Disneysteve's Common Cents Blog

They came out today and replaced our electric meter. My wife said the tech told her that the meter did appear to be worn out internally so he thinks I may be right that it wasn't recording properly. He said it takes about 2 weeks for them to do the analysis and he gave us a number to call to get a report.

So now we just have to wait a couple of weeks and then see what they say. Hopefully, they'll confirm a discrepancy and we'll get some money back. I'll update when I know.

The moral of the story is that if something just doesn't seem right, don't be afraid to question it. And the other moral is to pay attention. Review bills. Look for discrepancies or unfamiliar charges and look into them when they occur.

Every month, I put money in our Ally account and money in our taxable Vanguard account. Last month I bumped up the amounts from $1,500 each to $1,600 each. I made the February deposits yesterday.

That's rarely all we put in but we always put in at least those amounts. Last month I actually put $5,000 into Ally.

For the month of January 2020:

10 gym workouts
2 outdoor runs

12/30/19 weight: 185.7
1/31/20 weight: 181.4

I'm happy with those numbers. Now to keep it up in February and keep that weight number going down.

Last month, I won a $600 gift card to a local restaurant in a drawing at a liquor store we frequent. They said it was for a "whiskey dinner" for 6-8 people. It turned out to simply be a gift card to the restaurant to be used however we'd like. DW and I talked about it and decided we'd go out to dinner with another couple two different times (with different couples) and cover the bills with the gift card as much as possible. We also happened to have an old $50 gift card to the same place that we had never used.

Tonight was our first dinner there armed with $650 worth of gift cards. I'll admit we went a bit overboard in ordering since the meal wasn't costing us a penny. The tab came to $342 plus $64 for the tip for a total of $406. That leaves us a $244 balance on the gift card for next time. That may not fully cover dinner for 4 but we can tone it down next time around so it should cover most of it. I don't mind paying a bit out of pocket.

The meal was fabulous, though. I know to a lot of people, a $100 meal is unimaginable but just trust me when I say it was worth it. From the cocktails to the appetizers to the entrees to the desserts, everything was top notch including the service. We loved it and our friends loved it. We don't get to spend time with them often so we really enjoyed the company as well.

We haven't set up the next dinner yet. We have to decide who we want to go with and then find a date that works for all of us.

I called the utility company today and explained my concern with the sharply higher electricity usage compared to last year. The rep asked if we had any space heaters, electric fireplaces, etc. I said we do have a space heater but it's the same one we've had for years. I also explained that we recently got a new dishwasher which is more efficient than the one it replaced and that we've also installed several LED lights so our usage should be lower.

She set up an appointment for our meter to be replaced early next month. They will analyze the old meter and if they find a discrepancy, we'll be credited accordingly. If they find no issues, then our bill will remain as is. But there's no cost to having the meter replaced so we really have nothing to lose. I figure it's worth a shot.

I'll post an update when I have one.

One of our toilets was taking forever to fill. It wasn't running. It wasn't leaking. It just was filling really slowly. My wife finally asked if I could fix it so a couple of weeks ago, I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a new fill valve assembly and installed it. Everything seemed fine. It was working properly and filling in a normal amount of time.

Then 2 days ago DW texts me at work and says the toilet is running and she opened the back and the water level was rising over the top of the drain tube. I talked her through a couple of things to try but nothing helped. The only thing I can figure is that the fill valve I installed was defective and had a leak somewhere so the water flow wasn't cutting off when the tank was full.

I had to work all day yesterday so couldn't do anything about it until today (which I'm sure our next water bill will reflect). I went and got another new fill valve assembly, took out the first one, and installed the new one. I also went and replaced the flapper while I was at it. It wasn't leaking but it was pretty old.

So far, everything seems fine, but that was true last time too. Hopefully it will continue to be okay. I just have to get back to Home Depot to return the first one.

Of course, in the process of doing all of this, I discovered that the water shut off valve to the toilet doesn't work. I had to turn off the main water supply to the house to fix the toilet. I got a plumber referral from a friend and will call them at some point to come install a new valve. That's a little beyond my DIY skill set.

It recently occurred to me that there might be something wrong with our electric meter. The utility bill shows how much our electricity and gas usage is compared to the same month a year ago. The gas usage is sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but I've realized the electricity usage is always higher, sometimes 10 or 12% but sometimes 50 or 60% higher. This was actually happening last year but I attributed it to DD being back living at home and not away at college.

There's no way we can be using 60% more electricity than a year ago though. Nothing has changed in our house. It's been the same 3 people. The only new appliance we've gotten, and that was just a couple of months ago, was a dishwasher and the new one should be a lot more efficient than the 15-year-old one it replaced. Every other appliance is the same.

I'm going to call the utility company and see if they can send someone out to check our meter. We've had it for a long time so maybe it needs to be replaced.

They finally gave us extra help at work. We now have 2 providers for 4 hours per day on Monday, Friday, and weekends. It definitely helped yesterday as we saw 22 patients from 9-1 which I couldn't possibly have kept up with by myself. Now I just have to hope the volumes support adding a 2nd person on the remaining 3 days of the week since I work Tuesday and Thursday by myself.

We went out to dinner last night to a place we like. The restaurant sent out an email yesterday morning with a $10 off deal one day only. I'm guessing they thought business might be light due to bad weather, or maybe that was just a coincidence and they were going to send that offer anyway.

In addition to the $10 off, I had a $20 gift card that we got as a bonus for buying a $75 gift card last month. Finally, I hadn't yet used the $100 gift card my staff gave me as a holiday present. I think we ended up using about half of that card.

The storm didn't do much here. We got a dusting of snow and some sleet but it wasn't bad and the temp was back in the upper 30s this morning so nothing froze over night.

I realized yesterday that we have not yet gotten the property tax bill. I was sure the payment is due February 1 so it seems awfully late to have not received it yet.

I posted a question in our town's Facebook group today and others confirmed that the bills haven't gone out yet. Someone mentioned that there is a 10-day grace period so you really don't have to pay until 2/11, but I don't play those games. I pay before the stated due date, and typically when I get the bill so it doesn't actually get misplaced or forgotten.

Someone also mentioned that you could pay online and that the bills were already posted. I figured there'd be some convenience fee for online payment that I wouldn't want to pay, but I checked anyway. Turns out that the e-check fee is only $0.99. Since a stamp is $0.55, that means it would only cost an extra 44 cents to pay online and be done with it, not to have to write a check, and have immediate confirmation that my payment was processed. No chance of it getting lost in the mail or anything like that. So I went ahead just now and made the payment. Yes, I paid 2 weeks before I had to, but it's done and I no longer have to think about it - until April.

I'm glad they made the convenience fee so reasonable. It's worth 44 cents to me for sure.

This isn't entirely a fail, and it is in no way my fault, but I kind of feel like I wasted my money.

A year or so ago, we replaced the ceiling light fixture in our sitting room. We also put in dimmable LED bulbs. There was already a dimmer switch and I didn't change that.

We found that the lights were fine when at full brightness, but they flickered quite a lot when they were dimmmed, even going off momentarily and coming back on. I did some reading online and learned that older dimmer switches regulate the current differently and they aren't compatible with LED bulbs.

I went out yesterday and bought a new LED-commpatible dimmer switch and installed it today. It works okay but the lights still flicker. Not nearly as bad as they did. They don't actually go fully off and on like before. It's more of a constant minimal flicker which does seem to be a lot less annoying. We'll have to see how noticeable it is when it's dark outside and the fixture is the only light source.

I'm all in favor of switching to highly energy-efficient lighting but it does have some downsides and flickering is one of them. The LEDs I installed in our hallway flicker a lot too and those aren't on a dimmer. I've also found 3 fixtures in the house where LED bulbs wouldn't work at all and I had to stick with CFL or incandescent bulbs which was disappointing.

Last year, I pretty regularly picked up an extra shift, maybe once or twice a month. But I haven't done that for at least a few months. We hired a lot of new people so there haven't been nearly as many open shifts, and I was just kind of burnt out and didn't feel like working any more than I needed to.

Recently, I've been paying attention to the openings again. Two or three times in the past few weeks, we've gotten a text or e-mail saying they needed help last minute but every time I've either already been working or had personal plans. Yesterday we got a message that they needed help at one site from 1-5pm today. I was free, double checked with my wife, and took that shift.

I hadn't been to that site for ages, probably close to 2 years, so it was nice to go there and see everyone. It wasn't terribly busy which was also nice. And the other doc on with me is pretty new. We've met at meetings but I never really had any time to talk and get to know her.

And, of course, we get paid $140/hour for weekday per diem shifts so I made an extra $560 for giving up my afternoon. Not a bad deal all around.

CCF suggested this idea and I thought it would be fun. Post a comparison of where you were 10 years ago and where you are now, and talk about what happened in the interim. So here goes.

12/31/09: Total financial assets (not including home)
$395,673.73

12/31/19: Total financial assets (not including home)
$1,329,432.03

12/31/09 Mortgage balance: $92,285.99
12/31/19 Mortgage balance: $0.00

So our net worth went up by $1,026,044.29.

Major financial events of the last 10 years, and I'm probably forgetting some

Bought my car in 2012, paid off in 2013
Bought my wife's van in 2013, paid off in 2016

Daughter attended college 2014-2018, all loans by her and us have been repaid

Paid off mortgage in 2019; now totally debt-free

Began a job transition in April 2016 that was completed in November 2017 and now earn more than double what I made at the old job

I think those are the real biggies. Obviously, lots of smaller things, car repairs, home repairs, travel, medical expenses, and all of the other normal stuff. It's pretty powerful to look back like that.

Now that the market is closed, I did the final 2019 update on our portfolio spreadsheet.

12/31/18: $1,023,684.61
12/31/19: $1,329,432.03

An increase of $305,747.42 for the year. That number is incredible to me. It really shows the power of investing and compounding. That's more money than I earned in 2019 gross and a little more than double my take home pay. Obviously, a strong stock market had a lot to do with it. We'll see how long that continues.

I hope you all had a great year and have an even better 2020.

For most of my career, I was one of those folks who did not have an employer-sponsored retirement account. I finally got one when I started working for urgent care in 2016, so less then 3 years ago.

As of today, my 401k balance is just over the $100,000 mark.

That's less than 8% of our total portfolio but it was still nice to see that one account cross into 6 figures. I did max it out last year and this year and intend to do so every year I work there so it should continue to grow nicely putting $26,000/year into it.

I got a voicemail yesterday from a liquor store we frequent saying I had won a gift certificate for a whiskey dinner for 6-8 people. I didn't know exactly what that meant. We took a ride over there today to find out.

It turns out that what I won is a $600 gift card to a very nice local restaurant. There is no official "whiskey dinner" that they do. We can use that gift card however we'd like.

We talked about it a bit and what I think we'll do is invite one couple to join us for dinner one night and invite another couple a different night. Eight meals should pretty well burn through $600. If anything remains after that, my wife and I can just put it toward another meal for the 2 of us.

I was excited to win anything and certainly blown away that I had actually won a $600 prize.

Tomorrow is payday. I got my final stub of 2019 yesterday. That covers the pay period that ended 12/14/19 so there are still 17 days remaining in the year but they will be paid in 2020.

My YTD income was $245,000. Add in those last 17 days and my total gross for the year will be $256,000.

At my old job, which I left at the end of September 2017, so just over 2 years ago, I was making half of that. I am incredibly happy and grateful that I made the change. My new job is so much better in many ways, not just the salary. Better benefits, better working conditions, better hours, better coworker interaction, better everything pretty much.

It's been a very good year.

I just updated our portfolio spreadsheet and the total topped $1.3 million for the first time. It's been close for a while with the gyrations of the market but it finally got there.

It means nothing. It changes nothing. We'll just keep plugging away as we're far from ready to retire (financially speaking) but it's nice to see the number continue to climb.

Many years ago, I typed up a list of all of our financial accounts in case anything ever happened to me. It listed each account company, type of account, account number, and phone number. I realized recently that I haven't updated that list for a very long time.

I pulled out the list today and it was dated December 2006. Surprisingly, it wasn't terribly outdated. A couple of companies have changed names and we have a few new accounts.

I made a new list today. Instead of phone numbers, I listed website addresses with user ID and password for accessing each account. I attached that list to a copy of our portfolio spreadsheet so that it all matches up.

As soon as we have a moment, I'll have a "financial date" with my wife and show her the new list and how it all goes together. The list will be stored in our lockbox with other important papers.

It turned out to be an expensive few days, some of which was anticipated and some that wasn't.

Wednesday night we attended a whiskey tasting at a local liquor store that we go to regularly. In addition to the tasting, they held a raffle for the right to purchase 1 of 11 different hard to find bottles. My wife won one and I won one so we came home with 2 bottles at $100 and $150. Not something we were expecting but we'll get to enjoy them for months to come.

Yesterday and today we were in NYC. That was a planned trip for my wife's birthday which is next week. We had bought show tickets a few months ago. Of course, there were also travel costs (though the hotel was free on reward points), meals, and some incidental spending. We also ended up at a piano bar last night after the show which ran us another $107 in addition to the $130 for dinner, plus lunch yesterday and today, parking, etc. Worth every penny though as we had a great time.

Fortunately, it's all stuff we can comfortably afford to do while still meeting all of our investing goals and remaining debt-free.

Not much new going on. Everything is cruising along nicely which is good.

I've sold a couple of items on Facebook Marketplace recently. It definitely has advantages over Ebay and I've used it to get rid of some things that have been sitting around or a while, including things that I tried unsuccessfully to sell on Ebay. The fact that there's no shipping cost helps a lot. That's what makes it hard to sell lower priced items online.

I maxed out my 401k a month or so ago so for the last couple of paychecks, I took the money that would have gone to that and put it into our Vanguard account instead. I did the full amount even though I was doing it with after-tax dollars. We have one more paycheck in December and then the 401k funding will resume, plus they upped the limit $1,000 for 2020 so it'll take a bit longer to max it.

We took advantage of the Target gift card sale today and bought $600 worth at 10% off. Last week we bought gift cards for one of our favorite restaurants. If you bought $75 they gave you an extra $20. We go there about once a month so that'll save us a bit. And yesterday I paid our auto insurance bill through PayPal with our Chase Freedom Visa which has 5% cashback on PayPal purchases this quarter. That saved me $63. $60 from Target, $20 from the restaurant, and $63 from the insurance. All of those things can really add up over time. Oh, and we bought $300 of the Target cards with our Discover card that has 5% back at Target this quarter though we're not sure if that includes gift card purchases. I'll have to wait and see.

My wife and I are going to NYC this week overnight and seeing a show. It's for her birthday. I booked the hotel on reward points so that's free. Of course the parking, dinner, and show aren't. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be very cold so we probably won't do much in the city. That's okay because I like wandering in the city much more than she does anyway.

I guess that's all the main stuff for now.

A few weeks back, someone on the forums mentioned looking at new credit cards. I suggested the one we have and they ended up signing up for it with my referral link so we got 20,000 bonus points. It's a Marriott card so that's at least 1 free night and maybe more depending on the hotel.

We scored a ton of Marriott points last month between travel, spending, a promotion they were having, and that bonus. All together in one month we earned just over 64,000 points. A typical hotel stay for us is 15,000 points so we earned more than 4 free nights last month alone. We are using points for one night in NYC in a couple of weeks but we really need to plan some other times to use points as we now have over 500,000 on our account.

We got our quarterly bonus this week. I'm happy to get it, of course, but I do get a bit annoyed by how it is calculated. Parts of it are based on my performance, satisfaction scores, and adherence to quality metrics. I'm fine with all of that. I did miss one of my targets this quarter but that's totally on me so no complaints about that.

The problem is that parts of it are also based on the overall performance of everyone, their scores, and their adherence to quality metrics. That means I could be doing a stellar job and still miss out on incentive money because others aren't doing their jobs as well, which is exactly what happened. Fortunately, it was a very small amount of money involved but it's still frustrating as it is something I have absolutely zero control over.

Ultimately, I'm very grateful for this job and for the compensation I get for doing it. I'm making the most I've ever made in my career by far.

It's actually been a long time since I took a staycation. I always mean to but it just hasn't happened for years. I had a bunch of PTO I had to use up or lose at the end of the year so I took some random days off. The way my schedule works, I only need to take off on a Thursday to get 5 days off in a row so that's what I did this week.

Today was day 1. Slept late. Like really late for me - 9:20, which was great because for some reason I was really exhausted yesterday. Did some cleaning around the house today including packing up a bag of clothes for Goodwill. DW and I went to Target for a few things and stopped at Goodwill on the way back to drop off the clothes and an old broken printer to recycle.

DD worked tonight so DW and I had a date night. We went to dinner at a place nearby that we've never tried but was on the 1,000 point list for Open Table. It was really nice, definitely a place we would go back to. Then we fired up Disney+. One of our goals with the new service is to catch up on the Marvel cinematic universe and see all the films we've missed. First up tonight was Captain Marvel. We enjoyed that.

No big plans for tomorrow except going to the gym at noon (DW has an appointment with her trainer). I have a number of things on my To Do list so we'll see where the day takes me.

My wife and I spent Friday-Monday out of town in National Harbor, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. We had a nice time just relaxing and spending time together. I had booked a hotel package that included a full buffet breakfast every day (not like a Holiday Inn Express buffet but a full buffet). It also included a $50/day resort credit toward food and drinks.

First night we had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant there. We've eaten there numerous times and it remains one of favorite restaurants anywhere.

Saturday we did some shopping at the outlets in town. I picked up a new belt and several shirts. We had dinner at the hotel sports bar (with our credit) and then went over to the nearby casino. We both lost but it was fun. Went back to the sports bar for dessert and drinks.

Sunday we went across the river to Old Town Alexandria and strolled around the shops and waterfront area. There's a large art studio there and it's always interesting to check out what all of the artists are working on. Had lunch at a rustic Italian place. Went back to the hotel and hit the gym for our workout. Had dinner at a Western-themed spot just across the way from the hotel. And ended the night back at the hotel for drinks to use our credit for the day.

Yesterday, we had breakfast and then got packed up. Our daughter was actually at a convention in Arlington, VA, about 25 minutes away. She had taken Amtrak down on Thursday. We checked out and headed over there, picked her up, and we all drove home together.

All in all, a very nice getaway. Not cheap but I had planned it a couple of months ago as a little treat for paying off the mortgage. It was definitely well worth it.

The 2nd attempt at getting our dishwasher installed was yesterday afternoon. A different crew from a different company came out and they were amazing! They were friendly and understanding and professional and skilled. They were shocked that the other crew hadn't even made any attempt.

They pulled out the old dishwasher easily (the other guy said he might not be able to get it out) and proceeded to install the new one like it was nothing. They appreciated that we were educated and knew what we were talking about as I'm sure they encounter plenty of customers who think they know everything and don't really have a clue.

Once it was installed, they showed us the basic features and gave us some tips. They even answered a couple of questions we had about some other appliance issues. Of course, we now have their contact info and would happily use them again for future needs.

So we now have a shiny new installed and functioning dishwasher. We'll probably run the first load tonight.

My base plan is to send at least $1,500 to Ally and $1,500 to Vanguard every month. Occasionally when excess accumulates in our checking account, I move that to Ally too. Yesterday I was able to transfer an extra $6,000 as I had gotten paid on Thursday and everything else was covered.

Our CC bills will be higher than usual the next 2 cycles because we bought a dishwasher last week and we’re going out of town for a few days next week but I think I’ll still have enough in checking to cover all of that. If not I can always transfer some back. At least this way it’s earning interest.

We bought a new dishwasher last week. They came yesterday to install it. The guy took half a step into the kitchen and said, "I can tell you right now it won't fit." We have a ceramic tile floor and there is a drop off at the end of the tiles to the floor where the dishwasher sits. It's been like that since we bought the house 25 years ago. This will be the 3rd dishwasher going into the exact same space. Previous installers thought the same thing and then proceeded to install it just fine.

Nope. This guy was convinced it wouldn't work and wasn't even willing to try. Back I went to the store today to complain. They said I had to contact the installation service directly as it's a third party.

I called them and the guy I spoke to actually seemed pretty good. He understood the issue and seemed surprised that the installer didn't even attempt to do the work. He said he'd seek out another installer and get back to me, which he did a short time later. He gave me his direct line if we need him and gave me the name of the new guy. We're just waiting for that guy to call and schedule to come out. Hopefully he can do it with no further issue. Otherwise I'm going to have to go to Lowe's again and have them refund what we paid for installation. I have a friend who has already said he'd be happy to install it if it comes to that. So still on hold at the moment to see what the final outcome will be.

Okay, this one may sound lame but I still count it as a success.

We were in Lowe's last week buying a new dishwasher. As we were walking through the store, we passed the aisle with the 4-foot long workshop light fixtures like many people have in unfinished basements or garages. We have 3 in our basement. One barely works and one hasn't worked at all for ages. I just never bothered to do anything about it.

Ours have 48" fluorescent tubes. Now they are all LED which is nice. I took pictures of the 3 options and a couple days ago searched on Amazon. Of course, I was able to find similar fixtures that are even brighter and cheaper than Lowe's so I ordered two of them.

They arrived today and I installed them both easily since they were going exactly where the old ones were, even hanging on the very same hardware that was already there.

We now have 2 super bright fixtures. The laundry room has only had a single regular bulb since that fixture died and the other half of the basement was pretty much in the dark except for the rare occasion when that fixture actually decided to work. It looks great down there. DW is happy because she is in charge of laundry and I'm happy because I do a lot of stuff on the other side. Plus the extra pantry is down there so now we can find things without pulling out our cell phone flashlight. And all for just $60 (and I'll get 5% cashback from our Discover card).

I updated our portfolio spreadsheet and our asset allocation has drifted some from 12/31/18. I'm not surprised by that as I know we've been accumulating more cash. And of course market performance affects the numbers too.

12/31/18
69% stock
23.4% bond
7.6% cash

10/16/19
61.16% stock
26.67% bond
12.17% cash

I don't really have anything particular to say about these numbers. I'm fine with where they are. I do want to keep track as I don't really want the stock allocation to drop below 60%. I'm currently splitting at least $3,000/month between our savings account and our taxable Vanguard account so if I need to pump up the stock allocation, I can just direct more toward that instead of savings for a couple of months.

We headed over to Lowe's today. We've bought several other appliances there. They seem to have a good combination of reasonable prices, nice selection, and helpful staff that isn't overly pushy. Today was no exception. A couple of people asked if we needed help while we were browsing and walked away when we said not yet. Once we had it narrowed down to 2 models, we went over and asked the one woman for help. She was very nice and answered a few questions we had.

Of course, we ended up with the more expensive of the 2 we were looking at but it did have a couple of features that we preferred. It has a recessed handle so we won't be constantly banging into it like we would have been with the other one. And the racks and gliders were clearly of better quality. It was also rated a few decibels lower on sound level.

We just have to wait for the installer to call and schedule installation. Hopefully that will happen within a few days. It will be nice to have a working dishwasher again.