Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

What a weird-feeling day. One week from my due date. One day from my 36th birthday. I have the day off and just feel like sitting around, but I set myself a number of tasks so I'm going to have to get going here soon.

But, one of the things I wanted to do was update my financial info, so this counts toward the day even though I'm still in my bathrobe.

The UK mortgages hit, with $379 total going to principal. $751 to go on the March repayment goal.

There was about 300 pounds left in the UK checking account, so I decided to leave most of it there in checking to put toward our UK trip. (I won't note it in my sidebar, because the $3000 I'm trying to raise is for plane tickets which I'm going to pay for with US funds.) It will be used to rent a car when we visit England. I'll probably keep more out of savings so we can also have a couple of dinners out while we're over there, and buy our own groceries (we'll be staying with various nonvegetarian friends and relatives).

I only have three things to do outdoors today: mail some thank-you cards for the shower and a care package for a sick friend (waiting to get some addresses before I go), pick up a gift certificate for another friend, and get my license renewed. Sucky timing: It expires tomorrow, and I was just going to leave it until after the birth, until I thought that maybe I'll need current ID for hospital, pediatric clinic, etc.? Sigh. So I'm going today and I'll at least have the paperwork that I've applied for a new one. And I'll have a round pregnant face on my driver's license for the next five years. Ah well.

The (controlled) spending continues: We had our birthday meals out, bought a bunch more groceries, and ordered the sewing cabinet this weekend. (AS is moving her sewing operations out into the dining area, and since we have an open kitchen/dining/living room area, we needed something that closed up and looked very neat and tidy when it wasn't in use. About $670, but it came from her business account, so it won't affect us. She had $900 to spend so she did pretty well. She can buy some other minor things if needed to complete the transition out of the nursery into the dining area.

We also started checking for price quotes on a good thorough floor cleaning and/or polish. The floor is just kind of grimy and dull; we haven't done a deep clean on it in years. Plus there are some spots with minor damage from furniture, sun, and in one spot an old stain from a spill of a very sticky substance that got into the veneer before it was detected. No real hurry on this, but we kind of want it at least clean before baby starts crawling around. I got an $85 quote for just a floor washing, $1250 for a "renewal" including polish, but we'll keep looking and see if we get wildly differing quotes from the ones we've got so far. If not, I think just a cleaning; after all, the floor is just going to get worn out again, so I'm inclined not to get it completely fixed and polished until we're ready to move out (years from now). I'd much rather focus on getting the stove paid for and the balcony screened in for next spring (probably can't raise the money in time for this spring).

On the income side, AS got another freelance check. She checked her records and saw that including the one she just got, she's expecting over $2000 in checks in the next week or so. That will all go to the travel fund; rounding out the UK airfare and giving us some spending money for Va. (for food, possibly rental car, maybe a night in a hotel to ourselves). Oh yeah, I should deposit that check today; another thing to do while out!

Another bit of good financial news: We found out that NT's job automatically enrolled him in flex spending last year and this year! We thought you had to opt in, and since he tends not to have any medical expenses we stopped enrolling after 2008, but they kept him on it anyway. $150 for 2009 and $150 for 2010. Why is this good news? We found out just in time to scrape some receipts together and claim the $150 from last year, and now we know to keep receipts for random over-the-counter stuff this year and we'll easily get the $150 back. So we won't lose any money and in fact I can replenish the medical expenses fund for almost all of the cost of the diaper service. Neat!

We had a fantastic month of debt repayment in February, which is good because otherwise it was not a particularly frugal month. In the February eat-at-home challenge, I think we maybe racked up 2 points. LOL.

First, I found out that AS frequently buys a Coke at work, nearly every day. Then, I've felt less inclined to go walking around with NT at lunch, so he's been coming over to my building, where the only place to sit is in the coffee shop. So we've been buying beverages to be able to sit together there.

Then, I've been trying to have date nights, and we've been too exhausted to cook some nights, so we've been eating out or getting takeout WAY more than we usually do. Also, my sugar and chocolate cravings have been so bad that I've been buying random candy bars and snacks, which I virtually NEVER did before I got pregnant.

Then there was Valentine's Day, and this weekend, AS and I are having our birthday dinners out. Our birthdays are March 2 and 4, but since we're so close to the due date we decided to celebrate early.

Also, our grocery spending has gone way over what it normally does because we've been buying all sorts of nonperishable foods (we usually eat mostly fresh foods and don't have a very heavily stocked pantry) and convenience meals in preparation for whatever the first few weeks have in store.

And then, we had a flurry of baby-supply buying for any supplies that we didn't get through hand-me-downs or baby-shower gifts.

Despite all that, we still managed to save up most of the money needed for our family trips and to put a bit away in the EF, so I don't feel bad about it, but it's just been a weird feeling to do so much buying.

For March, my debt-payment "goal" is just to pay the minimum required maintenance on everything, about $1130 total. So we'll follow our record-breaking month with another record--the lowest amount of debt paid since I started my journey. LOL.

Other than that, I have a whole huge list of to-dos for March, divided into pre- and post-birth, but I won't bore you with them. They'll get taken care of because they pretty much have to.

Well, we're lazing around watching movies, so I decided to check AS's student loan account, and our payment was there! $116 went to principal, so that brings our February debt repayment to $5079. Cracking $5K is a new record for us!

How did we do it? Some of it was planned. Some was due to bigger-than-expected tax refunds. Then there was a flurry of freelance income from AS. Plus, we'd been hanging onto some of her 2009 income in case she owed self-employment tax, so we were able to put that toward debt as well.

This is a good flourish before we settle into minimum payments only, which consist of about a grand a month, until probably late summer.

My credit card payment hit, just the minimum, with $144 going to principal. After a heady couple of months of paying down big chunks of debt, we need to pull back and pay the minimums for awhile until we've made sure the baby is all right, the months of reduced pay are over, and the trips to see the grandparents are fully funded.

So our total progress on debt in February is $4963. If one of AS's student loans hits tomorrow (not sure if they process payments on Saturdays), we'll crack $5000 this month. If not, still an awesome month.

Our biweekly $25 was transferred into savings, so I'm putting that toward our England trip: $2476 saved, $524 to go. AS just completed a freelance proofing job, so soon we'll get $600 or $700 (can't remember exactly) to put toward travel.

That's good, because I projected out the next six months or so, and I did some maneuvering so that we'll stay in our budget just fine, but we won't have ANY extra money (beyond the biweekly $25) to put toward travel until July at the earliest, and one of our trips will have already happened by then. I'm going to have a family meeting and see if they think we need more money for the Va. trip, and if so, what we should move around to do so. Thanks to momcents' recent blog post I'm feeling much more mellow about viewing our money as one big amount vs. separate untouchable buckets, so I feel confident we can come up with something.

Of course, I tried to be conservative in my estimates of our reduced paychecks, so I have some hope that they'll be a little higher than what I'm projecting, but not much. At some point my HR will give me a projection of what my checks will look like, but I'm not sure at what point they do that, and me being me I just had to work out some kind of rough estimate so we could be looking ahead.

A week and a half to go, if baby is planning to stick to the schedule! I just set up diaper cleaning service--weird! Have to figure out how I'm going to pay for that--leaning toward my medical-expense fund, since it's at a healthy level and doesn't feel as drastic as taking from the emergency fund. The good news is it's one lump sum that covers 12 weeks, so I only have to come up with it once--after that we're planning on managing the cleaning for ourselves, but we thought we could use any help we could get in the first couple months.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
14,721 pounds ($29,442)
NT's 401(k): $7,400
AS's 403(b): $3,237
AS's IRA: $1,681
AS's 401(k): $104
CJ's 401(k): $31,406
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $8,256
---
Total Assets: $516,026

Total Debt: $372,825

Current Estimated Net Worth: $143,201

January 2010 estimate: $135,321

Change in net worth: +$7,880

Summary: My dad cashed all the checks I gave him since my last update, so our net worth skyrocketed! I would be happier if I hadn't gotten a disturbing piece of mail: My property valuation by the county went down from about $151K to about $137K. Yikes! I haven't changed it on the info above because I go by sale prices, so I'll start watching for how comparable units in my condo are selling, and adjust my assets next time if necessary.

In other good news, though, I got a peek at how AS's old 403(b) account is doing--it's been gaining 6% all along, but I wasn't able to see that, so I got to record it as a nice lump gain this time. She also opened her 401(k) at her new job and we added $80 to her IRA. So her individual net worth should show a nice little bump (which may or may not be crushed next month by our condo's falling value, but c'est la vie).

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

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are conservative. I don't have a way to check NT's UK pensions or flat value, so their values stay static for the purpose of this update (unless I happen to get some info by chance). UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $2 for every British pound, which was the exchange rate when I started keeping track. I maintain that ratio for the purpose of tracking progress, even though the exchange rate is now closer to $1.60 per British pound.

AS needed a refill, so we spent $107.78 to buy 1000 more minutes. She made her minutes last 4.5 months this time, much better than the previous record of 3.5 months. Having a work phone has made a huge difference, and she didn't even have it for half of this time.

Initial layout to get us set up with phones and 2300 minutes: $241.63
NT's late-May Net10 fillup: $32.65
AS's late-June T-Mobile fillup: $107.40
NT's late-July Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-September Net10 fillup: $32.82
AS's early-October T-Mobile fillup: $107.78
NT's late-November Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-January Net10 fillup: $32.82
AS's late-February T-Mobile fillup: $107.78

So our total cost so far is $728.52.

I still have 140 of my original minutes, NT has 185 remaining on his phone, and of course AS has 1000 brand new minutes. We're assuming that's the last we'll have to buy before late March, at which point I'm going to start a fresh year of calculations. So, if I divide our total cost by 12, our new plan cost us an average $60.71 per month over the span of a year. That's much better than our $85 average on the T-Mobile family plan (and better than the $80 minimum which our family plan used to cost us in a really good month).

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March, meaning it's been 11 months. 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 next year is to get my average cost to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 will be a savings.)

One of AS's student loans hit: $79 to principal. Makes the February debt repayment toal $4819. This is also the loan that I want paid off by December 2011, so it's progress on one of my Big-Picture Goals.

I must be feeling protective of monkeymama because of the awful comments someone has been posting to her blog! I had a dream that I had this magical device where I could go through the SA website and directly into SA bloggers' homes. I used it to go into monkeymama's house where she was being robbed, and helped fight off the robber and call for help.

When everything was OK and the robber had been arrested, I said soemthing like, "And look! Since I came straight into your house, I still have no idea where you live. Your anonymity is still safe!" Then I went back to my life using the magic device. LOL.

I've developed two more financial goals that would be nice to accomplish in 2010, but I'm not sure I'll add them to the list since I still think my current goals are kind of ambitious, but it's in the back of my mind that they could be completed this year. One is that we want to screen in our 18th-floor balcony so it'll be safer for the kid (and the kitty) to be out there. For the kid, we won't really need it until summer 2011, but it would be nice to have it this summer for the cat. It costs about $1800 to get the screens installed.

The other is to find some experts to help me out with all the complex financial and familial situations we have, to make sure I'm protecting all of us and doing the best for the future. On the SA forums someone was asking who had a trusted financial adviser, and it reawakened my desire to get some help with our life.

I think I need a tax expert fluent in both U.S. and UK taxes to make sure I'm reporting everything correctly; I've been doing both for about three years now, so if I was making mistakes it would be good to correct them before I have too many years to fix.

Then I need a financial adviser who can address taxation practices for both the U.S. and the UK, and can steer us toward the right strategy for our unique situation, which is contributing to retirement in America now but eventually retiring in England. We also need to know whether it's beneficial to do a tax-free college fund in the U.S. if chances are our child will be going to school in England.

And finally, we need help from a family lawyer who has experience with nontraditional family structures, to see what parental rights we can put in place for AS, and to figure out wills and other documents to protect our family's cohesion in the event of serious injury or death of one or both of the (biological) parents.

So, all of that is going to cost me money. We'll see if I can afford to do anything about it this year.

My dad just e-mailed me to let me know he cashed the last three checks! Even though they haven't come out of my checking account yet, I'm counting this as PAID because he has the cash in hand and I know they're not going to bounce when they do hit my account.

Happy, happy, happy dance! He wrote a really nice note in response to my thanks for the loan--very unusual for my dad to write about anything resembling feelings, and my note to him was pretty effusive (by my family's standards) so I'm pretty touched he acknowledged it. My parents love me very much but are not so much about talking about it. LOL

This one's going on the Old Debt Graveyard page as soon as I come back from a meeting.

Oh! And it gets my (and by extension the household's) personal debt down below $10K!! Now we just have to tackle that last credit card.

Oh yeah, and it means I passed my February goal of payind off $1800--so far I've paid off $4740!

AS's federal refund was deposited yesterday, $1338. Her paycheck also hit and was still $20 more than I expected. I'll have to look at her stub and make sure she's paying her healthcare premiums. (Or maybe it's one of those plans where the employee doesn't have to pay a premium...well, I have to find out what's going on one way or the other.)

So anyway, that means I get to put $1358 into the travel savings, bringing the UK travel fund to $2451. So close to the $3000 minimum goal! Just goes to show that really trying to predict your finances is a bit like playing the stock market. Sometimes when I'm really confident I'll hit a goal, something unforeseen pops up. Other times, when I'm a bit pessimistic and think I won't be able to reach my target, all of a sudden things fall into place and I hit it even sooner than I ever hoped. At this rate, a lot of things would have to screw up for us to miss our goals.

I think I forgot to mention in my last post that I e-mailed my dad on Friday and let him know he could cash the last three $1000 checks, thereby wiping out my debt to him! It may take a while for him to do it, but at least I know I've taken the final step and now just need to sit back and wait for it to happen.

Today was our baby shower with friends (as opposed to the workplace showers). It was very unstructured and fun, just people chatting and snacking and having a good time. The only shower-y thing we did was I opened gifts while everyone watched. It made me really shy and overwhelmed to see all the things people got us and the sweet things they wrote in the cards. I just hoped people could tell how much I appreciated it, because I'm not sure how much I emoted.

Anyway, we're pretty much set for baby to come. All we need now is a carseat (we discovered that the freebie one we found had "expired"), some disposable diapers for the first few days, breast pump and bottles, some swaddling blankets and burp cloths, cloth diaper service (just for the first three months, then we'll clean our own). Eventually we'll need a crib mattress, but we got a nice Moses basket bassinet that we'll be using at first. And we'll need cloth liners for diapers once we start doing it ourselves (someone gave us several outer diapers, but we might have to supplement that with a few more). Several of these things can be purchased at the hospital, and their prices are actually quite competitive!

Tomorrow the baby is full term, meaning it can come anytime with no cause for concern. Our due date is March 8. Whether or not the baby comes by then, I'm starting my maternity leave then (unless of course it comes sooner). I haven't had any signs that the baby is impatient to come early, so my feeling is that it will be on time or a little late.

The mixture of calm and extreme excitement I feel as we prepare for this is just indescribable! It's definitely something I wouldn't have been able to understand before actually going through it.

My and NT's paychecks came early--I forgot Monday was a holiday; that's probably why. (I have to work that day but I do get a make-up vacation day later.)

My paycheck was a bit bigger than expected (I had attempted to calculate the drop in pay from today being a furlough day), so I put that $42 toward the travel fund, as well as the $25 regular biweekly savings transfer that happened yesterday. So the UK travel fund is up to $1093.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I just realized why my paycheck was more--I altered my federal withholding in anticipation of having another dependent this year, and because I got such a big refund for 2009. Cool, now I can go through my budget and increase my projected paychecks a bit!

Last Saturday we had a date night--dinner and a movie. (At my request we're trying to do something date-y at least once a week; enjoying our freedom, so to speak.)

Conversation turned to the two family trips we're planning this year, and I explained how I wasn't sure I'd be able to save up for much more than the plane tickets, what with the other financial goals, unpaid parental leave and unpredictability of our soon-to-arrive new family member. I revealed I was hoping that our families would pull through to provide us room, board and transportation once we got there.

AS was especially resistant to this idea. She didn't want to feel trapped with any of our families, and admitted a bit of resentment that we were using all our vacation time to visit, when no one ever visits us in return. (For understandable health and/or financial reasons, but I still get where she's coming from.) Since these are going to be our only "vacations," she wanted a few perks if possible to make them more bearable. NT also mentioned that his parents don't have a lot of extra money and so their ability to provide for us might be limited.

I recently raised our allowances, and she and NT both offered to go back to the old amount and have the extra money go into making the trips a bit more luxurious.

So that was going to be the plan, until:
- AS's tax refunds ended up being nearly $800 more than expected, and
- I realized that we could use some of the income from renting the UK flat. Every month I just shuffle whatever's left over after paying the UK mortgages into the EF. While it's certainly a good idea to do so, it's not strictly necessary to do it EVERY month. So if I keep a few months' income in checking instead of dumping it into the EF, we can use that to rent a car, have a meal or two out, or even get a night at a hotel room while we're in England.

So I now feel more confident about my chances of meeting all our financial goals AND being able to put a bit more away for the trips than I originally planned. And I don't think I'll need to take back our increased spending money, though we're all going to squirrel some of it away for the trips just in case.

On that note, AS got another freelance check. We'd decided she could afford to give me $1000 from last year's profits and $1000 from this year's. I'm taking the whole recent check minus a small IRA contribution--$690--plus $1000 from her business account, for the vacation fund. That means I've funded the $1000 for the Va. trip and have $1026 saved toward England. I'm going to get the base amounts saved, so we can order plane tickets as soon as we're sure we'll be able to travel, then work on my Amex credit card for awhile. Then, before the trips take place (June/July and Aug/Sept), I'll put some more into the Va. travel fund (the UK one should be fine now that I'm going to use the rental income for that one).

I'm happy that we're getting lucky and making so much progress on this year's goals early on! The more we do now, the more we'll be able to roll with the punches for the rest of the year.

All done with our taxes! I e-filed both federal returns for free and am hard-copy filing the MN state ones. I'll be mailing out AS's today since she gets a refund; I'll wait to send out mine and NT's until we get our federal refund, since we owe a bit.

AS's refunds are bigger than I anticipated, over $1700 total. I'd be annoyed that we were that far off except 1) it was a total wild-card year, with a home business and unemployment, so better a big refund than owing, and 2) I've been eyeing my 2010 goals a bit worriedly, so the unexpected extra money will help tremendously.

I knew that last year was a little hard; due to furloughs and AS's layoff we had to cut back here and there. But I didn't realize to what extent until I looked at our completed returns next to our 2008 tax returns.

AS 2008 total income: $39,970
AS 2009 total income: $19,985

CJ/NT 2008 total income: $89,768
CJ/NT 2009 total income: $79,138

Combined 2008 total income: $129,738
Combined 2009 total income: $99,123

Wow, that's like $30,000 difference! We certainly didn't feel that kind of pinch in 2009.

The contributing factors to the income difference were AS's layoff for most of 2009, my furloughs and health-insurance cost increase, and NT's furloughs and lack of bonus. (Needless to say, none of us got raises either.)

The factors that made it doable, and the steps we took to cope with the smaller income:
-Stimulus program. I can't say enough about this; it really eased the burden of the layoff and furloughs. AS got $25 more per week for unemployment; we all got reduced tax bills and less withholding throughout the year; and the lump sums at the beginning really helped, too.
-Fewer bills. Luckily we'd aggressively attacked our debt in 2008 and knocked out a number of monthly bills, so our budget was already less tight and so absorbed the financial blows much more easily than it would have before. In a stroke of luck, our adjustable-rate mortgage actually adjusted downward at the end of the year, so we had two months of lower payments there.
-Gradual budget cuts. Whenever our income got reduced, we cut back in little ways rather than one big drastic cut. We reduced our grocery/household spending by $200 per month, reduced discretionary spending money in small increments, and cut back a bit on extra debt repay.
-Lifestyle adjustments. Besides monitoring our grocery costs more closely, we switched from a family contract cellphone plan to three prepaid phones (saving an average of $20 per month), and took a downsized fall vacation to Wisconsin instead of doing one of our big blowout trips.
-Frugal pregnancy. Although I misstepped when I chose the high-deductible insurance plan (which ended up costing us quite a bit more than the other plan would have), in everything else we've tried to be sensible. We've openly solicited hand-me-downs from friends and have avoided buying most of the supplies and furniture needed for the baby. In the grand scheme, what could have been a budget-buster in such a tight year hasn't been a financial strain at all.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head; I'm sure there were other factors but that's most of the biggies.

Wow, my dad already cashed the check I told him about last week! He doesn't even know how happy that makes me.

That makes $1740 down, $60 to go on the February debt-repayment goal. It also leaves just $3000 that I owe my dad. The original loan was $12,000 in 2003, and I started this year still owing him $6000.

He doesn't know it yet, but I should be able to have him cash all the remaining checks in under two weeks! (I'm holding off telling him until I'm sure nothing catastrophic happens to our budget between now and then.)

That will be a relief on multiple levels--being able to at last cut the purse strings connecting me to my parents, bringing our personal debt down under $10K, and getting to add another epitaph to the Old Debt Graveyard page.

The US mortgage payment hit with $376 going to principal. That makes $740 down, $1060 to go on my February goal.

I did my taxes on TaxAct.com and it was indeed free, though they kept throwing in sales pitches every couple steps. Also, they would charge if you wanted to preview schedules or forms before e-filing; the only thing they let you preview for free is 1040. So it took me awhile to figure out why they had my income as $3000 more than I thought it was. Turns out I needed to report my HSA as an income deduction. 2009 was my first (and last, for awhile at least) year of having an HSA, so I didn't know that. Once I figured that out it was fine. The software actually prompted me to itemize the state tax I owed last year, which had slipped my mind somehow, so I'm getting an extra $100 or so more than I'd calculated.

Now that I know my refund and when I'm getting it, I was able to shuffle some money around and make some progress on savings goals. I fully funded our birthdays with $600, $200 for each person's gifts. I also put $336 into the travel fund, so we're a third of the way to our Va. trip goal! The rest of the federal refund will go to pay MN state taxes, which I owe on.

I did a rough calculation of AS's taxes and it looks like she'll probably get a refund. Unless I'm really off on her business profits, should be about $1000. I did pretty well on hers; she would have broken even but for the Making Work Pay credit, the stimulus benefit of not paying taxes on the first $2400(?) of unemployment money, and starting a traditional IRA.

This means she has a nice chunk of change to help move her sewing operations into our dining area! That'll be fun to help her plan. We'll probably sell a few pieces of furniture, repurpose a few and buy some new things.

It also means we can take out some of her business profits to put toward our financial goals. Sweet...

The three UK mortgage payments hit:
UK#1: $254 to principal
UK#2: $54 to principal
UK#3: $56 to principal

All told, $364 down, $1436 to go on the February debt-repayment goal.

I tallied up my points for Wild Blue Yonder's January "30-in-30" decluttering challenge. We got rid of 52 items over the course of the month, and accumulated 89.5 points. Add in the 3-point bonus for hitting the 30-item goal, and our points total was 92.5. That was fun--and productive. Thanks fern!

I dumped the extra flat-rental income that didn't go to mortgages into UK savings--302 pounds, or $604 per the CJ exchange rate. Our baby/EF is now at $8255.69! I also put $25 into our birthday fund last week, so that's at $75. I think I'm going to go ahead and fund that fully to $600 using our tax refund; I was undecided, but we're making great progress on our goals and AS's freelance work just keeps rolling in, so I think we'll be OK.

Speaking of taxes, my company FINALLY made our W2s available online Friday! We were away all weekend, but now I can finally dive in and get my and NT's taxes done. AS is almost at a good stopping point between proofing projects, so probably tomorrow she can start attacking her business records and get her income and expenses for 2009 tallied.

I already know where the money's coming from for paying off the loan to my dad, so the next goal I'm focusing on is saving up money for a June trip to Va. Just $1000 to start with, to make sure we can cover plane tickets. Hopefully if we're doing well by June, we'll have enough money for a rental car, maybe some for eating at a restaurant or two. If not, we'll just depend on the kindness of grandparents to feed us and help us get around!

My credit card payment did hit on Saturday, with $222 going to principal (I sent in a bit more than the minimum payment). So our January grand total is $3216 of debt paid! If all goes well and my dad actually cashes checks when I tell him, February should be even better, but my stated debt goal will be really modest, to make sure I don't fall short should Dad flake.

So my minimum February debt payment goal is $1800, but I'm hoping it's more like $4800...

Another of AS's student loans hit, with $58 going to principal. That brings us to $2994 of debt paid this month.

I sent off my credit card payment today, but I'm not sure if it will hit tomorrow or whether it will go into next month's debt-repay totals. I also e-mailed my dad that he could cash in another $1000 check, but from what's happened so far he won't do it right away.

I just checked over the next month's cashflow and realized I can have him deposit the remaining $3000 after we get our Feb. 15 paychecks! So that debt will be retired 2 weeks earlier than planned (assuming he actually goes and deposits them). It will feel amazing to have this debt cleared up between us. Not that he's ever given me the slightest bit of guilt or pressure over it, but I've felt bad that it took me this long to pay him back.

I think that's it...I'm feeling very overwhelmed this week, just too many balls in the air, too hard trying to plan things with the upcoming birth such a wild card. Just over 5 weeks until my due date!

One of AS's student loans hit; $116 went to principal. That brings our January debt repayment to $2936.

We sold another book on Half.com. Unfortunately, Half's e-mails are always dated oddly and this one slipped unnoticed into my (admittedly cluttered) inbox. We were supposed to have shipped this book by the 22nd (gulp!). On the upside, the buyer basically lives across the street from us, so AS is going to just drop it off at her doorstep tonight. So it'll get to her about the same day it would have via Media Mail if we'd sent it on the 22nd. Anyway, one more for the declutter challenge!

Our checking and savings accounts are all with US Bank, and recently they began advertising this new deal, where if you put $1000 into a savings account you get a $50 Visa card, and if you keep the balance at that point or higher for a year, you get another $50. NT and I took advantage of this yesterday. We had to open a new checking account since our current one is joint with AS, but our savings account is only in our two names (which we did mainly to have some documentation of our marriage for our green-card application).

I transferred $1100 of our medical-expenses line item into the new checking account, then $1000 of that into our savings account. So we've already earned our first $50 card. I have to do regular transfers from that checking account into the savings account, which is kind of hassle-y since we don't really plan to use that checking account for anything, but I figure I'll just use it as a dumping ground for some of our medical funds. Shouldn't be too hard to keep track of since all the accounts are linked when I log in online.

If AS gets time sometime soon, I want her to open a savings account linked to her business checking account, which is just in her name. That way she can put aside $1000 of her profits into savings and get two $50 cards herself!

What with having to keep the savings account balance up for a year, it means we can't start withdrawing funds to put into CDs anytime soon, but this is a pretty good deal. Anyway, if we do really well this year, maybe we can find money in our budget to open some CDs.

Had to look up the spelling of that word! Sad because I'm an editor, but some words you just don't come across often enough to cement their spelling in your mind.

***

We have a few jobs opening up at my company, and I sent the descriptions to a friend of mine. He wrote back that he didn't think he had the right experience. I'd read his resume and thought it was mighty close to the job description, even if he didn't have some of the things listed under "preferred." I know it's a competitive job market, but it never hurts to throw your hat in the ring! I sent him a gentle dressing-down via e-mail, and he's going to apply for it after all. Some of my friends are just too humble and honest for their own good!

***

I've been thinking more about retirement planning. Even though I don't feel that should be the main focus of my money right now, I would like to have a ballpark plan that I could start implementing once we're free of credit-card debt at least. I've no idea how to find a planner with international tax expertise, so I'm just going to start poking around various company's Web sites (Ameriprise, for example) and see if I can find mention of that somewhere. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just look for places with fee-based consultations and start calling them to ask if they have anyone who qualifies.

Today I was thinking about how we indulge in quite a few luxuries compared with my frugal online friends (though we still live pretty thriftily compared to many real-life friends). If we cut our lifestyle down to the bone and still maintained three incomes, we could be out of debt probably in 5-7 years and have a nest egg for a modest early retirement in probably another 10 years (I'd be 50-52, NT would be 51-53 and AS would be 45-47). It's interesting to idly contemplate, but I'm comfortable with our choice of moderation. We're very controlled in our spending but still get to enjoy travel and high-quality food and some tech gadgets, and a few other luxuries and conveniences. We won't be getting out of debt anytime soon, but I believe we'll continue to make steady progress and get there eventaully. Same with our retirement. I think we'll be able to retire in our 60s if we want to, but probably not before if we want a similar or higher-level lifestyle to what we have now.

There are some risks to this strategy, because there's nothing to guarantee we'll all always be able to work, that we won't get hit with some unforeseen expense, etc. But in a way, that makes me want even more to make sure we're enjoying ourselves some now, because who knows if we'll have a more pressing need to cut back in the future?

I feel very fortunate that we're recovering fairly gracefully from the potential huge financial disaster that we were facing a few years ago. I think in a few years, we'll have made enough progress that little to no evidence will remain in our financials of how bad off we were at one point.

***

I did some airfare searches today. I don't want to reserve seats for our trips to visit family until the baby is safe in my arms, and I know it's healthy enough for travel--and I want to wait to make sure we're not going to have unexpected large expenses after the birth. But I'd like to get a rough idea of what it's going to cost.

We decided we can have the baby on our laps for the Virginia trip, but for the trip to England we'll want to reserve a seat so we can put it in a carseat occasionally--international plane trips are already uncomfortable and grueling enough without having to hold a baby the whole way.

At first when I was doing searches on the aggregator-type sites like Orbitz.com, they were indicating that I'd be charged full price for the infant seat. So I went directly to the Web site of the lowest-priced airline--IcelandAir--and searched for the fare there. Turns out the baby's seat will only cost about $150 with tax--whew! Far better than over $1000.

Looks like we'll easily get our Va. tickets for $1000 or less, but so far UK tickets are bringing us over $3000. I'm hoping it's because I'm searching so far in advance. I'd love to keep it to $3K or less.

***

Last night we were sucked into ordering Domino's Pizza. I don't know if you U.S.-based bloggers have seen their intriguing new ads, where they basically own up to the fact that many people think their pizza tastes like crap. They claim to have improved the crust and sauce considerably. So we tried ordering online and were delighted that the site gave us a name of a person who was supposedly beginning to prepare our order.

An hour and 20 minutes later, after many attempts to call them I finally got through. Turns out they had to take on all the business for another location which had been flooded (with water), and they were also taking in massive amounts of orders because of the football game, so they hadn't even started cooking our pizzas and didn't expect to deliver them for another 1-2 hours.

Which I was totally sympathetic about, having worked pizza delivery and knowing what it's like getting overwhelmed with orders and/or unusual weather conditions. (I went ahead and canceled the order since it was already getting pretty late and we weren't willing to wait potentially 2 hours to eat.) But it did show their online order-tracking system to be a complete useless lie. If the app doesn't have the capability to indicate a 3-hour wait for pizza, it shouldn't be there assuring you that "Troy" or whoever has already started cooking your food!

We were already primed for cheap pizza delivery, so we ordered some Pizza Hut, which was servicable and came within half an hour. We'd still like to try the "new improved" Domino's sometime, but next time we're calling, so we can get an idea of how long the order is going to take.

We're eating out on Tuesday, too! We've been going kinda nuts (relatively) on eating out/ordering in lately, but it hasn't affected our budget at all because it comes out of our discretionary spending money. It just means we have less money for other little luxuries. We're already planning where we want to eat for Valentine's Day and our birthdays (early March for me and AS; late March for NT).

***

This concludes my test of the emergency rambling system. I have to get ready to go to the dentist now.

I finally received my $260 check for some freelance proofreading I did in December! I used it to ensure that I'll be able to pay my dad off by March 1, assuming my budget follows my plan. We had some left over, so we were thinking about getting a new espresso/steamer machine (our current one doesn't steam milk properly anymore) or some CD towers (we need to make room for the board games we got for Xmas, so we want to move our CDs). We finally decided that I'll ask my parents for the espresso maker for my birthday, and we used the rest of the freelance money to supplement the current home improvement fund and pay for a CD shelf. Found it on Target.com, then found a better deal on the same case with free shipping on Amazon!

AS is finally signed up for her 401(k) at work--some incompetence on the provider's part delayed it. Now we just need confirmation that she's on her health care--they're being shamefully slow, and she's been technically uninsured since Jan. 1 (because she had to drop her private before she could apply for the new plan). Don't get me started...

AS got another freelance editing project that will get her about $600! I'm a little worried about her burning the candle at both ends, but I can't deny we can use the money this year...

I took home copies of a 2009 and 2010 paystub, along with benefits info for my '09 and '10 health insurance. It still seemed to me that my overall paycheck shouldn't be lower than last year, since my new health plan shouldn't have been offset completely by the stimulus withholding changing. Then when I read somewhere that the "making work pay" credit is still in effect this year, so federal withholding would only change a little to stretch the credit over 12 months, I really got suspicious that something was wrong with my check.

I sat down and checked everything. At least they were correctly billing me the individual premium, so they'd reversed my request to add NT to healthcare (I changed my mind once I saw his work's healthcare was still cheaper for him). No problem there. Then I noticed a $25, after-tax "healthcare surcharge." I realized what it was. My company has added a $50-per-month surcharge if you put your spouse on your plan and that spouse has access to employer-sponsored healthcare at their own job. Well, they'd apparently neglected to deactivate that charge even though NT isn't going to be on my plan.

I'm so glad I checked! This is the sort of thing that never would have been caught on their end, especially since it's completely separate from the insurance company's charges--this is just my company trying to discourage people from bringing their spouses onto our plan.

Once my rage had (mostly) subsided, I realized something: I'd been $60 per month off on my estimate of what my 2010 paycheck would look like. Once they fix this $50 error, it means I was actually within $10 of guessing my paycheck, and the difference is simply due to a change in withholding for the stimulus credit. Sweet! At least I don't feel as ignorant as I did when I saw my first 2010 paycheck. (I'm still pretty ticked at my HR department; this isn't the first ball they've dropped, and I'm not looking forward in my postpartum haze to riding their asses making sure they get my baby's coverage and my disability compensation right. But, they've proved they can't do their job without supervision, so it is what it is.)

Overall, though, a positive set of financial things have happened so far this weekend!

Well, I asked my question, and (as I suspected) the answer was that I need to find an adviser who's an expert on international tax law. Sigh. I didn't really think I was going to get easy, free answers to my questions, but it was worth a try.

Anyway, this is my first year I've been able to take advantage of the free-advice day, and I recommend it if you have a question. I submitted my question online and they posted it with their response in less than half an hour! There's only about an hour and a half left today, but they're doing it again on Tuesday.

I think I'll keep averaging out the costs until late March, and then I'll start my calculations over again. That will have been a full year, so I can state what the average monthly cost for the first year was, then start tracking the average monthly cost for the second year, etc.

NT filled up with 300 more minutes because his 60 days had nearly run out (AND he'd had to be really careful not to run out of minutes this time!). Cost: $32.82

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March, meaning it's been 10 months. 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.

Initial layout to get us set up with phones and 2300 minutes: $241.63
NT's late-May Net10 fillup: $32.65
AS's late-June T-Mobile fillup, 1000 minutes: $107.40
NT's late-July Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-September Net10 fillup: $32.82
AS's early-October T-Mobile fillup: $107.78
NT's late-November Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-January Net10 fillup: $32.82

So our total cost so far is $620.74.

So far, if I divide our total cost by 10, our new plan has cost us $62.07 per month. That's the lowest the average has been, and much better than our $85 average on the T-Mobile family plan.

I've still got about 300 of my original 1000 minutes and I don't need to re-up until late March 2010 unless I run out of minutes before then. AS may need to fill up again soon, but she's made her latest 1000 last 3.5 months, which is better than the 3 months and the 3 months, 1 week, that she lasted the other two times. And that's with having been at home through November. I think the next round of minutes will last her even longer now that she works full time!

(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 is to get my average cost below that, preferably to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 will be a savings.)

Whew, my dad FINALLY cashed two of my checks! I'm going to have to leave my payments to him off my monthly debt repayment goals; he's too much of a wild card.

So my debt to him is down to $4000! And I've paid $2820 of debt this month, well exceeding my goal of $1999.

Very exciting! In other good news, NT called one of the in-home daycare lady's references and she gave a really strong recommendation. Apparently the lady loves infants, is really reliable and knows everything there is to know about raising kids. Good enough for us! He may try to call the others today, but we feel very sure even if he can't get hold of them in time. We're going to get our foot in the door ASAP. When we went to meet her, she said she wouldn't hold the spot indefinitely unless we were sure, so I told her if we committed to her, we'd pay for our first month right away, even though we're not starting until July. Well worth it for the peace of mind!

Personal life is going really well...I just have to keep away from the news today. Aftershock in Haiti, mass murder in Va., healthcare reform dead in the water--way too much for my emotional pregnant self to deal with, so I'm going to focus on how everything's going well for us right now. I have to keep telling myself (as AS told me once) that my feeling really sad isn't going to help anyone.

Third post today! I just keep thinking of things to write about.

We sold an LP box set ($20) and a set of Elvis-themed stamps ($0.99, LOL oh well, at least they weren't U.S. postage stamps!) on eBay and are shipping them out today. So two more items toward the decluttering challenge.

Usually I do my rambling on Mondays, but I had the day off yesterday and slept/relaxed for most of it! My favorite pastime, even more so these days.

I just posted our January net worth and then went and calculated our individual net worths. Some nice milestones there:

I hit five figures in my positive net worth, mostly due to shifting some of my credit card debt onto NT's student loan debt. But I would have gotten really close to five figures even without that!

AS's negative net worth got below $30K; we're still not focusing on her debt much because it's all student loans and mortgage. I am making sure she makes some progress by putting at least $120 toward retirement each month. Since her 401(k) didn't kick in at work yet, I had her put $120 of freelance profit into the IRA we set up recently.

***

NT has expressed interest in moving some of our savings into community banks; while our big bank, US Bank, was one of the least foolhardy during this whole financial meltdown, he still feels we should support smaller banks. AS has been itching to do some CD laddering with our savings since we earn practically nothing at US Bank. Hopefully we'll find some nice rates around town and can accomplish both at once. It's kinda low on our priorities list right now, but something I'm trying to keep in mind as a rainy-day project.

***

Speaking of lousy interest, do you bother even putting it on your tax return if you earn less than $3 in interest for the year? I've done a rough calculation and it doesn't bump us into the next tax bracket, so it wouldn't change anything anyway, and it'll be a pain adding up the dribs and drabs to get the exact amount we earned.

***

On the subject of tax returns, it looks like NT and I will get about $1000 back from the federal government and owe the state of MN about $300. I haven't been able to make a rough calculation for AS because she needs to get her home-business stuff in order and we need to figure out whether the place that has paid her the most money intends to count it toward 2009 or 2010. She did the work in '09 but got most of the checks in '10, so I guess it depends on their accounting method. Right now she's in a flurry of manuscript-proofreading for both the freelance place and her new job, so it will have to wait at least another week.

However, since we'll pay anything she owes from her business account, that $700 net refund NT and I are getting is free and clear. I'll probably put it toward the Virginia trip but I might put it toward the American Express card. Haven't quite decided.

***

We went to visit the in-home daycare provider, and she seemed good to all of us. Nice older lady, no-nonsense but not overly structured or strict with the kids, 25 minutes from work, 5 minutes from home. $800-per-month cheaper than the cheapest daycare center! While we loved the educational aspect of the first center we visited, and its proximity to our workplaces, we agreed that this lady fit the bill of our current needs and especially our budget (since we have no idea what other baby-related expenses will come up). If down the road we decide the child needs more structure or intellectual stimulation or that it's worth it to be able to visit during lunchtime, we can always change our minds. So NT's going to call her references, and if he doesn't get any bad vibes from that, we're reserving a July spot with this lady.

(Oh, and we all three went to see her, all three asked questions and spoke as if we were the parents-to-be, and she showed no curiosity as to why there were three of us. Excellent! As usual, all my paranoia was for naught.)

Assets:
NT's UK pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
14,721 pounds ($29,442)
NT's 401(k): $7,248
AS's 403(b): $2,888
AS's IRA: $1,601
CJ's 401(k): $32,030
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $7,652
---
Total Assets: $515,361

Total Debt: $380,040

Current Estimated Net Worth: $135,321

December 2009 estimate: $131,418

Change in net worth: +$3,903

Summary: Despite my dad's best (unintentional) efforts to sabotage our progress by not cashing the checks I gave him, we made some nice progress this month. Our retirement accounts showed good gains, and we paid off a bit of debt.

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

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are 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.

One of AS's student loans hit, with $81 going to principal. $820 down, $1179 to go on the January debt goal.

We got our first paychecks of 2010. I still don't know what AS's will look like for the long haul because she's still straightening out her healthcare and retirement. Mine is about $30 less than I predicted (so over $60 a month, boo), and NT's mysteriously went down a buck and some change from last year, even though we made no changes to his pretax stuff. If it was the stimulus tax withholding changing back you'd think it would change more. Whatevs, paychecks confuse me and I'll never quite be able to accurately forecast what they'll look like. One good thing about my company is that they're going to give me a rundown of what my paychecks will look like on reduced-pay and unpaid leave. Good, because I could never figure it out on my own!

We also got an unexpected deposit of $2101 from NT's college. Apparently we overborrowed for the semester. I'm sending a payment to my credit card. Although the loan from my dad is my current focus, somehow it felt wrong to use debt to pay that off. Doesn't suit the spirit of why I'm focusing on it: the psychological importance of honoring my commitment to my dad. So I'm transferring this debt to my next goal, the credit card. It doesn't feel great to bring the student loan debt back up over $75,000, but the faster I get rid of my personal debt the sooner I can start attacking the student loans. It makes sense to pay down a credit card vs. student loans that get a tax break on the credit, could get deferred in times of hardship, monthly minimum payments don't go down if I pay extra, and some of which aren't even in repayment yet.

What is exciting is it brings my credit card balance down below $10K, and total personal debt below $15K!

The biweekly savings transfer happened, just the required minimum of $25. I'm putting it toward the birthday fund.

Still waiting for my dad to cash my payment to him, LOL. I gently nudged him by letting him know I'll have another $1000 ready for him on payday (tomorrow), and he said he'd cash $2000 tomorrow or Saturday. Whew, finally!

We purged three items by selling them! A textbook (netted about $34), an indoor plant-growing lamp ($40) and our old laptop ($400). Sold the book on Half.com and the other two items via Craigslist.

We used the textbook profit to buy a new set of sheets to replace some really worn-out ones, since our textbooks fund is already at $200 and I'm confident we won't need more than that (we sell most of NT's books at the end of each semester and make back nearly all the money we spend). We took the grow lamp profit, plus $20 of pocket money, and are donating it to Doctors Without Borders to help with Haiti relief efforts. The laptop money was divvied up: I paid for our recent cable repair, put some into a future payment to my dad, finished paying off some holiday expenditures, and set aside $100 for general home improvement/decor (we've had a few minor needs come up recently).

Nothing much has happened monetarily for a couple days, which is really boring, especially since I'm still waiting for my dad to cash the first check toward paying him off!

We had kind of a decadent weekend, with pizza delivery on Friday night and Thai food (at an actual restaurant!) on Saturday. We're also in the red on grocery spending -- doesn't mean much except that we dip into the next biweekly budget, which often causes us to dip into the next one earlier as well. I'm going to see if it balances itself out gradually, but if we're still ahead of ourselves in a month, we'll do an eat-through-the-pantry week. That always gets us back on track, so we've never actually overspent on groceries to the point of taking money out of any other category to pay for them.

***

AS just got a $500 check for a freelance proofreading project, and she just got $400 the week before for another one. She's working on another book for the same place and I think she's got another lined up? I'm starting to get mixed up because the jobs are coming so fast and furious. While I miss our weekend and night-time hanging out, the money is going to help tremendously.

Right now, we're holding on to all the money in her business checking account. The first thing is to see if we owe any taxes for 2009 -- we're not even sure whether some of the money is '09 or '10 income, so we're waiting to get the 1099 from the company. The second order of business will be to make sure we're holding enough money aside for '10 taxes. I'm thinking if we set aside 25% it should cover self-employment tax; does that sound about right?

Thirdly, AS is going to need to purchase some equipment that will fit discreetly in our dining area, which is going to become her primary workroom as we transition the sewing room into a nursery. For a while she'll be able to keep some of her supplies in there, but if she gets pregnant in a couple years, we'll need the entire room to fit two babies and their things. So she's probably going to get a sewing machine that goes into its table, as well as some kind of cabinetry that can hide away her most-used supplies. The dining room table will work great as a desk and cutting table, but there may be other storage solutions we need to think of. That will all be coming out of her business account, another reason we're not touching those funds.

But, once taxes and dining-area conversion are taken care of, any excess funds will be available to put toward one or more of our 2010 goals. I'm hopeful that we'll have at least $1K to play with, and that's conservative (and not counting any further freelance projects she may get offered).

***

NT and I had our first daycare center tour last week (AS got tied up at work and didn't make it). It was a very impressive place on all levels, including a positive vibe, educational yet fun focus for the older kids, good child-to-caregiver ratio, and open-door policy for parents (meaning we could visit during lunchtime). It's also less than a block from my office! Really there are only two drawbacks: It's $1300 per month, and there are no openings until October (and that's if we reserve a spot now; October may go away if we don't act quickly enough).

But, if our one or two home daycare options don't work out, $1300 is still the least expensive center option available to us, so for the center to have such a high level of quality is great. NT and I (and hopefully AS this time) have another tour, at a center that's located in a Baptist church and is $1352 per month. Still convenient to our bus route, even though we couldn't walk over there on our lunch break. We should at least have a point of comparison, even though we're pretty sold on the other one if we do have to go the daycare-center route. (Plus, we'd have to have somewhere to send baby until a spot opened up at our place of choice.)

Whichever option we're going to take, I'm feeling some stress about how best to explain to the provider that the child has three parents. We live in a bubble world where we generally only meet new people who already know some of our friends, so we've been vouched for as not weirdos (or, not *bad* weirdos). I always get flustered when it comes to a complete stranger that we have to get to accept us without the backing of mutual friends. I have these nightmare scenarios in my head of someone taking offense to our lifestyle and trying to call in Child Protective Services or INS or something. I'm going to lean heavily on AS and NT, who both have better social skills as well as less of this particular type of social anxiety, to get strangers to warm up to the idea. (Because honestly, once people do, we usually end up getting compliments about how happy and well-adjusted we are and how lucky to be able to share parenting between three. I just worry about how it sounds when someone doesn't know us.)

I think I had some other random topics I could have blabbed away on, but I finally got some work to do, so I'd better go!