Nanny Costs...$20,800/year

We have a nanny that watches our 3-years-old son and 6-month-old daughter during the day.  We pay her $80/day or $400/week.  That's $1,600/month for typical months and $2,000/month for longer, 5 week months.  Annually, we're paying $20,800 to our nanny.  Not a large income, but it's a huge sum of money for us.

I've seen a number of articles stating that daycare costs more than college.  I'm not sure about that, but it's pricey indeed.  We have reduced our nanny's schedule to three work days a week, for $240/week, while I am not working.  This arrangement gives me three days a week to focus on my job search, while saving us $640/month for typical months and $800/month for longer, 5 week months.

We choose to go with a nanny over daycare for a few reasons:

• We love the personal attention that our kids receive
• We can come home anytime to see our kids
• Using our home security camera system, we can check on thing remotely

I dream of the day our kids begin public school.  The boost to our cash flow will be awesome.  Sure, there will be other expenses, but they will be small by comparison.  Technically, our son is already in school, but it is preschool and costs $297/month.  LOL!  Kids are expensive, but worth every penny.

$1,000 bonus - spent!

My wife and I already spent her unexpected $1,000 bonus she learned about on Thursday. Yeah, it didn't take us long.

We purchased a new bedroom set yesterday for $920 including tax, delivery and set-up. The photo below is of the complete set, but we only purchased the bed, nightstand, and the dresser (without the mirror).

We had planned to pull money out of savings to get a bedroom set, so word of her extra bonus came at a perfect time.

-1MansMoney

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Thank God for all of the blessings that we have and the great country that we live in.

Veterans Day

Happy Veterans Day to my Dad and all of the vets out there!

My Dad joined the Army as a young man and was the first recruit in Los Angeles to earn a perfect score on his entrance exam. I remember as a kid looking thru my Dad’s boot camp photo album at the photos of them firing rifles, throwing grenades, and crawling through obstacle courses. That was back when they really fired live ammo over your head as you crawled in mud under barbed wire. Because of my Dad’s high test scores, he served on an intelligence team in Japan & Korea during the Korean War. He lived the kind of stuff you see in spy movies, except if a mission was compromised, he or one of his team members could have been killed.

Serving in the military is very tough work that most of us regular citizens could never handle. Often times, we don’t have a clue of the sacrifices they make to protect our freedom. We should thank your vets and troops every chance we get. This Toby Keith song American Soldier is dedicated to you: American Soldier video

Thanks Dad for what you did for our country!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

My wife and I just returned from spending Christmas with her Mom (yesterday) and her Dad (today). It was a lot of fun, as always. We were talking on the drive home about how lucky we are to have such great families.

On a financial note, we were able to keep our gift shopping within reason this year.

RSS Feed

1MansMoney now has an RSS feed! I just learned about RSS feeds and love the convenience they provide. Inside of visiting your favorite blogs each day to see if there is new content, you can subscribe (for free) to your favorite blogs and visit one website to see updated content from all of them.

To subscribe to 1MansMoney’s RSS feed, click on the icon in the upper right hand corner of this webpage. You will be prompted to choose a reader (I use Google Reader) and create a user id and password. Then, whenever you want to see if there is new content from 1MansMoney and other blogs you subscribe to, you just log onto Google Reader. What a time-saver.

Disclaimer

1MansMoney.blogspot.com's disclaimer:

If it’s not completely obvious, I am NOT a financial professional. The information you find on this site should not be considered financial advice. Before making financial decisions, do your own homework or hire a certified financial planner (if you’re lazy).

First, some background information

My amazing wife and I have been married for one year. When we met over two years ago, I was in bad shape financially. I owed $27,000+ in credit card debit and $4,000 to my parents. My problem was that I always spent more than I earned, and figured that I’d just catch up later. Unfortunately, later never seemed to arrive. My wife (girlfriend at the time) woke me up to the fact that I was in over my head, and I needed to change my ways and pay off my debt.

Substantial progress was made (another post, another time) and I am happy to report that we were able to by a one bedroom condo last year. As a new home owner, I began doing more financial research online, and stumbled across an early retirement forum that got me hooked on the idea of financial independence. From that point, I began scouring the web for tips and tricks on how to get ahead and have our money work for us. I plan to share with you what I’ve learned thru long nights glued to my laptop. Believe me though, it is an education in progress. Thankfully, my wife is completely onboard and, in a lot of ways, leading the way for us.

Just getting started

We are a young couple in Southern California, I’m in my early thirties and my wife is in her early twenties (lucky me). I plan to use this blog to outline our path from a negative net worth to financial independence and early retirement. I’ll rely on all of you to act as a sounding board for us. If something we scheme up is completely out of left field, please let me know. In turn, I hope you will find in this blog strategies that you can use to improve your own financial picture.