I’m joining in after week1 because why not. I have to finalize some things get my shit together by the end of 2019. I’ll keep it short to avoid feeling bad by year end.
Send paperwork for French nationality: I am eligible for this since 2018 and I’m still procrastinating:
Notarize my birth certificate and police record at my country of origin embassy
Fill the form and sign it with MG stating that we’re still living together
Request a new marriage certificate (the other expired thanks to my procrastination)
Collect all the papers and mail them
Finalize paperwork for the kids’ savings : LG has it automated but I want to invest 1.2K to catch up for when I wasn’t working and contributing to his account. They also need to be signed by both parents and mailed (I hate paperwork that can’t be done online).
Fill the forms to automate BG account and one-off investment for LG
Have MG sign them.
Mail them.
Finalize Christmas / EOY shopping: I need to buy clothes for the kids and myself for the new year celebration. We celebrate with one of MG’s friend and his family. His wife is always dressed up and her kids are Instagram worthy. I don’t want to spend the whole night being conscientious. I have gifts for PG et LG but BG’s gift is not finalzed yet:
Finalize the kids shopping (online)
Buy a Christmas gift for BabyGeek
Go to the outlet shop to buy a dress for myself
Make my hair et BG’s or make appointment with hair stylist
Make plans for 2020: Those will be subject to change but I want to outline some goals for 2020. I also need to plan how I want to change my career in 2020… and where I want to travel to.
Send paperwork for reduced work time (4/5)
Update resume in French and English
Send 10 job applications
Plan 2 informational interviews for future career change
Have a list of goals for 2020
Make a plan for travels in 2020
Send medical bills for reimbursement: We have a high bill for LG’s second pair of glasses and I thought it wouldn’t be reimbursed but I’m gonna try. I also have bills from the OBGYN and my own glasses to send for reimbursement.
Fill the form for the OBGYN bill
Reply to insurance mail requesting bills for my glasses
Fill the form for LG’s glasses
Mails LG and my forms to the social security office
ETA: edited to add insurance paperwork for reimbursement
Week 1 Update:
I have not purchased renter’s insurance yet.
I have been tracking my holiday spending. I won’t put the numbers here now, but it’s been helpful to see where I’m spending my money, since I’ve been trying to buy more locally and from small businesses.
Update: did the income certification for IBR student loan repayment. Realized I could scan and upload instead of putting in snail mail, which means it actually happened!
Also realized that I have two months payments at a former employer from right after the public service loan forgiveness program started. So I filled out an employer certification form and sent it to that employer to start the ball rolling getting those two payments certified. Looking at my account online, the student loan people think I should qualify to apply for public Service loan forgiveness in July, and those extra two months would mean I could apply in May. That’s only, like, six months away!
Wasn’t on the list but also accomplished renewing husband’s major professional license, which expires at the end of this month, and started the ball rolling on renewing his teaching certification because it will help in applying for some jobs (Although he’s never teaching in the public schools again).
–I figured out that the internet bill was fine and I was being paranoid
–I joined a gym by the office for $25/month and no commitment! Now just need to see how renewing classpass goes and if I should skip classes in favor of just doing machines regularly
–I looked at more weddings bands!
So this isn’t exactly what was on the list but some life progress I was postponing.
I’m a little late to the party – my December goals
-Eat down the pantry. Those two cans of tuna and rando beans need to be consumed
-Develop a system at work which enables work to be done before getting home or with minimal work left over. (Warning: This is going to get a little bloggy if y’all want to skip it). This doesn’t sounds like a budget/money issue - but its the root of slipping into bad habits. I recently transitioned to a new role at work, and my workflow is drastically different. I get swept up in things, don’t finish my documentation, I tell my self this lie that I will do it when I get home. I don’t want to work at home. Then the work piles up, I feel overwhelmed and then can’t cope with dinner/life and buy Chinese food/pizza/some other crap because all my will power is gone. I just would make better choices overall if I was little more systematic at work. (TL;DR: Some disorganization in work life spills into home and I made less than great choices)
-Continue to work the budget, focusing on minimizing the biggest Achilles heel, which is last minute eating out. So much progress last month with a 50% decrease in eating from Oct to Nov. Goal this month is to decrease by another 50%
-Put the new registration sticker on the car. Its been sitting on my desk for 2 weeks
Some wins:
Even though my Christmas fund was not as robust as previous years, there was still money set aside for Christmas, making paying for Christmas relatively stress free
I tried again to buy running shoes this Monday. The mall had a power outage impacting half the building. I really didn’t anticipate the world fighting me on this quite so hard. (Photo in my journal of what it looks like when the mall loses power, but the tree is on a different part of the grid)
I also tried to buy running shoes but couldn’t get my size in the ones I wanted, and the ones that did fit were not screaming to me to buy them so I walked away. I hate shopping.
Have looked up how many years I have to account for and it actually shouldn’t be terrible since at least I’ve used gmail for the last five years.
Started going down a rabbit hole of deciding if I should get a desk with built in file cabinet or stand alone file cabinet. Found and purchased a small portable file holder that I can use for 2020 stuff so I can have something functional that is not falling apart while I figure out longer term furniture solutions.
Update to the update to the update: it appears that if you drive all the way to the tax office, the fee to use a credit card to pay property taxes is only two dollars versus the percentage that it costs to use a credit card online. So, property taxes paid, minimum spend met.
Yesterday I figured out Fidelity (with whom I also have an IRA, my first in fact) has a storefront in my town. Maybe I could go there and get the forms filled out. Much better than a phone call. When gathering up my forms to go I realized they also required my signature to be notarized. Fidelity did that, too! AND I didn’t even have to mail/fax them to my current custodian. It was a good customer service experience overall.
NOW - there are exactly three weeks left in the year. Odds the transfer will actually happen in that time?
The only one I have made any way into is eating down pantry, I took everything out and had a look and made some recipes using what I had, I am going on holidays for 7 weeks starting January, so I want to try and get through as much as I can
Decide whether it makes sense for us to refinance our mortgage to a lower interest rate, even though we just got it in March. Update resume and LinkedIn
Set up a full list of our financial accounts and how to access them. We don’t have that many but I want them all in one place.
Set up some sort of ledger for tracking what’s in our emergency fund and what’s in various sinking funds. Theoretically we already know the answers more or less but I want to be precise about it.
Inventory my yarn stash and knitting/crochet supplies so I don’t accidentally purchase something that I already have.
Just enrolled in health insurance through work. I am grateful for salaried benefits! I have lots of medical appointments I’ve been dragging on a bit since switching insurance and having my deductible reset in July, so I’m eager to get back into see some specialists!
