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Brain dump

December 19th, 2013 at 08:50 pm

It's slowish at work right now and I'm too burnt out to work on my self-assessment like I should, so I thought I'd just spew random thoughts on here instead. Smile

The first year of our big, ambitious, 3- to 4-year plan to get ready for a move (whether to UK or a bigger home in Mpls) is coming to a close. We've had incredible success even with some setbacks (mainly my dental work, but also NT's ER visit and some little bill increases here and there). Although I'm not keeping a formal tally of progress (only what we still need to accomplish), I know we needed about $100K of progress to happen over the 3-4 years, and I see we have just under $60K to go. That means we accomplished about 40% of our goals, when we only needed to hit 25% for a 4-year plan, or 33% for a 3-year plan!

Next year, if we can stay the course, we should be able to tackle the remaining student loan debt, pay for the rest of NT's college education, and get $5K of the US condo renovations and ALL of the UK renos done. The UK ones will require dipping into the emergency fund (about US$9925, in other words two-thirds of our EF) so rebuilding the EF will become a new goal. Still, about $5400 of the renos won't come out of the EF, so that will be progress. There will also be incremental progress on the medical EF and saving for the move.

So what I'm hoping to achieve next year:
- pay off student loans ($12,200)
- cashflow NT's remaining tuition ($6,470)
- renovate US condo bathroom ($5,000)
- renovate UK condo (cashflowing $5400)
- add to medical EF (at least $900)
- slowly build moving fund (maybe only $50)
- start to rebuild EF after I use it for rest of UK renos (hopefully $6000 of it will be restored over the next year)
So in total, I would like to get $36,020 more in progress in 2014.

Sounds kind of insane, but it makes sense; we essentially got to $40K in progress last year, and this year our take-home pay will be about $4K less because of upping our flex spending to cover my dental expenses.

If we did all that, all we'd need to do the following year(s) would be:
- finish building medical EF ($804)
- finish building the moving fund ($11,381)
- finish rebuilding the EF ($3,925)
- finish renovating the US condo ($8,500)
So, in 2015 we'd only have to scrape up about $24,610 to complete our big-picture goal! We could probably do that in about 8 months if we kept up the pace.

And if we did that, we could start saving toward my "pie in the sky" goal, which I haven't talked about much: saving an extra $68,000 so we could potentially achieve a home purchase and move without selling the UK flat. I've gotten used to the income it generates and love the idea of someday having a fully paid-for property that we can either continue to rent out or sell.

But. But. BUT.

Before I make all these ambitious predictions based on our current incomes, pace and lifestyle, I feel like some more soul-searching is required.

NT's October ER visit was (in the end) an important wake-up call about how hard we're all pushing ourselves. We've tried to make some changes, but I see that we're all still pushing ourselves to the brink of exhaustion with everything we've taken on. I have the easiest lot in life of the three of us and I feel I'm at 99% capacity, so it makes me wonder how the other two keep going at this pace.

Last night I had a bit of a heart-to-heart with AS and expressed some of my fears that we were not succeeding in being happy.

Her job is stressful on so many levels: WAY too much work, not enough pay, difficult co-workers, lots of take-home late-night work, lots of pressure to do after-work and weekend events, etc., etc. BUT it's giving her the international presence that may eventually lead to a move for us, and she does get to help produce great works of art.

NT's job has slowly sucked away his lunch hours, added on (unpaid) overtime that they no longer seem to give him comp time for, added the occasional Saturday shift, taken away the vibrant social life they used to share as co-workers, and now is making him go to Canada next year for off-site work. He is basically a dead-eyed zombie by the time he gets home, and then it's usually off to study or write papers. He is an incredible person to be handling full-time work, half-time college and two spouses and two kids. He just got a big bonus at work so you know he's doing well there, and he routinely gets As in almost all his classes. Something's gotta give, and it's definitely family; time with us and the kids is in short supply and of lower quality than it should be.

And me? I'm doing all right by comparison, but definitely suffering empathetically for both of them, as well as selfishly wishing I had more/better time with them. My work's not my dream job, but it's interesting, fairly well-paid and challenging and doesn't take over my life too much.

AS did assure me that her job is cyclical and that it's at a peak right now that will dwindle away by the end of January. Overall it's not ideal, but me assessing it right now isn't really accurate because it does get less crazy.

And NT's school commitment should be a lot less all-consuming next year. The spring semester will be just for his final project, with no classes and only a few in-person consultations with his adviser. The summer and fall semesters he just needs to top up his number of credits with any elective classes he wants, so hopefully those will be EASY and not require as much studying and writing.

So I think I should hang on until I see what next year looks like. And if it looks bearable, I'll also know that the following year could be even better, with NT out of college. Of course I know there's the possibility of big-expense shocks, like further injuries/tooth problems or even deaths in the extended family. But all you can work with is the data you have in front of you. I plan to plan as if it'll be a predictable couple of years.

But as AS said, you should consider all options. So part of my soul-searching as the new year approaches, and possibly into 2014, will be about the other possibilities besides the current path we're on:
- Cutting more pleasure spending (travel, spending money) and trying to supercharge our saving
- Cutting pleasure spending so that one (or all) of us could quit or scale back our jobs
- AS (and possibly me) taking on freelance work to supercharge saving -- temporarily adding even more stress, but with the end goal of getting to a more relaxed state sooner

4 Responses to “Brain dump”

  1. TashaC. Says:
    1387487415

    I like your brain dump. Sounds like you have a lot on your mind but the over arching theme is that everyone is working hard so that everyone can enjoy and afford an easier future. And if you can keep the UK flat then even better!

  2. MonkeyMama Says:
    1387496907

    Great Progress!!

  3. Carol Says:
    1387502191

    I love your blog--its energy and the wonderful success your discipline and hard work has given you. When I read your brain dump, I marvel at the juggling you can manage. However, the very end (when you explore other options which all seen to include working harder) seems to contradict your desire since the emergency room episode to take it easier and have more fun along the way. You three know best but don't wear yourselves out. Remember your girls are young for such a short time. Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!

  4. SicilyYoder Says:
    1387661192

    I know all about dental work. I had a wisdom tooth pulled and am just now almost healed.

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