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Browsing posts in: Personal Finance

The House Proceeds – Final

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I had great intentions of writing a whole series about where the house money went last month. I sat down one day while at Beauty’s and wrote the first 6 posts and then life got so busy. So today, I complete that series with a summary of what I wrote last month and the last details added in.

The First Six of the Series

PostTotal
Car Maintenance$2,143
Family Time$3,396
Insurance$1,889
Computer$1,919
Credit Cards$24,582
Overall Total$33,929

The Last of the House Money

So let’s see. It’s been a couple of months since this all went down. Here’s a list of where the rest of the money went.

  1. I mentioned in a recent post, I immediately put $5,000 in a new high interest savings account.
  2. Dad had loaned me $2,600 back in January, 2024 for a new furnace, so I paid him back.
  3. The painter did work in the last month before the house sold and agreed to let me pay him the balance once the house sold, so I sent him $650.
  4. I wanted to contribute to Beauty’s wedding in a meaningful way, so I paid for the flowers. Thankfully, the florist is a childhood friend and has given us an amazing deal. Total spent $883. Paid in full.
  5. Closing out the mortgage cost me an extra $790 to do that. I wrote a post about that challenge which was the cause for a lot of stress and uncertainty. The mortgage still whos as active on my credit report which confuses me to no end.
  6. In May, I paid $1,000 towards my student loans.

That’s where $44,852 of the house proceeds were spent.

I know those of you monitoring me closely will say, where the remaining $5,000-ish. And to be honest, the bulk of that went to kids for certain items.

A few hundred covered my expenses those first weeks of the move since I did take an entire week of that last week in Georgia. I did buy two new pairs of shorts, three new shirts, and some new underwear when I got to Texas.

But with this post, I am putting that series to bed and moving forward with very clear goals. Or mostly clear goals.

Bonus!

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Ran an ad campaign for a “on the fence” client recent or rather, still.

I created the assets (graphics), copy, and determined the strategy. And I ran it. Starting with a $250/day budget. (Client pays add spend.)

To date, I’ve made them just over $72K with an ad spend of $2.7K. For a ROAS of nearly $27 for every $1 spent. Not too shabby.

To be honest, it is an easy product to sell, and I know this audience. Very well. So the psychology of the messaging and finding the right audience was easier than most of the campaigns I am charged with.

screenshot of META ad dashboard

Today I received a phone call from the CEO of the company. He gave me a bonus – paid out as soon as our phone call was over. And has verbally agreed to an extension of my contract. Or rather a new contract with new deliverables.

It’s been a few years since I received a Bonus for my work. As far as I know, it’s not a common thing in the contractor world.

The Plan

So what am I going to do with it? I knew you would ask. (It’s $1,000 so I should end up with $600-700.)

Outside of taxes, gov fees, the entirety will go to savings. My dad and I have been talking. He’s kind of my accountability partner. And certainly who I bounce my ideas off of. It’s nice to have one of those after decades of doing things alone.

He would like me to get to $10K in my Ally savings account, $1K in my EF (easily accessible account, and then focus solely on paying off my remaining debt.

What do you all think of this plan?

If all goes well this month, I think I might hit those savings goals. Then turn my attention to my debt alone (outside of the auto-transfers to savings and investments totalling $125 per week.)

Thoughts?