2022 WOMEN IN RED SAVERS

[azucena]

Jul 15, 2022 9:09:48 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 15, 2022 8:43:40 GMT -5 azucena said:

I'm not updating as often even though I'm still plugging away.  Distracted by work and have gone down the scary rabbit hole of college costs as DD13 enters Freshman year.  The numbers are frightening.  Calculators have our EFC at $63k/yr.  Good gravy.  Seems all of our liquid savings is fair game for her tuition according to FASFA.  I read somewhere that only $9500 is 'protected' that doesn't even make sense for an emergency fund these days.  I acknowledge that it's totally a first world problem.  Given our track record of saving $30k the last 3 yrs, I think we can safely set her tuition budget at $25k cashflowed + 6.5k loan and shoot for some merit in the $10-20k range which should put us in good standing at some schools.  Trying not to get overwhelmed and just take it step by step.  We have 4 more years to save and will do so.  Difficult to justify spending more than $100k on college though.  Was sure hoping that bubble would pop before we got there esp since we paid our dues getting stuck in overpriced mortgage in 2006 so have paid our dues.

Azucena $15,173 of $30,000 (51%) as of 7/15/2022

There's essentially no asset protection allowance anymore.  It's been shrinking for years and now it's basically gone.  However, EFC is driven mainly by income (20-30%).  Parent assets are 5.6%, student assets 20% and student income 50% after the 7K student income protection allowance.

Great info, MPL, thanks!  Rough calc of 30% of gross income gets me to 60k so that explains a lot.  I really should look at the bright side that my work keeping our lifestyle creep pretty low is going to pay off in terms of cashflow available.

[seriousthistime]

For public schools, it used to be that home equity didn't count in the calculations.  You could fool with the calculator a bit and see if using your cash to pay down the mortgage would get you more financial aid.  Not sure it would be worth it to you to do that.  Your income is high enough that you will likely be clobbered. 

XH and I divorced as ODS and DD were attending college.  I was the custodial parent so up until the separation we were paying full price, and then the FAFSA was done with my income only.  YDS went to an affordable school in your state, azucena, and it worked out well for him.  If you are interested in hearing more, please PM me.  

[minnesotapaintlady]

Jul 20, 2022 14:25:00 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

For public schools, it used to be that home equity didn't count in the calculations.  You could fool with the calculator a bit and see if using your cash to pay down the mortgage would get you more financial aid.  Not sure it would be worth it to you to do that.  Your income is high enough that you will likely be clobbered. 

XH and I divorced as ODS and DD were attending college.  I was the custodial parent so up until the separation we were paying full price, and then the FAFSA was done with my income only.  YDS went to an affordable school in your state, azucena , and it worked out well for him.  If you are interested in hearing more, please PM me.  

Yeah, her income is so high that manipulating assets won't matter.  Her EFC will be way over the cost of attendance at any state school with just income.  There's a chance that the uber expensive private schools with massive endowments might have need based aid for them, but they also typically use the CSS profile that digs much, much deeper into finances than FAFSA...like colonoscopy deeper. 

[azucena]

Yeah, I figured as much. My mortgage is at 2.5% with 10 yrs left so not pre-paying it. I've just been hoping the college landscape would change before we got there. And besides that, it's so different from when DH and I went because our families were poor so we benefited from grants and need based aid.

[saveinla]

A college advisor told me to say that my DH & I had filed for divorce since we were living in different states at that time to get better scholarships.

[minnesotapaintlady]

azucena - Are your state schools reasonable?  I mean they're all expensive, but some states are better than others.

[azucena]

Just starting to look at what MO has to offer. I'm more familiar with my home state of IL. DD13 might want to be a Lutheran school teacher so looking into Concordia college system as well.

[minnesotapaintlady]

MO is part of MSEP, so maybe that will help.     msep.mhec.org/

[nooccar]

Update:

nooccar: 7/21/22 $$30,585.55 (Goal $30,000)

	9/12/21	8/21/22	Goal
EF	$7,000.00	$12,000.00	$12,000.00
House	$7,612.54	$10,544.31	$10,000.00
Travel	$1,221.44	$8,041.24	$8,000.00
Total	$15,834.98	$30,585.55	$30,000.00

The dishwasher was canceled with no idea of when it might be back in stock. I will try again during Thanksgiving sales.

I was surprised by a bonus that showed up at the end of my institution's fiscal year (June 30th). No explanation of why or where it came from. I'll take it. It allowed me to exceed my goal which is a good thing. My friend, who is getting her roof done, let me know that it is now required that they take off the shingles every time--no layering. That will require me to save more in my house fund for my future re-roofing project. Thankfully, I won't be surprised like she was. That is one thing that will impact my new goals.

I plan to post my new goals next month after I do projections with the raise for next year, which was also unexpected. Originally, our contract for the next fiscal year did not have a raise since the union had to fight against furloughs and/or salary reductions.


I am grateful for all of the unexpected money I received during the past year. I have been able to save it and not let my expenses creep up. However, my next budget year will need increases for various line items because of inflation which will impact how much I can save.

[minnesotapaintlady]

Still plowing forward. I think I need to jump in with the WIR Racers to get rid of the CC debt I've accumulated in the process though. You can't save it ALL!

MPL $20,318 of $27,000 (75%) as of 7/21/2022

[seriousthistime]

Jul 20, 2022 15:37:21 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

Jul 20, 2022 14:25:00 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

For public schools, it used to be that home equity didn't count in the calculations.  You could fool with the calculator a bit and see if using your cash to pay down the mortgage would get you more financial aid.  Not sure it would be worth it to you to do that.  Your income is high enough that you will likely be clobbered. 

XH and I divorced as ODS and DD were attending college.  I was the custodial parent so up until the separation we were paying full price, and then the FAFSA was done with my income only.  YDS went to an affordable school in your state, azucena , and it worked out well for him.  If you are interested in hearing more, please PM me.  

Yeah, her income is so high that manipulating assets won't matter.  Her EFC will be way over the cost of attendance at any state school with just income.  There's a chance that the uber expensive private schools with massive endowments might have need based aid for them, but they also typically use the CSS profile that digs much, much deeper into finances than FAFSA...like colonoscopy deeper. 

Indeed.  A man I know entered grad school as a 25 year old, after a stint in the military and 4 years of undergrad.  He went to one of the uber expensive private schools for grad school, and it turned out his parents totally messed up his financial aid because they'd taken a large withdrawal from their 401k the previous year.  The good news was that he went to the financial aid office and were able to give him generous amounts of aid to finish his degree. 

My daughter considered going to a private university for undergrad and when I saw the financial aid forms, I was shocked. 

[debthaven]

Debthaven 29 July 2022 14,500 euros (Goal 16,500 euros)

Still going in the wrong direction! I expected a huge paycheck this month, I don't understand. I wrote to them but they're probably all away now, and they only process payroll once a month. 

ETA: To be clear, I got my regular teaching pay, but nothing for the many "extra" days of oral interviews I've done. 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Jul 29, 2022 7:03:41 GMT -5 debthaven said:

Debthaven 29 July 2022 14,500 euros (Goal 16,500 euros)

Still going in the wrong direction! I expected a huge paycheck this month, I don't understand. I wrote to them but they're probably all away now, and they only process payroll once a month. 

ETA: To be clear, I got my regular teaching pay, but nothing for the many "extra" days of oral interviews I've done. 

hope you can get this resolved soon!

[snapdragon]

Well I am glad I saved something for car and house repairs.

My Transmission went out in my car almost 2 weeks ago. I just spent over 5K to get it up and running. My car has less than 70K miles and is 8 years old. Let's just say that this was a very stressful and aggravating July.  That amount does not include the rental or gas on what I was driving.

The only bright spots in this is that I was off the interstate when the brain decided to explode. I ended up renting a UHaul cargo van because there were no rental cars available. I have good friends that both dropped me off at work and than loaned me their vehicle when mine was not ready after I had to return the UHaul in.

Luckily I now have the car back and I did not have to buy a replacement vehicle at such a inflated price.

[Rukh O'Rorke]

Aug 1, 2022 11:16:22 GMT -5 snapdragon said:

Well I am glad I saved something for car and house repairs.

My Transmission went out in my car almost 2 weeks ago. I just spent over 5K to get it up and running. My car has less than 70K miles and is 8 years old. Let's just say that this was a very stressful and aggravating July.  That amount does not include the rental or gas on what I was driving.

The only bright spots in this is that I was off the interstate when the brain decided to explode. I ended up renting a UHaul cargo van because there were no rental cars available. I have good friends that both dropped me off at work and than loaned me their vehicle when mine was not ready after I had to return the UHaul in.

Luckily I now have the car back and I did not have to buy a replacement vehicle at such a inflated price.

yuk! That is not expected at such low mileage...sorry it happened to you..

[debthaven]

Ouch Snapdragon … but great job having saved so much!

[nikiz628]

Jul 5, 2022 0:52:50 GMT -5 nikiz628 said:

UPDATE 8/3- NO CHANGE FROM LAST MONTHS UPDATE

2022 SAVINGS	START	CURRENT	GOAL	STILL NEED
Emergency Fund	2,100.00	1,850.43	3,000.00	1,149.57
Christmas Fund	1.00	348.37	1,000.00	651.63
Cushion Fund	207.00	0.00	1,000.00	1,000.00
DS1's Savings	2,500.00	2,601.19	2,800.00	198.81
DS2's Savings	1,250.00	1,351.10	1,600.00	248.90
TOTALS	6,058.00	6,151.09	9,400.00	3,248.91

NikiZ628: 8/3/22 $6,151.09(Goal $9,400 WIRS2)

[azucena]

Jul 15, 2022 8:43:40 GMT -5 azucena said:

Jun 3, 2022 11:04:25 GMT -5 azucena said:

I'm not updating as often even though I'm still plugging away.  Distracted by work and have gone down the scary rabbit hole of college costs as DD13 enters Freshman year.  The numbers are frightening.  Calculators have our EFC at $63k/yr.  Good gravy.  Seems all of our liquid savings is fair game for her tuition according to FASFA.  I read somewhere that only $9500 is 'protected' that doesn't even make sense for an emergency fund these days.  I acknowledge that it's totally a first world problem.  Given our track record of saving $30k the last 3 yrs, I think we can safely set her tuition budget at $25k cashflowed + 6.5k loan and shoot for some merit in the $10-20k range which should put us in good standing at some schools.  Trying not to get overwhelmed and just take it step by step.  We have 4 more years to save and will do so.  Difficult to justify spending more than $100k on college though.  Was sure hoping that bubble would pop before we got there esp since we paid our dues getting stuck in overpriced mortgage in 2006 so have paid our dues.

Azucena $15,173 of $30,000 (51%) as of 7/15/2022

Payday deposit of $2465.

Just keep saving, just keep saving.


Azucena $17,358 of $30,000 (58%) as of 8/5/2022

[teachermom]

Plugging away each month. 

Update:

Goal #1 - EF
$10,110.00 7/5/2022 ($0 1/1/22, Goal $10,000)

Goal #2 - Car fund
$8107.50 8/11/2022 ($0 1/1/22, Goal $25,000)

Goal #3 - Wedding and Honeymoon -$10k total
$10,004.10 7/5/22 ($0 1/1/22, Goal $10,000)

Teachermom

[minnesotapaintlady]

So close to getting the regular contribution amount maxed! Will be filled with the 9/2 paycheck, then will just coast the rest of the year filling the catch-up at a leisurely pace.

MPL $23,714 of $27,000 (88%) as of 8/25/2022

[plugginaway22]

For years I have kept short term savings in the online money market account Capital One 360 (really old ING). It was earning .8% in July when I noticed they had a new savings account called the 360 Performance which is now paying 1.7%. So I had to open that new account and move everything over. I just looked at monthly interest to date and boy does it make a difference. Since we are living off savings these first 2 years of retirement there is quite a bit of cash laying around.


ETA:  today on 8/29 it is now paying 1.75%

[steph08]

Aug 25, 2022 13:17:45 GMT -5 plugginaway22 said:

For years I have kept short term savings in the online money market account Capital One 360 (really old ING). It was earning .8% in July when I noticed they had a new savings account called the 360 Performance which is now paying 1.7%. So I had to open that new account and move everything over. I just looked at monthly interest to date and boy does it make a difference. Since we are living off savings these first 2 years of retirement there is quite a bit of cash laying around.

Thank you for posting this!

My old ING accounts are only earning .3%!! I had so much money (to me) in there over the past year due to the sale of our old house, spending it slowly on new house projects, and I could have been making 6x as much interest! I'm going to transfer everything over now! 

[seriousthistime]

I'll have to check out the 360 Performance account. 

I sold my house and am waiting for the new one to close.  I'll still have cash to transfer over, and higher interest rate is significant. 

[TheOtherMe]

Aug 28, 2022 18:30:30 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

I'll have to check out the 360 Performance account. 

I sold my house and am waiting for the new one to close.  I'll still have cash to transfer over, and higher interest rate is significant. 

So the house is sold and closed and you have the new one selected?   I hope that means you aren't feeling as overwhelmed as you have been.  

[seriousthistime]

Aug 28, 2022 20:14:08 GMT -5 TheOtherMe said:

Aug 28, 2022 18:30:30 GMT -5 seriousthistime said:

I'll have to check out the 360 Performance account. 

I sold my house and am waiting for the new one to close.  I'll still have cash to transfer over, and higher interest rate is significant. 

So the house is sold and closed and you have the new one selected?   I hope that means you aren't feeling as overwhelmed as you have been.  

It does mean that!  I was about to post a longer update on the Decluttering and Organizing thread.  

After closing, I'll post some different goals and amounts here in the Savers thread.

[debthaven]

So I will FINALLY get paid for the extra work I did for Job 2 in May/June/July in late September. Rukh O'Rorke asked if they would pay extra for our troubles. I laughed at that idea! 

Turns out they are!!! They are paying those of us who weren't paid in a timely fashion (ie late July) an extra day! It's my best-paid job, and absolutely unheard of here! So although it sucked not to have yet been paid the 3K they owe me, I'll get another 320 euros (gross) for my troubles! 

[Rukh O'Rorke]

wonderful news debthaven!

[teachermom]

Aug 25, 2022 13:17:45 GMT -5 plugginaway22 said:

For years I have kept short term savings in the online money market account Capital One 360 (really old ING). It was earning .8% in July when I noticed they had a new savings account called the 360 Performance which is now paying 1.7%. So I had to open that new account and move everything over. I just looked at monthly interest to date and boy does it make a difference. Since we are living off savings these first 2 years of retirement there is quite a bit of cash laying around.


ETA:  today on 8/29 it is now paying 1.75%

Yes, I had to convert all of mine too. Took me a while because I obviously have too many accounts but love having individual goals and accounts for my sinking funds. 

Teachermom

[plugginaway22]

I just logged into my account and see that the rate is now at 1.9%!

[nooccar]

Update:


Nooccar: 9/11/22 $31,252.96 (Goal $40,000,000)

	8/25/22	9/11/22	Goals
EF	$12,000.00	$12,500.00	$15,000.00
House	$10,562.58	$10,688.45	$15,000.00
Travel	$8,051.02	$8,064.51	$10,000.00
Totals	$30,613.60	$31,252.96	$40,000.00

My retention salary increase has ended. My new raise will be less than the bonus, but I haven't seen how it will impact my paychecks yet. I am also setting aside more money to cover next summer, in addition to increasing several spending categories.

My online savings accounts at Ally are currently paying 2%! That's so much better than the .5% it was earlier.