Okay this was a bad month for us and financially ended on a mixed note.

1) DH's phone broke finally. We have been saying we would get him a smartphone if his phone broke or he got an admin job. Too bad it had to break this month.

2) On vacation this weekend everyone decided to go out for sushi. This was a tad out of our budget range right now, but we were able to buy my mom's dinner and pay her for a shower gift this next month.

3) The union and district came to an agreement over the weekend. Hopefully the union will vote it in and the other 2 smaller unions will agree to it. If all the stars align, DH has a good chance of being rescinded. This would mean paychecks, health insurance, and extra work over summer.

June will hopefully be a good month and thankfully most of our Wants expenses are already covered.

1) As previously mentioned I'm going to a baby shower. I already paid my mom for my portion of the gift. (Btw, Babies R Us is ridiculously expensive!)

2) We are going to a concert for my birthday. We bought the tickets in April. We will probably get dinner near the concert, but I don't have expensive tastes.

3) We are camping at the end of the month. We purchased a blow up mattress, but we are borrowing almost everything else. I figure food won't cost that much extra.

4) We are going to the zoo on one of the days, but other than buying food, we bought an annual membership months ago.

5) I'm leaving for a business trip tomorrow, but I will submit the reimbursements as soon as I return.

So we will be very busy, but most of the activities are already paid for.

So the district has been flirting with rescinding almost all of the pink slips they sent out. If the union and the district can quit bickering, we can all get our lives back on track. So here is our status if the rescintion comes in.

1) DH continues getting normal paycheck August & September
2) DH keeps his health insurance over summer
3) DH was offered and will be able to take a part time summer school job

With this, we will be getting enough money to finish off our car savings and our expanded emergency fund by August. Then we can start saving to pay back our student loans as they come due. DH will have $13,000 due June 2012, but through APLE we can get $11,000 paid off. So for his we will make the minimum payment until we pay them off, or DH gets a job at a school that does not qualify. I have $19,125 due ~December 2013 so we will also be setting money aside for this.

Currently my big dilemma is what to prioritize. We can either prioritize starting our second Roth IRA or saving enough to pay down my loans when they come due. My current plan is to save enough to pay cash on DH's loans (in case of job change) then start the Roth and if there is extra money put more into student loan savings. If DH keeps getting APLE we can use the extra money on my loans.

So LAUSD is talking about rescinding their pink slips to thousands of teachers and support staff. This would be double wonderful news for our household. DH was offered a summer school position at another school, but he can't take it if he is fired. So if he gets rescinded then we get 1) normal pay over summer, 2) health insurance over summer, and 3) extra money from summer school! I'm really hopeful that this year will be our year.

In other news, I made progress on one of my goals. I passed my qualifying exam (only took 9 months for the entire review process **grumble**) so I'm able to apply for my Masters. Sadly, I missed the Spring deadline and since I don't want to pay the steep summer tuition, I have to wait until Fall for my application to be processed. This means that I should be getting my Masters in December. Still on time for my 2011 goals.

Additionally, DH sent in his paperwork for the APLE scholarship so $2000 of his student loans will be paid off by the government. This is a great program for teachers in low income schools.

DH also just finished his second semester for his Masters. He still has the summer and next Fall to go and then he is done. He has started to think about what he wants to write for a thesis. So I count that goal on track.

As for scholarships, I'm not really hopeful. He had every intention of applying for lots of scholarships, but he only completed 2 applications. It looks like we will be taking on another $4500 in student loans. This will put a big damper on meeting our reach goal of starting DH's Roth IRA, but otherwise I'm proud of our progress.

So let me start off by saying, I don't think of buying a house or having kids as really increasing our standard of living. With that, here are my prerequisites for increasing our standard of living:

1) Always increase budget with inflation as of January
2) All savings goals will be met (we are saving enough to all of our life-long savings goals to make them)
3) Retirement savings goals are met (we are saving enough into retirement to meet our current standard of living as of 60 years old)
4) Pre-retirement savings goals are met (we are saving enough for DH's teaching retirement at 54 years old)

At this point I would raise my standard of living according to how much I am still able to save in retirement. If I up my retirement savings such that I can retire with another $200 a month, then if there is more money I can spend $200 more a month now.

Watching my parents, I've seen how hard it is to deflate their lifestyle and how quickly it reflates. After 2 years of unemployment, my parents are getting ahead of themselves with his current employment. Thankfully they sat down and made a budget and a wishlist, but their wishlist is huge and still growing. I figure if we can limit our lifestyle for as long as possible, we can avoid getting ahead of ourselves.

Here's hoping.