Damn you, LLBean Fall Catalog. It’s not that I really want anything specific from you, I mean, you’re LLBean, there’s not a lot of innovation appearing season to season. It’s not like an Apple keynote. But what you’ve done is made me think “oooh, fall is coming. Then winter. Fluffy snow! Cookies. … oil bills. OMG, what are we going to do. Money is going to be so tight.”

To that end, I’ve been once again fiddling with finance sites (wesabe.com, mint.com) and trying to estimate costs for the winter, bleeding the turnip, etc etc. If you don’t heat with oil, it means nothing to you, really, but if you do (and I do) the price of oil is going through the roof at an alarming rate. We heat exclusively with oil, and are cheap, cheap, cheap about it, and average 450 gallons per heating season, which is less than anyone else I know. (And I know a lot.) Running the numbers, assuming oil will be $5 a gallon ( almost $4 more than our first winter, four years ago), it basically works out to about $375/month for the heating season. We’ve installed windows in all the primary living spaces, and we’ll be rearranging the living room so that the couch is away from the big window, just to keep us more comfortable, hopefully. I plan on spending ~$300 on honeycomb shades before we turn on the boiler this year, as well, in an effort to keep what heat we do produce, inside. It’s freaking me out.

Our debts are our house and my student loan. Our commutes are about 3 miles apiece, including daycare stops. Our cars are paid for and get 25+ mpg, pretty good for their ages. We don’t spend frivolously, we don’t eat out, I budget for food and for one takeout meal per weekend, we don’t go to movies, or on ‘real’ vacations, or anything like that. We don’t have cable, we have the cheapest cell plan available (200 minutes), and even our Netflix is the $9 version. After our mortgage, our single biggest expense is daycare (although, Ingrid just switched to Jr Preschool, so we get our first daycare break, EVER, from 667 to a cool $630 a month) and we just aren’t extravagant spenders. We work on saving, but car repairs this summer ate up a chunk of that, on top of the money we’d earmarked for windows, and we haven’t even finished all the windows! Argh.

So, I spend a lot of time thinking about this. The other track is that I think about how in the FUCK I can ever afford a second, how utterly wrong it is that money dictates the size and timing of my family in such a way, and trying to just figure. it. out. We’ve decided it’s time to start hoarding sick and vacation days (and besides, I can’t afford a vacation, anyway) to hopefully create a stockpile for a hypothetical 2010 maternity leave. I’ve trolled craigslist wondering if there’s an ideal, but cheaper, option for childcare. (Answer: No.) It’s just weighing heavily.

So, in light of all that, I decided to fantasy spend some fantasy money. If I had the following, this is what I’d do with it: $1 : go buy a diet coke from the campus center. (I might do that in a minute.) $10: make plans with Andy to get coffee or something on Friday. $100: put it towards the thermal shades $1000: dining room windows, and some thermal shades $10000: finish windows, do the roof $100000: windows, roof, siding, pay off student loan, save money with some earmarked for my dream car (the 09 Forester… lame, I know, but oh how I long for that car!). $1000000: windows, roof,siding — wait, with a millionbucks, I might even figure out how to add a master suite and first floor bathroom. Or buy out a neighbor or something — and, of course, pay off student loan, get that sweet, sweet 09 Forester, and save. Maybe just get pregnant and do the SAHM thing. Wouldn’t that be lovely? Alas.