**Dh pulled the trigger on his projector upgrade.

It's a big purchase, so he had a hard time pulling the trigger. I was kind of surprised that he was having a hard time, but we later discussed how this is probably one of our biggest purchases.

As for me, since we decided to buy it ages ago, I could really care less. The money is already spent, the projector is already paid for - in my mind. I guess it just isn't hitting dh so much until he swipes that credit card.

Dh is fairly convinced that this is the last projector upgrade we will ever do. But I won't exactly hold my breath. I am fine though to replace our 10-year-old out-dated projector. More than fine with it!

It seems that time and technology is buying him something much more top-of-the-line than before. (I am guessing our last projector cost about the same as this one).

This is really a present from dh's parents. I am cash flowing it from my salary in November. We jumped on it a little early due to a sale. But his parents have mentioned they will give us $3k for Christmas. So all along I have just considered this a gift from them. (They can change their minds, but I don't think it's an unreasonable purchase if we have to pay for it ourselves. IT will be fine either way).

{We have a relatively frugal movie theater set up in our house. For those who are reading this and have no idea what I am talking about... We have an extra room dedicated to a large movie screen}.

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**That reminds me, I did a tax projection as the year is nearing its end and I have more firm numbers than I did in January or whenever. Our Traditional IRA contribution will net us a $3,000 tax refund. I am thrilled with this number because this is the estimate I have for BM's Japan trip and this was how I intended to pay for said trip.

This Japan trip is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. We mostly plan to use future Traditional IRA tax refunds to bulk up our savings. We are just planning to spend the tax refund this one year. A splurge like this is something we have never done before and can probably handle restricting ourselves to once per decade or so.

We'd stil also like to send dh on this trip. Time will tell on that. Feeling a little cash poor at the moment! But we don't have to decide for a while...

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**I am also going to go ahead and pay the property taxes for the whole year. They went up about $1,000, from $4k to $5k. Our home has been way under-assessed most the past decade or so and even this assessment was still on the conservative side. BUT, certainly more in the realm of where it should be.

{I suppose this is the silver lining to this housing mess? A long period of LOW taxes?}

So I will probably write a $5,000 check for that next week. OUCH! I am kind of rethinking that on one hand, but then I realize I just have to pay it all by April regardless. It's all the same in the end. So I decided to just go through with it. I am also counting on this to help boost my tax refund a small bit.

As long as interest rates are in the toilet I think I will prefer the ease of just paying this bill once per year. My primary motivation is simplicity.

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All of the above aside, I feel like we have been spending way too much money. October was very spendy.

SO... Trying to reign it in and have a low spend November. Maybe low spend November and December. In fact, all of our spending *should* be done for October. (knock on wood). So, yeah, we will cool it for the rest of the year.