Prior Months Equity Balance: 76%
May 15 payment % to Principal: 87% % to Interest: 13% One Day’s Interest: $5.95 Current Months Equity Balance: 77%If we were to take our entire savings and put it toward the land today?
April 1 House Account If applied directly to Land Mortgage NOW PROJECTED EQUITY IN LAND: 93%Letters of Intent were mailed by our private school a couple of months ago. While they are not contracts, it helps the school board determine school year needs, such as staffing. I did not print ours off; mostly because I am struggling with the decision about where to send our kids in the fall. This is a battle that has been waged in my mind since we moved just a couple of miles from the public school.
When we moved in November, we actually moved to a great school district. All the schools are rated very high in the state for academics. If we had remained in the same school district, I wouldn’t have really thought twice about continuing to send the kids to private school. I mean, a huge reason we went with the private school was because our old school district charged for kindergarten, but also the before/after school care combined with the Kindergarten tuition wasn’t that much different than what we would pay at our private school. The perk of our school: small classrooms so the teachers have more one on one time with the students. I also know the teachers and we communicate frequently via email (and even text sometimes). I just know my kids are not going to be lost in the crowd.
When we moved we talked about switching to the public schools that are so close to our houses. But the Girl did NOT want to switch schools. She has a network of friends that she doesn’t want to leave behind. The Boy, however, was ready to start at the new school right after Christmas break. The difference is that his preschool friends stayed in preschool while he advanced to Kindergarten, and another friend transitioned to public school. He is one of the youngest in his class this year. I think he feels like he has already lost his close friends, so why not move on.
I am completely torn. It would be so nice not to have such a long commute (even carpooling with another staff member, I worry about them being on the road so long every day). The cost to send the kids to public school will be about a third of the private school costs because we will still need to pay for before OR after school care (which is on location!). But they will go from classrooms of 14 to classrooms of about 25. They won’t have the same classes- like bible or Share Chapel, which are both more important to the Girl than they are to the Boy.
It is a hard decision! And we will have to make it soon.
What would you do? Take the money and send the kids to public school? Continue with the longer commute and send the kids to a christian school with smaller classes?
I was promoted mid- February. When I originally wrote this post I wasn’t sure I could be excited about it. Looking back it was a stupid career move. I received a very small raise to work about 15-20 more hours every week, and sometimes it is more than that. I was given one hour to decide if I wanted to be promoted to the supervisor of my department, or not. An hour to make a huge decision. I spoke to my hubby and he said to take it: a new title to put on my resume. I knew it would be more hours, but I definitely didn’t predict I would be working as much as I currently am working.
I have been super busy. There is a learning curve to go through and I haven’t even grazed the surface of the learning curve. I’m continuing to do my job, but I’ve added a second entire job to my plate. I have heard that I need to learn how to delegate, but no one else in my department has time to take on more responsibilities either, however they are pitching in and staying late as much as they can. Most days I feel like we are on a sinking ship, while I put in 11+ hours at work.
We have a lot to do. Year end journal entries keep coming in, our auditors were on-site for two weeks, our accounting software had some sort of problem so I couldn’t print January financials, so February was late and now it is time to create March financials. My oversight keeps changing their minds. Luckily, I made it through filing the taxes that had to be sent. But we haven’t quite got another mailing sent out the door. Everything just keeps piling up.
I don’t even want to think about the new system. We went live with a section of it, and just a week prior to that was the first time I heard about the accounting side of things for that department. They haven’t actually spent much time thinking about us. I’m not sure who is at fault for this: maybe the questions that needed to be asked just weren’t asked. Their team has been working for months, and then I start throwing questions at them that need answering in a week. Things I feel should have been put in process prior to going live have just now came up to be thought about. Even after almost a month being live, our workload has increased and we are still trying to get answers to some of our questions.
I’m pretty stressed out. I’m incredibly thankful for the women I work with. My department is hugely supportive and I have a great team. Unfortunately, they won’t consider adding another person to our department. Even if they did, I have no idea how I would have any time to train someone.
Positive encouragement right now would be appreciated. I’m hoping that I can look back at all this in a few months and think it is just a nightmare. The only place we can go is up!
Commuting to work is something almost everyone does (unless you are my friend H who found a job that she can mostly do from home). We are no different in that we have to commute. What may be a little different is that our kids’ school does not have a school bus. We don’t have anyone come by to pick them up before school, or drop them off after school.
My morning commute used to be about 45 minutes, from home to sitting at my desk at work took about an hour. Since we moved in November, my commute is over an hour, and I don’t get to my desk for another 15 minutes (depending on how fast I walk). The bad thing is that we travel the same road for about 20 minutes- once going west and then immediately following traveling east. It makes for a long drive.
The same thing holds true in the evenings. It seems like an incredible waste of time (not to mention gas money.)
Since mid-January the kids have been carpooling with a staff member who lives close to us. We drop the kids off at her house and she takes them to school. For a couple of months we weren’t able to meet her in the evenings, so I was receiving the full awesomeness of carpooling in the mornings, and Hubby still (usually) had to make the after school trek to get the kids. But lately, she has been staying later and texting us to see if we want her to bring the kids home with her. If one of is able, we head to her house and save ourselves about an hour drive in the evenings!
Sounds like a great deal, huh? Well, I struggled with the idea of having someone else driving our kids. It makes me nervous. The majority of the time they ride in 5-point harness car seats still, but they use booster seats in her van. So, it makes me stomach turn a little bit. Plus, just having someone else drive them around makes me nervous (even if they were riding in a 5-point harness). There are just so many crazy drivers out there!
So far, the car pooling has been working well. It is saving us both time, that I usually spend at work. But it also gives me a little buffer so if I need to grab donuts or something for a work party, I have the time to stop and pick something quick up.
On April 1st I was super excited to get up and beat my husband. And I did!
Ten years ago on April 1st, I was waiting anxiously to pick up my Hubby and head to our wedding. Wow- ten years ago. It is pretty unbelievable that we’ve been married that long, but on to more important things.
Our weight challenge that started January 12, 2013 was completed April 1! I know I was very lax in posting about our progress, as I was about posting everything! But here you have it at long last:
ME: 10.9% Lost
Hubby: 4.2% Lost
I’m pretty excited about winning, but I still have about 10% to lose before I am ready for swim suit season at the end of May.
One of my motivators now are the slacks I purchased after our second child was born and that I haven’t been able to wear in about four years. I’m SO close. I actually brought them up from storage and tried them on. They are still a little too tight for me to feel comfortable walking around in, but I am confident that I’ll be there before long.
Wow- the last post I had was almost a month ago! Where does the time go?!
I have several posts in draft mode, so I will be editing and scheduling today. Some of these are old but I think they should still be posted. Still good information to share.
We’ve been super busy lately, and I haven’t been doing anything blog related. Just work, work, work, take care of kids, and work some more. Today, while my work computer is calling my name, I am going to get a few items edited and scheduled. Hopefully, I can carve out some time to actually blog more in the very near future!
How do you juggle work, blogging and family? Where is that balance and how do I get there?
Prior Months Equity Balance: 75%
April 15 payment % to Principal: 86% % to Interest: 14% One Day’s Interest: $6.05 Current Months Equity Balance: 76%If we were to take our entire savings and put it toward the land today?
April 1 House Account If applied directly to Land Mortgage NOW PROJECTED EQUITY IN LAND: 92%Well, I’ve been pretty scarce around here for February and March. We’ve been super busy and I hope to spend some time updating on everything that has been happening. However, now is time to update on our finances.
We are at 36% saved in our Online Account, an increase of 0%!
We haven’t transferred any money to this account lately. We are collecting it in our more easily accessible savings accounts. I have considered transerring the amount in it to our other accounts, however, it is more easily spent so I think it best to just keep the money online (even though we are earning less interest). In the short term, less interest is better than less money because we spent it.
The Equity in our Land is at 75%, an increase of 2%.
Normally, we increase this by 1% a month. This month shows 2% because I didn’t do an update for February.
We gained 1% of our outstanding debt. We only have 52% of our starting debt left!
While we increased our debt from January, we are still almost half way there!
Credit Card debt- We’ve been a little loose with our credit card spending over the last two months. We’ve actually added about 7% to our outstanding debt. We have 48% of our July, 2010 debt to repay. I will have to tell you all about the three purchases we have made that has increased our level so much.
Student debt- We decreased my student debt by 1% in February and March leaving us at 56% to repay.
April is here and the end of our weight loss competition. Can’t wait to continue getting healthy. I’m also excited to introduce you to one of our purchases, that will hopefully help us with this journey. Spring is also upon us and I can’t wait to start being outside more withe the kids. We are also going to attempt to plant some flowers and maybe even a very small garden. If you have any garden suggestions, please let me know! My thumb is pretty black.
Prior Months Equity Balance: 74%
March 15 payment % to Principal: 87% % to Interest: 13% One Day’s Interest: $6.48 Current Months Equity Balance: 75%If we were to take our entire savings and put it toward the land today?
March 1 House Account If applied directly to Land Mortgage NOW PROJECTED EQUITY IN LAND: 91%
Prior Months Equity Balance: 72%
February 15 payment % to Principal: 85% % to Interest: 15% One Day’s Interest: $6.75 Current Months Equity Balance: 74%If we were to take our entire savings and put it toward the land today?
February 1 House Account If applied directly to Land Mortgage NOW PROJECTED EQUITY IN LAND: 90%We have scheduled our appointment with our tax adviser for this weekend. Then I can finally stop fretting about how much money we are going to owe to the government. I will hopefully just KNOW. Then I can continue planning on how to have the land paid off by September and know how much money from our savings account that will be going toward that payment.
