We took a short trip to Atlanta this past weekend; the kids had a couple days off work, and we wanted to get a break from the cold and snow. It was only in the 50s and a bit gloomy there, but that felt heavenly to us!

Here's the spending totals for a four-day trip (left Friday night, came back Tuesday afternoon). Travel can really add up for a family of five!
Airfare: $994
Lodging: $655
Checked luggage: $60
Taxis & rideshares: $284
Food & drinks: $947
Tickets (aquarium & music show): $231
Souvenirs & misc.: $223
TOTAL: $3,394

I had a little sticker shock at food and drinks coming to nearly $950, but that basically amounts to $47 per person per day, and when you take into account that most midrange restaurants' entrees are priced around $15, not counting drinks, appetizers, desserts or tips, it starts to make sense! I'm just not used to it because we cook almost all our meals at home.

We just booked airfare and car for our next family trip, which is to UK in August. That came to $5,595, but doesn't include lodging (which NT's family is taking care of for us) nor food/drink/entertainment/gas.

So between the two trips that's $8989 of expenses so far! Nearly half of that was paid in cash; the other half I'm floating in the budget and will gradually make up with AS freelance income and other money that comes in. I'm pretty confident we'll be able to pay for it all without dipping into reno or other savings.

As some of you know I've been applying for jobs because my current company was looking shaky, and I've also been contemplating going full-on freelance with AS.

Then a job was posted with my company for a position a half step up from mine. I decided to go for it. There was some confusion and delay, but finally this week I was told I'd gotten the promotion, along with a 10% raise!

I think my company is stabilizing; our results were OK the last quarter of 2019, plus they haven't been giving out promotions and raises for a while, so I take mine as a good sign. I'll still keep an eye on other options, but now I'm feeling better about my current company again.

I won't know my new take-home amount until 2/14. However, I went ahead and bumped up my 401(k) contribution by 1%, and did the same for NT's 401(k) and AS's SEP IRA.

That'll help with our retirement goal, which also gets more ambitious when one of us gets a raise!

Other news:

- We had another meeting with our kitchen designer and it seems like we're on the home stretch of finalizing the design. Once we're done, we can get a detailed quote from our contractor and see if/how much financing we'd need to complete it. Then decide how to handle that.

- We've engaged an estate agent in England and NT's flat will be going on the market soon. Asking price is going to start at 210,000 pounds. We still haven't decided what we'll do with the money if/when it sells; considering all options including U.S. rental property, investing in a stock portfolio, paying down our home mortgage, paying off the kitchen reno, and/or some combination of all that.

- We've started using a professional housecleaning service again, for the first time since we moved into the duplex. It's more expensive than the condo because the square footage is bigger, so we hesitated for a long time (about 6 years I guess!), but we finally concluded it was worth the expense. We are busy all the time and the house just wasn't getting cleaned very well or often. We've had one cleaning so far and it made such a difference!

- AS's freelance business is going exceedingly well, so she's started eliminating some lower-paying jobs and focusing on the most profitable clients.

I guess that's all on the financial front! Maybe I'll do a non-financial update at some point. Life's been busy, plenty of ups and downs but overall very good these days.

All our mortgages hit:

US: $765 to principal
UK1: $182
UK2: $39
UK3: $40

That's $1,026 toward debt this month!

New household debt balances:

US Mortgage $372,665
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $28,874
UK Mortgage 2 $6,086
UK Mortgage 3 $6,410

TOTAL DEBT $423,035

Goal: $784,772 by March 2024

Current retirement balance: $542,038

December 2019 balance: $541,036

Progress since last update: $1,002

Still needed: $242,734

This interim goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x our salaries (currently $75,120 and $64,118) by the time we turn 50 and AS's retirement values to 3x her annual income ($75,940 in 2018) by the time she turns 45.
$75,120 x 4 = $300,480
$64,118 x 4 = $256,472
$75,940 x 3 = $227,820

It will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes. (The only exception is I won't lower AS's if she has a lower-income year, because her income fluctuates. So I'm keeping it at the 2018 level because her 2019 income was a little less.)

There are 50 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need to gain $4855 per month on average to meet our goal.

The ultimate goal we're working toward is 8x our annual income by the time we retire at 65.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 22,397 pounds ($27,996)
SW: 29,047 pounds ($36,309)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $87,170
NT's Roth IRA: $42,969
AS's trad. IRA: $21,755
AS's Roth IRA: $64,813
AS's SEP IRA: $42,998
CJ's 401(k): $162,413
CJ's Roth IRA: $47,537
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,181,819

Debts:
US Mortgage $373,430
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $29,056
UK Mortgage 2 $6,125
UK Mortgage 3 $6,450
---
TOTAL DEBT $424,061

Current Estimated Net Worth: $757,758

December 2019 estimate: $755,732

Change in net worth: +$2,026

Summary: After a couple big months, gaining $2K doesn't seem like much, but given all the uncertainty out there, I'll take it of course!

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.