Where the money stands

Now that July is over, I can look back & say we did well in some areas, and overspent in others. None was terribly unexpected, as we had house guests &/or were traveling for the majority of the month. We overspent on groceries & alcohol, but kept entertainment & dining out totally in check, which feels like a win.

And, now that we've officially sold our rental house, I can make other adjustments to the budget! I can remove all utilities & mortgage (we were carrying while the house was listed). I'm trying to not make any rash decisions with the money (so tempting to start doing things outside of our plan!), and ensure we're thoughtfully considering all of the final decisions of where to spend/save/invest. Here's where the post house sale money stands, and our plans through the rest of 2017.

What we've spent so far:

• I took out a small 401K loan right after we bought our house, in order to finalize a few house projects before we moved in. Paid this off, for a total of $10,580.
• Maxed out our kids college accounts for 2017, for a total of $26,600.
• Spent $15 on the wire fee. ;-)
• Made our yearly lump sum donation to both boys schools, for a total of $1000. 

Plans for the rest of the money:

• We are earmarking a significant amount for both state & federal taxes, as we await the final numbers from our accountant.
• We will plan to continue to max out (yearly) the boys college accounts until they each reach ~$100K of contributions.
• We are building a prioritized list of projects for our new home purchase. It needs a significant amount of work, and while we won't be able to do it at all at once, we want to tackle the major projects ~ $100K. 
• We will keep the rest split between more liquid sources & our investment accounts. Our yearly budget gap (outside of what M's paycheck covers) is around $63K/year. We will use the liquid funds to cover this gap on a monthly basis.

What about the rest of 2017?:

• I'm still planning to work through the end of 2017 (actually, late January). This has been the plan all along, but I won't pretend I didn't run the numbers to see what the impact would be if I left now. ;-) 
• Between now & the time I leave, my plan is to be able to save enough to cover the budget gap (above - $63K) for 2018. This buys me quite a bit of time to figure out how much I want to work, a flexible plan & a new budget for our family. 
• I'll also max out my 401K for 2018 the first week of January, using my expected company bonus. 

I'm pretty excited about all of the upcoming changes, but nervous of course as well! There are big changes ahead & it feels good to be in control of all of the decisions, and have a comfortable safety net behind it.