NT bought another 2 months of service for $33.38.

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

FY2011 total: $207.41

We're nearing the end of the fifth month of our prepaid "fiscal year," so that means our average monthly cost so far is $41.48. For maybe the first time, we're 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 had a long awful dream last night. (I could tell it was long because I'd wake up out of it, go back to sleep and get right back into the same dream.) I dreamt that AS suddenly revealed/remembered/discovered that she had more student loans from her first college she went to. $400,000 more, in fact.

It was the worst dream, and it just went on and on. I kept going over calculations in my head and trying to figure out how we were going to be able to do any of the other things we wanted. I also kept questioning whether it was a mistake, but the answer always came back that it was real.

I was SO relieved to wake up for good, and realize it was not only not true, but also impossible for one college to cost that much for 2 years of attendance in the 1990s! :P

***

I saw MonkeyMama's update and realized I hadn't written about our CC rewards schemes in a while.

I'm annoyed with my cards too. The Amex that I'm supposed to get $100 reward on, plus 6% on groceries, we've been using for almost a month, and there's still only one transaction showing up online! Do you think I should call?

The Mastercard that we'll get $150 reward from has posted all of our transactions, but the reward hasn't come through. At least I feel like their online account site is functional!

We've gotten $1540 from Chase Sapphire so far and AS just finished spending her $3000, so we'll get another $530 once the billing cycle ends! I wrote back to them that I was slightly mollified and would only close 2 of the 3 Chase cards I have. I kept the one I wanted to keep anyway!

So now I have open a Chase Visa, an Amex and a Discover card, all joint w/NT. I also have a Citi Mastercard joint w/AS. AS has her Chase Sapphire that she'll close as soon as she gets the rewards check. Makes me realize I should add AS to another card, since the Mastercard doesn't have a very high limit! I should also close another card or two, but I'm waiting to see if the Amex grocery rewards are worth the annoying delay on their website. Chase and Discover have about the same rewards; Mastercard has only decent rewards after the bonus, so I'll probably close that one. Even more reason to get AS on another card, because once that and Chase Sapphire are gone she wouldn't have any!

***

Had an irritating session with Comcast yesterday. I'd recently downgraded and expected to save about $20, so when a bill came for $50 less I was pleased and surprised. Then I realized I'd manually paid at the beginning of the month forgetting I'd signed up for autopay with my credit card. The autopay had taken $62 in addition to my full $88 payment, so the $35 they were charging me would take this coming month's payment up to $97, almost $10 more than before I downgraded!

Since my condo assocation pays part of the cable bill, it was super confusing for the rep to go through all the transactions and try to figure out why I was getting charged more. But he told me the prorated bill I was supposed to get for the end of this month was about $71, so I said look, I've paid $62 already with my autopay, that means I should only owe $9. Can't you just make my account reflect that? So he said he would; I just have to check today and make sure it's reflected in my account.

He said my regular bill should be about $62 or $63, so that means we'll save about $25 compared with our old rate. Better than I hoped!

***

I keep forgetting to mention this, but AS was going to be on TV! Well, she probably still will, a bit, but today her best friend is getting ambushed by "What Not to Wear," a style makeover show. AS was supposed to go, but it would be an hour bus ride each way, and the filming was meant to end at 1:30, but her first real doctor's appointment starts at 2 today. So she backed out. They did a taped interview with her a couple weeks ago where she talked about how terrible her best friend dresses, so she'll probably still show up on the episode. I think it'll air this fall or winter; I'll be sure to let you all know!

AS has been hit with the morning sickness pretty hard. Today she couldn't come into daycare because they were cooking breakfast and the smells were too much. Then she spit up a bit (not much to vomit) in the gutter on the way to the bus stop. So she was extra glad she didn't have to go for 4 hours of preparation and filming!

***

Vacation is coming up and we couldn't be more pleased! AS obviously needs to get away from the daily grind, and NT has a cough/cold that's been dragging on for weeks, and I'm just really sick of work. My job had summer hours, but as a one-person department, I only got to take it once or twice, and I got attitude from the project managers even for that.

We fly to St. Louis next Wednesday night. We're staying Wednesday and Thursday night at a really nice hotel and will relax and maybe do a bit of sightseeing on Thursday. We really just flew down there so we could take a train trip to Chicago on Friday. We'll be in Chicago Friday, Saturday and Sunday, leaving Monday around noon on another train back to the Twin Cities.

Usually NT and I plan a ton of activities for our vacations, but this time we're really trying to resist, because we know we're all exhausted, and that AS especially needs a lot of downtime. We've even agreed to have a somewhat "unplugged" vacation and only check the internet if we need directions or other travel info. We'll bring lots of books and try to be as lazy as possible. (Of course we'll need to entertain AA, but she's not much bother at this age; she just likes you to be around while she runs around doing her own thing.)

***

Speaking of AA, I crossed a couple things off the wish list related to her. I ordered some toys that should be good for traveling, and I applied for a Pax World Balanced mutual fund for her! I opened it with $500, but I may add to it if I like it.

I wasn't sure the toys would get here in time, so I signed up for a one-month free trial of Amazon Prime, where you get free 2-day shipping on everything. I put a line item in my budget spreadsheet to cancel it a month from now so I don't get charged! I ordered a cute little critter with a variety of plastic buckles that she can practice opening and closing, and a puzzle where the pieces are attached to the board with ribbons so they won't get lost, and a magnetic tablet with a stylus so she can practice doodling without making a mess.

If today is slow at work, I'm going to look up clip art to print out and make flash cards with. I want to do a deck of various educational cards, laminate them and put them on a metal ring so AA has another fun thing to do on the trip. If I don't get a chance to finish, I may just bring a deck of playing cards, because a friend of ours said that kept his son occupied on trips when we was younger.

***

I think that's it! I'm still keeping up on my diet and exercise; I missed working out yesterday, but today was going to be a day off, so if I work out today it will balance out. I made an amazingly delicious corn soup with roasted corn-avocado guacamole last night; I'll post the recipe link if anyone is interested.

EDIT: Found the recipe link! I followed this to a T except I mashed the avocado instead of chopping because it was overripe. I'm sure it would be great chopped as well, but mashing worked great.

Thanks to Chase Sapphire, I was able to put a nice chunk of change toward debt! My extra payment to NT's student loan hit, with $1270 going to principal. That makes our August debt progress to $2057, with just $18 to go on our goal. AS's student loan payments will easily take us over the top at the end of the month.

We're getting close to having education debt under $60,000! For some reason that's an exciting milestone for me. Less than $20,000 per person sounds less insane somehow.

I made another couple of wish-list purchases (the stuff we agreed we could buy before we start throwing NT's raise straight toward debt and savings). We ordered new padding and cover for this beloved but worn-out butterfly rocking chair, and I got a padded cover for my uncomfortable bike seat. Today I might cross another item off the wish list: adding $250 to the $250 I have sitting in the checking account for lil' AA, and finally opening that mutual fund in her name.

I was fairly good at my diet and exercise plan this week, considering my knee is still pretty messed up. But at my weigh-in I had gained 3 lbs., back up to 149 (and back into "overweight" territory per Wii Fit). I missed one day of planned exercise and ate one off-plan meal that I hadn't scheduled. I think the real killer was that the cheat meal I did plan, I really overdid it--got to remember to be moderate even on my diet day off.

So, 10 lbs. to go again. Looks like I'm going to be on this plan a bit longer than I thought I would.

Anyway, on to savings: Our regular biweekly $25 deposit went in, bringing 2011 progress to $2783.06, and our total EF to $11,295.01. Slowly clawing our way back up after the big loss to redecorate NT's flat.

Now to the really good news: NT's first paycheck with raise hit our account on Saturday, and it was $265 more. I was hoping for $250 at best, so I'm happy! I forgot to mention in my last post that this officially knocks me out of my position as top breadwinner, by $1100 per year. I would love my job to give me a raise someday, but after 4+ years I don't really see it happening anytime soon. I did apply for another job, but I don't think they'll be able to match my current pay, so unless it sounds really exciting I don't know if I'd take it.

We talked over how to balance wanting to spend the raise with wanting to put it toward future goals, and AS came up with the idea of making a list of our wants. As we're writing them down, it really isn't that much; we should be able to knock them all out in a couple months of salary and be able to put the raise toward debt or savings soon.

We already ticked two off our list; one was a celebration dinner (we got delivery from one of our favorite gourmet pizza places) and the other was a new professional wardrobe for NT. He did really well with sales and got a bunch of good-quality clothes for just over $300.

Yesterday NT had his meeting with HR and supervisor to talk about the new role they want him to assume. We knew he would probably also get a firm salary offer, so he came in armed with some information about his current salary, ready to argue for higher if they offered him something that would actually be a downgrade from his current pay.

His official base salary was $41,200, but with all the overtime he works (which he'd no longer get paid for in the new position), he makes close to $45,000.

So he came home telling us of his meeting in a very offhand voice, throwing out some numbers that didn't quite make sense, and then handed us the offer letter.

$50,000! He didn't even have to bargain; they offered him effectively $5,000 more than he makes with overtime. Of course his rambling confusing account was purposeful so he could see our surprise when we looked at the letter.

So exciting; I was starting to think none of us would ever get a raise again, and then we get this big one! It's about $733 more per month gross; I'm hoping we'll net about $500 of that. I'm so proud of him for sticking with this job; it did look like a dead end for a while there, just getting overworked with no gain for him, but the wait was well worth it. When the second baby has to go into daycare, this will go a long way!

That wouldn't be until probably July or August of next year, so the next 11 months will probably be made up of me trying to put all the money toward debt repayment and savings, while NT advocates for using it for other things. But we're both aware of that, and I'm sure we can find a middle ground!

August is 1/3 over? You've got to be kidding me. It's felt like a whirlwind for the past few days.

One good piece of news: I weighed in Monday night (couldn't Sunday night because I was out of town) and had lost 4 lbs.! I'm cautiously optimistic about this number; I'd just gotten back from my business trip and hadn't eaten dinner yet, so I feel the number is a bit skewed. But if I'm good this week, maybe I can at least hold onto that loss.

The loss brings me to 146 lbs., and according to my Wii Fit, that takes me out of "Overweight" BMI and into "Normal"! That's even more motivation to try and keep going.

My fitness goal for tonight is just 20 minutes of yoga, so I'll try to fit that in. I'm so exhausted, though. Even though it was my turn to go to trivia, I let NT and AS go because I just feel like sitting quietly.

So, let's see if I can rush through my updates:

Looks like NT is finally getting his promotion and raise! He'll get the official job description and hopefully salary offer tomorrow. I spent some time figuring out what he actually made this year, because with the promotion he'll no longer be eligible for overtime pay, and we want to make sure he's not actually getting a pay cut! His base salary is $41,200, and we figured out he made nearly $45,000 over the past 12 months. That will be good info for him to take to the meeting tomorrow.

If NT gets a raise, I've promised he can get a few nice work outfits to upgrade his image a bit.

Saturday's dinner party went smashingly. Our vegan chef was a great guy, and we had a really fun crowd of people that got along well. Among them was kashi and her husband! She's awesome, of course. Fun to meet my first SA blogger, even if she's a latent one. I'll try to post some photos of the food.

Sunday was not so fun. We slept in and didn't have much time to hang out before I had to leave for my Memphis business trip. AS was hungry and out of sorts and there was a minor squabble between me and NT over money. But I got to the airport in plenty of time and had a pretty good time with my co-worker; we went to a restaurant and listened to a blues-rock band while we ate, then got a nice early night at the hotel. I spoke with NT and AS that night and felt much better.

Monday was an all-day meeting with my company's biggest client, a huge company. I think I comported myself well, asked smart questions etc. I'm not so great at the socializing during breaks, but it's not like I'm an account manager or anything. I learned a lot and have some hopes that my co-worker will be able to become an equal partner on my biggest (and least desirable) role at work, taking some of the pressure off me. (Once it became clear I wasn't going to get a raise, promotion or office with the extra responsibility, I lost any interest in taking ownership of this onerous task.)

Monday night I got home about 9:30 pm, had my successful weigh-in and a late dinner. Now I'm back on my diet program and hopefully my exercising too (the main reason I want to work out today is to not break my chain of working out every day it's been scheduled, even if I don't do exactly what's on the calendar).

AS's pregnancy seems to be going along. She's having normal symptoms such as food aversions, food cravings, nausea, irritability and tiredness. Today she had some cramps, but that's not an indicator either way; I had terrible cramps in my first trimester and had a perfectly healthy pregnancy. These early weeks I just feel like we're in a holding pattern; I don't want to do too much planning until she sees the OB. Hearing the heartbeat will go a long way toward allaying my nervousness. But I feel pretty optimistic. Just waiting to really unleash my excitement and adoration. But we already have a nickname for the embryo: Bunny.

I did draw up a rough calculation of what our budget might look like with $1000 more in child care, assuming a certain amount for NT's raise and a few other likely adjustments. It doesn't look too bad; we'd either have to cut down on spending money or extra debt repayment (or some from each). I figure whichever we cut back, we'll still probably bring in extra money here and there, and we could put it toward whichever budget item is lacking.

I was worried about the S&P downgrade affecting our mortgage when it readjusts in November, but the Fed has promised to keep interest rates low, so hopefully that will translate to a low rate on our ARM.

We have about $700 in extra money so far this month, and we may get more if NT gets OT pay next week, and if my Chase Sapphire rewards come. (That reminds me, I've got to get AS to get her spending up to $3000 before the 3-month period ends this month, or else we'll lose that $500. It would be a shame since she's got less than $500 to go! I think she still has to buy plane tickets for her business trip coming up, so that will push her over the edge if she does it in time. I can't remember when we got the cards but I believe it was mid-May.)

Anyway, much of this extra money will probably get put aside for NT's work wardrobe, AS's maternity wardrobe, and possibly so I can start a food website as I've been talking about for months. Oh, and maybe we'll set some money aside for baby-related purchases, though I'm hopeful we can get lots of hand-me-downs like we did with AA!

OK, I gotta go do yoga before I lose all motivation!

Ha! Miracles do happen.

As soon as I'd redeemed my 50,000 points and paid off all my Chase cards, I sent them this message:

"To Chase Customer Service,

"As my account no doubt reflects, I had an incident last month where one customer service representative promised me something (see message below), but when I tried to get what I was promised, subsequent customer service agents refused to honor this promise.

"As a result, the trust of my long relationship with Chase has been broken. I no longer feel I can do business with you.

"Please cancel all three of my accounts immediately.

"Ceejay74"

***

That was yesterday. I got a message they'd forwarded my message to the appropriate department and would get back to me soon.

Today, got this message:

"Dear Ceejay74,

"Let me begin by apologizing for any error that may have occurred.

"I am pleased to confirm the promised 50,000 additional rewards have been added to the account and are avaialble for immediate redemption.

"If you are still wanting to close your accounts please letus know.

"If you have any further questions, please reply using the Secure Message Center.

"Thank you,

"CM
E-mail Customer Service Representative"

***

Checked my account and, what do you know? The extra 50,000 points were in there!

Now I'm a bit tempted to at least keep my Chase Freedom card, which gets good rewards regularly. I do have a Discover card that gets the same type of rewards, so I could close Chase if I was still mad. But I gotta say, $500 goes a long way toward smoothing my ruffled feathers!

I'll redeem the points first and decide later.

Despite my knee still feeling messed up, I did pretty well getting back into diet and exercise after the trip. Last night I did 45 min. of relaxing yoga as my workout, feeling it would be easier on my knee than any aerobic exercise. I didn't break a sweat, but today I did feel some soreness in my muscles, so I think I got an OK workout.

Tonight I did 15 min. of free weights and 12 min. stretching. Again, not as much of a workout as I had on my goals list, but I feel good doing something instead of completely cutting out exercise until my knee heals up.

Foodwise I've been really good. Yesterday I was going to go out and get tabouli for lunch, but there was a huge storm with torrential downpour. I went downstairs to the convenience store and got raisins, cashews, almonds, peanuts and a banana. Not exciting, but got me through. For dinner we had salad, chickpeas in marinara sauce and sauteed greens (everyone else had pasta with their chickpeas marinara).

Today had the usual oatmeal with almond milk for breakfast, and leftover chickpeas marinara and salad. (I forgot dressing so I ate bits of the salad on the same fork as the chickpeas, which ended up being a really delicious combination!)

Dinner tonight I tried some new recipes for a baked Asian-flavored tofu and Chinese eggplant in garlic sauce, with brown rice. They were awesome, especially the eggplant. (Surprising since none of us are crazy about that veggie.)

I've started to think that AS's first-trimester food issues are going to be the exact opposite of mine. She can no longer stand creamy, melty things or sweet foods, whereas she loves garlic, onion and veggies. I was the opposite; couldn't stand Italian or Asian food or anything that smelled spicy or garlicky, but could eat tofu cream cheese in practically every meal. And Honey Nut Cheerios.

Poor NT now has two people with very strict and/or specific food needs, so he's said we should be in charge of the menu for the foreseeable future. Easier than trying to find meals that somehow satisfy both of us! LOL.

All our mortgage payments hit:
US: $417 to principal
UK1: $260
UK2: $54
UK3: $56

All told, $787 down, $1288 to go on the August debt goal.

As for EF savings, we got a 750-pounds-plus-VAT estimate on the redecorating that needs to happen on our UK flat before they can find new renters. NT reckons VAT might be 17.5%, bringing our little paint job to 881.25 pounds. We have 319.45 in the UK checking account that I would have put into EF savings but must now go into this. We get 573.74 in rental income from our current renters next month, but we need 254.29 for next month's mortgage payments, meaning we're 245.35 short ... and that's assuming the VAT is still comparable to what it was when NT lived in England years ago.

Long story short, I have to transfer 300 pounds (US$600 per the exchange ratio I use for my calculations) from the EF into checking to make sure we can cover both September mortgage and redecoration charges. We earned a small droplet of interest (a few pence), but we're still losing $599.72 of our EF. That takes our 2011 progress backward to $2758.06, and our total EF to $11,270.01. Ouch. That $7000 goal is looking more and more unrealistic, unless I slow debt repayments (which I really don't want to do). Hopefully the redecoration plus VAT won't come to 881.25 and we'll be able to put a bit of this back into the EF.

Between this and the recent medical/vet bills, it's been a spendy couple months. Makes all the difference to have this money set aside, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt at all to see the money going out.

We'll be able to put a goodly amount toward extra debt repay this month, so I'm setting my goal at $2075. I haven't checked our mortgage accounts yet, but I'm sure those payments have hit so I should have another entry soon.

One thing I was contemplating is paying off AS's super low interest, low balance student loan early, to free up cash flow for the baby-to-be. Then I realized that just paying the minimum, that loan will be paid off in 10 months anyway! So I think I'll keep paying the minimum for now.

I deliberately gave myself three days off from exercising (Fri.-Sun.) and two diet cheat days (Sat.-Sun.) instead of one. My cheats over the two days included toast, hash browns, battered fried veggies, a Reese's peanut butter cup, sweet tea, Honey Nut Cheerios, sweetener in my oatmeal, tortilla chips, pita bread, a peanut butter-cornflake cookie, black bean burger that probably contained wheat, a wheat bun, and french fries. Whew! Despite all that and three days without exercise, I lost 3 lbs. at my weigh-in last night, so I'm back down to 150 lbs. Kind of winging it with food today but I'm sticking to my dietary rules, because I want the progress to keep on coming! I somehow messed up my knee on the trip and am having another unrelated health complaint, so I don't know if I'll be able to do a regular workout tonight, but I may look on Netflix and try to find a basic yoga routine or something lower-impact.

On the charitable donations front, we've added $60 here and there and are up to $970 of contributions for 2011.

The debt repayment is going strong with $13,969 paid down in 2011. I need to figure out my August goal and get that up sometime today or tomorrow.

***

OK, that's all out of the way. Now for the big news. (Real-life friends who may be reading this, it's way off the record!) While NT, lil' AA and I were in Ohio for the reunion, AS called with some very interesting news.

Some interesting, fabulous, hopefully family-expanding news.

She took a home pregnancy test and it came back positive!!!

Well of course it's VERY early in the game, too early to count on anything, but we're all just over the moon. We don't want to blab to a bunch of friends like we did with my pregnancy, because then we were worried about having to break it to everyone if something went wrong. But I got permission from AS to blog about it. I have to get it out of my system somewhere!

She's in contact with her doctors (OB and heart doctor) and we'll know more in a few weeks, when she can go in for an appointment. The nurse's rough estimate over the phone was due date of April 6. That may change, but I like that date because it's two years, one month and one day after AA's birth!

After much celebrating, NT said that I was probably looking forward to all the financial calculations and forecasts that I'll now need to do in preparation for having a second kid. Aw, he knows me so well!

Anyway, that combined with my health complaints today equal me getting virtually nothing done at work. I know I'll pay tomorrow, but I can't help it!

Well, I made it through four days of workouts -- now I get three days off! Last night I went to the pool on our roof and did laps for 30 minutes. It was really tiring -- my arms aren't used to that kind of exercise. When I got back my entire upper body was in pain. I even felt a little hot-cold, like I had chills and a slight fever! I took ibuprofen and put on warm PJs and felt better in an hour or two. Today I'm sore but not immobilized, thank goodness!

Last night we fended for ourselves for dinner. I found some dry refried beans mix and cooked that up, salvaged the good bits of the too-ripe avocados and made guacamole with that, found a quick-cooking brown rice packet and microwaved it, and served it all on corn tortillas with salsa.

This morning I had oatmeal with stevia and cinnamon, and for lunch more chili with vegan cheese on corn tortillas.

Considering I did very little planning for this first week of the diet, I'm doing well. The big bag of corn tortillas was an unexpected lifesaver. But except for breakfasts and the one day I had tabouli, all of my meals have been either Tex or Mex or soulfood/creole style, which can all seem a bit similar after awhile, delicious as they are. I could use some variety next week. I'm working on coming up with some Italian and Asian ideas to add variety.

I feel like I did really well both in diet and exercise these first 4.5 days, which really makes me not want to sabotage any progress I might have made...I'm going to try to be very good this weekend dietwise. Knowing I have to record my eating in a log will hopefully keep me on the straight and narrow for the most part!

First the savings: $25 went into the EF, so 2011 EF progress is $3357.78, total EF is $11869.73.

And AS's other student loan hit, with $60 going to principal. That means our July debt payment is $1943, surpassing our goal of $1900! I'm very excited this payment made it just under the wire, because sometimes it gets bumped to the next month. I have automatic debit so I don't control that.

I noticed (because I'm a dork) that the payment was 9 cents less than usual. I checked the interest rate, and it's gone down from 2.25% to 2%! Of course with only $610 left on the loan it doesn't make any difference, but it is kind of interesting because several of our loans have variable interest rates, so I wonder if any others will go down a bit.

Anyway, now that I've hit our July goal, I may set up August tomorrow, since I'll be busy all weekend.

Maybe it's because my brain's not weighed down with refined carbohydrates, but I feel like I've got all these random thoughts swirling around in my head that I feel like writing about, but none of them really go together. So, time for a random brain dump, I guess!

***

Day four of the new regimen is going pretty well. I had a 30-min. brisk walk home after work, and did 15 min. of resistance exercises (free weights, situps, squats, etc.) For dinner, I had quinoa-tempeh-veggie medley with corn on the cob and sweet potato fries.

This morning for breakfast I tried the oatmeal without the applesauce, adding stevia for sweetness instead, and the texture was much better. I like frugaltexan's idea of adding dried fruit; may try that next week.

For lunch I had some of the leftover quinoa-tempeh mix and some of the creole blackeye peas from earlier in the week.

Tonight for dinner we're going to have to wing it; we have plenty of food left from the cook-off party, so we'll be able to figure it out. I'm thinking big salad of some kind for myself.

I need to do a 30-40 min. endurance-level workout tonight, so I'm thinking I'll hit either the pool or the treadmill. Don't think I'll be keeping a very heavy pace for that long, but I guess "endurance level" is whatever you can take at whatever level of fitness you're at!

I'm feeling pretty good; very light and healthy but not too deprived. I just need to brainstorm some other meals when I get back from our trip this weekend, so I don't feel like I'm eating the same thing all the time.

***

I got an email from our real estate agent with some good news about our local market; sales were up and number of new homes on the market was down. It emboldened me to try and assess our condo's value.

The first place I tried was Homes.com, which gave an estimate of about $162,000. I was feeling pretty good because that's $2,000 more than I currently value it at. But then I checked Zillow.com, and felt like I'd been suckerpunched. $123,000, down $8,000 over the past 30 days!

I mean, either way we're not moving or anything. But with the threat of interest rates rising because of this debt-default idiocy in Washington, I would love to at least have a fighting chance to refi at some point (we have an ARM that we've been lucky with so far; right now it's at 3.5%, lower than our introductory rate). Right now we owe $168,000 If the condo were worth $162,000 we'd break even on our mortgage vs. home value in 14 months. At $123,000, we wouldn't break even for years!

So I'm proclaiming my results "inconclusive" since there was such a discrepancy, but I have a sinking feeling Zillow might be closer to the truth. I'll look into it again in a few months and see if either one has changed.

***

NT's renters in England are moving out and the rental management company has asked for permission to redecorate so they can attract new renters. When he wrote back to say hopefully it would only be painting and such, they wrote back to say that the carpets were in pretty bad shape and should be replaced. Well, as far as NT knows, his flat had all hardwood floors, and he wrote back to say so. Of course now I'm all suspicious that his management company might be incompetent and/or trying to shake us down for unnecessary repairs, but there's not much we can do about it! At least we don't depend on the rent for anything but mortgage payments, and we have enough in UK savings to cover that for a while if things go bad. But I do like having that extra money from the rental to put into EF/future house savings at the beginning of each month; it's always painful to spend it on repairs, new appliances, etc. instead.

***

The vegan-chef-in-our-home dinner party thing is progressing nicely! The chef sent us a huge list of menu items to choose from, and we've had 5 people RSVP yes, which means with us we've got 8 of the 10 minimum we need. Exciting news on the SA front -- one of the yesses is "kashi," whom some of you old-timers may remember for having a SavingAdvice blog! She lives in Mpls and is vegan, and we're Facebook friends but have never managed to meet. So this will hopefully work out and I'll get to meet my first (albeit inactive) SA blogger!

***

This upcoming trip is going to be strange. NT and I are traveling to Ohio with little AA to a family reunion for my dad's side of the family. The plane leaves at 6:30 tomorrow. The lightrail to the airport goes right by my and NT's office buildings, but he has to go pick up AA from daycare before we leave. So he's getting out of work early to do that. We think he should bring the carseat and I'll bring the luggage; shouldn't be too much for just two nights and two days, but with a small child, things seem to pile up.

We think we're going to wing it in terms of food for her; we'll bring crackers, milk and her favorite applesauce packet treats, but other than that we'll just get what we can from restaurants and stores along the way. She's usually pretty flexible, and doesn't always need a lot of food (her appetite varies wildly from day to day, which I hear is typical of toddlers). Actually it'll probably be harder to find food for me (a vegan trying out a wheat-free, rice-free diet) than for her (can't go wrong with bananas, cheese or crackers).

So NT will pick up AA from daycare, bring her back downtown, and we'll take the lightrail together. We called the hotel and they can provide a travel crib, so that's one less thing.

NT keeps asking what we're going to eat and do for two days in Strasburg, a town of about 2,000 people. I keep telling him, fast food and reunion. Oh, and the day before the reunion we'll be at a corn festival that my sister and her family attend every year; I'm sure it's great but I can't imagine it's going to take all day. I guess we'll probably do some sitting around in the hotel rooms together. Play cards and chat. It's only a day and a half, so we'll live. I love my family, but the one and only reason I agreed to do this was to assuage my guilt and let my mom see AA; she's such a fiend for grandbabies and I know she's wistful that we don't live closer so she can see AA once in a while.

Meanwhile, AS decided to stay home this weekend. She is just really overloaded with obligations lately, both work and personal, and I think she'll benefit from a quiet weekend to herself. But it'll still be weird to be without her! We've been in different cities maybe a dozen times over the 14 years together. Separation is just not our thing.

I don't think most of my extended family knows about my unusual relationship situation. I've brought AS to reunions before so I'm sure a lot of them just think I'm a lesbian, so it might confuse them a bit when I show up with a husband and child! I've decided not to worry about it; if someone asks the right sort of questions they might get to the truth, but otherwise I just won't say much about my personal life.

***

I guess that's all my random thoughts. Oh, I realize I need to sit down with our various credit cards now in use, and make sure I pay off all the balances. But I think I can do that tomorrow. I don't like to wait the whole month since I do to-the-penny budgeting; it gets too complicated. Doing it every couple weeks works out much better.

Even after the expensive cook-off party, we have about $480 of extra money for July. Since the end of the month is going to be too hectic to have a detailed meeting about it, I suggested we just take an extra $20 each to help with the irregular eating situation this weekend, and put the rest toward student loan debt. They both agreed, so that's what we'll do!

Last night I tried jogging through the park on the way home, after briskly walking the first leg of my journey. I forgot what an instantly exhausting activity it is for the out-of-shape: I jogged until it hurt to take a breath and I was slightly dizzy feeling, checked my time -- 4 minutes had passed. 4 minutes! So I walked for a few minutes until I felt slightly back to normal, then forced myself to jog for a couple more minutes. The second I hit the hill that leads to home, I stopped and walked. Even that was an effort at that point. Good grief, that was sobering! I did have a semi-heavy backpack on, but even without it, I'm not sure how much longer I could've gone without a break.

Tonight's exercise is a resistance workout (I'm going to use free weights and also do squats, lunges, pushups etc.) I don't mind weight training; it can get kind of boring if I do it a lot but I haven't done it in months, so it'll be novel.

Last night's dinner was a success with everyone: broiled spicy tofu, creole-flavored blackeye peas, and a simple broccoli and cauliflower medley.

This morning I tried my oatmeal-applesauce-almond milk-cinnamon combo. The flavor was pretty good but I really couldn't get past the weird mushy texture; I think the applesauce did that. I think I'm going to take the applesauce home and bring in some no-calorie sweetener (stevia). That with the oatmeal, almond milk and cinnamon will hopefully be good.

Today for lunch I had more of the chili I made. This time I had a smaller portion and ate it over corn tortillas and vegan cheese, for a change. I have more for tomorrow; if I remember I'll bring diced onion in for another slight variation. I know I'm going to be eating similar things a lot, but I don't want to get bored too early in the game.

Tonight was supposed to be avocado-mango salad, but the mangoes had to be eaten earlier in the week because they were about to start going bad, and I'm afraid the avocado may have suffered the same fate. It felt awfully soft last night so I stuck it in the fridge. We'll cut them open and see if anything is salvageable, but I doubt it.

We're moving Thursday's meal to tonight: tempeh (another variation of soy) for me and NT, salmon for AS. We'll have sweet potato fries and some other kind of vegetable. We'd bought some Ore Ida frozen sweet potato fries with a double coupon, so we want to use those up. I checked the package and there is rice flour in the coating, but I don't think that's much of a cheat on my no-rice rule, as long as I don't do it often.

Not sure yet what we'll do for Thursday's meal; we'll have to look through the pantry tonight and figure it out.

Friday night, all day Saturday and most of Sunday NT and I will be in small-town Ohio for a family reunion, so I'll kind of be at the mercy of the limited options there. I will probably have to cheat all three days, though I'll try my best not to go crazy; I'd hate to have all my efforts so far be for naught. I am kind of fantasizing about getting hashbrowns and toast at the diner though.

One of AS's student loan payments hit, with $123 going to principal. That makes it $1883 down, $17 to go on the July goal! I'm rooting for her other student loan payment to process before I do my end-of-month wrap-up, because it would push us over the goal amount. I was thinking about it yesterday -- we have a family reunion this weekend and won't be back until late Sunday night, so I won't wrap up until Monday morning. That might mean the payment processes over the weekend and shows up in time!

For some reason when I was waking up this morning all dazed, it suddenly occurred to me that there are several regular SA bloggers who haven't written anything in a while, at least not that I can remember. Miclason, whitestripe, BA, ApprenticeBlissHunter ... are there others too? I hope they all check in soon! frugaltexan's been gone a while, but I know she's probably settling in at her new home and job.

I don't think I'll write every day about this; it might get kind of tedious. But while it's new to me it's basically what's on my mind.

Yesterday I ate a banana with dabs of peanut butter for breakfast, tabouli (Mediterranean bulgur & parsley salad) for lunch, cherries for a snack, and veggie-bean fajitas for dinner (served on corn tortillas with avocado, salsa, lettuce, tomato and vegan cheese). I had a massive plate for dinner, and I felt very full at first, but the feeling didn't stick around for long. For exercise I walked home from work, about 30 minutes (I tried to pick up the pace from my usual stroll).

For breakfast today, I was stumped, so I had ...a banana. With a little bag of roasted peanuts that I picked up at the convenience store. Basically what I had yesterday. I realized I needed to figure out vegan, wheat-free, sweetener-free, potato-free breakfast options. Uhh ... finally NT and I figured something out together over lunch. I went to Target and got a box of quick oats, a carton of sugar-free almond milk, a jar of applesauce and a shaker of cinnamon. I'll try putting that together tomorrow and hope for the best!

Last night I made chili with beans and TVP (a soy product that can sub in for meat) for lunches. As I was smelling and tasting it, I kept picking up the TVP, which isn't good on its own. I finally gave up and left it in the pot on the counter overnight and today at lunch, it smelled and tasted really good! The flavor finally soaked into the TVP.

Tonight we're having blackened tofu, blackeye peas and some kind of veggie (we have a ton to choose from after our cook-off).

For exercise today, I need to do something at an "endurance" pace, according to the little guide I'm following. I wasn't sure I'd have time to work out when I got home, so I brought sneakers and workout clothes in a backpack to work. I'll change into that, put my purse and other clothes in the backpack, and walk home, except as soon as I'm clear of the crowds, I'll jog the rest of the way. (The last half mile or so is through a park-like walkway and then a park, so much easier to move quickly than when I keep hitting stoplights and throngs of commuters.)

AS and I are trying to figure out a way to bike to work. We take AA to daycare in the jogging stroller, which NT then attaches to his bike when he picks her up at night. There seem to be two main options:

- We discovered a "NiceRide" station near daycare. You can rent bikes and drop them off at another station. So if we found stations near our jobs, we could do that. There's also a station right near our condo, so we could pick up another bike for the evening commute home. It's $5 for unlimited rides in a 24-hour period or $60 for the whole season, and if you turn in your bike within 30 minutes, no additional charges. Otherwise, you get charged by the hour for however long you have the bike out.

- NT and I were also discussing the possibility of getting a second stroller attachment and adding it to my or AS's bike. He reckoned it would cost about $30 and we'd probably have to special-order it at the bike store or online. (We would want to test-ride his bike with the stroller attached to make sure we could do it. NT is a much more practiced cyclist than either me or AS.) That way we could bike to daycare, detach the stroller, then ride to work on our own bikes. NT could pick up AA after work as usual.

Either way, so much logistical stuff to figure out. Might be worth it in the end, though, if it helps us get more exercise this summer and fall.

I weighed in last night and had gained nearly 3 lbs. -- back up to 153. Sigh. That's OK; I didn't binge or anything this past week, but I definitely didn't limit myself or watch my eating very closely. I knew I was going to try and be very disciplined very soon, so I was getting my kicks while I could.

Regular exercise and very healthy eating are something I always struggle with. Especially the exercise. I'm trying to go into this new chapter with confidence, but I also have a fair amount of skepticism since I always tend to fall off the wagon sooner or later. I now have 14 lbs. to lose before I get to my desired weight, so if I stuck to the diet really well and lost 2 lbs. per week, that would be 7 weeks. I think I can do this for that long, at least. And maybe some of the healthy habits will stick around longer than that.

Since Google Docs is such a good way to control my spending and organize other aspects of my life, I'm turning to it for this new challenge as well. I set up a spreadsheet with two tabs: one for workouts and one for food. I don't know if this will turn out, but here are screen shots:


Basically, on the workout log I'll create goals for each day and then on the next line I'll say what I actually did that day. The food log doesn't have goals because my goals are always the same: to not eat wheat, white rice, white potatoes, chips, beer, or sugar/high-calorie sweeteners. So for the food log I'll just write what I ate at each meal. Not going to try for calorie counts, but I may go into more detail if it seems to call for it.

Today I only have to do a moderate workout, so I'm going to count walking home. The next few days I'll have to do something more athletic. I may bring jogging clothes to work and try to jog through the park on the way home? Or go for bike rides after work, or go use the treadmill in the other condo building's exercise room. We'll see.

I gave myself Friday, Saturday and Sunday off because I'm going to Ohio for a family reunion. Most weeks I hope to not take three days off in a row.

Put another $20 into the EF as part of NT paying for his parents' gifts, so that brings 2011 progress to $3332.78 and the total EF to $11,844.73.

Totaled up the spending for our cook-off party; it came to $216.69. I'm glad we're paying for this with extra income so it doesn't have to come out of our budget! About $25 was for small gifts for the contestants, $75 for drinks (including four bottles of wine for the contestants and the $20 bottle of amaretto liqueur, which will come in handy at a future party, I'm sure). The other $116 was groceries; much of it was left over. The fresh stuff we'll try to use up this week; the nonperishable staples will all come in handy down the line (I think we bought all things we would cook with ourselves).

As we were wrapping up planning for this party, AS got a message from a Facebook friend. He has a friend who's a vegan chef, and sometimes he does dinner parties in people's homes. Turns out he's coming to Minneapolis for a few days. He asks for about $20 per person and cooks a seven-course all-vegan meal (including cocktails) right in your kitchen! We thought this sounded like such a unique opportunity, so we signed up with him. He requires at least 10 people in order to make it worthwhile, so we have to find 7 or more friends to go in on it. I don't think it'll be too hard; even though we don't know many vegans, we know lots of vegetarians, and besides, how could you beat $20 for a 7-course meal plus drinks?

We're still waiting for final confirmation from him, but if it happens, it'll be Saturday Aug. 6. It would be so great! This has been a whirlwind of a summer; I'm so glad I have this blog because I think it'll all be a blur in the fall. If I wonder what I did all summer, I just have to look back here.

As promised, a wrap-up of our cooking party, which was FABulous!

We asked four of our friends to be contestants. They cooked one at a time. We provided a bunch of ingredients they could all cook with, including a table laden with vegetables, but they each had a mystery bag that included three mystery ingredients. Once they looked at the ingredients and had a couple minutes to think about it, we started a timer for 40 minutes. (They were allowed to finish up the last couple things for a couple minutes after; we were much more lenient than the show we based this on.)

The first person had grass jelly juice (a drink we found in the Vietnamese grocery store), refrigerated crescent rolls and mushy peas (a standard British veggie).


He decided to make an Indian-spiced mixture with the peas and roll them up in the crescent rolls.


Then he served them with a dipping sauce that incorporated the grass jelly drink.


The next contestant had amaretto liqueur, fruit strip snacks and wasabi roasted peas.


He made a pesto pasta with amaretto and wasabi peas in the sauce, and a gazpacho soup sweetened with fruit strips.



The third person got nori (seaweed) sheets, tomatillos and Diet Cherry Coke.


She made sushi (using Minute Rice!):


She incorporated the tomatillos into the rice and Diet Cherry Coke into the dipping sauce.


The last contestant's mystery ingredients were frozen shelled edamame, BBQ Pringles and HP Sauce (a British condiment similar to steak sauce).


She put the edamame in a vegetable salad with a creamy onion dressing, and made a dip that used the HP sauce to dip the Pringles in. She also made crostini for dipping.



Although we knew our friends liked to cook, I thought the mystery ingredients would be way too hard, but they did an amazing job! Everything tasted and looked great. We had the rest of the guests rank their favorites in taste, presentation, creativity and overall favorite and handed out presents. As it happened there was pretty much one winner in each category (well, two people more or less tied for Taste, but one of them won the Overall category, so I gave the Taste prize to the other one). We awarded kitchen gadgets for each category and also gave each contestant a bottle of wine.

Not a frugal party, although we'll be able to incorporate the unused ingredients into our menu for the next week. But it was SO much fun! I'm really pleased that our friends stepped up to the plate. A couple of them said they were surprisingly nervous beforehand and that the clock was nerve-wracking, but that it was kind of a rush to figure out something delicious and make it.

$20 went into the EF as part of NT's slowly paying off his recent gifts to family. That brings our 2011 progress to $3312.78 and our total EF to $11,824.73.

I just realized I never calculated individual net worth after I did our collective net worth statement earlier this week. I'll do that now and add to this entry; I'm eager to see how close AS is to positive net worth!

UPDATE: Great progress this month! AS's negative net worth decreased by $1216; her net worth is now just negative $1400! Another month or two and she should be in the black.

The heat wave finally broke here in Minneapolis! It's now in the 80s and feels marvelous compared with the "95 feels like 115" type days we've been having here. This was the worst heat wave I've seen in my 13+ years here, I think.

Our party is coming up fast and we have lots of planning to do! At least, since we announced it on such short notice, our guest list looks small. That means fewer canapes and drinks to prepare or buy. Usually I like bigger parties but I'll be just as glad to have just a handful of people over, since this cooking-contest thing is totally new to us and we don't actually know how hard it's going to be to pull off! NT and I walked through the farmer's market and Target today and brainstormed potential mystery ingredients.

The day after the party, my new food and exercise regimen begins. The menu creation for this next week might be a bit harder than usual, since I'm taking many of the staples of our diet off my plate. I really hope these changes help kickstart my weight loss. And that I don't feel totally deprived. We shall see!

Today has been pretty slow at work, which has been great because I had a ton of stuff to do that's not work-related!

- Canceled AS's old Visa card she never uses (the annual fee [which we always weaseled out of anyway] was going up to $55 per year, so it motivated us to get rid of it)
- Paid AS's dental bill ($580 -- yikes, but the good news is we have a medical fund, plus this helps her get to the 2nd set of Chase Sapphire rewards points more quickly)
- Called my doctor to resolve an unanswered question from my annual checkup
- Did some MySurvey and MyPoints things
- Researched NT's and my new Amex card. It has a $75 fee but offers 6% back on groceries! I just want to make sure one or both of our main grocery stores we shop at qualifies. (It looks like Rainbow, the big chain we use, will qualify. The natural foods co-op may not, but I found a link to a story where some woman pressured them to add her local natural foods store and succeeded, so hopefully we can do the same.) Even if only one of our stores qualifies, we should be able to net $75 per year minimum after the $75 annual fee--and there's a $100 bonus that will offset the first year's fee!

Looks like I may delay closing our Chase accounts a bit longer. Yesterday we got a voucher in the mail for one free night at a new hotel, courtesy of our Chase Freedom card. We checked and there are two of the hotels in our area. I believe the offer will turn out to be for double occupancy only, but even so we'll probably take advantage; hotels are fun! I was thinking two of us could have a date night away at one of the areas -- probably AS and NT; it's been awhile since they had some time for just the two of them.

I saw some interest in the cooking-competition party I posted about yesterday, so I'll try to take pictures and give a detailed description of it once it happens! I've never done anything quite like this, so I'm not really sure how it will turn out. But it's very informal and all in good fun, so I think it'll be a nice change from the usual cocktail party.

I really should blog more often; as it is, I store up topics and end up with these long titles and rambling posts. But anyway, here goes another one.

I called Comcast today and got them to downgrade our cable TV. We lost all channels 100 and up. Still got DVR, and 90% of our favorite shows are in the lower channels, so it shouldn't be too hard an adjustment.

Last week when I was just making exploratory calls, the phone person had a 3-month internet discount to offer me. I was pretty sure I was going to go back and get the Blast upgrade for a 12-month discount, so I turned it down. Today when I asked if there were any deals, the customer service guy had nothing! So weird and annoying -- I guess all the deals dried up the day after I called/chatted.

On a brighter note, I checked my Sapphire account last night and my 50,000 points were showing up! Actually 54,000, so I ordered a $540 check right away. As soon as I receive it, deposit it and confirm that the money has gone into my account, I get to write my cranky email to them letting them know they lost a customer!

It looks like we'll have over $1000 of extra money this month. I suggested we use some of it for a party we're hosting this Sunday; we devised a cooking contest where four of our friends will compete against each other and the other guests will taste their food and vote for their favorite. We'll be providing ingredients and we have to provide a fairly large range, as well as some prizes for the winners (bottles of wine and/or cooking supplies, probably) and participants. We should still have a fair amount of money left over for extra debt repayment! This party really will be my last day before I start my new eating plan.

Speaking of that, I found a PDF of helpful suggestions for getting started on improving diet and increasing exercise on my work computer. NT sent it to me years ago and I saved it to my desktop but never got around to reading it. Today I did, and it had some pretty helpful hints, as well as a log that you could use to track eating and activity. Well, I don't want to carry around a hard-copy log, but I saved the PDF to Google Docs so I could refer to it from anywhere, and I plan to start an Excel log that mirrors their suggested log.

Boy, I'm getting sick of companies going back on their word.

On Thursday night, I was online-chatting with Comcast customer service, looking for cheaper options for our cable and internet. They offered me an upgrade on cable with an introductory rate $15 lower than what we pay for our current internet.

I wanted to talk it over with my family and make sure it was a good deal, and we decided it was; we could always switch back to regular-speed internet before the introductory period ended.

But when I went back onto Comcast chat today, that customer service person made me wait about 20 minutes online before telling me that the offer was no longer available. Less than 3 days later, no longer available. Ugh. I closed out of the chat immediately, I was so disgusted. Probably should've stuck around to see if they had a different offer, but oh well.

We still have other easy cost-saving ideas. We're currently enrolled in cable the next step up from basic. Getting rid of that will save us nearly $20. We'll still have our DVR and all channels below 100, so we're only losing about 4 shows we love, and we can look into other ways of seeing those. Then in September when Netflix is going to split their service, we'll cut back to just streaming movies; instead of our bill going up about $6.50, it'll go down by about $2.

So we'll still reduce our costs by $22; not as nice as $37, but better than nothing.

When I call Comcast tomorrow to downgrade our cable, I"m first going to ask if they have any internet deals. I thought the last person I talked to said something about a 3-month discount; any little bit is great in my opinion.

I'm going to set $10 per month aside in case we want to get some of our shows we're losing on demand, but the other $12 I can roll into debt repayment. Nice!

***

I'm getting impatient with myself over my weight. I can't seem to get motivated to take off these last 10-12 lbs. of baby weight. I've been trying to do it naturally, but I'm thinking a more structured plan might work better for me.

So I've been mulling over what changes might bring the biggest results, and this is what I came up with. I want to cut out these foods and ingredients:
-Bread products
-Chips of all kinds
-Pasta
-Flour and other wheat products (including my favorite, mock duck)
-White rice
-White potatoes
-High-calorie sweeteners like sugar, honey and high fructose corn syrup
-Beer (I don't have it often, but I see the difference when I do!)

If I stay away from this list, I think I should be able to lose weight pretty quickly. My goal will be to get under 140 lbs; at that point, I would start reintroducing these foods if I wanted to. I'm pretty good at maintaining weight naturally without much extra effort; it's just losing that I have trouble with.

I think I'd have a better chance of succeeding if I allowed myself one cheat day per week, so I'll start that way and see how it goes. (I'm also not going to count vacation and travel days and parties, just regular eating days.)

We just bought groceries for the week and already have meals planned, so I'm going to start next week. Last night I had tofu dogs (on buns) and fries, and chips and salsa, and this morning I had hash browns and toast for breakfast, and a big sandwich on sourdough for lunch! Tonight, risotto (arborio rice counts as white rice, I'd say). So I'm getting my kicks, and you can also see why I think cutting these things out of my diet will help me lose weight--my diet is riddled with this kind of stuff! LOL.

This week will not only be my last hurrah -- until I either give up or lose the weight -- but it will give me time to research meal options. I lean on bread and pasta and potatoes and white rice a LOT. I'm not sure I'll be able to come up with things that AS will go for, and I doubt NT could give up his bread or desserts, so I may be going this mostly alone. But I think I can do it. I noticed the carrot-craisin-walnut salad we made today to go with the sandwiches accidentally fit my new diet requirements, and it's one of my favorite salads. So I know the meals are out there; I just have to figure out what fits.

An extra payment to one of NT's student loans hit, with $966 going to principal! That makes our July progress $1760 down, $140 to go to reach our goal.

Unfortunately I have a bad feeling about this; since the last two days of the month are a Saturday and a Sunday, I don't think both of AS's student loan payments will hit her accounts in time to meet our goal. But oh well. Just a scheduling glitch. Hopefully at least one of the payments will get there and we'll get a bit closer to our goal for the month.

$25 went into the EF, as well as 51 cents of interest. That brings 2011 EF progress to $3292.78 ($11,804.73 in the EF total). Nearing the halfway mark on my goal of raising $7000 for the EF this year!

I'm so glad I save up medical money separately. Last month our kitty Noodles needed about $250 of medical treatment; this month we got a $500+ bill for AS's root canal. It hurts to take that money out of savings, but not as much as if I counted my medical savings in my emergency fund!

NT and AS have proven willing to at least discuss cheaper options to cable and Netflix, since cable raised our rate recently and Netflix is planning to in September. We've talked about renting movies from Redbox and the library, getting an alternate device that streams content from the internet, etc. I haven't seen a clear way to save a lot of money and still get the entertainment we like best, but we'll keep working on it. The biggies for us are BBC shows such as Dr. Who and Torchwood (though Torchwood this season is on Starz, which we don't get anyway). We'll see if there are ways to stream them online when they come out; otherwise, we could wait and buy/rent the DVDs once those are available, but as a Brit NT would be dying inside if he knew there are new Dr. Who episodes and had to wait months to see them!

I did get an offer to upgrade our internet for $15 less per month -- for 12 months. After that, it would be about $15 more than what we pay now. I guess we could downgrade after the year is up, or look for other promo offers...haven't decided on that yet.

Anyway, we're not going to be hasty, but I'm glad we're looking at options. I got cable/internet and Netflix at what I considered fair prices, but I don't like to see them going up incrementally, when income has pretty much stagnated.

I haven't been noting individual charitable contributions, but we've donated $910 total for the year, just passing the halfway mark on our 2011 goal! Having it as a regular budget item is great because it ensures we remember to donate. We have several recurring monthly donations set up as part of it; the rest is a random budget item that we can donate to causes that get our attention along the way. We each get $50 a month total to allocate as we please, whether it's through recurring monthly payments to a charity or one-time gifts.

***

Thought I'd give an update on my credit card situation:
- I haven't received the 50,000 points for spending $3000 on my Chase Sapphire card. I assume they update the points total monthly, since it hasn't increased in weeks. Hopefully by next week I'll have my points and can request my check, at which point I can instruct customer service to close my accounts. I'll explain why again; we'll see if they make any attempt to salvage our relationship.
- AS still has a couple hundred to spend before she hits $3000 on her Chase Sapphire and receives her second 50,000 points, so it may take longer to cancel her Chase account.
- AS and I got approved for a Citi MasterCard that will give us a $150 bonus for spending $500 in the first 90 days. Easy peasy. There's also a regular rewards program for purchases. We should receive the card within a week.
- Haven't heard whether NT and I were approved for an Amex card that will come with a $100 bonus yet. Should hear in a week or two.
- I decided to keep my Discover card open for now since it has the same rewards program as the Chase Freedom I'm going to cancel. I added NT to the account in case I end up keeping it. If I get the Amex I may cancel Discover, but we'll see.

***

We had our annual meeting with Prudential, my company's 401(k) provider. Mostly kiddie stuff in the presentation, but I did learn that 7% is considered a fairly safe assumption for how your retirement savings will grow over time. It used to be 10% but the Dept. of Labor made companies like Prudential revise it downward in recent years, after so much volatility in the markets.

I've only ever had 401(k)s during volatile times. I got my first real account shortly before the tech bubble burst, and a foolhardy co-worker had just convinced me to put 90% of my 401(k) into a brand-new, high-risk tech stock fund that had been going gangbusters. Needless to say my meager account was decimated. I've also seen my account buffeted by the recent real estate bubble burst and the Great Recession. So if a retirement calculator gives me the option to choose a growth percentage, I usually pick 4% or 5%, and the results are that we're seriously underfunding with our contributions. But estimate 7% and it's a whole different story.

I ran the calculator on Prudential's website after the meeting and was pleased to see it predict we would have a $220 surplus every month in retirement. Now granted that's if we all work until I'm 70 (I rolled all our stats into one profile) and contribute the same amount we do now the whole time. So we could do better, in case we want/need to stop working before then (or our salaries drop from where they are now). But it's good to know we're on basically the right track.

I moved $20 more into the EF; as I was doing it, I realized my spreadsheet amount didn't match what's in the account itself. I was $25 short on the spreadsheet. I thought I recorded every deposit recently, but I'm also $25 short on my sidebar here. So I must have not followed through after blogging about my savings.

So that means $45 of progress from where I said I was here; that makes $3267.27 of 2011 progress; $11,779.22 total in the EF.

I've obtained credit reports for all three of us to make sure I know all the accounts we have open, and I intend to close them all:

A Sears card we all three hold jointly
An American Express card I never use
A Discover card I never use
A Visa card AS never uses

And eventually, once I get all our rewards points and cash:
My Chase Sapphire
AS's Chase Sapphire
A Chase Visa that AS and I hold jointly
A Chase Visa that NT and I hold jointly

I found some cards I want to apply for. There aren't any more crazy $500 bonus cards available at present, but there are some pretty good rewards cards, and they're ones I wouldn't mind holding onto if I don't see better offers coming along soon after them:

American Express Blue Cash Preferred: Has a $75 annual fee, but offers 6% cash back on grocery purchases! So I'd easily earn more than that back. Plus you can get a $100 bonus for opening a card if you spend at least $500 in the first 60 days.

Citi Dividend Platinum Select MasterCard: No annual fee, $150 cash back if you spend $500 in the first three months, 1% rewards on regular purchases and 5% rewards on certain purchases (categories change).

Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards MasterCard: 1% rewards on most purchases, 2% on groceries. Haven't found a good intro bonus, but this might be a good workaday one to replace my Chase Visa that I use all the time. Though the Citi one might do the trick.

I've already canceled my existing American Express and requested Discover cancel that account. I'm trying to cancel the Sears card but have been getting a busy signal for hours. Isn't that weird? Oh, and I realized Citi handles Sears cards, so it's making me wary of opening a Citi card, if they can't even staff their phones... (UPDATE: Just got an email from the facilities manager that our company's phones are having trouble dialing 800 numbers, so it isn't Citi's fault.)

I used Credit Karma to get an approximation of our credit scores, to see how much effect having old cards has. AS got an A on longevity of open accounts, while I got a C and NT got a D. Our credit scores?
AS: 781
CJ: 784
NT: 766
So as MonkeyMama said, doesn't seem to have much effect at all. We're all in the "Excellent" range and in the high 80s to low 90s percentile-wise.

As some of you know, I applied for and got the Chase Sapphire card with the 50,000 bonus if you spend $3000 in 3 months. AS also applied for and got one.

When I heard there was an even better offer for 100,000 points that you could get upgraded to by emailing customer service, we both did that. AS immediately got her extra 50,000 points (which we redeemed for $500!), but I got the following email:

"As per the offer on your account, you will receive 50,000 Chase Sapphire bonus points after spending $3,000.00 in purchases within 93 days of account open date. These points will post to your account within one to two billing cycles.

"I feel that every relationship is based on mutual trust and support, including one between a bank and a customer. I would like to inform you that, once you have spend $3000.00 within the first 93 days, you will need to re-sumbit your request for the additional 50,000 points, however, make sure that it is within the first 93 days and we will be happy to have the additional 50,000 points added to your account."

I thought, great, no problem! I wrote a very nice thank-you note.

A couple weeks later I had gotten up to $3000 of spending, so as this email had instructed, I resubmitted my request:


"I'm happy to report that I've spent my first $3000 on my new credit card. Per the attached message, I would like to request an additional 50,000 as well as the 50,000 that were part of my original account offer. The customer service representative promised that I could have the additional points but only if I resubmitted my request after spending $3000.

"Thank you very much for your generosity and understanding in granting this request."

To my disappointment I got the following note:

"I am glad to know that yo have fulfilled the first use requirement of using the card for $3000.00 within 93 days of opening the account. The first use 50,000 points will post within one to two billing cycles.

"In order to view and redeem your rewards information online, please click on "Rewards Details" located in the bottom left corner of the Account Details page. After viewing current reward information, you may also click on "See Rewards History" for more information or "Redeem Rewards" to complete a redemption request.

"The offer for 100,000 points was an acquisition test offer only and was sent to a select customers through direct mail. Regretfully, this is a non transferable offer. I apologize for any miscommunication in this regard."

Naturally, since this seemed like a direct contradiction of their earlier communication, I fired back another message to make sure they understood what I'd been promised:

"I'm very disappointed at this unexpected change of heart. As a long-term and loyal Chase customer with several active accounts, I would be very disillusioned if what I was told isn't followed through on. I quote the previous customer service representative's email:

"'I feel that every relationship is based on mutual trust and support, including one between a bank and a customer. I would like to inform you that, once you have spend $3000.00 within the first 93 days, you will need to re-sumbit your request for the additional 50,000 points, however, make sure that it is within the first 93 days and we will be happy to have the additional 50,000 points added to your account.'

"In light of this explicit promise and of the long relationship I have with Chase, I hope you will reconsider and grant me the additional points after all."

I soon got another email:

"I sincerely apologize about any miscommunication caused due to the bonus offer points on your Chase Sapphire account.

"The 100,000 point enrollment bonus offer was sent to a select group that have no previous Chase Sapphire
accounts. We do not transfer promotional offers that a customer may have seen or heard about to their account. We only honor promotional offers that customers actually apply for.

"We are sympathetic with your position, however we must be consistent in applying the terms of our contract. To make exceptions would not be equitable to our other Cardmembers. We hope, therefore, that you can understand our position."

Now this just annoyed me more, since I knew very well they'd been handing out points to people who hadn't applied for that specific offer. So I wrote another message:

"Thanks for your quick response. However, I actually have a friend who is a cardmember and had the same agreement as me, and she was given the extra 50,000. So to say it wouldn't be equitable to not give me the extra points doesn't make sense.

"I'm afraid if you go back on your word, I'm going to have to reconsider being a Chase customer and will have to look around at other credit card companies. Knowing someone else who got the points, and having that past promise in writing from another customer service representative, it seems unconscionable that you would now tell me I don't get the extra points."

I got a quick response that I found slightly promising:

"I have forwarded your message to the appropriate department for review and you should receive a response within one business day.

"If you require immediate assistance, please contact the number listed below and either myself, or one of my colleagues will be able to assist you. For your
convenience, we are available to assist you 24 hours a
day."

So I waited a day and then got one more message from them:

"Unfortunately, we are unable to comment on actions taken on other cardmember accounts.

"As indicated in our previous e-mail response, the 100,000 enrollment bonus offer was sent to a select number of people who had no previous Chase Sapphire account. The offer is by invitation only and can not be applied to anyone who was not solicited for this promotional offer.

"Unless you can provide an invitation and offer code that sent specifically to you, we are considering this issue closed. I regret any inconvenience this may cause you.

"If you have any further questions, please reply using the Secure Message Center."

Sigh. So now, they've ticked me off enough that I'm not only going to cancel the rewards card (after I get my 50,000, heh heh), but I'm also going to cancel all our other Chase cards (AS's reward card after she gets her second 50,000, plus the one NT and I use all the time, and another one AS and I hold jointly that we hardly ever use).

I wouldn't have minded if they'd said "no" at the outset. But to say one thing and then not honor it, whether or not the original representative made a bad decision promising that ... I can't really do business with a company that would do that, and that would stick to that in light of my threatening to take my business elsewhere.

So ... I've been looking around, and I think I know what cards I'm going to apply for. (I'll talk about that in more detail in a later post.) But first I'm going to look through our records and cancel some other extraneous non-Chase cards I've been too lazy to handle, just to do some housecleaning. Then I'll apply for new cards and, once we get approved and Chase finishes sending us the rewards checks, I'll cancel all our Chase accounts.

Maybe they won't care; after all, I'm a "deadbeat" in credit-card-company parliance. I don't pay annual fees or late fees, and I no longer pay interest since I paid off our credit cards about 8 months ago. And I'm just one customer (albeit with 4 accounts total). But I'll be glad to see them go; I know credit card companies are just heartless corporations, but lying to a customer to their face when they have something in writing is just bad form.