Entry 2 today.

I took a $3 survey today and that gave me enough in my account to cash out for a $5 check. I like this company a lot, Your2Cents. I have now earned $21 with them in about six months time. They always say 6 to 8 weeks for a check to come but it has so far shown up about 3 weeks after a cash out, each time. The surveys are not hard, they don't take a long time to load each page, and it doesn't glitch out on the last page the way Lightspeed does sometimes.

I successfully completed my closet the other night, it took until 1 a.m. but I did it. Just for the record I ended up with 2 paper grocery bags full of shredded paper, one milk crate full of other recylable paper such as magazines, envelopes, junk mail, etc. I had seven plastic grocery bags full of garbage (nothing gross, just a lot of plastic, packaging, those blow up plastic pouches they use for shipping. 3 empty Pepsi cans (not me, must have been DH), several water bottles, and a box full of cardboard. Oh, there are a couple of boxes DH needs to go through, but I'm not worried about those. It looks neat and tidy, so I'm happy. Plus I have a side of the bed to walk on again, the overflow was pretty bad.

Today the task will be to get the laundry room in order. It is not as bad as my closet was and is a bigger space. I need to make it accessible through the kitchen and not just through the master bathroom. I want to get the repairman out to look at the dryer but I don't want him traipsing through my bedroom and bathroom to get there. Mostly it is unsorted dirty clothes that need to go into hampers, childrens' toys that need to migrate back to the other end of the house, and a lot of cardboard that needs to be broken down for recycling.

It will be a no-spend day. We aren't going anywhere. I made really delicious cheeseburgers for lunch today. My trick is to add an ounce of plain tomato sauce to a pound of hamburger. Makes the burgers stay moist and yummy. Can't add more than that or the burgers will lose cohesion and you won't be able to flip them without them falling apart. Had them on 100% whole wheat buns (delicious)with slices of Tillamook cheddar cheese instead of the old Kraft singles. So good and completely natural.

I'm going to make turkey stock today. I have a bunch of neck bones, so I will throw those in my stock pot with water, onion, carrots, celery, parsley and salt and let it boil away today. Tomorrow I will make turkey noodle soup with whole wheat spaghetti noodles. Looking forward to that.

Entry 2 for today.

DH and I had a long talk on the phone last night and we have decided that because gas prices have gone back down and because both vehicles are still running okay that we will put off buying a new car.

So the new plan is now this:

Keep $500 in my ING account
Open a second ING account in DH's name and keep $500 in it
Keep $500 in local CU
Continue to add $10 a week to savings
Take the $65 we were putting in savings from the cable bill and put it on debt
Take anything I make from surveys, product trials and PTR's and put it on debt
Try to sell the Blazer
Put entire income tax return to debt
Put entire bonus to debt
Use rolled coin we save for debt
Use recycling money for debt

This was a hard decision to make because we both wanted to get a newer car. But we each weighed it and both came to the conclusion that yes, we want a newer car, but no we don't currently need a newer car. We do NEED to get the debt gone.

We struggled with this for awhile, the same way we struggled with cancelling cable. It was hard, but after the decision was made, it was clear it was the correct decision because we immediately felt better afterwards.

Debt reduction will be covered in Bringing Down the Evil Empire because the credit card companies behave just as badly as any other business that gets on my nerves.

Today is payday. Bills paid today are:

Bank of America Visa--$800
Water Delivery--$23.79
MBNA MC #1--$150
Comast (phone)--$41.64
Dentist--$22.60
Docor--$15.00
MBNA MC #2--$500

I have to go grocery shopping and get gas, too. I will put $100 on the Costco cash card for gas. I will try to keep groceries at $75.

3rd Entry for today.

While I was cleaning my closet I found a check that has been missing since February. It is a refund check from the orthodontist for $55.60 and it was nowhere near the portion of my bedroom that I thought I'd lost it in, either!

I thought it had fallen between the baseboard of the bed and the mattress/boxsprings and rather insistently continued to search in that area because that was where I remember it last being. I found it in a laundry basket in the closet that DH had shoved a bunch of stuff in one night so we could change the sheets on the bed, since I'd had everything spread out on it. Back in February. I told you the closet needed going through!

The check doesn't say anything about being void if not cashed in a certain amount of time so I will try to deposit it into savings tomorrow. I am so happy to have found this, it has been an irritant for 8 months.

The closet is only half done. It is taking longer than I expected but the good news is that there is a lot I can get rid of either by giving it away or recycling. Also have found 3 grocery bags of garbage so far. I don't know why I had so much plastic packaging in the closet when it should have been thrown away when whatever it contained was unpackaged. I don't remember putting it in the closet so it must have been DH and one of his bad habits, instead of one of mine.

2nd Entry for today.

I'm just taking a break from the closet to read some blogs. Is it possible it looks worse than when I started? LOL It will be nice when it is done, just sometimes it seems like you need to make a bigger mess than you start with to end up organized, doesn't it?

I think I have too many clothes. I really need to develop some system of paring down what I have. I think I only really wear a dozen tops and five pants, and in the summer 8 tops and five shorts. But I've probably got triple what I need and I know some of it is either too big or too small or out of date. Fortunately, none of it is what was I thinking? I am happy with my taste in clothes. I have noticed that I have at least six sweaters that I don't wear anymore, too, so I should probably root them out.

I should probably go take some time to eat, too. I just really want to get done today!

Today was the day of the $10 auto deposit to savings, bringing the total there to $1583.21. $1600 here I come. I went to count coins last night and I am one quarter short of a roll. Argh. I hate that! I'm going to scrouge around the kids' rooms and see if they have one and give them five nickles in exchange if the do. Then I can deposit it tomorrow when I do the payday stuff.

Okay, I just reread that and one quarter short of a roll is NOT the same thing as one horse short on the merry-go-round, or one taco short of a combination platter, LOL. Just $9.75, TYVM. My screws are fully tightend. At the moment.

3rd Entry for today.

No, these are not my deepest, darkest secrets, I'm just planning my day tomorrow. I am going to tackle, oh, horror or horrors, my bedroom closet. It has grown to quite fearful proportions and is threatening to take over that entire side of the room. So I am going to take everything out of it tomorrow, except the clothes that are hanging up and put it all in the living room and then tackle one box at a time. My goal is to get through the whole thing.

I've got bags of outgrown children's clothes that need to be sorted and readied for freecycle, old maternity clothes (youngest will be seven come March) yarn, craft supplies, pillow stuffing, batting, and several miscellaneous boxes of stuff. Papers that need to be shredded, magazines that need to be recycled, papers that need to be filed, newspapers that need to go in the box by the fireplace, wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, gift bags, and junk. I swear, it is all breeding. I hope I can get it sorted, trashed, organized, recycled, given away or whatever all in one day. It sure would be nice.

What has this to do with finances? Well, getting the old statements and bills filed or shredded will help in organizing the finances. And spending the day at home cleaning means I won't be out spending money. Other than that, not much. LOL

Today was a lazy day because tomorrow will not be. I sat on my butt and watched Batman Begins and worked on knitting a scarf. Movie was really good, I liked it. I haven't seen Christian Bale since he was a boy in the musical Newsies, he sure did grow up the right way. LOL

I'm reading an anthology of SF short stories right now. Today I finished Combat Shopping by Elizabeth Moon. Very different from a lot of her stuff, but interesting. Also read Incarnation Day by Walter Jon Williams. Made me think. But in a good way.

I drove the kids to my mother, they will spend the first two days of their vacation with her. I went to Target and purchased a few things, I bought a blue velvet stocking with a rhinestone L on it. Now everyone has a personalized stocking in my house. I also bought a box of 2 peacock Christmas ornaments for our tree. Very pretty and unique looking. I found a ladybug ornament and a ladybug CD case for my niece who collects ladybugs to give to for Christmas. I'm still looking for something for the other neice who collects elephants. I may have to go back to the Asian store to find elephants this year. Spent $33.65.

Gave into cravings and bought a Big Grab bag of Cheetos for $1.07. I've been wanting them for a week, so I decided it wasn't going to go away and it was just better to get them. So I got them. And I haven't even eaten them yet 3 hours later. Because I finally forgot I wanted them!

Suncoast has not responded to my email, not even with a computer generated "we have received your email and someone will get to it soon," email. I have little faith I will hear from them at all. Really bad customer service.

I stepped on Thomas the Tank Engine and split my heel this morning. It is to one side so I can walk without limping but I can't put full pressure to the outside of my foot. Each step stings and I went through three band-aids before the bleeding stopped. One little boy just about found himself out of a train collection.

I forgot to do this after making the mortgage payment so I'll do it now.

Ending Balance is now at $35,724.84. I have 10 years, 5 months + $21.05 worth of payments left to make. Obviously this will be paid off faster than that as I always pay extra on the principal, even if it is only $24.14 extra each month consistently, sometimes anywhere from $50 to $100 extra, depending on finances at the time.

That puts us on a path to have our mortgage paid of by 2017 if I were to never make another extra payment. I would like to see it paid off by 2012, as Rose starts college in 2014 and Tobias in 2018. If DH gets the promised raise in January, we ought to be able to abolish our credit card debt by 2010 or 2011. If he gets the promised promtion in 18 months with even bigger raise, I have no doubt we will reach all of our goals by those dates. But life is funny and a promise is not money in the bank.

Basketball practice started for Rose tonight and there are two other girls from our block who practice with her, so we are going to carpool. It seems a little silly to carpool to go 1.2 miles down the road and back, but seems even sillier for 3 moms to drive 3 cars 1.2 miles down the road and back. Since there will be 3 practices a week, it works out great. So I will save just a little bit on gas.

Unfortunately, Rose was assigned to the team with the girl that likes to bully her. Fortunately when I talked to the coach about it, he said that girl bully's everyone and he will clamp down on her if she starts and for Rose to come tell him if he doesn't see stuff when it goes on. I feel so much better about that.

I wish she had gotten assigned to the other team because she has 4 friends on it. She has one friend on this team but she wasn't there tonight because she's stuck on the other side of the flood waters and hasn't even made it to school this week because of that. Not sure where her other friend will be assigned as she did not make it to practice. Hopefully with Rose. If she has two good friends on the team that will help her really stand her ground against Miss Bullypants. Then one of the other girls who lives in our development is not really her friend, she's a grade up, but they used to play together when they were little and just drifted apart because of being in different grades. They are friendly, though, so maybe I just won't have to worry about it.

3rd Entry for today, do make sure you read #2 as it has goals met that are pretty cool if I do say so myself, and this entry gets its own new category, that will go for badly behaved companies.

Here's a copy of the email I sent off to Suncoast (the video and dvd store) today after an incident in their store, also today.

On November 7, 2006 I went into a Suncoast store located at Bellis Fair Mall, 1 Bellis Fair Parkwway, Bellingham, WA 98266-5563 to use my $20 Replay Reward Certificate from my Replay membership. My membership number is 094797404. The replay reward certificate expired 11/7/06. The employee rudely informed me that he could not accept the certificate because it expired 10/31/06, even though it clearly stated on it that it expired 11/07/06. He even acknowledged that the certificate said it expired on 11/07/06, but that didn't matter because it really expired on 10/31/06 and said there was nothing he could do to honor it. He would not explain why, that was just the way it is. To me this is false advertising and failure to uphold club membership rules.

When I called the membership line to cancel my membership because they failed to honor it, they refused to refund the money I paid just a few months ago for a two year membership, as apparently there are no refunds. I understand there being no refunds if a person cancels just to cancel, but if a person cancels because the company lied to them about being able to use their certificates in their stores or to honor a valid expiration date, than I believe a refund is justified. When I asked to speak to a supervisor I was rudely informed that it would not matter because there were no refunds period. I was rudely brushed off. I believe this was because it was five minutes before the system shut down for the day.

I believe because your company failed to uphold its part of the membership agreement, that you owe me a refund. If this incident is not resolved to my satisfaction, I will be emailing a copy of this complaint to the Better Business Bureau. I want you to understand that you are losing a customer that you have had since July of 2002, one who has spent several hundred dollars at Suncoast each year, for your failure to honor membership terms. I will be reporting on this incident in my blog. I will also tell as many people as I can on my various email groups and in person. The behavior of your company is unaccpetable. And your employees need to learn better customer service skills, as I was perfectly polite, but they were far from it.

******

Plus my contact info, of course. Now of course, I really don't care all that much if you choose to shop at their overpriced stores or not, what I care about is their bad behavior. If they had just been polite or explained things properly or at all, instead of me having to figure out through their website what the deal was (which is that they switched to a different type of membership and don't have reward certificates anymore just points in the computer and 10% discount, which 10% of overpriced dvd is still overpriced there, the certificates and sales would make it somewhat worthwhile before, they did not offer to change it in the store or on the phone, by the way).

But I do want the store to know I mean business, so the letter and the posting in my blog.

2nd entry for today.

After I did my stint as a Looky Lou at the river I went ahead and drove to town to deposit those two checks into savings. I only had one way to go to town as the other two SR's are partially underwater. But the way I went is the way I normally go, so no big deal. If I could have I just would have gone to Everson, but of course main street is under water, well, not under water, but full of standing water so that branch didn't open. It's only a fifteen minute drive there. No, I went to Bellingham and deposited the $119 into savings.

So that brings the total in all my savings accounts to $1573.21. So I have achieved my two month goal of depositing $500 into savings by November's end, and my $1500 goal saved. This month will see an additional $1105 deposited for sure and I'm hoping to scrape up another $100 as well at the very least. So for sure $2678.21 by this month's end, hopefully $2778.21. I would like to reach $3000 saved by the end of December. Not bad for a girl who had $105 in savings in April and didn't know where she was even going to find $10 a week to save!

I decided to be a Looky Lou today after first checking the Public Works webpage and the WA DOT webpage for road closures. Just four miles up the highway its closed for the foreseeable future. But I didn't go that way. The river is still high but after it flooded last night it is back down to reasonable levels. There is a lot of standing water. It is amusing, in a sad sort of way, to see ducks floating in a vineyard or a hay field.

The shoreline is back on the river though I don't imagine we'll be seeing any sandbars or island for a good long while. A lot of trees are washed up on the shore line, I imagine there's going to be a lot of wood for the taking next summer. Got to check into getting a permit for that.

We could still see more flooding when the next storm moves in tonight, but I hope the worst of it is over. I am perfectly safe at my house, at least I don't have to worry on that score. There was actually a small break in the light rain today and I saw this strange bright yellow object up in the sky. I'm not sure what it was and it went away again after about 30 minutes.

Fortunately we didn't lose power last night, didn't even need to light a candle, that's always good.

Well, I wasn't kidding about the weather making up for the fact that it hadn't rained all summer. The formerly 6 foot wide, 3 inch deep river is currently at 11 feet deep and at least 60 feet wide. It's about 3 feet below the road, or was at 4:00. There are no sand bars, no shorelines visible, the water is brown and full of trees and branches and will flood the road by morning. This is just the portion 3 miles from my house, and is only the North Fork of the river.

It has already shut down SR9 at Acme. The kids from Glacier couldn't come to school today because the buses couldn't get through the water. I had to pick my kids up at school as one of the buses broke down so they took the kids from that route and used our bus to take them home and then were taking ours home late.

We had to go to town, went into the chiropractor, stopped at the store to stock up on milk and ice for the next storm coming in tonight. When we crossed the bridge at Nugent's corner, which is after the North and South Forks have joined together it was only 4 feet below the top of the levy, which is still several feet below the bridge, but they were evacuating houses along the river. It was so fast, the rapids were huge, again swirling masses of muddy water, tree wreckage, no shoreline, no sand bars, just devastating to see it.

I got back home just as soon as I could. I was so nervous but everyone was on their best driving behavior, no one was tailgating, probably because their wiper speed did not go that fast. I was afraid the road would go before I got home or a tree would come down, the wind was so bad today. I lost several branches on the big cedar tree and lots on the giant firs and pines this morning. Nothing came down on wires, thank the good Lord. Stuff came close. We did have a brief power failure this morning, lots of folks did have trees across their driveways and there was so much tree wreckage that had been cleared from the roads.

I bought enough perishable groceries to be able to stay put all week if I need to, even though the worst of the storm should pass by tomorrow night. It's been 3 years, I think since the last flood and its right around the same time that floods occur here, so things are back on target with the weather, anyway.

I hope it all calms down because my mother is going to take the kids Wednesday after school, and then I will pick them up on Friday, that will give me some time to not be locked up with cabin fever with my youngsters. They so need a change of scenery. I so need for them to have a change of scenery. LOL

Received $15 check from ACOP in the mail today for the product trial I did for them last month. Received a $104 insurance refund check in the mail for DH's vision appointment. He had the appointment last summer, didn't send the stuff in, didn't send the stuff in, didn't send the stuff in even though it was all ready to go, finally I took it, put it in an envelope, addressed it and mailed it two weeks ago, and what do you know, here it is. So that will be a total of $119 added to savings when I can get to the bank.

The Schwan's guy just stopped by with my order and he's afraid he can't get home. They've evacuated a large part of Everson, closed Hannegan and Hamilton, they've closed HWY 542, the part 3 miles from my house that was at 3 feet below the road at 4:00, they've closed South Pass so you can't get through Nooksack, down to Sumas, but he might be able to cut around the other pass to get to Sumas that way. Man, I hope this clears up by Wednesday. Yuck. And I'm really glad I got milk and got home when I did.

Now to just cross my fingers that the power does not go out, though I've located all lanterns, flashlights, batteries, candles, lighter, the radio and have a supply of wood in the house. We have 3 5 gallon bottles of water. I've got the cooler and the bag of ice in the freezer just in case, so we are set. We should not flood here, we are well above the creek and well above the river, but we could easily get cut off.

I didn't spend anything yesterday. I stayed home with 2 sick kids and the weather made up for not raining all summer. The river is actually starting to rise from linked puddles to trickle. I had never seen it so low in my life as it had gotten to. Had a huge storm with lots of thunder.

I forgot to mention on Friday when I went Christmas Looking, I also stopped at JoAnn's and got some yarn, and splurged a bit and got a set of the oval/rectangular hand looms from the Knifty Knitter product line. I already had the round ones from last year. This makes knitttng so much easier.

Yesterday I knit myself a new scarf that comes close to matching my new jacket. And today I started on a matching hat. I've been watching the second season of 24 on loan from a guy DH works with, so knitting justifies all the time staring at the tube, otherwise doing nothing. supposedly I can make mittens with these things, too but I have my doubts. I can see socks, but not how I'd make a thumb for mittens.

When I'm done with this, I will make DH a scarf. He wants one that is extra long. About the length of the one the fourth Dr. Who had if anyone knows what I'm talking about. That's not going to happen, but I will make him one that is longer than standard as he is very tall. I also want to make a blanket for my dad for Christmas. The largest of the looms is for making blankets and I think it will work well enough. We'll see. It'll be an adventure.

Today will be a no spend day, also. It stopped raining so I had some time to bring wood in without getting drenched. It is not near as cold as it had been, its in the 50's, so I may not even need to use the stove, but I'll have it ready the next time the weather drops again. I cleaned the stove out today, so its ready to go, too. The ashes had piled up quite high.

The kids are almost completely better, well enough to go to school tomorrow. There are only 3 days this week. Friday is veteran's day and the school has Thursday off, as well. It's going to be a long 4 day weekend. DH was originally supposed to be home during this time, but then he had to work the extra week, so its just me and Monstro and Destructo Girl, er...I mean, my lovely, sweet children, locked in a house for four days straight...I mean, enjoying each other's company without outside interference. Then two weeks later, repeat, only with a five day weekend. I may come out of this quite, quite insane. LOL But sanity is over-rated, or so I've heard.

Basketball practice starts on Tuesday for Rose, so she'll be active again, and that is always good. She tends to chub out a bit between sports seasons, then gets all "I'm so fat" about it. She's ten. I don't know where this is coming from. I don't say anything. Her dad doesn't. Probably some brat at school. I've tried to encourage her to run on the treadmill or use the gazelle between seasons, but I'm not going to push it. There's only a few weeks between seasons, and it goes away again with a week or two of hard practice. But she will always be like her dad and me, if she doesn't exercise 3 or 4 times a week, she'll put the weight on. That's just how our genetics work.

Well, I best get dinner started, oven-baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and green something, either beans, or salad, or kohlrabi, or cucumbers. Not sure, on that, I'll have to see what the kids want. That and start on load 3 of dirty dishes, I kind of let that slide when we got sick, yuck. It was either cook meals or wash dishes and cooking meals was the better option, LOL. But then I ran out of stuff to cook in, so...off I go now.

I went Christmas Looking today. This is a lot like Christmas Shopping, only without the actual bying of anything. I did a fair bit of Christmas Looking at Barnes and Noble and have a very good list of items that I think will do very nicely as presents. There was a series of drawing books that I would really like to get for my daughter. She's very artsy crafty, loves to draw and paint, and has some good instincts that I think these books would help channel along.

Found a doorstop..er, coffee table book, on castles that DH would drool over if he'd been there with me. He loves this sort of thing, it has pictures and architectural interest with both the insides and outsides and the art and interior design and the surrounding countryside. It is a real work of art.

Found a book on crocheting that I want so will give the name of that to Mom when she asks me what I want.

I looked at "stuff" at Costco while I was there to buy eggs, nuts, and cucumbers. There wasn't really much that caught me eye in the Christmas decorations. I have learned not to use exposed bulbs or holographic thingies with exposed bulbs in open areas or the rain just shorts them out within a day or two, so that cuts out a lot. I tend to stick with rope light structures mostly now.

I looked at "stuff" at Rite Aid, but they don't have more than half their display up yet, and none of their standee stuff at all. Rite Aid had the church I want the last two years, I am hoping they have it this year. I want to use it as a train station for our rope light train, as it looks like an old-fashioned train station as well as a church.

I looked at "stuff" at Fred Meyer, didn't like anything there, either. Sigh. Picked up organic nitrate/nitrite free lunch meat for the kids' lunches next week while I was there. Got myself some more Vick's Sinex nasal mist (a full $1.20 cheaper than anywhere else) and then signed over my first born at the pharmacy so I could get liquid Children's Motrin Cold medicine (in grape). It has sudafed in it so of course its behind the counter now, too.

Can I just say that I hate having to go to the pharmacy for over the counter cold medicine. It is so stupid. The meth heads are going to get their supply regardless, all they are doing is annoying the crap out of the rest of us with sickness. I mean the last thing I want to do is stand in another line after standing in the first line, to even find out if they have it in grape, because heaven forbid I come home with berry flavored, or bubble gum flavored, or horror of horrors, cherry. Then I have to fill out all my information in their little book, because they are too lazy to do it themselves (like at WalMart who enters it into the computer once so then all they have to do in future is put your license number into the computer and its all there), so that if I buy more than my allotted (sp?) amount of cold medicine they can hunt me down and search my cupboards for incriminating amounts of ibuprofen cold, sudafed, and dimetapp. Hmm, she has adult formula, junior strength formula, and children's formula! She's trying to buy them all at once. Over limit! Over limit! What does that mean? She must be a drug addict!

Or maybe she has a small child, a medium child, and an adult and they are all freaking sick right now. Geesh. Heaven forbid you try to stockpile medicine for the winter! Because it would be so much fun to run out in the middle of a cold and drag a whiney, feverish, germ-spewing youngster through the six inches of standing water and the torrential downpour to get another bottle. And after all that crap of being told they have Children's Motrin Cold, in grape, which is what I specifically ask for each time I ask, they hand me Children's Ibuprofen Cold, Kroger brand. "What the heck is this?" "Oh, its our generic store brand. And look, its in grape, just like you wanted." "No. I wanted Children's Motrin Cold." "Oh, we don't have that." ARGHHHHHH. Bought it anyway, but I tell you, as much as I normally love shopping at Fred Meyer, I will not be back for a loooooooong time.

I'm just glad the kids were with my mother. I had a hard enough time navigating today without them. Did buy a few more groceries as Haggen. Enough so I wouldn't have to buy any more this week.

Today was the day of the weekly automatic deposit of $10 to savings, plus the 20 cents from ING interest, bringing the total in savings up to $1454.21.

Tomorrow is payday but I am not sure if I will have any money left for savings this week. I have to pay the $1000 medical mortgage and the regular house mortgage of $400, which should leave me with about $50 for groceries. I filled the gas tank today ($36 almost at $2.389 per gallon) and still have $17 on my Costco cash card for gas there and a $25 Shell gas card, but I don't think I will even need them. I need to make a run to town tomorrow and ones on Monday and Thursday, and that's just 9 gallons and the tank has 17 in it now, so no problems there.

The following one I definitely will have $65 to add. And the one after that I'll have $1000 to add in. I'm really looking forward to being able to do that.

DH is wavering about buying a car next year, and so am I. With gas prices coming down, its not so bad dealing with a car that gets just 20 MPG. Although, I've got it up to 20.5 now that all the soccer chairs and gear are out of the trunk. I love having digital average mileage in the car. Makes it easy. Well, I'd rather throw the money at debt but he may change his mind. It's hard to decide sometimes. I know that we could pay down close to $8000 by the end of April if we choose to do that. More if we get the Blazer sold.

I'm going to discontinue my Simply Audio subscription. I don't use it enough and the selection just isn't that much better than the library. I've already changed Netflix yesterday down to 1 movie out, unlimited, from 3 out, unlimited. I want to cut out Gamefly but without cable, DH really wants to keep Gamefly, and so do the kids.

We're going to change our family plan at the chiropractor too, to one visit per week per person for a monthly total of $130 instead of $175. So between those 3 things we should save another $70 a month. Plus save on gas as it will be one less trip per week to town. I'm also going to call the phone company and see if there aren't other options for any of the things we have.

Paid $29.59 for 3000 mile service/oil change today and $10.37 for two big container of egg drop soup. Also spent $13.58 at the grocery store for organic milk, all natural sausages and an Archie digest comic for Rose.

Turns out ING was on the ball, my CU was just really, really slow to post it to my account. It posted this morning, but with a date of 10/25. I called them and they said they had some bugs in the online software last week, but its all working fine now. I feel better knowing it wasn't ING that fell down on the job.

I'm off to town for my oil change, one child in tow. Not the one I thought, though. Tobias bounced back pretty well, but Rose woke up with a fever. I will spend a bit to pick up a large container of egg flower soup at my favorite no-MSG all natural Chinese restaurant. I could make it myself, but I'm just starting to feel cruddy and mine is never quite as good as theirs.

Can I just say I dislike Halloween again? It always makes me sick going out in the cold like that.

7th Entry for today, but I'm excited.

Okay, I opened my ING account on the 23rd of October and I have already earned 20 cents in interest! In one week! This compared to the 43 cents in interest I earned in my regular savings account since the beginning of the year.

I am definitely calling them in the morning to light a fire under them about those test deposits. I want to transfer more money in there so I can start earning even more interest. This is so cool. I know I'm a spazz, but really, this is so cool.

Entry # 6 for today

Boy, having that damper fixed is making a huge difference. Even my room feels warm and the heat from the wood stove never reaches my room. That's why I have a tiny little heater in my room. Well, that and I sleep with the door closed, as I can't have light on while I sleep and the kids sleep with the hall light on and I can still see it clear at the other end of the house. But it sure feels good right now.

Tobias caught a cold last night. He is all hoarse and starting to cough, his eyes are all baggy, he's a major crank box and he fell asleep at 5:30 on the couch for two hours. And then at 9:00 he didn't fight me about bedtime, just crawled in and fell right to sleep. Poor guy.

I guess I'll be taking him with me tomorrow for the oil change. I hate to do that, but it shouldn't take to long and I've already put it off about 3000 miles too long, just kept adding oil as needed.

Entry # 5 today.

I can't for the life of me remember to post everything in one post today, I keep forgetting little things that I want to say.

Anywho...I spent $1.79 on a half gallon of milk today at the convenience store. I decided to skip going to town today as I was able to make an appointment for an oil change for tomorrow, so decided I can save the gas and go to the grocery tomorrow. I'll have to fill up tomorrow, but I still have $40 on my Costco cash card, so I can go to their gas station. Payday is Friday and I am so looking forward to it. Then I'll do my real shopping and go to the bookstore Friday. I should be able to get buy until the following payday before filling up again. We don't drive near as much now that soccer is over.

Post # 4 today.

Okay, I admit it, I'm trying to be clever with my title but it just isn't quite working. But...I fixed the damper on my wood stove! So technically it is on. It's been broken for nigh on 8 years now. It's the kind with a knob you twist, not ones you push up or pull down. Well, I pulled the knob off today, realized a screw was loose, tightened it up, stuck the knob back on, turned it, and voila, the damper will now stay open all the way. Before it would only close or be open 1/3 of the way, which meant a lot of fighting to keep the fire going. I am a happy camper, not only because it worked, but because I did it myself.

Although a little annoyed with myself that I didn't think to do it sooner! But not that much. I spend too much time in my own head to be really annoyed with myself for long.

This is my 3rd entry today. Guess I've been thinking too much.

So, I've been dreaming about that car again, the one I want to get if its still there next April.

They have finally put a price next to it on their website. So this is what I know:

They are asking $8999 for a vehicle that Kelly Blue Book says is worth $7,245 from a retail establishment in that zip code. That is $1754 above its value. That value holds only if the vehicle is in excellent conditon, which five-year-old cars rarely are.

It's mileage is 87,500K, which is 16,500K more than the average five-year-old car has on it. Again, that probably means the car was driven hard, so excellent condition is probably not true.

It has been sitting on the lot since the end of August.

Right now it is a five-year-old car, but come January it will be a six-year-old car, which should drop its value a little, but will also spread the mileage over 6 years, bringing it more into line with what it should be. However, I will know that mileage was put on there in five years time.

I'm wondering if I could get away with offering less than $7000. Not a lot less, but some. I'll have to wait until January and run the numbers again. I'd do it now and just add a year but this particular vehicle did not exist in 2000, so its not in their database.

I am getting a little frustrated waiting for ING to send its two test deposits to my checking account. I opened it on Monday of last week, so there has been 8 business days and they were supposed to deposit them within 2 to 4 business days, which to me means it should have been there on Friday.

My money is there and its fine but I'd like to send more in, only I've been waiting for them to do their thing and they aren't doing their thing. I guess I'll give them a call tomorrow if it still hasn't shown up.

I'm making stew today instead of any more soup. It is far too cold for just soup and I want something more rib sticking. So I cubed and browned up some chuck roast, made a nice rich gravy, threw in some carrots and potatoes and put it in a covered clay cooker in the oven on 225 to simmer away until dinner time with only a few pokes from me throughout the day. Slow cooking is supposed to minimize the creation of transfats in the cookng process.

This will be wonderful for the kids when they arrive home from school today, exhausted and cold beyond all reckoning.

The bus driver laughed at me this morning because I'm sitting out there on my camp chair, wrapped up in my soccer blanket a.k.a. the Ugliest Afghan in the Universe, with my hat and scarf and gloves on, but hey, I wasn't the one sitting in a heated bus, now was I? I was pretty comfy, except for the exposed part of my face and my feet. My feet are never warm outside.

I have to run to town today and buy some organic milk and organic sliced turkey. I'm also going to go into Barnes and Noble and look for a couple of books. I won't buy anything there, I'm just looking to see if I want to buy these particular books or not. Amazon doesn't carry one of them and Half.com doesn't have either one, either. But if I like what I see, I can put them on my Christmas list.

All I really want to do is curl up in bed and go to sleep. Only I'm not the least bit tired so all that would accomplish would be getting me warm and giving me a very lazy morning. Too much to do for that. I could justify lazy yesterday, when I was watching the movie, because I was rolling newspaper sheets and folding them into kindling sticks (see Tightwad Gazette for instructions), and then when I got tired of that I knitted a little. But not today as no matter how hard I try to make them, the dishes simply do not rinse themselves or climb into the dishwasher on their own, and the laundry is even less compliant.

Actually, well below freezing. I do not like trick or treating at the best of times and it seems that without fail it is always miserably, bitterly cold outside every Halloween. We went up one side of our street, down the other, came inside to warm up for a half hour and then went the other way and repeated. We went to maybe a total of fifteen houses. Almost no one goes trick or treating in our neighborhood, most folks go to town to trick or treat at the mall or the giant strip mall, where it is a good deal safter and you can start earlier. But that means that those kids who do go around the neighborhood get handfuls of candy at each house. So the kids ended up with approximately 40 pieces of candy and several toys. They had fun even if I didn't. But I was so glad when they wanted to give it up. And I am so glad it is over for another year.

I didn't spend any money today but I daresay I will be in the future. I turned on my furnace. I just could not get the chill off the whole house with the woodstove. The outer walls were cold to the touch. It was 20 this morning, I didn't look at what the temp dropped to tonight, but it was colder than this morning.

I watched the DVD Pride and Prejudice today. Twice. I was utterly delighted with the entire movie. I've never actually read any of Jane Austen's books but now I am going to have to. The story was absolute magic, lots of conflict and good twists and turns, lots of turmoil and sadness and joy. I didn't really think I would like it all that much, its been sitting on my TV for months on loan from a friend of DH's. Now I could kick myself for not watching it sooner. Keira Knightly impresses me more and more each time I see her in something and of course, Donald Sutherland will always be enjoyed.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a movie review. Not really much going on on the financial front, but felt the need to fill blank space with type tonight. Well, and complain about the cold.