A recent SA post about home values got me looking for what my condo would sell for. It's in one of two high-rise buildings with many similar units, so it's probably easier for me to determine my home's value than for homeowners with a unique house. (On the other hand, depending on the condition, the age of the appliances, and so on, values within our association can vary pretty widely.)

I found a handy site (trulia.com) that lists recently sold homes in a particular ZIP code. They listed six 2BR condos in my complex that had sold between January and late August of this year.

The three that had sold between January and April had been bought for $134K, $143K and $140K, for an average of $139K. Those are scary numbers because I have the condo valued at $160K!

But the three that sold from June to August went for $169K, $165K and $154K. That averages out to $162,500. Even though the most recent sale is significantly lower than the other two, that doesn't worry me too much because there are other factors. But to play it safe, I'm not going to move my own estimate of my home's worth up to $162.5. I'll keep it at $160K, especially since the market has not stopped roiling yet. (Plus, if we were to sell, I'm sure we'd have to do at least $2500 worth of repairs and upgrades to get it sellworthy.)

Kinda glad I missed that bottoming out of the values January-April. I didn't realize it had gotten that bad! (For comparison's sake, we bought for $207K; the home was originally for sale at $200K but we rolled closing costs in and it actually did get appraised at $207K.)

The regular biweekly savings hit, with $25 going into the baby/EF. $751 saved, $24 to go on the October goal.

I think I'm feeling the baby move occasionally, but I can't really tell. Sometimes it just feels like a little muscle spasm, like an eye twitch in my lower belly. Other times it feels kind of...magical or unearthly, like a little minnow or butterfly is brushing against my insides. It always comes and goes so quickly that it's hard to pin down, but I started noticing it yesterday and still feel it today, so I think that's what it is. Either way, the ultrasound is tomorrow, so I hope to see lots of activity then!

AS made her 1000 minutes last 3 months and 1 week, so that's a 1-week improvement over the last 1000! But seriously, I think there's no getting around the fact that while she's at home, and doesn't have a work phone with which to conduct calls during the day, her minutes are going to go faster. This situation should change next year, whatever job she ends up with.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March, meaning it's been 6-1/4 months. We have 2 phones on T-Mobile prepaid and 1 on Net10 prepaid.

Initial layout: $241.63 to get us set up with phones and 2300 minutes.
NT's late-May Net10 fillup: $32.65 (He hadn't used up his previous 300, but they roll over as long as you re-up in time.)
AS's late-June T-Mobile fillup, 1000 minutes: $107.40.
NT's late-July Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-September Net10 fillup: $32.82
AS's early-October T-Mobile fillup: $107.78

So our total cost so far is $555.10.

So far, if I divide our total cost by 6.25, our new plan has cost us $88.82 per month (our monthly average is up from $74.55 per month as calculated in September). Still, that's close to our $85 average on the T-Mobile family plan.

I've still only used about half of my 1000 minutes and I don't need to re-up until March 2010 unless I run out of minutes before then.

(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 goal is to get my average cost below that, preferably to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 will be a savings.)

We went to the mall this weekend to use some Old Navy gift cards from MyPoints. We went to see if they had a maternity section, and they did--a small one, but I still found a pair of pants and two sweaters, all on sale. It was $30.99 more than the gift cards, so I was going to take it out of my next week's spending money.

Then I thought we should probably look around and see if there were more deals since we hardly ever get out to the mall, so we went to a maternity clothing store. There were several good items on clearance or sale, and I also got a pair of pants at full price since there were no clearance pants in my size. I was trying to pare down the shirts to fit within this week's and next week's spending money, but NT and AS put a stop to that. They pointed out that the EF is called the "BABY-slash-emergency fund," and that I wouldn't be buying clothes right now if I didn't need them. (It's true; my wardrobe is shrinking weekly.)

I tried to fight it for awhile, but I didn't want to put any of the clothes back since they all fit so well (and all had room to grow too), and I didn't really want to be without spending money for the rest of the month either. So I caved and am going to take this out of the baby/emergency fund. I spent $146.92 at the second store, so $177.91 total. I got 10 pieces in total--3 sweaters, a business jacket, two pairs of slacks and several shirts--so they were all good deals. And that should carry me through a good deal of the pregnancy; as long as I don't repeat a top during the week at work, I feel normal. And I should say they're all really cute, so I'm going to be happy wearing them.

It's amazing how hard it was to make that decision. I've got thousands of dollars in the bank, but unless it's specifically earmarked for something I just feel really weird spending it. Definitely not the me of three years ago.

On Thursday a friend posted photos of a cat that had been abandoned near her home for about a month. As always NT wistfully wished we could adopt him. We've always said that we can't get a cat in America because he might be too old when it's time to move back. (The quarantine can be several months.) Usually cats that friends try to find homes for are already mature, so it's not an option. But I could see that this cat was very young, nowhere near full-grown.

So at lunch NT and I went over the concerns we usually have. The first is the immigration problem, which this cat would be plenty healthy for. Another is that NT feels cats should be indoor/outdoor, not strictly indoor like American city and suburb cats are. But I pointed out that this cat would be 99% likely to be an indoor cat whoever took it in. Another issue was the cost, but I feel we're in a better place to afford unexpected expenses than we've ever been. And then there's our condo rules, which prohibit cats, but pffft. Our real estate agent, who lives in the other building, told us that many people have "secret cats." It's one of those stupid rules that they re-evaluate every couple years and just haven't gotten enough votes to overturn yet. The only person who comes in ever is the handyman, who is super mellow and has seen that we clearly break the flooring rules and doesn't care.

So NT called our friend (4 times in quick succession, as I learned later) and that night, she dropped off this little beauty, whom we named Noodles.



He's gotten over his jumpiness and hiding, and now his main problem, besides a case of worms that we're getting him treated for on Monday, is being a kitten. He needs to learn some boundaries, like AS's dreadlocks are not toys, but he's really really affectionate and cuddly and playful, so we're glad we got him.

Oh, and the people who found him kicked in $150 for vet bills. We got a quote of $260 from the local animal hospital for everything including neutering, so we'll only have to pay about $100! I've decided to take his food and litter costs out of groceries and his vet costs out of our medical-expenses fund, so hopefully it won't cost more, but if we start to struggle I'll put another $50 per month in each line item.

We're not usually this impulsive these days, but I think this was a good impulse. NT especially is sooo happy; we hardly see any cats and he really really loves cats.

Savings: I transferred $120 into savings for AS's retirement, and about US$606 into UK savings for the baby/emergency fund. In total, $726 saved, $49 to go on October savings.

Debt: The following payments hit--
US mortgage: $283 to principal
UK #1: $256
UK #2: $54
UK #3: $58
All told, $651 down, $1949 to go on the October debt goal.

So as I've been mentioning--repeatedly, cause I'm so excited about it--our mortgage rate is going to adjust for the better for our Nov. 1 payment (and the next 11 payments after that). Well, as I was checking the mortgage balance, I remembered that the site can give you details of the next payment, like how much is going to principal, how much to escrow, etc. I checked out our new payment. It's going to be about $190 smaller, and it's going to pay about $90 more in principal per month! That means not only is our principal balance going to go down $90 faster every month, but we're actually paying $280 less in interest each month. How sweet is that? We were paying about 45% of our total household debt payments toward interest, escrow and other fees, but now it's down to 40% in one fell swoop!

Brr, it feels like October all of a sudden this week! It'll be an exciting month--besides Halloween, we'll be seeing our lil' baby live on screen next week, and touring the birth center of the hospital we want to use. Also, we'll make our last mortgage payment at the 5.75% interest rate--starting Nov. 1 it goes down to 3.875% for a year!

October goals:

Debt: Pay off at least $2600 of debt.

Savings: Save at least $775 ($120 for AS's retirement; $655 for baby/EF)

Creative/crafts: Begin to brainstorm and plot novel idea for NaNoWriMo.

I'll still try and be conscious of the other areas--fitness, environmentalism, philanthropy and side hustles--but I'm not going to set any specific goals.

The second half of the year has been rather lame in the goals department. Well, except for the money goals they were mainly to help me feel stimulated and challenged by life vs. coasting by. Being pregnant is very stimulating and challenging, so I don't really need other tasks to keep me happy! I do need to get more exercise and eat healthy, but I'm going to see if I can do that on my own without a monthly challenge. So far I'm doing pretty well on the food front, but the exercise needs some work. AS and I went for walks after work yesterday and the day before, and I walk around with NT during lunch, so at least I get a bit.

Anyhoo, back to the rest of the goals. Did not catch up on posting food photos, but we have continued to take photos most days (except sometimes when we're eating out), so we could still collect and review them at the end of the year if we wanted.

NT's UK taxes are done, and we didn't owe any money. Nor were we anywhere close to making enough profit to hit the deductible (aka "personal allowance"), so as long as I can remember that there will be less stress each fall as I prep them.

As a result of not owing, I was able to exceed the savings goal, which I'd made very modest in case I needed that flat-rental money to pay Her Majesty's Revenue Service. $780 saved instead of our $170 goal!

And our debt repayment did really well, thanks to some payments hitting this month that sometimes don't clear until the first of the next month. Paid off $2478 instead of our $2200 goal!

Although I didn't have any specific other goals:

I did take a couple extra walks, ate fairly healthy and gained the right amount of weight for my pregnancy, so I feel OK about fitness.

Environment-wise, I've continued to use more environmentally friendly toiletries, and AS now makes our laundry soap, dish detergent and surface cleaners, saving on packaging and cutting down on chemicals. We're still very good about taking reusable shopping bags everywhere, even on vacation. And we reuse containers for our bulk-food purchases whenever possible, so that's another waste eliminated. We're also doing the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" toilet system (when we don't have guests), so we're saving a bit of water that way. (This doesn't save us money because we just pay one lump sum to our condo association, but we like the environmental aspect.) Oh, and we've been taking all the baby-related hand-me-downs offered to us, so hopefully our baby will have a lower carbon footprint than most.

Creatively I've been a bit slack, but, you know, I'm creating life!

I haven't done much philanthropy, but we've done some small things, like NT buying a homeless-sold newspaper in Wisconsin, and me buying a couple cans of tomatoes for the AIDS charity that sometimes collects outside our co-op. I have also been sending e-mails to my congressmen and the president about improving health care, which will probably help others much more than me (but I'm still all for it).

We've had a bit of profit from side hustles; sold some coats on eBay, and AS gets $10 per load to do laundry for this older lady in the building, and NT's been doing tons of Pinecone surveys. Oh, and AS and I both redeemed MyPoints for Old Navy gift cards.

I guess that's about it! October goals will come later when I need another break from this busy, busy day.

My credit card hit as expected, with $193 going to principal, making my September total $2478. Stay tuned later today for my September goals wrap-up and then setting my October goals.

Two posts in quick succession today! I completely forgot that I purchased more minutes for NT's cell phone last week, which means it's time to evaluate costs again.

RECAP: I switched to prepaid in late March, meaning it's been 6 months. We have 2 phones on T-Mobile prepaid and 1 on Net10 prepaid.

Initial layout: $241.63 to get us set up with phones and 2300 minutes.
NT's late-May Net10 fillup: $32.65 (He hadn't used up his previous 300, but they roll over as long as you re-up in time.)
AS's second 1000 minutes with T-Mobile (bought in June): $107.40. (We hope to get this batch to last longer than three months.)
NT's late-July Net10 fillup: $32.82
NT's late-September Net10 fillup: $32.82

So our total cost so far is $447.32.

So far, if I divide our total cost by 6, our new plan has cost us $74.55 per month (our monthly average is down from $103.63 per month as calculated in July). Woo hoo! That's a $10-per-month savings over our $85 average on the T-Mobile family plan.

AS will need to fill up in October, so that average will go up again, but not much. I've used about half of my 1000 minutes and I don't need to re-up until March 2010 unless I run out of minutes before then.

(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 goal is to get my average cost below that, preferably to $50 per month, but any average number below $85 will be a savings.)

AS's next student loan payment did hit today, with $54 going to principal. (Interest rate hasn't changed yet principal went down from last month. I never understand that.) $2285 paid off for the month. My credit card payment is pending, so we'll see if it hits tomorrow, in time to get added to this month's total.

Two of our coats on eBay sold (out of six); still trying to get that shipped. I decided on FedEx Home Delivery but it turns out you need the person's phone number, so I'm waiting to see if the buyer wants to provide that. Anyway, hoping to clear about $50 after shipping and fees. That'll put our laptop fund up over $100. We'll re-list the other coats in a month or so when it's colder.

Quite busy at work again this week, even with my boss back, but I'm feeling a bit headachey and run-down. Wish I had some mindless proofreading to do, but unfortunately most of my work today requires a bit more creative involvement (copy editing and writing). Just trying to make some progress and hoping tomorrow I'll have more energy and attention. I did get my flu shot today, so maybe I'm just having a mild reaction to that.

Well, I'm afraid my 365 Days of Dinner (at least the posting on here part) may be dead in the water, since I didn't even start to catch up on it this month. But at least I met the debt-repayment, savings and tax goals.

One of AS's student loans hit, with $116 going to principal. So I surpassed the September goal of paying off $2200 by $31. We may even have some more payments hit before the end of the month: a student loan and my credit card.

I'm sitting on the couch, wishing I could have a second cup of coffee, watching The Rachel Maddow Show. Watching that terrible story about the dead census worker with "FED" allegedly scrawled on his chest. I hope it doesn't turn out to be an anti-government hate crime. There's been lots of crazy treasonous talk in some parts of the media lately that really scares me.

I woke up several times last night, so even though I got 7 or 8 hours of sleep, I feel a bit out of it.

AS is sewing a dress for a (male) friend of ours who wants to dress up like Marilyn Monroe and sing happy birthday at his friend's party tonight. NT is off to hfavorite music store with a friend, and after that they're going to pick me and AS up so we can go over to his house, hang out with him + wife & kids, go out to lunch, and take a look at a kids dresser and crib they're willing to give us if we like them. (We've actually been offered at least three cribs by various people, but this will be the first one we look at.)

AS and I surprised NT with $40 of our spending money to buy CDs. We've been wishing he had more guy friends with similar interests, like he used to in England, so we were going to give him the money and suggest he go out with this guy. Lo and behold a couple days before, they made plans to go to the music store not even knowing about our plan! LOL. But the money still surprised him. He's also been going out for bike rides with another guy friend, so that's good.

I also spontaneously treated AS and NT to dinner and a drink out last night. $60 and worth every penny. I had some unspent money from past weeks, and on the way home from work I was just so glad these two weeks without my boss were over, and thinking how we won't be able to just spontaneously go out to a bar next year , and thinking how we only ever go out to eat if other people invite us. So we went to a nice microbrewery/restaurant nearby. It was weird to be out in the city at night! So many people were out--the restaurant was packed--and I could remember when going out every weekend night, dropping a lot more than $60, was pretty much taken for granted. This was nicer because it felt special, and we really appreciated having food prepared and brought to us, and getting a chance to chat with each other for a couple hours without having chores, or cooking, or the distractions of TV or Internet.

I'm writing this on my little $150 netbook, which I bought a couple months ago because our laptop's been acting up. We've thought about getting the laptop repaired, but probably it'll be better to just get a new one. So we're slowly trying to raise $1000. NT's been doing Pinecone surveys, and we've got six coats listed on eBay. The auctions are up tomorrow. 2 don't have any watchers, so I'm not sure how we'll do, but we'll make a bit. We'll be going to the Mall of America in a couple weeks once AS gets an Old Navy gift card from MyPoints,so we'll take a necklace of hers with a tiny diamond and see if the pawn shop there will give us anything (our nearby pawn shop would only give us $30, so we want to check somewhere else first).

Our couch is now covered with a blanket because it's so threadbare and stained. AS's mom has bought us fabric, as well as some curtain fabric, but has been flaking out for 6+ months on actually mailing it. So we may buy a couch before a laptop once we raise the money; depends on which is driving us crazier. Oh, and one of the burners on our 16-year-old stove has stopped working, so that's on our radar too! LOL. Hard to know what to save up for first!

Got my first big bill from my doctor's office this week: $1012 for my first visit, blood testing and "OB contract"! Yowch! At this rate, I'll be cutting it close as to whether my remaining HSA funds plus the $100 extra I hold aside each month in checking will cover the remainder of 2009 expenses. But, we'll find the money elsewhere if we need to.

Well, I should go finish getting ready before NT and our friend come back to pick us up!

My biweekly deposit into savings hit, just $25 this time. That makes September savings $780.

I've almost but not quite written a few blog entries about various things; my supervisor has been out for two weeks and my workdays have all been constant. Usually I write my posts during down time at work. These past couple weeks I haven't had any, and when I get home I just want to turn my brain off and relax to gear up for the next day's work. But she's back Monday so some of the pressure will be off me, though I've volunteered for some writing assignments that might take up most of my downtime. The more work the better in this economy.

One bit of news is that my parents offered to pay for the three of us to visit my sister in Ohio for Thanksgiving; it will be a mini-family reunion with probably all of my sisters and most of their kids and spouses coming, as well as my parents. We decided renting a car was by far the cheapest, though NT couldn't fathom (as an Englishman) a 10-hour drive in one day, so we're also getting a hotel overnight each way. Still way cheaper than airfare. Not sure where we will all stay in my sister's house; there are three sisters plus four spouses (counting my two), 6 nieces and nephews, and my parents, and that's all in addition to my sister herself, her spouse and her four kids. Guessing some last-minute hotel arrangements are in order, but I'm not going to worry till we get closer to the time of the trip. My mom is pretty good about arranging some vegan dishes, so I'm not worried about that aspect, though I will remind her (it's been awhile since I've done Thanksgiving with extended family).

I reserved the car and hotel rooms on my credit card, and I'll just let my dad know the final cost later. I can pay off the hotel rooms before they start incurring interest; there's room in our checking account balance to float that until after Thanksgiving. The car expense won't hit the card until after we return the car.

We had a whole stupid incident where our condo association fees were seemingly processed in early September, then this week we got a mysterious direct deposit for that amount, then a couple days ago we got our October bill saying we hadn't paid September and owed a late fee! I'm still straightening that nonsense out, but the good news is our condo association management company removed the late charge without hesitation, even though part of the problem might have been that I sent the payment to an old address, not realizing they'd changed the payment address. (But then why did the check get cashed? And why the sudden re-deposit of funds in the same amount? These are the questions that drive me...crazy, so I probably will stil follow up with the mgmt place's bank to try and find out.)

Hmm...There may have been more, but I've gotta run to a dental appointment!

So many things are up in the air about employment and leave next year that it's hard to make any intelligent assessment of our potential financial situation once the baby has come.

It's nerve-wracking, not knowing how our income and expenses are going to change, because obviously we want to be able to provide for our baby, and we don't want to dig our debt hole any deeper to do so (because that wouldn't benefit baby in the long run).

We have a good feeling that AS is going to get a job with a publisher she used to work for years ago. The job would start half-time in January and go full-time in July. But of course, a good feeling is not the same as a concrete job offer. And without a job offer, we don't know what the job will pay. But based on what AS knows about the publisher's finances (which is quite a lot since she was on their board for a couple years), she thinks the lowest salary would be $30K (or $15K during the half-time period).

I found out on Thursday that my job will give me 6 weeks of disability leave at 60% pay. After that, I can take the other 6 weeks (per the FMLA 12-week allowance) first with what PTO (vacation and sick) I've accumulated at the time of the birth (probably 10+ days) and the rest unpaid (four weeks or less).

I asked my HR rep whether I could possibly take some of the leave a few days at a time; in other words, once I've recovered enough to work, I'd like to start working three days a week. AS would be home two days a week, and NT will most likely be able to take one day a week financed by his sick leave (which he never uses any of).

She said she would check with our headquarters in D.C., but that she didn't see any problem with it personally. After I left the meeting, I noticed a statement on one of the forms she gave me that intermittent leave was not available for maternity leave. But on the other hand, the HR person did say that our company is somewhat flexible. So as long as that's company policy and not a legal limitation, there's still a chance that they can make an exception.

So it's difficult to foresee what my income is going to look like after the baby is born.

But I ran some numbers making certain assumptions: 1. that AS gets the job offer at $30K; 2. that I am not allowed to take the 12 weeks intermittently, but that I am able to take my PTO two days at a time once I use up the 6 weeks disability (that would allow me to take 6 weeks off and then two days a week for the next 5 to 6 weeks. So it would still be about 12 weeks before we had to give the baby over to childcare, taking us to the beginning of June); 3. that healthcare coverage for the baby would mean an additional $150 per month, and 4. that my personal loan will be gone by March.

When I calculated our income with me at 60% and the above conditions, our budget--with no reductions in discretionary spending--would have $700 per month surplus to put toward either debt or savings (or unexpected baby expenses). When I'm back to full income, we'll have $1800 surplus.

For the month of June we'd have to add childcare expenses, which we're putting at $1200 per month (while hoping to find a better deal), so our surplus would go down to $600. But in July AS would go full-time at her job in this scenario, bringing in another $1200 per month, so our surplus would go back up to $1800.

This is quite a relief, because even if I'm off by a good deal, there's a lot of wiggle room in the budget. I hope I'm right, because that would mean we could cashflow most baby expenses without depleting the baby/emergency fund, and then use the rest to continue saving and/or paying down debt.

Of course ideally I would be allowed to take the other 3-4 weeks unpaid and intermittently and keep our baby at home for another month or two. Given the above numbers, I'm confident that I could save up enough to absorb that unpaid leave. So if I'm given that opportunity, I'd concentrate on saving during the first few months.

There are still tons of unanswered questions and plenty of uncertainty, but I feel a lot better than I did before these calculations!

My personal loan payment hit! It felt like Christmas morning when I woke up, because I'm that lame.

$1194 went to principal, making it $2115 down, $85 to go on my September debt goal. AS's student loan payment at the end of the month should wrap that up.

The personal loan is down to $4879. Barring any disasters, we should be able to pay this off by January! The worst-case scenario is that it would be paid off by May, which is still way ahead of schedule, but I really want it gone before baby gets here.

One of AS's student loans hit, with $78 going toward principal. (For a fixed-interest loan it sure seems to fluctuate, but maybe I'm checking at different times? Dunno.) $921 down, $1279 to go on the September debt goal, and we're $8 away from getting student loan debt down under $75K again, after shifting some personal-loan debt over to student loans.

Also, I finished NT's UK taxes last night! I don't know if I read them differently this year, or if it was because of changes to the tax code, but parts of it seemed a little easier. I still feel like I'm wading around in the dark, and I did have to scratch some things out when I realized I was filling in the wrong boxes, but NT pointed out that since most Brits don't file their taxes (the govt. will calculate it for them), our return was probably cleaner than a lot of the ones they get. We mail it out today.

I did some preliminary calculations on NT's UK tax return. Although we need to gather some more info, I can already tell that we're well under the tax-free allowance, so we won't be owing any taxes this year (or for years to come, I suspect). So I can now transfer the money I'd been holding in NT's checking account into his UK savings account and count that toward the baby/EF, approximately US$610. I hadn't counted on this, so I've suddenly shot past our September savings goal. $755 saved, much more than our $170 goal.

That brings the baby/emergency fund to $6177!

So I think I've whined on here before about how I've only had one raise in the three years I've been at my company, which was more than offset by changes to our healthcare and other insurance plans which have put more and more of the burden on me. Wah, wah, wah. I actually don't mind too much most of the time because I feel I get paid pretty well for just being an editor/proofreader; more than I did at my last job as a supervisor, and more than the other editor jobs I saw out there offered when I was looking for a position like this. But I've been getting my paycheck whittled down so gradually that I just now noticed a slightly irritating funfact about my pay compared to NT's.

My gross salary is $49K. NT's gross salary is $41K. We each have our own employer's health insurance because it works out slightly cheaper that way. We each get bus passes through our employer; I pay for mine but it gets deducted pretax from my paycheck, so it's a better deal. NT gets fully reimbursed for his bus pass each month. NT hardly ever needs to go to the doctor so we didn't put any money into his FSA this year; I'm prone to minor health inconveniences and plus my new high-deductible insurance is scary, so I put the maximum in my HSA (and due to my scary high-deductible insurance, it looks like I'll need every penny).

My twice-monthly paycheck nets $1,388.53. NT's twice-monthly paycheck nets $1,334.78. For those of you without a quick math brain or handy calculator, I get $53.75 more than NT twice a month, or $107.50 per month. My salary of $8,000 more per year gives me $1,290 more per year. And that's with me taking a married deduction and NT filing singly.

Let me tell you that if my job required additional hours or stress or responsibility in return for that $8K, I would be royally pissed right now. As it is, we have comparable jobs in terms of stress and hours; if anything, NT's job has more stress and stricter hours. So I'm overall pretty OK with this, but it was quite a blow to realize it just now.

Good reminder, too, to re-evaluate our healthcare options at the end of this year and make really, really sure that it wouldn't be cheaper for me to go on NT's insurance, and to look carefully into whose insurance would be cheaper to put our baby on.

***

On a different note, I've been tracking baby expenses and savings and just decided to make that a page of its own on my baby blog. While I was at it, I thought I would share my expenses so far with you guys, too. This is out-of-pocket, so I'm not counting what insurance covers, but I am counting what's reimbursed by my HSA, which is pretax so there's some savings there that I'm not calculating.

Date Type of (expense)/savings Amount
1/9/2009 Prenatal vitamins (16.10)
4/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
4/15/2009 Prenatal vitamins (24.69)
5/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
6/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
7/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
7/6/2009 Pregnancy test (6.99)
7/21/2009 Large pants (19.99)
7/30/2009 Dr. visit co-pay (10.00)
8/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
8/10/2009 Iron supplements (5.99)
8/11/2009 Iron supplements (5.49)
8/27/2009 UTI pills (10.00)
9/1/2009 No birth control $20.00
9/6/2009 Prenatal classes (155.00)
9/10/2009 OB contract pmt (127.04)

TOTAL (COST)/SAVINGS (261.29)

My regular biweekly savings deposit hit, just $25 this time since we're focused on eliminating my personal loan. $145 saved, $25 to go on my savings goal for the month.

NT got another student-loan refund check, just $250 this time. Once again we shifted that money into paying down the personal loan, which is now down to $6,073, with another big payment (actually coming from cash, not debt shifting) coming next week. Unfortunately it did push our education debt back up over $75,000, but AS's student loan payments will bring it back under that number by the end of the month.

So far we've used $5301 of NT's student loans to pay down the personal loan. Since A) his loans are lower-interest, B) the interest is tax-deductible and C) we don't have regular payments on them (just interest a couple times a year), it makes sense for baby planning to work on this other loan first, which is higher-interest and has a fixed $623 monthly payment until it's paid off. And NT has by far the highest (i.e., positive) individual net worth of our household, so it can take the hit and he's still in a good place.

Had my 14.5-week appointment today and got to hear the heartbeat again! She didn't linger on it; just checking to make sure it was still there, but it was nice to hear for a second anyway. Our ultrasound is 4 weeks away and we're all going to that appointment for sure! The screening for potential issues is in two weeks, and I'm a little nervous about that, but so far I've had a better-than-textbook pregnancy, so I'm also optimistic.

We did really well moneywise on our vacation. I allocated $138 for gas and $740 for misc. spending, so $878 total. We spent about $121 on gas, and upon coming home Saturday we found we'd spent about $687 of our spending money. Well, we were technically still on vacation until today, so we got takeout from our favorite Vietnamese restaurant for dinner Saturday ($37), and I also paid our State Fair entry fees on Monday from the money budgeted ($33). So we ended up spending $878, exactly what had been allocated for the gas and spending money! We also each spent most of our weekly spending money on vacation, so actual vacation spending was higher than that, but I'm only concerned whether we spent any money we didn't have. And we didn't, so hooray!

We had a great, relaxing time. Both areas were very pretty with lots to do. We ate out a few times, walked around Madison, went to an extremely odd tourist attraction called House on the Rock, (NT) went kayaking and snorkeling, toured a lighthouse, took a ferry, cooked out on a grill most nights, drove around looking at scenery, played minigolf a few times, bowled, read and played board games, and bought tons of souvenirs. Best of all, most of the souvenirs were food, so the enjoyment will continue as we slowly eat our way through them! Door County is known for its cherries and other fruit, so we bought fresh cherries, cherry pie filling, cherry salsa, cherry butter, cherry beer, a cherry pitter, cherry-nut bread mix, cherry cider, and possibly something I forget right now. We also bought fresh peaches and a spiced apple wine. One of the small towns in Door County had a store that sold only items imported from Britain, so we bought a number of NT's favorite snacks and foods that he can't find here. High prices but well worth it to us! Mostly candy and other treats, but we did get some vegetarian haggis that will form the basis for a meal.

Deck of 1st cottage (near Madison, Wis.):


One crazy image from House on the Rock (you have to go there to believe it, but wear comfy shoes--it takes 3 hours minimum to walk through it--and be prepared for the weirdest place on earth):


2nd cottage (Door County) (AS & me sitting out front):


Lighthouse (AS & me standing in front):


On a pier in Door County (NT & me looking over edge):


All our souvenirs (most of them edible):

All our mortgage payments and my credit card payment hit while we were on vacation:
US: $283 to principal
UK1: $253
UK2: $53
UK3: $56
CC: $198

All told, we paid off $843 of debt, so we have $1357 still to go on the September goal.

I also transferred $120 into savings for AS's retirement. So just $50 still to go on our very modest September savings goal.

You probably wouldn't notice this, but my new current debt totals show a lower credit card/personal debt and higher student loan debt. That's because the remaining student loan money from last semester, which we were unable to apply to summer tuition, just came to us anyway in the form of a check! So I decided to apply it to my higher-interest personal loan, which I'm trying to pay off before the baby comes in order to eliminate that $623 monthly payment.

So I was able to transfer $1777 of personal debt over to education debt. It doesn't decrease our debt total, but it does take the personal loan down to $6323 and our technical CC/personal debt total to $24,107.

I already know some of my September payments have hit, so I want to get the goals written quickly so I can report progress!

1. Debt: Pay off at least $2200 of debt.
Balance as of 9/6: $391,677
Goal balance: $389,477
Progress: $0 down, $2200 to go

2. Savings: Save at least $170 ($120 for AS retirement; 50$ for EF)
Progress: $0 saved

3. Creative/crafts: Catch up on food photos.

4. Other: Do NT's UK taxes.

My savings goal is much lower than usual because I'm not going to put any of NT's flat-rental income into savings until I know whether we owe taxes in the UK. Hopefully not, but I'll have to see once I do his taxes.

Well, I've got quite a lot of catching up to do! Since our vacation happened to land on the cusp of a new month, I wasn't able to post end-of-month results or September goals.

Our final August payment, one of AS's student loans, hit. $58 went to principal, so we exceeded our $1600 goal, paying down $1657 of debt.

Savings was the only other goal I succeeded at, saving $1251 total. I didn't get to NT's UK taxes, so I'll have to try again in September.

September goals entry coming up soon, and at some point I'll do an entry on vacation spending.

Today was my biweekly deposit into savings, and I put $306 to the baby/emergency fund (which is now at $5542). Speaking of the EF, remember when I had to use about $900 of it to pay NT's tuition? Well, thanks to budget cuts, I've been able to replace those funds incrementally. It's all back in the savings account except for $275, which will be replaced by mid-September at the latest.

But back to my August goal: That makes $1251 saved, so I surpassed my goal of $1200.

My only other goal besides debt and savings, to finish the UK taxes, won't get done, unfortunately. I was mentally ready this weekend but couldn't find most of the necessary paperwork. AS found it this week, but I won't get a chance to do it before our vacation. So, I'll move that goal to September and definitely finish it up then (since they're due in early October).

OK, I checked AS's student loan account right before bed, because I'm not sure how busy it's going to be at work tomorrow. It hit, with $116 going to principal. Unbelievable: That makes $1599 down, $1 to go on my August debt-repayment goal!

AS has one more student loan due this month; however, that automated bill payment system isn't always super prompt,

I think I've bought many things for over $500, but not many have tipped the scales into $1K territory. For being 36 and a former disorganized spender, I think this is a pretty modest list.
Physical things:
Condo $207K
Treadmill $1K
Table $1K+
Entertainment center $1K
Computer $1K
Laptop $1K+

Nonphysical:
NT Bachelor's $45K (estimated future total)
AS Bachelor's $25K (guess)
AS Master's $15K
My Bachelor's $15K
UK vacation $7K
Vegas vacation $5K
Va/Md/WV/DC vacation $4K
Wisconsin vacation $3K

Of course, NT bought a flat and a couple cars and probably some other things for more than $1K before we met, but I have no idea what they were and how many.

I don't think AS and I ever spent more than $1K on a vacation before NT moved in, because it was airfare for two, they were shorter trips, and we would cheap out on redeye flights and Priceline hotels. We may have spent $1K+ on our first trip to see NT while dating, because we kinda went all out on food, drinks and presents.

The only two appliances I've had to buy so far, dishwasher and fridge, each came in under $1K.

I never bought my own car (dad bought me two used and gifted me another of his which he had bought used), and my parents paid for our $2K+ wedding.

That's it, as far as I can remember. Overall, it seems we spend more on experiences (education and vacation) than toys! This experience of having a baby is probably going to make this list soon...

I'm kidding, of course. But I feel like we finally saw some kind of benefit from all the financial turmoil swirling around.

We just got notice of what our mortgage (an ARM) is going to reset to starting Nov. 1. It started at 5.0%, then reset for the first time in 2008 to 5.75%. This November, it's going to reset to 3.875%!

Last time it adjusted slightly before it actually hit, but that was an adjustment downward. Hopefully they wouldn't adjust upward after telling me the rate.

Our payment is changing from $1445.01 to $1256.24. That extra money is going straight to principal on our personal loan. With nothing going wrong for the rest of the year, we could have the loan balance at $4000 by mid-December!

Today I'm at 12 weeks in my pregnancy! Yippee! I feel so much more relaxed about my prospects, though I know it's never a sure thing. Also my vague dislike of food is waning and my energy steadily returning.

Vacation starts Saturday! Actually, I took Friday off as well, just to putter around getting ready with no hurry. Some friends are having a BBQ Friday too, which will be a nice way to see some folks before we leave for a week.

We're leaving Saturday morning, stopping off in Wisconsin Dells for lunch (no waterparking, though we'll probably be able to see some of the more impressive rides from the highway) and arriving at our first cottage in the late afternoon. We're staying on Lake Kegonsa, about 20 minutes outside of Madison. I've done research on veggie-friendly restaurants in Madison and we'll probably check out a few, but we'll also have a charcoal grill (a rare and decadent treat) at the cottage and will want to grill some as well. We'll try to take a day trip out to see the House on the Rock, a crazy funhouse/museum built by an eccentric and prominently featured in the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

We're staying three nights, then heading out next Tuesday morning and driving about four hours to a cottage in Ephraim, a small town on the Door County peninsula. We'll be there for four nights, and might take a ferry, go minigolfing, rent bikes...whatever takes our fancy. We'll probably mostly cook there, but I did find one veggie-friendly restaurant a town over that we can check out if we feel like it.

We'll get back to Minneapolis next Saturday night, and head over to a friend's birthday party (he's visiting from New York, so we really hope we're not too tired). Then, Sunday or Monday, we'll go stuff our faces and look at crafts at the State Fair.

I've already transferred the money from savings into checking. We're down to $740 spending money because of furloughs and tuition, but I have high hopes that it'll be plenty for whatever we want to do, since we'll be cooking some and using the grocery budget for that. We'll each have our $60 spending money for the week too, so that will help.

I got a glimpse into how expensive this pregnancy is going to be on my high-deductible insurance; my first visit is going to cost me over $500. Hopefully some of the visits will be cheaper than that, but I bet the ultrasound one is going to be nuts. I have about $650 in checking and $630 in my HSA, with $250 more going into the HSA each month. So this first visit's going to cut that money nearly in half. Well, the EF is there if I need it, though I hope it doesn't come to that.

I've been keeping a spreadsheet of baby expenses and savings. (The savings is $20 each month that I don't have to spend on birth control pills.) Thus far I'm actually in the black, though of course when that $500+ bill comes I'll be permanently in the red from then on. Still, I think it'll be a great exercise in considering each purchase and deciding if we need it for my or our baby's well-being. We'll be taking any handouts from our friends and seeing how much we can get second-hand.

NT had three $3 Pinecone surveys recently and I got a $7 rebate in the mail. I've put those toward the personal loan payment going out in September.

We're nearly a month behind on 365 Days of Dinner! I'm hoping AS or NT will do an entry or two for me, just to get me back on track. I feel more able to do the entries since I'm not as nauseous about food, but I feel overwhelmed by how many days there are to do. So don't be surprised if you see a guest post from one of my spouses sometime soon!

One of AS's student loans hit, and $79 went to principal. $1483 down, $117 to go. It's going to be a bit of a squeeze with the current scheduled payments, but I think we'll make our goal, probably right on the 31st.

And we hit a pleasant little milestone, with AS's total student loan debt dipping below $30,000 to $29,946! She has two degrees to show for that debt, so I think it's not too bad. Once I get out of CC debt and debt to my dad, AS's student loans will be my next target, but it's looking like that won't be for a couple years now.