Road-worthy

So nice to drive the car and not worry about it breaking at any moment – which I realize could still happen. The total was $414 – about $350 less than Firestone and the Audi dealer would have charged! I paid over the phone and asked if I could buy them a round of drinks – and was politely turned down.

Neighbors over for CC’s birthday dinner last night. They brought down some brie and blue cheese and I broiled Indian-spiced chicken burgers (from Martha’s Everyday Food cookbook). Delish!
And then we shared slivers of the cake.

Today I canceled Mvelopes. The happy news is that since CC and I have moved our discretionary spending to separate allowance checking accounts, there isn’t as much activity on our checking account. Between lunches, coffee breaks, Target stops, dinner, nitecaps, etc. - we'd often have between 6-10 transactions per day. Now it's more like 6 transactions per week - I can handle that many entries.
When shopping for software in August, the first requirement was that the program pull bank information through the internet – and that’s clearly not as necessary.
Additionally – while the envelopes system is helpful in knowing if you’re below or over budget on any of your categories, there’s still that “will there be enough in the account” worry. When I worried about funding my health savings account, whether we’d have enough money in early November to pay our mortgage and other early-month bills, Mvelopes didn’t provide the answers. So I created a basic ledger in excel and input our future paychecks and fixed bills. The ledger helped me know that we could pay for the car repairs and let’s me know when I need to have additional funds to keep the account in the black.
I still want to use the envelope system to track budget items – so I found a program called “Budget” (from a St. Paul software company) that is more basic. You fund envelopes and enter debits/credits, etc. – but this program was a one-time $30 fee (rather than $8/monthly).
So I figure I might operate using both systems. My ledger is online at google docs, so I can have peace of mind when I check the account each day – and then I can use the ledger on the weekends to update Budget and see where we’re currently at.

Finally, a lovely chat this morning with VP, my fave photographer friend. I'm thinking of selling some of my lighting gear and getting a more portable flash. We also chatted about macro (close-up) lenses. It's fun to dream and also to think through what pieces I want to try to save for - so many people into photography dump thousands of dollars into 10+ lenses, etc. - my goal is still to be realistic about what kinds of pictures I want to take - and then to create a tight collection of superb pieces. We'll see. My birthday money got eaten by car repairs this month - but if we're dilligent next month with eating out, I should be able to be paid back.