The U.S. mortgage hit: $443 went to principal, taking us to $825 down, $200 to go on the July debt goal.

July 2 fitness results:
10-min. workout? Check.
Counted calories? Check; 1347.
No night snack? Check.

Our new HGTV obsession continues. Not only has it caused us to look at tweaking the design and organization of our place, it's also made our conversations about a future home slightly more concrete.

We know that at some point -- in a few years, when the girls are older -- we'll want a slightly larger place. It's been really hard to entertain that notion seriously, because we have two possible, very different paths. One is to move to England or possibly continental Europe permanently. The other is to resign ourselves that we won't be able to do that, and set down at least semipermanent roots here in Minnesota. (We love MN, but it's our second choice.)

But, watching HGTV (which focuses more on real estate and house-hunting than renovating existing places) has made us start to visualize it more realistically. We don't know which path we'll take, or when, but some of the issues will be the same either way. They are:
- Underwater mortgage on our U.S. condo.
- Unknown equity on UK flat.
- Money needed to get our U.S. condo into sale-ready condition.
- Money needed for moving expenses (much more, obviously, if we go the EU route).
- Money needed for down payment on new place.

Translation: Whichever route we take, we'll need cash, and lots of it.

We don't have a discrete moving/house fund set aside. I've always thought we could temporarily drain our EF if needed (i.e. if we couldn't sell our places timely and/or didn't have any/enough equity after the sale). But even factoring that in, we have less than US$15,000. That's just not a lot of money when thinking about all of the above. Whether we move to a bigger place in MN or to the UK, we'll be looking at purchasing a more expensive place than we currently have, and we're not even sure we can tap any equity on our current places.

Since AS was notified of an upcoming raise, I've been idly turning over in my mind where it should go (if our ARM doesn't adjust upward in November). Our budget is basically in balance, and pretty generous, but I'll be honest: We're not naturally thrifty, and there are spending areas we'd gladly increase -- clothing, eating out, grocery, gifts.

However, I was thinking more of putting the extra money to debt or savings. We've already raised our "wants" category recently by adding the carshare. Time to focus on practical things.

Now, talking to AS this morning, it seems clear that we should start building a moving/house fund with any additional money that comes our way, so we'll be in a more comfortable position in a few years when it's time to take the leap.

First, I want to rebuild our decimated medical fund to at least $5,000 and our emergency fund to $20,000. But once I get to those levels, unless they get depleted again and need rebuilding, I want to focus hard on saving for our future home.

AS intends to try and pick up freelance editing jobs again once her maternity leave is over, and we should be able to put most of that money into savings. Hopefully NT and I will be looking at raises and bonuses in the next year or so, and if nothing else changes in our financial life we'll be able to dump those into a home fund as well.

It's nice to have a new resolve and a new focus! We're a long way from being able to afford to move, but I believe we can do it if we all work together.