I've been ridiculously sick these past two weeks. Here's hoping it goes away soon. I went grocery shopping Sunday with the money set aside for March's groceries. I spent $143 out of the $300 set aside for the month, but I think we may actually be pretty close to $300 because of an amazing deal. DF and I are carnivores. We're well aware that cutting meat out will make our grocery budget more manageable, but neither of us feels full without a meat in the meal. One of my local grocery stores occasionally runs a deal with 4 family meals for $20. This time, it was two huge chicken breasts, beef tips for stew, 5 burgers, and lemon pepper wings/drumsticks. I bought two multi-packs for $40 and repackaged it into smaller Ziploc meals for the two of us. All told, we'll get 18 meals out of it. The chicken breasts were also half off, so I got another pack of those for 5 more meals. That with the tuna and emergency pizzas should more than get us through March.

Looking at the wedding budget, I'm feeling more and more confident that we can handle it. All told, we'll have spent way more than I ever would have thought on a wedding (pushing 30k), but I'm at peace with it for two reasons: 1) I only get one of these suckers, so I'm going to make it super memorable and 2) it's a great feeling to know that DF and I made it happen almost entirely on our own. We did receive one very generous cash gift from DF's parents and they gifted us our accommodations for the week saving another several hundred. I know that whether it's a big to-do or a more intimate ceremony, we'll still be married, but I'm very pleased with the way it's shaping up, even if it is expensive.

It's been busy over here. DF and I are both sick right now. He's staying home to rest today, but I unfortunately had meetings to be in for. I'm hoping to go home early though after my 1 pm meeting.

Things are moving along on the wedding front. Invites went out Saturday. I have a few to-dos including booking our getting ready hotel room, ordering the air puppets, and ordering travel shirts/groomsmen's ties. I also need our guest book, but I'm holding out for a 20% off coupon from Peachwik (I have a 10% as backup). Other than that, it's just finalizing details and paying off vendors. I've actually been semi-proud at how well we're doing. Considering how overbudget we are, we're still on track to have everything paid off in time for the wedding. Additionally, I've still been working on reducing the credit cards. We've paid no interest on the Marriott card (the one we put all wedding and most daily expenses on), and we're slowly paying down the other two cards that are 0%. Chase Slate has less than $500 (originally $900) and Capital One Venture has about $600 (originally $1100). I've started working on an order of payoffs for after the wedding. I'm hoping by the end of the year, we'll be down to just student loans and DF's car loan. It's lofty because that'll mean about $13k in debt payoff for the remainder of the year. Our wedding savings rate has been about 2k/month, so it is possible.

I finished up purchasing the last of our gifts last week. We still have the ties, but since those are more attire, I don't really count them.

All that's last money-wise is paying off our vendors, the car rental (I'm hoping to cover most, if not all, with points), and wedding week spending (wedding alcohol, RD food, mani/pedis, tips, and food/gas while in AZ). I feel like it's coming together, but I'm still super nervous. And our invites still haven't gone out (hopefully working on them tonight).

DF lost his phone at his friend's bachelor party the other night, so we'll have that expense as well if we need to get him a new one. He thinks he left it in the Uber car, so hopefully it turns up.

We also added DF to my car insurance and got him Tricare insurance since he turned 26 last month. Our car insurance will now be paid out of our joint account, so that's one more bill moved over. I increased my contribution to our account by 200 to account for it.

This past weekend, my mom and I went to Denver for my hair and makeup trial with my cousin. We had found a great deal on flights ($100 each), used points for the hotel (plus, got an upgrade to a 2 bedroom suite!), and had my aunt bring us some groceries, so we only had to eat out once. My cousin is phenomenal, and I'm so lucky he's agreed to style me and my bridesmaids for the wedding. We're paying him as he's social media famous, and I want to make sure he's fairly compensated. I'm giving him $200 plus $100 to either his room or straight to him for all of our hair and my makeup. If the girls want makeup, he's only charging $25 which is crazy cheap for professional makeup.

Next up is invites. I did pretty well on those. My mom picked some kits up for $6 each, and while they don't really match my wedding at all, I managed to incorporate some small elements to tie it in. Printing them at home means I only have postage to cover. Yay for super cheap invites. About 80 for less than $100 with postage.

I can't believe it's getting so close! It's also encouraging that if everything works out, DF and I will have financed about 90% of it ourselves with the remaining bit coming from our parents. With our wedding coming pretty close to the average amount spent (about 30k), I feel confident about really getting back to hammering my debts once it's done. I certainly won't be debt free by thirty, but I'm going to seriously push for consumer debt-free!

This weekend, we booked the videographer. I also bought two veils and two jewelry sets totaling $52 off Amazon. I will be keeping one of each, and returning the one I don't choose. I also test printed the invites. They look pretty nice. Clearly done at home, but I couldn't justify $300 on something that will eventually go in the trash. The kits were $12, the printer ink was $40ish, the orange envelopes (so I can at least pretend they match my color scheme) were $12, and then whatever postage cost. I also plan to deliver as many as I can myself (about 10 locally and 4 to my family in Denver when I visit this weekend).

All of the spending has lead to some hard discussions with DF. I'm a few years older than he is and have been wanting children for a long time. We had originally planned to start trying right after the wedding, but DF brought up his concerns the other day that we have very little saved. It kind of caught me off guard, but once I processed, I realized he's right. As much as I want children, if I want to raise them in a situation that is different than how my mom raised us, then I need to wait until we're more stable. We agreed to split tackling my debts and savings with what we're currently putting towards the wedding (about $1500-2k/month) and reassess where we are at the end of the year (around my 30th birthday). I was so upset that I cried, but ultimately I think it will make our lives (and our future kids' lives) easier.

I am really excited to have these 3 days off, but hope they can be productive. I have some wedding DIY stuff to take care of - test printing invites and fiddling with escort card designs. I also want to try to get in some work for the other project I'm helping with to get a few extra hours.

I got two snowflakes in the mail, so I want to cash those and put them to the credit card. DF and I have decided to curb my extra debt payments in favor of saving for the wedding, but I do still like to pay a little extra here and there.

We've had a lot of money flow out to wedding stuff. Flights and lodging are officially booked. We ended up using airbnb for lodging, so I managed to save a good amount as we got a discounted rate for staying the whole week. We also have a kitchen, so I will do some groceries when we get there which will cut our eating out. I can't believe we're almost to 4 months. Crazy!!

I haven't been checking in as much. Things are a little chaotic right now with work, side work (the second tester position I'm temporarily filling part-time), babysitting, cheerleading, and wedding planning. On top of that, DD1 was sick for about 2 weeks with digestive issues resulting in about $400 in vet bills. I am still budgeting with YNAB. I find the new one easier since it links directly to the banks. It's less secure, but since I monitor my credit report closely, I'm hoping that mitigates the risk of identity theft a bit. One of these days, I hope to update my sidebar and set some new goals for this year, but I have no clue when that will actually happen.

I know, I know...that's probably obnoxious, but I'm really excited about it.

New Year's was pretty calm. We went to a friend's house and had a nice, relaxing evening. We also celebrated DF's birthday this past weekend. Since we went out with his parents on Saturday, I decided to do what I had planned on Sunday - I cleaned the entire apartment and made his favorite meal (pizza bake).

This week, we begin a clean eating regimen. It's mostly crockpot dinners. DF and I have both already discovered that foods we were previously afraid of (greek yogurt and cottage cheese) aren't actually that bad. I plan to do the slow cooker meals in the evenings because I'm scared to run it during the day with the animals. The chicken tacos for tonight were really yummy when I tried it this morning.

I've been thinking about 2016 goals,but before I outline them here, I want to get my thoughts down on paper, so those will probably come this weekend. We have a lot coming up in 2016 that will change my debt payoff plan.

I've also had some unexpected medical bills come at me out of nowhere, so I'll have to factor in a plan for those.

I didn't manage to save much for the wedding this month, but that's because we diverted that money ($2k) to DF's car deposit. I did buy a lot of wedding things though, and we paid cash for those. We also should be able to sock away about $300 to the wedding savings, so that's a start.

I just bought a plane ticket to visit my cousins and aunts in Denver. On Frontier, it was $50 each way after I joined the Den Deals ($50). Since we're hoping to get super cheap Frontier deals to Vegas for the wedding, I figured the Den Deals membership was worth it for one year. I'll cancel prior to the end of next year to avoid the renewal fee. My cousin is doing my hair and makeup, so we'll do a trial run then. Family time and a wedding task checked off - done and done.

...on the updates. I think I've been doing okay money-wise, although there was definitely some unbudgeted spending. Now that DF's car is figured out and Christmas gifts are all bought, I'm going to do a fresh start on YNAB and go from there. I'm going to make a weekly IFTTT recipe (if possible) to remind me to update it. I really think it would be useful if I could just get it updated consistently.

My birthday was yesterday and it was really special. DF took last Sunday off to spend with me since he basically has no more days off until January 8th (except Christmas). On top of that, he managed to get out of work early and surprised me at home with flowers and a bottle of wine. He took me out to dinner too. That guy is truly something special

For my birthday gift, DF got me a phone. They were B1G1 and we also got a tablet, so I managed to snag some nice Xmas gifts for my mom and brother with little out of pocket.

Even though money is really tight right now, I still feel it's important to be charitable. My company does an angel tree each year, and I normally go way overboard in helping make some child's Christmas bright. I had originally planned to not take a whole child and rather contribute an outfit or some other clothes to a coworker's child. However, there was a two year old who wanted very reasonable gifts, so I ended up getting her tag. She's getting a giraffe tricycle ($30), a doll and stroller ($25), and an outfit ($10). It's about half what I'd normally spend, and should still make her very happy. Being one of those children in that program growing up, I truly feel blessed to be able to help out.

I got a small tree and decorations for it at Target ($20). I feel a little guilty about the purchase, but I'm sure once it's up, my guilt will disappear.

Even with the wedding planning hiatus, I feel like I have no free time. Winter cheer has started up, so yesterday was babysitting, work, cheer, and then work again (we had an evening deployment). Finally ate and got to sleep around midnight and woke up this morning at 6 for babysitting.

DF's car came into the dealership. He's beyond excited. I believe he's going to try and finish up the deal this week. He's also in the middle of applying for a promotion and has a severely injured toe.

We've been doing pretty good with food, but I actually forgot my lunch today, so I'll have to buy (McD's 2.50 burger and fries). Tonight's dinner will be the leftover scalloped potatoes and drumsticks. Tomorrow is shrimp fettucine. On Saturday, I will attempt my first turkey ever. Wish me luck!

From my financial side, I plan on putting 1k to our wedding savings this month, plus paying off the Marriott card which has our catering deposit on it. That should be almost equivalent to the amount we need to save each month in order to handle the wedding ourselves.

I have $100 in babysitting money and $60 in rolled coins to throw into our wedding fund too, so I'm really hoping that the savings will start to accelerate these next few months. I've talked to DF, and we've agreed to just pay the minimums on my debt since he's already well aware what he's marrying. We're going to divert all my over-minimum payments, plus babysitting money (~1200) to wedding savings. That plus his contributions should put us in a pretty good place.

My company had its Christmas Party this weekend. It was a lot of fun. We even lucked out and didn't have to shell out any extra money for drinks. We each got two wine and beer tokens, but some of our partners were more than generous and picked up tabs. DF and I actually ended up having a bit of a fight due to something that happened. It's so comforting to know that even when we argue, there's never any doubt that we'll be fine. We had a long conversation and of course we're stronger for it. Right now, he's sick so I'll be stopping to get some groceries for broccoli cheddar soup.

December's shaping up to be an incredibly busy month. I've sort of given myself leeway to take a break from wedding planning minus little things here and there. Come January, I'll jump back into it because that will be 5 months! In the meantime, I'll have plenty to enjoy in December.

Social Events: DF and I are not overly social people. It does help us to keep the going out spending in check. However, this month we have so many things: two friends' birthdays, my birthday, another friend's holiday party, and my company work party. Not to mention potlucks and whatever we contribute to Christmas dinner with families. Plus, a planned date night (Star Wars at the movie theater that serves dinner).

Frugal Activities: I've been trying to come up with some fun Christmas-y stuff to do to get us in the spirit. We'll spend one evening decorating the apartment (no tree, but lights and stockings, plus gift wrapping) and singing (DF loves him some Christmas music). Another thought I had was to make hot chocolate, hop into the car with the pups, and just drive around looking at lights. There's also a house around here that does the whole Christmas light show, so we'll probably make that it's own night as it's further away. Another thing we are doing is rewatching all the Star Wars films. This isn't quite so frugal as I did end up having to purchase the set in order to have them, but DF's face lit up so much that it was more than worth it. I purchased the two trilogies separately as that was cheaper than the whole boxed set. Each one was $45 on Target. I bought them on Cyber Monday (15% off each) and then used my brother's employee discount (5%) and my Target Red card (5%). It came out to around $70, just more than $10/movie for both the Blu-Ray and DVD copies. That and popcorn is going to make for some amazing nights snuggled in (especially with all the rain we've been getting). We actually started the first one last night and Blu-Ray quality is amazing!

The last big thing happening this month is DF's car. He worked his butt off last month and made some pretty good money. It actually would allow us to hit our wedding savings goal this month when combined with what I'm putting in. However, we're going to see whether that money would be better spent adding on to his deposit to lower his monthly payments. DF's only debt is his car and ring payments, so we're trying to figure out the best course of action there.

DF and I decided not to do a tree this year. Our apartment is pretty small and with the three animals, we decided we'd spend more time fixing it than enjoying it. (We are still decorating a little.) Not to mention, we're cutting back on the gift-giving. In fact, DF already got his big gift - a Samsung Gear S2. He's used it non-stop in his job and it's also helped him get back on track with his fitness. I suggested that my big gift be Uggs since my pair is over 5 years old and has no treads left. It's a bit dangerous walking the dogs but they're the easiest things to pull on so I keep using them...I may cave and get a small decorative tree for the kitchen table, but we'll see.

Other than that, we agreed on 3 household gifts and one each for the animals. That is all covered. I did some Black Friday shopping, but am pretty proud of my control. It probably won't seem like I reigned it in, but this year is certainly better than previous years. I did splurge on one outfit for myself and one sweater for DF, but otherwise, I was good. I spent $70 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond for household stuff and a magic laser toy for DC. It turns out my mom had some coupons in addition to the ones I used, so I'll have to see if they'll credit me for those. I spent $170 at PetSmart getting large bags of food for each of the dogs (they're not out of their current bags, but since the deals were so great, I got them which will come out of the pet budget for December), cat food and litter, treats, and several toys. The rest of my spending was wedding-related. I got wedding and reception shoes at DSW - $35 total (well under my $100 shoe budget!). I also got dresses for the rehearsal dinner, reception, and bachelorette party from Ross totaling $90 which included a dress for my mom. My total dress budget was $150, so I'm pretty proud to come in well under with 3 beautiful new dresses - my reception dress is an XL juniors dress for just $13!! I also spent $25 at Ulta on their 5 for $5 deals getting 3 items for the bridesmaids gifts, stocking stuffers for my mom, and co-worker gifts. Today, I do plan on doing some Cyber Monday shopping - all wedding-related. I'll be getting our wine box ($80...originally budgeted $400), bridesmaids gifts (robes - 20/each and phone chargers - 12/each) and a cake-cutting set ($17).

I realized my last post was a little whiny and I have so much to be thankful for. Here's some of the positives lately:

Loan paid off: I had taken a small ($2000) 401K loan late last year. Today marks the last payment. Since I was paying it back in addition to my normal contribution, I should see a $250 increase (minus taxes) in pay per month.

Credit Cards: We'll have both of our joint cards just under 30% utilization by the time the statements close. Hopefully, this helps DF get the lowest rate when he gets his car next month.

Frugal eating: We've been doing a good job of eating at home. We've also been incorporating more veggies (health win!).

Supportive fiance: This really should be the first one. I can't even express how grateful I am for the man who keeps me sane, holds me when I'm stressed, and tells me I'm beautiful each and every day.

Getting creative: I decided to look into more frugal alternatives to some of my wedding budget. One of the more creative options we're considering is AirBNB for travel. We'll be there about a week. If we could find a nice place with plenty of room and open owners, we could use that for us and even have one of us get ready there which would save a ton on lodging costs, save one of the hotel rooms we booked as a getting ready place, and help cut meal costs as we could buy some groceries and cook. Plus, it'd feel like our own little home during the week.

Getting creative 2: DF and I have a splurgy date booked next month - we're seeing the new Star Wars in 3d at a movie theater that serves dinner and such. We want to watch all the other movies beforehand. This would normally mean me buying them or the whole set. But this time...I went to freecycle to ask. No offers yet, but someone was kind enough to suggest the library. My county does not have very many DVDs, but the adjacent one has them and I can get a membership with a library card from my county! So yay

I feel a lot less stressed and happier going into the weekend.

I recently did a detailed budget of the remaining wedding costs and it's a little painful. It doesn't even include the honeymoon which is several grand more. I'm hoping some of the travel costs will be alleviated by using rewards points. Everything is already booked, so the only areas I can save are smaller things like the Out of Town bags, centerpieces, placecards, and my accessories and shoes. Even then, the savings is hundreds which won't make that much of a difference. Planning to pay for it completely in cash would require us to save $3300 each month from December to May. That number does not account for any help from my or DF's parents. Both have agreed to help, but since we did not get a set number, we're trying to minimize the impact to them. I plan to sit down with DF tonight and go over this with him. As much as I want to do our original honeymoon plan, we may have to settle for coming back and doing a staycation or BnB getaway in our area.

Still owe an October debt update...

I've been really spacey lately and need to get focused. While I really want to get moving on my credit cards, I realized that I need to start with our joint credit cards. One has a 3k balance and the other has a 1500 balance. We have about 2k to throw at the 3k card before the statement even hits. The rest will be paid before the due date to avoid interest. That will get it at 20% utilization. The 1500 card has a 3k limit, so I want to throw at least $500 (preferably 700-800) at it prior to the statement closing. Next month, DF is getting his car. It's currently in production and scheduled for delivery around the 20th (right before my birthday on the 21st). This is DF's 'family' car for the next decade or so. He's getting a great deal with about 3k being contributed to his down payment from Honda incentives, plus whatever he gets left over from his trade-in. His credit is pretty good. He carries no debt, and his only problem was a lack of history until we started authorizing him on my cards. I want to get the utilization under 30%, so he has the best chance possible at their lowest financing (1.9%).

I've already told my brothers that I could not help with Christmas this year. In the past, I've stepped up and contributed the vast majority of the Christmas budget to ensure we have gifts to open, but I made it clear that I have to get my life in order and contribute to our wedding.

DF and I will get a total of 5 things (most of which are for the apartment).

I need to be more proactive with YNAB. Right now, I'm using it reactively. More just logging than following. I think even with that it's helped (I am doing my best to avoid grocery shopping since I'm already in the red). However, I think it could be much more useful.

I have one more anticipated wedding expense prior to the end of the year - our rentals. This includes the dance floor, linens, cocktail glasses, and napkins. The deposit is 50% or ~500. We will likely pay this in December. After that, everything goes into savings until invites and final payments (a month to a week before the wedding). I do also need the rest of my attire things - shoes, possibly a veil, alterations on my dress, but I plan to keep these costs to $300.

Last night, we went to our favorite local restaurant (owned by a good friend of DF's) for Veteran's Day. We had a coupon for a free appetizer and DF got a free entree for his service which we just split. As it was, it was way too much food for the two of us. All we paid for was drinks which came out to $32. We really enjoy those nights out and have no problem supporting that restaurant since the owner is so generous and kind.

I also did a ton of grocery shopping yesterday with the intent that it would last us through the month. Well, my oh-so-lovely pups decided they didn't want to wait while I made four trips to the car, and they ate the roast beef. 1 lb. and $10 bucks worth gone in about 5 minutes. I was livid. They spent the rest of the evening in timeout and didn't get dinner. On the plus side, I rediscovered that I have a ton of peanut butter and jelly, so I'm going to do my best to get by off of that. I did go $25 over my grocery budget for the month, but considering it's normally more like $100 over, this is a good start.

Had a great weekend. We found two solid candidates for dresses and selected 3 wines for the wedding. unfortunately, DD2 also pulled me clear off my friend's back steps resulting in my landing headfirst on the ground. My neck is really stiff. X-rays turned up clear, so that's good, I guess.

This weekend, I'm driving up to Boston for a girls' weekend with 4 of my bridesmaids. They'll be trying on dresses and we'll be sampling the Sedona wines I brought back to see if any will work for the wedding. My maid of honor also convinced (though really it took very little prompting) me to try on a few dresses for fun. In order to ensure there is zero temptation (I genuinely love my $200 pre-owned dress), I'm leaving all credit cards at home. The dogs will be coming with me since DF is away this weekend. We'll leave DC at home, but I may reach out to my brother and see if he can check in on her because she loves people and gets lonely.

My friends are amazing. One is hosting all 4 of us plus the dogs for the weekend. I asked her if we could potentially chip in for groceries and just eat all of our meals in in order to save money. She not only responded positively, but proceeded to send me a detailed meal plan for the two days. Cheap meals, check!

After that, things will slow down (thank goodness!). We're still thinking through Thanksgiving plans, but we may actually try to bring both of our families together so that we don't have to worry about driving between his parents' place and my mom's to see both families.

Christmas will be really scaled back this year. Each of the animals will get one thing. I'm not sure about the pups, but DC is getting a laser machine. Any recommendations for one? DD2 also loves the laser, so we rarely play with the pointer anymore because she's too big and gets in the way (although it is really cute to see a 60 lb. german shepherd pouncing on a tiny dot...). We figure with the machine, we can shut DC in the bedroom and run it and she can play without interruption. I'm limiting our gifts to 5 items, and it will mostly be things we need around the house that we just haven't taken the time to replace.

I apologize in advance for this being all over the place.

My new laptop charger came in yesterday. DD2 is entering her 'challenging' phase and has been chewing up things in the apartment. Recent casualties include the living room blanket (which I sewed myself rather than tossing - yay frugality!), one of DC's toys (too far gone to save), and my computer charger (never did find the little end of it...).

I sat down and updated YNAB from the trip. Now, that our joint account is last month's income. I'm hoping we'll really be able to use YNAB to ramp up our savings.

DF and I have also committed to losing weight and cutting back on the junk. We went to the gym last night. He's taking a harsher approach than me by not having any sweets, drinking only water, and limiting alcohol consumption to two 'events' a month. For November, it's Thanksgiving and the day Fallout 4 comes out (can't come between a man and his video game love...). I may join him on the alcohol consumption and I already mostly just drink water.

Babysitting is going well. It's hard being up so early, but it gives me a more regimented schedule, and it's an easy $100/wk. Now that most of the traveling is over, that $400/mo will go straight into our wedding savings while I continue paying off some of my own cards with my full-time paychecks.

Cheerleading is wrapping up which means I have a few weeks of less gas cost. Competition season starts in December though, so it will be short-lived.

This weekend is my quick trip to Boston. I don't anticipate spending very much. I'm really hoping to get away with just the cost of gas and maybe two fast food meals. I shipped wines back from Sedona for us to try and we have 3 dress shop appointments.

I have lots of little wedding tasks to take care of, but I'm giving myself some leeway since I got so much done on our trip last week. We did have to pay half of our catering balance because we ended up setting the menu last week. Our vendor had mentioned awhile ago that half was due when we set the menu, but I'd forgotten and made our final substitutions after I got back from the trip while it was all still fresh in my mind. Luckily, we're able to cover it. And if anything, that $3k less that's due right at the end with everything else. For my own personal tracking, a couple of other things I need to do include: sending out the DJ check, updating the wedding website to fix a few grammar errors and add the hotel blocks, book the ramada for our rehearsal get-together, book the two XL King rooms for getting ready suites, book the wedding night room, follow up with all vendors re: details (songs for the DJ, pictures wanted for the photographer, centerpiece ideas for the florist, cake design), order a dance floor.

Which reminds me...has anyone ever attended a wedding where the dance floor was carpet? It was very strongly suggested that I rent a dance floor for the space. Just wondering, if that's a choice or requirement...

The trip was amazing. I was surprisingly good about tracking my spending in YNAB for most of the trip. I fell off a bit right at the end. I'll have full numbers this weekend, but I did pretty well. We didn't even end up using all of the stuff we had (the $50 Palms comp and the Shark Reef passes).

Sedona is amazing and I feel so much more prepared now that we've met and booked all of our vendors. Now things can slow down a bit. I have a quick trip up to Boston next weekend to go bridesmaids' dress shopping.

Now that DF and I are living off of last month's income, I really hope we can buckle down and start saving up. I'll have a few weeks before cheer starts up, so I'm hoping to do some research into crock pot cooking. I'd like to do a whole lot more soups and stews in the winter, so my goal is to make that as easy as possible. Any tried and true recipes would be greatly appreciated!!

I paid off the Marriott card with DF's money. Our cycle closes on Friday, and I wanted to charge all the wedding deposits which we're paying on Thursday. Should I just pay it off immediately even before it actually posts since I don't want it to reflect in the statement. DF is considering a car purchase at the end of the year, and since this reflects on his credit as well, I'd like to start showing minimal utilization.

DF's paycheck hit yesterday. While still pretty good, we were actually both disappointed with it. His original pay stub indicated that his gross was about 12k. About a week ago, he comes home with bad news: apparently, the company has been calculating incorrectly and his adjusted gross was about 3k less. This means I won't be able to do nearly everything I was planning, so we had to adjust a bit. With his paycheck, I'm going to zero out our Chase Marriott card before the closing date. And we're going to move to living on last month's income. Now, obviously we can't live off what he made in October in November, so I'm tweaking it a little. We're going to have enough to cover everything in our standard budget as is. I'm going to work off of that. If we can stick to our budget, than anything DF earns that puts us over that threshold will go into wedding savings. Our standard budget has a $1200 deficit after accounting for what I consistently put in ($1400). DF has lately been making way more than that amount, so fingers crossed that that continues!

I bought YNAB yesterday. This weekend, I plan to actually take the class and then fresh start both budgets as I'm pretty sure I've been handling credit cards wrongly. Then, we'll download on DF's phone and be off!

I hope it doesn't seem like I've completely fallen off track with the debt pay-offs what with the wedding and the upcoming trip. I've just had more things on my mind. I do have several payoffs coming up, but it definitely does not look like I'll be able to do it all by 30. Granted, the 30 plan came about when I was still single, living rent-free, and only had 1 pet. My, how things change! I'm thinking the new plan will be all consumer loan debt, leaving both DF and I with just my student loans in terms of debt.

Anyways, my 401k loan will be up in November adding $250/month back to my account. As punishment for taking it, I did force myself to pay it back in addition to my regular retirement contributions, so I'll still be saving 10% after the loan is done. The loan I took for my mom (2 years ago, not the recent one I denied her) that she pays will also be up in December. While this doesn't add anything back to my budget, it does increase my credit score. I also think I will be able to pay off 2 credit cards in full by March or so (the Chase Freedom and Slate). Chase Freedom just became interest-bearing and has $1500, so that will be the first to go, but I won't be able to do it in a single month. Slate is about $700 and still has no interest until May or so. After that, I'll just have the one credit card with a balance of $4500.

Obviously, there are more frugal ways to have a wedding, but I do want some sense of grandeur and fairytale. Our guest list ended up at 155. For a destination wedding, I highly doubt we'll top 100 (if that!), but I have to plan for everyone as a worst case scenario. So far, anticipated expenses look to be about 25k. This is with solid quotes on the venue (already deposited and includes floral, cake, and officiant), DJ, photographer, and caterer. About 7.5k is a random estimate on the rehearsal dinner (5k) and alcohol (2.5k). After looking into the rehearsal dinner a bit more, I think it'll be more around 2k (much less if I go pizza rather than BBQ which I'm leaning towards since I'm feeling more and more like we have to invite all guests who will be in town). I did decide to do away with any sort of excursion, but figured I'd extend an open invitation to a scenic picnic area for our rehearsal 'dinner'. I am also covering my bridesmaids' hair, make-up, and nails. The nails we'll do there as a girls' outing. My cousin (who's recently become a viral sensation for his celebrity recreations) has graciously agreed to do all hair and make-up. I offered him $200 and to cover his room. To me, that expense is worth it as he's ridiculously talented and I'm terrible with both hair and make-up (luckily, my fiance isn't marrying me for my looks!). I'm really hoping that I overestimated everything and it comes in closer to 20k (our original budget). Our goal is to cover the vast majority of expenses ourselves. We only plan to ask parents for help if it's really needed.

The big trip is next week. I'm really looking forward to the time off. We have a lot lined up. Here's what we have planned in Vegas:

Hotels:
Monte Carlo (5 comped nights)
Elara (3 nights gifted to us from DF's parents)

Food:
Mirage Dinner Buffet (2 passes from MyVegas)
$25 at Serendipity ($12 - Groupon)
$20 at Ketchup Premium Burger Bar ($8.25 - Groupon)
$20 at Bonnano's Italian Restaurant ($8.25 - Groupon)
Caesar's Bacchanal Breakfast Buffet (55.20 - Groupon)
$50 at the Palms (Las Vegas Advisor Coupon)
Either $75 Luxor Steakhouse Credit or 2 more buffet passes (MyVegas)
$30 at any Total Rewards restaurant (Social Rewards)

Entertainment:
Nathan Burton Magic Show ($20 - Groupon)
Beatles Love (2 free tickets through MyVegas)
Thunder from Down Under (2 free tickets through MyVegas)

Gambling:
$50 FreePlay (MyVegas)
Numerous Match/Free Plays (Las Vegas Advisor Coupons)

*I am also treating my mom to a spa treatment while DF and I are in Sedona.

For the Sedona portion, here's what we have planned:
1 night at a resort (Cap. One Venture Rewards Points)
Car Rental (Marriott Rewards Points)

With all the costs associated with a wedding, I'd decided to do my Save the Date invitations myself. I got permission from one of my work's higher ups to use the company printer to print them. There are 3 to a page, so less than 30 sheets total. I found

this really cute idea online, and starting mocking up a template. Mine's a little different and still felt plain, so when I was buying the twine for the knots, I bought a couple of stamps and an inkpad. This totaled to about $70. Adding in the cost of the heavy brown paper, I'm at about $1 per invite. Seeing as printing them online would have been about $.75 per invite, I felt cheated. And then it occurred to me to just make life simpler and print the images directly on the invite, so I'm returning all the stamp stuff. Total cost will be about $50 (not counting postage) for the Save the Date cards. I'll post a picture of the finished product.

Today, Amazon Prime is $67 for new members. (I also read something about existing members gifting themselves a subscription to get around the new member thing, but I'm not sure how valid that is...) This is almost a third off the regular price. We'd been debating Prime for awhile, so we're going to take the plunge and get it.