The past couple of days have been pretty great, with only a bad patch here and there. Obama's inauguration was rejuvenating; the sky was slightly light leaving work instead of pitch black; and the weather for nearly a week has been not only in the positive, but in the double digits!
Now the big news: AS is insured!! And she's receiving unemployment pay!!! She called the health insurance company yesterday and they confirmed that she has been insured since Jan. 16. And she was actually approved Jan. 1 (I could get pissed that they didn't tell us, but I'm too happy that she has health coverage again!).
Then this morning, she got a direct deposit for the unemployment she applied for Monday--plus three weeks of retroactive pay! That's more than I'd reckoned on, so it actually gave us a surplus in the budget for the first time in a long time! I put some money away for NT's fall-semester textbooks, put about $200 more toward Vegas (it's going to be an amazing trip!), and let the rest ride--I'll probably put it in the baby/emergency fund in February if we don't need it for anything else.
Speaking of that old thing...we nearly reached our savings goal! I now feel comfortable transferring the money for birthdays and the baby fund into our savings account. So this month we saved $1200 for the baby/emergency fund and $300 for birthday gifts. Right on target! (EDIT: I actually have $50 more to go on the birthday fund, which will hit via automatic payment on the 29th.)
The only cloud, really, was that six people got laid off at NT's job. Not him, thank goodness, but his two best work friends and several other people we really liked. It was quite a shock because they got a big bonus in December and everything seemed pretty stable, but I guess not as much as we thought. We're going to see one of his friends Friday, and hopefully the other one soon.
So now we've all rubbed elbows with the job crisis. I've survived two rounds of cuts at my job, AS actually did get laid off, and now NT's job has had a round of layoffs. It's pretty amazing.
Still, I'm thrilled to have gotten so close to reaching my goals, and I'm confident I'll reach them by the end of the month!
Mostly great couple of days! One Jan. savings goal met!
January 21st, 2009 at 05:12 pm
January 21st, 2009 at 05:26 pm 1232558796
It is great that you are planning a trip to LV which should be lots of fun... it is important to plan for the future but don't forget to also enjoy the present.
January 21st, 2009 at 05:58 pm 1232560687
January 21st, 2009 at 07:08 pm 1232564893
January 21st, 2009 at 07:52 pm 1232567527
But great to the reto pay came through and everything.
January 21st, 2009 at 09:33 pm 1232573617
January 22nd, 2009 at 05:19 am 1232601588