Day two breakfast was pineapple and banana, and coffee.

Lunch: holy basil tofu, rice and sugar snap peas.

Dinner: cottage pie (sweet potato, potato, pinto beans, TVP).

I ran a couple extra errands by foot, adding about 2 miles of walking to my day.

Night snacks: carrot-orange-ginger juice and a banana. I did have one bite of cupcake that Anitra is making for a contest.

I forgot to play harmonica, and I had lots of things to do that upped my screen time more than I'd want. But at least I'm more conscious when I'm watching TV and on the computer, periodically checking in to think "Are you really doing something or just zoning out?" And when I wasn't doing anything, I would quit the screen time.

Another day of multiple blog posts!

All our mortgage payments hit:

US: $669 to principal
UK1: $224
UK2: $48
UK3: $50

All told, that's $991 paid toward debt this month.

Today I got the actual paperwork from the tax guy. When I added everything up, I saw that we owe $221 more than his initial estimate to me.

Additional taxes owed: $221

Actual deficit: $10,580.22
Projected deficit w/ future money in: $760.11

EDIT: On the upside, we got an $8.35 class action settlement, and I got approved for reimbursement of a book I bought for work. I used a $10 gift card to help pay for it, so that part is free money.

Class action check: $8.35
Gift card reimburse: $10

Actual deficit: $10,561.87
Projected deficit w/ future money in: $742.76

March was busy and rather hedonistic. My April goals are all about self care, but it's the kinds I find challenging, so I may be aiming higher than I can actually go. But I'm just going to see what I can accomplish!

1. Eat super healthy for the first two weeks (including NO drinking), practice moderation the rest of the month (ie, no drinking or pigging out except for special occasions, and "I had a hard day at work" isn't a special occasion).

Here's my version of healthy eating (everyone has different goalposts, I know):
A. Breakfast will be just fresh fruit.
B. Lunch and dinner will be healthy whole foods, which for me means no fake meats & cheeses, no white flour, no pasta, no processed potato products (basically no Ore Ida or Lays products!). Whole wheat bread is OK. White rice is OK. C. Limited sugar if part of recipes, but no candy, sweetened juices, etc.
D. No alcohol and no sodas. Coffee is OK.
E. Some snacking is OK but it has to fit in the parameters of the diet.

2. Continue harmonica every day. I started this in March and only missed 5 days.

3. Do extra activity every day, and do more than I did last month. (Longer walks, more bike rides, etc.)

4. Limit screen time, and find other things to do when I feel like vegging out. I have the kids, puzzles, adult coloring books, my harmonica, books, the nice weather hopefully soon ... there is no excuse! I'll use the computer for budgeting, menu planning, scheduling, catching up on news and a bit of socializing (such as checking in here), and I'll watch TV if it's to sit down and watch a specific movie or episode, but no just having it on all the time, or surfing mindlessly. (This will be hard because I use mindless TV to get sleepy every night, and I spend a ton of time surfing the interwebs.)

Yesterday went well:
Breakfast was banana, pineapple, canteloupe, honeydew and grapes. Lunch, two pieces of whole wheat toast with natural peanut butter. Dinner, hoppin John (blackeye peas & brown rice) and roasted cabbage. Snacks: pineapple, apple, and a Naked kale juice blend.
I played my harmonica and got a bit of extra exercise (walking half a mile instead of taking the second bus to daycare).
I did use my phone to surf while on buses, and I used my work downtime to go on Facebook etc. quite a bit. But once I got home, I didn't use the internet, and while the TV was on for others, I didn't watch it and worked on a 3D puzzle instead. I picked out a book to read and will also put one in my backpack so I read on the bus instead of get on my phone.

So far so good!

Today I remembered that last year AS got a property tax rebate, so I emailed my tax guy to see if she would this year too. She is getting a slightly smaller one, but it helps! This doesn't reduce the actual deficit because we don't get it until September, but it does reduce the projected deficit in our budget.

Property tax refund: $535

Actual deficit: $10,359.22
Projected deficit w/ AS future income & property tax rebate: $540.11

I checked the interest rates of all our non-0% credit cards and compared to our line of credit. The card rates range from 15.24% to 23.15%, whereas our LOC rate is 9.25%. So if we have temporary shortfalls in our account in April and May as I've predicted, it will be better to temporarily withdraw money from the LOC than to only make partial payments to one of the non-0% credit cards.