Fall is here, back to school part 2, money tracking, etc.

Brrrr, fall is HERE in Wisconsin!! My weather app said it was 47 degrees out this morning! 😳

I cannot fully decide what I think about this. On the one hand, many Septembers we still get very hot weather in Wisconsin, and I don’t always love that either, because it doesn’t feel like “fall” then. But this is maybe a little too abrupt! Actually, I can’t complain- the weather has been pretty gorgeous on the whole. I mean, it will warm up and will be sunny and mid-60s by noon which is pretty fantastic “fall” weather- cool enough that it has that crisp in the air, but warm enough that it’s not actually cold.

Yesterday it rained, for the first time in a while (we had the most picture perfect Labor Day weekend weather!!). It was cool and rainy and cozy and I decided to lean into the fall vibes and lit my Pumpkin candle… and I also put this You Tube channel on in the background as I worked:

I also made butternut squash soup last night. A neighbor gave me FOUR big squashes from their garden! I made a double batch of soup and still have more squash leftover.

We all sat down and ate at the table last night, for the first time in…. I have no idea how long. A VERY long time!! We usually end up just eating around the breakfast bar. Or, we’re not all home at the same time, etc. I did not have an elaborate meal planned- just sloppy joes sandwiches. The butternut squash soup was sort of a random addition but it worked well. We also had some fruit, baby carrots and jalapeno chips…. and I lit a fall candle. lol! It was so nice!!

The Wednesday dinner was in part possible because Ethan’s soccer team has shifted to having morning practices this year (from 7:00-8:30 a.m.). His school has “late start” on Wednesdays (I think they start at 9?) compared to their usual ~7:50 a.m. start., which makes this possible. I think Ethan has mixed feelings- 7:00 is EARLY when you live a 30 minute drive away…. but on the flip side, it means he has Wednesday evenings free! (Usually high school sports are every single day after school, M-F.)

Asher’s club swim season doesn’t start until next week, so we had a rare night all home. I had started the soup on my lunch break, then Asher and I went to the gym from ~5-6 p.m., we came home, I threw together the sloppy joes and the rest and we all sat down to eat just before 7. Ivan then took Asher to buy some school supplies (in high school, they don’t get a list ahead of time anymore- just have to wait until the first day and see what each teacher wants) while I walked Charlie. Ethan did homework and then before bed, Ivan and I stayed up too late watching the final 2 episodes of Anne with an E. (I totally loved this series!! I cried when Anne went off to college… her adoptive parents in the series are just the sweetest!)

Speaking of back to school, Asher had his 1st day on Tuesday!

He’s off to 10th grade!! Crazy. Sounds like everything went well. I think he’s happy with who’s in his lunch, a little less happy about who’s in some of his classes (just doesn’t have friends/people he knows well in some of them) but most sound okay.

He has 3 AP classes this year, which are kind of a random mix, in my opinion, but hey, he picked them. He has AP Environmental Science, AP Seminar (I didn’t even know what this was- it’s some kind of research/analysis class that focuses on learning to construct well-supported arguments using evidence based practices; an English credit), and AP United States History. He also has Spanish 3, Algebra 2, Chemistry, a Team Sports gym class and study hall. In the spring he has a Public Speaking class instead of the gym class.

I’m a little bummed he’s not doing volleyball this fall….it was super fun to watch last fall. But he decided he just wants to focus on club swim in preparation for high school swim (starts in November) and then he may try and do high school golf in the spring.

Asher’s first day of school, September 2nd, was also our wedding anniversary! 18 years!! We had tentatively planned to go to Eno Vino overlooking the Capitol (it would have been the perfect night for it- the weather was beautiful for pre-dinner drinks on the patio there…), but I just ended up not feeling it. I was a little tired/ cranky all day- I guess just the first day back to work blues after a lovely long weekend. I wasn’t in the mood to “clean up” and try and “look cute” etc etc. Ha.

SO, we ended up scratching it and just going to our same old Mexican place. What can I say, we are boring. lol. We decided we’ll take a raincheck on our nice dinner out and do that another day soon instead.

My parents celebrated their 53rd anniversary that day, too! Woot woot!!!! 💗

Let’s see, what else is new… I guess I’ll continue going backwards towards the weekend.

Monday (Labor Day) Ivan and I went together to get groceries, and then in the evening he made a sort of “special” Labor Day meal to take advantage of the beautiful weather. We bought thin steak from the Mexican grocery store to grill and he made fresh homemade guacamole (was killer!) and salsa and we had refried beans.

It was DELICIOUS. So, so good! Perfect ending to the long weekend.

Overall, the rest of the weekend was very low key. We did not perhaps truly take advantage of the long weekend, I suppose…. there were fun local events happening that we didn’t go to and I also thought it would have been fun to go biking. But eh, I just was really looking forward to being low key.

We went on several walks at least to enjoy the AMAZING weather, and after not using the hot tub much this summer with our steamy weather, I think I went in the hot tub every day this past weekend!

I also spent a lot of time in the sunroom with the patio door open, which I really, really enjoy.

Also, I checked off another one of my 2025 goals! You guys, I’m suddenly ON A ROLL!!!

I caught up our finance spreadsheet to present date (had gotten a bit behind) AND I also played around with different budget tracking softwares.

My goal for 2025 was to implement a better way to truly track our expenses more closely. (My spreadsheet is more overall balances, payments out, etc. It doesn’t get granular about expenses by category really at all.)

I played around with both YNAB and Monarch Money for honestly, way too long this weekend. These types of things seem to have a big learning curve, at least for me.

Ultimately, I decided I think we’re going to go with Monarch. I have free trials of both running. I used YNAB many years ago, an old version, but the way it handles credit cards and tracking those expenses just kind of was breaking my brain. I finally gave up.

After playing with it, I think Monarch will give us what we need!! I wanted the transactions to auto import, as I don’t see us realistically manually entering every expense. Both the app and the computer version seem user friendly and look nice.

I am excited to get some good data! We’ve had some ballooning expenses lately, with above-average-for-us levels of travel (for various/ sort of unusual reasons) and teen driver insurance rates and additional vehicles, etc, among other things. We really want to tighten the reins a little and get a closer handle on where exactly our hard earned dollars are going- especially with college on the horizon, too….

I’m just so happy I had some open time and head space to do this, as for me, it’s not the kind of thing I can just sit down and crank out in an hour. It took me MANY hours over the course of the weekend to explore these, play with them, read some how-to articles, watch some videos, trial and error, etc.

Ivan is much better with numbers than I am and also just more able to like, keep track of what’s happening almost in his head, if that makes sense. I am the opposite. I’m extremely visual and I need to SEE things on paper (or the screen) and I need it all broken down very clearly or I have no idea what’s going on. lol. We’ll both obviously benefit from this, but I am the one who really needs to get the “right-for-me” system. I think he’d be fine with whatever.

Between finishing the storage room and now getting this whole new $$ tracking system up and running, I’m calling 2025 a gold star year for goals (even if I don’t complete many of the rest of them!).

I’ll wrap up here. Hope everyone’s back to school season is going smoothly!

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for back to school. I really do cherish the return of ROUTINES!