Well I update my stats to the right - including my age!!!! Oh my. So far 30 just means insane health premiums to me - hehe. Otherwise I feel way older than my age so it doesn't really bother me - I don't feel older anyway - hehe. I guess the downside is it takes some of the shock value out of my age. Lately everyone is shocked how young I am. Most of the people I identify with are in their late 30s/40s I guess.

Retirement went up a few hundred with market gains - a great month. & added some employer match. I am not going to add any more cash this year, the e-fund suffers. But dang it is sure tempting to add a thousand next month or so and see if I can get to the big $50k!!!! It will have to wait a few months to get there... & if the market takes a turn, who knows how long I guess...

I have $100 cash to deposit so I will put it in the e-fund. I might use some of that money to pay the estate lawyer, but with that whole pay yourself first thing I figure I would just put it in. & we should make some cash this month to cover the rest of the attorney. Deposited $200 this month and earned $25 interest. Just $300 in December to reach our 2006 goal - easy if we sell the wii!!! & christmas windfalls. Leaves $350 in the slush fund for our insurance changes. $40 cash in our pockets too.

Glanced at the budget and pretty good overall. Clothing for kids was a little over budget but that is a more x dollars per year item, and I don't expect to buy them any clothes in December so should be fine. I spend $100 on them like twice a year and I think i budgeted $600 clothes for us all. My stuff came out of birthday money. I could have saved it but oh well. For now I tell myself I have less reason to spend money the next few months - I got a lot this last month or 2.

Our groceries were about $100 over budget and even gas, though under budget, was higher than it should be. Oh well. Groceries are my enemy right now - still working on it. To me it is such a big chunk and the easiest place to shave some expenses. But the grocery budget does not seem to want to cooperate. Oh well, with thanksgiving and all the money our parents gave us for it I guess we were right on budget if you consider that.

Our utilities were WAY low this month - mostly how we squeezed out the $200 I would guess.

I have a misc. column ($150/month)on my budget and this month that pretty much went to our San Francisco trip. Probably $50 of that went to the e-fund. We didn't really buy anything else in this column for the month. Figured I would share because the misc. category can be used for anything and varies widely month to month. Starting january we are going to convert that to an allowance category - probably split it 3 ways - me, dh, and family. We'll see how that works out. Complicated bookkeeping. Probably open a new high-yield account with low minimum, put it all in, and track by category. We'll see how it goes. I think it would be good for the allowance fund to earn interest since dh plans to save his for a big purchase.

Well if I receive more birthday money (probably won't) I will put that to the e-fund too. We'll see!

Oh yeah - almost forgot. Dh's family over for Thanksgiving - put a 10-month-old on the potty?????? Everyone else's jaw is agape. Dh is always saying they are a little weird, and um yeah. LOL. I am just looking at my 17-month-old appalled at what they are doing to their baby.

So yesterday Little Monkey asks for the potty. Um yeah. He did and he liked it. This is super cool because #1 - I Don't like those little potty seats and Bih Monkey never used them. We have an insert for the big potty. So I plopped Little Monkey on the potty and it didn't scare him. He lOVED it. He would not let me take him off for 5 minutes. I slapped a diaper on him and he promptly peed. Oh well, a start. LOL. I think this is super cool because this is interest way earlier than his brother had (no doubt due to his fascintaion with big bro's potty habits). & maybe sometime next year we can cut budgets out of the diapers. Perhaps. IF so I am putting that money to orthodontia fund. For sure!!!! As for dh's family, maybe they are onto something. HEhe. Big Monkey was 18 months from first interest to fully trained, but we had a baby in between and just didn't even bother with potty training. Figure it would be a worthless cause as I heard so many stories about reverting. All signs are good that this one will train early. As they say they will with those clothe diapers. Didn't go so well the first time but Big Monkey would wear a wet diaper all day without a complaint and Little Monkey FREAKS out. We have to put him in super disposables at night orelse he wakes up upset when he is wet. So I think for that reason and the whole big bro thing he will be out of diapers around 2. I can hope anyway - the budget would like that!!