Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Preparing for the holidays, work bonus, & no rain

I chose this title because I posted almost the identical one a year ago - "Preparing for the holidays, work bonus, & the rain." All apply this year, but there is no rain. Which is sad, because of the drought!

On the holiday preparations, here's where things stand:

  1. Finish all shopping - complete!!!
  2. Mail all packages - complete!!!
  3. Work on holiday cards - not started, not sure if we're going to send them out this year
  4. Bake special family bread recipe - not started, scheduled for the weekend
  5. Menu plan with my mom & sister for the holidays - mostly complete
  6. Plan events/menu for our time at the vacation house with the family - rough draft
  7. Finish all wrapping - almost all there. Still waiting for a few packages to arrive

So, that's how we're doing! As with my long-stranding tradition, I took all under budget holiday money & applied it to a charitable donation - a food bank this year, as my employer was offering a 4x match. Win/Win!

On the work bonus & raise, the numbers are in! I got a 12% raise this year (same as last year, but mostly due to my promotion). That will take effect on my next paycheck. And, I got a $58.6K bonus - a $10K increase over last year. The company actually restructured our total compensation, and did away with another bonus that I received last year, so it's slightly less in total money. But, I was aware of the change, so no surprises there. 

I'm very excited to have the numbers in, so I can continue modifying my 40 week plan! Here's how I plan to allocate my bonus:


  • $16,000 - max out 401K (I'll already have contributed a bit with previous paychecks)
  • $18,700 - taxes
  • $23,700 - straight to the 40 week savings fund!

And, no rain. :-) Maybe this post will send Mother Nature into overdrive! In my old Seattle area, it's raining plenty - flooding, in fact.

How are your holiday preparations coming along? 

4 comments:

  1. Flooding here on Vancouver Island too - way too much rain. We did have drought last summer - there has got to be some kind of happy medium! We have to boil our water right now because the rain stirred up our water supply - craptastic! We made a large donation this month to a charitable organization too - we can afford to so we should. Hubby is sometimes cynical about charities based on one particular situation from his past (united way) but we donated to one we know all the money goes to the right spots. Sending rain wishes your way!

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  2. Wow! Your bonus is more than a lot of people make a year. Good job!

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    1. Thanks. It's a little bittersweet - they definitely make it hard for me to leave, from a financial perspective. :-)

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