I had DH work up a spreadsheet for me of what his projected income next year will be with the higher medical taken out in 2021 alone, at 7% going into the 401K and at 10%, and at 15%.  We can put 10% in and still be able to save at least $1000 every 4 weeks towards the Emergency Fund, so that is what we will be doing.

The Emergency Fund goal for next year is to get it to $22,232.86 and that will be 6 month's expenses.  I am currently at $8739.84, so will need to save $13,493.02 to hit that goal.  I'll be putting the $500 Christmas bonus in the EF, so that will bring it to $9239.84 by years end, leaving me with $12,993.02 to save in 2021.  So that should be done by the end of the 2021, at which point we could move our retirement savings to 15% and continue to save for 1 year's expenses, and additional $22,232.86, which would take 37 months.

And that is without MIL giving us any money next year, or possibly at the end of this year.  Mil is going to pay for DD's surgery to take out the liver tumor, at least what the insurance won't cover ($3000, I think), so I don't know if there will be money on top of that or not.  I don't expect it, but I will be happy if it happens.

Putting 15% into retirement means that we will only be able to save $600 a month (well, every 4 weeks, so 13 "months") towards the 12 month's expenses Emergeny Fund.  And that is all assuming there isn't another raise in medical that makes an income cut again or that DH doesn't get a raise during that time period.  They have a wage freeze at the moment.  So I assume the medical will go up and the wages might go down.

Mom is going to do a quitclaim on the house with a life estate for her, meaning she can live here until she dies and she will be responsible for property taxes still, but the house will be ours, with the provision we provide a set amount of the sale to each sister (2) if we sell the house, although we might just buy them out of that, and of course my eldest sister can stay with us as long as we are here (my decision, not Mom's) because family takes care of family.  Mom wants us to have the house, though, because we've helped her all these years when the others have not.

I won't count on it until the ink is dry and it has been five years (the gov could come back and take it if she needed to go into the nursing home).  With that in mind, we will start to save money, on the off chance it falls apart, towards a house once the EF is met, at least until the five years has passed.

Once the five years has passed on the quitclaim and all is safe from the government, we will reassess what we are going to do with our savings from that point.  Future future goals are a solar system for the house and possibly an electric vehicle if they have one that is disability assessible, say maybe in ten years.  I'd prefer a mini-van that could go about 250 miles between charges, but as far as I know they don't make those yet.

I think I have remotivated myself to stop spending so lavishly and refocus on saving.  We have made it a week without takeout and in January we will be doing an eat from the pantry challenge, so my main goal right now is no takeout until February, though a year without takeout would be amazing, if we could pull it off.  We'd certainly stop jeopardizing our goals that way.