First things first: savings
$25 went toward savings today. I'm putting it into the birthdays fund. So far, that's $50 saved this month, with $1500 needed to reach my goal. It sounds like a long way to go, but I actually have most of the money needed in checking right now. But I don't feel comfortable putting it into savings until we know if or when AS will be getting regular unemployment, so for now it's parked in the checking account. I don't want to call it my emergency fund only to have to use it right away, so right now it's nothing.

Unemployment, health insurance and severance pay
So what progress have we made on the "three-legged stool" that will make AS's temporary unemployment manageable? Some, but the outcome is the same as it was last time I wrote: We still have no unemployment pay coming in, no health insurance (AS is uninsured as of 12/31/08), and no severance pay. She did get compensated for unused vacation time this week, which I hadn't figured into my budget, so at least we're no longer looking to be in the red due to the severance problem. But the three main matters remain unresolved.

Tomorrow marks the end of the fifth week in the "3 to 5 weeks" unemployment is supposed to take to get straightened out. AS has been applying every week, and theoretically she has about three weeks of pay waiting for the red tape to go away. If there isn't a direct deposit tomorrow, she's going to call them again. There are some confusing elements involved that I won't go into, but I'm hoping the only issue is a backlog of new applicants and that we'll see the money tomorrow.

We sent a new application for health insurance and got confirmation they received it the first week of January. They could take "up to 30 days" to approve it, so we're looking at early February being the soonest we can start to bug them. Sigh. This really stresses me out. She's got enough prescription refills to last, but I'm not sure how much that medicine is going to cost without insurance. I'm kind of glad AS has been staying in most days, because it's icy and cold and crazy out there and I could just imagine some accident setting us back, well, our whole lives with a whopping hospital bill. But if we sign up for COBRA it's just going to complicate the application that's out there, so we're leaving as is for now.

And the severance pay? Well, she e-mailed her boss pleading not to deny her severance because she'd missed one tiny little line requiring her to go get an extra form that she was not readily provided. Her boss e-mailed back that she wasn't aware AS was even eligible for severance pay. The next step is going to be e-mailing central HR and explaining that, with her boss not knowing she was getting any, she was not given any guidance about the extra form and thus shouldn't be penalized. But NT and I are basically going to have to write that e-mail for her because she has pretty much given up and decided nothing is going to work. NT and I will write it tonight, hopefully, and get AS to send it out.

Bills that have gone up
We got off pretty easy this year, with cable going up about $1.50 and condo assocation dues about $40. I was hoping our mortgage bill would go down because of a reduction in property tax, but no dice. Well, at least it didn't go up.

Sales on half.com
We've been selling NT's books from last semester and making some pretty good money: nearly $200. I took DisneySteve's advice and repriced some stuff that had been hanging around for a while, and a couple things actually sold! If AS's unemployment works out like we hope, I will put all the half.com profits into savings to cover fall '09 semester textbooks.

Survey checks
Just got a $5 check from Synovate, and there should be $10 and $31 in the mail, eventually. These things take so long that I always forget about them before they actually get here. The big check is for Inbox Dollars, but as soon as I get the check I'm canceling that account. It took me over 2 years of clicking on 3-cent e-mails (plus 1 or 2 surveys and some bonus money for joining) to reach that amount. Not worth it.

Suze's book
I haven't read very far in Suze's free ebook yet, but I uploaded it to my Google Documents so I can access it from anywhere. I doubt I'll be able to act on much of what she says since I'm still in the paying-down-CC-debt stage, but I've never read a money advice book, so I'm looking forward to it.

Free advice day Jan. 30
I missed the first one Tuesday, but there is one more chance that I hope I don't forget about!

"On Friday, January 30th from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time, NAPFA members across the country will be standing by to answer your financial questions. Normally these Fee-Only planners, well versed in investments, taxes, insurance, estate planning, and saving for college and retirement, charge clients $150 to $300 an hour. But, during Jump-Start Days, their expertise is free.
"Just dial toll-free 888-919-2345 or log on to www.kiplinger.com/links/jumpstart/ anytime from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern Time on January 30th to participate in an online discussion with an advisor."

I'm dying to ask someone (for free) where the best place to park my retirement contributions is, considering I'm likely to retire in England.

Thinking about taxes
I have no idea what taxes are going to look like. Last year NT and I owed and AS had a refund coming, and we pretty much broke even. But I didn't like owing so I altered my withholding, but didn't have AS alter hers because with all this free tuition, some of it taxable income, and knowing she would be quitting (which turned into a layoff), I didn't know what her taxes were going to look like. I just hope we at least break even. I feel like too many things are variable from year to year to really fine-tune my taxes so I don't owe but don't withhold too much.

This year on the UK condo, we actually posted a tiny net profit (last year was a loss), but it was below the taxable threshold after the standard deduction (or whatever the equivalent is in UK terms), so I think I don't have to worry about declaring it on my U.S. taxes. I think. I hope. Mostly because it's mind-bogglingly complicated and I will have to hire a pro when that income finally grows to the point where I have to declare it on my U.S. taxes. If anyone knows that I should be declaring it this year, let me know. It's very hard to find layman's advice on these subjects.

Phew! Felt good to unload all the random money subjects that have been on my mind lately.

Worked out on the Wii Fit today! Halfway through the challenge, so I'm on target to do 10 workouts this month. 5 down, 5 to go.

Tonight, I finally buckled down and washed the pile of bags that I got behind on over the holidays.

I washed 27 Ziploc and produce bags and hung them up to dry. It feels good because we just ran out of Ziplocs, but now we won't have to buy any more, at least for a while.

Good to get one goal completely out of the way, especially the most tedious one.

I worked out yesterday (Friday) on the Wii Fit (unlocked some slightly harder levels), so that's 4 down, 6 to go on my fitness goal.

No progress on the other goals, but I'm hoping to do some of the bag-washing and rug-mending tomorrow (Sunday).

I did take pictures of dinner yesterday and today, but I'm too sleepy to upload them, so I'll do that tomorrow as well.

Based on the exchange rate NT and I got on a small check the other day, I did a quick calculation of our debt and assets. Per my previous entry I am NOT changing my records to reflect this, since A) It would wipe out all meaningful signs of progress and B) The exchange rate could easily fluctuate that much again.

That said, I was really curious. I knew our net worth would go way down because NT is responsible for our having a positive net worth at all, and most of his assets are in England.

Here are the totals:

Assets in my normal 2/1 ratio calculations: $492,570
Asset value at today's exchange rate: $383,069

Debt in my normal calculations: $409,086
Debt at today's exchange rate: $363,725

Net worth last time I calculated it: $81,526
Net worth at today's exchange rate: $19,344

And NT's individual net worth goes down from well over $100K to $68,822.

Weird...seeing my debt magically go down by $45,361 is kind of cool, though meaningless. And that whole under-$400K thing achieved in one neat math trick!

Now, back to my way of calculating things, and not another word about this!

I've been thinking about this for a while, but it just recently hit home enough to blog about it: the pounds-to-dollars exchange rate. When I first started tracking all of our debts and assets--NT's UK stuff included--the exchange rate was something like 1 British pound = 2 U.S. dollars. It fluctuated a lot, but it stayed close enough to that, and that was a handy ratio to make calculations easy.

NT just deposited a check into our U.S. account from a UK CC company for GBP 5.26. When the deposit went through, it came to $6.67. I knew the exchange rate had changed a lot, but I didn't realize it was now 1 pound = $1.26!

It makes me wonder if I should change my debt and net income sheets to reflect this. It would mean a lot less debt and a lot less assets when converted to U.S. dollars. On the other hand, if I switch everything over, in effect I lose the satisfaction of steady progress, and being able to see where I came from. The same thing happened when I used some excess student loan money that was refunded, and put it toward a personal loan instead of toward student loan debt. It was slightly beneficial financially, saving me a few bucks a month in interest and getting me months closer to paying off my higher-interest loan. But at the same time, it wiped away some of the joy I was taking in the progress on my "Big-Picture Goal," because it got artificially much closer to success, something my OCD brain can't keep from mentioning every time I talk about it now.

So I guess I will keep all my spreadsheet data as is, but maybe I will do a side calculation just to satisfy my curiosity about what our debt and net worth totals are at today's exchange rate.

I worked out 33 minutes on the Wii last night, so that's 3 down, 7 to go on the January fitness goal.

I posted a notice in both break rooms at work for people to bring me their eyeglasses by Jan. 30. I did some research and found a charitable organization affiliated with LensCrafters that takes donations, so you can just drop them off at the nearest LensCrafters. It's called Give the Gift of Sight if you want to check it out. NT also posted the notice in his job's break rooms and told a couple of work friends about it.

And on a 365-days-of-dinner-related note, a co-worker just followed me back to my desk after she smelled my reheated cottage pie! So I e-mailed her the recipe (which is posted in my original Jan. 6 entry, by the way).

We all did Wii Fit for 30 minutes last night again! I did a little better on some of the exercises, although I'm predictably hopeless at the balance games, which are closer to regular video games except you use the weight of your body instead of a controller. I can feel some muscle soreness in my belly, arms and a bit in my legs, so I can tell it's working something, although I don't really sweat much since we take turns and there are short breaks while you start up a new exercise.

That's 2 workouts down, 8 to go on my January fitness goal.

I asked AS for some guidance on mending the rag rug, and it sounds fairly straightforward (good because I am very rusty on my needle skills). The one thing she said is it's hard on your back, because you want to keep it on the floor so it maintains its shape, which means you're constantly bending over. So I'd better get going on it, giving myself enough time to do it in short spurts with frequent breaks!

And with the glasses collecting, I just need to make up a notice that I can post in my work (and have NT send out at his). I got some glasses just by a friend mentioning it to another friend, so I'm sure there are others who have old pairs lying around.

And the plastic bags just need about 20 minutes of my time to wash and hang out to dry. We've still been really good about not getting new bags at the store, but I really need to get these produce bags washed so we can reuse them.

I planned to work out last night anyway. Then, at lunch, NT and I cruised the video-games aisle at Target as we do at least once a week, to see if the Wii Fit is in stock. We've been looking for it since May when we tried it out in England at our friends' house.

Yesterday, it was in stock! We immediately purchased it with gift cards from Xmas, and so last night we all worked out on the Wii, 30 minutes each.

Of course, the 30 minutes were really stretched out, because we were learning the different games and taking turns. But I still got a mild workout from it, especially considering I haven't worked out in months. I think the lunges and pushups are going to be felt in my muscles by tonight or tomorrow morning. So that's one workout down, nine to go on my December goal!

All our mortgage payments hit: $552 went toward principal. Nice surprise amount--NT's UK mortgages went down about $40 more than expected.

So that's $779 down, $721 to go on the January debt-repay goal.

Well, we had a good New Year's eve and day despite the bad news yesterday. We're determined to pursue the money but not to let it get to us whatever the outcome.

Anyway, my credit card payment hit, so the first step on one of my goals was accomplished. $227 down, $1273 to go on my debt-repayment goal.

Also, $25 was transferred into savings. I'm putting that toward the birthday fund, so it's $25 down, $325 to go on that fund, $1525 to go on January savings overall.

No progress on the other goals, except I did collect a few pairs of eyeglasses from the friends who hosted New Year's Eve last night.

The ongoing saga of AS's layoff--who knew it would be such a drama?

First off, she got rejected for the private health care she applied for, because she's "high-risk" due to her high blood pressure. Um, OK, if a 29-year-old with high blood pressure that is well-managed with medication is high-risk, I can't imagine what at least a quarter of the U.S. population is considered..."imminent corpses"? So she's working on applying for a Minnesota insurance for high-risk applicants. We're hoping she does not have to resort to COBRA, which will eat up about half of her unemployment pay (before copays and deductibles).

Then, today her last paycheck was about $400 less than I expected. She checked and found out that her week of severance pay wouldn't come till next pay period. No problem. Then she did some further digging and found out that, because she hadn't signed some line on her final layoff forms, and gone to get another set of forms, she had basically waived her right to severance pay! Huh? And no one noticed this slight clerical error and gave her a chance to rectify it, and now it's too late because it needed to be done on the last day of employment.

Needless to say I'm livid, and I'm trying to make her push for her severance pay. After all, this office has not stood on ceremony (e.g., basic legal employer procedure) for most other things in this layoff process--why be picky about the process now? Besides, who the fuck ever heard of a company letting you go without severance, and not helping you through the process and ensuring you would get severance? It's insane that no one noticed--it's a big college, but her department was tiny.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. If we can't get this resolved, chances are I will miss my first savings goal of the New Year. Not the end of the world, but extremely aggravating and disheartening. Poor AS. This process has been a bigger clusterfuck than any of us could have predicted. Let's hope at least the unemployment pay comes in without a hitch--so far two of the three big financial pieces of this puzzle (severance pay and health care) are still in red-tape hell.

OK, here's my first attempt to do a month of multiple goals, per my New Year's resolution. The goals have to be in each of six categories:

1. DEBT. Pay off at least $1,500
Balance as of 12/30: $409,865
Goal balance: $408,365

2. SAVINGS. Save at least $1,550: $1,200 for the baby/emergency fund, $350 for the birthdays fund.
EF balance: $33.18; Goal balance: 1233.18
BD balance: $0; Goal balance: $350.00

3. HEALTH/FITNESS. Work out at least 10 times.

4. GREEN. Catch up on washing/reusing produce bags, ziplocs and plastic bags (I have a big stack of produce bags that need washing out; I've fallen down a bit during the holidays).

5. CRAFTS/CREATIVITY. Mend our rag rug. Get AS to show me how.

6. PHILANTHROPY. Collect unused eyeglasses and donate to Lions Club or some other charity. I have two pairs I've been meaning to donate somewhere, and I want to see if I can gather some more from work and friends and make one big donation.

Wow, my sidebar is going to get a lot longer with all this!

I looked back at my past months' results and calculated that we paid off $35,122 in total debt this year. From looking at my CC debt in the sidebar, you would think $32,995 of it was credit card/personal debt. However, $4,274 was transferred from the CC category to the education category as I used excess student loan money to pay down my personal loan, thus increasing education debt and reducing CC/personal.

In reality, I paid off $28,721 in CC debt and $6,401 in mortgage and/or education debt.

I won't be paying off that much in 2009, I don't think; if I pay minimums only, we'll pay off about $18,000. But there will still be a couple of exciting milestones: Our CC debt will at least get below $30K, and our total debt should get down below $400,000 within seven months. If I figure worst-case scenario, those are the only two biggies that will happen in '09. However, that's not to say things won't turn around at some point during the year.

OK, I'm just babbling sleepily now. Time to watch a bit of TV and then get into bed!

I just put a cashier's check for $1000 in the mail to my dad. I know I should wait till it's in his hands, but I really want to reach my December goal, so I'm considering that a payment made!

My December goal was to pay $2536 by Wednesday, and I've paid $2671. Even better, I've now paid my dad exactly half what he loaned me for the condo--$6000 out of $12000. I'll try not to take another 5 years paying off the second half!

That's my last payment of the month and the year, so I'll be posting my January goals soon. My New Year's resolution was to have goals in other categories besides just debt repayment, so it might take me a couple days to figure out what I want to accomplish and put it all into words. I've been so happy and distracted by the holidays that I haven't really thought seriously about it yet.

$99 to principal on one of AS's student loans. That's $1671 down, $865 to go on the December goal.

Having a nice relaxing day at home, balancing the books and drinking coffee. A payment went to the UK credit card: US$80 to principal. $1572 down, $964 to go on the December goal.

I was going to go mail my payment to my dad today, but I don't have anything else to do until later, so I'm just going to mail it Monday. That way it'll still count for December and I'll reach my goal.

My parents sent boxes of gifts and were way generous as usual, so I guess the recession isn't hurting them too bad. I realized that they probably sent the three of us enough in Xmas gifts, gift cards and money to about cancel out the check I'm sending to them. Oh well. I didn't get them Xmas gifts, just sent a card, but NT decided that with part of his bonus we should get flowers or something else nice for each of our families, so I ordered a really nifty birdseed wreath to be delivered on New Year's Eve. They have several birdbaths and bird feeders, so hopefully they'll like it. My dad's diabetic and not really into flowers, so it was the one thing that grabbed me on the FTD site.

Hope everyone's week has been great so far! We went to our friends' place for Christmas Eve, and a few other people came over as well. We fixed Japanese and traditional holiday treats and drank sake, and our friend read aloud a David Sedaris essay about Xmas in Norway.

Xmas day was really mellow, just lots of opening presents and then playing around with said presents. We'd picked up a vegan roast from Whole foods and made some mashed potatoes, stuffing and vegan green-bean casserole to go with it.

I have today off, and AS doesn't have a job anymore, so we're both home. Ironically, NT, the lone person used to getting Boxing Day off, has to work, but with any luck he'll get out early. This afternoon/evening we're going out for drinks with some friends, so I don't know if we'll cook the dinner we planned or end up getting some carryout food somewhere. We've got plenty of spending money right now, so it's an option.

Oh, and we booked our Vegas trip (flight and hotel) for March! Woo hoo! With those parts out of the way, we can plan the rest of the trip at our leisure over the next few months.

NT got some more money recently (he's my golden goose!), from England this time. US$40 from his aunt and uncle, and an FYI from his mom that his gran had deposited 750 pounds in his UK bank account. We are doing great over there--we have enough in the checking account to cover 4 months of UK bills. This extra money will take care of the 999-year land lease we have to buy next year, as well as those months when management fees get taken out of his rental income. That means we won't have to send a penny over for the forseeable future. (Remember when I had to send thousands over, at $50 a pop?)

We are telling gran her gift is going into the baby fund, because essentially it is--now we know that every extra cent we make here in the U.S. can go toward baby. I always had it in the back of my mind that I was going to have to deal with that lease, but now I know I won't!

OK, I've put this off long enough. I've decided that I can't see far enough into the future to see what I'll be capable of in the upcoming year, but I know what areas of my life need goals. My monthly debt repayment goals have really helped me focus on something that needs ongoing commitment, so I'm going to try that with other self-improvement projects that also need constant focus to keep going strong.

So for each of the following areas, I'm going to post a goal at the beginning of each month and a result at the end. It might be something small or large depending on the circumstances of that particular month.

1. Continue to pay off at least the required minimum amount of debt.

2. Start saving money in a baby/emergency/eventual-debt-repay fund.

3. Pay attention to health and fitness.

4. Become more green and reduce my footprint.

5. Be more craftsy or creative: Learn new skills or start and complete new projects using existing talents.

6. Be more philanthropic; try to do things for the good of others.

Christmas came early this year for us! Well, a few days early anyway.

First, AS applied for unemployment, and they gave her an estimate for her weekly payment. It's about $75 more per week than I thought! Then I realized that I was calculating based on her net income, which usually has retirement, health insurance and bus pass taken out. So we're looking at nearly $300 per month more than expected. That's really great! I'm hoping I also overestimated the dent my new, more expensive healthcare will put in my own paycheck, but I won't find that out till Jan. 15. That's OK, $300 is quite enough to play with! $120 will go toward AS's third student loan, but that doesn't start till March. Looks like the baby fund will be getting a little infusion of cash, and I think I'll set aside some for AS's retirement too, so she's not missing out on contributing just because she's unemployed.

Also, NT's bonus came in. Now, my company gave us a $100 gift card, and I was happy to get it considering the state of the economy. We knew NT's company did quite a bit better and that he'd be getting about $4,000, or maybe $2700 after taxes. Well, it turns out they decided to give him $6000, so we cleared $3957 after taxes!

I'm garnishing $2300 of that to make sure our Vegas trip is fully funded, but I'm not going to fight NT for the remaining $1657. He's been looking so forward to this bonus, and he's worked damn hard this year: 40+ hours at work plus 4 nights of classes + homework. And he still does some of the chores, despite my best efforts to stop him. Anyway, I have a feeling some of that money's gonna benefit me one way or another, knowing his generosity. So I'm quite happy for it all to be mad money. With AS's unemployment being so much, my budget has plenty for me to use for more-practical purposes.

AS and I are racing to get her health insurance settled before Jan. 1, because her work insurance only lasts through the end of December. If we don't get there, we'll either try and get COBRA set up for a month, or I'll strap pillows on all her limbs and make her sit perfectly still until we get her covered again.

So I started this journey in July 2007 with $457,714 [EDIT $459,388; my initial tally back in '07 must have been a little off, because I've been scrupulous about tracking debt paid and debt remaining, and those add up to this amount] in current and anticipated debt. And I've paid off $48,344 since then. I've been keeping an eye on the total amount so I could celebrate passing the $50,000 mark, but I just realized another milestone that I actually passed in November and didn't even notice: we've paid off more than 10% of our entire debt!

Could I really have missed that? I looked through my November entries and don't see mention of it, so I guess it escaped my notice.

Someone (creditcardfree, maybe?) posted recently about how it's important to note these little steps. And since our debt repayment is going to go way slower for an indefinite time period, I'll celebrate anything that helps me keep my enthusiasm up.

Personal loan payment hit, with $523 going to principal. That's $1,492 down, $1,044 to go on my December goal. I will mail my dad's check out after Christmas (per his request, to avoid mail rush) and then I have a student loan payment for AS and a credit card payment for NT near the end of the month, so I should surpass easily. Yay! Since I've decided to continue my challenges right to the end of the month, even if I hit my goal before then, I won't post my final results till New Year's Eve.

Still considering what I want to do for my New Year's resolutions. Since monthly debt payoff challenges have worked so well to keep me focused in that area, I'm thinking about creating monthly fitness and environmental challenges as well. I might make that my resolution, rather than specific measurements, since it's really an unpredictable year I'm facing (exciting, but not good for making specific resolutions ). But, I've still got a little time to think it over.

AS just asked me an interesting question. She wondered how optimistic (or despairing) frugal people are about the future (economic and quality-of-life-wise and existence-of-country-wise) of the U.S.

I told her personally I was 95% confident that the U.S. would continue in some form or another, that our self-interest as a country would save us, but that I wasn't confident our home or retirement investments would end up being worth anything, and that we might not be retiring, like, ever. But I don't think we'll be foraging for food in the city park, or be wiped out by mass starvation and hunger.

Without straying into partisan tirades on either side, what do you think are the best- and worst-case outcomes of our current financial distress?

OK, it's 2 a.m. here and I should be asleep. It's rare I stay up past midnight, but AS and I were completing some craft projects as gifts for NT's family. She made bath "tea bags," taco seasoning blend, lemon and orange flavored sugar, some sugar and salt bath scrubs, and monogrammed hankies for NT's dad. I made candied ginger, some ginger-scented sugar with the remainder in the pan, and the labels and instructions for all the containers. Now I'm trying to relax so I can get sleepy. I'm going to be dead tomorrow! I hope it's an easy day at work.

Anyway, I checked AS's student loan account, and the payment finally hit. $55 went to principal, so that's $969 down, $1567 to go in my December goal. I've realized I can't pay my dad $1000 until the 15th, and that's about when a couple other payments hit, so I probably won't see any movement on my goal till then.

So I've recently decided to stop focusing on extra debt repay in the new year and try to save up emergency fund/baby fund money instead.

Question for those of you who already have emergency funds: How do you calculate a month's expenses? I went through much more of a thought process than I expected to when setting up my amount:

- I figured I could drop my cable and Internet with no penalty, but it would cost so much to cancel our three cell phones that it would be less financial stress to keep them going in an emergency, and I'm already at the cheapest family plan I could find.

- I dropped all fun money categories except $20 per week per person, knowing that in extreme privation we could of course drop that too.

- I was going to slash our rather extravagant household/grocery expense category a lot, but then I figured there was a chance I'd be expecting or have a child, so I couldn't have too little in that category. I took it down from $900 to $600.

- Two of the student loans are government issued, and I know from experience that you can get those deferred fairly easily in times of financial woe, so I cut those out of the emergency expenses.

- Our condo costs nearly $2000 per month between mortgage and association dues (which include utilities), and I know I could rent an adequate place in our neighborhood for half that. However, the financial ruin it would cause to walk away from the place or try to sell it in a way-down market makes me think I should factor in those costs and try to keep the place in an emergency. For this same reason I decided I would keep homeowner's insurance if possible.

- One of our bus passes is free due to work and school, and two of them we get at a reduced rate. But assuming a true emergency would mean none of us could work (and we'd want to drop school so as not to incur further debt), I had to add $85 per person to the budget for monthly bus passes, so we could all get around during our imagined emergency.

- I was going to cut out barber completely, until I realized that we would be looking for work and need to look at least passable. So I thought maybe one of us could skip the barber each month, and I allocated $40 instead of $60 per month.

- If none of us could work, we'd need to purchase health insurance. I decided to allocate $1200 for that, because AS applied for health insurance recently and it will cost $400 per month to pay the $100 fee and save up enough money to cover the annual deductible. Of course best-case scenario we wouldn't go through the entire deductible, but this year has taught me you can't assume that just because you think you're healthy.

So all told, a month of emergency expenses would be $5,451.43. Yikes, it will take a while just to save one month's worth. I could probably get it down more if NT and I could find health insurance together and if I spent less on grocery/household expenses. But that is my best estimate. Here's the breakdown if anyone is interested in the details, and feel free to give your opinion (I'm new to figuring this sort of thing out):

Monthly expenses need for emergency fund (estimated)
Set aside for Nationwide annual bill ($240 on Feb. 26) -$20.00
Bus passes (3 @ $85) -$255.00
Cell phones -$83.00
Personal loan -$622.67
Spending money -$65.00
16th-31st groceries/household -$300.00
Spending money -$65.00
Barber -$40.00
Health care -$1,200.00
Mortgage -$1,436.03
1st-15th groceries/household -$300.00
Spending money -$65.00
AS student loan #1 -$64.08
Credit card -$275.00
Condo association -$548.64
Spending money -$65.00
NT student loan -$47.01
TOTAL -$5,451.43

EDIT: I'm still considering what my goals should be, but one thing I did accomplish was cut spending money and reduce grocery money in my emergency budget, so I've got it down to $4,991.43.

The last few days I've been spending money by the boatload! It's all planned, allocated spending and/or use of my own spending money, but it's kind of amazing how much I've gone through.

I spent over $300 on Xmas gifts for AS and NT, mostly online.

I bought about $150 worth of books for NT's next semester (saving over $100 off full-price books, woo hoo!).

Our grocery shopping, which usually runs about $125 for the main Saturday trip, was up closer to $200. But we were gathering supplies for a bunch of homemade gifts for family and friends, so really a cheap price considering how many people we'll be able to make gifts for with it.

And I bought $25 shoes and $10 double-sided clothing tape for NT's holiday party. AS made me a gorgeous strapless dress, and I wanted to make sure it had some help staying up!




So a very "spendy" week, but nothing I didn't have money for, so I guess I feel pretty good about it! Plus, it's going to be exciting when all the packages from my online ordering start rolling in.

Oh, and a follow-up to the last entry about where to put my extra debt repayment money: NT and AS agreed it would be a good gesture to give it to my dad. Then I'll have paid half what I owed him, and he'll know I'm good for the rest eventually. Besides, my dad is 76 years old, and his retirement funds are probably tanking like everyone else's, so maybe it will even be a welcome infusion of cash for him (even though I'm pretty sure my dad's doing well--he's a smart, frugal guy). And at most, it only delays repayment of my 8.9% loan by two months, so it's not affecting our progress that much.

So I'll get his bank info and make the transfer on Monday. Yay!

I owe my dad $7,000. He loaned me $12,000 back in 2003 for a down payment on my condo. I paid him back $5,000 over the first two years, but more recently I've chosen to put extra money toward debt that charges interest and has a regular payment. So it's been about three years since I made a payment.

My most recent plan was to pay off my final higher-interest (8.99%) debt and then focus all my energies on paying my dad off. He's never asked for a payment or displayed any need or urgency, but I feel compelled to make good on this as soon as I can.

My 8.99% loan is now at $14,000. It looks like, with AS's layoff, general economic instability and baby plans in the future, I won't be able to pay extra on it much longer. If I pay the minimum on the debt, I'll pay it off in 28 months. That's over two years before I'd start paying my dad...

I was going to pay an extra $1,000 to my 8.99% debt this month, and then stop paying extra until things have stabilized. But I am starting to think I should give that $1,000 to my dad. I won't be able to pay him the remaining amount anytime soon unless I take out another debt to do so; this may be my last chance to give him any part of it for awhile. It doesn't make financial sense, but does it make enough emotional sense that I should do it?

U.S. mortgage: $271 toward principal
And my credit card: $228 to principal

$914 down, $1,622 to go on my December goal.

And $38,859 in official CC/personal debt left to go.

BTW, I got an e-mail from the above credit card, reducing my credit limit to just above what I owe on it. Then I saw in the news that more and more credit companies were rescinding credit. Funny! There was a time where if I paid down my credit cards on time or ahead of time, they would keep bumping the credit amount higher and higher. Honestly, I like it better this way.

The UK mortgage payments hit today:
$166, $36 and $37 went to principal, for a total of $239.

$415 down, $2121 to go in my December goal.

When I went to the UK account online to verify the mortgage payments, there were e-mail notifications about interest rate changes. (NT's rates can change at any time.) I'd actually missed notification from about a month ago saying the rates had gone down to 5.49%. That would have been exciting on its own. These newer notifications let me know that the rates have gone down to 3.99%! That's just amazing; the payments are significantly smaller this month, meaning more money saved for other UK rental expenses. I don't know how long it will last, but even for a little while it's going to be very helpful.

My U.S. mortgage payment has not hit, weirdly enough, but it says it's processing, so I'll check again tomorrow. When I checked my account online, I noticed something truly bizarre. Our interest rate was listed as 5.75%, but I swear it adjusted up to 5.99% from 5.0% in November, and was not going to adjust again until November '09. I didn't see any notices about it either in e-mail or regular mail. I'll have to call them when I get a chance and see what's going on. I hope it's for real!

First off, happy Thanksgiving everyone! AS is cooking cakes and pies right now, and our house smells heavenly. I'm doing a stuffing, gravy and Waldorf salad, so that can all be done tomorrow. NT is handling three dishes, and our friends NJ & CC are doing five dishes together. Two other friends are coming over and will supply the wine and possibly some snacks. Most of our dishes are vegan even though I'm the only one in the party; I feel so loved! It's gonna be fun! We also have a lazy social day on Friday, with friends coming over when they feel like it, to do puzzles or watch movies and eat. Saturday we try to shake off our lethargy and go out to a couple bars in downtown Minneapolis; we'll see how that goes! Either way, we're going to take it easy and go to brunch on Sunday; I have plenty of spending money set aside for all this going out.

Anyway, thought I should post some payments since I won't be thinking about it for the next few days. NT's UK credit card payment hit with about US$76 going to principal, and AS's student loan #2 got $100 toward principal.

So that's $176 down, $2,360 to go on my December goal. And the credit card debt is down to $39,087.