Ceejay74's Personal Finance Blog

Hi friends! It feels like it's been a long time, but I guess I posted at the beginning of the month. I have lots of things to catch you up on.

First off, AS got two payments today and our shared spending deficit (at least temporarily) is under $2K -- it's at about $1958! I say temporarily because we have a date night tomorrow, and I was going to use the gift cards from my work's step challenge, but they haven't arrived yet. Plus we need a few winter gear items now that the weather's cold. I did an inventory and we're in good shape except I need a new pair of snow boots and SL needs a second pair of snowpants, and both kids need several pairs of spare mittens since they tend to leave them at school and daycare a lot (or lose them on the bus or playground).

But when the gift cards do come in, I can use those for groceries and take some money from the grocery budget to reduce the deficit again. Also, AS is raking in the money, or at least booking lots of lucrative work, but hasn't received a lot of the money for the work she's done. So a couple of those bigger paychecks could all but wipe out the deficit!

I tried some new meals and finally used the last of the squash from our CSA! This is our first year using it all up, not giving it away or letting it go bad, so I'm really proud of myself for that.

We tried a sausage-stuffed butternut squash: basically roasting and scooping out the squash, mashing it with diced browned vegan sausage, herbs/spices, garlic & onions, and stuffing it back in the shell. Then topped with cheese and baked it. I served it with pasta aglio olio on the side (pasta with olive oil and garlic). Overall it was a very garlicky meal, but I liked how the sausage flavors counteracted the sweetness of the squash.

Then I did a creamy pumpkin-acorn squash soup with the last acorn squash and a small pumpkin the CSA had sent us. The "cream" was cashews, soaked overnight and then blended with water. We topped it with toasted pumpkin seeds (pepitos) and dollops of vegan sour cream. On the side, we had veggie buffalo wings and buttered multigrain toast points. It was really good! I had the last of it today for lunch. I'm glad to see the last of the winter squash but I do feel like I found some good uses for it that I'll refer back to next year when I'm in the same situation.

Anyway, life changes: Really it's just one big possible adjustment. AS's mom is now talking very seriously (it seems) about moving to Minneapolis sooner vs. later. Her reasons are nebulous but it seems like the big thing is she's getting older, she doesn't have a good safety net in Va. (in terms of money OR family) and it's scary for her. She thinks her apartment was broken into recently, and last year she was mugged, and this year she had open heart surgery. She also may be having memory/comprehension issues, although it's hard to tell if they're being caused by the medicines she's on or if it's a sign of the onset of a more serious issue.

I'm trying not to freak out. I like my orderly (though already too busy) life, and AS's mom is like the opposite of organized and punctual. I like slowly building a more secure financial future for us, and AS's mom has caused several hiccups in our financial progress over the years.

But AS is, for all intents and purposes, an only child, and her mom is divorced. AS's aunt is the only close living relative, and she's got her own problems (and friction with the mom, if you remember from the heart-surgery drama days). So it's inevitable that AS will take a larger and larger caretaker role, and better for us all if she doesn't have to travel out of state frequently to do so, or try to manage healthcare and other concerns via phone, as she's been doing for the past few days.

We're hoping that it won't cost us too much financially (at least in the early days). AS's mom has military benefits via the ex. Retirement communities in our neighborhood are actually renting for cheaper than the mom's current apartment. So hopefully she'd actually have a little less tight of a budget with less of her money going to rent. Of course we'll probably have to pay her moving expenses.

This being AS's mom, none of this is written in stone. She's coming to stay in our basement for two weeks around Xmas, so that may move her a little closer to a decision one way or the other.

So I'm nervous, reluctant to face this new chapter, but realizing that AS needs to take care of her mom and I need to support that in whatever form it takes. Stay tuned for more news one way or the other, I guess.

Goal: $494,743 by 2019

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $68,291, so $204,873; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2016 was $51,785, so $103,570)

Current balance: $372,435

September 2017 balance: $358,790

Progress: $13,645

We had another huge month, even a little more than last month! This puts us more on track to reach our goals.

To reach the bigger interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 17 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $122,308 -- $7,195 per month -- to reach it.

I'm suspicious of all the market gains, so I feel like we're going to see a fall soon. I guess it'll depend on timing as to whether we'll recover in time to get close to our interim goal. Only time will tell.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US: $707 to principal
UK1: $183
UK2: $39
UK3: $40

All told that's $969 to principal.

Our escrow reassessment happened in late October, and our new monthly U.S. mortgage payment is $3138.77. That's $67 higher than it already was. Part of it is an increase in our property insurance rate for the year, and part is that we apparently have another escrow shortage (maybe due to said increase) so are paying $144 per month to make that up.

I got myself into this mortgage payment, but I naively didn't think we'd be paying $390 per month for property insurance (yes I've shopped around), $257 mortgage insurance for the life of the loan, and $144 per month escrow shortage. We're paying about $500-$600 more than I had hoped when we got the house, and it does hurt the old budget. Not a ton I can do about it right now. If our neighbors wanted to finalize the agreement to buy their portion of the house, I could ask them to pay 2/5ths of the mortgage, which would be about $1250 vs. the $1100 they pay now. ($1250 is also closer to what the rent would be on their space if we were regular landlords.) But they're both in job transition situations right now and I don't want to bring it up until they're in a more stable place.

Anyway, our current debt is now:
US Mortgage $392,556
Loan from friends $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $33,751
UK Mortgage 2 $7,115
UK Mortgage 3 $7,493
---
TOTAL DEBT $449,915

So the good news is, our total debt is under $450K, which was one of my 2017 goals!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)
SW: 26,544 pounds ($33,180)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $58,806
NT's Roth IRA: $23,454
AS's trad. IRA: $18,537
AS's Roth IRA: $43,401
AS's SEP IRA: $19,182
CJ's 401(k): $118,001
CJ's Roth IRA: $27,337
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,012,216

Debts:
US Mortgage $393,263
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $33,934
UK Mortgage 2 $7,154
UK Mortgage 3 $7,533
---
TOTAL DEBT $450,884

Current Estimated Net Worth: $561,332

September 2017 estimate: $546,722

Change in net worth: +$14,610

Summary: We somehow surpassed last month's progress this month! One of NT's pension values went up more than I'd thought, so that was a big help. We're now safely past the $1 million mark for assets! Since I know we're not getting to $600K in net worth, it's nice we hit one more of our other goals! We should hit the debt-below-$450K mark once I check our debt payments for November. Sweet!

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.

We're working really hard to eat through the CSA squash and root vegetables, not give it away or let it spoil like we do most years. Even though we only came in $4 under budget on the groceries this week, even that would have been amazing before we started being Team Eat-it-all.

The bonus is that I'm trying all sorts of new dishes, because I usually don't cook with all the squash we get! So Friday I made spaghetti squash casserole. We cooked the squash, scooped it out and mixed with vegetarian ground beef substitute, canned tomatoes, sauteed garlic/onion/bell pepper, and some herbs and spices. Baked it for a while, then added Italian cheese on top and baked some more. I served it with garlic bread.

The kids didn't like it but it was a big hit with AS, which was a huge surprise because she's the most skeptical of squash (of the adults at least). So I'd make this again next year when we get more spaghetti squash from the CSA!

Then last night I made spinach-stuffed acorn squash and turnip-potato mash, both new dishes. I served them with turkey-style tofu. The flavors of the acorn squash were rather plain; next time I'd spice that up a bit. But again, AS (who doesn't really like mashed potatoes) loved the mashed turnips and potatoes! She'd been REALLY skeptical when I told her I was making that, but then she ended up having seconds. AA, who loves mashed potatoes, didn't care for these. But I'm wondering if I just changed the ratio so it was more potato than turnip, if maybe I could please both AA and AS next time. Certainly worth trying! Anyway, the meal really could have used some gravy, but other than that it was very good.

This was a spendy but very fun weekend. I went out Friday to the Chuck Berry tribute show. I was disappointed at the low turnout (because it'd be great if this became a regular event) but the acts were great. The tickets were free but NT and I had several drinks, and we got a Lyft home afterward. Then Saturday NT and I took AA to her second-ever play, based on the Goosebumps TV show. She adored it! I'd already paid for the tickets but we had to rent a carshare because the show was in St. Paul, and I bought her a drink and snack after the play. Meanwhile, since we were going to St. Paul anyway, AS took SL to the Children's Museum, which is an awesome place but tickets and snacks added up.

That night AS and I met up with some friends for another music show. Not really our thing but we were glad we'd tried it. So tickets, drinks there, and she and I had one more drink at another bar. By then it was too late to get public transportation so we got a Lyft home.

So, some of this came out of shared spending and some out of our personal spending. All spending categories are now running a deficit, but it was worth it for such a fun weekend! Shared spending deficit is at about $2800, but AS is expecting several payments before the end of the month, so I'm feeling good about our chances of getting it under $2000, even with my sister coming to visit this weekend. We have a ton of things to do so I know we're going to end up doing takeout or restaurants for every meal. That's OK. It doesn't look like it right now, but the deficit is on its way down as soon as AS gets a few of the bigger checks she's expecting.

Last night I tried a new meal: tofu, bell pepper and napa cabbage stir fry over rice. I also added some carrots since we have so many. It was tasty but not very exciting--nothing to write home about. I can't see doing it again when we have many other Asian recipes we like much better. But I think that takes us to 54!

On Wednesday, I was going to a nightclub's site to buy tickets to a Friday show, and I saw they were offering a chance for 2 free tickets if you liked their Facebook page and shared the post to your news feed. I thought what the heck, I can always buy my tickets the following day if I don't win. But I did! It was about a $40 value (tickets are $15 each but fees are ridiculous). Which is good because my personal spending money has had a small but persistent deficit for most of the year, due to my increased interest in seeing live music.

Anyway, it's a Chuck Berry tribute night and I'm very excited. I love 50s rock-n-roll!

Our shared spending deficit is up a little, to about $2700, due to a date night and purchasing swim classes for the kids. But AS has lots of expected payments coming in, so I'm confident that will go back down soon.

She has decided to do work for my company again since they seem to have the payment glitch somewhat fixed, so I got to hire her to work on a project for me! Even though she's done lots of work for my company, this is the first time we'll work directly together. I'm happy because we communicate really well and it'll be much easier than working with an unknown freelancer. Plus the money's good.

A couple nights ago I tried what I believe is our 53rd new meal this year!

We had a red kuri squash from the CSA and I read you could eat the skin, so I used a Rachael Ray recipe and braised it without peeling (just seeded and cut into pieces) on the stovetop with a little garlic, oil, salt and pepper. Indeed, the skin was totally edible and a nice flavor. I also made a dirty rice with veggie broth, veggie ground beef, onion and garlic, oil and margarine. Really tasty! I served with some storebought vegan sausages.

I pushed really hard to get more steps last week and topped 100,000, which is probably a lifetime personal best for me, except maybe on a long hike with my dad in middle school. I didn't think it would be enough to be the weekly top stepper since someone had gotten 180K the first week, but it was! For the first time in the years my office has been doing it, I got the weekly prize, a $100 gift card. If I keep up at least 10K steps a day for the rest of the challenge I'll also get a $25 gift card for completing.

I should get the gift cards near the end of the month, which is perfect because we have a parents' night out in mid-November when the kids sleep over at daycare. This will go a long way toward defraying the cost of our date!

We had another good week of AS payments coming in and not too many unbudgeted expenses, so even with sending a third of her net payments to savings, we managed to get the deficit just under $2500. I redeemed $37 in CC rewards to push us over the edge.

We spent just over a hundred dollars on snacks and drinks (above our regular grocery budget line item) for a party we had Saturday. That's extremely low for us. We had about 15 people so only spent about $7 per person! Several of the snacks I provided were using up CSA vegetables: the eggplant, kohlrabi, beets, watermelon radish, parsley and some of the carrots. I did a baba ganouj with the eggplant and just sliced and oven roasted the other veggies. I have plenty left over for lunch today and beyond.

The only biggish upcoming expenses I can foresee (that aren't budgeted for) are swim classes ($180 or so), wedding gift for my niece ($200), Halloween candy/decorations/costumes (maybe $50-$150?), and food/drink/entertainment for when my sister and AS's mom come to visit in October and maybe December. (AS's mom decided not to come around Thanksgiving, so that likely expense has been pushed back to around Christmastime. Yay!) I'm saying $300 for each visit, but I could see coming in under that depending on what we do and where we eat. So that all comes out to about $1100. AS has enough money coming in over the next month and a half that we may be able to lose the deficit by the end of November, or maybe even before! Especially if I can stay under budget on groceries most weeks and apply that surplus to it...

Of course that's caveated by the fact that we may have unforeseen hurdles coming up, which is partly how we got into this deficit situation in the first place...

We got an annual statement for one of NT's pensions (the SW one). It has gone up in value a little bit, to 26,544 pounds, or $33,180. So that'll be a little extra boost to our net worth calculations at the end of the month.

Actually, we've been Team Eat-it-all since mid-summer. I know we'll need to stock the pantry before winter gets bad so we could safely be snowed in for a few days, but for now with mild weather, we're buying only what we need for that week of meals. And we've been trying to use all our CSA veggies. Actually, we've done the best ever this year; only wasted a couple bunches of herbs here and there, or a handful of lettuce, or some beet greens once.

But we have a challenging bunch of veggies sitting in the kitchen right now. Most of them are not our favorites. We have one more CSA box next week and then we can go back to choosing our own veggies (but of course our weekly shop will get more expensive too).

But first we have to use up (plus whatever we get next week):
cherry tomatoes
1 eggplant
1 small pie pumpkin
1 acorn squash
1 celeriac
1 butternut squash
1 buttercup squash
1 red kuri squash
2 watermelon radishes
3 large beets
parsley
maybe cilantro (it might have gone bad)
mustard greens
2 kohlrabi
1 Napa cabbage
3 lbs of carrots
about 10 white and 3 red onions
hot peppers and maybe some other oddballs

Boy, oh boy. I'm looking at that list and not crazy about any of it, except the cherry tomatoes, which we'll just use for snacking.

I do like one recipe I found a long time ago for celeriac-maple-bacon (I use veggie bacon) hash. So I'll probably do that as part of a breakfast-for-dinner meal. And I'm kind of excited about the kuri squash because apparently you can eat the skin like you do with delicata, so I'm hoping it's similarly lovely (delicata is basically the only winter squash I love).

Onions are easy; they'll keep for a few weeks and we just about use one with every meal anyway.

I like carrots as a side dish and one of the kids likes them as a snack.

The parsley we can use in pasta easy enough.

But the rest -- squash squash squash root veg root veg eggplant etc. -- I'm going to have to think about.

Even though I've completed my 50-new-meals challenge, I'm still trying new recipes occasionally, mainly because of the CSA sending me veggies that I have to figure out how to use.

Tonight I did gemelli (pasta) with a red pepper romesco sauce. I used an online recipe, kind of fudged around with it based on what I had in the house (carmen peppers instead of red bell peppers; slivered almonds instead of hazelnuts), and it turned out really good. I was going to mix broccoli, spinach and chard into it but NT thought that would be weird so I just did a simple side dish of those three veggies, chopped up and steamed/sauteed, with olive oil, salt and pepper. That went over really well; even the kids ate their entire portions of pasta and veggies.

I should note the recipe here because I changed it and wouldn't remember what I did next time.

2 red bell peppers, broiled/roasted and peeled
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 small garlic clove
1/4 tsp cumin
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
2-3 tbsp olive oil
3+ tbsp water (more if needed)

Put all ingredients in food processor and process until smooth, and mix with 1 lb cooked pasta.

AS and I left for our road trip Thursday morning and got back Saturday evening. We had an amazing time! The cost was about $800; more like $900 if I count the tickets. $170 for the rental car, $70 for a hotel room, $40 for souvenir T-shirts from the band, $45 for gas, $150 for umbrellas and sneakers (we saw a great deal on athletic shoes, which we'd been planning to buy for a while anyway), $12 for parking, and the other $350 was food and drink -- including NT buying ice cream for the girls while we were gone, us getting takeout when we got home later than expected Saturday, buying brunch for a friend who paid for the second night's hotel room, and drinks for the band. We went to see them play in two different towns Thursday night and Friday night, and on Thursday they announced where they would be going after the show, so we went and met up with them there! It was very exciting; even though they're just local Minneapolis guys, I'm very starstruck by them.

I didn't really check my budget at all while we were gone, having made triple-sure that our checking account would not go in the red during that time. When we came back, AS had received two payments, netting about $1000 and $550. Plus, we managed to keep last week's groceries $50 under budget. So even with the $800 of expenses, and with sending a third of AS's net payments to savings, the shared spending deficit got below $3K for the first time since we went to Va. in August!

We have some more expenses coming up; a wedding gift for my niece who's getting married next Saturday (I'm not going so want to get her something really nice), food and drink for a party we're throwing (also next Saturday), Halloween candy and possibly some costume supplies for the grownups (depending on what we end up doing for Halloween), probably some eating out for two family visits (my sister in October and AS's mom in November), and some miscellaneous (Lyft rides for AS from her night class, possibly more swim lessons for the kids). But we also expect some more payments for AS, so I'm hoping the income outweighs the outgo and we can chip away at the remaining deficit vs. having it go up again. Looking at the expected amounts it certainly seems likely.

We do still need to get someone in to look at the leaky basement, but honestly if that ends up costing a lot, we'll just take it out of kitchen reno savings. I couldn't bear to add a large amount to our shared spending deficit.

Well, I was feeling like things were pretty under control, and then a few things happened.

The first two are more embarrassing than anything, and what I call unforced errors, because they could easily have been avoided. I knew AS got paid pretty promptly by the one college the last couple years, so I went ahead and added it into my spreadsheet. I'd felt good about where our balance was so I set up AS's third-quarter IRA contribution, which I'd delayed for about a month.

The college deposit didn't come in Friday, or Saturday, but I didn't think about what Monday would look like. I had both the neighbors' rent check and AS's payment in my spreadsheet before the mortgage payment. But when I logged in Monday as I always do, I noticed right away that the mortgage payment hadn't hit but the balance wasn't high enough to cover it.

In panic mode, I had AS get the rent check and deposit it, but before she did I saw a $30 returned payment penalty for the mortgage. I called the mortgage company and they said they'd just retry when they got notice the payment didn't go through, and that they didn't charge a penalty fee on their end unless it didn't go through a second time.

Meanwhile, the rent check is still pending, but I'm hoping tomorrow it becomes part of the available balance.

We went to AS's pay stub to try and figure out why the payment was so late, and realized that she'd never switched the info to our credit union when we divested from USBank. Whoops!

So, it was just a comedy of errors, that luckily seems to have only cost us $30 and a bunch of stress (WHY did it have to be the payment on our house that bounced??). It wouldn't have happened if A) I'd decided to hold off on the IRA contribution until the college payment actually hit or B) if I'd had the spreadsheet items for the first of the month in a different order or C) AS had remembered to switch her bank info. But, lessons learned, onward and upward.

Then, we've had a ton of torrential rain here in MN, and a slightly leaky wall in the basement got a lot worse this time around. We mopped up the water but we can see it's coming through the wall in several places, running down between the plaster and the stone. So we're going to have to get someone out to assess the damage and suggest solutions. I'm thinking this is going to eat up some (hopefully not all!) of our hard-saved kitchen reno savings. But it's no good having a nice kitchen if our basement is waterlogged and our foundation is impacted, so we've got to figure out what's going on and what we need to do about it.

A lot of little other expenses are kind of stressing me out because of both of the above. But the college payment is getting straightened out and AS has invoiced or is expecting a few other payments, so I just have to be patient and things will be looking good again soon. But meanwhile I'm keeping an extra close eye on what's coming out of the account to make sure we aren't overdrawn again.

Then, the random stuff happening in my life:
- I gently nudged my boss one more time about my career, and she requested a meeting with HER boss! I'm nervous but excited to see if anything comes of it.
- One of our friends is going to spend the winter in a pipeline protest camp a couple hours away, so we're letting him forward his mail and store some of his stuff here. We may also handle his money while he's gone and possibly be on call to use it to bail him out if need be! (Hopefully not)
- AS was going to be on the radio again, but they mixed up the scheduling and it didn't work out. They felt so bad that they booked her for another discussion, so that'll happen next week.
- But first, we leave Thursday for Wisconsin and two nights of seeing my favorite band! I'm so excited! I've seen them several times this year but their shows always seem to go by so quickly, so it'll be amazing after the first show to know that I get an encore performance the next night.
- File under "huh?": AS and I usually find a couple pennies on our 3-mile morning walk to my job. But today I found like 10 dimes! There were at least 6 scattered around a bus stop, and then a half block away a couple more, and then two blocks further along, I found one more. So weird, but it's always fun to find money!

I think that's all. I've stayed under 130 lbs. for a couple weeks now. Oh, and my work's pedometer challenge started on Sunday, and it proceeded to rain for 2.5 days straight. Still managed to get a good amount of steps in though. Our Wisconsin trip looks like it might be rainy too, but I'm determined. The weekly top stepper each of the four weeks wins $100, so I want to snatch one of those prizes!

I thought I'd put all the new meals I've tried this year in one list! Maybe I'll come back and add more if I do them this year.

1. Tofu Swiss Steaks
2. Peanut noodles with vegetarian chicken, cucumber and green onion
3. Korean BBQ mock chicken with peapods and coconut rice
4. Pizza bowl
5. Roasted & toasted things
6. BBQ jackfruit and pickled onions
7. Grilled cheese, sun-dried tomato and spinach sandwiches
8. Breakfast ramen bowl
9. Honey sesame tofu
10. Black bean, spinach and quinoa bowl
11. Taco crescent ring
12. Biscuits and gravy
13. Ham and beans
14. Vegan crab cakes, purple coleslaw and rice pilaf
15. Pizza-style grilled cheese sandwiches
16. Lentil-a-roni
17. Curried lentils
18. Thai-style tofu wraps with potato-corn-chili-cilantro-lime patties
19. Loaded fries
20. Breakfast wrap
21. Mushroom Swiss burger melts
22. Korean beef bowl
23. Tostadas
24. Grilled cheese rollups
25. Roasted asparagus, chickpeas and shallots with soy-lemon dressing
26. Garlic toss pasta with spinach and broccoli
27. Big salad w/napa cabbage, Romaine, snap peas, cilantro, avocado, mango, tomato, chikn strips, pumpkin seeds & soy-lemon dressing
28. BBQ black bean tempeh and drop biscuits
29. Big salad w/krautsalat, pickled beets, Mediterranean rice salad, veggies & toasted nuts
30. Summer squash noodles w/tomato sauce and fresh basil
31. Beet burgers
32. Homemade pizza pockets w/crescent dough
33. Pasta with roasted veggies and vegan brats
34. Spicy Thai carrot soup
35. Vegetable soup
36. Black eyed peas with rice, vinegar-sugar cucumbers, pickled beets, pickled jalapenos, red cabbage slaw, and buttery green beans
37. Spaghetti w/tomato sauce and breaded eggplant rounds
38. Breaded eggplant and coriander chutney sandwich
39. TVP taco salad
40. TVP burgers
41. Eggplant parmesan sandwiches with spaghetti aglio olio
42. Sweet and savory grits and oatmeal bar
43. Raw corn, heirloom tomato, red bell pepper, red onion salad with balsamic dressing; veggie buffalo wings and dipping sauce
44. Honey lemon chicken and broccoli with rice
45. Taco grilled cheese sandwiches
46. Tofu fajitas
47. Baingan bharta
48. Tofu in garlic sauce with bok choi and rice
49. Seitan with 12-spice rub, mashed potatoes and roasted veggies
50. Kale and spinach salad with shredded beets, kohlrabi and carrots, toasted pumpkin seeds, baked tofu cubes and grapefruit dressing
51. Spaghetti squash burrito bowl
52. Pasta with red pepper romesco sauce, side of broccoli, spinach and chard
53. Tofurky sausages with braised red kuri squash and dirty rice
54. Tofu-cabbage-pepper stir fry with rice
55. Spaghetti squash casserole and garlic bread
56. Spinach-stuffed acorn squash and potato-turnip mash
57. Sausage-stuffed butternut squash
58. Creamy roasted acorn squash-pumpkin soup with pepitos, sour cream, toast and veggie buffalo wings

Today I tried a new salad for lunch, which takes us to 50 new meals tried in 2017 -- I hit the goal!

It was a kale and spinach salad with shredded beets, kohlrabi and carrots, with toasted pumpkin seeds, baked tofu cubes and a grapefruit dressing. It was awesome! I have a ton of leftover veggies which I'll either eat as salads or cook as side dishes this week.

Also today, I did our net worth and retirement calculations and saw that we surpassed my goal of $350,000 in retirement assets by the end of the year. We're now at $358,790, which I feel gives us a good cushion so hopefully we don't dip below that for the rest of the year.

Actually I feel I may have hit another goal -- to get my weight under 130 -- but that's one that I don't want to call a win until the end of the year, because it takes work to maintain. I've weighed in under 130 for the past three days, though, so I'm hopeful I can keep it up.

As for other goals, it's clear we'll hit the debt below $450K in November, and we're only $1,429 away from hitting a million in assets, so we just need the markets to stay flat in order to get there with our contributions in the next month or so.

I know I won't hit every goal this year, but I'm glad a few of them are looking more possible!

Goal: $494,743 by 2019

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $68,291, so $204,873; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2016 was $51,785, so $103,570)

Current balance: $358,790

August 2017 balance: $345,182

Progress: $13,608

Holy wow! Quite the month. We made over 10 times the gains of last month. We blew past the 2017 mini-goal of $350K. Yay! This puts us more on track to reach our goals.

To reach the bigger interim goal by the end of our birthday month (March) in 2019, that's 18 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $135,953 -- $7,553 per month -- to reach it.

Still a stretch, but seems more doable!

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)
SW: 20,398 pounds ($25,497)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $57,675
NT's Roth IRA: $23,021
AS's trad. IRA: $18,211
AS's Roth IRA: $42,588
AS's SEP IRA: $18,828
CJ's 401(k): $115,601
CJ's Roth IRA: $26,832
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $998,571

Debts:
US Mortgage $393,968
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $34,116
UK Mortgage 2 $7,191
UK Mortgage 3 $7,574
---
TOTAL DEBT $451,849

Current Estimated Net Worth: $546,722

August 2017 estimate: $532,149

Change in net worth: +$14,573

Summary: Holy cow, what a month! Last month I felt there was no way we'd get to the million-dollar mark on assets, but now it's definitely possible to do it in three more months. Since I know we're not getting to $600K in net worth, it's nice to think we might hit one more of our other goals!

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.

I've managed to reduce the deficit today by applying part ($125) of a small AS freelance payment and some other bits of money:
CapOne CC reward $13.05
Amex CC reward $25.00
9/23 grocery surplus $55.23
9/30 grocery surplus $33.01
Oct utilities budget surplus $36.80

AS had to get a Lyft Wednesday night and I ordered 2 more sets of swim lessons for the kids, so about $100 of progress was lost. Still, the deficit went from $3441 to $3138.

AS should receive a larger payment tomorrow from one of her teaching gigs, and I expect to put $688 toward the deficit, so we should be under the $3K mark soon!

I do have my WI trip coming up, with car rental, hotel and food adding to the shared spending deficit. But I'm really hoping I don't take us over $3K again.

I felt confident enough to make AS's third-quarter IRA contribution of about $1300. I usually do the third quarter on 8/31 but had kept the money in checking to make sure there was a big enough cushion to float the shared-spending deficit. Now I feel a bit better about it. I'm still holding off on depositing about $700 of reno savings; I'll keep that in checking until the deficit comes down even more.

When AS's teaching payment does come, I'll also be able to put enough away in reno savings to get our total savings (EF and reno) over the $20K mark! That'll be awesome, even though the reno savings are of course temporary.

We only managed to stay $33 under budget on groceries this week because we had to stock up on some pricier items: big bottle of olive oil, big bag of cat food, big thing of laundry detergent. Those items alone were over $30. Other grocery spending came to about $100, which is still really good and really low for us.

My work's pedometer challenge is starting Sunday, and I think I'm in really good shape to be competitive this year! Every October they have a four-week challenge to get as many steps as possible. The high stepper in each division of the company gets a gift card every week. No one person can win two weeks, so this means the biggest competitors win first and leave an opportunity for slightly less athletic people. But I've never won a weekly prize. You do also get a gift card at the end for at least getting 6K steps per day the first week, 8K the second and 10K the final two weeks, so I've always gotten that at least. But I really want one of the weekly gift cards this year!

I've been walking about 3 miles from home to work and usually try to walk a bit after work as well. I'll amp up my efforts even more starting Oct. 1. Fingers crossed! I think it's just a $50 gift card, but still, would help offset the price of a date night, which we haven't had for a very long time.

AS finished up a bunch of projects this month and invoiced, so I'm hoping October is a good money month that really gets the deficit down. We have some Halloween and other expenses coming up, but I think overall the balance is going to get a lot better over the next month, barring unforeseen expenses of course.

Wow, I didn't expect this goal to go so quickly and easily, whereas some of the others I thought would be good fits with my life have sort of languished. Not like I can't make progress on them before the end of the year, but I thought I'd be farther along. But the new meals one has gone really well

Last week we got another eggplant from the CSA. I'm so not a fan of eggplant. But there is one eggplant dish I like in an Indian ready-meal pouch called baingan bharta. So I tried to make my own. I had to roast the eggplant on an open burner flame on my stove, no pan or foil or anything, just eggplant over flame.

It was a mixed result. The eggplant didn't fully cook through and get mushy (it was really big, and after a point the skin was just burning off, so I had to stop roasting it). And I was disappointed at the level of smoky flavor, which is a big part of baingan bharta. With the lovely smoky smell that was going through the house while I was roasting, I thought I'd nailed it, but I don't really taste the smokiness.

On the other hand, the spiciness and flavor are great. I've been eating it with rice, and this crunchy snack NT brought back from England that's probably best described as Indian Chex mix. It helps me get over that texture thing of the undercooked eggplant.

Then, last night I tried tofu in garlic sauce with a side of bok choi and rice. The tofu was baked on parchment paper until chewy (no fat on it, which I was amazed by) and the sauce made on the stove, then I tossed the tofu in it. I'd probably add more flavor next time (some crushed chilis and a bit more sugar) but overall it was great. Baking the tofu was awesome; I've never really done that and thanks to the new meals challenge, this is the second time (slightly different techniques and results) and they've both turned out really well. Definitely going to look into baking my tofu vs. frying it occasionally from now on!

Then tonight I put together a 12-spice kind of BBQ rub from a recipe a friend sent to me. I made a batch of my homemade seitan (wheat meat, mock duck, goes by several names) and coated it in the rub before frying in a cast iron skillet. It was really tasty! Which is good, because I have a lot of spice rub left over. I served it with mashed potatoes and oven roasted cauliflower and carrots.

So that is, unbelievably, 49 meals down and just 1 to go in order to reach my goal! I can't believe it!!

I'm cautiously optimistic that we have some concrete progress on reducing the shared spending deficit. Good money news this week:

- NT brought back 800 pounds in gift money from his family. He exchanged it for $927 and I put half toward the deficit and half into kitchen reno savings.

- AS got paid for 2 weeks of remote teaching ($200 net) and I applied that plus October budget surplus of $314 to the deficit (minus a third which I sent to kitchen reno savings).

- I had smaller budget surpluses that I applied to the deficit (grocery $70, cellphone $6, electric bill $9) plus $15 in CC rewards.

We did have some expenses hit the deficit: a business subscription for AS $39, our monthly ACLU donation $30, a field trip for SL $20, bus pass $30, NT's taxi home from his UK trip $43, and some Lyft rides for AS to and from her night class $20.

And of course we have some known upcoming expenses not accounted for.

But overall our deficit has been reduced from $3993 to $3258 this week. Not bad!

And I haven't applied eBay sales yet. You may recall I found a bag of videogames and DVDs on the curb; I've managed to sell 5 of them so far, with prices ranging from $5 to $28, and there are still 3 games and 3 DVDs listed for a couple bucks each. For some reason that reminded me we have two no-longer-used iPods hanging around, so I listed those plus a novelty hat NT had. One iPod has already sold for $25 and the other has three watchers. In total, we look to clear over $80 so far, maybe more if the rest of these items sell. I'm waiting to deposit the money because I was unable to test the games (different system than we have), so I want to make sure no one needs to return one.

Oh, and NT got a $922 profit sharing bonus at work; it went straight to the 401(k) so it doesn't help us with our spending deficit, but it will give us a nice little net worth bump!

AS has booked even more work; she had a bit of a slump earlier in the year due to giving up my company for their slow payment, but the last quarter is going to be huge. There's a good chance she'll top $50K in earnings again this year, which was looking doubtful before.

In terms of actual payments September has been a low month, but the next three months should be much bigger in terms of checks coming in. Plus, there's still over a week left in September and I think three more payments have a good chance of coming in, making September a moderate vs. low income month.

Let's see, there's been a lot of little money-in, money-out activity since my last post.

I took a sick day on Tuesday simply because I hadn't gotten much sleep for a few days and it was messing me up. I have plenty of sick PTO (I rarely take even half of it) and I could see my work projects could all wait a day without burdening any co-workers, so I did it.

Felt much recovered after sleeping in most of the morning. In the afternoon AS and I went for a longish walk and ended up by a cafe she had a free beer coupon for, so we stopped in. I bought myself a glass of wine for $8. I was feeling a tad sheepish about that spending because I was already planning to go out that night and have a couple drinks with friends. But it was nice to have a leisurely drink with AS.

I got on the bus for my happy hour in plenty of time, but the bus ended up in standstill traffic, turning a 35-minute ride into 1 hour 20 minutes! And I happened to get the bus that doesn't cross the bridge to where I needed to go, so I walked across (another 10 minutes). Ended up being nearly an hour late to the happy hour. Luckily my two college alumni friends were unfazed, and we had a fabulous time. I was going to only order 1 drink but after my ordeal I had 2 drinks plus an appetizer. When I pulled my wallet out at the end, one friend stopped me; he hadn't seen either of us in about a year and wanted to pay our tabs! Phew, he saved me going about $45 more in the hole on my spending money!

Later in the week I started planning my and AS's Wisconsin trip to see my fave band. I bought tickets for both shows; I put my and AS's on shared spending since this is my 2nd solo trip (we each got 2 this year), but I also bought a friend's ticket who is joining us for one of the shows and put that on my own spending (which put me back in the hole).

Less than an hour after I booked those tickets, the band finally announced a Minneapolis show in November! I'd given up on them playing here anytime soon, which is why I wanted the WI trip. Well, I'm not going to pass up seeing them at First Avenue, the legendary Minneapolis club I saw them at last November, so I bought 3 tickets (me and NT and AS) and added that to my personal spending deficit (they're just humoring me by coming ). I'm now quite a bit in the hole again, but I'll make it up gradually!

I also got me and AS a hotel for the first night of Wisconsin ($72). I was going back and forth with my friend who works in the hotel industry and is going to join us for the second night from Chicago. I tried to find a VRBO or AirBNB place but couldn't find anything that worked. He checked his corporate discount with a chain that must be affiliated with his group of hotels, and they gave him a double room for only $59! And it's much nicer than the $72 room AS and I will be in the night before! Without his discount the cheapest I was finding was about $140 for a modest hotel, whereas this will be a nicer place for less than half the cost. Definitely worth splitting a room!

We haven't worked out whether he will pay for it or not. I've bought his show ticket, but he bought me and AS drinks the last time we saw him, so we owed him at least that. Maybe we'll buy him dinner and drinks to cover the hotel.

I did have to rent a car because my friend that was thinking about going couldn't get the time off work. So that will be about $175 for 3 days, plus gas.

That and the hotel don't get charged to the credit card until we use them, so there is about $250 not showing up in the shared spending deficit. The tickets did come out immediately.

AS got paid nearly $300 for 2 weeks of teaching at one of her college gigs, and I factored in our October budget surplus of about $300 plus about $15 in CapOne rewards. I set aside $175 for renovations but the rest went to the budget deficit. We also kept grocery spending about $70 under budget and applied that budget surplus to the deficit.

So, as it stands, the deficit is at about $3600, much better than the $3900+ we were at. Of course we have the $250 in trip costs that would technically make it $3850, but we'll hopefully get more income before those costs come due.

Meanwhile, NT is still in England. I'd withdrawn 1,000 pounds from the EF for him to use for spending money while he was there. He emailed me to check in; he felt he'd stayed under that, and his mom and grandma had each given him 500 pounds to put toward home renovations!

I checked the UK account and he'd only used about 400 of the 1,000, and had deposited 1,000 from his family, so he was technically 1,600 ahead of the game! I emailed him back that he may as well take the 1,000 back out and we could put it toward the renovation fund in the U.S. But even if he doesn't get a chance to do that, it'll be a nice boost to our EF, so I'm happy either way.

AS pointed out that we could put some of the money to the deficit! It hadn't even occurred to me since the relatives earmarked it for our renovations. But I suppose one reason the deficit is still there is because I have continued to put one-third of AS's net pay into renovation savings. So it seems fair to put part of the relatives' gift toward the deficit. We'll see how much we end up with when NT comes home (which is Monday!! Yay!).

Another interesting money thing that happened just today: Someone had left a bag of DVDs, video games and books out on the curb marked "Free." I grabbed it on the way home from the grocery store. I passed a Little Free Library and put a few books in that, then brought the rest home. I checked eBay for whichg items might sell for more than a couple bucks, and listed about 10 of them. Most for a couple bucks each, but one of the more expensive ones, a video game, has already sold for $24! So I feel like my effort already paid off enough to be worth it. If none of the others sell, I'll sock them away for the neighborhood garage sale in the spring. We already have a ton of clothes and a few toys, but it'd be nice to have some other things besides.

I was daydreaming about getting a promotion and raise today, but it hasn't happened. However, I'm still feeling good about the possibility if I keep selling my supervisor on the idea. I was thinking I'd raise NT's retirement a little and keep the rest for renovations, travel and general spending. But we'll see. If Roth IRA limits get raised next year, I'd definitely target that first. It's all speculation, anyway, at this point.

That's it on the money front, I think. NT gets home Monday afternoon; AS and I and the kids have done pretty well but I'll be happy to get the family unit back together!

Hah, just realized today's entry could have the same as yesterday's!

I realized aNOTHER expense I'd forgotten about, when I sleepily dropped my phone onto the sidewalk this morning. Luckily NT had put a screen protector on it, so only a small corner shattered that shouldn't affect anything. But it did remind me to order a case for the damn thing! (I did order one when I first got the screen fixed, but it was the wrong size and I returned it. Then I was on vacation for a week and just kind of forgot.)

Anyway, I quickly ordered a case from Amazon. $16.16 more to the deficit. Deficit is just over $3900. Would love to see it go down significantly soon!!

I figured out the October budget and do have a small surplus there. I might use it to book part of my Wisconsin trip (at least the tickets to the show; I'm paranoid one or both will sell out if I wait too long!) ...

Oh well. I did try another new meal tonight: tofu fajitas. Usually I use fake chicken or just veggies, but tonight I cut tofu into strips and baked it until slightly browned and chewy, while I sauteed bell peppers, onions and garlic in the cast iron. Then I threw the baked tofu into the pan and sprinkled it with Mexican seasonings. It was pretty good! On its own the tofu would've been bland, but with the veggies, and salsa, cheese and refried beans, it was a really good meal. I've got leftovers for tomorrow which is nice. I believe that's 46 down, 4 to go.

A couple posts ago I laid out all the upcoming shared-spending expenses I could think of for the rest of the year, but I'd forgotten that AS and I would need clothes, and that NT would probably want a refreshment at the U.S. airport before he left for England, and that the kids would want new Halloween costumes. Well today, I realized I forgot about prescriptions. AS should be good for a while, but I needed to refill three medications. And we were running low on spray sunblock as well. So, another $36 added to the deficit.

But we're still at less than $3900. AS is going to check with the one university I thought was going to pay her weekly, because we still haven't seen the payment I expected Friday. It's not a huge amount but it would be nice to know when I can expect those payments to hit.

We tried another new meal from damndelicious.com today. This was called "cheeseburger grilled cheese sandwiches," but I would call it "taco grilled cheese sandwiches" because it uses taco seasoning. Regardless of what you call it, it was fantastic. Ground beef (in our case a vegetarian version) browned, with taco seasoning added, then shredded cheese and diced tomato were added to the mix. That was the filling of the grilled sandwiches instead of just cheese. So good! I drizzled hot sauce on almost every bite. The kids were "meh" about it, but I think NT will love to try it when he gets back. Maybe I'll offer to make them regular grilled cheese next time. So that's 45 down and 5 to go on the new meals goal!

I realized I didn't do retirement goal progress on the last day of the month like I usually do. I guess because it was the last day before a holiday weekend it just slipped my mind! (Or maybe it didn't occur to me because the numbers for August were so underwhelming.) Anyway, these numbers are based on 8/31 totals, so they don't include the contributions and gains since then.

Goal: $494,743 by 2019

As a reminder, this is just an incremental goal along the way to 8x income by retirement. This mini-goal aims to get us to a milestone by the time I turn 45 and AS turns 40.

The milestone (which changes whenever our salaries change) is to get me to 3x my current salary, which is now $68,291, so $204,873; NT to 3x his, which is now $62,100, so $186,300; and AS to 2x hers, which in 2016 was $51,785, so $103,570)

Current balance: $345,182

July 2017 balance: $344,108

Progress: $1,074

We contributed more than that in August, so it was a loss overall. (At least it does still seem likely that we'll pass our 2017 mini-mini-goal of $350K before the end of the year.)

To reach the goal by our birthdays in 2019, that's 18 months, so we'd need to contribute (or have assets appreciate) $149,561 -- $8,309 per month -- to reach it.

Friday night we tried a new salad recipe which was basically raw corn cut from the cob, heirloom tomato, red bell pepper and tamed red onion (soaked in ice water then drained), with a balsamic dressing. We had it with veggie buffalo wings and dipping sauces for the "wings." The salad was good! Nice and simple but refreshing and flavorful.

Tonight we tried another recipe from damndelicious.com, which MonkeyMama turned me on to. It's a meat heavy site so I usually use tofu or a veggie meat in its place. This time it was honey lemon chicken & broccoli with rice. I used Morningstar chicken strips. AS and I really liked it; the kids managed to get their obligatory bites in.

So that's 44 meals down and only 6 to go! At least I'll hit one of my annual goals; I've kind of fallen down on some of the others.

We had some expenses this weekend that added to the shared spending deficit, but at least we're not back up to $4K. NT left for his 9-day UK trip Friday and had snacks and drinks at the airport before his flight. All other expenses will be on the UK debit card and will come out of the UK account, but since he was still in the U.S., this one was on our Capital One card. Just $20.

AS and I tried to put together our fall/winter capsule wardrobes from clothes we already had since we're so far in the hole on spending money, but there were a few things we were missing. We went to Savers; we promised the kids they could each get a toy if they were good, which was only about $4 apiece. But they spotted the Halloween section and wanted to shop for their costumes. I realized I hadn't figured that expense in but it was something we would have gone to Savers in October for it anyway, so we let them pick out costumes.

AS and I spent about $30 each, and the girls spent about $35 each on costume + costume accessories + toy. $130.38 total. Not terrible considering AS and I typically spend a few hundred each on our wardrobes every 6 months; I should be good for the most part, and even if AS needs a couple more items, this is way cheaper for 6 months of clothes than we have been used to.

Shared spending deficit is back up close to $3900. A couple of expected freelance payments didn't come in or else it would be less. Hopefully those payments hit next week and we can see that balance go down!

Wow, I realized I didn't record any progress on this goal since August 3, when I cooked my 36th new meal! It's been a hectic month, but I did manage to try some new recipes, so I'm going through my revision history on my menu Google sheet to remember them all.

Meal #37: spaghetti with tomato sauce and breaded, fried eggplant. We got some of those long, skinny eggplants from our CSA. None of us are huge fans of eggplant so I always try to transform/disguise it. This time I sliced them thin and rolled in soy buttermilk and panko breadcrumbs, and we had them with pasta and red sauce. It was pretty good, considering it was eggplant!

Meal #38: coriander chutney & eggplant sandwich. I had some cilantro from the CSA and hot peppers in our garden, so I made a chutney. Then I ate it in a sandwich for lunch with the rest of the breaded eggplant from dinner. I really liked this, actually!

Meal #39: TVP taco salad. In our attempts to use up the pantry to avoid waste & save money, I played with a bag of TVP (textured vegetable protein). I made taco salad where I usually buy a $4 bag of vegetarian burger crumbles, but instead I spiced up the TVP with fake-beef buillion & Mexican seasonings. I thought the kids would hate so I only gave them about a tablespoon each and put the rest in the grownups' bowls. AA requested more and was disappointed that I didn't have any. I may do this again and make sure there's enough for seconds, now that I know she likes it!

Meal #40: TVP burgers w/frozen corn on the cob. I made another recipe using the rest of the TVP. It also had minced veggies and some vital wheat gluten, as well as Worcestershire sauce & other spices. The flavor was great but I was disappointed they didn't hold together better. We had the burgers with potato salad and corn on the cob. I'd accidentally bought frozen corn on the cob from Instacart a few weeks back, so this was my first attempt using it. Yuck! I couldn't eat more than a couple bites; it was a soggy mess. We have several more packs of it in the freezer, unfortunately. I'm not sure what to do with it. maybe cut it off the cob and puree for a chowder? Any ideas?

Meal #41: Eggplant parmesan sandwiches. We got a large eggplant from the CSA, so I sliced it thin, salted to remove the bitterness, dipped in vegan buttermilk and panko breadcrumbs with Italian seasonings, and pan-fried until the coating was lightly brown and crispy. Then placed the slices on a baking sheet, topped with Italian cheeses (vegan for me), and served on a bun with fresh tomato, sauteed onion and spaghetti sauce. I put it on burger buns because we had a lot to use up. We also had a side of spaghetti aglio olio, which is essentially olive oil, sauteed sliced garlic and red pepper flakes. Our neighbors and their friend had dinner with us; no one at the table was a fan of eggplant, but we all finished the sandwich no problem. A pretty good way to use an unpleasant vegetable and not let it go to waste!

Meal #42: Grits & oatmeal bar. One thing I found while eating through the pantry was a container of grits we'd only cooked from once. So it was mostly full. Our downstairs neighbor had once done an oatmeal bar where you could add whatever sweet or savory ingredients to your oatmeal, so I tried that. I cooked a big pot of plain grits, and AS a pot of slightly sweetened oatmeal. Then I put out lots of plates and bottles: sauteed onions, sauteed peppers, chopped-up vegetarian sausage patties, vegetarian bacon, shredded cheese, hot sauce, maple syrup, brown sugar, margarine, chocolate syrup. I ended up eating two big bowls of grits with all the savory ingredients; it was delicious but I was stuffed! I loved it but the kids really didn't, so I don't know if I'd go out of my way to do it again.

That's it for now, but I've put three new dishes on this coming week's menu, so I'll make some good progress again soon! But for now it's 42 new meals tried, 8 to go!

Well, I managed to scrape up some money to put toward the deficit -- $200 from an AS freelance payment, $50-$90 here and there from various line items such as keeping grocery spending and carshare rental down and skipping haircuts for a month. We managed to hold onto about $400 of those gains and the deficit is now $3700.

AS has some more small freelance checks expected this month and a TON of work booked that should get paid in the next few months. But I also see some expenses coming up in September-October that will add to the shared spending deficit:

- Swim lessons. I just booked our last paid-for lesson for this Saturday, so I'll need to buy some more.

- Lyft rides. AS has started teaching her class Wednesday nights; she buses there and takes a Lyft home. The first couple Lyfts are covered by our transportation budget but the rest will come out of shared spending. At least she can claim on her taxes, I think!

- Theater tickets. I promised the kids I would take them to a play, and there's one coming up in October that they should like. AS is going to look for a Groupon for the theater company to try and offset that cost.

- My trip to Wisconsin. I'm feeling more comfortable with the thought of spending on this and have booked the time off work, but haven't spent any money on it yet. Ideas for keeping costs down: Having my friend drive her car and just paying for half of gas; getting an AirBNB or possibly a deal on a hotel room because of a friend who works for one; packing some food to avoid eating out every meal. The tickets themselves aren't too bad; $12 for one show and $20 for the other, and I'd have to get AS tickets too, so $64 total. I may also have a bit of personal spending money by then that I can put toward the trip expenses--I've almost made up my personal spending deficit (that's also been in the red for the past couple months).

- Wedding gift for my niece. I feel bad I can't go, so I want to get her something kind of nice. Thinking $200 or so. She gets married in October and of course I have a year to get her a gift after that, so I don't have to pull the trigger right away on this expense, but I would like to get it to her in October if possible. She and her mom drove 4 hours each way on the same day to come see me and the kids during our trip to Va. in August!

- AS's mom's November visit. She's coming for a week or so around Thanksgiving, so I'm sure food costs will go up. (She's a meat eater so won't want to eat our vegan/vegetarian meals all the time.) However, this is her visit to sort of get a sense what it would be like to live in Minneapolis, so I don't think we'll go out of our way to give her a costly touristy experience. More a taste of what our everyday mundane life is like. (Yes, she is considering moving here again, which some of you may remember from a panicky post years ago. More on this later, but at least we're in a much better place mentally and financially and I'm not feeling as panicky about the thought of her coming!)

I've been working hard to lower our shared-spending deficit, but like magic, something comes up every time I manage to reduce the balance a little bit, so we're still at about $4K despite finding hundreds of dollars in the budget to put toward it.

However, I'm feeling more optimistic after this week. AS has booked a bunch more work. Some of it is up in the air as to the exact amount, but I do feel like at some point, the money will start rolling in and our deficit should go down pretty quickly. Fingers crossed some of that happens in the next couple weeks, so I can feel confident enough booking our 2-night trip to Wisconsin. We'll see! We have a friend possibly interested in coming with us, which would help diffuse transportation and lodging costs because she has a car.

We went to the State Fair 2 days in a row and spent nearly $500 total! Luckily I'd set that aside in our annual budget so the only thing that added to our deficit was ordering food delivery when we got home on the second day.

I spent some time today turning over the kids' wardrobes from summer to fall/winter. In the process I always transfer AA's outgrown/unwanted clothes to storage for when SL grows into them, and we ended up with about 75 articles of clothing that SL had outgrown or wouldn't need. I took the advice that a few of you posted on MyEnglishCastle's blog and listed some lots of kids clothes on FB garage sale. $15 for a batch of size 4 clothes and $20 for a batch of 5/6 clothes. I have no idea if they'll sell but I figure it doesn't hurt to hold onto them for a couple days and then donate them if no one is interested. We got most of the clothes for free in the first place, via hand-me-downs and grandparent gifts, so it's no loss if they don't sell.

Raise/promotion talks have gone nowhere at work since they switched my reporting structure around and my direct supervisor has been insanely swamped. But we have a check-in this coming week, and I've been getting rave reviews from important people over the past month, so hopefully she has time for our touch-base and I can ask her where we should go from here now that the guy we were going to talk to isn't in charge of us anymore.

AS recently got an offer of a LOT of work from a guy I used to work with who now works elsewhere; I put AS in touch with him when she went freelance and she's done several projects for him. She suggested maybe there was so much work that he'd need even more freelance help, so I asked her to mention me to him. If I could squeeze in some freelance work while I'm slowly trying to nudge my work into giving me more money, that would be a great boost in the meantime. I know he pays really well!

I transferred 1,000 pounds from UK savings to UK checking in preparation for NT's trip. He's hoping that will suffice for his remaining trip expenses. He leaves Friday for 10 days. He's staying with family and friends and taking public transport when not being driven around. So other than a few bus/train tickets and food and drink (and stuff he wants to bring back like HP sauce and PG Tips teabags), it shouldn't be an over-the-top vacation in terms of spending. I'm hoping people cook for him and/or buy him meals once in a while!

Anyway, that brings our EF down to $6,000. But if he can manage not to take any more out, and the flat doesn't require any repairs in the next few months, we should be at our $10K goal by about May 2018.

But, I'm braced for curveballs that throw us off course, because it's been that kind of year! I'm hopeful but realize things may not go the way I want.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US mortgage: $703 to principal
UK mortgage #1: $183
UK #2: $39
UK #3: $40

All told, that's $965 toward principal

New debt balances:
US Mortgage $393,968
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $34,116
UK Mortgage 2 $7,191
UK Mortgage 3 $7,574

TOTAL DEBT $451,849

Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV: 17,967 pounds ($22,459)
SW: 20,398 pounds ($25,497)
FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078)
NT's 401(k): $55,218
NT's Roth IRA: $21,088
AS's trad. IRA: $17,792
AS's Roth IRA: $40,190
AS's SEP IRA: $17,167
CJ's 401(k): $111,525
CJ's Roth IRA: $26,168
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $427,281 ($454,554 value -6%)
---
Total Assets: $984,963

Debts:
US Mortgage $394,671
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $34,299
UK Mortgage 2 $7,230
UK Mortgage 3 $7,614
---
TOTAL DEBT $452,814

Current Estimated Net Worth: $532,149

June 2017 estimate: $530,114

Change in net worth: +$2,035

Summary: Nearly flat month; the only progress was some debt payoff and a bit toward retirement thanks to contributions outpacing minor losses. I'm now doubting whether we'll reach the million-dollar mark on assets in 2017. It's also now even more unlikely we'll get to $600K in net worth this year; we'd have to gain about $17K per month to get there, which just ain't gonna happen.

Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are approximate. (I do have my eye on a comparable listing for the UK flat, but it's been on the market a long time.) UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.