10 weeks!!

Not quite out of the danger zone yet, but getting closer. Only three weeks left in this first trimester!! The nausea is starting to go away and the exhaustion is letting up a bit as well.

This week I get to call the Dr's office and see how they are going to bill me. We switched insurance plans since I had DD so things will be completely different this time. Looks like I am going to have to pay my full deductible by the 7th month. That's going to put a damper on the debt payoff as I funnel the money off to this instead. But it makes me happy that we have the available funds to re-allocate. Once baby is born then we will have another deductible to pay. But separating them out and paying installments seems better than paying all $5,000 upfront or all at once!

Even with the debt payoff slowing down a bit, we will be crossing the $6,000 paid mark (this year) with my first check in April. WOW! We are also paying our tax bill and have plans to pay our insurance deductibles without going further into debt. We still have our tight moments here and there but we are finally finding our balance. It is such a great feeling to be able to meet all of our needs and several of our wants without stressing about it. It is also good to remember where we came from to remind us that we never want to be in debt again!!

9 weeks - planning ahead

Tiny hands, tiny feet, baby is almost fully formed!! Just about everything is in place and ready to grow over the next seven months. Yay :) Still two more weeks until the Dr visit when we can hopefully hear his/her little heart beating. Can not wait.

I, however, have been really sick the past couple of days. Blech. Living off of cereal and greek yogurt. At least it is something fairly healthy. I just keep taking it as a good sign that baby is healthy & growing (fingers crossed).

So while I was lounging around on the couch today I started to think of all the things we need for the new baby. The good news is that we have most of the baby stuff already, so there's very little that we have to get. Here's the list so far:

• Mattress for the pack-n-play. Aly is staying in the crib & new baby will sleep in the PnP since we have one. Hopefully when we move in 2014 Aly can move to a big girl bed & baby can have the crib at that time.
• Diapers and wipes. Starting to check out drugstore deals now to get the stockpile going again. And using my MyPoints giftcards to make the purchases.
• Milk storage bags (these double as bottle liners for the kinds of bottles that we have).
• New bottle nipples.
• Binkies.
• Muslin swaddling blankets. I didn't have these with Aly and I really should have just broken down to buy them. Stalking the baby section at TJ Maxx until I find some (hopefully in a neutral pattern).
• If it's a boy, clothes.

Whew! The initial financial outlay for this kid will be considerably less. Which is good, considering we have to pay $4000 more in medical deductibles vs. when we had Aly.

Post-Payday Letdown

I get so excited leading up to payday. I start playing with my spreadsheets to see how much I can eek out to get us just that last little bit to pay off these bills. Do I want to round off each debt to a nice, even number? Or should I round off the total of the credit cards since that's our current "racing" debt? Oh, but rounding off that number only leaves me $3.48 over the next big $1,000 increment on our overall debt.
 
So many decisions!!!
 
Right now I have been rounding off our credit cards. One is technically a loan with a set payment (and no pre-payments allowed unless it is paid off completely). So that balance is always an odd amount - which bugs the heck out of me. I make the minimum payments to all the other cards, and then take our snowball and apply it to our smallest card. Then I see how much extra we need to get us to a nice, even amount. Sometimes it is $5, sometimes it is $45. But I like to leave it on even $50 increments for the overall total. I guess it is good because it has me squeezing out just a bit more each time.
 
Here's where the numbers stand this month:
 

 Start 1/1/2013: $24,500

1/20/2013: $23,300.24

2/5/2013: $21,550

2/22/2013: $21,300

Current 3/7/2013: $20,500

Difference: $4,000

 
This time I was able to squeeze out $800 towards our cards! WOW! This snowball power is really rolling :) But the first update (check) of the month is always the biggest. The second is usually smaller, maybe a couple hundred. Those updates are not nearly as fun. And notice that number on 1/20 - somehow I mis-calculated my rounding and ended up with an extra $.24. That was so annoying!!!
 
But now the payments have been made and the spreadsheets updated. I don't get to do this again for another 31 days. Kind of disappointing. I do have some smaller updates throughout the month on our overall debt (student loans and car loan) that give me an excuse to peek at my spreadsheet before next month. And then there's the dreaming & planning for how I can get down to that next incremental milestone.
 
I can't wait to get these cards down under $20,000. Going to try and see if I can't make that happen by the end of the month some way. DH didn't get the cases closed that he wanted to this month but the good news is that they are not lost, just delayed due to paperwork processing. Maybe next month we can pay off a nice big chunk of debt when he gets paid. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

February Update

Slowly but surely we are chipping away at these balances. I think we are on a pretty good track right now. March could be an absolutely amazing month, but trying to not get my hopes up too much. Here's where we stand at the end of this month:
 

Overall starting balance: $62,300.13

Current balance 2/28/13: $58,000.39

Difference: $4,299.74

 
And on the CCs:
 

Starting Balance: $24,500

Current balance 2/28/13: $21,300

Difference: $3,200

 
 
Tonight we go to take our documents to the tax preparation lady. I am hoping that bill is not too scary! DH has been working his tail off and has some good things in the works. Hopefully a few of them pay out in March so we can continue to make great strides on this balance.

7 weeks

Our little bean has had a heartbeat for two weeks now. Last week, arm & leg buds were forming. This week little hands and feet can be seen emerging from the ends of those little buds. And baby is moving around like crazy (or so they say - I won't be able to feel it for awhile yet). He/she also doubled in size to now measure an impressive .5'' long. Our baby is almost completely formed (heart, lungs, brain, bones, eyes, etc)!! Just a few more weeks to go, and then we spend the rest of the time maturing and putting on weight.

I got some belly bands off Amazon to wear when my regular clothes start feeling too tight. For some reason I didn't think it would be appropriate to just walk around at work with my pants unbuttoned ;) But this week my pants are back to buttoning again. Morning sickness has returned this week and stolen my appetite. I lost three of the six pounds I had previously gained. Oh well. I am trying to focus on eating healthy things when I do have an appetite, taking my vitamins, and staying hydrated.

Kansas City got over a foot of snow last Thursday. It's been years since we've gotten that much in one storm. Usually we get 1-3'' at a time. Thursday's storm even brought along thunder-snow. That was pretty cool to see! The forecast is calling for another major storm to hit tomorrow and dump at least another 12''. WHAT??! I don't think there has been a winter this snowy since I was very little. Maybe on Tuesday when it stops I will take Aly out to play in it. So far she's not been too interested. We brought in a bowl of snow to make ice cream with & let her play with the rest of it. After a couple quick feels she wanted nothing else to do with it. But she does love looking out the front window at the huge piles everywhere.

5 Weeks - Blueberries

That's all I want to eat. I get ridiculously excited about frozen blueberries. I eat giant bowl-fulls at a time. My weekly shopping trip consists of buying 8-10 bags and I eat them all in a week.

My child is going to look like this:

I am having difficulty buttoning my pants already. I swear muscle memory has kicked in and my belly is popping already. Good thing I ordered those new Belly Bands and started picking up the maternity clothes! This is crazy.

Rebuilding a wardrobe

After I had Aly, a young lady in our church became pregnant unexpectedly. In an effort to help her out I offered to let her borrow my maternity clothes since she's about the same size. Unfortunately, when trying to return the clothes to me, she placed the box in an area of the church where it was mistaken for a donation to the local homeless shelter :( So all of my clothes were donated. I know they went to someone else who could probably really use them, but it made me sad too. I really liked a few of those things!

So now it is time to rebuild my maternity wardrobe. This time around my work environment is much more formal so I will need more dressy items as well. DH and I popped over to Target after church today and I got some great finds! A pair of dress pants and two dresses for $30. Yay! I plan to go by every couple of weeks and snatch up the good clearance deals I find.

I am trying to carefully plan the pieces I buy to save money. Fortunately, spring, summer and fall are all pretty warm here so I just need a few basic layering pieces. Once I get the basics, I can always use different accessories and shoes to change up the outfits (things I can continue to use after I am no longer pregnant). Here's a great capsule wardrobe idea I found:

I can also wear several of my current sundresses once it warms up. Just pair them with some leggings (for the shorter dresses), a sweater, and a cute belt over the belly, like this:

Or even belted under the belly, like this:

Now it just needs to warm up. Looking at all the sundresses makes me want to dig some out from the back of the closet!!