I'm a Working Mom!

So much has changed since my last post.  My world changed forever in late May when my son was born.  He is healthy, wonderful and we are so so happy to be his parents.

I had an amazing four month maternity leave with mostly time I had accrued through my years of saving up my PTO, plus a generous six weeks from my employer (though a bit too little too late at that point). I came back to work two weeks ago and last Wednesday turned in my two weeks notice.

I GOT A MUCH BETTER JOB!!

After years and years of making around $50,000 I will be jumping up to a salary of nearly $75,000. The job is still in public service so it will have many of the same benefits that made my current job appealing but at a pay rate that is more commiserate with my years of experience.  I'm sure it will be challenging in other ways but, after tackling parenthood, I think I can manage.

My husband also started a new job a month ago with a decent salary increase so the $1,000 a month we are spending on day care hasn't affected our budget thankfully.  Now more than ever our eyes are on the goal of buying a house and we hope to achieve this goal by Spring 2014.

Student loans?  Yup, still paying them.  I need to log into my accounts and make sure, but I'm almost positive I've hit the "Under $100k" goal recently so hurray!

Changes Abound

Thanks to all who checked in with me during my recent blogging hiatus.  I confess that I prefer blogging from my work computer (on my lunch break!) because it's much easier to pull up financial data at a desk with a pen and paper and a real mouse.  Laptops are great for web browsing but not much typing or research.  Unfortunately my work group of thirteen attorneys has dwindled down to a measly eight in the past few months and, as a result, my work load has tripled (yes tripled!).

But, have no fear, they recently gave me a three percent cost of living adjustment - my first since 2009 - remember how excited I was back then?  Factoring in the Social Security reduction sunset, it's like $20 more a paycheck.  Thanks a lot!

While my coworkers have wised up and abandoned ship, I have no immediate plans to look for another job because of the great work/life balance..which is more important now that I have a baby on the way.  Yes, a baby, finally!  It's been almost exactly a year since I wrote about our fertility struggles and how they were putting our plans on hold.  I'm happy to announce that after a successful IVF cycle I am now five months pregnant.  Our SON will arrive hopefully mid June. And, while achieving pregnancy was a herculean feat, the actual pregnancy so far has been pretty easy.  I'm healthy, baby is measuring big and healthy and I feel great.

We are still living in the condo and are here until we can scrape up enough funds to put at least ten percent down on a house.  Originally we thought we could pull it off by the time the baby gets here but that won't be happening save some sort of financial miracle.  Our modified plan puts us moving shortly before the end of 2013.  Technically we have almost half the money saved already...but most of that is in our Emergency Fund and I will resist the temptation to drain that with a baby on the way just for the convenience of a few more months with an eat in kitchen.  Non-shared laundry would be nice though.  Sigh.

In other news, this was the first year we've been married that we didn't greatly miscalculate our tax burden.  Instead of owing we ended getting back over $3k so that was a nice addition to our savings plan.  DH is still interviewing for a better job and hopefully between his forthcoming bonus in March and any salary increase he may see, we will exceed our goals by the end of the year.

I hope to write more about our plans for the baby and hopefully moving soon.  It's a very exciting time.