Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

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): $10,812
NT's Roth IRA: $3,167
AS's 401(k): $5,095
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $3,316
CJ's 401(k): $39,090
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,167
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $10,085
---
Total Assets: $561,168

Total Debt: $345,898

Current Estimated Net Worth: $215,270

November 2010 estimate: $205,961

Change in net worth: +$9,309

Summary: I wasn't able to access NT's 401(k) account online AGAIN. Second month in a row, so I wrote to tech support for that website. Anyway, we still did really well thanks to gains in retirement investments plus paying off one of AS's student loans.

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.

Boy, life continues apace in the ceejay household!

It's been kind of a blur, but let me see if I can remember everything important...

First off, I made good on my plan of paying off one of AS's student loans! I transferred $1869 of extra student loan money from NT's loan -- so that portion didn't reduce our debt any -- and I took $4134 of lawyer money and paid the rest off.

So woo hoo! First student loan to hit the Old Debt Graveyard page. The lawyer fund has been decimated, but I have a plan for replenishing it, and AS already has two more freelance jobs that are going to bring in extra money. With the $4134 paid on the student loan, that makes $5722 in principal paid this month!

The daycare situation is looking up. We had an interview with another lovely old lady who runs an in-home daycare just 10 minutes by bus from home (about 30 minutes from my work). She only charges $40 more per week, and the only other difference is she doesn't provide formula (but AA is already 10.5 months old, so that won't affect us for long). We'll probably visit her one more time (we didn't have a chance to explain the three-parent thing, which would be weird not to mention before we start there), but she's available to take AA as soon as the other daycare ends, and her references checked out, so I think we're about good to go! Trimming $175 from the budget to afford her was easy: We took $50 from the medical fund line, $50 from the misc. line item, $50 from the travel budget and $25 from extra debt repayment. Really hoping this works out!! It will add about 20 minutes to the morning and to the evening process, but that's nothing compared to adding $1000 per month in cost, which was the only other option we'd found!

Just in case, we mocked up a few other budgets based on other scenarios of having to go with a more expensive daycare or having NT quit work and stay home with AA while still going to college. So we know other options are doable, they would just involve more-painful budget cuts and lifestyle choices.

With all this worrying and planning, it's been hard not to let my 2011 goals fall by the wayside. Well, healthy eating and exercising (and thus weight loss) have been a no-go so far this year. I've even forgotten to weigh in every Sunday! But the other goals are making a bit of progress. In brief:
--Pay off AS's DL student loan: DONE, as mentioned above!
--Save to Roths: we've saved $300 so far; $200 to AS's and $50 each to mine and NT's
--Give to charities: I've only donated $15 so far, but we have more money set aside so as soon as we feel more settled in our budget, we will make some more donations
--Get AS to positive net worth: What with the above payoff and Roth contribution, we made some big progress that will be reflected in my next net worth checkup (probably this weekend)
--Pay off debt: Lots of progress, as told above
--Go on trips: Hotel & airfare taken care of for our March vacation as well as some rough planning of what we'll do when we get to SF
--Get a raise or find a job: I sent out another resume this week; only my second, but at least I'm doing something. No word on a raise, so new job still seems the best option
--Estate planning: We sat down and hashed out some things, and I sent an email with our wishes to our attorney, so we just have to wait to hear from him on what we need to do next
--Read a book or creative project: Sorry, nope. I did finish a book I started back in October, but I'm not counting that. Still hoping to hit this for January!
--Make money with side hustles: I did decide to look into using the credit card for mortgage and association dues, to earn rewards money, but I haven't actually set it up yet
--Organize get-together: We had a playdate with several other parents and kids, so I'll call that one a success for this month!
--Write a shared blog topic: Haven't gotten on this, but it won't take me long once I do it. I have been thinking of what would be fun topics to hear everyone's take on, so it should be soon. It might be completely non-financial, depending what kind of mood I'm in when I do it!

Phew. Now that I write everything down, I'm not doing as badly as I felt. Considering it's been kind of insane at work and with the daycare drama, I'm actually pleased with the process so far!

Whew. I'm so busy at work but I just had to take a break and write about the craziness that's been going on here.

Financial progress for all my goals was chugging along for the first part of the year. There was the small hiccup of our parking-spot renter passing away, but last night we got a new renter for $10 more per month, up to $85.

NT's UK flat suddenly needed several repairs, which is going to eat into our EF savings, but we're already ahead in that area so I wasn't too worried.

Then last night--Kablooey! Our wonderful daycare lady, who is in her 60s, said she got an out-of-the-blue offer on her house, which (unbeknownst to us) had been on the market for several months. She's taking the offer, moving, and retiring from daycare in mid-February!

We're trying not to panic or make too big a deal over it, but here are the facts that make this an extremely significant financial event in our lives:
- Finding a new daycare provider in less than a month will be nothing short of a miracle.
- At $110 per week ($477 a month), our daycare is BY FAR the cheapest I've heard of or seen advertised anywhere near us. The centers in downtown Minneapolis, by contrast, start at $1200 per month and run all the way up to $2500! NT's been doing some research, and most in-home providers charge about $1000 per month.
- We don't have a car, so this severely limits our options. We could consider getting a car if that would be a cheaper option, but besides the cost of the car, gas, insurance and maintenance, we'd also have to factor in losing $85 per month in parking-spot rental. So that plus whatever price we could find for a farther-out daycare provider equalling less than the cost of a downtown center is highly unlikely.
- We should look at the option of having one of us stay home; we shouldn't rule anything out. The person who brings in the least money by far is AS (I'm talking her full-time job; her freelance income brings her overall income up considerably). But we need her building her career for our eventual move to England. She'll need to get to the UK on some kind of employment visa, and her current job is adding to her resume in a very good field, plus she's making international contacts. Still, with the full-time job bringing in just over $1750 per month, and daycare possibly increasing to $1200 or more, it feels like a hard choice. Even though I'm sure it's best for us in the long run.
- I saw one ad for a $150-per-week provider -- but she mentioned having a PCA license, not a daycare provider license, so I'm not sure if it would be eligible for flex spending reimbursement. And she hasn't gotten back to me anyway.
- Oh yeah, any consideration does have to include thinking about the $5000 of money I'm setting aside in dependent-care flex spending. Would I be able to stop contributions if I stopped using daycare or didn't use someone specifically licensed for childcare? I have to check that out.
- All of this is moot if we can't find daycare in three weeks. At that point we go into damage control, I guess. Working from home? Trying to get friends to watch AA for reasonable amounts?

Whatever happens, we seem to be look at at least a $600 chunk (probably much more) being taken out of our current budget and reallocated into either childcare or due to lost wages or car purchase. So we'll need to go over the budget and come to some agreement on what we would choose to cut first. Luckily there are lots of "wants" as well as extra money going to saving and debt repayment in our budget, but it's not going to be easy deciding what to eliminate.

So the new year is already looking completely unpredictable. I am fairly optimistic that we'll be able to work out some solution that won't leave us broke and/or miserable, but I'm also stressed and a bit overwhelmed.

We had a great date last night, first one without AA in over a month! We got a babysitter in, then went to a fancy cocktail bar in downtown Minneapolis, then to a sushi restaurant.

The sitter (one of our friends) said AA was upset that we were gone and kept trying to crawl down the hall to look for us. But the sitter did manage to take her mind off things and play and watch videos, and she went to sleep quickly as usual. Maybe she's getting through this stranger-fear stage!

Today we were meant to have an acquaintance come over to give us an in-home yoga session; he's an instructor trying to raise extra money for an upcoming trip to China. But he had to cancel, so I'm going to try and work out on my own (first time in weeks; I've been REALLY bad since Xmas). It's just as well because I spent a ton of money last night and would have had to dip into next Friday's spending money to pay him. We can reschedule for a week when I'm not going to pricy bars and restaurants!

Anyway, I'm really rambling away from the point of the post...

One of AS's student loan payments hit; $137 went to principal, meaning we surpassed our $1575 debt-repayment goal for January! In total, $1588 toward debt so far this month.

That brings AS's balance on this particular student loan down to $6003.

On Friday we got a $1869 check for the excess money on NT's latest student loan. I thought maybe I'd put that toward AS's student loan, since that's the highest interest loan that's currently in repayment. That would bring AS's student loan down to $4134.

Then I thought about the $5735 we have sitting in checking for lawyer fees. We've been accumulating this money through additional income streams. Now our ultimate goal is to have $9000 saved for lawyer fees, but the lion's share of this money won't be needed for over a year (if at all). And the extra income shows no sign of slowing, between AS's freelance editing and NT's overtime.

I currently pay about $147 per month on AS's student loan as well as an extra $700. About $35 per month goes toward interest. So I thought, what if I take $4134 of the lawyer money we've saved so far and pay of AS's student loan? To build up the savings again, I could take the $850 per month that would have gone to the student loan and have the lawyer fund built back up to today's level in five months. This would probably save us over $100 in interest, and wouldn't set us back for long in our saving for the legal procedures.

So, I think that's what I'm going to do. I might even get to $9000 with other income sources before the five months is up. Either way, once I've got the lawyer fund back to where it was (or all the way up to $9000) I can start hitting the next student loan.

So, the January debt repayment total is going to get very impressive! (But then, of course, debt repayment for the next five months decidedly unimpressive.)

With recent additions to my medical and emergency funds, I realized we are over $12,000! I've estimated our emergency budget (assuming we would have no jobs and would all need to purchase private health insurance) would be just over $4,000, so that means we have about three months of expenses in our EF savings!

OK, I calculate our British funds at a 2:1 dollar-to-pound ratio, so that total is a tad higher than real-life exchange rates. But I just calculated our funds with the actual exchange rate, and we have just over $11,000. So we're really close to having three months' expenses saved away.

When people tossed out the "and of course you should have three to six months' worth of living expenses set aside," I used to think that was such an impossible number. But we're getting there very soon!

My extra payment to AS's student loan went through, and $674 was applied to principal. Also, NT's mortgage payments hit; $258, $54 and $57 went to principal. All told, $1043 paid, so that's $1451 down, $124 to go on the January debt-repayment goal.

Once NT's UK mortgage payments hit, I was able to transfer the remaining funds into his savings. We had some money hanging out in checking for Xmas shopping, plus surplus from the last UK rent payment. I transferred GBP654.16 (US$1308.32 by my 2/1 ratio calculations). 20 pounds, or $40, of that was a gift for AA from her great-grandma, but the rest will be applied to our emergency fund. That makes our 2011 EF savings $1293.32 so far. Well on our way to the $7000 goal!

In other goal sort-of progress, AS found me another job to apply to. It's editing for a personal finance site--talk about a dream job--but it isn't full-time and probably doesn't come with benefits. I might apply anyway, just to see. It's the age-old dilemma: choosing between enjoyable, mentally fulfilling employment and a job that keeps you in the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed. I still haven't applied for the other two jobs she found for me.

We have a multiple-baby playdate scheduled for this weekend, so if it comes to fruition, that will be progress on one of my 2011 goals; to have small-group get-togethers each month.

Two exciting happenings on the home front: NT painted AA's nursery, so it finally looks like a nice kid's room vs. a bare-bones storage closet! And we had our first visit from the cleaner, so all those hard-to-reach nooks and crannies in the house are sparkly clean. It's really nice! Of all the luxuries we've been able to afford since sorting out our finances, this is one of the best.

Forgot to post my January debt repayment goal! I hope to pay off at least $1575 of debt this month.

To that end, our U.S. mortgage payment hit, with $408 going to principal. $1167 to go!

Made some progress on one of my 2011 goals: The new year has come with no sign raise or promotion at my current job, so AS found some employment opportunities online, and I spent my morning updating the information on my resume. I also looked around for job postings, but didn't find any as good as the two AS showed me, so I'll just work on applying to those two this week.

Oh, and our automatic deposit to the EF hit late last week, so that's $25 toward our $7000 goal. I think NT has some money in UK checking that I can transfer into UK savings to count toward the EF, but I have to wait until the UK mortgage payments hit to see how much is left for savings.

I weighed myself last night expecting the worst; I really stuffed myself this past week, and a minor health annoyance (plus sheer laziness) meant no workouts. Amazingly, I only gained .9 lbs! I'm at about 155.5, so I've made my 2011 goal of getting down to 139 just that little bit more challenging.

The issue with our recently deceased parking-spot renter resolved itself this weekend; the man's sister sent us a check for January rent and a note that she won't be needing the spot after this month. So glad she cleared that up for us! Now we can post a notice that we're renting out the spot beginning in February.

NT listed some books, DVDs and games on Half and eBay; the book sales will offset the cost of his new semester's purchases, while the game and DVD sales will help pay for the purchases enumerated in my last post. We've already sold some of the books, and there are bids on all the eBay stuff.

After a rescheduling, the cleaner finally came today. I've been at work so I don't know how it went. Hoping to see a big difference when I get home!

New Year's Eve was the mellowest I've had in my adult life. We had a few friends stop by early in the evening, and then one of our best friends came over to ring in the new year with videogames and snacks. He left soon after midnight and we stayed up a bit longer, then headed off to bed. It was exactly what I was in the mood for this time around!

New Year's Day, I heard AA stirring around 9 or 9:30 -- a bit late for her, but then again she'd stayed up later than usual. When I peeked in, she slowly turned her head and looked at me with a serious expression, and I could tell something was wrong because she usually breaks into a huge grin and bounces around when she first sees someone in the morning. I picked her up and her skin felt burning hot, so I took her temperature. 102.5. It was the first time she'd ever had a fever, so I called the nurseline and they gave us some tips and told us to take her to the ER if it reached 105.

We monitored it as it fell to about 101, then got complacent for a few hours, until just before bedtime when we took her temp again. 103.5! We put her down for a couple hours, checked it again and it was 104.5. For the rest of the night we took turns checking her temperature every two hours, and luckily it slid down from that high point until it was nearly normal in the morning, and completely normal by the afternoon of Jan. 2. Phew! Needless to say, AA was a bit tired and overly sensitive for the day, having been woken up so many times during the night, and she seemed to have a sore throat or something that put her appetite off, but she was well enough to go to daycare this morning. What a way to start the new year!

We made a bunch of purchases for the home this year and it's really improved the quality of living around here. I thought we'd taken care of everything we wanted for a while, but several strong wants (not quite needs) have been building up. Rather than being frustrated by the lack of these things, we've decided to go ahead and purchase everything. I'm using some of the money saved up for the lawyer; most of that money won't be needed until at least 2012, so we've got plenty of time to get to the full amount we need. AS still has a good connection with the place that's been sending her freelance work, and NT gets overtime pay pretty regularly, so I feel OK about it.

Today we purchased:
A crib/bed convertible thing (we have one of those drop-side cribs, which have recently been outlawed from selling due to safety concerns, so we've been wanting to replace it)
An area rug for the living room (so AA can practice walking with a softer surface to mess up on)
Electrical plug safety covers
Bumper for the edge of the coffee table (again for AA's walking safety)
Two humidifiers
Spice racks (to try and fix our miserably overcrowded, poorly organize spice cabinet)

Phew! I think that's nearly all. We're also on the lookout for an area rug for AA's room. Not only are our floors hard, we've realized, but slippery. AA needs a bit of purchase if she's going to get better at walking!

***

We had some sad news via a notice in the elevator a couple days ago, and we confirmed with building management: The man who rented our parking spot from us has passed away. We never met him in person; we made the agreement over the phone and he mailed us a check every month (or taped it to our door if he was in town). AS spoke to him one other time, a month or two ago, because we'd lost one of his checks, but other than that we didn't hear from him at all over the past four or so years that we've been renting to him.

We looked up his obituary and he was 71. He sounded a lot younger on the phone. He died of pancreatic cancer. It sounds like he was well-loved and active in the community.

Now we have to figure out what to do next. Do we owe someone a partial refund? Who's handling his affairs? Is his car out of the spot? We figure we'll call the building manager on Monday and see what she thinks -- she might have contact information for his next of kin. I suppose if he lived with someone in the building, they might want to keep the spot, but if he lived alone, I'm not sure what to do. Very strange, sad circumstances.

Hey, what do you know? AS's student loan payments did hit by the end of the month after all. $121 and $60 to principal, so $181 total.

That means $3219 was paid in December, and $29,240 total was paid in 2010!

I also made a weird discovery. One of AS's student loans, which I had listed in my debt spreadsheet as being at 4.5% fixed interest rate, actually has a 3.25% interest rate (fixed)! I have no idea how I've had that wrong all these years. I made the spreadsheet in 2007 and I guess never noticed that I had that number wrong.

So our interest rates are even better than I thought! Here's what we have at what rate:
$25,050 at 6.8% fixed (NT student loan)
$6,814 at 6.55% fixed (AS student loan)
$4,243 at 3.85% variable (NT student loan)
$170,944 at 3.5% variable (CJ/AS mortgage)
$13,568 at 3.25% fixed (AS student loan)
$1,030 at 2.25% variable (AS student loan)
$76,760 at 1.49% variable (NT mortgage)
$16,182 at 1.49% variable (NT HEL)
$17,038 at 1.49% variable (NT HEL)
And $19,991 of estimated future NT student loan debt (not borrowed yet)

Of course I don't expect interest rates to stagnate forever, and there are a lot of variable rates on there, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts!

I was thinking about ThriftoRama's post, about what personal finance books inspire her, and trying to remember if I have any.

You know, I don't think I've ever read a finance book. My impression of them might have been tainted years ago, when I dated a guy who loved "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" but whose own financial situation was a disaster. He was in his late 30s and had just gotten nowhere, despite that book sitting next to his toilet. In fact, I'm pretty sure he broke it off with me because he'd borrowed some money and was embarrassed that he couldn't pay it back!

I did subscribe to some personal finance blogs outside of SA, but the bloggers that are doing it for money get real repetitive after a while, so I don't read any of them anymore. I do get Kiplinger and Smart Money magazines and usually read them (although the investing articles are still mumbo jumbo to me).

The best ideas I get are just from reading SA blogs. Through all the day-to-day chatter runs a thread of really original ideas that just come out organically and are all the more useful for coming from people's everyday experiences. The immediacy of this kind of blogging, rather than spending time distilling and analyzing information until it's like a magazine article, is really valuable for getting insight into other people's personal finance philosophies and cherry-picking ideas and practices to try in your own life. (Plus, it's just really neat to get that glimpse of a part of people's lives that you don't usually in real life.)

I can tell a lot of people feel the same as me, because my blog recently topped 500,000 views! Kind of amazing for just three and a half years of blogging. Thanks for reading, everyone; and, to those of you who blog here as well, thanks for letting me read about your lives!

Oh, I REEALLLY don't want to go back to work tomorrow! I've been having such a great time. All the fun, food, presents and family & friends have been so wonderful.

I had to work a little late on the 23rd. But I had Xmas Eve off. We spent most of the day just cooking and playing new Wii videogames, and we went to our friends' place for a little gathering that evening. That was really fun, and walking between huge banks of snow to and from the bus stop at night was magical.

Xmas Day was fantastic; both of Neil's parents have finally figured out Skype, so they got to see Astrid in action for the first time since our October trip. She doesn't really know what's going on, but she's very interested by the pictures and voices coming out of the computer. It'll be neat when she can finally recognize her relatives. It inspired me to write to my sister to see if she could set up a webcam chat between me and my parents. She said she might try tomorrow. Which is good, because I never got around to calling my family this weekend! (Bad daughter.)

We got tons of presents, both from parents and from each other. Included were some new kitchen tools, tupperware and cookbooks. We knew we'd have to clear some space because our tiny, open-plan kitchen was already crammed to the gills. We got AS a marble pastry board that's huge, and heavy; and we got a bunch of other things too. But we took it super easy on Saturday, just playing videogames and hanging around. AA is determined to try and walk, so all she wants to do lately is stand up holding on to things. It's a little stressful because we have wood floors and sharp edges on our coffee table! I really need to remedy those things soon so we can enjoy watching her without wincing every time we think she's going to fall.

Then, today, we worked all day on clearing out the kitchen and tidying up in general. We have the housecleaners coming for the first time tomorrow, so we want as many clean surfaces as possible! The more clear areas there are to clean, the cleaner our house will be.

Anyway, we must've gotten rid of about 50 items, minimum. We still have some things hanging around while we try to Freecycle/give to our friends, but they're tucked out of sight. We're getting rid of at least 20 cookbooks!

It felt good, so I imagine this will propel us to get rid of some more things on Half, eBay, Craigslist and Freecycle. I always think we run a tight ship because of the space constraints, but I was kind of amazed at how much unused detritus we gathered up in just a few cupboards, so I'm sure we could do that in other rooms.

Soo yeah, just babbling and trying to ignore the fact that it's after midnight and I've got to go to work tomorrow. But, four-day week, and broken up by a few nice things: clean house when I come home tomorrow evening, one of NT's co-workers coming over for dinner Wednesday, AA getting to stay home with one parent or another most days. Then New Year's Eve we have a baby playdate in the afternoon and a low-key get-together in the evening.

I hope there isn't too much to do at work this week, because I'm kind of checked out there. If they don't offer me a raise by the end of this week, I've made a promise to myself to start looking for a new job. A hassle for sure, but necessary for my self-esteem to at least know that I tried to make the situation better. It sure would be nice if my boss just came through and got me one, but I have a feeling he won't, or that my job won't take him seriously unless I actually threaten to quit.

Sigh. OK, I'd better go. Happy holidays again! Thanks for letting me vent.

Considering I only worked out once this week and had much of the usual decadent Xmas fun, my 1.8-lb. gain is something I can deal with! Still .6 down from my starting point! Of course, I got some treats for Xmas that might delay significant progress for another week or two. ;-) But I can live with that, too.

Happy Boxing Day everyone!

OK, I'm going to post what I think are my finalized goals for 2011. (Hey, I still have a few days to change them if I want.)

This year there's a new wrinkle: I asked NT and AS if they wanted to record any goals here, and they each came up with one. If they come up with others I'll update the sidebar accordingly.

There's a mix of financial and non here, and it's a big list. I'm not going to be pessimistic and say I know I'm not going to reach them all. It's just a big list, that's all. But I feel like they're all important to at least strive for in 2011.

Thanks to Thrift-o-rama's great post recently, I'm also going to add a note here and there about how I plan to reach these goals.

CJ's goals:
*Pay off AS's DL student loan. Current balance is $6814. We pay about $100 per month in the minimum payment, plus I have $700 per month in the budget for extra repayment. So I hope to get this paid off by September at the latest. If we bring in extra money this year, could be sooner!

*Save $3600 to Roths. I have automatic debits set up for all three IRAs; $200 will go to AS's and $50 each will go to mine and NT's.

*Increase EF by $7000. I only put about $50 per month to the EF in U.S. money, but I plan to put all the extra income from NT's UK flat rental into his UK savings account and count that toward it. Most months we clear $500-$600, so this should be a no-brainer as long as there aren't any unexpected repairs or loss of rental income.

*Give $1800 to charities. I have $150 per month in the budget for this; each of us gets to decide where $50 of it goes.

*Get AS to positive net worth. Starting point: ($14,667). This should be pretty easy. Her minimum principal payments plus the extra student-loan payments plus IRA & 401(k) should change her net worth by at least $16,000. But putting it as a goal will help me keep it in mind and do something extra if need be.

*Pay off at least $20,000 of debt. Again, should happen easily. Our regular payments are more than $1000 to principal each month, and we plan to put an extra $700 per month.

*Get down to 139 lbs. NOW we get to the hard goals! LOL. Starting point TBD, but at present I'm at 153 lbs. So it'll be approximately 14 lbs. I've seen modest progress on weeks when I exercise regularly and eat semi-modestly, so I won't be trying anything extreme unless I'm having trouble sticking to moderation.

*Go on at least 2 trips (paid for in cash). I've already got tickets booked for one, and there are two others we're considering, so we may do more than two. Whatever we do, we'll only do if we have the money for it.

*Either get a raise or find new job. Super hard. My plan is, if they don't give me the raise I'm asking for, I'll start looking. I realize full-time well-paying editor jobs are few and far between, but I'm going to try my darnedest. If I find one, and I'm not eager to switch, I'll take the offer to my job and see if they can beat it.

*Complete estate-planning process (and pay for it in cash). This should be fine. We have about $5000 saved up and don't think we'll need nearly that much. We just need to come up with our answers to the big questions, and then contact our lawyer to get the process going.

*Either read a book or do a creative project each month. I do tend to crap out on this kind of goal, but I had to put it out there. I've barely read any novels since AA was born, and I'm not naturally craftsy or creative so it takes a little nudging to get me going in those areas. But I do feel it helps me be more well-rounded, and it's so satisfying when I finish!

*Make money with "side hustles." I hope to get some freelance editing, and I thought freelance writing could fulfill my creative goal, too!

*Organize at least one dinner party or other small-group get-together per month. We tend not to see people except at larger gatherings, where you don't get quality time with every single person. I thought it would be fun to invite a few people over for dinner once a month (or even invite them out somewhere) and strengthen our friendships a bit.

*Write a "Share Your Thoughts" blog post once a month. This one will require help from you! I love when there are more interactive things happening on the site, but there haven't been many this year. So I thought I'd post a topic or question once a month, give my thoughts, and then ask people to post their own entry on the topic (or just write a comment, if you don't have an SA blog). They will probably be mostly non-financial, more philosophical or about life experiences.

And now, NT and AS's goals:

NT
Get down to pre-holiday weight by end of January
Get down to 155 lbs.

AS
Make at least one thing per month (clothes, etc.)

That's it for now! Happy holidays to everyone, and good luck creating and accomplishing your own goals.

OK, I've already covered my goals enough times, but I'm about to delete my sidebar for this year, so I thought I'd paste my results into an entry!

These are my goals--all accomplished well within their timelines.

Build birthday fund of $600 by 2/28/10

Pay off loan to Dad by 3/8/10

Save at least $1000 for trip to Va. by 6/1/10

Save at least $3000 for trip to England by 7/1/10

Pay off 0% Sears card (stove) by 11/1/10

Build Xmas fund of $700 by 11/25/10

Pay off Amex credit card by 12/31/10

Also, I'm going to clear the sidebar of completed big-picture goals, so here they are for posterity:

COMPLETED BIG-PICTURE GOALS:
Pay off personal loan by 12/31/09
Original balance (6/15/07): $30,000
Progress: DONE!!! 12/4/09

Pay off loan to dad by 3/8/10
Original balance (11/1/03): $12,000
Progress: DONE!!! 2/16/10

Pay off Amex CC by 12/31/10
Balance at start of challenge (11/13/09): $11,202
Progress: DONE!!

Total of above goals: Pay off all credit card and personal loan debt by 12/31/10
Balance at start of challenge (1/1/08): $70,251
Progress: DONE!!
(Full disclosure: I transferred $7402 of this debt over to student-loan debt, so I didn't pay that portion off.)

Woo hoo! Now on to 2011!

I believe I posted about my 2-lb. weight gain at my Sunday-before-last weigh-in. Well, last Sunday I weighed myself having only worked out twice during the week, and I showed as having lost 3.5 lbs.! I think it's more that my earlier weigh-in was thrown off by a heavy meal shortly beforehand, but still, great news.

Cumulatively I'd gained 1.1 lbs. since I started trying to be healthy, so with this latest loss, my cumulative progress is a loss of 2.4 lbs.

I actually think I look like I lost more than that, because I had no muscle on my body, and so building muscle might be slowing my weight-loss numbers. So I feel pretty good. I'm within 8 lbs. of my estimated pre-pregnancy weight. More important, getting in shape has helped me get through the snow, which has been crazy-deep this winter. There are a few times going to daycare when I've been very thankful about my slightly strengthened leg muscles!

NT bought some minutes recently, which reminded me I forgot to update this record back in October. So I'm adding both purchases to my calculations:

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

Total cost for the year: $508.60

We're nearing the end of the ninth month of our cellphone "fiscal year," so our average monthly cost for this year is $56.51. Outstanding!

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 goal for this year is to get my average cost to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 will be a savings.

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): $10,812
NT's Roth IRA: $3,036
AS's 401(k): $4,751
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $3,035
CJ's 401(k): $37,866
CJ's Roth IRA: $3,036
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $8,790
---
Total Assets: $557,762

Total Debt: $351,801

Current Estimated Net Worth: $205,961

November 2010 estimate: $191,983

Change in net worth: +$13,978

Summary: I wasn't able to access NT's 401(k) account online today, so I couldn't record the probable gains (based on AS and I making leaps in our accounts). But it hardly mattered in light of the big overall gain this month! My dad gifted us $12,900, and I put over $11,000 of that directly toward our net worth, including retirement savings and debt pay-down. So it's exhilerating but hardly surprising that our net worth has topped $200,000. A great way to end the year!

I will update my "Individual Net Worth" page shortly so you can see how it breaks out per person.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are 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.

Oh my, it's been ages since I posted! We've had an insane blizzard followed by a rather severe cold snap, and it's just thrown everything off for me--working out, eating; even my budgeting spreadsheet is so jumbled up with Xmas shopping debits that I'm probably going to just fudge some numbers to get it to work out once we're done with all this madness. I don't think I'll be too far off, but I'm bound to lose track of which purchases come out of which line item at some point, or double-count or omit something from my calcuations.

Anyway, AS's student loan payment hit. Since we'd made some extra payments earlier in the month, nearly all of this payment went to principal: $138. That means we've paid $3038 this month, exceeding our $3000 goal!

Other news...let's see if I can get to it all before I get hit with any work.

NT got news of his bonus and it should hit our bank account tomorrow. $3500 pretax!! Hard to say what it'll be after tax--I'm guessing $2100. We're each getting $100 out of it, plus we're giving tips to our barber and daycare lady, and most of the rest is going into our lawyer fund. I'm feeling really good about that fund; this should bring it up over $5500! Since my very maximum estimate for all that we want our lawyer to do is $9000, we're nearly two-thirds of the way there. And the $9000 is (I'm hoping) an extravagant overestimate.

We had our holiday party today, with some really good gourmet food, wine and champagne. I had fun hanging out with the contractor proofreader I helped hire--she seems nice but one or both of us is usually so busy that we barely ever talk. Turns out she's vegetarian too! We also got $250 each in Amex cards, and my boss also gave me another $150. I'm going to distribute that among us for fun spending, since it was COMPLETELY unexpected. I'm hoping this means my boss really values me and is going to fight for my raise (and I further hope he doesn't think this is an adequate replacement for a raise in my mind--it's very very nice, but it's not pacifying my desire for a real raise). Today's been super slow so I've taken the opportunity to order myself some Wii games with all this extra spending money. Hopefully some will arrive in time for Xmas vacation, because it's so enjoyable lazing around the house playing video games! I never liked them as a kid, but as an adult I find that trivial (yet slightly challenging) activities are an essential balance to all the work and stress of real life. And will hopefully help stave off senility!

I sent my dad some smaller-than-usual Xmas wish lists for us, assuming after the big cash gift that he and Mom might want to take it easy on gift buying. No dice--I got an email with pointed reference to our "very short list" asking what kind of gift cards he could get us to "fill in" the apparent gap. So, I sent him some more gift ideas. Jeez, I was just trying to make it easy on him and mom! LOL.

During the cold snap, I avoided taking AA out to daycare, so AS, NT and I took turns taking some time off to stay at home with her. My job was good about sending me files to proof from home, which I was very glad about--I don't have any paid leave left, so I had to try and telecommute for those days. I think it worked out OK.

I'd gained 2 lbs. at my Sunday weigh-in; no big surprise since I'd only worked out three times in the week and had been eating like I was about to go into hybernation. I calculated my net loss/gain since I started trying to be healthy and I've gained 1.1 lbs. All told, since it is the most decadent (and freezing/snowbound) time of year, it feels kind of good that I'm holding steady. I don't expect to lose too much weight until the new year, so as long as I don't gain 5-10 lbs. over Xmas I'll consider my quest to be successful so far.

We've got to plan our holiday menu this weekend! Unbelievably, we're already over budget on groceries since I reset the budget last month. We're just not good budgeters when it comes to food, and the addition of formula and some disposable diapers has ratcheted up our spending. If we can't turn this around after the new year, I guess I'll have to consider taking money out of another budget item and putting it toward groceries/household. It kind of bugs me, but good eating is a big priority for us, so I'd rather do that than deprive us of the foods we love. We've got the money for it.

All my Xmas shopping is done as of yesterday! I don't get gifts for many people; just AS, AA, NT and my parents.

I'm still working on 2011 goals and will post them sometime this month. I've invited AS and NT to come up with goals that I'll post and track if they want, so I'm also holding off in case they want to get in on it. NT's been swamped with end-of-semester stuff, but his last final is this Monday, so we'll all have a breather until mid-January, hopefully.

I still haven't booked our March trip to San Fran -- typicall by now I'd have all our reservations made! Either it's busier than usual or I'm managing my time really poorly. That's another thing I want to handle over the holidays.

Another thing we need to do is solidify our goals for our estate planning and send them to our lawyer. We had a great, informative meeting with him recently where he explained different things like wills and probate and trusts. We just need to sit down with what he told us and come up with a good plan that covers all scenarios.

Our pics from the photo shoot with our friend came in -- see below!! There's another one of us all in formation with our heads at different levels; I call it the "Bremen Town musicians" pose -- that one we made into a holiday card to send our families. NT's parents keep promising to upgrade their computers/internet access enough to use Skype webcam service, but they're all absolutely hopeless in the web-savvy department. Hopefully the jaw-dropping cuteness of these photos will spur them to figure it out already!

My extra payment, using my dad's gift, to one of AS's student loans went through. $2120 to principal! That makes it $2900 down, $100 to go on my December debt repayment goal.

Our Roth IRA money is finally showing up in those accounts; $3000 apiece. I feel so grown-up!

Last night we got a packet of questionnaires to fill out for our Friday meeting with the lawyer. The letter said they wanted it back by Dec. 6! We started going through them, but there are lots of big questions to answer, so I wrote to him saying we needed another day. Plus, the forms are geared toward couples, so some of the questions are confusing to try and answer. For instance, I have joint assets with AS and some with NT, and our checking account is in all three of our names. So there are going to be lots of scribbled notes trying to explain everything!

We got to preview the photos from our session with our friend and pick our favorite ones. They're so great! We picked out a couple for making holiday cards and other gifts for our families, and we'll probably get a few more later just for ourselves. I'll post one as soon as I get the final retouched version.

We went out for our anniversary dinner (a bit late) last night. I flaked on getting presents--felt so bad! So I bought all the cocktails. AA came with us and had a great time. She sat in a highchair, gnawed on a teething biscuit, charmed all the staff (including the owner), and went crazy for rice with a bit of sweet 'n' sour sauce. She's been off and on moody and refusing food and bottles, and this weekend she was kind of low-energy and had "the runs" (as my mom calls it), so I was glad she was eating and smiling. This morning she was cranky and refusing her bottle again, and now she hasn't had a poop in over 24 hours! I'm not sure what's going on with her, but the daycare lady didn't seem too worried, and I take my cue from her since she's so experienced. Anyway, she's got her regular checkup on Thursday, so if she doesn't get any worse, I think she can wait until then to see a doctor.

Blah, blah, blah -- I'm really rambling in this post! I think because I keep doing work and then coming back to it. Time to hit "Save and Publish" and be done with it.

Last week was rather iffy in the healthy eating department. Overall healthy meals with enough decadence mixed in that I was expecting no weight loss and wouldn't have been surprised by a small gain.

On the other hands, a couple of the workouts were more intense than the 10-minute ones I'd been doing in past weeks. Probably more like 20 to 30 minutes each on about four of them.

Apparently that was enough to make up for the bad food moments! I was down 1.4 lbs. according to the Wii Fit balance board.

I don't know my exact pre-pregnancy weight since I wasn't in a period of weighing myself regularly, but I estimate I was between 140 and 145, since that's where I'd been hovering. Now I'm 154, 9 lbs. more than my highest estimate. I would love to get to 145 before AA's first birthday in March! But even if I don't, just being within 10 lbs. of my possible pre-pregnancy weight is a great feeling.

I at least would love to hold steady through the decadent holiday season. Working out seems to be the key! We've got a mix of videos from Netflix, the fitness channel and free on-demand, so we're getting a bit of variety and aren't getting bored yet. My favorites are the Gilad programs from the fitness channel. They're evil, but he's kind of goofy and so it helps take my mind off how hard I'm working.

Working on the menu for the week. NT requested tater tot hot dish (a very Midwestern dish I'd never heard of till I moved to Minnesota!), so I was looking around and found a promising vegan one. But I think it needs some modification, so I thought I'd post my revised recipe here, so I have it easily accessible for when I need to cook it!

White sauce:

* 2 cups soy milk
* 3 T. Earth Balance margarine
* 2 T. flour
* salt and pepper to taste
* 1 t vegetable broth powder

Casserole:

* 24 oz of mixed frozen veggies (carrots, green beans, peas, carrots)
* 8-10 oz mushrooms, 2/3 chopped onion & 3 minced garlic cloves, lightly sauteed
* 1 bag Morningstar burger-style crumbles
* 1 bag of tater tots, use only enough to cover the top of the casserole
* 1/2 bag of Daiya cheddar cheese & similar amount of regular shredded cheddar
* several small dabs of Earth Balance margarine

1. Lightly saute the mushrooms, onion and garlic (about 5 mins over medium-high heat).
2. Over medium-low heat, melt butter and add flour to create a roux in small saucepan, whisking constantly. When light brown and bubbly, remove from heat and add soy milk slowly while whisking.
2. Return sauce to medium heat and cook until it thickens. Add salt, pepper & veggie broth powder. Use a wire whisk constantly as sauce thickens.
3. Once thickened, remove from heat.
4. In a 9 x 9 inch casserole, mix the Daiya with 1/2 the frozen veggies, mushrooms, crumbles and white sauce. In another 9 x 9, mix the real cheese with the rest of the above.
5. Scatter the dabs of Earth Balance on top.
6. Top with 1 layer of tater tots, side-by-side, end-to-end.
7. Bake for 45 mins at 375 F.

So here's the menu for today through next Saturday:
Tonight: Crispy vegan beef with Brussels sprouts & water chestnuts stir-fry
Sunday lunch: Baked portobellos, tater tots & salad
Sunday dinner: Pizza
Monday: Mushroom-walnut loaf, carrots & spinach
Tuesday: Tofu franks & beans
Wednesday: Baked stuffed peppers & lemon-butter broccoli
Thursday: Stir-fry with frozen tofu, broccoli & cashews
Friday: Veggie burgers or ribs with corn & carrots
Saturday lunch: Grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup & salad
Saturday dinner: Tater tot hot dish and sauteed spinach

Oh, and my dad's gift made it into my bank account Friday!! I opened three Roth IRAs and set up an extra student loan payment that same day.

I've been super-busy at work and haven't been able to post my mortgage payments that hit on Dec. 1:
US: $407 to principal
UK1: $260 to principal
UK2: $55 to principal
UK3: $58 to principal

In total $780 down, $2220 to go on my December debt-repayment goal.

I'm not sure how I'm going to do at my weigh-in on Sunday. I've worked out three times and plan to get my fourth and fifth in over the weekend. However, I had breaded, fried mushrooms on Tuesday, Chinese takeout last night, and am having a pastry at work today. Plus tonight is NT's office party and they'll be feeding us at a fancy restaurant...Most of my other food choices have been good this week, so maybe it will balance out. The most important thing is being conscious about what I'm putting in my body, because it's when I switch off my brain and eat whatever and whenever I feel like that I go off the rails.

I've eaten non-home-cooked food a couple other times this week, and today one of the project managers arranged for food to be brought in to celebrate a particularly complex project being almost over. So today I'll have three outside meals. Very unusual unless I'm in vacation! And we have our anniversary meal on Monday (yesterday was the actual date of our commitment ceremony but the week was too crazy to go out). I'll probably be glad to get back to home-cooked when it's over, because restaurant and bakery food is so over-the-top in terms of portions, salt, sugar, etc. (Not saying I don't enjoy it, but I couldn't do it all the time!)

Tonight we have a friend babysitting AA while we go to the holiday party, but Monday we're bringing her out on our anniversary date. She's usually really well-behaved and loves seeing new places and people, so it should be fun!

Speaking of AA, we had our photo shoot with our photographer friend this past weekend. I can't wait to see the results. AA was in a fantastic mood and I think he got lots of good shots of her laughing and smiling. He tried to take portraits of us but I feel like such a dork trying to pose for pictures, so I don't know how mine will turn out. And he got some group shots of the family.

We got a nice email from NT's dad about our anniversary, and a nice card from my parents...addressed only to me and NT. Sigh. Well, I don't care if they understand about our relationship, as long as they get that our kids belong to all three of us. When AS is pregnant I'll have to explain that I intend to adopt her and NT's kid and she'll adopt AA. Hopefully that will finally get it through my mom's head. (I don't think she's rejecting the notion on purpose; I think she's just kind of dense and confused about it.)

Ooh, as I was writing this I just got an email from my dad that he's transferring the funds today! I wonder if they'll hit today or tomorrow or Monday...so exciting!

I checked AS's loan account not really thinking the payment could have processed since this afternoon...but it had! $59 went to principal, making it $1182 of debt repayment in November.

I also completed the last of my annual goals this month.

As for my nonfinancial goals, I feel really good about my healthy living even though I haven't lost much weight yet. At least I'm getting lots of good (if short) workouts in and making sure our dinners are lighter than they've tended to be in recent months. I've passed up the opportunity to eat candy so often that I've lost count; it's starting to come naturally again NOT to snack.

Decluttering I did OK on, and NaNoWriMo was a good creative exercise even though I didn't get much past 5,000 words.

December is going to be an exciting month moneywise. I'm putting my debt repayment goal at $3,000; it will probably be more than that, but again the holidays near the end of the month make me unsure of those last two student loan payments hitting on time. So my goal debt balance will be $351,839.

I'm not going to set any creative or other goals, because preparing for Xmas takes enough effort as is! Time to start shopping, like, now. I have a couple ideas for people but haven't really organized my thoughts or the money we have set aside into anything coherent.

December will also be a busy month for estate planning (our next meeting with the lawyer is Friday the 10th, and I'll be starting an account of some kind for AA) and retirement planning (going to start the Roth IRAs as soon as I receive my dad's gift). Financially we should hit an exciting milestone in our net worth that I didn't expect to hit this year ($200K combined net worth). It's also the first month we'll try professional housecleaners (first time in my life, because my parents never did it either); I'm excited about that and really hoping this takes the level of cleanliness up noticeably (especially the floor, now that AA is crawling more and more).

So yeah, don't think I need any extra goals to stay stimulated in the coming month!

So one of AS's student loan payments did go through before the end of the month. I wonder if that means her other one will make it by tomorrow?

Anyway, $119 went to principal. That makes $1123 in debt payment for November so far. I'll wait till tomorrow to sum up the month's activity, just in case that last payment does sneak in.

I didn't do much for decluttering this past week. But I did pretty well in the healthy department (considering it was Thanksgiving and all). I ate a ton, of course, but I also worked out Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. At my weigh-in Sunday night, I'd gained .7 lbs. I consider that to be an overall success! After all, Thanksgiving is probably my heaviest eating week of the year, so to gain less than a pound seems miraculous.

My dad emailed that he's going to do the wire transfer on Friday at the latest. He also confirmed he's not doing this because of health concerns. That thought didn't occur to me at first, since he told me it was because he wasn't earning any interest, though when people were calling it an "inheritance" in blog comments I thought about it a bit. So I'm glad he reiterated that he just thought he might as well give us all a gift since it wasn't really doing anything for him.

Thank you for your input on my last entry. You altered my decision somewhat! I was all set to pay off the student loan using most of the $13,000, but now I think I'm going to divide it up differently.

First, I'll start a Vanguard Roth IRA for each of us. The minimum is $3,000, so that's $9,000 down.

Then, I'll set aside $1,000 for AA. I'm still not sure if a 529 would be the best choice if she were to become a British citizen and resident and possibly go to a British university. So I'm just going to start a CD or savings account for her.

That leaves $3,000 (actually $2,900 after transfer fees). NT suggested I use some of the money to get professional financial help, so I'm going to keep a certain amount separate (Maybe $750?) and use it to hire an accountant to help with my taxes. (If I can't find help for that amount, I'm just going to muddle through on my own again this year.)

The remaining $2,150 I'll put toward AS's student loan.

I still don't have the actual money, so there is time to change my decision, but right now that seems like the best bet.

Homebody mentioned keeping it separate for me and AA, and I do understand the logic, but I don't think I can operate that way. We all put in all our money -- wages, bonuses, side income -- and NT and AS let me decide where it will do the greatest good. Sometimes a greater amount goes toward one our net worths via debt repayment on the worst debt; it may be AS's freelance money paying off my credit card debt, for example, or using NT's extra student loan money to pay down AS's student loan debt. If I suddenly said "Except this money; this is mine!" it would alter the balance in our relationship. If the relationship does end someday, we've all put equal amounts of work into it so far, so I think we should all come away with something.


This budget allocation will make the biggest impact on AS's net worth, which is exciting because she still has negative individual net worth. She'll go from being about $20K in the hole to minus $15K. I'm hoping by the end of next year she'll have positive net worth. If home values quit stagnating in our building it could be even sooner!

I spoke to my family earlier today, the usual Thanksgiving phone call. Except when my dad got on the phone, he said he's giving me $13,000.

I was so stunned that I couldn't really ask him much about it or thank him. His only explanation was that his savings account wasn't earning any real interest, so he'd researched what the maximum amount was that he could give as a gift to his kids tax-free, and now he's going to give us each that amount. Then he said he'd get my bank details later and wire me the money. And then he passed the phone to my mom, who was more interested in gushing over the videos of AA that my nieces were showing from my Facebook profile.

So, huh. I've been chewing over it for a couple hours (in between stuffing my face and socializing) and I've come up with a few thoughts, but no decision, about what to do with the money when I get it.

The first is, my parents live very frugally. As in worn-down house, thrift-store furniture, cheap old clothes, etc. But they always take care of family. So whatever I do with the money, I want it to reflect their values of thrift and family.

So then, I came up with three things I could do with the money: Pay off the rest of AS's highest-interest student loan, and then make sure I use the freed-up monthly money to invest or pay down even more debt. Or, throw the money into the Roth IRAs I was planning to start in January. Or, set money aside to make sure I have enough for the estate-planning/third-parent adoption legal fees.

There's $9,072 left on AS's student loan. In the 2011 budget, I have $700 allocated to education, whether paying down extra debt or taking on NT's loans if he goes to less than half-time class load and his loans come due. AS's monthly loan payment is $147.47 per month. The interest rate is 6.5%.

I'm just throwing out the figures. I don't know what it all means. I know we don't have enough saved for retirement, and I know we have too much debt. I don't know if one problem is more serious than the other.

As for the third idea, lawyer money, well AS has already earned about half of what we'll probably need, and the freelance jobs she's been getting are still coming fast and furious. Plus, NT is getting a holiday bonus that we can probably put toward the lawyer stuff as well. So I'm really leaning toward debt payoff or IRA.

Two more reasons to be thankful today, besides this big windfall: I'm so glad we've already splurged on ourselves several times this year, because I feel almost no temptation to spend this money. And I'm SOOOOO thankful this money didn't come to me before my financial come-to-Jesus, because I would've piddled it away and probably managed to not improve my financial situation one iota. This is an optimal time in my life for me to put it toward our future well-being; I really don't think it could have come at a better time, and for that I am truly thankful.

Today I'm taking a makeup day off for an earlier day that I had to work, which the rest of my office got to take off. I kept AA with me; I actually did ponder taking her to daycare because she loves it so much, but with the cold weather, any excuse to stay indoors! Anyway, she finally figured out how to crawl(!!) last Friday, so I think she's having plenty of fun just working on that by herself, as long as I talk to her and make her laugh occasionally. I like having my sunny little girl around and hearing her cooing and muttering to herself as she busies herself with her many projects.

I did my fifth weekly workout last night and weighed in. I only lost 0.2 lbs., but considering that I felt I had bigger meals on several nights than necessary, I'm not upset by that result at all. I'm trying to get in shape and get used to a healthy lifestyle overall, so it's not about losing a bunch of weight all at once. The weigh-ins are mainly to keep me mindful of what I'm trying to do.

I've caught up on a lot of financial stuff; the problem with getting so involved in my finances and making all these spreadsheets is that when I get really busy, everything falls behind and is a pain to sort out. But I'm nearly current on everything now. Soon I have to get some housework done; there's a big pile of pots and pans with my name on it!

One thing I've been wondering about is the best way to start Roth IRAs for all of us. I want to start with $100 per month per person, and some places with good reputations (like Vanguard) seem to have minimums (theirs is $3000), while others (Fidelity) seem to refer vaguely to transaction fees. E*trade, where AS has her traditional IRA, looks like it has no minimum balance and no fees on many of their accounts, so I'm thinking about going with them. Does anyone have an opinion? Should I just save up money and go with Vanguard once I have enough for the minimum? That means I'd only be able to open a Roth for one of us in 2011, since I'm only planning to set aside about $3600 next year.

I feel so confident about knowing how to budget and pay down debt. This next step, learning how to invest for the future, is really scary and a huge leap in financial knowledge. Frankly I'm not enthusiastic about it because it just feels like gambling, and I've never been very lucky in games of chance. But I realize that the only hope anyone has for a comfy retirement is to try and get their savings to compound.

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): $10,812
AS's 401(k): $4,540
AS's IRA: $1,682
CJ's 401(k): $36,526
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $8,686
---
Total Assets: $547,000

Total Debt: $355,017

Current Estimated Net Worth: $191,983

October 2010 estimate: $188,624

Change in net worth: +$3,359

Summary: Weird, our assets came to an even thousand! All of our U.S. retirement funds posted gains and we paid off a moderate amount of debt, so we had a nice 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.

I sent an extra payment to one of AS's student loans (the one I'm trying to get rid of fastest), and $135 went to principal. That means I've paid off $1004 in debt this month, just tipping me over my $1000 goal! Now I don't have to worry whether or not the regular scheduled student loan payments hit by the end of the month.

That bring's AS's highest-interest student loan balance down to $9072. We seem to be on track to pay it off by the end of next year, if not before!

Two small healthy-living victories: I worked out again last night; just two more to go this week to reach my 5-a-week goal. And today my job provided my favorite treat, twisty cinnamon pastries called "puppy dog tails." I couldn't completely resist, so I cut off about a 2-inch piece and slowly savored that instead of having one (or two!) whole pastries. I've only snacked one other time this week, so I feel pretty OK about that.

And on the decluttering front, I did brainstorm a bit with NT about ways to make our spice shelf more functional, though I haven't tried to actually put anything in practice yet. Hopefully this weekend!

The weekend will be fun because we're going to plan our Thanksgiving cooking. We're celebrating the actual turkey (well, Tofurkey) day over at our friends' place (splitting cooking duties with them), and then we're having an open house for friends to wander over at their leisure on Friday (making some finger foods and fun cocktails for that one). We're trying to stay within our grocery budget better than we have in the past, so we'll have to economize on our regular meals in order to have enough money for the feast and snacks. But I think we can do it!

I actually have a free moment at work! Although I still take pretty frequent breaks at work to check in on my favorite websites, these days typically it's with work hanging over my head so I have to make it quick. But right this moment, I don't have anything I need to do, and the two urgent jobs I was worrying about because they were taking too long to get to me are no longer quite as urgent, so it won't be a big deal if they come in late and I handle them tomorrow. That's a relief!

Though I've only had time to make a couple of quick goal-progress updates this month, there are actually lots of things going through my head that I've been wanting to blog about. At least a few financial, some not. So let's see if I can get to some before more work comes in!

***

Can't remember if I wrote about this, but the meeting with the lawyer went well. He feels that a third-parent adoption would probably be do-able. He'd even talked to an open-minded judge and a guardian ad litem (hard to explain, but key to the process) who said they would consider our case if they determined that we are good parents and have thought this through (repercussions if we ever break up, serious intent to provide child support in that event, etc.).

He gave us an estimated price tag of $4500 to $6500. He was nice and said they would try to cut costs where they could by letting someone with a lower billable rate do all the work that was easily passed off.

Of course, AS is planning to have a child in the next year or two as well, so we'd have to do the process all over again. He said it wouldn't be as expensive, maybe half the cost, because some of the research groundwork for the first case wouldn't need to be replicated for the second. Or, he said, we could wait until we have our second child, and then do one court case for both, saving some money and hassle in the long run. Then we might want to get our estate planning straightened out, though, so there would be something in place in case of something terrible happening to some or all of us before then. Just to make sure that little AA's future is as secure and happy as we could make it under the worst possible circumstances.

We decided on the latter option, so we're going to meet with him again next month to start the ball rolling on estate planning. Then we'll contact him again when we're ready to attempt the third-party adoption process.

It's so weird talking to a lawyer because you always have to be preparing for (and thus openly discussing) the worst-case scenario. For instance, though I'm doing most of the planning, communicating and budgeting for this, the lawyer is officially representing NT. (We all agreed this would make the most sense since he is going to be the biological link to both children.) He can consult with all of us, but if there was a nasty breakup, he would be NT's lawyer. Weird to talk about, but it could only be one of us!

As for funding this process, it's hard to say how we're going to do it. I don't know how much the estate planning will cost; presumably much less than $4500-$6500 since we don't need to go before a judge or pay a guardian ad litem. Still, I'm guessing estate planning + adoptions will cost anywhere from $5500 to $9000. Trying not to freak out about those numbers, because this is very important for our family. (ALSO not trying to think about how we'll probably need to do everything over again when we move to England someday, to make sure we're protected under British law!) Currently we have just over $2000 set aside, so that should be enough for a retainer (a pool of money the attorney's firm holds onto and draws from to pay their expenses). AS is continuing to do extremely lucrative freelance editing for this one place that seems to have a bottomless supply of work, so we're sort of hoping we can fund this entire thing without making painful budget cuts or dipping into savings. But we'll do whatever we need to do!

***

One thing I hope we don't have to cut is our commitment to making charitable donations next year. I've put in a budget line item of $150 per month, which I'm hoping I can stick to. We actually donated $100 to AS's employer yesterday; it was Give to the Max day in Minnesota, and there was a chance they would get matching funds for whatever they received that day. I don't think they won any matching money, but it still felt good to give to them, since it's one of our favorite publishers as well as the workplace that makes AS happy.

***

Another expenditure I'm going to fund through AS freelance money is a photo session with our friend NJ, who is now completely self-employed as a photographer. It's an easy choice; I'll have to post an amazing shot of AA that he did recently! (Although kashi [who used to blog here] is also an amazing local photographer, so if I could afford two sessions, I would definitely hire her to do one.) See below for pic; cropped to protect my anonymity (such as it is), but still such a great picture!

***

So I'm still waiting to hear about the results of my annual review at work. I told my boss (fairly straightforwardly) that I really needed a raise to make up for all the extra work and responsibility that's been dumped on my desk since my boss left in July. I did my self-appraisal and (for once) praised my own accomplishments to the skies. Now it's up to him to try and get something for me. I've made up my mind that I will stay if they give me a raise of at least 2% (it would be my first raise in over three years; in fact my net salary has decreased each year because of rising healthcare costs). If they don't give me anything, or give me only a one-time bonus, or a raise less than 2%, I'm going to start applying for other jobs. It might take me a while to find something, since I know that well-paying full-time editing jobs are few and far between, and I wouldn't leave here until I had something lined up. I might even give them one more chance to pony up if I got a job offer that I wasn't super-excited about but could use as insurance/leverage. But this is all talk until I hear for sure from my boss. And there's no definite time frame for that. I have already started researching salaries and keeping an eye out for job postings, just in case I have to start looking soon.

***

With that uncertainty, I'm finding it hard to focus on what my 2011 goals will be, besides the commitment I already made to pay off one of AS's student loans by the end of next year. Also, my 2011 budget is a whole new creature, allocating our budget surplus into specific categories with specific amounts, which this year I just sort of applied as needed without too much strict planning. I'm a little nervous that I didn't make good decisions on that. (I don't know why that makes me nervous, since I can always rearrange them!)

If my budget DOES work well, then most of our financial decisions will already be made for us; automatic IRA contributions, a set amount of travel funds set aside, etc. So I'm not sure how effective annual goals would be. I'll still continue to make monthly debt-repayment benchmarks, just because it's fun to keep track of my debt as it slowly dwindles. And I'm sort of toying with having other, not strictly financial monthly goals as I have sporadically in the past. But overall annual goals? I just haven't decided if I have any goals for next year that are that concrete. We'll see.

***

OK, time to get going; I have to leave soon to pick up AA. Speaking of her, here's the photo I promised!