School has officially started, and while I'm really enjoying it so far, it's definitely a lot more work than I was anticipating.  In the past 2 days, I've put in probably about 6-8 hours of work so far.  The work itself is not difficult (which is a relief because these are fairly intro classes that I would hope I could handle at my age and at my life experience level lol), it just takes a lot of time.  I am hoping this is just me getting into the groove, and that I don't feel overwhelmed in future weeks.  For week 1, I have completed all of my work for one course, and still have a lot of reading and two more assignments for the other course.  I'm now glad that I was only able to take 2 courses this summer, as I think 4 would have been completely overwhelming haha.

In the course of doing the schoolwork, I realized that my current personal computer (trying to do the majority of the work from my own computer rather than my work computer) is just not a good fit.  It's a teeny tiny little Macbook, and it's just not big enough to be comfortable to work on for any extended period of time, especially when doing writing.  I did pick up my mother's new laptop, and we've decided that I am going to keep it haha.  It wasn't terribly expensive, and it's a good investment to be able to efficiently do what will be a LOT of work over the next two and a half years.  She'll take a look at it, and decide if she likes it.  If she does like it, I will just buy another one, and that will be hers.  If she doesn't like it, I will just send the payment for it to her credit card, and then we will go shopping for hers together whenever she is ready.

On the same day, I received an offer to increase the amount of this summer's loan to cover education related expenses.  I decided to take them up on the offer, to pay for the laptop as well as whatever other tools I discover would be helpful in this journey.  I was eligible to request another $5,000, but didn't think I remotely needed that much.  However, the school has to certify the additional funds, so I decided to request more than I needed in case they certify me for a lower amount haha.  I requested $4,000, and if approved, will add it to the private loan row in my summary tracking.  This loan will be moved into the priority debt section once it's all finalized and fleshed out, and I am hoping to have it paid off before I graduate.  Since I won't need to pay any of my other student loans until 6 months after I grduate (including the ones that existed before I went back to school), I can focus on this one.

There have been a lot of conversations at work so far this week (which is impressive considering we were off Monday and Tuesday).  I had a conversation with HR, and it went really well.   I feel confident that I will be getting the promotion I have earned, and I was able to communicate what I expect from a salary/title perspective.  No promises of course, but enough to make me withdraw from consideration from the external job I was set to interview for.  The idea of changing companies right now was stressing me out, but I was willing to go for it as long as I was unsure what was happening with my current job.  I still don't have confirmation, but am feeling secure enough to let it go.  When asked what salary I was targeting, I replied with between $110k-$120k.  This is within the salary band for the next level up, albeit at the high end of the range, but I also mentioned that I believe I have been working at the level that's two above mine (which obviously has a higher salary band).  I feel like it was a very productive conversation, and I felt heard.  Even if I don't get what I asked for, I feel confident that what I am offered/awarded will be enough for me to not consider a move.  

Of course I have been busy doing projections....obviously since I am not sure what the salary would be, I have no way to know how much extra money I will be netting.  I'm playing with the different take home amounts to see how my budget can evolve.  The first priority will be funding grocery spending in my budget....til now I've been making it work but it's not actually working that well haha.  The second priority will be funding payments for the private loan.  Third will be saving to purchase a new piece of fitness equipment, fourth will be adding in funding for other sinking funds, fifth will be increasing revolving debt payoff, and then finally will be increasing savings (both retirement and general).  Obviously, as debt goes down, I can increase savings.  Excited to see how this affects my budget, but the order of events works for me, and I hope to have some info before the end of June, so that when I do an end of quarter goals review, I have some insight into where this will bring me in the second half of the year.