The mortgage posted to my account. The new mortgage balance is now at $18,544.28.

I added $6.70 to the coin jar.

We filled up the gas tank on the van for $53.84.

We paid $4.74 for a prescription.

I need to pick up psuedophederine, a NyQuil/DayQuil pack, and potassium today, so that will likely be a little pricey.

I have sent a total of $4600 to credit card debt.

DH had to pay $900 for a round trip ticket to work and back. He waited too long and the return part was twice as high as it should have been. *sighs*

I am trying to determine what to make for dinner tonight. Maybe pizza. I still have one of those Rustic Crusts, leftover spaghetti sauce, and some mozzarella cheese. There are a few meatballs left from last night's meatballs so I could crumble them on top of the pizza. I also have yellow onions so could dice some, saute them for a couple minutes, and throw them on as well. Oh, I think there's a ham end as well I could dice up. That sounds good. Not too much work and we can have a laid-back Friday night.

The new mattress is great to sleep on. I've now had two really good sleeps on it.

The PA took x-rays of my hip on Thursday. There is nothing wrong with the bones, so he thinks it is either muscular or nerves. He changed my physical therapy orders to lower stress therapy. If I am still in pain in 2 to 4 weeks he wants to send me to a neurologist, and possibly get an MRI of the area. I really don't want to pay for an MRI right now as we have started our deductible all over again. Oh, I know I have the $2500 set aside already, but I hate to blow through it this soon in the year.

We did run $2500 through the HSA though, just in case.

I'm still behind on reading the blogs, but I've caught up to where everyone is talking about meatballs and it gave me a craving so I decided to make up meatball sandwiches tonight, since I had some hotdog buns that were needing to be used up, some leftover homemade spaghetti sauce, and a lot of cheese that has just been sitting there for a while. It's an easy enough recipe to make (and I need easy things right now due to pain). The meatballs themselves are low carb if you want to eat them on their own. I've posted a picture of these before, but realized I never shared the recipe.



Meatballs

1 pound ground beef (or half pound beef and one half pound ground pork)
1/4 cup shredded romano
1/4 cup shredded parmesan
1/4 cup shredded cheddar
2 Tbsp minced garlic

Mix together and make into 1.5 inch diameter meatballs. Cook on high in microwave for five minutes. I use the stack cooker by Tupperware to make these. It's the one with the strainer holes so the fat can drip down beneath, but in a pinch they can go on a bacon cooker.

Warm up your leftover spaghetti sauce (or from a jar) and toast your hot dog buns (just on a hot frying pan is fine, don't try to stick them in a toaster). Spread sauce on each hotdog bun half and then place three meatballs on top. Easy peasy. (I usually make a double batch because DH eats a lot, but I am personally satisfied with one sandwich half and a salad). These meatballs are great with spaghetti or by themselves as well.

Doing a bunch of the little financial housekeeping stuff today that I've been ignoring the past few days due to pain. Interest was added to my ING account so I've added that to the Emergency Fund.

$3571.61 Starting EF
+___5.57 Interest Added
------------------
$3577.18 Ending EF

$422.82 to go to hit my next big goal of $4000 for the EF. I'm not sure if I'll make it this month to the $3750 mark. Usually I can manage about $250 in savings each month, but with DH having 4 weeks off unpaid and the next paycheck not coming until January 27th, I'm not sure we'll manage the full amount. I'll be able to make up for it by the end of March, probably, though.

So you all, by now, know that I save all my dollar bills and all my coins that I receive in change from purchases. I've been keeping track and in 2011 I saved $429.73 just from that. Not bad for using the nickel and dime method, is it? Also, I collected an additional $31.52 in found money. I lucked out a couple of times. Once I found a $20 bill and another time I found a wad of 5 $1 dollar bills, but the rest was all coins. Mostly pennies and dimes, but a few quarters here and there.

I'm a few days behind on reading, but I noticed a few people were going to start a similar challenge of saving all your ones. I heartily encourage you to do so, and will be rooting for you, too!

We ended up buying the first bed we looked at. Isn't it funny how that happens sometimes? But after seven furniture stores, there just wasn't one that we liked better. So yesterday we went back to the first store and laid on the bed again for 15-20 minutes, giving it a good, solid test drive.

We ended up spending $1890.15 for a new King mattress, box springs, and a Hollywood frame (at cost). Delivery was added free as well as hauling away the mattress and box springs. We got the iComfort Insight by Serta. It's like Tempurpedic (TM), but less expensive and to my back, more comfortable. DH liked it best, too.

We got it in flat, but you can get it with an adjustable frame that goes up and down like a hospital bed and also vibrates. The frame would have cost an additional $2600 plus tax. But you can buy the frame seperately, so we are thinking in a year or so about maybe doing that. Just not until we are out of credit card debt. We needed the bed now, not the luxury part of it.

We ended up paying cash (which knocked $200 off the price we were given). But it means I will only be sending $3100 to debt repayment instead of $5000. Still, I really couldn't see financing a bed right now. It's being delivered in a couple of hours. I am really looking forward to sleeping on it tonight. It relieves so much of the pressue on my back and hip.

I had physical therapy yesterday and it ended up making it hurt worse afterwards. It always does, just in the hip, not in the knee. I see the physician's assistant today about all the pain in my hip the PT has been causing. I am hoping they will take x-rays because it's just so bad. If it is just muscular, I guess it's time that will heal it, but if it is something more than that, I want it taken care of.

DH and I went to some more mattress stores today and it is looking like the first store is still the least expensive so far. The other local store had a bed for twice as much as the the first one. Exact same bed. We did go to JR's, which is where we bought our wonderful sectional four years ago. They had a Beautyrest that was a combination of coils and memory foam that would do if we didn't like the other bed so much. And the guy (actual store owner) was willing to give us $300 off, as well as eat the sales tax and give us free delivery and mattress recycling. It was a really good offer, but in the end it's $400 more for a mattress that is five times better, so...worth the difference to me.

We still have three stores to check, but are leaning heavily in the direction of the first store. Especially since they have two kings in stock of the type we want so we can basically pick it up and go, not have to order it and wait a couple of weeks.

I really doubt Macy's Furniture is going to be cheaper. And the two out in Ferndale are notoriously expensive so unless they are having some kind of blow out sale, it's probably going to be the first store. Plus, the first store had the nicest and most attentive salesman. Good customer service counts for an awful lot in this day and age.

I saw some pretty purple sofas at two of the stores. It got me to thinking. Our sectional is lovely, with it's deep chocolate, light brown, and burgandy pillows, but we might like to update it by trading out the burgandy for purple. So we will be pricing pillows in a couple of months to see what's out there. Or, hmm...I could sew some slip covers in purple if I could find the right fabric. I've done pillowcases and cloth diapers. Slip covers can't be too difficult, right? It's just a straight hem.

DH and I started bed shopping today. I have a feeling it is going to be pretty slow going for me as I can only walk so much without my hip catching on fire. But we started at one of the long-standing family run companies in town and were taken care of by a nice young Indian man (from India, not Native American). I made sure we got his business card because when we come back to buy, he's the one who put the time in and we want to make sure he'll be there to get the commission.

I was hoping to get more out of this mattress, but it has pot holes in it and they are messing up the way we sleep. Also one of the coils came through the fabric and I've scraped my leg on it more than once.

So now the question becomes, where do we get the money for it? We could buy it outright with $1850 from DH's bonus money and dropping debt pay back to $3150. I could take it from my meager emergency fund. I could take it from the money allocated for the HSA. Or we could buy it 12 months/ same as cash for $155 a month. A nice, no interest way to pay for something that is quickly becoming a necessity.

The one we like so far, when I laid down on it, all the painful spots on my body went away. My hip suddenly didn't hurt, my knee, my elbow, my low back were all good until I stood up again. Chris felt it, too. We both really like it. It'll cost around $1850 with tax. It was not the most expensive one in the shop, and there were some doozies.

We are going to look around some more, this is not the only family owned furniture store in our county. We might even look in at the franchises, though I prefer to spend the money with the locals. Still if it's less expensive enough, I'll consider the franchises.

Anything over $2000 right now is out of our price range. By my calculations we have three family run furniture stores to check out before we look at Macy's Furniture, JR Furniture, and Sleep Country, USA. It's going to be a long day looking as just the one trip wore me out something fierce.

Happy New Year, everybody. The kiddos insisted on staying up until midnight and then of course it was well past my bedtime and I couldn't sleep until around two a.m. They, of course, passed right out at 12:05ish. I've barely got my eyes open, but I am happy it is a new year and I hope this one will be healthier and less injury prone.

I am anxious for Tuesday to come so we can do the big financial stuff that I've been anticipating for the past month or so. I wish the banks were open tomorrow.

I sent DH down to the store last night to buy bread so he spent $4.79. It took him a while to find it. We like Big Horn Valley by Franz because it's whole wheat bread made without corn syrup or raisin juice. Well, we haven't been able to find it for a week or so, and yesterday we had our last slice.

He did finally find it. They made that type organic so it was in a different section of the bread shelf. Fortunately it was the same ingredients, only organic. Same price (way too high) as before as well. I really need to start using the bread machine again. I've gotten really lazy about that.

Today should be a no spend day for us, though DD is going to buy something with her Christmas money.

When I am a little more awake I will calculate what we have spent on debt payoff in 2011 and how much we still have to go.