Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

The main "meh" is just that my weight drifted back up over 130 at my weigh-in tonight. So, back to calorie counting for me until I get back down. It's a bummer because we're coming up on the birthday month in my family, and we love to eat and drink to celebrate, so it's going to be difficult. I'll just try to be very good on non-festive days.

Also, although I'm looking forward to everything coming up, the next few weeks are going to be spendy, spendy, spendy, with my personal spending money taking the brunt. Since I still owe back into the checking account for my website hosting, I feel behind all the time, but with all the events coming up, it may be a while before I pay off that debt to ourselves. Just these next two weeks I have:
March 2: buy bday present for friend's son (5th bday)
March 2: buy delivery food and booze for my birthday celebration
March 4: buying brunch on my day off to celebrate my and AS's bdays
March 9: buy pizza & treats for AA's 3rd bday party (luckily we only have a handful of guests)
March 10: buy bday present for AA's friend's 3rd bday party

It's like the dieting; I'm going to have to be REALLY stingy on all other spending fronts so I can stretch my money as far as possible.

On the good front:

Apple fixed our laptop -- for free! It took over an hour, and I don't think we're on a warranty of any kind. The only things they suggested to improve performance were a new battery and new operating system. About $200 total. Since we have $975 of expected future money designated for the repairs, that leaves quite a bit we can roll toward debt instead when we get it!

To that end, I decided to send some money to Sallie Mae even though they haven't posted the Feb. 1 payment. My reasoning is that the problem with the check getting cut from Direct Loan and routed through the federal government shouldn't be an issue if I make a payment directly to Sallie Mae. I was going to wait until that other payment posted but I just couldn't stand it.

I sent $675 tonight; $375 was bonus money from last year we'd been saving for a tax preparer until we decided we didn't need it, and $300 was credit card rewards we were going to use for an immigration lawyer until we decided to put that off as well.

Supposedly this should hit in 2 to 4 days, but I'll be checking daily until it does!

One potentially great thing about the loan being transferred to Sallie Mae: They let me choose which loan I wanted to put it to! Different amounts in the total have different interest rates depending on the going rate when we borrowed that portion. I picked the highest interest debt, of course. If my payment does indeed go toward that principal, this will be so satisfying, paying down those higher interest portions and saving a few more bucks in interest! (I don't know what DL did with the extra payments; I assumed they distributed them equally, but never kept track.)

Whew, I think I'll consider hiring someone again next year! That was brutal. AS's federal could be filed for free, but all the others would cost money, so I did them myself.

The worst part is having to cross-reference different forms and pages; I felt like my eyes were bugging out of my sockets by the end.

Luckily for AS's I had TaxAct's state refund amount, so when I got her manual state return to match that amount, I felt comfortable I'd done it right.

For me and NT, I used a free-file option on IRS where you fill in the forms, they do some of the math (but you need to know which forms to file), and you e-file on the IRS site itself. I tried and was rejected three times. Each time it said there was a data error on the education credit schedule. I quadruple checked my math as well as the instructions and the info I entered about the 1099-T, and couldn't figure out what was wrong. It says you can just print out and mail, so I think I'll do that. Hopefully it's just something weird like a character you can't use, or the name of the institution not looking exactly like on the 1099.

When I did the taxes more carefully, I found that AS's refund was about $1000 more than I thought, and NT and I owed about $400 more than I thought. Still, we came out $600 more ahead, so about $4600.

This is good, because I had already put $4000 in my head toward education debt, so when our computer crashed on Friday, I said we'd have to find another way to pay for it if it needed repairs or replacement. I was determined to put at least $4000 of tax money toward debt! So now there's an extra $600 we can use to repair or replace the laptop. (I'll find out soon; AS went to the Apple store half an hour ago. I brought my work laptop home so I'd still be able to get online this weekend.) Before we found out the refund was going to be more, AS accepted a $275 freelance assignment thinking she could use that to help pay for the laptop. So we'll have $875 to put toward it.

As for student loans, I don't know if any of this will happen in February, but in the next couple of months I should be able to put the following to student loan debt:
$1100 payment (the one already sent that hasn't showed up yet)
$1600 AS freelance money
$375 money saved by doing my own taxes
$400 CC bonus rewards (from 4 separate cards)
$4000 from tax refunds
That's $7475. The loan I want to get rid of is up to $19K with accumulated interest, so when all of the above hits, I should be able to get it down to about $11,525. I could pay the rest of it off with the regular extra debt repayment in the budget for the year! Of course, I still need to cashflow NT's summer and fall tuition, so I'd need to find more money for that if I hope to pay tuition AND pay off this loan. But it feels so close! A few more random windfalls between now and Dec. 2013, and this could be doable.

Still no word on AS's freelance check that never came, nor on the payment I sent to Direct Loan that should transfer to Sallie Mae. I did hear that they cut a check and sent it to some other federal govt. department who would then transfer it to Sallie Mae, so that's why it could take 4 to 6 weeks. It's already been 3 weeks, so hopefully not much longer!

The house is so quiet; AA had her first sleepover last night and a playdate all day today! She should be back in an hour. I wish I could have used the time to relax, but I knew this would be my best chance to get the taxes done; toddlers are incredibly and persistently distracting.

Last night I stayed up late doing a rough sketch of our taxes on paper. I was rather stunned that there's a $4000 advantage to AS claiming SL on her tax return! Well, I guess that makes our decision for us. Feels a bit weird, but perfectly legal, so we'll do it! That money will go straight to the student loan when we get it.

AS will get refunds on both federal and state, and NT and I will owe on both, but we'll net about $4K all told. If we'd gone the other way, we would break even collectively.

We'll all change our withholdings so we come closer to breaking even next year.

Sometimes the terrible serendipity of Facebook has one person post this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=14&_r=2&smid=fb-share&adxnnlx=1361466188-BTxT2coC722sFd6PnGoHqw

And another post this:

http://www.nationofchange.org/40-percent-americans-now-make-less-1968-minimum-wage-1361362370

And you read them in quick succession and think wow. We're doomed, aren't we?

AS must have read yesterday's blog post because she came to my rescue on a couple of the points in it.

- Immigration lawyer. She asked what I was feeling in doubt about, then went trolling the British immigration site as well as some blogs. My main sticking point right now is about who should claim SL on their taxes, so it won't raise any red flags or cause any confusion if we eventually try to immigrate. We talked it over and AS made me see that as non-married parents, she and NT could easily explain why SL had been claimed by someone in a particular year for support reasons, and NT and I could easily explain why she might appear on our tax forms but then not be part of our immigration application (because the mother had custody. It needn't raise any particular concerns that can't be easily explained; people have complicated parenting situations all the time. Now that I feel better about that part, I think we're going to hold off speaking with a lawyer, and just go with the most beneficial way to claim SL on our taxes.

- Taxes. Now that I can start on taxes, I'm still thinking about my random thought that maybe I could save us $300 or so by doing them myself. We've had an accountant handle them for the past two years, so maybe I could just look at what he submitted to the IRS and mimic that. Other than SL being born, not much has changed.

- Freelance checks. AS checked with the company she's expecting the three checks from, and their records show one of them being mailed out 1/29! So we think that's been lost in the mail, and AS is going to ask them to cut another one. Good thing she inquired about this. The other two checks won't be sent out until the next billing cycle. At least we know where we are.

So, with deciding not to meet with a lawyer, and if I manage to do our taxes myself, we may suddenly have $675 we can put to big-picture goals! I think I'll save it until that student loan payment hits, then put it toward that loan. (I don't want to send out any more money until I verify they received that payment, though.)

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): $22,072
NT's Roth IRA: $5,130
AS's 401(k): $8,868
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $10,690
CJ's 401(k): $51,818
CJ's Roth IRA: $5,130
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): $3,494
---
Total Assets: $524,661

Total Debt: $276,737

Current Estimated Net Worth: $247,924

January 2013 estimate: $243,944

Change in net worth: +$3,980

Summary: We haven't had as much progress as I would have hoped because of a student loan payment hung up in the ether somewhere, and some freelance checks we haven't received. Despite that, we had modest gains in all our retirement funds and got rid of a bit of debt, so we did all right.

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.

Sigh. The only progress lately has been $.28 in interest in the savings account, which goes toward our medical fund. (The other $75 I would normally put there, I sent as part of the big payment that hasn't posted.) I've been trying to be productive lately, but I'm still stuck, a bit. Remember that list of things I was waiting on? Here's an update:

- Dentist. Success! The dentist I asked to do a free consultation said no, so I changed my plan of attack. I contacted a brand new dentist, didn't say anything about the periodontal classification my last dentist gave me, and didn't give them my records. Guess what? They gave me a regular checkup. I also didn't tell them that one of my previous dentists had me going 3 times a year (one of which wouldn't be covered by insurance), and they said every 6 months was fine.

- Immigration lawyer. No real progress since the one lawyer said he wouldn't maybe be the most qualified and gave us a list of UK attorneys. I'm still hoping to get some help from AS and/or NT on how to proceed finding someone to consult with us. Haven't got it yet. They are both crazy busy, and I'm feeling burnt out and overwhelmed from thinking about our situation.

- Taxes. Still waiting until we consult with an immigration lawyer. I did have the thought that if I looked at what the accountant did the past two years, I could probably copy him and do my taxes for free this year instead of paying over $300...so that would mean I could wait pretty much until the last minute to file.

- Student loan payment. So Sallie Mae has not registered our payment that Direct Loan supposedly sent them about 12 days ago.

- Freelance checks. Still no sign of them. AS has two, maybe three that she's owed. I can't even remember the amounts she's expecting, but I think it'll be about $1800 total.

- Big-picture progress. See 28 cents above. 99% of my potential debt repayment and big-picture progress for February is tied up in the previous two items. If neither or only one happens, I may not even hit my Feb. goals.

- Credit card churn. This is going great! We did the three Barclays cards and already got credited enough for $100 per card, and made sure we charged at least $100 on each card. So I just have to get in there and claim them. I also applied AS for a Chase Freedom offer we got in the mail; the standard $100 for spending $500. I know double-dips aren't exactly allowed, but if they're going to offer, we're going to take it! I'll pay the home insurance and that'll be half of the $500 right there.

- Performance review. No progress; end of March and all. Not looking forward to it or anything, but there's always that small chance of a small raise attached to the review. I believe it won't happen until the end of March. I think of the three of us, I've got the best chance for a raise. (Meaning, I have slightly more than no chance at all.)

- League of Ordinary Savers meeting. Went well! I do need to do some more activity on my website and Facebook page; haven't done that for almost a week. But I've gotten a couple favorable comments from friends, AND a total stranger liked the Facebook page!

So, there you have it. Some progress but not much. But, the month is only 2/3 over.

You know how sometimes it seems your group of friends or loved ones get on a similar path but in seemingly unrelated ways? Well, my friends/acquaintances and I seem to be on a very creative, community-building one.

- I started my League of Ordinary Savers discussion group, and I also started a Facebook page for it, and started adding content to my ordinarysavers.com website.
- A friend started a Facebook page, to become a website, where he posts weekly short-story and novella reading recommendations.
- Another friend started a crafting group and may also start a book club soon.
- An acquaintance who's a great photographer had a recent showing at a coffee house. His sister, who lives halfway across the country, just had her first showing of jewelry she's started making.
- One friend is working on an article she hopes to publish at a magazine, about another friend's photography.

It's not like I don't have creative or socially active friends, but it seems lately we've been on FIRE! Apparently, this is the year we get off our asses and do something.

As I mentioned a while back, I initiated a discussion group among friends and Facebook acquaintances, which after some thought I christened "the League of Ordinary Savers." About 7 local people expressed interest as well as several FB friends who live far from me.

Today was the day of the in-person meeting, so of course it snowed pretty hard. But 4 people managed to make it: a fairly new but close friend, a woman I've known socially for years, and a couple whom I met through another friend but don't know very well.

I wasn't sure what to expect since everyone's finances are always so secret and can be different from their appearances, so I prepared a little "budget fitness" quiz (that I didn't end up using) and mocked up fake versions of my two main spreadsheets, as well as an old budget using a rudimentary text-file list, and printed copies out.

I was surprised when the couple and the old acquaintance both pulled out laptops and shared their budgeting systems! It's so easy to feel like no one outside of Saving Advice does ANYthing to control their finances, so it was cool to see that.

One used an Excel spreadsheet, which is what I do, but his was way different. The other uses Mvelopes. The last attendee was the youngest and also single, and didn't have a structured system. All the guests had interesting perspectives and I really loved sharing our different strategies and stories. I even pulled up my menu/grocery list spreadsheet when we were talking about meal planning. I was kind of embarrassed as I did it because I think it makes me look really anal, but the husband of the couple called it "brilliant" and everyone seemed impressed.

I had already decided that I was going to parlay the "League" name I came up with into a website and Facebook page, but I wanted to see how the group went, to see if it would bring up good topics and integrate well with an online presence. I think it will! It was refreshing and interesting to have that human connection, and I think it will lend a unique tone to the online stuff, so I'm going to try and reference the group periodically in the posts I make.

I had already created the website but hadn't done much with it. Tonight after the meeting I created the corresponding Facebook page. I jotted down ideas that the meeting had inspired and will post them periodically over the next couple of months. I vaguely discussed a second meeting for April, so hopefully this will keep going!

Following up on yesterday's productive day, we figured out how to use the Wi-Fi of our new provider last night. We tested it on laptop, iPad, iPod touch and Wii and it worked great for everything. I tried to call and cancel our Comcast internet but they said I'd have to call back in the morning.

So bright and early, I called and canceled. The rep was trying to offer me temporary sweeteners to keep me, but I told her that I wanted a stable price that wouldn't go up all the time.

I got an email confirming the cancellation and it seemed like they'd be giving me a partial credit on my next bill, though it was hard to understand what the email meant. But hopefully I'll start saving sooner than I thought. Either way, glad to stick it to Comcast.

I received a reply from the dental office about whether or not they'd give a free consultation. Nope: They'd charge $86 for it, more than probably a periodontal exam itself would cost!

I looked around at private dental insurance to see if it would be comparable in price to get my own insurance policy with someone my old dentists would accept, but it would be significantly more money to get one with any kind of decent coverage.

SO this morning I checked my insurance website and called a new dentist I haven't tried before. I made appointments for me as well as AA, who has most if not all her teeth and is almost 3, so it's about time!

My plan is to not even mention the periodontal issue, and to not provide records from my latest dentist. If this new dentist decides on their own to code as periodontal then fine, I will accept that and pay higher prices from now on.

I also received an email from the immigration lawyer saying he would be willing to help as much as he could, but felt we might want someone more versed in British immigration. He sent us a list of contacts. Tonight we're going to look them over, decide if any look promising, and if not we'll either do our own search or ask our adoption lawyer for another referral.

Checked the Sallie Mae account and the student loan payment has not posted. They have until tomorrow morning and then they're getting another call!

AND, our diaper provider mentioned that we're using about 30 cloth diapers per week, instead of the 80 we pay for. I've had a feeling we were at much less, but have been hesitant to bug him about it because he also handles the composting of our toddler's pull-ups, and because he's a really great, local business guy that we love to support. But when he sent that email, I went ahead and asked if that meant our fee would go down a bit. He said it would! Not sure how much, but any amount it decreases will go straight to our big-picture goals. Woo hoo!

In other news, for the first time in months I have spending money left over instead of owing something in! I have $40 left in my wallet, so tomorrow I'm taking $40 less of spending money and applying that amount to what I owe for the website hosting. I was only planning to pay in $10 or $20 at a time, so this is a big chunk gone! This is good, because with Valentine's Day and birthdays coming up, I'll be spending a lot more than usual.

Also, instead of leaking small amounts of grocery money over the week, we seem to have gained a bit back instead! NT put back in $3 for a snack he'd bought on the last shopping trip, and I applied a small credit for a return that finally showed up on our card, and the diapers cost slightly less than I estimated. So we're starting the weekend with $123 to spend instead of $116! Only $7 difference, but I'll take it! Usually the grocery budget gets depleted by unexpected needs or stays the same over the course of a week, so it's a nice surprise.

NT found an ideal birthday party venue and queried one of his favorite local DJs. Just those two things would cost $575, and we only have $663 budgeted. But NT said he will take fewer birthday presents so we can put some of the gift budget toward his party instead, and I decided I'll also donate $50 of the budget for MY bday gifts. I'll also kick in some spending money if necessary. We should be able to scrape together plenty for some nice food and drinks. If we can't afford to cater the food, we can always economize by preparing the party food ourselves. And we're fans of boxed wine and cheap beer, so I don't feel self-conscious about going that route if need be. Then we just need to arrange a babysitter. I think it'll be a very memorable 40th birthday party!

First off, checked NT's Sallie Mae account to see if the payment had posted -- it hadn't. I thought of Foxie25's encouragement to stay aggressive, and I called Direct Loan to see if they'd done anything yet. They said they had sent it off to Sallie Mae! So that's one step closer to this nightmare being over. I'll check the Sallie Mae account daily and if it hasn't posted by Friday, I'll call them to see if they've at least received it.

Then, I saw creditcardfree's advice to email the dentist and lawyer who haven't responded to my last emails for over a week. I thought what the heck? and sent them both very polite emails, just asking whether they'd had a chance to consider my request further, and if so whether they recommended that I look to someone else for help. This way, if they don't get back to me this week, I'll know it isn't because they forgot about my email, and I can go back to the drawing board to look for a new prospective dentist and lawyer.

Then, I saved us a bit of money for good measure! Last night we got the modem for our new internet service. I was able to get the ethernet working (hooking the laptop to the modem by cable) but couldn't figure out how to access it wirelessly. So I'll have AS try and do it tonight, and we can chat with tech support if she can't figure it out either. Once we confirm it works for us, I'll cancel Comcast.

The new service (CLEAR) sent me a welcome email, so I went online and looked at my account. I saw that my next bill will be due 3/1. Well, that kind of irritated me, because even though I signed up with them 2/1, I haven't been able to actually use their service until last night (2/5). Since I'm already facing some likely overlap of charges between my old and new providers, it bothered me that I'd pay for 4 days of the new service that I didn't actually get.

Bolstered by my aggressiveness on my other issues today, I hopped onto chat with a customer service rep and asked if they could change my billing period to start on the 5th of the month, so it would reflect the actual start date of service. They said they couldn't do that, or they could move it but service would be inactive between the 1st and the 5th if I did that.

It occurred to me then that not only would I be getting fewer days of service for my first month's fee, but that since it was February I'd only be getting about 24 days! That bugged me more and I asked the rep to escalate my complaint, explaining that $49.99 for 24 days was as (if not more) expensive as the provider I was switching from.

He went to ask someone else, and then came back with an offer: They absolutely could not change my billing cycle, but they'd give me a $4.99 credit on my next bill, to compensate for the lost days of service this month. Uh, that's way better! I said yes of course and was very pleased that I'd bothered. It took about 10 minutes, but I was able to do work in between responses from the rep, so it wasn't even 10 minutes of my time.

Isn't it funny how a small victory like that can totally make your day?

You guys know by now how antsy I get when things are up in the air. I've got tons of things I could ACtually be getting done, but I get mentally stuck on these things. I'll just complain for a bit, then go work on reviewing a manuscript for AS's press, then turn on the TV and try to turn off my brain.

Things that I'm waiting on/are up in the air:

- Dentist. The office I contacted still hasn't gotten back to me about whether they will do a free consult. Really don't want to start explaining it all over again to another office until I hear a definite No, but I have a feeling that's where they're leaning, otherwise, they should have contacted me. I mean, it's been a couple weeks!

- Immigration lawyer. Just want a "yes" or "no" on consulting with us, then a referral to someone else if "no." Haven't heard from him in over a week.

- Taxes. Don't want to get the ball rolling with the accountant until I get a consultation with an immigration lawyer. I think I have all the tax forms I need, but haven't bothered to make sure because then I'll want to start filing right away, and I shouldn't do that until we get this immigration question answered.

- Student loan payment. I'll be checking every day until I see that $1100 payment hit the Sallie Mae account!

- Freelance checks. AS has two, maybe three that she's owed. I can't even remember the amounts she's expecting, but I think it'll be about $1800 total.

- Big-picture progress. 99% of my potential debt repayment and big-picture progress for February is tied up in the previous two items. If neither or only one happens, I may not even hit my Feb. goals.

- Credit card churn. Right now we're waiting for our three Barclays cards to come in the mail so we can start earning points (which we're going to use to pay the immigration lawyer, if and when that consultation happens. Also want to get them done so we can move onto some more cards.

- Performance review. Not looking forward to it or anything, but there's always that small chance of a small raise attached to the review. I believe it won't happen until the end of March. I think of the three of us, I've got the best chance for a raise. (Meaning, I have slightly more than no chance at all.)

- League of Ordinary Savers meeting. It's this Sunday! I could be working on the companion website or starting a Facebook page, but I kind of want to wait until after the meeting. If there seems to be enthusiasm in the group, I'll probably tie the website and Facebook page in with the in-person meetings, referencing real-life questions and discussions. If it's a dud, I'll still work on the website and Facebook page but just keep them at that, with no real-life component.

So you can see why I'm useless and antsy. It all starts to pile up in my head and I can't concentrate on anything else! But now that I've written it all down, I'll try to relax and focus on other things. Manuscript review. Writing a testimonial for our adoption lawyer. The end of the deep-freeze part of winter. Longer days. Valentine's day (planning stuff for the kids and their friends as well as romantic dinner out for the adults). Birthdays (we've got all five of 'em coming up in March, with parties to plan for two big milestones: NT (40) and SL (1)!). Plus, a couple of other family members (my mom) and kids' friends having birthdays that I need to plan frugal but fun gifts for. Other gatherings. Lots of things to focus on, if I just force myself!

Most of this is second nature to you by now, probably, but this is a great article for examining grocery habits and making sure you're taking steps to avoid unnecessary overspending.

http://foodtank.org/news/2013/02/ten-ways-to-cut-your-grocery-bill-while-eating-healthier

We practice all of these habits. Living in a condo we can't grow our own fruits or veggies, or keep chickens for eggs, but we do have an herb garden on our balcony in the summer.

I called Direct Loan (the old loan servicer that sold our student loan without warning) first thing this morning to see if they'd received the payment. They had, and said they would have to transfer it to Sallie Mae.

On a whim, I went to the Sallie Mae site and tried to create a login for NT. Success! And lo and behold, his DL loan balances are there. Phew! Big relief.

Now I just have to check up on it periodically until the payment I sent to DL gets to SM!

***

This weekend I signed up for a new internet provider. The monthly cost will be $49.99, $5.32 less than my old price with Comcast, $9.51 less than the new Comcast price. I did have to buy a modem for $53.87, which we can make up in the budget in 6 months (if we count how much the new Comcast bill is) or 10 months (if I count how much we save over the old Comcast bill).

After I signed up, it occurred to me there will be some overlap of billing. I can't remember exactly but I think Comcast bills near the end of the service period whereas this new service bills at the beginning of the monthly period. So, if we overlap by a month, that's an extra $49.99 that will need to be made up. If so, it will take 11 months to recoup if I'm counting the new Comcast bill, a year and a half (19 months) if I'm calculating at the old Comcast amount!

Even if so, considering Comcast WILL raise their price again in January, and my friend said this new service hasn't raised her bill in years, I think it's still worth it.

I'll cancel with Comcast once we get the new modem and confirm the new service works. I do have 15 days to request a full refund with the new service, so if I start getting cold feet, there's time to change my mind.

***

Still haven't heard whether this immigration lawyer wants to consult with us or refer us to someone else. I'm going to try and hold out until the end of the week before I bug him. I do want my tax preparer to have time to do our taxes on time, but we've still got a while before it starts to get down to the wire.

***

Last week, I thought I'd forgotten to count a $60 grocery purchase, so we started February way behind. But when I checked my Amex account this weekend, we had a $60 credit on our account. I think what happened is the purchase lingered in Pending for longer than usual, so I had already factored it in, got confused and ended up double-paying Amex for that purchase. So we had $60 back in our grocery budget! Now we have $116 for next week's shopping, so if we're smart we should be able to (fingers crossed!) finally get caught up for the first time in months.

And, we only have 8 more weeks of buying formula before SL can switch to regular milk! I'm so obsessed with this milestone because of how much our grocery budget will ease up!

***

I just scored about $40 in Target credit! Well, what happened is I used some of my Target gift cards from Xmas to buy a new baby monitor because ours was going crazy with static in the middle of the night. I ordered it online and by the time it got to us, we'd fixed the problem with our old monitor. I held onto the new monitor for a month or so to make sure the old one was definitely fixed, and we haven't had any problems, so I returned the old one and got my $40 back on a gift card.

This will be helpful because there were a few little things I wanted to get (V-day gifts for the kids, frames and prints of family photos to hang up) that I won't have to fund out of my spending money. Yay!

Phew, I feel a bit better after my vent! I think Sallie Mae will be a much better administrator; we've had loans through them for AS for the past 15 years or so (first her undergrad and then grad school) and never had a problem with either their website or their customer service. Just hoping the transfer happens soon so I can stop checking in with both companies!

Anyway, I can't post any student loan debt progress as I was hoping, but all of our mortgage payments hit:
US: $439 to principal
UK1: $215
UK2: $45
UK3: $47
All told, that's $746 down, $1214 to go on the February debt repayment goal. Which we won't hit unless A) the Direct Loan-to-Sallie Mae thing happens and today's payment hits the account or B) some of AS's expected freelance money comes in.

I also transferred the money left over from the UK rental payment after paying the UK mortgages: US$536 to the house/moving fund. So that takes us to $2778.61 of big-picture progress, $1679.39 to go for February. Which we won't meet unless [see above].

I had a couple of other recent troubles I was all up in arms about, but the student loan debacle makes them all pale in comparison:

- Our cable/internet bill is going up by nearly $5 per month. No notice or explanation, of course. We're looking into our options. We'll probably either try switching to a slightly cheaper G4 type service or take money from either spending money or groceries to pay the overage. I'm sure as heck not taking the money from any of my saving or debt-repayment line items! I don't care how small an amount, it's the principle for me.

- I haven't heard back from this immigration lawyer since I outlined our situation and asked if he would feel qualified to consult with us or would rather refer us to a lawyer in London (which he offered in his first email). I'll email him next week if I don't hear from him soon.

- Trying to get a dentist to agree to a free consultation to tell me whether they would qualify my cleaning/checkup appointment as regular or periodontal, and to run the numbers with MetLife to get an accurate picture of how much it will cost. I'm way overdue for a cleaning, but I was so burned by the last dentist's exorbitant fees and confusing follow-up that I just want my ducks in a row. Not sure I'll find anyone willing to do this, but if this current place I called won't, I plan to ask around some more. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to know how much my appointment will cost before I agree to it!

- I expect our grocery spending is going to be a bit more than I wanted this week because we ran out of several staple condiments and need to stock up. We'll have to do it sooner or later, so we'll just do it this week. I'm still trying to be smart about the rest of the food shopping. At least AA is down to 1 or 2 pull-ups per day, and SL is less than 2 months away from going off formula! Her consumption is way up; I think she's going through one $22 carton a week at least, so when she's on to much cheaper milk, we'll be freeing up probably $75 per month in the grocery budget!

- We meet with the prospective housesitter this Tuesday; if he seems all right and agrees to watch our cat for free in return for free lodging, that will be a load off our minds for our May trip to England!

I feel so enraged right now. I just need to vent.

I set up a payment for NT's Direct Loan debt, over $1100, to hit his account today. I log in to his account and it shows his loan balance is $0! Instead of $1100, it looks like the last payment was $18,079, the full amount of his loan. WTF?

So I call the automated line to see whether the balance is the same there. I get a message that the loan has been transferred over to Sallie Mae. WTF?

I call Sallie Mae, and they have no loan under NT's name. They say it may take up to 30 days to even get to them. WTF?

So then I call Direct Loan again, and they say the same thing. When I ask what happened to my $1100 payment, they say that when they receive it (they haven't yet!), they will send it to Sallie Mae. Could take up to 30 days. WTF??

The money is gone from my account. I don't have it anymore. But neither does anyone else, apparently. And I assume that phantom loan is still gathering interest as it continues its month-long journey through the ether??

I'm so outraged because had I known they were going to switch the loan over, I would NOT have drained my checking account to send a payment that wasn't going to do any good for a month.

I'm also furious because a similar thing happened last year; I sent off a huge payment not knowing they were going to completely change over their computer system. That time, they were not able to process my payment for about 3 months.

The only (ONLY!) bright spot right now, which hopefully I will be able to appreciate when my blood stops boiling, is that Sallie Mae seems to be a much more competent loan administrator, so hopefully whenever this switchover happens, I won't experience any more problems. I'll be glad to be shut of Direct Loan.

But still...

WTF?!?!?!?!??!

I was feeling pretty great about our grocery spending last Saturday. We went about $30 into February, not bad at all.

Then I realized that I somehow (still wondering how) forgot to record a $60 purchase from the previous week! Ouch.

That was offset somewhat by the Amex card giving us $25 of rewards. So I still felt decent.

Then, we needed to replace toothbrush heads on our electric toothbrush. Over $40! Yikes. I know it's better for our teeth, but yowch.

A couple random bits of money out here and there, and we're starting February with $240 in the grocery budget, instead of the $375 we'd have if we were staying within budget. Sigh. Guess we'll be scrimping and scraping for Feb. 1-15. Hopefully Feb. 16-28 will be better. (I'm always saying that, but one of these days it'll be true!)

I set my February debt goal; I'm aiming to pay off at least $1960 of debt. Most of the progress will happen this week, with one last payment at the end of February pushing us over the top.

Thanks to everyone's advice on the past post, I decided that I will throw every bit of debt & savings money at that one student loan (DL) that bugs me so much. I forgot that February will be a bit lighter than usual, but I combined what I have in the Feb. budget and set up a payment of just over $1100 to hit Feb. 1. HOPEfully, since I've sent $145 in the past month and only apparently lowered the balance by $22, this will almost entirely go toward lowering the balance. (Did I mention that the later payment showed up with a date stamp of the day BEFORE the earlier payment that I sent two weeks before? Ugh, whatever.)

I also decided to start up the credit card churn again. In 2011 I earned $3927 in bonuses alone (not counting regular purchase rewards) and in 2012 I got $4000 in bonuses! I don't think I'll come anywhere near those amounts this year, but I'll see what I can do.

First off, I applied all three of us for the Barclays NFL card, and all three of us were approved! This one is a 10K bonus (worth $100 statement credit) after the first purchase. I imagine we'll each need to make one purchase, pay off the card to avoid interest while waiting for the statement credit, and then spend at least $100 more on the card to take advantage of said credit. So maybe 2 purchases each, and we get $300! That should cover a lawyer consultation fee and leave $50 to put toward debt repayment.

Once we finish that, I think we'll apply for the USBank Visa for me and AS (would be our first time) to get $150 for spending $500, and sign NT up for the Bank of America deal where you get $100 for spending $500. That will net us $400 total for the three offers.

Then, I think we'll each try to double-dip the Chase Sapphire deal of spend $3000 get $400. We'll do those one at a time, because depending on whether any unusual expenses come up, it's sometimes a struggle to spend that much in 3 months, especially since we like to keep using our Amex card for groceries for that 6% reward (and now Target RedCard for the 5% discount).

If we do manage to double-dip that one 3 times, we'll net $1200 (plus at least $30 each for regular purchase rewards, so actually $1290).

Not looking forward to the hassle of recordkeeping and bill-paying, but it's a relatively easy way to snowflake that debt, so I'm willing to do it!

Omigod, worst title ever. Sorry, I'll be writing this in dribs and drabs between bits of work, so it'll probably be scattered too. You have been warned.

I'm in email contact with a lawyer about our immigration/tax-filing question; if he consults with us it'll be $250. I'd really like to pay that upfront without disrupting the momentum of our goals, so I started looking around at credit card deals.

There's a Barclays NFL card where you get 10K points, good for a $100 statement credit, after your first purchase! If we each got approved for this, we could easily cover the lawyer fee. I'm going to cancel some errant card accounts and then try for this.

***

creditcardfree's contemplation of paying off the car loan really got me thinking about the loan that bugs me the most: NT's student loan with Direct Loan, the federal loan place. Not only is it our highest interest rate (6.175%), but their site is terrible and frequently posts inaccurate, delayed or confusing information regarding the balance and how payments are applied. I don't want to empty our savings accounts to pay it off, which is what it would take, but I would LOVE to see this one gone.

So I started thinking what it would take to get rid of it by the end of the year. First, I'd need to virtually ignore adding to the medical fund for the rest of the year. I'm kind of OK with that. We have enough in there for now, and could always rearrange the budget and slow down student loan payment if we had an emergency that took more than what we have saved.

And, I'd probably have to pretty much ignore the house/moving fund, except the UK money that goes toward it (that wouldn't be worth transferring over here to pay down debt, so I'd just let that accumulate toward the moving fund.

Also, to avoid taking out any more money with Direct Loan, I'd have to cashflow NT's fall tuition, which would run us about $4K.

OK, so if I did all that, how close could I get? I'd need $18K to finish off the student loan plus $4K to avoid taking any further loans from Direct Loan, so $22K total.

I currently have $1062 extra to put to education per month, plus about $50 that goes to principal on this DL loan when I make a $100 payment to cover interest. That would knock $12,232 off, leaving $9768.

I believe AS has $1850 of freelance income due to her in the next couple months, so if we put all of that toward this, that would leave $7918.

If we put the $101 per month I have earmarked for the house moving fund, that would be another $1111, leaving $6807.

If I really scraped the barrel and put the $75 I earmark for the medical fund monthly, that would be another $825, leaving $5982.

Starting in July or so, I could start siphoning money from our travel budget, say $350 per month for those 6 months. That would be $2100, leaving $3882.

We could potentially each double-dip the Chase Sapphire reward, the last big-money credit card reward, if we staggered it throughout the year. We should be able to clear at least $1290 that way, leaving $2592.

Hmm...that's still a $236 average monthly shortfall if we wanted it paid off by the end of the year. It also assumes no budget hiccups where money would need to be diverted toward an unexpected expense.

Oh! And if NT took a summer class, that's something else we'd have to cashflow. Probably a couple grand.

So I guess it's not looking very likely that we'd be able to completely rid ourselves of this annoying loan. The question is, should I go ahead and do all of the above and try to get as close as possible? Or should I continue to contribute something to the medical and moving funds every month?

AS's student loan hit, with $128 going to principal.

For the January debt goal, that's $2145 down. Since it's the last debt payment of the month, that means we're $40 short of the $2185 goal. (As reported earlier, I tried sending an extra payment to another student loan, but much less went to principal than I thought should have.)

At least I've met the January leg of our 4-year big-picture goals. This takes us to $2242.61 of big-picture progress, $13.61 more than the $2229 I aimed for.

I'm going to structure the big-picture goal progress slightly differently than my monthly debt goals. With those, I just note how much I was under or over, then create a new goal based on my expected budget.

For the big picture, each new month I'm going to aim for a cumulative amount, $2229 more than the previous month.

So for February, the goal is to get to $4458 of big-picture progress, and the starting point is $2242.61.

Not sure if it makes sense outside my own head, but that's the only place it really needs to, I guess!

I just realized I forgot to record $25 that went into savings automatically, as well as $0.26 of interest from this month. I'm putting them both toward the medical fund, which counts toward our big picture.

So that takes our medical fund to $1348.68 ($3,651.32 to go).

And it means our big-picture progress for January is $2,114.61 down, $114.39 to go.

I had some credit card reward money and wanted to make an extra student loan payment to try and hit my January goal. This is the Direct Loan where they switched over their site last year and it has seemed messed-up ever since. For instance, I estimate the monthly interest to be about $50 per month; it's difficult to tell because the loan is in deferment and so when I make a payment, sometimes it comes out of interest and sometimes principal. I just combine the two totals to come up with what we owe, because we will have to pay the interest eventually.

I sent a $70 payment earlier this month, but it didn't change the interest+principal amount at all, so I figured maybe somehow $70 of interest had been added since the last time I checked and I just broke even.

But then earlier this week -- and just a few days after that other payment -- I sent a $75 payment to them. Now I'm showing interest+principal to be $22 less than after I sent my $70 payment. I refuse to believe over $50 of interest built up in just a week, since that's usually what we average per month. We did borrow some more recently, but just a fraction of the total principal. So what's going on? Who knows. They're really hard to get in touch with and supremely unhelpful when you do get them to respond. None of my payments from September through December 2012 even show up in the "past payments" section, though a phone rep has assured me they show up on their end. I'm just going to log $22 of progress. So $2017 down, $168 to go on the January debt goal and $2089.35, $139.65 to go on the big-picture goals for January.

I don't think I'm going to borrow any more from them, even if the interest rate is preferable when next year's financial aid package arrives. I just want this crap paid off and forgotten about. Nothing makes me feel more unmotivated than not having a grasp on actual financials.

In other news, in reference to my last blog entry, my lawyer got back to me with a referral to an immigration lawyer, and I shot that guy an email asking for a consultation. I'm thinking it'll be $250 or $300 to talk to him for an hour, but we'll see; I asked him for a price quote. Hopefully I can get in with someone before too long so I can figure out what to do about our tax filings. It'll hurt a bit because that's $250 or $300 we'll have to divert from our big-picture goals, but I think it'll be well worth it in the long run to gain some clarity at this early stage.

Ugh, I realized one of the reasons I've been putting off gathering our tax docs this year is that I just don't know who should claim SL on their taxes.

Of course most of you who follow my blog know the whole story, but bear with me while I explain it, just so this entry makes sense. (note to newbies, I have a very "alternative" family, so if that sort of thing tends to bother or offend you, best to skip this post. )

So we have a three-adult relationship. NT and I are legally married and he is a UK citizen, permanent resident of the U.S. through a marriage visa.

AS is an equal partner in the relationship (in fact she and I were together long before NT came into it), but not in legal terms. (Although she is well-protected in terms of estate planning and healthcare directives, there's not much we can do to legally establish our relationship in the eyes of the government.)

NT and I had a child, AA, and NT and AS had a child, SL. (My child has my last name and their child has NT's last name, if anyone's interested.) We were able to do a third-parent adoption, so in Minnesota state, at least, we are all three the legal parents of both kids. (I'm not sure that ruling would have any bearing outside of our state and especially outside our country.)

When it comes to filing taxes, NT and I file jointly, of course, and AS files as a single person. Last year we added AA to the mix, and it was an easy decision to put her on NT and my return, since she is biologically ours, the adoption had not taken effect, and we provide the majority of support.

So now we come to SL. We still provide the majority of support for her as well (having two incomes on our return, and both making more than AS), so should we claim her on our return?

I believe the answer is yes; if I recall from my tax course many years ago, the household that provides more than 50% of support claims the child.

But at the back of my mind I'm thinking about the eventual immigration process to the UK, and what would be best for that. If we move, it will be because AS has found a way to establish residency on her own, probably through employment or starting her own business.

NT and I would then apply for entry as a UK citizen and his spouse. Again, it's a no-brainer that AA would be part of our application. But what about little SL?

In providing records for immigration, the birth certificates are going to be produced, no doubt. Which will raise fewer red flags; AS applying with her child who has a British citizen's name on the birth certificate although he's not her spouse? Or NT and I applying with a child whose mother isn't legally related to us?

And, since tax documents may also be a key part of the application (proving me and NT were a legitimate married couple), where should SL be on our tax docs? Are we even allowed to include her on AS's return if that seems like the smartest move for immigration, since she only provides 1/4 to 1/3 of the financial support?

It concerns me a lot. We're not attempting to circumvent any rules, and haven't broken any laws. SL would be legally entitled to move to UK with either NT or AS, since she is biological child to both of them. She also is going to have essentially dual citizenship once we get her a British passport. But I feel like our situation is going to come to light in the immigration process and will raise the risk of some kind of red flag/ban on one of us moving between countries.

When NT came over here, we didn't have children so AS's name never even had to enter the picture. We basically avoided talking about our situation. I just don't think we'll be able to do that this time around, and I'm not sure how best to handle it.

I'm still leaning toward putting SL on my and NT's tax form. She has his last name, she's his biological child, and we provide the most support. Maybe on immigrating a simple consent form from AS allowing NT to bring SL to England, without further comment about her own plans, would suffice? Maybe I'm making too much of this and it wouldn't be a problem. People have affairs and children out of wedlock all the time, so in legal terms that's what I should be looking at, I suppose. That's the closest model to what we have, even though it's NOTHING like what we have.

I may ask my tax attorney for his input, but he'll only be able to advise on the tax side, not in terms of possible future immigration.

Ack.

Quiet night home tonight. It was my turn to go to trivia, but I'm fighting off a cold and pretty much out of spending money, so I gave up my spot.

Today I left my wallet at home, which I hardly ever do. I only needed it for my bus pass, but I was stumped for a second because I didn't have any cash. Then I remembered my envelope of $1 bills I took from my charity budget to give out on the street between Xmas and Thanksgiving. I never even gave away half of it; I'm not on the street much, and people are less apt to be out in our winter than in the nice weather! I gave $20 to a friend who was doing 31 nice things for her 31st birthday, but I still had some ones left over. I've given them out sporadically but honestly not that many people have asked me for money.

So I used $3 to get to work and $3 to get back. It's still a good use of charitable money; I'm very much in favor of Metro Transit, and it fits my values of sustainability and helping poor people survive.

***

I just redeemed $34.57 of Chase Freedom rewards. I decided to pull $35.43 from next month's extra debt repayment and send a $70 extra payment to NT's student loan, in hope of meeting or at least getting close to our January debt repayment goal. It'll hit the loan on the 24th or 25th, so we'll see how much goes to principal.

***

Remember my goal last year of getting and staying under 130 lbs.? Well, I managed to stay under 130 from about mid-November to last Sunday, when I ticked up to 132! I told myself if I went over, I'd go back to calorie counting until I got back down again. It's been an adjustment getting back into the calorie counting groove, but hopefully I'll get down under 130 again soon and can stop doing it again. I imagine it's something I'll have to do from time to time to stay on track, and I think that's OK. It's easy to slowly increase your calories without really realizing you're doing it.

***

We've been talking about what to do for our cat when we're in England for 2 weeks in May. Someone here mentioned that Jeffrey (SA site owner) does housesitting, so I actually contacted him! He'd do it but would need airfare, which ended up being prohibitive. But that got us on the idea of getting a housesitter who would pay their own transportation and would do it just for the free housing. We found a site where many of the users have background checks and references, and advertised last night. Really, when you think about it, a high-rise condo near downtown Minneapolis in the late spring is pretty attractive as a vacation spot. We've already got two responses, so we'll probably wait a bit longer, pick a couple of finalists and NT said we should try to Skype chat with them to get a feel for them. Turns out there are a lot of retired and/or telecommuting people who like to travel around and see new places by housesitting. Who knew?

***

We were talking about our big-picture goal of saving for a big move the other night. The $56K goal includes money for sprucing up our current condo to try and get a better price for it. NT asked if we could do some of the upgrades sooner than right before we try to sell, so we could enjoy them for a bit before we go. Someone else here (snafu maybe?) mentioned that a while back. We agreed it would be nice to update our super-dated bathroom with something a bit more modern once we get some of our big-picture money saved.

We've only got $5,000 budgeted for the bathroom (and we don't even have that saved up yet). So we'll have to be very careful about what we choose to do; I know renovations can quickly go over budget, and I really don't want to do that, because we'd either have to save more or cut back somewhere else.

But, it would be nice to have a bathroom we could really enjoy for a while. And I know NT would love all the planning and work (I'm no good at that side of things, but he loves home improvement and is always itching for a new project).

So we agreed we'll wait until we have at least $10K saved, and then we can talk about redoing the bathroom with $5K of it. We've only got $3K saved, so it'll be a while.

***

I'm still waiting on some tax docs, mostly for AS. I can probably send my and NT's off to our tax preparer soon. I'm just procrastinating mostly. I used to love doing taxes, but now they're so complicated, and I have them so we don't give the IRS an interest-free loan, so we don't have the anticipation of a big refund. I'm glad we have the money each month instead, but it does remove that big motivation to get the things done!

***

I've got 7 yesses and 1 maybe coming to my "League of Ordinary Savers" budgeting discussion group in February! I only invited 6 people, actually, but one said she's bringing her husband and another said a friend of hers saw the Facebook event and asked if she can join. I'm a teensy bit nervous now that there are a couple people I don't know coming, but at the same time excited!

I wrote one post and some "About" info on the companion blog. I haven't started a matching Facebook group yet; I'm going to wait until closer to the Feb. 10 meeting to start that.

I've been playing around with Mint.com so I can talk about more than just my one budgeting method. It wouldn't really work for me in real life, I don't think; for one thing I can't figure out how to link NT's UK accounts, so it doesn't really give a full picture. Also when I was last on it, my main checking account balance was showing as $0. I hope it was just taking a while to sync up; I have to go check again.

I also tried to set up a Payoff.com account, but I wasn't able to link my Barclays account properly. I think I was answering one of the security answers wrong, but if so I'm not sure what I would have said instead for that answer!

I'm mostly going to talk about the DIY methods such as Google Drive and physical envelopes. I like the hands-on approach vs. everything being automated; I feel like my Google system keeps me honest because if I don't keep tinkering with it, it will fall to pieces. So I know I have to stay involved with it, and that keeps me focused on our goals.

I've got some time to plan for the meeting, so if there are any important methods or tips you want to make sure I don't forget, let me know!

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): $21,506
NT's Roth IRA: $5,000
AS's 401(k): $8,689
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $10,174
CJ's 401(k): $50,791
CJ's Roth IRA: $5,000
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: $2,958
---
Total Assets: $521,577

Total Debt: $277,633

Current Estimated Net Worth: $243,944

August 2012 estimate: $308,187

Change in net worth: -$64,243

Summary: It looks terrible, but actually we did very well in retirement fund performance, debt payoff and savings.

What happened is I "trued up" our accounts using the current pounds-to-dollars exchange rate, reassessed our home values, and moved some money out of the EF into our medical fund (which I don't count among our assets).

Now we can start building toward a TRUE net worth of $300K.

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, I decided to do an internet disconnect day Sunday, so I thought I'd get an entry in before that! I'm shooting for midnight-to-midnight, so I've only got about 2 hours left! The house is a mess, but I figure I can clean tomorrow, because I think I'll suddenly have a lot of time on my hands.

That is, assuming I feel OK tomorrow. My stomach's been bugging me all day; feels somewhere between indigestion and period cramps, so I can't tell what's going on. I hope it's one or the other, and not a flu symptom. That would be terrible, after just getting over one long illness! It ebbs and flows; I just took some Alka Seltzer and it feels less painful, but I can still feel something. Anyway, we'll see how I feel tomorrow. I was going to do abdominal workout today but I don't think I could handle that!

NT and AS are out at a dance performance thing, so I've got the house to myself. AA only recently went to bed, because her nap was thrown off today and because she's kind of sick again, so I was humoring her and letting her stay up late.

We rented a carshare and got a lot done today. AS and I are going to need our passports renewed before the May trip to the UK, and SL will need a new one. So we went to a FedEx Office and got passport photos for all three of us, as well as photocopies of NT's and AS's driver's licenses (which they needed to provide since SL is a minor). Then we went to a government center and submitted her application. AS and I just need to mail our old passports in with the new photos and application forms. All told it's nearly $400 of our travel budget toward this endeavor! Yikes.

But we did get the good news that NT's mom wants to pay for our rental car on our vacation. So that will just about make up for the money spent on passports.

After those chores were over, the girls were exhausted and we were all starving, so we got some takeout food at Chipotle and dropped AS and the kids at home. NT and I used the remaining time on the carshare to do our weekly grocery shopping, because the weather was getting ugly and we really didn't want to bus, walk or bike with heavy bags!

Our groceries came to about $145. Considering our pantry was pretty much empty of staples, that's pretty cheap. We got pastas, various beans, rice, veggie burgers, snacks for the girls, as well as our usual weekly fresh fruit & vegetables, milk & soymilk. We even got a big bottle of olive oil and a bunch of herbs we'd run out of. So I think we did really well!

We got some frozen peas where we stacked and doubled coupons, and we actually made 48 cents on the deal! We also got a box of Fruit Newtons cookies for free after sale and coupon, and some Teddy Grahams for nearly free.

We have about $110 left in the grocery budget through the 31st (and I've already subtracted what we'll spend on diapers). We'll definitely need formula for home ($25) and we may need one for daycare, so we'll have either $85 or $60 for next week's grocery run. But we should be able to utilize a lot of the stuff we stocked up on, so hopefully we can get through this period without dipping into the next! Oh, and we may have $25 put back into the budget from Amex rewards; if that happens, we'll really have a good shot.

***

I've started another personal finance blog! This has been a couple weeks in the making, but I didn't want to write about it until I'd actually done something about it, because I tend to make plans and not follow through when it comes to blogging, creative stuff, etc. It's weird; some things in my life I've really stuck to, while a lot of other things fizzle out before they really get going.

It all started when a friend asked if she could come over and ask my advice about retirement and some other financial things. I agreed and was a bit surprised about how basic her questions were. She basically wanted me to advise her on what to choose for the 401(k) at work and how much to put toward it. Then, she had a credit card offer she'd gotten in the mail and wanted me to look at it and make sure it was as good a deal as it seemed.

I looked through her 401(k) and told her to pick an aggressive fund that already had the mix set up for her, and to contribute up to the matching max, explaining how that ROI was unbeatable.

Then I looked at the credit card offer, read all the fine print, asked about her existing credit cards and advised her that, as long as she was careful to not use her existing cards anymore, it would be a very good deal to transfer the balances to this $0 transfer fee, 0% for 12 months card. (Even after the 0% period is up, the rate will be lower than both her existing cards.)

That led to a conversation about credit scores, and I sent her links to annualcreditreport.com and creditkarma.com and explained what each site had to offer.

So, you know, really basic stuff to those of us who have been on this site for a while, but she didn't know any of these things. It felt so good that I'd helped a friend basically exponentially increase her financial literacy in less than an hour!

Then, a friend of AS was talking to her about my personal finance obsession. She wanted to see my blog so AS sent her a link. (Hi K if you're reading this!) AS mentioned that other people, upon hearing about my very exacting financial management, have expressed their confusion and anxiety when it comes to their own personal finances.

So that made me think that maybe I could do what I'd done for my friend, but in a group. People could bring any questions or issues from their financial life, I could share my basic philosophy of finance, and we could trade ideas and inspiration.

I posted on Facebook to see if anyone would be interested in something like this, and got 5 or 6 people expressing interest. Several more people from out of state said they wished they lived near enough to take part because they loved the sound of it.

THEN, I started thinking further. What if I started a Facebook page to record everything that we talked about in the discussion group? Then my out-of-state friends could also get some value from it even though they couldn't attend in person.

Then I thought, why not have a website as well as a Facebook page? Maybe other people besides just my friend group could get something out of it too.

I started brainstorming name ideas with AS. I wanted something that sounded sort of heroic but also kind of old-fashioned. I picture the group being very inspring but also nonthreatening, so old-timey superhero-y was the vibe I was going for. She and I collectively came up with "The League of Ordinary Savers." I love it more every time I say it!

I liked it so much that I went ahead and registered the domain "ordinarysavers.com"! Now I've got skin in the game, so hopefully it'll motivate me to keep it going. I've got 2 weeks free but after that, I'll get charged about $120 for a year of service. I'm going to pay for it gradually with my weekly spending money, $10 or $20 a week until I pay it off.

AS is helping me set up the site; there's nothing there yet, really, except an intro post and some "about" info. I hope to pretty it up and add more content in the coming weeks.

Then, I invited all the local people who had expressed interest in a personal finance group to come over in February. I just did that tonight and already have 2 Yesses!

I'm pretty excited. I've off and on cast about for ways that I could use my past mistakes and what I've learned from them to help other people with their money. This seems like a way to do it that's fun, and it's "scalable"; I can make this as informal and private, or as high-minded and public, as seems appropriate (and depending on how interested I stay in this project). I've also wanted a creative project such as a blog, and I've considered and discarded several blog ideas. This is the first one I felt sure enough about to actually get it going! I know there are a ton of well-established, prolific personal finance bloggers out there, so maybe the wider world doesn't need another one. But I at least feel like my social circle could get something out of it.

I'll let you all know how it goes!

NT's tuition balance for the spring semester posted to his student page in December, but we've been waiting for the student loan we took out to hit the account, so I could see exactly how much we owed in cash. Well, it finally hit today; we took out a $2723 loan and I paid $1254 to cover the rest of the semester.

I took both amounts out of "estimated future debt"; of course the loan added to actual debt, but the tuition paid is just future debt gone. So that's $1254 more to our January debt goal and to our big-picture goal.

$1994 down, $191 to go on the January debt goal. We might actually miss that by a bit, unless I decide to pay extra on some loan. We'll see.

$2067.35 down, $161.65 to go on the January portion of our big-picture goal. That one we'll almost certainly hit, maybe even exceed if one of AS's freelance checks comes in this month.

With taking this semester's loan and tuition out of "estimated future debt," that brings that category down to just $2829. That means the $40,000 I estimated for NT's college degree is almost gone, with a year and a half of classes still to go. That's OK, I'm confident we can stop borrowing and start cashflowing once that money is used up. And, my debt numbers will be less confusing to outside observers once I get rid of this shadowy "future debt" category.

NT's tuition balance for the spring semester posted to his student page in December, but we've been waiting for the student loan we took out to hit the account, so I could see exactly how much we owed in cash. Well, it finally hit today; we took out a $2723 loan and I paid $1254 to cover the rest of the semester.

I took both amounts out of "estimated future debt"; of course the loan added to actual debt, but the tuition paid is just future debt gone. So that's $1254 more to our January debt goal and to our big-picture goal.

$1994 down, $191 to go on the January debt goal. We might actually miss that by a bit, unless I decide to pay extra on some loan. We'll see.

$2067.35 down, $161.65 to go on the January portion of our big-picture goal. That one we'll almost certainly hit, maybe even exceed if one of AS's freelance checks comes in this month.

With taking this semester's loan and tuition out of "estimated future debt," that brings that category down to just $2829. That means the $40,000 I estimated for NT's college degree is almost gone, with a year and a half of classes still to go. That's OK, I'm confident we can stop borrowing and start cashflowing once that money is used up. And, my debt numbers will be less confusing to outside observers once I get rid of this shadowy "future debt" category.

Finally, all our paychecks hit and I got to look at our paystubs too. Turns out the decrease due to the tax cut expiring wasn't quite as bad as I thought because other taxes (federal, state, medicare) adjusted ever so slightly lower. So instead of losing $226 per month it's more like $195. Hey, I'll take it! That means $30 more to our big-picture goals, so our budget shortfall's only about $330 (I'll do the exact math in a bit and update my sidebar when the blogs are working again).

I therefore have a small budget surplus over the next two months because I underestimated our take-home pay. But we have a few dental and doctor visits coming up, and I don't want to dip into our medical savings, so I decided to put that windfall aside to cover co-pays.

I also took the opportunity to update a spreadsheet I don't use too often but find helpful for assessing our spending relative to income. I call it "Absolute Budget Breakdown" and I list our gross income and itemize all the taxes and pre-tax paycheck withholdings. I have everything listed by "Need," "Want" and "Savings/extra debt repayment." I like to measure things against the 50/30/20 yardstick (50% to needs, 30% to wants, 20% to savings/debt repayment). Our new numbers look pretty good. Counting tax withholdings as a "need," this is how the budget breaks down:
Needs 56.21%
Wants 20.41%
Debt repayment/savings 23.37%

However, if you remove taxes from the mix and just evaluate the money that is actually mine, here's how it breaks down:
Needs 48.15%
Wants 24.17%
Savings/debt 27.68%

That seems pretty well balanced to me. I also calculate how much of our gross income is going toward retirement, and right now it's at 9.29%. So, that's a bit low, but considering how many other debt and savings priorities we have, I'm fairly comfortable with that. As we knock other goals out of the way, I see us upping that percentage gradually. (We are saving 10.19% of our regular income, but if you count our two property rental incomes, we're not quite there.)

Other financial news, briefly:

We went over our grocery budget by about $46. This is the least behind we've been in months. Part of it has been smart grocery shopping, but also we each donated $50 of our Xmas gifts from family to the groceries, so that helped wipe out the deficit caused by Thanksgiving and Xmas food expenses. AA is down to just three or four pull-ups per day, so that expense is a bit smaller. I have high hopes that we're going to stay within our grocery budget from the 16th to the 31st (even without the $46 we took as an advance this past week), and if we can manage that, I think it'll be even more doable from now on. In late March SL won't need formula anymore, and in early June we'll start getting our CSA veggies again.

Other creative budget tidbits: We had some winter gear and some school book purchases that weren't budgeted anywhere. I just put them in the spreadsheet as something we had to reimburse somehow. NT sold a pile of DVDs we'd been meaning to get rid of, and that made up for about half the expenses. We still have $68 that we need to make up somehow, but we have a bunch of books as well as a thermal stroller cover, so if we can sell some of that, we may be able to pay for the winter clothes and textbooks without disrupting our regular budget!

I guess that's it for now. I look forward to reading everyone else's blogs when the site is back up and running!

When I woke this morning, I felt like the illness was gone but that I had no strength or energy. I went to work and requested that we see if I could arrange my work so I could leave early. Well, the stars aligned and I left around 12:30. Picked up some lunch on the way home, ate it in bed along with some chamomile tea, and read and watched TV until about 2 or 2:30, when I fell into an extremely deep sleep and didn't wake up till 5:30! I was dazed, but I feel more at my normal energy levels. I cooked a fairly complex dinner and still had energy to play with my toddler for about an hour before her bedtime.

Now that I'm feeling better, I need to start knocking out to-do's that I've been putting off. I need to schedule doctor and dentist appointments, renew/apply for passports for England, start to gather tax documents, finish reading a manuscript submission that I volunteered to review for AS's publishing house, and do my self-assessment at work. I also need to start working out again. But most of this can wait until next week. I think I'm just going to try and enjoy my energy and my family this weekend, for the most part.

We've been talking about AS not taking any more freelance projects soon. NT's all for it, but then it would mean if any household wants come up (home improvement etc.), we would either have to say no or find creative ways to finance it., if we have any hope of saving enough for a move to England. I'm all for that. I think we're in a good place and should be able to get through the next few years without buying much for the house. It's not a perfect home or anything, but if we want to save up and buy a better home, we'll need to accept that and make do with what we have.

AS shouldn't keep burning the candle at both ends, anyway. So I'm hoping after these next couple of projects she's already accepted, we'll all have the strength to help her give up this side income. It's good money, but at a heavy price to AS's work/life balance, health and free time.

And it's not like it couldn't be picked up at a later date if emergencies arose, or that there won't ever be any other, less punishing freelance opportunities for any of us.