Well, I sat wracking my brain for anything to report on days 14 and 15 of Family December. I know I helped AA with her homework Monday, and she helped me wrap presents both days, but other than that I'm drawing a blank. It's been a really busy overwhelming week at work so far.
Oh well. It's been really good so far; a couple off days can be expected.
However, lots of other non-family time news, good and bad.
First, Spirit was having an airfare sale, so I booked my next trip to see my parents. Going for four days in mid-January, when AA has some days off kindergarten. They also got me to sign up for their $9 fare club or whatever it's called; annual membership was about $60 and fares were about $120 cheaper, so I saved money by doing it. I put a reminder on the 2016 calendar to cancel the membership if I don't end up using Spirit enough to make it worth it. Total for 3 tickets and a rental car: $615. So that's mostly good news.
The bad-news part of that is that we've been borrowing from the UK airfare fund recently for various things. We'd made up a lot of ground, but the airfare pushed us back, not to where we had been but we did lose a lot of progress.
More good: My boss called me in to his office yesterday to let me know he wouldn't be my boss for much longer. They're rejiggering things and I'll be reporting to a new guy I haven't met yet. I was very happy (though I acted neutral) because A) my boss and I are like oil and water, even though we try to get along, B) I'll be moving into an area that focuses on the stuff I'm comfortable with writing and C) my boss (who's not an effusive guy) said several times that I'd been doing really well and getting lots of praise from other higher-ups and that this move was positioning me really well to move up or take experience with me to another company. (I probably wouldn't do that because I'm happier not having to get to know a whole bunch of new people, what with my shyness and face blindness, plus I'm really happy at my new position in this company.)
Then a VP that I've been working closely with lately called me into HIS office, and told me more of the story. Apparently he's retiring in about a year, so this new guy is going to need to absorb as much knowledge about our main client as he can. I'm one of the most knowledgeable people in the company about the ins and outs of the company, its corporate tone of voice as well as the services it offers, so I'll be helping with that.
It's not like I was promised a promotion or raise or anything, but everything they both were saying made it seem like I'm in a really good position here, so I'm hoping it leads to something in the next year or two. Anyway, I'm relieved I won't have to try and impress my current boss much longer, and the new guy sounds great by all accounts.
More bad news: NT went for a follow-up appointment on his broken collarbone, and they determined it was broken in a bad place and would need a steel plate. So he goes in for surgery on Friday sometime and will be out of commission for a while. Poor boy is bummed to have so much down time; he's not good at being lazy. And goodness knows how much this will cost! We've only got a couple hundred left in flex, so that will be a drop in the bucket. But I know from his ER visit of a couple years ago that bills take forever to arrive, so we've got time to come up with the money. I'm not going to worry about it.
The last big bit of good news: NT got his annual bonus! They had a really good year so he got $6K (netted a little over $4K).
I immediately put it to use: made up the $1460 we were behind on saving up for the UK tickets, maxed out my Roth for the year ($575), set aside $400 for our beloved daycare lady's Xmas bonus, and put the rest toward NT's Roth (about $1650). I also had some surplus in the January budget so I bumped his Roth purchase up to $2400. We still have a long way to go on his Roth since I've neglected it all year, but hopefully we can make up the last $3K before the April cutoff date. Even if not, at least we made some good progress. Next year we'll definitely max out our Roths!
We're really close to having enough to purchase our UK airfare for next June now. We'll get there by the end of the year for sure.
Good news, bad news -- lots of news this week
December 17th, 2015 at 05:30 am
December 17th, 2015 at 01:09 pm 1450357760
December 17th, 2015 at 01:10 pm 1450357844
December 17th, 2015 at 04:49 pm 1450370946
December 17th, 2015 at 06:20 pm 1450376423
I was surprised none of NT's bonus was allocated to his ROTH.
December 17th, 2015 at 06:40 pm 1450377635
Actually, $1650 was allocated to his Roth, plus some budget surplus which took it up to $2400 toward his Roth.
December 17th, 2015 at 07:50 pm 1450381850
December 17th, 2015 at 08:40 pm 1450384810
December 19th, 2015 at 01:58 am 1450490317
Too bad about NTs collarbone.