Making Pizza at home
Last weekend was a major cooking event at our home. We made Naan (Indian Bread) and Malai Kofta curry (Veg balls in a creamy tomato sauce) on saturday. We also made buttermilk bread and pizza on Sunday. We had no plans to make pizza. I had made bread dough for 2 loafs of bread. And after baking one loaf, I was getting worried that we wouldn’t be needing 2 loafs over a week’s time. So we decided to use the dough for one loaf to make pizza. Though we were little skeptical about the usage of different dough for pizza base, we still went with it. We did not have cheese at home. So we made a no cheese pizza with a lot of veggie toppings. The result was spectacular. We loved the pizza and we had leftovers too.
Next time I bake bread, I’m going to intentionally make enough dough for 2 loafs and use one for pizza!!
My experience with Ebay so far…
I bought some books through ebay 10 days back. I paid $50 for the books plus $51 for shipping. I knew it was too much to pay $51 for shipping. But at that point the total of $101 for those books sounded less expensive compared to other similar offers available. Also this seller, having a yale.edu email id, made me think this person would be legitimate and that I would be reimbursed the shipping cost if it were less. I also checked the person’s name at yale website to make sure this was a legitimate person. Today I collected the parcel at my post office and found that shipping had cost around $10. I have written an email to the seller asking if he would refund the extra shipping cost. Let’s see how it goes.
IRA for 2008
I am very confused right now as to what to do with the 2008 IRA contributions.
I have a balance of $2500 in my 2008 IRA account. And I had planned to add $500 each month. But I am not sure if I would qualify to make IRA contributions this year. Last year I worked only from August. Due to our joint tax return, I qualified to make only partial contribution of $3900 towards 2007 IRA which I did. This year I will be working the entire year and I am starting to think if I would qualify even for partial contribution this year.
My question is if I end up not qualified to contribute this year, can I take the money out without any penalties? I am hoping one of my readers could clarify this issue for me.
Thanks in advance.
Networth Update – July
Debt paid off since 01 Nov 2007 : 32,697.64
Increase in assets since 01 Nov 2007 : 17,708.00
Change in networth since 01 Nov 2007 : 50,405.64 ( +7.21% since last networth post )
Major event in June was paying off the credit card balance. One major thing that I want to accomplish before my next networth post is to sell or give away all the unwanted things that we own. Last time I wanted to do this, it was a big failure. We didn’t get anything done. I’m hoping this time it would be different.
When will I feel Financially Secure
When we have a secondary income source that is equal to our primary income with our needs remaining the same and obviously without any debt.
After Tax Interest Rate
If my mortgage interest rate and car loan interest rate are the same, I know it is best to use my extra principle payments towards the car loan due to the tax advantage I have on the mortage interest. If there is a slight difference in their interest rates, how would I calculate the interest rate on the mortgage after taking into account my tax advantage? Knowing this would let me pick the next worst debt that I should look to pay off.
Weekend catch ups
I was determined not to spend any money on my hobbies this month. Until friday last week, I had spent about $11 (non-hobby related) from my miscellaneous spending amount. And I think I spent another $6 during the weekend. I bought 2 books from my library book sale. A book of needlepoint crafts printed in 1961. I spent $5 for the book. And bought ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’ for $1. I love books and I should go to these book sales more often. And the most important thing of all, I should take BB along. He gives me a horrible look with a ‘Really?’ tag when I pick books at random.
Another amazing thing happened when I was grocery shopping this weekend. Two small girls (mabbe between the age of 5 and 7) and their mom (I think so) were at the shop near the freezer section. They were picking something when I heard one of the girls go ‘which one is the cheapest?’. I couldn’t believe a kid could think like that at that age. Kudos to the mom!!
Another week of work has started. I started to go to the gym today. I am not promising anything. I just have to go everyday. Whatever small amount of time I workout, it is better than nothing. Have to apply the same concept of saving little by little to getting in shape little by little. I am fairly proud of our debt reduction lately and I am hoping I would achieve a similar success with fitness.
Credit Card Paid Off
One more debt out of the way. We paid off the credit card balance that was on the 0% interest rate card until August 2008. From now on, we will use the credit card to get reward points and pay off the balance at the end of the month.
Also our emergency account stands a little more than $5,000. IRA for 2008 is at $1000. And we have also started to make extra principle payments towards our second mortgage so that it would be paid off by Oct 2012. It sounds like a long way to go. But once we reach $20,000 in our emergency account, we would probably pay more towards this loan.
The bad news we found yesterday was that the ‘check engine’ light is active in my car. Don’t know how much it’s going to cost. There is about 90,000+ miles on it and we have also been thinking about replacing this car. But we also know it’s not a good idea until we save some money to put down.
Debt paid off since 01 Nov 2007 : 31,452.53
Increase in assets since 01 Nov 2007 : 15,561.61
Change in networth since 01 Nov 2007 : 47,014.14
Networth Update
I wrote this post on 8th of May and it took me so long to post it. Sorry about the delay.
Our assets decreased by $2155 and our debts decreased by $9389. We were anxious to pay back our parents and so we paid them back earlier than we planned with money from our savings. We still have about $2000 in our emergency savings. Our networth since the start of this blog has tripled. It sounds dramatic but this huge number is because we started pretty low. When I started this blog our networth was about $11,000 and now it stands at $48,000. In certain aspects we could have done better than this, still this blog has brought a change in me that is far more worthy than this networth increase is.
