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Archive for April, 2008

Running ragged...

April 13th, 2008 at 03:10 pm

My clients have flown in from England and the frenzied search for a house has begun! I've spent the past two days looking at houses with them, traveling over 150 miles each day. We had quite a few disappointments this weekend, looking at houses that didn't quite measure up to their pictures and descriptions. Today I have found a few newer listings to visit. Most of the houses that we've seen so far have been on the market for 3-4 months, so I'm optimistic that these newer listings may be a bit more what we've been looking for. And if not, we have seen one spectacular house that my folks would be happy with if nothing better comes along.
I had my pregnancy check-up last week - so far, so good. Sonogram is in 5 weeks, at which point we'll hopefully know the gender (although they did tell us with last pregnancy that ds was a dd!).
I just checked the account online and it looks like we'll finally have some breathing room. It seems like ever since my cat's surgery back in January, we've been juggling the bills - always having enough, but never having extra. Now, it seems we can catch our breath. I'd like to get our EF back up to $5k (and eventually $10k) - it's at $3k now - and start on our 2008 Roth contributions. Lastly, I've still got that bothersome Lowe's bill to pay off before July ($500 left on a $2k bathroom remodel).

yeah, okay, I've been gone...

April 4th, 2008 at 02:11 am

But for good reasons. I'm still exhausted all the time (12 weeks prego - hoping this wears off a bit once I'm solidly in the second trimester - soon!). My youngest son had outpatient surgery today for a hernia. A little nerve-wracking - not really for the operation, which was apparently quite common and simple - but for putting your child under anesthesia for the first time, not knowing how he will react. Luckily, he did fine - only a bit of nausea after coming out. He rested today, but really was back to his old self within a few hours (thankfully!). I'm going to be picking up extra hours at work starting next week to cover a co-worker's maternity leave (I negotiated for "extra time" pay for this - yeah!) I can't get overtime as I only work 20 hours a week. Over the next six weeks, this should net us an extra $1000 or so. It will be a much needed boost.

So after dealing with all of that, we haven't been paying much attention to the finances. I did take an extra $1000 from our EF (which now stands at $3k) to put into DH's Roth for the 2007 year. That will get him up to $3500 - maybe the full $4k if we squeeze $500 from our next paychecks in a week. Once I file our taxes, the $600 we get back will go straight back to the EF. I've got a small Discover cc bill to pay off, but I have a month to do it - had to put my real estate MLS dues on there, as well as two tanks of gas over the past few weeks. Other than that, we are in decent shape.

I'm planning a small vacation, probably for May, to take my sons to see the Thomas train. It's coming to two different locations in NY. I was going to book a hotel room and make a weekend out of it, but DH suggested camping. A night at a hotel would cost (at the bare minimum) $87/night. We can camp at a NY state park for $20/night, in addition to saving money on food as well. I think I've picked out the campground, so tomorrow I may book it. We are also very close to finalizing our camping week in July, where we book a cabin with DH's family. Unfortunately, I can think of better ways to spend $350 right now, but cabins are going fast and we may not get 5 cabins together (that's how many we need for everyone who goes) if we wait much longer.

So that's the story in my neck of the woods. I'll try not to be so much of a stranger, but when I'm in bed at 10pm every night...sometimes it's hard to find the time between all my sleeping!