Some small financial ups and downs this past week:

- Our daycare lady has raised the price of after-school care to $500 per month per kid. Last year AA's was $485 so that's what I was expecting for SL. So this is $30 more per month than expected. However, I can't complain. For that amount we get the kids picked up after school and watched for about 3 hours (and given a snack), full-day care on school closure days when daycare is open, and of course the bonus "parents' night out" in December when they keep the kids one Friday night for a sleepover. Plus we just love our daycare lady and this is likely AA's last school year with her!

- Not a financial woe yet, but a tooth that slightly chipped last month chipped a bit more yesterday. I went ahead and scheduled a dental appointment to see what they think. If they think it needs fixing but that it can wait until the new year, I'll do that so I can up my flex spending and get a bit of a tax discount.

- We had some good news at the back-to-school night: Our entire school has qualified for free lunches! We typically spent about $7 per week for AA, so that would've doubled with SL. We didn't have a line item for it since it was irregular, so that would have come out of our shared spending money. Considering the big deficit we have right now, this news is especially welcome!

- We kept our grocery spending to about $107 this week. That means we can put $63 toward our deficit. We're doing a great job using up the CSA veggies, eating through our pantry and only buying what we need!

- However, I bought the kids back-to-school outfits today to the tune of $250. Considering we got 2 pairs of pants, 1 dress, 1 shirt, 1 skirt, 1 cardigan, 4 pairs of shoes, 2 hair accessories, 2 backpacks, 2 lunch boxes and 1 thermos, that's less than $15 per item, so not bad. But it sounded like a lot all totaled up!

- We might have a bit of money left in the carshare budget for August, maybe $50, that we can put toward the deficit. We shall see.

- I'm going to sign AA up for art classes, and I think that'll be nearly $200. But it's through the end of the year, so we'll get a lot out of it. We'll have to start the kids back up on swim lessons soon too, so that'll also add to the deficit.

- I used an Amex deal for a $25 credit if I spent $75. I actually spent $80 but used a $4 credit, so all told, I spent $51 out of pocket for tons and tons of snacks and juice boxes for school lunches that will last us a while.

- AS booked some good-paying work, and I made a good impression on my boss on Friday at a big meeting -- nothing concrete, but she made a point of complimenting me in an email to several execs including the president of my division, so I think she's positioning me for promotion/raise talks. Fingers crossed!

-EDIT: Aand, now we have another bee infestation. Or wasps. So that'll be more money out.