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Home > Archive: May, 2014

Archive for May, 2014

Not packing lunch - guilty.

May 29th, 2014 at 02:53 am

Why? Because the food available is good and very varied. It is not Subway or Cheesecake factory, it is food I like and evidently there are so many people with similar tastes, they are catered to on every corner.

Today was a dental check-up day. So I left work earlier to make it to my appointment. Picked up lunch on the way - 1 taco carnito near Union Square. Ingredients were fresh and good, though I prefer a flour tortilla. $5.



I also treated myself to a smoothie at an all organic eatery "Hu Kitchen" right next to my dentist's office.





There are so many of these fresh smoothies/juice places, you can pass 5 and the 6th one will get you.

I needed a "pick me up" sugar rush before the stress of the dental chair, so I went for "The Green Nebula" - kale, apple, kiwi cashew cream and coconut water and a "crack bar" for later ($13.24). So that, together with one and a half doughnuts this morning and a nougat ice cream bar, brought number of sugar calories to the level of excessive. Got to do better tomorrow! Does the thought of going to the dentist impact all good judgement?

After an uneventful but still impossibly long appointment I somehow wondered into Bebe(don't know why, I never shop there) that was on my way. I tried on a bunch of clothing and ended up buying this dress, on huge sale, for only $41. You can't see it on the picture, but the fabric is nice, and so is the color. Did I need it? No. I went in hoping to find a day dress that could double as a salsa dance dress and a day dress. This was not it. But I liked it, the price was right, and I will enjoy wearing it to a date night this summer.


And another takeout meal for dinner - husband is away on business, my son is at grandma's today, so no cooking for me). I still had noodle/vegetable/tofu leftover dish in the fridge that I could have eaten, but after the massive carbfest earlier I was craving veggies and hummus.

It was fresh and tasty kale salad ($10.89).

When you don't want to cook, you can find tasty options everywhere. When you are tired, and it is right there - you are on foot walking past them, smelling them, it is much more tempting.

Dream house for sale!

May 27th, 2014 at 04:51 pm

I haven't been inside of it, have no idea what the house is like (evidently it is a fixer-upper) or what the floor plan is... or anything else. But it is a HOUSE. And what makes it a dream is the location. It is on my running trail path, between 2 stretches of the park, on the cliff overlooking the river. In the shade of mature trees, on secluded cul de suc... It looks like a house in the forest, not a house in NYC. And it has 3 bedrooms!



It is priced at 920K. It must need a lot of work. And if I could, I would forego many vacations and not shop for clothing for years to get into this house. But even if we were both ready to stretch thin, the problem is we must sell our current place first for the downpayment on this one, which we would never be able to do in time (this place will likely move quickly). Frown So the dream house is out of reach.

Funded ROTH #1 and ESA today

May 22nd, 2014 at 09:18 pm

Yey!

So on the list of things we can now cross of the goal list for this year:

1) Get back to having 8 month of salary in non-retirement investments (EF)
2) Fund Roth #1
3) Fund ESA

Now one more ROTH to go, also pool fee for the summer is due today, and we want to put an extra 1K on the car. Also need to add to the vacation fund and start a 529 plan in addition to the ESA.

So a lot of things to accomplish, and no more extra income. And July will be not only a vacation month, but a 3 mortgage payment month.

Financially awesome May.

May 19th, 2014 at 04:05 pm

All the stars aligned. It is a 3 paycheck month, and we got some tax refund, and some FSA reimbursements, and some paychecks from DH's side teaching job...

We will be taking in $18,770 after taxes this month! (though not enough is withheld from the teaching job, so we will owe a little more out of that.

That is very high! So we are going to fund most of our Rothes (hopefully we won't have to de-fund them later, we are cutting it close).

And I've been splurging some - my mom's friend works in Bergdorf Goodman, and they had a discount, so I'm getting a pair of Fendi sunglasses and some high-end make-up (Sisley, Amore Pacific, Dior) at 50% off.

And, I've had a wonderful cleaning woman help me for 2 days to really do a thorough spring cleaning, as I've been falling further behind. She worked 10 hour days, so $320 for 2 days.

I've also pre-paid another 2 days at the Ritz Carlton Shanghai for my July trip. I've found a very good price. I'm cash flowing a lot of our vacation before we go, to reduce the bills that we will get upon coming back (which will still be mighty big).

So I will enjoy this month, and will need to make a big adjustment for the next, more normal one.

And we only have one more teaching paycheck for DH. After that, we will again only have our salary to live on. And it has been many months since we lived on our salary alone. There was overtime, teaching job, and few other things. Now, opportunity for all that is no longer there, so we must cut back lifestyle we have already gotten used to.

Reminded of the price difference

May 2nd, 2014 at 08:35 pm

DH is traveling to North Carolina for business. I was blown away that a car rental for 5 days was $63. The hotel is $69. The flight there is $96!

We went out for noodle lunch today and it was $66 dollars.

We tipped building staff $40 yesterday for replacing air conditioning filters and adjusting faucet.

It is difficult to really comprehend that kind of difference. The taxes on car rental here would probably add up to $63.