Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

AS's next student loan payment did hit today, with $54 going to principal. (Interest rate hasn't changed yet principal went down from last month. I never understand that.) $2285 paid off for the month. My credit card payment is pending, so we'll see if it hits tomorrow, in time to get added to this month's total.

Two of our coats on eBay sold (out of six); still trying to get that shipped. I decided on FedEx Home Delivery but it turns out you need the person's phone number, so I'm waiting to see if the buyer wants to provide that. Anyway, hoping to clear about $50 after shipping and fees. That'll put our laptop fund up over $100. We'll re-list the other coats in a month or so when it's colder.

Quite busy at work again this week, even with my boss back, but I'm feeling a bit headachey and run-down. Wish I had some mindless proofreading to do, but unfortunately most of my work today requires a bit more creative involvement (copy editing and writing). Just trying to make some progress and hoping tomorrow I'll have more energy and attention. I did get my flu shot today, so maybe I'm just having a mild reaction to that.

Well, I'm afraid my 365 Days of Dinner (at least the posting on here part) may be dead in the water, since I didn't even start to catch up on it this month. But at least I met the debt-repayment, savings and tax goals.

One of AS's student loans hit, with $116 going to principal. So I surpassed the September goal of paying off $2200 by $31. We may even have some more payments hit before the end of the month: a student loan and my credit card.

I'm sitting on the couch, wishing I could have a second cup of coffee, watching The Rachel Maddow Show. Watching that terrible story about the dead census worker with "FED" allegedly scrawled on his chest. I hope it doesn't turn out to be an anti-government hate crime. There's been lots of crazy treasonous talk in some parts of the media lately that really scares me.

I woke up several times last night, so even though I got 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I feel a bit out of it.

AS is sewing a dress for a (male) friend of ours who wants to dress up like Marilyn Monroe and sing happy birthday at his friend's party tonight. NT is off to hfavorite music store with a friend, and after that they're going to pick me and AS up so we can go over to his house, hang out with him + wife & kids, go out to lunch, and take a look at a kids dresser and crib they're willing to give us if we like them. (We've actually been offered at least three cribs by various people, but this will be the first one we look at.)

AS and I surprised NT with $40 of our spending money to buy CDs. We've been wishing he had more guy friends with similar interests, like he used to in England, so we were going to give him the money and suggest he go out with this guy. Lo and behold a couple days before, they made plans to go to the music store not even knowing about our plan! LOL. But the money still surprised him. He's also been going out for bike rides with another guy friend, so that's good.

I also spontaneously treated AS and NT to dinner and a drink out last night. $60 and worth every penny. I had some unspent money from past weeks, and on the way home from work I was just so glad these two weeks without my boss were over, and thinking how we won't be able to just spontaneously go out to a bar next year , and thinking how we only ever go out to eat if other people invite us. So we went to a nice microbrewery/restaurant nearby. It was weird to be out in the city at night! So many people were out--the restaurant was packed--and I could remember when going out every weekend night, dropping a lot more than $60, was pretty much taken for granted. This was nicer because it felt special, and we really appreciated having food prepared and brought to us, and getting a chance to chat with each other for a couple hours without having chores, or cooking, or the distractions of TV or Internet.

I'm writing this on my little $150 netbook, which I bought a couple months ago because our laptop's been acting up. We've thought about getting the laptop repaired, but probably it'll be better to just get a new one. So we're slowly trying to raise $1000. NT's been doing Pinecone surveys, and we've got six coats listed on eBay. The auctions are up tomorrow. 2 don't have any watchers, so I'm not sure how we'll do, but we'll make a bit. We'll be going to the Mall of America in a couple weeks once AS gets an Old Navy gift card from MyPoints,so we'll take a necklace of hers with a tiny diamond and see if the pawn shop there will give us anything (our nearby pawn shop would only give us $30, so we want to check somewhere else first).

Our couch is now covered with a blanket because it's so threadbare and stained. AS's mom has bought us fabric, as well as some curtain fabric, but has been flaking out for 6+ months on actually mailing it. So we may buy a couch before a laptop once we raise the money; depends on which is driving us crazier. Oh, and one of the burners on our 16-year-old stove has stopped working, so that's on our radar too! LOL. Hard to know what to save up for first!

Got my first big bill from my doctor's office this week: $1012 for my first visit, blood testing and "OB contract"! Yowch! At this rate, I'll be cutting it close as to whether my remaining HSA funds plus the $100 extra I hold aside each month in checking will cover the remainder of 2009 expenses. But, we'll find the money elsewhere if we need to.

Well, I should go finish getting ready before NT and our friend come back to pick us up!

My biweekly deposit into savings hit, just $25 this time. That makes September savings $780.

I've almost but not quite written a few blog entries about various things; my supervisor has been out for two weeks and my workdays have all been constant. Usually I write my posts during down time at work. These past couple weeks I haven't had any, and when I get home I just want to turn my brain off and relax to gear up for the next day's work. But she's back Monday so some of the pressure will be off me, though I've volunteered for some writing assignments that might take up most of my downtime. The more work the better in this economy.

One bit of news is that my parents offered to pay for the three of us to visit my sister in Ohio for Thanksgiving; it will be a mini-family reunion with probably all of my sisters and most of their kids and spouses coming, as well as my parents. We decided renting a car was by far the cheapest, though NT couldn't fathom (as an Englishman) a 10-hour drive in one day, so we're also getting a hotel overnight each way. Still way cheaper than airfare. Not sure where we will all stay in my sister's house; there are three sisters plus four spouses (counting my two), 6 nieces and nephews, and my parents, and that's all in addition to my sister herself, her spouse and her four kids. Guessing some last-minute hotel arrangements are in order, but I'm not going to worry till we get closer to the time of the trip. My mom is pretty good about arranging some vegan dishes, so I'm not worried about that aspect, though I will remind her (it's been awhile since I've done Thanksgiving with extended family).

I reserved the car and hotel rooms on my credit card, and I'll just let my dad know the final cost later. I can pay off the hotel rooms before they start incurring interest; there's room in our checking account balance to float that until after Thanksgiving. The car expense won't hit the card until after we return the car.

We had a whole stupid incident where our condo association fees were seemingly processed in early September, then this week we got a mysterious direct deposit for that amount, then a couple days ago we got our October bill saying we hadn't paid September and owed a late fee! I'm still straightening that nonsense out, but the good news is our condo association management company removed the late charge without hesitation, even though part of the problem might have been that I sent the payment to an old address, not realizing they'd changed the payment address. (But then why did the check get cashed? And why the sudden re-deposit of funds in the same amount? These are the questions that drive me...crazy, so I probably will stil follow up with the mgmt place's bank to try and find out.)

Hmm...There may have been more, but I've gotta run to a dental appointment!

I just updated the Individual Net Worth page and realized that my net worth is finally positive for the first time in my adult life! Yep folks, I'm worth $598 more than I owe. Woo hoo!

AS is the only one who still has negative individual net worth. The main reasons we're not making faster progress on hers are that all her debt is "better" debt than mine (meaning we at least get tax relief on the interest), and she doesn't have much of a retirement fund yet so it doesn't reflect the big ups and downs of the market. But we're chipping away at her debt and gradually building up some retirement savings, So her net worth has improved by $4K-$5K this year. But it'll be awhile before her net worth starts to grow by leaps and bounds. (She's also the youngest, which is another reason her retirement funds aren't as big.)

Assets:
NT's UK pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
NT's 401(k): $6,191
AS's 403(b): $2,888
AS's CD: $500
AS retirement savings: $605
CJ's 401(k): $29,296
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $6,177
---
Total Assets: $501,607

Total Debt: $389,562

Current Estimated Net Worth: $112,045

August 2009 estimate: $105,301

Change in net worth: +$6,744

Summary: Retirement funds were up up up, and debt went down down down. I'd have to check past entries but I think this is one of our best monthly gains ever!

Our total assets finally rose back above the half-million mark again, where they haven't been in a long time!

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. 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 $1.50 per British pound.

So many things are up in the air about employment and leave next year that it's hard to make any intelligent assessment of our potential financial situation once the baby has come.

It's nerve-wracking, not knowing how our income and expenses are going to change, because obviously we want to be able to provide for our baby, and we don't want to dig our debt hole any deeper to do so (because that wouldn't benefit baby in the long run).

We have a good feeling that AS is going to get a job with a publisher she used to work for years ago. The job would start half-time in January and go full-time in July. But of course, a good feeling is not the same as a concrete job offer. And without a job offer, we don't know what the job will pay. But based on what AS knows about the publisher's finances (which is quite a lot since she was on their board for a couple years), she thinks the lowest salary would be $30K (or $15K during the half-time period).

I found out on Thursday that my job will give me 6 weeks of disability leave at 60% pay. After that, I can take the other 6 weeks (per the FMLA 12-week allowance) first with what PTO (vacation and sick) I've accumulated at the time of the birth (probably 10+ days) and the rest unpaid (four weeks or less).

I asked my HR rep whether I could possibly take some of the leave a few days at a time; in other words, once I've recovered enough to work, I'd like to start working three days a week. AS would be home two days a week, and NT will most likely be able to take one day a week financed by his sick leave (which he never uses any of).

She said she would check with our headquarters in D.C., but that she didn't see any problem with it personally. After I left the meeting, I noticed a statement on one of the forms she gave me that intermittent leave was not available for maternity leave. But on the other hand, the HR person did say that our company is somewhat flexible. So as long as that's company policy and not a legal limitation, there's still a chance that they can make an exception.

So it's difficult to foresee what my income is going to look like after the baby is born.

But I ran some numbers making certain assumptions: 1. that AS gets the job offer at $30K; 2. that I am not allowed to take the 12 weeks intermittently, but that I am able to take my PTO two days at a time once I use up the 6 weeks disability (that would allow me to take 6 weeks off and then two days a week for the next 5 to 6 weeks. So it would still be about 12 weeks before we had to give the baby over to childcare, taking us to the beginning of June); 3. that healthcare coverage for the baby would mean an additional $150 per month, and 4. that my personal loan will be gone by March.

When I calculated our income with me at 60% and the above conditions, our budget--with no reductions in discretionary spending--would have $700 per month surplus to put toward either debt or savings (or unexpected baby expenses). When I'm back to full income, we'll have $1800 surplus.

For the month of June we'd have to add childcare expenses, which we're putting at $1200 per month (while hoping to find a better deal), so our surplus would go down to $600. But in July AS would go full-time at her job in this scenario, bringing in another $1200 per month, so our surplus would go back up to $1800.

This is quite a relief, because even if I'm off by a good deal, there's a lot of wiggle room in the budget. I hope I'm right, because that would mean we could cashflow most baby expenses without depleting the baby/emergency fund, and then use the rest to continue saving and/or paying down debt.

Of course ideally I would be allowed to take the other 3-4 weeks unpaid and intermittently and keep our baby at home for another month or two. Given the above numbers, I'm confident that I could save up enough to absorb that unpaid leave. So if I'm given that opportunity, I'd concentrate on saving during the first few months.

There are still tons of unanswered questions and plenty of uncertainty, but I feel a lot better than I did before these calculations!

My personal loan payment hit! It felt like Christmas morning when I woke up, because I'm that lame.

$1194 went to principal, making it $2115 down, $85 to go on my September debt goal. AS's student loan payment at the end of the month should wrap that up.

The personal loan is down to $4879. Barring any disasters, we should be able to pay this off by January! The worst-case scenario is that it would be paid off by May, which is still way ahead of schedule, but I really want it gone before baby gets here.

One of AS's student loans hit, with $78 going toward principal. (For a fixed-interest loan it sure seems to fluctuate, but maybe I'm checking at different times? Dunno.) $921 down, $1279 to go on the September debt goal, and we're $8 away from getting student loan debt down under $75K again, after shifting some personal-loan debt over to student loans.

Also, I finished NT's UK taxes last night! I don't know if I read them differently this year, or if it was because of changes to the tax code, but parts of it seemed a little easier. I still feel like I'm wading around in the dark, and I did have to scratch some things out when I realized I was filling in the wrong boxes, but NT pointed out that since most Brits don't file their taxes (the govt. will calculate it for them), our return was probably cleaner than a lot of the ones they get. We mail it out today.

I did some preliminary calculations on NT's UK tax return. Although we need to gather some more info, I can already tell that we're well under the tax-free allowance, so we won't be owing any taxes this year (or for years to come, I suspect). So I can now transfer the money I'd been holding in NT's checking account into his UK savings account and count that toward the baby/EF, approximately US$610. I hadn't counted on this, so I've suddenly shot past our September savings goal. $755 saved, much more than our $170 goal.

That brings the baby/emergency fund to $6177!

So I think I've whined on here before about how I've only had one raise in the three years I've been at my company, which was more than offset by changes to our healthcare and other insurance plans which have put more and more of the burden on me. Wah, wah, wah. I actually don't mind too much most of the time because I feel I get paid pretty well for just being an editor/proofreader; more than I did at my last job as a supervisor, and more than the other editor jobs I saw out there offered when I was looking for a position like this. But I've been getting my paycheck whittled down so gradually that I just now noticed a slightly irritating funfact about my pay compared to NT's.

My gross salary is $49K. NT's gross salary is $41K. We each have our own employer's health insurance because it works out slightly cheaper that way. We each get bus passes through our employer; I pay for mine but it gets deducted pretax from my paycheck, so it's a better deal. NT gets fully reimbursed for his bus pass each month. NT hardly ever needs to go to the doctor so we didn't put any money into his FSA this year; I'm prone to minor health inconveniences and plus my new high-deductible insurance is scary, so I put the maximum in my HSA (and due to my scary high-deductible insurance, it looks like I'll need every penny).

My twice-monthly paycheck nets $1,388.53. NT's twice-monthly paycheck nets $1,334.78. For those of you without a quick math brain or handy calculator, I get $53.75 more than NT twice a month, or $107.50 per month. My salary of $8,000 more per year gives me $1,290 more per year. And that's with me taking a married deduction and NT filing singly.

Let me tell you that if my job required additional hours or stress or responsibility in return for that $8K, I would be royally pissed right now. As it is, we have comparable jobs in terms of stress and hours; if anything, NT's job has more stress and stricter hours. So I'm overall pretty OK with this, but it was quite a blow to realize it just now.

Good reminder, too, to re-evaluate our healthcare options at the end of this year and make really, really sure that it wouldn't be cheaper for me to go on NT's insurance, and to look carefully into whose insurance would be cheaper to put our baby on.

***

On a different note, I've been tracking baby expenses and savings and just decided to make that a page of its own on my baby blog. While I was at it, I thought I would share my expenses so far with you guys, too. This is out-of-pocket, so I'm not counting what insurance covers, but I am counting what's reimbursed by my HSA, which is pretax so there's some savings there that I'm not calculating.

Date Type of (expense)/savings Amount
1/9/2009 Prenatal vitamins (16.10)
4/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
4/15/2009 Prenatal vitamins (24.69)
5/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
6/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
7/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
7/6/2009 Pregnancy test (6.99)
7/21/2009 Large pants (19.99)
7/30/2009 Dr. visit co-pay (10.00)
8/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
8/10/2009 Iron supplements (5.99)
8/11/2009 Iron supplements (5.49)
8/27/2009 UTI pills (10.00)
9/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
9/6/2009 Prenatal classes (155.00)
9/10/2009 OB contract pmt (127.04)

TOTAL (COST)/SAVINGS (261.29)

My regular biweekly savings deposit hit, just $25 this time since we're focused on eliminating my personal loan. $145 saved, $25 to go on my savings goal for the month.

NT got another student-loan refund check, just $250 this time. Once again we shifted that money into paying down the personal loan, which is now down to $6,073, with another big payment (actually coming from cash, not debt shifting) coming next week. Unfortunately it did push our education debt back up over $75,000, but AS's student loan payments will bring it back under that number by the end of the month.

So far we've used $5301 of NT's student loans to pay down the personal loan. Since A) his loans are lower-interest, B) the interest is tax-deductible and C) we don't have regular payments on them (just interest a couple times a year), it makes sense for baby planning to work on this other loan first, which is higher-interest and has a fixed $623 monthly payment until it's paid off. And NT has by far the highest (i.e., positive) individual net worth of our household, so it can take the hit and he's still in a good place.

Had my 14.5-week appointment today and got to hear the heartbeat again! She didn't linger on it; just checking to make sure it was still there, but it was nice to hear for a second anyway. Our ultrasound is 4 weeks away and we're all going to that appointment for sure! The screening for potential issues is in two weeks, and I'm a little nervous about that, but so far I've had a better-than-textbook pregnancy, so I'm also optimistic.

We did really well moneywise on our vacation. I allocated $138 for gas and $740 for misc. spending, so $878 total. We spent about $121 on gas, and upon coming home Saturday we found we'd spent about $687 of our spending money. Well, we were technically still on vacation until today, so we got takeout from our favorite Vietnamese restaurant for dinner Saturday ($37), and I also paid our State Fair entry fees on Monday from the money budgeted ($33). So we ended up spending $878, exactly what had been allocated for the gas and spending money! We also each spent most of our weekly spending money on vacation, so actual vacation spending was higher than that, but I'm only concerned whether we spent any money we didn't have. And we didn't, so hooray!

We had a great, relaxing time. Both areas were very pretty with lots to do. We ate out a few times, walked around Madison, went to an extremely odd tourist attraction called House on the Rock, (NT) went kayaking and snorkeling, toured a lighthouse, took a ferry, cooked out on a grill most nights, drove around looking at scenery, played minigolf a few times, bowled, read and played board games, and bought tons of souvenirs. Best of all, most of the souvenirs were food, so the enjoyment will continue as we slowly eat our way through them! Door County is known for its cherries and other fruit, so we bought fresh cherries, cherry pie filling, cherry salsa, cherry butter, cherry beer, a cherry pitter, cherry-nut bread mix, cherry cider, and possibly something I forget right now. We also bought fresh peaches and a spiced apple wine. One of the small towns in Door County had a store that sold only items imported from Britain, so we bought a number of NT's favorite snacks and foods that he can't find here. High prices but well worth it to us! Mostly candy and other treats, but we did get some vegetarian haggis that will form the basis for a meal.

Deck of 1st cottage (near Madison, Wis.):


One crazy image from House on the Rock (you have to go there to believe it, but wear comfy shoes--it takes 3 hours minimum to walk through it--and be prepared for the weirdest place on earth):


2nd cottage (Door County) (AS & me sitting out front):


Lighthouse (AS & me standing in front):


On a pier in Door County (NT & me looking over edge):


All our souvenirs (most of them edible):

All our mortgage payments and my credit card payment hit while we were on vacation:
US: $283 to principal
UK1: $253
UK2: $53
UK3: $56
CC: $198

All told, we paid off $843 of debt, so we have $1357 still to go on the September goal.

I also transferred $120 into savings for AS's retirement. So just $50 still to go on our very modest September savings goal.

You probably wouldn't notice this, but my new current debt totals show a lower credit card/personal debt and higher student loan debt. That's because the remaining student loan money from last semester, which we were unable to apply to summer tuition, just came to us anyway in the form of a check! So I decided to apply it to my higher-interest personal loan, which I'm trying to pay off before the baby comes in order to eliminate that $623 monthly payment.

So I was able to transfer $1777 of personal debt over to education debt. It doesn't decrease our debt total, but it does take the personal loan down to $6323 and our technical CC/personal debt total to $24,107.

I already know some of my September payments have hit, so I want to get the goals written quickly so I can report progress!

1. Debt: Pay off at least $2200 of debt.
Balance as of 9/6: $391,677
Goal balance: $389,477
Progress: $0 down, $2200 to go

2. Savings: Save at least $170 ($120 for AS retirement; 50$ for EF)
Progress: $0 saved

3. Creative/crafts: Catch up on food photos.

4. Other: Do NT's UK taxes.

My savings goal is much lower than usual because I'm not going to put any of NT's flat-rental income into savings until I know whether we owe taxes in the UK. Hopefully not, but I'll have to see once I do his taxes.

Well, I've got quite a lot of catching up to do! Since our vacation happened to land on the cusp of a new month, I wasn't able to post end-of-month results or September goals.

Our final August payment, one of AS's student loans, hit. $58 went to principal, so we exceeded our $1600 goal, paying down $1657 of debt.

Savings was the only other goal I succeeded at, saving $1251 total. I didn't get to NT's UK taxes, so I'll have to try again in September.

September goals entry coming up soon, and at some point I'll do an entry on vacation spending.

Today was my biweekly deposit into savings, and I put $306 to the baby/emergency fund (which is now at $5542). Speaking of the EF, remember when I had to use about $900 of it to pay NT's tuition? Well, thanks to budget cuts, I've been able to replace those funds incrementally. It's all back in the savings account except for $275, which will be replaced by mid-September at the latest.

But back to my August goal: That makes $1251 saved, so I surpassed my goal of $1200.

My only other goal besides debt and savings, to finish the UK taxes, won't get done, unfortunately. I was mentally ready this weekend but couldn't find most of the necessary paperwork. AS found it this week, but I won't get a chance to do it before our vacation. So, I'll move that goal to September and definitely finish it up then (since they're due in early October).

OK, I checked AS's student loan account right before bed, because I'm not sure how busy it's going to be at work tomorrow. It hit, with $116 going to principal. Unbelievable: That makes $1599 down, $1 to go on my August debt-repayment goal!

AS has one more student loan due this month; however, that automated bill payment system isn't always super prompt,

I think I've bought many things for over $500, but not many have tipped the scales into $1K territory. For being 36 and a former disorganized spender, I think this is a pretty modest list.
Physical things:
Condo $207K
Treadmill $1K
Table $1K+
Entertainment center $1K
Computer $1K
Laptop $1K+

Nonphysical:
NT Bachelor's $45K (estimated future total)
AS Bachelor's $25K (guess)
AS Master's $15K
My Bachelor's $15K
UK vacation $7K
Vegas vacation $5K
Va/Md/WV/DC vacation $4K
Wisconsin vacation $3K

Of course, NT bought a flat and a couple cars and probably some other things for more than $1K before we met, but I have no idea what they were and how many.

I don't think AS and I ever spent more than $1K on a vacation before NT moved in, because it was airfare for two, they were shorter trips, and we would cheap out on redeye flights and Priceline hotels. We may have spent $1K+ on our first trip to see NT while dating, because we kinda went all out on food, drinks and presents.

The only two appliances I've had to buy so far, dishwasher and fridge, each came in under $1K.

I never bought my own car (dad bought me two used and gifted me another of his which he had bought used), and my parents paid for our $2K+ wedding.

That's it, as far as I can remember. Overall, it seems we spend more on experiences (education and vacation) than toys! This experience of having a baby is probably going to make this list soon...

I'm kidding, of course. But I feel like we finally saw some kind of benefit from all the financial turmoil swirling around.

We just got notice of what our mortgage (an ARM) is going to reset to starting Nov. 1. It started at 5.0%, then reset for the first time in 2008 to 5.75%. This November, it's going to reset to 3.875%!

Last time it adjusted slightly before it actually hit, but that was an adjustment downward. Hopefully they wouldn't adjust upward after telling me the rate.

Our payment is changing from $1445.01 to $1256.24. That extra money is going straight to principal on our personal loan. With nothing going wrong for the rest of the year, we could have the loan balance at $4000 by mid-December!

Today I'm at 12 weeks in my pregnancy! Yippee! I feel so much more relaxed about my prospects, though I know it's never a sure thing. Also my vague dislike of food is waning and my energy steadily returning.

Vacation starts Saturday! Actually, I took Friday off as well, just to putter around getting ready with no hurry. Some friends are having a BBQ Friday too, which will be a nice way to see some folks before we leave for a week.

We're leaving Saturday morning, stopping off in Wisconsin Dells for lunch (no waterparking, though we'll probably be able to see some of the more impressive rides from the highway) and arriving at our first cottage in the late afternoon. We're staying on Lake Kegonsa, about 20 minutes outside of Madison. I've done research on veggie-friendly restaurants in Madison and we'll probably check out a few, but we'll also have a charcoal grill (a rare and decadent treat) at the cottage and will want to grill some as well. We'll try to take a day trip out to see the House on the Rock, a crazy funhouse/museum built by an eccentric and prominently featured in the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

We're staying three nights, then heading out next Tuesday morning and driving about four hours to a cottage in Ephraim, a small town on the Door County peninsula. We'll be there for four nights, and might take a ferry, go minigolfing, rent bikes...whatever takes our fancy. We'll probably mostly cook there, but I did find one veggie-friendly restaurant a town over that we can check out if we feel like it.

We'll get back to Minneapolis next Saturday night, and head over to a friend's birthday party (he's visiting from New York, so we really hope we're not too tired). Then, Sunday or Monday, we'll go stuff our faces and look at crafts at the State Fair.

I've already transferred the money from savings into checking. We're down to $740 spending money because of furloughs and tuition, but I have high hopes that it'll be plenty for whatever we want to do, since we'll be cooking some and using the grocery budget for that. We'll each have our $60 spending money for the week too, so that will help.

I got a glimpse into how expensive this pregnancy is going to be on my high-deductible insurance; my first visit is going to cost me over $500. Hopefully some of the visits will be cheaper than that, but I bet the ultrasound one is going to be nuts. I have about $650 in checking and $630 in my HSA, with $250 more going into the HSA each month. So this first visit's going to cut that money nearly in half. Well, the EF is there if I need it, though I hope it doesn't come to that.

I've been keeping a spreadsheet of baby expenses and savings. (The savings is $20 each month that I don't have to spend on birth control pills.) Thus far I'm actually in the black, though of course when that $500+ bill comes I'll be permanently in the red from then on. Still, I think it'll be a great exercise in considering each purchase and deciding if we need it for my or our baby's well-being. We'll be taking any handouts from our friends and seeing how much we can get second-hand.

NT had three $3 Pinecone surveys recently and I got a $7 rebate in the mail. I've put those toward the personal loan payment going out in September.

We're nearly a month behind on 365 Days of Dinner! I'm hoping AS or NT will do an entry or two for me, just to get me back on track. I feel more able to do the entries since I'm not as nauseous about food, but I feel overwhelmed by how many days there are to do. So don't be surprised if you see a guest post from one of my spouses sometime soon!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
NT's 401(k): $5,692
AS's 403(b): $2,888
AS's CD: $500
AS retirement savings: $485
CJ's 401(k): $26,401
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $5,236
---
Total Assets: $497,152

Total Debt: $391,851

Current Estimated Net Worth: $105,301

June 2009 estimate: $99,744

Change in net worth: +$5,557

Summary: Wow! We shot past the $100,000 mark much further than I predicted. NT and I combined gained over $3000 in 401(k) worths. I also set aside a bit for AS and into our EF. We paid off a modest amount of debt as well.

Looks like our total assets are nearing the $500,000 mark again, where they haven't been in a loong time! Should get there by the end of the year...

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, and retirement totals don't include amounts currently unvested. 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. 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 $1.50 per British pound.

One of AS's student loans hit, and $79 went to principal. $1483 down, $117 to go. It's going to be a bit of a squeeze with the current scheduled payments, but I think we'll make our goal, probably right on the 31st.

And we hit a pleasant little milestone, with AS's total student loan debt dipping below $30,000 to $29,946! She has two degrees to show for that debt, so I think it's not too bad. Once I get out of CC debt and debt to my dad, AS's student loans will be my next target, but it's looking like that won't be for a couple years now.

My personal loan hit, with $760 going to principal. So $1404 down, $196 to go on my August goal.

$8100 left on that personal loan. I can't wait to see it cut in half by the end of the year, if all goes according to plan.

Whew, starting to come down from the massive adrenaline rush I got from hearing my baby's heartbeat! We decided to go ahead and tell the rest of the world even though we're not quite at 12 weeks. It's been fun reading comments here and on Facebook. I can see how people who are already moms get super-excited when they find out someone is pregnant--now I'll always understand what a crazy high it is the first time you actually feel like the baby is yours. (I've been calling it the "embryo" and then the "fetus" this whole time; now I can't stop calling it a "baby"!)

Anyway, back to reality...even though we're going to cut back on savings and ramp up debt repayment soon, I decided to finish out August as planned. I'm not THAT impulsive. So the regular biweekly savings hit, and I put $225 into the baby/emergency fund. $945 saved this month, $255 to go on my goal.

At 10 1/2 weeks! That's all. I'm wordless. Just so excited and overwhelmed.

Eeeeee!

So Frugal Dad (a good personal finance blog) posted an entry today about creating a dream budget: basically taking your existing budget, removing all debt payments as if you were debt-free, and playing around with what you'd use the extra money for. I went one better: I created a "Basic Dream Budget," which imagined we were debt-free except the mortgage, and an "Ultra Dream Budget," in which we no longer had even a mortgage debt.

It was exhilerating but also kind of bittersweet. I mean, we won't be there for many years, if we get there at all. But it did make me consider that maybe I should be knocking this $623 personal loan payment out before Baby #1 comes in March.

We currently owe $8860 on the personal loan, which means at my current accelerated rate (I recently bumped up my minimum payments to $200 more, paying about $750 in principal each month) I would pay it off in about 12 months, or July 2010.

I tried cutting back all savings through Dec. 15, besides my minimum required biweekly $25, plus $600 for Xmas. I also cut my remaining full-strength grocery line items (most have already been cut to pay tuition & fund furloughs) to $350. If I do that, assuming no financial hiccups, we could get the debt down to $4500 by mid-December. That would give us only 2.5 months to pay off the rest, or about $1800 per month.

Clearly that wouldn't happen on our current budget, but if there happened to be any windfalls--tax returns, bonuses, gifts--we might be able to come close.

So what would happen to the baby/emergency fund in the meantime, you ask? Well, the UK account would continue to run a 300-pound surplus each month. We may owe a bit in taxes, which could cut into that, but assuming we don't owe UK taxes, we would be at about $8000 by the time baby was born (depending on exchange rate). That would get us through a little over a month completely unpaid--if NT and I took turns with parental leave, we could get through two months unpaid. More if we made some cuts to our normal budget (easy).

If AS gets a job before then, we will have lots of extra money to throw at debt and EF. If she is still taking odd jobs from home, we can forgo some of that unpaid time because she'll be able to watch Baby during the day.

I don't know if I'll stick to this accelerated debt repayment, but it seems like there's an outside chance we could get that debt gone by the time Baby is ready for daycare--and that freed-up $623 could cover about half the monthly daycare costs! So it seems like something I should consider. I'm going to talk it over with the fam tonight and see what they think.

I welcome comments on both sides of the argument. To sum up all the above number crunching, I'm basically thinking about taking approximately $2000 that would go to the baby fund and putting it to debt instead.

I haven't been posting dinner pics, despite the fact that we've been taking them fairly faithfully, for two reasons: one, I feel tired all the time, and two, food is just not exciting to me like it used to be. I was going to try and conscript NT or AS into doing an entry for me, but they've been plenty busy with other things. So I'm going to suck it up, ignore how unappealing these pics are, and post some before we get too far behind to ever finish this project.

Friday, July 10, we ate at a great restaurant, Sen Yai Sen Lek Thai, which uses local ingredients and sustainable practices such as composting. The last two photos are of dessert: black beans and sticky rice in a warm sweet coconut-milk soup, and banana and sticky rice in the same. Much, much more delicious than they look, believe me!







July 11 we had avocado salad and pizza:




Sunday, July 12, we had a big English fry-up for brunch, and veggie brats, cole slaw and veggie patties for dinner:




July 13 we had creamy broccoli pasta:



Tuesday, July 14, we had BBQ tofu, jalapeno potato salad, bacony (via Bacos) green beans and biscuits.



Wednesday NJ and CC brought over a risotto with baby lima beans and oven roasted squash. I was having a weird stomach night so I didn't have any, but I was told it was delicious.



Thursday, July 16, we had mock duck and vegetables in a spicy peanut sauce.



July 17 was basil rice-noodle stir fry.



Saturday, July 18, we had a kind of Asian-Middle Eastern fusion dinner: mahogany tempeh (a recipe from Vegan Fire and Spice), wasabi mashed potatoes, garlicky greens, and oven-roasted cauliflower with tahini sauce.



Sunday for brunch we tried out a recipe from the new Vegan Brunch cookbook, Tofu Benny, which NT served over a beet-potato hash. For dinner, we had Asian-flavor sesame-cabbage tofu pasta. This marks about the end of Asian food for awhile; I basically found that I can't stomach many of the flavors that I normally love.



Monday, July 20, I made spaghetti and tomato sauce with breaded, pan-fried zucchini:



Tuesday NT made spinach tart and oven-roasted cauliflower:




Wednesday, July 22, we went to the Torchlight Parade in downtown Minneapolis. We brought ingredients and made pizza at NJ & CC's house but neglected to take photos.

July 23 NT made BBQ gluten "wings" and a wild rice salad:



Friday July 24 was my and AS's 12-year anniversary! We went to a nice Italian restaurant called Zelo in downtown Minneapolis. We were with a group of friends and having so much fun that we forgot to take many pictures, except of the wine and the dessert (gelato and sorbet).




July 25 we had Morningstar buffalo wings, corn on the cob, kale and biscuits:



Sunday, July 26, NT made pesto fresh pasta with green beans. Unfortunately I found that pesto is too rich for my delicate stomach these days, so I foraged for something else to eat that night.



July 27 I made chili with TVP (textured vegetable protein) and AS made cornbread:



Whew, I can't look at food photos anymore, so I'm going to take a break!

All our mortgage payments hit:
U.S.: $281 to principal
UK #1: $253
UK #2: $54
UK #3: $56

That equals $644 down, $956 to go on our debt-repayment goal.

Also, I transferred GBP300 (US$600) into NT's UK savings account for the baby/emergency fund, and $120 into the U.S. savings account for AS's retirement. $720 saved, $480 to go on the savings goal.

OK, as I warned, I'm going really, really easy on myself. So I'm having free months in all areas except debt repayment, savings, and my "Other" category (I really need to get NT's taxes done this month; they're due in October, but I'm not going to want to do them in September).

My credit card payment hit early this past month, which is why I surpassed my goal so much. So debt repayment will be modest in August; I'm going for paying off $1600.

Savings should be pretty good this month; I'm going to put $120 away for AS's retirement, and I'm going to try and save $1080 for the baby/emergency fund. So $1200 total.

And, I need to do NT's UK taxes. I'm nervous because he might owe this year, and I'll need to take that out of the EF. But it can't be avoided.