First the good news: I earned $102.21 on mturk.com during the month of October. That will be used as cash spending money while we are in Cozumel in February (Disney Cruise).
We are on track with our savings to have enough for our property taxes. With the Nov 15th paycheck we should be able to pay our property tax. Our HOA dues are due in January, so we will use some December savings to pay for that.
Now the bad news: We were about $160 over our October spending budget. And it's because my DH went to the dentist for his cleaning and they found a cavity. We have dental insurance, which completely covers cleanings every 6 months, but cavity fillings are not covered nearly as well. I'm looking forward to having our "slush fund" up and running by the end of this year so that it can cover these unexpected expenses.
At the end of December, we should have our emergency fund fully funded and a small slush fund. At that time, we will increase DH's 401k contribution to 15%. And we will start our new budget (which will include putting money aside each month for our property taxes/insurance and $100/month for each kiddo's 529 plan). In January we will also be starting extra principle payments on our house. It will be a tight budget, I hope we can do it!
Switching gears:
Today I called our home insurance company. Our premium has increased by $684 over the past 2 years. When we bought this house, the premium was $1060. Then a year later I switched insurance companies from AllState to Progressive (switched both auto and home policies). The net of the 2 was a savings of about $600 a year. But our auto was substantially lower and our home insurance increased. Then the next year, our home insurance increased a few hundred more dollars. And now it's at $1744.
I've been going through the paperwork and I noticed that our dwelling coverage seemed overstated, so I called Progressive to ask about lowering that. They told me it was an algorithm that could not be changed, but they went through all the facts about our house and lo and behold the dwelling number was high. So that change brought my insurance down for the year by $146. They are going to pro-rate the difference and send us a check for $75 since we are half-way through our policy.
But, I've done some online quotes from other insurance companies and those quotes are still coming in closer to the $1100 a year. I know if we switch our homeowners policy, our auto insurance policy will go up since we a discount for having both together. I guess I need to price out what the net difference would be in switching. I think our home insurance is still about $500 higher than it could be.
It seems like such a pain to keep pricing our insurance...does anyone do this every few years? Or do you stick with the insurance you have?
October wrap-up and Home Insurance
November 5th, 2012 at 08:02 pm
November 5th, 2012 at 09:02 pm 1352149353
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At that point I took a friend's advice and contacted an independent Insurance Broker. They shop a client's particulars to the large re-insurers who 'bid' for the client. It was a huge savings in our case. Our State Farm Agent tried hard to retain our business particularly because we had referred several others but he doesn't control head-office rulings.
We are several years later and our condo & car insurance is still less than the State Farm premium BUT condo insurance does not cover the external building. That is covered by the Condo Complex. Our insurance only covers internal stuff. It is important to re-evaluate insurance every two years.
November 6th, 2012 at 12:49 am 1352162985
November 6th, 2012 at 01:03 am 1352163825
Good job with mturk!
November 6th, 2012 at 09:05 pm 1352235912
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November 6th, 2012 at 09:34 pm 1352237663
http://bradthegeek.hubpages.com/hub/Brad-The-Geeks-Mechanical-Turk-Tips-and-Tricks
I personally like to only do university surveys that pay about 50 cents or more. I search on the newest "hits" first and mainly do surveys that are 20 minutes or less. My hourly rate is low--maybe $5/hour, but I can do it in my spare time at night after the kids go to bed.
November 26th, 2012 at 02:42 pm 1353940956
Jerry