I calculated how much less we'll be taking home now that the payroll tax cut has expired. I'd set aside $90 in the budget, but I forgot that AS got a full-time job and NT and I both got raises since the break was implemented. Plus I may have misremembered how much it was to begin with. Anyway, the actual hit is going to be $226 per month. I was $136 off! Ouch.

I took that out of the house down payment savings line item. Now we'll be $675 short every month of what we need to accomplish all three goals. It's a lot to come up with every month for 4 years. But, hopefully we'll get some unexpected windfalls as well as curveballs over the course of it.

I went to check the UK account because NT's dad said he'd put some money in there for the girls. He'd deposited 100 pounds, so I transferred it to UK savings and allocated 50 (US $80) to each daughter. They each got $25 from my parents, so they're up $105 each in their savings.

I don't have much of a money plan for the girls yet; we have so many other things to focus on first. But my vague goal is to save at least $1000 a year for each of them. Right now, AA has $2,802.11 and SL has $566.00, so they're pretty much on track to have $3000 and $1000 saved by their respective 3rd and 1st birthdays (March 5 and 29).

While I was in the UK checking account, I calculated how much rental income we'd have left after the mortgage payments hit, and transferred the excess into savings. That means US$552 more toward the house/moving fund, taking it to $2958, and taking our January big-picture progress to $763.35.

I'm nervous what our Jan. 15 paychecks will look like. The payroll tax break is not being renewed, and I may have underestimated the impact to our take-home pay. But we'll adjust if we need to.

My first debt repayment goal for 2013 is to pay down $2185 of debt. Much of it will be "estimated future debt" because NT's tuition is due. Part of it will be paid with student loan but I think about $1275 will be due in cash. This is how we set up the fall semester, so I think the spring semester will be the same.

AS is also expecting some freelance checks, but I'm not sure if they'll come in January so I'm not going to count them in my debt repayment goal, even though if they do come, I'll put them toward student loan debt.

I realized I had some money to deposit into the house/moving fund, so I went ahead and did it. $209.75, and there was $1.60 in interest earned this month, so that's $211.35 into the house fund and our first step in the new big-picture goals.

Still figuring out how I'm going to track these, and my head is all plugged up with sickness, so I may refine later. I guess I'll go for $2541 of progress each month, and then note how far behind or ahead I am at the end of each month. So, $2329.65 to go for January in either medical savings, house fund savings or student loan/tuition payment.

As I was reading everyone's nice comments on my last blog, I suddenly thought wait -- a 5,000 pound increase in the home's valuation equals $15,000 less in what we have to save? Didn't sound right so I went and checked my spreadsheet. Sure enough, I made a big boo-boo. I really need to save $71,000, not $65,000.

So yeah, that's a big difference. We need to come up with $121,957 over the next four years, or $2541 a month. Meaning my current budget is $539 short. $125 more per month than I thought!

But all is not lost. I've been thinking about ways we could raise the money if we start getting far behind next year, and one option, once we've paid for our England vacation in May, would be to scale back our vacation fund. We typically do a fairly extravagant vacation twice a year (except years when one of the kids was born). We could cut that down to one big vacation, and find cheap/thrifty staycation options to use the rest of our paid time off. We currently save $850 each month for travel and vacation, so if we cut that back as needed, on months when we didn't come through with the additional money needed, that would keep us on track. We couldn't do that until June 2013, since all our travel budget allocations up until then are committed to paying for the May trip.

Also, if we focus on the student loans first, we could gradually add the $148 total that goes toward interest, toward our goals instead, as the interest portion decreases.

If the payroll tax cut or a comparable cut comes out of the fiscal cliff negotiations, we may have about $40 more in the budget.

I do have a performance review coming up in the new year, with the (very remote) possibility of a raise.

So, the budget is not a fixed thing, and as long as I put everything extra toward these goals, we should be able to reach them, or at least come close.

Shoot, I think I'm getting sick. Both girls have colds/fevers (AA the toddler is much worse than SL the infant) and NT is probably getting sick too. AS has the whole week off, but her dream of alone time has been snatched from her, since AA has to stay home from daycare until 24 hours after the fever subsides. We had a pretty good Xmas Eve and Day (even though AA threw up at breakfast on Christmas morning). But the past two days have been tough. None of us is at our best, physically or mentally.

So I wanted to get my goals post up, in case I get sicker.

I've decided instead of just annual goals, I'm going to post all my big-picture financial goals and just work as hard as I can at them. My plan of attack may change from time to time, maybe even my exact goals will change; four years is a long time and who knows what will happen? But this is my focus right now, so it seems like the right way to proceed. (I'll still do monthly debt-repayment goals, since that's practically a tradition now.)

I've been posting sporadically about what I thought would be my big goals: EF to $20K, medical fund to $5K, student loans paid off and NT's college fully paid, $80K in a new home/moving fund.

But when I refigured my finances, I also reassessed a couple of factors and priorities.

First, although the UK condo was valued at 130,000 pounds in our net worth calculations, I realized that when we were figuring out how much we needed to save to move to England or buy a house here in Minneapolis, we had it valued at 120,000. So with my new, more accurate 125,000 estimate, we can actually anticipate more profit when we eventually sell the UK flat. Which means we shouldn't need to save up $80K, more like $65K!

Also, I decided we don't need $20K of dedicated EF funds. Since we're going to have $5K in a medical fund, it will total $20K. Plus, I could always raid the house/moving fund if a really expensive emergency came up.

This means we have a fully funded EF. I moved all but $15K into the medical fund, so we now have nearly $1275 in that. Which means less money needed to get that fully funded.

So all told, the big goals look a lot more obtainable. At one point, our budget was about $600 per month short of attaining all of them in 4 years. But now, it's only a bit over $400 short. With AS's freelancing, and if we're careful with how we use windfalls for the next couple years, we might actually be able to do this!

The new goals have been updated on my sidebar.

What the heck, I went ahead and did it. So this is our revised financial picture:

THE BEFORE PICTURE

Debt before:
HOME DEBT
US Mortgage $160,656
UK Mortgage 1: GBP35487--$70,440
UK Mortgage 2: GBP7481--$14,850
UK Mortgage 3: GBP7877--$15,636
Total home debt $261,582

EDUCATION DEBT
AS SM $10,560
NT DL $15,358
NT FM $5,507
NT Education (estimated future debt) $6,806
Total student loan debt $38,231

TOTAL HOUSEHOLD DEBT $299,813

Assets before:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($27,768)
#2: 17,268 pounds ($34,536)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($7,418)
NT's 401(k): $20,619
NT's Roth IRA: $4,758
AS's 401(k): $8,210
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $9,444
CJ's 401(k): $48,180
CJ's Roth IRA: $4,758
NT's flat: 130,000 pounds ($260,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $160,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $18,562
House down payment/moving fund: $2,195
---
Total Assets: $608,130

*****

THE AFTER PICTURE

Debt after:
HOME DEBT
US Mortgage $160,656
UK Mortgage 1: GBP35487--$56,779
UK Mortgage 2: GBP7481--$11,970
UK Mortgage 3: GBP7877--$12,603
Total home debt $242,008

EDUCATION DEBT
AS SM $10,560
NT DL $15,358
NT FM $5,507
NT Education (estimated future debt) $6,806
Total student loan debt $38,231

TOTAL HOUSEHOLD DEBT $280,239
Change: -$19,574 (yay!)

Assets after:
NT's UK pensions:
#1: 13,884 pounds ($22,214)
#2: 17,268 pounds ($27,629)
#3: 3,709 pounds ($5,934)
NT's 401(k): $20,619
NT's Roth IRA: $4,758
AS's 401(k): $8,210
AS's trad. IRA: $1,682
AS's Roth IRA: $9,444
CJ's 401(k): $48,180
CJ's Roth IRA: $4,758
NT's flat: 125,000 pounds ($200,000)
CJ & AS's condo: $145,000
Emergency fund (shared asset): $16,085
House down payment/moving fund: $2,195
---
Total Assets: $516,708
Change: -$91,422 (big ouch!!)

I've been checking AS's student loan account periodically today to see if her payment would hit, and it finally did! $130 went to principal, which takes us to $977 paid for the month of December, $37 over the goal.

Total student loan debt is down to $38,231, and total household debt (using my soon-to-be-changed exchange rate) is $299,813. That means we paid $14,724 of student loan debt this year, $24,565 total (including mortgage principal). A modest year by our standards, but we've accomplished a great deal of other things with our money, including supporting a second child, so I feel good about it.

Now that the final transaction for the year has posted, I can go about my true-up of our finances; adjusting the exchange rate for our British assets and debts, and downgrading our home value estimates. Not sure if I'll get to that tonight, but definitely before the end of the year.

Hello all! I had yesterday off and absolutely just relaxed and did as little as possible. AS had the day off too, so we dropped the kids at daycare, stopped at McD's for breakfast, went home and relaxed. We even took a nap in the late morning.

Last night after the kids went to bed, we played videogames, snacked way too much and drank too much wine. I've felt a bit blah all day, but I'm finally about back to normal. We got all our food shopping and meal planning done, and there are just a few more presents to wrap. We put most of the non-Santa gifts under the tree and AA is very intrigued, but she's been pretty good about not messing with them.

SL now knows how to crawl and is figuring out how to pull herself to standing. She's tiny for her age and not even 9 months old! So it's pretty freaky. She also likes to put EVERYthing in her mouth, so we really have to watch her closely.

Tonight NT took AA to the "Holidazzle," a parade that runs every weekend from Thanksgiving to Xmas (or maybe New Year's, I can't remember). I've never been and have no interest, but it has lots of festive lighted floats. Hope she's having fun! Once they get home, NT and I are going out for a date night (Ethiopian food!).

Tomorrow we may have a friend over, but other than that should be a pretty quiet day. Monday I have to work a half day from home (bummer), but after that I'm off until Thursday. Our friends are having a small gathering at their home Xmas Eve, so we're getting a carshare and doing that. After the kids go to bed, we'll be filling stockings for the kids for the first time! Very excited about that for some reason.

Xmas day is a big hearty breakfast (sunrise pasta -- a casserole with spaghetti, tomato sauce, veggie sausage, eggs/tofu and cheese/vegan cheese), gift opening, Skype with the grandparents, and a big hearty dinner (vegan roast, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, stewed apples and cranberry sauce).

The next day is Boxing Day, a holiday introduced to us when NT moved here from England. As far as I can tell all you do is open one more present and hang out. But it's fun to have an extra day to relax after Xmas.

I think that's it. Oh! NT did get a bonus from work, $663 after tax. Not the thousands of dollars he gets most years, but enough to throw him a pretty good party for his birthday next year.

We're pretty over budget on groceries, but I think it'll be pretty easy to fix once the holidays are over. We're also already halfway through January's carshare money and will probably be into February's by the end of December. That too we can get back in balance by just not using the service as often for a couple months. It's been unusually social lately.

Spending money is also a bit tight now, with at least two of us owing a bit in. But that too can be rectified by taking it easy on spending after the holidays.

After last night's snackfest and tonight's Ethiopian feast to come, not sure how my weigh-in will go! But I'm not even that worried if I'm not exactly at my goal weight at the end of the year. I have a good system that works, and I don't think indulging now will cause a permanent fall into bad habits.

On the good financial front again, AS got another freelance proofreading project, about $600. I hope we can put it all straight to savings or debt repayment!

Next week, once our final debt payment hits, I'll rebalance all our accounts, reassess our big-picture & 2013 goals, and get everything ready for the new year.

Someone just posted on my Facebook feed that there's a viral movement of people pledging to do 26 extra acts of random kindness in memory of the 26 lives lost in Newtown. Sounds like a good idea to me. I'll list them on here as they happen! Not sure what they'll be, but it'll be fun trying to come up with them, especially ones that are budget-friendly.

It looks like a very lean Xmas, bonus-wise. I got a $100 Amex card, which I used to offset my Va. trip and our holiday party food costs. NT's company mentioned they'd get a "token" of appreciation on Friday; doesn't sound too promising! AS has heard nothing of a potential bonus at her job.

Luckily we had AS's freelance check to set aside money to tip our service providers. We're doing a very similar setup to last year:

- $50 and a bunch of cookies to our house cleaner
- $25 to the condo building management's employee holiday fund
- $50 to our cloth diaper service provider
- $200 to our daycare providers
- Card to our estate planning/adoption lawyer

We decided to give a bit less to our house cleaner since we have a new one who's only cleaned for us two or three times, and a bit more to the diaper service since they now handle two little girls' dirty diapers instead of one. We're giving all cash to daycare instead of cash and gift cards, just to keep it simple, with a total value that's $25 more than last year.

All told, only $10 more than last year.

Since we had planned to fund NT's big 40th birthday party next year on any bonus money we got this year, it looks like it'll be a smaller celebration than I'd hoped. But we'll still manage to make it special.

Wow, what a week. I flew from MN to VA with 2 kids, alone, to visit my family. Flew out Sunday and came back Wednesday. Wed. night there was a party at AS's work, Thurs. night we got a babysitter and went to a friend's birthday dinner at a restaurant, and Friday lunchtime was the parents' party at my kids' daycare. At least I had the whole week off. We had a party Saturday, so I did a big shopping trip Thursday and spend most of the day Friday cooking and prepping for the party.

The party went great; about 30-40 people showed up and seemed to have a really good time.

Today I'm ... not really hung over, but pretty lazy and low-energy. I can't remember the last day I had nothing to do, so I've been taking advantage. Other than doing dishes and making coffee, I haven't done much.

Anyway, I did balance my accounts, and have some progress to report:
$1062 went into the EF, so it's up to $18,561.99, just $1438.01 short of my 2012 goal. So I'm not going to make it, but I'm proud that we got so close after a pretty rocky start at the beginning of the year.

I sent an interest payment to NT's student loan and $25 went to principal. That takes us to $847 down, $93 to go on the December debt repayment goal. I'll surpass that when AS's student loan payment hits after Xmas.

I weighed in last week at 129, 4 lbs. over the previous week! I'm also worried about tonight's weigh-in, what with traveling, restaurants and parties. But we'll see. I'll still have 2 weeks to lose weight if I creep up over my 129 goal. But yikes! That amount of weight gain in one week really freaked me out, since I didn't feel like I was going too much over my calorie limit.

I'll do my net worth in a couple days and hopefully it'll be back up to $300,000. But it's kind of moot because, after that ...

I've decided to "true up" my numbers, taking into account the current pounds-to-dollars exchange rate. I'm also going to take a hard look at my home valuations (for both our US condo and the UK flat), because I think they're both inflated in my net worth at this point. So this will mean, for 2013, that our debt, assets, and net worth will all be a lot lower. I'm going to check the exchange rate at the end of each year and change again if necessary.

Once I have new totals for debt and savings, I'll reassess all our goals and see if any need to be adjusted. For instance, I might lower my EF goal from $20K to $15K; after all, that would still be over 3 months' expenses, and we would have the medical fund and the house/moving fund to dip into if the EF weren't enough for an emergency.

As for my debt calculations, I won't count it as debt paid; I'll just update my number and continue to track debt reduction from there.

I'll be glad to have accurate numbers for everything so I can be realistic and serious in my future planning.

Well, we did it! As of today, our official household debt total is $299,968. That's one more goal for the year crossed off! Love watching the odometer turn over.

But as I celebrated, I realized that it's not a "true" number in today's exchange rates. When I started my blog, a British pound was worth about US$2.00. Now it's more like $1.60, but I've kept my calculations of debt and assets at GBP1 = US$2 for continuity.

But in reality, our assets are worth about $532K, almost $70K less than I calculate. And our debt is at $280.5K, or about $20K less than my "official" number.

So I'm torn. On the one hand, to calculate the progress we're making, I like the idea of keeping it at the old rate. But for serious planning (like trying to save up for an international move, or seeing if we have enough money for retirement) we should know the real numbers.

I wouldn't mind losing the continuity too much at this point. The hardest part of my debt journey is behind me, I feel. But the volatility of the exchange rate makes me afraid that it will become an exhausting venture to try and change it (daily? monthly?):



Still thinking about it. We shall see.

I also added 280 pounds to the EF, which I calculate as $560. That takes our EF to $17,474.76, about $2500 short of our 2012 goal.

This will be a modest month for debt repayment probably; most extra money is going to pad the EF to get as close to that goal as possible.

So, my goal is to pay $940 of debt. I should be able to reach it with just minimum payments.

I'll definitely reach the 2012 goal of getting total debt under $300K! Probably Monday or Tuesday; whenever all the mortgage payments have processed.

I'm hoping to reclaim the 2012 goal to get to $300K net worth, as long as stocks haven't tanked even more.

I don't think I'll reach my final 2012 goal, getting the EF to $20K, but I might get within $2K of that. I'll just do as much as I can without disrupting my regular budget.

Other random $$ news:

We got notice that our condo association dues are going up next year -- by over 8%! Yikes. That's almost $50 per month more. So that's a setback for our big-picture goals, though not a huge one.

I've got a $200 dental bill I keep meaning to pay -- I was hoping NT would settle a workman's comp claim and get another, $100 bill refunded, but not sure when (if ever) that will happen, so I'll have to suck it up and pay it soon. They sent me a second notice, less than two weeks after the first! I guess they really want it bad; usually doctors and dentists are much less pushy than that.

I got a $25 Amex card from work as a reward for a project I was on, so I'll use that for groceries and put $25 of grocery money toward my Va. trip. That'll take me to less than $75 owed! This trip may even be fully funded before I go. (I did pay cash for it, but now I need to make it up in the budget.)

AS got one of her freelance checks -- $981 -- and we decided to set aside most of it for next year's tax prep and this year's holiday gifts for service providers. $300 of it we divvied up for our personal use. Not sure what I'll do with mine, but I like having the extra money to my name! The next freelance check will go strictly to savings. If NT gets a holiday bonus, that will mostly go toward a big blowout 40th bday party for him next year, and anything left over will go into savings (ours or the kids, haven't decided yet).

I decided not to buy tickets to that theater show I wanted to go to. By the time I started looking, tickets were only available on Stubhub.com, and I'd only be able to afford nosebleed seats way off to the side. I decided my $450 could go toward more fun than that! So I'm using some of the money to treat us to three date nights (one person will stay home with the kids for each one). Tomorrow night AS and I are going on the first one.

I'm sure there are lots of other little things that have happened this month, but I'm worn out from a busy week at work. This weekend is going to be fun but hectic, so I wanted to get something posted here before I go to bed!

AS's student loan payment hit, with $128 going to principal. That takes us to $1777 paid for the month, exceeding our goal of $1750.

That takes our total household debt to $300,790. Since our mortgage payments will pay over $800 in principal, that means that in another week, we'll reach the 2012 goal of having less than $300,000 in debt! Hard to believe, but so wonderful. We'll still have a long road ahead, but it seems so much more manageable now than when I first started this blog and this journey.

I've been tinkering with my big-picture plan, and it looks like even if the payroll tax cut expires, we should only be about $583 per month short of accomplishing our (pretty aggressive, in my opinion) saving and debt-repayment goals in four years. In other words, it would take us another 13 months at my estimated pace. (However, if AS continues to pull in freelance editing jobs at $1000 a pop, she'd only need about 6 of them per year to make up the shortfall.)

The goals are:
- $20K EF
- $5K medical fund
- Debt-free except mortgages by end of 2015 (about $38,350 of student loan payments plus $11,194 more in tuition)
- $80K in a moving to England / house down payment fund

Before 5 years are up, I know we'll have some money freed up in the budget; diaper service $91 per month will dip down and then go away once both girls are potty-trained (2-3 years for the infant, but the toddler hopefully will be done in a couple months), and daycare reduced by a couple hundred a month when AA starts going to kindergarten. (I assume we'll still pay something for after-school care and possibly other school expenses.)

Additionally, we pay about $100 per month in interest on our student loans. If we focused on eliminating those first, that would free up that amount to go toward savings.

With those changes, we might be able to cut down on the time it takes to meet all our goals.

I'm still torn as to whether I should just tackle one or two goals at a time, or continue putting a bit of money to each until they're all accomplished. Some of the money can only be put to certain goals: The UK rental income would be expensive to bring over to our US account, so I would use that only for the EF and house/moving savings goals, not debt repayment or the medical fund. And I do need to make at least a $125 minimum principal payment to AS's student loan even if I decide not to focus on student loans first.

So, I'll continue to mull over it, and hopefully I'll make up my mind before the new year starts.

Hope everyone has/is having a wonderful day. I have no cooking to do today, I did a ton of prep work yesterday, chopping veggies and herbs, making mashed potatoes that we can just heat in the oven today, writing down cooking times and how to finish each recipe. Today NT will manage our half of the entree dishes, AS is finishing up pies, rolls and vegan ice cream, and our friends are bringing the other entree foods.

We're hosting four people plus the five of us, a very manageable gathering.

I spent the morning making crafts with my toddler AA, and now she's all tuckered out, and she and the infant SL are taking naps while I relax.

Having kids has inspired me to rediscover my love of making crafts. When I was a kid I'd make things pretty regularly, even if it was just doing a latch-hook kit or paint-by-numbers. AS is still craftsy, so she'll have no trouble helping the kids be artsy as they get a bit more coordinated, but for me it's hard to remember or call up those skills I used to have. Thank goodness for the internet -- I printed out coloring pages and templates for projects. There was only one I did on my own, from a memory of something my parents had around every Christmas, a pipe-cleaner elf with card-stock head, feet and hands. I spent about $10 on glue, markers, construction paper, pipe cleaners, pom poms and googly eyes, and we'll be able to make tons of things with those.

So far I've spent about $7 of my charitable dollars. Luckily I don't have to keep track -- when my envelope of $1 bills is spent, I'll know I'm done. Today I had to run to the grocery store for one item we'd forgotten, and on the way I gave $1 to a panhandler and put $1 in a musician's guitar case.

Anyway, just wanted to check in while I have a moment to relax. Nothing to report really. Have a lovely day!

So each of us gets $50 per month to allocate to any charitable or altruistic cause that we choose. I don't have any one thing I do; sometimes I donate to a friend's cause like a charity run, sometimes I give it to someone who's having a hard time, usually I send it to an established charitable or political cause: emergency humanitarian aid, animal rights, children's causes, environmentalism, social equality, my college, etc. There's so much I would like to give to, that whatever I do feels like a drop in the bucket, but I'm glad I have this budget so I feel like I can do something.

I never give money on the street. So many times I've had the person clearly ask someone else for money after I give them the bus fare or bus pass they said they wanted, or try to not give me change after I lend them some money to buy food, etc. and so on. Basically I hate that feeling of being duped. Plus, I feel that the money might go to feed a dangerous addiction that's the cause of the person being on the street in the first place. But I still feel mean that I always turn everyone down, no matter what. I realize that especially in these times, there are a lot of people truly in need. And as the weather gets harder in MN, only the people who truly have nowhere to go are going to be out there.

So for one month (or however long my $50 lasts), I'm going to give a dollar to everyone who asks me. Who knows, I don't get out much for lunch or otherwise, so I may not even run into that many people. Or maybe work will slow down around the holidays and I'll take more lunches.

I feel a bit silly doing it, but it's something I thought would feel nice for Thanksgiving and Christmas time, and hopefully brighten some people's days a bit during the holidays.

An extra payment to one of NT's student loans hit, and $836 went to principal. That means we're at $1649 down, $101 to go on the November debt goal! AS's student loan payment near the end of the month will finish that off.

I was also able to transfer $461.06 to the house/moving fund, and saw that we earned $1.29 in interest recently. That takes the fund balance to $2,194.65!

AS got another freelance editing job, nearly $1000! We still haven't gotten the money from her last one, so I know we won't see this money for a while, but it'll be nice when it comes! I think she said if she does about 7-10 pages per day, she'll get it done on time, so it won't even be a big marathon session of editing.

On the card I opened to get a statement credit when I booked my Va. plane tickets, I noticed they'd already credited me the $100 but hadn't charged me the $69 annual fee! I think I'm going to try and cancel it once my payoff of the balance hits, and see if I can avoid the annual fee. That would be essentially $69 more toward paying for the ticket! Then I would only need about $125 more.

If not, that's fine too, but it would be a nice boost.

I confirmed that my sister will pick me up and drop me off at the airport in Va., and I know my dad will loan me a car and/or drive me around while I'm there, so transportation will be free once I get to Va. NT is going to drive me to the airport using Hourcar, which will only cost us about $10 or $15, much cheaper than a taxi or shuttle and much faster/more convenient than the bus and lightrail. Now I just need to figure out transportation from airport to home once I get back (NT will be at work). I'll ask a few nice friends and offer some gas money for their troubles; if not, one cab ride won't kill me.

Food will be free on the trip (my family will feed me) unless the girls and I need snacks during the flight/waiting at airports. I won't carry a ton since it will be just me with 2 kids, 2 carseats and luggage, so I will purchase snacks vs. carrying them, for convenience.

I guess that's all my news! Grocery budget has been tight and running over some weeks, but we're doing admirably considering. Showing restraint in our meal planning nearly every week, cutting out or putting off things that aren't absolutely necessary. When AA is potty trained and SL off formula (both should happen sometime next year), sticking to the budget will be a walk in the park because we'll be so used to working with much less.

Very excited about Thanksgiving, but I think it will be much less gluttonous than most years. Both because we're trying to be moderate with our groceries and because we're all trying to lose and/or maintain weight. It'll still be delicious and fun, and maybe even better because my menu planning won't be as ambitious as usual.

I'm slowing my extra debt repayment for the rest of the year so that once I get household debt under $300K, I can focus on the EF instead. I most likely won't get to $20K and meet my 2012 goal, but I'll get as close as I can so I can finish that goal by early next year, hopefully.

To that end, I reckoned I only need to pay $900 extra to the student loan debt this month, so I had $389.14 I could put into savings for the EF. That brings our EF to $16,914.76, $3085.24 short of our goal.

Next month I'll be able to put at least $1062 into the EF that would normally go to extra debt repayment, and hopefully another $600 from flat rental profits if no repairs or other expenses crop up. That might be it, leaving us about $1400 short of the annual goal. Still, considering the hit our EF took right at the beginning of the year, not bad!

In other good news, I weighed in last night at less than 127! I was a hair over 129 last Sunday which had me worried, and we had Chinese takeout on Friday plus went to a party Saturday this week (and hadn't worked out beyond my usual walking), so I wasn't sure how it would net out. But I lost about 3 lbs.!

I have the day off today, and it's cold and snowy outside. So I'm going to do a bit of cooking, a bit of cleaning, and some nerding out over finances and news. Other than that I'm just going to relax!

Wow, what a week and a half it's been! Lots has been happening, and my sleep has been messed up. I got up before 6:30 am to vote before work Tuesday, then stayed up past 1:30 hoping to see whether our two horrible proposed amendments passed. (I finally went to bed when I heard they were doing a hand recount of some precincts -- I missed the good news that they'd both been voted down until I asked NT the next morning!) Then SL has been teething and restless, and she woke us up in the middle of the night a time or two this week.

So, I guess I'll start with the bad news and then get to the good!

The bad news is that I've majorly FAILED on my goal to work on a novel and my fitness goal to do weight training. I wrote about 1325 words before I realized it was just too hard with a toddler, an infant, a spouse in college and another who has to bring work home all the time. Any bits of time I found, I found it impossible to concentrate. I gave up by about Nov. 4.

And working out, I just keep honestly forgetting to do until it's late and I'm tired. I've got to remember not to make a bunch of ambitious goals in November! There are only about two and a half weeks between election day and Thanksgiving which are both BIG days in our home, and then after turkey day it's time to start getting ready for Christmas.

But, I don't mind too much about my goals because of all the good news!

First, I went ahead and booked my plane tickets to visit my parents in December, and I'm over halfway to paying for them through random windfall money. I found extra money in the haircut fund, won a $10 and a $25 gift card at work, got $82 profit sharing from our grocery co-op, AND I did a credit card deal when I booked the airfare. It's a $100 after first purchase deal, but with a $69 annual fee I'll only net $31. Still, for $366 worth of plane tickets, that's nearly 10% off the price. With all these random windfalls coming, I'm sure I can find another $160 here and there and fully fund the tickets without taking money from another budget item.

Next, the HUGE good news. We got a letter from our mortgage company that they canceled our private mortgage insurance! I didn't know this, but as part of Dodd-Frank, banks are required to cancel PMI once you pay your mortgage down to 78% of the original property value. We're still underwater, but apparently we met that other requirement! I checked and it's about $127 less per month. So that's a BIG boost to our budget. I can put it toward any of our goals, like our emergency fund or our house/moving fund.

It also means that over 50% of our regular debt payments now go to principal! Because of PMI, mortgage, escrow and of course because we're paying interest-only on a couple of the student loans, our minimum payments have always had less than 50% going to principal. (A great motivator for all my extra debt payment, believe me!) But eliminating PMI finally takes us below the 50% line.

We've had some other bits of good money news, but those are the best. I've got to go now; more minutes slipped by since I started this entry, and now we have to get ready to go to a potluck party!

Wow, what a week and a half it's been! Lots has been happening, and my sleep has been messed up. I got up before 6:30 am to vote before work Tuesday, then stayed up past 1:30 hoping to see whether our two horrible proposed amendments passed. (I finally went to bed when I heard they were doing a hand recount of some precincts -- I missed the good news that they'd both been voted down until I asked NT the next morning!) Then SL has been teething and restless, and she woke us up in the middle of the night a time or two this week.

So, I guess I'll start with the bad news and then get to the good!

The bad news is that I've majorly FAILED on my goal to work on a novel and my fitness goal to do weight training. I wrote about 1325 words before I realized it was just too hard with a toddler, an infant, a spouse in college and another who has to bring work home all the time. Any bits of time I found, I found it impossible to concentrate. I gave up by about Nov. 4.

And working out, I just keep honestly forgetting to do until it's late and I'm tired. I've got to remember not to make a bunch of ambitious goals in November! There are only about two and a half weeks between election day and Thanksgiving which are both BIG days in our home, and then after turkey day it's time to start getting ready for Christmas.

But, I don't mind too much about my goals because of all the good news!

First, I went ahead and booked my plane tickets to visit my parents in December, and I'm over halfway to paying for them through random windfall money. I found extra money in the haircut fund, won a $10 and a $25 gift card at work, got $82 profit sharing from our grocery co-op, AND I did a credit card deal when I booked the airfare. It's a $100 after first purchase deal, but with a $69 annual fee I'll only net $31. Still, for $366 worth of plane tickets, that's nearly 10% off the price. With all these random windfalls coming, I'm sure I can find another $160 here and there and fully fund the tickets without taking money from another budget item.

Next, the HUGE good news. We got a letter from our mortgage company that they canceled our private mortgage insurance! I didn't know this, but as part of Dodd-Frank, banks are required to cancel PMI once you pay your mortgage down to 78% of the original property value. We're still underwater, but apparently we met that other requirement! I checked and it's about $127 less per month. So that's a BIG boost to our budget. I can put it toward any of our goals, like our emergency fund or our house/moving fund.

It also means that over 50% of our regular debt payments now go to principal! Because of PMI, mortgage, escrow and of course because we're paying interest-only on a couple of the student loans, our minimum payments have always had less than 50% going to principal. (A great motivator for all my extra debt payment, believe me!) But eliminating PMI finally takes us below the 50% line.

We've had some other bits of good money news, but those are the best. I've got to go now; more minutes slipped by since I started this entry, and now we have to get ready to go to a potluck party!

All mortgage payments hit today:
US: $435 to principal
UK1: $264
UK2: $56
UK3: $58

All told, $813 down, $937 to go on my November debt repayment goal.

NT's rental management company charged a service fee, as they do twice a year, so I could only put $70 into EF savings. Still, that takes our EF to $16,525.42. That means we'd still have to come up with nearly $3500 to hit the $20K goal this year. Not likely, but hoping to at least get to $18K this year and then finish up early next year.

To that end, I'm only paying enough extra on student loans to get total debt under $300K. Anything else will get put into the EF.

We had a good month: surpassed the $1790 debt-repayment goal with $1843 paid in October. My other goal was to do a 2-week raw cleanse, but we cut it short after one week. For me that was fine because I hit my weight goal and didn't have as much motivation.

Hit three of my 2012 goals this month: net worth is $300K, student loan debt is less than $40K, and my weight is under 130. 3 big goals down, 2 to go for the year!

For November, a slightly more modest debt goal to pay $1750 of principal. Another goal is to at least start a novel for NaNoWriMo. My third goal is to do at least 2 upper-body and 2 lower-body weight training workouts each month in November (since this isn't a full week, I just want to get at least 1 of each done by Sunday).

As I predicted, I got a $10 Target gift card for wearing a Halloween costume to work! I'll buy groceries with it and take $10 of grocery budget for my trip fund. Now it's at $138!

We had a great, eventful Halloween. AA had tons of fun at my job, NT's job, daycare, and trick-or-treating in the evening. Oh, and opening a Halloween present my parents mailed. I filmed her cooing over the toys and had her say thank you and give her love, posted the video to YouTube and emailed my dad the link.

I do feel bad because one of my old college friends is the BIGGEST Halloween fan, and she's in New Jersey where everything got canceled. She had to take her elaborate yard display down before Halloween even hit. I have lots of friends and family on the East Coast, but thank goodness so far everyone seems to be doing fine. It's weird to think that my winter holiday season is in full swing and so many people's lives are on hold, tradition and routine and even basic creature comforts suspended temporarily. Really hoping the recovery efforts go fast and smooth for everyone affected.

So, I haven't made any money for my maybe trip to Va. since I found $46 extra in the haircut fund. I'm hoping to raise at least $300 to pay for the bulk of airfare for me and my toddler AA.

Then, yesterday we got our annual profit sharing check from our grocery co-op! I always forget it's coming, and the amount varies from year to year, so I don't factor it into my budget. This year it's about $82.

So I'm putting that toward my trip fund, taking me to $128. Not too bad! I'm very close to being able to order a $10 Target card from MyPoints; I can put that toward groceries and get $10 from the grocery budget to put into my travel fund. That will take me almost halfway to my goal. I still have some books and videos I can try to sell, but I keep putting it off because I hardly have any free time. At some point I'll get desperate.

I might get a Target card at work tomorrow; it's Halloween and sometimes they give cards out as prizes for dressing up in costume. If I do I'll put that to groceries and take money out for my trip.

Slowly but surely, building up money to help pay for this. Oh, and I have one less relative to visit when I go over, so I can just do a really short trip; AS's mom is moving to Connecticut this Friday, so she won't be in Va. in December. It's sad she won't get a chance to see her grandkids, but for this trip, it makes my timing that much more flexible.

Checked AS's student loan and her monthly payment had hit. $128 to principal, taking us to $1843 paid in October, a bit over our $1790 goal. Woo hoo!

We have had a slightly spendy but marvelous weekend so far. Hoping tomorrow is quiet and productive.

Friday we went to a dinner party at some friends' house. Luckily we got a ride, so no cost except NT bought a bottle of wine for the hosts. They had two little boys who were fun and nice, and had lots of fun toys AA loved. Everything was vegan-friendly, even the desserts. At the end of the night, the hosts gave us a winter coat and pair of snow boots just AA's size. Score!

Today we went to a corn maze, an outing organized by my college's local alumni chapter. Only two others besides my family decided to go, but they were two of my favorite local alumni! We again lucked out with rides; they met at our condo and took some of us in one car and some in the other. Admission was $13 but AS found an online coupon that gave $1 off per person, and both kids were free. We bought cider for the drivers, and we also got roasted corn, cotton candy, mini-donuts and kettle corn. Phew! Of my family, we divvied up expenses and figured out we spent $21 per person total. Not too shabby, considering all the fun we had: besides the snacks there was a corn maze; a giant bouncy-pillow thing; a corn pit; and a petting zoo with goats, sheep, camels, water buffalo, parakeets, ponies, llamas, and several animals I wasn't familiar with.

We also ordered pizza for dinner when we got home, which was $16 per person. So the whole day cost $37 per person, but it was worth it!

This should be the last expensive social weekend for a while. I'm still in debt to my own allowance, so I'm looking forward to some quiet cheap weekends at home so I can get my spending money in balance again.

Thanks for all the well wishes for SL on my last entry! As is often the case with infants, she was super-miserable for about 12 hours and then perked right up! Today she's been drinking huge bottles to make up for her poor appetite yesterday.

Work gave me my $50 Zappos card for completing the pedometer challenge! I spent it right away because my black work flats are pathetic. Not even "flats" anymore; I noticed today that the soles have worn out in such a way that they don't land evenly on the pavement anymore.

Zappos is pretty expensive compared with what I'm usually prepared to pay for clothes (my typical range is $10-$40 per item depending on what it is). I finally found a pair of black flats on sale for $44, so I got those. What to do with the last $6? I did a lot of searching by lowest price among the departments and settled on 3 pairs of socks for AA for $8.50. So for $2.50, I got a nice pair of work shoes and three pairs of toddler-sized socks. And I got more fit earning the rest. Not bad.

I've been looking for cheap airfare to Va. and so far found tix for about $195 each, which would be close to $400 to take the toddler (infant would ride free on my lap). I'm hoping I can do better by not being picky about days and by waiting for last-minute deals.

Meanwhile, I glanced over my budget spreadsheet to try and get an idea of what's coming up, and I noticed I have too much money in our haircut fund. So I was able to pull $46 out of that and put it aside for plane tickets. Now I just have to conjure up the rest of the funds! I know we have some DVDs and books waiting around to be sold, so maybe this week or weekend I can take the books to the used bookstores to see if they'll take any, and post some of the DVDs online. It'll only get me a few bucks here and there, but every little bit helps!

Looked at my Google Adsense from this blog just now. I earned $2.32 last month and just over $5 this month! Unfortunately, you can't receive payment until you hit $100. At this rate I'll be able to get $100 in a year and a half or so. LOL. Still, that'll be a nice surprise at some point.

I should ramp up MyPoints clicking and surveys. I might be able to scrape up a few bucks that way. If I get Target cards with MyPoints, I can use them toward groceries and take cash for myself from the grocery budget.

I'll keep thinking!

Pretty quiet day today. The 7-month-old SL is sick, and not happy about it, but other than that not much going on. I've only recently gotten over a cold, and who knows if I'm going to catch this one too, so I'm just trying to rest and do as little as possible. I do need to make lunches for this week, but I can do that later. Right now AS is at a work function and NT took AA to the park to feed squirrels.

It was a hectic but pretty good week at work. Training is going well with my new hire (who is also an acquaintance I like, so that helps). I also found out I had 3 more vacation days allotted this year than they thought, and that I'll get 20 days next year! I was very pleased with both bits of news, but I already have more PTO this year than I know what to do with. I tacked the three days onto two I was taking in December anyway so that I now have a whole week off with no plans, plus random days off here and there in November and December.

I got it in my head that I should visit my parents and AS's mom in Virginia, and take both daughters with me. I know they would all like that, and what with the family visit to England planned next year, I don't know when we'll get out to Va. in the near future.

There is the question of how to pay for it though. I'm a to-the-penny budgeter, so I don't just have money lying around for an impromptu trip. Of course I could just ask my dad for the money, but I'd rather find a way to get there myself. I know he'll loan me one of his cars to drive while I'm there, and that everyone will provide food for us. So it's just the plane tickets for me and AA I have to worry about.

I'm going to keep my eye out for a last-minute deal. I would love to get there for about $300. Of course I still need to figure out where that $300 would come from, but we'll see. These things have a way of working out, and worst comes to worst I could just gradually pay it back in with my spending allowance.

I don't look forward to staying with relatives, but I can't justify the expense of a hotel and rental car. My parents' house has finally succumbed to my mom's hoarding and general uncleanliness, and they now have a fairly severe roach problem. AS's mom's house is better, but last time we were there, the hot water had been turned off. And my sister's is the best option, but even it is strange -- sparsely decorated in some places, unaccountably cluttered in others -- plus it's a 30-minute drive from my parents and even longer from AS's mom. Plus her husband, my brother-in-law, can be a real PITA sometimes.

But, I love everyone (well, except my BIL) and I feel more of a duty to visit home now that I have kids who should see their grandparents (and vice versa) from time to time. So we'll see if I can swing it.

I definitely don't want to go home for major holidays. We are creating our own traditions here with my nuclear family and close friends, and it's never relaxing to go home anymore. I believe holidays should be for ultimate enjoyment. So this random mid-December trip would be just the ticket.

***

I've had a very fun weekend; costly but fun. We ended our raw cleanse a week early -- I'd already hit my weight goal, AS and NT also lost a good deal of weight, and our friend we were doing it with just hated it. So we all went out to a Thai restaurant on Friday. The kids were great, the food was great and the company was fun. Then yesterday I went bra shopping -- it put my spending allowance in the hole but so worth it -- and then last night went to a reading by one of my favorite authors (AS's press publishes him). No admission fee, but I bought food and drinks there. Then there was an after-party which, thankfully, didn't cost me any more money. My boss was there; he's a poet active in the literary community and good friend of AS's boss, so I wasn't surprised. He's a good guy so it was nice to see him.

So I had a lot of fun, but I've already tapped my next week's allowance and then some. Our super-social October is nearly at an end -- I have a corn-maze event with my alumni chapter next weekend, but hopefully that's the last thing I'll have to spend money on for a while. I think I can get back to equilibrium on my allowance by mid-November if I'm careful.

***

I think I'm going to try and participate in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. I've done it almost every year since I found out about it nearly 10 years ago. I've never reached the 50,000-word goal, but it's always an interesting experiment.

This year I really need to have a firm plot in mind, or I won't get anywhere with how busy and tired I feel most of the time. I also need to rid myself of the inner editor that points out every cliche and badly written sentence and slows me down or gives me writer's block. I should brainstorm this week or so before Nov. 1 so I'm not flailing blindly on the first day.

***

We've completed our latest three credit-card spends, payoffs are planned, and we're just waiting on rewards for the last two. The rewards were $100, $100 and $150 for spending $500 on each ($1500 total). I've decided to take a break from the rewards credit card churn unless a big, tempting one comes to light. All I've seen recently are ones I've already done and/or little rewards like the three we just did. I hope something new and exciting comes up before we start our Xmas shopping! Meanwhile, we'll probably get a Target credit card so we can get 5% rewards on our spending there at least.

***

We totally blew it on our grocery spending this weekend. We'll be about $100 in the hole by the time we buy diapers. I'm hoping to gain back some ground with Amex rewards from our grocery spending card that gives us 6% back.

I think that's all my news. SL has managed to fall asleep, so the house is quiet for the moment. I'm just going to sit and savor it!

We were only about $2K away from our goal when I calculated our net worth at work today. Then I remembered I had a statement from one of NT's UK pensions, which I can't access online. So tonight I dug out the statement and recorded those gains. We were only $6 short of $300K net worth!

I went to our Barclays account where our moving fund is stashed, and saw that the balance had gone up another $1 in interest. So I transferred $5 to it and bam! We're at $300K net worth!

Of course this isn't as nice a round number as it looks. Our UK assets and debts are skewed because I still use a $2=1 pound ratio, even though a pound is only worth about $1.60 now. So in actuality, our assets, debt and net worth are actually smaller.

But as a milestone that I worked diligently toward, it's still pretty dang satisfying!

Three 2012 goals down, two to go!

Our daycare is raising its rates, I believe it's starting in November. After much agonizing, our daycare lady decided she had to raise her prices. $15 per month per household. (Not even per kid!)

I've never been happier to have a price go up. For less than $1100 per month ($1050 at current prices, $1065 after the increase), our daycare provides 10 meals a week (for the toddler), education, playtime, exercise, socializing with other lovely kids, developmental activities, a calm and disciplined (yet loving) environment, the skills of our daycare lady plus several others (her mom, sister, daughter and husband), field trips, monthly music class with a visiting teacher, craft supplies, and most importantly a place that both girls are visibly happy and excited to come to every day. And she takes less than 2 weeks' paid vacation per year, just days here and there. Usually just on major holidays, or to redecorate the classroom or attend teacher conferences!

Also, take into account that average cost of a daycare center that would offer most (not all) of the above amenities in the downtown-Minneapolis area would be about $1500 a month. Per kid, not for both!

So yeah, you won't hear me grumbling about this come Nov. 1. Our mortgage increase, on the other hand ...