Happy New Year ~

Here is what I hope is a 7 month recap and not 7 months worth of excuses :)

our life
The baby finally came the end of May. My son is now 7 months old, and wonderful. We had a very rough start - my delivery did not go at all as planned and I was sick and recovering for the first couple of months. He was also a very demanding baby and I spent a lot of time sitting and holding him. So not much at all got done the first few months. Now that he is napping and playing on his own more, I am working on getting life back to normal. I have been working on cleaning out the house, starting to sew again, I am trying to get a handmade business going. I've been spending a lot of time in Florida with my mom. My sister got married in September, and that took up a lot of time and planning as well. I feel very lucky our two elderly cars didn't give us trouble this year, but we are anticipating replacing a car in the not too distant future. We need a bigger car now anyway.

work

I had a meeting with work about two months in. I was still real ill and adjusting. I asked if I could go part time or work from home. My commute and pay did not make continuing to work (for them at least) continue to make sense. Additionally, the baby wakes up and stays up frequently in the night (he still does even now - I am exhausted) They told me that wouldn't work, and severed my employment with them. A couple months later, I got an email asking if I was still interested. So, I have been working part time from home. Some weeks more than others. My accounts hadn't been touched since I left, so I have been catching them up for the year. I have mixed feelings about it. I loved my job, and having some money come in is helpful. I miss really working though. I miss going into the office and all the components of my job. I am rather jealous of the girl who replaced me. It just wouldn't work though. I'd be working for daycare, and I can't imagine daycare raising my baby. Don't get me wrong - I never in a million years believed I would be a SAHM. Until I was. I never understood why people would give up their jobs to be moms. But there are lots of reasons to do so. It also doesn't mean I don't miss the socialization and accomplishment of work, either. I just can't do it all, after all.

The money

Here I wish I had kept up the blog. I think I could have used a place to sort things through and would have appreciated the recording of it. However, after April budgeting kind of went to hell. After I had the baby, everything did for a while. It was enough just to get to and from the bathroom for a while. I kept an eye on the bills but couldn't go to the bank. So we started using debit cards, and my husband signed us up for our grocery/gas credit card. We had a bunch of money sitting in our accounts that should have been put in savings. We have been going over budget and spending more freely again.

We were very lucky in that my family really provided us with most everything we needed. However, as I spent most of my days sitting on my couch holding the baby and watching game shows I also developed quite the addiction to online shopping. What else could I do one handed and sitting? Every little baby trinket or cloth diaper that appeared on a DOTD site I was buying. I didn't use a credit card, at least, but I have spent quite a bit of money earmarked for other things. I am still spending, and really that is one thing on the list for this year - get back on track. With everything - the budget and the spending. As well as try to find ways to make money.

The medical bills were far above what we had planned. I had a horribly emergency last minute C section and a lot of tests. Between me and the baby, we had about $40,000 in hospital bills. We paid oop (after insurance) $2500 in the end ($900 to an anesthesiologist I had never even planned to have!). That's 5 times what I planned on though. But it is all paid for. We had the money.

When I was going to the bank and taking out our monthly cash, we had accumulated over $3000 in cash savings funds I was keeping in my linen closet. I started having horrible nightmares about us getting robbed and killed. We finally took most of that cash and opened another savings account for short term savings. Now I just transfer the money every month.

I paid off the loan from my father on his birthday in September. All we have left is around $4000 on my student loan. We had a large "gift" for the holidays and we additionally have about $15000 in savings. I just have to sit down and think it all through but regardless, I should be debt free this month. 9 months later than originally planned. Not working has obviously slowed us down and I just have a lot harder time not having a lot of savings now with the baby. How funny when I lived most of my life with a couple hundred in the bank and thousands in debt and never thought twice about it.

Payoff: Month 16

March:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0


Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 5631.85
Loan 3: 8471.92

Debt: 14103.77
Paid: 758.34


April:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0

Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 5071.85
Loan 3: 8264.50


Debt: 13336.35
Paid: 767.42
Total Paid: 30571.53

Added to savings: -5000
Total savings: ~13600

YAY! for crossing $30,000 paid (Finally)!
A word on savings: We owed $3500 in federal taxes. My husband took out $5000 to cover the taxes. We should be able to repay the difference ($1500) plus what we would otherwise be putting in savings ($1600) and our state refund ($500) for a total reconciled (but not actual as of this moment) savings of $17200. I think we will hold off on this for now incase the little guy comes early. We anticipate hospital/doctor costs of around $1000 and a savings amount of $1600 in May. Total projection for May is $17800. Our debt at that point should be roughly $12,500, allowing us to pay it off with around $5000 left over.

Payoff: Month 15

February:


cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0


Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 6191.85
Loan 3: 8670.26


Debt: 14862.11
Paid: 760.45



March:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0


Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 5631.85
Loan 3: 8471.92

Debt: 14103.77
Paid: 758.34


Total Paid: 29804.11

Added to savings: 1600
Total savings: ~18600

Payoff: Month 14

January:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0

Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 6751.85
Loan 3: 8870.71

Debt: 15622.56
Paid: 761.02

February:

cc 1,2,3,4,5: 0

Loan 1: 0
Loan 2: 6191.85
Loan 3: 8670.26

Debt: 14862.11
Paid: 760.45

Total Paid: 29045.77

Added to savings: 1750
Total savings: ~17000

I'm here.

Wow. I've gone AWOL. Just because I have become tardy with my updates, doesn't mean I am not still following my plan. I have been very preoccupied with the pregnancy. I am 36 weeks now, and feeling big and uncomfortable and sore. My feet are huge. All my free time has gone to preparing for the baby, and I don't even really have energy for that anymore. Overall the pregnancy has gone well.

I have been having a much harder time sticking to my budget. I am spending lots on the baby. I have had some monetary gifts that help with that, but all my discretionary money and I have a baby line item in the budget and I have even gone beyond that. I was doing so well watching my spending til it came to the baby. I am still doing monthly budgets and payoffs. April has been hard because our taxes are much more than we were expecting. May is hard because the baby could come at any time. So, there is some shuffling of money going on in and out of our savings. We should still be able to be debt free after the baby comes with a decent savings starter.

Something has happened at work causing the blocks to go away, so for now, I am able to update here. Which is somehow a lot easier than updating from home for some reason. I don't know when they will put the blocks back up, but I am going to take advantage while I can to try to catch up. :)