Pedicure for a Man? Best $30 I've Spent.

I am confident enough in my masculinity to admit that I had my first pedicure today and it was AWESOME!   Easily the best $30 that I've spent in quite some time.

I walk around barefoot constantly and over the years have developed very callused feet.  A couple of years ago they started cracking and looking pretty bad.  My heels eventually developed deep, painful fissures.

I thought I could fix the problem myself.  I spent a good amount of money on countless PedEggs ($10 each), pumice stones ($5 each), foot files ($5-$10 each), lotions ($10-20 each), etc.  My wife even gave me a hydro-therapy foot massager.  None of it worked.

On multiple occasions, my wife suggested that I visit a nail salon to have the calluses removed.  Honestly, I was too embarrassed to go.  It's weird enough for a guy to go to a nail salon, let alone asking them to scrub your nasty feet.

Well, today I manned up and went to the local nail salon.  Initially, it was awkward.  I had a room full of women staring at me as I explained that my feet are gross and need attention.  One of the lady's receiving a pedicure shouted, "Your feet can't be any worse than mine were and look at them now".  I glanced down at her pink, soft feet and told the nail technician, "I want that."

I paid $30 ($25 + $5 tip) for a pedicure with callus remover and a sea salt scrub.  Not only did it feel great, but I had a blast hanging with the women in the salon.  I've always heard that women talk about some crazy stuff at nail salons and found out today that they weren't kidding.  Best of all, I am now the owner of two adorable, soft feet.

Guys, if you have nasty feet, do yourself a favor and visit a nail salon.  I wish I would have years ago.  I would have saved money and had better feet.  It's now going to be a monthly routine and the wife is coming with me next time.  Maybe we will get a mani/pedi...

Does Shaving My Head Save Money?

I had hair down to my chest during high school and college (picture a surfer, not a heavy metal freak).  Over time, it has been cut shorter and shorter as I grew older and older.  At some point in my 30's, I realized that I would be following my families long standing tradition of going bald.  No problem, I thought, I have a great personality that will make up for the lack of hair.  Lol! 

Now that I am pushing 40 and the thinning is here, I realize that losing your hair sucks.  I've tried hiding it a modern day combover, the a faux hawk, but have been losing the battle.  I don't consider myself vain, but seeing photos of the poor state of my hair made me cringe.  So, I shaved my head last week.  This is not the first time that I have shaved my head, but each time it is a bit of a shock.  Waking up in the morning and walking into the bathroom, I flinch a bit when I look in the mirror and remember what I did.  Plus, my head is so newly shaven right now that my scalp still has that white pasty look.  No good, but I am going to OWN IT and get used to the idea of looking like Kelly Slater or Jason Statham...in my dreams.  Haha!

But, financially, having a shaved head makes some sense.  Hair cuts cost $15-$30/month, styling products, shampoo & conditioner are $25-$50/year.  I think the big win is the time savings.  All I have to do it use the clippers once a week and I'm done.  It must save ~30 minutes a day of washing, conditioning, & styling.  That's 3.5 hours a week that I can use to earn money.

See what I did there?  I took the sad situation of going bald, turned it into something that I controlled (shaving my head), and rationalized it as a way to save money to make myself feel better.  I'm going to go run the clippers again...it's time for a trim.

$30K on a New (Used) Car Today

My wife drives a lot for her job and uses our 2006 Honda Accord to get around.  The car is paid off and her company reimburses her $800/month and gives her a gas card.  Needless to say, we've been loving the deal.  Lately, however, my wife has been yearning for a newer vehicle with more room, integrated navigation, Bluetooth, etc.  Things that would make her day a little easier.

With how well my wife has been doing in her job ($200K+ this year in salary, bonuses, and reimbursements), we decided to begin looking to upgrade her vehicle.  Long story short, she found an ML350 that she LOVED tonight, negotiated the deal (including a $1K reduction in price and $5K for trading in the Accord), and worked out financing. 

So, do we have a new (used) SUV...nope.  She chickened out!  Lol!  She said she needed to sleep on the idea of a $417/month car payment when we've gone without car payments for so long.

Parent's Paid Off Mortgage

My parent's just paid off their mortgage! What an amazing accomplishment and very inspiring. Plus, this is the second house they paid off.

They were able to do this through a lot of hard work and sacrafice. It's got to feel great to no longer have a monthly mortgage payment. I hope one day my wife and I can do the same thing.

Personal Finance Rap Off

Budgets are Sexy put together a PF Rap Off post that is original and hilarious. Click here to check it out.

1MansMoney blog is 2 years old!

1MansMoney blog is 2 years old and I'm happy to say that we've come a long way in our journey to retire early. Having started with a negative net worth of -$3,168.85 in February of 2007, we’ve progressed to our current net worth of $39,003.57.

This blog has been a great way to organize our thoughts and track our progress. I appreciate everyone who reads it and want to thank those who take the time to post comments and/or email. The feedback is very helpful and motivating.

Didn't We Just Sell A Truck?

One of the drawbacks of my wife getting laid off is that she no longer has a company car. Initially, we thought we could get away with one vehicle until my wife finds another job. It’s turning out that that is not the case, and there’s no guarantee that when she finds a job it will include a company car. So, we decided that we’re going to buy a cheap used truck. You might be thinking the same thing as me, didn't we just sell a truck?

We can get a small truck with just under 100K miles for ~$3,000-$4,000. At that price, we can pay cash for it and avoid car payments. We decided on a truck rather than a car because we wanted something a bit more functional. If my wife gets another job with a company car, our plan would be to keep the truck as a back-up vehicle in case, A) We’re put into the same position again down the road. B) Our main vehicle has to go in the shop for some reason. C) We have to move anything/carry a large load.

I hate to see our savings drop $3K-$4K, but am glad we have the cash to make this happen. We’ll probably start looking at trucks next week.

Good Drivers Really Do Pay Less

After we sold my truck, I took over my wife's car since she now has a company vechicle. When I called for an insurance quote a couple of months ago, AAA told it would be $1,157 for 12 months of coverage on the car.

I received my bill from AAA, but it was for much less than I expected. I spoke to one of the AAA agents and it turns out that I had an accident on my record, but it recently came off. So, they reduced my 12 months of auto insurance coverage by $434, to $723. What a blessing.

We Bought A Robot

We decided to take advantage of technological advancements and purchased an iRobot Vacuum Cleaning Robot from Costco for $279.

This thing is as neat as it sounds. You input a cleaning schedule and it crawls around the house daily vacuuming the carpet and travertine. We were amazed how much more stuff the robot picks up because it can reach under places we can’t get to with the vacuum. It even has a side brush that reaches into corners to remove dirt, hair, etc. Another cool feature is that it comes with two small towers that serve as virtual walls. The vacuum will not pass the invisible beam emitted from the tower. We found out how important this can be when we left our front door open and the robot scaled the door jam and cruised down our sidewalk. Thankfully, my wife caught it before it ventured too far. This thing even finds its way back to its docking station to recharge once its done vacuuming. How cool is that?

My wife has bad allergies and our dog shed quite a bit, so it’s important to keep our place well vacuumed. The iRobot is a great time saver and actually does a better job vacuuming than we do.

We want to do a better job of taking advantage of technology, especially technology that saves us time. Another thing my wife and I have begun doing is watching some of our favorite TV shows online because there are no commercials. In a 30 minute program, that saves us 8 minutes or so in commercials.

Next up, a car that drives itself so I can blog on the way to work.

Enjoying the Wife's New Company Car

My wife is currently out of town training for her new job on the East Coast. She'll be gone a total of 2-1/2 weeks. I miss her a lot, but driving her new company car is helping me pass the time.

My wife has an extra $10/month taken out of her pay to allow me to drive her company car (what a deal, huh?). So while she is out of town, I'm getting to use it a lot. It's a great looking new car with only 70 miles on it. In fact, I've already received a couple of complements on it (too bad it's not mine).

Not only does driving her company car while she is out of town save us the cost of fuel and wear and tear on my car, the XM satellite radio it came with makes driving much more fun.

Want To Buy A Car, Or Maybe A Truck?

Since my wife's new company provides her a company car, we had planned to sell her car. Unfortunately, because we bought her car new and it is only 2 years old, we would be upsidedown ~$3,500 if we tried to sell it. So, we decided to put my truck up for sale instead.

It makes sense for us to keep her car - it gets much better gas mileage than the truck, has 25K fewer miles, and is 5 years newer. We also just put new brakes on it. The car payments are $157/month more than the truck and insurance is $29/month more, but we should make most of this up in the gas savings alone.

The first day I put the truck up for sale, I had a gentleman come by and make an offer. I accepted, had the truck smogged, paid down the loan to the amount we agreed upon and contacted him to complete the DMV paperwork. When I got a hold of him, he told me his wallet was stole and needed more time. Since we know some of the same people, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but he flaked and has not called me back since. Lesson learned: Get a deposit before jumping thru hoops.

It's a tough time to sell a truck. Thankfully, it's a V6, which isn't great with the current gas prices, but at least it's not a V8.

The Upside To Declining Home Values

We received a letter from the Assessor's Office today stating that our condo value assessment is being reduced again from $270,000 to $220,000. Good stuff! This should result in a ~$500 reduction in our property taxes this year.

We did not have to complete any paperwork to have our property reassessed this year. Last year, having our property value reassessed and reduced saved us $767.20 in property taxes.

If we end up keeping our condo as a rental property when we buy a house, these reductions in our property value should save us a lot of money in property taxes over the years since the property value assessment can only be increased by 2% annually.

Bummer

Since we began tracking our net worth in February 2007, it has consistently increased each month by an average of $2,428. December 2007 was the only month thus far that our net worth has decreased (it was down $3,301.44 from November 2007) because we reduced the value of our two cars by a total of $4,845 in December to account for depreciation.

Well, at this point, it looks like our net worth will be down ~$1,500 at the end of June. I reviewed the numbers and determined that it is due to a combination of planned annual expenses (such as our vacation), some overspending (such as the increase in eating out), and depressed market conditions (such as the reduction in our retirement accounts).

Below are some of the details:

1) We paid for the $1,071.09 vacation we took at the end of May (bill was due in June)
2) We have spent ~$410 thus far on gifts
3) We have spent $233.90 thus far on household items (our budget is $150)
4) We have spent $173.62 thus far eating out (our budget is $130)
5) We spent $104 on my eye exam and contacts
6) Our retirement accounts are down ~$1,100 thus far
7) We were not able to contribute any money to our Roth IRAs

We should be able to turn this around in July. My wife will receive her first paycheck from her better paying new job, I receive an “extra” third check next month, and my wife may receive a ~$3,800 commission from her old company. However, we may need to pull ~$3,500 from savings to pay off my wife’s car that we are selling, the bill for our new LCD TV will come due, and the bill for my wife’s new brakes will come due.

God willing, we can change direction and get back on track towards our goal.

Economic Stimulus Payment Schedule

Our economic stimulus payments will issued according to the last two-digits of the main filer's Social Security number. People who use direct deposit will be among the first to receive the payments starting May 2. Paper checks will be put in the mail starting May 16. Here's a link with the date you can expect your economic stimulus payment: http://www.irs.gov/irs/article/0,,id=180250,00.html

Property Tax Refund Received

We’ve been eager to receive our property tax refund check, but didn’t expect to receive it so soon.

The tax assessor’s office told us it could take 60-90 days to receive the refund; it only took 21 days. In addition, we were expecting ~$354, but received $384.44. Thank God! We deposited the $384.44 into our E*TRADE savings account to help bolster our emergency fund.

Since property taxes in San Diego County can only increase 2% a year, we just saved ourselves a bunch of money while we own the condo. And, if property values continue to fall, we will likely ask that our condo be reassessed again next year to further reduce our property taxes.

I Can Tell You My Net Worth Within $1,000,000

I enjoy listening to talk radio, primarily the business talk radio. Yesterday, I was listening to The Ray Lucia Show when he received a call from a gentleman that wanted to discuss saving money on taxes.

The gentleman is 45 and owns his own company that profits $250,000/year. While he does not have any retirement savings, he owns his home outright and has rental homes and a commercial property that are nearly paid off. Pretty awesome, especially for a 45 year old. What threw me off was when Ray asked him his net worth, the gentleman replied $3,000,000 to $4,000,000.

I didn’t even hear Ray’s answer to the tax question because I couldn’t get over the insanely wide range of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. Granted, the gentleman was put on the spot and, with the instability in the housing market, it is difficult to know exactly what property is worth. But not knowing your net worth within $1,000,000 seems incomprehensible to me. For us, that would mean the difference between retiring and not retiring.

Saved Money On Property Taxes

Our original property tax bill was for two payments of $1842.84 ($3,685.68 total). We just received our revised bill for two payments of $1,458.40 ($2,916.80 total) after having our property value reassessed. That means we saved $767.20 on our property taxes this year.

We mailed a $1,458.40 check for the second installment. Since we paid our first installment for the original amount ($1,812.84) back in December, they will be issuing us a refund for $354.44 within 60-90 days. Good stuff!

Trying to Rationalize Splurging

Our condo is getting some major work done, paid for by the HOA, but we've lost use of our family room for a couple of weeks.

The splurging all began when, in the process of moving our furniture out of the family room, we broke our cheap IKEA entertainment stand. We found a nice, smaller replacement stand for only $99. Not bad, but we figured our 15-year old speaker towers and clunky 4-piece stereo/DVD system was going to look poor on the new stand, espcially hooked up to our 1-year old plasma (last years splurge). So, we bought a 5-channel Panasonic Home Theater System at Costco for $399. It's sweet, and here's how we rationalized the purchase:

Pros
Nice sounding and looking
Requires less than 1/2 of the space as our old system
iPod hook up so we can have all of our music available at the touch of a button
$60 of the cost was covered by selling our old stereo system

Cons
Price
Our old system still worked

We probably could have got away with using our old system a couple of more years but what the heck, we treated ourselves. We can't wait to get our family room back so we can watch a movie using our new home theater system. It will also be nice to have more space in our little condo.

Don’t Be A Baby

This blog is officially 1 year old! Just a baby compared to most blogs.

I began 1MansMoney 12 months ago with a post about our negative net worth. Since then, we have turned things around and now have a positive net worth. We also have one year under our belt towards achieving our goal of financial independence and retiring early.

I give credit for our financial success to God because this is all His anyways, to my wife because she's my inspiration, and to our families for their guidance. I also have to give credit to this blog for helping us keep better track of where we were at and where we are going.

For those of you that want to get out of debt and plan for retirement, I encourage you to consider starting a blog. Any goal worth achieving requires a plan and follow thru. I find that this blog is a terrific tool. I liken it to a financial diary that, since others read it, helps provide accountability and feedback.

I can’t wait until a year from now when 1MansMoney is in its terrible 2’s.

Property Taxes - Were We Able To Get Them Reduced?

In a previous post, I mentioned that we filed an APPLICATION FOR CHANGED ASSESSMENT in an attempt to get our property taxes reduced.

We received a letter from the County's Assessor's Office today stating that they reviewed comparable properties and agree that property values have declined. In our application, we requested that they reduce our property value from $340,016 to $275,000. Instead, they reduced our property value to $270,000, $5,000 more that we requested!

We simply have to sign the form and send it in. From that point, it should take 30-45 days to receive a corrected tax bill. We have already paid $1,842.50, half of our original $3,685.00 tax bill. We're guesing that our 2nd half of the tax bill will be reduced by ~$700, to $1,142.

Looking back, I thought this whole process was going to be a hassle. Thankfully, my wife was not of the same opinion and took it upon herself to call the County's Assessor's Office to find out where to download the form. After downloading the form, we spent a few minutes checking comps in the area on http://www.zillow.com/, completed the form, and drop it in the mail. . .Easy money.