Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

Still waiting on everything...refi, condo, cat's health, taxes. A very disappointing week. I at least thought we'd hear about the cat.

But, AS got some really good news. First, the class she's teaching in the fall will pay not $4000, but $6000!

And she got a big job for later in March/April, after her vacation, that will pay $3500!

She told me on the phone that it kind of felt like she made $9500 in one day. LOL.

Still, with those jobs, she's now made or booked over $27,000 this year. Considering she left a job that grossed $37K, it's kind of amazing.

We managed some cheap charity this week: We made batches of burritos and salads for an activist conference NT is volunteering at, and we're putting one of the attendees up in our basement. The only cost was ingredients for the cooking, which we fit into our regular grocery budget.

Still no offer on the condo, still no more news on the duplex refi. No updates from the tax guy, and no news on the results of our new cat's second FIV test.

We just keep on keepin' on! Some money out this week; AS bought a small laptop for her work since our home laptop runs really slow, and we sent her mom $500 as an early bday gift toward a new sewing machine. Some money in too; AS booked a few jobs for after her upcoming vacation.

I worked from home today. AS helped me with my work project, and I got somewhat unstuck. Still no big "breakthrough" feeling, but at least AS confirmed that they're asking for the nearly impossible with all the requirements and conditions of this piece. I've just about got it to a point where I can let my boss take a look at it. If it's not what he wants, at least it's far enough along so he'll be able to give me specific feedback.

I got good news that a business trip I need to take next week may only require one night away. I don't like being away from my family! It may end up being two nights, but I was thinking it might be three, so even that would be great.

The cats had some highly supervised time together today. We really don't want any biting since Clue might have FIV, so I kept a water bottle and broke up any attempts at fighting. I only had to use it about twice. They were tense and cautious but neither one overly aggressive, so we think it was a good step. We'd be moving them along faster if we weren't concerned about the FIV. We should find out Thursday whether she has it.

I guess that's it! Still holding at my Dietbet weight. Most people are on track, so I'll probably just get my money back, maybe a few bucks more.

The rough goal is $486,000 in retirement assets by 2019

In January we were at $230,639.

Now we're at $234,068.

$3249 of progress; not terrible considering how little we're currently putting into our retirement accounts!

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): $35,076
NT's Roth IRA: $7,596
AS's trad. IRA: $15,221
AS's Roth IRA: $20,387
CJ's 401(k): $80,900
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,596
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $140,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,038,068

Total Debt: $672,770

Current Estimated Net Worth: $365,298

December 2014 estimate: $360,289

Change in net worth: +$5,009

Summary: The market dipped up, so we had a modest gain, even though we haven't upped our retirement contributions yet. Can't wait to see those numbers really start to climb!

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

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..60 for every British pound.

We heard from our agent that the 2nd interested person has gotten preapproval. She emailed the 1st party to let them know that an offer might be coming soon, in case they would be ready to make one soon too.

So nothing yet, but seems encouraging.

Our new kitty did great at her vet checkup on most points -- except she tested positive for FIV. They drew more blood for the more definitive test. It was going to be a free checkup but ended up being about $150 total. We're still trying to get them together on opposite sides of the door, but we're not letting them together until we hear the results. If it is FIV, we're pretty sure we'll still keep both cats, but we'll make the introduction process as slow as possible so they hopefully don't bite each other. The vet said biting and drawing blood was the biggest way to transmit FIV.

Work is going OK, but I'm kind of stuck on a project that I can't see clearly the best way to write. I'm hoping to pick AS's brain this weekend to see if she can help me think through it and have a breakthrough, but we're really busy. I may even work from home Tuesday (I have Monday off but I'm doing a campaign-type activity in the middle of the day) if I feel like I need quiet time to think about it. My boss can kind of rattle me by coming by all the time and throwing me his thoughts just as I'm trying to get something written.

Three people were let go at my job on Friday, so that wasn't great for my confidence either. They were all in finance, though; I don't think there's any plan to get rid of writers.

Tonight we're going out for Thai food and possibly drinks. We're all excited! The cold dreary weather and forced frugality and sense of being in a holding pattern are getting to us all. It'll be nice to get away from that.

Seems like a number of good things have been happening this week. Let's see if I can remember them all!

First off, I weighed in at 133.4 tonight, which is where I need to be to win Dietbet! But I have to at least stay at that weight until Feb. 19/20, so I have to be careful on Valentine's Day and our potluck the following day. My ultimate goal is 129, so I'd love to keep losing. But I'll feel happy if I can just plateau through those two challenging eating days.

Our cats are still being kept separate, but they're finally showing signs of lessening hostility to each other, and maybe a bit of friendly or neutral curiosity from time to time. We're still taking it slow but encouraged by that.

Both our kids are going through some great developmental stuff right now. Our 2-year-old is getting gradually more responsive and agreeable, less rebellious and spazzy. She's almost 3, so we're braced for more difficult behavior, but so far she seems to be going in the other direction. Our 4-year-old can almost read; some simple words she can sound out. Both girls are just leaps and bounds ahead of where I feel like they need to be educationally and in terms of maturity, so it's a really exciting time to be their mom. (If only the 2-year-old would show more initiative about potty training; that's the only lingering issue.)

NT can finally volunteer for this group he really admires but never had time for while he was in school. We're actually going to cook a bunch of food for attendees to a conference next weekend, and put one out-of-town attendee up in our basement "apartment."

AS met with the college that was interested in having her teach a class on publishing, and it's a go! We don't have an exact amount for pay but think it'll be $4K. She also floated another idea with the woman who interviewed her, and the woman was really excited about that too. So there may be more work with that college after the fall semester of teaching!

We still have nothing definitive from our first interested party on the condo but know they're working on getting things figured out. Meanwhile, someone else is interested and their agent said they're thinking about putting in an offer. We also had 2 showings today and have 3 more scheduled in the next week. So we'll see what comes of that.

My dad sent me $500 out of the blue. Apparently he's got a different deal on the table in WV, this one for a gas company to build a road through his land. If it goes through they'll pay another $20K (my share would be $4K)! I had no idea about this one; my dad didn't say a word about it. Again, no idea if that will go through, but the $500 is a great surprise. I'm setting it aside to help us get out from under the condo.

I checked in with our mortgage broker about the refi option for the duplex and he's going to send me something in the morning. I hope we qualify and that it's a good deal!

Tomorrow I meet with our new tax guy and AS takes the new kitty to the vet. Fingers crossed we keep our good luck rolling with not much owing on taxes and a clean bill of health for Clue.

I weighed in last night a pound down! And that was after a fairly hearty meal, so I feel good that it's real progress. I have half a pound to go on the Dietbet and about 7 lbs. to reach my ideal weight.

I contacted my mortgage broker last week to see if a refinance would be in the cards considering several negative factors (such as our not selling the condo, taking on some debt and credit scores being lower). He got back to say that there's a kind of FHA "streamline" refinance that might save us some money without needing an appraisal or even much in closing costs. He said he'd also weigh a traditional refi to see which one would be best for us. I'm going to follow up this week if I don't hear more from him about that.

Our cats are still in separate rooms for now. We try to get them close to each other on either side of a door from time to time, and they always hiss and growl and swipe. Especially the new cat, who's nice to everyone else in the house, including our neighbors' dog. I think she's really mistrustful after whatever it is Noodles did that first night when he broke into her room while we were out. We swapped their rooms last night so they could experience each other's smell (and not get too territorial about the rooms we've been keeping them in). If the hissing never gets better after a few more days I suppose we'll just have to start the next phase and hope it gets worked out eventually.

Today is a kind of waiting day at work; I have several meetings this afternoon and during the week that should set work in motion for me, but right now all I can do is read background materials on several projects and try to get my thoughts together on them without knowing much.

So I've been doing that off and on with taking care of personal business. First, I printed off the tax forms that didn't come out clear at home.

Then, I read in my email that the people interested in the condo are still interested but have "lots of moving parts" to manage before they can make an offer. No feedback from the other showings, so at present they're our only actively interested buyer.

Then I signed the kids up for swim class mid-Feb. through mid-April. $84 apiece, but I'd already planned for that so it's OK.

Then the tax guy called and we set up an appointment to meet Friday. I reserved a carshare for that since he's in St. Paul.

Tonight is a little treat; we're going with our downstairs neighbors to redeem our free Chipotle burritos we got for trying the tofu sofritas earlier this month. All five adults will get free food, so we'll only need to purchase one for the kids to split and maybe some beverages. And I plan to only eat half of my free burrito so I have lunch tomorrow as well!

Gah, it was so hard getting all the docs together. I somehow misplaced our 2013 federal returns, which I'd used to qualify for the new mortgage, and couldn't find a saved electronic copy anywhere either. I found out that the IRS will let you have a "transcript" which has much of the same info, so I hope it's enough for our tax guy to go on.

After a while I wasn't even filling in the questionnaire anymore, just stuffing forms and documents between the pages. I'll apologize when I see him, but it took hours as it was. Our printer stopped working properly halfway through, so I think I'm going to reprint some of the docs when I get to work Monday, for clearer copies.

I don't care. I'm dumping it in his lap and hoping he can make sense of our taxes this year.

We heard from our realtor that the interested buyer was supposed to get quotes back on Friday from two contractors on the work they'd want done to our condo, so we hope to hear news of an offer early this coming week. Fingers and toes crossed! We had showings Friday and Saturday but haven't received any feedback, so we're not sure if there was any interest there.

I'm going strong on calorie counting (though not very well on exercise), but I haven't lost any more weight after my initial 5-lb. loss. So I'm at 135 and hoping I can lose a pound and a half by mid-February to get my money back on Dietbet!

Well, our new kitty came home Wednesday evening. She has a little cold and is recovering from getting spayed, plus she needs to be quarantined from our first kitty Noodles until we can take her to the vet and get her checked out. Plus we don't want them fighting. So she's living in one of our bathrooms. A few times a day we lock Noodles in another room and let her roam around the house.

They actually did meet the first night she was here...we humans had gone downstairs to watch TV with our neighbors. When we came back up the bathroom door was open; Noodles had apparently rattled the door hard enough to pop the little latch NT had installed. We don't know what went down but Clue was huddled in her carrier and didn't want to come out.

Since then she's regained her confidence, but whenever they're close to each other (on opposite sides of the door) they hiss. That didn't happen until the incident.

Oh well, just a bump in the road hopefully. We're going to take it really slow with introducing them to each other.

Anyway, here's a picture of our pretty little girl.

It seems like exact numbers are a moving target, so you just have to pick something that looks good and start going for it.

Until we sell the condo, all I can do is plan. But it's nice to think about starting to boost retirement savings once things have loosened up. And if we can refi our duplex mortgage, that should loosen things up even further.

Based on the 8x rule and our current salaries (and AS's estimated income), I came up with a potential goal:
$486,000 in retirement assets by 2019.

Since we only have $230K now, we'd need $256K more in 4 years. That's $64K per year or $5300 per month. A long shot for sure, but better to shoot for that and fall short than just try to hit what we think we can.

We currently put 7.5% of my income away (including match), and 6% of NT's if I count his match, for a total of $8325 per year, $694 per month.

Once we sell the condo we'll be putting 10% of AS's away. So my estimate for all of that is $1176 per month, or $14,116 per year.

We'll also start contributing to Roths again. We used to do $450 per month but I'm thinking we should all max out our Roth's, so that's $1375 per month. I think we can manage that. That would take us to contributing $2551 per month, or $30,616 per year.

Then I'm thinking NT and I can bump up our 401(k)s to make it a nice even 10% each that we're putting away. That would add $327 per month or $3925 more per year, and would take us to $2878 per month, or $34,541.

It's not all the way to $5K a month, but it's getting there. And hopefully our investments would start to grow faster as we had more and more in our accounts. Of course, with all of this happening incrementally, we wouldn't actually get anywhere close to the first year goal, but that's OK.

We could probably achieve all of this and still have money left over for debt repayment, fun and renovations. So that seems like a good first set of goals to work on. If we can actually achieve all of these this year, then I can look and see if more aggressive saving is feasible or not.

But first, we play the waiting game some more...

I haven't even been really allowing myself to think about retirement funding in the past year, since I've been so focused on house stuff. Now, with perhaps the end of our major money woes in sight (if a few more things fall into place in the next month or two), I started looking around at where we should be.

I've used calculators that seem to say we're doing OK, so I think this rule of thumb may be for a more lavish lifestyle than I'm imagining, but I was interested in the "8x your annual income" rule of thumb. Fidelity laid it out like this: have 1x your income by 35, 3x by 45, 5x by 55 and 8x by 67.

Since that doesn't help me totally, being 40 right now, I broke it down further:
1x by 35
2x by 40
3x by 45
4x by 50
5x by 55
6x by 59
7x by 63
8x by 67

Ours is a bit confusing because AS is 35, I'm 40 and NT is 41. And we don't think of our retirement as separate assets. So I decided to figure each one separately, add them together, and see how far off our total retirement assets are.

AS might make $60K this year, so for her I put $60K
NT's at $57K now, so I put him at $114K
I'm at $65K, so I put myself down for $130K

That totals $304,000 we should have in retirement funds right now. Currently we have $230,639, which is $73,361 short.

(If we'd stayed at our last year's salaries, our goal would be $251K, or only $20,361 short. So we weren't TOO far off the mark, but now that we have higher salaries the discrepancy is much greater.)

I think it's a neat number to aim for, especially since it's a stretch (and stretching is good when it comes to financial goals because it keeps me motivated), but I wonder how realistic it is for what we might need.

Thoughts?

The US condo mortgage payment hit, with $494 going to principal. That takes us to $1441 down, $109 to go on the February debt goal.

I noticed there's a new showing this afternoon. It's the same agent whose buyer said he would make an offer if he could make the necessary modifications for his disability. Fingers crossed that he's decided it's doable and is just checking the place out one last time! (Yes, I'm daring to dream, knowing the scenario could be completely different from that.)

All but one of our mortgage payments hit:
US duplex: $634 to principal
UK1: $219
UK2: $46
UK3: $48

All told, that's $947 down, $603 to go on the February debt goal.

We went to see one of the cats whose pics I'd found on FB, and fell in love with her right away. So we adopted her, and got licenses for her and our existing cat Noodles. $70 adoption fee (including shots, microchipping and spaying, so a great deal), plus $25 each for the licenses.

We needed a few supplies, but we got them on Amazon with the last of our Xmas gift credit. Two more litter trays, food and water bowls, sleeping mat and scratching/playing toy, and collars for both cats (now that they have tags). She'll be in our bathroom for a while so we wanted to make sure she was comfortable in there.

We bring her home Wednesday, after she's been spayed. Very excited! I'll share pics as soon as I have them.

No other real news. I went to see a doctor about my shoulder since it still hurts, and I'm relieved that it's not broken or dislocated. Basically I should have been icing it, warming it, taking painkillers and avoiding using that arm, none of which I did after the first day of the injury. So I'm to try that regimen for a few days and see if it gets any better.

The goal is the same as the last few; pay off at least $1550 of debt. Hoping someday soon I can start paying more than the minimum!

We've got another showing Monday. Hopefully one of our two interested parties will make an offer soon, but I'm glad to be having more showings in case both of them fall through.

My seemingly minor shoulder injury from sledding a few weeks ago doesn't seem to be improving. I'm taking it really, really easy today in the hopes that rest will hurry it along, but I'm going to try to get in to see an orthopedic doctor tomorrow if not.

Don't you hate it when you need to see the doctor right at the beginning of the year? I don't like to see my flex spending get immediately hit like that. It makes me think about how stupid it is that they make you try and predict how much money you're going to need for a whole year. Why can't flex spending be like other withholdings, where you can increase or decrease it at any time as needed?

Yesterday was our belated holiday party. Got some free snacks and drinks at a fancy lounge/bar, and a $100 Amex gift card. Perfect timing for Valentine's day, which I probably would have had to go into future spending money for. We've already got free babysitting from the friend I'm helping maintain her budget, so should be a pretty cheap night out. Yay!

We have another party interested in the condo. Very interested, but they're wheelchair-bound and would need to make adjustments, so they brought a contractor and need to hear if he thinks it's doable before they make an offer. We lowered the price $5K, to $135K, the day before, so I really hope they don't try to lowball from there. But I'm prepared to accept a lowball offer.

We've been thinking about getting a second cat. I spoke with our older kid about it recently, so it kind of brought it top of mind. Then someone posted a photo of an adorable cat available for adoption at a local shelter, and it really started the ball rolling. I think I'm going to call them today and see if that cat's still available and how the process works. We've been reading up on integrating cats, and we need to buy a few supplies. But the adoption fee is only $70 and includes shots and spaying, so all we'd need to do is take her to the vet. Now that we're on better financial footing, I feel OK about this potential addition, which we'd been planning to do once we were in a bigger place.

NT's raise came through! I'm surprised, I must say; they always take forever at his job to move on things like that. Exciting that we've added more income. It's about $140 more per paycheck, or $280 per month.

We're finally at the point where NT and my paychecks will cover our bare-bones budget most months without any input from AS. Only a couple of months (CSA payment, Xmas, bdays) still fall short, but only by a few hundred dollars.

This will be wonderful when the condo is sold. But even right now it's nice; things are tight but not nearly as bad as they could have been.

We heard back from the potential condo buyer via our agent; apparently a friend of his who lives in one of our buildings put some worries in his mind about difficulty getting renovations approved, and noise complaints. So now he's hesitant. I sent some responses via my agent because honestly, before we had kids we only had one noise complaint, and that was when we were moving a ton of stuff around. And we had no trouble getting our (admittedly pretty minor) renovations done.

Still, just in case that buyer doesn't bite, we decided to lower the listing price another $5K. (He had indicated that he'd need a price reduction if he made an offer anyway.) Now, best case we would lose $27K on the deal, but more realistically people are going to ask for $5K less than listing, so I'm expecting us to actually lose about $32K.

I was hesitant to lower it that much before, but since NT got his raise and AS's freelance business is booming, I feel more confident that we can cover that now. It'll take some doing to get out of the hole, but it's good to know we can survive it. No chance of paying off my debt to our crazy seller now, though. My best hope for that will be to roll it into a refinance of the duplex, if that's still an option.

NT and AS are out at weekly trivia. We got the kids in bed before they left, and I'd already done my designated chores, so I don't have anything to do. I mean, I don't have anything that NEEDS to be done. I could be working out, or gathering tax documents, or reading a book instead of lazily surfing the web. But I have a potentially stressful day tomorrow -- going to help present some concepts and copy I helped write to a big client -- so I feel like zoning out right now.

AS got paid for some past jobs today and yesterday -- over $3000 total. Funny how it works with freelance; you might work pretty steadily, but the actual pay is erratic depending on different organizations' pay structure.

I'm realizing that she's doing really well for having just started. She's trying to replace an annual income of $37K. My rough estimate was that to cover that plus benefits and self-employment tax, she'd need $42K. Well, she's booked work mid-August through February to the tune of $23,000. Even if she pulls in no more work in February, that's more like equivalent to $43K per year. So she's at a pretty comfortable place income-wise. And overall she's working fewer hours than she was at her job. I hope she stays happy with this arrangement, because it's pretty sweet from my perspective.

NT has a touch-base with his boss soon, so hopefully we'll hear when his raise will hit his paycheck and whether it'll be retroactive. I'd love it to be soon!

AS's student loan payment hit, with $139 going to principal. That takes us to $1576 of debt paid for the month, exceeding the $1550 goal.

I've begun gathering info and filling out our tax questionnaires. Ugh! Even this part is arduous. So glad someone else will be doing the actual return for us.

I weighed in last night 4 lbs. down from Sunday! Either that reading or this one was affected by normal body fluctuations, but I'm happy to be down to 135, even if only temporarily. I just need to get to 133.4 for Dietbet, so technically just need to lose 1.6 lbs. in 3 weeks!

I skipped breakfast so I could afford the calories of a Chipotle burrito for lunch. Today there's a deal on that if you order their soy sofritas burrito, you can bring your receipt in for a free burrito on a different day. Five of us in all ordered burritos today -- AS, NT and I, plus our two downstairs neighbors.

We have two days during Dietbet where it would be easy to go overboard on eating: Valentine's Day and our Mardi Gras potluck the day after. So I need to be extra careful all other days.

AS pulled in more freelance work without even trying. She's definitely got more than enough regular clients to keep busy! She is going to block out 2 weeks in March as vacation time, thinking there will probably be encroachment on either end, so that way she can ensure at least a week away from work completely. Even without NT's raise or any news on selling the condo, our bare-bones budget is cranking along, so she doesn't need to worry about taking some time off. She hasn't had a true vacation since she quit her crazy more-than-full-time job in August.

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): $35,088
NT's Roth IRA: $7,421
AS's trad. IRA: $14,931
AS's Roth IRA: $19,924
CJ's 401(k): $78,562
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,421
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $140,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,034,639

Total Debt: $674,350

Current Estimated Net Worth: $360,289

December 2014 estimate: $352,268

Change in net worth: +$8,021

Summary: I almost forgot to do net worth this month! The market dipped up, so we're doing better now.

I'll update the Individual Net Worth page shortly, breaking it out by person.

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..60 for every British pound.

I haven't done this in a while even though we've been really good about sticking to our weekly meal plan; the only eating-out days have been planned well in advance.

We finish our menu and grocery list by Friday night at the latest, and do our shopping Saturday morning, so that's where the new meal plan begins.

Saturday lunch
grilled cheese sandwiches & soup

Saturday dinner
TVP & black bean chili

Sunday lunch
salad with tofu, spinach, pepitos, corn, avocado, chili-lime dressing

Sunday dinner
spaghetti & veggie meatballs

Monday
our friends cook for us

Tuesday
refried black bean burritos with rice & tamales

Wednesday
seitan stroganoff over pasta

Thursday
veggie burgers, fries & raw vegetables

Friday
mash, chikn tenders, peas & corn

Lots of "fake meat" meals this week, but all different sorts. TVP is dehydrated soy protein, seitan is a meaty substance made with vital wheat gluten. We make the meatballs with a ground-beef substitute we get at the store. The veggie burgers and chikn tenders are just premade stuff we purchase too.

Dietbet is in full swing and I'm feeling pretty good about the eating side; I need to get the exercise going too. My shoulder muscles are still hurting from the sledding collision, so I haven't been in the mood to work out. But today I at least did a lot of taxing stuff.

First I went to the grocery store, about a 10 minute walk each way, and then I vacuumed the upstairs as well as the stairs themselves. I cleaned one of the bathrooms, scrubbing the shower walls thoroughly which I don't think any of us had really done. They still need work but at least they're a lot cleaner! I went up and down the stairs a lot because I had to keep looking for various cleaning supplies. Next time I'll know better what I need for the job. I've never been in charge of cleaning the bathrooms but I took it on in an attempt to be more of a help around the house.

Our realtor called yesterday; she's in contact with the interested parties but they haven't made an offer. So either they're dragging their feet or it was a false alarm. We have another showing tomorrow. NT went to the condo and did a light cleaning today to make sure it looks its best.

I got a super deal via the Minneapolis garage sales page: a glider and ottoman in great shape for $40. The guy even delivered! It's perfect for my book and TV nook, which is looking better and better. I finally organized the kids books and AS put out some little framed illustrations on the tops of the short shelves.

I splurged on the kids for Valentine's Day; nearly $40 for two stuffed animals, cards and candy, and treats for their daycare pals. I discovered later that I'd gotten one of the cards I'd meant to put back, and that one I did mean to get was no longer working (was supposed to light up and make sounds). So I have to go back tomorrow to return the unwanted card and hopefully exchange the broken one. At least I got about $5 in ExtraBucks!

AS has raked in some more big freelance projects. At this point it's looking like she won't get breaks even if she doesn't actively seek work, so I've told her she should give herself a week's vacation around her birthday (early March) and let all her clients know well in advance so they won't be expecting her to take or do work during that time. She worked part of Xmas break and was sick the rest of the time, so it wasn't a real break for her. The last semi-break she had was in late August/early September when family and friends visited, and even then she was finishing up a few freelance jobs.

Since she's so new to this, I don't think she feels like she can turn down work, so it needed to be said that she had to give herself some planned time off. We don't need much from her for April and March's budgets, and if NT's raise comes through, we won't need anything from her.

She told me tonight she wants to buy her mom a sewing machine. Her mom is an amazing clothes-maker and all her machines are broken right now. I said I think that's fair, since we spent budget money to entertain NT's family, and I'm probably gonna want to use some to attend my family's reunion this summer.

I rushed through NT's UK tax return and we sent it off Friday. We really hope there isn't a penalty, but it looks like they charge one even if you don't owe anything. I wrote an explanation about not receiving the usual packet in the mail. Fingers crossed we don't have to pay!

Now I need to get our tax packets done for our new preparer and meet with him. Still waiting on some 1099s from AS's clients but there's no excuse to not get started on it, except that I just don't feel like it. All the mortgage interest and rental income and dependent info is so confusing. Oh, and AS never was able to enroll in Obamacare last year (she's still working on it thus far unsuccessfully), so I'm hoping there isn't a penalty for that.

Tomorrow is my first Ordinary Savers meeting in a long time. If they all come, there will be four new attendees! That'll be nice to get some fresh perspectives and new stories. I don't have a specific theme; thought I'd just ask the newbies why they came and let the topics come out of that.

I bought about $25 worth of treats for the meeting; that was my other big splurge this weekend. I assume there will be leftovers from that. Other than paying off my web hosting charge and maybe dinner out for Valentine's Day, I don't have any purchases planned for the foreseeable future, so I figured why not splurge on nice treats for my meetup and cute Valentine gifts for my daughters?

With the budget probably loosening up in the next few months, we've started thinking about budget-friendly trips. We miss traveling, even if it's just out of town for a day or two. We thought we might rent a car and drive to Omaha, about 6 hours away, to check out the restaurant of our favorite cookbook author. Maybe we'll make a weekend of it! Of course we can't book anything until our budget situation improves, but it's nice to think about even as a tentative future plan.

NT came home with pretty good news last night, though I won't celebrate unless it becomes official. His boss is proposing a $5K raise, $2K more in his year-end bonus, and the prospect of more once he gets more experience in his new position. He asked for $10K and I'm glad he did; if he'd asked for $5K she probably would have offered $2.5K. We know how her mind works!

NT still has to talk to her about making it retroactive to January, and she has to get it approved by the other partners. But it's the first concrete number she's put out there, so it's encouraging.

AS has gotten many job prospects in the past week or two, but not many definites. But she doesn't really need them right now; she's still finishing up work she already booked, and she's already funded net pay, taxes, retirement and healthcare through mid-February.

No news on the condo. Pins and needles!

I finally finished paying off the Roomba I splurged on before Xmas. It has made life so much better! We have it programmed to run once a day on the main level. Now I just need to vacuum the upper level and the various landings and stairs, but the main level gets the most traffic and use, so I'm glad to have that chore off my plate.

Now I'm working on paying off my dad's bday present, but that should be done soon. Only about $12 left on that.

I'm thinking about splurging a bit for the kids on Valentine's Day. I don't know why; I've just been remembering how much I enjoyed getting a toy, candy and a big fancy card from my parents. I might see if I can find any good deals at Marshalls or Target. I should get some cheap cards, toys or candy treats for them to hand out at daycare anyway.

But, I also will need to start paying for my domain registration soon, so I need to keep that in mind. We'll see what I decide.

AS and I went out last night, but we had a very cheap night. The trivia host needed a scorer, so I scored for him and he bought my drinks. And AS and the rest of my friends' team won second place, which is a $15 gift card!

I've been calorie counting already in preparation for Dietbet, and with the hope that I'll lose a little weight before it even starts. I've gone over my target both days so far, but at first it's hard to plan the meals; you're estimating, or counting after you eat and discovering it was too much. That's why I wanted to get into the swing of it before the bet started.

Soon it'll be six months since we closed on the new home. That's the time frame for when we can seek a refinance. I'm not sure if we're in a good enough place to qualify for a really good rate, but my broker was extremely helpful, knowledgeable and motivated last time, so I'm sure he'll give me a fair prediction if I tell him what my concerns are (lower credit scores, AS now self-employed, more CC and student loan debt than before, more open lines of credit, haven't sold the condo). I'm wondering if we'll have to wait to refi. But we don't want to wait too long, because rates are most likely going to go up sometime this year.

My work announced a belated holiday party. It'll be fun, I'm sure, but I'm mostly excited because that's usually when they give out bonuses! We only get a couple hundred bucks on a gift card, most times, but that would be very welcome. It's been hard to move the needle on saving up for selling the condo and getting out of the duplex seller's debt. We've basically been stuck in the same place for about a month.

I haven't heard from the duplex seller in a while. I send the check out really early now (the one for Feb. 1 went out yesterday), but he always seems to cash them on the 5th or 6th of the month. Hard to tell if he's getting them late or if it just takes him a while to get to the bank. I don't want to ask because he's so abrasive and obnoxious in his emails. As long as he doesn't complain I'm not going to start sending any earlier. I still can't wait to get out from under his unpleasant shadow though!

Today I had a half day of work from home. A friend drove me to St. Paul in the afternoon for a MLK rally and march. One of my friends who was going to get me info for my know-your-rights app hasn't been getting back to me, so I'm stuck on that project. So it was good to do something else for the cause.

I started a Dietbet challenge last night. It'll begin Thursday; AS is joining me and she wanted a few days to prepare. This way I can try and get others to join me. Four other friends asked for invites, so hopefully some of them will sign up. But I'm not in it for money (beyond getting my $35 back).

Just to get in the mindset, I started calorie counting today. I couldn't exercise because my shoulder is a bit messed up from a minor sledding accident that happened Sunday. It's getting better though; I should be able to exercise in a day or two.

Oh! I almost forgot. This morning we got three window air conditioners from Freecycle. All we had to pay was the car-share fee for 45 minutes (about $7).

I don't want to get my hopes up, but our agent called; the people who saw our condo a second time Saturday are thinking about putting in an offer. Nothing final, and we have no idea what the offer would be. We've had four or five nibbles before that have all fizzled without a formal offer. But it's nice to have some interest again.

Showings have really picked up again after the holidays, and we've gotten positive feedback from several people. So if not them, I have a good feeling that we'll get an offer soon.

Well, I knew I did just about everything wrong this week, so I'm not a bit surprised that I gained this much in one week.

I'm at 140 now. I haven't been in my 140s for a long time.

I signed on to Sparkpeople and will start calorie counting tomorrow, and I'm pondering a Dietbet.

The only good thing about this weigh-in is that 140 is the wake-up call I needed to get serious!

I asked a Facebook friend to post a recipe for his goulash because the picture looked really good. I fiddled with it, adding/deleting ingredients and simplifying the instructions. I'm going to try it out this week, but I wanted to put my altered version somewhere easy to find. This way I can update the recipe once I try it, in case I want to make it a little differently the next time.

28oz can tomato sauce
16 oz condensed tomato soup
1 small can diced green chiles
8 oz elbow macaroni
4 cups cooked kidney beans
1 onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
8 oz frozen corn
8 oz mushrooms
Salt and pepper to taste
Red pepper flakes
1 T paprika
olive oil

Directions:
Heat oil in large pan. Saute mushrooms, onion, bell pepper and celery and salt and pepper to taste.
Cook noodles al dente and drain/rinse.
Combine all ingredients in 9x13 pan. Leave about ¼ of the sauce to top the dish with.
Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45 min.

Update; This turned out great! I tweaked ingredients somewhat above.

Well, my poor eating/exercising continues this week. I had THREE servings of tater tot hot dish on Wednesday plus several glasses of wine. Last night I ate very reasonably and abstained from wine, but didn't use the elliptical. I've only used it once this week, though I've done crunches/squats/pushups a few times. Tonight we're going out for Mexican food as a date night, so I'll probably go a bit overboard again! Next week I'll try and turn over a new leaf.

Otherwise, mostly good news over the last couple days:

- My and NT's paychecks came to $90 more than I budgeted for, so that's an additional $180 per month.

- He is on his boss's case about the raise he's been promised. She's really good at stringing people along, but he's not going to let it go until she follows through. So hopefully she'll get sick of him bringing it up and just get it done!

- Last night's condo showing produced promising feedback; the buyer is considering a second showing of several places ours may be one of them!

- AS submitted a resume for a possible adjunct teaching gig at a local (very reputable) college in the fall. She was approached because of her previous position; it's a class on publishing. She likes a lot of variety, so it would be great if she could add teaching to her list of freelance jobs!

- AS has been touring kindergartens for AA, and they all seem like good prospects so far. She still has to tour the one that would be our default school; I really hope that one's good too, so we won't feel bad if we don't get in to any of our preferred schools and have to go with that one.

Soo looking forward to the weekend! Date night tonight, and then decent temps predicted for the weekend, so we're planning a few (free) family outings. Monday I just work from home a bit, and I'm going to a MLK-related rally with a friend in the afternoon.

Work is really quiet right now, but should pick up soon. So I'll get my updates in while I can!

Oy, I'm not doing well on my diet/exercise goal this week! I haven't worked out yet, which means I have 5 days to get 4 workouts in. I'm making a hot dish (casserole) tonight, so I think I'll run down and do 10 minutes on the elliptical while it's baking.

Yesterday I took my team out to a lunch (which I'll get reimbursed for) and I had a big delicious bowl of vegan spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. Last night NT and I went out to trivia and I had french fries and several glasses of wine. I had an old gift card for the restaurant so ended up only having to spend $3 for tip. So budgetwise it was a great day, but dietwise a disaster! Oh well...

Two more random bits of condo news: Our agent called passing along a question from another agent about whether you could see any bodies of water (lakes, rivers) from our condo. Uh, no. Another strike against us, I guess. Then we got feedback from Monday's showing that was basically saying they weren't anywhere close to buying yet, but if they were, they'd buy our place. Nice to hear, but not very helpful.

Tomorrow is the big day I find out what our paychecks are going to be for a while. (NT is still being promised a raise, but they've strung him along for months, so I'm not holding my breath.) I'm having $2000 less withheld from my pretax pay annually (about $80 per paycheck), and NT is having $2500 less withheld (about $100 per paycheck). Of course there are going to be higher taxes as a result, so I'm not sure what the net benefit will be. I've only factored in about $30 more per pay period, so anything above that will be gravy.

I've got three new people saying they'll come to my next personal finance discussion group, which is near the end of this month. Also, the friend I've been helping with her budget may pay off one of her credit cards this month! I'm crossing my fingers that she sticks to that and doesn't fritter the money away on something else.

I've avoided my Ordinary Savers club in recent months because I took such a big risk in buying this house. But most of the things I've hoped would happen have fallen into place. There are four more things that would be instrumental in getting us back on track faster, none of them sure things, but all of them likely to happen (if they DO happen) in the first half of this year. 1. Selling the condo. 2. Refinancing the duplex to remove PMI. 3. NT getting a hefty raise. 4. the WV land deal going through.

If all four happen we'll be on easy street. If only one or two happen we'll be in great shape. If none of them happen, it'll stay hard for a while but we'll get through. (I mean, the condo WILL sell, it's just there's a chance we'll need to take a much bigger loss. If it doesn't sell in the next couple months we'll hopefully be in a position to drop the price by a great deal and get rid of the thing quickly.)

So I've made my initial fitness goal to work out at least 4 times a week. I haven't set any time amounts or anything more specific; I just want to get back in the habit of working out.

I did 10 minutes on the elliptical 3 times last week and shoveled snow one day, which was quite the upper-body workout. Unfortunately I weighed in 2 lbs. up on Sunday, so back to my starting weight of 137.

I haven't been going crazy eating, but the cold weather does make me crave starchy filling comfort food, and being shut in all the time increases opportunities to snack. I'll try to take it easier, but I'm not going to resort to calorie counting unless I fail to make progress any other way.

This weekend we made a concerted effort to spend more time actually playing with the kids, helping them come up with ways to cure cabin fever and keep them from arguing all the time. A nice accidental side benefit was much less screen time; almost no TV and just a little bit of LeapPad playing!

I started to set up a chore chart. We adults have all fallen into certain tasks that we're comfortable with/good at, but I thought if we had it on a chart we'd feel more ownership and also feel confident that the work was evenly divided. I'm going to finish it up and print it out and hang it in the kitchen, where we can check off/date the tasks as we do them.

Checked in on the condo this weekend, and everything looked OK. We have a showing scheduled for today. I'm glad they've picked up again after the Xmas/New Year break. Hopefully we'll find the right buyer soon!

We've been good about eating every meal at home except when planned. Our downstairs neighbors offered to babysit the kids one night this week, so we planned a date night at a Mexican restaurant for this Friday. Excited for some grownup time!

One cool thing we've been doing is having dinner with our friends twice a week. One night they'll cook and we eat downstairs at their place, and the other night we cook and they come up. It's one less night we have to cook, and it gives us two nights of being social. It also helps our friends eat at home twice a week, whereas otherwise they eat out most nights. (I'd say I'm jealous, but I fear they're ignoring debt repayment and retirement contributions in favor of frittering money away, which I'm definitely NOT jealous of! If/when we start to eat out more, it'll be once we tackle other more pressing concerns.)

We heard from NT's UK rental managers that they're going to offer a 12-month renewal to the current tenants with a small rent hike. NT asked what that would mean for the plans to renovate this year; we're still waiting to hear back. Not sure they would renew since it sounds like the place is getting pretty run-down, but our tenants are typically single guys attending flight school who probably don't spend much time at home, and the location is convenient to the school, so maybe the guy will renew and not think too much about it. We'll see!

One crazy thing I realized a few days ago--I think we forgot to do our UK taxes! The deadline would have been in October. I'm not even sure we received the packet, which should have come while we were still living at the condo. We need to contact the HMRC (equivalent to IRS) and see what we should do. At least we know we won't owe anything, so hopefully it's like the IRS and there are no penalties unless you owe.

I decided we need professional tax help this year after a few years of winging it, but unfortunately my tax guy left the profession. So I'm sussing out potential replacements based on friend recommendations. With all the complicated stuff, I don't just want to walk into an H&R Block or anything. Having worked for one, I know how little training preparers receive beyond the basics!

I'm finally close to paying for the Roomba, using spending money and Xmas gift cards. (By the way, I'm SO happy with that purchase!) Next I'll need to start paying for my ordinarysavers.com web hosting ($109), and a bday present for my dad (about $25). But first, date night this Friday!

... I did realize today I have several projects and groups that I'm starting or picking up the pace on this month. If I don't have a lot to say on financial goals for a while, maybe it'll be fun to check in with progress updates on these, just to feel like I've still got momentum.

- My other blog and personal finance discussion group,

The League of Ordinary Savers. I went back and forth on renewing the blog since it costs money, but I got positive feedback from a few friends when I asked, so I decided to do it. I'm also scheduling an in-person meetup this month or next. I may also offer one-on-one budgeting help to my friends, since several of them have expressed an interest in that (and I'm already helping one of them maintain a budget).

- Exercise and weight loss. I've committed to try and use the elliptical at least four times a week, and I managed to do that for the first week in January. We'll see if I can keep it up! I've also joined PatientSaver's challenge to lose weight.

- Activism. My city, as do most, has a problem with police misconduct and lack of repercussions. One problem is that not enough people know their rights. In addition to going to rallies and marches, I'm also trying to develop (with help from a few people) a smartphone skin and an app that informs people of their rights regarding police stops, so they'd have the information handy if anything happened to them.

- My NaNoWriMo novel. I actually think there might be something halfway decent in my 2014 one. AS offered to edit it in her spare time, so we'll see if she can get it in decent shape, and then I'll look into submitting it to agents or publishing houses (or just self-publishing if I can save up some money).

- Trivia. Our weekly trivia night at a local bar had petered away because of NT's night classes and our general brokeness and tiredness, but we've decided to start it up again now that two of us will be able to go while one stays home with the kids. There's no admission so it's as cheap as you want to make it; occasionally I've nursed a single drink for the whole night.

- Food/cooking. One of my friends started a Facebook group to share cooking tips and recipes, and we had a successful potluck back in October, so I offered to throw another one in February. This will have a Southern/Mardi Gras theme. One of my friends also wants me to show them how to make seitan (mock duck). And my housemates have thrown around the idea of doing group food prep of some make-ahead meals we can put in the freezers. I may also try to think of more meals that the kids can help prepare, since they're always interested (but we're usually too rushed or the recipes too complicated to really include them).

- Organizing/cleaning. I finally had the first really thorough decluttering session in AA's room (she's the 4-year-old and quite untidy like I was as a kid). She's pleased with the results and finds it easier to tidy up daily now. AS and I have also talked about creating some kind of chore chart for both adults and kids to keep us on track, now that we have such a bigger house.

- Alumni group. My NY college has a lively alumni group here in MN, so I want to organize a couple of events to get everyone together (that's not an expensive outing). I'm thinking dinner party at our home for starters.

The great thing about all of these projects is that I can work on them at any time, pick up or drop them whenever I feel like it, so there's always something for me to do but I don't need to feel stressed or overscheduled by any of them.

I just weighed in (I'm going to aim for Sunday afternoons while the kids are napping) and I'm at 135, so 2 lbs. down since Jan. 1. Could just be weight fluctuation, but I'll take it!

So 8 lbs. to go on my goal, or about a pound a week.

I also just worked out, 10 mins on the elliptical plus crunches, pushups and squats.

Since I started making an annual budget spreadsheet, I don't use a monthly budget anymore. But recently NT asked how well our regular income was covering expenses, and I honestly couldn't say. I knew our budget was balancing and we were putting a bit aside, but that was it.

So I resurrected my old monthly spreadsheet and updated it with current numbers. Since AS doesn't have a regular, predictable paycheck, I didn't put anything down for her income. She's brought in quite a bit, but with paychecks arriving sporadically, it's hard to say how much will actually come each month.

This stripped-down budget doesn't have anything extra going to retirement, charity, extra debt repayment or savings. Housecleaning is long gone, of course. It includes my and NT's 2014 net pay; we expect them to change in 2015, hopefully for the better.

Income:
CJ paycheck $1,621.64
NT paycheck $1,567.64
Duplex rental $1,074.00
Parking space rental $85.00
CJ paycheck (est) $1,621.64
NT paycheck $1,567.64

Total Take-home: $7,537.56

Expenses:
Daycare escrow ($1080 - $416.66 FSA) -$703.34
AS healthcare (est) -$200.00
Duplex mortgage -$3,149.72
Condo mortgage -$1,030.32
1st-15th groceries/household -$400.00
Spending money -$120.00
Utilities (est) -$400.00
Condo association -$696.03
Spending money -$120.00
Promissory note -$118.70
Xmas & bdays -$133.34
NT extra student loan -$25.00
Spending money -$120.00
16th-31st groceries/household -$400.00
Spending money -$120.00
Barber ($80 every 5 weeks) -$40.00
AS student loan -$157.56
Cell phones (est) -$50.00
Extra spending money -$40.00
Hourcar (Chase Freedom) -$90.00

SHORTFALL -$576.45

Considering that AS has been tending to bring in a lot more than that every month, it's not too bad. The budget breakdown is WAY out of whack, of course, since we're carrying two mortgages and two sets of utilities:

CATEGORY AMOUNT % OF TAKE-HOME PAY
Mortgage/Utilities/Telecom $5,444.77 72.24%
Debt Repayment/Savings $182.56 2.42%
Spending/Entertainment/Travel $653.34 8.67%
Household/Groceries/Healthcare/Transportation $1,833.34 24.32%

TOTAL $8,114.01 107.65%

Sigh. I look forward to getting these numbers back in balance gradually over the course of the year!