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It's probably ambitious during a busy month, but I figured I'd dive into 'spending tracking'.  Just as a way to jump back into blogging.
Unlike in the past, will be focusing on my own spending (versus other household spending).  & maybe weekly, or 'every few day' updates.  & I mean, I can share grocery (household spending) but that is depressing right now.  😁 With a 5-person household.  MM(22) devoured all of our food for a couple of weeks,...
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I made it through another scary storm last night, the kind where an emergency alert suddenly lights up your phone and tells you to get to the basement NOW. At the peak of the storm, I watched the top halves of some very big trees on my property violently swaying to and fro. That's when I went to the basement. Yet this morning, I noticed that an empty plastic nursery pot lying on its side on my back patio had not rolled away. 
The "feels like" temps in the 100s with high humidity...
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Why such grim thoughts on a holiday day?  Mostly because I have a bit more time on a long weekend and working on my estate plan is one of my goals for this year.  
Also, I lost two clients in the past month, and a third client was appointed the Executor of his sister-in-law's estate, so I have been responding to questions from him.
This third client is actually the one who led me to EstateExec, an online service with a one-time cost of $199 which allows you to...
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I had my first adjusted mortgage payment yesterday. With the decrease to my escrow I will be able to add $18.51 in principal every two weeks. Every little bit helps! I also do biweekly payments with is supposed to reduce repayment time by years.
I have about $153k in equity in my home with a $195k balance to pay. I have a few retirement ages in mind: 57 (minimum age), 60 (this is 30 years service), and 62 (earliest I can take SS). Many of my co-workers wait until 65 (eligibility...
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I don't usually pay much attention to numbers other than an annual review.  But I figured I'd check in re: Emergency/Murphy year from hell.
First 6 months 2025:  In the black every month (earned more than spent), except for June when I had a $4,500 college bill.
First 6 months 2026: In the red February through May.  I have no idea how I ended up in the black in June.  We had several big expenditures, including more home repairs. 
Second half of 2026:...
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Beware, I'm starting this as a bit of a rant...we have noticed that some of the young people in our lives are not good about thanking us for birthday/Christmas/graduation gifts. I'm not expecting a huge thank you note, but a text or phone call or email would be appreciated. I'm not talking about a small gift like a candle; I'm talking about a large amount of money. The checks were cashed, but we did not hear from them at all. 
Fast forward to this May and June...a friend's...
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Investments $2,294,097
Savings $7,164
Home Equity $153,000
June 2026 Net Worth $2,454,261
May 2026 Net Worth $2,444,093
Monthly Loss/Gain $10,168
I'm going to simplify my net worth postings by just doing one line item for investments, instead of breaking them down.
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Not a very exciting month. Our retirement assets decreased in value a little bit, probably about $7K across the board. This was mostly offset by our regular mortgage and window payments and by paying own our HELOC by a few grand, so overall our net worth decreased by about $1900. I should be able to pay down the HELOC some more, at least temporarily, but I'm waiting to see how next month's cash flow looks like before I do it. Had I known we were going to lose net worth, I probably...
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This is more of my just thinking things through - without the financial info
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Spent a week with my mother this month - first time with her since our cross country trip.  A big reason I went is the town-wide yard sale weekend.  I have been selling there the last four/five years (I've lost count).  It's much easier selling there as so many buyers come to the town each year.  I've been taking excess items there, and this...
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A few years ago I started a little Facebook group called "Frugal Family." The purpose of it was to share websites on saving money with a few of my coworkers instead of sending links in emails. There were only about 12 or 13 of us on the site which was fine. When Covid hit, a few other people asked to be a part of the site. Then Facebook decided to make all groups public and the little site started to gain more, some were scammers of course. So, I had to make it a private group...
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I had started writing up a post, and as usual it ended up going way too long.  Thus I have split it in two.  Here is part 1, my current financial status.
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My investments have pretty much gone up and down through the year, not much change from year's start to be honest.  As I "guardrail" my mother's investments, ummm.... they have done very well.   She got a 'lil lucky as she had some nice investments in the...
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Because I'm still too young (haha) for receiving Social Security, I just haven't really looked into it in detail.  However, just for fun, I decided to go check out SSA's website and see what my eligibility looks like.
While at the website, I noticed there was a tiny little text link that revealed my entire life's annual income!  Wow, I didn't know that was available.  Why is the link so small?  That's a big deal to me!
Looking back at my life, in terms of...
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Right now, I'm trying to solve a technical problem.  Every time I turn my room fan off and on, my internet momentarily goes out.  Yes, you read that right.  Please feel free to read that again if you wish, I can wait.
Insane, right?  I feel like the Christmas light guy in the parody, 12 Pains of Christmas.  "One light goes out, they all go out!"  Haha, what a funny song.  Anyway, it's starting to kind of drive me batty, and it's making me painfully...
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I started getting the itch to do some local travel again since my last trip to Vermont in May. This is, after all, the time to be doing it, not in January! I did a fair amount of research into a trip to the Berkshires in Massachusetts and was pretty close to booking, but I decided it made sense, based on what I wanted to do, to stay in 2 different places rather than one. Then it turns out that 1 of the B&Bs I liked had a 2 night minimum, which was fine, so 4 nights total. But...
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Fortunately we have not sustained damage, but in the last few weeks, we've had lots of tornadoes and bad weather here in Central Illinois. It seems like every few days we are under severe storm watches and warnings. A week ago we had major tornadoes around us and then last Sunday we had multiple tornado warnings throughout the evening. We were blessed since we had no damage, but some little towns near us did sustain damage. Sunday night was really odd, we had a tornado warning...
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I had a post the other day that I personally messed up and didn't save correctly.  *sigh*  I always do a cut and paste, but then I inadvertently cut and paste another post.  
So I tried to do a meaningful update and that is what happened.
Starting in the right here and right now...  This was the chaos of today.

Not shown:  2 bikes, 2 guitars, a big fan, a desktop computer/monitor, other furniture and infinite bags.  I have no idea how MM...
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Last year my mortgage payment refunded me a few thousand in overpayments. That was the year I purchased so escrow had been calculated for the full year instead of the few months that were left in 2024. This year they are refunding me $777.  This year they are also readjusting my payments to reflect the lower escrow calculation. I'd like to continue to pay the same amount & just have more go to my principal, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to calculate it correctly until...
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The markets are closed today, so so is work.  That said, I'm doing a tiny bit of work today to get ahead for next week.
But I spent a nice morning sitting out on my porch and then went out for a 3-hour-long leisurely lunch with two friends.  Neither of my friends had been to that restaurant before, and they both liked it and will go back.  I've been going weekly since I discovered the place, which opened in January (I discovered it in March or April).  What...
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My toilet lid finally broke today, and it took me the entire afternoon fixing it.  The thing has been wobblying for a while, and I knew it was the hinge that was giving out, not a loose screw or anything.  Otherwise, that would have been an easy fix.
Replacing toilet lids isn't a difficult task or anything, but I kept fumbling my way throughout the process.  For starters, I thought my toilet was regular sized, so I bought a regular sized lid.  However, it turns...
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OK, this is definitely the nature edition of my posts here today only remotely related to personal finance.
It's a beautiful weather day here on the East Coast. I did a bit of yard work, but it was more like puttering outdoors. I'm waiting til 4 to go out and continue laying poultry wire on top of my raised beds to deter diggign chipmunks, which constantly tunnel in from the top. I started doing this a few days ago and while I could have used a staple gun to attach the fencing,...
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