Even more personal banking fun … a year and a half later

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So I’ve spent a good part of this weekend going through our finances, planning for the future – both near and frighteningly far (retirement?!)…

The good news is, our retirement savings are actually in pretty good shape! They could be better – as is always the case – but I’m feeling ok with the balances as I’m about to turn 35 here in another month and they’re on a good track to be ahead of schedule another five years from now.

Our emergency fund isn’t bad, either, namely because it actually exists considering that apparently 1 in 4 don’t have anything for savings at all.

Debt-wise we could also be doing better, but by estimate we’ve managed to pay down about 20% of our debts in the last year and we’re now looking at a plan to pay off the rest in the next 2.5 years if we can stick to it. I think we can.

One thing I unexpectedly found myself circling back to today as I was reviewing everything and making some tweaks to our plan, though, was this giant tirade that I made last year about having lousy options for personal banking, and like a lot of other things that I’ve found myself more so just shrugging off that used to give me oodles of frustration in years past, I’m honestly not sure how much I really care about it anymore.

Maybe that’s what getting older and gaining wisdom is really all about – figuring out what to not give a shit about so that you can worry about the things that really matter! 😉

A year ago I talked about considering a plan where I would eventually move some of my accounts over to a credit union that offered better interest rates and whatnot … because “what’s the point of having everything in one place if the bank treats you like crap?!”

And don’t get me wrong – Wells Fargo still pisses me off from time to time because I just got a notice that they’re going to start charging fees for my business account because it doesn’t carry a high enough balance…

But still, having six accounts under their roof for the last year and another seven all at separate other banking institutions, there’s something quantifiable about being able to manage a good share of my banking from one login, and frankly the difference between 0.01% and 0.10% APY in interest earnings doesn’t even come close to comparing to how much time I can save.

Sure, the example still stands – $5,000 in savings makes me $1.50 a year at Wells Fargo and $17.50 a year at the credit union – but that $16 difference equals $1.33/month vs. a little bit of my sanity preserved for not having to juggle so many accounts in different places, and not for nothing but at 34 years old, I think my sanity is worth at least a buck and a half each month!!! 😛

So my long-term banking plan – which mind you won’t be fully in effect for another couple of years – looks something more like this…

  • Personal & Business Banking – Primary Bank
    • Personal Checking
    • Savings – Emergency Fund
    • Savings – Reserve Fund
    • Home Mortgage
    • Credit Card #1
    • Credit Card #2 (one of these may disappear or go HELOC … not sure yet)
    • Business Checking (if I can find a way to make the fees go away)
  • Personal Banking – Secondary Bank
    • Credit Card #3 (rewards card – we currently route regular purchases through here)
  • Personal Investments – Primary Institution
    • My 401k
    • College Fund for Christopher
    • Brokerage Account
  • Personal Investments – Secondary Institution
    • Sara’s 401k

I’d love to find a better rewards program under Wells Fargo to eventually ditch CC #3 just because there’s an annual fee and admittedly it’s not that great of a card. Plus, the addition of a Reserve Fund Savings will eliminate a lot of the benefits of this card anyways, as it’s our Disney Rewards Visa from Chase which we currently use to help fund our Disney World Annual Passes.

The idea of the Reserve Fund is something I came up with last night because I’d like to start pre-saving for larger, regular purchases so that they don’t have an impact on our normal budget anymore. It would pretty much work just like the escrow with our mortgage works – we’d identify a monthly payment for our Disney passes, average vet fees, car repair expenses, or whatever, and then as those came due we’d have a big pot to pull them from rather than diverting money from our regular budget and throwing it off for that particular month.

I’m also trying to organize things in Mint a bit better so that maybe we can start using that again to better judge how much we’re spending on groceries, gas, and whatnot to try and stabilize that part of the budget to maximize the larger things we’re trying to do.

Overall, I think we’ve got a good set of goals for the next five years…

  • Finish paying off debts in 2 1/2 years (not counting mortgage)
  • Save enough to buy a new house in 5 years
  • Continue funding retirement and emergency savings
  • Increase funding for Christopher’s college fund
  • Stabilize budget to maximize focus on previous four items

And unlike the last year which previously focused mostly on paying down debts (and figuring out how to be a new parent!), the next twelve months hold lots of potential for making big headway with all of these, so it’ll be interesting to follow-up again next summer to see where things stand and if I’m still more or less content with settling for a big bank vs. a credit union! 🙂

Dream Journal : Another Really Big House Tour

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There was a lot of frustration in the air, mostly on my part because everybody else seemed to be having a really good time.

I mean, they should have – apparently they were in town for our wedding and we had all of our friends and extended family gathered at our home before the big day to relax and help prepare and generally celebrate, but it wasn’t just any home…

We had been on the market for a bigger home for a while and were looking for that special one to become our dream home, and although you wouldn’t have known it from the outside, this one certainly had some hidden features that were remarkably cool and admittedly made the home a bit of a bargain even at its list price of one million dollars!

For my part, I explored the interior of the house in a bit of a panic because there was just too much going on and apparently I still have anxiety issues even in my dreams. 😉 I had walked into a room that seemed to be either the living room or master bedroom, and our immediate family was showing off a huge display of stuff that they had helped to pick out for our new home, to the point where I had to stand up and announce that we had sunken all of our money into the house and couldn’t afford to pay anybody back if they opted to help us shop and bought all sorts of expensive things requiring reimbursement…

Anyways!

I tried to get my wife’s attention to come help me simmer down on my way back through the house, but she was sitting on the floor with some friends and a baby who was not Christopher – we’ll get to that more in a second! I ended up back in what was to become my new office area, which was considerably bigger than anything I’ve had in the past mainly because not only was it just a much larger room, but it ended up being a series of rooms that connected down one end of the house, a la OFFICE -> PARLOR -> LIBRARY -> DEN, ultimately ending up back at the front of the house with a pair of large, sliding doors so that in essence half the house could be walled off into my own private wing, which seemed pretty cool!

Still on the hunt for quiet space, though, I walked through what I thought was the dining room, but was configured with several tables to accommodate all of our guests – some of whom were hanging out and snacking – and I pushed on what was almost a hidden, disguised door at the end of the room which lead out into sort of a grotto that was both outdoors and indoors, and was very amazing.

The walkway was made of stone with water on both sides, and every so often it would dip down so that you would be just barely wading from one little garden area to another, and here I passed one of my aunts who seemed to be really taking in the natural aura of this hidden gem.

Beyond the gardens was more of a “play area” that had lots of places for seating, but it was all setup as see-saws and so people were bouncing up and down while they talked and waded their feet in the saltwater! There was also an old-fashioned swing where one of my uncles was gently swinging back and forth, enjoying the breeze, and as I approached, he pointed out a small crustacean that had gotten stranded on its back between two of the landings that rose above the water.

When I reached down to flip him over and help him back into the water, I looked in myself and saw this myriad of sea life that was swimming around in our own little personal escape here – the most noticeable of which was a pair of lobsters that were play fighting a few feet out into the water.

Then as I picked up the stranded crustacean at my feet, suddenly he was a lot bigger than before and he was a lobster, too.

That’s when I turned and heard someone call, “Hey Dad – what’s that?” and turned to find Christopher standing over my shoulder, much bigger than I remembered and now talking and everything. 😀

movie thoughts … Jurassic World

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jwI went through a lot of phases leading up to this movie…

First I thought it was ridiculous because I hate Hollywood making sequels instead of trying for new stories and then having them be horrible.

Then I got curious because I watched Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy and realized that I didn’t actually hate him, just the character he played in the first few episodes of Parks & Recreation.

My skepticism grew as its release got closer and we started finding ourselves overwhelmed with all of the marketing and product tie-ins that the movie had secured, even though admittedly I didn’t make the connection of how clever the Barbasol sponsorship was until far later than a proper fan of the original movie really should have…  😳

Finally as the movie came out and reviews started floating around the Internet, I became both hopeful and even excited to see what this movie ended up looking like. We don’t get to see nearly as many movies in the theater as we used to, so we kind of have to aim for the big hitters and leave the rest for home viewing. Jurassic World seemed like it had the qualities to make up a pretty sweet summer blockbuster … but once the film started rolling, would it end up just feeling like yet another unnecessary sequel like … well, Jurassic Park 2 & 3 ended up feeling???

Actually, not really!

I mean, don’t get me wrong – there were some ridiculous moments … running from dinosaurs in heels throughout the entire movie, driving when a simple phone call would do, arguably even the Indominous Rex in general, but if you even look back to the original Jurassic Park, we had plenty of the same types of moments back in 1993, too … “This is a Unix system – I know this!” It didn’t matter then because our adrenaline was pumping as we explored this terrifying, new world, and the same thing happened 22 years later with Jurassic World.

Besides, if you can suspend disbelief long enough to tolerate cloning dinosaurs from 65 million years in the past, not to mention building yet another park after the first two resulted in many, many people’s deaths … then maybe the idea that Claire wore high heels isn’t really that big of a deal, after all!

Although I will admit that the gyrospheres or whatever they were called not having a return home command to invoke in case of emergency kind of bugged me a little… 😛

All in all it was a fun, wholesome summer blockbuster for what it was, holes and all, and even though so many people have died at this point, it should be interesting to see what they get away with next when no doubt Jurassic World 2 hits the screens to re-merchandize the franchise all over again a few years from now!

The Changing Perception of the Confederate Flag…

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It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for this former banner of the south, first brought into the news by a single flag flying over the South Carolina capitol to be followed by some of the biggest retailers in the country following suit to remove merchandise bearing the symbol from their shelves as well.

And a lot of folks who’ve always been fans of the flag have been particularly pissed, citing everything from censorship to heritage and southern pride…

So I wanted to vent a few thoughts about this because I passed a couple of huge trucks on the road today – one with the Stars & Stripes hanging from the back and the other with the Confederate flag, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes because while the last couple of weeks have caused a lot of us to rethink how tolerant we are of seeing this emblem around us, there are clearly still others – and there will always be others – who only see what they want to see.

First of all, the easy part of the equation – the flag flying above the state capitol in SC … it doesn’t belong there. The south lost the Civil War over 150 years ago and represents, if nothing else, a subset of the union that tried to secede from the United States of America. A state can’t claim to be united when it still flies a symbol of treason over its capital.

Now as for the private sector’s perspective on the Confederate flag, that’s where it gets interesting because sure, freedom of speech protects anyone who wants to fly or sell the flag even if it may be dated and controversial, yet here we see the free market at work where major players like Amazon and Walmart have also made the decision where it might not pay – this time with their own bottom line – to sell these types of products.

And I know that a lot of people like to write things like this off as our society simply being too politically correct, but I think there’s more to it than that because our history is littered with changes in public perception as society has evolved to rule out things that it no longer deems acceptable – be it prohibition, slavery, women’s suffrage, etc… What some are calling politically correct equates to others saying, “You know what? We used to turn a blind eye to that in the past, but it’s not cool and we shouldn’t be doing that anymore.”

We’re seeing it very much forming a critical mass with gay marriage right now. There were still gay people who wanted equal rights decades earlier, however at the time society was more willing to look the other way while those individuals were treated as second class citizens in many respects by their fellow citizens. And while we’re certainly not there yet, the tides have at least turned enough on that front where majorities are speaking up and denouncing the treatment of their gay friends and family members as something that isn’t right and needs to change.

Waving the Confederate flag around really isn’t any different, and so while a bunch of people still somehow see that flag as the banner of the rebel and tattoo it on their skin as a symbol of pride, another subset is willing to consider the entire story and admit that maybe it’s not something to be as proud about as others would like to think, especially considering racial tensions that still bleed strong throughout our country.

So personally I think that anyone who chooses has every right to fly the Confederate flag should they like, with the exception of government buildings where its tainted history simply has no place, but that doesn’t mean I’m still disposed to turning a blind eye to seeing it on pick-up trucks and t-shirts and every other redneck icon that they carry so proudly. That flag has a lot more to do with than just Lynyrd Skynyrd and Budweiser and the Dukes of Hazzard just like gay marriage is a lot more than just a couple of queers flaunting their sexuality, and in the last couple of weeks I think more than anything we’ve heard segments of the public starting to call bullshit on all of that.

Because the thing is, eventually we’re going to have to shed those losing anthems of a period long behind us if we truly want to move forward as a society – a society that can honestly say that racism no longer divides us as it once did. Coming from a time when it was literally cool to keep other people as slaves, I would like to think that this would be a little more obvious than it’s proving to be, but what can I say?

Getting 350 million people all on the same page is tough and collectively as a country we’re still pretty young, but at least we’re learning … albeit slowly.

Dream Journal : Balrog Hide and Seek

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So Gandalf, Frodo, and I were fighting the Balrog … apparently in the setting of some sort of Laurel & Hardy skit!

We were inside a small log cabin and he was outside.

First, Frodo went out the door “to distract the Balrog,” which didn’t work well because he was immediately eaten.

Then Gandalf and I noticed a second door on the side of the house, so as the Balrog banged on the door like he was the Big, Bad Wolf asking to come in, we ran over to the other door and snuck out the side entrance.

We rounded the corner of the house just in time to see the Balrog ducking in the front door, sneaking back into the house ourselves when he discovered the side door and came back out.

This game pretty much continued on and on FOREVER. 😕

Push It to the Limit!

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This song amuses me to no end simply because I was first introduced to it while playing Grand Theft Auto 3 and listening to the ridiculous lyrics, I legitimately thought that it was a fictional song that had been made up for the game – in line with all of the great fictional ads like PetsOvernight.com and the Maibatsu Monstrosity!

“Welcome to the limit!”

Revisiting Just Laugh magazine, Part 1…

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I have some really good memories about my earlier years of working on Just Laugh, and the last couple of days I’ve been revisiting some of them as I’ve been slowly adding in some of the older content from Just Laugh magazine to the new site’s archives. It’s kind of awesome to think of how many great humorists were all contributing to that site back in the day – I’m not quite sure how I’m going to get there just yet, but I’m really looking forward to rekindling a bit of that spirit with a new team of contributors once I get to the point where it makes sense to add more content.

Anyways, this pass had me going through the works of Linda Sharp, Kim Burke, Michael Buonauro and Jeff Lofvers of Dr. Lobster, our resident advice expert Savannah Lawless, the great Deep Fried, Live! animated series from 8 Legged Entertainment, Ink, Paint & Tears… courtesy of myself and my sister, as well as the rest of my own humor columns that hadn’t been imported into the new site yet. It’s a little crazy to think that all of this stuff was produced over a decade ago, but nonetheless here are some of my own personal favorites…

And believe it or not, I’ve still got over another dozen left to go through, so I’ll be sure to share more of my favorites as I continue working through the pile every couple of weeks until everyone’s back together on justlaugh.com right where they belong! 😉

Dream Journal : A Really Weird Trip to Disney

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So where to begin???

Apparently we were on a trip to Disney World with some friends and family – we started off in a park that was kind of like but not actually the Magic Kingdom, and we found ourselves getting separated a lot.

One ride that we went on had you sitting individually in a car that went under the water, meaning that you got wet, and it had different sections of the ride where you’d ride for a bit then get out and wait in line some more. Not everyone went on this one because my Dad wasn’t able to, and I found myself separated from the group and melded into another couple of guys’ group instead.

Somehow I guess one of the guys knew an Imagineer who worked there and that guy suddenly showed up and whisked us all away to an area off stage where he was showing off whatever he was working on at the time … yet for some reason I got the impression that it wasn’t exactly a sanctioned Disney project, but more like he was just doing his own thing on company time!

Eventually we wandered back to the queue and skipped ahead of everyone else in line to jump into the next boat to get soaked once again and finish the ride. When we got off and went our separate ways, I was in the process of trying to figure out where everyone else had went when I ran into someone I knew from camp and got in line for some safari ride with him … until we caught up with the rest of his buddies – whom I couldn’t stand – and bowed out to go find the rest of my own family & friends…

By the time I found everyone, it was starting to rain really hard and they wanted to go back to the hotel to take a break.

The hotel was weird because our “room” ended up being more like a cabin tent – very similar to the ones we stayed in at scout camp, but much, much larger – and there we hung out for a while until the group began bickering among itself about whether to go back to the park or not because some felt they’d be wasting $100 admission by only going for a few hours and missing out on the evening fireworks.

I eventually got tired of the arguing and left on my own to go wander and explore the resort a bit, which was apparently all decorated up for the holidays – in particular, there were tons of Legos and Christmas decorations everywhere. The resort also seemed to have a lot of tiny passages which made them hard for guests to traverse, and as a result there were several of the more themed areas that weren’t at all packed with people.

At one point I wandered into a staging area for a short karaoke show that they were going to do, which didn’t really interest me in the slightest except for behind me in line on the escalator was a guy and his girl … who happened to be a very undercover Nicki Manoj … even though in the dream she was very white, which goes to show you subconsciously how much I actually know about Nicki Manoj!!!

Anyways, the guy she was with was prodding her to enter and sing a quick song, and once I “realized” who she was I jumped onboard and offered to split the massive $12 entry fee with him, so we each paid $6 and she agreed to perform. But then she didn’t … the contest was weird … I don’t really know what happened, but as they were going to leave, I followed behind and awkwardly asked if I could at least get her autograph or something, which apparently made her even more uncomfortable and the two quickly disappeared.

So I continued exploring the resort and gawking at all of the decorations. They had a really cool mini Lego store filled with all sorts of sets I didn’t have, so that was neat. Then I found a small greeting area where kids were getting their pictures taken with Santa, so I broke down and texted my friend to see if they at least wanted to come and meet Santa because there was hardly any line whatsoever.

As I was walking back towards the “tent area,” I got a little lost so I asked a young cast member for directions and she seemed very eager to show me in person where I needed to go. Along the way she pointed out a few things that were slightly in disarray, like they had a couple of huge ice skating rinks that were supposed to be open, but instead they were still filling them with water, and then we passed by a huge bundle of red Christmas lights that had just been left on the sidewalk and never put up…

…and that’s when I pulled her aside and asked her discretely if things at Disney were kind of getting run down lately, which she quickly but nervously agreed to. The girl shared a bit more until one of her bosses walked by and quickly pulled her away, almost as if he knew she was telling me things that she wasn’t supposed to, and I never saw her again.

Then on my way back it suddenly got really weird!

Somebody shot me! But not with a regular gun – instead, this gun had these strange, green, cone-shaped bullets that seemed to hurt even more than a regular bullet, but I pulled it out of my leg and limped back to the tent where my friends and family were, along with a bunch of other random people by that point. It seemed that we represented some sort of unwanted race, like mutants or something, and the green cone-bullets were very deadly to our kind, though I turned out to be fine.

We showed how dangerous they were by throwing a few of them into a nearby dirt pile and each of the cones exploded as they landed, and one guy really pissed me off by jokingly coming at me with one of the cones like he was going to throw it at me.

It was then that I pushed my way to the back of the tent where my family was and announced to everyone that we had to go – now – and you could hear a ruckus outside of something happening. Though it was unclear exactly what, we knew that it couldn’t be anything good and that it probably had something to do with us. When I was packing my backpack to bring, I found a brand new revolver and at first I went to stick it in the back of my jeans, but someone warned that they might search us and I put it in my bag instead … even though my Dad at that point was carrying a rifle or something in plain sight.

Before we had a chance to leave, a sheriff showed up and pushed his way to the back of the tent where we are and after talking, he tried to escort us out. I don’t remember exactly what happened after that point, but I know that it suddenly got very crazy very quick and it soon became clear that we were nowhere near Disney World anymore…

Learning is Amazing

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One of the things that really seems to marvel me so far as a father is watching my son learn things for the very first time.

Like seeing all of the great stuff that he’s been learning in swim class.

Or a few weeks ago when we were walking around Target and I was trying to teach him how to blow to pass time.

Or tonight when I decided to be brave and handed over the spoon for the first time during dinner, only to watch him take several bites all by himself like a big boy!!!

Or, I suppose maybe … learning to walk might also be a good one for the list! 😉

It just amazes me when I stop and think about it … the idea of this little, tiny human who basically started a little over a year ago at zero, and then each day he’s getting a little older, he’s learning everything that he can pick up about the world around him.

I mean, until recently even something as simple as getting dressed has always been a Daddy orchestrated event and yet in the last couple of weeks he’s been helping me put his shirts on by reaching for the arm holes himself … I don’t know, but it’s just the neatest thing to watch him grow and learn and develop tastes and preferences and things that he likes and doesn’t like, and a sense of humor, and even right and wrong … albeit that one’s presently limited to mostly harmless things like biting his parents and hitting the dog, for what it’s worth!

You kind of take for granted learning for yourself, or I suppose it’s just being experienced from the opposite perspective, but to get to see all of that development as he slowly grows into the person that he’s going to be? I didn’t start out writing this intending it to be a father’s day thing, but I suppose it’s kind of appropriate because so far watching Christopher learn has been one of those little treasures for me that nobody tells you about, but it’s just amazing.

A Bucket List of Sorts for 2015

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Many moons ago I put together a list of My Hopes & Dreams … I was probably in my early twenties when I assembled that list of great things that I’d like to accomplish in this life, and whether or not you can tell that from looking over the list is debatable!

Nonetheless, as times have changed and here I’m another decade older, I found myself in the mood this weekend to put together another list – not necessarily to replace my hopes & dreams of yesteryear, mind you – but more so as a reflection of where I am in this particular moment in time as I look ahead at the years to come.

This time I’ve organized them by category to make everything a bit easier to follow. Also, I suppose you might not necessarily consider this “a bucket list” because the intent certainly isn’t a list of stuff to do before I die, but more just stuff that I’d like to do in the future that sounds like fun. 😀

Travel

  • Visit every Disney park around the world (12 total, I’ve visited the 6 in the USA thus far)
  • Visit Europe and spend a month or more soaking in the countryside
    • Specifically visit as many castles as possible
  • Go on a Disney cruise
  • Visit Aulani, the DVC Resort out in Hawaii
  • Make road trips a regular Sevener family excursion, and make them fun
  • Visit more of the natural and historic sites around our state and country, possibly as part of said road trips
  • Rent an RV and travel across the country … even though my wife says I would absolutely hate it

Home

  • Build the house of our dreams early enough so that our kids remember growing up in it
  • Own a pool that’s warm enough for swimming more than two months out of the year
  • Setup a personal arcade in said dream house with arcade cabinets, pinball machines, and a pool table
  • Own a salt water tank … even if it requires paying someone else to maintain it to keep the fish alive

Tech & Geek Stuff

  • Expand my home server into a full rack with proper backups and wired connections to feed the entire house
  • Create a Christmas light display that’s fully programmable via computer
  • Do the same thing with outdoor lighting and landscaping at said awesome dream house
  • Setup a big screen in my office to monitor real time the performance of my websites, books sold, and other fun stats

Collections

  • Build a collection of every NES and SNES game ever made for my arcade
  • Complete my collection of near mint boxes of all of the original Nintendo black box games
  • Complete my Lego Collectible Minifig collection
  • Revisit other memorable toys & games from my childhood to collect and go overboard as time and money permit

Hobbies

  • Find the time to start SCUBA diving again
  • …and playing guitar
  • …and reading more
  • …and playing video games on a regular basis

Speaking of Video Games

  • 100% completion for Grand Theft Auto 3 (probably my favorite “new age” game)
  • Do some sort of online creative project going through every NES game ever made
  • Play every Final Fantasy game in chronological order
  • Play every Mario game in chronological order – even the terrible ones

Writing Career

  • Publish a collection of books large enough to fill an entire book shelf
  • Build Just Laugh into a force for hilarity and good
  • Find that one creative project that defines me

Personal Stuff

  • Find new and exciting and different ways to explore life with my wife
  • Save more than enough money for retirement
  • Raise my kid not to be a complete asshole
  • Spend more time with family and friends, near and far

Did I miss anything this time around??? If I did, maybe I’ll remember to catch it next decade… 😯