Work is really quiet right now, but should pick up soon. So I'll get my updates in while I can!

Oy, I'm not doing well on my diet/exercise goal this week! I haven't worked out yet, which means I have 5 days to get 4 workouts in. I'm making a hot dish (casserole) tonight, so I think I'll run down and do 10 minutes on the elliptical while it's baking.

Yesterday I took my team out to a lunch (which I'll get reimbursed for) and I had a big delicious bowl of vegan spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. Last night NT and I went out to trivia and I had french fries and several glasses of wine. I had an old gift card for the restaurant so ended up only having to spend $3 for tip. So budgetwise it was a great day, but dietwise a disaster! Oh well...

Two more random bits of condo news: Our agent called passing along a question from another agent about whether you could see any bodies of water (lakes, rivers) from our condo. Uh, no. Another strike against us, I guess. Then we got feedback from Monday's showing that was basically saying they weren't anywhere close to buying yet, but if they were, they'd buy our place. Nice to hear, but not very helpful.

Tomorrow is the big day I find out what our paychecks are going to be for a while. (NT is still being promised a raise, but they've strung him along for months, so I'm not holding my breath.) I'm having $2000 less withheld from my pretax pay annually (about $80 per paycheck), and NT is having $2500 less withheld (about $100 per paycheck). Of course there are going to be higher taxes as a result, so I'm not sure what the net benefit will be. I've only factored in about $30 more per pay period, so anything above that will be gravy.

I've got three new people saying they'll come to my next personal finance discussion group, which is near the end of this month. Also, the friend I've been helping with her budget may pay off one of her credit cards this month! I'm crossing my fingers that she sticks to that and doesn't fritter the money away on something else.

I've avoided my Ordinary Savers club in recent months because I took such a big risk in buying this house. But most of the things I've hoped would happen have fallen into place. There are four more things that would be instrumental in getting us back on track faster, none of them sure things, but all of them likely to happen (if they DO happen) in the first half of this year. 1. Selling the condo. 2. Refinancing the duplex to remove PMI. 3. NT getting a hefty raise. 4. the WV land deal going through.

If all four happen we'll be on easy street. If only one or two happen we'll be in great shape. If none of them happen, it'll stay hard for a while but we'll get through. (I mean, the condo WILL sell, it's just there's a chance we'll need to take a much bigger loss. If it doesn't sell in the next couple months we'll hopefully be in a position to drop the price by a great deal and get rid of the thing quickly.)