I hardly ever read news about sports figures, but

The goal in December is once again to pay the minimum on debt--at least $1550.

That's because any extra money gets stashed at the bottom line in anticipation of taking a loss on our condo if we sell. I think I only managed to set aside about $250 extra this month, and some of that may go to a dental bill, and possibly a new suit for NT if we can find a good deal.

No news on the two bites and new showing, but it is the weekend after a holiday. Hoping we hear something in the coming week.

I completed NaNoWriMo! I finished writing my novel and made it to a little over 50,000 words at about 2 a.m. the morning of the 30th. So I had 22 whole hours to spare. AS finished hers later in the afternoon. It's a great exercise but we're SO glad to be done.

We all have tomorrow off to celebrate a milestone: 9 years of dating, and Tuesday marks 8 years of marriage. (But Monday worked out better to take the day off.) I've racked up $160 in plasma donating money on a prepaid card, and I also have a $25 Amex gift card from my work. We have a reservation at a nice restaurant and I'm perfectly happy to spend it all. We're also going to brunch in the morning (I can use my weekly spending money for that) and shopping during the day (we each have a Xmas budget we're allowed to spend on ourselves and the kids). It'll be a spendariffic day but all the money was carefully set aside, so I feel pretty good about it.

We have free babysitting from my friend whom I've been helping with budgeting. Our tenants/friends are giving us some free babysitting two other days this month. Three in one month--that's incredible! Since we don't have any money or time lately, we simply haven't been going out for fun this year. But one by one, the things that are causing time and money crunches are falling away, just by us being patient and waiting them out and being hypervigilant about our spending.

The biggest time-suck (besides AS's old job that she ditched) is NT's education, and he's done in three weeks (two more weeks of classes and one of tests--I know I keep repeating that, but we just cannot wait).

The biggest money issue is carrying the condo and association dues, and preparing to take a big loss when we do sell it. Once that biggie is out of the way, there are a few other things that will clear up our budget further: refinancing our main mortgage, NT getting a raise, less money toward flex spending and (later next year) daycare, AS possibly ramping up her freelance work.

But once NT has graduated and we sell the condo, things are going to be much rosier even without all the rest of that.

Just a quick check-in on a lazy day after Thanksgiving. AS's student loan payment hit with $137 going to principal.

That takes us to $1569, exceeding the goal of $1550.

Will set a new goal for December this weekend.

We have two people who have expressed interest in the condo and another showing tomorrow. Really hoping one of these turns into an offer.

I'm at 43,502 words on my NaNoWriMo novel (which explains why I've barely blogged for a while). I think I can get it done by the end of the month.

Three more weeks until NT finishes college!

That's the big news in a nutshell.

She booked three separate jobs with different places today, to the tune of $1550! One of them will take her a long time, and one is in-house work for my job that doesn't take place until December. But still! This takes her so close to her goal of funding healthcare and replacing net pay from her old job through the end of January. Just $909.94 to go on that goal.

After that we'll start on funding her federal and state tax prepayments. I'd like to have those sorted out by early January so we can send in an early payment. Next we'll start on retirement. Then it'll just be a case of funding each month's net pay, taxes and retirement, starting with February.

Once we sell the condo, her pay will just be gravy. We'll use it to fix up the house, go on vacations and plump up our depleted emergency fund. But for now it's very much necessary to keep everything going, so I'm really grateful to have the peace of mind of so many paychecks accounted for in advance.

I'm at 14,065 words on NaNoWriMo. I don't think I'll get much done tonight because I'm exhausted, so that means I'll be about a day and a half behind going into tomorrow. Not too bad; I could make that up on a good day.

I had insomnia randomly last night. Didn't feel scared or stressed, so I'm not sure what it was about. I finally got out of bed and did some work before going in so I could leave early. It snowed about 6 inches today so all the buses were going slow, but it only took me 15 minutes longer than usual to get in.

After work I gave plasma for the second time. The first time was Friday (I had the day off) and it took about 4 hours as they did all the training and testing. This time it was more like an hour and a half. Not too shabby for $40! I get $40 the first four times; after that it goes down to $20 the first time in a week and $22 the second. I don't know if I'll do it when it's that little; I guess we'll see how my finances look then. I'm relieved that except for the waiting, it's easy and relatively painless.

They put it on a prepaid card and there are all these different fees, so I have to be careful to use it in a way that doesn't eat up the money. So now I have $80 on the card. I intend to earn as much plasma money as possible and use it for our anniversary Dec. 1.

We had two more agent previews followed by showings by those agents. Good ratings but no interest. At least I know agents are looking at the condo and deciding it's good enough to show.

AS got some more work and is partly into funding her January paychecks. Woo hoo!

I took SL for a mom-daughter date Sunday, since I've had so many one-on-one times with AA lately. SL is two so she doesn't need much to keep her entertained. We went to a local global shopping center. I spent $3 on candy for her (and a little bit for her to give her big sister later) and $2 on coffee for me. We wandered around and then hung out at the indoor play area.

I decided against a cooking class with my friends, which would have been $69 just for me. I'm still deciding on a play some acquaintances are putting on; it's one of my favorite plays I read in college, but I also have the anniversary to think about and just wanting to have some money left over for little things.

I will be glad when I can be looser with money, but I have to say that I'm enjoying finding free or cheap ways to enjoy myself. And my family is making me proud; they promised they'd make sacrifices if we could move into the new home earlier, and they've stuck to it with virtually no complaints.

That said, one of my favorite free activities is fantasizing about things I'll be able to afford again one day!

I'm at 6,017 words in NaNoWriMo. A bit behind, but at least I'm making progress. And it's all been in the after-kids'-bedtime hours, when my brain is the most tired and slow. I'm going to try and write 2000-4000 words tonight. We'll see how it goes.

I have this Friday off so I'll try to get some writing done in the daytime. I'm also going to the plasma place to see if I qualify. (My blood can be a bit low in iron at times so I bet it's a possible disqualifier.) If I do get to give, I can try to write some while it's happening.

My payment to the crazy seller was taken out of the checking account on the 4th! First time it's made it by the 5th, which is technically the grace period. Well, the first payment did, but he didn't know it was my payment so he thought I was late that first month. I'm just so relieved I don't have to email that unpleasant person this month. I have December's payment schedule to reach him Nov. 25, so hopefully it'll get to him by the 1st. AS says the mail carrier must hate him for his mail to be late all the time like that!

We had an agent preview the condo yesterday and that same guy scheduled a showing for this evening. At this point it's hard to get excited about showings, but this is the first non-agent one in two weeks, so I am a little hopeful.

NT has only 6 more weeks of college! 5 weeks of classes and then a week of finals.

I guess that's about it! Still holding steady on not spending, unless it's out of a fixed budget line such as groceries. We cook dinner every night, I bring in breakfast and lunch to work every day, barely go on any dates or to anything that's not free. Don't buy anything I don't absolutely need. I have four pairs of work pants and about six sweaters and I just cycle through them every week for work clothes. Every bit of extra money gets socked down to the bottom line to help minimize the loss when we sell the condo. I've got nearly $4000 saved so far. Holding the line now will help us recover faster and more strongly when the budget allows us to.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US condo: $491
US duplex:$628
UK1: $218
UK2: $47
UK3: $48

Takes us to $1432 down, $118 to go for the month of November!

Today we had a playdate/party that AA has wanted to throw for a long time. About six kids and six adults came. We had it in the morning so kids could nap afterward; afternoon/evening parties tend to cause meltdowns in preschool kids, we've found.

We served breakfast-y food: fruit, mini-pancakes, waffle sticks and banana bread. Juice and water for the kids, coffee for adults. Probably spent $5 more on groceries than we normally do. We bought $3 worth of party favors: a bag of superballs and a bag of toy ponies.

The party was princess- and pony-themed, so the night before I cut some construction paper into crown shapes, and let each kid decorate a crown with stickers before custom-taping it to fit their heads. NT found some coloring-book pages online and printed those out for kids to color.

I found a My Little Pony album and other kid-friendly playlists on Spotify.

It was great! For less than $10 we had a festive and fun party. It's so much better entertaining kids in the new home, because the intensity is spread out over several rooms and floors instead of all being in one or two rooms.

I stayed up late last night writing the first scene of my NaNoWriMo novel. Got 1679 words done, which is a bit more than 1/30th, so a good pace. It was slow getting started but hopefully will be easier now that I've described and introduced the main characters.

My dad emailed that a guy he lets hunt on his land in WV saw plastic markers in a line across the land, so maybe indicating where the pipeline would go. Not sure if that's progress or if that's been up for a while.

Not much else to report. Lots to look forward to over the next couple months, though! This month there's NaNoWriMo, a comedy show we've already paid for, a daycare sleepover for the kids, lots of days off for me, first Thanksgiving in the new home. December is our wedding anniversary, more days off, several holiday parties, NT's graduation from college, and Xmas and New Year's Eve. Fun fun fun!

We are still in the mode of minimum debt payments, so the November goal is the same as October: to pay at least $1550 of debt.

Other than that, no big news. NT's mini-bonus came in a couple hundred dollars more than I budgeted for, so that felt like another snowflake. Also, the CSA is splitting their shares into three seasons now. We're going to opt for the summer only, which is slightly shorter and slightly cheaper than this year's. Since that was already in the budget, I entered the lower number and counted the money saved as a snowflake. We now have nearly $4000 in the budget to help with selling the condo; it's just a drop in the bucket, but a much bigger drop than before, so I'm feeling more comfortable.

I booked my days off work and realized I'm only working 16 days in November (at least 2 of them from home and probable half days) and 14 in December! I may try and give plasma on my first day off, which is next Friday. We'll see if I can; sometimes I have low iron and I'm not sure if that will be a factor.

Halloween was so much fun and I only spent about $20. $10 of that was for a costume AA ended up not wanting to wear; she wore a fairy outfit from her play clothes. So Halloween COULD have been $10! Oh well, lesson learned. Our street is great for trick-or-treaters; we actually ran out of candy but the girls were back from their run, so I used some of the candy they'd collected to hand out to the remaining kids that came by.

AS is still doing great with her freelance work. She's almost done funding December. Once she finishes January, I'll go back and fill in money for taxes and retirement. Though I may put off the retirement contributions and use that money to help get out of the condo.

Speaking of that, the agent preview was just a realtor checking out the competition. At least he said our unit was better than the one he's selling, and we're priced $4K lower. No new showings though. I think slowdown is normal as fall turns to winter.

Yesterday I confirmed that my dental implant bill came in about $500 less than projected, leaving $500 in flex spending money. I could roll it over but chose to hunt around and submit some receipts, since we need the money more urgently now than we probably will next year.

Also, NT emailed me a letter from his company leadership announcing a surprise mini-bonus of $750 that will come with his Oct. 31 paycheck!

So, even assuming we only net 50% of the bonus, that's $875 minimum in found money. I'm setting it aside to help deal with condo sale if/when it happens.

Speaking of, we have an agent previewing the place tomorrow. I'm relieved since it's the first showing in probably over a week.

AS's student loan hit, with $141 going to principal. That takes us to $1565 paid this month, exceeding the $1500 goal.

I shall set up a November goal later this week.

Had a fun weekend, and not TOO spendy. Friday night the girls stayed with our friends/downstairs neighbors while we drove to Stillwater (40 mins away) for a wedding reception. We only stayed a couple hours so we could get back downtown and hang out somewhere. We dropped off the carshare and walked to a pizza place a couple blocks from home, where I had two appetizers, and NT and AS each had a drink and a slice. We had a gift card from a friend, so we only had to put in $5 each. The carshare to the wedding was about $35, and the gift was a $20 serving bowl that we bought with Amazon CC rewards.

We pay for carshare with a monthly budget item, but we're already partly into December's allotted amount. Typically carshare usage goes way down once it gets snowy and icy, so it's usually OK to go over budget in the summer and fall and make it up then.

Saturday we did grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. Saturday night we had a potluck at the downstairs place; the ingredients for our dishes fit into our regular grocery budget, so it was a nearly free night of entertainment.

We talked briefly about Xmas and agreed that it might be a good year to just give each other the money budgeted for gifts so we could get exactly what we wanted, since things have been so tight lately. If we did it we'd promise to use the money just for ourselves, even if it's for practical things (I really could use new bras and slippers and PJs and work pants).

AS has gone to give plasma after hearing our friend talk about it; she made $100 over two sessions. It takes a while so it's not a good hourly rate, but you can work on laptops, read, etc., so it doesn't sound too bad. The first 5 sessions you get $50 each; after that the amount goes down. But I might consider trying it at some point. I wouldn't mind having a little bit of extra spending money.

Today we finished up grocery shopping at CVS; with coupons and savings we spent $43 for $80 worth of stuff! I splurged with some of my spending money at CVS and Target today. $7 for Halloween candy to give out, $3 for a silly witch hat to wear while handing out candy, $4 on party favors for a party/playdate AA is hosting next week, and $4 on some sweet treats for my kids. So $18 total, about half of my weekly spending money.

Earlier in the week, I suddenly decided to try and apply for an unsecured personal loan to cover getting out of my promissory note to the crazy seller. I put NT as a co-applicant; it didn't offer a third spot, plus it's still hard to say what AS's monthly income is. Unfortunately, I didn't get approved; our debt-to-income for just our two incomes is too high, and our incomes not quite big enough for what I applied for. (I tried for $35K thinking it would also help us pay off the condo mortgage if/when we sell.)

However, the lady did tell me that if we didn't have the condo mortgage we would probably qualify for about $25K, which would be almost enough to cover the promissory note. So maybe if we get an offer on the condo, we'd get approved for $25K. The interest rate is 5.99%, which is pretty good for unsecured debt I think. Our promissory note is 5.375, but only for a year, after which it goes up. So I'd gladly switch to an unsecured loan with a slightly higher rate.

Today I was looking over my budget and bank accounts and realized that when I switched the promissory note payments to the 25th, I'd somehow skipped Oct. 25 and had no payment scheduled for the Nov. 1 bill! I set one up right away that is scheduled to reach the seller on Oct. 30, so fingers crossed it does get to him faster than last month's.

No news on the condo. Showings have really dropped off. We have a week left in October, and our agent says 25% of sales in our complex do happen in the winter months, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that we'll sell yet this year. So, we sit tight for now.

Daycare tuition is going up by $20 per kid next year. But AA will only be full-time there until the school year starts; after that she'll do after-school there, which is half the amount of full tuition. So overall, our daycare costs will be less next year, just a bit more for the first eight months.

AS continues to pull in smaller jobs here and there and is nearly three-quarters of the way through funding December paychecks and healthcare.

NT has eight more weeks until he gets his BA! So so excited to have that out of the way.

AS and I are getting ready to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I've nearly got my book plotted out. It's a cheesy young adult supernatural-ish thriller/horror novel. I'm hoping it'll be fun to write!

I have to check my PTO; I believe I have quite a few days to use up before the end of the year. Maybe I could work on my novel and give plasma on days off!

No bite on the condo. Only one showing since we lowered the price and none scheduled at present.

I woke up this morning utterly convinced that I'd miscalculated my net worth in my post a few days ago. Sure enough, I went back and checked my math, and I was $10K off! So we lost $11K+ last month, not $1K+. Ah well. Part of that was reducing the condo value in the asset section.

I wrote a brief and trying-to-be-helpful email to the seller in advance of November's payment and got a faceful of unpleasant bluster spewed back at me. If it weren't for his attitude I wouldn't be so freaked out about this debt. I really want to get rid of it. My first big attempt will be in late Feb./early March, when I try to refinance our mortgage and see if there's enough equity to roll the promissory note in. So we have to put up with each other at least until then (or until/unless I come up with a plan to get rid of it sooner).

I'd built up about $2700 in the budget thru February to help get out from under the condo when/if we sell it, but I had to use a bit because I realized our phone bill will be a bit bigger now that AS is working from home. Not really a business expense; it's mostly from calling and texting with us and friends, calls that may have taken place on her work phone before. So our monthly bill will be $51.51 vs. $38. Not a huge deal, still super cheap for three people.

I may also pull from that money to help AS get a work computer (our home laptop is impossibly slow) and a hair appointment (her dreads would ideally be maintained a couple times a year but it's been over a year since her last appointment). A couple hundred dollars isn't going to get us out of our condo money pit much faster, so it's not that big a deal.

We had to use more of the housewarming money to call an electrician for lights not going on. Turned out to be a faulty breaker. $125. We're probably lucky that necessary maintenance has been less than $1000 so far. Considering the crazy seller and his DIY wiring and repairs. We have about $200 left now.

Other than the above, life is good. I believe it's 8 more weeks of classes for NT, and he's already acting more relaxed. I can't wait! We've been having dinner together with our housemates two or three times a week; sometimes they cook and sometimes we do. Fun and socializing with no extra cost! AS and I are planning our NaNoWriMo novels and our housemate CC is going to join us this year. We're helping each other develop our ideas and get motivated. I got a real office at work; still getting settled but I love the privacy already. The girls sleep so much better at the new house, which makes them learn faster and have better moods. We have some fun times coming up that shouldn't cost too much, including a wedding Friday, a potluck Saturday, Halloween the following Friday, a playdate the following Saturday.

Our wedding anniversary comes up in early December and right this second, I’m tempted to splurge on a nice dinner out. We’ll see how I feel closer to the actual date.

So our real estate agent emailed us a detailed run-down of what's been going on with selling units in our condo. She's so great! But the news was not. All the 2-bedrooms just dropped their prices, and the ones that sold, were sold for less than asking with the seller covering part of closing costs.

So we're following suit and dropping our price $5K, to $140K. Our agent thinks we might not sell this fall at our current price and would have to drop the price in the spring anyway since we'd have a stale listing. So we're hoping the drop now will precipitate a sale. There's still a glimmer of hope with one of the flaky buyers but we already offered them $140K with no nibble, so I told our agent to throw out $138K and see if it gets them interested again.

I'm figuring if we do sell in the next month, the best we can hope for is $135K and we pay 3% of closing costs. So the best case scenario is we lose $28,600 in getting out from under the mortgage.

Then there's the crazy seller of our new place that I really want to get out from under. Our payments are only $118.70 per month for the next year, but I can't stand working with him. So I want to come up with $26,500 ASAP to pay him off.

So, OK, we've got to come up with $55,100 to get out from under these two burdens. (I'm choosing to assume the condo will sell at the above numbers but am well aware that's not a guarantee.) I came up with a plan that could work, but it basically means no fun money [beyond basic spending money] for the next year and a very steady income from AS's freelance business. It also means using all of NT's year-end bonus (he found out he's not getting a raise this year, but we can count on the bonus at least). It assumes we can refi the house in February to save $450 per month by eliminating PMI. And it means using all the money we save by not having the condo mortgage and association payments.

It means no travel our housecleaning for the next year, too. So in its current form, the plan is going to require patience and careful budgeting and a deferral of two of our favorite luxuries.

But, it's a plan. It's somewhere to start, even though so many things could change over the next year. So now we just cross our fingers that the condo sells soon.

AS told me about a couple of class actions we qualify for, one against Red Bull and one for Truvia sweetener. You can Google them and find the online signup form if you bought either of these products. She also turned me on to a handy site, topclassactions.com, that gathers them for you to browse and also lets you sign up for a weekly email about new ones. Those were the only two I qualified for and I'll probably get about $17 total in like a year or two, but still, worth 5 minutes of my time!

We'll be spending more of NT's mom's housewarming money on repairs, this time servicing the radiator in AA's room that won't warm up and is leaking a bit. We should still hopefully have $300 or $400 left after that as a reserve fund for any other little house things that come up in the next couple months.

I was looking at next year's prospective budget. If we can sell the condo by then, and refinance the duplex mortgage to get rid of PMI, we should be in pretty good shape! After FrugalTexan's blog post about less strict budgeting, I'm fantasizing about that for myself as well. We won't be able to do it until things loosen up, and when we can, it'll probably take some trial and error to find a simplified system that works for us. But I'm looking forward to trying!

It's hard for me to imagine how it would happen exactly. I guess just keep an eye on checking account and credit card balances to make sure we're not in danger of going over budget. And setting certain things on autopilot as much as possible, like retirement and extra debt repayment. With AS's irregular freelance income the retirement thing won't be quite as automatic, but maybe if I just dump a certain percentage of every check she receives into her Roth and a certain amount into savings to pay taxes later, it wouldn't take a ton of tending.

Once we have the condo sold and the promissory note to the crazy seller paid off, that's when I'll feel like I can start to find our new equilibrium!

We heard from the pipeline company, in the form of $250 to re-up their right-of-way option for 6 months. AS looked over the contract and says this the only time they can do that; in April they'll either need to pay up, drop the option or renegotiate with all of the landowners. I don't think the third thing will happen because it took them months and months to get everyone in line the first time, so it'll either be all the money or nothing by April.

Also got $28 from cable company as a partial month refund.

I also realized I still had $168 set aside for the kids' swim lessons, but we missed the fall session and won't be signing up again until spring. So I put that into our surplus too.

I also transferred another $2000 onto the 0% card. So that's another $2K I can keep in the bank in case it's needed to get out from under the condo.

(If there was no money coming in from anywhere else I would need all of that credit card money, plus the tuition money I saved while taking out a student loan, plus the money I've been setting aside for Roth IRA make-ups. But I keep forgetting that if I do sell the condo, I won't have mortgage or association payments anymore. Since I'm budgeted out to February, that's quite a bit of money that would be added to the budget if we sold. So I might not have to use all the money set aside for these other things.)

On the other hand, I might do all of those things and stockpile the mortgage/association money to pay off the promissory note to the seller. He's a nightmare -- will only work from paper checks but wants me to send him 12 checks upfront. I want to mail one at a time. I have them set up automatically from my checking account but so far there's been a problem with both September and October's payments. And now I have an extra e-payment in limbo I sent him when he thought he hadn't received the October check, that he hasn't used or responded to let me know his intentions with it. He's a thoroughly unpleasant person just by email (I've never met or spoken to him) and I can't wait to get him out of my life forever.

So maybe I WILL keep the 0% credit card balance, the new student loan and forget about catching up on Roths, and just save up money once we sell the condo so I can pay him off in a lump sum as soon as possible.

Still deciding.

In other news, I broke down and bought some things that just weren't showing up for free any of the places free things tend to appear. 2 sweaters for work ($11) and two scarves and a hat for the kids ($12) at the thrift store. And 2 side tables for the living room, $30 on Craigslist. Not bad prices anyway.

I also spent $24 at a bar after my work friend's funeral, hanging out with co-workers. A bunch of us didn't just want to be alone after the service, so it was worth it to feel that camaraderie. Although with that plus the sweaters, I've overspent my weekly money. That's OK though. I don't have anything planned and nothing else I really need for a while. At the end of this month our kids are staying over at daycare Friday and part of Saturday, so we'll have a date night. And in November one of our favorite comedians is in town, so we've got to pay in for those tickets ($15 apiece).

Other than that, we've been finding frugal ways to have fun. Last night we made pizza from scratch for our friend/downstairs neighbor's birthday, and later this month we have an autumn-themed potluck with a bunch of friends coming. And November is NaNoWriMo, so I might take part in that again.

My work friend died Saturday. I knew it was coming with absolute certainty, so the pain has been kind of diffused over several points: when I found out what she had and read about the survival rates online; when I heard she'd gone into hospice, and then when I heard she'd died. But it still hurts. Hard to believe such a lively, constantly moving, super-bright woman could decline so quickly and be gone from my life. The workplace is subdued, but luckily it's being faced head-on: the office is closing early Friday so we can all go to her funeral.

The second maybe-interested buyer backed down from making an offer. This time the reason was association dues too high in the city, going to buy a place in the suburbs instead. Can't argue with that. There have been two more showings, Saturday and Monday, both from a single agent but can't tell if it was one buyer coming back for a second look. No feedback from those.

No word on the WV deal. The option expires Saturday. No idea what they're going to do.

No word on NT's raise. He's bugged his manager again to talk to the person she needs to in order to get the promotion and raise made official. She tends to drag her feet for ages, so who knows if/when this will happen. But she's lost a good worker by ignoring his needs, so hopefully she's learned somewhat of a lesson and won't try to play games with my husband.

Other than that, things are steady. Just some really sad news and some frustrating lack of progress on some fronts. Nothing we could control. Everything we *can* control is working out nicely. We've managed to hang onto about $600 of the $1200 that NT's mom sent us, so we have some for must-have repairs and urgent wants. The rest was spent pretty sensibly on equipment repairs and various winterizing and storage type things.

NT's mom's boyfriend sent us some lottery tickets he'd bought in the U.S. and we cashed them out; $15. We spent $9.50 on a buy one get one free costume deal at Target.

AS has $25 gift card coming from MyPoints that she gets to keep or trade in for cash by giving it to me for grocery money. I've completed the pedometer challenge at work and will get a gift card for it. NT used some Pinecone money to offset a pair of used boots from eBay. I'm going to try and make do with all my winter stuff from last year, and we'll see what we have for the girls before we buy them anything from a thrift store. I'm close to earning $100 in CC rewards from USBank, which means we'll also get an extra $25 for waiting until we'd accumulated $100. All the little stuff adds up and helps us stay on track during this very tight time. That means I've been able to hold onto $2K from my raise, and that NT's raise (if/when it comes) can go toward helping us get out from under the condo mortgage.

AS has less than $5000 to earn to finish making up for her paychecks and healthcare through January. Once she's done I can start saving up for taxes and putting some to her retirement. She's got three or four prospective and/or definite jobs that will probably put her over the top; we just don't have exact dollar amounts so I can't count them yet. So far it looks like freelancing will pay way more than the job she left; not sure how much more after SE taxes and self-funded healthcare. But at least she's happier and doesn't work quite as much as she did, so that alone makes it worthwhile.

So things are going pretty well. Even though I'm feeling sad and stuck, we're actually doing OK.

The people who saw our condo Thursday expressed some interest! They asked if we'd consider a $135k offer. It's listed at $145k, so I asked our realtor to say we'd take $140k. Still waiting to hear back, but their agent thinks they'll be interested. Here's hoping!

I ran a 1-mile fun run with my 4-year-old today. She struggled some but had a good time. We got medals for finishing so she liked that, and there were people in animal suits. Her favorite moment was high-fiving a rabbit.

Had a family meeting with our friends/tenants. Happy to report everyone is pleased with the arrangement so far. They really want to buy a share of the house at some point. One is a lawyer so he'd be able to draw up the papers for that. They don't want us to pay back the $5k they loaned us for the down payment, so if we do this deal that can go toward their share of the home. We agreed to wait a while and make sure we continue to all agree it's a good idea. I love it myself but don't want to rush into it.

All five(!) of our mortgage payments hit:
US (condo): $483 to principal
US (duplex): $625
UK1: $221
UK2: $46
UK3: $49

All told, we paid down $1,424, with $126 to go on the October debt goal.

AS got another promise of on-site work from my company next week. Not sure how many hours it will be, somewhere between 8 and 16 I believe, at $40 per hour. She's closing in on fully funding December and it's just turned October!

Since we didn't sign up for swim lessons in time, the nice thing is our Saturday mornings with the kids are free. I signed up for a fun run with AA this Saturday and to clean up streets with the neighborhood association next Saturday. Now to think of some fun activities for the younger one as well ...

Another tooth appointment tomorrow. Fingers crossed this is the last one for my implant! Take care of your teeth, folks. Replacing them is a real PITA.

One more quick entry for today!

My goal for October is to pay off at least $1550 of debt.

Starting balance of all debt: $680,503. Goal balance: $678,953.

AS's student loan hit, with $136 going to principal.

Also, we got a call from Sallie Mae about NT's loan a couple days ago. I logged on and saw that we'd missed a payment in August and had one due for September too! I hadn't even been checking his account because he's in school until mid-December and they shouldn't have come due. I quickly paid both (a little over $100 total) and will take it out of the money I've been hoarding for getting out of the condo. Then I called Sallie Mae and it turns out they'd been waiting to hear from the college to confirm enrollment but payments had started up anyway. They've put a hold on future payments pending confirmation from the college.

So long story short, I paid off some interest that had accrued plus $25 on NT's student loan. Annoying that we had to make a payment now, but I'm always happy to reduce debt!

All told, that's $161 put to principal. That takes us to $1581, exceeding the $1500 goal for September. I'll post an October goal soon.

Other news:

- One of my favorite co-workers, probably in her 40s, is dying. Stage 4 lung cancer. She just found out a couple months ago but probably won't last many more days. She started chemo and planned to keep working, but it was progressing way too fast, so she's in hospice now. Healthy woman, full of energy, smart-alecky and hardworking. Two tween-aged kids and a husband and parents. This will be the second unbelievably vibrant woman I know this year to die of cancer. It is awful. Especially knowing there's no hope of her survival at all.

- Beyond aching for her and her family, the suddenness of it makes me evaluate whether I've got a good balance of delaying gratification while allowing some. I think I am. We allowed a big gratification -- moving into our new house -- in exchange for delaying a lot of little things. If luck continues to go our way, we'll be able to start introducing those little pleasures early next year. Doesn't seem like that long, except when I think that if my co-worker had found out about her cancer today, she'd likely have died by early next year. But it does make me glad we moved into the house. Couldn't imagine putting all that effort, money and mental anguish into buying the place and never getting to live there.

How to live your life to its fullest while keeping mind that you have anywhere from three months to 60 years left? That's the financial balancing act. Those who don't have that many wishes that take money are lucky. A good deal of the things I want to do, have or see will cost me money. But it's not all that. Some of what I want to do is just not work as hard and spend more time with family and friends. That doesn't take money, really, just good money management and work/life balance. And we're all actively trying to achieve that. It's gotten a bit better for me and AS; NT is still stretched way too thin, but if he can hang on through mid-December, he'll at least get college off his plate, and that's a biggie. And hopefully his new managerial role at work will eventually mean more delegating and less long hours, but only time will tell with that one.

OK, sorry, I had to write about that. I know it wasn't too cheerful. It's been weighing on me and when I heard about her going into hospice yesterday, I had to get it off my chest.

Other stuff:

- AS now has enough freelance work to fund November and part of December. She's got some potential work that will finish off December if it pans out. If she funds through January, I'm going to start allocating future jobs toward 2014 taxes and AS's retirement, which have both been neglected since the end of August. After that I would start socking away money to get out of the condo.

- No word from the people interested in the condo, so we're going ahead with getting the rest of the floors redone. Should be about $800, which I've already got set aside.

- We got through our third and final set of visitors (just Friday through Saturday). My sister and two of her kids (adults, really). My sister generously paid for all meals out, so we just paid for carshares to/from airport, a haircut for my niece, an ice cream cone for my nephew and a few other little things. Came to about $75 which we all helped pay in. A cheap visit! I have no money until Friday, but that's quite all right.

- I have my final(?) dental appointment for my implant this week. I hope no adults in my household lose teeth for a very long time! It's been nearly a year-long process and would have cost about $5000 if I hadn't used pretax money and credit card rewards to offset it.

- Living in deliberate frugality again, I've noticed the same reactions as the first time we did it, when we started our debt-payoff journey. I'm not ashamed at all to say I have no money for a new winter wardrobe, that we can only get new furniture if it's free, that we have no money to eat out, that I'm not going to replace my sneakers with holes in the heel until they actually become uncomfortable, that we've cut our haircut visits in half, etc. I feel good about these decisions because they're helping us to carry two mortgages and move into our big new house. Some people seem to react positively, but others kind of get quiet and look embarrassed or sad. I just think it's funny now, because I know I'm working toward a place where I can easily afford those things again, and I'm not feeling deprived by putting off these purchases. In fact I feel smart, free and empowered by these decisions. It's not like we don't have some money in the bank and tons of available credit on cards; I just don't want to use any of those things until we're in a better position with our debt and monthly budget. If we absolutely need something, there are ways to pay for it.

I started to write something yesterday but didn't get far enough to save it. Life is busy and full! Maybe part of it is now that I write in my daily job, I feel less need to blog as often.

I don't have any huge pieces of financial news, but the bits and pieces are piling up, most of them good. I'll get the bad news out of the way first:

- No offer on the condo. The people who seemed interested have stopped communicating suddenly with THEIR agent. She has no idea why. I think if I haven't heard anything tomorrow, I'm going to call and get the floor job scheduled. I think it will show better if we do that.

On to the good stuff:

- NT's mom sent us over $1000 as a housewarming gift! Instead of hoarding it like I have any other windfall money, we're actually using it for house stuff. So far we've used it for furnace repair, wireless internet router & Chromecast, kitchen trash cans, picture hangers, and vacuum cleaner repair. We still have about $800 left.

- NT found out he is getting a promotion next month to a managerial position. He should get a decent raise but the main benefit will be in a larger bonus in December. Either way, great news!

- AS's $2300 editing job fell through but she's more than covered it with lots of smaller jobs from different places. The work is flowing in steadily, so she's still replaced net pay plus health insurance through mid-November.

- Can't tell if it's for real or not, but the contact at the WV gas company said he thinks we'll get payment for the right-of-way on or before the option expiration date, which is Oct. 12. At least we should know something by then, whether it's full payment, letting the option expire or renewing the option for another 6 months.

- My new job is going very well overall. I've had some difficult moments but have also received some nice compliments and good feedback, so I'm starting to feel more confident.

- I transferred $8500 of CC balances onto the 0% card. I figure I'll leave it there for a while in case we sell the condo at a loss and need to pay to get out of the mortgage. Maybe we'll have enough money to cover it when that happens (especially if the WV deal happens or NT's bonus is really big) but since the card is 0% until end of 2015, might as well leave the debt there and keep the money in the bank just in case. I also have NT's last semester of tuition sitting on a loan ($4500) with the money to pay it off sitting in checking, and an extra $2K in checking. And I could put another $2500 at 0% on the credit card if needed to get out from under the condo. So we'll see what happens, but at least I have options.

Lots of other bits here and there, but I think that's all the big stuff. Onward and upward!

Well, the feedback from the third showing was promising but not definitive. The mom (who would be living there and was seeing it for the first time) loved our view. They feel it would need lots of updating, but the other place they're considering is much more expensive, so they're still considering. They might schedule a FOURTH showing before they decide.

If they don't, back to the drawing board; we'll get the rest of the floors refinished and clean the appliances really well, and hope it appeals to someone else soon. We had a couple other people see it last week but no feedback so not sure if any are interested.

Meanwhile at our new home, we haven't heard from the boiler repairman we called Friday, but we're likely getting a reprieve in the form of higher temps for the next week, so no hurry. They've got tons of good feedback online, so we'll give them a chance to contact us Monday.

We have an annoying problem upstairs with circuits shorting if too many things are on at once, but we're learning to work around it until we can get it looked at.

I did some yard work today; very light stuff, just mowing grass with a push mower, raking up clippings, and sweeping these dry pod things that are falling from our tree onto the back patio. I felt like an imposter but enjoyed it! This morning I took the girls to our local park, three blocks away, and we had a good time there. I also got to walk our friends' dog while they were away, and that was really fun too. Tonight we might light a fire in our friends' little portable fire pit.

Our cat is learning how to rattle our new bedroom door even louder than he used to the old one at the condo. We need to scheme ways to keep him away so we can get some sleep! We have a few plans to try out.

Since we have so much CSA veg to use up, our grocery shopping was way under budget. And we have money left over from last week too! We're getting $29 back from canceling cable, and Monday I find out whether I underestimated the net raise I'm getting.

On the down side, a gift snack box subscription AS and NT got me for my birthday sneakily renewed and charged us $72, and refused to refund it. Ah well. We'll get another box or two, which I do enjoy getting, and AS and I are going to gradually pay it back in to the budget from our spending money. Annoying, but not a huge deal.

We're getting back on a menu plan and it feels great! I kind of OD'ed on junk food and restaurant food. Home cooked meals are so comforting and good for the digestive system.

Someday I'll feel like I can sit down and write a leisurely well-thought-out post again ... hopefully.

The second set of UK visitors left yesterday. Although we're eager to get more settled into our home and that was difficult with visitors, we're very sad. The first set are some great in-laws that I've only met in person about five times, and the second set an amazing couple of lifelong friends that I've only seen in person about nine times (though each time was for weeks or even months).

Another bad thing? While we had visitors, I could attribute the disorganization and unsettled feeling to having visitors. Now I'm having to face up to the fact that we have a lot of work to do before we feel fully unpacked, organized and comfortable in our new home!

First thing we need to do is figure out the boiler/furnace/water heater stuff. We have hot water but are having trouble getting the heat going, mainly for our friends' unit, but apparently our heater was making a weird noise today. Trying to decide between a monthly plan or a one-off service call. I think they're nearly new heaters, so I'm leaning toward one-off, since I don't think they should need too much maintenance for a couple years (once we get them up and running, that is). Right away something has exposed our ignorance as homeowners, after being spoiled by condos and landlords taking care of things for us!

We have a THIRD showing on the condo tomorrow. Apparently they are down to either ours or another place (more expensive but more updated). So we're holding our breath. They don't mind spending the money to update ours since it's cheaper than the other. The main strike against us is the location of our parking spot in the garage; too far away from the condo for their taste. Hopefully they can get over that.

Tonight or tomorrow morning, though, NT has to go deal with a clogged sink there. Apparently we masked it well enough that they want to see the place again, but it was pretty backed up a few days ago and NT says he needs to get deep in the pipes to clear it out completely.

Meal planning is completely messed up, but we hope to sit down and create a meal plan tonight for the first time in about three weeks! I'm sure we've let some CSA veggies go to waste in the meantime; we used some of them, but the visitors were mostly meat eaters and wanted to eat out or get carryout a lot, so we didn't cook much.

At least we stayed on budget for vacation spending! I'm really excited about that! I have one week of regular spending money to enjoy and then next week we've cut ourselves down to half the amount for the foreseeable future until we get out of the hole somewhat.

There are other bits of news, I'm sure, but I need to get home (I'm at work), so I'll stop there. Fingers crossed for tomorrow's showing to lead to an offer!!

We're halfway through our second set of UK visitors, so I still don't have much down time to post. I'm having lots of fun, but busy busy!

Friday night was our first night in the new place! Everyone slept like logs, surprisingly, even the kids. Cat is still hiding for the most part, but eating, and accepting strokes, and coming out occasionally to explore, so I think he'll be OK.

The place is a little dingy and run down in parts, but basically functional. We don't really mind, because there's so much space, and trees outside our windows, and our friends living downstairs from us. Everyone in the family seems more relaxed. AS is just over the moon, and she's the one I really wanted to be happy, because she's still a bit mentally banged-up from leaving her stressful job and finding freelance work.

The Brits are very impressed, of course; one said you probably couldn't find a home this big in Oxford for under a million pounds ($1.6MM)!

We've moved 90% of our stuff out of the old condo. The only thing that's left is some stuff in the front hall closet (strollers, etc.) and some things for staging: the sofa, dining room table and chairs, lamp, bathroom accessories. We moved most of it Friday, stirring up a ton of dust and cat hair, and then had a showing Saturday morning. We did a frantic session of cleaning and decluttering and actually got interrupted by the realtor and buyer because they came early! (They saw I was in the middle of it and came back at the agreed time instead.)

Now that the beds and dressers are out, we can get the rest of the floors finished, The floor guy is calling on Monday to set that up.

But then, the feedback was that they might be interested! The main concern was the parking spot is pretty far away (it's in the garage of the next-door building). Our new realtor (so great) called promptly last night to let us know that she'd called that agent to tell them more great things about the unit. She wanted to know if we had any response to the parking spot concern. We let her know that there was a chance the buyer could swap with someone, or rent another spot from someone, and she called them back with that.

This morning our agent called again to say they were interested in coming again this week, and asked if we still wanted to do the rest of the floors or wait to see if we got an offer. It was a toss-up, but we decided to wait and see. It sounds like they are communicative, so if that was a deal-breaker hopefully they'd tell us and we could offer to do the floors at that point.

So I'll call the floor guy and have him hold off until we hear something. I have $800 set aside for the floors, so that would be a real boon!

I got some more good news: approved for the 0% (for 15 months) 0 balance transfer fees credit card, with a $9400 credit limit. So if I transfer that much in purchases that I was planning to pay off, that gives me $9400. If I don't do Roth catchup contributions in December, that's another $2250. If I keep the new NT student loan instead of paying it off in February, another $4494. Total: $16,144.

If we sell at the listing price we'll need to come up with $16,469 to get out of the mortgage. So we could pretty much cover it without having an onerous unsecured personal loan. Especially if we save $800 by not having to redo the floors! (Since some of the above money isn't coming into the budget until later, we'd probably have to get one for about $6K or $7K temporarily, but we could pay it off quickly and not pay too much interest.)

If we get a lowball offer or they ask us to cover closing costs, we wouldn't be able to avoid a personal loan. But with the money freed up by not paying mortgage and association dues, we might be able to pay one off pretty quickly.

I know I'm counting my chickens before they hatch, but I just want to make sure I know what we'll do in the event of an offer. It'll be some juggling but I think we can get away with low or no interest on the remaining condo-related debt until we can pay it off completely.

Other bits of money news:
- Vacation spending appears to be on track. I don't think I'll have to go into future spending money, which is good since our spending money is being cut in half to help afford moving into the new place so early! Grocery spending is actually down since we've been eating out using our vacation savings, so we might have a nice grocery cushion when this is all over.
- We spent a bit more than planned on van and car rental during the moving process, but I think only $20 or $30 more. I think I can get some credit from both our car share companies: one for downloading their new app, and the other if I report that we had to fill up the car we rented recently. So those credits may make up for it to some degree.
- We got some unexpected bonus items with the house: two wall-unit air conditioners, a bag of pretty nice clothes and accessories that got left by the garbage probably by mistake, a rake and a snow shovel, and some nearly-full cans of paint. These will definitely save us a bit of money in the short term.
- AS saw a great kitchen scale on deep discount on Amazon.com: about $16 for a $45 item. We figure if we bought this for our next wedding gift instead of the $50 Amazon gift card we were planning, we'd have more Amazon credits as a result. I need to see if it's still on sale and get it ordered! If not that, maybe we could find a similarly valuable sale item.
- We'll be getting a free date night in October; the daycare lady is planning a sleepover!
- A friend gave us a bag of really nice clothes she found on her free table. We've had a couple other good scores lately, including the big propane grill and a couple chairs from another friend, a coffee maker and two cute trays from the condo free table. Whatever we don't use I'll try to sell on our local Facebook garage sale page, or throw into storage to do a garage sale in spring. There's a big annual neighborhood one two blocks from our house that we could participate in if we didn't want to throw our own.

Overall I think it's going to be easier for my family to strive for frugal choices now that we're living here. Whereas it did feel like just deprivation with no reward, now the reward is all around us, a tangible reminder of why it's important to spend little or no money.

I'll check in when I hear more about the showing!

I figured out how to log in to my new mortgage account, and it looks like principal reduced even though the payment hasn't officially been taken out of my checking account yet. Odd, but at least I can post my debt payment progress on all mortgages:
US (condo): $482 to principal
US (duplex): $624
UK1: $218
UK2: $46
UK3: $50

All told that's $1420 down, $80 to go on the September debt repayment goal.

OK, I'm not really sure what the new mortgage will pay off each month, but I did an online calculator and hopefully I'm in the ballpark.

The goal for September, hopefully a conservative estimate, is to pay off $1500 of debt.

I'm also not sure when I'll learn the balance, but I just got the info for the provider that bought the mortgage, and they seem to have online access, so I'll try to log in tonight or tomorrow.

I'm sure our other mortgage payments have all hit the accounts, but it's been such a whirlwind that I haven't had a chance to check.

Our first wave of UK visitors left this morning and our second crew arrived. The first set -- NT's family -- were wonderful guests, but the second round is just two good friends so it'll be even better.

They all went out tonight and I stayed home with the kids, so I splurged on $10 delivery food. Our grocery and meal planning are in a bit of a shambles. I'm sure I could have scraped something together but was feeling lazy by the time I got the kids fed and off to bed.

We managed not to go over budget with the first set of visitors, and we have more money set aside for this lot, so I'm feeling OK about staying on budget.

Other news:

- First the washer went out at the new place. We convinced the seller to give us $100 to help offset the cost of replacement since it happened on their watch, and our friends/tenants covered the rest. Now our dryer is on the fritz. We've got $180 saved and a Home Depot $100 gift card lying around somewhere, and we should be able to cover the rest pretty easily because ...

- I finally got my promotion and raise! It's a nice raise too, $10K more per year. That's an almost 20% bump! I'd already factored $100 more per month into the budget but conservatively this is another $400 per month, which means $300 more than I have worked into the budget. It hits on Sept. 15 so we'll easily be able to cover the cost of the dryer.

No word on NT's potential raise, and AS has had only one more quickie $20 job (though she had to turn one place down and they said they'd check in again with her after the 15th, and she has four jobs already accepted that she'll start working on soon, including the $20 one). I'm still feeling very good about her potential for having a lucrative contractor career! One place has been REALLY quick about paying her, which is awesome because she's waiting on another check and soon to start a third job with them.

With all the stress of the purchase process, I was afraid our relationship with our friends would be strained, but it's actually been quite wonderful. We let them start moving in early without paying rent in August, and they provided air mattresses, bedding and furniture/kitchen supplies for our visitors. We don't move in officially until this Friday but I'm already feeling SO good about living in close quarters with them. They had expressed interest in buying their share of the duplex, and I want to wait a few months before committing to that, but so far I'm feeling good about that prospect.

The renters left Aug. 31, and despite being 2-3 hours late moving out, they left the place in good shape! They did put a ton of large items by the trash pile, so I'm going to see if the city takes them on the regular trash day. If not, we may have to pay to get them hauled away and I'll take that out of their deposit. Other than that, no complaints about how they left things!

In other news, we dropped our realtor (gave her one more chance to give us a discount and instead got a rather emotional, insulting and unprofessional email back), got a great professional new one, and dropped our price on the condo by $10K. We had a showing today that was a no-go and we have another one tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed we get this puppy sold!

With the new price, if we sold this month we would suffer about a $17K loss -- and that's IF we got an offer for the full amount with no request to cover closing costs. I was thinking personal loan to cover it; the interest rate wouldn't be great and the monthly payments would be big but it would be out of our hair in 1 to 5 years, depending on what term we chose.

But then we got an offer from Chase Slate for a 0% interest until Dec. 15, 0% balance transfer fees card, and I started thinking. We've got about $7K on credit cards now that we're budgeted to pay off in October. We also have the new student loan for NT for about $4500. We're budgeted to put $2250 into Roth IRAs for catchup contributions in Dec. or Jan. I have another $1600 I'm going to put on CC for my dental implant and most of it is going to be reimbursed by flex spending, so I was planning to pay that off right away. Between spending money, a new dryer and groceries we'd probably spend up another grand or two in the next month and plan to pay that off by CC.

So I thought: What if we don't do any of that? What if we transfer the CC balances to a 0% card, keep the new student loan (which doesn't have great interest rates but better than a personal loan), and not do catchup Roth contributions? Then we could get out from under the condo with barely (if any) personal loan debt. We'd still have the new debt, sure, but it would be lower interest, which would mean less of a monthly budget burden and more of an ability to pay extra since we wouldn't be wasting as much money on interest.

So it's an idea. In the past I would have said it's dangerous for me to play around with shifting debt from place to place, but I am determined to pay it off at an accelerated rate regardless, so maybe it would be a smart decision.

Of course we need an offer, or the whole point is moot. But I applied for a Chase Slate card just in case. We'll see if I'm accepted. (It wasn't instant approval, I think because I used the new address instead of just putting the condo address.)

Any other news? I think that's all of the big stuff. I'm feeling pretty good about things, with or without WV windfall. I think we're going to make this work.

I'll try to write a proper update this week -- there haven't been any huge changes but some bits of financial and/or house news -- but with family in town of course I spend way less time online.

Just wanted to check in since AS's student loan payment hit. $137 went to principal, which takes us to $928 of debt paid this month, exceeding the $900 goal.

I'll try to set a rough goal for September soon, though I'm not sure how much principal will get paid in our first mortgage payment. And since the initial company doesn't do online billing, it might take a bit of time to find out.

I'm on staycation! First set of UK visitors got here Thursday night. Besides making them feel welcome and showing them a good time, my main concern is not spending much. Luckily they are both cost conscious and fair minded, so they have made sure to ask about costs and put in for everything so far. So I think we'll be OK. We have to be, because we would need to cut elsewhere if we went over, and we don't have many more places to cut.

Went to a city open house about accessory dwelling units, because one of my long term goals is to turn the garage into a tiny home and rent it to our friend. The city plans sound promising, though I need to see if our yard size is sufficient. Should be voted on this fall, so we'll know soon whether it's feasible to start planning.

Meeting with realtor didn't go as hoped. She refused to lower her commission. We didn't threaten to cut her yet; we have a showing tomorrow and will see how that goes. If nothing comes of that we will give her an ultimatum. NT knows a realtor we could talk to as a replacement.

Got the first few utility bills and they were reasonable, but still waiting for our first water/sewer/trash/recycling bill. That's the one that could be big, I think.

Got a small ($140) refund on our homeowners insurance! That was welcome. Will pay for our moving van and a medical copay with a bit left over.

AS's last day at her job was yesterday. The day before that, she got another freelance job, a small $300 writing assignment from my company. They loved the first one she did! She's now partway through funding November.

My latest writing assignment at my job is not going great, but there are lots of external elements causing confusion. I'm pretty confident my boss will realize that and not have doubts about completing my transition to writer. I'm going to push for the official change to happen once I get back full time after my time off, Sept.12.

AS got some dollar amounts on the two projects she's been offered: $2300 and $1400. With that, her paychecks are replaced through October, and it's not even September yet!

I'm feeling much more relieved and relaxed and hopeful that this freelancing idea could not only be feasible but maybe lucrative!

(Explanation of replacing paychecks: Even though AS is leaving her job after this week, I've left her take-home pay in the spreadsheet so we know how much freelance income she needs to bring in to stay even. When she gets a freelance job, I can reduce the amount of take-home pay she needs to substitute.)

Our goal for this year is just to stay afloat, which means replacing take-home pay and the cost of funding her own healthcare. Basically $2750 a month.

So she just needs to make $5500 more by Dec. 31! She's decided to shoot for replacing January's income as well this year, since February is when things will really start to loosen up for us. So $8250 more is the goal.

Next year (or sooner if this does turn out to be a lucrative thing) I'm going to start focusing on also replacing the tax and retirement portions of her paycheck. But if she can at least make enough the rest of this year to make up for the regular paycheck she's not getting anymore, it will get us to next year, where things are looking a lot less tight.