Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

Boy, I'm getting sick of companies going back on their word.

On Thursday night, I was online-chatting with Comcast customer service, looking for cheaper options for our cable and internet. They offered me an upgrade on cable with an introductory rate $15 lower than what we pay for our current internet.

I wanted to talk it over with my family and make sure it was a good deal, and we decided it was; we could always switch back to regular-speed internet before the introductory period ended.

But when I went back onto Comcast chat today, that customer service person made me wait about 20 minutes online before telling me that the offer was no longer available. Less than 3 days later, no longer available. Ugh. I closed out of the chat immediately, I was so disgusted. Probably should've stuck around to see if they had a different offer, but oh well.

We still have other easy cost-saving ideas. We're currently enrolled in cable the next step up from basic. Getting rid of that will save us nearly $20. We'll still have our DVR and all channels below 100, so we're only losing about 4 shows we love, and we can look into other ways of seeing those. Then in September when Netflix is going to split their service, we'll cut back to just streaming movies; instead of our bill going up about $6.50, it'll go down by about $2.

So we'll still reduce our costs by $22; not as nice as $37, but better than nothing.

When I call Comcast tomorrow to downgrade our cable, I"m first going to ask if they have any internet deals. I thought the last person I talked to said something about a 3-month discount; any little bit is great in my opinion.

I'm going to set $10 per month aside in case we want to get some of our shows we're losing on demand, but the other $12 I can roll into debt repayment. Nice!

***

I'm getting impatient with myself over my weight. I can't seem to get motivated to take off these last 10-12 lbs. of baby weight. I've been trying to do it naturally, but I'm thinking a more structured plan might work better for me.

So I've been mulling over what changes might bring the biggest results, and this is what I came up with. I want to cut out these foods and ingredients:
-Bread products
-Chips of all kinds
-Pasta
-Flour and other wheat products (including my favorite, mock duck)
-White rice
-White potatoes
-High-calorie sweeteners like sugar, honey and high fructose corn syrup
-Beer (I don't have it often, but I see the difference when I do!)

If I stay away from this list, I think I should be able to lose weight pretty quickly. My goal will be to get under 140 lbs; at that point, I would start reintroducing these foods if I wanted to. I'm pretty good at maintaining weight naturally without much extra effort; it's just losing that I have trouble with.

I think I'd have a better chance of succeeding if I allowed myself one cheat day per week, so I'll start that way and see how it goes. (I'm also not going to count vacation and travel days and parties, just regular eating days.)

We just bought groceries for the week and already have meals planned, so I'm going to start next week. Last night I had tofu dogs (on buns) and fries, and chips and salsa, and this morning I had hash browns and toast for breakfast, and a big sandwich on sourdough for lunch! Tonight, risotto (arborio rice counts as white rice, I'd say). So I'm getting my kicks, and you can also see why I think cutting these things out of my diet will help me lose weight--my diet is riddled with this kind of stuff! LOL.

This week will not only be my last hurrah -- until I either give up or lose the weight -- but it will give me time to research meal options. I lean on bread and pasta and potatoes and white rice a LOT. I'm not sure I'll be able to come up with things that AS will go for, and I doubt NT could give up his bread or desserts, so I may be going this mostly alone. But I think I can do it. I noticed the carrot-craisin-walnut salad we made today to go with the sandwiches accidentally fit my new diet requirements, and it's one of my favorite salads. So I know the meals are out there; I just have to figure out what fits.

An extra payment to one of NT's student loans hit, with $966 going to principal! That makes our July progress $1760 down, $140 to go to reach our goal.

Unfortunately I have a bad feeling about this; since the last two days of the month are a Saturday and a Sunday, I don't think both of AS's student loan payments will hit her accounts in time to meet our goal. But oh well. Just a scheduling glitch. Hopefully at least one of the payments will get there and we'll get a bit closer to our goal for the month.

$25 went into the EF, as well as 51 cents of interest. That brings 2011 EF progress to $3292.78 ($11,804.73 in the EF total). Nearing the halfway mark on my goal of raising $7000 for the EF this year!

I'm so glad I save up medical money separately. Last month our kitty Noodles needed about $250 of medical treatment; this month we got a $500+ bill for AS's root canal. It hurts to take that money out of savings, but not as much as if I counted my medical savings in my emergency fund!

NT and AS have proven willing to at least discuss cheaper options to cable and Netflix, since cable raised our rate recently and Netflix is planning to in September. We've talked about renting movies from Redbox and the library, getting an alternate device that streams content from the internet, etc. I haven't seen a clear way to save a lot of money and still get the entertainment we like best, but we'll keep working on it. The biggies for us are BBC shows such as Dr. Who and Torchwood (though Torchwood this season is on Starz, which we don't get anyway). We'll see if there are ways to stream them online when they come out; otherwise, we could wait and buy/rent the DVDs once those are available, but as a Brit NT would be dying inside if he knew there are new Dr. Who episodes and had to wait months to see them!

I did get an offer to upgrade our internet for $15 less per month -- for 12 months. After that, it would be about $15 more than what we pay now. I guess we could downgrade after the year is up, or look for other promo offers...haven't decided on that yet.

Anyway, we're not going to be hasty, but I'm glad we're looking at options. I got cable/internet and Netflix at what I considered fair prices, but I don't like to see them going up incrementally, when income has pretty much stagnated.

I haven't been noting individual charitable contributions, but we've donated $910 total for the year, just passing the halfway mark on our 2011 goal! Having it as a regular budget item is great because it ensures we remember to donate. We have several recurring monthly donations set up as part of it; the rest is a random budget item that we can donate to causes that get our attention along the way. We each get $50 a month total to allocate as we please, whether it's through recurring monthly payments to a charity or one-time gifts.

***

Thought I'd give an update on my credit card situation:
- I haven't received the 50,000 points for spending $3000 on my Chase Sapphire card. I assume they update the points total monthly, since it hasn't increased in weeks. Hopefully by next week I'll have my points and can request my check, at which point I can instruct customer service to close my accounts. I'll explain why again; we'll see if they make any attempt to salvage our relationship.
- AS still has a couple hundred to spend before she hits $3000 on her Chase Sapphire and receives her second 50,000 points, so it may take longer to cancel her Chase account.
- AS and I got approved for a Citi MasterCard that will give us a $150 bonus for spending $500 in the first 90 days. Easy peasy. There's also a regular rewards program for purchases. We should receive the card within a week.
- Haven't heard whether NT and I were approved for an Amex card that will come with a $100 bonus yet. Should hear in a week or two.
- I decided to keep my Discover card open for now since it has the same rewards program as the Chase Freedom I'm going to cancel. I added NT to the account in case I end up keeping it. If I get the Amex I may cancel Discover, but we'll see.

***

We had our annual meeting with Prudential, my company's 401(k) provider. Mostly kiddie stuff in the presentation, but I did learn that 7% is considered a fairly safe assumption for how your retirement savings will grow over time. It used to be 10% but the Dept. of Labor made companies like Prudential revise it downward in recent years, after so much volatility in the markets.

I've only ever had 401(k)s during volatile times. I got my first real account shortly before the tech bubble burst, and a foolhardy co-worker had just convinced me to put 90% of my 401(k) into a brand-new, high-risk tech stock fund that had been going gangbusters. Needless to say my meager account was decimated. I've also seen my account buffeted by the recent real estate bubble burst and the Great Recession. So if a retirement calculator gives me the option to choose a growth percentage, I usually pick 4% or 5%, and the results are that we're seriously underfunding with our contributions. But estimate 7% and it's a whole different story.

I ran the calculator on Prudential's website after the meeting and was pleased to see it predict we would have a $220 surplus every month in retirement. Now granted that's if we all work until I'm 70 (I rolled all our stats into one profile) and contribute the same amount we do now the whole time. So we could do better, in case we want/need to stop working before then (or our salaries drop from where they are now). But it's good to know we're on basically the right track.

I moved $20 more into the EF; as I was doing it, I realized my spreadsheet amount didn't match what's in the account itself. I was $25 short on the spreadsheet. I thought I recorded every deposit recently, but I'm also $25 short on my sidebar here. So I must have not followed through after blogging about my savings.

So that means $45 of progress from where I said I was here; that makes $3267.27 of 2011 progress; $11,779.22 total in the EF.

I've obtained credit reports for all three of us to make sure I know all the accounts we have open, and I intend to close them all:

A Sears card we all three hold jointly
An American Express card I never use
A Discover card I never use
A Visa card AS never uses

And eventually, once I get all our rewards points and cash:
My Chase Sapphire
AS's Chase Sapphire
A Chase Visa that AS and I hold jointly
A Chase Visa that NT and I hold jointly

I found some cards I want to apply for. There aren't any more crazy $500 bonus cards available at present, but there are some pretty good rewards cards, and they're ones I wouldn't mind holding onto if I don't see better offers coming along soon after them:

American Express Blue Cash Preferred: Has a $75 annual fee, but offers 6% cash back on grocery purchases! So I'd easily earn more than that back. Plus you can get a $100 bonus for opening a card if you spend at least $500 in the first 60 days.

Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard: No annual fee, $150 cash back if you spend $500 in the first three months, 1% rewards on regular purchases and 5% rewards on certain purchases (categories change).

Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards MasterCard: 1% rewards on most purchases, 2% on groceries. Haven't found a good intro bonus, but this might be a good workaday one to replace my Chase Visa that I use all the time. Though the Citi one might do the trick.

I've already canceled my existing American Express and requested Discover cancel that account. I'm trying to cancel the Sears card but have been getting a busy signal for hours. Isn't that weird? Oh, and I realized Citi handles Sears cards, so it's making me wary of opening a Citi card, if they can't even staff their phones... (UPDATE: Just got an email from the facilities manager that our company's phones are having trouble dialing 800 numbers, so it isn't Citi's fault.)

I used Credit Karma to get an approximation of our credit scores, to see how much effect having old cards has. AS got an A on longevity of open accounts, while I got a C and NT got a D. Our credit scores?
AS: 781
CJ: 784
NT: 766
So as MonkeyMama said, doesn't seem to have much effect at all. We're all in the "Excellent" range and in the high 80s to low 90s percentile-wise.

As some of you know, I applied for and got the Chase Sapphire card with the 50,000 bonus if you spend $3000 in 3 months. AS also applied for and got one.

When I heard there was an even better offer for 100,000 points that you could get upgraded to by emailing customer service, we both did that. AS immediately got her extra 50,000 points (which we redeemed for $500!), but I got the following email:

"As per the offer on your account, you will receive 50,000 Chase Sapphire bonus points after spending $3,000.00 in purchases within 93 days of account open date. These points will post to your account within one to two billing cycles.

"I feel that every relationship is based on mutual trust and support, including one between a bank and a customer. I would like to inform you that, once you have spend $3000.00 within the first 93 days, you will need to re-sumbit your request for the additional 50,000 points, however, make sure that it is within the first 93 days and we will be happy to have the additional 50,000 points added to your account."

I thought, great, no problem! I wrote a very nice thank-you note.

A couple weeks later I had gotten up to $3000 of spending, so as this email had instructed, I resubmitted my request:


"I'm happy to report that I've spent my first $3000 on my new credit card. Per the attached message, I would like to request an additional 50,000 as well as the 50,000 that were part of my original account offer. The customer service representative promised that I could have the additional points but only if I resubmitted my request after spending $3000.

"Thank you very much for your generosity and understanding in granting this request."

To my disappointment I got the following note:

"I am glad to know that yo have fulfilled the first use requirement of using the card for $3000.00 within 93 days of opening the account. The first use 50,000 points will post within one to two billing cycles.

"In order to view and redeem your rewards information online, please click on "Rewards Details" located in the bottom left corner of the Account Details page. After viewing current reward information, you may also click on "See Rewards History" for more information or "Redeem Rewards" to complete a redemption request.

"The offer for 100,000 points was an acquisition test offer only and was sent to a select customers through direct mail. Regretfully, this is a non transferable offer. I apologize for any miscommunication in this regard."

Naturally, since this seemed like a direct contradiction of their earlier communication, I fired back another message to make sure they understood what I'd been promised:

"I'm very disappointed at this unexpected change of heart. As a long-term and loyal Chase customer with several active accounts, I would be very disillusioned if what I was told isn't followed through on. I quote the previous customer service representative's email:

"'I feel that every relationship is based on mutual trust and support, including one between a bank and a customer. I would like to inform you that, once you have spend $3000.00 within the first 93 days, you will need to re-sumbit your request for the additional 50,000 points, however, make sure that it is within the first 93 days and we will be happy to have the additional 50,000 points added to your account.'

"In light of this explicit promise and of the long relationship I have with Chase, I hope you will reconsider and grant me the additional points after all."

I soon got another email:

"I sincerely apologize about any miscommunication caused due to the bonus offer points on your Chase Sapphire account.

"The 100,000 point enrollment bonus offer was sent to a select group that have no previous Chase Sapphire
accounts. We do not transfer promotional offers that a customer may have seen or heard about to their account. We only honor promotional offers that customers actually apply for.

"We are sympathetic with your position, however we must be consistent in applying the terms of our contract. To make exceptions would not be equitable to our other Cardmembers. We hope, therefore, that you can understand our position."

Now this just annoyed me more, since I knew very well they'd been handing out points to people who hadn't applied for that specific offer. So I wrote another message:

"Thanks for your quick response. However, I actually have a friend who is a cardmember and had the same agreement as me, and she was given the extra 50,000. So to say it wouldn't be equitable to not give me the extra points doesn't make sense.

"I'm afraid if you go back on your word, I'm going to have to reconsider being a Chase customer and will have to look around at other credit card companies. Knowing someone else who got the points, and having that past promise in writing from another customer service representative, it seems unconscionable that you would now tell me I don't get the extra points."

I got a quick response that I found slightly promising:

"I have forwarded your message to the appropriate department for review and you should receive a response within one business day.

"If you require immediate assistance, please contact the number listed below and either myself, or one of my colleagues will be able to assist you. For your
convenience, we are available to assist you 24 hours a
day."

So I waited a day and then got one more message from them:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on actions taken on other cardmember accounts.

"As indicated in our previous e-mail response, the 100,000 enrollment bonus offer was sent to a select number of people who had no previous Chase Sapphire account. The offer is by invitation only and can not be applied to anyone who was not solicited for this promotional offer.

"Unless you can provide an invitation and offer code that sent specifically to you, we are considering this issue closed. I regret any inconvenience this may cause you.

"If you have any further questions, please reply using the Secure Message Center."

Sigh. So now, they've ticked me off enough that I'm not only going to cancel the rewards card (after I get my 50,000, heh heh), but I'm also going to cancel all our other Chase cards (AS's reward card after she gets her second 50,000, plus the one NT and I use all the time, and another one AS and I hold jointly that we hardly ever use).

I wouldn't have minded if they'd said "no" at the outset. But to say one thing and then not honor it, whether or not the original representative made a bad decision promising that ... I can't really do business with a company that would do that, and that would stick to that in light of my threatening to take my business elsewhere.

So ... I've been looking around, and I think I know what cards I'm going to apply for. (I'll talk about that in more detail in a later post.) But first I'm going to look through our records and cancel some other extraneous non-Chase cards I've been too lazy to handle, just to do some housecleaning. Then I'll apply for new cards and, once we get approved and Chase finishes sending us the rewards checks, I'll cancel all our Chase accounts.

Maybe they won't care; after all, I'm a "deadbeat" in credit-card-company parliance. I don't pay annual fees or late fees, and I no longer pay interest since I paid off our credit cards about 8 months ago. And I'm just one customer (albeit with 4 accounts total). But I'll be glad to see them go; I know credit card companies are just heartless corporations, but lying to a customer to their face when they have something in writing is just bad form.

Weighed myself Sunday and was down to 150 again! Woo hoo! I've plateaued for a few weeks so was glad to see a bit of progress. It won't feel like real progress unless I get under 149, since I already hit that weight once this year, but I'll take what I can get.

I was glad it's paid off to eat tons of veggies and fruits. Even for a vegan I've felt like I'm eating a lot of them.

The weekend was way fun and food-oriented. I had Friday off and kept AA home with me. We went to meet NT at his job for a couple hours, then back home. We needed NT to hit the grocery store for our planned dinner but temps were in the high 90s, so I made the first course (tofu spring rolls) and that tided us over until the temps dropped to a reasonable level for him to walk to the store. Then I made a very tasty pad thai. We had some beer and wine, watched TV and played video games. Nice mellow night.

Saturday AA and I played for several hours in the morning, reading, playing music, dancing. NT and I went grocery shopping and saved nearly $50 in coupons and sales. Lunch was super easy Asian lettuce wraps with a sugar snap pea salad NT had made up earlier. Oh, and we ate the first Rainier cherries of the season! They haven't hit their peak yet but they're already delicious. For dinner, NT grilled veggie burgers, garlic scapes, zucchini and cauliflower on the balcony, and I made kale chips in the oven. Later that night, I went out with some friends to a drag-queen show. It was so much fun! I got home late, thought I'd unwind in front of the TV for a couple minutes before I went to bed -- and woke up at quarter to 6 on the couch! LOL. Went to bed and slept a few more hours.

Sunday I had some tummy troubles and took it really easy, mostly just lazing around reading. NT went on a long bike ride with friends and AS got caught up on some work. NT made lunch of fresh spinach and sundried tomato pasta, and for dinner we went out to one of our favorite pizza places (it's a huge plus that they have vegan cheese options). AA was really good, and for the first time we accepted their offer of a colorable kids' menu and crayons. She's working on some fine motor skills at the moment, including trying to learn how to color, brush her hair and put on her own clothes. (She's not very good at any of them yet, but she's just begun.) We walked home from the restaurant, about 15 long blocks.

Monday we had pancakes for breakfast, then headed out on our bikes (NT towed AA in one of those attached chariot things). We met up with a friend, biked over to a grocery store to pick up deli stuff, then rode to a nearby lake with a beach. We ate in the shade and then NT and our friend took AA into the water. She freaked at first, but once she got used to it she didn't want to get out! Then she just wandered around the lakeside for about half an hour. When she started to get cranky, we headed for home, and she fell asleep in the chariot almost immediately. We stopped at a neighborhood ice cream shop and she slept the whole time we were there.

We were thinking about heading out to NT's work where there's a perfect view of the downtown fireworks from their 33rd floor balcony. But the fireworks weren't starting until 10 and we were tired out. We can see lots of displays dotted on the horizon from our 18th floor balcony at home, so NT watched that. We get an even better fireworks show in a couple weeks during the Minneapolis festival called the Aquatennial, so we'll probably go watch those from his job's balcony.

Oh, and I booked a trip to Ohio at the end of June for my family reunion. While she was visiting last month, my sister convinced me to consider going by saying Dad would pay for the trip. When he heard there was a chance I'd come he called to tell me the same thing. AS didn't want to go this year, so it's just me, NT and AA. NT hasn't been to one yet so I'm glad he'll get to experience it. And of course my mom has only see AA in person one other time (when she was 4 months old), so that's the real reason for the trip. It came to over $1000 for the two plane tickets and two nights in a hotel. Yikes! Because we needed such specific timing on our plane tickets, they cost over $400 apiece. But my dad didn't seem to mind. He's a frugal guy but doesn't think twice about shelling out money for certain things, especially where his wife and kids are concerned.

So let's see, I went to San Fran in March, New York in June, going to Ohio in July, doing an overnight trip to Memphis in early August for work, and doing a plane/train combo trip to St. Louis and then Chicago at the end of August. I usually average two trips a year, so five trips in six months is unprecedented for me! AS is going to NY again in September for work, so if you count all travel for our family, that'll make six trips in seven months! (If three of them weren't being paid for by others, it just wouldn't be possible!) Only some will be really fun, but I kind of dig traveling even if it's just for work or family obligations, so I don't mind.

Just a quick note that I added $15 to savings, bringing EF progress to $3222.27 for the year ($11,734.22 total EF).

Also, AS's extra Chase bonus came in the mail: $500! If we're lucky we'll get $1500 more from Chase over the next month or two; if not, we'll at least get $1000.

I can't believe I'm contemplating this when we've just had a trip in June and have two lined up for August, but I may fly to Ohio (courtesy of my dad) for a family reunion at the end of June. If so, that will bring us closer to spending the necessary amount on the Chase cards, and it won't even be our money because my dad will reimburse me. NT is considering going with me, but AS has too much work (plus she's been to a couple of my family reunions, whereas NT has never been).

First off, thank you for all the advice on my last entry. I think I'll stay the course, keeping us to a few fund-type accounts per person but not putting all our eggs in one basket. That means I'm still going to look at a mutual fund to stash some of our EF money, so that it's potentially earning more money but still fairly liquid.

All our mortgages hit, and a bit more went to principal than expected (only a few bucks more, but I'll take it!):

US: $416 to principal
UK1: $263
UK2: $56
UK3: $59

All told, that's $794 down, $1106 to go on the July debt repayment goal.

Also, added $549.64 to the UK savings account, taking 2011 EF progress to $3207.27 (and the total EF to $11,719.22). It would have been a bit more but NT bought his parents b-day gifts using his UK checking; he's going to make up for it by paying $75 into US savings in installments over the next 4 weeks. So the EF will see some more progress over the course of the month.

Also, got a letter from our mortgage company yesterday with a check for $154.78; apparently our escrow account had more money than necessary! Per our new household arrangement we conferred about what to do with it; we threw around some different ideas. Right now we're putting it aside until we decide for sure. It may go toward more eco-friendly lighting for the bathroom, or we may put it toward summer fun of some sort. Our new system is working well; NT had some overtime pay this week, and we used some of it for a nice dinner out, finished paying off my sister's hotel room, and put the rest toward a future debt repayment.

The mortgage company also informed us that our monthly payment would be $4.60 lower beginning Aug. 1. May just be a temporary reprieve until November, which is when our mortgage rate adjusts each year, but I'll take it! I'll put the extra toward education debt repayment.

I have an extra day off today! Well, I still have to take care of one aspect of my job, but only until noon, and I'm doing it from home. It was lucky because daycare is closed today as well. I'm getting the budget sorted while AA takes a nap, then we'll probably head out to see NT and his co-workers later. It's a scorcher today, so we'll be movin' slow!

Looks like it's going to be a fun long weekend. We're planning to grill on the balcony one night, eat out somewhere that has outdoor seating another, go for a bike ride and picnic another day, and I and possibly AS or NT will go out to a local bar Saturday or Sunday night to see a drag queen perform who's a minor TV celebrity! Oh, and I want to take AA to the wading pool at our nearby park either today or sometime this weekend. I hope everyone else is planning lots of fun this Independence Day!

I've been mulling over several interesting topics, so maybe I'll do more than one of these this month. We'll see.

Anyway, this one was kind of spur-of-the-moment. My office's annual seminar with our retirement provider (Prudential) is coming up, and one of the emails they sent in preparation was titled "It's time to simplify your retirement planning."

It went on to talk about rolling other retirement assets into my work 401(k) because it makes it easier to monitor.

Here's the thing: I recently opened Vanguard Roth IRAs for my family, and I was thinking of starting some Pax World mutual funds for us soon, too. I don't know exactly how retirement is going to look: tax implications if we retire in the UK, general course of this crazy economy, etc. I figured several different kinds of accounts couldn't hurt. It's a little more complicated to keep track of, though. If there wasn't any benefit, I'm not sure I'd keep it up.

So what do you think? Simplify or diversify? And what do you do? And if your philosophy is different from your practice, why? Are there pros and cons for each school of thought?

Feel free to comment on this entry or write your answer on your own blog if you're interested!

June was a very successful month for us; I even finished up early what I hoped to accomplish! I'm hoping I can even do a bit better on debt in July; I'm hoping to pay off at least $1900 of debt. I'd love to make progress on my other annual goals, but it's such a whirlwind summer so far that I'm finding it hard to predict what I'll get done. Oh well, the debt repayment is the important part.

AS's other student loan hit today: $61 went to principal, so that's $1849, $149 more than our June goal!

This is the student loan with the super-low balance: It's now down to $670. So tempting to pay it off, but it's got the second-lowest interest rate (2.25%) of all our debts -- only a little more than $1 goes to interest every month. So I keep resisting and putting our extra debt repayment money to our current highest-interest (6.41%) debt. (I say "current" because most of our debts have variable interest rates, so those could start to go up at any time and possibly surpass the 6.41% one, which is fixed.)

Anyway, since we pay $60 or $61 on this small student loan every month, at $670 that means we only have 11 months left on it. It's only a $62 per month bill, so it's not worth paying off. But it certainly is tempting!

One of AS's student loans hit. $122 went to principal, so that means we've paid off $1788 of debt, exceeding the $1700 goal. She has one more student loan payment that will probably hit before the end of the month.

I forgot how fast and hectic summer feels! In the dead of winter, I imagine long slow hot days lazing and reading and getting slurpees, like summer vacations in Virginia were when I was a kid. The reality is that Minnesota summers are so short, there's a sort of frantic feeling of wanting to pack in as many outdoor activities, later-evening (before days get shorter) events and socializing as possible. It's fun, but definitely not as leisurely as I think it's going to be.

As a result, I've jettisoned the logging of our grocery lists and figuring what each meal costs. It's just not a good use of summer time! We're once again struggling to catch up on our grocery budget after a couple of busy weeks where we didn't take the time to sit down and figure out a budget-conscious use of our grocery money. We also had some daycare-related purchases that came out of grocery/household, which set us further back. But I'm confident we can buckle down and get on track over the next few weeks, especially with our CSA farm shares coming in, getting more bountiful as the summer progresses.

Now that I'm done complaining, I have to say that so far this has been a FABULOUS summer.
* We've been to my college reunion in NY, had my family in town for a weekend, and attended the Pride parade Sunday and THREE parties (AA came with us to all!) on Saturday.
* AA is absolutely blossoming with help from the new daycare, and it's so much fun to be part of that.
* AS is making great strides at her job; the first book she acquired is getting great advance buzz, and she's successfully acquired a second book as well as convincing her boss to acquire some reprints that she thinks are going to do great. (And the reprints are of UK books, so she's building her presence abroad -- great news for emigration planning!) My work still isn't perfect, but it's gotten a lot more manageable so I'm not miserable here anymore.
* We've been branching out and having fun in our cooking: I made a Vietnamese BBQ mock duck and tofu spring rolls that were big hits; AS got a Kitchenaid mixer with an ice-cream maker attachment and has been whipping up gourmet vegan treats; NT invented a Cuban-style dinner of avocado-mango salad, plantains and black beans that was out of this world. I think the warm weather and fresh produce has us all feeling inspired.

I wish I could get more motivated to lose weight, but at least I'm trying to walk more and eat loads of fresh fruit and veggies, so I'm not being unhealthy, even if I've plateaued weightwise. Other than a quibble or two like that, I'm loving this summer.

I noticed mention of SA on a Yahoo story about stores cracking down on extreme coupon methods. Unfortunately, they spelled the site name wrong (savingsadvice.com) though the link was correct. Here's the article:
http://financiallyfit.yahoo.com/finance/article-113020-10125-1-how-to-get-the-most-from-coupons?ywaad=ad0035&nc

NT bought more minutes for his Net10 phone. Looks like taxes or fees have gone up a bit; it was $33.38 instead of the usual $32.87.

FY2011 spending so far:

NT's April Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $32.87
AS's May T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's June Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38

FY2011 total: $174.03

We're nearing the end of the third month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost so far is $58.01. Very close to our ideal $50-per-month average!

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.

Just calculated our June net worth, and AS's is now at negative $2,616. It wasn't a great month for retirement accounts or we would have made even more progress. Considering she ended 2010 with negative $14,667, we've made amazing leaps this year and should get her to positive net worth soon.

$25 of automatic savings went to our EF as well as 47 cents of interest (they must have cut our interest rate in half, because we used to get about 86 cents a month; but it really doesn't matter). So that's $2,657.63 saved so far this year ($11,169.58 total EF). It seems unlikely we'll reach our $7,000 goal this year, but we'll see how far we get.

One of my sisters and two of her kids were in town this weekend, so that counts as our small-group get-together. We hung out Saturday night at our house playing games and eating delivery pizza. Then we cooked them brunch on Sunday and dinner Sunday night and we played more games.

It also means I was so tired after taking them back to their hotel room last night that I didn't weigh in, so not sure how my health progress is going. I did walk a ton this weekend; we walked to and from the baseball game, over a half hour each way, and walked them back to their hotel room, which was probably about 40 minutes.

Another $15 donation went through today, so our charitable donations are up to $770 for the year.

Yay, I'm loving this month so far!

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): $13,049
NT's Roth IRA: $3,419
AS's 401(k): $5,606
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $4,300
CJ's 401(k): $40,139
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,419
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $11,170
---
Total Assets: $569,718

Total Debt: $339,777

Current Estimated Net Worth: $229,941

May 2011 estimate: $229,657

Change in net worth: +$284

Summary: All but one of our retirement accounts posted losses, so it was only by paying down debt and adding to EF savings that we were able to stay basically even.

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.

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.

***

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.