I finally weighed in last night after 49 days (according to my naggy Wii Fit). To my surprise, I'd lost just over 3 lbs.! I'm now a shade under 150, but I'm calling it 150 lbs. That meants I'm just 11 lbs. away from my 2011 goal. The only reason I can think of is that I barely ate anything a couple of days when I was sick, and we actually got a ton of exercise in San Fran so it balanced out the decadent eating. I realize I can't expect weight loss like this if I continue to not exercise, but at least I didn't lose a ton of ground over the past couple months.

As for charitable giving, NT bought $10 worth of groceries for an AIDS charity that was collecting outside the store. I also realized that the amount I have left in my charity line items on the budget indicates that we've given more than I've kept track of. Occasionally one of us will donate spontaneously, so it's not surprising I forgot to log something here. I am confident that the line items in my budget are accurate, because I only touch those when a charitable donation goes through the checking account. So I'm updating charitable giving progress to match that, meaning we've donated $305 this year.

AS's negative net worth decreased by a bit this month despite a dip in investment values. She's at negative $5,135 now.

In the getting-job-or-raise category, I found a handful of jobs last night that I'm going to try and apply for this week. One of them is 87 miles away, meaning I would have over an hour's commute AND would need to buy a car, but the minimum salary is $12,000 more than I make. Will I seriously consider this one even if I hear from them? Not sure, but I'm trying not to limit my thinking too much during the applying process.

Now some other news that's not about my 2011 goals:

My lawyer-money line item is fully funded: $9000! Now, this includes $720 that I haven't actually received, for a freelance project I did for NT's company. But since I trust they won't welch on this, and I've already sent them the invoice, I'm considering the fund complete.

However, I know AS is going to have a large tax bill, and NT and I may as well. I sent ours off to a tax expert and should hear back pretty soon. AS's I just need to finish; if my estimate on her federal is correct, she owes over $1800, and I haven't calculated her state yet, but if she owes federal she will owe state (though hopefully not as much). I'm hoping NT and I only owe a few hundred, but there's also the possibility I may need to revise our '08 and '09 taxes if the tax pro confirms that I made mistakes by not including NT's UK flat income on past returns. Then we may owe a bit, plus I have no idea how much interest and penalties are, since I've never revised taxes past the due date before.

On the upside, I have $800 set aside. Most of it will go to pay the tax preparer, but I'm hoping that will only come to about $600, leaving $200 to pay the actual tax bill. Also, AS has just accepted another freelance assignment that pays about $800. NT will likely start raking in overtime again now that we're back from vacation, usually to the tune of $200 per month. And I have $845 in the April budget that was going to go in the lawyer fund, so instead it can go to paying the tax bill.

If all that guesstimating is accurate, that means we'll have $2045 for paying taxes, so we may not have to take too much out of the lawyer fund. And I planned to save $845 in May and $845 in June for the lawyer fund, so it should get replenished pretty quickly.

I'm cautiously optimistic! Once the lawyer fund is securely at $9000 and the taxes are all paid, that $845 per month can start going to debt repayment again. And our extra income can as well, although I want to send part of it to the IRS and MN in preparation for 2011 tax season so we won't owe as much. Oh, and I've promised myself that once all these financial obligations are met, a bit of our side-hustle income is going to line our pockets, for some extra fun money. We've all been working super hard, and who knows if our incomes will stay this good if I (and possibly NT, who is growing dissatisfied with his job too) switch jobs to something we love but is lower-paying? So I want to make sure everyone gets a bit of extra personal money as a reward once the considerable obligations above are fulfilled.