...At the Mall of America, no less. When I realized it was gone I started canceling my credit cards as fast as I could -- we were surrounded by stores so somebody could do some damage FAST!

I'm not TOO stressed, just bummed. That sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize it's gone -- not a nice feeling. What I lost:

- $120 cash
- 1 debit card
- 3 credit cards
- 1 flex-spending Visa card
- Driver's license
- Bus pass
- Security key for NT's bank account
- Health insurance card
- AAA card
- Photos (luckily not the only copies)
- Various receipts, business cards, etc.

Sigh.

So I canceled all the credit cards. We had a carshare for the day, and NT had to do all the driving since I didn't have my driver's license.

The rest is manageable, just annoying. New credit cards are in the mail, and I've got my bus pass number so I can hopefully get it renewed tomorrow. I'm on my dad's AAA, so he can probably get me a new card. I can get my healthcare stuff renewed. Then my driver's license renewed on Tuesday.

The cash ... I was planning to put in the bank to pay for some clothes I put on the credit card. NT and AS insisted I work that into the budget vs. denying myself spending money for a few weeks to make it up. It's lucky this happened before the baby came, because right now we have a fairly big budget surplus. It'll just mean $120 less in extra student loan repayment. In the long run, not a huge step back.

I added the things I need to do to my "Getting Things Done" system. I have tomorrow (mostly) off, so I can get some of it done then.

NT gave me an old wallet of his, some cash, and two tickets for a free bus ride. Hopefully enough to get me by until I replace everything.

I sent off a HUGE payment to NT's student loan, and it posted right away in his account! $1889 went to principal, so that means we've paid off $2701 so far this month, surpassing the $2500 goal!

(By the way, a few payments from last year STILL aren't showing up, so the online account doesn't match my records. I show a remaining balance of $18,772; they say he still owes $20,345. I'm keeping careful records and will continue to harass them a couple times a month until those payments post. I don't want $1573 worth of payments to just go down the drain!)

In a previous post, I talked about the personal finance book "All Your Worth." The authors recommend the 50/30/20 approach to budgeting (50% of income to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings or extra debt repay). I myself track how my budget breaks down into these categories, and mine is currently at 51.48% needs, 20.69% wants and 27.92% savings/extra debt repay. I think it's a good allocation for me but sometimes it occurs to me that I ought to get my needs under 50%.

I noticed in "All Your Worth" that they have you start with your income minus taxes (but including any pretax deductions such as medical premiums and 401(k), of course). Well, I actually count our tax withholdings in the "needs" category. So out of curiosity, I subtracted the taxes from our gross income and from our "needs" category, and recalculated our budget from there.

According to the "All Your Worth" style of calculation, our ratio actually comes out 42.7 needs/ 24.4 wants/ 32.9 savings/debt! Now that's much better! Later in the year our "needs" are going to eat up a larger portion when the second baby starts daycare, so it's nice to feel like we're well under 50% right now.

I definitely feel like given our large student loan debt, it makes sense to have our debt repayment skew the "savings/debt" category higher. And while we always could find ways to use more "wants" money (we're a family of spenders vs. savers, for sure), I already feel like we're very indulgent in that category, so I don't feel any need to up that amount at this point.

Sometimes it's hard to believe I struggled so hard and did so badly with money my whole adult life, until about 5 years ago. It really is doable to retrain yourself, and this way is SO much happier and less stressful for me!

I feel like it's been a while since I just blogged randomly about stuff. I've actually got a free moment at work (we'll see how long it lasts) so here goes!

February is turning out to be hugely social! Looks like we'll routinely have two or three weeknight things going on plus events on the weekend. This week there's actually something happening every weeknight! Tonight NT is going to a basketball game our friend got an extra ticket for, while AS and I will head out to the DFL caucus with AA in tow. Usually Tuesdays are our one night out to trivia at a local bar, so even if we didn't have this going on we'd have been busy today. Tomorrow is the Birth Center hospital tour, Thursday is a happy hour for AS's work, and Friday I have some fellow college alumni coming to our house for dinner.

When February is over, we have four birthdays (everyone in my household is a March birthday) and then a due date of April 3 for the new little one!

This has also been a very sad month for several friends/acquaintances of mine. One woman lost her father; another dealing with her mother's declining health and dementia; another woman had to have a double mastectomy and will undergo chemo for breast cancer; and a friend of a friend whom I quite like even though I don't see her much lost her boyfriend to suicide! Such a helpless feeling that I can't do anything for them really, but I'm sending flowers to the last two. None of these are people I'm currently close to or see on a regular basis, but all people I'm fond of.

It's reawakened my appreciation of my healthy-so-far family and reminded me to appreciate every moment of my relationships. I definitely have noticed more words of affection being passed around in my household, so I think we've all been similarly affected.

Otherwise on the home front, I've been feeling the positive results of the "Getting Things Done" book; papers don't just hang around on surfaces anymore, at least not for more than a day. We're all on Google Calendar now and I'll soon show NT how to use Google Tasks and Google Docs for the GTD system. My goal is to eventually get even our menu and grocery list electronic, and eliminate those last two pieces of stray paper!

I started reading Elizabeth and Amelia Warren's book All Your Worth (thank you Paulette/Spondulicks for the recommendation!) and loving it. I don't think there will be much that I change about my current system, but only because it adheres pretty closely to her system. I'm only about halfway through, though, so maybe I'll get some new ideas. I do know that so far, I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a simple system for getting their life under control. It's very accessible and friendly in tone.

It even articulated a thought I had recently, a little light-bulb moment. I was thinking about how it could be that so many people today can be so stupid and irresponsible about their money compared with how it seems older generations coped without getting into so much debt.

Then it occurred to me that probably the older generations weren't any smarter or more practical by nature, but just didn't have as many easy-credit traps available to them, so they simply couldn't get into as much debt.

The Warrens confirmed that, but in a much more factual and less hunch-y way. It was all this deregulation that happened I think they said in the 1970s that allowed banks and other lenders to loan money more freely; for a long time they had much stricter standards they had to follow about whether they thought the borrower would be able to pay it back.

Not only did they not need to rise to these standards anymore, but they also quickly discovered that they made much more profit if they DID loan to people who couldn't always pay in full on time; that way they got to charge all sorts of fees and penalties and made much more than they would have just charging interest.

They also pointed out that many more people used to be able to count on a pension in addition to other retirement funds. I think there were a few other things that had changed but I can't recall at the moment.

What they were saying is that we need to be a lot smarter now; instead of financial institutions being forced to look out for people to a certain extent, there's now extreme incentive for those same companies to outsmart, mislead and confuse people instead.

That said, I got a surprise bonus from a big financial company last night: Chase refunded my $69 fee from one of our Southwest cards, which we applied for only to get a big bonus in Amazon gift cards. I didn't ask for the fee back, so I'm surprised! It reminded me to cancel the other two cards since we've recently received our gift cards from those; hopefully they'll refund those fees as well!

I'm putting the $69 into an extra student loan payment this month; should be able to send nearly $2000 extra now! I'm enjoying putting together as big a payment as possible this month because between tax preparation, baby preparation and unpaid parental leave, I won't be paying quite as much extra off for a few months.

Whew, I haven't updated this since about November! Got a few transactions to record:

In December, AS bought another 1000 minutes for her phone, for $107.78. She made her last 1000 minutes last 7 months! Pretty impressive.

NT had to buy minutes in January to keep his phone activated. He has a surplus of minutes, so we try to use his phone instead of mine or AS's when we're all at home.

My poor old cheap phone started losing its battery longevity after 7+ years of good service. I bought another one from T-Mobile and transferred my SIM card to it. As is our practice, I'll count the amount of the cheapest option ($29) here, even though I chose to use $25 of my own money to get a more expensive phone that I liked better.

FY2011 spending so far:

NT's April Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $32.87
AS's May T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's June Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
NT's August Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
CJ's October T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's Oct Net10 fillup (200 min.=1 month svc): $22.26
NT's Nov Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
AS's December T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's Jan Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
CJ's February phone replacement: $29

FY2011 total: $540.99

We're in the 11th month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost is now $49.18. Still slightly below our ideal $50-per-month average, so that's good.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March 2009, so our phone "fiscal year" begins each April. We have 2 phones on T-Mobile prepaid and 1 on Net10 prepaid. AS and I refill in 1000-minute increments and only need to refill when we run out or when it's been a year since our last fillup to stay active. NT needs to buy 300 more minutes every 60 days to keep his phone activated.

Our cellphone bill, for three phones on a family plan, used to range from $80-$95, depending on texts, calls to 411, etc. Usually it was close to $85. My ideal goal is to get my average cost to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 is a savings.

All 4 mortgage payments hit:
US: $437 to principal
UK1: $262
UK2: $55
UK3: $58

All told, $812 down, $1688 to go on the February goal!

Whoa, that month flew by! Had a feverish little one Sunday through yesterday, so I've been working from home and all off my game. Luckily AS's student loans are on autopilot and went through:
SM: $125 to principal
FM: $61
For a total of $186. So that makes our January debt repayment $2507, just squeaking past our $2500 goal!

For February, I'm going to aim for $2500. I'm going to use a paid tax preparer again, and we'll probably owe again this year, but we can cashflow all of that with our March and April budget surplus. I don't see a need to sock away the money now. Plus, if I'm aggressive this month, I should be able to bring our total student loan debt (current and estimated future) under $50,000!

I have so many other tracking things to update! I missed doing our net worth at the usual time, so I'll just try to do it the end of this month. I had to buy a cellphone to replace my dying one, so I need to update my prepaid costs average. All of our net pays changed slightly, so I need to get copies of everyone's paychecks and update my "absolute budget breakdown" spreadsheet. I need to update my daily "number crunch" worksheet, and see how we're doing on Citi ThankYou spending toward getting our bonuses.

They will have to wait, and be done sporadically as I get time. Work is crazy busy, and for some reason a lot of social engagements are getting sorted out for this month, so that many normally free nights are going to be spent going out or hosting people. I think it's partly the mild winter making people more willing to leave their homes, plus me semiconsciously wanting to be as social as possible before the new baby comes and knocks us all out for a couple months.

Luckily, all the above stuff I'm not keeping up on is mostly just things I track for fun or for my general knowledge. More important things are getting handled very handily thanks to my "Getting Things Done" system. It's a great system because even if things fall off my to-do list, there are project lists that I need to review once a week, so stuff gets put back on the list and I don't have it worrying me at the back of my mind. I still scribble notes to myself if I'm not at a computer, but I've gotten in the habit of doing frequent sweeps of my purse, wallet and coat when I AM at a computer, and that "stuff" gets entered into the system fairly regularly. I now open mail right away and either discard, file or act on it right away.

I'd better get a bit more done at work before I go home!

I subscribe to Kiplinger. Much of it isn't relevant but I like reading it, if only to get a sense how the other 1% lives. Once a year they publish a list of quick tips to "save thousands" making changes that take 15 minutes or less. Let's see how much I can save.

1. Ditch that expensive airline credit card. $0 n/a
2. Lower the interest rate on your plastic. $0 n/a don't carry a balance
3. Avoid bounced checks and costly overdraft charges. $0 n/a I'm careful not to overdraw
4. Set up bank alerts to avoid fraud and unexpected fees. $0 n/a check my account often enough on my own
5. Switch to energy-efficient lighting. $0 n/a (It's not that this wouldn't be a good switch, but our utilities are tied to our condo association dues and don't vary. This tip will cost, not save, us money if we take it.)
6. Sign up for automatic federal student loan payments. $0 already done
7. Install a water-saving showerhead. $0 n/a AND already done
8. Slay your energy vampires. $0 n/a (though I will look into the Belkin Conserve Smart AV that they recommend; if we get it this tip will cost us $29 vs. saving us any actual money)
9. Find a low refi rate and a good lender. $0 n/a (mortgage still under water)
10. Put in a programmable thermostat. $0 n/a can't do, wouldn't save us anyway
11. Score the best-priced seat in the house. $0 n/a This is another that would cost us if we took the tip, since we hardly ever go to shows or games.
12. Unsubscribe from deal emails. $100? I think that's how much I spent on restaurant gift cards and restaurants that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise. Then again, I still would've gone to restaurants on dates, so I probably would have spent the same amount, just on a familiar restaurant. So is this one technically $0?
13. Improve your fuel economy. $0 don't own a car, and the carshare service we occasionally use doesn't charge us for gas
14. Use a car-buying service to get a great deal. $0 n/a; would cost us a ton if we took this tip; $15,000?
15. Spot lower prices shopping online. $? This one is kind of interesting; they say a toolbar from FreePriceAlerts.com will alert you if it finds a better deal while you're shopping online. May need to check that out. They say annual savings $200.
16. Rent designer duds instead of buying. $0 N/A!
17. Haggle like an expert with spending apps. $0 n/a; this is another that would cost me a ton to use, because I have a super-cheap prepaid plan instead of a smartphone.
18. Listen to free audio books. $0 n/a; I never buy books for myself, just ask for them as gifts from family. Don't listen to audio books.
19. Lose your landline. $0 already done
20. Text for free. $0 n/a would need to have an iPhone or Android and a data plan, so this tip would cost me money if I followed it. (I will, however, pass along info about the "Textfree" app to a friend who was wondering about something like this for her smartphone.)
21. Dodge fees on treasury investments. $0 n/a don't buy bonds
22. Slash expenses with exchange-traded funds. $? It says you do this in your brokerage account; does my Vanguard Roth IRA count? Probably not, so I'm guessing $0 n/a
23. Sidestep taxes on bonds. $0 n/a I just don't see myself buying individual investment stuff at this point in my life and getting much out of it. They estimate $380 annual savings if you invested $50000, and I definitely don't have that kind of money to put in low-yield investments.
24. Switch to the latest generic drugs. $0 already done
25. Raise your deductibles. $50 I can't say outright this is n/a because I haven't looked at my homeowner insurance policy lately; possibly I do have a $500 deductible that I could raise to $1000. Kiplinger says you could save up to 25%, so the max I could save would be $50. No auto insurance so that part doesn't apply. They say I could save $584 but I think the most I could save is $50. I will look into it, though.
26. Reshop your life insurance. $0 n/a Currently the only life insurance we have is NT and I each have a plan with our employer that doesn't cost us anything.

So, let's see what I'll save if I take their (applicable) advice.
Unsubscribe from deal emails: $100
Spot lower prices shopping online: $200
Raise your deductibles: $50
Total: $350

If I actually saved this much, I'd certainly be happy. I suspect it won't be that much.

How about you? Will these Kiplinger tips help you save "thousands" this year?

The last of our Mexican purchases came through, so I was able to calculate our actual totals rather than estimating exchange rates.

We came in $662.93 under budget!

It was a short trip, and AA didn't cost much for sitting on our laps on the plane, and we budgeted a lot of money. So not that surprising. But we all felt like we got everything we wanted, and splurged WAY more on impulsive purchases and pricy food/drinks than we normally do, so it wasn't a trip where we felt like we were trying to hold back to economize.

I budgeted $5000 for the whole trip.

Airfare for 3, hotel for 5 nights, shuttle to & from hotel, and travel insurance: $2083.56

Supplies, food, drinks, trip to Isla Mujeres, souvenirs, misc.: $2253.51

Total: $4337.07

The leftover funds will go toward flying family here to see the baby this year, if anyone takes us up on the offer. We may have to help them out with hotel costs as well (our place is too small to comfortably put people up). We're extending this offer to both Virginia and England relatives (we live in Minnesota). So this is a big head start on saving up for all that!

I sent an extra payment to NT's effed-up student loan today, and when I logged in out of habit, the payment had already posted! Now, there are three payments from October-December of last year that still haven't, and a weird payment that doesn't match any of the other numbers that did post. Nevertheless, it's promising that the system is processing new payments so promptly. Hopefully the old payments will post correctly, retroactively, in my lifetime.

So the most recent payment put $1324 toward principal, bringing us to $2321 down, $179 to go on the January debt goal. AS's two student loan payments at the end of the month should just barely push us over the top.

Well, I added $25.46 to the US EF account. Then a couple of things happened:

-Our UK rental management company let us know we had a 300-pound windfall
-But they recommend we buy a 999-year lease, which will cost 600
-And the semiannual fees hit, plus some other random stuff, to the tune of 300-plus

Renters paid an extra month's rent, but somehow I need to transfer 800 pounds (US$1600) from UK savings to cover the lease renewal and 2 months of mortgage payments.

So, our EF starting point was $14,472.57, our goal is $20,000, and we're currently at $12,898.03. Need to save $7101.97 or $646 per month for Feb.-Dec. Not gonna happen, unless I divert extra money from student loan repayment. No, that goal is more important. So I already know we're probably going to fall short on our EF goal for a second year in a row.

So, to get back to a happy place, here are some pics from our Cancun trip!

Well, we got back from Cancun at 1:00 this morning! I was keyed up from the journey so stayed up a couple hours, then slept in until 10. (We took today off to recover from the long journey.)

We had a FABulously relaxing time. The weather was great except on the first full day (Saturday), and we didn't mind because even when it's stormy, it's a warm, picturesque place.

We spent like drunken sailors, but managed to stay under budget (mostly because I'd allotted a huge sum for spending money). Initially I thought we had $180 left over, but then I remembered that I'd been estimating as if 10 pesos = US$1. Actually it only equals 75 US cents. So for instance, if we spent 1000 pesos, I estimated $100, but it was only $75. So as these charges hit our credit cards, they're coming in 25% lower than my estimates.

We don't have much to show for our spending souvenir-wise: We got little wobbly-headed figurines for the kids in AA's daycare; a sweet little dress for her; a conch shell and a starfish; some snacks and treats for NT's work; some tequila, vodka and vanilla from the duty-free shop for ourselves; a CD of photos from an island resort we visited; a baseball cap for AA.

Most of the crazy spending was because the hotel we chose was deep into the hotel zone; getting a taxi to non-inclusive-resort locations to eat or shop away from our hotel was a minimum of 150 pesos ($11.50 plus tip). Usually more. There's also the problem that Cancun taxis don't have meters; you settle the price upfront before the driver pulls away, and they will ask for what they think they can get. One guy quoted 460 pesos to get to a certain place; the driver for the return trip asked for 250 pesos. We finally realized that our hotel had a chart of prices at the taxi stand, so we were able to quote (and get) the appropriate price. (Which is not to denigrate the citizens and workers of Cancun; it's just a certain part of the system that can be exploited and often is. Every worker in the hotel zone, from cleaners to taxi drivers, is insanely solicitous, helpful and friendly. And in downtown, which is less tourist-friendly, they don't speak as much English but are pretty darned patient and nice to stupid tourists who stumble in with about 20 words of Spanish between them.) The bus is much cheaper ... but ... we take the bus all the time in real life. This vacation was about the experience of luxury!

The other source of the spending was that we were in a high-end all-inclusive, but we hadn't paid for all-inclusive. So if we were lazy and wanted to eat their breakfast or dinner buffet, it was gonna cost us. One day we stayed on the beach and ordered drinks and snacks from a waiter who was coming around to the lounge chairs; we ended up spending 1250 pesos (almost $100) over the course of the afternoon. We splurged on a Thai restaurant where we had a little open-air dining... platform? ... covered with a grass roof and with a railing around it. We crossed a short bridge to get to our table, and we were out on the lagoon with the lights of the hotel zone ringing the quiet water in the distance. Un. Believable. It was like being in a dream.

So we paid for convenience, for the luxury of laziness, and once in a while we paid for an unforgettable experience.

This will be our last real vacation for the foreseeable future (meaning next year or so; though we'll try to manage a weekend here and there), so we're glad we lived it up. None of us has ever had such a relaxing vacation, nor one where we were able to unplug and truly leave work and responsibilities at home.

***

Came home to my half-installed "Getting Things Done" way of life, so part of today AS and I cleaned out the front closet so that our filing cabinets are forward-facing and fully accessible, then loaded all of our files (which we'd already labeled and organized) in there. The closet could use some fine-tuning, but everything fits and has a place, so that'll do for now. It was nice to go through the mail and stick it in my "inbox," then clear out my inbox when I had a chance and recycle or file or stick in my purse to take to work as needed. Tasks occurred to me and I added to the appropriate task lists, secure in the fact that I would deal with them when it was convenient to do so. AS spent some time getting her system going, so soon she should be fully on board with the process as well. If all goes well this week and I feel like the system is working for me, I'll show NT what I've learned and get him on board as well.

***

As I was balancing my Number Crunch spreadsheet, I noticed that my paycheck was nearly $150 less than usual, while AS's and NT's were slightly more. I checked mine out, and it showed that federal taxes were $150 more, state taxes $30 more, and my bus pass money wasn't taken out. Since the bus pass is $42.50 before tax, I find it hard to believe that it would cause such a huge jump in withholding. I'm guessing HR messed up more than just forgetting to take out my bus pass money, but I'll have to follow up with them tomorrow to find out. Since NT's and AS's actually went up a bit in the new year, I don't think it's an across-the-board tax hike that caused this. Really hoping we don't have to budget a $300-per-month drop in income unexpectedly!

***

Speaking of my incompetent HR department, the local HR lady who said there might be adoption reimbursement stopped me in the hall to say she might have been wrong about that. The headquarters HR guy told her there was no such thing. She was going to ask the guy she thought had gotten reimbursement for his adoption. He's a big-wig, so it has occurred to me that maybe they have "better" benefits than us peons. *Shrug.* I'd already budgeted for the adoption, so I'm not going to worry about it.

***

When I dipped into my work email to ask the HR manager about my paycheck, I noticed there was a short-notice, all-staff conference call with our CEO regarding "recapitalization" of our company. Sounds scary, but I won't know more until I get in to work tomorrow. I feel strangely blase (must be the lingering effects of Cancun!).

***

I got a packet from the accountant who handled my and NT's taxes last year. Last year I was freaked about him because he kept promising they would come soon and yet he didn't get them handled until the last minute. But, seeing the complicated stuff he did to report NT's UK income, I was glad he'd handled them. So I think I'm going with him again this year. Hopefully he'll be clearer about when I can expect them (if he'd said "April 14," I wouldn't have minded; it was that he kept making excuses and acting like they were just around the corner).

The new tax season reminds me that I didn't do anything about the past years where I was evidently meant to report NT's UK rental income and didn't. If there was a simple way to pay the US what we owe, plus interest, I'd just do it. But I'd have to either figure out how to revise the taxes myself, or hire someone out at several hundred dollars per tax year (2007-2009). The total of what we owe is probably about $1500 (if that), yet it would probably cost about that to get the problem rectified. So I've decided to ignore the problem. The chances of getting caught or audited are slim; if I do, I'll deal with it then.

***

I've been trying to redeem AS's Southwest points for $500 in Amazon gift cards; the points are there, but for some reason I can't order anything. I need to call them tomorrow, because I think I've exhausted every online recourse.

We made some good progress on spending $2500 on my and NT's Citi ThankYou cards; when we do, we'll get $500 worth of Amazon gift cards each. We still have a while before we get there, but we used the cards whenever possible on vacation.

What else? I'm kinda winding down now; brain is shutting down in preparation for overdrive at work tomorrow.

Oh, one thing is we may have had a windfall of about 300 pounds from NT's flat; something about a lease extension that they didn't need the money for after all. But the email telling us about it was very confusing because it also seemed to be recommending that we DO extend the land lease for his condo, and that it would cost about 500 pounds. In which case we'd be losing 200 instead of gaining 300. NT has to ask them to clarify. They're a good management company in that they've kept the place rented with very little hassle, but their email communications aren't very well crafted.

Oh yeah! In the course of decluttering for "Getting Things Done," we found a $75 gift certificate for a pilates/yoga/massage place that NT and I had gotten for AS for Xmas a year or two ago. We thought it was lost forever. It doesn't have an expiration date, so maybe she can still use it! Considering we just recently lost an entire year's supply of contact lenses and had to reorder ($275 or so), this is a nice surprise that seems to sort of redress the balance.

Hmm...oh, I have a bit of EF progress to record, but now I'm getting really sleepy, so I'll just update my sidebar later. $25 and 40some cents in interest.

Great to be back! I'll try to post photos of vacation this weekend!

A quick update of a whirlwind week. 2 things were happening simultaneously:

- Reading and implementing "Getting Things Done"

That started first. Then:

- A worrisome blob of blood in AS's ultrasound scan Thursday that looked like it could be a rare condition called vasa previa.

As we learned more about vasa previa and waited for a more sophisticated scan (which was set for today), we continued "Getting Things Done." It helped immensely to make time pass and keep us from fretting too much. Last night we finished gathering up every scrap of paper outside the menu, grocery list and NT's school stuff, and putting it all in manila folders, A-Z, active indiscriminately filed with inactive materials. (I even bought a $20 label maker as the author recommends, to make everything seem more official.) Everything "actionable" is either in a physical in-basket or on a Google tasks list. The next couple days I will try to clear out the closet enough to have our file cabinets easily accessible, and everything will go in there from now on.

AS is on board since she's already read "Getting Things Done" and knows what it entails. NT is very interested to learn as well; once I've practiced it for a couple weeks and can confirm that it IS do-able and DOES make for "stress-free productivity," I will show him how to get onto the system as well.

Still, even with all the exciting organization and decluttering, it was hard not to worry about the upcoming ultrasound. If it was vasa previa, a few things would change:
- We'd have to cancel our trip to Mexico (scheduled to start this Friday). AS couldn't be far from the hospital, since survivability (for the baby) absolutely depends on immediate admission upon labor, and there's always a chance of early labor in pregnancy.
- Parental leave calendars might change drastically if doctor decided that a scheduled C-section at 35 weeks was advisable.
- AS might be spending days or weeks in the hospital, before or after the birth, depending on how things progressed.
- Costs would likely skyrocket for us (a routine birth will be free under her health plan but we aren't sure about one with complications).
- Worrying would be likely to take an emotional toll on the entire household.

So, obviously, it was hard not to run through scenarios in my mind. The filing REALLY helped.

But, happily, today AS had her follow-up ultrasound, and doctors and techs confirmed that it's definitely NOT vasa previa nor anything worrisome at all. In fact, when she said we had a trip to Mexico planned, the tech said "Bon voyage!"

So, so relieved, I feel almost dizzy! But of course, there was a whole other set of to-do's that I'd put off since they might not be necessary:
- Buy swimsuit and sunblock
- Get summer clothes out of storage, and pack
- Research hospital locations near our Cancun hotel (still want to be prepared for other stuff)
- Add some missing TSA security info to our reservation online
- Give key to our friend who will be catsitting

Thanks to "Getting Things Done," I have an easily accessible list and it won't be hard to check things off and be good to go by Friday morning!

I had some random financial updates (both gripes AND good stuff) but I'll leave it for now; want to get home and celebrate the good news in person!

I am WIPED. Sunday and Monday nights I stayed up late finishing "Getting Things Done" by David Allen and starting to get organized per his plan. Then last night I randomly got no sleep. I'm a 6- to 8-hours-per-night girl; can function on 6, do well on 7 and thrive on 8 (or 9, when I get a chance). Each of these last three nights I've gotten 4.5 to 5.5 hours of sleep. Not good.

So I'll have to update you on my getting-organized progress when I'm more conscious and rational. At this point I feel like I'm hallucinating. But I wanted to quick update my debt progress, since our mortgage payments hit on Tuesday:

US: $436 to principal
UK1: $262 to principal
UK2: $55 to principal
UK3: $58 to principal

All told, $811 paid. That brings us to $997 down, $1503 to go on the January debt goal.

We had a very nice New Year's celebration. Hung out with our friends at their house, chatting and playing with our kids. We took out a car from our carshare service, and we were planning to leave at 10:30 (AS figured she'd be tired by then) and ring in the new year at home. A little before 10, we realized it was snowing quite heavily! So we left a bit early. I drove at a crawl since I didn't know how well the car would handle, we had lil AA in the car, and I was mindful there could be drunk drivers out. It went very smoothly, and we got home just in time to bring the car in at the planned time.

The snow stopped soon after and looks like it'll mostly melt tonight and tomorrow. Bizarre winter in Minneapolis!

We put AA to bed and drank champagne while we watched the new Simpsons DVDs we got for Xmas. I was going to switch to the ball dropping but midnight snuck up on us, so we didn't.

Anyway, I'm not quite tired yet, so I thought I'd check AS's student loan accounts and post some progress on our debt repayment goals. $125 and $61 hit on her two loans, so that's $186 down, $2314 to go on the January debt goal!

I got a bit further reading Getting Things Done. Hoping to finish it up tomorrow and start implementing its advice Monday and Tuesday. (I'll need to do some stuff at home and some at work, so Monday is a holiday and would be a good day to start. Tuesday will hopefully be a bit slow at work and allow me to work on getting set up there too.)

Finally I'm starting to feel sleepy, so I think I'll turn off the computer and watch TV until I'm ready to go to bed.

AS came and had coffee with me yesterday, and halfway through our nice break together, I started rattling off a few annoying little chores that I need to take care of -- deposit our Xmas gift checks, mail off some bills, update my records and autopay with our increased condo dues.

I then started complaining about how it kind of sucks to be an organized, functioning adult because I'm constantly running through little mini-lists of things to do.

That reminded us of the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, because one of his main points is that until you have an external system that you trust to keep you on top of everything, you'll always be reminding yourself -- often at inopportune times -- of the things you still need to do. Reminding yourself multiple times about one task, he argues, is a waste of energy and saps your mental resources unnecessarily.

I started reading the book years ago but never finished. (Ha!) I don't think I needed it that badly at that time -- some of the stuff he talked about wasn't very relatable. Well, I picked it up again last night and started from the beginning again. Now my life much more closely resembles his description. I have complex, multiple long-term goals, bigger (and more complicated) responsibilities at work, many more financial buckets and regularly recurring financial tasks that need to be kept on top of, and a more complicated social/personal life (thanks to having a kid and another on the way).

I do all right, I think; nothing gets completely neglected that absolutely needs to get done. But I'm very attracted to Allen's vision of getting all of this done while being able to have a clear head, not weighed down by all the pending things on my to-do list. I feel like I could concentrate on consuming and possibly even creating art; and just be more *present* in my times of relaxation, rather than being half-distracted by things that need to be done (but that I'm not planning on doing at that moment).

So, we'll see if in my current state of distraction I can actually commit to reading an entire book and then taking the time he recommends to implement his system.

I don't know just how I'm going to implement -- which "buckets" I'm going to use to store all of the projects and actions needed -- but even just the first couple chapters have me thinking about all the different balls I keep in the air. I'm kind of impressed with myself, compared with the me of 5 years ago or so. (I only started to really get my s$#@ together a few months before I started this blog.)

But now maybe it's time to take it to the next level. I hardly ever feel relaxed, even when I'm ostensibly lazing on the couch watching TV. I rarely let go completely even in the middle of a vacation where everything's taken care of and I don't need to be thinking or doing anything. I find it hard to fully focus on movies, books, play time with my daughter, date time with my partners. I hope that I can continue to accomplish everything I do now, but with a clearer head and more actual quality time *away* from thoughts of my responsibilities.

AS and I talked about maybe working together to implement his system in both our lives; she's done it halfway a few times and was encouraged by what she saw, even though she didn't follow through and put it permanently in place. Right now I'm just focusing on reading the book, doing the mental exercises he recommends, and hopefully by the time I'm done with the book I'll have a much clearer idea of how I should change the way I do things.

I did really well on 2011 goals; here's a quick rundown.

Completed goals:
Pay off AS's DL student loan
Save $3600 to Roths
Give $1800 to charities
Get AS to positive net worth (currently +$2,391)
Pay off at least $20,000 of debt ($27,242 paid)
Get down to 139 lbs. (starting weight: 156)
Go on at least 2 trips (paid for in cash)
Either get a raise or find new job (got raise and new title)
Complete estate-planning process (and pay for it in cash)
Make money with "side hustles" ($720 made)

Some progress, but not completed:
Increase EF by $7000 to $15,511.95 (progress: $5960.62; total EF: $14,472.57)
Either read a book or do a creative project each month (8 of 12 done)
Organize at least one dinner party or other small-group get-together per month (11 of 12 done)
Write a "Share Your Thoughts" blog post once a month (7 of 12 done)

So, there were no goals I completely neglected, and I finished a goodly number of them. Pretty proud! My list is going to be shorter and more financial focused this year. I'm sticking to the rough draft I outlined earlier, with one exception: we actually hit $250K of net worth this month, which was going to be my 2012 goal! So I'm going to really stretch and try for $300K by the end of 2012. Probably won't happen, but a nice exciting number to reach for.

So here are my goals:

Get EF over $20,000 (Starting point $14,472.57)
Get household net worth over $300,000 (Starting point $250,418)
Get student loan debt under $40,000 (Starting point $52,955)
Get total household debt under $300,000 (Starting point $324,378)
Get weight under 130 lbs. (Starting point 139)
Research at least 5 things I buy to learn as much as I can about who produces them, and where and how they're made

I also thought I should total up how much I've made in credit card rewards (cash, statement credits and Amazon gift cards). I've already subtracted any annual or other fees, so this is just net.

Bonus rewards received:
Amex $15
CapOne MC $100
Chase Sapphire $1000
Chase Sapphire $1000
Citi MC $150
Chase SW $531
Citi MC $200

Subtotal $2996

Regular rewards received:
Chase Freedom $283
Amex $125
CapOne MC $8
Chase Sapphire $30
Chase Sapphire $30

Subtotal $476

Bonus rewards expected:
CapOne MC $20 (separate bonus; spent enough to earn it but haven't received)
Chase SW $431 (made one purchase to earn; waiting for points to hit)
Chase SW $431 (made one purchase to earn; waiting for points to hit)
Citi ThankYou $500 (need to spend $2500 to earn)
Citi ThankYou $500 (need to spend $2500 to earn)

Subtotal $1882

So, we've actually received $3472, and we're expecting $1882 more (not counting whatever regular rewards we earn along the way). When all's said and done, we should have netted at least $5354!

Right now we have 7 cards open; I plan on closing 4 of them as soon as we get the points and receive the gift cards I plan to order.

I may continue this game in 2012; it'll probably take us the full 3 months to spend enough to get the Citi ThankYou points, but after that I'll start looking around again.

Lots of goals have come and gone in my head. But what I keep coming back to is that we'll be raising a newborn and a two-year-old next year. We just don't know what that looks like. There are lots of other variables as well -- we're going to offer to fly our relatives out to meet the new baby since we won't have enough vacation time to take any big trips.

Since we don't know who if anyone will take us up on that (and let us pay), I don't know what our travel budget will look like.

NT is taking a semester off, so his loans may come due temporarily. I don't think it'll affect us too much since we have so much extra money in the budget for education debt, but it's a bit of a wild card.

We do at least know what our pay will roughly look like; we figured out how much of our leave will be paid and unpaid, and I sketched out monthly projected budgets.

And we know what our daycare costs will be, since our lovely daycare provider has already agreed to take the baby on.

Anyway, there's enough predictability in our financial future that I feel pretty good saying we'll hit a few exciting financial milestones, so that's what I'm going to call my "goals" for the year:
Get EF over $20,000
Get household net worth over $250,000
Get student loan debt under $40,000
Get total household debt under $300,000

Another goal: I'm pretty pleased with the weight loss I've achieved this year, so I'm hoping I can maintain my under-140 status through the rest of the month and then create a new goal to get under 130 lbs.

I'm going to be easy on myself in terms of creativity and socializing in 2012. I'll do my best, but setting goals in the face of new motherhood is just apt to make me feel anxious or guilty.

One goal I think I'm going to set is to be more thoughtful about the products I consume. I'm trying to figure out how to frame this in a concrete way so I can know when I've reached it. I want to try and track the provenance of some of our most-used household products; find out what they're made of and how they're made, where the raw materials come from and where the production is done. How the workers who create the products live, and the environmental impact of the product, from harvesting of raw materials, to production, to use and disposal of the product.

There are so many things that are so easy to buy and use without knowing anything about them in the big picture. I want to feel like I have a better working knowledge of that.

If you have any suggestions of how I can make that into a concrete goal, I'd appreciate it!

Well, it looks like my payments to NT's student loans hit ... strange though. I paid $2325 over the past two months, but they show a payment of $2577. Maybe it's to adjust the interest accrual, though there's no way I accrued that much more by the payments not posting. So I'm kinda confused, but I'll record it.

I also sent $2711 to them just today. I have no idea when it will post, so I'm counting it now. Since interest appears to be paid up, I guess nearly all of it will go toward principal!

Most of the first two payments I already calculated into my October and November debt repayment, but more principal was paid down than I expected. Anyway, to make a confusing story short, I'm calculating that $2946 went to principal that I haven't already counted. Nice! This means I exceeded the December goal of $1960; we actually paid $3759 in December!

2011 is ending with a bang!

NT finally got the estimate on redecorating his UK flat! It's going to be about 770 pounds. So that means I was able to calculate how much money we need in UK checking to cover mortgage payments and redecorating, and transfer the surplus money that's been sitting there into savings! Which means I can count it toward our emergency fund.

All told I was able to put the equivalent of $2950.08 to the EF. Also, I need to record two regular US savings deposits of $25 each and $0.51 in interest. That means we put $3000.59 toward the EF this month! That takes our 2011 EF progress to $5960.62 and our total EF to $14,472.57. We'll have one more $25 deposit this year, so we'll be a bit over $1000 short of reaching our goal. Still, we doubled the amount that we'd saved up until this month, so it's a really nice ending burst of progress!

Oh, and our final Roth IRA deposits left our checking account today, so that means we hit our goal of saving $3600 to Roths!

NT and I decided what to do with his $3500 bonus. Well, the $2581.39 we netted after taxes. We'll put $500 into our daughter AA's mutual fund, set aside $200 to help start a CD or mutual fund for our next child when it's born, give ourselves (and AS) each $100 to use however we like, and send the rest ($1581.39) to one of NT's student loans. I added that amount to the extra debt payment I was already going to set up, so it should go out tomorrow! Since this is the crazy student loan where payments aren't showing up even though they receive them, I'll count it as soon as it leaves our checking account.

NT and I applied for and were approved for Citi ThankYou cards. We each need to spend $2500 to get $500 in Amazon gift cards. That'll be another $1000! Shouldn't be a problem spending $5000 in three months with our vacation coming up; I have $2500 set aside for vacation expenses.

NT brought home a letter today that said he's getting a $3500 bonus! I thought the hundred-dollar bill from the holiday party WAS his work bonus. Pretty sweet. We haven't really decided what we're going to do with it. We're all wiped out, half-sick, overworked, ready for vacation. We've got some wants, but they can probably be handled with my Amex gift cards or the Amazon gift cards we've already received.

I'm thinking about my 2012 goals and one thing I keep coming back to as a financial goal is to ramp up my education debt repayment. If we can put a large chunk of this bonus to that, it would be awesome. I'd also maybe like to add some money to lil' AA's mutual fund.

I totally forgot to blog about this beforehand, but hopefully it will be available on TLC's website and in reruns.

Anyway, my friend Tenessa was featured on What Not to Wear last night! You can see my spouses in it right at the end -- NT is the guy in the checked shirt cheering, and AS is the woman with glasses and dreads getting interviewed at the end. I was at the big reveal, but I don't really show up on camera (blink and you'll miss me -- I had to rewind to find myself).

I like the show, and my friend confirmed that the hosts and the whole crew are really nice and fun. Her episode has some interest to budget-minded people because she's one of the few guests to consistently talk about how she only shops at thrift stores and/or wears hand-me-downs from friends. She picks up a shirt that costs $250 and says, "For that amount, I could get 250 pairs of jeans on dollar day at the thrift store!"

At one point the hosts say something like, "You have to admit that these clothes are a huge step up from your dollar-day clothes." Tenessa says, "OK, I'll admit, these clothes are worth more than a dollar." LOL. She never really gives up her thrifty self; even at the end she says she still shops at thrift stores but is willing to spend a bit more to get nicer pieces that fit the fashion guidelines they gave her.

It's been a weird couple of weeks for me schedule-wise...I've been taking Mondays off because I realized I had some use-em-or-lose-em vacation days, and Monday is the easiest day to have other people cover me. It hasn't felt very leisurely, because the other four days are just more intense to make up for it, but it's nice on Sunday nights knowing my week doesn't have to start just yet. I've asked for Mondays off for parental leave when the baby comes, so I'll have a taste of this rhythm again next year.

Last week would've been manageable workwise, but two senior execs came to me and basically said we need to make a case to keep your main project from going to a competitor. So I spent about 4 hours total meeting with them, and writing up various requested documents. Now it's up to them to charm and wheedle our client to let us keep the project. If I hadn't gotten that recent promotion I honestly wouldn't be that bothered about it, but I'd hate to get demoted. Although my HR is so disorganized and my boss so supportive, there's a chance they wouldn't get around to that even if we did lose my main project. I'm pretty sure they'll always want at least one full-time proofreader/editor, and I'm the only non-contract one, so I'm pretty confident about job security either way.

So anyway, that made the rest of my workflow clog up and I nearly canceled tomorrow as a vacation day. But I moved enough stuff around that I can still do it.

On a good note about work, we had our holiday lunch on Friday, and in addition to delicious free food and wine, we got $250 in Amex gift cards. NT's holiday party happened recently and they each got a $100 bill. Small but definitely appreciated bonuses; in this economy we don't count on anything from our companies.

Because my work weeks have been so intense, it's made me a bit stressed out about Xmas. When we were planning what we were going to do, it didn't seem like a lot, but there was a point where I started to feel stressed that I wouldn't accomplish it all. Well, we've made some good progress and I feel calm again. NT and I got all of our presents for AS at he mall last week, and AS and I finished shopping online for NT this Friday. I can tell they're about 2/3 done with my Xmas because they tell me what charges to deduct from that line item. We finished getting AA's presents too; they're the only ones I can talk about because she's too little to read my blog.

We got her a little wooden kitchen and a soft doll with three extra outfits. Her UK relations got her some toy food and dishes to go with the kitchen. My parents will probably get her some stuffed animals, some chalk and maybe another doll. I also emailed them that they could get her toy cars, board puzzles and coloring books/crayons -- out of our many hand-me-down toys, those are some missing items.

I got my parents a DVD of Wagon Train season 1 -- an old TV western that I don't think they have. (It was kind of pricey so I don't think they'd buy it for themselves; I found a great deal on eBay but my dad is not that web-savvy.) I also got an 8x10 print of a photo from our recent photo shoot; my mom has framed photos of every kid and grandkid in her living room and she likes it to be a recent pic, at least through graduation.

NT is taking care of his family; I know he's gotten some pics developed for them but don't know what else he's planning. AS is going to order a cookie basket or something similar that her mom and siblings can all enjoy, and she also got an 8x10 of one of the photos from our shoot.

We got holiday cards made from another of the shots -- a picture of us all looking up, the three of us sitting in a circle on the floor and AA standing in the middle also looking up. It's pretty cute. I went for the best card quality on the FedEx Office website so I only ordered 20 -- mostly for family, but also for a couple of friends that have gone above and beyond helping us with childcare and making sure we hung out. We've handed out a couple and I've been hunting down addresses for the rest -- will mail out as many as I can tomorrow on my day off, along with AS's mom's photo, and my parents photo and DVD.

So now, I actually find that things are coming together in plenty of time! We still have to wrap the gifts we ordered online as soon as they come in, and we have a few more Xmas decorations we could hang (though we've got the tree up, so I don't really care about the rest).

Most of the holiday parties we've been invited to are already out of the way -- there's one more for AS's office that the rest of us may or may not go to. My college had an alumni celebration last night, but the directions were funky and we couldn't find the place. We already had our car share and a babysitter, so we just went to a nice Thai restaurant and relaxed instead. Honestly, it was maybe even more fun than the party may have been. We couldn't remember the last time all three of us went out to dinner together, without our daughter. Usually we take her out with us, or one of us stays home with her and the other two go out.

For Xmas we typically like to make some kind of special dinner. This year we decided that I'll make a wheat-gluten (seitan) roast with a stuffing inside; and AS will make these awesome dinner rolls she first tried out at Thanksgiving, plus some desserts; and NT will handle all the vegetable sides (right now he's thinking a potato dish and some parsnips). We love to cook, so that won't be stressful at all.

For gift-opening we're going to videotape AA opening her gifts so we can share it with family online. Technology is awesome.

We usually go out with our best friends or over to their place for Xmas Eve, but haven't heard anything about it this year. If not, we'll just take it easy at home. NT has to assemble the toy kitchen anyway.

We're not doing stockings or attempting to get AA to "give" gifts, or bothering with talking about Santa, beyond pointing him out in decorations. (She can point to him if you ask where Santa is, but she's mostly interested in his "hat" as that's one of her newer words.) Next year will be a bit more involved in that department, because she'll be able to anticipate and participate a lot more.

AS has been making holiday cookies when she feels up to it, but not the factory-like operation of non-pregnant years. I think that's fine. I'm trying to hold onto my weight loss anyway.

This is one of the first years we've really given gifts and money to service providers. Well, I suppose we gave $100 to our first daycare lady the first Xmas. Oh yeah, and we made her some stew that she loved. But this year, we felt a bit more able to be generous, so we gave/are giving:
- $75 and a bunch of cookies to our house cleaner
- $25 to the holiday fund for our building management's employees
- $40 for our diaper service provider
- $175 in cash and gift cards to our incredible daycare lady, plus maybe some handmade toys for the daycare
- Oh! That reminds me I should do a card for our lawyer

Kiplinger always has an article around this time of advice for tips you can consider giving at this time of year, and one thing that struck me in this year's article was that they said you should think about tipping people who made your life easier over the year through their personal efforts. All of the above providers have impacted our lives positively. (The article also had some good practical advice about not giving if people felt strapped this year, but far from it, we actually feel pretty flush.)

So I think that's it for Xmas! It is kind of a lot of little things that added up to make me feel overwhelmed for about a week there, but now that things are moving along and we have plenty of time, I think it will be a relaxing and festive Xmas and that we'll make several friends, family and service providers happy, which is a main goal of the holiday. (We did extra donating of money to charities in November, so we'll just do the regular amounts this month.)

I have absolutely no idea what we're doing for New Year's. Since we so far only use friends for babysitting, I assume we wouldn't be able to get one, so we'll probably just hang out at home. Last year a friend came over and we just played videogames and snacked and drank wine, and I definitely wouldn't mind ringing in another year like that.

I haven't formalized my resolutions (or goals, I prefer to think of them these days), but I have a general idea of what I want to shoot for next year. I'll probably do a post about that closer to the end of the month.

Then we have to think of our January vacation to Mexico. Pretty much there's nothing to do for that; tickets, hotel and shuttle from the airport are ordered; we used some Amazon gift cards to get AS some maternity summerwear; we have cancellation insurance in case anything comes up (or if AS just plain doesn't feel up to it). I'm determined to mostly relax, take good care of AS and make sure AA has fun. There's plenty of money in the budget for NT to do some more adventurous stuff if he wants, and I might accompany him if AS feels up to taking care of AA, but otherwise I'm quite happy to lounge around as much as possible.

I guess that's it! I may do a more financial post tomorrow unless I get too busy running errands. If not, then later in the week.

I've been a bit worried that my work would balk if I requested parental leave...after all, I'm a third parent so they might feel I was trying to take advantage of them.

But since I am going to be legally adopting the new baby, I figured it was worth a try. I decided to ask for one week off after the birth and then one day per week for the next three to four months after that. You can actually ask for 12 weeks if you're adopting at my company, but we're comfortable with keeping the baby at home for just four months before putting him/her into daycare. If NT and I each take some days off, AS can go back to work part-time like I did and we can stretch our parental leave to 4 months instead of the standard 12 weeks.

I broached the subject with my supervisor, and he was supportive. (One of his best friends is AS's boss, so he's well aware of my family situation.) So I emailed the HR lady and let her know I'd be submitting a request. She knows my situation too, so I was relieved when she simply wrote back congratulations and that she'd be in touch with our DC headquarters to see what I was entitled to as an adoptive parent.

When I took the request form to her, we chatted a bit and she said she didn't think it would be any trouble at all to get what I was requesting. Most of it will be paid PTO anyway; I probably won't have to start short-term disability after that.

She also said she'd look into getting me some assistance for the cost of adoption! She said our company has some program for that. I feel like I may have heard her wrong, but I thought she then said that one man at our company submitted adoption expenses of $5000 and was reimbursed by our company.

!!!

I was so stunned I just said well, I wasn't counting on anything like that, but of course anything to ease the financial strain of adoption would be welcome.

After I left, it sank in and I was like, did I really hear that??

My lawyer estimated it would cost $5000 to $6500 to complete adoptions for both kids. I already have the $6500 saved up. If I could get even a portion of that reimbursed by my company, that would help a ton with student loan debt repayment!

Now that I think more about it, I guess they would probably only reimburse the portion that pertained to the child I was adopting versus AS adopting AA. But still!

I looked through our HR site and could not find mention of this type of benefit. That's why I'm slightly doubting what I heard. Would be nice though.

My company after being so crappy and stingy is finally paying out again, it seems!

***

In other random news, I was able to order $600 of Amazon gift certificates with my Chase Southwest rewards points, and they came Friday! When I signed up for this offer I thought I'd be getting $500 worth, but there's a sale on right now.

AS's and NT's points probably won't appear in time for this sale, but from what MonkeyMama has said, these sales don't seem to be that uncommon. Perhaps they'll get another one going for Xmas!

But, even if there's no sale and we just get $500 each for NT's and AS's Southwest cards, that would take us to a net of $3858 in credit card bonuses (not counting regular cash back earnings) for 2011!

I wrote to my Chase Southwest and to a Citi MasterCard that AS and I got for a bonus, asking them to close those accounts.

As soon as I get some accounts closed, I'm going to try for this card:
citi.com/travel
Spend $2500 and get $500 worth of points; annual fee waived for 1st year; sounds like there are other benefits to the account as well.

If I can get this before our Mexico vacation in January, we could put our planned spending on this card and nearly meet the requirement right there!

Actually, I tried this at the State Fair and have been meaning to try and make it for a while now. I finally did tonight.

Kushari is an Egyptian street/comfort food, and it's also pretty frugal because you can make a passable version using really common ingredients! The most exotic thing I used was ground cumin. Basically it's lentils, rice and elbow macaroni topped with a tomato-vinegar-garlic sauce and browned flour-coated fried onions. It was soo good. I pretty much nailed it the first time I tried making it!

In terms of healthiness I'd say it's half-and-half, because the lentil-rice mixture and the tomato sauce are healthy, the macaroni and the fried onions not so much. But it's filling and comforting and tasty and has cheap ingredients.

EDIT to add recipe, in case you're wanting to try it.

Kushari Recipe

Kushari consists of four things, so the ingredients and instructions are listed separately:

Lentils + Rice
Macaroni
Garlic Vinegar Tomato Sauce
Fried Onion Topping

Serves about 8 people

Lentil Layer

1 cup of lentils
1 cup of rice
5 cups of water
1 tablespoon cumin
1 t salt and 1/2 t pepper

Put water in a large pot and add cumin. Boil the water and then add lentils. Close lid, reduce heat slightly and leave it boiling for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, slice onions for onion layer and start frying in batches (see below). Also mince garlic and start sauce (see below).
Add rice, salt and pepper and stir. Reduce heat to very low and simmer with lid on until rice is cooked, about 20 minutes. Meanwhile start a medium pot of water boiling for macaroni (see below). Stir lentil-rice mixture a few times during cooking to try and reduce sticking. Turn off heat and leave on warm burner with lid on.

Fried Onion Topping

2 large onions (or equivalent), peeled and cut in half and then into strips.
3/4 t salt
1/3 cup flour
Plenty of vegetable oil for frying

Add salt and flour to cut onions. In a cast-iron frying pan add vegetable oil (3 T per batch?) and on medium-high, fry as many onion strips in pan as will fit in a single layer (you will probably fry 3 or 4 times total), turning fairly frequently, for 10-15 minutes until deep golden brown. (Try for crispiness, but don't let them burn too much.)

Garlic Vinegar Sauce

1 T vegetable oil
2-3 tablespoons minced garlic
2-3 tablespoons white vinegar
2 15-oz. cans of plain tomato sauce
1 t salt and 1/2 t pepper
3/4 t red pepper flakes

In a saucepan on medium-high, cook garlic in vegetable oil for a minute or 2. Add tomato sauce and then add vinegar and spices and stir. Stir on heat for a few minutes, until it boils. Reduce heat to very low until ready to serve.

Macaroni Layer

2 cups dry macaroni
Water

Throw macaroni into boiling water about 9 min. before last onion layer is done frying; cook until al dente and drain.

To serve, ladle layers of lentil-rice, then macaroni, then tomato sauce, then fried onions.

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

All told, that's $813 down, $1147 to go on the December goal.

I know I sound like a broken record, but my payments from Oct. 10 and last week still haven't posted to NT's student loan account. I'm going to keep sending one payment per month and estimating the amount to principal. I mean, it's a huge student loan organization. It'll have to apply my payments someday, right? They keep coming out of my checking account OK.

I briefly considered putting extra money toward a different debt until this glitch is cleared up, but his loan has the highest interest by far, so I can't bring myself to divert funds elsewhere. Just hoping they make good on their promise to apply payments retroactively so the interest isn't really accumulating as fast as it appears to be.

Now that we've got our wills finalized, notarized and signed, we have to decide where to keep them. The lawyer said the two main choices were a fireproof safe or a bank safe-deposit box. Those of you who have wills, where do you opt to keep them? Are you happy with your choice?

Another of AS's student loans hit, $61 going to principal. That means we paid $2043 of debt this month, exceeding our $2000 goal!

That's the last debt payment that will hit this month, so I can go ahead and set my December debt goal. I'm going for a modest $1960 in December.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I made progress on my goal to organize get-togethers; we had a day-after-Thanksgiving gathering with a few friends. I won't hit this goal since I missed one month, but I'll come darn close!

Also, put $25 into savings recently and earned $0.47 in interest, which brings our 2011 EF progress to $2960.03 and our total EF to $11,471.98. Still vaguely hoping to hit the EF goal if NT's rental-management company ever tells us what the cost of redecorating is so we can put any excess into savings. It's doubtful that we'd get to $7000 even then, but at least we'd be closer than we are now, not even halfway to our goal!

Well, my Oct. 10 payment to NT's student loan has still not posted. They've repeatedly assured me that they received it and that in terms of interest, they will apply it as if it hit on Oct. 10. Eventually. So I went ahead and sent out another payment last week. It hasn't hit. Of course.

Still, I'm sure they got it, and someday it will post to NT's account. So as not to miss our November goal, I'm going to guesstimate that $1050 went to principal.

Also, one of AS's student loan payments hit, with $123 going to principal. Thank goodness we paid off her Direct Loan account before this new nonfunctioning website launched, or else I'd be tearing my hair out with two accounts not posting payments.

So, I'm saying $1173 went to principal, making it $1982 down, $18 to go on my November debt goal.

This student loan thing is so frustrating that I lost interest in calculating net worth this month. However, I just checked AS's individual net worth, and she's at a positive number: $28!! It's small, but it's a start. We'll really start building it up now. That's another 2011 goal reached!

Speaking of 2011 goals, we hit our $1800 to charities goal a month early! We decided to use some of this extra money coming in to donate.

The only goals I haven't reached are my EF, the Roth IRA (which we'll reach in December), and the creative/social goals where I was required to do something each month. I think next year if I set those types of goals, I won't have the one-per-month requirement, because you have one busy month and you've ruined the goal for the whole year.

Oh, I did finally finish reading the 1300-page "Count of Monte Cristo," so I've done 8 of 12 months in my creative/reading goal.

I'm super busy at work, but NT shared this article with me and I couldn't resist passing it on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15752918

What do you think is your cheapest meal that you would actually consider eating?

NT had to buy minutes to keep his phone activated, since he accidentally only bought enough minutes to keep it active it for one month in October.

FY2011 spending so far:

NT's April Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $32.87
AS's May T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's June Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
NT's August Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38
CJ's October T-Mobile fillup (1000 minutes): $107.78
NT's Oct Net10 fillup (200 min.=1 month svc): $22.26
NT's Nov Net10 fillup (300 minutes): $33.38

FY2011 total: $370.83

We're in the eighth month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost is now $46.35. Still slightly below our ideal $50-per-month average, so that's good.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March 2009, so our phone "fiscal year" begins each April. We have 2 phones on T-Mobile prepaid and 1 on Net10 prepaid. AS and I refill in 1000-minute increments and only need to refill when we run out or when it's been a year since our last fillup to stay active. NT needs to buy 300 more minutes every 60 days to keep his phone activated.

Our cellphone bill, for three phones on a family plan, used to range from $80-$95, depending on texts, calls to 411, etc. Usually it was close to $85. My ideal goal is to get my average cost to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 is a savings.