Upcoming events in my financial life:

October - Closing old checking account and moving extra money into my savings.
November - Sign up for new health insurance and a flexible spending account.
January - Insurance & FSA begin.
March - If DH doesn't get RIF'ed, we reduce our e-fund to 3 months.

Right now our biggest savings challenge is getting an extra $10,000 in our e-fund before we try to get pregnant. Right now that's not going to happen by our goal date (April 2012), but with the extra money from the checking accounts and monthly interest, we might be able to d it. If DH doesn't get RIF'ed, we already have enough money in our e-fund. So here's hoping for a good time next March.

So we are switching to ING for our checking. I want to actually earn interest on my checking, and this will make transferring e-fund money from my savings so much easier. Now for my to do list:

[ ] Increase credit limit
[ ] Setup credit card bill pay for cell phone
[ ] Setup direct deposit for my paycheck
[ ] Setup direct deposit for DH's paycheck
[ ] Remove ebills for 3 CC's at old bank
[ ] Add ebills for 3 CC's at new bank
[ ] Change auto payments on lease
[ ] Check last year of statements for auto payments & withdrawals
[ ] Create another to do list!

Today was a good day on the money front.

- Had a dentist appointment and everything checked out clean so no expensive dental bill
- Turned in our bottles and cans and got $3.36. Pretty good haul for only about a month.
- Talked with my insurance agent and sent her information about LoJack on our car. I'm expecting a refund on our premium.
- Got a free credit score from myFico.com for following them on Twitter.
- When DH gets home we will apply to increase our credit limit so we can reduce our credit utilization

The only negative thing today was having to pay the AAA renewal. Seems like there always has to be one expense.

Yesterday we had a couple of nice big expenses, and there are just more to come. I took my car in for maintenance yesterday. I have a dentist appointment next week. We also will be making reservations to attend a film festival that my brother-in-law is in. This is his first one, and we are the stars of the movie so really we should be there. Thankfully I have enough in our Frivolous account to take care of this.

I hate that we aren't saving anything right now. I don't really count the student loans as that just represents more debt. We won't put anything away next month either. Our dreams just get pushed back every month we have to delay. Hopefully in October we will have a big enough paycheck to actually save.

Reminder: Get DH to change allowances at work.

We received DH's student loan refund and all that money is going into a CD for the next 18 months. Hopefully by the time the money gets out we will have a better picture of our repayment plan.

The confusion is that the state will forgive $2000-$3000 a year for 5 years in student loans if he teaches in a low income school. We don't need all the money they will be offering for his Master's loans, but currently his parents are paying off his undergrad loans. I'm torn if we should focus the initial forgiveness on his old loans (helping Mom & Dad) or his new loans (helping us). I think we will ask them if any of the loans are unsubsidized and get the specifics on interest rates when things get closer.

So summer is basically over in our house. DH is back to work which is a blessing. He was offered permanent substitute positions at his old school and another in district school. We still have hope that he can work in our county, but this is the best backup plan.

Over summer we have had to stop all our saving to retain positive cash flow. This is upsetting. It means we still haven't started contributing to our Roth IRA. We should be able to start up again in October. When we do, I will be adjusting our contributions so that they = money needed/months to achieve. I disregard interest for this so hopefully I can adjust the contributions down in the future to make room for other goals. Any extra money will go into the soonest, most urgent goal.

This month has been hard as DH needed major dental work. He maxed out our dental coverage! He still needs his wisdom teeth removed, but that will have to wait for next year. I think I will have to take over choosing the medical coverage this year. I am not pleased by that.