New Job Opportunity Decision

I received today an offer for a new job, which I am leaning toward taking, here are the details:

$45,000 starting salary, $3,000 increase after 90 day probation
SIMPLE IRA matching 3%
Group Health Benefits W/ BC/BS
2 Weeks/year Paid Vacation after 90 days

Overall, it's a $10K raise for me with an additional week of vacation time. The work would be just programming versus my current job being a mix of everything. I'll update more later tonight when I make the decision.

Taxes and Trees

We finished up our taxes over here last night and our IRS tax bill was $30. We will be getting back $571 from the federal. With our home being our business (4 roommates) and it netting us negative income, it adjusted our gross income. We also have 1 child, standard deductions and EIC.

On the other hand, we'll be paying $98 to the state. My wife and I worked a few jobs that did not pay much hourly last year, so they made the assumption that was how much we'd make for the year and we did not pay enough state taxes through the year.

We were planning this summer to have some trees removed, but I'm going to call around and see if we can get it done this month. One place in the phone book advertises that they discount during the winter (probably b/c it's a slow time for them). If we can get them to do it for under $700 for 3 trees (that I've cut a fair amount off already), that will be great. I'll be starting to make those calls over the next couple of days and see about getting estimates by this weekend so we can decide then who (and have the funds).

Busy 24 Hours

The past 24 hours have been pretty busy:

Friday:

Afternoon Car repair bill for my wife's car -$850
5 PM JiffyLube Mystery Shop +$15 net income
6-7:30 PM On-call computer support +$38 net income

Saturday:

9-11 AM Meeting w/ Assisted Living center regarding software I've been making for them, $800 due from them from 40 hrs work
1-3 PM On-call computer support +$60 net income

Tonight:

Finish up taxes, $431 net income

Raised 1 Roommate's Rent

We made a hard decision last night, but it is complete now. We have 1 couple living with us that we were giving a discounted rent due to us believing it was going to be a short-term situation until the husband joined the Navy and would be making more. That was supposed to happen by December, but December has come and gone. Our electricity expenses have also gone up considerably since they have been at the house (almost doubled) when we have 5 other adults at the house. Winter it normally goes up a bit (since we're using lights more), but this is much more than normal. They also have the largest bedroom in the house, yet were paying less than the person with the smallest room.

Our current renting situation is 3 rooms are rented at $350/month and 1 room is rented at $300/month. The lower one my wife will be meeting with to discuss her finances with and make the decision whether to raise it to the $350/month of the others or not.

This will help us reach the goal of getting the CC & misc debt taken care of by 9/1/08. So far it seems like we're right on track. It will also help us cover the growing expenses of the house.

Garden Plans - Feb 2nd-9th

We're planning at our house to grow a lot of our food this summer (with the eventual goal of growing most of our food). Here's what's in store for this week:

- Purchased workbench lamp to grow plants under ($25)
- Hang lamp in bay window
- Picking up 2x3 inch planting pots to grow the plants in.
- Planting in bay window the following: 75 tomato, 10 lettuce, 10 celery, 15 cauliflower, and 15 broccoli seeds

I figure not all of the seeds will grow into something, so I plant a few extra. Last year we had 8 tomato plants and then the rabbits ate 3 of them the first day I planted them outside. We'll be making a lot of spaghetti sauce and tomato soup with those tomatoes. The batches we made last year were gone before Halloween. I'm hoping we can stretch them out to April or May.

I'm also thinking of selling some of the plants to cover some of my supply costs. Still deciding on this...

My Ideal Budget

This past week I've been thinking that I've become too much like my blog, all about saying goodbye to debt. Here is my ideal budget for the coming September when we only have student loans and the mortgage:

Percentage of Income:
Tithe 10%
Retirement 15%
Debt/Retirement 25%
House 28% (Mortgage & Utilities)
Needs 15% (Food, Car, Insurance)
Wants 7%

Looking at the House/Needs, this is where we are approximately already. The rest of the categories have been all about debt (and will be for a few more months), but I want to be able to enjoy a bit of life. I know 7% doesn't seem like enjoying life much, but at $5K/month income, that will be around $400/month. We're planning on $100/month for each of us and then $200/month for projects around the house (eg: fireplace, removing trees, basement windows & door, driveway repair, fence repair, flooring repair).

To reach our retirement goal of 42 (14 years from now), we'll need to increase our income by $5K/yr. That will give us enough in retirement to live comfortably for us, even adjusting for inflation.

Tax Time Over Here

I've been meaning to wait until March to do our taxes, but I was getting anxious to do them. Here's what I'm looking at right now as a rough draft:

Income: $34,540
AGI: $34,540
Itemized Deduction: $12,430
Credits: $1023
EIC: $114
Refund: $431

I need to make sure we have all deductions & credits correct, but so far it's looking pretty good for us. This is even after having 9 exemptions at work. I'm not going to be adjusting the exemptions, so next year we may need to pay something.

And to think we increased our net worth by $25K last year on that much income (our rental income cancels itself out due to expenses).