401k Maxed and Some Other Money News!

 So I got a notification from my bank this morning that only $300 had made it to my bank account from payroll! What! Granted I was only expecting a little over $600 this payperiod thanks to my aggressive savings from my COVID Budget. 

But $300 is low even for me! 

My first thought was I'd made a mistake. Did all my clicking around mess things up? Did I forget to remove a direct deposit for a bank bonus? Did the agent that does my after tax conversion in my 401k click the wrong button? 

After clicking around, I finally realized what happened! My pre-tax 401k had maxed out with only about $150 contribution this payperiod. Stay with me. Work offers a spillover to after tax once you max out your pre-tax. Which means that 17% was taken out after tax. Ouch! 

So that's where the $300 went. It was a good problem but my oh my! It took about 1.5 hours to untangle what I wanted to do next. I've been so financially lean that $300 actually upset a few of my workflows. If I keep my 401k contributions as is, I woulnd't have enough for January 2022's recurring bills. Yowzers. I was very reluctant to change my 401k contribution amounts only for 1 month because I knew for the most part that part of my 2022 budget was staying the same until at least the end of Q12022.

So what to do?

After a lot of mental gymnastics, I decided to empty 1 of my cash cushion Savings and put it in the Checking account I use for paying bills. I have just enough for Dec 2021 and Jan 2022 bills. So I can't really use that account again until then. 

Next step - I had to cancel 2 recurring transfers to that Checking account because I don't have enough in my Regular Savings to cover those 2 monthly transfers.

What'd I tell you...lots of calculations!

That's what's helpful about knowing your monthly expenses. I'll never stop touting the benefits of tracking your spending. 

So right now in my regular savings, I have  enough to cover Dec and January's incidental expenses at $400/mon with about a $500 buffer.

I'm really not counting on receiving income again until my Jan 15, 2022 paycheck. Just because whatever I get in Dec is going to be so small, I'm just going to not count on it. 

That said I have a $700 HOA bill that's due at the end of the year. Luckily, I signed up for a $200 credit card bonus, so that should help. Honestly, it was so easy to think, just put it on the card and not pay it until Jan but that is a slippery slope for me.

Once that thought landed, I also started thinking about financing my trip to Seattle to find myself a boyfriend! Yes, it's so easy to use credit to finance dreams. For me, it's like taking a bite out of a brownie and thinking I won't eat the whole pan. What's funny is that I don't generally think I have a spending problem. But something about a credit card just makes me feel reckless.

It's why I am not a good candidate to use credit cards for regular spending just for travel points. I can only use them in controlled environments like this. Just meet the minimum spend to get the bonus and then cancel the card. 

Anyway, so the plan is to charge the HOA fee ($700) to the Credit Card to meet the $500 spend. Get the $200 cashback bonus and pay off the bill using Play Money. Play Money is money I keep as cash as a pseudo-safety net but use it to churn bank bonuses in the meantime. I haven't had to use Play Money for regular bills before, so this is a first. Technically, that's why a safety net exists. This is less of an emergency though and more of a ... convenience situation. Either way, I'm thankful for it! 

It's also a good reminder of how far I've come. I remember making $18/hr and being in so much debt (credit card and student loan), that a $300 surprise dental bill just made me cry and discouraged.  Now a $700 bill (not a surprise), just means moving money around, even if ever so slightly inconvenient.  

Money News

So while clicking around to figure out why my paycheck was so small, I noticed my YTD balances from payroll.  So using those with Dec projections, here's where I stand to end the year 2021. All rounded estimates. 

Gross Salary: $140k (includes $1.5k valuation of recognition rewards from peers)

Taxes: $44k (wow!)

Net Pay: $95k

I am thankful. This put a smile on my face. $140k is the most I've ever grossed in my working life. It doesn't even seem real, and honestly if I hadn't taken the time to notice just now, I would not have fully realized or fully appreciated the milestone!  This doesn't even include the 6% 401k match. This is the most money I've ever made! 

And I don't know off the top of my head, but if I really stayed within my $15k COVID budget for the year, I potentially saved about $80k of hard-earned income! Another amazing milestone. Thanks, God!