a guppy and her money

Please tell me if I'm being super hormonal (I am 39 weeks pregnant on Thursday so that's entirely possible :P) or if there is any merit to this idea at all. To be honest, it's more of a rant than anything...

My husband and I make a combined 110k between both our jobs and rental property. We have no credit cards, have recently paid off the last of his student loans and my car, and our debts now are my 20k student loan, a 93k rental property, and 165k balance on our 15 year mortgage for our primary home.

Saturday night his car (93 honda civic) was stolen and much of it stripped. This is not the first time we've had an issue with this car. It has been broken into two times before (head unit stolen) but this time the entire car was stolen, wheels removed, and battery, plugs, wires, etc. under the hood stolen before leaving it in some alleyway. We previously had a 94 honda accord that was stolen as well by some young teenagers and taken for a joyride and left in a neighbors driveway down the street which cost us nothing to fix, but was quite a headache and still not something you like to see happen. We live on the outskirts of one of the largest cities in Pennsylvania for almost 5 years now, and although our street is quiet and nice, only 3 miles down the road is "downtown" which has a very bad connotation. We moved here almost 5 years ago and refinanced earlier this year right before I became pregnant. We owe about 7-10k more than what I think the property is worth, but it was our intention to stay here 4-5 or so years until our daughter is school age and then move right before she has to enter the school system (since we are in a poor performing school district). With a 15 year mortgage we would've paid off a large amount of the mortgage and would be in good shape for our next home.

As it is right now, I just feel uncomfortable. We have a short driveway with a very small garage that barely fits my husbands honda civic. I'm thinking maybe he could start parking his car in the garage instead of at the end of teh driveway (behind my car) and that would deter any theft. The scary thing is now I feel like this invites the thieves to come even closer to my home.

There have been no instances on the block of home theft/burglary, only some car issues (and to be honest, we seem to get the brunt of it since his car is considered popular in the inner city). I don't know if a car burglary is serious enough that I should be scared of living here, or if maybe I'm just blowing things out of porportion. Part of me says to sell the car and get one that no one in the inner city would want, but my husband drives 55 mi each way to work, and reliability wise and gas wise, the Honda civic is by far the best car out there. Plus this is one of the few cars he is familiar with, and can do most repairs and maintenance himself which saves us a lot of money. Am I just being difficult and do you think there's something else out there that would satisy our needs but not entice thieves? Should we consider moving and taking a loss on this home for added security?

I feeling increasingly uncomfortable raising a child in this area. If I could put a bubble around the 5 blocks around my house it would be so nice, but the reality is we have a depressed economy with a lot of job losses and high crime in the inner city, and a lot of desperate people that will do this sort of thing within only miles of our home. With a baby on the way, my parents are more than willing to let us live with them for a couple months rent free (and my mom would babysit) until we figured out exactly what we're doing. We make a good income and considering the progress we've made in 2 years on our debt, I'm confident we could pull out of the house loss fairly quickly (especially living with my parents). So many thoughts running through my head. Anyone else have any comments? Sorry for the long rant...I just really needed to get this off my chest.

This weekend was super spendy for us. After two weekends where we barely went out and were super frugal, we totally blew it this last one. T and I celebrated our anniversary at this exclusive steakhouse near our house and it was AMAZING. Bill for the amazing meal ended up being $166 with tip! :0! We never ever ever spend money like this on eating out, but I wanted to splurge since we didnt have any other anniversary plans (staying over someplace or going to a broadway show just didn't seem enticing when I'm as super big and pregnant as I am now.) We bought each other frugal gifts ( less than 20 each) but then by the end of the weekend we decided to treat ourselves yet again and do a joint annivesary gift of a Keurig single serve coffee maker. I was able to find it cheapest brand new on ebay for $72 which was pretty good. But between the expensive anniversary dinner, the gifts, and the new rotors T had to buy, it ended up being a super expensive weekend. Good thing we had a little bit of a buffer from the last two weekends being cheap ones. I'm going to try and cut back on groceries this week too and make up for some of it there. I'll keep you posted!

How ridiculous! I've gotten through the majority of my pregnancy without too many weepy moments. I can think of maybe two the whole time where looking back I was like "Ok, I definitely acted that way because I was pregnant." and wasn't of completely sound mind :P. But yeah, lately I'm just agitated all the time! Frustrated and annoyed at everyone! So steer clear of me!

Savings is coming along quite nicely which you think would keep my spirits up. But then my mom hits me last night with a $275 bill for insurance on the rental and it just annoyed the crud out of me even though I should've remembered it was coming. Oh well...

I just gotta get through a few more weeks (and then the real fun begins!). 37 weeks on Thursday so it won't be long now!

So I didn't like how I had my sidebar set up before. Figured it would make more sense if I listed what I've done/ what I'd like to accomplish for the remainder of 2010. To be fair, though, I really wouldn't have been able to come up with this back in January because everything was so up in the air. I didn't know I would become pregnant or what the future would hold! So yes, I'm updating/revising my 2010 goals when it's almost October haha. Oh well, still makes me feel good to see what progress we've made. Paid off 14,000 in loan debt in 2010 and have amassed 4,500 so far in savings. Looks good to me!

Is it sad that I'm already looking forward to January so I can update again? I already know 2011 is going to be mostly tapping the savings for maternity leave, but we should be upping retirement to at least an avg. of 10% and starting to tackle the student loan! Woohoo!

Paychecks hit on Friday and then on Sunday I had my babyshower (& some money from the parents), so savings got a nice boost! We're in the home stretch at this point! My goal was to hit at least 6,500 in savings before having to tap the money on maternity leave and as of this moment it's looking like we might squeak out a little more than 7,000 which is exciting! Break time's over...more to post later.

So when I first dreamt up this little side business of mine (onesies), all the information I read on the internet said to make sure it was something I love because there would be a lot of blood, sweat and tears involved. Well I'm glad I get such a kick out of my own onesies, because I am definitely my biggest customer! So far I've only made 1 sale on etsy haha, but meanwhile I keep moving all of my "inventory" from downstairs up into the baby's closet because I get such a kick out of all the onesies I've made. I guess it's good I like all my own stuff, and hopefully with a little persistence others will start to see the amazingness that is Silly Panda Clothing! :P

On the financial front, paychecks hit tomorrow and savings will get a nice boost! I might take 400 out to put towards buying a baseboard heater for the baby room and then to cover the bent rim that we've been putting off for the past month. Now that I think I've got my work leave figured out a little better (I'll post more on that later..) I'm not as freaked out about the money situation as I was a couple weeks ago. Alrighty, husband's almost home so I gotta get ready for our Walmart outing.

T and I went to the bank yesterday and we were able to fix our HELOC at 4.73 for the next 20 years! I'm so excited our payments are now $599. When we bought half the condo off my parents 2.5 (??) years ago we initially had to do interest only payments (dummmmb) because we couldn't afford the principal and interest payments. I believe the interest only was $550/mo. Then rates came down and we were finally able to afford the P&I and I think it was at about $760. So now we were able to break the 600 barrier and it feels great! Each time we've fixed it we've reset it back to 20 years though, but I think this was the last time, and I'm ready to start knocking some principal off. The renters have been paying pretty well since the government stopped their assistance so I'm feeling good!! (Knock on wood!)

I'm leaving in a few minutes to meet T at the bank and fix our Home Equity Line of Credit. It costs $100 everytime we do it, but each time we're locking in for the life of the loan at the new rate. Since we've started doing this the rates have come down probably about 2 points. I'll post when I get home at what the rate came in as. Unfortunately they didn't let us lock it in the last time we were at the bank. They had to wait for the next pay cycle and then for paperwork to process (which puts us at today). Keep your fingers crossed for 4.75% or below!

Savings still seems to be hovering around $2,700 which is a total bummer. Once next paycheck hits (week from Fri) it should get bumped up by at least 1,000 so that's positive at least. Things are inching along. I have my 34 week OBGYN appointment tomorrow and T and I are going to get a few more baby things in order this weekend...

I did have my first etsy sale! I'm very excited by my first sale, now I have to figure out how to market my site better (www.etsy.com/shop/vkoenigk) and get more people to view my items. Etsy has a little counter but it moves so slowly lately. I have to try craigslist again. I haven't gotten any buyers through craigslist, but I did manage to get a lot of traffic to my etsy site that way. I figure the more people who look at my stuff the more chance someone might be interested in one of my onesies. I sent out two onesies to the first buyer in the hopes of getting super awesome feedback. I figure in the meantime I'm going to hang up the onesies I've already made in the baby's closet because they're too cute to let sit in a box waiting to sell. Come on, every baby needs a tax deduction onesie! :P I figure as items sell I'll just make the shirt instead of keeping a whole stockpile. We'll see how this goes...

So at the advice of some other bloggers on here, I decided to relook at my maternity leave budget and see if I could somehow squeeze some more money out of a tight situation. Turns out if I can work until October 15th (1 week before due date!), I will have enough leave and money to float us with a little to spare until June 24th (When maternity leave/part-time leave is over and my mom can start babysitting) and I return to work full-time. I reworked all the numbers using a more concrete leave date and I found there would be 1,200 to spare. Not a lot considering we'll have a new baby and I'm sure there will be a fair share of items that need to be bought, but I'm hoping that I've built in enough weekend money (300/wkend - yes, extravagant to some people. I've been yelled at on the message boards for spending that much..) to cover small miscellaneous costs that come up. That's pretty much what we do now. Someone's getting married? Cash gift comes out of weekend money. Someone just had a big birthday? Gift money comes out of the weekend money. House needs some repairs? Weekend money. I'll probably be dipping into it quite often for diapers and formula. I figure I won't make a budget category for that until it's been a few months and I have a general idea what that'll cost. I dunno, it works for us so I guess that's all that matters. So yeah, for the time being I'm feeling better about this baby situation... until the next issue sets me off. :P

I've been staring at the money situation lately and I can't find a solution. I plan on taking 3 months maternity leave and then working 6 months part-time before heading back to work full-time and the money we'll need to float this endeavor is way more than I had anticipated. With Xmas ($700), oil ($1200), T's school ($800), and a christening ($500) on top of the regular bills, we're going to need about $6,800 to get by with almost no emergency fund left once I start back full time. I was hoping to have at least $7,500 to have a little bit of a cushion but I don't see any way of that happening now.

I've been trying to come up with some odd jobs that might make us a little bit of money. I started creating onesies (the link is in my sidebar) but I have no idea how to promote it and with each day I'm getting more frustrated.

The past 2 years we've dug our way out of a lot of debt and I think I was just too ambitious with paying things off instead of holding onto enough money to get us by with my maternity leave. Why didn't I think things through?! Rawr.

So there's my rant for the day. I'm sure all my crazy hormones aren't helping any. I'll post later when I'm feeling more chipper and hopefully I come up with a solution to this problem!

T is going to kill me! The Home Equity Line of Credit that we have out on our rental property is supposed to be a variable (currently 3.74%??) interest rate. Because a variable rate would keep me up at night, I opted for a fixed rate. In the beginning the payment was so high that we had to do a fixed Interest Only rate (Dumb, I know. But at the time we thought real estate was a win-win situation and that the value would forever be increasing and never going down. Hah!) As the rates have come down, it became affordable enough for us to do a fixed Principal and Interest payment. Each time we "fix" the rate, we need to "unfix" what it was previously and pay a $100 dollar fee before we can lock it in again. This is now probably the 4th time I am looking to lock in at a new lower rate and each time I promise T it's the very last time! Of course the rates keep going lower and it just makes sense to pay that $100 because we make it back so quickly. So yes, here we are for the umpteenth time trying to fix the rate to 4.7%. We have to wait til the next billing cycle before we can lock in, so when Sept 10th rolls around interest rates better not have risen an inch!!

The ceilings been painted. Walls are painted. Hardwood is refinished. New base and cove are installed. AND HERE COMES THE FURNITURE!!!

Ok, ok, so I'm a little excited. The in-laws showed up yesterday with the free furniture they had gotten and T put it together and set it up in the room. I'm going to try and post some photos. Here goes..







Yah, so we still have some more cleaning to do. And I still need to figure out how I'm decorating (I'm thinking sea life/ocean/beachy?) but we are getting there little by little. Woo hoo!

Does anyone know of a free or close to free web hosting service? I'm trying to get my onesie business up and moving (etsy.com/shop/vkoenigk) but I really need a website first that I can start promoting/advertising. Just wondering if any of you have your own website or know of any good web hosting services and what their fees are???

Thanks in advance!!!

Savings just doesn't want to budget after two paychecks and it's starting to really worry me..

Travis' school, car problems and more car problems, unforeseen house repairs, and everything else seems to be eating up any money we had planned to put to savings. I guess it's my fault. Just a few weeks ago I said to T, "Isn't it funny, when we had credit card debt it seemed like there were unforeseen expenses all the time. Since we've been free of credit card debt (1.5 years now) it seems like our budget is always under control and we never have any of those extra expenses." Me and my big mouth...

So after much searching I've decided if I want goofy, wacky onesies I'm just going to have to start making them myself! There are a few novelty stores online, but the prices they charge are insane. I bought some t-shirt transfers and some white Gerber onesies and I started this past weekend!

After making a few I've come up with some more ideas I can make for family, friends, etc. but there are some that maybe moms in general would want. I signed up on www dot etsy dot com/shop/vkoenigk (Not sure if you're allowed to post links here??) and I've already posted my first four. I'm so excited!!

I'm not much of an artist, but I'm trying to think of a few cute designs. I love my little pea in give PEAS a chance (that's basically the extent of my artistry haha)

I still need to make my Who's the Boss? Tony Danza shirt (for the baby of course...long story haha) and a couple other off the wall shirts. The more I make the more ideas I'm coming up with. Who thought this would be so fun?!??

On the money front, I'll post later. I think this weekend was a bit more spendy than I anticipated...

Trying to declutter the house is hard to do with a baby on the way. It seems for every piece of houseware/clothing I donate or trash, there's at least 2 more coming in!

T and I have already taken home a couple of bouncers/swings, a diaper genie, HUGE bag of new clothes, bag of infant toys, pack 'n play, and the in-laws still have the crib, dresser, and changing table to bring when they next visit. So much stuff I'm trying to figure out where to put it all! I don't think I'm going to use all of the bouncers and swings, but I took it all and I'll just sell whatever we don't use for baby. I just can't pass up free stuff. Especially when it's in as good condition as all of this is.

Money is sort of at a standstill at the moment. We had a car issue that ate up $200 and it looks like T is registering for his calc class this pay period instead of next, so right now our savings is sitting around 2100 instead of the 2700 I had anticipated. Next Friday we should break $3,000 which I'll be pleased with and make sure to post if we've hit the mark! Only a few more paychecks until I start thinking about maternity leave, so we need to conserve as much as we can!

SIL works as a nanny for a family who evidently doesn't know that once their children outgrow items they can sell and make some money back. They told SIL who told MIL whoever wants their stuff can have it. MIL jumped in and claimed a whole bunch of stuff for me and T (and the baby)! Evidently they have a cherry (not a big fan of cherry, but hey, it's FREE) convertible crib, changing table, and dresser ready for us to take. Plus MIL got a whole bunch of their swings/bouncers/etc (including a Graco SweetPeace?? MIL was saying how it's really cool...I'm still not sure I know what it is, but has anyone out there used one with their baby?) I told her to take anything that wasn't nailed down because even if we don't use it, we'll sell it to a consignment shop or at a yard sale. T and I might go up to the in-laws this weekend and see what else they've taken for us so far...I'm so excited!!

On the cleaning front, things are inching on. T finished painting the babies room and the ceiling, so now he has to do one final sanding of the floor before he does the first coat of stain. It's so exciting to see everything coming together. The whole moving thing is seeming more like a dream now than anything, but I'd still be interested in putting up the house for sale just to see if there's anyone out there interested. We still need to get some more things in order, so maybe we'll just ride it out with the pregnancy and finish up the odds and ends and then in April list it?? I dont know..it seems things change around here minute to minute!

Trying to get this house is order is more difficult then I thought! We're trying to clean/prepare for baby/stage the house to put up for sale and it's going waaaay slower than it should be. I'm torn between making the perfect baby room vs. one that's as simple and rudimentry as possible so that if this house does sell we can pack up and leave with little hassle. I wanted to move my old furniture from my parents house into the babies room but now it seems silly if we're going to move it out so soon. We're thinking in the meantime to just steal some furniture from the spare room so that room doesn't look so cluttered and use that in the babies room. It's sort of an ugly brown wood (I got it for free - from my grandpa's house. Hard to pass up a deal like that.) so I figured the most palatable color that's not too blah that would go with it is a light green. Light green matches the green leaf I bought at Ikea to put over the crib too so I guess it'll all work out. Decisions, decisions! There's just too much to think about! And now break time is over, so I best be going.

One more thing - Savings will be up to $2250 once pay checks hit on Friday!

So my husband and I are thinking about making a big change. We Are living in a 1250 square foot home in a a bad school district. The idea has been for us to stay here a few more years and then sell the home once the baby gets close to school age...

With me being being 6 months pregnant now, the plan was to amass quite a bit of savings so that I could take off for a few months and then work part-time for a few months. Obviously this would put financial goals on hold (for probably a year or so). My mom has offered to do daycare for us once I return to part-time and then full-time work, but I would have to pick the baby up from her house. The problem is they live 45 minutes from my work and home and so it's going to be quite taxing for a while until I get used the commute. So yesterday, for the heck of it, T and I stopped off at an open house just to see what's out there. Turns out we LOVED the place and when we saw the price tag, it was so affordable we couldn't believe it. We went back home and started crunching numbers and realized that we could buy our "forever" home in the next school district over (which is Very good!) and have plenty of money to spare (the 30 year mortgage would be identical to what our 15 year mortgage is now). The issue then becomes that our current home is probably worth exactly what we owe on it. I was talking over yesterday with my mother how T and I would be willing to sell this home and break even knowing we would be moving to our forever home but with a baby on the way there's just too many things going on right now. That's when they offered to let us move in with them for a couple months. My mom said she would be able to more easily help with daycare so it would be less of a strain on her, help us not dip into savings to pay for my maternity leave (since my parents said they would charge us only 200/mo rent), plus actually add to savings so that we would have more money for a down payment on our next home (which doesn't necessarily need to be the home we just looked at, but would be in the nice school district). Although it seems a bit weird to be taking a step backwards and moving in with my parents, I have to admit the offer is more than a bit tempting with a baby on the way. Plus with us living at their house T and I would be able to help with their fixing up so that they could put their house up for sale possibly next year and move closer (that is, if my Dad comes around to it. As I get more and more pregnant and he becomes more aware he's going to be a grandfather I think he's getting into the idea of selling and living closer to us.)

So I think the next order of business is to sell this house! I can't believe we're doing this! More updates to follow!

After reading Jeffrey's Grocery Coupon Guide, I've decided I need to get my grocery bills in check! I spend about $80-100/ week for only 2 people (that includes groceries, house supplies, kitty litter, etc.) and I know it is WAY more than I need to be spending. With 3 months of baby leave fast approaching, I'm going to take the time to be domesticated and learn some of the things that I should've done long ago (i.e. Cooking and Couponing!). This Sunday I plan on picking up the Sunday paper and seeing the manufacturers coupons and what I can do with them. I'm trying to find some good websites that will match Weis store reward card deals w/ manufacturers coupons to get those super low prices. If anyone has any good ideas let me know!

It's a little sad that I'm wishing the week away just so I can pick up the Sunday paper and see how I can save some money - Haha oh well.

Ok, so I'm around 23 weeks right now and with each passing day I seem to get more and more questions about how I'm going to feed my baby when she gets here.

I know breastfeeing is said to be the ideal way, but to be honest, I don't think it's right for me. I'm taking off 2.5-3 months from work, so that means I'll probably have the baby with me for approx. 1.5-2 months of that time. (I can't see myself working to the bitter end and giving birth in the office; sorry, not my thing). To be honest I feel uncomfortable with the idea of breastfeeding and I would force myself to get comfortable with the idea if I was going to be home full-time, but I'm not. I would rather use a breastpump and mix with formula or just use exclusively formula. I like the idea of T being able to help with feedings so I'm almost certain breast feeding is out. To be honest I don't feel that guilty (even though others have been trying to make me feel that way) because I was formula fed as well many other people I know and we turned out to be healthy, functioning members of society! What's with all the new mommy guilt associated with formula feeding. Anybody else have similar experiences???

Paychecks hit my account on Friday, and then the EF will be up to 1500. Phew! I've been a little on pins and needles since I've paid off the car, worried since I used so much of my savings to pay the loan balance. But now I'm starting to feel a bit better about the situation. I've never had a huge emergency fund, I've always found 1000 to be enough to handle most of the issues that come up for us. I know, I know, I shouldn't say that because now something catastrophic is going to happen that'll cost way more than that!!

so now that we know we're having a girl, I started scouring the internet for deals. The problem is I do not like girly, frilly, lacey girls clothes. If my girl gets older and decides she likes those type of clothes then that's cool with me, but while she's too little to know or care, I'd like some awesome baby clothes that aren't so crazy in your face pink. Problem is the only sites that make fun baby clothes that I kinda like are super expensive since I guess it's a novelty. I was just at Target this past weekend and it seems anything on sale or in a reasonable price is insanely girly. Are most stores like this?? What to do?!

Turned 26 yesterday. This is the first time that I'm starting to think I'm not a youngin' anymore. Could be the number or maybe it's the fact that I'm carrying a little one in my tummy.

By the way, it's a girl!

Ok, so not really. We did just pay off the car debt and now have only 1 non-mortgage debt left (stupid student loans!) but the savings account is pretty darn sad. Turns out I forgot to get my car inspected, so that's an additional expense right there that I wasn't anticipating. It'll be nice once this student loan is gone forever. It's the albatross around my neck. I stupidly deferred it and it accrued interest back a few years ago, so now it's pretty much at where I started when I graduated. Blahhh.

I printed out Dave Ramsey's 7 baby steps to see where we fell in line with those.

Step 1: 1,000 in EF (Done next paycheck)
Step 2: Pay off all non-mortgage debt (half done)
Step 3: 3 to 6 months expenses in savings (nope)
Step 4: Invest 15% Gross to Retirement (Avg 9% between the two of us - over half there!)
Step 5: College Funding (soon as baby is born in 4 mos. we're opening a 529, but not done yet)
Step 6: Pay off home early (Does a 15 yr loan count?! we anticipate paying down even faster once everything else is gone)
Step 7: Build wealth and give! (not yet- soon!)

So it turns out we've actually started a number of the steps without even realizing it. I guess I'm not really 100% following Dave's plan. More of a modified Ramsey follower :P.

Car Payment hits the loan on Friday. 8,271.62! That leaves us with $250 in savings. I know, I'm a crazy person, I just can't stand having savings with all that debt hanging over my head. We have another 1200 slotted for savings coming in this next month, so I'm not too concerned about emergencies (knock on wood!). I'm just so SO SO HAPPY to be down to only 3 debts to my name. This last student loan is going to take a while to knock out. We're in total savings mode now so no additional payments to debt until approx. Aug 2011 (Blech - makes me sad to think we have to wait that long, but I guess a baby makes it all worthwhile :P)

HOORAY!! SO excited for Friday to get here so I can cross the car debt off my list!

So T started listening to Dave Ramsey's show (he's been getting it commerical free through some sort of podcast) and started getting the fever! He's now talking to me about our finances and what our goals are. I was so very proud! But then this week he withdrew $40 dollars from the ATM to cover lunch with co-workers and some extra spend money. Ok, so his financial interest isn't exactly a slam dunk, but he's at least starting to thinking about things! To be honest, I couldn't ask for a better husband when it comes to spending (and otherwise). In general, he keeps expenditures to a minimum and let's me have free reign of the finances. Occasionally he'll check in to see what else I've paid off since he last asked :P. But the thought of him being even half as interested as I am is totally exciting! We could sit around the dinner table and plan our financial schemes! I would be the happiest little nerd ever!

Ok, so really not much of an achievement, but I'm excited.

3.5 years ago I got married, bought a house, bought a rental property, bought two cars, ran up a credit card, started paying student loans, and at our worst we were probably around -25k networth. I am using My Portfolio on the Bank of America website and as of this morning we are +726.00! So by many standards my husband and I are a little behind (almost 26 and 27 years old in case you were wondering), but with the speed that we are forging ahead, I foresee us making a lot of headway in the next few years! Plus that positive net worth takes into account all the value lost in our two properties these past two years (I'm not fudging any numbers, I swear!) The market has levelled out so I don't plan on those numbers going anywhere but slowly up over time. Hooray for me and T!

Today I reached 16 full weeks, so I'm starting my 17th week of pregnancy. My doctors appointments are still like 5 days off. They had initially thought I was around a week further along, but decided it wasn't big enough of a deal to change my appointments. Sounds fine to me - can't wait to see the baby on June 4th! We'll find out the sex of the baby and that's when it'll get super exciting!

Already adding up savings for the next paycheck that hasn't hit (starting to become a habit to start tallying the day or two before. I know, I know, so impatient.) Total savings will be up to 7,200 on Friday. Following paycheck (5/28) we can pay off the car if we want to be that crazy (and I do!). We'll only have a few hundred in savings at that point but we've got enough cash flow coming in each paycheck that I don't foresee any issues. So if everything goes as planned, we'll have the car paid in full less than 4 months since payments started! Woohoo!! And then it's onto hoarding money for baby. I told T we might be able to live off his salary and my part-time wages for those 6 months if we want to go the rice and beans route. We'll budget for the maternity leave with extra money, but I'm going to try and live as leanly as possible. I think we can do it! Woohoo! I'm totally psyched! Ok, ok, way too much energy today haha.