I usually summarize all my expenses/savings together, but ran out of time yesterday.

So we spent a whole lot of money. What else did we do in October?

*Saved $1k to short-term savings

*Saved $200 to mid-term savings

*Saved $250 to medical savings & added $250 credit card rebate also

*Earned $26 interest (to mid-term fund). Good bye Balance Transfers; this amount decreased much as a result

*Deposited $100 to ROTH

*Earned $625 in work retirement plan

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*Pulled $1500 from medical fund for dental and medical bills.

Our deductible could push our medical fund to -$1500 or so, for 2008 expenses. But I figured it was a lot easier to stomach paying all those dental bills out of there, for now. Will tap mid-term savings later, if we have to. IF we ever get BM's ambulance bill, etc.

I guess there is always a slight chance we won't use our deductible next year and we can recover then. Who knows...

*I subtracted $150 from short-term savings for car registration. I did not pull any money out for other things (like life insurance) because fund is depleted for year. Will have to shift to the mid-term fund through 12/31. Need short-term for property taxes and home insurances (will be about $4k due in December).

We have been slowly adding more to this fund every year and are contributing another $100/month over Jan. 1, so I am happy where this fund is for the long run. I think $1k/month is the sweet spot, for now. But a bit behind, since we did not contribute this much when both kids were still in preschool.

Adds up to about $9k for all of our insurances and prop taxes, and about $2k for car repairs and vacation, and maybe $1k for misc. things throughout the year (like Christmas & subscriptions & vehicle registration, etc.).

*Pulled $550 for new drapes and Dec. 31 concert tickets, from mid-term savings. May need to pull a little more out for car service (would have been short-term otherwise) if it hits the card for October.

*Dh earned $125 at a focus group to pay for my ring resize.

& that's October for you. We took care of a lot of stuff. But November we hope will be low key. No "plans" for any bigger purchases or anything from savings.

Truth is though we have a lot of stuff that have been on the back burner for a while, and as our mid-term fund builds up, we are using some of it. I had preferred to wait until the balance was $5k to start touching it, but with all these dental bills and everything... I kind of give up. Maybe we should take care of some things and start over 1/1. Mid-term fund can easily be gone by then. But it is nice to get some stuff done around the house, etc.