Several regular payments hit today.
Credit card: $297 in principal
US mortgage: $294 in principal
UK mortgage #1: $134 in principal
UK mortgage #2: $28 in principal
UK mortgage #3: $30 in principal

All told, $783 toward my May goal and $297 toward my Big-Picture Goal.

So that's $2603 down, $1497 to go on my May goal.

And $57,753 to go on my Big-Picture Goal.

I look like I'm way ahead of my May goal, but that's because I was able to make some of my May payments early. But I only have about three payments left this month: a big chunk of money that will be divided between two UK credit cards (early to mid-May); a student loan payment (mid-May); and a personal loan payment (mid- to late May). I think they're going to be about $1100, $60 and $440 to principal, respectively, so I should pass my goal if I'm calculating correctly. But I don't ever really know until I see what the going exchange rate does to my international wire transfer.

I got a nice little bonus from work--$130--but I'm just going to ignore it and let it collect on the bottom line. For one thing, I want to let that cushion grow in case there's a lapse in paychecks when AS finds another job, and for another, we've got health and education expenses that are hard to predict. As soon as AS's job situation does stabilize, I'm going to add estimated health care and education expenses as regular budget items, because they're the only two expenses we ever have anymore that are unaccounted-for in the budget, and even though we've been able to absorb them using our budget surplus, I'd much rather have that money allocated so I'm not frustrated when I can't put it towards debt or savings instead.

$16 went to principal, on a UK card that usually pays off $7 or $8 per month...guess I missed a statement in the mail. Oh well, there's only $190 left on this card and I'll be paying it off in May.

That's $1,820 down, $2,280 to go for May.

$58,050 to go in my Big-Picture Goal.

OK, trying for the gazillionth time to post a photo, this time with a JPG.

Hope this works!
Edit: Not bad, but let's try cropping so you can actually see the numbers...

OK, that kinda works. Anyway, let me know if you have any questions about the totals on it. When you make up a system just for yourself, it's hard to tell if it would be logical to outside perspectives.

Oh yeah, this is a result of "Partial Exponent"'s suggestion. Thanks PE, and tell me if this satisfies your curiosity!

Checked my credit card account where my remaining debt from our May trip resided, and the payoff went through!

$447, all principal, so that's:

$1804 down, $2296 to go in my May goal

$58,066 to go in my Big-Picture Goal

And...another one bites the dust! The England trip has been a debt item ($5000 estimated future debt) in my calculations since I started my big debt payoff last summer. Now it is 100% paid for, and we don't even leave til May! I had to charge portions of it to credit cards when I was reserving airfare and hotels, but I did not pay one penny of interest, so it almost feels like I paid for this giant trip in cash!

Let's have a moment of silence...Oh hell. Let's have a moment of wild cheering instead!! Time to go add another headstone in my Old Debt Graveyard!

Personal loan payment posted. $414 to principal (not as much as I hoped, but more on that in a bit).

$1357 down, $2743 to go on my May goal

$58,513 to go on my Big-Picture Goal

It looks like I'm right on track with my Big-Picture Goal, but I don't see as much extra in my June budget to put toward debt (more like $950 extra versus the $1600 or so I usually like to pay in). I refigured my debt snowball yesterday, and I still don't see my personal-type debt going away before Feb. 2010.

If I stay exactly on track with planned payments and get a few windfalls over the next year and a half, I'll make my goal of having it all gone by 12/31/09. But there are so many variables coming up (AS changing jobs, NT going back to school, AS student loans coming due, ARM adjusting itself, wanting to save for babies) that all I can do at the moment is cross my fingers.

The reason I feel annoyed today is because my personal loan payment, which I thought would be more than $441 toward principal, was only $414. I guess I thought since it's a fixed-term loan (60 months), it would start out lower in principal and gradually increase, like my mortgage does. Instead it seems to randomly fluctuate. I did pay a little extra at some point, so I don't know if that affected it.

It's got a fixed interest rate, so it couldn't be that they're charging me more interest. And I got assurance when I signed up for this loan that there was no prepayment penalty and I would only be responsible for accrued interest if I paid early.

Huh. Well, I don't get it. I could do more research, but I think I'll just take this as more motivation to get out of this debt. So I'm increasing my fixed payment, from the minimum $623 to $650. Hopefully that will ensure I never fall below $441 in principal again. And after my UK credit cards are all paid, I'm attacking this loan with a vengeance. This time it's personal. :-)

Despite some non-usual expenses coming up, we're doing really well. One of AS's "extra" paychecks will be coming up in June. (She gets paid biweekly so 26 times a year, but I budget as if she will only get paid twice a month. So two paychecks a year are just sort of extra.)

Even though we've had to budget for some miscellaneous college expenses, medical bills and window washing (18th-floor necessity), our bottom line at July 15 looks like it will be about $1200. That's a much comfier surplus than we usually have, but I'm not pre-spending it in my head. I'd really like to have closer to $1950, the equivalent of two of AS's paychecks. She's wanting to switch jobs as soon as possible (probably not possible till June or July), and I want to be able to drop two of her paychecks off the budget painlessly, in case she gets a new job and there's a gap in payment.

Sample transcript of meeting at AS's job:

COWORKER #1: AS, everyone loves reading XYZ [news blog AS created and writes as part of her job].
COWORKER #2: (makes audible noise indicating surprise at this)
AS (gamely): Well, maybe it's the "Green Tips." I've been getting a lot of positive feedback from readers about those.
COWORKER #2 (unable to limit bitchiness to inarticulate sounds any longer): Really? Wow. Because I think the Green Tips are just really obvious.
ME (hearing about it later; gnashing teeth): Grrrr...

???
Who just goes around saying stuff like that? And AS takes this kind of crap from multiple coworkers, nearly every day. There are other problems with the job too, so rather than fight it she's just going to look for a better position somewhere else. But jeez! Had to vent about that.

I just ran the numbers in more detail for the next month, and realized the final $943 of travel money I was planning to take from my reserve line, and then pay off when I got back from my trip, will actually be in the bank when I need it. AS's biweekly checks throw off my schedule, but when it's because they're coming earlier than my general budget suggests, it's a good thing!

So I can count that as a debt paid, since it's part of my overall debt count.

$943 down, $3157 to go on my May goal
$58,927 to go on the Big-Picture Goal

OK, this is my biggest goal yet. It's because we're getting the first of our stimulus checks in May.

The goal: Pay off $4,100 by May 31.

Wow. I'm excited!! I think we can actually make this goal.

NT called to get the balance of one of his UK credit cards, and two payments had posted since I've checked. $328 went to principal, which sails us nicely past two milestones:

April goal reached! The goal was $3,000, and we paid off $3,099.

Credit card debt has dipped below $60,000! Now it's less than $20K per person.

$59,870 to go on our Big-Picture Goal!

Time to go figure out what I think we can do on May...

Well, in my excitement last month of reaching my first long-term payoff goal, I guess I forgot to check AS's student loan account, because I checked today and the principal is $115 lighter--twice as much as usual. I looked back at past blog entries and sure enough, I never checked it in March.

So that's $2771 paid, $229 to go on my April goal.

No progress on my Big-Picture Goal as that doesn't include student loan debt.

Unless I get status on one of NT's remaining UK credit cards (I can't access these two online), my next payment will be around the 16th, and it should take me past my April goal total and bring my credit debt under $60K. Guess my May goal will be more aggressive!

Based on Merch's post (http://merch.savingadvice.com/2008/04/07/ratios-for-retirement_37526/) about financial ratios, I've tried to figure out those of my household. The numbers come out pretty skewed.

I figured in the value of our rental place as "savings" but not the value of our residence. I did include the mortgages on both in "debt." I figured for where we should be at age 35, since that's our oldest age. I worked with our net (take-home) income, because I assume that's what matters for these equations.

Savings: $323,186
Income: $90,070
Debt: $433,780

Savings-to-income ratio
Should be: 1.2 to 1 ($108,084 to $90,070)
Actual: 3.6 to 1 ($323,186 to $90,070)

Debt-to-income ratio
Should be: 1.5 to 1 ($135,105 to $90,070)
Actual: 4.8 to 1 ($433,780 to $90,070)

Savings rate
Should be: 19%
Actual: about 4%
(This is chilling, unless you figure that I'm putting 17.3% of our net income toward extra debt repayment and 16.6% toward payment of regular credit-card and student-loan bills. A portion of this will be redirected in less than 2 years.)

So are we doing well? Really hard to tell from these skewed numbers. All I know is, in the spirit of today's SA blog entry (http://www.savingadvice.com/blog/2008/04/07/102086_getting-past-impossible.html), at least dealing with it will put me in a better position than not dealing with it at all.

PS: Ugh, I tried doing hyperlinks and failed, so I had to post the yucky URLs instead!

Inspired by everyone detailing how they control their expenses, I updated my Number Crunch, Bills and Budget, and Fun-Money Savings pages, accessible from my sidebar. (I keep these numbers up-to-date daily in Google docs, but only copy it over to the blog occasionally.)

If anyone is interested, those three pages, plus one for Total Debt, are how I track money for my whole household. The money in question goes in and out of three accounts: our joint checking account (where all paychecks are direct-deposited and from which all bills, spending allowances and grocery bills are paid), the linked savings account for our fun money, and the UK checking account (where I send my extra money and the UK rental income gets automatically deposited, and from which all UK bills are automatically paid).

I might add a page for my Total Debt file that I keep in Google Docs, but it's a little more complicated so I'd have to figure out how to imbed Excel files on pages (hint, hint, anyone who knows!)

Two credit card payments hit today, as expected. One is a regular payment (I won't say "minimum" because about six months ago I started to make a fixed payment even though the minimum one goes down a few bucks a month) with $289 going to principal. The other is $1900, all principal, to the 0% card I bought our England plane tickets with! I aim to pay almost all the trip costs off before we go, and make the final payment soon after we get back.

Since I listed the trip as a projected future debt in one lump sum when I started blogging here, I'm going to put it in my Old Debt Graveyard as such when I've paid it off.

Anyway, that's a big $2189 step in my April goal.

$2,656 down, $344 to go in April

$60,198 to go on my Big-Picture Goal! We've now paid off more than $10,000 in credit card debt so far this year. I'm looking forward to seeing it dip below $60K, because then it'll be less than $20K per person, average.

US mortgage: $293 to principal
UK mortgage #1: $122
UK mortgage #2: $26
UK mortgage #3: $26

So, $467 toward the April goal, means:

$467 down, $2533 to go in April.

No progress on my Big-Picture Goal, but tomorrow some credit card payments should hit and make quite a dent!

It's blizzarding outside right now, so it doesn't feel very springy. Saturday and Sunday were in the 30s-50s with lots of sunshine, and we did lots of springy things, so this is a real downer!

It's been a great month, moneywise. I discovered we had some exercise-incentive money hanging out in the bank that we have not, ahem, had use of (been a bit slothful lately). So I put $150 toward my big credit card payment going out this week, and $150 toward fun-money savings.

Then, I got my 3/31 paycheck and my increased withholding didn't have as much of a negative effect as I thought it would, so that's $80 per month extra. NT got nearly $90 of overtime in his 3/31 paycheck. Earmarked another $150 to the now-massive ($1900) credit card payment! Can't wait to report that step toward my goal once it hits!

Also, I found out AS's enrollment in grad school doesn't technically end til July, even though her classes end in May. So that means both her deferred federal student loans probably won't start coming around until August. August is NT's first anniversary at his job, so good chance of a raise there, and my job (which could not give the usual annual raises this month) is hoping to be in good enough shape to give us all a small raise in September instead. So if our luck holds out, one or both of those raises will come through to partially or fully offset the student loan payments, and our budget will not be much affected.

Then, since I now know when our "stimulus" checks are coming, I thought I'd extrapolate our budget out a few months. We're putting one check toward debt, one toward savings and keeping one for pocket money. I realized as I was figuring all that out that AS has an extra check coming in July, so our budget through 7/15 shows quite a large surplus; $1400. I haven't decided where that's going yet; probably half to debt and half to fun-money savings. It's a ways away. Right now it's just sitting as a pleasant bottom line that I can look at whenever I update my budget.

Anyway, all that good money news is helping me keep a springy mindset despite the snow. Also, we painted our bedroom this weekend, with bright green and a very pale greenish white, and bought daffodils to display and vegetable seeds, and planted the first of the seeds in little soil cups.

We're anticipating our May England trip more and more (less than seven weeks now!), and we've been planning some other fun activities, like a garage sale (at a friend's garage) and a weekend in a cabin (that same friend's mom's cabin) both in June.

C'mon, spring weather! It's the only missing ingredient! :-)

April payoff goal: $3000 of principal by 4/30.

This is a bit conservative because I still haven't seen what my increased withholdings are going to do to my paycheck. So I estimated about $100 less than what I think I can do, just in case I have to retool my budget once that first lower paycheck comes in. (I almost waited to set my goal till I get that, but I feel grounded by my goals, so I decided it was more important to get one on the board now.)

A very psychologically exciting milestone I will almost certainly reach in April is getting our combined credit card and personal loan debt (including $7K I owe my dad) under $60,000!

OK, I admit it, I paid a little extra on a credit card using funds I was saving up for a big payment on it in April. I didn't save any interest by doing so because it's 0% for a little while longer. But I really wanted to make my goal!

$307 to a credit card (all principal)

Reached March goal of $3400!

$62,387 to go on my Big-Picture Goal.

Now to figure out how much I think I can pay off in April...

I posted this in the forums in response to someone asking what everyone's goals were, and another poster explaining that goals had to be achieved with plans. Figured I should put it in my blog so I don't lose it, since it's the first time I've really written my desired life plan all out.

Overall goals: Pay off all debt, save a lot of money, learn how to invest it, and live well (and well within our means) for the rest of our lives.

The Plan: Well, I formulated those goals gradually over the past year, after 33 years of not being able to see past next payday. So part of me thinks I won't get to where I'd like to be. But the good news is, every step I take at least gets me to a better place than I was before. :-)

Step 1: Only make purchases we can afford. Stick to a budget. (Has worked well for almost a year.)

Step 2: Pay off all credit card & personal debt by 12/31/09. ($63K to go.)

Step 3: Put future raises partly toward debt snowball and savings, and partly into quality of current life (travel, gifts, home improvement).

Step 4: Clear out room in budget to make and start tending to babies in 2-3 years.

Step 5: Learn best way to invest (we're planning an international move in 5-10 years and aren't sure if maxing out US-tax-free venues will save us anything if we have to pay UK taxes on them eventually).

Step 6: After CC debt gone, babies getting taken good care of, quality of life satisfactory, and investing knowledge gained ... find a good balance between paying down remaining (house & education) debt and investing/saving like crazy to make up for lost time!

Maybe I should add (since this is about dreaming big) ...
Step 7: Live Happily Ever After!

$441 to principal!

$3,093 down, $307 to go on my March goal.

$62,694 to go on my Big-Picture Goal.

I have a few more payments that may hit before March 31, but if I'm getting close and it looks like I won't make my goal, I will probably prepay something just so I can say I made it. As I've never missed a goal yet, I'll only allow really extenuating circumstances to make me do so. :-)

This is really in response to Monkeymama's great recent post (http://monkeymama.savingadvice.com/2008/03/14/interesting-local-article-today_36624/)--I'm never able to respond on MM's blog!--about how the drastic cutbacks necessary aren't really anything but common sense that most of us already abide by (or are easily able to abide by in times of financial shortfall). But I thought I'd make it into a contest entry as well.

I straddle the fence, perspective-wise, between mainstream America's mindset and the average SA blogger's point of view. I've been watching every penny for about a year. Before that, I felt I was always struggling, never able to get everything I wanted, always in debt, raises and bonuses seemingly disappearing into the ether with nothing to show for them, either materially (possessions or savings) or in lower debt.

I do sympathize with the average American because I remember exactly how I used to feel. "Sure, I'm living beyond my means, but I have no choice! It's not like I live extravagantly; I just don't want to feel poor and miserable." That's how I felt, and I bet that's the gist of what almost anyone (outside this site) would say. I didn't think I was a bad person, or irresponsible; I just didn't know any other way.

I always thought I would gradually earn more and be able to reduce my debt while living better and better. Needless to say I'd started myself in a bad position, and not budgeting "everything" didn't help.

Soo, I sympathize with those who feel like cutting back during the recession will seriously affect their happiness and quality of life. That's what I thought I was in for, just over a year ago.

But now I look back at my old self and snicker. If I could go back in time and talk to her I'd say, "Self, living beyond your means IS extravagant, no matter what level of income or lifestyle you're at. And THAT'S the only thing that's making you feel poor and miserable, you silly thing."

A year later, I'm not cutting everything back, but I'm living consciously, paying for everything with cash or knowing exactly how I'm going to pay for something if I do put it on credit at the time. And I have places I could cut back--I pay $1500 extra on debt per month, allocate several hundred toward saving up for fun stuff, even reward members of my household with cash for exercising. Out of three incomes, one is dedicated to just those budget items that could be eliminated. Some day a good chunk of that will go toward savings, and our future. Right now it's digging us out of the hole we're in, and allowing a little extra fun. But it's good to know we're disciplined enough that we could live on just two incomes if we had to.

So I have to say once you've been through the looking glass for a year, on the other side of the American mindset, everything is opposite. Living beyond my means is the last thing I'll ever resort to again. I feel extravagant because I always have plenty of cash in the bank to cover the bills, and spending money in my wallet that I know is mine free and clear. And far from feeling poor and miserable, I feel strong, and smart, and in control of my future.

Being recently converted into a truly budget-conscious person can teach you a lot about money, about people's perspectives on money during a recession, because you've walked in both sides' shoes. And you know anyone can do what you did, and even learn to love it. Because you were sooo typical, and now you're sooo not.

$8 to principal, hee hee.

So that's $2652 down, $748 to go on my March goal, and $63,135 to go on my Big-Picture Goal.

I should have maybe another payment to report tonight, and one on Monday or Tuesday. Not sure if I'll reach my goal then, but I should get close.

A quote from one of my favorite musicals, but it also refers to AS. Her paycheck is frustratingly unpredictable, and her HR department unhelpful and slow. (I think it has something to do with her free tuition being partly taxable, but it's hard to reach anyone to help us understand.) So I only budget for the minimum amount I'm fairly sure we'll get.

This pay period, she got almost $200 more than that! So thanks to that boost, I'll be able to change my tax withholdings immediately, hopefully reducing NT's and my 2009 tax bill (and avoiding a penalty).

Now back to work (I've been swamped at work all week and don't usually get around to blogging once I get home.)

Things are looking up with our grocery budget. In mid-February we had used nearly 3/4 of our Feb. 16-29 budget before the 16th. We've been trying to cut back, buying no extras, planning some frugal meals and switching to juice from concentrate. We even found some plastic pitchers on our condo's "free table" and started washing and reusing other juice bottles.

As of today, we've used about 1/3 of our March 16-31 budget, and we have all our groceries for meals through the 16th, so except for some household incidentals we shouldn't have to spend anymore. That means we've caught up a great deal from same time last month. If we can make it through March 16-31 with only 2/3 our usual allotted money, we'll be totally caught up by April 1!

But even if it takes a little longer than that, I'm just glad we're starting to get back on track. It's usually not a problem borrowing from the next pay period's grocery money, since I have some padding in the bank for future bills. But occasionally, when a lot of big payments hit at once, it has caused us to skate pretty close to overdrawing our account. If we can straighten this out, there will be virtually no danger of that anymore.

I'd love to eventually have a surplus of grocery money that we carry forward each month, so if we have a party or some unusual household expenses, we can easily cover that without messing anything else up.

That's what it feels like I'm doing right now...I got a medical bill for $850 and only have $600 left in my flex spending (such a bad year to try this high deductible thing, as I ended up having to get some tests and things at the beginning of the year)! So I've been moving stuff around...noticed we probably weren't going to need one chunk of exercise incentive money, because AS hasn't been working out lately, so wiped out that line item. Sold some CD box sets on eBay for over $100 total, so that covers the rest of it.

The good news is I didn't have to do anything drastic; the bad is that I feel like a sucker with this new healthcare plan, and it's going to be awhile before I can afford to change my paycheck withholdings; without this medical bill I'd be able to change it for the next paycheck. Oh well, if I owe taxes next year I don't really mind; I just want to make sure I don't owe as much as or more than this year, because I think that would generate a penalty.

Oh yeah, and it means I'm going to have to pay for future medical stuff with cash, so I may not be able to save as much. I don't understand this maximum out-of-pocket thing, but hopefully I will hit that soon. I wonder if it still means I have to take care of copays, and dental and vision stuff? Either way, health care is going to be more expensive this year than I thought, by a long way.

I looked at this way-cheap way of transferring money, bank account to bank account (that's harder than just transferring the money to an office where a person can pick it up), xoom.com. Only $4.95 for an international wire transfer of any amount! However, it looked kind of bare-bones so I searched for consumer reports, and saw some pretty wretched testimonials. So I'll stick to my $50-per-month setup with my bank--it hurts, but it will motivate me to get our UK cards down to where NT's flat rental income will cover bills, and I won't have to transfer money at all anymore. I'm hoping to accomplish that in about eight months.

Well OK, it's not morning anymore, but I liked the alliteration.

I was looking over past entries (I'm procrastinating something I need to do for work), and I noticed that I said my $2900 February goal was symbolically $100 per day. I started it in late January so it wasn't literally going to be that much per day. But when I looked at the actual amount of time it took from that entry to the one where I announced reaching the goal (14 days), and the amount I actually paid in that time frame (over $3500), I realized I averaged paying off more than $250 per day in that two-week time period! How I wish I could manage THAT on a regular basis; we'd be out of debt in no time! It was just a fluke with not owing taxes we'd saved up to pay for, but still, I'm proud of us for putting it to debt and not squandering it.

Today we got AS's state refund, which I didn't expect so soon because we sent them in the old-fashioned way. I went ahead and added the other taxes (refunds and payments) into our projected budget because now I have an idea when they'll happen. Lo and behold, the small refund we'll be getting overall was enough to cover the rest of our homeowners insurance! The minimum payment was set up to go out tomorrow, so I amended that payment to include the full amount.

I now have a positive of $60 at the bottom of my three-month budget! That's about how much I'll need taken out of each paycheck to get my withholdings right, so that means as of now I can change my withholdings for the 4/30 paycheck. The more windfalls we get the more that date moves up, and the greater my chances of withholding enough to not owe next year, but not put too much of a strain on our current budget.

Windfalls coming in the next three months:
eBay sales ($70-$100)
AS's $300 paycheck bonus (probably $200 net)
NT's overtime pay ($50-$100 per paycheck)
B-Day money from parents ($50-$100 per birthday; $150-$300 total)
Gift cards from parents (Ikea & Target)
Stupid stimulus package ($600 for each of us; $1800 total)

Some will help me increase my withholdings, some will go to debt, some for future travel plans, and who knows? If I feel like we're making good progress, maybe some will go into our wallets to spend as we wish.

Huzzah!

Well, to be more accurate, it is projected to be fully funded by the time we board the plane in mid-May.

Basically we are trying to save $1300 cash and are allowing ourselves to charge the rental car expenses plus $300 on a credit card (with a plan to pay it off before we accrue any interest).

Today we brought a Mason jar full of change to the bank and had it deposited into our account: $68.08! As I was adding that to our tally in Google docs, I looked over our projected budget for the next three months. I realized I had planned to withdraw exercise incentive cash on May 15. Well, we're going to England for 10 days, so we won't be working out. I deleted that line item and voila! We had a positive number at the end of our budget spreadsheet.

Since we don't have an emergency fund, the budget's never set in stone. But odds are good we won't need that money for anything else and we'll be able to blow it in Europe!

Now I've set my sights on our homeowners insurance bill. Adding that to the end of my spreadsheet puts our bottom line in the negative, but only by $143. And that's no hurry--we can make the minimum monthly payments till we get enough to pay off the whole year's premium.

NT is expecting some OT pay, and AS a $300 bonus from work, and we have a few things listed on eBay, so shouldn't be too long before we have that fully funded as well.

After that, my goals will be increasing withholding so we don't owe as much on taxes next year, and then saving up for a trip to the old homestead (well, the suburbs of DC) to see family in the fall. And then I suppose it'll be time to start saving up for Xmas again!

Brr... OK, I think I've thought far enough into the future for now. The last thing I want to think about is next Xmas and another stupid Minnesota winter! :-)

We've been about two weeks behind in our grocery budget for several months now. It all started in late October when we used a big chunk of it for our Halloween party, but it's been slipping gradually ever since then. I allocated more money last month, but we absorbed it and stayed where we were: dipping into the next pay period's amount. While this is usually OK, I don't always have that much float money in the checking account, so it's occasionally caused us to skate along the edge, almost dipping into our overdraft (which was my first debt paid off and I want to keep it that way!)

We have a very generous grocery budget: $900 per month (was $840 before I reallocated some funds). Granted we roll all household goods including beauty supplies, food and drink for entertaining, and some medicines into it, but it's still a healthy amount for three adults.

We've got three different diets and a love of fine foods, but still, we'd been trying to plan only frugal dinners to pull even with our budget. I didn't itemize everything; just hoped it would work itself out. Now we've used over half of our Feb. 16-29 grocery money and we've got a party to buy treats for this Friday, so we finally sat down to try and figure out what we could do to catch up after that.

We didn't even have to look at receipts. Once NT started writing everything down it was brutally obvious what we needed to cut back on. Our favorite meals are actually really cheap; the most expensive one is homemade pizzas, which can cost approximately $12 for three people, or $4 apiece. It was mostly the little things we'd throw into the cart on impulse, plus a few things that we considered basics but can easily do without or with less of.

I'm almost embarrassed to write down the things we're going to cut out temporarily, but it does point to how you can have a real blind spot in your spending:
Ice cream and soy ice cream
Fancy olives
Sushi from the deli counter
Wine
Bottled juice (we'll buy concentrated)
Baking supplies (cutting down--should be good for our waistlines too!)
Paper towels (cut down; use rags and sponges more--better for the environment too!)
Cheese and soy cheese (cutting down--we're very generous with our portions)

At least for awhile, we're regarding the above as treats and luxuries--if anyone wants them they have to buy out of their own money.

I feel very silly that I didn't think this through before, but at the same time relieved that it should be easy to correct our budget with these relatively painless cutbacks.

I filled out all our tax forms and put AS's in the mail. When we get her federal refund, I'll send out mine and NT's. Same with state. This way, no pain.

Since none of us qualified for any of the free filing sites I tried (H&R's TaxCut pissed me off by having me go through the whole thing before telling me whoops, AS wasn't eligible after all), I'm doing hard copy for all. It's going to cost me about $1.50 total (for postage).

I can't tell if I'm unusually stingy in this area but as long as our taxes are figure-outable without a professional (I don't count my one year of H&R Block training as making me a professional), I'm not going to pay to e-file. They want me to e-file; it saves them work--fine! Then make it free (or at least $1.50 or less) and I'll gladly do it. I hate having to pay anything for tax prep.

As for changing my withholding so I don't owe next year, I decided to do that only AFTER I've saved up sufficient money for the England trip. I can withhold more in the second half of the year to make up for not withholding enough in the first half.

Every few months it seems like a few money matters start piling up, and this is one of those times. Mostly precipitated by tax season, of course.

1. Tax strategy. I did a rough draft of taxes this weekend, and it looks like AS will be getting about $1900 back while NT and I will owe about $1600. I'm glad it worked out but kind of annoyed that using the suggested married withholdings got us so far in the hole--especially since NT withheld like a single person, which I thought would even us out. So this gives me a number of tasks:
A. Turn in AS's taxes ASAP. We'll wait until we get her refunds before submitting mine and NT's. That way we don't feel the pain of owing the taxes.
B. Figure out our withholdings. AS's refund should go down to about nothing since she won't be paying any tuition this year. I'm not sure if NT's tuition payments in the fall will help us since our combined wages are kind of a lot (I think). That means I need to have more withheld this year to make sure we don't owe too much. But I don't want to go overboard and withhold too much. This will take some reading and calculating to get just right.
C. Figure out how much my resulting smaller paycheck will set back our planned savings for our UK trip, and find the necessary money elsewhere in the budget.
D. File mine and NT's return once we get AS's refunds.

2. Net worth. I'm sure millions of readers breathlessly awaiting my net worth update noticed it didn't come out late last month as usual. This is because I don't have access to NT's 401(k) info until he gets me a PIN so I can log in. I lost the piece of paper that contained the PIN, and he is just not as interested in this stuff as I am, so he's taking forever getting me another. Anyway, it's probably for the best, as it sounds like most people's January net worth took a hit from the stock market. I'm sure our 401(k)s fared no better. Luckily our aggressive debt repayment pushes our net worth upward no matter what. I'll know more when I check in late February--hopefully I'll be able to by then!

3. AS contacts. She will be ordering once we have enough surplus money in play, and will get it reimbursed less than a month later. She already knows what day we'll have enough money; I just need to remember to add to the budget so I'm not surprised when it happens.

4. NT college admission. We need to have this figured out before we take our England vacation, I think. We've been putting off thinking about his applying to college because it seems so complicated: He's a continuing-ed student since he's in his 30s and it's been awhile since high school, but also technically a transfer because he did complete a year in England, though we need to figure out how his UK credits translate into the U.S. education system, and whether he needs any kind of standardized tests. He's a conditional permanent U.S. resident but still a UK citizen, so we need to find out what types of student loans he's eligible for. He's lived in MN for over a year so hopefully in-state tuition applies, but we'll need to verify that as well. Oh, AND he wants to take regular undergrad classes but still work full-time, so we need to figure out whether he can handle a full course load or if he needs to go part-time. Whew...am I forgetting anything? So...yeah, that's going to be a full-time job just figuring out where to start, and making sure we ask all the right questions of all the right people at the university.

OK, now I can't remember if there was more on this list. Good thing I can edit this entry if I remember, because I want to keep all this in one place so I don't forget anything.

I have my budget projected through May 15, which is unusual for me because usually I only have it laid out for the next month and a half. But we're saving all our surplus money for our trip to England in May, and I wanted to keep an eye on that to make sure we'd be able to save up enough.

For the past few weeks, we've been about $150-$160 short on the bottom line of my budget. That didn't really bother me because I knew we could scrape that much together by May 15. We've got things to sell on eBay, and NT works overtime fairly frequently, and our change jar at home has at least $50 in it.

This week, even with two unexpected expenses (a healthcare bill for me and license renewal for AS), we are finally showing a positive on the bottom line. Granted it's a positive of $6.80, but still, woo hoo! AS's paycheck was $7 more than expected, NT had $100 worth of overtime, and I had a benefits correction that will equal $9 more per paycheck. When I added all of that to the budget, we came out on top for May 15!

Granted, there are a couple variables we don't have funds socked away for (that's an eventual goal but not an urgent one) such as health and education incidentals. But we also have positive variables like the change jar, the eBay items and NT's tendency to work overtime. So I think it will balance out and we'll be fine for England. And just think, if I hadn't checked my first 2008 paycheck carefully, I might not have noticed that $9 mistake and we'd still be behind on our budget as I write this!