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Back to the original topic:

Gaspar (GOP candidate for county supervisor) voted for trump.

Last night at the GOP election party, @KristinGaspar explained to me why she cast her vote for @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/X5lXy5zaEO

— Andrew Bowen (he/him) (@acbowen) June 8, 2016

For those curious about Denise Gitsham – the 2nd place finisher to Scott Peters – she is a former cast member of The Bachelor.

http://www.fansofrealitytv.com/forums/bachelor-spoilers-speculation/72845-denise-spoilers.html

This is the year for reality tv stars running for office… Bachelor and Apprentice.

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The Union-Trib had an editorial today (Sunday) recommending GOP voters write in Ronald Reagan.

I thought that was interesting.

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flu –
I think you know I paid off my house prior to retiring early. For me it allowed me to plan a retirement budget that was MUCH smaller than one that included mortgage P&I. It’s a little different situation than yours, since you’re younger and still working. If I was still working I would have put the extra money into investing… I have a fairly conservative asset allocation (60% equities, 40% bonds… 100% in index funds rather than individual stocks.)

The piece of mind having no mortgage is nice for me. Others feel differently and would rather have debt and more money to invest. We’re all wired differently.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]i read up a little bit about the program.
It’s only worth it if you normally use a lot of electricity, and on the reduced your use days, cut down a lot.[/quote]

I’m not sure this is true.
But I guess it depends on what you consider “worth it”…
We are not big users. But I’ve gotten RYU rebates for 3 days so far this billing period. And that’s with little impact to our lifestyle. I did pay attention to when I ran the dishwasher and the laundry. That was it.

That said – I don’t get big rewards – I’m getting $1.50 per day for each one I’ve qualified for. Today should qualify as well, and tomorrow is another RYU day. That’s a $7.50 reduction in my bill. For basically no effort.

$7.50 in free money – I’ll take it.

It should be noted we have no AC and no pool -two big consumption hogs.

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I’ve been on reduce your use plan for more than a year. For me – I basically make sure I don’t do laundry or run the dishwasher during those hours and I qualify.

We don’t have solar – but we have a pretty green house… no ac, LED and CFL bulbs, I line dry a lot of my laundry…

So – I made a whoppin’ $1.50 for RYU on Friday.

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I plan on living to 100 also. But the odds are against me. Folks in my family die of cancer – brother died at age 48, mom at age 67, and dad at 77. So… at age 53 – I’m retired and living my life now, not stuck in a cube waiting for retirement “someday”.

I remember hitting the point where relatives and friends parents started passing. I’m now at the point where I don’t assume my peers parents are still alive.

Plan for, work towards, living a long healthy life. But I’d rather die younger than live a less healthy life, or deal with dementia in my advanced years.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]Bosch dishwashers don’t have drying option? I thought they were high end.

I do crack my whirlpool to help drying. But can’t do that if you’re not home.
Don’t like water spots.[/quote]

A cheaper option to jet dry or other rinse agents is to dump about 1/2 cup of vinegar into the dishwasher after the soap has dispensed… Works great against the spots that occur because of the hard water here in San Diego. (And significantly cheaper than the blue stuff they sell you.)

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Hey JP –

How exciting you got everything permitted.

I don’t have any referrals but would be happy to give tips on how to do a basic vetting of them.
– check their license at cslb.ca.gov. Look for complaints. Look at gaps in their bonding history (might indicate the bond company paid out a claim and they had to scramble to get a new bonding company.) Look to see if they are paying workers comp. (If not – then they are claiming they have NO employees – so expect all work to be done by sub-contractors… or they are lying to the governing agency.)

– check whether they have a history of lawsuits with former clients, suppliers, or subs. You can look up civil cases at sdcourt.ca.gov. If you find anything there – ask the prospective contractor about it.

– Check whether they are “lien happy” – look them up by both their personal name and corporate name with the county recorder. Look for mechanics liens. Some contractors use liens even when they don’t have the right too.. as a consumer, you can get it removed… but it’s a strong arm tactic some bad apples use. While you’re on the records site – very no unpaid judgements.

As you know… I’ve had experience with all of this.

Congrats on finally getting this project on track. IIRC, you guys wanted to do this years ago but there were issues with the alley, with the city, etc…

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[quote=plm]I think its too much of a hassle to sell and rent first. Best to save enough for a down payment to not have to sell first. If you can afford higher payments for a move up home, you should be saving quite a bit each month already.[/quote]

It’s not just the down payment – it’s the debt to income ratio. Most folks don’t qualify for 2 simultaneous mortgages where neither property has rental income to offset the mortgage.

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My bain is reoccurring bills. Anything I have to pay monthly I want to reduce or eliminate.

Cell phone – was paying almost $100 for a smart phone and a feature phone, WITH a 20% employer discount, a few years ago… Now I’m on Ting – and I paid $68 for 4 smart phones, 3 have data plans. I buy the phones used on ebay/amazon/glyde. My highest bill was $78 (and then I threatened my son to not stream videos on the school bus – to wait till he’s someplace there’s wifi.

Cable – I screamed at time warner – I now have cable and “standard” internet for $35/month. The cable is as basic as it gets- NO hi-def channels, no premium anything (not even cnbc), no TWC provided equipment… I actually tried to cancel the video portion altogether – but this was the cheapest option.

Don’t eat out a lot… Embrace your inner chef. We buy good quality ingredients and cook at home. We have nice wine with our meals. Our food budget for a family of 4 is $1000/month… with very little of that being restaurant meals. And our food is yummy.

I picked up shopping for seafood and produce at Zion and 99Ranch from AN here at Piggington. We eat a lot of fish – and Zion is a great place to buy it for very little money.

Be your own labor. We put in a paver driveway and did the labor ourself. Saved about $7000 over the lowest bid we got for a contractor to do it. It was hard work but it came out pefectly and was only 4 days of hellish hard work.

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[quote=scaredyclassic]

To me, personally, being able to pay SDSU tuition effortlessly now without screwing with our budget fills me with pride. Pride verging on euphoria. I am grateful for this possibility…
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Scaredy- from your boots on the ground perspective… what’s the annual hit for SDSU/year. I assume you’re also paying for, or helping pay for, food/lodging for your son.

I’m thinking the living costs posted on the website are higher for living costs than they really need to be.

They have the total hit for a year of undergrad at SDSU as $22802. Of that 6976 is tuition and fees. I’m guessing that with roommates and a bike – you can spend a lot less than the $15826 for living expenses/books/etc.

I’m curious what your experience is with your son….

http://arweb.sdsu.edu/es/admissions/costs.html

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All I know is that my 529 savings accounts will NOT be enough to pay for Ivy. But I’m hoping it will be enough to pay for UC. They can go to grad school on my dime if there’s money left over.

If my kids get accepted to Ivy and don’t get financial aid – then it’s an issue…

Truthfully, I doubt my kids will be accepted to Ivy schools – I’m hoping for acceptance to UC schools – which is much harder now than when I was accepted to UCB several decades ago. FWIW – my engineering degree from SDSU was good enough for me to support myself, sock away some money, and retire at age 52. I was not going to keep working just in case my kids wanted to go to Harvard instead of UCSD, UCLA, UCI, etc…

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I am late to this party.

From everything you’ve posted you should definitely do option 1.
AND
you should work on the debt – all 3 of the debts: auto, credit cards, student loans. Look at snowballing – starting with the highest interest (CC or car loan).

Do not renew the lease on the van when it comes due. Buy a used car at that point. If you have a garage – use it for the car – cars like garages.

Your garage will be empty and able to take the car because you’ll be selling your “stuff” as mentioned above. Kids bikes and stuff can be hung from the rafters or walls to free up space.

I agree with the suggestion for looking for budgeting and cost savings. Look specifically at recurring bills – cell phones, switch to a pay/go plan like t-mobile, virgin, ting, etc. (We have 4 smart phones on Ting and our last bill was $68 for the month.) Switch to VOIP for your landline if you keep a landline – OOMA, MagicJack, whatever. Cable – do you need it? Do you need premium channels? Do you *have* to have high def – I went to battle with Time Warner and got the barest basic cable (no high def, no scrambled channels, no cable cards or settop boxes) and slow speed internet for $35/month. Sure beats the $120 I was paying for the same slow speed internet, 1 cable card, and high def channels.

MrMoneyMustache is a great blog/message board – but some of the posters over there can be less than friendly. That said – it’s a great place for ideas of how to cut your budget (and be green at the same time.)

Basically – the biggest thing you need to work on is spending. Every single NON essential purchase should be evaluated and considered. If you buy a starbucks coffee, rather than using that money to pay down debt, you’re effectively paying interest on that purchase. Essential purchases are food, shelter, debt service. Even clothes can be budget reduced – (Good Will, repairing tears and missing buttons.)

You can do it!

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I’ve had lollipop running on my nexus 5. I like it a lot.

My old phone was an ancient nexus S that was super memory limited (couldn’t update google without clearing the cache of EVERY application, otherwise I’d get memory errors.)

I bought the nexus 5 so I can use it on my carrier here (sprint network) and use it in Europe on GSM.

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The idea of changing the rules mid-course is inheritantly unfair… Perhaps – if this passes, they’d write is to 529’s are frozen to new contributions, and the old rules apply. (She says hopefully….)

That said – it might work out ok for me. My income is super low, so I’m back in the 15% bracket.

Ironically, I just put this months contributions into the kids 529’s yesterday. I might open a separate investment account and put the money in there. It’s not like the 529 is invested differently than I’d invest it – Vanguard index funds….

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