Decisions Made

I can see from your comments that sometimes life makes your money decisions for you! Life (or, more accurately, the nail I drove over and didn't notice!) will be taking a little bit of our tax rebate, as we'll have to pay to have my tire patched.

We also decided to use some of the money to put in our garden this year. We're trying to do a Square Foot Garden, so we need to buy wood and compost and peat moss and vermiculite (which, um, I can't at all find and so we're planning to get perlite, even though the book recommended against it. It didn't say what alternatives there are?) and seeds and... I think that's it. I don't know if this will work, but here's hoping.

So, there goes money to things that weren't even on my list.

We will be making a $1,200 payment to the van.

We will be putting any remaining money into the baby savings fund. I noticed that I didn't even mention WHY we're saving for the baby, when this is our third baby in 4 years (yikes...), shouldn't we have everything we need? The money is mostly to pay for my maternity leave. I get 6 weeks at 60% of my pay, and I can take up to 6 more weeks at 0% pay. Other expenses that need to be saved for:

• Medical expenses not covered by my insurance
• A new breastpump, as mine died out on me last time
• A doula
• Other possible and likely expenses

I just want to pile up as much money as possible. These kinds of things completely knocked our finances out with our first two kids, so, in my mind, the baby savings fund can never be large enough.