A couple days ago I blogged about the financial unknowns that are making me impatient because I can't really set goals or finalize my budget until they're settled:

- What health bills will come in for the rest of the year
- When I can add SL to my healthcare
- What my paycheck will net out to once the above is established
- What AS's raise will actually net out to
- What NT's financial aid package for fall semester is, and whether we should cashflow by borrowing from EF, or just take the student loans they offer
- What our mortgage payment will be starting Nov. 1

Well, one is mostly settled, and one will be on the 15th.

NT got his financial aid package; they offered something like $22K, but we don't need that much since he doesn't need room & board and doesn't take a full course load.

They offered $2750 as a subsidized federal loan, something like $15K as unsubsidized federal, and the rest as a private loan. The $2750 subsidized had a great rate, something like 0% while he's in school and 3.5% once he graduates. The unsubsidized was at about 6.8, higher than any of our current debts, and the private didn't give an interest rate.

We decided to just take the $2750 at the great rate and decline the other two. I figured we could borrow from the EF and pay it back in gradually for the rest.

Then I checked his fall 2011 student account to see how much a semester costs us, and it was between $3000 and $4000. So the most we will probably need to cashflow is probably about $1250. The bill will come due in September, and we'll have $1100 ready to put toward extra debt repayment that I can just use for tuition instead. (I'll delete the amount from our "estimated future debt," which is part of our total household debt, so it will still feel like we're lowering our debt!)

Good to have that sorted out, and I think we picked a good option. Can't beat a 0% interest loan, especially when we have interest-bearing loans that we're still working on.

The other variable that will be settled soon is AS's paycheck; her boss confirmed that her raise will be reflected in her Aug. 15 paycheck. Soon 2 variables will be gone with just 4 more to go.

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I checked my new Barclays online savings account, and we'd earned monthly interest of 71 cents! This may not sound like much, but it feels like a fortune to earn 71 cents on just $1000. My savings account linked to checking has $6000-$7000 in it at all times, and we earn 25 to 30 cents per month on that. I keep it because it's really easy to access the funds, but I may be lured away from the convenience by this much better rate. We'll see ... At the very least, it inspired me to snowflake a random amount of money I had sitting in my budget ($3.49) to the Barclays account.

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I started thinking about the winter holidays recently, and how we usually tip our various service providers and send gifts to family. I really want to put most of any bonuses we receive into the house/moving fund, but I also want to make sure we're generous at Christmas. Plus, NT wants a big 40th birthday bash next March, and I was thinking we'd save some Xmas bonus money for that so it doesn't affect our budget. I think I'll sit down with NT and AS in the next month or two and plan out what we think we'll need to spend this year and for his birthday party. Then figure out what we can cover with our own spending money and what we'll need to come up with funds for.

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Oh, and one more bit of great news:

I just confirmed a lunch date with CB in the City tomorrow! Very excited to have an SA meetup after getting to read about the recent California one.