One of AS's student loan payments hit, putting $124 to principal. That makes $1944 paid this month toward debt.

We had a big clothes shopping spree this weekend. I'd been saving up money in the UK account for the trip we just took. Well, both of NT's parents gave us money, and hardly anyone let us pay for anything. So we transferred the remaining money we'd saved into the US account and went shopping! It was nice to not just go to the bargain stores for once. For the first time in my life I spent more than $20-$30 for a pair of jeans, and I absolutely love them. Sooo comfy and nice-looking.

We went out to eat a few times as well; we had a rental car for what we initially thought was going to be the lawyer visit, but the lawyer rescheduled so we could also meet with one of the partners (apparently our case has garnered some interest). Luckily they'll meet us in downtown at NT's work so I won't need to rent another car. So we kept the car rental and knocked out a few errands, including getting our cat Noodles's annual shots and checkup, in addition to our big spree and eating out.

At one of the meals out, we had a family meeting to discuss how our budget surplus should be allocated in 2011. I still need to make a few tweaks for some annual expenses I'll need to create "escrow" line items for, but it was really nice to get family input. But generally, here's what we decided:
*We'll be putting extra money toward education, whether paying down debts faster or cashflowing some of NT's remaining classes rather than taking out additional loans.
*We're also going to allocate $150 per month to charity next year, which is something we've been wanting to do for a while.
*We'll still put a large amount aside for vacations, because we all love travel and put it near the top of our wants list.
*I'll be opening Roth IRAs and putting an average of $300 per month in them, divided evenly between the three of us. It's not much, but it's a start.
*I'm keeping a small cushion of unallocated money each month to hopefully avoid using the EF for anything (or derailing any of our other financial allocations). I'm calling it the "Oh sh*t" line item!
*We're looking into getting housecleaning once or twice a month. Total luxury, but we all have other things we work on outside of our full-time jobs, so we could definitely use some professional help.

In other good money news, AS got a $1125 freelance check, I got a $125 profit-sharing check from the grocery co-op, and NT got concrete news of a $1500 (before tax) bonus coming in his next paycheck! AS's freelance work keeps flowing, and NT's job is probably going to give a second bonus before the end of the year. So we've really been rolling in money recently (and boy is it easy to spend). But this should help us take care of things this year before our new budget goes into effect.

I'm not implementing anything immediately, because I'm not sure how much the lawyers are going to charge for our parental-rights stuff, and there may be other legal issues that come up in the meeting that we want to get taken care of right away too. So I'll probably need most of our remaining 2010 budget surplus for that. Our meeting is now Monday, Nov. 1, so I'll tell all about it once I know more!