Using Thank You Points On Amazon.com

As most of you know, you can link your Citi Thank You account to Amazon.com and quickly shop with Thank You points. The nice thing about this is that Amazon pretty much has anything you need and you can redeem very quickly online when you check out. This is also comes in very handy for those of you who have Amazon Prime.

Since I'm already behind on my Christmas shopping I went ahead and placed an order to Amazon.com with our Thank You points. I had close to 43,000 points and my order total was $331 for 7 items. The points came in very nicely at checkout, all you have to do is click apply and they credit right away, no need to wait on mail or enter any codes. I chose the free shipping option since I don't have Prime and my order total was $0.00:

I must say it hurt using all these points since it took 6 months of Citi charges to get to that amounth but if you think about it, $333 is not bad just for using your credit card. So far this year our finance charges are somewhere around $140 so we still came out ahead. The key is to keep the balance as close to zero as possible and just enjoy the rewards. I still have some points left but I think I will start saving them and redeem again sometime around June.

HS

The Dreaded HOA Fee

I think I complain about this every year and here it goes again. The first week of December is when we pay our home owners association fees commonly known as HOA. Once again, I'm ready to send them $920 which to me is a lot of money. That money is sitting in our account as I write this post and will be leaving some time this week:

Grrrrrrr...

HS

November To December Updates

Can you believe December 2013 is here already! November went by so fast, In a way I'm ready for 2013 to be over but at the same time I wish life wouldn't go by so fast. November was a good month, as usual we charged close to $3,000 to our Citi card but that's actually a good number. If all our expenses like gasoline, groceries, entertainment, shopping and hobbies stay under $3,000 per month in my opinion that means we are doing great. If I can keep our spending at that amount I can save $600 to $700 per month. I will post our Citi statement for November as soon as that comes in and do an update on the savings account.

Wife is doing great far with the pregnancy and we haven't had any surprises. Doctor says her numbers look good so I'm hoping we make it to March without any complications. My biggest fear is bed rest since that would mean no more income from her. I need to get the big purchases out of the way like the baby furniture and set aside money for the delivery. We found some baby furniture that we both liked so that will set me back close to $1,500 and the hospital wants $1,300 upfront when we check in. Speaking of medical costs, our insurance deductible is going to increase from $200 to $600 next year. We got the dreaded 'Due to the Affordable Healthcare Act act your deductible will increase' letter at work so with that said I am voting straight GOP next year LOL.

Thanksgiving was great this year. Not sure what got in to me but I decided to break out of the usual routine and go running. I signed up for the Bay Area Turkey Trot in Clear Lake and got up at 5 AM, drove for one hour, then went running at 7 AM with temperatures around 37 degrees. I did a 10K run and it took me 1 hour and 7 minutes. Not a bad timing for me since I never really run. Here are a couple of pics I took that morning:

The event was so much fun and I think I will make it a yearly tradition from now on. With the momentum coming out of that race I signed up for another race this Saturday in downtown Houston. This one is to raise money for Ronald McDonald charities. I will be doing another 10K, hopefully I can finish this one under 1 hour. I found a Groupon deal for this race so this one only set me back $18. The Turkey Trot was $33 and it got me a fancy white shirt with a turkey on it.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we celebrated my grandfather's birthday in downtown Houston. We had close to 50 guests. We celebrated with speeches and live music. We had some amazing food, lots of great wines and of course champagne toast. We didn't stay very long since baby girl was also with us but it was really nice having her there. This is a picture of the event room:

Work is keeping me very busy so I also had to check emails during the holidays. Our project is going live in a few months so our work load is increasing. I'm hoping to take off a week during the holidays but I can't complain, I love my job and I'm glad to have work.

I don't really have any other major updates. That's really all that's going on in my life. I know your life is way more exciting so tell me what you did over the holidays =)

HS

Citi Forward Balance and Payment History

Below is the latest balance on our Citi Forward credit card. This is our only credit card that we use and we charge everything to it. It has taken me years to get it to stay close to zero but I will admit the next couple of months scare me. I hate hate buying stuff for the holidays. I wish Christmas was more like Thanksgiving, just getting together with family and friends but unfortunately all of our family members go crazy with gifts which leads us to also spend money. Here's the balance as of 8 AM this morning:

The reason I love using this card is for the rewards. In my opinion this is by far the best rewards credit card since it gives us 5 Thank You points at restaurants, movies and bookstores for each dollar that we charge. Keep in mind Amazon.com is still considered a book store so any purchase there also gets us 5 points per dollar. This card is soo good with rewards that Citi no longer offers it! They got rid of this version and now only offer it to college students, not sure how that works but you probably have to prove you're in school to get one. I believe this card is also the reason Citi had to charge more to redeem rewards, we used to be able to get a $100 gift card for 10,000 points, now the same gift card costs 12,000 points. They still have a few stores that offer $100 for 10,000 but most of the good stores like Best Buy, Home Depot and Walmart went up.

As I mentioned above, I make a lot of payments to this card. Below you can see all of our payments back to this card since April 2013. We've manage to pay back close to $24,000 in less than one year which has left me with 40,000 Thank You points. I will probably go ahead and try to redeem $400 in gift cards to offset the holiday spending. Here's how much it took to get that amount:

That is all for today, have a good day!

HS

We Are Expecting a Baby!

Five years of infertility, four rounds of IUI, one round of IVF, three embryos and one baby later I am happy to report that we are pregnant naturally! It was a complete surprise and an 'accident' but we are very happy, it just happened out of nowhere! I estimate the cost to conceive our first child was $20,000 so getting pregnant so easily still very surreal to us. Here is the confirmation:

I'm hoping this is a smooth pregnancy. I don't think this will affect our finances too much but for sure our day care cost will go up. My mind is on money but also on diapers, formula, and baby clothes. We have a lot of stuff that we can re-use but we will need to get new baby furniture and decorate the new room.

The plan now is to save save and continue saving money. The only issue is the holidays coming up and that always takes a huge bite out of our budget. I'm going to quietly ask everyone for gift cards so that will help offset some of the baby costs. I pray that my wife makes it without any issues, on the last pregnancy she had to go on bed rest three months prior to delivery.

HS

Goodbye iPhone 5, Hello Nexus 5

I hope I’m not making a huge mistake but I ordered a new phone to replace my current iPhone 5. I purchased the new Nexus 5 phone by Google. You may be asking why any smart person would make the move from iPhone to Android and my answer is the 2 year contract agreement. I bought the iPhone 5 last November when it came out for $199 but of course that included 2 year contract. I get bored easily with all my devices and I want to be able to upgrade whenever I want. I would like to try Android again and see if it’s better than the iPhone. Last time I tried Android I went from an iPhone 3g to a Samsung Galaxy S2 and I was miserable!! Android was horrible, my GPS didn't work, I couldn't delete apps Samsung installed and the battery used to last me a full 4 hours.

With the iPhone 5 everything works perfectly. The web browser, the apps, iMessage, iCloud, and iTunes- everything is perfect, the phone works flawlessly with Apple TV and what’s on my iPhone syncs perfectly with iPad. The only problem is I can’t get the new iPhone 5s since I still have 1 year left on my contract. I purchased the Nexus 5, unlocked for $349, with taxes and shipping the phone was $486! Lately I've been asking myself if this was a good choice. I know I can sell the iPhone 5 for $260 so I can use all that money to pay for this new Nexus 5 so that’s part of the reason I don’t feel so guilty. Now what if I completely hate this new phone? What if nothing works and I end up hating Android again? I guess I’ll have to wait and see how I like it. 

Dear Apple: I’m a fan and I love all the products you make but why does an iPhone have to cost $649 dollars unlocked without a contract??? I can get a new computer, a new laptop, an iPad for less!!

HS

Auto Purchase One Year Later

Last November I was debating whether to sell or keep my car. At the time I was driving a 2006 Acura TL and was thinking about trading it in for a 2013 Hyundai Elantra. I love and miss that Acura TL but nothing lasts forever. Towards the end of the month I went ahead and did the trade and a year later I can only say it was probably one of the best financial decisions I have ever made.

I ended up getting exactly what I wanted. I found a used 2013 Elantra with 9,000 miles for $22,200. I negotiated the price down to $21,600 which included tax, title and registration. The new vehicle had all the features I wanted including proximity key, navigation, leather seating and stuff you don’t use much like power seats.

Last year, a tank of gas for the TL was $45 to $46. That gas would only last 250 miles. Keep in mind it required ‘Premium Only’ but I always used regular. A full tank for the Elantra has averaged around $31 per tank (gas was 2.80 this morning). The Elantra gets a full 300 miles per tank, it could probably go more but with the gas light coming on at 250 miles I’m not willing to take it past 300.  I've filled up at least 1 tank a week for the past year since I do have a long commute. On gas alone I've already saved close to $800 and gotten an extra 2,600 miles of driving.

The debate at the time was what to do with the equity on the Acura TL. I ended up getting close to $10,000 in cash. Most of that money went to pay down our credit card debt but some of it also went to savings. Over the past year a lot of the money that would have gone to pay down that credit card has gone to our savings account. As usual we still need to learn to spend less on the card but thanks to the new car we don’t have all that additional debt.

I know some of you said that either way I would still have that debt but keep in mind this car loan has 4 years left and hopefully when it’s paid off I can sell it and get$6,000 to $8,000 back. I don't mind having a car payment and driving a newer car but I do hate credit card debt.

HS