Usually I do my rambling on Mondays, but I had the day off yesterday and slept/relaxed for most of it! My favorite pastime, even more so these days.

I just posted our January net worth and then went and calculated our individual net worths. Some nice milestones there:

I hit five figures in my positive net worth, mostly due to shifting some of my credit card debt onto NT's student loan debt. But I would have gotten really close to five figures even without that!

AS's negative net worth got below $30K; we're still not focusing on her debt much because it's all student loans and mortgage. I am making sure she makes some progress by putting at least $120 toward retirement each month. Since her 401(k) didn't kick in at work yet, I had her put $120 of freelance profit into the IRA we set up recently.

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NT has expressed interest in moving some of our savings into community banks; while our big bank, US Bank, was one of the least foolhardy during this whole financial meltdown, he still feels we should support smaller banks. AS has been itching to do some CD laddering with our savings since we earn practically nothing at US Bank. Hopefully we'll find some nice rates around town and can accomplish both at once. It's kinda low on our priorities list right now, but something I'm trying to keep in mind as a rainy-day project.

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Speaking of lousy interest, do you bother even putting it on your tax return if you earn less than $3 in interest for the year? I've done a rough calculation and it doesn't bump us into the next tax bracket, so it wouldn't change anything anyway, and it'll be a pain adding up the dribs and drabs to get the exact amount we earned.

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On the subject of tax returns, it looks like NT and I will get about $1000 back from the federal government and owe the state of MN about $300. I haven't been able to make a rough calculation for AS because she needs to get her home-business stuff in order and we need to figure out whether the place that has paid her the most money intends to count it toward 2009 or 2010. She did the work in '09 but got most of the checks in '10, so I guess it depends on their accounting method. Right now she's in a flurry of manuscript-proofreading for both the freelance place and her new job, so it will have to wait at least another week.

However, since we'll pay anything she owes from her business account, that $700 net refund NT and I are getting is free and clear. I'll probably put it toward the Virginia trip but I might put it toward the American Express card. Haven't quite decided.

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We went to visit the in-home daycare provider, and she seemed good to all of us. Nice older lady, no-nonsense but not overly structured or strict with the kids, 25 minutes from work, 5 minutes from home. $800-per-month cheaper than the cheapest daycare center! While we loved the educational aspect of the first center we visited, and its proximity to our workplaces, we agreed that this lady fit the bill of our current needs and especially our budget (since we have no idea what other baby-related expenses will come up). If down the road we decide the child needs more structure or intellectual stimulation or that it's worth it to be able to visit during lunchtime, we can always change our minds. So NT's going to call her references, and if he doesn't get any bad vibes from that, we're reserving a July spot with this lady.

(Oh, and we all three went to see her, all three asked questions and spoke as if we were the parents-to-be, and she showed no curiosity as to why there were three of us. Excellent! As usual, all my paranoia was for naught.)