I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been very busy at work making sure that I keep my spot on the competitive “large institution” roster. There has been a ton going on at work and it’s only going to get crazier as we end the year.
On the home front things are smelling rather porkish. We knew it was only a matter of time before we started coming down with swine flu as it worked it’s way around our 1st grader’s class. It finally hit. My daughter is sitting on the couch getting to watch more TV than usual and is in remarkably good spirits considering she’s running a 102+ fever. We are watching her closely for any signs of more dangerous symptoms. All in all, I’d say it’s rather stressful. It’s times like this that I’m very grateful to be employed with good health insurance. I’m starting to feel a little under the weather as well and my temperature is fluctuating between normal and 100 degrees. My hope is that we can stagger the sickness enough that one of us will be healthy to help the others.
On the financial front, we are trying to buckle down on our spending. We really haven’t tightened up our spending nearly as much as I wanted to. Things seem to just keep coming up. I’m a bit ashamed to say that we ended up buying a new Honda CRV for my wife. We weren’t eligible for the cash for clunkers and it had already expired. We did our best to minimize the cost but in the end, it was definitely not the best transaction of our lives. We looked for used CRV’s but the prices were amazingly close to new prices. We’ll definitely keep the car for a LONG time and ultimately I think our daughter will drive it (in 10 years). I’ve also been needing new tires for my 2000 Toyota Tacoma. I priced them out and the cost was going to exceed $500, even at Costco. I decided to keep my eye out for used wheels and tires on Craigslist, and after about a month of looking, I finally spotted the ones I wanted. I was able to buy newer, larger wheels that I really like, with tires that have about 60% tread for $325. I will sell the old wheels and tires on Craigslist for about $150-$200 which I’m hoping will bring the total cost down to about $125. That will get us by for a couple more years so I’m happy.
I’ve also been watching the market with a close eye. I’m convinced the market is overpriced. There are just too many variables in the economy that aren’t performing well. With that opinion in mind, I’m now putting more money in cash (in my 401K) and have moved a bit of my existing holdings in to cash to reduce my risk a bit. For the most part, I’m just dollar cost averaging every two weeks but I am “playing” with about 10% of my total account value by trying to time the dips a bit. I have had a few trades over the years that really benefited my account balance by trying to recognize macro economic hits to the market where good companies got thrown out with all the others. Obviously it isn’t smart to try to time the market, but my past performance keeps me interested in using a small portion of my 401K balance to take advantage of large dips or other major changes in the market.
The only other thing worth mentioning is that we are planning on setting aside the total amount we are going to spend on Christmas for 2009. We have put together a list of people we will be buying something for and the dollar value that we will use. That has given us a firm goal to keep our spending in check. My wife and I are also planning on only buying each other necessity items. She needs some new shirts and I could use a new coat and I’d like a new garden hose nozzle in my stocking. This definitely won’t be the year for excessive “wish list” items.