Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

AS accepted a small freelance job for $50. Payment will probably be sometime in May, so this only impacts the projected deficit, not the actual.

Net AS payment: $32.50

Actual deficit: $9,624.47
Projected deficit w/ future money in: $604.86

One of our credit card rewards bonuses hit, so I was able to put a $105.40 statement credit toward that card's balance. This benefits both the current and projected deficit numbers!

CC reward: $105.40

Actual deficit: $9,624.47
Projected deficit w/ future money in: $637.36

Breakfast: three clementines, coffee.

Lunch: leftover veggie burger, cacciatore sauce and brown rice.

Dinner: kale and yams with peanut sauce over millet.

Snack: big bowl of black grapes.

Only a bit of extra activity, I'm afraid. It's been an unusual week of bringing extra work home that I have to do once the kids are in bed!

Breakfast: two clementines, coffee.

Lunch: big bowl of vegan chili, couple of bell pepper strips and cucumber slices.

Dinner: sesame oil stir fry of tofu, broccoli, bell peppers and onions in garlic-ginger-hoisin-soy-mirin sauce, topped with avocado, basil and peanuts, over white basmati rice.

Snack: carrot-apple-ginger juice. (My juice habit is getting expensive, but luckily it's being offset by no spending on alcohol!)

Extra activity: took a walk to get the juice (about a mile and a half total).

Breakfast: grapes, strawberries, half a grapefruit, coffee.

Lunch: leftover hoppin' John.

Dinner: tofu cacciatore (basically veggie marinara sauce over pan fried tofu) and brown rice. (Two helpings; it was good!)

Snack: banana.

No extra activity, unfortunately; had to work right after putting the kids to bed.

AS got paid $1280 for some freelance jobs yesterday. Setting aside tax and retirement she netted $832.

This was already calculated into the projected deficit, so it only reduces the actual deficit. But at least that's under $10K for the time being!

Checks received (net): $1280

Actual deficit: $9,729.87
Projected deficit w/ future money in: $742.76

Day three breakfast was banana, apple, and coffee.

Lunch: salad with tofu, pepitos, avocados and snow peas.

Dinner: homemade veggie burger on spelt bread w/ fixins, baked yam fries.

Snacks: wheat grass shot (YUM) and lots of grapes.

I was on my feet a lot yesterday cooking, and I also walked about 1.5 miles extra.

Last night I weighed in 2.6 lbs. lighter than last week! I'm at 141.5 lbs, would love to lose another 14.5 but 10 more would make me pretty happy!

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.

Already some movement on the new goal! Unfortunately, it's backward movement. AS has been meaning to create a website for her business, and now she has. It's a good purchase because she'll be able to up her profile and hopefully get some more business because of it.

New website: $96

Actual deficit: $10,359.22
Projected deficit w/ AS future income: $1,075.11

I haven't been able to post any progress because our funds all lost value since December. Finally they are up over the last high point, so I can report a small amount of progress on our retirement goal!

The goal: $486,000 in retirement assets by 2019

Current balance: $263,174

Dec 2015 balance: $258,118

Progress: $5,056

Pretty good progress if it were for one month, but over three months it's not that great!

To reach the goal by our birthdays in 2019, that's 35 months, so we'd need $6366 per month to reach it. Should see some big leaps the second half of the year if I'm able to max out the Roths like I hope to!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 20,501 pounds ($32,801)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $40,807
NT's Roth IRA: $9,845
AS's trad. IRA: $14,820
AS's Roth IRA: $25,524
AS's SEP IRA: $7,611
CJ's 401(k): $84,450
CJ's Roth IRA: $12,825
NT's flat: 180,000 pounds ($288,000)
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $991,174

Total Debt: $479,812

Current Estimated Net Worth: $511,362

February 2016 estimate: $501,958

Change in net worth: +$9,404

Summary: Once again the market must have improved, because we didn't put that much away this past month, and we only paid the minimum on debt.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound.

Since tracking and reporting worked so well for getting us out of consumer/education debt and other financial goals, I've decided to track paying for our giant tax bill.

I have two sets of calculations: What the current budget deficit is as a result of the tax bill, and what the estimated future debt bill is based on jobs AS has already secured and is just waiting payment on. I'll track both because one is the actual deficit, but the other shows me how close we are to eliminating the deficit. Sometimes we'll have to use AS's checks for something else, but if I see how close we are, it'll help motivate me to NOT use her checks as much.

I guess I'll try to post every time one or both of these numbers change. They have already changed a bit because AS booked another small ($50) job, plus the tax guy let me know his bill will be $775, not $700 as I estimated.

Here's where we stand right now.
Actual deficit: $10,263.22
Projected deficit w/ AS future income: $979.11

I finally got all details of taxes. Well, almost; waiting to hear what the tax guy is charging me. Right now I'm operating under assumption he'll charge $700 like last year, but our taxes were more complicated this year, so I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being more. But for now, $700.

He did decide we could claim WV money as capital gains. However, we still didn't put enough away. And I overestimated AS's state tax by a bit, but I grossly UNDERestimated her federal, so it's ugly.

Here goes:
Me and NT:
Federal owe $12,013
MN owe $2,228
WV owe $4,822

AS:
Federal owe $4,542
State overpaid -$1,201
Federal 1Q estimated 2016 tax $2,990
State 1Q estimated 2016 tax $500

Tax prep for both (est.):
$700

TOTAL OWED: $26,594

What we had saved up:
$15,331 saved from WV money + interest
$796 saved for AS federal 1Q est 2016 tax
$341 saved for AS state 1Q est 2016 tax

TOTAL IN SAVINGS: $16,468

DIFFERENCE WE NEED TO MAKE UP: $10,126

I got over my hyperventilation last night, and then got to planning. What else could I do? It was an honest mistake, I don't begrudge paying taxes, and now I just need to figure out the best way to do it where I don't pay a ton of fees or interest.

AS already has enough future payments expected to cover all but about $936 of that. And it's only March, so we expect her to book much more work. Trouble is, not all of those payments are coming in right away. The biggest one comes in 4 monthly installments starting in September when her class starts up. So how do we stay afloat in the meantime?

Interestingly, several of the cards from our recent rewards-getting churn are 0% until 2017. So we won't cancel those but will start using them as our primary cards, paying the minimum on them until we have room in the budget to pay the full balances.

That still leaves a couple of momentary shortfalls in the projected checking account balance: about $700 when tax day hits (shortfall goes away a couple days later when AS receives some checks), and $2200 when the May 1 mortgage hits (shortfall goes away May 13 when my and NT's paychecks hit).

If nothing else materializes before these two points, we may need to do a short-term line-of-credit transfer, or not pay the full balance of an interest-bearing card right away, so that would cost us a little bit in interest, but not too bad.

This all looks pretty good on paper, but there's another problem: This assumes nothing will happen that can't be folded into our regular budget categories. Things I'm not sure about: my breast evaluation, house stuff. Things I am sure about (but not sure the amount): spending during the April Va. and June NYC trips. One thing that is for sure off the table this year: AC for the house. We may not even be able to upgrade our window units this year.

But as long as we can put these things on 0% credit cards, AS's income will eventually cover the hole. It'll just take longer the more unbudgeted things we have.

This was only one of several crappy things that have happened in the past couple days, but it's the one that needs the most attention and work from me right now.

We will make it through this!

*When I say "just about worst case scenario," I mean worse than my worst-case scenario (I was thinking $8K) but not as bad as AS's worst-case scenario (she feared $20K).

I've got two potential worries right now, but unless they actually materialize into real problems I'm trying not to let them get to me.

First, one of my breasts has been slightly sore for about two weeks. I saw my doctor and while she didn't feel anything, she's sending me for a full battery of tests (sonogram etc.). That's in a little less than two weeks. So I'm trying not to worry until I learn more.

Then, my tax guy emailed me to ask about the WV money. He'd advised me on how much to withhold for taxes on the assumption that it would be capital gains, but he says the documents from the gas co. imply it's ordinary income. He says that would make quite a difference.

He asked me to email my siblings and see what their tax people said. One emailed back and told me hers said it was ordinary income. I'll wait a bit more and see if anyone says anything else, but if not, I guess that's what my tax guy will call it, and now I'm worried that I'll have a big tax bill beyond what I put into savings.

But, again, I don't know how much that means, or even if that's true, so I'm trying not to worry that much.

Money can be found, and health things can be dealt with. Even though we don't have an EF to speak of, we have AS's income which isn't allocated to anything, so we could use it to pay tax and medical bills. Even if we had to put off renovations for a year or two, at least we've got lots of nice trips planned and basically paid for already.

Things are shaping up for our summer vacations; NT booked our flights and accommodation for our little Barcelona jaunt, which will happen during the 2nd half of our UK trip. The plan is to leave the kids with NT's parents for that whole week. Very exciting! He put the AirBNB on our credit card, and our friends will pay for half of it by transferring money into our UK account. Hopefully we can then book our car rental via UK credit card and pay for it with that money.

Inspired by that, I figured out child care for our earlier June trip, to New York for my 20-year college reunion. We'll be without the kids for this trip as well, though it's only for 4 days, 3 nights. Our downstairs neighbors will take care of them Thursday and Friday, and another best friend will come stay at our place and take care of them Saturday and Sunday. What can I say? We have incredible friends!

I imagine many parents who have family nearby have times away from their kids much more often, but save for a few sleepovers (with our daycare and with our downstairs neighbors) and one 2-night trip where we left AA with our friends who are now our downstairs neighbors (that was to NYC in 2011 for my 15 year college reunion), we haven't really been apart from our kids. But those few times, they've always seemed to enjoy themselves, so I'm hoping both upcoming jaunts away from us will go well for them as well as us.

Anyway, I saw that our Chase Sapphire rewards had hit, and the bonus plus what we'd earned through spending had given us about $740 in travel rewards. I found some cheap flights (leaving early, getting back late--but that will give us more time to explore NYC, so it's a trade-off) and booked them. The grand total out-of-pocket for the three of us to fly from MN to NYC and back? $20.80!

That savings made it a lot easier to decide to book a hotel instead of on-campus lodging. It was about $100 more, but so worth it for the added comfort! And if I recall, the hotel I chose is a decent walk from campus, so we may not even need to take cabs much.

Last year, the only real travel I did (besides a business trip) was going to see my mom, an impromptu trip when my sister mentioned her health is in gradual decline. This year, I've already been to see my mom once, will be going again in April, and also have the NYC, England and Spain trips planned. Big year for travel!

Oh, hello! I'm taking advantage of some downtime at work to update on everything I can think of that's happened this month, financial and otherwise.

This is my household's "birthday month"; all five humans (and at least one of the cats) have March birthdays. So it's a whirlwind!

We set aside $100 each for parties/celebrating, $200 for gifts for each of the adults, and $100 for each of the kids. In addition, parents/grandparents send gifts and gift cards too.

My bday came first; my 42nd, and it happened midweek, so I didn't want anything big. I used my $100 to get delivery for us and four friends and we had a mellow evening sitting around chatting. AS and NT got me some gifts (a necklace, underwear), but they also did some homemade stuff; I'd asked for an adult coloring book so they printed out pages online; and I'd asked for "everything bagel" seasoning and they bought the ingredients in bulk and mixed it up themselves! They had $160 left in my bday fund so I just added it to my spending money, which was great, because my other blog's domain renewal in January had put me in a whole that I couldn't seem to dig out of. I also bought myself a couple extra things with the surplus: a harmonica instruction book and a couple CDs of my favorite current band (The Cactus Blossoms).

Then AS's 37th bday was two days later. We got her a home beer brewing starter kit, a giant bottle of her favorite lotion, and new bluetooth headphones. She used her celebration money to order sushi delivery, and then went out to a show with NT where she could get free admission and a bottle of champagne because it was her birthday!

AA's bday was the next day. We got her some of the new diverse Barbies, a magic kit, a practical joke kit and some jewelry. The grandparents got her a bunch of stuff. I'd asked my mom and dad if they just wanted to splurge on one gift, the Barbie Dream House, and they agreed (they just sent me the money to buy it). But then they sent about three other gifts too! We gave SL an early gift (a new backpack) and held back one of AA's gifts (a Barbie car) because last year there was some jealousy. SL was really good this year on AA's bday; let's hope AA can do better than last year when it's SL's.

The day after that was AA's party. We used her celebration money to rent a rec center at a nearby park, and we brought breakfast pastries and fruit for her morning party. She invited all her daycare buddies, some of our friends' friends, AND her whole kindergarten class. Only about a third of the invitees showed up but it was still crazy! It was a nice day, so near the end of the party everyone went out to the playground, which was great because then we (mostly NT) had extra time to get the center cleaned before our reservation was up. On the invite we said "gifts not expected" but many of the kids got her presents anyway. One little girl was sobbing at the end because she *hadn't* brought a present, so we told AA that she had to say something the next day at school to make her feel better. She said she told her "coming to my party was a gift." Plus the little girl made her a book. So all was well. I would rather say "NO gifts" but I know some of the daycare moms who aren't comfortable not giving gifts, so I tried to make it looser than that.

Next (just being silly) we celebrated both cats' birthday by giving them catnip and extra treats. Reminded me why we don't! They fought over the catnip, and for days after they whined for more treats like they thought that was the new routine now. It was fun though.

Then last Saturday, our downstairs neighbors took the kids for a sleepover as their birthday gift to all of us, so we went out to a "speakeasy" (it's legal and they require IDs, take reservations, etc., so the only thing speakeasy about it is that they don't advertise online and don't have a sign outside the door; you have to go through an alley to get there). It's a few blocks from our house and it's aDORable. I don't think I'd go much during the summer since it's in a basement, but I could see it being a hangout in cold-weather months. We met up with a friend there and had lots of drinks and snacks.

Now we're in a break between birthdays; the last two are on the 21st and 29th. This week the only thing we're doing for St. Patrick's Day is I came up with a goofy all-green dinner; I'm not really sure how it will go over with people (it's pasta with a kale-carrot sauce) but it should be funny.

Moneywise, we've stayed on budget for the birthdays, so that's good. AS is about on track to make the same as last year in her freelance business, so we've used that money for fun or to save up for things. We've fully funded (we think) the England/Spain trip. We've been doing the credit card churn again; we've already gotten two $100 CapOne bonuses, we have a Chase Sapphire that closes this week so hopefully we'll get the $625 in travel rewards soon; we have an Amex that just closed but I can't remember what the bonus was ($250?). I'm working on a Citi ThankYou and am about 25% of the way to the spending needed, and NT is on an HRC Visa that's spend $500, get $100.

We plan to use the Chase Sapphire rewards to help fund airfare to my 20-year college reunion in NY this June. I'm hoping it pays for 2 tickets and we'll just have to pay for 1 more out of pocket, but we'll see. We're trying to decide between staying on campus and staying at a hotel while we're there. The campus is handy but the rooms and beds are so uncomfortable! I have about $450 set aside and I think either way could be covered by that. But the hotel would mean cabfare to and from a lot. (We may get a rental car, but this reunion serves alcohol at almost every event, so we'd probably want to take a cab even if we had a car.)

We have about 950 pounds saved up in the UK bank account for trip spending, with more coming from rental income. I'm hoping we don't have to spend any US money out of pocket, though we may have to pay for a rental car. That's the only thing I'm not sure we have covered right now.

AS and I started working on our capsule wardrobes for spring and bought just about everything we needed in one day (plus finding a few pieces from our stored-away clothes); spring is coming earlier than usual here so we'll probably start wearing them later this month. We're just waiting for some stuff to arrive in the mail. We both departed pretty drastically from our color palette for winter; I went from black/gray/magenta/silver/blue to brown/beige/drab green/pastel pink/pastel turquoise/pastel blue. I'm excited to start wearing it! Another reason to love capsules is that you can make a big dramatic change from season to season.

We spent about $225 at a thrift store (getting over 30 pieces total), then about $75 at Payless, then about $100 on Amazon (using bday gift cards). Then I got a surprise offer on Ibotta for $5 back for spending $35 at Payless, so we dug the receipt out of the recycle bin and redeemed that! And it pushed me over the edge to where I could get a Paypal transfer of Ibotta bucks.

I got all of our stuff over to our tax guy, so now I play the waiting game. I set aside $15,200 of the WV money, and I sent 20% of AS's income in prepayments (13% to IRS, 7% to MN). These are both wild cards and I have no idea whether we'll owe big time. I'm kind of just trying not to think about it; we'll handle it whatever comes up.

We're pretty sure that we're not going to have the money to get air conditioning installed this year. We might invest in some newer, more efficient window units (all our current ones were free, either left by other renters or found on Freecycle) and get through this summer, hoping to take care of it by next. What with NT's surgery; trips to England, Spain and NYC; getting the basement bathroom up to code; AS needing glasses, contacts and (the big one) a dental implant to replace a dying tooth -- not to mention the fact that we want to get out and enjoy ourselves once in a while and don't feel like scrimping and saving constantly anymore -- I just don't see the money accumulating fast enough to have the full amount by summer. And I think that's fine. As you can see from the above, we got a lot done with our money, all of it either necessary or desirable, so I don't feel too bad.

Performance reviews are in progress at my job, but I haven't heard any word about whether there are raises available this year. In other work news, I managed to offload my direct report onto someone else, so I can concentrate fully on my writing. I'm so happy! My new boss is still awesome; I enjoy working with him so much. So work is going really well.

As I think I've mentioned, I've tried to make fun/creative/motivational goals each month. This month my goals are to start learning harmonica and play at least a little bit every day, and to do at least a little bit of extra activity every day. So far I haven't missed a day on either, though I have gained some weight because of birthday month eating and drinking! I'm thinking a dietary change is in order for April, but I haven't decided on the details yet.

I think that's it! Well, I'm probably missing something, but I've got to get back to work now, and you've probably stopped reading a long ways back.

Someday I'll write a proper life-update post, but I seem to be so busy lately! Planning birthdays and whatnot. Anyway, all four mortgage payments hit:

US: $667 to principal
UK1: $228
UK2: $47
UK3: $49

All told, we paid $990 of debt in March.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 20,501 pounds ($32,801)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $39,411
NT's Roth IRA: $9,445
AS's trad. IRA: $14,164
AS's Roth IRA: $24,345
AS's SEP IRA: $7,259
CJ's 401(k): $80,540
CJ's Roth IRA: $12,304
NT's flat: 180,000 pounds ($288,000)
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $982,760

Total Debt: $480,802

Current Estimated Net Worth: $501,958

January 2016 estimate: $496,064

Change in net worth: +$5,894

Summary: It's so funny how it works. We're postponing Roth contributions until the second half of the year, and yet our net worth saw a pretty good leap. Not recovering all of last month's loss, but up over half a million again.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound.

I've decided not to continue the "gratitude photos." NT seems to have trailed off on them as did everyone on here, and I kind of understand! Like Family December, it was a good exercise for a month or so to make me more aware, but it started to feel like a chore to actually take one photo per day.

Besides, I have an ambitious February already, with both creative and organizational goals. Here's how I'm doing on them:
- Watch all the Rocky movies + Fruitvale Station: I've watched the first three Rocky movies and have dates selected to watch the rest, so I'm on track. I'm loving them! Not only very inspiring and watchable, but lots of interesting stuff about race to unpack and think about.

- Do at least 5 boxing workouts. I've done 3 so far, and there are 2 Saturdays left in the month, which are good days for working out, so I'm on track.

- Read 2 books: Moonwalking with Einstein and Eat That Frog! I'm a little over halfway through the first book, so I'm a bit behind, but making progress. The first book is 270 pages while the second book only about 120, so I think I can make it if I buckle down now and then and really get some big chunks read.

- Get all our tax stuff organized for the tax guy: I finally yesterday sat down with the questionnaire and started filling it out, and seeing what documents we had/needed. Made some good progress on my and NT's, but I have more to do, and then I need to do AS's as well. I think I'll finish by the end of the month.

- Get rid of broken-down dresser. No progress other than discussing it a bit with AS. For a dresser that seems to be falling apart, it seems surprisingly sturdy when I contemplate dismantling it and throwing it out. It's going to take some elbow grease, so I just need to get going on it at some point. Probably not today; I'm feeling pretty lazy as I do most Sundays. At least I have tomorrow off; maybe I'll get some stuff done then!

For Valentine's Day, the grownups didn't go crazy on each other; we're just going out to dinner together tonight. I figured about $100, but it may go over that with drinks. No paying a babysitter; we're putting the kids to bed and then the downstairs neighbor will keep an ear out for them.

I did buy Valentine cards and candy for the kids' school and daycare friends and teachers, and I got both kids a stuffed animal, musical card and candy treat each. I can't resist; I remember fondly my parents always got me all three for Valentine's Day. AA was very sweet; she'd gotten some blank cards from school that she filled out for us, and very thoughtfully selected a small toy for each of us (out of her own toys). So that all cost us nothing! I think I spent about $45 on cards, candy and gifts.

I can't remember if I ever wrote about what came of the air-conditioning offer. I'd called to ask about getting the units installed piecemeal, and the lady had said she'd try to get us a 15% discount, which would save $2K off their price. Well, she called back and said she'd gotten a 9% discount for us. It had already been a stretch to contemplate coming up with the $12K; adding $800 to it (especially after having a better offer dangled then taken away) kind of tipped the scales for us. I told her I couldn't commit either way to having that amount in time for summer. We'll probably shop around and see if there are any better offers out there, and if not, I may call back and ask again about the piecemeal option. Or, who knows? If we get enough unexpected money by May, maybe we'll go for it at the lesser discount.

We're working on three CC bonus offers at the moment (AS just got a fourth card in the mail, but we'll work on these first). NT's $3600 surgery bill plus a few regular purchases puts us close to meeting the Chase Sapphire reward. We're hoping to use it to offset the cost of tickets to NY for my 20-year college reunion.

We're starting to plan for "birthday month" (our bdays are on March 2, 4, 5, 21 & 29)! We're hoping to stay at $500 for all bday parties, and the gift budget is $800 ($200 for each adult and $100 for each kid). I'm trying to find a rec center for AA's birthday, since she wants to invite all of her kindgergarten class, all the daycare friends and a few other friends. I want to do a morning party since most kids are at their best in the morning. None of the parks nearest us have an opening for renting the rec center, so I'm going to broaden my search and we can just get a carshare instead of walking/bussing, which is fine. I think I can get it under $100, and we'll try to keep the parting gifts cheap. Food can probably mostly work into our regular grocery budget if we cheap out on the weeknight meals.

I believe all three grownups are thinking about a quiet night home with food delivery and maybe a couple friends coming over. I know that's what I want! I just haven't decided what food and which friends.

We have a bit of time for SL's bday planning, but I'm already thinking we'll have it at home and I'll probably plan a series of games like I did last time, to keep the kids from tearing through the house like a hurricane. Since we won't spend money on a venue, we can probably order pizza again.

I already ordered some gifts online today, and I'll probably do more today and tomorrow. I like getting it out of the way and not spending a ton of time on it! AA is into really girly stuff now, so it's mostly Barbies and accessories for her; SL is harder to peg, but she's not at all girly. I'm thinking basketball set; and she needs a new cute backpack. We'll figure it out.

I just realized that figuring out what photo I'm on just got a lot harder, since after Jan. 31 they no longer correspond with the date!

What I find hard about this project is I hate missing actually taking a photo every day. But, what I love about it is that when I do forget, I make myself go back over the day (if I can't remember what happened I check Facebook, my personal email, even my work email) and find something to take or find a photo of. So it's making me be really conscious about what I'm actually grateful for each day. Some days it's a stretch; other days I have to pick one out of many things. Either way I think it's a great exercise. So without further ado ...

Day 32 (Mon. Feb. 1): Family.

I took this photo a couple days later when I realized I'd missed this day. I remembered showing off this set of photos to a co-worker on Monday. These are from the photo shoot my downstairs neighbor did for us in December. He always manages to catch such great shots. And, if this is the first time I've posted a photo of myself, I'm the one in the magenta shirt.



Day 33 (Tues. Feb. 2): Public transportation.

I'm so glad my city has a great bus and train system. It's not without its flaws; for instance our lower income neighborhoods, who need it the most, are underserved. (They have it, it's just not as many buses, and the shelters aren't heated, etc.) But overall it's a great system.



Day 34 (Wed. Feb. 3): The best new website in the world!

One thing you may not know about me is that me and my partners are huge Simpsons fans. I mean, most people like the Simpsons, but we're rabid. Have all the box sets. Can have entire conversations consisting only of Simpsons quotes. Love love love the Simpsons.

And on Wednesday, a friend told us about a website, frinkiac.com, that helps you create memes by searching for quotes from any episode, and it brings up likely matches of screen shots as well!



I wasted quite a few bits of down time at work making some of my favorite (if obscure) quotes into memes. And several of our friends joined in on Facebook. It was an afternoon of hilarity. I love when the internet produces something genius that seems custom made for you!

Day 35 (Thurs. Feb. 4): My new boss.

I couldn't really post a picture of him or anything, so I used frinkiac.com to make a meme of my favorite "great" boss from The Simpsons, Hank Scorpio (of course, he turns out to be a supervillain, but that's beside the point ...)



I've had a new boss for about a week, and I love it! It's night and day with my old boss, who meant well but always made me feel awkward and weird and insecure. This new guy is really upbeat, really nice and encouraging, and really happy to defer to me on things (he just started so I know way more about our clients than him). He actually did say something like "I don't think of myself as your boss." Such a Hank Scorpio thing to say! So yeah, needless to say, I have high hopes that my job I'm already really happy with is going to get even better.

Day 36 (Fri., Feb. 5): Cofftea (our made-up term for it)

I have mixed emotions about loving this stuff, which we found at the pan-Asian supermarket. It's instant coffee, tea and non-dairy creamer all in one. It cannot be good for me, but damn is it good! I don't have it often because we don't get to that store very frequently. Friday I worked from home to nip a cold in the bud (it worked!), and treated myself to the last packet of coffee-tea in the house. Such a delicious, comfort-foody treat!



Day 37 (today, Sat., Feb. 6): My partners celebrating frugality

Today AS came back from grocery shopping to let me know she'd spent less than $4 at CVS for a box of cereal, 4 cans of clams and 2 boxes of crackers! She'd used a combination of sales and coupons and was really proud of herself. To top it off, I realized the cereal was good for a 50-cent credit on Ibotta!

NT came back from his half of the grocery shopping to let me know that the main-floor shower, which he thought it would cost about $50 to fix with new fixtures, actually only cost 49 cents! As you can see in the photo, a nice guy at the local hardware found just the right washer, and it fixed the leaky faucet so we now have a functional shower on the main floor. He was so proud of it, he made this HIS gratitude pic for the day, so naturally I just took a pic of his pic.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US: $665 to principal
UK #1: $222
UK #2: $48
UK #3: $50

That means we paid $985 of principal this month.

Our total debt now (including a $5K loan from the downstairs neighbors that may someday be reclassified as their down payment on their share) is $480,802.

Both food pics; not much else went on this weekend. (Which was kind of nice, because it meant I got a lot of editing time on my NaNoWriMo.)

Saturday I was grateful for ... (veganized) tater tot hot dish! I never heard of this casserole before I moved to MN, and I was already vegan. So I've never had the real deal, but I love my vegan version.



Tonight I was grateful for SavingAdvice, and all the support and additional info we share. I veganized a chicken paprikash dish posted by PJMama, and it was awesome! Again, I've never had the real thing, but I loved how this tasted.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 17,105 pounds ($27,368)
#2: 20,501 pounds ($32,801)
#3: 4,452 pounds ($7,123)
NT's 401(k): $38,321
NT's Roth IRA: $9,264
AS's trad. IRA: $13,981
AS's Roth IRA: $24,025
AS's SEP IRA: $7,162
CJ's 401(k): $77,738
CJ's Roth IRA: $12,068
NT's flat: 180,000 pounds ($288,000)
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $977,851

Total Debt: $481,787

Current Estimated Net Worth: $496,064

December 2015 estimate: $503,350

Change in net worth: +$7,286

Summary: Aaaand, just like that, our net worth dips back below half a million. Sigh. Seems like we'll never get to a point where we stay at that level.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.60 for every British pound.

What a weird month to start with!

According to Mint, we made $11,388 of income, including rental money from the UK flat and the US duplex. The total is distorted by the fact that I cashed out AA's CD and reinvested the money in her mutual fund. It also includes some work reimbursements and a couple of refunds. But it was a lean month for AS in terms of receiving freelance checks (even though she booked a ton of work).

Our spending for the month, per the tool, was $20,564! A crazy number, but it includes:
$1129 of AA's CD, deposited into Pax
$5284 for our UK plane tickets (which we saved up for and are paying off the CC for next week)
$2960 of retirement contributions (including quarterly SEP contribution for AS's freelance business)
$2300 in estimated tax payments for AS's freelance work
Total of the above: $11,673

So when you take out all of those unusual transactions, our spending was $8891. Still a lot, but at least less than we brought in.

I take the no-spend days with a grain of salt, since transactions don't always post the day I make them. (For instance, I bought the plane tickets and made several of the retirement contributions Dec. 31, but they're showing up in January). But it says we had two no-spend days, Jan 10 & 16.

The highest-spend day was Jan 5, at $9617 (wow!). That included the airfare, our US mortgage, and a Roth contribution. Other than that, it was $30 on shopping and $33 on groceries that day.

I think Mint values the duplex much higher than I do, and also counts the money in checking (which I dont' because it's allocated for bills) and savings (which is set aside for taxes so I don't count it), because it has our net worth at $590,489. I'll do our net worth shortly, but last month I had it just a bit over $500K.

So, it's a very interesting tool! It'll be good for getting an idea of how much we spend in different categories, even though I won't use it to manage my budget day-to-day. I like how it's mostly automatic (I just need to go in occasionally and make sure purchases are correctly categorized).

Day 29: Grateful for quality time doing puzzles with my little one, SL, before dinner. Nice way to start the weekend.

I was thinking about ending my gratitude photos at the end of January since it seems to have petered out, but then NT latched onto the idea and started posting his own on Facebook. So I may continue a bit longer; we'll see.

Day 26: I went to a politician's rally for the first time since, oh, about 1999. I'm very skeptical he can win, but I'm grateful for a presidential candidate whose heart and lifelong record are in the right place! (He's the tiny dot behind the podium in the distance on the far left. )



Day 27: I didn't take any photos, but AA had a new story (with props!) she'd learned at school, so I took