Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

We finally found some time to sit down together and settle our unresolved "extra money" issue. There had been some side discussions between two of us at random times over the past week, but every night it seemed like we were too busy and/or tired and all of a sudden it would be bedtime.

Today AA went to bed at a reasonable time so we had a chance to talk. We found it wasn't that hard to come up with some guidelines; encouragingly, they were pretty much in line with what we'd been following informally, but now we have some rules so there won't be differing expectations and possible hurt feelings.

So for things like selling one's personally owned items (books, records, clothing), the person selling it gets to keep the money for themselves. For surveys and Mechanical-Turk type stuff, the person doing the surveys gets to keep the cash/gift cards for themselves.

For other sources of income such as freelance jobs, overtime and bonuses, we're going to accumulate the money in the checking account and then, at the end of each month, we'll decide how to divvy it up. We're thinking we'll agree on a percentage or lump sum to distribute equally to each of us, and then put the rest toward debt, unless there's something else we want or need and can agree on putting all or part of the money toward that.

While we were at it, I ran through some other aspects of our personal finances just to make sure they were aware of them and on the same page. For instance, that if we stay the course we'll be out of student loan debt in less than five years. That if we wanted to move to England in four years, and stayed on our current EF savings course, we could use our EF (which should be about about US$37,000 by then) for moving expenses and/or toward a down payment on a new place.

We also briefly discussed what we're putting our discretionary money toward--travel, cleaning, cable, spending money--and found that we're in agreement about the current amounts as they are.

So the only thing that's changing is that we'll save larger amounts of extra money in the checking account and decide together how to use it. I like this because it'll mean a family meeting nearly every month, so I'll feel more sure that we're all informed and in agreement about our budget and financial progress as a whole.

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We emptied AA's piggy bank--we put all our spare and found change there, and have replaced quarters with bills several times to get soda money--and it was about $120! I already have $130 in the checking account for her, so that's $250. I guess we'll build up to $1000 and then open another CD for her. She already has a $1000 CD as well as about 275 pounds in NT's UK savings account. Not bad for a 1-year-old!

***

My sister, niece and nephew are coming for a visit this Friday! We like our own space--especially having a smaller place--so we got them a hotel room. This marks only the third time any of us has had a visit from family, and it's always been this sister's branch. She and her husband and three kids came for our wedding/commitment ceremony; then my niece (her oldest kid) came a year later for a few days. Should be fun. We've planned a few things and are going to try really hard to fund it with our regular allowance; but NT has some eBay sales money that he will contribute if necessary.

I don't want us stressing about money while the family is here, so if we run through our spending money before the weekend's up, I'll find some money in the budget to make up the difference. So far we're going to take them to a neighborhood pizza place Friday night, then to a tiki bar/restaurant Saturday, and a Twins baseball game Sunday. (We've already paid for the tickets, at least, but all that food spending is going to add up, especially if we go for overpriced snacks at the game.)

We'll cook lunch for them Saturday and brunch on Sunday, so as long as they take care of their breakfast on Saturday and Monday, that should be it. I assume they'll pay for their own food at the restaurants and ballgame, especially since we treated them to a hotel room AND baseball tickets, so we only have to worry about our own food and drinks for those outings. The other things we're thinking about are just walks and free sightseeing--we live right across the street from the sculpture garden with the famous "Spoonbridge and Cherry" sculpture, for instance.

***

I applied for another job! This would be for the Minneapolis tourism board in a writing and editing job. Sounds really challenging but fun. I don't know if I've got enough writing history or if my writing samples will stand out--I'm not a flashy writer. Also I asked for $50K, so that might price me out. But I figured what the heck. I'm not desperate, so I might as well shoot for the stars. And really, that's not much more than what I'm making now, but something about it sounds really aggressive. Maybe because $50K is sort of my mental goal and has been for years. It seemed like I was gradually getting there, but since my company put the brakes on raises four years ago, I'm kind of stalled out in the high 40s.

If they don't think I'm underqualified, they might think I'm overqualified. I do have about a dozen years of proofreading/editing experience, and the job description said the minimum was two. So that's another reason they might not be thinking about $50K. Though the job sounds like it's a lot more authority and responsibility than my current one, so hopefully it's fairly well-paying.

So, we'll see. I'm at least making my current job more bearable; my new contractor is a lot more capable than the one we got rid of, so I see her shouldering a nearly equal share of the workload and client-facing responsibility, eventually. Since I'm not technically her supervisor and she makes over twice as much as me, I'm not gonna be shy about giving her work and responsibility! Taking on a bunch of extra hasn't gotten me much of anything, so it seems fair enough to offload if I can.

***

I don't know if this is another one of my ideas that will go nowhere, but I've been thinking about doing a more public blog that I can show prospective employers. Thinking about how much I like to write about food (and take photos of it), I might do some kind of food blog. I'm about 90% vegan, so I'm not sure if I'll play up that part (vegan is considered an all-or-nothing proposition for most, though Oprah has recently kicked around a "mostly vegan" idea that seems to be picking up steam, so maybe I won't be such an unusual case soon.) I'm still deciding on a site name, then I guess I'll save up to purchase a domain and see what I need to learn to actually create a site. I'd love to do more of a searchable site with different interesting pages rather than just a blog with a big scroll of dated entries. But I don't know how difficult that would be. Anyway, the harder it is, the more practical job skills I'll probably acquire along the way.

I guess I've blabbed long enough. I just realized it's after 10 pm!

First, off-topic, I wanted to share this lovely news story and video about a family that downsized from 2000 square feet to 320:
http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/downsized--family-lives-mortgage-free-in-320-square-foot-home.html

I guess it's tangentially related to my question in that family living is so much about finding consensus and balance.

Last night, AS, NT and I wound up discussing an upcoming (fall) trip AS has planned. She'll be speaking at a university in New York about publishing. It's job-related in that she was asked because she's managing editor of a publishing house. But otherwise it has nothing to do with her job. The university will put her up and feed her, and they'll give her an honorarium to cover airfare. She was talking about trying to find airfare below the honorarium so she'd actually come away with money. It gradually came out that I assumed she would put any extra money into the pot, whereas she assumed she would keep any extra money.

My perspective, which wasn't thought out or necessarily very logical, was that if she was going to be away from her spouses and children, it should be for something we all benefited from. Her thought was that since she'd be working all weekend and getting up at crazy hours for the cheaper flights, she should get to keep the money.

It opened up a larger discussion. We were all pretty tired so it didn't really go anywhere; we just sort of trailed off with an agreement to revisit the topic after we'd had time to think about it. I don't think it'd hurt to get some outside perspective on it as well, so here's the situation:

We all have full-time jobs, and all our paychecks are direct-deposited into the household checking account. This usually includes overtime pay from NT's job (AS and I don't get paid for our OT).

We all have various forms of additional income:
- NT does Pinecone surveys at $3 a pop; AS and I do other surveys mostly for giftcards
- Occasionally one of us will sell personal or household belongings via eBay, Craigslist or yardsales
- AS has a semiregular gig editing books for another publisher, with pay ranging generally from $400 to $1200 per job
- I've gotten very irregular proofreading gigs paying a couple hundred each
- AS sporadically does mending and alterations for $10-$50 per job
- We rarely get bonuses from work (if we do, it tends to be around the holidays, maybe $1000 at a time)
- We get gifts from family (anywhere from $10 in a birthday card to $13,000 pre-inheritance from my dad)
- We get rewards money for using our credit cards

That's all I can think of right now. But as you can see, extra money comes in, wildly different amounts, unpredictable, with varying levels of effort put in to earn it.

Since AS got her last full editing check ($900), her last speaking honorarium ($150) and now wanted her next honorarium, I was starting to feel a bit cheated: She does these things (admittedly hard work) that take her away from us, and she gets way more money than us. So we don't get the benefit of her time or the money. (As a side note, we all get the same allowance and a say in how our household money is spent, even though we make $49K, $41K and $30K, so that may have been part of the "hey, I don't get to keep all the extra money I make" feeling I had.)

But AS pointed out that previously, she has contributed thousands and thousands of dollars of extra income to the household (her extra income and NT's overtime pay are largely responsible for the lawyer fund) without asking for any of it herself, even though it's above and beyond her full-time job. She said she feels weird because it's like we aren't happy with not getting to spend time with her, yet I take the money for granted. It is hard; I love having the extra money to accelerate our goals, but I hate having less quality AS time. And if she were doing it strictly for her own spending money, I'd feel very resentful. But she's right that she's probably only taken about 10% at most for herself, and only very recently.

When we were first starting our journey out of debt, we were in dire straits and every bit of extra income went toward debt. But now that we're in a much better place (though still in debt and not quite where we want to be in savings), we've grown less strict or rule-based; NT keeps his Pinecone and eBay income, AS keeps her sewing money, and parts of our bonus money and credit card rewards are typically divided between us in some way, or (in the case of the credit card money) I'll make the decision to spend it on something indulgent (for all three of us, but clearly something that I thought of and wanted). Overtime pay and other work-related income usually goes toward savings or debt repayment, but occasionally to something like home improvement.

I'm wondering if we should come up with some guidelines for how all of this shakes out, so none of us feel cheated, overworked or neglected. Should we ask AS to limit her extra editing now that we're not hurting for money as much? Should we set up a percentage system of how much each person gets out of their personal "side hustles"? Or a percentage that each of the three gets out of each extra income thing, so if one of us tends to make smaller amounts we still benefit at the same rate (similar to how we all benefit equally from our regular paychecks no matter how much we bring in)?

It's not a huge bone of contention at this point, nor do I necessarily see it becoming one. But it does seem like something that should have a resolution, since all of us had minor complaints and vague feelings of injustice (though none of us thought anyone else was being deliberately malicious or anything like that) and differing perspectives on the matter.

Sorry if this was boring and complicated! I didn't realize how long it would take to write out everything, so that the situation is totally clear. Anyway, if you'd like to weigh in, all viewpoints are welcome and will be respected. Or if you want to write your own Share Your Thoughts blog post about how your family handles similar situations, I'd love to read it.

I sent an extra payment to one of NT's student loans, and $882 went to principal. That brings us to $1666 down, just $34 to go on the June debt goal! AS's student loan payments at the end of the month will bring us over the top easily.

Our cat Noodles has been acting a little strangely for the past few weeks; first we noticed more than the usual litter scattered over the floor. Then he peed on the couch because the door to the bathroom was shut (usually he can hold it until someone opens the door). Then we realized he was *always* in the litter box, only peeing a few drops at a time. Finally NT noticed some pinkish crystal-type things in the litter and took Noodles to the vet.

They didn't find anything serious and couldn't get a urine sample, so they gave him a shot of something and sent us home with some prescription cat food, with instructions to switch him to canned food. (So far he won't touch the canned, but if we can keep our resolve and not give him his regular food, he'll get hungry enough eventually. I hope.)

Since there were X-rays and a month's worth of prescription food involved, the bill came to something like $250. No worries; we've got $2700 in our medical expense fund, which is separate from our emergency fund. And we add $100 every month.

Already there's less litter scattered on the floor, and we've noticed him going a lot less, so the shot must have cleared up whatever it was. One thing NT read said that urinary infections could be brought on by the hormones of depression or stress, so we wonder if it was AA's joyous screeching and chasing. We're going to try and calm her down when she starts doing that, so hopefully his stress levels will go down, if that's what it was.

AS forwarded me an interesting writer/editor position yesterday, so I'm going to apply today if I find the time. Also, an ex-co-worker emailed me about a possible job opening at an agency that works for her company. I wrote back to definitely pass my name along to the hiring people, so we'll see if that turns into anything.

AA's daycare is so wonderful still. We noticed that now at home she sits on the floor when we give her a snack, whereas before she would run around while eating it (bad, I know, but we'd let her get away with it). The daycare lady obviously pays attention to her because she mentioned how much AA loves to dance. The fact that she's already dancing there shows too that she's already comfortable around them. Today she made a little show of crying when I put her down, but when the lady picked her up, she stopped crying and waved bye-bye to us. Yippee!!

So I haven't recorded charitable giving for a while, and we're up to $755 donated so far this year.

I noted in the sidebar but forgot to blog that with the NY trip, we reached our goal of going on at least two trips and paying for them in cash. I sent the credit card payments off this week for the expenditures we put on them (we're trying to use our new CCs as much as possible to earn our two $500 bonuses). We're still going to try for one more trip this year and maybe a staycation (or maybe just a few extra days off around the winter holidays). But our goal has been met, and it's nice to have checked off our second goal as being completed!

I read one book on the plane to New York: Netsuke by Rikki Ducornet. It's a gutwrenching semibiographical story of a wildly unfaithful psychiatrist and his slow self-destruction. Very adult themes but I recommend it if you've got the stomach for it.

I'm nearly done with another book that I'm loving, The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage. A depressing yet giggle-inducing epistolary novel about an isolated writer/literary magazine publisher/landlord whose life is spiraling downward. Self-destruction of a completely different timbre, but the unreliablility of the narrator is a common thread between these two books.

So that fulfills my creative and/or reading goal for June, and the month has barely started!

The small-group get-together goal will take care of itself with my sister and her kids visiting.

And I've exchanged a few emails with my lawyer's assistant clarifying a few points of our estate wishes, so there's movement on that front.

Overall a very fruitful month already!

***

We are so far giddy with delight about our new daycare. AA has been there two days, and already she seems to have leapt forward developmentally. Not only that, but she seems less sad when we leave her there after only a day than she did after a month at the old place. Even though she's the youngest by at least a few months, they've been able to include her in many of the activities, including sitting in a little chair at a little table to eat her meals! The daycare lady said she's been telling the other kids when they say what a cute baby AA is that, "No, she's a *toddler*!" I love that she's in a stimulating environment where she can grow and flourish at a nice pace, and have fun and feel loved at the same time. Fingers crossed that it stays as nice as it seems!

Got back from our NY trip late last night and have felt out of it all day! Luckily work has been manageable. AA started her new daycare so I guess NT will tell us how it went when he picks her up.

$25 went to our EF savings, bringing our 2011 progress to $2632.16 ($11,144.11 total EF).

I'll try to write a longer, more interesting entry later!

All our mortgage payments hit today.
US: $414 to principal
UK1: $259
UK2: $54
UK3: $57
In total, $784 down, $916 to go on the June debt goal.

I was also able to transfer US$640 into UK savings, and $25.45 earlier this month into US savings, bringing our EF savings progress to $2607.16 for the year ($11,119.11 total).

I updated some other sidebar numbers too; sometimes I forget to do so since many of our savings and payments are on autopilot, but now they're all accurate.

This month we can finally start paying more than just the minimum toward our debts. Whew! My goal for June is to pay off at least $1700 of debt.

I'm hoping after my college reunion this weekend, and with AA starting a new exciting daycare, everything will feel refreshed and I can get going on some of my other goals. The biggie is that I would like to get more exercise; with new daycare in walking distance that's already more likely. Also I want to be eating more veggies, and our CSA will be starting up and forcing us to incorporate lots of veggies into our meals.

Another good change this month is that the new (old) proofreader starts today. I'm probably going to buckle down at my job for the next few weeks, get her retrained in, work on learning the new direction our main client is taking in the tone of their materials. I don't think I'll have much energy to look for jobs (though of course I'll still keep an eye out for any other "dream job" openings).

Basically I'm hoping this month feels like a new beginning of sorts. I need to feel re-energized after my chaotic yet lackadaisical May.

Dropped AA off at the old daycare for the last time today. It felt kind of awkward saying here's a sympathy card, we'll need a week's refund and all our stuff back because we're starting a new place next week. But it's just a business after all; it's not like we were ever treated as friends or confidantes. Then AA will have one more day with the daycare assistant tomorrow, three days with our friends while we're in New York, and then she can go to the new daycare Monday and start to settle into a new routine.

We just got home from our regular bar trivia night--it took an hour longer than usual, so I nearly forgot to check AS's student loan balance one more time. Her payment finally processed: $60 went to principal, so that's $1009 of debt paid this month, $9 over our goal. Whew!

I'll try to set my new goals tomorrow--I'm a tad tired. I need to try and relax for bed, because I've got to take AA to the old daycare one more time tomorrow. I'm reluctant to ask them for a refund of the excess money we paid, but it's $240, a significant enough sum that I feel I should.

Good grief, I somehow hit a random set of keys that just completely shut down the window as I was trying to type a post. It was already turning out to be a scattered entry, and now it probably will be even more so. I'm writing this in between jobs at work as well, making it hard to stay coherent.

As predicted, my office was closed Friday as well as Monday. However, I had to work from home both days, so I didn't even get a real three-day weekend let alone a four-day. But I'm leaving early Thursday and have Friday off for our trip to New York, so at least it will still be a short week for me.

I'm still waiting to see if AS's last student loan payment will hit by the end of the day. If it does we'll reach our goal, but we'll remain $51 short if it doesn't. Ah well. It won't be the only goal I don't hit this month. I never wrote a "share your thoughts" blog post and I didn't read any books or do anything creative this month. I weighed in this Sunday and have basically plateaued these past two weeks.

Our daycare lady passed away yesterday. Her assistant is watching AA at our home today and Thursday. Wednesday the daycare center is open for one day and then closed again. Friday we're trying to figure something out for our friends who are taking AA for the weekend; they may need some babysitting help that day after all, and the assistant can't do that day because the funeral is taking place. We found out she's known Jo for over 40 years, so she's understandably pretty devastated about it. She's trying to say she won't take any money, so NT is going to try and convince her tonight when he comes home.

There's also some weirdness where we thought the assistant told us the daycare is closing for good and that she wouldn't have a job, but Jo's daughter left me a message that said it's open for business full-time beginning next Monday. We're not sure if they're firing the assistant but telling her a lie about why, or if the assistant (who is mildly learning-disabled) just misheard, or communicated it to us in such a way that we misunderstood her, and she really is going to continue to work for them. Who can say.

I am glad we have one more day there so we can try to get receipts, extra diapers and a refund for the rest of the 4 weeks that we won't be doing with them. I don't get a great feeling from Jo's daughter and I'm glad we went ahead with finding a new place.

AA's fever finally went away last week, and a rash broke out over most of her body at the same time. NT was able to find info online about a virus called roseola that matched all the symptoms. By the time the rash comes, the virus is winding down. Her rash was almost completely gone by this morning, so she's much better. She has been really cranky lately, though, and picky about food, and we can't tell if it's the illness or if she's moving into a new, more difficult, stage. Only time will tell on that one!

My 15-year college reunion is this weekend. We're leaving Thursday evening and coming back late Sunday night. We went over to our friends' house with AA last night, and even though she was tired and cranky, and freaked out by their overly enthusiastic dog, by the end of the night she'd been held by both our friends and had started trying to say the dog's name and chasing after it. It made us all feel even better about her staying with our friends, seeing how she already recognized them and was becoming comfortable in their home.

AA starts the new daycare the Monday after we get back. It's going to be a big adjustment, but maybe after being away from us for a few days and seeing how nothing bad happened, she will be less nervous about going to a new place. I really hope this place works out; it seems like the perfect situation.

I'm sure I have more to say, but I'd best get back to work; it's starting to pile up.

One of AS's student loans hit, and $122 went to principal. That makes it $949 down, $51 to go on the May debt goal. We have one more debt payment to hit ... well, Monday is a holiday, so hopefully it will hit Tuesday so I can count it in May. Well, too late to do anything but hope now!


The daycare situation seems to have completely cleared up! I got confirmation from the new daycare lady that we're good to go for Monday, June 6! I adjusted the budget and I can't tell if it's a calculating error, but it seems I've got over $150 more per month, even though it's only $75 cheaper. Maybe my daycare escrow was calculated too high before. Or maybe I saved too much in the beginning of the year when I started trying to calculate it. (Shrug.) I'll keep my new calculations and I can always adjust later if it looks like I won't have enough money. But as is, it seems I can up my extra debt payments to $1000 starting in July. Hooray!

Man am I exhausted! I was supposed to go on my business trip last night, but the flight got canceled (after we'd already boarded) and there was no other option to get from Minneapolis to Memphis before noon (meeting started at 9:30 am). So I ended up going home and today had an all-day conference call with the clients instead.

AA has had a fever for about two days now. It spiked to 105 recently and we called a nurse helpline. They gave us some advice to treat it and since there are no other scary symptoms along with it, we don't have to bring her in unless it lasts another 24 hours. She seems basically OK except she gets kind of lethargic periodically, but in between she's walking around playing and babbling as usual.

Last night we heard that our daycare lady probably has less than 2 days to live. We booked the assistant to come over and watch AA next Tuesday through Thursday. She didn't know how much to charge, so we told her to think about it. If she still has no idea we're going to propose $60 per day, but we would pay up to $100 per day if she wanted.

We also heard back from our old daycare lady who's retired, and she said she would love to watch AA for a few weeks if we were having trouble finding someone. She's so sweet! But I don't think we'll need her, because...

Today we toured one of the two centers we found on Craiglist. It's an in-home center but most of the home is decked out like a commercial center. And it's FABulous. The lady and her husband who run it seem super, super nice. It's about a 10-15 minute walk from home, and we could use the bus on bad-weather days (though we'd have to take 2 buses to have no walking at all). And it's only $575 per month, with two meals and two snacks provided! And even though they only take 16 months and up, they're willing to take AA (she'll be 15 months next week). There was a bit of uncertainty I'd be able to get my flex money reimbursed because she's "legally unlicensed" by the county (will have to look that up, but I'm not too worried), but I called my flex provider and they said it wasn't a problem. It's like a real daycare center, but intimate and homey. At this point we're looking at each other thinking, There's got to be something not perfect about this place. But we haven't figured it out! We saw the kids, and they all seemed energetic, good-tempered and confident.

I emailed her right after I talked to the flex spending people, so now I'm just checking my email every 5 minutes to see if she's gotten back to me! But I don't think there will be a problem; she even said she had another opening if we knew anyone who was looking.

Omigod, really hoping this isn't too good to be true!!!

Bear with me; my blog is going to be all daycare, all the time until we sort this out. :/

We've got this week sorted out, a couple good options for next week and two promising leads on long-term solutions.

This week:

Tomorrow, AS will stay home with AA in the morning, and NT will take over at noon. (I'm off to the airport at 2pm so I'm not much help.)

Thursday, AS is working from home all day.

Friday, I'm either getting an extra holiday day or working from home. Well, I predict we'll get the day off as an office but that I'll have to work a couple hours from home to catch up.

Next week:

Monday is a holiday, so we all have the day off.

Tuesday through Thursday, if the daycare hasn't reopened, we're hoping to hire a relative of NT's co-worker or else the assistant from our daycare to come sit with AA here at home. I'm guessing it will be about $80 per day or $240 for three days, $90 more than we currently pay for a full week. (Gulp!) But we need to do something; it's just not fair to AA to work from home and only half pay attention to her while she plays by herself for another full week. We all have sick days available, but we're all much too busy to actually take any right now!

Thursday evening we leave for my college reunion, so Friday she'll stay with our friends. I was going to have them drop her off at daycare before this all hit, but thank goodness one of our friends is a freelancer and can take her for the full day.

Medium-term:

I can probably take a sick day or two the next week, which would make a total difference keeping AA home, because I could keep her company and take her out and stuff. If daycare reopens (which would mean the worst has happened, so I kind of don't want it to open for a while) we're fine using their unlicensed service for a bit; we'll easily be able to access the rest of our flex money as long as our long-term provider is licensed.

Long-term:

We found two places on Craigslist; we have a meeting with one for Tuesday evening, as I mentioned, and I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with the other one, hopefully for sometime this week. Locationwise they're good (10-25 min. by bus) and pricewise they're great (one is $150 per week, our current rate, and the other "starts at" closer to $130 per week). I didn't see either person on the state database of licensed providers, but I'm not sure that list is comprehensive. We'll have to check that out.

I'm going to stay glued to Craigslist to see if any other slots open up. I think you have to jump on these things when you see them; the one lady posted less than a week ago and is all booked with interviews from now till next Thursday. The other one JUST posted yesterday, so I'm hoping to get us in kind of early and maybe get a slot if they seem nice.

One bright spot about all of this is that it's kept me from worrying about this business trip. (Being a naturally introverted person, stuff like this usually makes me nervous.) Other than checking in and picking out some clothes to bring, I haven't even really thought about it. I figure I can pack tomorrow and go in a bit late if necessary; no one is expecting me anyway because of the daycare situation.

By the time NT went to pick up AA from daycare yesterday, Jo's family had reassessed the situation. They think she may have days vs. weeks to live, and having the kids around was too disruptive. So they've closed the daycare down. They still plan to reopen (unlicensed) after she passes.

In the meantime we've got to take turns staying home with AA while we figure out what to do next. There are lots of university students on Craigslist looking for summer nanny positions, so that's a possibility, though it would get expensive (currently our daycare rate equals $3.75 per hour, which you couldn't pay a person to babysit at night, let alone nanny all day). The cheapest I saw online was $8/hour for a high school junior. The assistant at the now-closed daycare might be an option for in-home care, since she's out of a job temporarily; not sure what she would charge though.

We've got an interview next Tuesday with a home-based provider that charges the same as our current one, but she's got so many interviews before us, she'll probably already have the slot filled before we even get to interview her. We've left messages or are going to leave messages with some more that we found in the state government database.

The center near my work ($1200/month) doesn't have a baby opening until April! Basically people have booked slots who are just barely pregnant, I guess.

It's a crazy week because I have that trip out of town from Wednesday afternoon until Thursday night; AS and NT are going to have to juggle that day and a half with their jobs or else we'll have to find a babysitter. But Friday will probably be an extra day off for me courtesy of our CEO, so that's handy. And Monday is a holiday for all three of us. That buys us a bit of time.

This is a time I'm glad we have money in the bank and so many optional budget items (such as vacation and spending money) that we can cut out temporarily or even permanently. We prepaid at the daycare and are now owed $300 back, but we can wait to ask for it because we're not treading water like we would have been a few years ago.

Our daycare lady is dying. I found out today that she has cancer, and that it's gotten to a point where she's probably got a couple weeks. She wanted to be home, so she's out of the hospital. Please wish Grandma Jo a peaceful and love-filled rest of her life. She has lots of very supportive family, which I'm so glad of. We didn't get to know her very well yet and now we never will, but it's very very sad.

But I've got to suck it up and think about our options. Her daughter is keeping the daycare going for a while at least, but she's not licensed and I don't think I can get my flex money to reimburse unlicensed daycare. Plus, it doesn't seem like a very stable situation; how long is the daughter really going to keep it up? So I emailed a nearby center and we're going to look at the list of in-home providers we started just a few months ago. Our barber knows someone close by as well, so we're going to ask him for more information.

On to May goals. I've fallen down on nearly everything in the past week. I didn't weigh in last night, for one thing. We had a party on Saturday and paid for it with grocery money, so our budget's a bit out of whack, though still salvageable if we're careful over the next few weeks. I've looked at job listings but haven't applied for anything since I got the news about the one place I'd interviewed with. My "extreme couponing" for charity has fallen off, though I've got a bag full of past coupon circulars.

I did make money with a "side hustle"; namely, putting my stuff into and helping out with a friend's garage sale. After paying my share for ads and the food that we ordered, I made $40. But the main goal was to get rid of stuff and to hang out with my garage-sale gang, so it was a success. I'm putting the $40 toward the hotel room we got for my sister and her kids for their upcoming visit.

And our regular biweekly savings deposit added $25 to the EF plus 45 cents interest, bringing our 2011 progress to $1967.16 and our total EF to $10,479.11.

It's been a weekend of bad news in my state. Tornadoes hit Minneapolis and really wrecked a somewhat poor, struggling neighborhood north of us. The state House voted to send a constitutional amendment to the ballot in 2012 to outlaw same-sex marriage (which, by the way, is already not legal in MN; they just want to make it extra hard to ever make it legal by putting it in the state constitution). And former Gov. Pawlenty announced his candidacy for president. He took our progressive state with its solid infrastructure and left us much weakened in the name of tax cuts for the wealthy. He earned the nickname "Governor No" for his refusal to compromise or work with other elected officials in any way. Public programs have been slashed and property taxes have skyrocketed. Nothing has improved that I can see. I sure hope he doesn't get a chance to wreak similar havoc on the entire country.

I left my phone at home yesterday, and it wasn't until late last night that NT noticed I had a voicemail on it. I was informed I didn't get the job; I came a close second (or does everyone get told that who doesn't get job offers?) and blah blah blah.

I felt sad and disappointed -- mainly it's a blow to the ego when these things happen. What was it about me that didn't stand out? I wasn't a 100% perfect fit experiencewise, so I think that's probably what it came down to. I may never know though.

The guy said I could contact him, so I called him this morning, figuring I should stay courteous to someone who has influence in this incestuous job market. He's gone until the 26th, so I just left a friendly message thanking him for the chance to apply and asking him to keep me in mind for future opportunities.

Now that the ego is mending and disappointment seeping away, I have to say there are lots of upsides. Namely, though I don't feel my job is compensating me fairly, it is paying me about $9000 more than this other job would. Now I can think about booking that train trip in August, which I figured we would have to skip if I got this job. I can also breathe easier about other "austerity measures" we might have had to take.

Other money benefits of not taking a pay cut:
-I don't have to freak out that we may need to change daycare providers again if our current lady closes up shop. We're easily able to absorb a higher daycare cost at our current salaries.
-NT can feel better about looking for jobs even if they mean a slight pay cut for him, and we can still think creatively about job/school balance options for him in the future.

Plus, my job is probably going to get noticeably better in June, when we can finally replace my proofreader who's not very good with one who is extremely capable (she worked here before, so I know it for a fact). I can shove off some of the responsibility I was unwilling to turn over to my current proofer, and hopefully get to work on more creative stuff, and at a higher level on some other stuff. At least it should break up the monotony a bit.

And, thinking about taking this other job, I was already starting to miss my vacation time, which I've built up to over 3 weeks off per year. This "dream job" wouldn't include any official PTO for the first year, and God knows how much the second year.

So in a way, I've come to appreciate certain aspects of my current job. Doesn't mean I'm not going to keep looking, but it's nice to feel slightly less bitter and cheated!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,753 pounds ($27,506)
#2: 16,005 pounds ($32,010)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $13,191
NT's Roth IRA: $3,517
AS's 401(k): $5,782
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $4,282
CJ's 401(k): $41,923
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,517
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $10,454
---
Total Assets: $571,282

Total Debt: $341,625

Current Estimated Net Worth: $229,657

April 2011 estimate: $224,905

Change in net worth: +$4,752

Summary: Weird, I just noticed that all of AS's assets end in -82! I mean, I round off to the nearest dollar, but still... Everything went up this month, so even though we didn't pay off much debt, we had a nice upturn in net worth! Chugging along to that nice quarter-million milestone soon, I hope.

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 fairly conservative. 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 sent another $25 off to NT's student loan to make it more likely we'll hit our May goal. $11 went to principal, which should be enough to tip us over the top once AS's student loans hit at the end of the month. $827 down, $173 to go on the May goal.

Last night at my weigh-in, I was back up to 151. No surprise, though it was disappointing to see my 140s disappear again so quickly. I didn't get to walk home every day, and I didn't make up for it with other workouts. There were also several social events where I ended up eating a lot and/or drinking beer, which I find to be really fattening compared with wine. We also had some beer around the house, which we hardly ever do, and I found myself drinking it occasionally. Oh well, this seemed an unusual week, so hopefully I'll be back under 150 in no time.

Our Roth IRA payments hit, so $300 more to that goal ($1500 total so far this year). One of my regular $15 donations also hit, so that's $605 total to that goal.

No word on the job yet; I sent my writing test in, and will definitely count it toward my creative goal (though if I also do other creative things this month, so much the better). If I get offered the job, it will probably be either this week or not for a few more weeks. The decider said he has some hectic weeks coming up, so if he doesn't make up his mind soon, it won't be for awhile.

I still haven't done a grocery tracking thing for this week because we had a few stray items we needed to pick up here and there. At present, it looks like we'll only go over my intended budget by a couple of bucks. And that's only because of two nights where we're having friends over and wanted to treat them to something special. So feeling pretty good about that. I may or may not post a big entry about the groceries this week; I find if I don't do it Saturday or Sunday, I become sort of "meh" about it. But I did enter all our purchases so far into the spreadsheet I'm keeping.

I found out my sister plus a niece and a nephew are coming to visit in June! We hardly ever get visitors from out of town, so I'm excited for AA to get to hang out with some extended family. Our place is really small and we think we'll want some down time at night away from my high-energy family, so I told them we'd pay for a hotel. I found a pretty good deal (for being in downtown Minneapolis) of about $320 for three nights. We'll pay for it with NT overtime and possibly AS extra freelance money.

True to form for Minnesota summers, our weekends are filling up quickly. So far for the next month and a half, only a couple weekends are completely free of events.
May 21-22: We're having a party Saturday night
May 28-29: NT and I are going to an all-day music festival one of the days
June 4-5: All three of us adults are going to my college reunion in New York, and leaving AA for the first time
June 11-12: FREE (so far, I think)
June 18-19: My family's visit
June 25-26: Twin Cities GLBT Pride parade & festival
July 2-3: Free so far, but it's the 4th of July weekend, so I'm sure there'll be something

AS got another job offer from the freelance place. We'd asked her not to take any more until after our June trip, so she asked if I'd like to do it in her name. I wasn't sure so she's just telling them no. But it did make me think that this place is kind of a cash cow with all their editing assignments; maybe if I get offered the low-paying dream job I interviewed for, I can get in good with them as well as AS and we can pull in almost enough money to make up for my salary cut!

I'm probably going on my first business trip (for this current employer) next week. Out of the blue I got a call. I have mixed emotions; it'll be nice to break the monotony of the job and get a trip to Memphis. On the other hand, I'll probably have to stay overnight without my spouses and baby for the first time since AA was born. And I've heard that you don't really get to see the fun bustling parts of Memphis; just a hotel and the client's offices. It also means the least-favorite (but most job-security-sustaining) part of my job, which I thought might be going away, will probably be here to stay. Very mixed emotions about that; this is the part of the job that I assumed would get me a raise, since I took it over after my boss left, but it hasn't gotten me a damn thing except a permanent headache. But will this trip somehow elevate me in my company's eyes and maybe get me a raise for the first time in four years? Doubtful. I guess there's a small chance.

We found out (AS finally just asked) that AA's daycare lady is in the hospital. They still didn't say what she had--very closemouthed family. We brought her flowers for them to take to the hospital. No idea what this will mean for us in the future -- whether she'll need to retire (or worse, whether she'll pass away), and whether her family will continue the business with or without her.

We took AA to a kids dance party at a grungy old bar near us -- so fun! We met up with an acquaintance and she mentioned she's gotten a couple of potty chairs, just to have around and maybe have her kid (a couple months older than AA) sit on it while the adults go. I can't believe it's almost time to start thinking about that! But NT and I looked around Target at lunch and saw a neat, cheap option that converts from a freestanding potty chair to a converter seat + stepstool, so we could really have either -- or switch from one to another as she gets a little older. We'll probably pick that up soon, I guess. Wow! I hope AA learns quickly, for her sake -- she hates having her diaper changed and lets us know!

I should start getting ready to go soon -- I've been pecking away at this entry between projects for about an hour now. And you better believe I'm going to Ctrl+C before I hit Save and Publish!

I sent a bit of extra money to NT's student loan. $27 went to principal. I "borrowed" the payment from June debt money since we have so much float in the bank account. I tried to estimate how much interest there would be so I'd pay off the desired amount of principal. But I underestimated and didn't pay as much principal as I wanted to. So I sent another $25 off to the loan; we'll see if that gets me to a comfortable place to hit my May goal.

Anyway, that makes $816 down, $184 to go on the May debt goal.

***

I had my second interview yesterday. Considering how intense it was (met with 5 people one-on-one over 2 hours) I felt pretty good after I got out. A few flubs here and there, but overall I think I articulated some good reasons I'd be a solid fit for the job. The middle interview was with my friend who recommended me, so that was really nice and alleviated a great deal of stress. Now I have a writing test to turn in by Friday morning. I glanced over it tonight and will let it percolate, then try and finish it tomorrow night after work.

It seems like SUCH an interesting job. I still don't know what the whole job offer package would be, so I don't know what I'd do if I got the job. I have been thinking of ways to reduce our budget or bring in extra money if I get the job offer at a huge salary cut. I even wonder if my current place would let me freelance for them if I leave. They do seem to stay on friendly terms with former employees.

Anyway, I'm still thinking too many steps ahead; I've got to ace this writing test first.

***

I keep meaning to write about this, but it's a weird situation so I don't really know what to say. Our daycare lady has been out sick for about three weeks. She has a big family and they've all been pitching in, but they're a cagy lot, and haven't said anything about what she's got, how long she'll be gone, etc. AA still seems happy and they all seem like good caregivers, so I'm not worried about that. I've just reached this awkward place where it's almost too late to ask more probingly how the main daycare lady is, you know?

Part of me is worried about her; I don't know her very well yet, but I want her to be OK. And a selfish part of me is wondering if we'll have to start looking for a new provider again soon. This place isn't ideal for several reasons, but AA just finally adjusted and stopped crying when we leave her, so I hate to think of her having to readjust so soon. (Plus, to be crass, there aren't many cheap options as close to downtown as we are.)

So, fingers crossed that it's just a lingering but nonserious illness...

***

On a completely different subject, I did track our grocery budget last weekend, and I wrote up a big entry detailing the cost of each meal, but I forgot to copy it before I hit Save and Publish, so I lost it. I'm interested but not THAT dedicated, so I wasn't about to go through the whole rigamarole again. But, at least I still have the raw data in my grocery spreadsheet, so I pasted that below. We didn't do great last weekend; I was hoping we'd stay between $105 and $120, but we hit $144.19, and that wasn't counting a diaper refill we need to pay for. But we got a ton of staples that will last us weeks, even months in some cases, so it sounds worse than it was. I think. We'll see if we can keep it under control for the next three weeks; we've still got a chance to catch up if we do.

Diced tomatoes $0.59
Diced chilies $0.59
3 zucchini $1.05
3 lg. potatoes $1.79
Red bell pepper $1.41
2 avocados $3.00
Ginger root $0.84
Romaine lettuce $1.69
Cilantro $0.50
3 lbs. onions $2.49
Grape tomatoes $2.50
Tater tots $1.75
Hashbrowns $2.19
5 bananas $1.02
2 mangoes $1.00
2 pts blueberries $3.98
Generic "cheerios" $1.99
2 boxes organic cereal (C) $5.00
Panko breadcrumbs 2.19
Bread (C) $2.59
Rice $6.39
Fruit turnover $2.69
Fruit danish $2.99
Brown rice $1.21
Banana cake $3.99
Veg chicken patties (C) $3.65
Veg chicken nuggets (C) $3.65
3 salmon filets $3.00
Veg turkey slices (BOGO w/ sausage) $0.00
Veg Italian sausage $3.89
String cheese $3.56
Cheddar $2.08
Vegan sour cream $2.89
Vegan butter $4.19
Vegan shortening $4.19
Milk $2.29
Vegan cheddar $5.69
TVP $1.24
3 pkgs tofu $3.97
12 eggs $3.29
BBQ sauce $2.50
2 jars salsa $2.00
Vegetable broth powder $2.68
Maple syrup $2.60
2 bags potato chips $5.00
4 frozen juices (C) $5.54
Coffee $9.17
Chocolate bar $2.29

Total food spending: $134.79

Toilet paper $1.79
Paper towels $2.29
Bar soap to make laundry detergent $5.98
Garbage bags $5.09
Tax $0.40
Tax minus bags credit $0.80
Co-op quarterly discount -$3.75
Bags credit (cashier error; should have been $0.10) -$3.20

Total nonfood/cat spending: $9.40

Last night I weighed in at 149, my first time under 150 since I got pregnant! Just 10 lbs. to go on my 2011 goal. Let's hope I can keep it up. I've been walking home from work or daycare most days, so getting about 30 minutes of exercise. I know I should be doing weight-training, especially on my upper body, but at least I'm doing something.

The other day I read an article about a very old man (113?) who had recently passed away. The article detailed his very long career and other things about his lifestyle and philosophy.

While he sounded economically comfortable, he wasn't super-wealthy as far as I could tell. It occurred to me that I don't remember reading any bios of extremely aged people that mentioned them being rich.

I've heard that economic factors play into overall longevity (and longer active/healthy years), which makes sense when you think about access to good food, education about health, and medical care. But I wondered how much effect wealth had on superlongevity.

Not much, it seems. Most of the articles I read focused on the New England Centenarian Study, but I also read one that surveyed Chinese superlongevity. Socieconomic status and education varied wildly and showed no easily explained pattern. In the Chinese study, about 50% reported having had a serious childhood illness or injury, and about 50% reported having gone hungry as a child. Nor did whether they lived alone, with family or in assisted living, according to a study of Georgia centenarians (though that one reported a vast majority were female and white). The dominant common characteristics, according to the New England study, were:
- Lack of obesity, especially in the men.
- No substantial smoking history.
- Ability to handle stress better than the majority of people.
- 15% had no significant changes in their thinking abilities.
- For women, a history of bearing children after the age of 35 years and even 40 years. (They think it's not the act of bearing a child in one’s 40s that promotes long life, but it may be an indicator that the woman’s reproductive system is aging slowly and that the rest of her body is as well.)
- First-degree relatives and/or grandparents who also achieve very old age, and many have exceptionally old siblings.
- Their offspring score low in neuroticism and high in extraversion.
- Genetics play a very strong role.
(http://www.bumc.bu.edu/centenarian/overview/)

Very interesting that one thing money can't buy is a super-long life. It's like those studies that indicate there's a "sweet spot" of wealth, and that after a certain point the correlation between money and happiness ends. (Although, I bet if scientists are able to isolate the superlongevity gene and apply it to other people somehow, that would be a very expensive procedure and the superwealthy, could well become the super-aged. But probably still not happy, LOL.)

Even overall longevity needn't be tied to economics necessarily. Areas of the country or world where the average lifespan is 10-15 years longer share common characteristics that don't have to do with money:
- Family - Family is put ahead of other concerns.
- No Smoking - Centenarians do not typically smoke.
- Plant-based diet - The majority of food consumed is derived from plants.
- Constant moderate physical activity - Moderate physical activity is an inseparable part of life.
- Social engagement - People of all ages are socially active and integrated into their communities.
- Legumes - Legumes are commonly consumed.
(This is from a Wikipedia entry on "blue zones," which is what these places are called. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone)

So, those are my Monday ramblings. Interview is tomorrow, so I think I'm both trying to distract myself from nervousness AND remind myself that I have interesting thoughts from time to time!

$25 went into EF savings, so that's $1941.71 saved to our EF so far this year (EF total is $10,453.66).

Also, good news on the job front: I got called in for a second interview at the previously mentioned place! They interviewed 5 or 6 people and have narrowed it down to 3. It's going to be time-intensive -- 2 or 3 hours with several different people. This is absolutely not my forte, but I'm trying to look forward to it as a potentially pleasant and interesting experience, so I won't get too nervous and tongue-tied the day of.

Also, at my current job, I had a lunch with three other employees who are also disgruntled, and we all aired our grievances. Pretty much the same stuff even though we have four different roles in the company ... stagnant salaries, ineffective (or actively evil) bosses, little decision-making power or control, not enough respect for our roles. It was good to feel solidarity but depressing to realize the problems are so widely endemic. (Two of the ladies sound like they're in much worse positions than me ... at least I have a sympathetic if ineffectual direct supervisor!)

But, on a slightly bright note, my supe came and asked me about possibly taking on some managing-editor responsibilities as we transition from my current backup proofreader to the one we're going to replace her with. I doubt it comes with any pay or job-title hikes, but it would be nice to feel some control over some projects maybe. I told him I was definitely interested.

There was also a merger, announced today, of our division with another one based in DC that basically does similar things. Too early to tell if this will affect me positively, negatively or at all ... but I hold out some small hope that maybe they'll be passing around some promotions or raises at some point. (Or maybe they'll lay a bunch of us off. So hard to tell from the chipper corporatespeak of our prez.)

***

Almost forgot the other tidbit of news. AS gets occasional freelance jobs and typically all the income goes into the communal pot to be used for whatever is needed at the moment. A huge part of our lawyer money was funded by her extra projects.

Anyway, her last one was a heavy copy-edit of a book for $900. She way underestimated how much work it would be -- she was basically deprived of sleep or a social life for a week. It coincided with a proof of a very long poetry anthology at her regular job, so she's basically been editing and proofreading from about 9:30 a.m. to anywhere from midnight to 4 a.m. every day for over a week!

She finally got the freelance book done (though she still has to put in a lot of overtime on the poetry book to try and get it out of the way for the tons of other books that are stacking up behind it). I figured she needed a big reward for the huge toll this took on her, so I said she could keep the full $900 to do with as she pleased. We occasionally get extra spending money of a couple hundred bucks each from freelance jobs and bonuses, if I'm feeling good about the progress on our debt and savings and feel we could use a reward, but rarely a big amount all at once like that. So I hope it makes up for the hell she went through. I've advised her to buy a new iPad, which she's always coveted!

AS's minutes finally ran out; that girl stretched her minutes like a champ! I bought her another 1000 for $107.78. So here are our costs so far:

NT's mid-April Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $32.87
AS's early-May T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78

FY2011 total: $140.65

We just ended the first month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost so far is ... $140.65! However, AS and I won't need minutes for awhile, and NT will just need to refill in June. So that number will drop over time, and I'm convinced our monthly average this 12-month period is going to be our lowest yet in the long run.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March 2009. 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.

Our mortgage payments hit today:
US: $413 to principal
UK1: $262
UK2: $56
UK3: $58

So that's $789, $211 to go on the May debt-repayment goal.

The UK flat payment had semiannual management fees taken out of it, so after paying the mortgages I only had 20 pounds ($40) to transfer into savings. Still, progress is progress! That's $1916.71 in EF savings so far this year; total EF is up to $10,428.66.

I set the mostly random goal of $7000 because it seemed reachable just with UK income plus the $50 I put aside each month in the US account. However, the UK flat has been hit with expensive repairs a few times, so we may be a bit off schedule with this one. Well, we'll see how it goes. I'm kind of comfortable with our EF now, and part of me is tempted to start paying down the UK mortgages instead. They're our lowest-interest debt at 1.49% (variable), but on the other hand the UK savings account is earning us a few pence a month.

Bringing the money over to the US to pay down a higher-interest debt doesn't make too much sense to me because we'll get hit with exchange and transfer fees. Maybe if the exchange rate goes crazy again and a pound is worth $2, we'll think about doing that. Right now it's worth about $1.60. Plus, whether I'm putting the money in the UK account or paying down the UK mortgages, it feels like I'm working toward our future, when we'll move to England and need to purchase a bigger place than NT's teeny flat. It'd be nice to have a ton of equity and/or a nice down payment. Down payment probably even better since we may keep renting the place out; who knows?

It seems nearly impossible to think about getting the money into a smart investment vehicle in the UK. The tax complications might more than outweigh any profit we could see.

Any thoughts or opinions on what I should do with that money?

April saw a lot of progress on goals! The only one I made no progress on was making money from side hustles.

We did entertain at home once, just had our besties over for snacks and TV. I guess I'll count that as our small-group get-together, though it was effortless! We did have a very social month; it just all happened outside the home.

As for creative projects and books, I felt like I was very creative this month, but it was all mom stuff: helping decorate AA's room, getting her Easter basket and outfits together, taking photos, etc. I guess you could say I read a dozen books since AA's finally getting interested in books; however, they were all board books for toddlers! Still, I'm counting the cumulative effect of decorating and preparing for Easter as a creative project. I will try to do something a bit more sophisticated for May though!

On to May: I want to pay off at least $1000 in debt again this month. I can't wait till next month when I can start aiming a bit higher than that! If we keep paying just $1000 per month, we won't be rid of our debt for over 28 years, so that's obviously not a good plan. But for one more month, it will have to do.

Typically I would have mortgage progress to report already, but I guess since May 1 fell on a Sunday, the banks need an extra day to catch up.

I did have some health progress at my weigh-in last night. I lost 2 lbs. last week, down to 150 lbs. Just 11 more lbs. to reach my goal!

Just a note so I remember to update NT's pension value next time I do net worth.

Formerly:
#1: 12,663 pounds ($25,326)

Currently:
13,752.50 pounds ($27,505)

I'll relate the sad tale of my couponing for charity first:
I tried to get free dog treats using a sale and double coupons, but our prices must be higher than Couponmom's store, because it would have come to $1 per bag of treats. Not good enough, so I left the coupons for some dog owner to be pleasantly surprised.
Then I went to Walgreens to try the Splenda moneymaker, free maxi pads, bandage moneymaker and super-cheap Colgate. Here's where things went really wrong.

I used a $3 register rewards and 2 coupons, and my total was $8-something. Seemed high but I knew I was getting a $3 rebate and $3 register rewards, so I thought $2 for 2 tubes of toothpaste was an OK deal. (I forgot I'd actually paid $11-something if you counted the register rewards.)

So I was rooting through my bag and realized I didn't get the register rewards. I went back and it turns out if you use a register rewards for the same product, you don't get another one. (That was the maxipads deal.) So I got a $3 refund and returned the maxipads.

After I walked out, I started thinking that I'd ended up spending $5 cash and $3 register rewards, and that I'll get $3 back in rebate. That meant my two tubes of toothpaste cost $5. They were supposedly 2-for-1 AND I had a $1 off coupon, so that means they're ordinarily $6 each? Maybe, but that seemed high. I was going to check the receipt, but then I realized THEY'D TAKEN MY RECEIPT. Not only could I not check to see if I was overcharged for the toothpaste, I also couldn't send in the rebate for the bandages. SO I started out the day with $21.01 and ended it with $12.15. I spent almost $9 for a pack of bandaids and two tubes of toothpaste! Man, couponing is HARD.

It's still going to charity, so it's not that bad. But I was expecting to spend about 80 cents after rebates & coupons, so it's kind of a shocker.

Anyway did much better with the household grocery shopping. We'd had to get more milk and soymilk during the week, so we only had $109 to spend this week if we want to get caught up. I knew we were going to have to buy compostable diapers later this week, which is $16.50, so we only had about $92.50 for our regular weekend grocery trips.

Grand total? $66.40! There were hardly any good coupons, and the website for our grocery store was out-of-date on some of the deals, so I didn't think we'd do that well. But between sales and coupons we saved $19.98.

Here's how it breaks down by meal:

Pasta with vodka sauce
Fresh basil $3.40
1/2 cup almonds $1.10
(already have pasta, canned tomatoes, vodka, bread)
Total: $4.50

Vegan buffalo wings, potato salad, eggless salad sandwiches (picnic for May Day festival)
Scallions $0.59
Tofu $1.49
Vegan mayo $4.39
(already had potatoes, bread, wheat gluten, panko breadcrumbs, etc.)
Total: $6.47

Tofu sandwiches, roasted cauliflower
Tofu $1.49
Bread (C) $1.19
Cauliflower $1.99
Total: $3.18

Pasta w/broccoli & zucchini
1 zucchini $0.29
Broccoli $1.49
(already have pasta, herbs & spices)
Total: $1.78

Veggie burgers & sweet potato fries
Hamburger buns $0.79
5 sweet potatoes $4.44 (will have extra)

Tacos & salad
TVP $1.40 (will have extra)
2 pkgs taco shells/tortillas $2.50 (will have extra)
2 bags salad $4.00 (will have extra)
Lime $0.55
2 avocados $1.69
2 mangoes $2.00
2 tomatoes $1.73 (will have extra)
Taco seasoning $0.29
Total: $14.16

General Tso's mock duck
Scallions $0.59
Ginger root $0.64
(already have mock duck, rice, other ingredients)
$1.23

Other food/drink we'll use this week:
2 green bell peppers $1.00
7 bananas $1.69
2 pears $1.35
6 apples $3.48
4 eggs $1.28
Milk $2.29
Cheddar $3.29
2 cartons soymilk (C) $3.00

Other food/drink staples we may not use immediately:
Garlic $0.42
Apple cider vinegar $0.79
2x salsa $3.00
Cayenne $0.16
Club soda $0.75

Total of all food spending: $60.54

Nonfood/cat items:
Toilet paper $1.79
Paper towels $2.29
Aluminum foil (C) + tax $1.56
Tax -bags credit $0.22

Total nonfood spending: $5.86

AS's other student loan hit--$60 went to principal, making our April debt repayment total $1181. Just over a year to go on this particular student loan, then it'll be paid off! It's at $791, and it's so tempting to just pay it off in one fell swoop. But the interest rate is our second-lowest at 2.25%, so I know that extra debt repayment is serving us better elsewhere.

Our next big extra debt repayment won't be until June, since the May money had to go toward replenishing the lawyer fund after I used it to pay off another student loan.

Oh, and we made some progress on charitable giving! AS's job (a publishing house) had their semiannual benefit last night, and there was a silent auction where all proceeds went to the press. AS saved up her charity budget for a couple months and NT threw in some of his for us to use. We bid on a weekend at a resort but were outbid. Then we bid on a tiny iPod--size of a postage stamp, really--and tickets to a show plus CDs of the group. We won both! We were careful with our bids and stayed just under budget. So that's $590 total this year that we've given to good causes.

At the event, we met up with the friend who recommended me for the recent interview. It really reminded me how fun it was working with her! Now that we don't work in the same place, live kinda far apart and both have kids, we don't see one another as often as we'd like. It would be a really tough decision if I were offered the job. Basically, how much is it worth to me, to get a job doing something I'd love working with someone I love? Minimum $9000? Yikes. The money makes me happy when I'm not at work, but I spend so much time not being happy at work. It would be the other way around if I took this job.

Well, I'm getting WAY ahead of myself. AS forwarded me a very interesting job; only drawback is that it's 12 miles away and not accessible by bus or lightrail. So I'd need to get a car for that one. Still, the subject matter I'd be editing sounds interesting (to me--thuddingly dull to others, probably), so I'll apply next week and see what's what. They require you to give salary requirements, so I'll probably set my requirements a little higher than what I make now. That way a car wouldn't be a big bummer to our budget if I did get the job!

Heading out soon for happy hour (or what I've been mentally calling "unhappy hour") with a couple of employees. Discontent is spreading throughout the ranks, it seems, and some people want to have a bitch session about it. Suits me! If enough of us were disgruntled enough, we might even be able to force some change. Isn't that what they call "collective bargaining"?

Well, the Walgreens I went to was sold out of one item, and didn't appear to carry another. But they did have the Stayfree maxipads. They cost $2.99 (no sales tax), and I had a $1 off coupon that I'd printed off their website, so I paid $1.99. I also got a "register rewards" coupon for $3 off my next purchase at Walgreens. So all in all, I made $1.01 off the deal!

I dropped the maxipads off in a charity box at my job, since one of my co-workers is collecting personal-care items to donate to a homeless cause.

This weekend I'll go to the bigger Walgreens near my home, and I'll see if they have the other two items in stock. (I can use my $3 coupon to help pay for the purchase.) Also, although I can't print another coupon, I should be able to get another box of maxipads free by getting another $3 register rewards with $2.99 purchase!

One of AS's student loans hit, with $122 going toward principal. That makes our April debt repayment $1121 so far, exceeding the $1000 goal! AS has one more student loan that may hit tomorrow or Friday.

Today on my lunch break I'm going to Walgreens to try some super-couponing strategies that I got via Jeffrey's "Penny Experiment" Facebook feed. I'm going to buy 3 packages of Splenda, 1 pack of Stayfree maxipads and 1 package of Nexcare bandages. If all goes well, I should spend $6.43 and receive $6.99 in "register rewards" to use next time, as well as a mail-in rebate for $2.99. So in the long run I should come out $3.55 ahead! (We'll see how it goes.)

My plan right now is to take $20 per month from my charitable-donations money, keep it separate from all other money, and see how far I can stretch it to buy things for food shelves and homeless outreach programs. So the register rewards and rebate check will go back in the envelope to be used on more great deals.

AS and I are diving into the rabbit-hole a bit on couponing right now, both to get our grocery bill under control and to maximize our charitable giving. I think because it's so soon after watching a couple episodes of "Extreme Couponing," NT is a tad worried that he's going to look under the bed someday and see a huge stockpile of toothpaste and candy bars. If you're reading this, honey, I promise that will never happen!

At the weigh-in last night, I'd actually lost a full pound! Now I'm at 152, or 13 lbs. from my goal. I walked a lot last week and my portion sizes were pretty good, but I did eat chips a lot. However, I didn't eat chips ON TOP OF a bunch of other stuff, so calorie-wise I don't think I went nuts.

This weekend we went over and entered a bunch of commitments on our calendar, and I realized that the next 5 weeks are going to be full (and fun)! No weekend is completely devoid of social events. Plus there are several items during the workweek, both fun (charity event for AS's job) and not (dental appts. for me and NT). So I decided to be indulgently lazy yesterday, and watched TV & played videogames to my heart's content.

Close to bedtime, when I was thinking about the day's events, I had to laugh a little bit at what a lazy day looks like now versus what it looked like oh, say, 5 or 6 years ago, pre-kids, pre-husband, pre-budget.

Lazy day in the past: Roll out of bed maybe before noon, maybe not. Throw on some comfy clothes and stroll out with AS to have brunch (preferably somewhere that served Bloody Marys). Linger and get slightly tipsy. Come home, ignore all housework, watch movies or TV, read books, smoke a few cigarettes, maybe take a nap. Look through the fridge, decide to get pizza delivered, read and watch TV some more, have a few more smokes. Go to bed.

Lazy day yesterday: "Sleep in" until 8:30 am. Get AA's bottle while she's being changed, race around getting Easter basket and eggs ready, coax AA into pretty dress. Help her with Easter egg hunt and breakfast, taking pictures all the while. Change her into dress she can move around better in. Watch TV and play on the laptop while keeping an eye on AA. Make and eat lunch while AA is napping. Feed her lunch, peel orange and divide into small sections for her. Clean her hands and mouth over her vocal objections. Comfort her several times after nasty falls. Play videogames while keeping an eye on her. Change at least four diapers during course of day. Pick up Easter toys periodically only to have them scatter again. Slice & stew apples for AA's dinner. Pick peas up that have scattered everywhere during her meal. Wash huge pile of pots and pans that have accumulated over the day. Brush AA's teeth and put her to bed. Declutter the house in preparation for the cleaner. Watch TV and play videogames while drinking a couple glasses of wine.

And yes, I felt like I was being outrageously lazy! I did far less than AS and NT, who had work and homework respectively and both cooked and cleaned more than I did.