So, it looks like the busy weeks are every other week. This week, there's nothing on my calendar, so I'm looking forward to plenty of relaxation and rest.

Yesterday, I was involved in a very minor car accident. I'm still not entirely sure what happened, but the best I can tell is that I switched into a right hand lane on a pretty busy 3-lane street and a car turning into the right-hand lane didn't notice me switch and turned into the back of my car. It seems like they realized it mid-turn and tried to avoid me because they were halfway up on the curb when I felt the impact and saw them in my passenger mirror. I think if they were actually in my blind spot, and I had merged into them, a few things would have happened differently: 1) the car would have much more damage as the speed on that road is 45-55 2) they would have honked before I came over or after and 3) (most importantly) they would have stopped. I pulled over at the next turnoff and they drove right on past. Fortunately, I'm completely fine, baby movements are normal, and the car has zero damage.

I did most of my taxes. I'm missing a few forms, so I haven't been able to file yet, but I'm not in a rush because for the first time in years (if ever)...

I owe money - about $680. At one point, it was $3k, so I'm not too vexed about the amount. I was hoping to get a refund to beef up my maternity leave fund, but ah well.

Even though we haven't started saving towards that, I think we're actually completely fine. We're now living on last month's income. Plus, DH will continue getting paychecks, and I'll have STD at 60% of my regular pay. His bigger paychecks more than cover the remaining 40%, and I'll have PTO saved up if I really want to extend my leave past the 6 weeks that I get of STD. Right now, I'm leaning towards 8 weeks (provided it's not a c-section). I want to keep some of my FMLA for the end of the year, and take another month/2 month-long break when DH gets back, so we can bond as a family.

The exhaustion is really setting in. I think it's just a matter of trying to do too much and not giving myself proper breaks. I haven't turned my TV on in about a week which is absolutely unheard of for me! Tonight, I don't have anything planned, but tomorrow is brunch with some friends. Sunday is an all day project with FIL doing the hardwoods, and MIL and I sorting, washing, and organizing clothes, packing the hospital bag, and whatever other small projects.

I cashed out my Ibotta account for $35 and got a statement credit on one of my credit cards for $20. That particular credit card is one that I don't use. My mom and brothers were all authorized users on it, and I've slowly taken everyone's away except for my mom's. The last stand help (what I've started calling this final time) should wrap up this month, and we'll be getting her card back too. There's a 3k balance on that card, and it's one of 3 cards remaining that are accruing interest at the highest rate, so I'm trying to get that balance down to something reasonable, so I can transfer it and be done.

I haven't done a 'once a month cooking' session in a long time. I want to do a month-long plan next month, but I did a 2-week plan this past weekend. I spent about $320 of our $400 monthly grocery budget, so it's definitely not the most cost efficient, but considering how much less I'll eat out with food in the freezer, it's worth it. When we had previously done these plans, it's worked out really well.

I did the 2-week plan that I'm somewhat familiar with. DH's best friend came over to help, and together we did all the meals but 6. The last ones were beef/turkey/steak meals, so definitely faster than all the chicken ones. I can definitely tell the pregnancy is wearing on me because I was in a lot of pain by the end of the day. After he left, I went ahead and knocked out 3 more meals. I have 3 left to do this evening including the one planned for tonight's dinner (meatball sub cassserole). All told, this plan will likely last a month because I split a lot of the 4 person meals into 2 since my brother isn't the biggest leftover person.

As for the big expense, with the baby on the way, I decided that I wanted to change the carpet in the nursery and guest room to hardwood. We expected it to be between $1500 and $2000 for the materials (based on Home Depot estimates), and my wonderful FIL would do the actual work. He found us a similar style flooring at Lumber Liquidators for $1450, and since the manager is a good friend of his, he gave us an additional small military discount. So this weekend, I wrote a check for $1390 to FIL to pick up all the materials and then work should start this weekend. Once the flooring is done, the nursery will be ready for set up and decoration! We are redoing the flooring in the guest room and also installed overhead lighting/fan, but we decided not to paint that room for now since it will eventually become the baby's big kid room and they'll likely want to choose their paint/theme/decor. I do feel incredibly lucky that we're able to write a $1400 check without batting an eye or worrying about it.

On a separate, but related note, when we were doing groceries, my mom was shocked that I wasn't being overly stringent with the amount things cost. She was shocked when I purchased 2 $20 packs of the chicken breasts from Costco because the cost per pound was $2.39 which she thought I could beat elsewhere. She's probably right, but I needed 24 and was already at Costco which I told her. It really struck me how far I've come when she said that it must be nice to buy groceries without worrying about the bill. While I still have an incredibly long journey ahead of me, it made me realize that we have made great strides and just need to stay the course to continue moving forward.

I slipped up these last few days with the eating out and game purchase. I also used a gift card that had some money left to support my half sister by buying Girl Scout cookies. Overall, I was incredibly pleased that we started February with almost $6k ready to be budgeted. It's not last month's income since I did pull some for our bigger bills (namely the car and termite payments), but it's more than enough to cover our expenses for the month.

One thing that I was hoping to be able to do, but couldn't was pay off the loan I had taken for my mom. It has about $700 left on it. While I technically could pay it off, it would mean clearing out some of our savings categories which I don't want to do. Whatever DH doesn't spend of his allowance will go towards it this month.

Day 29: Amazon ($25.48 for cleaning supplies); Money In - Healthcare Premium Refunds ($656.76)

Day 30: Panera Bread ($32)

Day 31: Amazon ($4.99 for game coins);
Money In - Dividends ($1.97); Mom Payment ($25)

All standard monthly payments except for Home Depot. We got some lightbulbs, paint for the nursery, and a big storage box for DH's Army gear. We've been meaning to organize our big storage closet in the basement, and I finally went ahead and got him this storage box. I was thinking it'd be a few hundred bucks from the way he kept talking about it, but it was only $50.

The money in is the first of 3 or 4 refunds for health insurance premiums. In the midst of the whole insurance debacle, we were still paying all of our normal premiums. So once it all got worked out, I asked about refunding those payments (this was mid-December). They kicked off the process and told me it'd be 30-45 days. So I followed up a week or so ago when I had to call for something else anyways, only to find out it had gotten hung up. They were able to get it worked out, so we should have about $780 coming back in various payments over the next few weeks.

What I'm struggling with is YNAB. It's going back into Health Insurance. However, I'm using those refunds to just pay down the CC balance (we now pay it in full, but we ride the float, so we accumulate more as we pay it). There's no option to assign it to the credit card, but moving the money from Health Insurance to the card increases the payment available which isn't accurate since the money's already on it. If anyone has any thoughts for handling it, I'd be open to suggestions.

Day 25: NSD

Day 26: Hulu ($5.99); Home Depot ($105.23)

Day 27: Money In - Health Insurance Premium Refund ($162.35)

Day 28: Verizon ($84.99); Car Payment ($401.59)

My in-laws came over this weekend to help with some of the projects. My FIL got the whole nursery painted and my MIL helped me clean out and organize two of the rooms in the basement. They both look worlds better, but still need a bit additional work. Next up should be the hardwoods in the nursery and guest room. I'm eternally grateful to have a FIL who happens to be a house contractor.

Bonus: he ordered us pizza while here, so I didn't have to cook!

There was some other spending, but I need to organize before posting the UFMC days.

I caved a bit this week on the eating out, but tried to keep it reasonable.

Day 22: Cinnamon Roll ($2.43); Pest Proof - 2nd termite payment ($870.53); CC Payment ($144.48); Boxed ($54.16 for groceries); Gas ($24.95)

Day 23: $5.18 (Burger King); CC Payment ($140.52); Mom Loan Payment ($207.33); Dog License Renewal ($10); Walmart ($54.83 for groceries)

Day 24: Student Loan Payment ($169.70); CC Payment (124.15)

Today's anticipated spending is 1 scrambled egg at the cafe at work.

The two grocery shops should get us through the end of the month. I did go slightly over the grocery budget by $33.33 (budgeted $150). However, that includes about $18 worth of Ibotta rebates. For anyone using YNAB, do you all put rebates like that back into the category?

I haven't updated this in a bit. The 2 credit card payments are the card that I use regularly and pay off. The Etsy purchase was a coming home outfit for baby. Since I don't know the gender, I tasked DH with picking something out. Since he was headed somewhere shortly, he went ahead and purchased quickly. I will keep said outfit in the package and bring it to the hospital. There's been some spending today, but not too bad.

Day 15 Update: Student Loan Payments ($386.61, 100.65, 35.20); Car Insurance ($116.24)

Day 16: NSD

Day 17: Vet Appt. ($58)

Day 18: Credit Card Payment ($1110.85); Groceries ($30.58)

Day 19: Credit Card Payment ($1090.17) Money In - My normal paycheck

Day 20: Gas ($22.09); Etsy ($36.94); Pest Control (2nd payment for termite treatment - $811.50); Air for Tires ($1.47)

Day 21: NSD

So here I was rolling along in the UFMC when I got an email yesterday that my personal account was below $25. I keep a $100 buffer and had another couple hundred in there allocated to a future CC payment, so I was very surprised. I logged in to the account and saw that I was indeed negative $33 bucks! Fortunately, it was only pending as most of the payments hadn't hit. The culprit was that my Navient student loans (set on IBR) had more than doubled in payment. I didn't receive any indication that this was happening, but fortunately, I caught it in time to transfer money from our joint account to cover it. While it'll be nice to see the student loan balance finally decreasing a bit, I was completely unprepared for this. I'll need to modify my direct deposits to ensure enough is coming in to my personal account to cover the new payments. While we can afford it, it'll mean slower progress on the other debt payoffs we'd planned to focus on.

First, an update to day 8. Apparently, I had set the electric bill to autopay, and it took out the $367+ even though I'd paid it on the 2nd. For the next month or 2, we'll have a credit on the electric bill. I moved the money from next month's category back to this month to cover it.

Day 10 - College Donation ($15 - It was our day of giving and any amount counted towards the percentage of the class that donated, so I just gave a minimal amount.)

Day 11 - Petsmart ($27 for cat food); Amazon ($71 for an impulse purchase. The side controllers for the Switch were on sale, and since DH is in limbo, he asked for them. He's taking minimal spending money on his paychecks, so I gave in.); Car ($780 - Ouch! But it was everything needed to get the car in decent shape to hand over to my brother. New brakes, rotors, spark plugs, tires rotated and aligned, new wipers and air filters, engine block cleaning, fixed the hood latch, and even straightened up inside my car which is a total mess.)

Day 12-14 - No extraneous spending

Day 15 - Money In: $2100 for DH's pay; $25 for my mom's regular transfer. No other spending anticipated.

Day 8 - No spend day!

Day 9 - Phone Bill ($196 - yes, I know it's outrageous); Edit: Money In - $94.07 (FSA reimbursement)

Day 10 (so far) - Gas ($26 - when did gas drop back down under $2??); No other spending anticipated. I did have to resist the urge to get breakfast, and we have plenty for lunch and dinner.

A third of the way through, and overall, I'm pretty pleased. I haven't done much in the way of trying to actually reduce current spending levels other than extraneous spending. But I haven't eaten out at all, even with 2 gift cards and other money coming in. I'm hoping to continue this trend.

On a separate note, if DH's first 2 paychecks are any indication, he's tracking to bring in over double what his civilian job does. We're still in stabilizing mode, but once I know what it'll be on the regular, it'll be easier to map out some concrete plans.

No extra spending (Edit - no spending at all, not even bills). It was a hard day, and I was super tempted to spend my $50 gift card on Five Guys since I didn't need the shelf anymore, but I resisted. I had a stew in the crockpot and really need to get back to eating veggies, so I stuck with that. It actually was pretty good, so no real regrets.

Today may be no spend. I'm starting to run low on gas and may need it for errands later. I have to get my mom from the airport and then we're having combined family dinner (DH's and my immediate families minus DH and FIL). I'm glad that I'm able to stay close to my in-laws during this difficult time.

We have enough stew to last for lunches for me for the rest of the week and probably also a dinner or two more. Otherwise, we have a meal plan written up and plenty of other food options. I think that for next weekend, I may try to focus solely on using up things we have and minimize or eliminate the weekly shop.