I noticed that AS's healthcare premium payment hadn't posted for May 1, so I asked her to look into it. Turns out there was some kind of discount from the state (she's on Obamacare), and we don't owe anything this month! So that's a $351 bonus we totally didn't expect. I also redeemed $33 in credit card rewards while I was at it. As usual, I put one-third into reno savings, one-third toward future travel and one-third to shared spending.

The shared spending portion went to make up part of our current deficit. We were about $500 in the hole and now we're $369 down. AS's income has had a dry patch where she's booking lots of work, but no checks have come in this month and she's not expecting any for a little while. We've scaled way back on shared spending; we've only splurged this month $75 on getting delivery (first unplanned eating out all year, I believe) and $90 for a ticket to a show NT goes every year. But we were already in the hole from April; a $100 budget mistake that I had to take out of shared, plus $70 for contacts for AS, plus $175 for kids' swim lessons, and some spring wardrobe items for each of us had put us in the red.

When the money does start rolling in, we'll be all good again. AS has nearly $10K worth of work booked through mid-June, and some of it has already been worked so some money will hopefully come in this month.

And it's important to note that we're not *actually* in the red; I have $7675 saved up for renovations, $200 for painting and other small improvements, and over $600 saved up for travel. So any of that could be used to make up our shared spending shortfall if need be.

Which is good, because we have a couple of fun things planned this weekend that I'm planning to take out of shared spending. A friend visiting from out of town, so we're hiring a babysitter Saturday and going out for drinks with her. And boozy Mother's Day brunch for me and AS on Sunday . Oh! That reminds me I need to figure out what we're doing for OUR mothers.

Oh, and we've agreed to split the cost of a handyman/yard worker with our downstairs neighbors; they've found someone who does odd jobs for $15 an hour and is eager to get more work, so we'll be hiring him to mow the lawn, help us plant our garden, and do other general outdoor work. So that type of stuff will come out of shared spending.

But, on the plus side, we've got about a $700 surplus in the June budget that I haven't applied yet. And it looks like AS's healthcare discount may be for the whole year; the way they applied it was about $88 for every month of 2017 so far, so it seems like they may be giving us that discount for every month of 2017 going forward. Not sure why, but pretty cool! (Maybe because she made a little less in 2016 than she did in 2015, and the premium was based on her 2015 returns?)

Oops, I realized it's about time to leave work! I think that's most of my money news anyway.