**Went to the dentist this week. Only the second time at this one - oh how I LOVE:

--a dentist in the same city
--I am not sure my teeth ever been so clean?
--the cost of a local dentist (much cheaper; much lower overhead - esp. rent)

We were traveling 200 miles round trip for our dentist for my "forever dentist" about a decade after experiencing some horrible highly-recommended scammy local dentists. UGH! Yeah, I Could have tried harder, but gave up until my "forever dentist" retired. & then I was dreading that whole process, but am just so happy and relieved that we ended up in a better spot. Change can sometimes be good.

There is also no doubt that local dentist has considerably cheaper overhead and so it is nice to see that savings passed onto us as well. That should be one of the benefits of moving somewhere considerably lower cost.

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**Today is payday so I will pay off all the credit cards and pay the property taxes. A couple of weeks early - but I am moving past the desparate need for interest. {I generally wait to the last minute to pay bigger bills and squeexe out every drop of interest that I can from our savings}. More to the point - I have the cash flow and don't need to move any money around, so might as well pay it a few weeks early.

This is the downside of rising home values. Our taxes will likely go up $1k next year - or about $100/month. Ouch! BUT, I appreciate the lower taxes in recent years, all the same.

**Reminds me, I just got a note that our HOA bill remain unchanged this year. WOOHOO! Our HOA has been excellent - no price increases even though a large percentage of homeowners here are foreclosed and/or in default of dues. I have a strong sense of what to look for when we buy our next home - which will be a condo or a townhome - will probably never experience home ownership without an HOA. But we have only had positive experiences. This could have been SO bad considering the timing of when we bought. Thankfully our HOA has always been very fiscally conservative. We pay less now than we did 10 years ago.

**General plan for the rest of the year?

To fund:

--$500 beach vacation (charged this month - pay Dec.)
--$700 ER bill (charged this month - pay December)
--??? taking car into shop next week - nothing wrong with it but expecting maybe brake work or something since hasn't needed anything in "forever." Wanted to get it looked over before our long drive/vacation.

--$650 to mortgage - will be more principal than interest for the year
--Max out ROTHs in December - just regular contribution, nothing extra.
--With those goals set, hoard as much cash as possible. Not sure it will be much with all of the above, but will see...

--Charge all insurance bills to pay off in January (Homeowners, umbrella, flood, etc.) We bought our home in December - can you tell?

--Jan. 1 will be a time of reckoning. I think it's likely the first time *ever* I will not get a raise. Health insurance went up as always. Our internet bill is still insane though we have tried threatening to leave - still working on that one - I put off to Jan. to figure out. Property taxes will go up. Payroll tax holiday will likely be lost - other taxes will likely go up. Might even owe AMT for 2012!?! AMT would be a huge tax increase for us (we generally don't have enough income to pay income taxes of any note).

What's funny is that I have 100% saved the tax holiday for the past 2 years. I under-estimated how much I would mourn the loss of that money. I got really used to the savings boost. I am going to have a tough time losing that. I know it was smart to save it, but under-estimated how "used to it" I would get.

2013 looks pretty sucky.

On the plus side, I am seeing signs of economic improvement at work. It's interesting because the economic slowdown was VERY slow to affect us. But over time it no doubt has. I now see signs of things really improving. I don't know if I am now seeing the early signs, or if it is just a fluke. But crossing my fingers. I am just now looking at the books for July, Aug, Sep for several clients, and my jaw is dropping at their dramatic profit increases. & the bank balances for some of the others who never did too poorly. I am nagging a lot of people about the $250k FDIC limit, all of a sudden. Good signs - more money is flowing to small business owners again. & it's not a slow trickle - it's a big/sudden/dramatic boost.