Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

Friday night we had a real splurge, something we hardly ever do. But we had all accumulated some spending money and we'd wanted to go to this restaurant for a long time.

Restaurants must be pretty used to people photographing their dinner, because no one commented.

So here are some of the things we tried at moto-i, the largest sake microbrewery and I think the first one outside of Japan. They do mostly small-plate Japanese bar food. It cost us $52 apiece, but we all tried more food than we needed and had quite a bit of sake; we could easily hang out there for less than half that price.

Here's the tofu miso soup:



Veggie dumplings with some amazing dipping sauce:



Grilled eggplant (I loved the sweet soy glaze, but it didn't turn me into an eggplant fan):


One of my personal favorites, the tofu bun:


And our three desserts we shared--mochi, sake-infused fruit and coconut sticky rice, and doughnuts:





If you're ever in Minneapolis and want a completely unique experience, I would recommend this place. And the servers have all been educated and trained to answer questions about sake-making!

It's been a while!

My personal loan payment hit, and $507 went to principal. $1286 paid, $214 to go on my January debt-paying goal. I've got another credit card payment and three student loan payments still to come, so I should just make it.

AS heard from unemployment that there's nothing holding it up but the press of applicants, so they hope to finish processing hers and get her all the pay she's requested so far by early next week. I hope so, because then I can complete our savings goals!

Whew, I'm still digesting--I way overestimated how much to make tonight, and then it was too tasty to stop eating.

Tonight I made "chicken" enchiladas with sides of refried beans and guacamole.



Sometimes I go for prepared ingredients--honestly, I think Mexican food tastes pretty great either way. But tonight I went all out: cooked up pinto beans and fried them, and made my own enchilada sauce too (from an online recipe).

The trick with a good Mexican meal is not to repeat the same spices in all the components. So the enchilada sauce had the spiciness, the cumin, the chili powder, and the enchiladas had onions, cheese and oregano; the refried beans just had garlic, salt and pepper; and the guacamole was just avocados mashed with some fresh lime juice and a bit of salt.

Delicious, but I made way too much. Groan...

Last night we ate at our friends' house. They're quite adept at cooking vegan, having cooked for me often over the years, but they're also doing a cleanse where they only eat vegan, mostly whole-foods meals, so last night's was especially healthy.



There was sweet-and-sour red cabbage, Thai chickpeas over rice, and--my personal favorite--lima bean salad with sweet chili dressing. That is going into the lunch rotation when the weather's warmer! I had no idea that lima beans could be so huge and have such lovely texture, like butter beans. They've always been smaller and pale green with a weird texture whenever I've had them.

First things first: savings
$25 went toward savings today. I'm putting it into the birthdays fund. So far, that's $50 saved this month, with $1500 needed to reach my goal. It sounds like a long way to go, but I actually have most of the money needed in checking right now. But I don't feel comfortable putting it into savings until we know if or when AS will be getting regular unemployment, so for now it's parked in the checking account. I don't want to call it my emergency fund only to have to use it right away, so right now it's nothing.

Unemployment, health insurance and severance pay
So what progress have we made on the "three-legged stool" that will make AS's temporary unemployment manageable? Some, but the outcome is the same as it was last time I wrote: We still have no unemployment pay coming in, no health insurance (AS is uninsured as of 12/31/08), and no severance pay. She did get compensated for unused vacation time this week, which I hadn't figured into my budget, so at least we're no longer looking to be in the red due to the severance problem. But the three main matters remain unresolved.

Tomorrow marks the end of the fifth week in the "3 to 5 weeks" unemployment is supposed to take to get straightened out. AS has been applying every week, and theoretically she has about three weeks of pay waiting for the red tape to go away. If there isn't a direct deposit tomorrow, she's going to call them again. There are some confusing elements involved that I won't go into, but I'm hoping the only issue is a backlog of new applicants and that we'll see the money tomorrow.

We sent a new application for health insurance and got confirmation they received it the first week of January. They could take "up to 30 days" to approve it, so we're looking at early February being the soonest we can start to bug them. Sigh. This really stresses me out. She's got enough prescription refills to last, but I'm not sure how much that medicine is going to cost without insurance. I'm kind of glad AS has been staying in most days, because it's icy and cold and crazy out there and I could just imagine some accident setting us back, well, our whole lives with a whopping hospital bill. But if we sign up for COBRA it's just going to complicate the application that's out there, so we're leaving as is for now.

And the severance pay? Well, she e-mailed her boss pleading not to deny her severance because she'd missed one tiny little line requiring her to go get an extra form that she was not readily provided. Her boss e-mailed back that she wasn't aware AS was even eligible for severance pay. The next step is going to be e-mailing central HR and explaining that, with her boss not knowing she was getting any, she was not given any guidance about the extra form and thus shouldn't be penalized. But NT and I are basically going to have to write that e-mail for her because she has pretty much given up and decided nothing is going to work. NT and I will write it tonight, hopefully, and get AS to send it out.

Bills that have gone up
We got off pretty easy this year, with cable going up about $1.50 and condo assocation dues about $40. I was hoping our mortgage bill would go down because of a reduction in property tax, but no dice. Well, at least it didn't go up.

Sales on half.com
We've been selling NT's books from last semester and making some pretty good money: nearly $200. I took DisneySteve's advice and repriced some stuff that had been hanging around for a while, and a couple things actually sold! If AS's unemployment works out like we hope, I will put all the half.com profits into savings to cover fall '09 semester textbooks.

Survey checks
Just got a $5 check from Synovate, and there should be $10 and $31 in the mail, eventually. These things take so long that I always forget about them before they actually get here. The big check is for Inbox Dollars, but as soon as I get the check I'm canceling that account. It took me over 2 years of clicking on 3-cent e-mails (plus 1 or 2 surveys and some bonus money for joining) to reach that amount. Not worth it.

Suze's book
I haven't read very far in Suze's free ebook yet, but I uploaded it to my Google Documents so I can access it from anywhere. I doubt I'll be able to act on much of what she says since I'm still in the paying-down-CC-debt stage, but I've never read a money advice book, so I'm looking forward to it.

Free advice day Jan. 30
I missed the first one Tuesday, but there is one more chance that I hope I don't forget about!

"On Friday, January 30th from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time, NAPFA members across the country will be standing by to answer your financial questions. Normally these Fee-Only planners, well versed in investments, taxes, insurance, estate planning, and saving for college and retirement, charge clients $150 to $300 an hour. But, during Jump-Start Days, their expertise is free.
"Just dial toll-free 888-919-2345 or log on to www.kiplinger.com/links/jumpstart/ anytime from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time on January 30th to participate in an online discussion with an advisor."

I'm dying to ask someone (for free) where the best place to park my retirement contributions is, considering I'm likely to retire in England.

Thinking about taxes
I have no idea what taxes are going to look like. Last year NT and I owed and AS had a refund coming, and we pretty much broke even. But I didn't like owing so I altered my withholding, but didn't have AS alter hers because with all this free tuition, some of it taxable income, and knowing she would be quitting (which turned into a layoff), I didn't know what her taxes were going to look like. I just hope we at least break even. I feel like too many things are variable from year to year to really fine-tune my taxes so I don't owe but don't withhold too much.

This year on the UK condo, we actually posted a tiny net profit (last year was a loss), but it was below the taxable threshold after the standard deduction (or whatever the equivalent is in UK terms), so I think I don't have to worry about declaring it on my U.S. taxes. I think. I hope. Mostly because it's mind-bogglingly complicated and I will have to hire a pro when that income finally grows to the point where I have to declare it on my U.S. taxes. If anyone knows that I should be declaring it this year, let me know. It's very hard to find layman's advice on these subjects.

Phew! Felt good to unload all the random money subjects that have been on my mind lately.

I've been faithfully taking photos of dinner but haven't gotten around to loading them onto the computer, so here are three nights of dinner.

Sunday night: Mock chicken satay over rice. Loved the marinade, but we won't be getting this mock chicken again. It's a kind you rehydrate in water before cooking, and it just doesn't have a nice enough texture or ability to soak in the flavor, compared to other mock meats.



Monday night: Polenta with tomato sauce, and oven-roasted garlicky zucchini (which NT had cut up and put on top of his polenta by the time we remembered to photograph it). The polenta, we all agreed, was slightly on the soft side, but still delicious, as were the sauce and zucchini.



Tonight: Chickpea cutlets (thanks Kashi for reminding me to try this recipe!) with "amazing chick'ny sauce" (a recipe I randomly found on the Web and use ALL the time), lemon-butter-pepper broccoli, and AS's famous biscuits. (Well, famous in our home.)

Worked out on the Wii Fit today! Halfway through the challenge, so I'm on target to do 10 workouts this month. 5 down, 5 to go.

Tonight, I finally buckled down and washed the pile of bags that I got behind on over the holidays.

I washed 27 Ziploc and produce bags and hung them up to dry. It feels good because we just ran out of Ziplocs, but now we won't have to buy any more, at least for a while.

Good to get one goal completely out of the way, especially the most tedious one.

Friday night I made Penne Vodka from the Veganomicon cookbook. (Penne again--I'm seeing a real trend in my diet!) We had some more of the whole-wheat focaccia.



The recipe uses fresh basil and is really rich and flavorful. We had extra basil and were going to use it the next night, but it had already wilted. Stupid basil! The creaminess comes from almonds instead of a dairy product.

Anyway, we didn't mind at all because we had plenty of toppings for our next meal--pizza! AS makes a great crust with half whole-wheat, half white flour, and NT makes the sauce out of tomato paste and spices because it's WAY cheaper than the packaged stuff. We used all sorts of toppings--onion, green pepper, vegan pepperoni, banana peppers and jalapeno peppers, corn, olives, artichoke hearts...I think that's all. We had guests, so we made a lot of individual pizzas with the toppings tailored to taste.

I worked out yesterday (Friday) on the Wii Fit (unlocked some slightly harder levels), so that's 4 down, 6 to go on my fitness goal.

No progress on the other goals, but I'm hoping to do some of the bag-washing and rug-mending tomorrow (Sunday).

I did take pictures of dinner yesterday and today, but I'm too sleepy to upload them, so I'll do that tomorrow as well.

Based on the exchange rate NT and I got on a small check the other day, I did a quick calculation of our debt and assets. Per my previous entry I am NOT changing my records to reflect this, since A) It would wipe out all meaningful signs of progress and B) The exchange rate could easily fluctuate that much again.

That said, I was really curious. I knew our net worth would go way down because NT is responsible for our having a positive net worth at all, and most of his assets are in England.

Here are the totals:

Assets in my normal 2/1 ratio calculations: $492,570
Asset value at today's exchange rate: $383,069

Debt in my normal calculations: $409,086
Debt at today's exchange rate: $363,725

Net worth last time I calculated it: $81,526
Net worth at today's exchange rate: $19,344

And NT's individual net worth goes down from well over $100K to $68,822.

Weird...seeing my debt magically go down by $45,361 is kind of cool, though meaningless. And that whole under-$400K thing achieved in one neat math trick!

Now, back to my way of calculating things, and not another word about this!

I've been thinking about this for a while, but it just recently hit home enough to blog about it: the pounds-to-dollars exchange rate. When I first started tracking all of our debts and assets--NT's UK stuff included--the exchange rate was something like 1 British pound = 2 U.S. dollars. It fluctuated a lot, but it stayed close enough to that, and that was a handy ratio to make calculations easy.

NT just deposited a check into our U.S. account from a UK CC company for GBP 5.26. When the deposit went through, it came to $6.67. I knew the exchange rate had changed a lot, but I didn't realize it was now 1 pound = $1.26!

It makes me wonder if I should change my debt and net income sheets to reflect this. It would mean a lot less debt and a lot less assets when converted to U.S. dollars. On the other hand, if I switch everything over, in effect I lose the satisfaction of steady progress, and being able to see where I came from. The same thing happened when I used some excess student loan money that was refunded, and put it toward a personal loan instead of toward student loan debt. It was slightly beneficial financially, saving me a few bucks a month in interest and getting me months closer to paying off my higher-interest loan. But at the same time, it wiped away some of the joy I was taking in the progress on my "Big-Picture Goal," because it got artificially much closer to success, something my OCD brain can't keep from mentioning every time I talk about it now.

So I guess I will keep all my spreadsheet data as is, but maybe I will do a side calculation just to satisfy my curiosity about what our debt and net worth totals are at today's exchange rate.

Last night I made Braised Seitan with Brussels, Kale, and Sundried Tomatoes from one of my favorite cookbooks, Veganomicon. We had it over whole-wheat penne (can you tell we love pasta in this house? ). I use canned mock duck from the Asian grocery store; seitan is relatively cheap to make, but I've never gotten the hang of it. I try now and again, but mock duck is such a handy (if slightly pricy) replacement. Both are just made with wheat gluten, flour, water, soy sauce and flavoring, and mock duck is also fried.



This is such a strange recipe. We've had it before so I knew it would be good, but I was struck all over again how incongruous the ingredients seem. Brussels sprouts and sundried tomatoes? It just seems like some random stuff thrown together, but when you taste it, you realize it all works. Mellow, comforting, hearty, slightly sweet but savory, lots of nice textures going on: It's just a great winter treat. Once you assemble the ingredients and get the pasta water boiling, cook time is only about 15 minutes.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and this recipe makes a TON! When you mix it with a whole package of penne, we had three hearty servings plus four moderate-sized leftover portions. That bowl in the photo? I was only able to eat about half of it.

I worked out 33 minutes on the Wii last night, so that's 3 down, 7 to go on the January fitness goal.

I posted a notice in both break rooms at work for people to bring me their eyeglasses by Jan. 30. I did some research and found a charitable organization affiliated with LensCrafters that takes donations, so you can just drop them off at the nearest LensCrafters. It's called Give the Gift of Sight if you want to check it out. NT also posted the notice in his job's break rooms and told a couple of work friends about it.

And on a 365-days-of-dinner-related note, a co-worker just followed me back to my desk after she smelled my reheated cottage pie! So I e-mailed her the recipe (which is posted in my original Jan. 6 entry, by the way).

OK, you're gonna laugh. We had friends over for dinner last night, and even though we had the camera on the table we completely forgot to take a picture. Ordinarily this doesn't matter, because we've got extra that we can photograph in the pan, or leftovers in Tupperware. But this time we didn't have any leftovers. I racked my brain for some way to photograph dinner (short of regurgitating it and...OK, that's enough) and finally realized we did have extra--of the sauce.

So last night's dinner was homemade fettuccine (by NT) with pesto, cherry tomatoes, broccoli and mushrooms, and...here's the leftover pesto sauce.



UPDATE: However, NT helped me save face somewhat by photographing the gorgeous chocolate-marzipan croissants that AS slaved over for hours last night, and that I'm about to have for breakfast. Thanks NT and AS!

We all did Wii Fit for 30 minutes last night again! I did a little better on some of the exercises, although I'm predictably hopeless at the balance games, which are closer to regular video games except you use the weight of your body instead of a controller. I can feel some muscle soreness in my belly, arms and a bit in my legs, so I can tell it's working something, although I don't really sweat much since we take turns and there are short breaks while you start up a new exercise.

That's 2 workouts down, 8 to go on my January fitness goal.

I asked AS for some guidance on mending the rag rug, and it sounds fairly straightforward (good because I am very rusty on my needle skills). The one thing she said is it's hard on your back, because you want to keep it on the floor so it maintains its shape, which means you're constantly bending over. So I'd better get going on it, giving myself enough time to do it in short spurts with frequent breaks!

And with the glasses collecting, I just need to make up a notice that I can post in my work (and have NT send out at his). I got some glasses just by a friend mentioning it to another friend, so I'm sure there are others who have old pairs lying around.

And the plastic bags just need about 20 minutes of my time to wash and hang out to dry. We've still been really good about not getting new bags at the store, but I really need to get these produce bags washed so we can reuse them.

Tonight NT made a vegan version of classic British home cooking: cottage pie.

It doesn't photograph as well as some of the other dishes, but damn, it was good! UPDATE: Approximate recipe by NT follows photo.



INGREDIENTS
For the filling:
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
1 bag Morningstar crumbles (equivalent to 1 lb. ground beef, browned)
1 cup black beans (I’d normally use pinto, but we had a bag of black beans in the freezer)
1 T veg Worcestershire sauce
1 t pepper
½ t salt
1 t chili powder
½ cup water
2 T cornstarch
1 t Marmite (optional)

For the topping:
3 medium spuds
1 sweet potato
Margarine
Soymilk
Pepper
Grated cheese/soy cheese (optional)

Cook spuds for 10 mins, then mash/rice with marge and milk, season with pepper.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Sauté onions and garlic med-med high.

Add crumbles once onions are translucent and sauté 2 mins.

Add everything else, raise temp to boiling, then reduce to simmer for 5 mins.

Spray oil inside baking dish, fill with crumble mixture, then top with layer of mashed potato. Top with some grated cheese, if desired. Bake for 25 mins, or until potato nice and golden. I finished it off with 1 min under the broiler to crisp it up nicely. Let stand for 5 mins before serving.

Dinner last night was pad thai. We made it according to the Brooklyn Pad Thai recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance, a wonderful cookbook.



Only differences last night: We were out of lemongrass so we omitted it. We used lemon instead of lime. And we added red bell pepper, which was OK but didn't really tie in with the flavors or textures--maybe because I'm so attached to Brooklyn Pad Thai as we usually prepare it. I generally use Splenda for the sweetener in the sauce, and Sri Racha Thai chili sauce for the hot-sauce ingredient (though a little less than they say, because Sri Racha is super potent).

If you haven't cooked rice noodles, ask someone who has. They're really easy but there are a couple tricks to getting them just right.

The best way to prepare this dish is by the book, which mentions to prep in two batches, otherwise the pan would get too full to stir. As you can see from my second picture, we divide the ingredients as we're chopping, half on each of two plates. Same with the sauce: I put half of each ingredient in one small bowl, half in another small bowl.



Then I prep one batch and put the pan in the sink to soak, we eat dinner, and then I go back and rinse the pan and cook the second batch to put in Tupperware for lunches.

I planned to work out last night anyway. Then, at lunch, NT and I cruised the video-games aisle at Target as we do at least once a week, to see if the Wii Fit is in stock. We've been looking for it since May when we tried it out in England at our friends' house.

Yesterday, it was in stock! We immediately purchased it with gift cards from Xmas, and so last night we all worked out on the Wii, 30 minutes each.

Of course, the 30 minutes were really stretched out, because we were learning the different games and taking turns. But I still got a mild workout from it, especially considering I haven't worked out in months. I think the lunges and pushups are going to be felt in my muscles by tonight or tomorrow morning. So that's one workout down, nine to go on my December goal!

Our lasagne was really more of a late lunch; our meal schedule was kind of screwy due to being out at our friends' party so late last night. But then NT threw together this amazing light meal: tempeh satay and mango salad with a soy-ginger dressing we got for Xmas from one of our friends. So here's a photo of our second "dinner" for Jan. 4.

Last night we were going to a party, so I forgot to photograph dinner in my haste. Luckily, we had leftovers, so I took pictures this morning. Not as pretty in Tupperware, but you get the idea.

Anyway, Saturday night was egg fried rice (and tofu fried rice for me); today was lasagne (real cheese and vegan cheese--the vegan was prettier because there was more left over, so I just took a picture of that one).

Last night we had red Thai curry risotto with mock duck.

Based on a local restaurant's specialty, this dish usually contains shiitakes, diced potato, peas, peanuts, sesame seeds and cilantro.

Last night it didn't contain any of those; instead it had carrots, red bell pepper, corn and toasted cashews. (NT's good at improvising.)

I learned a valuable lesson: Those other ingredients are just nice filler. It's all about the creamy, spicy curry sauce and the texture of the risotto!

All our mortgage payments hit: $552 went toward principal. Nice surprise amount--NT's UK mortgages went down about $40 more than expected.

So that's $779 down, $721 to go on the January debt-repay goal.

NT had the idea to try and photograph what we eat for dinner every day this year. We'll see if we end up enjoying it enough to keep it up! If you want a recipe for anything homemade you see in this series, let me know and I will edit the entry to add it.

Last night we had whole-wheat penne pasta with lemon, pepper, sun-dried tomato and spinach (prepared by NT), with wholemeal focaccia (by AS).

Recipe follows photo.



Ingredients:
2T white wine
1t white wine vinegar
6 sun-dried tomatoes, julienned
2 tomatoes, diced
1T dried oregano
1/2 cup (packed) fresh basil OR 3T dried basil
1/2 onion, small dice
1 red pepper, medium dice
4 cloves garlic
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lemon
1 bunch fresh spinach, chopped
1 jalapeno (1/2 seeds removed)
1T black pepper
penne pasta

Directions:
Cook pasta - time start of cooking to end when sauce ready
Sautee onion until turning translucent, then add garlic, jalapeno and red pepper.
Sautee 3 mins, then add wine, vinegar & lemon juice.
Sautee 1 min; add tomato, sun-dried tomato, lemon zest, pepper & herbs.
Sautee 5 mins, then add spinach; cook until wilted.
Drain pasta and mix into sauce.

Well, we had a good New Year's eve and day despite the bad news yesterday. We're determined to pursue the money but not to let it get to us whatever the outcome.

Anyway, my credit card payment hit, so the first step on one of my goals was accomplished. $227 down, $1273 to go on my debt-repayment goal.

Also, $25 was transferred into savings. I'm putting that toward the birthday fund, so it's $25 down, $325 to go on that fund, $1525 to go on January savings overall.

No progress on the other goals, except I did collect a few pairs of eyeglasses from the friends who hosted New Year's Eve last night.

The ongoing saga of AS's layoff--who knew it would be such a drama?

First off, she got rejected for the private health care she applied for, because she's "high-risk" due to her high blood pressure. Um, OK, if a 29-year-old with high blood pressure that is well-managed with medication is high-risk, I can't imagine what at least a quarter of the U.S. population is considered..."imminent corpses"? So she's working on applying for a Minnesota insurance for high-risk applicants. We're hoping she does not have to resort to COBRA, which will eat up about half of her unemployment pay (before copays and deductibles).

Then, today her last paycheck was about $400 less than I expected. She checked and found out that her week of severance pay wouldn't come till next pay period. No problem. Then she did some further digging and found out that, because she hadn't signed some line on her final layoff forms, and gone to get another set of forms, she had basically waived her right to severance pay! Huh? And no one noticed this slight clerical error and gave her a chance to rectify it, and now it's too late because it needed to be done on the last day of employment.

Needless to say I'm livid, and I'm trying to make her push for her severance pay. After all, this office has not stood on ceremony (e.g., basic legal employer procedure) for most other things in this layoff process--why be picky about the process now? Besides, who the fuck ever heard of a company letting you go without severance, and not helping you through the process and ensuring you would get severance? It's insane that no one noticed--it's a big college, but her department was tiny.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. If we can't get this resolved, chances are I will miss my first savings goal of the New Year. Not the end of the world, but extremely aggravating and disheartening. Poor AS. This process has been a bigger clusterfuck than any of us could have predicted. Let's hope at least the unemployment pay comes in without a hitch--so far two of the three big financial pieces of this puzzle (severance pay and health care) are still in red-tape hell.

OK, here's my first attempt to do a month of multiple goals, per my New Year's resolution. The goals have to be in each of six categories:

1. DEBT. Pay off at least $1,500
Balance as of 12/30: $409,865
Goal balance: $408,365

2. SAVINGS. Save at least $1,550: $1,200 for the baby/emergency fund, $350 for the birthdays fund.
EF balance: $33.18; Goal balance: 1233.18
BD balance: $0; Goal balance: $350.00

3. HEALTH/FITNESS. Work out at least 10 times.

4. GREEN. Catch up on washing/reusing produce bags, ziplocs and plastic bags (I have a big stack of produce bags that need washing out; I've fallen down a bit during the holidays).

5. CRAFTS/CREATIVITY. Mend our rag rug. Get AS to show me how.

6. PHILANTHROPY. Collect unused eyeglasses and donate to Lions Club or some other charity. I have two pairs I've been meaning to donate somewhere, and I want to see if I can gather some more from work and friends and make one big donation.

Wow, my sidebar is going to get a lot longer with all this!

I looked back at my past months' results and calculated that we paid off $35,122 in total debt this year. From looking at my CC debt in the sidebar, you would think $32,995 of it was credit card/personal debt. However, $4,274 was transferred from the CC category to the education category as I used excess student loan money to pay down my personal loan, thus increasing education debt and reducing CC/personal.

In reality, I paid off $28,721 in CC debt and $6,401 in mortgage and/or education debt.

I won't be paying off that much in 2009, I don't think; if I pay minimums only, we'll pay off about $18,000. But there will still be a couple of exciting milestones: Our CC debt will at least get below $30K, and our total debt should get down below $400,000 within seven months. If I figure worst-case scenario, those are the only two biggies that will happen in '09. However, that's not to say things won't turn around at some point during the year.

OK, I'm just babbling sleepily now. Time to watch a bit of TV and then get into bed!

I just put a cashier's check for $1000 in the mail to my dad. I know I should wait till it's in his hands, but I really want to reach my December goal, so I'm considering that a payment made!

My December goal was to pay $2536 by Wednesday, and I've paid $2671. Even better, I've now paid my dad exactly half what he loaned me for the condo--$6000 out of $12000. I'll try not to take another 5 years paying off the second half!

That's my last payment of the month and the year, so I'll be posting my January goals soon. My New Year's resolution was to have goals in other categories besides just debt repayment, so it might take me a couple days to figure out what I want to accomplish and put it all into words. I've been so happy and distracted by the holidays that I haven't really thought seriously about it yet.

$99 to principal on one of AS's student loans. That's $1671 down, $865 to go on the December goal.