other transit spending - although it's been six weeks since I bought my own car gas, I kicked in gas money for the road trip to Ashland and to the Ren Faire, so that should get noted as well.
 

Retirement savings
I decided to just aim for 10% in bonds for now, and changed my retirement contributions to go half into a bond fund, and half into an index fund. Since we use Fidelity, the funds I am in are fbndx and fusex, respectively. I had my choice of two bond funds, but frankly I couldn't really figure out the differences...the allocation, fees, and returns were near-identical. Eventually I just picked the one I'm in. So far the bond fund is about 1% of my total retirement plan, so there's a while to go before I need to revisit it.

I haven't done any other allocation or consolidation work. In this post I laid out some pretty bubble charts that showed how my accounts are set up. I thought I might consolidate my various retirement accounts that aren't linked to my current job. Haven't touched that one yet. In one case, I'd have to deal with the state of Oregon's retirement people and I am afraid. The rest of my most-recent-job's money is in a 457(b) account, and I recently read something that indicated funds in a 457(b) could be withdrawn without penalty. I have no intention or anticipation of ever needing to do that, but it was news to me and bears investigation before I close out that account. And, turns out the other account I have with a former employer has me in a fund that at least one online personal finance writer loves, and it's an international fund, so I'm leaving it alone for now. So I guess I did make some decisions! (except the part about fearing the state of Oregon people...)

Non-retirement savings
No progress on this front. I have a sense of what I think is a reasonable monthly goal, but I don't think I'm going to make it this month. I blame the credit card charges listed above (radio donation and plane ticket), but in truth I know that "something" could come up every month. What I really need to do is figure out if that amount I have in mind is reasonable, and if so, get it out of my account as soon as it hits, not set it into my local savings account to send away IF it makes it to the next payday.

I have the good-but-bad habit of allocating all my money elsewhere. The structure until recently was: retirement savings, bills account, great thwack of money to credit card, little bit to easily-accessible savings account, spend the leftovers. It's great in theory but the problem was I was leaving myself a couple hundred bucks per pay period to cover all food, gas, entertainment, and clothing expenses. Guess how well that worked? Well, it obviously worked for a while, since I did pay off the credit card, but now I want to strike a better balance between saving well, and having a reasonable spending expectation.

I have goals I want to meet, but I don't want my life in the interim to be one of beans and rice and no going out with people who I really enjoy seeing.

Dang that was long. Oh how I long for a way to just post SOME of my natterings, then hide the rest under a cut. Anyway, makes you glad I don't update about money more often, I'm sure!