We are still alive! This will just be a quick update on many different topics I've touched on in past posts.
Loans: We are continuing to make progress on our loans. Total balance is down under $70k (not much under, but still under). We're signed up for graduated repayment on the federal loans, so our extra is all targeted at the highest interest loan. I cashed in a savings bond, which enabled us to pay off one mini-loan. I've also been doing some market research with Pinecone Surveys and Focus Pointe Global, and I made some money doing tasks on Gradible (referral link--gets you 20 Loancreds). (Fair warning, the Gradible website is horribly difficult to navigate and not remotely user-friendly.) Currently all our "extra money" (excepting some birthday and Christmas gifts) is going towards debt. The 2015 goal is to pay down $20,000. This is a stretch goal. It will depend to some extent on how our taxes work out and how expensive the baby's delivery is (see below under savings).
Job: I'm trying to get a job to accelerate the debt repayment. I'm looking at childcare (short-term, since I'll need time off for the baby's birth) and tutoring (flexible). I've also thought of teaching some beginning knitting classes.
Food: This one has come down by itself. I don't know why. November grocery spending: $149.27. December grocery spending: $177.10. November eating out: $84.71 (including a road trip where we didn't pack food--duh--and our six month anniversary). December eating out: $41.15. That said, I'm just waiting for payday to place a huge order on Amazon of all the gluten free flours we're running out of, so January might be high. But I'm okay with these levels. Still not doing a good job on the actual meal planning thing, but I'm getting better at using everything before it goes bad, so close enough.
Budget: I gave up messing with Excel and bought YNAB (referral link, which saves you $6 off) on a half-off sale. Good choice, in my opinion.
Savings: We have saved $1000 against a potential tax bill and $4500 against the baby's birth. Whatever we don't need, plus any tax refund we may get, will go to debt. These are the huge financial unknowns of 2015. But we should have a good sense of the taxes by late February at the latest, and we should have the baby's birth sorted out by the end of the summer. Plenty of time to tighten our belts to reach our debt goal if we need to.
