Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

I got my tax packet already! I just need to look it over and send back my signature so they can file. So far they look good to me, although there are some forms I'm not familiar with that I might try to read up on tomorrow before I drop my consent in the mail.

I wasn't sure how much I was going to owe, but I assumed it would be at least $600 for the prep fee, plus a few hundred each for federal and state.

Instead, the tax bill was $325, state tax payment due is $481, and NT and I are actually getting a $315 federal refund!

Also, I saw that we'd gotten a $800 Making Work Pay credit. I'd completely forgotten that was valid in 2010 as well, so that means I need to revise AS's federal before I send them out. $400 less, so her federal tax bill is down to $1217. Luckily it doesn't affect her state return, because I already sent that off.

So here's the breakdown:
We have $1600 saved to pay for this.
AS is getting $28 from the state.
NT and I are getting $315 from the IRS.
total: $1943

AS owes $1217 to the IRS.
NT and I owe the state $481.
We also owe the tax guy $325.
total: $2023

So we're short $80.

We're also getting about $800 from a freelance job AS did, so we're up $720.

Then, I want to send a $400 estimated payment for AS's 2011 taxes. So we're down to $320.

The question I now have though is what to do about previous years. The tax guy did report our UK income, straight up, no deductions or tax breaks. So I now know I should have been including that in '08 and '09.

I made a rough guess what the extra income would be and looked at old tax tables. I think we'd owe about $180 for 2008 and $620 for 2009.

$800 isn't too bad. But then I think about all the interest and penalties and get unsure whether we should pursue this, or wait and only deal with it if we get audited down the road.

I'm putting that thought aside for now; but I may return to it if it's bothering me, and pay that tax and try to figure out what the penalties are.

Thought I would share this since we have some pretty impressive couponers on this site. I can't say whether they're going to be admirably thrifty or just crazy and compulsive; since it's on the same network that airs "Hoarders," "Intervention" and "My Strange Addiction," my guess is they're going to focus on unhealthy couponers, or at least try to make them look unbalanced whether they are or not.

Still, might be an interesting show.

http://www.app.com/article/20110406/NJENT/110405037/Next-cable-s-oddball-agenda-extreme-coupon-cutters-debuts-tonight?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFrontpage%7Cp

This is a question I've been afraid to ask myself ever since I've been old enough to contemplate it. Even though we've made great strides toward conquering the debt that we go ourselves into, and have learned to spend less than we make, retirement was the elephant in the room for me. When AS or NT would express their confidence in my financial management skills, part of me would feel a twinge of guilt because I knew I hadn't dealt with one of the most important financial issues of all.

So I plugged our info into a retirement calculator I found on CNN.com. I've used calculators before, and I always come up way short of even my most modest goals. So I was nervous to see what this one said.

I plugged in $80,000 (in 2011 dollars) as our desired retirement income. I would have put less, but keeping in mind MonkeyMama's recent comments about how retirees are often hard-hit by taxes, I went with a sum that would probably cover our current lifestyle minus mortgage and other debt payments, and minus childcare and other baby expenses, but that allowed a fair bit for taxes and/or healthcare.

To my surprise, CCN's calculator said we would need an 8% return on our money and have a 90% chance of getting there with our current retirement funds and rate of contributions.

I posted these results on the SavingAdvice forums because I know the regulars there will always give their unvarnished views about any situation. One said they thought the calculator was right on. The other responder said he thought we needed to be contributing a bit more to get where we wanted to be, but that we could up our contributions gradually and probably get there just fine.

(One reason my results were so different this time: I think maybe I'd done my calculations in the midst of the recession before, and had only calculated a 4% return on investments. But 6% is more likely, and 8% is possible if a bit optimistic.)

This was all mind-blowing to me. I assumed we were so far off target that we'd never be able to retire. Which, based on our families, wouldn't be that bad if our health cooperated. (My dad is more-than-half-time at his computer programming job, and just turned 80. This is his choice, not because of financial need; he just gave each of his 5 kids $13,000 because he wasn't getting very good interest on his savings.) But counting on being able to work in one's 70s and 80s isn't a very good plan, since anything can happen, and your odds of staying fit for work decrease with age.

So I think we do have a ways to go, but it looks like we're heading in the right direction. One of our biggest saving graces is that NT always paid into pensions and retirement funds even when he was young. If AS and I had begun earlier, we'd be even more set. But now that we have a good income and even more earning potential, we'll be able to catch up the rest of the way.

Of course you can never be 100% sure when you still have about 30 years of contributing to do before retirement. But the fact that we're even on the right path is extremely encouraging to me. I feel unbelievably more relaxed; I didn't even know how much of a burden it was until the worry was mostly gone.

So what about you? Have you taken a good hard look at your retirement prospects yet? Do you think you need to make any changes to get where you want to be? Add a comment here or post on your own blog if you've got an interesting answer to share.

I sent him everything Feb. 15. Since then, nothing unless I initiate contact. Every time I contact him, he's almost done and just about to send me everything.

I don't want to stiff him for the work he's already done, but at this point I feel like maybe I should just take care of it myself this year; ignore NT's UK income until next year, and find someone else to do it. But I don't know if or how to get out of this.

Only one other year did I leave my taxes until April. Even if I don't send them in right away, I like to know what I owe or get back.

I emailed him this morning to see when I could hear from him, or even if he could give me a rough estimate of what I owe him and the government. So far, nothing.

I guess I'll call him tomorrow first thing, and ask if I can terminate our relationship if he doesn't have them to me by close of business day. Is that too harsh?

Well, I'd gained 2 lbs. at my weigh-in last night. No surprise; I was very physically lazy last week. I'm losing all the ground I'd won this year, so that was a wake-up call that I need to fit in some exercise. Yesterday even before the weigh-in, I had two 30-minute walks, one brisk and the other more leisurely. Now that it's nice out, I should get more exercise naturally on weekends, but I need to make sure I do something during the week as well.

So now I'm 153; 14 lbs. away from my goal of 139.

Tonight will be busy, but I'm going to try and do a 10-minute workout video after AA goes to bed. (Or before, if she'll let us put her in the playpen; she's not a fan now that she can almost walk.)

Just to let everyone know that I'm not participating in the April fool-a-thon. It's against my religion: sucker.

NT was actually a legendary practical joker among his friends back in England, and after he'd regaled us with several tales of his best pranks, I made him promise (repeatedly) that he would leave that part of his life behind him when he moved in! My poor heart can't take it!

Today I finally heard from my tax guy. He had a few questions that made me think "oh crap, I didn't even know I needed to provide that information." NT's UK bank account numbers. The price he bought the flat for originally. The amount in his UK savings account. What we owed on MN taxes last year. I'm just hoping most of this stuff is information you need to file that won't actually affect my past two tax years. I can only imagine the domino effect of revising all the numbers, because everything is so intertwined. I feel pretty exhausted just from getting that info and worrying. He should finish up pretty soon and said he'd be able to get me the documents in plenty of time to turn them around to the IRS.

I just want to know whether we owe, but every time we talk there's so much other info to pass back and forth, I just don't feel like muddying the waters. Not when nothing's final yet anyway.

Actually he just called back to find out when NT started renting the flat, and I asked him then whether he thought we were going to have to go back and provide the IRS with all this info for past years. He said he didn't think it would be an issue but that he wanted to get everything finalized before he said before. Some relief, but still uncertainty. Yeesh. And I still don't even know how much we're going to be charged for this whole preparation process.

To take my mind off all this, I've been tooling around the web making tentative plans for a THIRD trip this year--hopefully in late August/early September! I'm not going to book anything yet, because who knows how bad this tax bill is going to be--NT mentioned yesterday that we could do a "staycation" instead of the trip we're thinking about, if we need to put our vacation money toward taxes. It's a good option, and we can always do this trip another year. It's nothing too dazzling, just a train trip to a couple of U.S. cities with some nice hotels and a rental car thrown in. I'm looking forward to it, but it can wait if we need to economize, and plus I won't feel deprived since we'll have already had two trips this year, which is our usual number for the past couple years. Staycations are really fun too, and way cheaper.

OK, my nerves are calming down. However bad it is, once I know more, I can take steps to make sure no other tax years are this stressful or expensive.

I checked our mortgage accounts and all four payments had hit:
US: $412 to principal
UK1: $260
UK2: $54
UK3: $58

$784 down, $216 to go on the April debt repayment goal.

We made some more charitable donations recently, so our total is now $435 for the year.

I was able to transfer $639.38 of UK rental income into EF savings, so we've now saved $1825.85 this year (total EF is $10,337.80!).

Yay!

For April, I hope to pay off at least $1000 of debt. Our minimum debt payments now average about $975 to principal each month, so to get to $1000 I typically have to make at least a little extra payment. This month our interest payment is due on one of NT's student loans, and I sent some extra money to it in February and March, so even if we just make our regular payment that usually only pays interest, a bit of it will go to principal. So I don't think I'll have to do anything extra this month to hit $1000.

We finally heard back from our lawyer and have a meeting set up in April to discuss our estate planning wishes, so we'll make some progress on that this month.

AS sent me an interesting job opening that's in the same area of Minneapolis I currently work in. It's my favorite downtown location to work, so I'm excited to apply. I may work on that "pros and cons" list this month, too, to clarify what I like about this job. It'll help me see what's important so I don't end up accepting a new job that doesn't have some of the key ingredients to make me happy.

I don't have any ideas for my creative project/book to read, small-group get-together, or share-your-thoughts blog post for April yet. But warmer weather is clearing the cobwebs from my brain, so I'll think about it today and this weekend.

I'll probably post again soon today, once I have a chance to check and see if our mortgage payments went through.

AS's other student loan payment hit, and $60 went to principal. That's $1125 down, meaning we surpassed our $1039 goal by $86!

$7,987 down, $12,013 to go in my goal to pay off $20,000 this year.

I'll post a wrap-up of the month and new goals for April later in the week.

Still haven't heard from my paid tax preparer! Hmph. Yes, I will probably whine about this in every entry until I do. I've decided to give him until April 1 and then will bug him again.

Still haven't heard from the estate-planning lawyer. I didn't think it would take this long! Kind of annoying, but I hope it's because he's taking his time and doing it right, not just blowing us off. At least we didn't have to give him a retainer for this portion, like we will for the adoption process eventually.

Thanks for the thought-provoking comments on the last entry. I've got a lot to think about, both in terms of whether it's financially better to work or stay home, and whether private health insurance makes more sense than what's provided through work.

NT, AS and I haven't discussed all of the issues yet--it's a bit hypothetical until we see whether we're having another child anyway--but we did talk about the plan of NT going down to one class. On further reflection, he's inclined to think like Thriftorama on that topic, and cram as many classes in as he thinks he can handle until we have another baby.

I told him we have to decide in April which way he'll go, but it sounds like he's leaning toward taking a summer class (which we'll need to finance as they're not eligible for federal aid) and then a half courseload in the fall (which will keep the student loans from coming due). Then look at dropping back to one class for the spring 2012 semester (especially if AS is pregnant and due before that semester is up; 2 classes nearly killed him when AA was born midsemester in spring 2010).

That buys us some time before we have to start paying his student loans AND part-time tuition. We might even be able to pay for his half-time fall 2011 tuition without taking out more loans, which would be supercool because that would mean when they DO come due, the payments won't be higher than what I figured for the recent budget considerations.

So much to think about! Sometimes I just stare at my debt spreadsheet, willing that student loan number to start going lower again. I'm really glad we paid off one of AS's loans in a fell swoop earlier this year, but now we have to make up the money we spent from the lawyer fund and haven't been able to progress on debt for a while. It's making me very impatient! But the lawyer fund and tax bill are smart priorities, I think.

Blabbety blabbety blab. Sometimes I just go in circles mentally. But I think it helps me work things out, slowly and tediously.

I know, I'm chatty today!


This month's Kiplinger's is the "save $50 per day" issue where they give you all sorts of tips. Unfortunately none so far have applied to me. Lots of stuff about getting the most out of your car (don't have one), reducing bank fees (don't have any), and all these other ways to save money on stuff I don't spend money on anyway. They have advice on stuff I do spend money on, such as tips for getting $40 wine for $20 (never spend more than $15 on a bottle, and even that's rare).

Oh well. I haven't read last month's main story, "how to save a million dollars." Maybe that'll be more applicable.

I'm trying to plan ahead today, because I know we have some big changes coming to our budget. NT wants to cut back to just one class per semester; busy, stressful job plus being a dad are too much for taking 2 classes as well. This means his student loans will come due once he isn't enrolled at least half-time. Right now we're only paying interest on them.

Classes are $375 per credit at his college; since tuition increases every semester, I'm assuming they'll be at least $400 per credit in fall 2011. His class will be either 3 or 4 credits, so $1200 or $1600. Then there are other fees, which look to be about $1100 per semester. I guess if he takes one class each of two semesters, and each class was 4 credits, that would be $2700 per semester, or $5400 for the year. We'd have to come up with the first $2700 by the beginning of October, so that gives us 6 months. I suppose I can divide the $5400 by 12 months and it's $450 per month. (We could probably get private loans even if the reduced credit load doesn't qualify for federal, but I thought I should see if we can afford it without.)

Also, when NT's student loans come due, it looks like they'll total $435 per month. That makes $885 per month we'll have to come up with.

Sounds daunting but it's not really that bad. Once our tax bill/lawyer fund stuff is figured out, we have $845 in the budget for education/extra debt repayment. Plus, we already pay $139 per month on his student loans, to cover interest so it doesn't build up. That means we have $984 in the budget, more than enough to cover tuition and student loans.

Since we'll be eliminating a bit of the "estimated future debt" of NT every time we don't take out a loan for a class, our total debt number will be reduced. Plus we'll be paying some principal on his actual existing student loan debt.

Of course, my mind can't help straying even farther into the future, and the possibility that we'll have another child someday. Probably the earliest would be March 2011. Medical costs should be OK, but we have to think about unpaid parental leave. (Which we have plenty of time to save up some money to cover.) And eventually (June or July 2011) additional daycare for a new baby. (And/or reduced work for one of us to stay home with kids, or to take turns, etc.)

Whatever the arrangements are, it'll either be more expenses or less income. The lowest we could probably get away with would be $650 more per month (what we pay our current daycare lady for AA). Maybe she would give a little discount for a second kid, who knows? If one of us stayed home, it would definitely cost us more than $650 a month in lost income (or even $1300 per month, if you figure AA's daycare cost would go away), especially if you figure in extra healthcare costs.

So minimum, we're going to have to come up with $650 per month starting (at the earliest) in June 2011, either by cutting things out of the budget or by increasing income. Plenty of time to think about it, but it wouldn't hurt to brainstorm a bit now.

We have $99 per month more than we need in the above estimated education budget, but then again, with tuition costs increasing every semester, we can't exactly count on that as future wiggle room.

I currently put $50 per month into EF savings, but we should get the EF to a comfortable level this year, so we won't really have to add to it any more unless we use the EF for something. With most of NT's flat income going into savings anyway, we won't really have to worry about that. So that $50 per month will probably free up next year.

One of AS's student loans will finish up next year, freeing up $62.

I have $130 for misc. expenses that aren't quite emergencies but can't be covered by the grocery/household budget. It's nice to have, but not necessary.

So that's $242 right there, without even making any real cuts to our lifestyle. Not too shabby. If even one of us gets a raise or a regular freelance gig, we could fill some more of that gap pretty easily.

Of course, if one of us changes jobs and it reduces our overall income, or if we ever decide we need to get a car, that will change all of our calculations. But it's good to get an idea of what we would do on our current incomes and budget.

I had a weird dream last night that I was hosting some kind of fundraiser and, for reasons I couldn't really comprehend even in the dream, casually wrote a $10,000 check to the charity!

In the dream I was inwardly groaning, thinking about how I was going to have to get a bunch of extra work to replenish the checking account. But I wasn't panicking, which was interesting. I think it's because I now know how to handle even huge setbacks, so my dreams can't really use that to stress me out anymore.

I finished AS's taxes yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised. First of all, I had it in my head that she owed about $1800 on federal. I think I got mixed up because recently we got a letter from the IRS claiming she owed about that much on her 2009 taxes (she's already faxed them records to prove that they incorrectly added a zero to one of her 1099s). Anyway, according to my second runthrough, which matched my first one (love when it matches up and I don't have to do a third, tiebreaker round), she owed $1617. Sounds like a lot, but less than I was thinking, AND, no penalty for underpayment! So we got an interest-free loan from the federal government, and we have until April 18 to pay them back. Woo hoo!

Then I did her state taxes. Usually, for some reason, people end up owing or getting a much smaller refund on their MN taxes compared with their federal, so I was really expecting to owe big-time. Turns out AS is due a $28 refund! That one I'll send off right away, so we can apply the $28 to our federal bill.

I've decided to send the IRS $400 as an estimated quarterly payment on 2011 taxes for AS. If it looks like she's getting as much or more freelance work this year, I'll up the amounts in subsequent quarters. I did pay off a student loan so her interest deduction will be lower next year.

Still haven't heard from my paid tax preparer, even though two weeks ago he said he hoped to get it to me in a couple days. I don't like having this taken out of my hands AT ALL. I'm so used to being the one in control on my taxes. If I get my copy from him and it looks easy to replicate what he does, I'm going back to doing it myself.

If we don't have to declare NT's UK income, I have high hopes that we'll about break even. We might owe a bit; I think I was pretty accurate in changing my withholdings after AA's birth, except I forgot our mortgage's interest rate dropped and thus our itemized deductions are much less this year.

I did see some mention about a "foreign income exclusion" with a minimum of $92,000 or something. We make about $15,000 on NT's flat, so if that's the case maybe we don't have to report, and won't have to revise our returns from previous years, paying penalties etc.

Although, one of the things on the questionnaire from the tax guy was about PMI. Is that deductible if you itemize?? I never have. So if he adds that to our itemized deductions, might be worth looking into whether it was deductible in past years. Can I revise to increase deductions, and if so, how far back? I'm not going to bother looking into it until I see whether he includes it on Schedule A.

(International friends, sorry for all the blabbing about U.S. tax law. I know it makes no sense.)

One of AS's student loans hit, with $124 going to principal. So we paid $1065 off so far in March, exceeding the $1039 goal. One more student loan payment may hit later today or tomorrow.

Weighed in last night and unfortunately gained 1 lb., so I'm back up to 151. Unfortunate but not at all surprising, since we ate out a lot last week and didn't get much exercise. Will try to do better this week!

EDIT: Almost forgot: I donated $20 and NT $25 to charity this weekend, bringing charitable donations up to $350 for the year!

NT and I made a little mural on AA's nursery wall of removable decals we bought at Target. Not hugely creative, but a bit. And it looks so cute! AA likes to point at the stickers when she's in her crib and babble...I think she's finally figuring out that making sounds is related to other things, not just for the fun of being noisy!

Speaking of AA, we're planning on leaving her with our best friends when we go on our next trip (to New York in early June for my 15-year college reunion). This will be the first time we're all three away from her for more than 8 hours! It will be almost 4 days. I'm excited and nervous at the same time.

We've got just over two months, so I'm hoping she gets past her stranger fear by then. She's been getting better, and she's much less fearful and clingy around these friends than anyone else. Even if she's not, I'm hoping this will be a good experience for her. We know several people who traveled without their babies when they were much younger, so I realize it's not a big deal. Just FEELS like a big deal.

I feel like I have more to say, but I should go do some work. Maybe I'll post again today!

$25 went to the EF, bringing us to $1186.47 saved for the year (our goal is $7000), and our total EF up to $9698.42!

I applied for two more jobs today, so hopefully that will bring me closer to my goal of getting either a raise or a new job.

I used an online graphics company to design some customized stationery for my mom (see my "best gift" entry from a few days ago), which NT pointed out counts as a creative project. It was mostly automated, but I did come up with the concept, and choose and crop the photo, and choose the layout and font colors!

I officially made some money with my side hustle! NT's job paid me the $720 for proofreading a book for them. (That also means the lawyer fund is fully funded, if we can manage to come up with other money to pay the tax bills.)

I wrote my "Share Your Thoughts" blog post for the month. Check it out and respond or write your own entry on the topic if you're interested!

I had to refill my phone. Since I last filled it in September, I guess I've been averaging about 167 minutes per month.

I started the "year" in late March 2010, so this marks the end of 12 months of prepaid. Rundown of expenses:

CJ 1000 minutes late-March T-Mobile fillup: $107.78
NT 300 minutes late-March Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT 300 minutes late-May Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT 500 minutes + new phone late June: $21.56
AS 1000 minutes late-August fillup: $107.78
CJ 1000 minutes late-September fillup: $107.78
AS new phone + $25 phone card (200 min): $32.32
NT 300 minutes early-October fillup: $32.87
NT 200 minutes late-December fillup: $32.87
AS late-January phone replacement: $29.88
CJ 1000 minutes late-March fillup: $107.78

Total cost for the year: $646.26

Divided by the 12 months, our average monthly cost for this year is $53.86. A very good average, much better than the first 12 months of prepaid or any month when all three of us were on a family plan. Compared with $85, which was the cheapest contract for 3 people I could find, we saved about $31 per month, or about $372, in the past year!

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.

While it was cooking the scent of cinnamon was really strong, so I was afraid it would overwhelm the other flavors. Totally didn't--this was a dead-easy and delicious sauce! I stuffed the tortillas with seasoned black beans, vegetarian "chik'n," corn and cheese (vegan for mine). I also made a tofu, black bean and cheese one for lil' AA, which she'll have today at daycare.

Here's a link for anyone who missed the original recipe post:
http://lookingforward.savingadvice.com/2011/03/01/fire-and-fabulous-enchiladas-on-a-chilly_66537/
I made almost no changes except I used yellow onion, and added a dash of cayenne since I only had 4 oz. of green chiles.

Thanks Looking Forward!

(or gave, or heard of someone getting or giving)

I was pretty excited about the birthday gifts to my dad and mom this year.

My dad, who has coached girls' softball as well as helped run leagues for decades, decided to sponsor a team this past year. He didn't think they'd put his name on the shirts the way they do a business, so he was kind of embarrassed when he found out they did. But he was wearing the shirt this summer when we visited: "The BD Comets" it said, splashed across his chest. [Not his real name, but you get the idea.] It was comical but also endearing, because I love his commitment to girls' sports, even after all his daughters and even granddaughters grew out of playing softball. I asked him to send me one of the shirts, and when he did, he also sent ones for NT, AS and little AA.

So for his birthday, when we got our friend to do a photo shoot, we brought along the shirts and all posed together in them. I ordered a print of that shot and framed it to send to my dad. Total surprise. He loved it and wrote that he thought AA looked pretty tough and would probably be a great softball player.

My mom loves to write "snail mail" letters, so I wanted to do a stationery for her this year. I finally found a site that would let you design photo stationery (it was kind of hard to find, and not cheap, but once I had my heart set on it I would pay just about anything). I put her name and address at the top, and under her name, "#1 Grandma." At the bottom of the paper, I put a little picture of AA's face cropped from a picture my friend took at the same photo shoot, and under that I put "#12 Grandkid." Then on impulse I ordered envelopes, with her name and address in the return address spot, and the full picture of AA on the other side in a little box in the corner. She should get it by early next week, and I'm hoping to get a thank-you letter on the stationery so I can see it in person! This is something that ended up costing me a lot for the convenience, but with a bit of work and some computer skills, you could probably make a similar gift for pretty cheap.

All the memorable gifts I can think of have a personalized touch. Of course there are the huge gifts, such the early inheritance my dad gave us last year, or electronics, vacations, jewelry, etc. But the ones that make me smile with remembrance are the ones where someone put more thought and effort than money into them.

One of the best gifts I got as a kid was from my best friend at the time. I was really into writing fiction, so she gave me a basket with a bunch of little jars. Each jar had a herb or spice in it and a label, like "rose hips to help you write love scenes." I can't remember exactly what they were, but each spice corresponded with a type of scene or genre. There was also a candle in a jar so that I could "write scary stories in the dark" or something. I kept that gift on prominent display for years and years in my room. It was so thoughtful and playful that I just loved to look at it and think that someone had taken the time to make it for me.

NT, AS and I usually try to do gifts like this, though the past year has been so busy with work, school and baby that we've slacked off a bit on that and just bought one another things. But NT once had a friend make a short film starring him for our Valentine's gift; AS made me a beautiful framed heart out of egg cartons that I still have in my cubicle; and AS and I made an activity book of games like crosswords, word searches and connect-the-dots for NT that we wrote or made, all having to do with him, us or our relationship. Those are just a few examples of many personalized gifts over the years.

The very best gift I've ever heard of was from my sister to my mom. My mom sends birthday cards to just about everyone she's ever met. She keeps all their addresses in this book organized by date, and every couple of days she goes through and makes out cards to the people whose birthdays are coming up. One year my sister MA snuck the book out and made a copy of it and then returned it before my mom noticed. MA wrote a letter and sent it to every single address in the book; it said something like "If you're getting this, you've probably received a birthday card from my mom GL every year. She loves sending cards and doesn't expect anything in return. But I thought it would be a fun surprise if she got a huge number this year. So if you've ever been touched to receive a card from GL, please take a moment and send her one for her birthday this year."

About a week before her birthday, my mom started getting a trickle of cards, many from people who didn't usually send her one. She was pleasantly surprised, then, as her birthday came closer and the trickle turned into a flood, overwhelmed with delight. At some point my sister told her what she'd done, so it wouldn't be some big mystery why it was happening all of a sudden. My mom kept all the cards hanging up, lining the walls of the living room, for months. She was so pleased both by my sister's thoughtfulness and the kindness of so many acquaintances.

OK, I could ramble on for ages, but I would love to exchange ideas here, so we all have some inspiration for when we want to do something extra special for a loved one. And, it's a vaguely finance-related topic, because sometimes the best gifts don't cost much at all. (OK, my recent ones to my parents weren't cheap, but they CAN be, depending on what the gift is and how you go about it.)

So, what's the best or most memorable gift you ever gave, received or heard about?

I finally weighed in last night after 49 days (according to my naggy Wii Fit). To my surprise, I'd lost just over 3 lbs.! I'm now a shade under 150, but I'm calling it 150 lbs. That meants I'm just 11 lbs. away from my 2011 goal. The only reason I can think of is that I barely ate anything a couple of days when I was sick, and we actually got a ton of exercise in San Fran so it balanced out the decadent eating. I realize I can't expect weight loss like this if I continue to not exercise, but at least I didn't lose a ton of ground over the past couple months.

As for charitable giving, NT bought $10 worth of groceries for an AIDS charity that was collecting outside the store. I also realized that the amount I have left in my charity line items on the budget indicates that we've given more than I've kept track of. Occasionally one of us will donate spontaneously, so it's not surprising I forgot to log something here. I am confident that the line items in my budget are accurate, because I only touch those when a charitable donation goes through the checking account. So I'm updating charitable giving progress to match that, meaning we've donated $305 this year.

AS's negative net worth decreased by a bit this month despite a dip in investment values. She's at negative $5,135 now.

In the getting-job-or-raise category, I found a handful of jobs last night that I'm going to try and apply for this week. One of them is 87 miles away, meaning I would have over an hour's commute AND would need to buy a car, but the minimum salary is $12,000 more than I make. Will I seriously consider this one even if I hear from them? Not sure, but I'm trying not to limit my thinking too much during the applying process.

Now some other news that's not about my 2011 goals:

My lawyer-money line item is fully funded: $9000! Now, this includes $720 that I haven't actually received, for a freelance project I did for NT's company. But since I trust they won't welch on this, and I've already sent them the invoice, I'm considering the fund complete.

However, I know AS is going to have a large tax bill, and NT and I may as well. I sent ours off to a tax expert and should hear back pretty soon. AS's I just need to finish; if my estimate on her federal is correct, she owes over $1800, and I haven't calculated her state yet, but if she owes federal she will owe state (though hopefully not as much). I'm hoping NT and I only owe a few hundred, but there's also the possibility I may need to revise our '08 and '09 taxes if the tax pro confirms that I made mistakes by not including NT's UK flat income on past returns. Then we may owe a bit, plus I have no idea how much interest and penalties are, since I've never revised taxes past the due date before.

On the upside, I have $800 set aside. Most of it will go to pay the tax preparer, but I'm hoping that will only come to about $600, leaving $200 to pay the actual tax bill. Also, AS has just accepted another freelance assignment that pays about $800. NT will likely start raking in overtime again now that we're back from vacation, usually to the tune of $200 per month. And I have $845 in the April budget that was going to go in the lawyer fund, so instead it can go to paying the tax bill.

If all that guesstimating is accurate, that means we'll have $2045 for paying taxes, so we may not have to take too much out of the lawyer fund. And I planned to save $845 in May and $845 in June for the lawyer fund, so it should get replenished pretty quickly.

I'm cautiously optimistic! Once the lawyer fund is securely at $9000 and the taxes are all paid, that $845 per month can start going to debt repayment again. And our extra income can as well, although I want to send part of it to the IRS and MN in preparation for 2011 tax season so we won't owe as much. Oh, and I've promised myself that once all these financial obligations are met, a bit of our side-hustle income is going to line our pockets, for some extra fun money. We've all been working super hard, and who knows if our incomes will stay this good if I (and possibly NT, who is growing dissatisfied with his job too) switch jobs to something we love but is lower-paying? So I want to make sure everyone gets a bit of extra personal money as a reward once the considerable obligations above are fulfilled.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 12,663 pounds ($25,326)
#2: 16,005 pounds ($32,010)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $12,322
NT's Roth IRA: $3,261
AS's 401(k): $5,351
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $3,703
CJ's 401(k): $39,530
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,261
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $9,673
---
Total Assets: $563,537

Total Debt: $343,817

Current Estimated Net Worth: $219,720

February 2011 estimate: $219,894

Change in net worth: -$174

Summary: We lost value in all our U.S. retirement accounts, and our debt paydown was very modest, so we posted a loss in net worth for the first time in many months. At least it was only in the hundreds, so it doesn't feel too bad. AS's contributions and debt repayment outweighed her investment losses by about $480, so at least we made a bit more progress toward positive net worth for her.

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.

As I mentioned before, I was sick the whole week before our vacation. I stayed home two days but did work anyway. The other three days I dragged myself in and managed to work, but I felt awful. Some kind of stomach thing I probably caught from AA. NT was sick most of the week too, and AS was exhausted from work.

We left late Saturday morning and got in around 4 p.m. We stayed at Hotel Tomo, a boutique hotel in Japantown that's owned by Best Western. Cute Japanese-stye pop culture decoration. View from our floor:



We ate so-so food at the restaurant connected to our hotel. Then we all went up to the room to "take a nap," but ended up sleeping about 13 hours! After that we all felt much refreshed and were able to enjoy the trip. I'd been worried that I'd feel too tired to do anything, so I'm glad we used the first day and night just to sleep.

On Sunday we had breakfast at a Vietnamese restaurant with French influences, so I got to have some Asian dishes such as spring rolls as well as French pastries (beignets). AS watched AA in the room while NT and I browsed cute stores (check out the zebra ears we bought for AA):



Then we wandered around various neighborhoods, saw the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf:



... had Mexican food, caught a live outdoor performance of a kids Cuban band:



... and came back to the hotel room, where NT watched AA while AS and I went for delicious sushi and sake across the street (and brought some home for NT).

Monday, we tried another breakfast joint, and we loved this one so much that we went back twice more during the trip. It was called The Grove and it was on Fillmore St. Just a small coffeeshop with a limited menu, but all fresh, delicious, well-prepared food. Then we took a cable-car ride:



... went on a short cruise around the bay (passed by Alcatraz:



... and went under the Golden Gate Bridge:



Despite a light drizzle, it was enjoyable and exciting:



We went to Chinatown for lunch:



... and then went to the cable car museum, where you could see the actual cables that control all four lines:



We went back to the hotel room and ended up getting Italian/Mediterranean food and bringing it back to the room for dinner.

Tuesday we rented a car and drove to two beaches after our second breakfast at The Grove. First Muir Beach:



... then Stinson Beach:



As you can tell, it was chilly and drizzly so we didn't spend too much time there, but we walked around and picked up shells, and AA liked the wind and rain. Then we got lost for about an hour until I got GPS on my work BlackBerry and we figured out how to get back on track. We went to Muir Woods to see the giant redwoods. It was drizzling lightly so we bought ponchos, including one for AA that we wrapped all around her (she was also wearing a raincoat and had a blanket over her). She was not pleased but put up with it as long as we kept the stroller moving. Lucky we bought the ponchos, because it started pouring! Hard to look up at gigantic tall trees when it's raining, so we didn't spend much time there at all:



We were able to laugh about it and joke that we'd joined the National-Lampoon-style class of parents, taking their kids on disastrous vacations. AA was SO happy to get back into her warm dry carseat, laughing and talking and kicking her feet.

We were so tired and it was still rainy, so we just dropped the car back at the place and went out for food. We found a FANTASTIC Thai restaurant called Sweet Lime. AA loved all of the food and so did we, and the waitress was so nice, AA didn't want to leave.

Wednesday was designated spa day. Luckily it was sunny and beautiful. We took turns watching AA while the others went and got spa treatments of our choice (mine was a short massage and later a facial; NT got a "bliss" massage that started with a bath; AS got an oil/spice/yogurt massage treatment and then acupuncture). Then AS and NT took a bus to Haight Ashbury for a bit while AA and I napped in the hotel room. For dinner we walked over to Tenderloin and ate at a soul food restaurant called Farmer Brown (pretty good, but extremely limited vegan options).

Thursday we went back to The Grove for breakfast one last time, then took a shuttle to the airport. Our flight was delayed two hours but other than that uneventful. We ordered pizza delivery that night and relaxed, then went to breakfast together on Friday. AS went in to work for a few hours while NT and I got caught up on various things.

I feel so much better! It was a great vacation, perfect length and just the right amount of activities.

Logging a lot of progress today!

First, I sent an extra payment to one of NT's student loans that isn't in repayment yet. $146 went to principal, so that's $941 down, $98 to go on the March debt repayment goal.

$25 went into savings and I also earned $0.83 in interest, so that brings EF progress to $1161.47 for the year.

$300 went to the Roth IRAs, so $900 so far this year.

AS donated $20 to a nonprofit and I sent $15 to a charity, so charitable giving is up to $240.

We stayed within budget on the SF trip, and I just set up the payment to the credit card to pay it off, so that means one of the two trips have been made and paid for in cash (or will be in the next couple of days).

I finally finished the book I started in February, so that meets my March creative/reading goal. I read "Adrift" by Steven Callahan, a classic true-adventure survival tale about a man lost at sea in a small rubber raft for 76 days. Highly recommended if you love true-adventure books.

Got back from our San Francisco vacation last night! (MonkeyMama, did you see me waving to you from Japantown? ) It was fabulous. We spared no expense since it was only a five-day vacation; typically in the past we do a nine-day vacation and have to watch our spending, so this actually felt more luxurious than a longer vacay. I took today off too, so now I have a 3-day weekend in which to catch up on things and relax.

I was sick the entire week before, so I do have some things I'm behind on. I don't like being late on things, but I'm trying not to stress out too much because it's nothing earthshattering, or that I won't be able to catch up on today or tomorrow.

First off, my budgeting; I use a manual spreadsheet to track our balance, different line items, and future income and expenses, so if I don't update it every couple days it becomes a mess. I think it was the Wednesday before last that I updated it, so I've got a heck of a lot of work to do, especially with all the vacation spending. I may not get a to-the-penny balanced budget and will then need to take money out of (or add to, if I'm wrong in the other direction) one of my standing line items such as grocery/household or the lawyer fund, to get my bottom line back where it should be. That sometimes happens when it's been a while since I last updated it.

Besides the budget spreadsheet, I have to send in a character reference for my friend who's applying to the MN bar. (He's been a lawyer in other states but recently moved back here.) It was due Wednesday but I didn't notice the deadline when I was sick, then forgot to bring the form on vacation with me. But we called them while in SF and they said a day or two over the deadline wouldn't affect anything. Whew! I'll try to get it filled out and scanned/emailed or faxed from somewhere.

I'm a little late on the daycare check, in that it was due Monday. But they haven't had to watch AA this week so I doubt they noticed. They still owe me a receipt for the first four weeks anyway, which I've asked for three times now. I'll take the check over today. We're going to drop AA off at daycare today so we can have the day to relax. She was a fantastic travel companion, and I'm not sick of her by any means, but we'd like a few hours to ourselves today. We'll probably go get breakfast at this Cuban cafe that's only about a mile away from daycare, after we drop her off.

I also am overdue writing a check to my job for some shipping I did. It's so stupid because the shipping was back in 2007 or 2008 but they just got around to reconciling the books now. I'd honestly forgotten I'd had them ship some eBay sales back then. They tried to charge me for some 2010 shipments as well but when I questioned them, they said it was a mistake. That annoyed me and I decided to write the check only just before the deadline. However, the deadline was while I was on vacation, so now it's going to be late. Oops! Well, I guess if they waited three/four years, they can fudge the books for a couple days and get their check next week.

In a way I feel I've been on vacation for two weeks, since I was so out of it with whatever illness I got from my adorable daughter (or one of her cute little friends at her birthday party). One of my March resolutions was to blog more often; instead, this has been my worst month yet for blogging! However, I'm feeling pretty refreshed and hope to get my life back together over the next couple of days. One thing I do want to do is weigh in on Sunday night, see where I am weight-wise, and then decide what to do to kickstart my healthy eating/exercise/weight loss journey. If I've gained a lot of weight I might do something a bit more extreme like a raw-foods cleanse, but if I'm OK on weight then I'll just focus on toning up. I definitely look like I've put weight back on, but it could be that more of my muscle went away and I have more fat so that I look bigger. Hard to tell.

One great thing that happened while we were gone was a big thaw in MN that got rid of much of the snow. There's actually dead grass visible in big patches now! The big snowbanks have dwindled and look to be a couple inches high versus a couple feet. Maybe I'll get to walk and bike outside soon.

I had a dream last night that was so vivid. AS had invited me to a workshop about women and careers with some group she'd gotten involved in. NT had volunteered to make lunch, because they had men take turns cooking for the events. Anyway, the discussion at the workshop led me to make a pros-and-cons list of my job, and in the dream the "cons" side kept stretching longer and longer, while the "pros" side remained only a couple items. It got me curious to do this in real life; I don't think the list would be as imbalanced as it was in the dream, but it would be an interesting exercise nonetheless. I've already been thinking about it. Unfortunately, all the "pros" are about the conditions surrounding my job, such as the short commute and good location. The job itself pretty much sucks now. Too bad; when I started it was the best job I'd ever had, but most of the elements I liked have receded, while several things I don't like have been introduced.

Well, enough rambling. I was woken up early by our cat, who is being yowly and clingy since we got back. Now NT is up too, so we'll probably head out as soon as AS gets up. I'll try to write an entry about the vacation itself, and post some pictures, sometime this weekend. Good to be back in SA land as well as my real life!

Our mortgage payments hit on the first, but I haven't had a chance to sit down and blog about it.
US: $411 to principal
UK1: $268
UK2: $56
UK3: $60

All told, $795 down, $244 to go on the March goal.

Also, between regular U.S. savings deposit and UK savings (I guess I took out more than I needed for the repairs, because I had a surplus in the checking account that I moved back to savings), I added $305.24 to the EF. So $1135.64 down, $5864.36 to go on the 2011 EF savings goal.

Other progress this month:
- We hosted our monthly get-together, which was AA's first birthday party. (Smashing success, by the way! I was convinced she'd get overwhelmed and cranky, but it never happened.)

- I donated $60 to my alma mater, bringing the charitable giving total to $205.

- We decided to go to my 15-year college reunion, so I booked the trip yesterday. That means I'm in the process of paying for our second trip in cash (I won't count them as done until we actually go on the trips). The first trip is to San Francisco for 5 days (leaving in less than a week!), and the second trip is to New York (just north of NYC) for 3 days in June. If our finances continue along smoothly, we're going to try and go on a THIRD vacation later in the year! (We've decided to try shorter, less expensive, more frequent vacations, versus the two longer vacations per year that we had been doing.)

So, pretty good progress so far this month!

My little girl turned one today! About an hour ago was when she officially hit one year, in fact. I'm exhausted beyond belief, but she was extremely happy during the whole party and loved every minute of it, especially getting sung to and tasting her mama AS's cupcake with homemade frosting!

She's come so far, from this...



...to this!

I checked for the two pending payments this morning, and both hit with a Feb. 28 date stamp. AS's student loan put $61 to principal, but unfortunately the $100 I sent to NT's student loan went entirely to interest, which is no help to my goal. So my debt repayment for February was $961, $39 shy of my $1000 goal. First time our debt repayment has been under $1000 for the month, and second time I've missed my monthly target.

Well, I'm setting the March goal for $1039 ($1000 was going to be my original goal, but I want to make up that $39), and this time I'll make sure I pay enough to cover interest and dip into the principal of NT's loan.

As for my creative/reading goal, I left my book at work, so there was no chance of finishing a book for the month (unless I'd grabbed one of AA's picture books ). I wasn't in the mood to try and write a short story, so I looked around for quick craft projects. NT and AS suggested origami, so I found some good paper to work with and a pattern for a little origami frog. The first one turned out OK but I thought I could do better, so I made a second one. It was a fun project that took about 45 minutes, and it challenged my dexterity, so I count that as meeting my February creative goal!

Nearly everything else on my goals list showed some progress in February. To recap:
-Added money to the Roth IRAs
-Gave money to charities
-Improved AS's net worth
-Got a bonus and applied for new jobs
-Did a creative project
-Hosted a dinner party
-Wrote a shared-topic blog post

The only things I didn't do well in were meeting my debt goal, exercising/tracking my weight, and EF savings (we had to use some to pay for repairs to NT's UK flat).

In March, besides my new debt goal and the other financial goals, I'm going to focus on the trip to SF and all four of our birthdays. Our get-together this month will be AA's first birthday party this Saturday (can you believe she's almost a year old??). Should be a fun, action-packed month!

I'm not sure I'm going to hit my debt-repayment target!

One of AS's student loan payments hit, putting $120 to principal. That's $900 down, $100 to go.

AS has one more student loan payment that is supposed to process today, but it may not update the amount until tomorrow morning. I'm still going to count it as Feb. progress if it hits tomorrow and shows up as a Feb. 28 payment. However, that one will only put $58-$60 toward principal.

The month got away from me and I didn't remember to make an extra student loan payment until Friday. I set up a $100 payment to one of NT's student loans that's not in repayment yet. The account shows that a payment is processing, so hopefully it'll have hit by tomorrow with a Feb. 28 date. However, it just occurred to me today that since that loan does accrue interest (which I pay quarterly), my payment may go to interest rather than principal. I looked all over the site and it didn't say what they do with extra payments when the loan's not in repayment yet.

So I'm afraid that even if both the above payments show up tomorrow with a Feb. 28 date, it won't be enough to principal to meet my goal. Also, it would be the first month since I started that I've paid off less than $1000!

I'm also not doing well on my creative project/book reading goal. I have over 100 pages left in the book I'm reading, and I didn't do any creative projects. I have tonight to either finish the book or do something creative. Maybe I can dash off a short story?? We'll have to see. Lil' AA is home with a fever, but she's actually lower-maintenance when she's sick, so it's a possibility.

We had a really spend-happy weekend. Lots of money going out in all directions. First, we rented a car because AA got invited to two birthday parties, and one of them was not accessible by bus. While we had the car, we went to Costco and loaded up on supplies. Then we finished off most of the birthday shopping for all four of us, and NT and I also bought ourselves some clothes. Oh, and we had two unplanned meals of carry-out vs. cooking.

Whew! I just have to remind myself that even though some was unplanned, we had the money in the budget. The rental-car costs came out of our travel fund, the gifts from the birthday fund, and the food and clothes we paid for with our regular weekly spending money. We blew our grocery budget and had to borrow from the 2nd half of March, but hopefully some of the staples that we now won't have to buy for a while (olive oil, veggie burgers, canned tomatoes, razors) will help us reduce our shopping bills for the next few months and make it even out overall.

Costco was really annoying. I'd forgotten to bring my card, and it took forever to find my info in the system. Then, they wouldn't take Visa (???) and I don't carry my American Express card (in fact, I never use that account and have been meaning to close it, but I guess now I'll keep it), so NT had to get money out of their ATM (fees on both ends, of course). Then they check your receipt when you try to leave, like they think you might be trying to pull something over on them. Still, some of the deals are pretty great. Only time will tell if we saved ourselves money in the long run, though.

We have a busy busy month of March planned, but I hope to blog more than I have in recent months. I've been keeping up on everyone else's but I like posting my own entries more often. Just a matter of carving out that time; I used to always have time at work, but I need to get used to blogging from home since I'm usually too busy at work.

There's a Facebook offer where you just have to watch a trailer for a new TV show and you'll be able to print out a buy one/get one free Chipotle coupon.

Not sure how to share it with you, but I searched for Chipotle on Facebook and saw they had posted this link on their fan page, so you could try that:

http://www.facebook.com/americasnextgreatrestaurant?ref=ts&sk=app_10442206389

FYI: The coupon is good through March 3. So if you're on the February bring-your-lunch challenge, that gives you a couple days in March to take advantage without breaking your February commitment!

Well, I still haven't worked out or really tried to eat healthy this year (although I haven't been super-unhealthy either). Combination of laziness, lack of focus and a series of mild but unpleasant colds. I'm currently on the second week of a persistent cough, and if talking spurs coughing, I can't imagine what cardio exercise would do.

As a result I haven't bothered to weigh in; I know I should be doing it anyway, to keep weight loss top of mind, but I just haven't felt like it.

However, I've made some progress on other goals.

Charitable donations: AS donated $20 to a nonprofit, bringing our total to $145
AS's net worth: AS's negative net worth decreased by $802 since last time I checked, bringing her to negative $5608.
Read a book/creative project: I've started a book and hope to finish it by the end of February. It's interesting; I just never seem to find time!
Make money with side hustles: Finally some progress on this! NT's job, out of the blue, asked me to do a light proofread of a book they're reprinting. I'm charging $40 per hour and it's about 500 pages, so even going super-fast I'm going to make probably at least $800. This will go to the tax bill or lawyer fund.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 12,663 pounds ($25,326)
#2: 16,005 pounds ($32,010)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $12,233
NT's Roth IRA: $3,350
AS's 401(k): $5,421
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $3,657
CJ's 401(k): $41,044
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,350
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $9,342
---
Total Assets: $564,833

Total Debt: $344,939

Current Estimated Net Worth: $219,894

January 2011 estimate: $215,270

Change in net worth: +$4,624

Summary: We lost some ground in our EF savings, but I was able to access NT's 401(k) finally after two months of no access (solution: his company had switched providers completely!), and we had gains in all our retirement accounts, so we still posted a respectable gain in net worth this month.

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.

Made some progress on the following goals:

Save to Roths - $300 more for a YTD total of $600

Give to charities - I sent $15 to one and $15 to another, and NT gave $50 to another, so that's $80 more for a YTD total of $125

Organize at least one get-together per month - we have a dinner party for four friends planned for this coming weekend. Vegan soul food -- I'm excited to start cooking!

Made money with "side hustles" -- well sort of; I got a $50 reward card from a savings program with my bank for hitting a savings goal.

Write one shared blog post per month - done!

I also recorded the biweekly savings transfer to the EF plus some interest: $25.91 total. On the downside, NT's flat has required some repairs that ate up the usual income. So not only do we not have UK money to add to EF savings, we had to pull money OUT of EF savings to cover the mortgage payments next month. So we lost $540 of EF progress. Offset by the small automatic savings and interest, that's a negative of $514.09, taking us back to $830.40. Now we suddenly seem far away from our $7000 goal! Since we won't make progress in UK funds for March, that means we'll need to save an average of $685 per month April to December to hit our goal. Hmmmm...

There's been lots of money in and money out news lately. I think we're all going to owe on taxes. I've only calculated AS's federal and we already owe over $1600. I have no idea how much her state plus my and NT's federal and state are going to add to that. Sigh, the lawyer fund is going to take a beating.

On the plus side, my bonus actually cleared $1100 after withholding versus the $600 I thought it would! And I've got a possible freelance job for NT's company that might pay pretty well. NT continues to rake in OT pay and AS continues to get freelance jobs. So I still have high hopes of fully funding the lawyer money this year even with the tax hit.

I'm thinking about setting up some of my bigger bills to be paid via credit card, namely my mortgage. I figure I could be getting rewards money for purchases I have to make anyway. Right now we charge our groceries and some other things to the credit card and pay it off every couple of weeks, so it seems like the same philosophy.

But I'm nervous to try it for some reason. Does anyone else do this? Any advice or cautionary tales?