Hello all! Thought I’d pop on and give an update. It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my numbers and a lot has happened (and yet, not happened).

We are still living at home with my family. We looked at houses this summer and fell in love with one in our price range (foreclosed ranch), got pre-approved, put in an offer, was told there were multiple offers, went up to our maximum amount that I decided we could afford and that we thought the house was worth, and still didn’t get it. If the internets is right, the house sold for less than our original bid which makes me wonder what kind of schemes these banks of foreclosed houses do. All I can think of is perhaps the purchasers had cash to pay for it.

We were bummed, but then we decided maybe we should start aggressively paying down debt and saving up money so that we can bump up into the next price range where instead of 7 houses (4 of which ought to be torn down) in the town we like, we’d have 25+ to look at. We calculated that we could be in a new house by early 2014, debt (except mortgage) free.

So we used our vacation fund, part of our emergency fund, and some cash we had on hand to purchase a $2,000 “junker” car so my husband would have transportation to a part-time job. We didn’t know what kind of job he was going to get, and while I said I wanted him to have a job before we got the car, he thought he needed a car to get to the interviews/jobs.

Well, the car came first and he got a delivery driving job, which meant he took the good gas mileage, reliable car since his entire job is based on the transportation. I got to drive the junker, well, that is until I began having problems with the junker. It would work for about two and a half weeks with no problem, and then it refused to back out of the parking spot or died at a stop sign. My brother always came to the rescue, but it looks to be a computer problem.

In the end, my husband and my immediate family don’t want me driving the junker because I’m expecting our first child. (Yes, I’m pregnant! I’m due in spring. I’m so exhausted and queasy still, but we’re so excited!) So now our plan is to have my husband drive the junker until it dies, and once it dies, he’ll be done working. He’ll be the stay-at-home dad, so in the end, it should work out. I just hope it lasts to February.

And now, onto my goals: I think I’m going to “abandon” my 2012 goals that I hit earlier in the year and then backtracked on to get the junker. I’m not going to do 2013 goals because in all honesty, I can only guess what the baby expenses are going to be and my guessing will be rather off until I get a few months under my belt, I think.

So my new “Before Baby Goals” are as follows:
1) Pay off Student Loan 1 – We actually paid it off this week!

2) Pay off Student Loan D – This should be done by March at the latest if we go at the same speed as Student Loan 1 (providing the junker keeps on driving).

3) Setup auto-payment of $400/month for Student Loan A – This will make the payoff on our LAST student loan (ever, if I have a say in it) December 2014, which is just 6 months after our (good) car loan payoff (0% loan, not going to pay off early). Then, 2015 can be the time to build up savings for a down payment, and voila! House by time the baby is 2. A year+ later than expected, but that is ok.

4) Buy minimal items for the newborn – I have been purging since the house we had liked was rather small and cozy. I like not having so much stuff. They seem to market so much junk for babies/toddlers these days that it is pretty crazy the amount of things people have for such a little being. It really just needs a safe place to sleep, diapers, clothes, and food in the beginning. I’m sure my thoughts will change on this as my pregnancy progresses and marketing gets even deeper engrained in me, but I can still hope.

5) Survive baby money chaos – I have no clue how to begin to even estimate what our new expenses will be. I’m good on the medical front (fully funded HSA for our deductible), but diapers? Clothing? Formula (if breast feeding doesn’t work for me)? So yes, I’m just hoping to survive it.

Well, that’s it. I’ve been trying to keep up reading everyone’s blogs, but it seems like the last several months just flew by in a flash. I hope I can start popping on here more frequently now.