Cross another goal off our 2011 list! We saw our lawyer Friday and, after some discussion and editing, signed our wills, power-of-attorney statements and health care directives. Paid in full as well! We also discussed the adoption of our children, and the lawyer is very excited to get started on it. He's enjoying the intellectual challenge of using existing laws to cater to our unusual situation.

He said he didn't need a retainer yet for the adoptions, which is kind of nice. I've enjoyed having that big cushion in the checking account; makes me feel very secure! I'll be an adjustment next year when it's not there anymore.

We parceled out our extra money to see what we could afford in terms of gifts to our service providers, gifts for parents, etc. Everything looks very good for the rest of the year. I probably won't put any extra to debt except the standard $1000 per month, but I'll try to put a bit more than that in January and February. Then I have to figure out our budget for parental leave, which might involve lower debt repayment for a couple of months.

We've already made the necessary purchases for earning $1500 of gift cards on our new Southwest cards! I paid for some prescriptions, NT bought a restaurants.com gift certificate that we're going to pay in our spending money for, and AS put a meal out on her card (that one will also be paid for with our spending money). Then AS started spending on her Capital One card; we'll get $100 bonus once she spends $500. We went out Friday night to celebrate finishing our estate planning, and we'll pay that with some of our surplus money.

One of the other things we decided to do with our budget surplus was to donate an extra $50 each ($150 total) to charities of our choice. That means we'll hit our charitable goal in November instead of December!

Anyway, on to my super-easy recipe! I found this online because we had some snowpeas that needed using up. You need about (I didn't measure and mine turned out great):

1/2 lb. snowpeas
1 T butter or margarine
1 T lemon juice
Pinch of Italian seasoning
Pinch of garlic powder
Pinch of salt

Melt butter in small dish in microwave and add lemon juice, seasoning and salt. Microwave the snowpeas with a few tablespoons of water, 1 minute at a time until tender and hot but still crisp. Drain snowpeas and toss them with the butter mixture.

Soo good! I like having a number of simple, tasty veggie side dish options. I've noticed most of my favorites involve butter and/or lemon.

MonkeyMama turned me on to the Chase Southwest credit card, which has a deal where you make ONE purchase and get 2 free flights OR $500 in gift cards. There's a $69 annual fee, so you net $431.

We all have or recently had Chase cards, and NT and AS have even been turned down for smaller rewards. But I thought what the heck, this is too good not to try. I wasn't sure who should apply, so I had each of us apply separately.

I applied first and got an immediate note that I had been approved. AS and NT didn't get that note, so I figured they didn't get approved.

Then bam, last night, they got their cards in the mail! So we've got three cards, and after the fees, we'll get $1293 worth of cards for making three purchases!

Time to add up what I've gotten so far and what we will get soon:
Chase Sapphire $1000 Received
Chase Sapphire $1000 Received
Citi MasterCard $150 Received
American Express $15 Received ($100 minus $75 fee minus $10 late fee on 1st payment)
Citi MasterCard $200 Expected
Capital One $100 Expected
Chase Southwest Visa $431 Expected ($500 minus $69 fee)
Chase Southwest Visa $431 Expected ($500 minus $69 fee)
Chase Southwest Visa $431 Expected ($500 minus $69 fee)

Grand total this year, if we get those last 5 as expected? $3758! And that's not counting the 6% statement credits for grocery purchases we get on the Amex card. We easily spend $600 per month at eligible stores, so that means $432 in rewards. Minus $75 annual fee, we'll still get at least $357 per year.

We also get minor (1% to sometimes 5%) rewards on all other CC purchases, but I don't keep track.

Isn't that crazy? My raise was less than $5000 and the income was taxable, so I'm thinking I netted more on CC rewards, on purchases I would've made anyway, than I did from my raise!

***

More good news on the job front, though! We had our benefits presentation and there was lots of good news. For one thing, no premiums going up except for vision coverage, which I don't opt to get. We're getting a new dental provider with more in-network dentists and 100% free checkups and better rates on other dental care.

They announced an initiative to encourage preventative care. If we do 7 things from a list -- all of which are 100% covered -- we'll get $200 added to our flex spending accounts January 2013. It's basic stuff like annual exams, cancer screenings, flu shots, etc. At least 4 or 5 things I would've done anyway, so it's basically $200 for scheduling 2 or 3 extra doctor appointments over the course of a year.

And, most exciting for me, they didn't promise (but I don't think they would've brought it up if they weren't going to do it) but said if they were going to bring back 401(k) matching, they'd announce it in a few weeks. They haven't even mentioned 401(k) matching as a possibility since they took it away about 4 years ago, so I'm hugely encouraged by this! Could be getting one step closer to meeting our desired retirement contribution levels.

***

Other quickie news flashes:

- This Friday we're all taking off work and getting our first carshare to go see the lawyer and sign our wills. We found some mistakes and potentially big omissions, but I emailed them and the paralegal is going to try and get everything fixed before the meeting. We had our lawyer friend look over it (he gave us a great hourly rate, so we've really lucked out in this process) and he confirmed what we thought about what was good and what needed changing.

- I'm not tracking my eating or exercise anymore since I reached my weight goal, but I still have to weigh in once a week to make sure I don't gain it all back. Last Sunday I weighed in and had lost another pound! Down to 138. I wasn't even trying, but I think my renewed housecleaning efforts are paying off with more than just a tidier house.

- AS had her first real ultrasound, where they did all the measurements, and our baby is doing fantastic. All the important stuff checked out; no cleft palate, no sign of Downs, all fingers and toes there, all organs and bones looking good. AS's blood pressure is OK, so they think chance of pre-eclampsia is very remote. The baby is super active, and the tech had to keep chasing it to get the pictures he needed! It was very cute.

- NT's student loan payment is STILL not posting!! It left my bank account Oct. 17. The rep said when it does post, it'll be retroactive in terms of interest; so they'll fix our interest charges as if our payment had hit Oct. 17. It better! We've accrued $5-$8 more than we would have if the payment had hit on time. I want to send another payment next week, but I'm not going to until this one hits.

What else? Oh, I don't know. The holidays are barreling toward us and it feels like a ton of things need to be done, but I feel so busy with regular stuff every day that I'm just not getting to any of it. It's all fun good stuff, though, so I'm not worried. I rarely let the holidays stress me out too much. Besides, if we get these gift cards from Southwest in time, there's Xmas pretty much taken care of!

$25 went into U.S. savings for the EF, so that's $2934.56 of 2011 progress, and brings total EF to $11,446.51.

Also, AS's student loan account got fixed (accidental payment from someone else's check removed) and it turns out her regular payment put $1 more toward principal than I had estimated. It counts! So that's $809 down, $1191 to go on the November debt goal.

I'm so frustrated that NT's federal student loan payment hasn't posted yet. But I looked around online and it's not just me; the site was nowhere near ready to go live, it seems, and so there are people worse off than me. NT's loan isn't even in repayment yet, so it doesn't matter when his payment posts. There are people whose loans are in repayment and whose accounts are now showing up as delinquent because their payments haven't gone through. The Dept. of Education really screwed the pooch on this transition.

I'm also chomping at the bit to find out how much NT's flat redecoration is going to cost us. There's now nearly 2000 pounds in his UK checking account, but I can't put a cent of it to savings until I find out. With my $2-1pound ratio I use for personal accounting purposes, that would be $4000 of EF progress and would nearly get us to our 2011 goal! Of course it's not going to be nearly that much and that's why we're not likely to hit our EF goal. But even to be able to post some more progress soon would be psychologically gratifying.

The CEO of my bank apparently made some callous remarks about surviving this economy at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. I can't find a transcript so I can't tell exactly what it was or whether it's being spun (positively or negatively) by reporters.

But in trying to find more about this meeting, I did find out that he's nicknamed "the Golden Boy of Wall Street" and that my bank is more involved in predatory lending than I realized. (Since US Bank didn't appear in many stories about the mortgage debacle, I assumed they were a more temperate bank in their financial behavior.)

So, I dunno. I've had good experiences with the bank overall, and I'm very used to the online checking system. But I'm uncomfortable that banks think they can do business the way they do and think that no one will take their business elsewhere.

I'm online looking at credit unions, and I think I found one that's not too inconvenient to us geographically. (There are closer ones but we don't meet the membership eligibility -- having to work for a specific company or industry.)

Seems like their checking accounts, ATMS, checks, etc. are free, which would be important (I typically don't pay a dime to do my banking). And your money is protected up to $250,000 -- we only have about $20,000 in checking and savings.

Anyone have any thoughts on credit unions? I've been with my big bank for so many years -- are there any drawbacks or inconveniences you can think of?

All our mortgage payments hit:
US: $433 to principal
UK1: $262
UK2: $55
UK3: $58

All told, that's $808 down, $1192 to go on the November debt goal.

Approximately $182 will come from regular student loan payments, which means I need to come up with $1010 to NT's loan. Hopefully they fix the issue with his payment soon so I can figure out how much I need to send this month to cover accrued interest plus $1010 to principal!

***

Today at lunch I sent the last $1000 of the $2500 we agreed to give AS's mom. She has paid lip service to repaying us someday, but we are considering this a gift, not a loan.

If by chance she pays it back, we'll hold that money aside and be willing to loan her (in the future) as much as she pays us back. Sort of like having an escrow account for her (that she doesn't know about). If she pays none back, this is the last time we'll be giving her money.

***

We've signed up for the carshare service! Did I mention that we applied? Well, we were approved this week. We're using the car to go to our lawyer meeting next Friday. I think that'll be our first time using it. This first month will run over the $90 I'm allotting per month for this purpose, but we've got a healthy surplus in our budget so it's OK. It's running over mainly because of the application fees but also because we're taking the car for a whole day, so we can maybe have a dinner date after the lawyer meeting to celebrate getting this done!

I can't remember if I have any other news off the top of my head, and some urgent work came in, so I've got to run!

Oh my goodness. I spent the weekend at some friends' home, where we snacked and feasted constantly. So I was really worried about my weigh-in. I'd been pretty good the week before, but I thought for sure that Saturday and Sunday would do me in.

Luckily, I think all my housecleaning and general moving around during the week, plus one good hard Gilad workout on Tuesday, was enough! I weighed in tonight and had hit 139, my 2011 goal!!

(Actually, AS pointed out that my idea of snacking and pigging out now, after my months of dieting, is probably much more modest than it was before.)

So now, I just need to maintain, and lose any weight that I gain over the holidays. Next year I'll set a more ambitious goal, but I just feel satisfied that I made it under 140! Considering I started the year at 156, 139 is like a whole new world!

***

I was updating my sidebar info and realized that I surpassed my 2011 goal to pay off at least $20,000 of debt! We've now paid $21,440 off, and still have two more months to go. Might even pass $25,000 this year. We've done much more in past years, but since we've also been putting $300 per month to IRAs and setting all of NT's rental income aside in savings, and have more expenses such as childcare, I'm very happy with this result.

Well AS's regular student loan payment hit. Oddly, as with NT's payment, which still hasn't been applied to his principal even though I know they have it, I had to estimate how much of AS's payment went to principal, because that accidental payment of someone else's hasn't been removed from her account yet. But anyway, it's usually $60, so that's what I'm estimating.

So that makes (an estimated) $1907 of October debt repayment, taking us $7 over our goal. Not as satisfying since two of the accounts aren't showing accurate balances, but it counts.

Next month I'm going to shoot for at least $2000 of debt repayment.

So here are pics of me as Columbo and AA as a monkey. Coincidentally, in one of the shots I was trying to imitate a classic Columbo stance where he has his hand on his forehead, which obscures my identity pretty nicely. Good pic to share here.

OK, first the only normal financial thing: one of AS's student loans hit, with $124 going to principal. That makes $1847 down, $53 to go on the October debt goal.

I went to AS's other online student loan account to see if that payment had hit yet. As soon as I logged in I knew the balance was lower than I expected. I checked my debt spreadsheet and sure enough, it was about $200 lower. I noticed a payment had hit on Oct. 21 for way more than our $61.55 autopay that usually hits the last couple days of the month. (That one hadn't hit yet.)

For a second I was really excited, thinking maybe there was an ontime-payment bonus or something that I'd forgotten about. But then I thought, what if it was someone else's student loan payment and it got applied to AS's account accidentally?

I called the student loan place and explained, and they said it was a payment by check. (I haven't paid student loans by check in years.) They put me on hold while they pulled up a scan of the check. Sure enough, it was for someone else's student loan! The rep said the account number was blurry and they'd entered a wrong number.

Phew! Sad to lose $200 extra on our debt repayment, but happy to think that someone else maybe won't have to go through a hellish rigamarole just to get a late fee taken off their account and have their payment found. Especially with NT's student loan account STILL not showing our payment from Oct. 17, I know how maddening that would be for someone.

***

About the time I was checking into that, the guy who owns the cleaning service emailed me. Said he'd noticed from our cleaning guy's timesheets that he spends 2 and a half hours at our condo, when we only pay for 2 hours. He asked the guy who said it's a solid 2 and a half hour job, and he'd thought he was supposed to be doing that anyway. Said if we wanted 2 hours, we might have to agree to rotate certain aspects of cleaning since he didn't think he could get it all done in 2 hours.

The upshot is, we've been getting an extra half hour of cleaning every 4 weeks. However, if we want to keep this level of cleaning, we're going to have to start paying for that half hour, which would be $26.26 more per month. Or we can talk about taking certain items off his cleaning list, or rotating them. We just got this email, so still trying to decide what to do. Weird, huh?

***

NT and I were talking about whether we should start the car share service next month instead of after the new year. We have our lawyer appointment out in another city in November, and a big college-alumni party in December that's out in the suburbs. I was thinking I should apply today at work because my workload has finally lightened up, but our Chinook Book coupon book is at home, and there's a half-off application fee coupon we wanted to use. Then I remembered that someone had put a 2011 Chinook Book in the breakroom and that those coupons were good until Oct. 31. I checked and, sure enough, the car share coupon was in there! So if it stays slow at work for the next hour, I might go ahead and apply. Isn't that a weird coincidence though?

I just had to write because I thought those were a lot of odd things to happen in a day (in an hour, really).

I finally called NT's student loan providers since the $1125 payment I sent Monday before last wasn't showing up on the new website. Turns out they got the payment; the phone rep said the amount before I did so I know it's true. But when I asked him what the principal balance was, he rattled off the previous balance. When I told him the payment hadn't registered, he said they would do a review of the account and should hear something in -- where have I heard this before? -- 7 to 10 days.

Sigh. So I don't know how much the payment will end up being toward principal, since interest continues to accrue. But I'm hoping at least $925 will go to principal. I'm going to record that, since I know they have my money, and just hope I don't have to report less going to principal.

So, that's $1723 down, $177 to go on the October debt goal.

***

We're going to spend Halloween weekend at our friends' weekend house in Winona, MN. It'll just be us four plus four friends, but I requested we dress up in costumes Saturday night. Mostly because I'd decided earlier this year what I wanted to be: Lt. Columbo, in honor of Peter Falk who passed away a few months ago.

Halloween costumes can end up being surprisingly pricy if you're putting your own together and have very specific items that you need to get. So I felt like I got off pretty easy:
$15 for a tan raincoat
$8 for a white men's shirt
$10 for a tie
$3 for a small pad of paper and a cigar
I've got a pair of khaki pants and am borrowing a pair of NT's shoes, and that's the costume! $36 total.

The raincoat and shirt I got from the church thrift store, so I know the profits go to a good cause. I'll either donate the coat, shirt and tie back to them when I'm done, or if I like the costume enough, this might be one worth keeping. I do love Columbo more than almost anything! I'm watching one right now!

***

Now the random brain dump:

Lots of other little things happening. Today was very dramatic at work, as I suddenly realized that my two roles (proofreader and reviewer for corporate style compliance for our main client) could be very much in conflict. On the one hand I'm subordinate to many people and expected to sort of give in if I'm overridden, but when I wear my other hat I pretty much have more authority than anyone in my company. Anyway, there was a situation where I tried to fulfill both roles as faithfully and ethically as possible, but ended up ruffling some feathers and really making no one happy. I don't think anything bad will come of it, but I keep going over it in my head, wondering if there will be any lasting effects.

AS and I made a very cool dinner tonight, time-consuming but satisfying since it was so far outside our comfort zones. We had beets to use up so I did some research on borscht and found that in Ukraine, it's served with garlic fried bread (that was AS's contribution since she's the bread expert). I thought there should be another dish (not realizing how hearty that would be) so I found a recipe for veganized Ukrainian stuffed cabbage. It was all quite delicious; I don't think it'll freeze well and we're going out of town, so I'll take some for lunch and bring the rest in to see if anyone from work wants it.

We got our annual profit-share check from the natural foods co-op where we do some of our shopping. Typically it's $40 to $50. Well, I don't know if we've been spending a lot there or if they had a good year, but it was over $140! This co-op was $75 to join about 13 years ago, and between the discounts and these yearly checks, it's more than paid for itself, plus it's a good place to support.

I also was able to redeem $25 from our American Express card. I believe this is the second or third $25 we've earned and we've only had it a few months. Definitely worth the $75 annual fee.

I signed up for that Southwest Visa where you get 50,000 points after one purchase, and I asked NT and AS to sign up too, to see how many of us they would approve. I think I got immediate approval but NT didn't get any such message, so maybe he won't get it. I don't think AS has tried yet. We still have to spend about $240 on NT's new Citi card to get the $200 bonus, and AS just got a Capital One card where we spend $500 we'll get I think $150, so we need to do that. Shouldn't be hard at all.

On the estate planning front, I set a date to meet with the lawyer on Nov. 11. We'll need to rent a car or sign up for that car share a couple months early, since his office is kind of far away. Usually he comes and meets us at NT's office, but since we need witnesses or something, we have to go to his office for the signing.

AS has her next ultrasound scheduled for I think Nov. 5. It'll be at the hospital perinatal unit because of her high blood pressure, but we're still really excited. This might be the one where they'd be able to tell us the sex, but AS has been really back and forth on whether or not she wants to find out, so I'm not sure what will happen.

What else, what else, what else? I just realized the other holidays are coming up very fast. Really looking forward to it, but we have some planning and gift-buying to do. Probably get started in November, but we won't have budget surplus until December for any extra holiday spending outside the Xmas gift fund for the four of us.

If there's anything else, it can wait for another post. I should relax so I can get to bed soon.

NT bough some more minutes to extend his contract, but he accidentally bought 200 minutes which gets him 30 days of service, instead of 300 minutes for 60 days of service. He already has trouble using up his minutes, so this is kind of a bummer; he'll have to refill again next month to keep his service active no matter how many minutes he has. I wonder if we should look into whether T-Mobile will allow an exception to the two-prepaids-per-household rule; their one year of service for buying 1000 minutes is much more flexible (and less hassle).

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

FY2011 total: $337.45

We're still in the seventh month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost went up to $48.21. 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.

$25 was transferred into savings and we got 50 cents of interest, so that takes our 2011 EF progress to $2909.56 and our total EF to $11,421.51. STILL waiting to be invoiced for the UK flat redecorating so we can shift any leftover money into the EF fund.

I'm pretty much off my diet but still striving for moderation most of the time, and this week it paid off; I lost the pound and a half I'd gained over the previous two weeks. So now I'm back to 142 with just 3 lbs. to go on the 2011 goal. Which means I sort of wasted the past three weeks. But I've still got time to do it.

NT finally reviewed his will, and we asked a friend who's a lawyer to look it over. We'll get it back from him this weekend, hopefully see the lawyer sometime in November, and our estate planning will be done! I didn't expect it to take most of the year, but I guess that means it was done well?

Our retirement accounts had recovered when I checked our net worth today, and AS's net worth is now -$187, so close to positive! I can't wait to report that. Makes me want to put the whole $180 available from my raise toward her Roth IRA so she can build that positive net worth faster. Hmm, maybe I will.

It's a minor thing, but we had a small get-together at our house Saturday, so that's 9 months out of 10 that we've managed to do so this year!

Although I'm not technically involved in the declutter challenge, I've been doing really well on that front. We're reviewing all the baby stuff we got before AA's birth and getting rid of stuff we never used for her -- a baby backpack, some booties and other articles of clothing. We got rid of a falling-apart baby dresser (though we'd bought a new cheap Ikea one to replace it). I cleared a large bag of expired or unneeded medicines and toiletries from the bathroom. We dumped a duvet that was too thick onto the free table at our condo. We even "decluttered" 4 containers from the freezer -- 2 of crushed tomatoes, one of pinto beans, one of rice -- and some sorta stale tortillas from the fridge into an enchilada lunch this weekend.

And even though it doesn't count as getting rid of stuff, I went through all the bags and piles of AA's clothes and got them sorted by age and put away. I nearly groaned when NT told me his HR manager was sending a huge bag of size 2T clothes our way -- even though I know they'll be very stylish, expensive and gently used based on past donations from her. But I've already figured out where I'm going to put them, so they won't hinder my organizing progress!

What else has been going on? Oh, my sickness/malaise seems to have cleared up; not sure what that was. I expected to lie low this past weekend, but instead I was super productive, cooking and cleaning and organizing. I did tons of laundry and dishes, and cooked a lot of the meals as well as some extras like brownies and muffins.

Work is so much better since I got my promotion. A lot of my bitterness and anger has cleared up and I'm much more able to cope with the ups and downs of the position. I feel like people finally see that I'm doing much more than just proofreading.

I recently realized I have 5 days of vacation I need to use (or lose) by the end of the year! Since we figure our trips based on the least amount of days off someone has -- AS at the moment only gets 12 days a year -- I sometimes forget that I have other days I can use outside our family vacations. I still don't have a good replacement option for when I'm out of the office, so I may try to use most of it as Mondays off, which is typically the lightest work day for me. We shall see.

AS's pregnancy is going mostly well. She has high blood pressure, so that's causing some higher scrutiny, but no real problems so far. She got to hear the heartbeat today for the first time! Moneywise I feel pretty good; some of the extra stuff they need to do because of the hypertension may cost us, but we've got the EF if we can't figure out a way to cashflow it. So excited to meet our new baby next year; we've been throwing tons of names around and are nowhere near coming to an accord.

I'm seeing some pretty good deals popping up for a warm-weather trip; we want to go somewhere tropical in the new year, but I want AS to check with the doctor to see if there's any additional risk to traveling pregnant with the high blood pressure. Seems like there will be tons of deals, so I don't think I'll have any trouble finding one if we're able to do it. If we can't, we'll just staycation together in Minneapolis. That'd be fun too.

Is that it? Oh, I won't get started on my extra payment ($1125) to NT's student loan, lost out in limbo thanks to a website conversion. They said it would take 7 to 10 days. Today was the 7th day and no sign. I really hope it hits before the end of the month or I'm going to seriously miss my debt goal! If it's not there by Thursday morning I'm going to raise hell!

Whew, I'm going to have to update my sidebar later. It's late and I'm getting tired!

I feel ugh. I've had so many good things happening, maybe this is just a natural chemical downturn in my body, so that's why I'm letting things get to me more than usual.

- Wholly derailed and unmotivated on my health goal. After gaining 1.5 lbs. over the past two weeks, and getting behind on the grocery budget, and the cold weather discouraging outdoor activity, and having to work later so I don't want to take the time to walk home -- I'm just not finding the extra strength to push through this rough patch. I'm not eating "on plan" this week and I feel just under-the-weather enough to not be able to push myself to work out. I'm trying to figure out what to do to get myself on track again. I wrote down some fitness goals for next week, so hopefully I'll follow through on those and that will help.

- As I just mentioned, our Costco stockup/grocery run for our cabin weekend wiped out our grocery frugality progress and we're once again dipping into the next fortnight's grocery money. This past weekend I even decided to ignore my diet plan to make a super-cheap grocery list. Somehow we ended up spending even more than we usually do. So I want to do a pantry challenge as much as possible for the next couple weeks, and stick to low-cost food, which is going to mean straying from my diet plan for awhile longer.

- I sent a big payment to NT's student loan on Monday. Well, they've decided to create a completely new site, and now my payment isn't showing up. It aggravates me because every day when I check in I can see that interest is accruing on the debt, and I can see in my bank account that the big payment is gone, so my $1125 is just sitting out there in the ether doing no good on either end. If it hasn't hit by tomorrow morning they're going to get an earful from me!

- NT's classes are crazily reading-intensive this year, which means he hasn't had a chance to review his portion of the estate documents. Until we all look over them, I can't ask my lawyer friend to review them. Until he reviews them, I don't want to schedule an appointment with the lawyer. Until we meet with the lawyer, I don't know what my parental rights are regarding AS's child. Until I know what my parental rights are, I don't know how to approach my HR or what to ask them for. Until I know that, we can't make plans for how we're all going to schedule our parental leave (not to mention plan the budget for our unpaid leave). It's a logjam of stuff-not-happening!

- As mentioned earlier (because all of these things are feeding off each other), I feel oogy. Can't tell if I'm sick, or just going through a slightly depressive period, or if my body is reacting negatively to being off my diet & exercise plan. But we're unusually busy at work so I don't feel like taking a health day unless I get actually, undeniably sick.

- Needless to say, feeling like I'm not going to try NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. Since I usually (OK, always) get behind and give up halfway through the month, I don't think this would help my doldrums any.

OK, done whining. Let's try to remember the good things:

- My work gave me a lovely bouquet to celebrate my raise, and it's been brightening up my office all week.

- My 19-month-old daughter has shown a real aptitude for learning letters! She can usually recognize A, E, F, H, I, M, O, S and Y, and even points them out on random things when I'm not even trying to get her to say them.

- I've done some good decluttering at home (bathroom cupboards, toy shelves) and have been pitching in more with housework the past couple weeks (since NT is partly out of commission with homework and AS with pregnancy, I've been meaning to step up my game).

- Been looking online for Caribbean vacation deals for January, and it looks like we should be able to find something well within our budget. Just need to save up a bit more money, and also decide exactly what we want.

- It's time to leave work, and I'm all caught up for the day!

I saw my paycheck and confirmed that I got a 10% raise -- the lower end of what I asked for, but still a satisfying amount of money. It seems to net me about $280 more per month (I don't have my exact normal paycheck numbers yet because my bus pass payments have been stopped for a few paychecks to fix my being too far ahead on them).

For now, the $280 can just be extra money, along with NT's raise. We can use it to fix up the house, or put toward debt, or whatever we need it for most. It's really going to help cover the shortfall when AS and NT (and who knows, possibly even me) take unpaid parental leave next year.

Then, looking ahead to post-birth, post-parental leave, back to full-time work for all of us and full-time daycare for two kids, I've projected my budget as best I can. NT's raise, and our daycare lady's cheap rates, meant that we could basically go back to our current budget ($10 short; not bad) even with full-time daycare. So $10 of my raise will cover the shortfall, leaving $270. If we set aside $90 per month for car-share service, that will leave $180. I figure I can put this monthly surplus toward our Roth IRAs.

Ideally, we'd put $600 more toward retirement each month. But, to get to 10% of gross income going to retirement, we only need $300 more per month. So this $180 will get us very close, only $120 short of 10% and $420 short of our ideal.

Yay! Now for some bad news; I gained one pound last week and half a pound this week. Since I round up my weight, that takes me to 144 lbs. Got to lose 5 lbs. to meet my 2011 goal. And I better not gain again, because I'm riding the line between "normal" and "overweight" in terms of BMI! So the theme of this week must be moderation, and hopefully some exercise after several weeks off.

I finally had to fill up my cellphone; the last time must have been March or before, since I don't see a fillup for me listed on this year's records. I paid $107.78 for 1000 more minutes.

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

FY2011 total: $315.19

We're in the seventh month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost so far is $45.03. Nicely below our ideal $50-per-month average!

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.

I've been thinking about the things we try to really cheap out on and what we decide to spend more on.

I think some of our choices are a bit different from the priorities of many, but many are probably right in line.

Uberfrugal areas:
-Transportation. We don't have a car, I haven't for over 10 years. NT gave his up when he moved here about 6 years ago. We get completely reimbursed for one bus pass, another one is at a student rate so costs about $30 per month, and the other is at full price ($85) but paid for pre-tax. We're thinking about joining a carshare service, which I'm estimating will come out to about $90 per month. And once in a blue moon we get a taxi or rent a car. Since we don't have a car, we're able to rent out our parking spot for $85. Overall, our current transportation costs are about $30 per month, and may go up to nearly $120. When you factor insurance, gas, repairs, parking, car payments or the other possible car expenses, I think we come out extremely cheaply.

-Baby clothes, toys and equipment. We get whatever we can as hand-me-downs, gifts or garage sale finds. Some things we had to buy new for safety reasons, like the carseats. Other things we couldn't find satisfactory hand-me-down versions of. But I think overall, we spend a fraction of what people would expect.

-Phone service. We have three cheapy, basic cellphones with prepaid service, and I've finally gotten our costs down to about $50 per month (and that includes the occasional phone replacement when one gets lost or broken). At less than $17 per person per month, I think we're way under the curve of the average American (although not the curve of SA bloggers, LOL).

Hair/grooming. We get our hair cut (or in the case of AS's dreads, washed) every 5 weeks. Our barber only charges $15 each for the 2 haircuts and $10 for the hairwashing, but he's a good friend and way too cheap, so we usually pay $70 for what would be a $40 bill (we throw in another $5 if he trims little AA's bangs, and will pay another $10 on top of that when he gives her a full haircut). Still, at most $85 every 5 weeks for 4 people still seems cheap to me. And for grooming, we mostly go for supercheap stuff, though there are a couple of things we're willing to spend a bit more on (like AS's love of Body Shop shower gels).

Mixture of frugal and spendy:

Food. On one hand, we cook almost all our meals at home, which is highly unusual at least in our social circles. When we do eat out, though, it's usually not Domino's or Olive Garden; we usually try to have something special (not crazy high-end, but nice). And, while we do cook at home, we invest in a CSA (community supported agriculture) share. Though it's a good deal for local organic produce, it's still more expensive than supermarket veggies. There are certain other ingredients where we'll go for the more expensive option (such as my favorite vegan cheese, and NT's British tea). Plus, when we feel a high-end piece of equipment is important, we don't shy away from getting it (Vitamix blender, Kitchenaid mixer, marble pastry board). Then again, some of our dishes are hand-me-downs, chipped and faded, and just plain worn-out looking. It's a schizophrenic mixture, our food/money situation.

Home. Our home saves us money in that it's reasonably priced for a condo in our area, and the small space keeps us from buying a ton of stuff. Also, the location enables us to be car-free. However, we've got that ARM that has treated us well so far but could someday start to bite us. And our condo fees are over $500 per month. It includes maintenance and repairs on the building and grounds, utilities, security desk, and basic cable, but still, it's a lot.

Electronics. As I said before, our phones are super cheap, as is our bedroom TV. But we have a really nice TV ($600), camera ($600) and laptop ($2000 I think?)

Entertainment. We go to the movies maybe once or twice a year, and we just cut back our cable and Netflix to save money. We hardly ever go to plays or museums. But we do have a fairly extensive DVD collection, and NT has easily $10K worth of LP records. Oh, and we have a Wii and about a dozen games, including Rock Band and Guitar Hero, which were really expensive.

Clothes. We'll put off and put off buying, and shop at Old Navy, H&M and Target when possible. But if we have a windfall of money, we're not averse to a big shopping spree with some higher-priced items (rarely if ever over $100 per item, to give you an idea of what we consider higher-priced).

Not-so-frugal:

Travel. This is one area where I think we're way above average. It's one of our great loves, and I'm so glad we get to indulge it. I set aside $850 per month, and we use every penny, usually saving it up for two or three semi-lavish vacations per year. Sometimes we spend more than that, if we can save up extra side income in advance of a trip.

Diapers. It's very important to us not to use disposables, but we're not equipped to clean our own cloth diapers (and our daycare doesn't do cloth). So we have a diaper cleaning service that also sells us compostable disposables for the daycare to use, and we're about to move onto compostable wipes. All of these options are much more expensive than if we just got disposable diapers and wipes at Target. There is a cheaper way to avoid disposables (making and cleaning your own diapers and wipes), but with all of us working 40+ hours per week and not having our own washing machine, this is something we're willing to pay a premium for.

Cleaning. A lot of people would laugh that we hire a housecleaning service but don't have a car. But to me, this is something I don't resent spending money on. Every four weeks we're forced to declutter and our service deep-cleans in ways we tend to put off. Total luxury, but one that really adds to my quality of life.

***

Those are the only categories of note that I can think of right now. If you actually got through this blabby rambling post, I'm interested to hear people's opinions on my assessments. It's hard to judge your own spending and figure out where you stand. Some of the things I think are superfrugal might seem like unnecessary luxury to you. And I've got two different places to compare to, my regular real-life/social networking social circle, and this community. So in some areas I feel really frugal compared with my friends and acquaintances but kind of spendthrift compared with some of you guys.

Thanks for the congrats on my promotion! I still don't know what my raise will be; I'm not sure what my supervisor asked for because I told him that I'd like to request $55,000, but that if he thought a 10% increase was more realistic, he could ask for that. That would be $53,800. Since I haven't heard anything, I feel pretty safe assuming I got one of those two figures. I suppose I could just ask my boss, but I'll find out in a week's time in my paycheck anyway.

Anyway, the other good news. I wrote a second email to my lawyer's paralegal asking for an estimate on the cost of our estate planning. I'd saved up $2500 for it, but it was so complicated and was taking so long that I was getting pretty nervous. Turns out it will be a $1500 flat fee! So great! Now I can put that extra $1000 I saved toward AS's mom. We can get that situation cleared up much more easily than I thought, and get back to extra debt repayment.

We've been having good luck with our two rental situations: NT's flat and our condo parking spot. His renters moved out, but the management people found new ones right away, and they prepaid for three months! Our parking-spot renters also like prepaying, and they just paid for October-November-December. When I read about how erratic renters can be, I count us very lucky indeed that we haven't had any problems so far.

While I'm writing, I should record that $25 went into the EF. That takes us to $2884.06 in 2011 savings, and our total EF to $11,396.01.

Tonight I'm going to Costco with my friend to stock up on staples as well as buy groceries for this weekend. He and his partner both have birthdays in October, so we used some of our recent influx of extra money to rent a minivan and a cottage about 3 hours away, so we can spend a weekend with them. We leave Friday evening and come back Sunday afternoon/evening. Just a quick little trip away, but those can be a lot of fun.

I got the promotion I asked for! I know my title is what I asked for but haven't gotten anything from Payroll about what my salary will be.

I'm really busy at work today, but I wanted to check in. I've written repeated posts about wanting this for over a year now, so you'll be relieved that I can finally move on to a new subject!

Congratulations are pouring in at work and it's such an unbelievable feeling after years of career stagnation.

All of our mortgage payments hit:
US: $419 to principal
UK1: $264
UK2: $55
UK3: $60
In all, $798 down, $1102 to go on the October debt repayment goal.

I'm excited about our US mortgage interest rate adjusting next month! We'll pay $22 LESS per month, but $14 MORE will go toward principal.

I didn't feel like I had a very good week for healthy living; hardly exercised, ate more off-plan meals than usual. But I guess I exercised just enough moderation, because at my weigh-in I'd lost a tiny amount of weight. Less than a pound, but considering I'd been predicting a 2- to 3-lb. GAIN, I'm extremely pleased with that. I have a tough week coming up; lots of social eating that's going to be off-plan, and a busy week where I may not be able to exercise. But after this week I think I can get back into the swing of things and push through my last 3 lbs. (technically 2.5 now) that I need to lose in order to hit my 2011 goal.

About the raise request: I spoke to my supervisor last week and he said he should find out early THIS week whether it's been approved. I also learned that if it is, it'll be reflected in the 10/15 paycheck! I'd thought before he said it would take effect 10/15, meaning it would be in the 10/31 paycheck. It would be very exciting to see a raise two weeks earlier than I thought. But trying not to get too excited since nothing is guaranteed.

But, as I discussed it with AS this morning, I realized that either way, my future will be clearer this week. If they don't give me the raise, they'll have made it obvious that they don't think I'm that important to the company's success, and I can decide based on that information what I should do -- start the job search up more aggressively this time, or just give them the bare minimum and tune out the job as much as possible in my life. If they do give me the raise, I can feel like I accomplished my next big goal, can really throw myself into excelling at this company, and can use my non-work hours toward something fun and creative versus job-searching (or fretting about my dissatisfaction).

$25 went into the EF and we earned 55 cents interest, bringing our pathetic progress to $2859.06 for the year and our total EF to $11,371.01.

We'll have another $500 to send AS's mom probably by Oct. 14, and at least another $400 by Nov. 15. But I'm considering just borrowing the full $2000 from our lawyer fund and sending it to her all at once. The bank charges $30 per wire transfer, so if I send it all at once, we'll have spent $60 on transfers vs. at least $120 if I send her a second payment in October, a third in November and a fourth whenever we come up with the remaining $1100. The other option would be to make her wait until we've gathered the full $2000, but I'm not sure when that would be. We're pretty confident we can come up with the rest without harming our budget, and we won't need the lion's share of the lawyer fund for a little while at least.

I'm going to think about it a little longer. I'd feel a lot more confident about that if my job gave me a raise. We'll have to see.

AS's other automatic student loan payment hit, and $60 went to principal. That takes us to a monthly debt-payment total of $3323! Very nice, thanks to NT's big raise, our credit card rewards and AS's payment from her last big freelance editing project.

This means I should hit my 2011 debt-payment goal of $20,000 next month, because this month's payments takes me to $19,533 for the year!

A couple of my 2011 goals have fallen a bit by the wayside, but I didn't expect to hit them all 100%. AS's net worth slid, but I've been avoiding calculating by how much. I didn't read a book or do anything creative this month, but I did make another push to get a raise, which may work (though I haven't heard anything this week as I hoped I would). We got our wills but have been too busy/sick to go through them; it's like a novel full of legal-speak and none of us is looking forward to it.

I don't think we had a get-together at our house this month, but I did go out and see friends (and made new acquaintances) more than usual this month, so I'm happy with my social life. And the shared blog post thing has really slacked off; whenever I think of a good one I'm away from my computer, and then I forget to post it later!

EF savings have pretty much stopped while we wait to see how much the redecorating of NT's flat costs us; I have a bunch of money sitting in his checking account but I won't count it toward the EF until I know we don't need to use it and can safely transfer it to savings.

Our charity and Roth IRA goals are pretty much on autopilot, so I know we'll hit both of those exactly. And my weight loss is chugging along slowly but pretty steadily; if I can correct my course after the Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts, I should hit that one by the end of the year.

Oh, and I haven't had any side hustles besides the one big one, but I might as well check that goal off, because I didn't specify an amount or frequency of projects, just that I did it at all.

Anyway, my October goal: I might be able to manage $2000 again this month, but since we're helping AS's mom out, I'm going to hedge my bets and set my goal at $1900.

One of AS's regular student loan payments hit, with $123 going to principal. That takes us to $3263 of debt paid this month! And we should have one more student loan payment hit tomorrow or Friday.

I forgot to update my weight what with the recent family drama. We weighed in Sunday night and I was down one more pound, to 142. Just 3 lbs. to go on my 2011 goal! I've fallen off the exercise wagon to some extent, but I'm being very moderate with my eating. When I do "cheat" the parameters I set for myself, I try to make sure it's at least a reasonable portion.

Speaking of the family drama, we wired the $500 that I had set aside for a tax payment to AS's mom. We may not send more money until Oct. 15, but hopefully this is enough to make some small payments on the things she needs. I don't want to borrow from any of our savings buckets, but if she calls and needs the money more urgently, we might do it.

Sometimes when SA bloggers write very briefly and obliquely about things that seem to be hugely important (and dramatic), it seems strange to me. Not only does it arouse my curiosity to know the whole story, but it seems like something people would want to vent about.

But yesterday we got a dose of crazy in our lives, and I can see how you don't really want to rehash it. It's like you use up all your energy experiencing it the first time.

So I'll recap, but if it seems like I'm being strangely short or vague, that's why.

So it's a normal weekend, things are chugging along. I told my mom AS was pregnant, and she was really excited. She was the last family member that I was slightly worried would not take this the right way, so I was relieved.

We see we all have voice mails from AS's mom, but that's not unusual. Even if she just wants to chat idly, she'll typically leave messages on all our phones in quick succession if she doesn't get one of us in person.

NT finally listened to his message Sunday afternoon, and he said AS should call her mom right away. It sounded like something had happened to SJ, AS's 17-year-old adopted sister.

So AS did call her mom, and there was so much in their conversation that we're all still reeling. OK, so:
- SJ is in juvenile detention on charges of armed robbery for allegedly using a knife to hold up a woman at a store.
- She's saying she did it, but no one believes her, especially since a neighbor woman claims she saw SJ playing with her kids at the time of the robbery.
- They've already got a lawyer and hope to get her out today; the lawyer doesn't think she's got any real worry of being found guilty of this.
- SJ's ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend were recently arrested for a murder plot against some of his and her family members. A search of their possessions turned up a written note discussing killing AS's mom!!!! AS's mom is thinking this bizarre armed-robbery thing is somehow linked -- a frame-up? Is she saying she committed the robbery because someone threatened her? No one knows anything for sure.
- D, AS's adopted 18-year-old brother, called Child Protective Services because the dad (stepdad to all kids) hit him.
- AS's mom and stepdad have been separated for a couple years, but he recently moved back in and has been in and out. And has been verbally (and it seems physically) abusive. Also, not really helping out financially. Apparently he started divorce proceedings way back when, but stopped doing anything about it when he realized that AS's mom would be entitled to part of his income and pension. (At least he is paying for a lawyer for SJ's robbery charge, so that's something.)
- AS's mom asked AS for a loan from us (well, from my dad first, but we deflected that. She's mentioned getting a loan from my parents in the past but none of us want my parents getting involved in her financial ruin). She needs tabs and insurance for her car and to hire a divorce lawyer herself, since she knows stepdad will put it off indefinitely to avoid giving her money. Total she thinks she needs for all three: $2500.

I can't even express how unexpected all of this is. SJ seems like a genuinely sweet and good kid, so that's the craziest part. The fact of all of this coming together, only some if it related, is especially overwhelming. AS's mom has been known to call and relate several layers of chaos and bad news all at once, and to hint around for money (we usually say no), but never chaos on this level, and never this desperate and specific plea for such a large amount of money.

So, we're going to do it this time. She needs car tabs and insurance, and she really needs that divorce (for her sanity as well as her financial well-being).

I was really freaked out by the amount. I didn't want to dip into our EF savings or curtail our student-loan payoff progress. We'd already spent much of our surplus income for the summer and fall on our "wish list," so there's not much money that's not allocated to something already.

But we're starting to figure it out. AS plans to get some freelance editing work, though I insisted she wait until the tiredness and nausea of first trimester subsides. I have $500 I was going to send to IRS as a prepayment on AS's 2012 self-employment tax, but I don't really need to do that right now. We can just pay the tax (if we even owe any) and any penalty when we actually do taxes. Or I can send some to the IRS the next time AS does a freelance job.

Then, AS is getting $400 from her recent speaking engagement in NY, which she was going to keep for herself or donate to her publishing house, but she can give it to her mom when she gets it.

I have $100 surplus money in October's budget, and we have a new Mastercard that we'll get a $200 bonus from once we spend $500.

I have about $400 in surplus money in November's budget.

So, $500, $400, $100, $200, $400 ... that's $1600 right there that we can scrounge over the next month and a half without too much trouble. If we can't figure out where to get the other $900, we can take it out of our own lawyer fund and pay that back in when AS does some freelance or some other extra money comes our way.

AS's mom is trying to insist this will be a loan, but we know better. So no matter what she says or thinks, we are viewing this as money we won't get back. That's why I want to try and do it as painlessly as possible, without harming any of our goals or security.

And honestly, I would have said we couldn't do it if it was really going to hold us back. It royally sucks to lose that money that could be going to pay off our student loans or buy stuff for ourselves, but we feel obligated to try and help AS's mom. I just really hope she uses the money for the stated purposes and doesn't just fritter it away. But that's up to her and not to us.

In a way, I think figuring out the financial logistics is helping distract me from my intense worry about AS's little sister. The whole rest of the situation is so far out of our control that it almost feels good to have a part that we can do something about.

We told our daycare lady about AS's pregnancy the other day. NT had hinted around earlier by asking whether she ever took infants (she's more of a preschool teacher), so when we officially told her, she asked if we wanted her to watch it when we went back to work.

Uh yeah!!! She's the most wonderful caregiver, and even though she doesn't specialize in babies, she's had her own, plus she's got a baby granddaughter who's going to be spending more time at the daycare soon.

Plus, she's dead cheap! You can expect to pay anywhere from $600-$1000/month for an in-home provider, to $1200-$2500/month for a center, in the downtown Minneapolis area. Our daycare lady charges $575.

I'd worked out a 2012 budget for when we were all back to work full-time and paying for 2 kids' daycare (probably mid-summer). I'd assumed $1000 because we'd probably want to go with an in-home caregiver. It wasn't a terribly tight budget, but I'd had to cut back a bit in many areas. Well, after I figured kid #2's daycare costs at $575 instead, it was like getting an instant $425/month raise! We can essentially go back to our normal budget that we have now, because NT's recent raise covers this smaller daycare expense.

At my job, things are looking promising, but I'm not taking anything for granted. My supervisor sent his proposal to the president and head of HR for our division, and they agreed to it. Now they've sent it off to our DC headquarters, who are the final word on raises and promotions. I have very high hopes because they seem to pretty much let us operate independently in many other areas, but I'm not sure how that translates to paying employees more, so we'll see.

Anyway, I'm asking for $5000/$6000 more per year. I doubt they'd give me the full amount I asked for, though I did send proof that I'm on the very low end of the payscale for my position and years of experience, so who knows?

I'm trying not to spend the money before I even know whether I'm getting it, but of course I can't stop my mind from running scenarios. I'm so trained to strategize with every penny; I can't help it!

The first priority if we got more regular income would be to improve our transportation situation. We do fine with no car and one kid, but a second kid would make things a lot harder re: bus travel and long walking trips. Also taking cabs would be more difficult because we'd have to lug two car seats wherever they dropped us off.

We don't want to buy a car if we can avoid it; that would eat up any raise I got, easily, and possibly eat into our existing budget.

We've considered a car-share service in the past, and that's looking like a good possibility. You pay a monthly or annual membership and also pay an hourly fee when you actually use the car. Our best friends use the service nearest us, so we'll find out more about it from them. Of course the most essential element would be that the cars fit 3 adults and 2 carseats. We'll see.

My other big priority would be upping our retirement contributions. We're not too far off what we need to be contributing, but $300 to $600 more per month would make me feel much more secure. I don't know whether I'd have us increase our 401(k)s or send more to our Roth IRAs.

I have no idea how much of a raise I'll be offered, if any, but if I could put $300 more toward Roths, and have enough money for using the carshare occasionally, my budget would be pretty much complete. There's nothing else I feel we're missing. It would be so awesome. I should find out soon, and my supervisor says that if it's approved, it would be effective Oct. 15!

I recently declared a sort of open season for spending. Basically, we had a lot of money coming in, and so I wanted to satisfy a bunch of wants before the inevitable belt-tightening of preparing for baby #2.

So spend we have. I won't go into it all, because a lot of it is pretty frivolous and I'm not what you would call proud or boastful about that particular fact. But I can say that we have the money to pay for it all, and that we've managed to also put a bunch toward debt, and that I now have a fall wardrobe (I'd gotten rid of most of my clothes because they were either maternity stuff that I'd kept using, or were worn down beyond repair).

We have a couple more things on the list, but spending season will soon come to a close. Whew! It was kind of fun, but also a bit guilt-inducing. Not the way I'd want to live normally. On to some more boastworthy stuff!

One of my big goals for the year was to either get a raise or to get a new job, whether a better-paying or a more satisfying job didn't matter to me. I haven't succeeded on either front, but the other day I made another plea to my boss, and he seemed to think the time was right -- he has sprung into action. He wrote a very compelling memo about why he thinks I deserve a raise and promotion. The president of our division replied to him today -- favorably according to him -- so he has indicated that if our DC headquarters approves it, I should get something! Even if it doesn't work out, I'm really glad I tried again. The first time, no one seemed very receptive, so I didn't feel like pushing anymore. But AS encouraged me to have another go. I'll update the second I find anything out.

I just realized I haven't updated our Roth contributions progress for a long time -- it's on autopilot, $300 each month, so I forget. Well, we're at $2700 and on track to make our $3600 goal by mid-December!

Oh yeah, weight loss! I weighed in last night because I forgot on Sunday, and I'm down two more pounds, to 143! That's only 4 lbs. away from my goal. I've been reasonably good about my diet, and even though I haven't worked out with weights or anything, I've been walking a TON -- including a 45 min. walk home from a restaurant when we missed the bus Friday, and 5-6 hours of wandering around the Mall of America on Saturday. So excited that my goal is in sight!

There's been progress on the estate planning, too -- the lawyer's assistant wrote to say she's put our wills in the mail. Once we review them, we can sit down with our lawyer and sign them. I asked her for a cost estimate because this took a LOT longer than I thought it would. I'm kind of freaked but I also know we'll be able to come up with the money. It's important in case anything happens to anyone, since our family is not traditional in structure.

I wrote back to the assistant to let her know that AS is pregnant, so we'll want to proceed with planning the third-parent adoptions of AA and the yet-to-be-born little one. Considering it's taken over 9 months (so far) just to do the estate planning, I assume we should start now! I also want advice from the lawyer as to whether I have any legal rights as the adoptive non-blood parent regarding parental leave.

I think that's all! Life feels crazy right now, but in a very good way. AS is on a business trip to NY today and tomorrow, but that's the only sad thing right now. And as I kept telling her, I'm glad the trip got here so we can get it over with and be back together without it hanging over us! We got to see an early ultrasound of her (our) baby yesterday, and so it feels all the more real now. We also made a public announcement (Facebook), so no more having to change the subject when people ask us about our future plans. Yay!!

At my Sunday weigh-in, I was back to 145! I'm glad I shed my State Fair pounds so quickly. So 6 lbs. to go on my weight loss goal for the year. I went on a 13-mile bike ride Sunday, the longest of my life by far! Tonight I hope to do some weight training, though I didn't get much sleep last night so I hope I'm not flagging too much by the end of the day to work out.

$25 went into our EF, bringing our 2011 progress to $2833.51 and total EF to $11,345.46. Yawn.

But, I was able to send a big payment to one of NT's student loans, using most of AS's freelance check. $1112 went to principal, so our September debt repayment now totals $3140! And we have a couple of credit card rewards coming in the mail soon, I believe, so I may be able to throw still more at the debt before the month is up. AS has two regular student loan payments at the end of the month that will add to this number, too.

I'm hoping we can get our student loan debt down below $50K before our second baby comes! Obviously debt repayment will slow once we're dealing with unpaid leave, hospital costs and another daycare payment, so it would be nice to get over that hurdle beforehand.

Oh, and I had my meeting with my supervisor regarding another request for a raise/promotion. He was very optimistic and had me send him a list of my new job responsibilities that he could compile into a proposal to send upstairs. I sent him the list later that day, so fingers crossed he gets some results!

I was able to send off a big payment to one of NT's student loans yesterday, and it hit the account today with $1236 going to principal! That means we've put $2028 to debt this month, exceeding our $2000 September goal.

This also brings our student loan debt down to $59,540. Don't ask me why $59K feels so much better psychologically than $60K, but it does! Suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel got brighter.

And we're not done with debt repayment this month! AS got a big freelance check, and after I send a chunk to the IRS, I should still have over a grand to put toward student loans. Also, her final 50,000 Chase Sapphire points showed up, so I ordered a $530 check yesterday. I also ordered $150 from Citibank Mastercard because our bonus points hit from there. So some of that will probably go to debt, either this month or next depending on when we receive the checks.

In other ways this hasn't been a great week. (Why do short workweeks always seem to drag on even longer than regular weeks?) Yesterday at work it was announced that two more ladies at my job were getting promotions. Soon after I was asked to sign off on my contractor-proofreader's time sheet, and I was reminded that she makes quite a bit more than me. More than twice as much as me, so the fact that I have benefits doesn't balance the equation. She in fact makes $10 more per hour than the girl she replaced.

The combination of these factors had me quite down about my job, because they've always said they can't give raises and can't really do much about promotions, yet here are people getting promotions and fistfuls of money left and right.

So after complaining a lot at home last night, and starting to look at accounting classes at the community college as a possible exit strategy, I decided to email my supervisor and ask if he'd help me make another attempt to get a raise and promotion.

He emailed me back right away and said he would like to support me in that, and that he thought it was a good time to try again. So I'm slightly encouraged, and we're going to meet tomorrow morning to discuss it!

Fingers crossed for me. I could use the morale boost, and more money never hurts!

Our mortgage payments hit as usual, but I'm only just now getting to recording them:
US: $418 to principal
UK1: $260
UK2: $56
UK3: $58

In total, $792 down, $1208 to go on our September debt repayment goal!

I weighed in Sunday night and was up 2 lbs., to 147. Back up into overweight territory as well. I'm not too bothered because Sunday was the day we went to the Minnesota State Fair, which is just as bad as Thanksgiving for me in terms of gluttony. Plus I cheated on diet and exercise a few more days than usual last week because of a wedding and a couple other social or unusual situations. I feel pretty confident I'll get back into the swing of things this week.

We got our annual letter in the mail telling us how much our ARM's interest rate was going to change and how it would affect our mortgage payments, starting Nov. 1. I was dreading this one because I thought it must have to go up after several years of decreases. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our rate is going down again, from 3.5% to 3.25%! Our mortgage payments will be $21.66 lower beginning in November, and I'm sure a bit more will go toward principal, since that happens every time it goes down.

Yesterday I was suddenly inspired to get our UK taxes out of the way. It turned out to go much faster than in past years, because I was able to find all the info I needed electronically versus rooting through various piles of random paper. I also didn't drive myself crazy trying to read and decipher the instructions; the forms were nearly identical to last year's, so I just made sure to fill in the same pages and boxes I did last year. Now all we have to do is have NT sign, make a copy, and mail it off! Woo hoo. Very relieved to have that done for another year. Thanks to some repairs, we made less this year than last, so I know we won't owe any taxes.

Some automatic savings & interest ($25.45) went into the EF, so 2011 progress is at $2808.51, with total EF of $11,320.46. Still woefully behind on our $7000/$15,511.95 goal, but it sounds like NT's flat will have new renters as soon as it's redecorated, so we should start pulling in regular money again (though probably not enough to meet our goal; if we get close I'll be tempted to divert some US debt-repayment funds into EF before the end of the year!)

Charitable contributions are on track, up to $1115!

I did really well on creative & bookreading goals this month. I finished two books I'd started, an Agatha Christie and a true-crime book. I also read another Agatha novel on our vacation and got about 450 pages into The Count of Monte Cristo (1240 pages total). I also made a deck of flash cards for AA by printing out clip art and public domain photos, pasting them on index cards and covering them with laminating paper. Then I punched holes in the corners and strung them together on a metal ring. For me, pretty creative!

Anyway, for September I want to pay off at least $2000 of debt, and chip away at all my other goals.

We got in from our vacation last night and had today off. I didn't do too much other than work on my finances a bit, and catch up on Facebook and your blogs (it was a voluntary no-internet-use trip). Lots to read, so I didn't make comments! Anyway, I need to make sure there are no charges on the credit cards that I don't have a receipt for, but I believe we spent $100 less than our allotted vacation money! I was pretty sure we would go over, so I'm really pleased.

AS's two student loan payments hit the accounts while we were away. Between the two payments, $184 went to principal. That means we paid off $2241 of debt in August, surpassing the $2075 goal!

We weighed in last night, and I was expecting a bit of weight gain since I hadn't been able to stick to my dietary guidelines and only worked out once. But I guess the walking around and not overdoing it on most meals paid off; I had lost one pound! I'm now at 145 lbs., with only 6 lbs. to go on my 2011 weight loss goal.

The trip was short, but great. I'll try to do a more in-depth report (with pics) later, but it's getting late here. We seem to have come back to a number of obligations, some of which are going to cost money, others that just need time and attention:
- Wedding this Saturday. We need to find a sitter and a wedding gift, both of which will cost us.
- Wedding NEXT Saturday, with the same requirements. One of the brides (it's two women) graciously said we could bring AA and that there would be other kids, but she's not at the best age for it. Too mobile and independent to just sit there with us, but too young to let run around without constant supervision. So we're going to lean on NT's and AS's recent influx of money to try and get sitters and gifts for both weddings. At least both weddings are convenient by bus! We really lucked out there.
- UK taxes. They aren't due until October, but it always takes me a while to collect all the papers, sigh and groan a lot, fill out the forms, and get them sent off. At least most of the rental statements were sent to us via email; it's a LOT easier for me to search my cluttered inbox than our disaster of a closet. I would be a lot better off if I could settle on a good paper organization system, but I'm so electronically focused that, even though I'm required to keep hard copies of certain things, they're so disorganized that it's torture trying to find anything. I take full responsibility; AS and NT do try to help me on this front but I'm just hopeless.

Well, I've been sitting blankly for a couple minutes, so I think that's all I can write tonight. Glad to be back and if it's not too busy at work tomorrow, I'll try to write my goals for September!

I weighed in last night, and I was back down to 146! This time it feels "real" because I weighed in at my usual time, after dinner on a Sunday. I think the first time I hit 146 it was somewhat of a false reading.

I was really good on my diet and only cheated on my one designated cheat day. I missed one exercise day and didn't always hit the workout goals exactly, but I did work out in some capacity 4 of the 7 days (5 days was the goal last week).

This means I have just 7 lbs. to go on my weight-loss goal!

(Of course, I do realize I'm going on vacation in two days, where I usually tend to pack on a pound or two. I'm hoping that bringing exercise clothes, and continuing to track my meals and activity, will keep me a bit more honest on this trip.)