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: $3,036
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!

I keep meaning to write about incremental progress on my November goals (financial and otherwise), but I keep feeling like I don't have time. So here goes with all the progress I've made over the past week or so:

One of AS's student loans hit, with $94 going to principal. That makes it $869 down, $131 to go on my November goal. Also, this is a step in my last Big-Picture Goal, bringing this loan down to $9,207. Since I'm afraid her other two student loans will not process in November due to weekend and holiday timing, I'm going to send an additional payment to this student loan to make sure I meet the $1000 November goal.

I was able to put aside the entire amount needed for Xmas, $700, yesterday. That's the last of my stated 2010 goals. I'm glad I was able to complete everything early! It's been a big year for us, lots of money in, lots of money out.

On the healthy living goal, I pretty much stuck to the meal plan with only about two bouts of snacking (and those were fairly healthy foods, and limited amounts). I also worked out 5 times last week (4 short sessions and 1 longer one). When I weighed myself Sunday night, I'd lost 2 lbs.! Here's hoping I can replicate my success this week.

On the decluttering front, I did do a bit in the kitchen last week, reorganizing one of the cupboards and trying to create a bit more empty space on the counter.

NaNoWriMo appears to be dead in the water...it was lowest on my list of priorities and so, if I have time or energy to either work out or write, I've been choosing to exercise. However, I'm proud that I got to 5000+ words so early in the competition, and determined that I'll try to do creative activities more often.

Made a bit of progress on a couple of nonfinancial goals...

Healthy living:
As I suspected, I'd actually gained 1.8 lbs. in two weeks when I weighed myself Sunday night. Saturday I went to a party and ate a ton of snacks, and I'd done similar things on other days, so no big surprise! I recently read an article about a nutritionist who lost a lot of weight basically eating snack cakes (but making sure he stayed in a reduced-calorie range) and improved his cholesterol, etc. He's not sticking to that long-term for other health reasons, obviously, but it did reinforce that the most important thing about weight loss is calories in, calories out. Even though I've made sure to have a healthy variety of fruits, veggies and other whole foods, I've also snacked and not paid attention to portion control. So my goal this week is not to eat until overfull, not to load up my plate like I usually do, and not to snack every time I see food or get a little bit peckish.

I'm also finally starting to work out. I found a 10-minute cardio program on free on-demand TV, so I did that Sunday and Monday. Since it's so short (but intense), I'm going to try and do it as often as possible. I also did crunches and upper-body strength training Monday.

One thing that helped was changing into my exercise clothes as soon as I got home. Even though I had to fix dinner, get AA's food ready and do some other things, once I was free, I could go straight into working out, which felt like less effort than going and getting dressed first.

NaNoWriMo:
I'm at 5,203 words. Of course that is WAY behind for this point in the month, and I didn't get caught up at all over the weekend, but at least I've done something out of the routine. Maybe I'll continue, or maybe I won't. AS may have already lost steam, and it's hard to do it without the friendly competition, plus I'm not super-excited about my concept this year. One thing I have decided is to try and have a creative goal every month, like I did for a while a couple years ago. It's important to try and do something out of the ordinary so my days don't just all blend into each other, I feel. Especially when work is so busy and crappy; time flies, and not in a good way.

It's been a hard and busy week. Our mortgage payments hit on Monday and I'm just now recording them here! My baby expenses worksheet is so far behind that I don't know if I can catch up on it.

Anyway, relaxing with a whiskey and Diet Coke as I reflect on my goal progress so far:

Mortgage payments:
US: $406
UK1: $258
UK2: $53
UK3: $58
Total: $775 down, $225 to go on the debt repayment goal.

Other November goals went like this:
*Finish up 2010 goals - 1 down, 1 more to go; I paid off the 0% interest Sears card that we put our stove on.
*Healthy stuff: I've stuck to the menu every day except last night (ordered Thai food). Unfortunately I've snacked on some unhealthy food, and haven't worked out at all. So we'll see how the weigh-in goes this Sunday.
*Declutter: I'm including my office as well as my home in this goal, so today I cleared out a ton of emails from my work inbox (about 2,000! Yes, I'm a freak) and other folders, and reorganized some of the ones I need to keep. Still a long way to go, but that was real progress for the first time in months.
*NaNoWriMo: I'm at 3,336 words, which isn't on track to finish at 50,000 by the end of the month, but considering the week I've had, I'm glad to have made any progress at all. Hopefully I can buckle down and catch up this weekend!

Well, I actually feel a little better writing it down like that; I'd felt like I hadn't made any progress at all, but I'm not doing too bad after all.

I got to plan the entire week's menu so that I could put a healthier spin on the usual. I'm not making us do a raw-foods fast or low-carb or low-fat thing; just trying to get fresh veggies and whole grains into the mix more than we have the past couple weeks.

I plan only dinners for weekdays; I've got bagels and vegan cream cheese as well as leftovers to take for lunches. NT has promised to cut up fruit for me to take in, and also make fruit smoothies some evenings.

Today:
Lunch - veggie burgers and apple-lettuce salad
Dinner - homemade pizza
Monday:
Greens & sweet potatoes with peanut sauce over millet
Tuesday:
Salad of quinoa, spinach, grapes, walnuts and veg chix strips
Wednesday:
Mexican skillet (buckwheat, black beans, avocado, zucchini & bell pepper) in tortilla
Thursday:
Broccoli-portobello stir fry over rice
Friday:
Seitan buffalo wings, honey mustard carrots, cornbread
Saturday:
Brunch - Oatmeal, veggie sausages & toast
Dinner - "Chicken-fried" veggie burger, green beans, baked potato

Now the bad healthy living news: My mom sent a Halloween package that included my favorite, terrible-for-you cookies. I should just get rid of them, but I never make them for myself, so whenever she sends them I can't resist. But, they're almost gone, and I won't get any more until next year! I also went to a Halloween party last night where I had three beers, chips and a cupcake. And Friday I had all sorts of treats at my office's Halloween get-together. Being pregnant unleashed a sweet tooth that had been dormant for quite a few years, and it's going to be difficult to get under control!

On the plus side, I went for walks both Friday and today, and I made two grocery trips yesterday, one on foot and one by bus, so I have been getting a bit more exercise than usual. Anyway, November hasn't officially begun, so these are just precursors to get my month started right!

Oh, and for your enjoyment, some Halloween cuteness! I dressed AA up and took her to work with me on Friday.

Even though my October debt repayment total, $2004, wasn't that spectacular, it was a huge month for us financially because we finally paid off the last of my credit card debt! I've updated my sidebar info to celebrate that fact.

We've still got a long way to go, but our story has changed significantly; it's not just about the massive debt but the success we've had in eliminating a big chunk of it. We ended October with $282,479 in mortgage debt on two homes and $73,542 of education debt for three degrees. It's a lot, but it's not the kind of debt you have nothing to show for!

The goal for November is to pay off $1000 of debt. It's less than the average minimum we pay each month, but I have some doubt the last two student loan payments of the month will go through in November due to the holiday, so I'm going to try and pay extra on the first student loan to make sure I hit this goal.

I'm confident I'll also finish up my remaining 2010 goals: pay off the Sears card balance (for the new stove) of $848.10, a month before the interest would be applied (as a matter of fact the payment has already been set up); and build our Xmas fund of $700. (Next year I'm going to have an escrow fund for gift money among other things, so I don't have to scramble to get the money together right before we need it.)

I've also got some other, less concrete November goals:
*Healthy eating, fitness, weight loss
*Decluttering
*Participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)

I'm not setting specific goals, like I want to lose 5 lbs., or not have any sweets, or get rid of 50 items, or hit a certain word amount in NaNoWriMo. I know November's a busy month so I'm not sure how much of this I'll accomplish, but I wanted to put those wishes out there, and I'll blog any progress I make on any of these goals. Hopefully that will spur me to do some things, because I've been feeling scattered and lazy and unfocused for the past couple weeks.

I think it might have something to do with 1) finishing with breastfeeding, which wasn't something I enjoyed but did give me a sense of purpose; 2) going on the trip to England, which we'd been planning basically since AA was born; and 3) getting rid of credit card debt, which has been my main life goal for the past three-plus years. Having three such big parts of my life, big responsibilities, end one way or another in one month may have zapped my motivation in other parts of my life temporarily. I want to feel some momentum again, and I'm hoping it's in one or more of the areas I mentioned.

And, AS's third student loan payment of the month hit, with $60 going to principal. That brings our October debt repayment to $2004!

That will be it for October; I'll post a goal wrap-up and November goals sometime this weekend. Right now we're heading out to one of our favorite restaurants for pizza! Hooray for the weekend!

One of AS's student loan payments hit, putting $124 to principal. That makes $1944 paid this month toward debt.

We had a big clothes shopping spree this weekend. I'd been saving up money in the UK account for the trip we just took. Well, both of NT's parents gave us money, and hardly anyone let us pay for anything. So we transferred the remaining money we'd saved into the US account and went shopping! It was nice to not just go to the bargain stores for once. For the first time in my life I spent more than $20-$30 for a pair of jeans, and I absolutely love them. Sooo comfy and nice-looking.

We went out to eat a few times as well; we had a rental car for what we initially thought was going to be the lawyer visit, but the lawyer rescheduled so we could also meet with one of the partners (apparently our case has garnered some interest). Luckily they'll meet us in downtown at NT's work so I won't need to rent another car. So we kept the car rental and knocked out a few errands, including getting our cat Noodles's annual shots and checkup, in addition to our big spree and eating out.

At one of the meals out, we had a family meeting to discuss how our budget surplus should be allocated in 2011. I still need to make a few tweaks for some annual expenses I'll need to create "escrow" line items for, but it was really nice to get family input. But generally, here's what we decided:
*We'll be putting extra money toward education, whether paying down debts faster or cashflowing some of NT's remaining classes rather than taking out additional loans.
*We're also going to allocate $150 per month to charity next year, which is something we've been wanting to do for a while.
*We'll still put a large amount aside for vacations, because we all love travel and put it near the top of our wants list.
*I'll be opening Roth IRAs and putting an average of $300 per month in them, divided evenly between the three of us. It's not much, but it's a start.
*I'm keeping a small cushion of unallocated money each month to hopefully avoid using the EF for anything (or derailing any of our other financial allocations). I'm calling it the "Oh sh*t" line item!
*We're looking into getting housecleaning once or twice a month. Total luxury, but we all have other things we work on outside of our full-time jobs, so we could definitely use some professional help.

In other good money news, AS got a $1125 freelance check, I got a $125 profit-sharing check from the grocery co-op, and NT got concrete news of a $1500 (before tax) bonus coming in his next paycheck! AS's freelance work keeps flowing, and NT's job is probably going to give a second bonus before the end of the year. So we've really been rolling in money recently (and boy is it easy to spend). But this should help us take care of things this year before our new budget goes into effect.

I'm not implementing anything immediately, because I'm not sure how much the lawyers are going to charge for our parental-rights stuff, and there may be other legal issues that come up in the meeting that we want to get taken care of right away too. So I'll probably need most of our remaining 2010 budget surplus for that. Our meeting is now Monday, Nov. 1, so I'll tell all about it once I know more!

I couldn't help but share this because I feel like there are occasionally discussions of "why do women do such-and-such" (probably because we're a majority-female, largely civil community and so it's a safe place to ponder such questions without getting beat up for it!). This is a thought-provoking take on the most oft-repeated questions, and it all boils down to the same piece of advice: Treat each situation/girl individually. Worth remembering even for the women, because I feel like we sometimes try to give broad answers that, of course, might not have anything to do with the specific situation that triggered the conversation. (Not that I mind having said conversations, but this link reminds me to take all of it with a grain of salt.)

Enjoy!

http://www.cracked.com/article_18804_the-6-wrong-questions-men-love-to-ask-about-women.html?wa_user1=4&wa_user2=Sex&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=recommended

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): $10,376
AS's 403(b): $3,300
AS's IRA: $1,682
AS's 401(k): $1,005
CJ's 401(k): $35,078
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $8,634
---
Total Assets: $544,829

Total Debt: $356,205

Current Estimated Net Worth: $188,624

August 2010 estimate: $181,108

Change in net worth: +$7,516

Summary: All of our U.S. retirement funds posted gains, and I also got an annual notice of gains on one of NT's UK pensions. We also of course paid off the last credit card, so debt decreased by a bit. All in all a great month! I don't expect I'll do much with either debt or savings for the rest of the year, so our gains will probably be more modest. But I do plan to start Roth IRA accounts for all of us in 2011, so that will help the balance sheet.

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've been wanting to write my big, huge news for a while, but we've been traveling to visit friends and family in England until yesterday, and today a very spoiled little AA has been demanding constant attention. Right now I'm letting her fume in the swing a little bit, hoping she'll get back to her sunny self soon!

Anyway, couple of payments hit. One of AS's student loans got $97 put to principal. And...drum roll, please...

$774 went to my last credit card, eliminating the remaining balance! That's right, we're finally, finally free of all credit card debt!

I made some rough calculations based on spotty recordkeeping from the bad old days. I believe at our lowest point we had about $82,500. Well, $5,000 was "estimated future debt" because I'd already promised NT we could visit England for his sister's wedding when I started the challenge. But we ended up funding the trip without creating any new debt. Also, I ended up transferring $7,402 of credit card debt by using student loan money to "pay" it. So, in actuality we paid off about $70,000 between mid-2007 and now to get where we are.

As this was my first really big milestone, I have to agree with fellow bloggers that it's a bit anticlimactic! But it feels really, really good to have that weight and embarrassment off my mind. I have lots and lots of things I want to do with our money now that our stupidest debt is gone, so now it's a matter of prioritizing wants, needs, donating, spending, saving and repaying, to try and use our money as smartly as possible to enjoy ourselves now while still preparing for the future.

Oh yeah, and I reached the October debt goal! Almost forgot about that. I've paid off $1,820 of debt, exceeding the $1,700 goal.

First of all, thanks for all your kind words on my previous post. I have decided to stop pumping, and it appears I'm nearly done with nursing too as a result. Made it 7 months so I'm pretty proud of myself! I know working moms who lasted much longer, but I also know some who found it too difficult to work into their busy lives.

So I'm not going to fight them taking away my room at work, but at my meeting with my boss this Friday I am going to ask for his advice on lodging some kind of complaint about how the situation was handled, to hopefully prevent this happening to any other women in the future.

I'm glad our meeting isn't today, because I feel quite woozy. Last night around 7, a slight scratchiness in the back of my throat suddenly escalated to full-body tender skin, a headache and fatigue. I went to bed at 10 p.m. and slept off and on until 7 a.m., but it was a terrible night's sleep. I was achey, and hot/sweaty or cold/shivering by turns. AA coughed what felt like the whole night, and three or four times she started crying in her sleep so that we had to get up and feed her, change her or help her get into a better position and get her pacifier in. This is unusual for her; she might cough or grumble enough to wake us up slightly, but she usually quiets down on her own. This morning she seemed groggy at first, but then she was in a really great mood, blabbing and smiling all over the place. So hopefully whatever she and I have will be really mild and shortlived, and not interfere with the trip!

I'm thinking I'll mail the UK taxes while we're actually there, to save some money on postage. I just have to finish filling them out; I should be able to knock it out in one night, so I'm not even going to try tonight.

An old college buddy saw my plea for financial advice on Facebook and met up with me this past weekend. He didn't have any specific advice, but he did think that I need to be including the UK rental income on my U.S. taxes. So, this year I'll probably try and find someone affordable to help me figure that out. Then if I've been doing the old ones wrong, I guess I'll have to send in revised taxes for '07, '08 and '09. I hope the fines won't be too steep! I think I'm OK on the UK taxes; I'm half considering trying to schedule an appointment with an adviser while we're over there, but I may not want to pile that on top of all the family and friend time. We'll see. I suppose if I knew for sure I was doing the UK taxes right, that would help me know what to include on the U.S. taxes if I find out I need to be doing that.

This friend also mulled over my retirement problems. He doesn't know the specifics of tax treaties, but he figured since we'll probably continue to make more money, and since tax rates will probably rise whether we live in the U.S. or the UK, that Roth IRAs would be the best place to start (pay the taxes now while we're in a lower bracket). So I'm going to look into that next year. Don't know if I'll be able to put away the maximum for each of us, but I should be able to manage some contributions.

Last week, I went to an informative free estate-planning seminar at a law firm. I got the invitation from my diaper-cleaning service! The lawyer broke down estate planning into four areas that you need to worry about: wills/trusts (including appointing a guardian for children in case of death), health care directives, power of attorney, and nonprobate assets. This will be on my radar to get done either late this year or sometime next year. I still have the meeting with the family planning lawyer later this month, so I'll see if what I learn from him affects any of what I've learned so far.

One thing that's in the back of my mind is that with the intent of immigration back to England someday, I do still need to keep proof of NT and I being in a marriage together. I want to meld our family with AS as much as possible, but I think the arrangement would send up red flags to immigration officials about whether NT and I were actually married or just in a marriage of convenience to be able to immigrate. So for the purposes of those applications, I need to keep some proof of our marriage that's just about the two of us.

I have so many ambitious goals for our money next year, but I know I won't be able to achieve them all! It's going to be hard to prioritize between maxing out Roth IRAs, upping our charitable contributions, paying down student loan debt, and saving up for some nice vacations.

On a positive note, I think we're going to have lots of money to decide how to spend this last quarter of 2010. NT looks to have two bonuses coming up before the end of the year, AS has just taken on another freelance project that pays $1100 (and she may get others before the year is over), and who knows? Maybe I'll actually be able to talk myself into a raise this Friday.

So...I had kind of a meltdown at work today. Basically the facilities manager casually informed me that A) someone would be moving into my boss's old office, which I'd been using for pumping and had requested to get moved in to, and B) that there wouldn't be anywhere for me to pump after that. Suffice it to say, after being overworked for three months with no reward, and after having my pumping station shuttled from room to room with periodic questions about how long I was going to keep doing it, I was like a pile of dry tinder waiting for a spark. I bawled quietly in my cubicle for about half an hour. AS saw my Facebook status and called, and I cried into the phone until she left work early. My new boss saw me in the hall and came over to talk to me, and I burst out crying again trying to talk to him. Very unusual for me. I'd been meaning to talk to him in a much calmer, more positive way next week, so this put a kink in my plans. I do think it got his attention, though, so maybe it won't turn out all bad. He did offer to find me somewhere else to pump, but by that point, I decided I should just quit now, instead of next month as I'd already planned. AS came and took me out for a bit, and then I went back and finished what was absolutely necessary. I still feel kind of headachey from that huge burst of emotion. But I'm in PJs, sitting around at home, so I feel better.

Anyway, despite that freaky incident, it was a good day on the money front. The following payments processed:
US mortgage: $386
UK mortgage #1: $259
UK mortgage #2: $56
UK mortgage #3: $57
Credit card: $191
All told, that's $949 down, $751 to go on my October goal.

AS got a $225 freelance check that I forgot she was getting, so I deposited that in the bank and will put it toward the credit card ASAP. I also noticed my and NT's paychecks were higher than usual, so I'll put any extra to the card debt as well. Right now, the CC is down to $774, but it won't stay there for long!

Our next mortgage payment will be $34 less, but we'll be paying $20 MORE to principal. That's because our ARM's interest rate is adjusting down, from 3.875% to 3.5%.

Oh, and we've now got over 2000 pounds in the UK checking account. A nice cushion so we don't have to be too cautious about our spending on the trip!

I thought this ( http://shine.yahoo.com/event/lifeslittlepleasures/9-signs-youre-happier-than-you-think-2392659/ ) was a thought-provoking article. I definitely agreed that the things that matched up in my life with the recommendations were sources of pleasure, while the things on the list that I'm missing have been voids that I'm conscious of. They're things I want to think about and work on, when my job hopefully gets more sane. And if my job doesn't, well, I either need to figure out a way to work in my other needs, or I need to find a different job.

Anyway, a great month for debt repayment; totally makes up for missing my August goal! I started September with $361,876 and ended it with $358,025 of debt, paying off $3,851. And also hitting the milestone of having paid more than $100,000 of debt off!

My October goal is to pay off at least $1700 of our debt. I'm actually hoping to do more than that; I want to get closer to $2000 and finish off the last of my credit card debt. But looking at the numbers I'm not 100 percent sure that's going to happen. Maybe 75 percent sure. Since I'd hate to miss another goal, I'm going to keep it conservative at $1,700. So my goal debt balance will be $356,325.

I'm on a roll this month! Two of AS's student loan payments hit: $115 and $59 to principal, so $174 total. That makes it $3851 of debt paid in September.

That'll be it for debt payments this month. October won't be nearly as impressive, what with me having to take unpaid time off for our England trip. Also, I set up that meeting with the family-planning lawyer, so car rental and lawyer fees will cost us a few hundred. However, NT may get a bonus and some OT pay, and AS might get her freelance check, so I'm still hoping to pay off the last of my credit card debt next month. Ooooh, I hope so!

I realized I was feeling stressed about the family time coming up in England; afraid that the trip would be more exhausting than relaxing, when I really need a vacation. I vented a ton to NT last night and it actually made me feel much calmer! I think bottling in my worries was making them much worse. Now I feel ready to face the trip with an open mind. Maybe his family will take pity and be less weird and stressful than mine and AS's were during our July DC trip.

This has been an exhausting, expensive week. This work situation (of basically doing my job and my former boss's for no extra money) is really getting to me. Everyone in the house has had some form of cold (the first of many presents from daycare, I assume) and NT, who's typically superhumanly healthy, got hit especially hard.

So after unsuccessfully trying to talk him into ordering food instead of cooking Monday, I took the bull by the horns and stopped off at one of our favorite Indian restaurants on Tuesday after work. Indian food? My treat? NT couldn't say no. He was in heaven.

That wiped out most of my spending money. Then I didn't feel like any of the leftovers in the fridge for a couple days (there were these two options I was never in the mood for--don't know why I was being stubborn!), so I bought lunch two days in a row. Then on Thursday, I bought a six-pack of beer for me and AS, knowing we had lots of crappy work staring us in the face.

So Thursday night, I was all out of personal spending money. AS had freelance work, NT had schoolwork, and I'd had to bring some editing home from my regular job. I proposed something I never do: We ordered delivery and I just "worked it into the budget." (For the time being I took it out of future grocery money, but we're so far into future grocery money that I may have to do something else.)

It felt so weird, but we were all run down with colds and work, and you can never quite take a full-on lazy night with a baby to feed, change and entertain, so we just did it. I have a large money surplus every month, so it's not like we can't afford it, but I just usually put that money either toward debt, savings or some PLANNED fun purchase, such as travel or gifts. Our spending money is the only money we use for piddling away on takeout food, and it's pretty much been that way for more than three years now.

We got more spending money on Friday, and we pitched in to get some wine and beer (and some fancy nonalcoholic beverages for our nondrinker friend) for dinner at our friends' place.

This freelance project AS just finished up will pay $700, and I've already decided half will go to debt and half we can use for clothes. So I "advanced" us the $350 to go clothes shopping. Saturday we went to the mall and hit up our usual places, Old Navy and H&M. H&M is on a really annoying all-skinny-pants, super-duper-eighties thing right now, so I found nothing, but Old Navy had some cheap, nice tops. We hit DSW and Payless for some new work shoes. NT got a gorgeous gray hoodie at Puma.

And finally we went to Sears out of desperation, because I couldn't find non-tapered pants anywhere (and with my proportions, believe me, they're not a good idea). Turns out Sears has a fairly nice, fairly cheap selection of clothes. Who knew? I think of them as the place to get appliances. So I finally found some trousers that aren't skin-tight all the way down, and AS found a nice embellished tank top. We resolved to go straight to Sears first the next time we have clothes money, because at that point we were too tired and nearly out of money so we didn't really look around much.

I did pretty well--I actually didn't try that hard to find on-sale stuff, but some of it found me. At Old Navy I got a long belted cardigan for $20 and two long-sleeve tees for $6.50 each. My Payless shoes I thought were going to be $30 a pair, but when they rang me up, one was $30 and one was $25. And my two pairs of trousers I thought would be $30 each, but one was only $10! I meant to spend $105 and spent $128 instead, but I've got some spending cash that I'll pay in on Monday, so it's all good.

Not sure how the other two fared, but I think they both stayed under their spending limits (they know they have to pay in some of their spending cash if they didn't). I know NT got a pair of Old Navy trousers for less than $5.

We also got a snack at the food court after all that shopping.

So, phew. Not frugal by many people's calculations. The reason I say it's way better than in the old days, though, is that it's all paid for. Even the unplanned food delivery on Thursday, though it was not budgeted for, I have money in the bank to pay for. And that is my main goal in life. Only buy stuff if I can afford it. This definitely felt like all stuff we could afford. If we couldn't, we'd have found cheaper solutions for all of the above. I have faith in our fiscal discipline and really believe that.

OK, today is going to be an intense day at work, so I may not get a chance to write again. I want to get this in before I'm completely swamped.

I sent another big payment ($745) to my credit card, and now it's down to $965! That's right, our total household credit card debt is down to three figures!

Eeeeeee!

Also, that makes $3677 of debt paid in September.

I feel so great!