Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

I sent a payment off to NT's last credit card a few days ago, and AS confirmed it went through. In fact, they owe us 8 pounds 50! That means that NT is now completely free of credit card debt, joining the happy ranks with AS!

Happy dance, happy dance...whew! OK. So that means we've paid off $2115 of debt, exceeding my March goal of $2100.

AND I get to add to my Old Debt Graveyard page for the first time in ages!

Hooray! I'm so excited!!!

OK, it took me a while and I'm still not sure if it's exact, because some things needed to be cash and some had to be charged to the hotel room, while most I charged to my debit card. So you'll notice there's a large "miscellaneous" category that was just stuff we used our spending money for; I didn't keep receipts nor did I ask anyone to for those purchases.

Planned categories totaled $4,864.95, plus between us we brought $436.00 of our own spending money that we'd saved up, so we came to Vegas with $5,300.95 spent or available to spend. We came home with $174 between the three of us, which means our trip cost us $5,176.95. Whew!

The first few unplanned expenses: $15 each for two checked bags, there and back for a total of $60. And a $5 per day phone charge regardless of whether we used the room phone, so $45 total. (Grrr...just add it to the cost of the room upfront if it's required--it's not really an optional amenity then, IS IT???)

Right away when we got there I realized that my estimate of $150 per day for three people was naive at current Las Vegas prices. I resolved not to freak out about every cent but to try and keep it down to a reasonable level. I also realized that NT loves slots as much as me and AS, so we'd be spending more time (and thus more money) playing than previously considered. Lucky we'd all brought extra spending money along!

On the plus side, we ended up not doing a couple of the activities that would have cost money, and a few of my budget categories actually had surpluses, so this helped with the overspending on food.

So here's our spending, the best I could figure it out. Deviations from the planned budget are noted in parentheses.

Flight & hotel package $2,226.95
Food $1,446.20 (overshot goal of $1300)
Crazy Horse show $151.50
Comedy Stop show $0.00 (canceled; was going to be $65.85)
Liberace museum $40.00
Spa $275.00 (budgeted: $300)
Rollercoaster $0.00 (didn't do; was going to be $20)
Car rental & insurance $111.37 (budgeted: $200 for this plus gas)
Gas $21.77
Other transportation $65.00 (budgeted: $100)
Park entrance fees $43.00 (budgeted: $100)
Gambling $300.00
Baggage fees $60.00 (unexpected expense)
Hotel phone fees $45.00 (unexpected expense)
Misc. food, drinks, slots, etc. $391.16 (various things paid in cash and not tracked, mostly extra gambling)
TOTAL $5,176.95

For you math geeks out there, that averages $172.57 per person per day, if you count travel days (which you should, since the plane was one of the biggest expenses!).

So, without the extra money we'd all squirreled away out of our regular weekly allowance, we'd have really struggled to come in under budget, but with that money, we made it! Vegas tried its best to bust our budget, but with a little restraint and strategizing, it all worked out.

More about the vacay itself when I post some pics tonight or tomorrow!

I'm a sucker for quiz dealies.

(1a) What major financial hurdles do you face?

So, so many! Nearly $31K in CC debt, nearly $75K in student loans, and mortgages on two properties totaling nearly $300K. Insufficient retirement funds that keep falling, and very little in savings. An ARM that I can't refinance because I owe more than my home is worth. Taxes that are about to get very complicated as NT's flat in England starts to make more of a profit, and AS contemplates starting a business.

(1b) How do you think you got to this point, and what would you like to see change?

I got here by being underinformed, irresponsible and very gullible. I bought into the consumerist fever of the 1990s-2000s. Thought that since everyone else was buying whatever they wanted and putting it on credit cards, it must not be a problem. Believed the mortgage and real estate people when they assured me my home would rise in value so that I'd be able to refinance at the end of five years. Failed to really understand finances on any real level and didn't have any good information presented to me from those around me or the media.

(2) State your financial positives in terms of income, debt management, savings.

Household income is still close to $100K even with one laid-off family member. I've paid off over $50K of debt in two years, and two of my three household members are about to be free of credit card debt. Currently saving an emergency fund, with a goal of getting to $10,000; we hope to reach that this year.

(3) How well are you prepared for a financial emergency?

If NT and I were laid off and AS was still unemployed, we could cut back expenses enough to live on unemployment and savings for six months. That's if we continue to pay the minimum on all debt and we don't walk away from the house.

(4) Write it down now: The amount we have tucked away for a rainy day fund is:

$2608.79

(5) How is the topic of money addressed in your family: Emotionally or rationally?

Mostly rationally. If emotionally, it's usually the positive emotions of feeling safer, more in control of our spending, smarter. Occasionally one of us will feel a bit trapped by our regimented budget, but it hasn't caused us to break ranks yet, and I don't think there's any real danger of that.

(6) Who makes the financial decisions?

I make the financial decisions. I keep the family informed and ask their input on major decisions, but they're quite happy to let me take care of things since I actually enjoy it. It's one of my main hobbies as well as my main responsibility!

A couple months ago, I added another little widget to my total debt spreadsheet: It subtracts my monthly average amount going to principal(A) from my monthly average debt payments (mortgage payments included)(B) and divides it by my monthly payments. It looks like this: (B-A)/B. This gives me a sense of the percentage of my debt payments going to interest and fees. For the longest time, it was up over 50%.

Granted, there's the escrow and mortgage insurance and the fact that my 30-year mortgage is only in its sixth year, but still, that really sucked to see that more than half my payments were just going to maintaining my debt.

Now, with AS's newest student loan payment going to more than just interest, and with my personal loan's principal going up, it's down to 48.59%! That is a huge jump and makes me feel much better about my debt payments!

I don't look at that formula frequently, because it's just one line at the bottom of the spreadsheet and plus, it was depressing. So I just randomly noticed it while glancing at my spreadsheet after updating my numbers. I guess it's still a depressing percentage and will start bugging me in a couple days, but right now it's making me really happy because of how awful it was to see it up over 50% before!

Oh yeah, and I haven't even figured in the fact that NT's mortgage interest rate got dropped AGAIN, this time to 1.49%! That drop will be reflected at the first of the month, when I see what portion of his payments go to principal.

Hi everyone! I'm back from vacation, full of photos and stories to share. The pics are on my home computer, so that will have to wait. I did try to keep up with 365 days of dinner and I think I have most of our dinners and even a few lunches captured, though my eating schedule was a tad irregular. I did some money-tracking during the trip and am awaiting one more dollar amount before I post my totals.

Anyway, while I was gone two payments hit. One of AS's student loans hit, with $107 going to principal. I got a letter from them saying they were capitalizing some interest, but I didn't see that reflected, so I'm not sure what that's about. All I care about is that the principal went down by $107 from what I had recorded!

Also, my personal loan hit, with $549 going to principal. With my official CC debt under $31,000 (and keeping in mind the $4K or so I transferred into student-loan debt), I now declare us halfway to our Big-Picture Goal of no CC/personal loan debt!

All told, $1,553 down, $547 to go on the March goal. Woo hoo!

Tuesday night we had fresh pasta with pistou sauce, pine nuts and veggies. NT has perfected making pasta on a pasta machine...it's just amazing.



Wednesday I made pasta primavera with whole wheat pasta and a soymilk/nutritional-yeast based sauce. Fresh broccoli, carrots, frozen peas were the main veggies. I thought it was only all right, but everyone seemed to like it.



Tonight I made oven-roasted cauliflower, herbed potatoes and marinated portobello mushrooms, with our favorite gravy, "chickeny sauce," for the potatoes.



These are our last homemade meals for awhile, because tomorrow night we'll be in Las Vegas! I'll try to remember to take photos every night. I figure we'll be taking our new camera everywhere with us anyway, so hopefully we won't forget!

$250 went into the savings account today, all toward the baby/emergency fund, and 33 cents of interest was also applied toward the goal. So $289.67 to go on my March savings goal. EF balance is $2608.79.

Thursday was taco night. I like to do build-your-own tacos so everyone can have just the right filling for themselves. We each took a picture of our results (note the face NT made with his, middle picture):





Friday was (of course) pizza night:



Saturday was AS's birthday party. I'd been feeling kind of gurgly and not-right in my stomach for a few days, so I ended up not eating anything for dinner. Here's a delicious avocado dip called guasacaca that one of NT's co-workers brought over. I just tasted it tonight, and it's fabulous!



Sunday NT and I were both feeling kind of yucky, so we skipped dinner and AS fended for herself. At about 11 p.m. I did have a piece of AS's birthday cake, which we bought from the local co-op:



Yesterday we were feeling mostly back to normal, so I made Asian marinated tofu with a side of stir-fried veggies, served over quinoa. I left the tofu under the broiler a bit too long, so it ended up more like Asian flavored croutons, but they still tasted pretty good.

Last Wednesday was AS's birthday, and we had takeout Chinese food over at our friends' place. I just got the photo of the food last night.

The restaurant is Evergreen Chinese, recommended by a couple fellow bloggers. It's really near our place, reasonably priced, and chock full of vegan and vegetarian options as well as meat! We split about 7 dishes between the 5 of us, so that we could try a bunch of different things. It was amazing! We'll definitely be going there from time to time. It's good to know there's an option like this nearby.



We've been eating out a LOT (by our standards), but it's all been using spending money or money that's in the budget for that purpose. In Vegas next week, of course, we'll be eating out every night. Very unusual year so far, compared with our eating habits of the past two.

I don't have last night's dinner yet because I took it with my friend's much better camera. But I have plenty to catch up on:

Friday, Feb. 27: We had a nice pasta bake that NT made up the night before and AS popped in the oven to be ready when we got home. We were going to a party later, so we needed something fast, and this worked out perfectly (and was delicious!) NT divided the pasta bake into two loaf pans so one could have real cheese.



Saturday, Feb. 28: Another party to go to, and NT had to get his DJ equipment there early, so I bought pizza delivery for all three of us. This time we went with Galactic Pizza, the other wonderful vegan-friendly place we love besides Pizza Luce.



Sunday, March 1: Lemon pepper pasta courtesy of NT, a staple in our house. It had loads of fresh veggies including spinach, basil, red peppers and mushrooms. Yummy!!



Monday, March 2: It was my birthday so we went out to dinner at Namaste, a little Indian cafe near our place. I forgot to take our camera! Luckily I found a photo of NT's appetizer online, some kind of potato-yogurt thing with spicy rice crispies (I don't know, but he was ecstatic over it!) I had a wonderful potato croquette thingie with mushroom filling called aloo chop, and our main dishes were these mild bean concoctions. Not the Indian food I'm used to, but tasty nonetheless. They had a spicy coconut chutney on the side, which I've never had but really liked.



Tuesday, March 3, I made a vegetarian pot pie in a square casserole dish. I even made the crust myself (usually I make AS do it)! We had leftover mashed sweet/regular potatoes on the side. It kind of came apart, but I wanted to show off the creamy (yet vegan) insides as well as the crust I did myself (did I mention that?)!

My credit card payment hit: $219 went to principal.

$897 down, $1203 to go on my March goal.

And...drumroll please...with this payment, my own personal credit debt is less than $25,000! $24,983 to be exact. I also owe my dad $6,000 and I count it in my credit card/personal category, so my total personal debt in that area is $30,983. Within two months, I'll get that under $30K. It's not going away as fast as it once was, but it's going!

The U.S. mortgage hit, with $275 going to principal, and one of AS's student loan payments, with $55 to principal. $330 total.

$678 down, $1422 to go on my March goal.

I love the first few days of the month for all the little payments that chip away at my debt!

Our UK mortgage payments hit: US$348 went toward principal. NT's mortgage interest rates are at 1.99%! They keep lowering them. The payments keep getting smaller yet the amount going to principal keeps growing. It's kind of amazing. I wish my U.S. mortgage was that kind of variable.

$1752 to go on my March goal.

Today is my birthday! Along with Dr. Seuss, Sam Houston, Jon Bon Jovi and Lou Reed.

March has become a month of anniversaries of new beginnings. AS's birthday is this month, and NT's, and two of our moms'. It's also the month I started my current job, as well as the job I had before this one. And March is the month I really threw myself into decoding my financial mess and getting on a path to recovery for good.

This month looks like it's going to be especially festive: Dinner out tonight for my birthday, takeout at our friends' place Wednesday for AS's birthday, a party for AS (it's her 30th so we're making a big deal) on Saturday, leaving for Vegas on Friday the 13th, seeing our friend from New York for the first four days of the vacation, St. Patrick's Day that Tuesday, NT's birthday that Saturday, and--when we get back--sending out the packet to the government to ask them to lift the conditional status on NT's permanent U.S. residency.

That said, I've decided to give myself a freebie month in terms of goals. If I do healthy, green, craftsy or philanthropic things I will take note of them, but if I don't it's OK too.

For my debt-repayment goal, I want to pay off $2100 of debt again. And for my savings goal, a modest hope to save $540 toward the baby/emergency fund.

February was a partial success for my goals:

1. I exceeded my debt repayment goal by $53, for a total of $2153.

2. I exceeded my savings goal by $957.28, saving $1375.28.

3. I worked out 10 times (just 2 short of my goal), and ate fresh fruit 20 of the 28 days (I was going for every day).

4. So far, we've replaced every product we've run out of with something greener, whether it's a homemade product or something storebought. Our main focuses are reducing packaging and number of harsh ingredients.

5. I completed weaving a piece of fabric out of yarn on a cardboard loom. However, I decided to leave the planting of basil and cilantro to another month.

6. I didn't do much research on philanthropic opportunities, but I did start collecting food for this month's food drive, checked my eligibility for the blood drive (not eligible), and several people brought us more eyeglasses that we'll donate next time we go to the mall.

Overall, a partial success, but considering it was such a short month and I was sick for the first week, I feel good about my progress.

My automated biweekly savings deposit of $25 hit. I'm putting this into the baby/EF, bringing it to $2,358.46. Almost a quarter of the way toward our overall goal!

I realized today that once I pay off NT's UK credit card, I can start saving all the extra rental income in his UK savings account and count that toward the EF/baby goal. It's perfect, because we can get to it within a couple of days, but it's not so easily accessible that we'll be tempted to dip into it. Since my 2:1 savings ratio is a bit off (but I want to be consistent across all my record-keeping), I'm going to make my goal $11,000 instead of $10,000, and that should handle any shortfall from my outdated exchange rate calculations.

What that means is that soon, extra funds will be freed up in our U.S. account for saving toward a modest fall vacation and for paying off debt a little faster.

One of AS's student loan payments hit, and $114 went toward principal. My goal was to pay off $2100 in debt in February, and I paid $2153! It was touch-and-go because I forgot the month was only 28 days long and so some of my payments that I can squeak in on the 30th or 31st won't come due until March 2 or so. But I made some extra payments and we got there.

As for my other goals, I worked out last night, bringing my total to 10. I know I won't be able to today; we're rushing home to dinner and then rushing right out again to a party. And tomorrow is a full day of haircuts, grocery shopping and another party, so I don't know if I'll be able to get even one workout in. But, at least I tied my number of workouts from last month, and I was sick the first week in Feb., so I don't feel too bad.

The planting of basil and cilantro, I'm not going to get to. It's just been too cold and snowy recently to contemplate rooting through the balcony closet for soil and pots. NT pointed out it would be better to wait till after our vacation anyway, so they won't have to fend for themselves for 10 days early in their lives.

So of my six goals, it looks like I'll have three complete successes and three partial successes. I'll do a wrap-up this weekend to go over everything in more detail.

Saturday, Feb. 21: A simple, light meal of veggie burgers and fries before we went to a party (where we knew there'd be more good food).



Sunday, Feb. 22: A vegan version of a British classic--fish and chips with mushy peas. I beer-battered something (kelp-powder-crusted tofu) for the first time, and it turned out awesome (if messy). The mushy peas were canned; we'd picked one up on our trip to England and had been meaning to have fish and chips for a while, since that's what it traditionally goes with. This was soooo good, but we don't usually eat super-greasy food, so it's not something we'll have often.



Monday, Feb. 23: A really low-key meal of sloppy joes (made with vegan burger crumbles), tater tots and salad.



Tuesday, Feb. 24: Since I made a classic British meal, NT turned the tables and gave us a vegan soul-food treat--BBQ "ribs" (Morningstar again), mashed potatoes and turnip greens. He nailed those greens! I was really impressed. Payback for how impressed he was with my British meal.



Wednesday, Feb. 25: Top Chef night again, so our friends came over and brought dinner: squash pasta bake with vegan parmesan. I thought it was quite nice.



Thursday, Feb. 26: Potato-and-cheese stuffed Anaheim peppers with a side of Oaxacan beans and rice. Two new Mexican recipes that were time-consuming, but so worth it!

The regular payment to the UK credit card hit: $38 to principal. (That sucker is definitely getting paid off as soon as we get back from Vegas in late March!)

$2139 down, $61 to go. Soon, very soon! Time to go work out now. I think I'll try Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii and see if that gives me a good workout--I've never tried to play it for a full half hour before, but I hope it works up a sweat.

I cracked and sent an extra payment to my personal loan to make sure I hit my February goal. $106 went to principal. I took it out of money I would be putting into my emergency fund, but they're both good causes.

Speaking of EF, I was looking at my spreadsheets and getting all excited that I'd have about $1500 for the EF in April. Then I suddenly remembered we'd have to pay something for NT's adjustment of status for his U.S. residency in late March/early April. Went to the USCIS (formerly INS) site to check the fee amounts. Grand total: $545. Yikes! Love is expensive. But at least it's coming at a time when I had extra money anyway, and I'll still get to put about $1000 to Ef in April.

Anyway, back to my February goals. $2,001 down, $99 to go on the debt repayment. Student loan should hit tomorrow and finish this goal off.

I missed one more day of fruit since last time I wrote, but I've worked out three days in a row. So it's 9 workouts done, 3 more to go to hit my goal. We'll see; Saturday is going to be a very full day but I'll try to fit one in. Friday there's a party so I don't know if I'll have time. Tonight I should be able to get one in.

On the replacing products with green ones: We found a loofa. Too bad it came with another plastic shower scrunchie. Oh well, we'll use that up and next time we need a loofah, we'll hold out till we find one that comes on its own.

Several more food items and eyeglasses collected for March donation!

The stimulus will help us financially in several ways:

- $25 more per week in unemployment benefits for AS, probably starting in late March.

- $30 per month extra in NT's paycheck and $30 per month extra in my paycheck, beginning maybe in June.

- A $2500 tax credit instead of $1800 for NT's Hope credit, about $60 per month. We'll see this benefit in our tax refund for 2009, since I can't figure out a way to just decrease my withholding $60 per month. Also, I think I read that he'll be able to take Hope credit beyond just the first two years of college.

- First $2400 of AS's unemployment pay won't be taxed. Not sure how much this will pan out for us dollarwise, but it will make her refund bigger next year.
Edit: Here's the wording: "The new law also makes up to $2,400 of unemployment benefits tax-free. If you received jobless pay in 2008, however, the full amount is still taxable on your 2008 return. The new break applies only to benefits received in 2009."
SOURCE:

Kiplinger's.

- AS unemployment benefits extended. She could basically stay on unemployment through the year if needed. I hope it doesn't come to that, but jobs in her desired field are virtually nonexistent right now, and she's thinking she might try to start or work for a sewing business in the meantime. She talked to unemployment and knows how to do this while still having benefits during slow times, so this may be a good fix to bide her time waiting for an ad job (or it could be a start in a whole new direction; who knows?)

We are probably going to spend AS's increased benefits on some kind of car-sharing or car-rental deal. The other parts of the stimulus I will put toward the emergency fund.

Have you figured out how the stimulus will affect your income? If not, Kiplinger's has some articles that lay it out very clearly and specifically.

Assets:
NT's UK pensions: 7,250 pounds ($14,500)
10,725 pounds ($21,450)
NT's 401(k): $3,178
AS's 403(b): $3,074
AS's CD: $500
CJ's 401(k): $18,803
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Baby/emergency fund (shared asset): $2333
---
Total Assets: $483,838

Total Debt: $403,226

Current Estimated Net Worth: $80,612

January 2009 estimate: $83,649

Change in net worth: -$3,037

Summary: We paid off a ton of debt and added our emergency fund as an asset. Still, it wasn't enough to stop the bleeding: My 401(k) lost about a grand, and I confirmed from two sources that our condo is worth $10K less than the last time I valued it.

For all I know, the UK condo has plunged in value as well. And NT's UK retirement assets. We could be just breaking even or, even worse, have a negative collective net worth. If I find anything out about those numbers, I will update them accordingly.

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.

An extra payment to NT's UK credit card hit: $603 toward principal! He now has just $600 in CC debt to his name, and I should be able to pay that off by late March. I'm so excited that two out of the three of us will soon be free of credit card debt! And I will finally be able to add to the Old Debt Graveyard, which hasn't had any new residents in ages.

$1895 down, $205 to go on the debt repayment goal.

Oh, and I completed my weaving project! The fabric turned out much smaller than I intended it, so I'm not sure what I'll be able to use it for. But at least I did something sort of creative this month!

I haven't missed any more days of eating fruit, and I will be searching for a loofah at lunch today (thanks cptacek for the suggestion!). Also, we collected two more items for the food drive. (I've been buying one item each time I'm at a grocery store, so it doesn't seem a financial burden but I will have accumulated quite a little pile by the deadline.)

Lots to catch up on here, so let's get into it!

Lunch on Sunday the 15th was so pretty, I had to take a picture! NT made spicy bean patties with a side salad, and topped the salad with lentils and his own vinaigrette. Wonderful! I don't think AS cared for it as much, but NT and I will definitely have this for work lunches in the future.



Sunday night we had baked flautas, salsa fresca and cold avocado soup. The flautas and salsa were a hit, and the soup was...edible. Not really our cup of tea, but at least we tried something new!



Monday the 16th was our old favorite, mushroom farfalle. Usually I use dried parsley, but we had some fresh left over from other stuff so I threw that in. (This dish, plus an instructional video I saw, have changed how I serve pasta. Basically, don't drain or rinse pasta: drop it into the sauce along with 1/4 c of pasta water and some extra fat [butter, margarine or olive oil], and turn the heat up high under the sauce as you gently mix all together.)



Tuesday, Feb. 17, we had another recurrent favorite, spicy crispy vegan over rice. Gingeriffic!



Wednesday the 18th was a semi-experimental meal, mock duck and peppers in a spicy peanut sauce over millet. Our friends were over for Top Chef, and they were crazy for it. Little did I know NJ is a peanut-butter addict! Lucky break.



Thursday the 19th we had spaghetti and red sauce with vegan "meatballs" (available in the frozen section of our local co-op). I can't believe it's the first time this year--I love spaghetti marinara!



Last night, Feb. 20, we went to happy hour and brought some pizzas home with us. I totally forgot to take pictures, and there were no leftovers, but you can pretend there's a delicious BBQ seitan pizza in this box!

Day before yesterday I missed another day of fruit, but yesterday I had some, and I brought a banana to work so I wouldn't forget today. So far I've remembered 12 days and forgotten 7. At least I'm having fruit more than half the time! It's not stubbornness, just forgetfulness, that's keeping me from meeting this goal.

I worked out on the Wii yesterday, so I'm halfway to my workout goal. I won't be working out tonight because I'm going straight to happy hour after work, so that means I'll have eight days to do six workouts. Oh well, nothing says I can't go twice on weekend days. I'll make it!

I finally started one of my crafts challenges: I'm weaving a piece of woolen fabric on a cardboard loom. I will probably sew it into a sunglasses case and see if it fits AS's sunglasses, but right now my goal is just finishing the weaving. I got about halfway in just a few hours last night, so shouldn't be a problem. I hope to plant my basil and cilantro seeds on Sunday.

Our homemade dish detergent isn't working out; it leaves a film on plastic stuff and doesn't clean as well as Cascade. We're going to try a greener storebought powder and see if that does the trick. Now we have a bunch of borax and washing soda to use up; but I think it's good for lots of other cleaning things as well. I got a bar soap instead of bodywash (thanks...Analise, I think? for the idea) and a greener brand of shampoo. The next thing to replace will be our plastic shower scrunchie. I love those things, but I've got to find a greener alternative.

Now, car-sharing. I've recently been feeling guilty that NT has barely seen any of Minnesota because of not having a car. Buying a car doesn't make sense because we don't need one; and we'd immediately lose $75 per month that we get renting out our garage space. So I'm looking into these carshare options. If I can't find a workable carshare solution, I'll probably just set aside money for us to rent a car one or two days per month, so we can go on some day trips, explore St. Paul and other places, try some restaurants that are out of our way.

One of the carshares is super-convenient, with drop-off spots in walking distance from our condo. Another one is cheaper, but we'd have to take a bus about 30 minutes to get to the drop-off. Then there's Enterprise, which has a location about 10 minutes busride/30 minutes walk from our place. The carshare places would allow us to take a car and pay by the hour, which means we could have several shorter trips. A rental car we wouldn't have to worry about time, but we could probably only afford one or two times a month.

So I'm still working out all the possibilities. We wouldn't do this until AS starts getting the extra unemployment money from the stimulus plan ($25 extra per week), which should start happening in late March or early April.

Well, I determined $1100 of tax refund money could go into the baby/emergency fund, plus $.28 of savings interest, so that means I exceeded my February goal of putting $168 into the EF! I might even put more savings in by the end of the month, but I'm waiting to see if I need to put it toward debt to reach that goal instead.

I also managed to put an extra $63 into the vacation fund for another day of car rental, and $550 away for home improvement (we'd originally saved that up to buy a new couch, but now it sounds like AS's mom will help us get fabric and spruce up our old one, so we may use this money to get material for curtains and maybe still have some left over for any unexpected repairs that come up!)

My personal loan payment hit: $717 went to principal. I used about $200 of our tax refund money to pay a little extra because I was afraid I wouldn't hit my goal.

$1292 down, $808 to go on my February goal. I'm still going to be cutting it really close on my goal; I may have to figure out another extra payment to put somewhere. I mean, I have over $1000 of my federal refund going into our EF, so it wouldn't hurt to put a little more of that toward debt repayment. Better, psychologically, than missing my first debt-repay goal!

Speaking of missing goals, I'm doing terribly on eating fresh fruit every day; yesterday was the 6th day I've forgotten! And my crafts goals I haven't even started yet. But the month's only two-thirds over, so there's a chance I'll get to them. At least I worked out again last night, bringing my total to 5. Now I need 7 workouts in the next 11 days (gulp) to reach that goal. Sigh...

Back to debt repayment, to cheer myself up: I'm now $309 away from having my own credit card debt under $25K! You know those commercials that say "Do you have $5000, $10000, even $25000 in credit card debt?" Well, I always yell "shut up!" at the screen, because I've had more than that for years. But now, subtracting the loan from my dad, and NT's credit card, I have just $25,308 in credit card debt. So close to being slightly under the number that announcer uses to terrify people! Woo hoo!

This first dish, which we had Thursday, is my No. 1 favorite meal and has been ever since I discovered it. Pasta Della California, from Veganomicon, with my personal twist of putting baked, chopped-up Morningstar buffalo wings on top at the end. It's pricier than most of our meals because it requires not only buffalo wings but avocados and arugula. But it's simply the most delicious dish in the whole world!



Friday I wanted something simple and laid-back, so we had spaghetti in a really simple recipe, with olive oil, garlic, fresh flat-leaf parsley, and crispy breadcrumbs on top (I sauteed them in oil to crisp them up). AS and NT also had shredded parmesan on top. It was quite tasty despite its simplicity!



Saturday night AS made danishes for us to have the next day. We split one before we went out to dinner! Breathtaking, and 100% vegan. This pic doesn't really do them justice...



We had our Valentine's dinner at a little organic, mostly vegetarian, locally sourced restaurant. Right away coming in you could tell they were having some kind of drama. I think they had more customers than they were used to or something, and they were out of several dishes. The waitresses were tense and stressed-out. Despite all that, our food came promptly and with no problems and tasted perfectly fine, so we're still not sure what was going on.

I had a very tasty falafel appetizer with dill-tahini sauce:



My main course was a vegan mac & cheese. I could tell they did a nutritional-yeast sauce similar to what I do at home. Mine's better though, much more flavorful.



NT's main course was a gorgeously flavored portobello tureen over roasted cauliflower. I wished I'd ordered that!



AS had a barbecue tempeh sandwich and salad. The tempeh had a really different texture from what we're used to, but the waitress said she couldn't really ask the chef about it. Tension!



For dessert we had a cappucino brownie and some cookies. Nice, but nothing compared to what AS can come up with at home. She spoils us!

I'm dividing my pics into two posts, since I'm so behind. Here's three days of dinner:

Monday we had Asian marinated tofu and sauteed bok choy over rice. I got the bok choy recipe from a blog I follow; it was delicious! We had to find vegetarian oyster sauce, pictured behind the dish.



Tuesday was red Thai curry risotto with mock duck, which we've already had once this year. This time NT obliged me and used the classic ingredients used in the Joe's Garage version I love so much: diced potato, peas, fresh cilantro and shiitakes. I also insisted it had peanuts in it; upon tasting this dinner I realized peanuts were not in the original. But they should be!



Wednesday we went to our friends' house for Top Chef, and we had 17-bean soup (I think that's how many types of beans ) with sides of oven-roasted cauliflower, tater tots and cole slaw (the latter we brought). Yummy, all of it!

We got our paychecks a couple days early (probably because of Presidents Day) and AS's federal refund (the big one) today!

NT's paycheck was about $100 more, and my regular paycheck is going to be $18 more than I thought, so that's good news.

I still have to decide where all the money is going to go. I gave us each a $100 spending-money bonus, and I'll be putting the majority into the baby/emergency fund. But I'm also going to pay a bit extra on a loan to make sure I hit my Feb. debt goal, and I think I'm going to use some money to switch us to prepaid cell phones. The plans I want require an initial outlay of about $250, but after that we should save an average $30 to $40 per month over our current plan!

But I wanted to make sure we had enough in the bday fund because we've started buying presents for March already. So I'm moving $225 into that savings category now.

That means we're at $250 saved, $168 to go to reach our savings goal for the month. We'll easily surpass that once I figure out exactly how much of the tax return is going into savings.

Oh, and I almost missed eating fresh fruit yesterday, but I decided to count the avocado that was in my pasta. It's a fruit, it was not cooked, just warmed up a bit, so I'm saying that's my fresh fruit. Whew!

I'm behind on posting photos of dinner, but don't worry, I've been keeping up on taking the pics. I just have to get it together enough to download and post them.