Boy, life continues apace in the ceejay household!

It's been kind of a blur, but let me see if I can remember everything important...

First off, I made good on my plan of paying off one of AS's student loans! I transferred $1869 of extra student loan money from NT's loan -- so that portion didn't reduce our debt any -- and I took $4134 of lawyer money and paid the rest off.

So woo hoo! First student loan to hit the Old Debt Graveyard page. The lawyer fund has been decimated, but I have a plan for replenishing it, and AS already has two more freelance jobs that are going to bring in extra money. With the $4134 paid on the student loan, that makes $5722 in principal paid this month!

The daycare situation is looking up. We had an interview with another lovely old lady who runs an in-home daycare just 10 minutes by bus from home (about 30 minutes from my work). She only charges $40 more per week, and the only other difference is she doesn't provide formula (but AA is already 10.5 months old, so that won't affect us for long). We'll probably visit her one more time (we didn't have a chance to explain the three-parent thing, which would be weird not to mention before we start there), but she's available to take AA as soon as the other daycare ends, and her references checked out, so I think we're about good to go! Trimming $175 from the budget to afford her was easy: We took $50 from the medical fund line, $50 from the misc. line item, $50 from the travel budget and $25 from extra debt repayment. Really hoping this works out!! It will add about 20 minutes to the morning and to the evening process, but that's nothing compared to adding $1000 per month in cost, which was the only other option we'd found!

Just in case, we mocked up a few other budgets based on other scenarios of having to go with a more expensive daycare or having NT quit work and stay home with AA while still going to college. So we know other options are doable, they would just involve more-painful budget cuts and lifestyle choices.

With all this worrying and planning, it's been hard not to let my 2011 goals fall by the wayside. Well, healthy eating and exercising (and thus weight loss) have been a no-go so far this year. I've even forgotten to weigh in every Sunday! But the other goals are making a bit of progress. In brief:
--Pay off AS's DL student loan: DONE, as mentioned above!
--Save to Roths: we've saved $300 so far; $200 to AS's and $50 each to mine and NT's
--Give to charities: I've only donated $15 so far, but we have more money set aside so as soon as we feel more settled in our budget, we will make some more donations
--Get AS to positive net worth: What with the above payoff and Roth contribution, we made some big progress that will be reflected in my next net worth checkup (probably this weekend)
--Pay off debt: Lots of progress, as told above
--Go on trips: Hotel & airfare taken care of for our March vacation as well as some rough planning of what we'll do when we get to SF
--Get a raise or find a job: I sent out another resume this week; only my second, but at least I'm doing something. No word on a raise, so new job still seems the best option
--Estate planning: We sat down and hashed out some things, and I sent an email with our wishes to our attorney, so we just have to wait to hear from him on what we need to do next
--Read a book or creative project: Sorry, nope. I did finish a book I started back in October, but I'm not counting that. Still hoping to hit this for January!
--Make money with side hustles: I did decide to look into using the credit card for mortgage and association dues, to earn rewards money, but I haven't actually set it up yet
--Organize get-together: We had a playdate with several other parents and kids, so I'll call that one a success for this month!
--Write a shared blog topic: Haven't gotten on this, but it won't take me long once I do it. I have been thinking of what would be fun topics to hear everyone's take on, so it should be soon. It might be completely non-financial, depending what kind of mood I'm in when I do it!

Phew. Now that I write everything down, I'm not doing as badly as I felt. Considering it's been kind of insane at work and with the daycare drama, I'm actually pleased with the process so far!