Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

So, I haven't made any money for my maybe trip to Va. since I found $46 extra in the haircut fund. I'm hoping to raise at least $300 to pay for the bulk of airfare for me and my toddler AA.

Then, yesterday we got our annual profit sharing check from our grocery co-op! I always forget it's coming, and the amount varies from year to year, so I don't factor it into my budget. This year it's about $82.

So I'm putting that toward my trip fund, taking me to $128. Not too bad! I'm very close to being able to order a $10 Target card from MyPoints; I can put that toward groceries and get $10 from the grocery budget to put into my travel fund. That will take me almost halfway to my goal. I still have some books and videos I can try to sell, but I keep putting it off because I hardly have any free time. At some point I'll get desperate.

I might get a Target card at work tomorrow; it's Halloween and sometimes they give cards out as prizes for dressing up in costume. If I do I'll put that to groceries and take money out for my trip.

Slowly but surely, building up money to help pay for this. Oh, and I have one less relative to visit when I go over, so I can just do a really short trip; AS's mom is moving to Connecticut this Friday, so she won't be in Va. in December. It's sad she won't get a chance to see her grandkids, but for this trip, it makes my timing that much more flexible.

Checked AS's student loan and her monthly payment had hit. $128 to principal, taking us to $1843 paid in October, a bit over our $1790 goal. Woo hoo!

We have had a slightly spendy but marvelous weekend so far. Hoping tomorrow is quiet and productive.

Friday we went to a dinner party at some friends' house. Luckily we got a ride, so no cost except NT bought a bottle of wine for the hosts. They had two little boys who were fun and nice, and had lots of fun toys AA loved. Everything was vegan-friendly, even the desserts. At the end of the night, the hosts gave us a winter coat and pair of snow boots just AA's size. Score!

Today we went to a corn maze, an outing organized by my college's local alumni chapter. Only two others besides my family decided to go, but they were two of my favorite local alumni! We again lucked out with rides; they met at our condo and took some of us in one car and some in the other. Admission was $13 but AS found an online coupon that gave $1 off per person, and both kids were free. We bought cider for the drivers, and we also got roasted corn, cotton candy, mini-donuts and kettle corn. Phew! Of my family, we divvied up expenses and figured out we spent $21 per person total. Not too shabby, considering all the fun we had: besides the snacks there was a corn maze; a giant bouncy-pillow thing; a corn pit; and a petting zoo with goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo, parakeets, ponies, llamas, and several animals I wasn't familiar with.

We also ordered pizza for dinner when we got home, which was $16 per person. So the whole day cost $37 per person, but it was worth it!

This should be the last expensive social weekend for a while. I'm still in debt to my own allowance, so I'm looking forward to some quiet cheap weekends at home so I can get my spending money in balance again.

Thanks for all the well wishes for SL on my last entry! As is often the case with infants, she was super-miserable for about 12 hours and then perked right up! Today she's been drinking huge bottles to make up for her poor appetite yesterday.

Work gave me my $50 Zappos card for completing the pedometer challenge! I spent it right away because my black work flats are pathetic. Not even "flats" anymore; I noticed today that the soles have worn out in such a way that they don't land evenly on the pavement anymore.

Zappos is pretty expensive compared with what I'm usually prepared to pay for clothes (my typical range is $10-$40 per item depending on what it is). I finally found a pair of black flats on sale for $44, so I got those. What to do with the last $6? I did a lot of searching by lowest price among the departments and settled on 3 pairs of socks for AA for $8.50. So for $2.50, I got a nice pair of work shoes and three pairs of toddler-sized socks. And I got more fit earning the rest. Not bad.

I've been looking for cheap airfare to Va. and so far found tix for about $195 each, which would be close to $400 to take the toddler (infant would ride free on my lap). I'm hoping I can do better by not being picky about days and by waiting for last-minute deals.

Meanwhile, I glanced over my budget spreadsheet to try and get an idea of what's coming up, and I noticed I have too much money in our haircut fund. So I was able to pull $46 out of that and put it aside for plane tickets. Now I just have to conjure up the rest of the funds! I know we have some DVDs and books waiting around to be sold, so maybe this week or weekend I can take the books to the used bookstores to see if they'll take any, and post some of the DVDs online. It'll only get me a few bucks here and there, but every little bit helps!

Looked at my Google Adsense from this blog just now. I earned $2.32 last month and just over $5 this month! Unfortunately, you can't receive payment until you hit $100. At this rate I'll be able to get $100 in a year and a half or so. LOL. Still, that'll be a nice surprise at some point.

I should ramp up MyPoints clicking and surveys. I might be able to scrape up a few bucks that way. If I get Target cards with MyPoints, I can use them toward groceries and take cash for myself from the grocery budget.

I'll keep thinking!

Pretty quiet day today. The 7-month-old SL is sick, and not happy about it, but other than that not much going on. I've only recently gotten over a cold, and who knows if I'm going to catch this one too, so I'm just trying to rest and do as little as possible. I do need to make lunches for this week, but I can do that later. Right now AS is at a work function and NT took AA to the park to feed squirrels.

It was a hectic but pretty good week at work. Training is going well with my new hire (who is also an acquaintance I like, so that helps). I also found out I had 3 more vacation days allotted this year than they thought, and that I'll get 20 days next year! I was very pleased with both bits of news, but I already have more PTO this year than I know what to do with. I tacked the three days onto two I was taking in December anyway so that I now have a whole week off with no plans, plus random days off here and there in November and December.

I got it in my head that I should visit my parents and AS's mom in Virginia, and take both daughters with me. I know they would all like that, and what with the family visit to England planned next year, I don't know when we'll get out to Va. in the near future.

There is the question of how to pay for it though. I'm a to-the-penny budgeter, so I don't just have money lying around for an impromptu trip. Of course I could just ask my dad for the money, but I'd rather find a way to get there myself. I know he'll loan me one of his cars to drive while I'm there, and that everyone will provide food for us. So it's just the plane tickets for me and AA I have to worry about.

I'm going to keep my eye out for a last-minute deal. I would love to get there for about $300. Of course I still need to figure out where that $300 would come from, but we'll see. These things have a way of working out, and worst comes to worst I could just gradually pay it back in with my spending allowance.

I don't look forward to staying with relatives, but I can't justify the expense of a hotel and rental car. My parents' house has finally succumbed to my mom's hoarding and general uncleanliness, and they now have a fairly severe roach problem. AS's mom's house is better, but last time we were there, the hot water had been turned off. And my sister's is the best option, but even it is strange -- sparsely decorated in some places, unaccountably cluttered in others -- plus it's a 30-minute drive from my parents and even longer from AS's mom. Plus her husband, my brother-in-law, can be a real PITA sometimes.

But, I love everyone (well, except my BIL) and I feel more of a duty to visit home now that I have kids who should see their grandparents (and vice versa) from time to time. So we'll see if I can swing it.

I definitely don't want to go home for major holidays. We are creating our own traditions here with my nuclear family and close friends, and it's never relaxing to go home anymore. I believe holidays should be for ultimate enjoyment. So this random mid-December trip would be just the ticket.

***

I've had a very fun weekend; costly but fun. We ended our raw cleanse a week early -- I'd already hit my weight goal, AS and NT also lost a good deal of weight, and our friend we were doing it with just hated it. So we all went out to a Thai restaurant on Friday. The kids were great, the food was great and the company was fun. Then yesterday I went bra shopping -- it put my spending allowance in the hole but so worth it -- and then last night went to a reading by one of my favorite authors (AS's press publishes him). No admission fee, but I bought food and drinks there. Then there was an after-party which, thankfully, didn't cost me any more money. My boss was there; he's a poet active in the literary community and good friend of AS's boss, so I wasn't surprised. He's a good guy so it was nice to see him.

So I had a lot of fun, but I've already tapped my next week's allowance and then some. Our super-social October is nearly at an end -- I have a corn-maze event with my alumni chapter next weekend, but hopefully that's the last thing I'll have to spend money on for a while. I think I can get back to equilibrium on my allowance by mid-November if I'm careful.

***

I think I'm going to try and participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. I've done it almost every year since I found out about it nearly 10 years ago. I've never reached the 50,000-word goal, but it's always an interesting experiment.

This year I really need to have a firm plot in mind, or I won't get anywhere with how busy and tired I feel most of the time. I also need to rid myself of the inner editor that points out every cliche and badly written sentence and slows me down or gives me writer's block. I should brainstorm this week or so before Nov. 1 so I'm not flailing blindly on the first day.

***

We've completed our latest three credit-card spends, payoffs are planned, and we're just waiting on rewards for the last two. The rewards were $100, $100 and $150 for spending $500 on each ($1500 total). I've decided to take a break from the rewards credit card churn unless a big, tempting one comes to light. All I've seen recently are ones I've already done and/or little rewards like the three we just did. I hope something new and exciting comes up before we start our Xmas shopping! Meanwhile, we'll probably get a Target credit card so we can get 5% rewards on our spending there at least.

***

We totally blew it on our grocery spending this weekend. We'll be about $100 in the hole by the time we buy diapers. I'm hoping to gain back some ground with Amex rewards from our grocery spending card that gives us 6% back.

I think that's all my news. SL has managed to fall asleep, so the house is quiet for the moment. I'm just going to sit and savor it!

We were only about $2K away from our goal when I calculated our net worth at work today. Then I remembered I had a statement from one of NT's UK pensions, which I can't access online. So tonight I dug out the statement and recorded those gains. We were only $6 short of $300K net worth!

I went to our Barclays account where our moving fund is stashed, and saw that the balance had gone up another $1 in interest. So I transferred $5 to it and bam! We're at $300K net worth!

Of course this isn't as nice a round number as it looks. Our UK assets and debts are skewed because I still use a $2=1 pound ratio, even though a pound is only worth about $1.60 now. So in actuality, our assets, debt and net worth are actually smaller.

But as a milestone that I worked diligently toward, it's still pretty dang satisfying!

Three 2012 goals down, two to go!

Our daycare is raising its rates, I believe it's starting in November. After much agonizing, our daycare lady decided she had to raise her prices. $15 per month per household. (Not even per kid!)

I've never been happier to have a price go up. For less than $1100 per month ($1050 at current prices, $1065 after the increase), our daycare provides 10 meals a week (for the toddler), education, playtime, exercise, socializing with other lovely kids, developmental activities, a calm and disciplined (yet loving) environment, the skills of our daycare lady plus several others (her mom, sister, daughter and husband), field trips, monthly music class with a visiting teacher, craft supplies, and most importantly a place that both girls are visibly happy and excited to come to every day. And she takes less than 2 weeks' paid vacation per year, just days here and there. Usually just on major holidays, or to redecorate the classroom or attend teacher conferences!

Also, take into account that average cost of a daycare center that would offer most (not all) of the above amenities in the downtown-Minneapolis area would be about $1500 a month. Per kid, not for both!

So yeah, you won't hear me grumbling about this come Nov. 1. Our mortgage increase, on the other hand ...

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($27,768)
#2: 17,268 pounds ($34,536)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $20,031
NT's Roth IRA: $4,664
AS's 401(k): $8,005
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $8,740
CJ's 401(k): $47,242
CJ's Roth IRA: $4,664
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $16,455
House down payment/moving fund: $1,490
---
Total Assets: $602,695

Total Debt: $302,695

Current Estimated Net Worth: $300,000

August 2012 estimate: $292,272

Change in net worth: +$7,728

Summary: Most of our retirement accounts stayed pretty stagnant (meaning they lost some value, since we did contribute cash to them all), but NT got a matching distribution in his 401(k), one of his UK funds had a significant rise, we added to the EF and moving funds, and we paid off a decent amount of debt. It all adds up! We were just $5 short so I put that amount in the moving fund to take us to our goal.

Our net worth topped $600K for the first time, and we have now reached our goal of $300K net worth! Now I just hope the markets hold out enough for us to keep this net worth through the end of the year.

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 very 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 $2 for every British pound, which was the exchange rate when I started keeping track. I maintain that ratio for the purpose of tracking progress, even though the exchange rate is now closer to $1.60 per British pound.

Whoof, what a busy day (and past couple of weeks)! I'm running home in a bit, but I'm bursting with this news and just had to share.

First, I weighed in Sunday night and had lost over 3 lbs.! That takes me down to 128, or 1 lb. lighter than my 2012 goal! First annual goal reached, WOO HOO!

Then today, an extra payment to NT's student loan posted. (Well, the weird site doesn't show the payment, but the principal is even lower than the amount I sent in, so I'm counting it! Must have forgotten to record an earlier snowflake payment) Anyway, the loan balance is $884 less than it was, so that takes us to $1715 paid in October, just $75 to go on the monthly goal. More importantly ...

Our total student loan debt is at $39,478! That means we reached another 2012 goal of getting student loan debt to less than $40,000!!

It feels SOO good to finally meet not one but TWO of our annual goals, with over 2 months to spare! Here's hoping we hit the rest this year too!

I've been sick, training in a new employee and super busy at work besides. I'm hoping the weekend will give me enough down time to recover!

However, we decided to finally do the raw cleanse, starting Sunday. We only went $5 over on groceries in the last two-week period, so we're actually in good shape, but eating raw costs a lot more than our regular diet, so I'm expecting we'll be back in the hole. Well, at least I feel good about our ability to get out of it again.

Anyway, it should be fun and different, but it will also be a lot of work, since everything needs to be prepared from scratch. Lots of soaking, chopping and blending, basically.

Our friend will be doing it in tandem and borrowed a dehydrator from her mom, so I'm interested to see what treats she comes up with.

So our menu looks a bit different. We are having cooked meals at night most days, but they have to be very simple and whole-food-based.

Saturday lunch
Taco baked potato

Saturday dinner
A&C eat out; N&AA - quesadillas & black bean burgers

Sunday
Breakfast: raw buckwheat porridge
Lunch: Thai salad & pineapple
Dinner: Raw corn salad w/avocado dressing

Monday
Breakfast: leftover porridge; fruit
Lunch: Asian salad w/sesame vinaigrette
Dinner: Mexican lettuce wraps w/sunflower "refried beans" & avocado

Tuesday
Breakfast: fruit
Lunch: Daikon apple slaw, lettuce, avocado
Dinner: Cauliflower & mustard greens w/ peanuts over rice

Wednesday (A out w/co-workers)
Breakfast: raw oatmeal w/cinnamon, raisins & apples
Lunch: Veggies marinara
Dinner: Stuffed squash

Thursday
Breakfast: leftover oatmeal
Lunch: zucchini noodles alfredo
Dinner: Bulgur-stuffed portobello & carrots

Friday
Breakfast: fruit
Lunch: Salad w/ raw goddess dressing
Dinner: Tofu & veggie stirfry over brown rice

I stayed home and got a TON of stuff done, but didn't rack up many steps. So AS and I went for an hour-long walk after the girls went to bed and I met my steps goal for the day!

At the weigh-in, I'd lost a little over a pound! Since I'd been very close to 132 before, but wasn't counting it, now that I'm down to 131 that counts as 2 more lbs. down, just 2 lbs. to go for the year!

So tomorrow I have the day off (at least I don't have to go in), so I'm planning to have lunch with a friend. That night I THOUGHT I was being invited to dinner at another friend's house, but she messaged me and the other girl invited, asking where we want to eat. Bummer. I'm not going to back out, but I'll just look for the cheapest options at both places tomorrow.

Then today as I was checking off to-do items, I remembered I wanted to figure out costumes for me and SL. My job is having a little trick-or-treat thing Halloween morning, so I wanted to bring the girls in costume, let them hang out for a bit and then take them to daycare.

AA already has a costume my sister gave me for a Sesame Street character (Abbycadabby?). So I looked around on eBay and bid on an infant Elmo costume that would come to less than $10 with shipping if I win. AA thinks Oscar the Grouch is really funny right now, so I looked at adult Oscar costumes but they were really expensive. So I bid on a green shirt, green pants, a green stocking cap and a silver strapless top. I figure that will make a passable Oscar (if I'm with two other more recognizable characters).

All the items including the Elmo costume should come to less than $30. Good news, though I'm already into next week's spending money. Realistically, if I get through tomorrow only spending $20 (yeah right), and don't order anything at trivia night Tuesday, I'll only get $30 on Friday. $20 will go into my theater fund, leaving me $10 for the following week. And that's the rosy scenario! LOL. Oh well, I know I'll have a slow week eventually and be able to start saving up for more wardrobe items.

On the grocery side, it's as though AA has heard we might actually squeak by on budget for once, because she's been inexplicably plowing through the half-gallon of milk we bought Friday. We'll probably need to get another one in a day or two. Which might be just enough to tip us over budget!

Oh well. I'm choosing to focus on my weight loss. One thing feels under control, anyway!

Oh my. I got my $80 spending money on Friday and right now I've got $5 left to spend. Where did it all go?

$20 went into my theater-tickets fund.

I went to a show with NT last night; though I'd paid for my tickets ages ago, I spent $7 on coat check and $25.50 on food and drink. Oh and bought a drink for our friend who drove, $6. So $38.50 total.

$3 for wine for home. We had a $30 Groupon-type certificate we'd bought a week or two ago, but spent $39 (part of it was buying a gift bottle for our friends throwing a party tonight). So $3 for my share of the overage.

$20 for my share of the babysitter tonight. We also got a carshare to go to this party, but luckily we have a carshare budget item so it didn't come out of our spending money.

Wow, I've spent $81.50! So I must have had a bit of money left over from last week. (There were some complicated Amazon refunds and other issues that made it a bit hard to tell until I got everything sorted out.)

Then at the party, I promised I'd have lunch with a friend Monday for his birthday. (I have the day sort-of off; office is closed though I will need to keep my work smartphone on me to monitor emails, since our biggest client doesn't have Columbus Day off.) And it's my turn to go to Tuesday trivia.

So, I have a feeling I'm going to go over $5 and have to pull from next week's spending money. But knowing that will keep me from spending too much either Monday or Tuesday. This same friend is inviting us for dinner at a restaurant Saturday for his birthday, so I need to make sure I have money next week for that.

Anyway, groceries this weekend were much better news. We spent $75 for the week, when usually we have trouble staying under $100! We needed to cut down because we have to get a lot of diapers this week, and because we'd spent more last week, stocking up at the Asian grocery store and taking advantage of deals on some staples.

We should have just enough for diapers and wipes, and as long as we don't need anything else during the week we won't have to dip into the 15th-30th grocery/household money.

Last week we seemed to have a lot of time- and labor-intensive meals. Or maybe it's just being in the most challenging period of having a 2.5-year-old and a 6-month-old, and we're all exhausted. Either way, this week we went for the simplest options we could think of, while still using all our CSA veggies. Here's our menu starting with Friday night:

Friday
Spaghetti & tomato sauce

Saturday lunch
bok choy yakisoba

Saturday dinner
Veggie burgers, leftover "gunsmoke" slaw

Sunday lunch
Italian style spagetti squash & sauteed chard
http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/italian-style-spaghetti-squash/

Sunday dinner
Tofu turkey, gravy, cauliflower, turnips, cranberry sauce

Monday
Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup

Tuesday
Mexican chikn seitan/corn/bean rice bowl & salad

Wednesday
Spaghetti w/ broccoli, garlic & lime

Thursday
Pancakes & maple-"bacon" celeriac & apples

Last night I booked our airfare to England! It was complicated because it turns out it costs more to transfer your miles to someone than the miles would actually be worth. Idiotic and pointless! So what we did was book each of our tickets separately (well, I bought AA's and mine, and AS had SL added to hers as an infant in arms) and used the "pay with miles" option to pay for a portion of our ticket with our miles.

The tickets for the three adults and the toddler were $1151.50 each, and SL's cost $160 (I believe; AS added that over the phone and it hasn't shown up on the credit card, but I think that's what she told me). With miles earned mostly from our new credit cards and some from previous years' trips, NT got a $450 discount, I got $300 and AS got $300. So the airfare for three adults, a toddler and a baby came to $3716. Without the miles it would have been $4766! I'm reasonably happy with our final price, AND they're nonstop, and we only have to take off one more day of work than planned (leaving Thurs. night instead of Friday, which would have cost a thousand more OR we could take a flight with a layover).

Since we're booking so early, I don't have all the money for the trip. I'll pay off the cards near the end of this month, when we'll have all but $1266 of the fare saved up. The checking account surplus will have to float us until we get $850 in the November budget and the remaining money we need in December. I'm uncomfortable doing it this way because it locks in the travel portion of our budget; basically, if someone lost their job tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to slash "Travel" until we finish paying for the tickets. But with such a large airfare and wanting to book as early as possible, I decided to risk it.

Once the airfare is paid for, I'll start saving for the rest of the trip: insurance, car rental, cat sitter/boarder, food, entertainment, souvenirs/gifts, etc. Luckily we'll be staying with friends and family so we don't need to get hotel rooms and will be able to cook most nights to save on eating expenses. I've calculated we'll be able to save $8000 total for the trip by May, so with $3716 going toward airfare that leaves $4284 for everything else. Sounds like a lot, but two weeks in England, that money is going to have to be stretched out very smartly. (We'll also each get our regular $80 per week spending money, so that will help a bit.)

NT started a shared task list in Google Drive so we can peck away at the things that need doing gradually over the next six months.

Did I have other random money news as promised? Oh right. NT called about the weird hospital bill that we doubted was right but paid anyway. Turns out they'd mistaken it for a workman's comp claim he'd had around the same time (two unrelated finger injuries, one on the job and one not). Once he gets some records from the hospital and sends them to insurance, they should be able to reimburse us some or all of the $120 or so that we paid! This is REALLY good news in a hard-luck year for health expenses. Let's hope I get similar luck on the $60 bill I just got for my OB visit.

Speaking of that, I definitely got enough of the required preventive health measures done this year to earn $200 of free flex money next year! That will be great because otherwise I was probably going to up my flex contributions, but this way I get more without decreasing my pay!

And, I'm on track to do my 10,000 steps per day this week. This week they're counting Monday (yesterday) through next Monday, so we need to do 80,000 steps in 8 days. Then I'll get a $50 gift card. Just enough to keep me motivated!

The lady who rents our parking space sent us her check, $255 for 3 months. She only needs to pay a month at a time but chooses to do it this way. We're not complaining! That will certainly help me float the rest of the airfare until December.

I've been finding a lot of pennies recently, as well as a nickel. Wonder if it's just chilly enough that people don't stop to pick up the small stuff? Reminds me, I've got to empty it into the girls' piggy bank soon; I just stuff it into a pocket of my purse as I'm walking along.

Today I made an impulse purchase as I was getting some prescriptions refilled. CVS had these cute diecast cars with working doors and the thing where you drag them backwards and they shoot forward. They were $6 each, and they were all so cute, I finally gave in to temptation and bought a yellow VW beetle for AA. She really likes playing with cars at the barbershop, so she was very pleased to get it. I try not to buy them things, they have SO much more than they need. But considering the dozen adorable things per day I manage to resist buying, I guess I can forgive this one little purchase.

I still haven't eaten out! I'm having fun putting it off, deciding what I want to get first. Plus, with some extra treats I bought at the grocery store, and this VW car, and photo prints for my mom, I'm wiped out this week. Next week I need to help pay for a babysitter, and I'm going to a show (tix already paid for but will want drinks), and I'm still saving for clothes and theater tickets. So hmmm, not sure WHEN I'll feel like I have enough money to eat out. It'll be all the sweeter when I do.

I guess that's enough babbling for tonight. I need to clean up a bit before AS and NT come back from trivia and think I just sat around. (Which I kinda have so far. )

All our mortgages hit:
US: $447 to principal
UK1: $268
UK2: $56
UK3: $60

All told, $831 down, $959 to go on October debt repayment.

I also was able to transfer US$680 into UK savings, so that takes our EF up to $16,430.21.

I got another medical bill in the mail, this one for 90-some dollars. Not too bad, but $60 was for my annual checkup, which I thought was now 100% covered by insurance? I'm going to call and make sure I have to pay it, because we have next to nothing set aside for medical expenses now. I do have about $40 of flex spending left, so I guess I could use that. It reminded me that NT had a $120 bill I wanted him to question because it had a confusing note about insurance coverage, but he kept not calling about it so I eventually paid it so it wouldn't be delinquent. Hopefully he questions it at some point and maybe we can get a partial refund, but who knows if either part of that will come to pass?

Sept. 30: success on no eating out. 25 out of 30 days were completely successful, and the fails were minor things like buying a drink or two. No full restaurant or delivery meals in September.

Not like we do that a ton anyway, but a whole month without it was kind of unusual.

I'm cutting it a bit close on this week's pedometer challenge -- I'm nearly 4K short of having 10K per day. But the walk to daycare is over 2K, and then I can walk part or all of the way to work. They take our numbers once we get to work, so the commute in counts as part of the previous week. I should be able to just barely get to 70K before it's time to report numbers! (It's honor system, but I'm fairly honorable about things like this, so I wouldn't lie.)

I once again kind of blew it on eating this weekend after having a pretty good week. But I walked to and from the party we went to last night; I think it was about 4,000 steps each way! I weighed in another fraction of a pound lighter -- still just over 132, so I'm not counting it as 132 until I'm officially there. But unofficially, I'm very close to that number!

We had friends over tonight and NT and I split the cooking (he did an entree and I did a dessert). It was delicious and fairly healthy, but all the little parts of the meal added up calorie-wise. Doesn't matter because my weigh-in afterward was good. One of the friends we saw is interested in doing a raw-foods cleanse with me sometime in October. That'll be good for me and should hopefully help me knock off the last few pounds if necessary.

Anyhoo, I should get to my October goals, shouldn't I?

September debt payoff was really good, $2230. I don't have as much money to put toward it in October, so I'm going to shoot for $1790.

My fitness goals for October: I'm not going to shoot for any specific workouts, but the raw foods cleanse will probably start in mid-October and go for two weeks, so that's a healthy thing I'll be doing. Counting calories on Sparkpeople will continue for sure; that's been really useful and eye-opening. I'm going to try to work out in some fashion, but other than a couple yoga sessions at work I don't have anything specific lined up. Hopefully inspiration will strike! Actually, AS and I were talking about taking up running together, but I don't know if we'll get that going this month (or this year). I'll just have to wing it this month.

My main "goals" need to get done this month, so I don't need to set them down here. I NEED to get UK taxes out within the next week, and we really want to get our tickets to the UK booked for next May so our family there can plan their time off. I have a bunch of other to-do's that have been languishing, but those are the only two time-sensitive ones.

Sept. 27: success.
Sept. 28: success.
Sept. 29: small fail. We were getting haircuts and NT asked if he could grab me anything from the international grocery store across the street. Absentmindedly I said yeah, bring me some unusual soda. It was only later I realized that counted as eating out.

That makes 24 of 29 successful days. I don't foresee any eating out tonight or tomorrow; today I have a party to go to and tomorrow we're having friends over.

So my cheats have been:
Wine
State Fair food
Whiskey & coffee
Whiskey, coffee & brownie
Soda

No full-fledged eating out or getting restaurant food delivered.

Next month I'll still probably try to take it easy on eating out, because I do still have a couple of winter clothing items to get. But I'll probably indulge a bit more than I did this month!

AS checked my Google AdSense account (I hadn't thought about it since I linked this blog to it) and said I've made over $2 since Jeffrey's announcement! If you haven't done so already, I recommend setting yours up. A small amount of effort and then the snowflakes will start to come in.

We got an itemized statement from our lawyer regarding the adoption. Apparently we did the right thing taking the flat-fee route, because fees would have been about a thousand more bucks if we hadn't! The option we chose also included a $1000 "refundable" trust, and it looks like they only used about $875 of that for court costs. I wonder if we'll get a refund of the rest eventually? If the two sides of the bill are handled separately, as it seems, then we probably will. That will go into little SL's savings, since we haven't put aside very much for her yet!

I got my 30K bonus miles from my Delta Amex, so now we can combine them all and basically shave $1200 off our airfare if we book using one of the Delta cards. And we'll need it, with prices to England looking the way they do. Ouch!

In recent weeks I applied us all for the BoA Visa card, spend $500 get $100 back. AS and I got approved but NT was turned down. They gave us our credit scores in the letters, which I appreciated. AS and I are at 800+ and NT is in the high 700s. Then I applied all three of us for a USBank Visa that offered a $150 statement credit for spending $500. NT got accepted, AS got turned down and I haven't heard back (assuming I got rejected due to it being SO close to the BoA application).

Anyway, I'm happy about our credit scores, and we did get three out of the six cards we tried for. So we'll spend $1500 and get $350 back. Not too shabby! I immediately put $500 of NT's medical bill on his new card and $500 on AS's and the last $12 on mine. I also paid a few more bills with mine, and paid for my trivia treats with it, and bought snacks for work ($75 that I'll get reimbursed, so it's not even my money really!).

I had to pretty much drain the medical fund to be able to pay these cards off. I knew it was coming, but it's not a pretty sight to see my medical fund at less than $50, and not entirely sure the bills have stopped coming in. But I still haven't touched my EF, so that's still there if we absolutely need it. Maybe I'll use the $350 of CC rewards to cashflow any medical expenses that come in this year, and then put it in savings if I don't need it. We'll see.

I can't remember if I mentioned this, but AS's cellphone got ruined (along with the SIM card). We're a bit behind where I want us to be in prepaid costs, so I looked around for the cheapest way to get her up and running. I bought a SIM card for 99 cents (got one for NT as well, since I'm going to switch him to T-Mobile in a couple months), and I tried several eBay auctions for dirt-cheap unlocked T-Mobile phones. Finally I got one for $5.50 with free shipping. It's bulky by today's standards with an antenna! AS had said she wasn't picky about what phone I got her, but she wasn't happy with that at all. So I switched my SIM card over to it and gave her my slightly more modern flip phone. Problem solved for $6.49! It's scratched up and the sound effects are hilariously old-timey, but it works so I'm happy.

And I'm definitely moving NT over to T-Mobile, now that I know how cheap it will be to get him a "new" phone if his Net10 one isn't compatible. Of course, he's not going to want the type I got either, but hopefully I can find a relatively cheap flip phone. Or maybe his Net10 device will work; I don't see why it shouldn't. I'm beginning to think they just act like you need one of their phones so you'll have to pay more.

This week has flown by and somehow I haven't made a menu plan yet. We need to get that done tonight so we can do grocery shopping tomorrow! We're a bit behind so will need to be careful making a grocery list (what else is new these days?).

Sept. 24: success
Sept. 25: "planned cheat" at trivia. I had a whiskey, a coffee and a brownie.
Sept. 26: success

So far, 22 of 26 days have been successful. Just 3.5 more days to go! I haven't had that many temptations, but I am starting to dream about pizza delivery a bit. So I might plan that into the menu in early October.

AS's student loan hit; $126 went to principal. I also thought to check NT's smaller loan; interest payments come out of our bank account automatically, but a few cents goes to principal sometimes as well. I guess I hadn't checked in a while, because the principal was $3 lower. Not a huge dent, but I'll take it!

That means we paid $2230 of debt in September! October will be lower, because I had to take some money from that month's debt line item to cover NT's tuition. BUT, I do know that I'll finally hit one of the 2012 goals! Student loan debt is at $40,362, so by mid-October, it'll be under $40K!

My work had a free yoga class yesterday. It was so great! Made me realize I should try to work more relaxation into my weeks. They're going to have one or two sessions per month now.

Sept. 21: success.
Sept. 22: success.
Sept. 23: success.

20 out of 23 successful days so far! I may have a drink at trivia tomorrow, but that should be it for the month. This weekend was busy but it was all free/cheap activities. Saturday I went on a long walk with a friend, Sunday we went to a kid's birthday party (who didn't need prezzies so we just gave him a card we already had on hand), and Sunday night AS & NT went to a show and I stayed home (the kids went to bed before they left, so it was super mellow alone time!).

I hit my 8,000-steps-per-day goal for the work challenge; now I just need to do 10,000 steps per day for two more weeks, and I get a $50 Zappos card!

I was really good with calories all week until Saturday and Sunday, and really good with doing a lot of walking until Sunday. Still, I knew a couple bad eating/exercising days could set me back on the scale. So I was relieved that I lost a fraction of a pound at my Sunday weigh-in! Not enough to register on my sidebar, but enough so I didn't feel like an idiot for ruining all my hard work with two bad days.

Winter clothes shopping went well on Friday. I'd budgeted about $135, and I spent $76 on two pairs of slacks and a skirt. (The pants need adjusting, but AS will do this for free, bless her.) This is good because I stocked up on herbal teas (which I don't use grocery money for unless we're doing really well in that category), and I want to buy myself some treats at the Asian grocery store today (definitely some black bean & mochi cakes, Malaysian instant coffee-tea and maybe a few other things). So I may need to save up again before I can get more clothes.

I really only need some work shoes and some new bras now, and that should get me through the winter. Oh, and I should check my winter gear to see if anything needs replacing. I think I'll just need gloves. I do have shoes, bras and gloves, but the first are worn out (soles feel uneven and may not be completely watertight anymore), the second are too big to be comfortable/flattering/supportive, and the third are fine for early winter but not really insulating enough for super-cold days. So I can wait indefinitely, but these are eventual needs (or at least strong wants).

I guess that's all my news. I have some things I keep meaning to do, like trying to sell and/or donate some books, and donate some clothes and a crib bumper. Week after week I keep putting them off; seems like all my free time is taken up with everyday stuff. Oh, and I MUST do the UK taxes this week! I can do some prep at work if I get down time. (Come to think of it, should've used the half hour I just spent writing this! Oops!) I guess life will slow down at some point and I'll be able to catch up on extra tasks like that.

Jumping on the bandwagon, even though I haven't been very regular about posting my menus & grocery lists.

I've tinkered with our format and now put prep work for future meals/lunches on the menu as a reminder; I also put who is responsible for cooking (or at least project-managing) the meal.

Our meal plan starts from last Friday, because that's our CSA delivery day.

Friday dinner
Kale & quinoa stuffed acorn squash; salad (N&C)

Saturday lunch
C&A fend for selves; N eat at work
soak black beans

Saturday dinner
Tofu turkey cutlets, roasted beets & carrots, gravy (C)
Make dill pasta salad for C lunches

Sunday lunch
Spaghetti w/ cherry tomatoes (A)
cook black beans

Sunday dinner
black bean-tomatillo tacos, chips & salsa verde (C)

Monday
Veggie burgers, beans & fries (N)

Tuesday
Eggplant lasagna (A & N)

Wednesday
Mac & cheese topped w/avocado, tomato, red onion pico (A & C)

Thursday
hoisin glazed tofu, rice, kimchi, edamame (C & N)


We went about $35 over our grocery budget goal, but I'm expecting $25 statement credit from our grocery credit card next week, so we should end up only about $10 over. One reason is that AS requested groceries to make lunches vs. eating out, a venture I definitely support!

Then we're going to stock up on staples at the Asian grocery store Monday, so we'll go over budget even more, but we can cut back the next week and make it up. I'm going to take a hard look at what we buy at the Asian store; anything that won't contribute directly to family dinners will have to be paid for with our fun money.

No eating out challenge:
Sept. 18: as predicted, a small fail. I had one drink while out at trivia.
Sept. 19: success.
Sept. 20: success.

So far I've had 17 out of 20 successful days.

It's made a major impact on my available spending money! I believe I've got about $70 at home, and of my $80 I get to withdraw today, $20 will go into the theater ticket fund, I should try to keep about $10 for a drink next Tuesday, I may keep $20 to buy treats at an Asian grocery store our friend is taking us to Monday, and the remaining $30 can be for clothes. That means I have $100 cash to spend for clothes! I'm going to hit up Marshall's and Target with AS today and see if I can cross a few winter-wardrobe needs off my list; the temps are dropping quickly here.

NT also reminded me I have some Amazon bux (about $30) in my account, and we have a discount code for shoes, so I may try to get my work shoes there.

Hopefully I can find enough to get me through using just the $100 cash and $30 Amazon credit. Then I can continue to try and save up money and buy other pieces gradually throughout the fall.

In other news, my walking is going well; I'm averaging about 8,000 steps per day this week, which is what I need to meet the challenge. The next two weeks will be harder, needing an average of 10K steps per day, so I'll need to work at it more. (Hope the weather holds out because I can add up a lot of steps just walking to and from work and daycare.)

I'm doing pretty well with calories, not perfect, but I think with the walking too, I should see a weight loss on Sunday. Fingers crossed!

We got our monthly statement from the rental management company in the UK, and they apparently got us new renters and are charging about US$90 more per month! A small percentage of the raise goes to the management company, but we pocket most of it. That's good news for our savings goals this year and next!

We have a longish grocery list this week, and need to get diapers, wipes and formula too, but I'm hoping we can at least come close to staying under our spending limit. AA is using the potty more, so hopefully we'll be able to eliminate the expensive compostable pull-ups soon! (We are dedicated to not using disposables if at all possible, but man! is it a pricy endeavor.)

AS accidentally put her cell phone through the wash, and now the SIM and the phone are both nonfunctioning. We tried the rice trick to no avail. I'm trying to find the cheapest solution possible; I ordered her a new SIM on T-Mobile for $1, and I'm trying to win a phone on eBay for $7. If that doesn't work, I'll bid on another one for $8 or $9, and keep trying until I get a cheap phone. The cheapest prepaid device that T-Mobile offers on their website now is $50! I know I can do better than that.

While I was at it, I ordered a SIM for NT. When his 60 days are nearing the end with Net10, I'll have him start a T-Mobile plan instead of re-upping with Net10. I'm hoping his SIM will work with his Net10 phone, but if not, we'll try to get a cheap unlocked T-Mobile phone on eBay like I'm trying to get for AS.

I can already tell this is not going to be a relaxing weekend (can't remember the last time I really had one of those, to be honest). NT has to work pretty much a full day Saturday (no OT, but he can try to take the hours off in dribs and drabs elsewhere I believe). Sunday afternoon we have a friends' kid's b-day party and Sunday night NT and AS are going to a music show. In between all that we have to get grocery shopping done, fit meals around the other events, and AS still has a ton of proofing to do for her new freelance project.

The social calendar is filling up for the rest of the year. It's a blessing and a curse; I'm so glad we're not losing touch with our friends even though we have young kids, but it can be a little daunting because none of your down time feels like actual down time, between taking care of the kids and the extra household work they incur, and then going to all these events to make sure we still have friends when we get out of this hectic part of parenting!

We are thinking about hosting a party sometime in December, since it's been a while. But we'll see how many of our friends also host events that month; we may not feel the need.

Haven't thought much about Halloween yet; I do want to at least dress AA up and take her trick-or-treating; she didn't understand it at all last year and ended up bawling because she couldn't chase a "meow" that she saw run behind one of the houses we went to. This year we'll be able to explain beforehand what to expect, and she knows what candy is now, so that'll be exciting.

I wonder if we'll even get invited to any grown-up Halloween parties. We used to host them, so I suppose we could again, but the last one we did a few years ago (before the kids were born) had fewer attendees than usual, so we kind of lost steam after that. But if no one else steps up, maybe that can be our cool-weather party instead of December.

Sept. 16: success.
Sept. 17: success.

So far, 15 out of 17 have been successes. Tomorrow I might have a drink out, and possibly the next Tuesday. Other than that, I don't really have any plans to eat out, so it's just a matter of resisting laziness and temptation.

The pedometer challenge went well the first week; I logged about 44,000 steps and only needed 42K (6K per day). That was with my pedometer not working some of the time, so I probably did a bit more than that.

I can probably thank the pedometer challenge, and not eating out, and counting calories, for my weigh-in yesterday. Back down to 133! I'm fighting a terrible sweet tooth/snack monster this month. (I don't know if "snack monster" is a thing, but it ought to be!) Tonight I'm desperate for a snack again. I've been doing well at picking something sane; one piece of cinnamon toast, or a spoonful of chocolate flavored peanut butter, or two or three Hershey's kisses. I think that's the best way to get through this and hopefully it won't just prolong my time of having a sweet tooth! But, I lost weight, so I must be managing it well.

This week, the pedometer challenge is 8K steps per day, so I'll have to step it up. I walked from work to daycare and daycare to home this evening, and that pushed me over my daily goal. Did I mention that I get a $50 gift card if I hit the step goals for the whole month? That's motivation!

***

Anyhoo, on to money news. AS got a freelance project from a company she's done regular work for, but hasn't gotten an offer she could take since she had SL. This one is higher-paying than most; $1000! She said it would be long but not too involved.

It occurred to me that we should send part of it to the IRS for taxes. Then I remembered: I need to do the UK taxes this month.

Ugh!

I hate the UK taxes because I barely know what I'm doing. But we never owe anything, and this year we made less than usual because of a bunch of repairs and things. And, it's gotten easier now that we get statements emailed to us; I just plug the numbers into my spreadsheet I made up, look at last year's taxes to copy which fields I need to fill in this year, and mail it off before Oct. 7. Really, just an hour or two of work. But I treasure every hour of free time, dangit!

But anyway, should be able to put most of that freelance check into the moving fund!

***

I was looking at my goals this year, and even though I haven't hit any of them yet, I'm on track to hit the student loan one next month. Hopefully some of the other goals will follow soon!

***

We finished spending up the three Amex Delta SkyMiles cards. NT and AS have gotten their 30K mile bonuses, and mine should hit by the end of the month. Together with miles we've accumulated gradually over the years, we'll have about 120K miles. I found that if we reserve our tickets using one of the Amex cards, we can just use 10,000 points for $100, as many increments as we can.

That's pretty incredible. We'll be able to shave $900-plus off our airfare just for spending $1500 to earn the points. That's an unbelievable return.

***

OK, I'm losing focus. Gotta go find a (reasonable) snack to quell my crazy snack monster, and then relax.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($27,768)
#2: 16,005 pounds ($32,010)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $18,283
NT's Roth IRA: $4,629
AS's 401(k): $7,910
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $8,411
CJ's 401(k): $47,212
CJ's Roth IRA: $4,629
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $15,725
House down payment/moving fund: $1,134
---
Total Assets: $596,811

Total Debt: $304,539

Current Estimated Net Worth: $292,272

August 2012 estimate: $285,087

Change in net worth: +$7,185

Summary: Might as well leave my comments from last month, since it was a similar one: The market smiled on us the same month I was able to put more extra money to debt again. I feel pretty good about our chances of meeting our 2012 goal of $300,000 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 very 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 $2 for every British pound, which was the exchange rate when I started keeping track. I maintain that ratio for the purpose of tracking progress, even though the exchange rate is now closer to $1.60 per British pound.

I paid the portion of NT's tuition that we didn't take out a loan for. As many of you already know, when I started my journey out of debt, I added $40,000 of "estimated future debt" to our debt load. I knew NT needed to get a college degree, so I picked that as the max we would borrow. I didn't want it to hurt our debt progress when we took out loans, so I added it in before we'd actually borrowed it.

By cashflowing part of this semester, we saved having to take out that amount as a student loan, so I subtract that from our "estimated future debt."

We paid $1278, so that makes it $2,101 toward the September debt repayment goal, or $20 more than our month's goal!

Looking ahead, I can see that this degree is going to cost us more than $40,000. So at a certain point, the "estimated future debt" category will be gone, and we'll just have to cashflow it all to make sure we don't borrow, but it will mean slower reduction of our total household debt. But I'm confident we'll be in a good place to do so.

I'm going to lay out a long-term strategy at the end of this year for how I'm going to try and reach all my financial goals listed in the sidebar by 2016. I'll be sure to add the extra money I think I'll need for NT to complete his degree.

***

Doing well on the no-eating-out challenge! I haven't even bought extra treats while grocery shopping, which is tempting when I know I'm not allowed.

Sept. 14: success.
Sept. 15: success.

That takes me to 13 out of 15 successful days. Not like I eat out a ton regularly anyway, but this is a pretty good record for me! Tuesday I'll get drinks out, but I'll try to keep it to one. Other than that, I don't see too many strong temptations ahead of me this month. So hopefully I'll be able to buy a few key items for my winter wardrobe soon!

***

I challenged us to stay within $100 for the week's groceries. With diapers and formula, we'll be about $19 over that. And we have a couple bucks' worth of items that we didn't realize we needed. But, if we hadn't had to stock up on those, we'd be about $30 under budget! So I'm still proud of us. We can look forward to a time when we don't have to buy diapers or formula, and we'll be used to constraining our grocery shopping, so it'll hopefully be easy to stay within budget.

***

Some random good money news:

AS was working remotely at a coffee shop downtown on Friday. I overheard a project manager saying we could use an editor with Chicago style knowledge for a few hours. So I asked AS if she could put off some of her regular work and do it over the weekend, and she said yes! She ended up working 4.5 hours at $55 per hour! This will go straight into the moving fund when we get it, nearly $250. I'm proud of her for stepping in with no notice to contribute to the fund.

Our healthcare situation straightened out, faster than I thought it would! SL's healthcare was taken out of my paycheck and NT's check was back to normal. So that was about $40 I wasn't anticipating, PLUS my paycheck was nearly $10 more than I'd estimated, so that's about $20 per month more that we can put toward our goals.

NT is finding his Net10 phone plan doesn't work because he has tons of minutes left over each month, but he has to add more every 2 months to keep his number active. So I contacted T-Mobile to see if I could start a third prepaid plan for our household (I'd read somewhere there was a limit of 2) and they said it was OK.

NT just refilled, so we'll use his phone as much as possible for the next 2 months and then switch him to T-Mobile. There will be an initial outlay to buy a T-Mobile phone and 1000 minutes, but in the long run this should lower our monthly costs. And he'll have more flexibility and not have to refill at a certain time (1000 minutes with T-Mobile buys you a year of activation).

The no-eating-out challenge:
Sept. 12: success.
Sept. 13: success. (I'm currently stuffing my face with my favorite pasta comfort dish, so I definitely won't be eating out!)
So far: 11 out of 13 days.

Our daycare lady reported that she needs formula, diapers, pull-ups AND baby cereal Monday. So, yikes! That's at least $40 out of the grocery/household budget. I was going to have us aim for $100 or less of spending; now I want us to go for $60. I'll take a look at the shopping list before we go Saturday and see if there are things we can eliminate or put off until next week.

Since I got through the week with no eating out and minimal fun-money spending, I had over $30 to put in my clothing envelope! That's easily a bra or a pair of shoes. I tried on my winter slacks and they were baggy and not very professional looking, so I'm definitely going to have to get more. I do have one pair of slacks that fit me, plus jeans for Fridays, and it's not cold yet. So I have a bit of time. I think my main priorities are: 2 bras (one strapless and one with straps), 2 pairs of flats for work and 2 pairs of slacks. I have other nice-to-haves, but that would tide me over for the winter.

NT got out this week's spending money a day early because we might not have time for a break tomorrow. I put $20 in my theater-tickets envelope, leaving $60. I'm thinking I'll spend $20 on wine since it's my turn to buy, and I might spend $10 on drinks at trivia on Tuesday. With luck (and some restraint) I'll have $30 left over next Friday to put in my clothes envelope!

I applied for another credit card, a USBank FlexPerks Visa. You can get $150 statement credit for spending $500, and the annual fee is waived the first year. Then I went ahead and applied for NT and AS (shrug). If NT gets denied again, I'll take that as a sign that he needs to stop having applications and just build his credit for a while.

My fitness is going pretty well. I've got my regular bike rides on Saturdays to get groceries, and with my job's pedometer challenge, I've made sure to get more walking in. The first week's challenge is 6,000 steps a day, and it goes up throughout the month. So far I'm easily staying ahead of it.

Hmm. I think that's all. Oh, I wanted to talk about a "fall-back career option" thought process I've been having, but I'll save that for another entry when I'm less frazzled.

Sept. 10: success
Sept. 11: success

It's my turn to stay home with the kids for trivia night, so a bonus is that I won't be spending on drinks out!

A few weeks ago, I applied all three of us for Bank of America Visa cards with a "spend $500, get $100" deal. It was one of the few companies I hadn't scammed ... er, uh, taken advantage of an offer with.

AS and I got approved, and we also got our credit scores. I didn't keep them, but I believe hers was 800 and mine was 812! Even with all the opening and closing of credit cards, our scores are higher than ever.

NT got denied, and he got his score. It was a crushingly low ... 776. LOL. This must have been a picky credit card offer! Actually that's about as high as his score has ever been; he has a short credit history for his age, since they only track credit usage from his 6-7 years of living in the U.S. And for two out of those years, I've been opening and closing cards like crazy in his name.

So I won't say this busts the myth that it will harm your credit score, but here are three examples of scores staying stable or actually getting higher during a lot of credit card activity.

Anyway, we'll use the two new BoA visas to pay most of NT's $1000+ medical bill, and we'll get $200 back. Not bad! I haven't decided where to put that money; into the EF or back into the medical fund, probably. Meanwhile I'll start looking for other offers for us to apply to.

We finished charging up the three Delta Amex cards, so we'll soon have 90,000 miles plus whatever we already have in our frequent flyer accounts. We'll transfer them all into one account and try to pay for one of the UK trip plane tickets with them. Prices for the time period we want to go are staying pretty stable; $1050-$1011 for a one-stop flight; $1310-$1315 for a nonstop. I'm thinking even if we mostly pay for one ticket with miles, we'll still need to take a one-stop option to keep our airfare under $4000.

Today I had to dip a bit more into groceries to buy formula; it just wasn't going to last the week. I went ahead and got AA some shoes the next size up while I was at Target; I knew it was going to happen soon. Feels WEIRD to buy clothing for either of the kids; they both have massive wardrobes of clothing given to us. But shoes are one thing we don't get handed down very much, and doting friends and family prefer to buy cute little dresses and such.

I found a pair of sneakers for $14 and a pair of mary janes (that also have good grip on the soles and seem pretty comfortable) for $13. They're a bit big for her, so they should last a long time. And we do have a pair of snowboots we got as a hand-me-down, so we should be set for her for the winter.

That's all for now; I'm feeling very sleepy.

FY2012 Spending:
AS's April T-Mobile fillup (500 minutes): $53.90
NT's May Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.36
CJ's May T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
AS's June T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's July Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.36
NT's Sept Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.36

FY2012 total so far: $369.54

Since we're in the sixth month of the "fiscal year," that means our average is $61.59 per month. Down quite a bit from a few months ago; if AS and I can limit use of our phones, it should go down even more. (NT has way too many minutes left over each 60-day period and they just keep stacking up, so I'm debating seeing if T-Mobile will do a third prepaid plan for our household instead. The reason I did this is they said there was a limit two per household, but I'm not sure how strict that is.)

Anyway, we're netting out at a good average so far this fiscal year, though I'd like to see it go a bit lower.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March 2009, so our phone "fiscal year" begins each April. We have 2 phones on T-Mobile prepaid and 1 on Net10 prepaid. AS and I refill in 1000-minute increments and only need to refill when we run out or when it's been a year since our last fillup to stay active. NT needs to buy 300 more minutes every 60 days to keep his phone activated.

Our cellphone bill, for three phones on a family plan, used to range from $80-$95, depending on texts, calls to 411, etc. Usually it was close to $85. My ideal goal is to get my average cost to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 is a savings.

No eating out:
Sept. 8: success.
Sept. 9: success (I think I can trust myself to go the next 20 minutes without ordering pizza! EDIT: done; it's after midnight! )

That makes 7 successful days out of 9.

I did really well this weekend, resisting several temptations to spend my fun money. I survived and didn't spend a dime of it!

Saturday we went to the party where I'd found out there was a cash bar. Well, true to my suspicions, the food wasn't free either; they had a trendy food truck out back where you could buy food. I was pretty thirsty and peckish by the end but managed not to buy anything.

Challenge #2 was that we were having so much fun with our friends they wanted to go to a bar afterward. I got a glass of water and didn't order food. My friend insisted on sharing one of his appetizers with me, but I definitely didn't push for that, so I still consider it a success. Didn't pay for it anyway!

Challenge #3: When we got home, AS said she was going to order from our favorite pizza place. I had a small snack from the freezer that did push me over my calorie limit but at least didn't cost me anything, then went to bed before she ordered so I wouldn't be tempted.

Today we went to a block party with those same friends. I found it pretty easy to resist the food and drinks available, but I was tempted by a cute T-shirt that was only $5. However, T-shirts are not an area of my wardrobe that I need to focus on to get ready for winter, so I resisted that too.

We went to our friends' studio for a quick photo shoot and then to their house for dinner. I'd brought vegan sloppy joe fixin's and salad, thinking it would be a light meal. But then my friend bought vegetarian baked beans and BBQ potato chips, two of my biggest weaknesses! So I ended up going overboard, and I think that's one of the reasons I gained 2 lbs. at my weigh-in tonight. Back up to 135, 6 lbs. away from my goal. But I think it was a bit of an aberration because of my eating being skewed toward the weekend. I'm hoping this will be easy to get past.

We need to dip a bit more into the grocery budget than I thought; I had to get milk and wipes for the girls while at the block party ($4.50) because of poor planning, and we'll need more pull-ups for AA, when I originally thought we'd be able to last until next Monday. It's also looking more likely that we'll need formula before Friday. So we'll start the next semimonthly period a bit short, but if we buckle down again for a couple weeks we should pull out of it. We are the LEAST behind on groceries that we've been for a while, so I'm still encouraged.

AA has successfully used the potty three times in the past week. Funnily enough, we used to be able to get her to use it about once a day before we were "officially" in potty training mode, so it's a bit trying. I am attempting not to see dollar signs for every pull-up she soils. I'll just focus on how beneficial to our household budget her eventual success will be!

Speaking of good budget news, I believe the healthcare switch for SL will show up on my and NT's Sept. 15 paycheck. I'd love to have our paycheck amounts stabilize for the rest of the year!

Sept. 7 no eating out: Success.

Tonight and tomorrow will be challenges, but I think I can make it. Tonight we're going to a party that we thought might have free drinks, but turns out it's got a cash bar. I'm going to have a drink or two before I leave home (don't worry, I'm not driving) and try not to buy any while I'm there. I'll eat something before I go; there's supposed to be food, but now I'm not sure if you have to pay for it or not.

Tomorrow we're going to a block party, so I'm sure I'll be tempted by delicious-smelling food trucks. After we're getting some photos done by our photographer friend, and he said we should "grab dinner" after that. I made sure to specify that I'd rather make food than eat out or get takeout, and he was agreeable to that. So we're bringing the fixin's for vegan sloppy joes and salad. It'll be really effortless so even if we're tired after the block party and photo shoot, it'll be nothing to fix dinner.

I'm glad North Georgia Gal suggested this challenge, because these are things I might have used my spending money for, but instead, if I succeed, I'll have money to put in my as-yet empty clothing envelope that I started 2 weeks ago.

I did 20 minutes of cycling to get the groceries, and then NT asked if I wanted to take a longer bike ride. We ran a few errands, and I think the total biking that second time was an hour. So I worked out 80 minutes today!

Today's goal was to get groceries in under $143. We saved over $40 shopping sales and using coupons, but we had to buy a big bottle of olive oil ($14) and a new door handle ($23) for our balcony door (the old one snapped off in my hand a few days ago). So we were $6.26 over and still had a few things to buy at the Asian store and Lunds (which had some amazing coupons we HAD to use). Then NT remembered that he'd taken $10 out of the budget already to buy things at the Asian market. We crossed a few things off that list, and got total spending between Lunds and Hai Nguyen down to $5, so we can deposit the other $5 back into groceries.

That means we're only $1.26 over budget. We do still need to get wipes ($3.50) and we MIGHT need to get formula ($20+, but we're going to wait and see if our current box lasts us until Friday). So, considering the balcony door handle mishap, we did pretty well. And I didn't try as hard to stick to just the bare minimum; we stocked up on pasta and cereal, for example. Next week we can buckle down and only get what we need, and we should be able to spend MUCH less on food than this week. We'll need diapers for both girls next week, as well as formula, and AA could use a couple new pairs of shoes (we don't have a clothing budget for the girls since usually we get everything we need through hand-me-downs and gifts, so we take it out of grocery/household if it's a necessity).

Anyway, this Lunds deal. We got a new Lunds in downtown, very handy to both work and home, but we hardly ever go there because it's such a high-end grocery store. Last week we noticed some really great coupons in the mail; one was for 99-cent orange juice, the other for a free baguette! We didn't get around to going, but this week we got another circular from them with a coupon for 99-cent pound of organic strawberries and 99-cent carton of 12 organic free-range eggs! Those are things we use every week, so we made sure we made a special trip. We'll be perusing their flyers VERY carefully from now on to see if more amazing deals come our way. When we redeemed those two today, our total went from about $8.50 to $1.98!

Sept. 5: success.
Sept. 6: success.

So far 4 out of 6 successful days.

I won't count today until I've officially made it through, but I've got leftover potato salad for lunch and will be picking up some groceries, plus my CSA share, to make enchiladas verdes tonight. NT is going to a show but AS and I are staying home with the kids so cheap night in!

I owe in $63 to the checking account for various personal CC purchases over the past couple weeks that I kept forgetting to deposit makeup money for; I'm supposed to get $80 for spending today so I'll deposit $3 and take out $20 and that will even me up. I have over $50 cash in my wallet, so it's not like I drastically overspent my personal money. I'll have $70+ spending money, will put $20 in my theater tickets fund and will try to spend as little of the remainder as possible so I can hopefully put it in my clothing fund!

Sept. 1: success.
Sept. 2: semi-fail. I had NT and AS bring me some of my favorite treats from the State Fair. I paid $19 and got a dinner, a breakfast and two lunches' worth of food. So at least it was pretty cheap!
Sept. 3: success ... NT bought me a latte at a coffee shop, but since he paid I guess it doesn't count
Sept. 4: one of my planned cheats: Tuesday night trivia. I bought 3 glasses of wine, more than usual! But we hosted trivia and got to split a $30 gift card so my wine only came to $20 with tax & tip.

So I'd say my record so far is 2 successful days out of 4.

Hmm ... I'm hoping to see a lot more simple, unqualified "success" days from now on! I'm committed to this challenge because I need some new clothes that fit me before it starts getting chilly.