Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

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!

All the mortgage payments hit:
US (condo): $493 to principal
US (duplex): $631
UK1: $219
UK2: $46
UK3: $48

All told, that's $1437 down, $113 to go on the January debt goal.

I weighed in on Jan. 1 to join PatientSaver's challenge. I'm right around 137. Could be better, could be worse. My goal weight is 127, and my birthday is March 2, so I figure I'll aim to lose 10 lbs. by then.

Last night I tried out my friend's elliptical that we recently got moved into the basement. I only did about 5 or 10 minutes; I'm pretty out of shape from being less active during my various holiday ailments. Still getting my energy back. But it was good to start the first day with some exercise. I'll try to do it again tonight.

AS is not seeking out work actively right now because she's been pretty busy; she worked most of the holiday days except the ones she was too sick to work. But even without seeking, she'll have at least a bit of work every week for the foreseeable future; two of her clients (my work and her old one) both have some ongoing/recurring assignments for her. And her other clients tend to offer jobs pretty regularly. She's got her tax and retirement for 2014 funded and is nearly done funding her first February paycheck replacement. I'm not sure if that's still how I'm going to handle things; we'll see what NT's and my paychecks look like Jan. 15 and that should let me know the minimum that AS needs to make each month. Anything extra I can set aside to help pay off the condo mortgage when the time comes.

The January goal is still to pay off the minimum amount of debt, so $1550.

We received our last paychecks of 2014. I'm hoping the next paychecks will show a net increase because of less flex spending being taken out, but we'll have to wait and see what it is exactly.

We ended 2013 with $244,516 of debt, having paid off $35,113. We ended this year at $675,788 in debt, so we effectively added $431,272 of debt.

I'm still waiting to state our 2015 goals until we have more clarity, but one thing that keeps coming to mind is that I'd like to end 2015 with less than $500K of debt.

AS's student loan payment hit, the last debt payment of the year. $141 went to principal, so that takes us to $1581 of debt paid this month.

On my "official" debt tally, we are now under $10K in student loan debt. However, we have another $4K loan that I'm not counting because we also have the money to pay it off. But chances are I'll use that money to either pay off the duplex seller or get out of the condo mortgage, so at that point the student loan will be added to the debt tally. So it's not very exciting to be under $10K on student loans on that spreadsheet; it's not real and probably won't last very long.

It's weird to go into 2015 without stated goals, but it's not because I have no direction. I have some pretty specific ideas of what I want to do, it's just that it's hard to predict how much progress I'll be able to make. Once a few more things shake out, I'll have a better sense. I'm still very optimistic about the future. We can definitely afford to keep paying all the bills and setting aside a bit of surplus money, and once the condo sells we'll be able to do a lot more than that.

Everyone is still sick here, but I'm still the least sick of everyone. I really got away with a milder form of whatever this is, at least I hope I don't get it worse later on.

Last night we chipped in with our tenants to buy the new season of Doctor Who on Amazon instant watch, so that's mainly what the grownups will be doing whenever the kids are asleep!

The whole CJ family is sick, so it's been a very low-key Xmas Eve. The kids were nearly better, so hopefully they'll be all the way mended for the gift-opening orgy tomorrow.

We spent $100 on each of them, but of course their many many grandparents went crazy, so they're going to have quite an exciting morning.

We have a big feast planned tomorrow, so I'm really hoping we have better appetites. We had a delicious meal downstairs at our friends' house; I could only manage one serving, and AS couldn't eat a bite. NT did eat but was in bed by 8:30pm. The girls only picked at their food and were so unbearable that we put them in bed at 7:15pm. They didn't fight it; I think they needed it.

I didn't have as much time, money or energy to really get super-involved in Xmas preparations this year, so I actually don't mind getting sick as much as I would on a typical year. I'm still getting time with my friends and family, and time off work. It's all good.

Oh! And my downstairs neighbors/tenants/friends gave me a rather extravagant Christmas present, to thank me for going through hell to get this home. They filled my nearly empty book nook with bookshelves from IKEA! I'm so excited, at least I would be if I had any energy. I'm going to love fixing it up and getting it just so; now that it doesn't look so bare I think I'm going to move a comfy chair in there and actually hang out in it sometimes.

Since everyone is reviewing 2014 and planning 2015, I thought I'd take a look back. Even though we completely threw out our initial plan for the year and went for a daring overreach to buy our dream home.

Here were the goals set for 2014 last December:

- pay off student loans ($12,196)
- cashflow NT's remaining tuition ($6,470)
- renovate US condo bathroom ($5,000)
- renovate UK condo (cashflowing $5400)
- slowly build moving fund (maybe only $50)
- start to rebuild EF after I use it for rest of UK renos (hopefully $4375 [$3475 UK rental + $900 US savings]) and medical EF (probably nothing in 2014)

What we achieved:
- Paid off only about $2000 of student loans; decided to stop paying extra so we could save faster for a home
- Cashflowed about $2000 of NT's tuition; the rest is sitting on a student loan. We have the cash to pay it off but will probably use that cash to get out of the condo and/or pay off part of the duplex seller loan
- renovated not only the bathroom but the rest of the condo, and paid for it all
- the UK reno got put off because our tenant renewed their lease; that's going to happen next year instead
- rather than building a moving fund, we used every scrap of US money we had to buy and move into the duplex
- we still have a decent EF (over $18K) but only because the UK renos haven't happened. They'll wipe out the EF and we'll need to rebuild in 2015

So, a real mixed bag. But, one goal that we weren't meant to achieve until next year or the year after was to buy a new home, so even though it knocked us for a loop, it's still a huge step forward for us.

I checked net worth at the end of 2013 compared with now, and we're at $12,904 higher. Not very much for a year's progress, unless you figure that I valued the duplex $27K less than we paid for it in our net worth, and also devalued the condo by $5K. So our other debt and retirement progress was good, even though I slowed our retirement contributions for the second half of 2014. 2015 should be much, much better in terms of net worth.

I'll only be able to post very general goals for 2015, initially. Once a few things get cleared up I should be able to refine and clarify them. But I'll try to post something before the end of the year.

I don't know why, but my June 1 post keeps attracting spam comments, week after week. I keep deleting them, but it's a pain. I would delete the post, but it has my before-and-after pics, so I'd like to keep it.

I wrote to Jeffrey and Nate on the forums and they never responded.

Grr...

He sent off his last final exam tonight (it was a take-home). And with that, the bachelor's degree is official!

Dazed and stunned and still trying to believe it's finished. Once it sinks in, it's going to feel amazing, knowing he doesn't have to start classes up again in January.

One more piece falling into place. He's also finally in serious talks about a raise in the new year. He's asked for $10K more; we'll see if they try to cheap out, but they really shouldn't. They can afford it, and he's that instrumental. So we'll see.

I have no more work this week, two days of work next week, and none the following week. It'll be nice to spend time at home.

We have an outrageously elaborate menu and grocery list this week. We were so far under budget last week that it probably won't cause us to go over, though. Looking forward to preparing exciting new dishes and sharing them with friends and family.

Xmas shopping is done, for the most part. AS has some more money to buy herself gifts, and we might get a pair of sneakers for the 2-year-old.

I'm just babbling. Still trying to process that NT has graduated!

NT got his bonus! He netted about $3400 on a $6K gross. A tiny bit went to 401(k) but the rest is tax withholding. of course it'll help us at tax time, but it always hurts a bit to see that much taken out!

We used $350 to tip our amazing daycare. The rest stays in the bank until we sell the condo.

On that front, still getting a showing or two a week. The two buyers who expressed vague interest before Thanksgiving haven't reappeared. We'll hang in at this price for a while longer since it would be very rough to lose any more than what we've planned for in a lump sum.

The main reason I don't want to go any lower is because we'll already be losing an estimated $27,700 if we sell for $5K below asking and cover half the buyer's closing costs. These two conditions seem to be standard for condos in our building, so we have to plan for them.

Besides having to come up with that lump sum, I'm also trying to scrape together $26,500 to pay off the secondary loan from the seller we bought the duplex from. That loan causes me more stress than almost anything in my life right now, and I want it gone at any cost. My broker said we might be able to roll it into a mortgage in March when we refinance, but what if we can't refinance? What if we can't refinance for that larger amount? Our credit scores are a lower than before due to all the activity and new debt, and with the condo still on our books, our debt-to-income ratio is really high. I don't want to wait another three months and then be disappointed.

So anyway, my goal is to come up with $54,200 so we can pay off the crazy seller and still have enough funding to take the loss on the condo when it sells.

So far I've accumulated money and credit by saving surplus amounts both large and small, by delaying payment on loans and holding that cash instead, and by signing up for a line of credit. Here's what I have so far:

Line of credit: $15,000.00 available to borrow
Reserve line: $5,500.00 available to borrow
Money owed to a friend that we can wait on: $80.00
Deposit into kids' Pax funds that can wait: $80.00
AS IRA contributions that can wait: $868.60
Deferred Roth IRA contributions: $3,600.00
Credit card balance (0% til Dec '15): $10,753.00
NT extra student loan: $4,470.73
Cash surplus: $6,248.72

So that's $46,601.05, or $7,598.95 short of where we need to be.

I'm not sure if/when we'll be able to borrow or save the additional funds. Selling the condo is our first priority, so I can't pay off the duplex seller until we have enough money to do both.

If we do sell the condo, I think we'll be able to come up with the other funds quickly: We'll have an extra $1700 per month from not paying condo mortgage & association dues, and I'll gladly carry balances on some of our lower-interest credit cards in order to gather enough funds to pay off the duplex seller.

Assuming we eventually get both things done, sell the condo and pay off the seller, we'll then have a bunch of debt to pay off and deferred retirement contributions to make up. My plan is to do it gradually over the next year or two using the money freed up by not carrying two mortgages and sets of utilities. If (and it seems like a big if at this point) we do get the WV land deal money in the spring, that would be enough to pay off the debts listed above and make up the retirement contributions.

So those are the "plans" I have; right now it's just a waiting and money-hoarding game while I wait for things to change.

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): $33,447
NT's Roth IRA: $7,167
AS's trad. IRA (V): $12,865
AS's trad. IRA (E): $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $19,243
CJ's 401(k): $75,334
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,167
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $140,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,028,197

Total Debt: $675,929

Current Estimated Net Worth: $352,268

November 2014 estimate: $363,981

Change in net worth: -$11,713

Summary: The market dipped down again and we lost about half the net worth we gained last month. Overall it's been a stagnant couple of months, then.

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.

...with a festive pic of my girls!



This was at a Christmas village thing happening in downtown. I wasn't going to take them because I'd heard it had an entrance fee and everything there cost money. But on Sunday, NT needed to finish a paper for school (his last one!), AS had to buckle down on a big freelance project, and it was 50 degrees out (very warm for MN in December). So I said to heck with it. I had no plans for my weekly spending money anyway.

It wasn't a great festival, but it had a merry-go-round, music and snacks, which is about all preschoolers need to have a fabulous time. I enjoyed seeing them so happy. I spent:

- $6 admission
- $10 on 3 rides on the carousel
- $3 on cider for the kids
- $1 to let the 4-year-old give to a street musician whose performance she was enjoying
- $14 on pizza and drinks at the Target cafe

NT gave me $10 of his spending money when I got back, I guess since I'd kept the kids out of their hair!

NT just introduced us to a sitcom from the '70s, The Good Life, and I'm hooked! It's about a couple who decides to leave the rat race and become completely self-sustaining. I thought it would quickly descend into lame jokes but each of the first four episodes has been packed with details about reusing, recycling, budgeting, bartering and backyard farming. And it's really charming and funny! Their next-door neighbors provide the counterpoint, but they mostly come off as materialistic and not really happy in their lives. Super interesting for members of this site, I'd say. Even though I'm not opposed to the "9 to 5" style of life, I love it.

AS was going to work 2 days at my job last week, but they needed her for four. It's going to make some other deadlines tough, but at least she made $640 more than expected! She's making real strides toward her next milestone; I'm going to have to make a new one soon, I think!

I splurged on two big purchases this past week. One was $105 on holiday cards, calendars and photos. It's for presents and cards to other people mainly; only some of the photos and one of the calendars are for me.

The other big splurge was on a Roomba! AS found a deal: $245 for one that's normally $100 more than that. I went ahead and took the plunge.

My plan for funding them is that my parents usually send us each $100 and some gift cards as well. If I use the gift cards for other budget line items I can repay these purchases.

If I don't get enough cash and gift cards from my parents, I'll gradually repay the remaining balance of these purchases with my own spending money.

They were big impulse buys, which I never feel all the way great about these days, but I'm still happy with both purchases and will pay them off without messing up other parts of the budget.

It's been a great December so far. We've been to a couple of holiday gatherings and have a few more planned, as well as a few people coming for dinner various nights. All relatively cheap outings except our anniversary dinner out this past Monday, which was $250 for the three of us but all paid for with plasma money and a couple random gift cards.

No news on the condo, but another showing this past weekend. At least people are still looking!

One more week of classes and then a couple of final exams, and NT is done with his BA!

Two more paychecks until we see the benefit of $4500 less in flex spending being taken out. It would be nice if NT got a raise in addition, since he's been promised several times, but we'll see.

We're hoping to see his annual bonus in his next paycheck; if not it'll be in the last one of the year. It'll be set aside for the time being to help us get out of the condo mortgage.

All those things will help make our finances easier, as will refinancing the duplex mortgage in March (if we can swing it). But the biggest relief to our budget will be selling the condo, even at a loss.

All the mortgage payments hit:
US condo: $492 to principal
US duplex: $630
UK1: $222
UK1: $46
UK3 $50
All told, that's $1440 down, $110 to go on the December debt goal.

AS is working at my job a few days this week. Also, she accepted a huge editing project for $1445. That means she's funded net pay and healthcare through January 2015! Her next goal is to fund retirement and taxes for the payments she's already received.

I hardly ever read news about sports figures, but

this one caught my eye for some reason. I didn't even know it would be about money, but it's incredibly interesting -- and will resonate with some of us who deal with relatives asking for more money than we're comfortable with.

The goal in December is once again to pay the minimum on debt--at least $1550.

That's because any extra money gets stashed at the bottom line in anticipation of taking a loss on our condo if we sell. I think I only managed to set aside about $250 extra this month, and some of that may go to a dental bill, and possibly a new suit for NT if we can find a good deal.

No news on the two bites and new showing, but it is the weekend after a holiday. Hoping we hear something in the coming week.

I completed NaNoWriMo! I finished writing my novel and made it to a little over 50,000 words at about 2 a.m. the morning of the 30th. So I had 22 whole hours to spare. AS finished hers later in the afternoon. It's a great exercise but we're SO glad to be done.

We all have tomorrow off to celebrate a milestone: 9 years of dating, and Tuesday marks 8 years of marriage. (But Monday worked out better to take the day off.) I've racked up $160 in plasma donating money on a prepaid card, and I also have a $25 Amex gift card from my work. We have a reservation at a nice restaurant and I'm perfectly happy to spend it all. We're also going to brunch in the morning (I can use my weekly spending money for that) and shopping during the day (we each have a Xmas budget we're allowed to spend on ourselves and the kids). It'll be a spendariffic day but all the money was carefully set aside, so I feel pretty good about it.

We have free babysitting from my friend whom I've been helping with budgeting. Our tenants/friends are giving us some free babysitting two other days this month. Three in one month--that's incredible! Since we don't have any money or time lately, we simply haven't been going out for fun this year. But one by one, the things that are causing time and money crunches are falling away, just by us being patient and waiting them out and being hypervigilant about our spending.

The biggest time-suck (besides AS's old job that she ditched) is NT's education, and he's done in three weeks (two more weeks of classes and one of tests--I know I keep repeating that, but we just cannot wait).

The biggest money issue is carrying the condo and association dues, and preparing to take a big loss when we do sell it. Once that biggie is out of the way, there are a few other things that will clear up our budget further: refinancing our main mortgage, NT getting a raise, less money toward flex spending and (later next year) daycare, AS possibly ramping up her freelance work.

But once NT has graduated and we sell the condo, things are going to be much rosier even without all the rest of that.

Just a quick check-in on a lazy day after Thanksgiving. AS's student loan payment hit with $137 going to principal.

That takes us to $1569, exceeding the goal of $1550.

Will set a new goal for December this weekend.

We have two people who have expressed interest in the condo and another showing tomorrow. Really hoping one of these turns into an offer.

I'm at 43,502 words on my NaNoWriMo novel (which explains why I've barely blogged for a while). I think I can get it done by the end of the month.

Three more weeks until NT finishes college!

That's the big news in a nutshell.

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): $33,536
NT's Roth IRA: $7,393
AS's trad. IRA (V): $13,240
AS's trad. IRA (E): $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $19,848
CJ's 401(k): $76,954
CJ's Roth IRA: $7,393
NT's flat: 140,000 pounds ($224,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $140,000
CJ/NT/AS house: $440,000
---
Total Assets: $1,031,338

Total Debt: $667,357

Current Estimated Net Worth: $363,981

October 2014 estimate: $339,481

Change in net worth: +$24,500

Summary: The market turned upward again and we reversed the losses of last month plus added some value. One of NT's UK accounts sent a statement which boosted its value, and his company gave some bonus 401(k) money as well. All in all, a great month for net worth!

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.

She booked three separate jobs with different places today, to the tune of $1550! One of them will take her a long time, and one is in-house work for my job that doesn't take place until December. But still! This takes her so close to her goal of funding healthcare and replacing net pay from her old job through the end of January. Just $909.94 to go on that goal.

After that we'll start on funding her federal and state tax prepayments. I'd like to have those sorted out by early January so we can send in an early payment. Next we'll start on retirement. Then it'll just be a case of funding each month's net pay, taxes and retirement, starting with February.

Once we sell the condo, her pay will just be gravy. We'll use it to fix up the house, go on vacations and plump up our depleted emergency fund. But for now it's very much necessary to keep everything going, so I'm really grateful to have the peace of mind of so many paychecks accounted for in advance.

I'm at 14,065 words on NaNoWriMo. I don't think I'll get much done tonight because I'm exhausted, so that means I'll be about a day and a half behind going into tomorrow. Not too bad; I could make that up on a good day.

I had insomnia randomly last night. Didn't feel scared or stressed, so I'm not sure what it was about. I finally got out of bed and did some work before going in so I could leave early. It snowed about 6 inches today so all the buses were going slow, but it only took me 15 minutes longer than usual to get in.

After work I gave plasma for the second time. The first time was Friday (I had the day off) and it took about 4 hours as they did all the training and testing. This time it was more like an hour and a half. Not too shabby for $40! I get $40 the first four times; after that it goes down to $20 the first time in a week and $22 the second. I don't know if I'll do it when it's that little; I guess we'll see how my finances look then. I'm relieved that except for the waiting, it's easy and relatively painless.

They put it on a prepaid card and there are all these different fees, so I have to be careful to use it in a way that doesn't eat up the money. So now I have $80 on the card. I intend to earn as much plasma money as possible and use it for our anniversary Dec. 1.

We had two more agent previews followed by showings by those agents. Good ratings but no interest. At least I know agents are looking at the condo and deciding it's good enough to show.

AS got some more work and is partly into funding her January paychecks. Woo hoo!

I took SL for a mom-daughter date Sunday, since I've had so many one-on-one times with AA lately. SL is two so she doesn't need much to keep her entertained. We went to a local global shopping center. I spent $3 on candy for her (and a little bit for her to give her big sister later) and $2 on coffee for me. We wandered around and then hung out at the indoor play area.

I decided against a cooking class with my friends, which would have been $69 just for me. I'm still deciding on a play some acquaintances are putting on; it's one of my favorite plays I read in college, but I also have the anniversary to think about and just wanting to have some money left over for little things.

I will be glad when I can be looser with money, but I have to say that I'm enjoying finding free or cheap ways to enjoy myself. And my family is making me proud; they promised they'd make sacrifices if we could move into the new home earlier, and they've stuck to it with virtually no complaints.

That said, one of my favorite free activities is fantasizing about things I'll be able to afford again one day!

I'm at 6,017 words in NaNoWriMo. A bit behind, but at least I'm making progress. And it's all been in the after-kids'-bedtime hours, when my brain is the most tired and slow. I'm going to try and write 2000-4000 words tonight. We'll see how it goes.

I have this Friday off so I'll try to get some writing done in the daytime. I'm also going to the plasma place to see if I qualify. (My blood can be a bit low in iron at times so I bet it's a possible disqualifier.) If I do get to give, I can try to write some while it's happening.

My payment to the crazy seller was taken out of the checking account on the 4th! First time it's made it by the 5th, which is technically the grace period. Well, the first payment did, but he didn't know it was my payment so he thought I was late that first month. I'm just so relieved I don't have to email that unpleasant person this month. I have December's payment schedule to reach him Nov. 25, so hopefully it'll get to him by the 1st. AS says the mail carrier must hate him for his mail to be late all the time like that!

We had an agent preview the condo yesterday and that same guy scheduled a showing for this evening. At this point it's hard to get excited about showings, but this is the first non-agent one in two weeks, so I am a little hopeful.

NT has only 6 more weeks of college! 5 weeks of classes and then a week of finals.

I guess that's about it! Still holding steady on not spending, unless it's out of a fixed budget line such as groceries. We cook dinner every night, I bring in breakfast and lunch to work every day, barely go on any dates or to anything that's not free. Don't buy anything I don't absolutely need. I have four pairs of work pants and about six sweaters and I just cycle through them every week for work clothes. Every bit of extra money gets socked down to the bottom line to help minimize the loss when we sell the condo. I've got nearly $4000 saved so far. Holding the line now will help us recover faster and more strongly when the budget allows us to.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US condo: $491
US duplex:$628
UK1: $218
UK2: $47
UK3: $48

Takes us to $1432 down, $118 to go for the month of November!

Today we had a playdate/party that AA has wanted to throw for a long time. About six kids and six adults came. We had it in the morning so kids could nap afterward; afternoon/evening parties tend to cause meltdowns in preschool kids, we've found.

We served breakfast-y food: fruit, mini-pancakes, waffle sticks and banana bread. Juice and water for the kids, coffee for adults. Probably spent $5 more on groceries than we normally do. We bought $3 worth of party favors: a bag of superballs and a bag of toy ponies.

The party was princess- and pony-themed, so the night before I cut some construction paper into crown shapes, and let each kid decorate a crown with stickers before custom-taping it to fit their heads. NT found some coloring-book pages online and printed those out for kids to color.

I found a My Little Pony album and other kid-friendly playlists on Spotify.

It was great! For less than $10 we had a festive and fun party. It's so much better entertaining kids in the new home, because the intensity is spread out over several rooms and floors instead of all being in one or two rooms.

I stayed up late last night writing the first scene of my NaNoWriMo novel. Got 1679 words done, which is a bit more than 1/30th, so a good pace. It was slow getting started but hopefully will be easier now that I've described and introduced the main characters.

My dad emailed that a guy he lets hunt on his land in WV saw plastic markers in a line across the land, so maybe indicating where the pipeline would go. Not sure if that's progress or if that's been up for a while.

Not much else to report. Lots to look forward to over the next couple months, though! This month there's NaNoWriMo, a comedy show we've already paid for, a daycare sleepover for the kids, lots of days off for me, first Thanksgiving in the new home. December is our wedding anniversary, more days off, several holiday parties, NT's graduation from college, and Xmas and New Year's Eve. Fun fun fun!

We are still in the mode of minimum debt payments, so the November goal is the same as October: to pay at least $1550 of debt.

Other than that, no big news. NT's mini-bonus came in a couple hundred dollars more than I budgeted for, so that felt like another snowflake. Also, the CSA is splitting their shares into three seasons now. We're going to opt for the summer only, which is slightly shorter and slightly cheaper than this year's. Since that was already in the budget, I entered the lower number and counted the money saved as a snowflake. We now have nearly $4000 in the budget to help with selling the condo; it's just a drop in the bucket, but a much bigger drop than before, so I'm feeling more comfortable.

I booked my days off work and realized I'm only working 16 days in November (at least 2 of them from home and probable half days) and 14 in December! I may try and give plasma on my first day off, which is next Friday. We'll see if I can; sometimes I have low iron and I'm not sure if that will be a factor.

Halloween was so much fun and I only spent about $20. $10 of that was for a costume AA ended up not wanting to wear; she wore a fairy outfit from her play clothes. So Halloween COULD have been $10! Oh well, lesson learned. Our street is great for trick-or-treaters; we actually ran out of candy but the girls were back from their run, so I used some of the candy they'd collected to hand out to the remaining kids that came by.

AS is still doing great with her freelance work. She's almost done funding December. Once she finishes January, I'll go back and fill in money for taxes and retirement. Though I may put off the retirement contributions and use that money to help get out of the condo.

Speaking of that, the agent preview was just a realtor checking out the competition. At least he said our unit was better than the one he's selling, and we're priced $4K lower. No new showings though. I think slowdown is normal as fall turns to winter.

Yesterday I confirmed that my dental implant bill came in about $500 less than projected, leaving $500 in flex spending money. I could roll it over but chose to hunt around and submit some receipts, since we need the money more urgently now than we probably will next year.

Also, NT emailed me a letter from his company leadership announcing a surprise mini-bonus of $750 that will come with his Oct. 31 paycheck!

So, even assuming we only net 50% of the bonus, that's $875 minimum in found money. I'm setting it aside to help deal with condo sale if/when it happens.

Speaking of, we have an agent previewing the place tomorrow. I'm relieved since it's the first showing in probably over a week.

AS's student loan hit, with $141 going to principal. That takes us to $1565 paid this month, exceeding the $1500 goal.

I shall set up a November goal later this week.