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!

I hate how finances sometimes feel like gambling. We have an ARM that will increase in November. Right now it's at 5.00%. AS just let me know that rates for a 30-year fixed just dipped below 6%. Should I refi right now? It'll slow down my other debt repayment and I'll take on a bit more debt, because I don't have anything saved for fees.

Will the fees go even lower or start to climb back up? Would it be better to wait, even if it costs me, so I'm better prepared for the added expense? I wish I had a crystal ball...

I'm in a really good mood today. First off, I got a new cubicle at work. I had my eye on one that had been empty for over a year, and I finally thought to ask my boss if I could move into it. She set it up right away. Now I have a bigger space, two real walls (it's in a corner), and a desk that faces the doorway, so people don't come up behind me anymore (I hate that feeling).

Also, I did a big international wire transfer: I had to put money into the UK account to cover this tax payment we might have to make, plus I'd saved up two of my regular monthly deposits so I'd only have to pay one fee, plus I wanted to deposit some extra to put toward credit card principal. I confirmed this morning what I was surprised to see last night online: The dollar is doing much better against the pound! I deposited $3200 and actually got GBP 1580! I was expecting more like GBP 1490, so I'm really happy. That extra 90 pounds is going straight to credit card principal. I'll have almost paid off one of the cards, and next month it's a goner--along with another that has a really small balance. Next month I'll get to add to my Old Debt Graveyard--woo hoo!

I need something I can access both at work and at home because I do my budget updates and adjustments whenever I can fit them in. I've been using saved draft emails in my Yahoo account. It was free, and I could access it anywhere there was Internet access. The drawbacks were that I had to do all my calculations myself, creating more room for error, and that Yahoo occasionally freaked out when I tried to save things. The last time it messed up one of my documents, I got fed up. AS told me about my new favorite online tool...

Google documents! It's great--you log in from the Google home page and you can upload or create Word docs or Excel spreadsheets. I opted to change all my draft-email documents into spreadsheets so the program would do my math for me from now on. It didn't take long to figure out how to do that. Everything's so much easier to read, too, since I can use different cells, boldface, colors and text alignment to enhance readability. I'm sure I'll have to iron out some kinks someday, but the first day on it has been wonderful.

I recommend it if someone's just trying to track simple things, like budgeting a month out--that's the main thing I track: income in and expenses out for about a month and a half in advance. I also have separate spreadsheets for tracking total household debt broken out by individual debt, short-term (fun money) savings, and a generic monthly budget that lists paychecks, bills and allotted money and shows what should be left over in a perfect world.

If anyone in Minneapolis or St. Paul is reading this, you should join this community fitness program. It runs January through May and is basically a place to track your exercise online and try to get healthier.

The perks aren't huge, but right now registration is free, and they will send you a coupon book for healthy activities, invitations to a couple events, I think chances to win prizes, and e-mails with health ideas.

Last year I headed a six-person team, but that got tiresome trying to herd my friends into giving me their stats each week. So this year it's just a three-person team of me, AS and NT.

I never really took New Year's resolutions too seriously; I knew I was the type of person who has really good, exciting, creative ideas that I never followed through on. But since NT has joined the household, AS and I find that his organization has spilled over into our lives as well. Instead of putting things off, we face them head-on.

So now I see the New Year not as a time to make lame resolutions I won't keep, but an opportunity to clarify and define some goals that I've been thinking about for some time. And this blog will help me return to them from time to time and assess my progress.

My progress in '07 has been amazing to me. I finally stopped leaving leaks and loopholes for my money to escape through, and took control of it all. Beginning in March I weaned my household off credit. The only purchases not made with cash were completely planned, with plans on how to pay them off. Since July, when I started tracking this, our total debt has gone down more than $14,000.

A final note before I stop stalling and make with the goals: Some of these are going to be two-year or lifetime goals. Most of the things I've been thinking about lately are long-term goals, things that used to frighten and intimidate me, but now I see as very do-able in the long run.

1. Become personal-debt-free within two years. That's right, by Dec. 31, 2009, I want to see my nearly $70,000 of credit card and personal debt go pffft! Not sure how I'm going to do this just yet, so I'm going to start by paying the crap out of things, snowballing debt, and seeing where that gets me.

2. Look seriously at what it takes, character-wise and money-wise, to become a mom. I am 33 and almost (not quite) to a place where I want to have kids more than anything. This is a very new feeling for me, so I want to go slow, do lots of research, talk to some moms, talk to my doctor, and by, say, mid-2009, know whether this is the way I for sure want to go, and (if so) when.

Wow, putting that onscreen was rather intense! :-) Now for some "easy" ones:

3. Continue to work out almost 5 times a week. Been doing pretty well since September, taking a break for the holidays, want to come back strong Jan. 2 and continue, hopefully for the rest of my life. :-)

4. Grow my second balcony garden, and try for bell peppers this time!

5. Complete my debt-repayment "Ad Hoc goal" by 3/31/08 (see sidebar for info).

This is everything I've been planning anyway, but it feels good to write them all down.

1. Don't be in such a hurry.

When my girlfriend's education financing fell through due to various issues, I stumbled bravely into the fray wielding my meager credit history and no idea about finances. I took out unsecured personal loans and borrowed money against my credit cards. I was so afraid that if she couldn't go back to school in the fall, she'd never be able to. In retrospect, I should have asked her to take a job and save money for a year while we looked at our options. Those well-intentioned debts were the first few shovelfuls of the huge hole we dug ourselves into. When you're 24 and in love, take a few deep breaths before getting into something you don't understand, moneywise anyway.

2. Be moderate and reasonable, and do what you can.

This goes in two directions: Of course one was buying things I couldn't really afford, but in the other direction, I would get into really stingy periods where I tried desperately to get out of debt by cutting out all pleasures and even some basic necessities. This would lead to getting fed up from no fun and not enough progress, and making some wild splurges that would erase my progress so that I felt I had to go into extreme privation again. I think it was similar to the battle some face with food and their weight, only mine was with money. Had I tried going steadily, only paying off a little debt or even just aiming to break even at times, I think I would have gone into less debt overall.

3. Savers aren't all Scrooges, and a frugal life doesn't have to be miserable.

The two main people who talked about money were co-workers of mine. One was dead-set on getting debt-free, the other was debt-free and dead-set on saving money. Unfortunately, they were both grim girls who constantly (and vocally) resented that they didn't make more money. They were ungenerous of spirit as well as money, so I came to think the two went hand in hand. They made being frugal seem to me like a grim death-march, so it seemed a worse fate than being in debt. Had I known that frugal people could be upbeat and even fun, I might have tried harder. In other words, one of the main things I wish I'd known when I was in my twenties was the community of savingadvice.com (or MisersMisersMisers.com, as my girlfriend affectionately calls it)!

...in a recent post when I said I'd never buy anything on credit again. Well, I didn't lie but I was wrong.

Our dishwasher is seriously on its last legs; it barely even pretends to wash the dishes anymore. I figured out I'd be able to afford a really nice one by July. Then I went to sears.com and saw that I could get one now, with free shipping and some other perks, if I used a Sears card--and that there would be no payments or interest for a year.

That seems good--we could have it now and pay it off before it starts gathering interest. I went back and forth mentally--am I ready to do this sort of thing, when I'm a recovering credit addict? I decided it's safe because it will really bug me till it's paid off--I won't let it slow me down. And we do need a good dishwasher--we all work full-time, cook nearly every meal at home, entertain at home a lot to save money, so the time and manpower savings of a dishwasher are such a help.

I've also decided to go ahead and shoot for getting rid of all consumer debt in two years--Dec. 31, 2009, to be exact. I haven't worked out the specifics, so for the time being I'm just going to keep at my current pace, but starting in January I'm going to throw money at it as fast as I can!

Things have been going so well recently debtwise that I'm really itching to start investing and saving. I know I will probably have some expensive life changes in the next 10 years (possibly moving to England, possibly trying to have kids), and currently I have nothing in savings. My only "investments" are our two homes (neither of which are near paid for) and our various retirement funds.

I honestly never thought about saving for the long-term because I couldn't even imagine how I was going to get past all my debt. But now there's a greater income flow and my new disciplined approach to budgeting--the future is getting slightly brighter.

When I look at my debt, while I want to eventually get rid of the mortgages and student loans, what really bugs me is the consumer and personal debt. To date, that totals about $63K. Plus $7K that I still owe my dad for the down payment on my condo. (I think I'm going to move that to the "personal" category instead of the "home" category, because I want it to bug me more so I'll pay it off.)

If I keep to my current repayment plan, I should be able to pay all that off in a little less than three years. But part of me wants to push myself even more. We're expecting some pay increases; credit card monthly bills will go down gradually; expenses shouldn't increase much at all the next couple years. I'm wondering if I can make a goal to get rid of all consumer and personal debt in two years instead of three.

That would mean coming up with, on average, $900 more per month to put toward principal. Clearly I won't have that much even with pay raises, but I wonder if, by snowballing payments, I could actually do it.

I don't want to commit myself to the goal if I'm bound to fail, but I suppose even if I got closer as a result of trying it would be an accomplishment.

Still waffling...

It's been a yo-yo weekend of news for my family, financially.

First, we found out AS's wisdom teeth will only cost us $225. We had put aside $400 for that. So yay! Into the Xmas fund, which will hit its goal much sooner now.

Then, we found out we may owe 560 pounds to the British government for taxes. Ouch! That's like $1,200 at the current exchange rate. That will be due 1/31 if we can't find a way around it.

But the roller coaster climbed back upwards again when we found out NT got a Thanksgiving bonus (who ever heard of that??) of $1000.

So when all's said and done, we're down about $25 for the weekend. :-)

On the plus side, the two pay-ins are immediate, while the bill is two months away. Allows us to fulfill immediate needs and wants more easily, with more time to plan and save for the upcoming payment.

Looks like we'll be able to hit all our money goals for Christmas, the CSA farm share, birthdays and England--NT just got news of a $5,000 raise, effective immediately!

This gives us just enough elbow room to make our financial goals for November and December, even assuming NT doesn't get an Xmas bonus. We're not counting on it; if that does come, we'll use part of it to add to all our winter wardrobes (we're all running a little low on clothes) and the other part will go toward birthdays and the trip to England.

Looking ahead, the raise, coupled with my adjustment of benefits starting Jan. 1, should make England and a new dishwasher attainable goals that don't interfere with my aggressive debt repayment plan.

Oh, it feels good when money falls into our laps! Especially now that we spend wisely and deliberately, because we know it won't be squandered away on nothing.

Well, let's see how I've done since late October, when I posted this list of future expensive purchases:

1. Halloween party. Done! Party was a success, and once I got back my deposit for the keg, I was able to finish saving for:

2. CSA. I already had almost $450 in upcoming surplus, so the keg refund brought me to the $500 I need. Once I get paid Nov. 15, I'll send the check off, guaranteeing fresh local produce every week next year!

3. Xmas! At last count we only had $37 in the gift fund, when we would like $600. Well, we've started putting our exercise incentive money into an envelope as soon as we get it, and then transferring into the Christmas fund. Also, we're each getting a $25 gift credit cards for various reaons, so as we each receive ours, I put $20 that I would take out for spending money into the Xmas fund instead. Any extra money I get goes into this until it's fully funded. So far: $145 in the bank, $15 in the envelope and a $10 survey payment I'll add in today. $170!

4. Birthdays! Nothing saved in this yet, but I'll start on it as soon as Xmas is over

5. A new dishwasher! Well, I have $35 in the home improvement fund, but we may end up getting paint first and sprucing up the bedroom, so I may not have anything saved toward this. That's all right, the old one will do for a while longer.

6. England! I've booked everything, and as predicted, the airfare, hotel and rental car (plus insurance and gas) will just about wipe out the $5000 I'd planned to spend (with maybe $300 left for food and fun). I'd started a vacation fund for our next vacation, but it looks like we'll need it for England, so after Xmas and birthdays, this is my main priority. So far we have $75 in there. I don't have a set goal for how much to accumulate at this point, but I think we'll need at least $500 more to not be struggling to pay for all our meals; it's a 10-day trip, there are three of us, and the dollar is mighty weak against the pound these days!

Still a long way to go, but it's nice to see we've made progress on some of these goals.

Is anyone else on the blog participating in National Novel Writing Month?

If you haven't heard of it, it's an online challenge to write a novel (at least 50,000 words) between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. It doesn't have to be good or polished, and you don't have to be a creative writer to try. It's free to join, there's no prize save your own satisfaction, and there's no shame in not making it! I tried in '05 and got several thousand words written before losing steam. Then last year, I was going to do it but I had too many other obligations at the time to even get started.

This year I'm determined to give it a more serious go, like I did in '05, so I took the day off! Right now I'm still procrastinating while I try to think of a good enough idea to stay interested in all month.

If you're interested, you can check out the Web site: nanowrimo.org. It's a really cute organization.

Lots of big future expensive purchases are coming to my mind this week, making it seem like I need to save huge mountains of money all at once. But one thing at a time...

1. Halloween party. This should be covered, with $300 in the bank, a little bit of spending money still floating around in our wallets, and a $25 American Express gift card. We just need booze, a few more food items and possibly a couple last-minute costume enhancements. Really hoping we come in under budget so we can use some of the money for something else!

2. CSA. Our community-supported farm is offering subscriptions for next year at this year's price if we sign up early. $500 instead of $600 is an amazing deal, except I wasn't really prepared to pay for it until next year! Well, I've got an upcoming budget surplus of $450 that I was going to put into general short-term savings, so that plus any leftovers from Halloween, plus a couple more eBay sales, and we should be able to do that in a couple weeks. My first online-survey paycheck ($10) should be coming, so I'll put that toward the CSA if I need to. If not, it'll go toward my next big thing...

3. Xmas! We three buy each other presents from a communal supply of money, plus we'll probably buy gifts at least for our long-distance friends in England, maybe for a couple friends here. Luckily my and AS's families don't expect presents, so we're off the hook there. We've only got $37 in the gift fund right now, so any extra we get should go in there. As soon as it's spent for Xmas, we'll have to start building it up again for...

4. Birthdays! All three of us have birthdays in early to mid March, so that gives us two scant months to save up for those festivities. Meanwhile I want to somehow save enough money for some home improvements, including...

5. A new dishwasher! This is one thing I'm hoping lasts awhile longer, but at the same time am dying to replace. It's never done a very good job; we have to rinse pretty thoroughly beforehand or else silt from the cleaning collects on the glasses and hardens there, requiring a rinse after. Plus there's something wrong with the door, so if we don't latch it, it falls down (giving me a pretty nasty bruise the first time when I wasn't expecting it). We cook almost every meal at home, so we'd love a dishwasher that required less rinsing; seems like we spend half our free time doing dishes.

So if we get all that sorted out, we still have to think about...

6. England! We're planning on going in May, for NT's sister's wedding as well as to see as much of the friends he left behind as we possibly can. When I started my debt tracking, I automatically added an imaginary $5000 to our debt balance, because I figured that would cover whatever we had to charge to get to England. Well, turns out that total will only work if we're really, really tightfisted there. Airfare alone is going to run us about $2700, hotels about $1300, and a rental car plus insurance plus gas, about $600. Leaving about $400 to cover food and drinks for 3 adults for 9 days. Wishful thinking! So it's either crowd into someone's house for some nights or save up more money. We'll have to see.

There are some bits of money we're not going to count on because they're not definite amounts. NT should get some kind of Xmas bonus. We should all get IRS refunds but there are too many variables this year to predict how much. NT and I should be able to shift around our benefits at open enrollment to maybe add a hundred or two a month in income. Beyond that, it may just be a matter of stashing some of our spending money/exercise reward money each month, being stingy on the day-to-day stuff so we can make all these big purchases as painless as possible. One thing we won't do: go on the credit cards any more than the $5K I've already planned.

...for us bloggers with money-foolish relatives.

What do you say when they ask you for money? How do you tell if they really "need it" or if they only need it in the sense that they have no intention of pinching pennies and depriving themselves like you do? How do you pose that question to someone who has never really tried to economize and has always been in financial trouble?

Aagh...

My family has gone on a health kick together. The galvanizing moment is so silly I can hardly admit it: My friend suggested for Halloween that I go as Britney Spears on the VMAs. I thought it was hilarious, but then realized that as much as people sniped about her being out of shape, she was still in WAY better shape than me. At the same time, I found a 28-day tone-up plan in a recent issue of SELF magazine. So I began the next week, and NT and AS have joined in whole-heartedly. We do cardio Monday, Tuesday and Saturday, and weights on Wednesday and Sunday. We've cut down a little on food, but decided not to do the calorie-counting thing because it took forever (and it was really hard to get our intake down to 1600 per day).

I can already see the difference in all our physiques after only a week and a half! It's so encouraging! I've also been logging my workouts on the self.com Web site, which helps me see how many minutes of exercise I've accumulated, and stay inspired.

Though the costume idea was the spark that got us started, we've also been watching makeover shows like How Clean Is Your House, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style and You Are What You Eat. We've got a handle on the housecleaning, and we recently pared our wardrobes down to only what fits and looks pretty good on us, and I'm fairly sure the shows affected that. So it's no wonder that we've focused on food and exercise as well, because of that third show.

And, since I've implemented the $5-per-workout reward program into our budget, sticking to the program means $75 more spending money between us per week--about 50% more than what we each normally get!

It's been a good couple of weeks for little money-saving and money-making maneuvers:

- Recently we got a notice our laptop's warranty was expiring soon, so we brought it in to the store for our last free tuneup to fix a couple minor problems. Probably saved a couple hundred dollars.

- The scanner seemed to be giving the Target cashier a little trouble yesterday, so I checked the receipt as we were leaving, to discover we'd been charged a third time for a $10 item we'd only bought two of! Walked back and got it corrected. Saved $12.

- Put two electronics items we don't use very much on eBay. One was a gift and one we bought a long time ago. Made about $250 total; money should be coming shortly. We also have a third item we may just list on our condo's bulletin board. It's a TiVo box we bought used for $40 before we decided to go with Comcast DVR; we hope to sell it for a tiny profit.

- Brought our change jar in and had it deposited straight into checking. $28.

- Saw a handful of change, all silver, in the street and stopped to pick it up. People were staring like it was soo gauche. The more fools they! About $.60.

- Realized last night we only use about a tenth of the minutes we pay for each month, because we've gotten so good about not using the phone during peak times. Just switched to the next plan down. Savings: $10/month.

- Called two credit cards that I'd overpaid off with a balance transfer a few months ago. They kept dragging their feet on sending me the balance, probably because they thought it was an insignificant amount. Called again and harassed them both until they sent me checks. Total: about $23.

Had two scratched DVDs in a row from Netflix, so got NT to call and request a discount with his nice British accent. They're giving us half off our next month's bill! Savings of about $5.

And some freebies: Signed up for a free seminar by a traveling faculty member from my alma mater, and for a free first-aid kit from an offer in the mail. Most "freebies" you have to pay shipping for, so I never take advantage of them, but not this one.

I think the slight scare of AS's paycheck going down by about $220 a month motivated us more to look around for ways to save. Now we feel comfortable that we can weather the rest of the year, put a little away for savings, and pay for our upcoming Halloween party no problem!

Got two bits of bad financial news this week. Nothing too crushing, but:

1. I put $1000 extra into NT's account (besides what I put in to cover bills), expecting it to go toward cutting his overdraft in half. Instead, his rental income check came in 250 British pounds ($500) lighter because of a twice-a-year association fee. So half of my $1000 is merely going to cover minimum payments on bills, setting me back on my goal of having that overdraft paid off by early October.

2. AS's paycheck is going down by about $112 per pay period, or $224 per month. (Taxes due to getting so much free tuition this year.) This is much bigger, as it will pretty much wipe out any wiggle room in our budget. But I'm looking at ways to alleviate that, at least temporarily. One bit of good news is we get a "freebie" check in November, since she gets paid biweekly and we get two more paychecks than I account for. I hadn't prespent the freebie in my mind, so that will go toward keeping us on track.

More later, probably, when I get my head around it a little more!

I keep all my financial information in my e-mail account. I wanted a way that I could balance my numbers at work or at home, whenever I got time or felt like it. So I started e-mails that I never intended to send, and I keep them in my Drafts folder. When I have new information, I go in and change them and then resave the draft.

It's a good system; there have been a few cases where there was a saving glitch and I lost one of the e-mails, but it's not like I can't recreate the information; it's just a pain.

Since I discovered this "pages" setting in my blog, I'm thinking I could keep my information here (or maybe keep it in both places, so I have a backup).

Another advantage, besides having it saved, is that this blog has become a nice, convenient way to communicate with my family about our finances. They read it periodically and so they have an idea where we are without my having to schedule family meetings about it.

They've really taken to the idea of our new budgeted life; they're always regaling our nonthrifty friends with tales of our latest budgetary exploits. :-)

Maybe it's planning for our Halloween party that's gotten me feeling silly and spooooky, but I've decided to start a new page on my blog to record my debts as I kill them off, one by one. I'm only counting the ones since I started the blog, and I'll record the balance they had when I first got on here.

I only have one on there so far, but I hope to have a second one shortly after Halloween!

I love doing taxes and will help out any friend as long as theirs aren't too complicated. This year I did taxes for a friend who has several different kinds of investments--that was different! Most of the ones I do are fairly straightforward, but I do love a challenge. The Tax Code is like a choose-your-own-adventure book in my geeky world.

But the other night I had to do British taxes! NT has never really had to do taxes; in the UK, the government will figure them out for you in most cases. But since he still has his flat in England and rents it out, that portion had to be figured out. I have the best financial head in the household, so it was my job.

At least we didn't have to calculate the tax, just send them figures related to the rental property. But still, it was so crazy to do, after being so comfortable with the IRS's way of wording things and organizing forms.

Turns out there was a loss of about 600 pounds ($1200) for the year ended April 4, 2007, due to maintenance that had to be done in order to rent the flat. I think that's good news, though; can't imagine the UK government will be able to tax us since we had no income, and we can carry that loss over to future years, so hopefully we won't have to pay any British taxes until we're in a better place to do so.

I'm also hoping that having no UK income will simplify my and NT's 2007 U.S. taxes. I ended up doing Married Filing Separately for 2006, since he had UK income and no U.S. income. I missed out on a little bit of deductions as a result, but I was afraid of all the extra forms that would come with reporting his international income!

I still may end up hiring someone this year just to make sure I'm not missing any important legal requirements. Sad since I'm H&R Block-certified, but I didn't get into learning anything very complicated when I worked for them.

Well, it's not nearly that exciting; it's our own money. NT's job finally got straightened out, so we have a little more money in play than we did before. Some of it will be going to a more aggressive debt-repayment plan (which I will launch in October, after I get some other things straightened out). And some will be going toward a bigger cable package and DVR, which we've been dying to get. Some will go into a short-term savings account, where we'll save up money for various things like travel and home improvement. But there will still be some money left over. (This may change next year when some student loans come due and our ARM goes up, but not for awhile.)

So, since everyone in my family has been looking for motivation to work out, I've started an exercise incentive plan. There is now a reward of $5 extra spending money every time one of us works out for half an hour. If we don't work out enough to earn all the money I'm setting aside, it will go toward debt principal or into savings, wherever I need it.

To make it even more fun, I took out the first batch of workout money in $2 bills and the new dollar coins! They're really neat-looking. I had to special-order them from the bank because they didn't have any there.

So far it's working! We went for an hour-long brisk walk together around town on Sunday, "earning" $10 each, and each of us managed another half hour of exercise on Monday, so we each get another $5.

I could be putting this toward debt, but if I can get us healthier, that's just as big an investment in our future.

Well, I think maybe what I'll do, since someone mentioned starting a savings account for my emergency, entertainment and travel funds, is open a "goal savings account," which my bank offers. It's linked to my checking account, it's free as long as I make a $25 monthly automatic deposit, there's no minimum balance, and it even earns a teeny bit of interest. I'll keep my own records as to which parts of it are allocated to various funds.

This is, of course, assuming that NT gets offered enough money to meet some of my debt-repayment goals. Those come first, but I think it would help us control our spending if there were separate, finite funds for various things.

Our spending has been way controlled since I started budgeting us back in late March, but thinking long-term, if I'm going to keep my household on board, I have to be willing to spend a little on travel and entertainment! Don't want any mutinies down the road. :-)

Great news this morning: NT got confirmation that his current temp assignment is giving him a permanent job! He doesn't know the details of pay, but they know the minimum that he would take and have said it will be more than that for sure. He hasn't found out many other particulars either. One thing he stipulated is that he'd want a somewhat flexible schedule so he could go back to volunteering (tutoring disadvantaged youth), and they said that would be fine. He's going to continue temping as their receptionist until they get the new position all straightened out, so we know we'll have steady income from now on.

Now that I know we'll easily be able to stick with my accelerated payoff challenge, I'm thinking more about how some people on this site set money aside, and wanted to know how they do it. Those of you who build up funds for home improvement, travel, entertainment and emergencies, do you keep them as cash in envelopes, or separate offshoots of your checking accounts, or do you keep the money in your regular account but just pretend you can't use it?

I'm really hoping this job pays enough for my dream goal: paying for NT's school upfront. Well, by upfront I mean taking out student loans, but then paying off an equivalent extra amount on my consumer debt, so that we continue to pay down principal at the same rate and end up with less "bad" debt. Fingers crossed, though that's a bit more money than I expect him to be offered! :-)

CJ

I'm sorry; I try not to be controversial in places where it might be problematic.

But I just came back from a "bachelor party" for two male friends having a commitment ceremony next week. These are two friends who are moral, upright, religious and kind on all counts, and compeletely in love with one another (for the past 5 years). Yet family members who have supported them being together are having a problem with them having a commitment ceremony.

These familial haters keep bringing up the Bible or God, thinking the two lines of the Bible condeming homosexuality are somehow more powerful than the dozens of lines condemning shellfish and poly-cotton blends. I just don't get it.

I get having an opinion of something; I happen to think that eating, killing or using for entertainment an animal is just as wrong as eating, killing, or using for entertainment a human. But I realize I may not have all the answers where that is concerned, so I still love people who do such things to animals.

Basically, unless you kill or harm a human being deliberately, I will at least respect your basic nature. I can't believe these friends have to face so much petty judgment from these family members, who have taken a huge step interpreting God's will (where they've freely assumed other parts of the Bible are just dated per the era they were written in). I can't believe they'd take such a risk with the love of their sons/brothers.

Their loss, though. I will love these men their whole lives, feeling fortunate that I met them and know them.

Sorry again, but I just had to vent. This is so wrong.

CJ

I just retotaled my monthly budget because one of my regular payments went down. (I'll still pay extra on it; that's how it got lowered. But I do like to see my base budget.)

It hit a nice round number (with the help of rounding up every bill amount, of course): $4300. There are three adults in my household. $1040 is for groceries and other household expenses, $1892 for mortgage and association dues (including all utilities and cable TV), $141 goes to phone and internet for all three of us, and the rest ($1227) goes to debt (credit card, personal loan and student loans).

I know I could cut down a few other things, but if I just get rid of my straight-up debt, just think! $1227 a month left over to save, pay down my mortgage, up my 401(k), etc. That gives me even more impetus to push ahead, even if it takes years.

CJ

Well, I was looking at my budget projection for the next month and a half, and I had about a $480 surplus. Now, that accounts for some fun stuff that's planned, such as tickets to a music show, anniversary celebration, niece visit and friends' wedding expenses, but it doesn't count at all for spending money. Sometimes my little household goes around with little or no spending money, and we all know credit cards are only for budgeted items and emergencies, so we just don't often make impulse purchases. But it's nice to be able to do that, so I thought, I'll withdraw half that surplus and distribute it equally, $80 for each of us, and just tell the others it has to last them a couple weeks, but who knows? If there are no unexpected expenses, they might get some more.

Then AS called and said she'd had to go to the eye doctor, dentist and pharmacy today. I went back in and voila, $200 more gone to medical expenses! LOL, glad I didn't take out the full surplus or anything! I talked to AS, and she has some more expenses coming up, but we'll be able to plan for them. Plus, she'll be able to cover some of this eventually with flex spending.

Soo, I decided to still distribute the money I took out of the bank, but to let AS & NT know to hang onto some of it--don't know when we'll have some more spending money.

All in all, the budget is tight, but balanced. And I can always put some of my own share of the spending money back in if I need to; but I've got other places I can cut back if needed. Here it is, spending money already withdrawn (and much abridged):
Balance 7/5: $448.92

Bills & Expenses 7/1-7/15: $481.84

$32.92 SHORT

Income 7/15-7/31: 3271.21
Bills & Expenses 7/15-7/31: $2754.67

$483.62 LEFT OVER

Paychecks & Income 8/1-8/15: $2405.32
Bills & Expenses 8/1-8/15: $2839

$49.94 LEFT OVER

Not too shabby, and this plans for some extra pay-ins to principal debt!