All our mortgage payments hit:

US: $756 to principal
UK1: $182
UK2: $39
UK3: $40

In total, $1,017 was paid toward principal.

Updated debt balances:
US Mortgage $375,712
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $29,603
UK Mortgage 2 $6,240
UK Mortgage 3 $6,571
-----
TOTAL DEBT $427,126

Goal: $776,700 by March 2024

Current retirement balance: $496,098

Still needed: $280,602

Progress since last update: ???

The new goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x our salaries (currently $75,120 and $62,100) by the time we turn 50 and AS's retirement values to 3x her annual income ($75,940 in 2018) by the time she turns 45.
$75,120 x 4 = $300,480
$62,100 x 4 = $248,400
$75,940 x 3 = $227,820

It will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes.

There are 54 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need assets to appreciate $5196 per month on average to meet our goal.

I got NT's annual notice on one of his pensions. (I must have missed at least one previous one, because even last year's value is more than what I have listed!)

So for our net worth update at the end of the month, I'll change this pension:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)

to
22,397 pounds ($27,996)

That'll be a nice boost for our retirement goal!

All our mortgage payments hit:

US: $743 to principal
UK1: $180
UK2: $39
UK3: $40

All told that is $1,002 of debt paid off.

On a related note, we checked in with our UK property manager about selling the flat, but he's convinced the market is terrible right now because of Brexit uncertainty. So we're reupping with our current tenant for another year and will look at listing it next year if things have improved.

New balances:
US Mortgage $380,215
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $30,689
UK Mortgage 2 $6,469
UK Mortgage 3 $6,813
---
TOTAL DEBT $433,186

March 2019 was where I set our first retirement goal milestone, since I turned 45 and AS turned 40 this year. (NT turned 46 but I'm weighing his assets by the same measurements as mine, to keep things simpler.)

Goal: $563,540 by March 2019

Final balance: $452,766

Result: Fell short by $110,774. Now, starting January our goal got about $50K more ambitious due to AS's income increasing, so about half of that shortfall was due to that.

This was an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement It aimed to get me and NT to 3x our income, and AS to 2x hers.

Anyway, it's time to set our next incremental goal! The new goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x our salaries (currently $75,120 and $62,100) by the time we turn 50 and AS's retirement values to 3x her annual income ($75,940 in 2018) by the time she turns 45.
$75,120 x 4 = $300,480
$62,100 x 4 = $248,400
$75,940 x 3 = $227,820

So our new goal is...$776,700 by March 2024! (And of course it will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes.)
Current retirement balance: $452,766

Still needed: $323,934

There are 60 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need assets to appreciate $5399 per month on average to meet our goal.

So, here we go!

Finally getting around to this ... it's been a very busy weeks, with three of our five household birthdays hitting one after the other! Lots of parties, gifts, spending, fun ...

Anyway, I finally checked our mortgages and all our payments hit.
US: $741
UK1: $184
UK2: $38
UK3: $41
In total, that's $1,004 to principal. Yay, our minimum payments finally add up to more than a thousand bucks!

Current household debt:
US Mortgage $380,958
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $30,869
UK Mortgage 2 $6,508
UK Mortgage 3 $6,853
---
TOTAL DEBT $434,188

Things have been going along pretty well so far this year. It's been a spendy few weeks, with all our birthdays hitting in month (we planned a big blowout for AS's 40th that will run us about $3K; everyone else's parties are more like a few hundred each) and signing the kids up for spring swim, theater and art classes. And a few other things have cropped up here and there. So our shared spending was running a deficit of a few grand (about $5K), but we could easily float it and I felt like we'd be able to chip away at it over the next couple months with AS's expected checks and our usual budget surplus.

Then we got our first tax return news; NT and I owe about $2400 between state and federal. We don't yet know if AS will owe; I'm hoping for some benefit from the tax deal since she's a business owner, but she also made a lot more money in 2018, so I kind of expect her to owe but don't know how much. We have $4300 set aside for taxes, so if what she owes plus what we'll need to pay our tax guy comes to less than $2K it won't be a big deal, but I'm not sure.

So I was already thinking I need to adjust my withholding and take home about $200 less per month. That was going to eliminate/reduce our monthly budget surplus. Then our downstairs neighbors' boiler broke on Friday.

The estimates of various options ranged from $5K to $20K. It was a bit of a shock. But I finally asked NT and AS to come to a decision with our neighbors which option was best bang for buck, and I'd work out how to pay for it.

They came up with one that's about $8600. Yikes, but it's gotta be done.

We had about $36K saved up for our kitchen reno. Early rough estimates (depending on how drastic we want to go) were $45K-$80K. We were mulling our options; do we save up the full amount, think about financing, try to sell the UK flat and use part of the profits? But I ended up pulling $11K out to handle the boiler and also reduce our shared spending deficit. I also took $2K from vacation savings and wiped out the deficit.

So now we only have $25K in reno savings. And we heard from the UK property manager that the market is really bad, the worst he's ever seen. Plus he says we'd have to have the place vacant if we hope to sell it, which would mean having it sit not generating income. So it seems like with everything else happening, we should probably not list it at this time.

I don't know what to do about the kitchen reno. I wouldn't mind financing a small amount but I don't want to do half of it or anything. So I think we just sit back, wait for AS's tax return results, wait to see if NT and I get raises this year, wait to see what kinds of jobs AS books this year. Slowly start rebuilding our reno and vacation savings in the meantime.

Although we're very eager to fix our kitchen, I don't want it to put us in a place of financial insecurity again. So we'll take some breaths and decide later what we should do.

I feel good that we have the money in savings to deal with this. I'm choosing to look on the bright side!

Anyway, I've been having a very fun, active, busy year so far otherwise. Lots of exciting things happening on the "chase pleasure" new year's intention for sure! I'll try to check in with some of the happy stuff in my life.

I have so many balls in the air right now, I feel slightly behind on everything, including blogging!

I only now checked our mortgage payments to see our new balances.

US: $739 to principal
UK1: $178
UK2: $38
UK3: $39
Total principal paid this month: $994

New household debt totals:
US Mortgage $381,699
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,053
UK Mortgage 2 $6,546
UK Mortgage 3 $6,894
----
TOTAL DEBT $435,192

Well, now that I'm basing our retirement goal on AS's 2018 income, it just got $50K more ambitious!

Goal: $563,540 by March 2019

Current balance: $434,490 ($129,050 to go)

September 2018 balance: $436,289

Progress: -$1,799

Ordinarily, I only post retirement goal updates when we make positive progress, but since AS's salary calculation underwent a reset, I figured I should post.

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $75,120, so $225,360; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2018 was $75,940, so $151,880.

To reach the interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 2 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $129,050 -- $64,525 per month(!!!) -- to reach it.

So yeah, we're going to fail badly on that there goal. Considering we've made no gains since August, despite dumping thousands and thousands of dollars in our accounts, there's not much more we could have done about that.

Come March, even though we'll be short of that goal, I'm going to set another 5-year goal. Which of course will change any time one of our salaries does.

Wow, I was too busy to really check the blogs for two weeks, and it sounds like there was some drama with them all disappearing! Glad they didn't; it would have been so horrible to try and come back and have lost you all.

Anyway, I reached an equilibrium where travel is done for now, I'm mostly caught up at work, and personal life isn't too busy, so I wanted to take a few minutes to check in.

As you might have seen, this year I'm working on "intentions" instead of goals. I'll try to list achievements on the sidebar, but a lot of it is about the journey, so I'll also try to blog about my activities that fall into my intention categories.

- Make healthy choices. I haven't been too good about walking or morning strength training so far this year, and my eating has been all over the place due to travel. But I've been trying to add one healthier meal such as Buddha bowl (beans and grains and veggies) per week to the menu. This week's will have chickpeas, broccoli, sweet potatoes, kale and brown rice.

- Deepen friendships. I've been cultivating my friendship with my Canadian friend; she came to Minneapolis a couple weeks ago and if I can swing it, I'm going to try and head to Canada in April. Her trip and my hopefully future trip are both centered around seeing our favorite band.
This week I also reached out to about 6 other friends. One came over and chatted for a few hours, another will be going to a show that I'll be at on Monday, and others have promised we can make plans soon.

- Do creative things. I've been practicing guitar nearly every day and attending lessons once a week. I also play with my Canadian friend whenever we get together. I think I'm going to make my bday party in March a music jam type event, where I ask friends who play or sing to come hang out and make music together.
I've been pondering my writing projects, and I hope to get going on those soon.

- Chase pleasure. I saw my favorite band for the 30th time this past Monday, so I think I'm chasing pleasure pretty well! And tonight I'm going to a bar to see another band that I like quite a bit. I've also got tickets to a few other upcoming shows. I'm really really into live music these days! I've also read a novel by one of my favorite authors. And I'm hoping to go to this big book festival in a couple months that another favorite author will be appearing at! Oh, and I'm thinking about scheduling a "bad movie night" in February with some friends who also enjoy that sort of thing.
Our birthdays are all coming up in March, so I'm starting to plan our parties. AS is hitting the big 4-0, so hers will be the biggest event! I'm determined that she have fun and not freak out about this milestone!

- Build my career. I had to do my self-assessment at work. Since my boss/mentor left, I've been a little unsure the best way to advance my career. So I figured I'd just put that comment in it, and hopefully my direct boss will have some ideas. I also put down a goal that I want to win an award at work, or at least resolve to work harder and better to make my job performance award-worthy. (Since winning isn't something one can really control.)

- Be flexible when life throws things at me. We've had a couple challenges this year -- a houseguest who was meant to leave in October but is still here, AS's mom repeatedly needing money due to some unexpected problems -- and so far we're dealing with them pretty well. Nothing too bad has happened this year.

We got back from England Sunday and have been incredibly tired AND busy since then! Last night I got a second night of fairly solid sleep so I'm feeling partly back to normal. Still a lot of work and housework to catch up on, though, so I don't have time to run down our trip. Suffice it to say, fun but tiring, lots of quality time with family and friends, didn't see a ton of new sights but that wasn't what it was about this time.

I did keep track of our spending so I thought I'd do a quick summary and compare it with our more epic July 2016 trip. That one was 15 days, included a short jaunt to Barcelona in the middle, and came to about $10,500:
UK flights & travel insurance: $5500
(UK lodging paid for by NT's parents)
Rental car & insurance: $900
Barcelona flight and lodging: $1300
Other spending: $2800

This trip was 12 days, included stops in Exeter, Cornwall and Oxford, and came to about $7,300:
Flights & travel insurance $4,200
Car rental & minor damage (just some scuffs from all the narrow roads and parking lots) $700
Other spending (gas, food, gifts/souvenirs/clothes, sightseeing, drinks): $2400
(some lodging paid for by NT's parents; stayed w/people the rest of the time)

So there you have it!

All the mortgage payments hit:
US: $736 to principal
UK1: $179
UK2: $37
UK3: $40

That's $992 to principal. (Maybe this will be the year when my minimum payments put $1000 or more to principal!)

Current debt totals:
US Mortgage $382,438
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,231
UK Mortgage 2 $6,584
UK Mortgage 3 $6,933
---
TOTAL DEBT $436,186

Usually I have goals with measurable results and I achieve maybe half of them? So for 2018 I tried to really analyze why goals succeeded or failed, and come up with ones I was sure to meet, and enjoy meeting.

Well, the results were not what I expected. Over the year I ended up abandoning most of them and doing some other equally awesome things. Basically, my focus and priorities changed. It was still one of my favorite years, but I don’t like the feeling that I didn’t meet my goals.

I won't go into them in detail, but here are the things I achieved in 2018:
Creative - learn guitar.
Vacations: UK family trip after Xmas. Solo trips for adults. CJ family reunion in June/July Niece's wedding in Va. in August.

And things I didn't quite get done in 2018:
Creative - get a novel publishing-ready.
Health - Limit drinking on everyday nights.
Health - limit screen time outside of work.
Health - Try relaxation/destress tactics on nondrinking/no-screen-time days
Pragmatic - emergency preparedness.
Work/professional development: Look for class on Agile; see if work will pay for it.
Work/professional development: Limit social/personal internet at work.
Jan: No personal internet/phone at work one day per Financial: Retirement assets to $475K. Net worth to $650K. Bump NT's 401(k) up 2%.
Financial: Kids' savings up to at least $1K per year of age.
Home: Full kitchen renovation.

So there you go.

I feel like I've entered a new stage of life where I can achieve anything I set my mind to, but can't necessarily map out the exact things that I'll want to do.

So for 2019, I've decided I’ll have less structured “intentions”: a mindset where I try to live a full and successful life and, yes, have ambitions, but I'm not laying out specific ambitions or milestones I'm working toward.

Part of it is my new mindset but also, I realize with family members in all three of our extended families struggling, and also all of us chasing our dreams, which may make our day-to-day schedules and finances less predictable.

So here are my intentions for 2019:

- Make healthy choices (with an eye toward fitness, weight control and general energy and vitality and hopefully longevity). My initial thoughts are getting back into walking and AM exercises and intermittent fasting, and trying to bring more salads and whole foods into my diet. But I'm leaving this open to any other ideas or inspirations I have.

- Deepen friendships. In 2018 I put a lot of effort into widening and deepening my social circle with mixed results. Recently I've been spending less time chasing the people who don't seem to be putting any effort in reciprocating. If they want to hang out, I'm not shutting off any avenues; I'm just going to focus more on the people who have been more responsive, and putting out feelers for other people to focus on.

- Do creative things. Right now I'm feeling very happy learning guitar and working on a new novel with a college friend. I'm also seriously considering finally self-publishing one of my novels as kind of a test run. But we'll see what other creative urges hit me! The point is to do things that aren't just stressing over the news or mindlessly checking my phone or computer.

- Chase pleasure. I don't know how many solo trips we'll get to go on (due to the uncertainties I mentioned) but if I do get to, it'll likely be to see my fave band in other places, meeting up with my Canadian friend I met in January via their concerts. That friendship has been the single biggest social success I had, even though we mainly communicate via computer! I also want to see lots of other live music, which has become one of the biggest pleasures of my life. So has guitar. Maybe it means more date nights with my partners; we didn't get many this year. I also consider reading a creative activity, and I don't read as often as I used to, so I could try to focus on that. And my kids are getting to the ages where we start to have activities we both enjoy, so I hope to hang out with them more and more! This is a wide open field, so hopefully I'll surprise myself pleasantly!

- Build my career. I'm still very happy with my current job and seem to be still making good impressions and doing good work, so right now that's my focus. I don't have any big ambitions about moving up quickly; as long as I get modest raises and the work environment stays supportive and the work interesting, I don't see any need to do anything other than continue to challenge myself and keep growing and deepening my skills in this position. But I realize jobs are a fluid thing, so again, a wide open intention!

- Be flexible when life throws things at me. This is about resilience as well as openness to new ideas and new situations. It's optimistic that amazing new opportunities may present themselves, but also realistic that challenges may arise, and I don't want to be blindsided or feel persecuted, I just want to land on my feet no matter what. I hope I can do that!

So, those are my thoughts. I'm in the UK, so we're about to hit the new year in about an hour. I wish all my SA friends the 2019 they want, and the ability to tackle the year even if it doesn't turn out the way they hope!

Hi friends!

I had an absolutely crazed December; working nights and weekends trying to get through a mass of work that suddenly hit me all at once. I did all I humanly could, so now I can take my two weeks with a clear conscience if not a clear plate. I'll have a lot to do on Jan. 7 so I'll need to hit the ground running, jetlag be damned.

But until then, I have some time off, so I'm going to try and rest my brain as much as possible.

I want to do a detailed end-of-year rundown like I typically do. I'll be in the UK on New Year's Eve, so I'm not sure if I'll do it beforehand or try and do it from my phone in England. I don't think I'll take my laptop...but I'm still figuring that out. We leave the day after Xmas and I haven't even thought about what I'm going to bring!

This was an odd year. I started off with some of my most organized, regimented goals ever, did really well the first two months, and then things just kind of went off the rails. But not in a bad way, really...I still had a busy, fruitful, creativity-filled year, I just ended up doing things differently from the goals I had so methodically put in place.

So I think next year, I'm going to structure things differently, in that I won't really structure annual goals. It'll be more about being ready to jump on something when I feel it, no matter when it happens in the year. I'll still have intentions, ambitions, but not as many yardsticks or finish lines. It'll be about the doing, and hopefully there will be some achievements reached along the way that I'll celebrate.

Besides the fact that the very concrete goals didn't work as well for me last year -- indicating I'm moving into a different way of getting things done -- another reason I don't want to be so specific with my benchmarks is we have a number of wild cards next year.
- My mom is home from the hospital and doing somewhat better, but I still feel it's very possible that she's not long for this world.
- AS's mom is struggling financially and with finding a stable place to live and any kind of employment; we've had to bail her out financially a few times in the past couple months and feel the worst may be yet to come.
- AS had her best income yet this year, and we have high hopes for next year, but she's taking a leap and getting rid of some of her steady but lower-paying work to give herself more time for higher-paying work and also to build her personal brand. So there's some risk but also more potential for reward.
- We've enlisted a kitchen designer, and depending on what the estimates come to, we may have to decide whether to take on a short-term loan to cover part of it, or find alternatives that work within our current savings, or put off the renovation a while longer until we have the funds. So it's hard to say the impact that will have.

Anyway, still taking stock of the year and thinking about next year, so I'm hoping to do a longer, more coherent post soon. But since I had a bit of time to drop in, I wanted to at least say something. One of my "intentions" for next year will definitely be to blog more frequently again -- I miss it! Even though I still read all of your blogs, I haven't had time to comment as much, so I hope to be more present in general here.

All the mortgage payments hit:
US: $735 to principal
UK1: $180
UK2: $38
UK3: $40

That's $993 to principal.

Current household debt:
US Mortgage $383,174
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,410
UK Mortgage 2 $6,621
UK Mortgage 3 $6,973
___
TOTAL DEBT $437,178

All our mortgage payments hit on Friday, but I'm just getting around to posting about them:
US: $732 to principal
UK1: $179
UK2: $37
UK3: $40

All in all, $988 of debt paid off.

I got a notice that our escrow shortage is lower now, so our US monthly mortgage payment will also be lower starting next month. Only by about $30, but I'll take it! Our utilities have averaged about $100 per month higher this year than last year, and I don't see that changing until/unless we can invest in better insulation, mini ductless AC, etc. So it's nice to have one house expense decrease a little.

Current debt amounts:

US Mortgage $383,909
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,590
UK Mortgage 2 $6,659
UK Mortgage 3 $7,013
___
TOTAL DEBT $438,171

The past few days have been hard. My mom went into the ER with chest pain (and just gradually feeling worse over the past couple weeks; regular doctors and specialists unable to pinpoint the problem).

Her heart rate was super low and she had several infections in various parts of her body. There were some scary points where a temporary pacemaker wasn't working, where they were debating whether to do surgery before they got rid of some of the infections.

But yesterday she had pacemaker surgery, today she's off oxygen and catheter, and the infections are coming under control. If she continues to pull through she'll likely have to go to a rehab facility before going home, which is good, because after her heart attack a few years ago she totally ignored the physical therapy exercises recommended. If she's at a place, they'll make her do something.

I'm in MN and she's in VA, so all of this has been communicated by email, calls and texts. My dad is stressed and burdened by all the decisions and insurance things he's having to handle, but he had two of my sisters around to help somewhat. One went home and another came, so he still has two there.

I was holding off booking a trip until I heard whether I needed to get there right away, but now it seems like it might be nicer to come in a week when she's probably going to be better able to enjoy a visitor. So I'm going to research flights for early November. I have an extremely busy month (all cancelable if there's an emergency) so I'm looking at a three- or four-day window next week as my best bet for a non-emergency visit.

Luckily we have vacation funds stored up that we don't really have plans for, so if I make this trip and still need to run out another time if anything goes wrong, it shouldn't put a financial burden on my household.

Everyone is being supportive including my work. I know things are touch and go still, but I'm enjoying the feeling of relief after the surgery even if it turns out to be premature. The mind and body can use this respite. It was a few days of -- I don't even know what to call it. The feeling of my mom in danger and my dad suffering mentally was like this ocean of raw emotion right under the surface 24/7. As long as I stayed busy and around people it stayed under control, but it was always there, every second, even when I was laughing and having fun. So to have the ocean subside a bit, even if temporary, is a good sensation.

We had our benefits presentation today, so now I know how much more our medical costs will be (pretax; the effect on my paycheck won't be 100% known until Jan. 15).

Medical is going up a little, plus I've just edged into the next income bracket, so the premium for me and the kids is going up $85 per month pretax.

Dental is staying the same.

I'm adding NT to vision coverage next year because he thinks he may need glasses, so that's going up $8.33 per month.

Since he'll likely need glasses, I'm going to put another $600 into flex spending, or $50 per month.

That means medical expenses are going up $143.33 per month, or $71.67 per paycheck. I'm going to estimate $60 per paycheck for now and we'll see what the change in tax withholding actually is in January.

On the bright side, AS's Obamacare premium is actually going down a little bit for some reason. I guess she made a tiny bit less in 2017 than 2016, so maybe that's why. If so, we'll enjoy it while we can in 2019, because she's making a lot more this year and 2020 healthcare will likely reflect that! (Of course the GOP could do more horrible things to the ACA and it could get even worse, so there's no sense extrapolating that far into the future for healthcare costs.) I believe her costs will decrease about $20 per month.

So I guess the impact of the changes will be about $100 lower income per month. Could be worse, I know. Hopefully NT or I will get a raise to help offset it, since this comes out of our regular budget which is covered by our paychecks. (I handle AS's pay separately; after her tax and retirement it goes toward renovations, vacations, variable/unplanned costs and shared fun money.)

A UK pension statement came in the mail; since I can't check them online it's the only time I get one. The Scottish Widows pension value has increased from 26,544 pounds last year to 28,134 pounds this year. I'll reflect that in our net worth update at the end of the month.

I hate having to wait a day for my US mortgage to hit the actual account, because sometimes I then forget to update my debt totals! But anyway here I am, better late than never.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US Mortgage: $730 to principal
UK Mortgage 1 $179
UK Mortgage 2 $39
UK Mortgage 3 $38

All told, that's $986 to principal this month.

Current debt totals:
US Mortgage $384,641
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,769
UK Mortgage 2 $6,696
UK Mortgage 3 $7,053
---
TOTAL DEBT $439,159

Wow, I haven't blogged properly for months! Life is just busy, I guess. Some highlights:

- Social life is good. Making/keeping/deepening friendships is a LOT of work, but I'm loving hanging out with folks when I can corral them. Next week I'm going to Wisconsin to see my fave band and my Canadian friend!

- AS's big freelance job is still chugging along; she's invoiced for about $8K of the possible $32K. They pay weekly for however many hours she worked the previous week, which has been GREAT for our shared spending!

- We applied AS's increased income plus NT's third upcoming October paycheck to eliminate the shared spending deficit and begin saving up for renovations once again. We've fallen out of touch with our kitchen designer, but we probably won't nudge her until we've built up the savings to more than they are now.

- Most of the goals I set at the beginning of the year have fallen by the wayside, except learning guitar. I love guitar! I still take lessons weekly and practice almost daily. I can play almost 20 songs, I think.

- Another unexpected project I didn't foresee on Jan. 1 but am still working on is planning a novel with an old college friend who lives in NYC. We're slowly bringing the plot and characters into focus and I hope to have a detailed outline done in time to work on the novel in November. Doing a shared project for NaNoWriMo is an iffy proposition but hopefully there's no harm in trying it this once. I just need to figure out a way to keep working even if my friend gets busy or stuck, so I can get to my 50K words by the end of November!

- Also, it's become something of a habit to see more music live! There were a few years when I really didn't feel inspired by music but I'm getting really into it again. In addition to the October show in Wisconsin, I have tickets to FOUR concerts in November! And I discovered another local act I really like; he's taking a 2-month hiatus from playing live, but I'm looking forward to when he starts playing around again.

- My work just started up the pedometer challenge, which is 4 weeks in October. I know I'll do enough steps to get the $25 gift card; the real challenge is doing enough steps to get one of the $100 weekly prizes. We shall see! I did finally order some new sneakers which I've been meaning to do for months.

- We decided to do a staycation in October instead of going to a lake. Still deciding what fun things to do but we've got $750 set aside for the 5 days, so I'm sure it'll be great! Our next trip as a family will be to the UK, leaving the day after Xmas and coming back in the first week of January.

- Work is good, family is good, everything is trucking along!

Goal: $512,564 by March 2019

Current balance: $436,289 ($76,275 to go)

July 2018 balance: $431,075

Progress: $5,214

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $75,120, so $225,360; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2017 was $50,452, so $100,904.

To reach the interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 6 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $76,275 -- $12,713 per month -- to reach it.

We rarely come close to that, so it's pretty unlikely. But at least we're making progress in the right direction!

All our mortgage payments hit (a bit late because of the holiday):
US: $728 to principal
UK1: $178
UK2: $38
UK3: $40

All told, $984 went to principal.

New debt totals:

US Mortgage $385,371
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,948
UK Mortgage 2 $6,735
UK Mortgage 3 $7,091
___
TOTAL DEBT $440,145

Goal: $512,564 by March 2019

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $75,120, so $225,360; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2017 was $50,452, so $100,904).

Current balance: $431,075

July 2018 balance: $421,009

Progress: $10,066

To reach the interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 7 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $81,489 -- $11,641 per month -- to reach it.

We rarely come close to that, so it's pretty unlikely. But at least we're making progress in the right direction!

All our mortgage payments hit:
US: $726 to principal
UK1: $180
UK2: $37
UK3: $40

All told, we paid $983 to principal.

New debt totals:

US Mortgage $386,099
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $32,126
UK Mortgage 2 $6,773
UK Mortgage 3 $7,131
---
TOTAL DEBT $441,129

As always happens recently, I'm going to try and run through a lot of updates all in one post! It makes for very nondescriptive titles but oh well.

- Had a sit-down with the spouses about our shared spending and vacation budgets being so far in the red. I put together projections of what would happen if we stopped funding the reno fund for a while and split AS's net pay 50/50 between the two line items. If we were careful about our spending for the next few months, we should be back in the positive by October, so hopefully then we can start splitting it 3 ways between shared spending, vacations and renovations.

Everyone gave up some things to make this projection work. NT gave up a second trip he was hoping to take. (I was also idly thinking about another trip because my two have/will be very very cheap. But it's highly unlikely I'll get another one this year.) I cut back the amount I was planning to spend on my next solo trip and pledged to shop my closet for my fall wardrobe and avoid buying new clothes if possible. AS cut her sewing-room renovation budget from $1000 to $600.

And we all agreed to skip the State Fair this year; we love going but most of the charm is buying tons of different foods, which combined with admission (and sometimes a second trip with the kids, which involves rides and games) gets very expensive. There's always next year!

- Some other expenses came to light after our discussion, but also AS logged some more hours on her big freelance job that aren't in the projection. I'm going to update my projection every week or so to keep tabs on whether we're likely to hit our goal.

- I just realized that I'll be in four, maybe five different states this month! Tomorrow we leave for Va. (technically we're spending the first and last night in a hotel in Md. but I don't count that). We may do a day or overnight trip to W.Va. while we're there. We get back Wednesday, and that Friday I leave on a road trip with a friend to Iowa to see my fave band. We get back that Sunday, and on Tuesday I fly to Tenn. for a two-night, three-day business trip! Whew!

- Although I haven't made any progress on editing my own novel, I've been busily chatting with my NY friend on our plans to write a new novel together. We're a long way off from starting; we need to agree on the main plot, character and setting before we can start writing a scene-by-scene outline. But we have lots of great ideas so I'm hopeful we can pull it off!

- I've been neglecting most of my goals except guitar, which I practice almost every day and keep making progress on. However, I realize that most of my goals were about reducing stress and increasing mental health, and guitar is doing more for that than I could have imagined, so I'm kind of OK with taking a different direction than my initial goals for the year.

- I do wish I could finish my emergency preparedness kit and schedule us for some first aid/CPR classes, but I need to wait until our spending deficit is under control.

- Things we decided not to cut back on: kids' swim lessons at the pricier (but very effective) new place we've been trying, art class for the 8-year-old, and we're going to start gymnastics lessons for the 6-year-old. We had her on art but it's not really her thing. She's always doing somersaults and flipping off couches, so maybe gymnastics will be a better fit!

- I thought about withdrawing from my alumni board so I could maybe focus my time on other interests, but then I had a couple of fun events that actually went well, and the alumni office has been so grateful for the work I do. So I'm reconsidering and may try to serve out my term (until 2021).

- My second-weekly guitar lessons end next week, which I'm glad of so I can have more of a social life again! When I finish all this traveling, that is. But maybe I can do some planning now to set up some hanging-out time with various people for when I'm back from my three trips. Tonight though I have to focus on packing, since we'll be leaving for the airport as soon as I get home from work and picking one of the kids up from daycare tomorrow.

- We've had some minor illness and injury lately -- AS sprained an ankle, AA had a fever for a couple days, a few other things -- but overall we're in good health. My one complaint is I've been so busy and our kid dropoff routine is so off-kilter that I haven't been walking nearly as much as I had been, and my A.M. strength exercises have fallen off the radar. Got to get those two habits back, because they do wonders for my energy!

I'm sure there's more I've forgotten, but that's more than enough for one post!

I've never looked at my retirement changes year over year, and suddenly was curious. I started in September 2007 since that was the first time I added up all the retirement values, but for every year after I used the July retirement amount. Here's what I found:

2007: $62K

2008: $65K (+$3K)

2009: $69K (+$4K)

2010: $109K (+$40K)

2011: $141K (+$32K)

2012: $151K (+$10K)

2013: $175K (+$24K)

2014: $220K (+$45K)

2015: $248K (+$28K)

2016: $279K (+$31K)

2017: $344K (+$65K)

2018: $421K (+$68K)

It's interesting that growth has been so uneven. There are different factors: I may have found out about some of NT's pensions in 2010. My dad gave me a pre-inheritance of which I put $9K into retirement, which impacted 2011. Between 2014 and 2015 we slowed our retirement contributions while we were purchasing our duplex and trying to sell our condo. And of course vagaries of the market affected everything.

Sure hope we can continue more in the vein of 2017 and 2018 from now on!

Goal: $512,564 by March 2019

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $75,120, so $225,360; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2017 was $50,452, so $100,904).

Current balance: $421,009

May 2018 balance: $411,632

Progress: $9,377

We didn't have any progress in June, so this isn't as good as it looks. To reach the interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 8 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $91,555 -- $11,444 per month -- to reach it.

We rarely come close to that, so it's pretty unlikely. But at least I'm making progress in the right direction -- nice to see the amount needed to reach this mini-goal has shrunk to a 5-digit number anyway!

Don't you hate the moment of panic when something goes wrong or almost goes wrong, but then love the endorphins that flood the body when you get back what you thought you might have lost?

Last week I was working in my Number Crunch worksheet. It's a Google Sheets file, about 12 years old, and I use it to keep my real-time budget; checking account balance at the top, future income and outgo below for anywhere from one to 4 months. Along the side I show the projected checking account balance after each transaction. I update the checking account balance frequently (at least a couple times a week, sometimes more than once a day) and delete transactions that have happened.

But that's not all; I also keep my own record of AS's freelance income on additional tabs (one for each year). It helps me track tax and retirement and see what income has already come in and what we're still expecting. It has also come in handy because AS sometimes misses things on her much more complicated tracking spreadsheet, so every once in a while we compare bottom lines to make sure we've got the same amounts, and if not we get to the bottom of the issue.

But that's not all! I also have a tab where I note utility costs for each month, and note the highest bill for each month for gas, electric and water/sewer/trash, as well as the average monthly cost each year. This helps me plan my annual budget.

But that's not all either! I also have a separate tab where I track all credit card purchases for the month. Between us we use our CC a lot, so this helps ensure I don't miss any transactions. That tab also has info on all open and closed cards.

Although much of the info in the sheet is "real time" meaning I delete old transactions, I'm also able to use the version history function to look back at changes if I ever think I've messed things up. I use that fairly often as well.

So yeah, that spreadsheet is a beast of burden that does a lot of heavy lifting in my personal finances! Anyway, I was working in it last week and my fingers slipped and I opened a new browser window. When I clicked back to Number Crunch, it said it was trying to update. So I closed out of it and tried to go back in. I got an error message! I tried another browser, same thing! I opened several other Google Drive files, no problem there, just with Number Crunch!

My stomach dropped. I called AS. I left a message on help forums. I went to the file on my phone and lo and behold it was there! I couldn't save it or email it, but I was able to copy the data on each tab and paste into a new sheet. However, it pasted values only, none of the many formulas I use throughout. And of course all the version history was lost! Ugh. But I was so relieved I at least had the info, and I updated a couple of the most-used formulas.

I kept checking the help forum and it said there was an overall problem with Sheets. I didn't think this could be what happened since my other Sheets files were fine, but then lo and behold, they said the problem with Sheets was fixed, I tried to go into my old Number Crunch, and there it was in all its glory! I was sooooo happy. I actually felt euphoric.

I kept the one where I pasted numbers only, just so I now have some kind of backup. AS says I should probably save a backup outside of Google Drive too, to be safe. I should look into that.

Anyway, it made me appreciate the file all the more; in 12 years I'd never even considered the possibility that I would ever not be able to access it. I didn't realize how much of my peace of mind is wrapped up in knowing that document exists!

This was a much smaller moment, but today as I was about to step off the bus to take my 6-year-old to summer care, I suddenly felt lighter. I looked back and realized I'd left my purse on the seat! I grabbed it and stepped off the bus, thinking about my work phone, my wallet, my keys and my expensive glasses. Boy was I glad I hadn't left that purse! And it made me remember last week's close scrape with the spreadsheet and decide to write about both moments.

***

In other news, AS has the big freelance job! She'll invoice them for hours worked each Friday and get paid the following week. She's also got another multi-piece writing job that she'll be billing hourly for and invoicing as she delivers each round of. So a huge job and a pretty big job that aren't reflected in the spreadsheet because we're not sure how much they'll be in total, but I'll be adding them to the spreadsheet incrementally as she invoices.

It's a good time to be pulling in regular work because booking our UK airfare earlier than expected has stretched our available funds. I'm actually keeping an eye on whether I need to transfer money from savings temporarily to cover that credit card balance when I pay it off in mid-August. It'll be close, but thanks to Number Crunch I'll be able to forecast whether or not we have enough in the account.

We normally have a lot of cushion in checking just because I budget out so far, but with shared spending money a lot in the red, vacay fund a little in the red, and NT's personal money quite a bit in the red due mainly to buying inventory for his hat business, the float margin is looking very tight in August when we pay off the big credit card balance we racked up from UK airfare, our recent Va. trip, NT's inventory, summer program tuition for the kids, and other things. Close to $10K all told will need to be paid off!

Luckily even if we have to transfer from savings temporarily, I'm feeling good about much of the deficit being cleared up over the next few months. AS's two new jobs will help a lot, plus the other jobs she's already worked and expecting payment on, and hopefully NT will see some return on investment at a few key events coming up.

On the down side, we do have another family trip in early August, and they always end up costing more than I'd like. But we won't have to worry about those charges until mid-September, by which AS should have received quite a bit of money from her various projects.

This summer is even spendier than usual! We're having a blast, but one good thing about fall will be lower child costs with school back in session. Not just child care during the day but we tend to spend more on treats and fun activities during the summer.

The worst case scenario is that we would have to use some of our renovation savings to make up the deficit. We haven't heard back from our design consultant, and I'm inclined not to ping her, because that way we haven't committed those funds and have them in reserve if we can't dig ourselves out of the spending hole another way. Paying off the deficit right this second would take about a quarter of our reno savings. I won't do it unless I see no other way, and at this point, I do see a potential other way, so I'll wait and see how the next few months unfold.

I'm having an annoyingly slow day at work where no one is giving me the info or go-ahead on several projects, so I'm more or less twiddling my thumbs. Probably if I start blogging, work will come in -- that's how it works sometimes! Let's see how many random updates I can get through before that happens.

We got back from our first Va. trip on Thursday. It was a mini-family reunion and went very well, but we're happy to be home. Suburban Va. is just not our thing.

Every kind of spending money is in the hole now: each of our personal spending budgets, the shared spending, and we overspent our vacation savings on the Va. trip. Despite lame attempts at frugality it ended up costing us about $200 per day, not including the plane tickets. (We still have more than enough in our reno savings to cover the hole if necessary; I'd just rather not dip into it again.)

However, AS seems to be close to locking in that big freelance job! Rather than counting on a full $32K, we've decided to log it incrementally, since she'll be allowed to invoice and get paid weekly. That way if it ends early or anything else happens, we won't have budgeted with that big number in mind.

One of the reasons spending funds are so in the red is that June was a thin month for paychecks and we haven't received any yet in July. So once money starts rolling in we'll at least chip away at the big hole.

AS has started 2 weeks of jury duty and already got called for a case! It's very interesting to me but I know inconvenient, so I'm hoping for her sake that she gets released early.

NT is having great fun building connections with his hat business but is still a couple grand in the hole. It's one of those things that could take off or just end up being a hobby (hopefully a break-even one eventually). Only time will tell, but as long as he's enjoying it and it doesn't end up costing us tons of money, it's worth pursuing.

We enrolled the kids in a new swim school that's not easily accessible on the bus so we have to rent a carshare every Sunday. But they've already progressed leaps and bounds in just a couple of sessions, so the additional cost is kind of worth it!

AS has been pushing me to try to start a joint novel-writing project with a friend who lives in New York, so I'm finally reaching out and getting started on that. I'm excited that this may kickstart my writing outside of my usual November NaNoWriMo thing! I typically don't do any fiction writing the rest of the year, but I'd like to.

The kids are waitlisted for an in-school after-school program for next year, and if it doesn't go through, SL will go to daycare for another year and AA will just come home on the bus. She'll be in third grade and extremely conscientious about safety and rules, so if she's alone for an hour or two it'll be no big deal. Either way -- both in after-school at the elementary, or one doing after-school at our daycare -- our childcare costs should go down significantly during the school year, to $500-$650 per month! It's not been lower than $900 for several years.

My friend-making attempts with one woman may have failed -- I've decided to let her make the next move if she's interested, because I really can't tell -- and a couple others have stalled, but I have some alumni events coming up this summer that should be fun. And I'll be seeing my Canadian pal in person in August, so I'm really hoping we continue to hit it off.

The weather had been rather crappy most of the summer, but it's been wonderful since we got back from Va. However, I haven't been able to get myself back into the night walks I did frequently the past two summers. Hoping to kick-start that soon -- I've barely seen the lake that's only a half mile from our house! Plus my weight has plateaued about 7 lbs. higher than I want it.

Oh, I just thought of something regarding the shared spending deficit! We have an extra paycheck coming in October, so if we can manage to get the deficit to under $2K, I shall budget out through October so we can wipe the deficit out with that paycheck. (I have the annual budget worked out on a separate spreadsheet with one tab per month, and I usually paste into our regular spreadsheet one month ahead, so I've got August in there right now. But the way I have it structured there's nothing to stop me budgeting two or more months ahead.) That would be a weight off. But it would feel like a waste somehow to do the budget through October now and only cut the deficit in half vs. eliminate it, so I'm going to wait on that.