Post Your Wins

[Gailete]

After having sold our paid for rental property in December I was able to tuck a nice chunk into mine and hubby's IRA. I track on Friday evenings how things are going with my investments and saw that we were at the highest they had been ever. Yeah! And then checking My IRAs a regular one and my Roth and for the first time ever for me, my shares increased in price by $1000! I have never gotten to see a 4 digit increase to the left of the period and the change notation ever before. I finally have enough shares that for about every point the shares go up, we will be going up a ~$1K. Let's just say I was stunned and surprised as it had only been about 2 weeks since buying more shares. If they return to what the share prices were in September before the stock market did its loop-de-loops I will be up about 8 more points = $8000 increase. I know that you can't depend on the stock market but still, it is nice to dream. It feels like I finally turned a corner on investing and why you want to start doing it as early in life as possible as the more you put in the more it grows.

[scfr]

2 recent wins:
1. The "use up the pantry" frugal soup I threw together yesterday (condensed tomato soup, milk, crushed tomatoes, and garbanzo beans plus some granulated garlic & black pepper) was a hit with DH yesterday!
2. I got 5 audiobooks downloaded to my Kindle via the Overdrive app from the library, so I'll have lots of listening options during my upcoming multi-day drive (we're moving). My "smart" phone is a lower end version that doesn't have enough memory to use Overdrive, so I'm really happy I was able to figure out how to use the Kindle. Free entertainment and learning!

[Thrif-t]

Hey I have a win, but it's kinda counting my chickens b/4 they hatch right now...but I got a letter I'm going to be inheriting some money from someone I don't even know!! Just the way it's working out with this person leaving their estate to someone in my family who has recently passed without a will, so it will pass down to family per stirpes.

Probably somewhere in the 10k range. I'm excited. No clue how long it will take but I'll be most appreciative when I get the $$. Probably going to use it to take a Mediterranean Cruise we were thinking of taking for our 30th Anniversary in 2 years.

[disneysteve]

Hey I have a win, but it's kinda counting my chickens b/4 they hatch right now...but I got a letter I'm going to be inheriting some money from someone I don't even know!! Just the way it's working out with this person leaving their estate to someone in my family who has recently passed without a will, so it will pass down to family per stirpes.

That's a nice surprise. Often, wills are written so that if any of the beneficiaries pre-decease the person, the money is just divided up among the living people. Nice that in this case, it is passing through to their family members.

[Thrif-t]

That's a nice surprise. Often, wills are written so that if any of the beneficiaries pre-decease the person, the money is just divided up among the living people. Nice that in this case, it is passing through to their family members.

Both of the deceased had no children, no living spouse and no living siblings or parents. I have a BIG family!! 32 cousins are splitting this!! And it boggles my mind it's someone we don't even know; my aunt's, husband's, x-sister-in-law.

[disneysteve]

We booked a rental home for our next trip to Florida in August. We usually do a condo but being August, I wanted to splurge and get a house with a pool. With all the taxes and fees, the quote came to almost $1,800. I sent the owner a nice message introducing myself and asking for her best price. She wrote back and knocked the price down a couple hundred dollars so that was nice. I was prepared to pay the quoted price but I'll certainly take the discount.

[amastewa93]

We got our EF to $1,000 and paid off nearly $600 in debt in January! A small, small step but progress nonetheless.

[QuarterMillionMan]

1/11/19 bought 470 XLE at about $62 per share. 2/2/19 sold 470 XLE at about $64.60 a share.

[QuarterMillionMan]

1/11/19 bought 470 XLE at about $62 per share. 2/2/19 sold 470 XLE at about $64.60 a share.

[james.hendrickson]

Nice move Quarter - what are you eyeing for the next trade?

[QuarterMillionMan]

Hi James, I'm looking at VXX at $38, but it could be very risky and could go either way with the volatility.

[msomnipotent]

I forgot that I hired a real estate attorney to automatically dispute my property taxes every year (if warranted). I got a bill for $19.17 yesterday for their services because they managed to get $153 knocked off. Unfortunately, my prop taxes were raised $300 more than the discount, so I still owe more. And I found out that they are raising the rates next year.


While this isn't a financial win, we took our daughter to the Panic at the Disco concert for her birthday on Monday. It was one of those days where everything went right. We left way too early to avoid rush hour traffic and the parking lot was still closed. I decided to drive around and wound up having a cop direct me to a different parking lot that techincally wasn't open but they let us in. We were first in line to enter the Arena, so there was no line for the merchandise, bathrooms, or food, and it took us all of 3 minutes to get out of the lot after the show. AND I happened to pick the right seats AND Brendan Urie walked down our aisle AND hugged my daughter!!!! I thought she was going to pee herself silly. She still bursts out into tears when she thinks about it, which I find hilarious. She is wearing the shirt she wore when he touched her to school today, so I am expecting to get a call from the principal to find out why she keeps crying and/or screaming.

[james.hendrickson]

Guys - this is a bit self explanatory, but we saved a TON of money on health insurance costs in 2018.

A bit of background. In 2018 we ended up having a daughter (big win), and we incurred something like $58,634.05 in medical bills (yipes).

Insurance covered a big chunk of it, here is what the numbers looked like:



Bottom line: big savings with health insurance. Definite win.

[msomnipotent]

I was credited almost $5 on my Cap 1 card without having to do anything. Apparently, they do price checks for you and credit the difference. We also got the email for our Citi Costco card rebate. Just shy of $375! Our Costco rebate should be coming soon.

[mo0n]

My last payment cleared, I reached my goal of paying off $45k in less than a year. Now I need to shift gears and start a savings plan