Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

A big extra debt payment hit NT's student loan, and $1028 went to principal. That makes it $1781 down, $1294 to go on the May debt goal.

I didn't count on such a big payment since we're also paying for NT's summer semester this month. But we found that stroller and sold it for $500+, and we got a freelance check and put $500 of that to debt.

I will send off the tuition payment before we leave for England, so we'll hit our debt goal and then some. (Cashflowing tuition burns off "estimated future debt" from our total.)

This also brings our big-picture progress to $15,931.02!

Well, it's officially one week until we leave for England for two weeks! We decided to use up as much food we already have and buy as little as possible. This is one of those three-week grocery periods, so we ran out of grocery money. So it's especially fortuitous.

Here's our grocery list! It's less than a quarter as long as usual:

4 baking potatoes
whole milk
vegetarian burger crumbles
4 apples
2% milk
bread
4 ears corn
EB sticks (butter)
4 zucchini
3/4 cup walnuts
strawberries
salt
mangoes
parsley
cherry tomatoes
garlic powder
baby bellas
parmesan
macaroni
Florida Crystals

And our menu:

Friday dinner
spaghetti w/spinach-tomato sauce; garlic bread

Saturday lunch
Baked potatoes & "waldorf" salad (apples, lettuce, walnuts)

Saturday dinner
Veggie burgers, baked beans & corn on the cob

Sunday lunch
Mother's Day brunch out

Sunday dinner
Mac & cheese & cross-hatch zucchini

Monday
Sloppy joes, fries & strawberry-mango salad

Tuesday
Grilled cheese sandwiches, chix nuggets & cherry tomatoes

Wednesday
Easy pasta & sauce w/baby bellas

Thursday
eat at airport

Nice! This means we can probably bring at least $300 of grocery money to England to help pay for food there, without disrupting our regular grocery budget.

Whew! I went through a bunch of different sites to try and find affordable gift delivery, but every time, all the wire fees and shipping and handling and delivery charges would bring a $30 bouquet or gift to almost $60!

Finally I rooted around for a florist in my mom's area. They still do the Teleflora orders thing; clearly every florist available online is in on the whole nationwide network thing, but they had a local delivery charge of $8. Add in $1.50 tax, and I saved over $20 over the other sites.

The only other catch? I couldn't choose delivery before or on Mother's Day. *shrug* so I picked Monday. My mom is not going to be hurt if she gets her flowers a day late! It's just a day picked at random anyway, right?

This is why I usually get my parents DVDs or books for these holidays, or send them pics of the kids. But I didn't have any ideas this year and knew I had to get my order in soon or risk being way late, so I went the sucker's route.

All the mortgage payments hit:
US: $443 to principal
UK1: $216
UK2: $45
UK3: $48

All told, $753 down, $2322 to go on the May debt-repayment goal.

I also transferred flat rental profit, US$496, into savings for the house fund, and noted $1.98 of interest, bringing that fund to $4,544.48, and our big-picture progress to $14,903.02.

We emptied the girls' piggybank yesterday and I moved some funds around (on my spreadsheets) so UK money is allocated for our trip and US money that had been for the trip is allocated to savings. That means the girls have more funds in US accounts, so I added to AA's mutual fund and opened one for SL.

Just checked NT's college tuition bill, and it's $2,039.06. Should have enough to cashflow summer class AND pay a bit extra toward his existing student loans.

Looking like a good month! Plus, the second half of it will be all vacation.

April was a good month; our debt goal was $2500 and we paid down $2607. Our big-picture benchmark was $8916; we started the month already way ahead of that goal and ended it even farther ahead, at $14,405.04.

For May, we've got that $500 from the Craigslist sale plus our regular budget surplus, which is good because NT's tuition bill for the summer semester has arrived. I don't believe we have to pay it until June, but might as well if we've got extra money this month! Since it will reduce our "estimated future debt," we can still count it toward debt repayment as well as big-picture progress.

So the May debt repayment goal is to pay at least $3075 of debt, and the May big-picture benchmark is $11,145 (so we're already past it!).

This will be quick, but I have a lot to say (and ask!):

First, yesterday in front of the "free table" where residents of our condo leave unwanted possessions for anyone else to take and do with what they please, a neighbor had left a disassembled (but in perfect condition) double Chariot stroller, the kind that cost us (with accessories) $1100 new!

NT grabbed it, assembled it to see what was there, and listed it on Craigslist. A lady is coming by tonight to likely buy it for $535!

We had a few other Craigslist items that might sell tonight too. NT suggested giving part of the proceeds to charity, since it was so random. So whatever we make over $500 from this batch of items, we'll donate somewhere. $500 will go to student loans. Yay!

***

I watched a Frontline documentary on PBS about 401(k)s. The two main takeaways were that 1) actively managed funds are useless compared with index funds and 2) 401(k) fees can erode up to 60% of your potential compound growth over the course of your career!

I immediately went to my 401(k) and got out of the target-date fund I was in, and reallocated everything to three of the lowest-fee funds: two Vanguard indexes and an international stocks fund (higher cost than the Vanguards, but lower cost than the international fund my target-date had me in).

I suggest you look at the costs of your retirement funds, if you haven't already. The spread was staggering. In some cases I was paying $12 per $1000 annually; one of the Vanguards I picked will cost me 50 cents per $1000!

***

This leads me to a question: I checked NT's 401(k) options, and they aren't great. We do want to stay in up to the employer match, but I'm not sure what to do. Should I just pick some of the lower-cost ones, even if it means he's not greatly diversified in terms of risk? Keep in mind we also have my 401(k), AS's 401(k), three Roth IRAs, three pensions in the UK, and a small traditional IRA that's in cash. So I do feel we're diversified overall.

What do you think we should do? Here are NT's options along with their costs (I'll paste plain-text and create a screen grab too; not sure which will be more readable):



What I'm considering is dividing his money pretty much evenly between MFS Massacuhusetts Investors Trust (gross operating expense .78), Franklin Growth Series Fund (GOE .96), Victory Established Value Fund (GOE 1.06), JPMorgan Government Bond Fund (GOE 1.04), PIMCO Total Return Fund (GOE .85), and BlackRock Equity Dividend (GOE .99). Those are the least expensive of all his choices (besides the first listing, which I found out was a cash holding earning 0% while they charged us $6.90 per $1000 per year!) He doesn't have a lot of great options. My company at least had a couple Vanguards, one whose expense was only .05.

Investment /
Fund Investment Class / Historical as of Date / Ticker / NAV / Gross Operating Expense / One Month / Three Month / One Year / Three Year / Five Year / Ten Year / YTD / Month End
Ready Assets(7dayYield:0.00%) Capital Preservation 03/31/2013 MRAXX $1.00 0.69 N/A N/A N/A N/A 0.39% 1.58% N/A
MFS Massachusetts Investors Trust Fund A Large Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 MITTX $23.72 0.78 2.95% 10.43% 15.12% 11.24% 5.78% 8.98% 10.43%
Franklin Growth Series Fund A Large Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 FKGRX $54.64 0.96 3.04% 7.96% 8.66% 10.01% 6.91% 9.81% 7.96%
Victory Established Value Fund A Mid Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 VETAX $31.11 1.06 3.74% 13.25% 15.86% 13.19% 9.44% 12.71% 13.25%
Goldman Sachs Growth Opp A Mid Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 GGOAX $25.00 1.41 2.42% 9.12% 11.17% 12.18% 8.83% 11.41% 9.12%
Goldman Sachs Small Cap Value A Small Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 GSSMX $47.61 1.44 4.68% 12.53% 17.28% 14.76% 9.73% 11.94% 12.53%
Prudential Jennison Small Company Fund A Small Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 PGOAX $24.95 1.17 3.83% 11.28% 13.59% 12.88% 7.78% 13.07% 11.28%
Thornburg International Value Fund R4 International Stock 03/31/2013 THVRX $27.97 1.45 0.35% 2.41% 6.37% 4.63% -0.01% 11.86% 2.41%
Templeton Foreign Fund A International Stock 03/31/2013 TEMFX $6.95 1.21 -0.57% 1.16% 6.77% 4.39% 0.89% 9.26% 1.16%
Invesco Real Estate Fund A Specialty U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 IARAX $25.94 1.30 3.20% 6.54% 12.94% 15.13% 5.77% 12.71% 6.54%
Oppenheimer Developing Markets Fund A International Stock 03/31/2013 ODMAX $35.33 1.36 -0.79% 0.11% 5.35% 6.94% 5.72% 21.03% 0.11%
JPMorgan Government Bond Fund A Government Bond 03/31/2013 OGGAX $11.57 1.04 0.29% 0.05% 3.78% 6.27% 5.55% 5.01% 0.05%
PIMCO Total Return Fund A Diversified Bond 03/31/2013 PTTAX $11.24 0.85 0.30% 0.51% 7.50% 6.49% 7.31% 6.19% 0.51%
BlackRock Global Allocation Fund A Balanced 03/31/2013 MDLOX $20.58 1.16 1.63% 4.26% 6.11% 6.08% 3.60% 10.74% 4.26%
BlackRock Eqty Dividend A Large Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 MDDVX $21.55 0.99 2.81% 8.35% 12.29% 11.84% 5.00% 10.47% 8.35%
Putnam Capital Opportunities Fund A Small Cap U.S. Stock 03/31/2013 PCOAX $14.07 1.27 3.76% 11.84% 10.40% 12.45% 9.89% 11.30% 11.84%

I'm home alone with the kids and just finished up a fun movie night with the older one. Spring has finally sprung in Minnesota and everyone's in a fabulous mood, including me.

I checked AS's student loan and the payment had hit, with $129 going to principal. That takes us to $2607 of debt paid in April, surpassing the $2500 goal. Woo hoo! (That loan, by the way, is now at $10,043. By this time next month, AS's non-mortgage debt in her name will be down to 4 figures.)

The payment also counts toward our big-picture goal, so that takes April progress to $14405.04. Even more way ahead of where we need to be. Which is a good place to be!

On to other musings:

We actually had a bit of money left in the grocery budget from the last two-week period, which is good since this budget has to last us three weeks (happens a couple times a year). We may spend a bit more than a third of what we have (still have a couple things to pick up tomorrow), but even if we come close I'm happy. For the last two weeks in May we'll be on vacation, so we can use vacation money for food, but if we're on track we can add some grocery money to our vacation budget, so that's why I'm trying to stay vigilant.

Just used Amazon instant video via our Wii game to rent a movie last week. It was pretty slick: $3.99 and you have it for 24 hours. I remember when I had video-store memberships, it was about $3 for a new release and you had to walk/drive/bus to a store, so this seems like a good deal. Many movies we want to watch are available on Netflix, but this expands our options.

I forgot to mention when it happened, but a few days after April 15 (US tax day), the forms for NT's UK taxes arrived. (How I wish I knew that eye-roll emoticon right now!) It's not due until early October, but still. STILL. I know I'll probably be doing two sets of taxes my whole life, so I'd better just get used to it.

I've been having a lot of fun planning mini-vacations for after we get back from England. It'll be nice to have other things to look forward to, though obviously not as momentous as our big two-week trip. Since we're using so much vacation time early in the year, we agreed we wouldn't do any other long vacations this year, so that actually frees up travel budget funds for a series of little fun things. Besides that, I asked my dad for Xmas if he'd give me some money to help us get to the family reunion, and instead he gave me a voucher to pay for the whole trip. I booked plane & hotel & car for $1262 for the four of us who can make it. I told my dad it was $1200. We'll pay for gas, food and any other transportation needed, because he offered WAY more than I asked for.

So we've booked thus far:
-May 16-June 1: Trip to England (Exeter, Oxford and possibly a couple day trips to London and some smaller towns)
-June 14-16: "Strawberry Social" at our CSA farm, plus whatever other fun we can find that weekend in Southern Minnesota
-June 24: Spa day in town while we send the kids to daycare
-July 15-16: Family reunion in Ohio

Other things we have our eye on so far:
-"Braham Pie Day" (a small-town MN festival) Aug. 2
-Dinner at the restaurant down the block, which is a fantastic gourmet place we've only eaten at once (a friend's wedding reception so we didn't have to pay)
-A hotel night where we get someone to stay overnight at our home with the kids

I'm sure we'll come up with other ideas. Should actually be a lot of fun to spread our travel budget over a lot of little indulgences vs. 1 or 2 big vacations.

Speaking of the UK trip, I have to do some fancy mental financial calculations soon. So we saved up the spending money for the trip in our US checking account, but we're planning on using NT's UK credit card, which is linked to his UK checking/savings account, to actually make purchases over there (to make sure we avoid any harsh transaction fees).

We have more than enough money to cover our vacation budget in UK savings, but it's all allocated to various things: the emergency fund, the house/moving fund and the girls' savings.

So I just have to decide how to reallocate UK and US money in a way that benefits us the most. The girls' money is the easy decision; if it's in US dollars I can use it to open/enlarge mutual funds. The house/moving fund, too. But we'll also need to use part of the EF money too. Currently I have US$5000 in our US savings and 6250 pounds (US$10000) in the UK account. I like those round numbers, and I like having two-thirds of the money in a harder-to-reach place. So I may continue to shuffle money after the trip to get the UK portion of the EF back to $10000. Like I say, it'll just take some fancy financial footwork and possibly a minor migraine to figure everything out on my spreadsheets.

I'll probably do the first part of the calculation May 1, when the last UK mortgage payments before the trip happen. Then I can see exactly how much we have in the UK accounts.

While we're in England, I'm thinking we should take advantage of the opportunity and meet with an immigration-focused lawyer, to get someone's take on what our real chances, and biggest obstacles, are. If so I'll take that money out of our regular budget surplus, not the travel budget. It would slow our big-picture progress, but in the long run could help us focus our efforts and maybe save us mental effort, time AND money. We'll see if I can get it together to schedule something.

Another related expense we'll have to take on eventually is getting the girls British passports. While there's no official dual-citizenship status that one can seek, Americans with a British parent are allowed to obtain a second passport, which we see as a helpful foothold should we ever move (or should the girls want to live there someday whether or not we do).

Listed a few things on Craigslist today, things that have been hanging around for a while: a rusty bike with a broken wheel (NT bought a new-to-him bike and gave me his old one, so I can ditch this one), a supportive device for babies for the Chariot stroller brand, a Bumbo infant seat, an Apple Airport device, an armchair we have no room for in our living room, and a baby monitor. If we get no nibbles on these, I'm happy to Freecycle them instead, but thought it was worth the 15 minutes of effort photographing and posting them to maybe make a few bucks. I did get a $25 offer for the Airport but am waiting until tomorrow to see if I get an offer closer to the $40 we're asking. If not, I'll try to bargain this guy up to $30.

AS made a fast $45 working a couple hours on a freelance editing project for a co-worker of mine. The lady also took me out to lunch and AS out to coffee, so it seems like she's nurturing a longer-term relationship to maybe use us for editing off and on. This could be a good source of lower-paying but faster and shorter jobs (as opposed to the grueling book-length freelance projects AS gets that pay well but really drain her energy and our together time).

OK, I think that's it. May make it an early night, since all I'm doing besides blogging is snacking and watching TV.

Let's see how many I can think of before I get too sleepy...

We had a hard week on our spending money finances last week, so we decided to divvy up the last $300 of our tax refund, just to give our pockets a boost. We had it set aside for computer repair, but that ended up being very inexpensive. Now I feel like a millionaire! I've been letting loose a tiny bit more, but I haven't blown it all, so maybe there is hope that I'm conditioning myself to not be a spender.

Still waiting for several AS freelance checks; I've kind of lost count. But, they'll come eventually. Still waiting for one more $100 credit card bonus too. That should hit this week and I'll be able to order a check. After our vacation I'm going to cancel a ton. Then we'll see if there are any good new deals or if we should just take it easy for a while. Oh! And I got my first $5 Amazon credit for Swagbucks. Only took me a year or so.

One of my co-workers asked if I knew any great copy editors, so of course I recommended AS. I figured whatever side projects she had, they wouldn't be entire books like the grueling freelance projects AS usually takes. She already gave her one assignment, a few hours' work at $30 per hour. And, she and I are having lunch tomorrow to talk about some possible projects for me, too! I wouldn't mind having some little one-offs to raise a bit of money for our goals. Even though we're ahead of where we need to be for our original timeline, it wouldn't hurt to still attack it and try to get even further.

AS and I both, concurrently but over separate things, had a bit of a freakout yesterday about staying in the condo for 3+ more years. For me, it's our younger kid's propensity to dump out every shelf, toybox and drawer she can get her hands on, so our small space is constantly cluttered no matter how much we tidy. (I decided to start leading her through the motions of cleaning and will try to do that frequently, so she starts to get the hang of it.)

For AS it's the fact that we've gotten one or two noise complaints from the neighbors below us. We think it's from the kids dropping things on the floor. This condo sells you on the pretty parquet wood floors, then you read the association rules which say you have to cover at least 75% of it with carpet. Well, we haven't done that, but between furniture and area rugs probably 50-60% is covered. Still, the girls find ways to drop and drag noisy things all the time. We haven't had a noise complaint in a few months, but we still wince every time anything happens. It tends to make one feel very closed-in and helpless in one's own home.

The weather is not helping (it's been snowing since 3pm today). Nor is the cat, who wakes us up early each morning scrabbling at the doorknob to get in, then tromping on our heads purring thunderously if we do let him in. Nor are the kids, who both require near-constant supervision and/or interaction when we are home. Nor is the fact we haven't had a proper vacation together since January 2012.

So we talked about ways to cut down on toys so SL has fewer things to dump out, and cut down on furniture so it doesn't feel as crowded in here. Take more of kids' stuff into their room so the common spaces don't feel dominated by them. But of course these are just Band-Aids for the bigger problem. Lipstick on a pig, as I put it to AS this morning. I know that, but if we really want to move and be happy, we need to A) make sure we've given it our best shot to get to England before we resign ourselves to Minnesota and B) save up money and let our properties appreciate as much as possible so we don't fall way back financially, and so we can afford to get a place we want to stay in for a long time, if not forever, whichever country we end up settling in.

So, we're going to try and spring-clean and make little improvements to make this place more livable, and we're going to try and get out more so we don't feel stuck in here. But mainly we just need to stick to the plan as long as possible so we're in a good position and not moving out of desperation.

Actually, letting our feelings kind of overwhelm us for a couple hours actually burned them off a bit. We both feel a bit calmer. We have a lot to look forward to, but we have a little bit of work to do to bring some equilibrium back into our present-day lives. It needs recalibrating every once in a while, a pattern some of you have no doubt detected on my blog over the years.

To end on a cheerier note after that vent, two friends posted on my League of Ordinary Savers page on Facebook to say that they had upped their retirement contributions several points because of me! That was so very gratifying. No matter what else happens with that project/hobby/whatever, I've actually improved some friends' futures!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($22,214)
#2: 17,268 pounds ($27,629)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($5,934)
NT's 401(k): $22,601
NT's Roth IRA: $5,278
AS's 401(k): $9,178
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $11,483
CJ's 401(k): $52,309
CJ's Roth IRA: $5,278
NT's flat: 125,000 pounds ($200,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $145,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $15,000
House down payment/moving fund (shared): $4,047
---
Total Assets: $527,633

Total Debt: $264,430

Current Estimated Net Worth: $263,203

March 2013 estimate: $259,884

Change in net worth: +$3,319

Summary: Retirement funds stagnated; most increased less than the amount we contributed, or actually lost value. However, a good amount of debt payment still gave us a decent increase in net worth.

I will update my "Individual Net Worth" page shortly so you can see how it breaks out per 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.

Well, that student loan payment hit. Watching the news about Boston I'm not feeling much like celebrating, but I want to log the progress anyway.

$1731 went to principal. Since it all went to the highest-interest portion of the debt, it brings the average interest rate to 4.27%. Still our highest-interest debt, but not by much. (The next-highest is actually our mortgage, at 3.5%; I just checked our other student loan that has a variable rate, and it has decreased from 3.8% to 3.3%.)

That takes our April debt progress to $2478, just $22 to go.

Big-picture progress is at 14,276.04.

If I can keep putting at least $1700 per month to that student loan and/or tuition for NT's classes, I should be able to pay off this loan and cashflow tuition (so not incur any more debt) for the rest of the year.

Still haven't had my official annual review with my boss, but the 2% raise hit the checking account, so I'm happy. Looks like I'll net $60 instead of my guess of $40 per month! It's going straight to extra student loan payment for a while, then eventually to saving for a house.

We had a miniscule amount of big-picture progress; $0.26 of interest earned in the regular savings account, which I'll put toward the medical EF (taking it to $1,487.61). It reminded me to check our house-fund savings account and we earned $2.04 of interest in there, which will go to the house fund (making it $4,046.50). That brings our big-picture progress to $12,545.04.

Had my second "League of Ordinary Savers" meeting on Sunday. A few people canceled so it was just three good friends, which was super fun. We mostly talked about "All Your Worth," the great personal finance book by Elizabeth Warren and her daughter. One of the main premises of the book is trying to achieve that 50/30/20 budget balance, so we talked a lot about all the categories, how to calculate them, how to get them in balance and where to put your money once you were ready to really focus on saving for retirement.

That evening AS and I watched a documentary about the explosion of the consumer debt problem, called "Maxed Out." Even though our family is out of consumer debt, hopefully for good, it was very chilling. Elizabeth Warren was in it a lot; I love that she's had a very consistent career of trying to stick up for the little guy against big financial institutions and crooked politicians. Anyway, watching the documentary made me really hope that my new group/blog/Facebook page will actually make a difference in a couple of people's lives.

We spent a bit more on groceries this weekend than I wanted, but we feel good about our chances of getting back on track next week. There are some very good sales on produce coming up, and we have some staples that we can eat through to make our list shorter. I don't think we'll be dipping into the next two weeks' grocery money.

AA had her very first completely dry diaper overnight this weekend! She seems to be naturally training herself out of going in the middle of the night. So someday soon maybe we won't have to buy pull-ups anymore.

This weekend I had several unexpected drains on my personal spending money. First, we were supposed to have a babysitter Saturday but she flaked. But we all paid in anyway, because we'd bought her tickets to a show that she was supposed to pay back with babysitting. We decided she's so flaky we'd just pay in the money for the tickets into the checking account anyway, and never ask her to babysit again. Then, AS and I went to a party and missed the bus on the way home, so we split the cost of a cab. I had the munchies when I got home, so I ordered late-night delivery. And, our daycare lady had a health scare this weekend, so we decided to pitch in $20 each and get her a food-delivery gift certificate.

Despite all that, I still have about $50! I have a dinner and drinks date with friends and potentially a lunch date with some other friends this week, so I think the $50 will just about cover it. Cutting it close, though. I'm so glad I barely spent any money the week before, which is why I had so much available for these unexpected purchases.

I sent off a nice big payment to NT's student loan Friday, but it hasn't hit yet. It's come out of our checking account, so I think it'll hit tonight; that's the pattern this account has followed lately.

One of SL's first-birthday presents was a $50 Target gift card. Well, she literally wants for nothing; she has more clothes and toys than we know what to do with. So we used the gift card for groceries and I put $50 of grocery money into savings for her. She's at $480 in her U.S. savings, almost enough to start a Pax mutual fund. I should empty their piggy bank so I can get that started for SL.

Wow, this month has been dead in terms of financial news and progress! But last night, we got a $101.54 check in the mail from American Express. It wasn't for our currently open Amex card and I couldn't think of anything it was for, so I called them to make sure it wasn't a scam. (Not sure what scam it could be, but always assuming someone has figured out a way to outsmart me!)

They confirmed it was a legit check, because a clinic NT went to had refunded some money to a paid off (and closed) credit card. We remembered he disputed a medical charge because it was supposed to be covered by workman's comp, but we thought the clinic had already paid us directly? Dunno, but we'll take it anyway! I'm putting it into the medical EF, so that's our first big-picture progress for April, and it takes us to $12,542.74 of progress. Takes the medical EF to $1,487.35.

Other than that, really not much happening! AS switched us back to Comcast for internet, and I have yet to find out what the monthly cost will be. She got some kind of intro deal that's temporary. Anyway, she's using $500 of freelance money to cover however much more it is than our budgeted amount, and when the $500 runs out, we'll talk about whether to cut back, fund it in our regular budget, or fund it with our spending money. The $500 may cover it for quite a while.

AS turned down a $1000 freelance job. It was hard for her, but I'm glad she gets to relax a bit more. She still brings work home, but at least she doesn't do that on top of freelancing at night.

The 15th should be exciting, because I get to send a big student loan payment, plus I may see how much my raise nets out to. But until then (and after that), probably a pretty boring month financially. I think AS is expecting three more freelance checks, but I'm never sure when they're going to come, so I don't count on them.

This Sunday I'm hosting another meeting of the "League of Ordinary Savers" group I started. It may just be me and two good friends, which would be kind of nice so I don't mind. We'll be discussing the book "All Your Worth," among other things. I've also tried to keep up with my ordinarysavers.com website and corresponding Facebook page; I've been doing about a post per week. I don't have a huge audience or many responses, but I'm having fun with it and that's the main thing!

Grocery budget is under control, spending money is back in balance, and we've been good about not using the carshare this month to try and get that line item caught up.

The main project I work on at my job just got renewed for another year, so I'm feeling good about job security.

My friend was happy about my publicizing his Facebook reading page Short Story Short. Not sure if I drummed up enough support to win one of the gift cards; I think his contest runs until the end of the month. Still time for you to "like" his page and tell him ceejay sent you!

Seriously, I think that's it for my financial news! I've been sick for the past few weeks, so just as well it's been a slow period. I think I'm finally getting better but I hesitate to say that because every time I have, I get sick again! I think I'm in one of those vicious circles where my body is more vulnerable from being sick, so I get sick again, and my body gets more and more susceptible as I get all these little illnesses. Hopefully it'll peter out soon. I've been trying to eat a lot of fruit to try and get more vitamin C.

OK, I'm done meandering.

Completely off-topic financially. Well, not completely, but mostly.

My friend asked his buddies to drum up support for his Facebook page,

Short Story Short. It's basically a site that gives weekly novella and short-story collection reading recommendations. He's trying to get more followers, so he's running a contest.

The person who gets the most people to "like" his page AND say who sent them wins a $500 Amazon gift card! There are also smaller 2nd and 3rd place prizes. The details are on the Facebook page.

So, if you want to support me in my attempt to win one of the prizes, "like" Short Story Short and tell them ceejay sent you. (I told him that's my blogger handle so I'd get credit for those referrals. ) Or, if you have a bunch of Facebook friends who would be interested in the page, you can compete yourself. Just make sure your friends say who recommended them when they join, so my friend can keep score.

OK, I've done my friend duty.

The mortgage payments all hit:
US: $441 to principal
UK1: $213
UK2: $46
UK3: $47

All told, $747 down, $1753 to go on the April debt goal.

We had no leftover money to add to savings because of the rental management's fees this month, so no big-picture progress.

However, my boss emailed me with good news today. He's behind on doing annual reviews, but has promised a lunch out for our review AND a 2% raise! This will probably only net about $40 per month, but since we're already at a comfortable place in our budget, this means more money toward our big-picture goals, so I'm very happy!

I was home sick yesterday and fell asleep for four hours with HGTV on, so when I woke up all I wanted to do was look at real estate online. Even though it's a few years away, I like seeing that there are lots of nice places within our projected price range (in both Oxford and Minneapolis, so wherever we end up). And any extra money we manage to save will give us more flexibility -- either a more expensive home, or a lower mortgage, or a less financially stressful transition between selling our existing homes and purchasing the new one.

One more chance to linger on the triumph that was March, before planning for a much more normal debt-paying month in April.

My March debt repayment goal was $6770, and I blew past that to $8208! It was by far our biggest month of debt repayment; the past record was $5901 in January 2011.

Our big-picture goal was to have $6687 worth of progress toward our three goals (medical EF, house fund, student loan repayment); instead we're at $12,441.20!

For April, I'm shooting for $2500 of debt repayment.

Our April big-picture goal would be to add another $2229 of progress and get to $8916. But we've already exceeded that! If all goes well, we'll now always be ahead of our monthly benchmarks for this goal.

AS's job finally got her withholding sorted out! In the end, NT kept his the same, I increased mine a bit and AS decreased hers a lot. We're netting $345 more per month in take-home pay.

This is great because our budget has had a $250 or so monthly shortfall to keep everything as-is and still meet our four-year big-picture goals. Now, we have a $106 surplus! Basically, if nothing changed for the next three years and nine months, we would coast easily into meeting all of our aggressive goals: $5,000 medical EF, all student loans paid off, remaining tuition paid in cash, and $56,000 in a moving-to-England or house-down-payment fund.

I'm going to continue to throw most windfall money at the goals so we can get ahead, just in case things happen and we have some lean months. Plus, if we get an opportunity to move to England before the four years are up (unlikely, but you never know), we'll know we got as financially prepared as possible.

NT's mom just deposited GBP500 (US$800) into his UK checking account to cover our rental car for the trip. The car only cost GBP318.42, so we'll be able to use the rest to help cover gas or other expenses. I paid off the UK credit card we used to book the car.

NT's rental management company took service fees out of his income this month, so we would have been about 20 pounds short of making the mortgage payments and would've dipped into savings. Luckily his mom's gift makes it so that doesn't have to happen.

She also deposited GBP100 (US$160) for the girls' birthdays, so I transferred that into savings and credited US$80 to each girl. Now AA is nearly at the $3000 benchmark in savings and investments ($2,952.83), but SL is a bit behind the $1000 benchmark I wanted hers to hit by this week ($701.00). But we have probably $100 in the piggy bank, so she'll get close when we deposit that. We'll catch up at some point.

In other money news, we are heading into the next month of groceries with over $50 left in the March grocery budget! However, our monthly invoice for the carshare hit, so we've now blown through April's carshare budget and dipped into May's. Apparently this is our new budgetary weak spot. Ah well, we won't need the carshare much in May since we'll be gone half the month, and we'll just try to be good in April and not get even farther behind.

I'm also happy to report that I've finished paying off my web hosting annual fee for my ordinarysavers.com site. Now my spending money is my own again! I'm so glad not to owe in anymore.

I'm not sure whether we'll get our paychecks Friday or Monday since the last day of the month is Sunday. I'm hoping it's Friday because I'm eager to see what our new net pay for the year will be. AS's company didn't adjust her withholding last pay period, so this will be the paycheck where I find out how much more we're going to get.

At least until my annual review, which should be coming up soon! My boss hinted at potential for a raise, which I don't think he'd have bothered to do unless he was already planning to give me one. Even a small one would be just fantastic.

Our little SL will be one year old on Friday. She's such a gorgeous little handful! Hard to believe she'll already be that old. I hope she's not too skinny when she gets weighed at the doctor's. She doesn't care much for formula, but she eats like a horse, so I think she'll plump up when we switch her over to cow's milk after her birthday. It'll probably taste much better.

AS's regular student loan payment hit and $131 went to principal. There have been lots of windfalls this month, but I don't foresee any more. So I believe this will be the final debt repayment number from March: $8208!

Big-picture progress is at $12,441.20, almost double where we need to be at this point!

I got another random check from the dentist I ditched for overcharging and being confusing about billing. $36.60 -- certainly not enough to make me go back to them, but I'll take it and add it to the medical EF. Along with 25 cents of interest, that's $36.85 more of big-picture goal progress, taking us to $12,310.20 progress for the year. The medical EF is at $1,385.81.

NT had his 40th birthday party this past weekend. It was a blast! Also quite a splurge, funded mostly with money we saved from his Xmas bonus (we also used bday gifts money and dipped into our charitable line item):
$350 to rent party space (a really cool photography studio)
$225 for DJ (a local figure and NT's favorite)
$190 for booze (we've got enough left over to save us buying wine for weeks!)
$150 for food (plus a few more snacks that NT used a Target gift card to get)
$100 for babysitter

$1015 total! But a fun, memorable night, and we could afford it, so no regrets.

We also used the carshare service to haul things to and from the party space, but we're taking that out of our regular carshare line item. (We had to use up April's amount, so we'll have to try to avoid using it for a while.)

I'm feeling a bit shaken because one of our friends (NT's co-worker) lost his sister today. It's just so sad; she was in her 40s or 50s. She got sick suddenly about a year ago and they tried just about everything. She kept getting to death's door and then having miraculous recoveries, but this time no miracle. Our friend is such a good brother and he's been consumed with trips to visit her through all the struggles. He would talk about our kids and show her pictures, and she wanted to meet them as soon as her immune system was strong enough for young visitors, but it never got there. I believe she leaves behind a couple of young kids herself. Even though I never met her, knowing all my friend has been through and then to get hit like this just makes me feel terrible.

Remember that lost student loan payment? (How could you forget when I harp on it every chance I get??) I've been halfheartedly checking NT's account every couple of days, fully expecting that it wouldn't hit and I'd have to call and do some more investigating when the next arbitrary deadline they gave me hit.

Well, today, there it was! There was a slight glitch in that they applied it evenly across the loan, even to the paid-off portion, so some parts are showing a negative balance. But I called them and it sounded like a routine thing to adjust, so hopefully it won't take them forever and a day this time. Nevertheless, since the negative balances count against the positive, we still show the full amount paid -- $1140 to principal!

That takes us to a rather heart-stopping $8077 of debt paid this month. I have no words. So pleased beyond belief.

It also takes our big-picture progress to $12,273.35 -- basically where I hoped to be by mid-June of this year!

And, it takes that Sallie Mae loan to less than $10K.

My financial life feels pretty slow and dull now that I'm not throwing big daily payments at the student loan! I'll see what else I can find to talk about instead.

I've been sick pretty much since Friday night, so I haven't gotten much done. I stayed home Monday and went in today, so I'm on the mend for sure. Saturday evening was the worst; I was really achy. Thank goodness that part didn't last long.

Our grocery budget finally, FINALLY seems to have come back into balance. Smart spending plus reduced diapers and formula has paid off at last. We have over $200 left for this Friday's shopping trip! We should be all right from now on; formula stops completely at the end of this month, and we won't buy groceries for two weeks in May (we'll be in England), and our CSA starts up in June, so we'll be getting produce every week from another part of our budget.

Something that is NOT working out: our new internet service. It's very patchy and unpredictable and sometimes slow. Sometimes it will randomly choose a site to lock us out of. Tonight it's my ordinarysavers.com site. Sometimes it's Netflix (though I'm watching a Netflix movie right now and it's working fine).I have to admit it's annoying. I'd probably stick it out for another 6-8 months until we make back in savings the money we spent on the modem, which we can now no longer get a refund for. But AS and NT really want to switch sooner.

AS accepted another $1000 assignment on the condition that she could put $500 toward the overage that better internet service would cost for the next couple years. The other $500 I can put toward debt.

I actually think we could probably get a good intro deal from Comcast to get us to switch back; after all, they offered me a temporary deal to stay with them. So her $500 might last a really long time. And who knows? Maybe we can sell the modem for a few bucks on Craigslist.

I'm glad we tried it, but the moral of the story is, sometimes saving a few bucks just isn't worth it.

What else? Well, I've come out of my malaise somewhat; at least I feel like writing on my ordinarysavers site, which is a good sign, since that's meant to be a somewhat creative outlet for me. I also did a bit of reorganizing of the girls' room, buying some rolling plastic chests of drawers that fit in their closet, to help handle some of their toys. (Of course SL's birthday is coming up next week, so let's hope everything still fits! We only got her three toys, but we know all the grandparents will go nuts.)

Speaking of birthdays, every year I wonder whether it's time to start giving AA an allowance. I almost started this year, but AS pointed out that it wouldn't mean much to her until she starts getting the concept of money, and doing her fair share around the house. Anyway, she and SL get most of our loose change put in their piggy bank, so they do get an allowance of sorts. I'm a bit behind my goal to have their accounts at $1000 per year of age, but it's just a rough rule of thumb I came up with. It'll be easy to make up at some point.

AS's "HR" (there isn't really one at her job) forgot to adjust her withholdings, so this past paycheck my net pay was less and hers was the same. Luckily I'd decided to only have about $20 more withheld each paycheck, so it was easy to absorb. Hopefully hers will be right next payday. I can't wait to start putting that extra money toward our goals. Should eliminate the shortfall for the monthly amount we need to hit our big-picture goals!

My boss hinted that I may be up for a raise this year! That would be exciting, because our budget is already coming into balance quite nicely. For the time being I would probably put it toward the student loan I want to get rid of ASAP, but at some point I might allocate it toward fun. Part of me wants to scrimp every extra bit so we have more than enough for our eventual move. But at the same time, our current life is pretty hard, and it would be nice to have a little more money to treat ourselves to something nice once in a while. I'll have to think about it.

One thing we'll really enjoy this year: We'd already decided to do staycations for the rest of the year since we're using so much money and PTO to go to England. I had also thought we might have to siphon money from our travel budget to stay on track with our big-picture goals. But now it's looking like we won't have to do that, so our staycations could be pretty lavish if we wanted to spend our money that way. Maybe we could even do one or two short weekend trips to Chicago or St. Louis or somewhere it's cheap to fly to from Minneapolis.

Or just stay in the city and visit fancy restaurants, like the one half a block away that we've only ever had drinks or appetizers at, except once when a friend had their wedding reception there.

Sigh ... I definitely have winter fatigue and frugal fatigue right now, can you tell?

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($22,214)
#2: 17,268 pounds ($27,629)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($5,934)
NT's 401(k): $22,486
NT's Roth IRA: $5,294
AS's 401(k): $9,178
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $11,277
CJ's 401(k): $53,031
CJ's Roth IRA: $5,294
NT's flat: 125,000 pounds ($200,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $145,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $15,000
House down payment/moving fund (shared): $4,044
---
Total Assets: $528,063

Total Debt: $268,179

Current Estimated Net Worth: $259,884

February 2013 estimate: $247,924

Change in net worth: +$11,960

Summary: Maybe that big Dow Jones run has already evened out, or maybe it didn't affect us much. Either way, our gains in all our retirement accounts were modest this month. However, a huge month for debt repayment made for a big increase in net worth!

I will update my "Individual Net Worth" page shortly so you can see how it breaks out per 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.

Ahh, so satisfying after a particularly hard day. The $4000 payment to NT's loan hit, and $3999 went to principal!

That takes us to $6937 of debt payment in March, exceeding our $6770 goal. And we still have AS's regular student loan payment near the end of the month!

A record month by FAR. It also takes our big-picture progress to $11,133.35, way over the $6687 benchmark.

It also takes our total household student loan debt below $30K!

It also takes the average interest rate for that loan from 5.43% to 4.9%, since I paid it all to the highest-interest portion. Still our highest interest rate, but not by as much!

It also raised my spirits after a fairly grueling day!

The payment I sent Monday hit tonight, with $1039 going to principal.

That takes us to $2938 down, $3832 to go for our March debt repayment goal. (Will hit that tomorrow .)

It also takes us past the March benchmark for our big-picture goals! As you probably recall, to achieve all three goals in 4 years we need to average $2229 per month toward them. So by end of March we should have $6687 of progress. Well, as of now, we have $7134.35 of progress! (Tomorrow will basically take us past our April and May benchmarks too!)

Forget the fact this will be a record month for us ... this WEEK we may pay off more than we ever have in a month!

Oh -- and tonight's payment takes the average interest rate for this loan from 5.52% to 5.43%!

The payment I sent Monday hit tonight, with $1039 going to principal.

That takes us to $2938 down, $3832 to go for our March debt repayment goal. (Will hit that tomorrow .)

It also takes us past the March benchmark for our big-picture goals! As you probably recall, to achieve all three goals in 4 years we need to average $2229 per month toward them. So by end of March we should have $6687 of progress. Well, as of now, we have $7134.35 of progress! (Tomorrow will basically take us past our April and May benchmarks too!)

Forget the fact this will be a record month for us ... this WEEK we may pay off more than we ever have in a month!

Oh -- and tonight's payment takes the average interest rate for this loan from 5.52% to 5.43%!

Wow, they said it would process on the 13th, but I assumed it would take a day or two to hit the account! I immediately set up a $4000 payment to the student loan. That should hit tomorrow night. With that, and the regular extra payment I sent off yesterday, the 6.8% portion of this loan is going to be down to a couple grand. I can't believe all the extra money that has appeared in such a short span of time!

Tomorrow will mark 6 weeks since I sent that $1100 Direct Loan payment right as they were transferring NT's loan to Sallie Mae. I have no idea who will be able to help me, but if the money doesn't appear by tomorrow morning, I'll start making phone calls.

Guess I should send off the tax returns we owe on now ... the non-fun part of the process.

A student loan payment hit with $238 to principal.

That takes us to $1899 down, $4871 to go on the March debt goal. And $6095.35 down, $591.65 to go on the big-picture benchmark for March.

Tomorrow night I should get another nice bump, and of course later in the week our big tax refund will take quite a bit off the amount.

I figured out a way to calculate the average interest rate of the loan (since different chunks of it have different interest rates). By paying down the higher-interest debt first, just that $238 payment took us down .02% on the interest rate. Pretty cool.

Today I saw that AS's state tax refund already hit our checking account! I was surprised because we mailed hers in the old-fashioned way. I suppose they get done pretty quickly since not that many people file that way anymore.

That's $1554 that we're going to use to pay my and NT's tax bills and to make some repairs and upgrades to our computer. We already bought a new power cord, and AS is taking it in to get the battery replaced. We're also going to upgrade the operating system. All told, a couple hundred bucks and it should be in much better condition.

Since we don't need to pay our taxes right away, I'm taking advantage of the extra money sitting in the account: I set an extra student loan payment a couple days early (I was waiting for payday on the 15th, but we can easily float the payment on AS's refund money until then).

***

I've been in kind of a weird mental place, it seems. I think it's the fatigue of wanting winter to be over, coupled with the exhaustion of having a 3-year-old and an almost-1-year-old, coupled with just not really having anyone to talk to at night. We get home, someone wrangles the kids while someone cooks dinner, we do the bedtime routine for the kids (1 after the other, since the baby gets tired a half-hour to an hour earlier than the preschooler). Then NT hits the books until bedtime and AS works on freelance jobs (or overflow from her regular full-time job). By then I just want to turn my brain off, so I usually stare at the TV or the computer or play games on the iPad.

I'm not depressed, but I just feel like I'm in a waiting period; waiting for spring, waiting for the semester to be over, waiting for this student loan to get paid off, waiting for our trip to England, waiting for AS's job to slow down at some point, waiting for the kids to hit various developmental milestones.

When I do develop an interest, it kind of obsesses me for a short period of time. After I saw Les Miz, I kept thinking about it, replaying the songs in my head and thinking about my favorite parts of the movie, over and over, for weeks. A few days ago, one of our Facebook friends let it be known that she and her husband had become polyamorous (opened their marriage). I find myself obsessing over that, wondering how it got started, what the exact setup is, how they both feel about it. I guess because they're some of the few friends we have who aren't monogamous, yet their arrangement seems completely different from ours. I wonder what the next mini-obsession will be that takes over after this one.

If I felt really bad, I'd worry about shaking myself out of this stupor, but since I just feel kind of neutral, I'm not too worried. Plus, I've gone through phases like this periodically over the years; I always liken it to a field lying fallow for a season to regain its fertility for new crops later.

What energy I have at home, I try to give to the girls. It's hard to completely enjoy my time with them because it's so scattered and demanding, but I do believe people when they say that you really miss these innocent young days when they're gone, even if you can't fully appreciate them while they're here. So I try to pay attention and enjoy all their little quirks, their developmental breakthroughs, their innocence and unconditional love and trust of me.

Life is good, but life will be much better soon, I think.

I hadn't checked my down-payment savings account in a few months since I haven't been contributing regularly to it. $6.46 of interest had accumulated, taking our down payment fund to $4044.46.

That brings our big-picture progress to $5857.35. I'll take it! Any little bit helps.

I've been quietly and obsessively checking the "Where's My Refund" tool on the IRS website at least twice a day, and today it finally said AS's refund had been approved! They estimate it will direct-deposited the 13th and will show up a couple days later. Yippee!

It's $4769, so $4000 will go to NT's student loan and I'll set the remaining $769 aside to help pay mine and NT's taxes. When AS's state refund comes in, that will cover the rest of our tax bill.

I haven't sent our taxes out yet; will wait until we get the state refund to make sure we have plenty to cover what we owe.

AS also got another freelance check in the mail; the $250 we were expecting. That one is going to the student loan too, so I already set up a $250 payment that will probably come out of the account Monday and hopefully hit Tuesday.

I'll also be sending out a little over $1000 when we get paid on the 15th. If our paycheck adjustments work out the way I want them to, may even be able to tack another $120 or so onto that!

It's going to be a very fun couple of weeks totaling all this up. I reckon NT's Sallie Mae loan could get below $10K when it's all done.

I almost forgot: AS told me yesterday that she accepted another freelance job: $1000! She said she couldn't resist because she'd read my blog post about how we were only $1800 short of paying off the Sallie Mae loan this year. So now, make that $800.

Oh, and we had AA's birthday playdate today, and her little friend who's a year older came. As always, her parents brought several big boxes of outgrown clothes for AA! NT just got a huge bag from a co-worker recently too. We'll sort through and give some away, because it'll be too much to hold onto, but this means AA will be set for clothes for another year. Not counting underwear, we've probably bought about a dozen, maybe 20 pieces of clothing for both girls combined, ever, yet they have hundreds and hundreds, sorted in boxes by size and age, and we've given hundreds away on Freecycle too. It's a GREAT system. These clothes are getting at least three uses, sometimes more. And we don't even have to factor kids' clothing into our budget at all! Probably won't until well after they're done with daycare and THAT big expense is gone.

We invited 7 kids but only 2 could come. It was a perfect amount, because with our 2 that meant 4 kids running around. You don't need more than that in a little condo! It also means we have plenty of little party favors left over that we can probably hand out at SL's party.

We had a couple expenses eat into our grocery budget, so we have a small shopping list this week and are using a lot of stuff we already have. AS and NT are out at two stores now so I don't know how much it will be, but I have high hopes we'll be coming in under budget.