Today is payday, finally, the first one of the new year, and the damage is $123 and some change more in taxes out of this first check. Next week will be a bit higher as it is a seven day paycheck and not just a five day one.

I started my morning by taking a shot at the Evil Empire and paid off another $2000. DH bought his one way plane ticket on Wednesday which had brought the balance on the BoA VISA to $5,983.64. So the new balance on the VISA is $3983.64. I will have 3 autopays coming out before the end of the month, so that will go up a bit, but I am still on track for paying the card off by month's end. Total credit card debt currently sits at $9083.64. This is the first time in a very long time I have been under $10K. Go me.

Then I made the car loan payment. I also paid another medical bill to the podiatrist and made a payment on my crown to the dentist.

$2000.00 to BoA VISA
757.82 Van payment (plus extra to principal)
205.30 Dentist
75.00 Podiatrist
50.00 Two weeks of allowance for the kids
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$3088.22 Total

I still owe $350 to the dentist for my crown and should have that paid off by the end of the month. I am thinking of rescheduling my 2nd crown until after vacation in March. The tooth has not been hurting since getting the other crown put in. I don't think I'm hitting it anymore when I grind my teeth at night. The last one ended up costing $200 more than the estimate because of how much novacaine they had to give me.

I have just under $300 for the next week. I need to buy toilet paper and tissues. Normally I go to Costco for that, but I am just not up for a warehouse store, so I'm heading to Kmart. I've been out of tissues for a week, not great when everyone is sick. Even if Charmin is nice to blow your nose on, tissues are better.

I need to do a grocery shop, too. I have a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase. This is one of the rare times I will use coupons, since most are for processed junky foods and are useless to me. They are also having a sale on Organic Valley products so I will get milk, heavy cream and half and half (the last 2 for making ice cream) if the sell by dates are decent.

I have been wondering about maybe paying off the Sienna when we sell the house. Right now we have close to $800 a month going to it (we're paying more than the actual monthly payment). The van will be 2 years old on June 6th, so we have a while yet to go to own it free and clear. We've knocked off about 4 months worth of payments by paying extra.

This is only if we get anywhere near our asking price and can still bank a good amount for a new downpayment. With the car paid off it frees up $800 a month to go towards college or the EF or the downpayment. But I don't know. A bigger down payment means a smaller mortgage. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I did talk to DD about the fact that if she went to the local community college for two years and then transferred to the local university (they partner so credits from BCC are transferrable to WWU), it would save us about $15,000. She seems amenable to that and it would give us more time to save the money for WWU.

I figure we can save about $12,000 a year for college each year once the credit cards are paid off. The $10,000 that we will save by her going to the community college the first two years can be saved for WWU and should be enough to cover the shortage for years 3 and 4. Assuming that tuition doesn't go up too much, of course. There will also be tax returns and hopefully yearly bonuses that could be saved for college if necessary.

How did college get so expensive? When I went it was about $100 a credit up to 15 credits and then anything between 15 and 18 credits was free and if you took more than 18 credits (not recommended) it cost money again. Mom paid for half, I paid for half.

It helped that I had a scholarship from work that was enough to at least pay for my books. It also helped that taking classes in the summer session was cheaper. But it's been 22 years and tuition has just gotten ridiculous, even with the local discount. We are definitely going to feel it, but we should still be able to manage without loans. I guess I've gotten good at managing these last almost 18 years since I've been married.

If my daughter can manage to find a job, I'll expect her to contribute. Same for my son when he gets there. But that's a big if in today's economy and I don't see that getting any better. This depression is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I am just hoping we won't see an all out collapse of the American dollar, but the rate at which the government is spending I'm not holding my breath.

They just make me so mad. I mean, the aid to help Sandy victims has been tacked on with so much crap with each elected official getting a little something something for his own state. That sort of thing is business as usual for our elected, but it needs to stop. It should be about helping out the victims, not seeing what you can get for you and yours before you'll okay help.

I wish we could add an ammendment to the Constitution saying that bills had to be specifically for that one thing only and not to help pig farmers in Arkansas or corn growers in Nebraska (just randomly picking here) when it's supposed to go to rebuilding stuff in New York. That's half if not more of the problem with our debt. So much greed. That's the kind of entitlements that need to stop, the ones the officials get away with.

I wish we could make all elected officials live on a wage that was just high enough they couldn't get food stamps and make them have to pay for their own medical insurance and lose their vacation days until they've balanced the budget or at least cut all of the fat our of it. I bet it would happen pretty darn fast if they had to actually feel it.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant. Don't know where it even came from.

Tomorrow is payday and I'll get to see what the higher taxes does to the paycheck. Ah, well, maybe that's where that rant came from. The waiting.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracana, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked orpington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is a stubborn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird. She is second in command of the pecking order, after Queen.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen (HBIC)



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Knox is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracna, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked oprington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is stubburn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Know is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

In relation to talking about how hard it is for people to find a job in a previous post...my husband's work is hiring. They had hired a guy for this one position and he was to start working on Friday. He never showed up. He never even called to say what happened. DH found out through the grapevine that he'd accepted another job with another company.

I find it totally unacceptable that a person would accept a job and then not call to say they were taking another job instead. It is highly unprofessional and this industry remembers things, so he could easily have shot himself in the foot. Also, it's like a slap in the face to all of the people who are out there desperately looking for work to be so arrogant as to not even bother to call. On the bright side, financially anyway, it looks like DH may get more extra weeks if they don't find someone.

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Disneyland parkhopper tickets went up by a huge amount. It was $235 per person for a five day parkhopper and now it is $290. That's a difference of about $400 for the 7 of us. I'll be watching in case there are sales. They do sometimes have them. We won't be buying until the end of February.

With that jump in prices we will definitely be eating most of our meals in the condo. I figure we can get by with about $300 in groceries for 8 days for the four of us. I have no idea what organics and all natural foods will cost in Anaheim so I'm budgeting high. I am not risking DS's allergies by buying chemically laden foods.

DH and I are working on meal plans. I will be having some kind of meat (sausage, bacon, ham) and vegetables (probably cukes or cabbage) for breakfast and everyone else will do pancakes and eggs or french toast and bacon, ham, or sausage. We'll have sandwich and salad fixings for lunches. I'm thinking a beef roast and either chicken or turkey for meats unless they have actual deli meats without additives and corn syrup solids.

We get one free breakfast at the park for our magic morning. We want to eat BBQ one day at the ranch if it is open, we want to get Monte Cristo sandwiches once (possibly twice), and there's a great Italian place at CA that serves wonderful lasagna. I want skewers from the Bengal Barbecue, DH and I are thinking about just doing Blue Bayou for the two of us on our anniversary because of the expense. And we are thinking maybe either Mickey Mouse waffles or pancakes one day. We have requests for getting ice cream at the Carnation Cafe at least once, churros at least once, and one of the big turkey legs (split amongst two) and corn on the cob. I haven't set a budget yet for that, but I will be looking up prices at mouseplanet to see what I'm looking at.

We did find out we could reserve seating for the Colors show with the $15.99 dinner instead of with the $45 dinner and DH is supposed to find out about reserve seating for Fantasmic and the fireworks show as I am well past my days of sitting on the concrete for 2 hours to get a good seat. Plus with my knee I'd never get up again.

Boy, big vacations are expensive. But it is worth it to give this experience to our kids, our nieces and DH's sister.

I feel like I am just waiting for the days to pass until Friday arrives. I thought when we were ahead of the game like we almost are now, waiting anxiously for paydays would be a thing of the past. But no. I'm still waiting for paydays. I'm restless for them to come so I can shell out for the debt repayments this month that will finish off that darn BoA card. I am particularly wanting to see how much the extra social security tax is going to affect paychecks.

And then I will be restless for the income tax refund so that the Chase card and the rest of our credit card debt will be a thing of the past.

I imagine even after that I will be anxious to start socking away money for the emergency fund, the HSA, and college and to pay off the mortgage, so I will still be waiting for each paycheck.

Maybe one day it won't be a waiting game for me, but somehow I doubt it. I think there will always be something that I'm wanting to add to or save up for. Of course once the EF is to 3 months I imagine the waiting will take on less anxiety and be more like a simple ordering of where the money goes.

Once the credit cards are paid off I want to get the EF to $18,300. That is 3 months' expenses. If we can save $2000 a month for that starting in May, we should hit that by the end of the year. After that I'll add to it more slowly, aiming for $30,000.

Meanwhile I hope to start socking away money for college0 (DD will start in the fall of 2015) and bump up payments to the mortgage. That will be under $13K by the end of April. Also, get all the last minute fiddly things finally done and the carpet replaced in the old house so that we can get the dang thing on the market.

I have no idea if our tax refunds after this year are going to remain substantial. That depends on whether or not we max out the HSA again like we have done for the last two years. If we do, any substantial tax refund will likely be thrown at savings for college. If we have a healthy year, likely we won't need to max out the HSA again. I have a feeling we will do it again at least this coming year. I'm pretty sure I'll need another MRI done on my knee and possibly more knee surgery at some point this year the way it has been acting so I need to save up some for the HSA, too.

Not to mention that I'm paying off the rest of my crown ($525) and will be getting another one in February, so at least another $700. That's almost halfway to our deductible right there. Throw in one BP prescription and we'll be at the halfway point by the end of Feb.

So the waiting game continues. 3 more days until payday, 3 more days until I can make the next $2000 payment to BoA and the total dropping to $3,610.74. Ten more days to drop it to $1,610.74. 17 more days to drop it to $0. I am forever counting the numbers.

3 more days with $27 left in the checking account, no bills to pay, and $25 left of my December allowance. Just ticking along, waiting, waiting, waiting for the end of the month to arrive. Waiting for the future to begin. Waiting.

I found this to be a fairly thought-provoking article:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/65-percent-of-am...

It sounds like the American public just might be starting to wake up a little and notice what our elected (both sides) are doing and how it's going to end up hurting all of us. One can only hope.

Also read an interesting article about the hopelessly unemployed, those who have been unemployed for four or five years and have ceased looking for work for at least a year. Or the kids who have been trying since high school to find a job, still couldn't get one in college, and upon graduating and a year of job-seeking end up going back to school hoping it will come out better on the other side of their student loans. Or the women who took 20 years off to raise their kids and are now trying to get back into the workforce. Or the 55 year olds who were laid off and now won't be hired because they're the wrong age. These ones of course do not make it into the unemployment statistics. I managed to lose that article or I'd pass it along as well.

I do worry for my daughter. She's going to start volunteering in the spring to at least have that as job experience. I was doing farm work at 4 every summer, though not seriously until age 8. We could always find summer employment. I remember walking into a restaurant once and asking for an application and the manager coming over and interviewing me on the spot and asking if I could come in for orientation that night. The work was always there. Now sixteen year olds can't even get a job flipping burgers.

How does she help work her way through college if there is no work?

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the murder of my daughter's friend F. She would have been 17. Murder is always senseless, the murder of children doubly so. F died at the hands of her mother's live in boyfriend. Domestic violence, alcohol, and a gun were responsible for her death.

I wish that she had left that house instead of going out and getting between her mom and her mom's boyfriend. I wish he had not disconnected their phone line. I wish she had run through the dark in the early hours of the morning and knocked on our door, on anyone else's door. I wish that I'd found out about it in a better way than reporters knocking on my front door and asking if we knew the murdered child. They hadn't even given us a name, but I could look down the block and see where everything was centered and I knew immediately who it was.

F had never said a thing about her situation, had never mentioned the abuse her mother was going through. She'd never gotten in the way of it before and like most children in such cases, she was a silent witness, until one day she wasn't.

It rocked our little neighborhood to the core and was the impetus for us leaving the area and moving back to town. My kids just could not handle living in a place where a child they had played with for years was killed. No one felt safe anymore, especially my kids, despite the fact that the murderer commited suicide and was no longer there.

I hope my daughter makes it through the school day without crumbling. We have decided not to remind my son of what day it is. He was 9 when it happened so his memories are not so sharp, but he adored F. She never minded when he tagged along with his sister. She was such a sweet girl and will always be missed. As a mother, it just broke my heart.

Still feeling kind of drug under (I am getting better, though) so the meals this week are going to be pretty simple. I just don't have the energy to go all out. Yeah, I know. Simple for me can still be pretty complicated when I make almost everything from scratch. (I have premade meatballs and premade sauce that I froze the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs, so the first two days are not as difficult as they might appear).

Monday--
Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Lamb and pork meatballs
Broccoli

Tuesday--
Meatball sandwiches
Cole slaw
Oranges

Wednesday--
Herb roasted chicken
Baked potatoes
Broccoli
Hoem canned pears

Thursday--
Tropical Chicken Stir-fry (broccoli, carrots, onions, celery)
Canned pineapple

Friday--
Homemade pizza (sausage, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper strips)
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers on homemade buns
Homemade french fries
Cole slaw

Sunday--
Wild-caught salmon
Broccoli
Baked potatoes
Oranges

Lunches this week will be low carb meatloaf and leftover chicken (wraps, salads, quesadillas). Breakfasts will consist of pancakes and eggs (DS), and sausages and cucumbers (DD, Me). DH is gone until the 23rd so work is providing his meals.

We are out of pot roast so no Sunday pot roasts until I can drive out to the farm again, which probably won't be until the 12th or the 19th. It depends on how much extra taxes are taken out of the 11th's paycheck. The drive to the farm is not worth it unless I pick up $300 worth of meat at a time. We haven't been since we picked up our turkey in November so supplies are running low. Still I have a lot of frozen wild salmon and cod and some chicken in the freezer so we'll cope without beef and pork for a while if we need to, or I can venture to the food co-op if need be as they have some sustainable organic meats.

So Queen--you all remember Queen, right? The one who sulks if you put her back in the pen if she doesn't want to be there.

So Queen has apparently noticed my absence outside in the last two days. I've been sick and so not been out to see her since Thursday. Even though the kiddos went out and talked to the flock apparently it wasn't good enough for Queen.

About 3 o'clock I hear an unheavenly racket going on outside my bedroom window. I thought one of the chickens had flown out and couldn't figure out how to get back in. That still happens with a couple of the heavier chickens. I opened up the curtains and looked out and there was Queen, who of any chicken besides Curious and Georgie, can get anywhere she wants to except the roof (that's still Georgie's claim to fame, none of the others have managed it yet).

Boy, when she saw those curtains open, she got so excited. She started jumping up in the air. She was getting a good three feet of lift with her wings and was chattering the whole time. As soon as I opened the window and spoke to her through the screen she started cooing at me. It was so funny. She settled right down and after about five minutes wandered back to the fence and hopped over. I guess she just missed our daily chats?

The girls seem to be very happy this winter, probably because it hasn't snowed yet and the ground is thawed at least for part of the day so they can still scratch. Egg production is going well. It is nice not to have to buy eggs. A few days ago I noticed the going rate for organic, free range, sustainably farmed eggs at the grocery store was $8.99 a dozen.

We're getting between 7 and 10 eggs per day. I'm going to have to take a couple dozen to my physical therapist and have SIL and MIL stop by for some, too, soon. The backlog in the fridge is getting so big.

Mom is talking about getting ducklings again in the spring. She might as well, since Fort Knox is sitting there empty, but I'm not doing them in a brooder in the garage again. They can be raised in the spare bathtub just like the first set were. It socializes them better when we can spend more time with them and pick them up more frequently and that only happens inside the house.

Speaking of ducks, Lady is doing well at her new farm. I still miss her, but she and the widowed drake are getting on famously, beyond all of our hopes. We'll try to go visit her next weekend if I am better by then. I miss having duck eggs for cooking, but I'd much rather she be happy.

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There isn't much to talk about on the financial front right now. Everything is ticking along on autopilot until 1/11. That's a good thing, I guess. And it'll give me time to finish up writing about the food stamps challenge. No, I haven't forgotten about it.

Also wanted to give a great big thank you to all of my readers. My blog hit 1.5 million hits this morning! That's half a million since April. It still amazes me how many people want to listen to (erm...read?) me blathering on, even when I wander off topic *coughs* chickens *coughs* But I am very happy that you do!

There is a quote that goes "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Lately I've been having to make do or do without paper towels. This wasn't an actual choice on my part, I just apparently get a brain cloud whenever I go to the grocery store and keep forgetting to get paper towels. This probably has something to do with having a case from Costco that lasted a year so I never even had to think about it for months.

I don't use them too much, just mostly to drain food that has a bit too much oil on it or collecting out the hamburger fat. We use wash cloths or linen napkins at the table. For a while now I've been using napkins instead of paper towels for draining food. We don't eat out that much here, but there is a drive-in we go to about twice a month and they give us enough napkins to clean a small country.

Well, I finally made it through my stash of those napkins and I've been looking around for what I could use in place of paper towels. It needed to be something absorbent and that got me to thinking. Flannel. I had a small stash of flannel that had never been used left over from my mother's cloth diaper making years ago for my sister's last child. They had been cut to diaper size but never hemmed. I took one and cut it in half, did a couple quick hems, and washed the two pieces. I tried it out when draining my homemade French fries. It works very well. And once used can just be tossed in with the towels to be washed.

I'm not sure I'm ready to switch completely away from paper towels just yet, it's one of those non-frugal things I've held onto, but until I remember to actually buy them, this is working out fine. Plus I had a lot of fun teasing my kids when they asked what I had drained it on and I said, "Oh, just some old diaper...material." They totally freaked with my pause. But once they realized the material had never been used as a diaper they were fine. Yes, sometimes Mama has a slightly twisted sense of humor.

I think once the flannel sheets go on clearance this year, I will pick up a twin top sheet, and make it into non-paper toweling and we'll give it a shot for awhile. I need more practice hemming anyway.

What do you make do with when you find yourself without a convenience item easily at hand?

Got statements in the mail today from two CU's showing the interest earned there. $4.21. I added it to the Emergency Fund, which now comes to $1550.00. It's almost never at an exactly equal amount like that. I am hoping to get the EF to $1700 by the end of this month.

I've been dinking around with my spreadsheet and assigned dates to my categories, so I know what to pay when and what to fund when this month. It's more complicated than usual this month with the high amount of debt payoff that will be happening. I decided to leave plenty of cushion in each payday to account for any changes in taxes and I still will be able to pay off the BoA this month, even if we were to charge $1000 on it this month so my worries were unfounded.

Extra money will be dumped into savings at the end of the month and I'll allocate from that. Even with my worst estimates, I'm looking at a surplus for January due to the extra week of pay, so I'm not as panicky as I was. That money will mostly go for Disneyland and to replace the money that I borrowed from the MacBook Fund. A couple hundred dollars will carry over for the 2 day paycheck week.

Otherwise I think we are good. We should be able to absorb the tax changes in future months okay. It's going to affect savings of one sort or another, but it won't affect anything else. I'll know by how much once we get the paycheck on 1/11 and the one on 1/18.

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I recieved a $5 giftcard from Swagbucks for Amazon last night and I cashed out for another one today.

The BoA payment I made yesterday posted. DH's hotel for his trip up, travel food, and our gym membership hit today, so the new balance is up a bit from what I said yesterday to $5,610.74.

The mortgage payment posted this morning. I made a payment of $570. Of that $68.51 went to interest and the rest to principal. The new mortgage balance is $14,446.84. My goal for February is to bring that under $14K. I am trying to pay off $500 worth of principal each month right now. I will reassess my mortgage goals after the credit card debt is paid off and I know what is going on with paychecks with the new tax laws.

Homeschool went okay yesterday, it just took forever. Although I understood the math right away (totally new concept to me) it took DS longer to cotton on to it. We are doing rays and angles and line segments, and defining whether the measured angle pairs are complimentary or supplementary or neither. The lesson ended up taking 90 minutes instead of the usual hour.

Then history took a lot longer than usual. Sometimes the curriculum splits stuff up in really stupid ways. Wednesday's history only took a half an hour while yesterday's took 90 minutes. If they divided it up better it would come to an hour a day. One day you are reading 3 pages in the history book and the next day you are reading two chapters.

It wouldn't be so bad, but we started The Secret Garden yesterday. Normally literature lessons consist of one short story or 3 or 4 poems that are read and then questions are answered about plot and character development or in the case of poems, analyzed. But when he needs to do actual books, which happens twice a semester, they divide it into ten lessons, no matter how long the book is. So he ends up reading 30 to 40 pages a day for that which wouldn't take too long, except it is using regional dialect.

Now I personally hate dialect in books. It's a pet peeve of mine. It's overdone and it makes things difficult to read. It's enough to say, hey, these people are from Yorkshire, they talk a little different and maybe give a bit of the flavor of it, but not pound the reader over the head with it. On top of that it also is using old-fashioned language so things like thyself instead of yourself are used. But when you use dialect, it's thysen instead of theyself, or youn'un instead of young one. Then a ton of questions afterwards so literature is ending up taking way, way too long.

Now all that would be fine in high school, but this is 7nth grade. We were already at 5 hours for the day with only those 3 subjects. Add on top of that grammar and usage, vocabulary, composition and either art or science, plus 20 minutes a day for PE and we were at around 8 hours and school is only supposed to take 5 and a half hours per day. We were both cranky by the time we finished.

I ended up reserving the unabridged book on CD. I'm going to allow DS to read along with the CD instead so that he isn't struggling with dialect and old-fashioned language and we can get through it faster. Fortunately the library had it in so I can just go down and pick it up today.

Hopefully today will go better. We haven't started yet as DS didn't sleep last night and I let him sleep in. I think he's coming down with what DD has. *sighs* Me, too, maybe as I didn't sleep all that well either. Well, I was well for a whole week. That's better than nothing.

I made my first payment of $2000 to the BoA VISA today. At first I screwed it up and forgot to check the date I'd scheduled it for. This was because it used to put the first day available for payment, but they switched their payment page to the same one they use for MasterCard (which I haven't used in months) and now it automatically schedules it for the day the payment is due, which wasn't until 1/21.

I tried calling them to see what I needed to do to change it, but their phone customer service is completely unhelpful in this situation and offered no option for speaking to a human. Plus it takes forever to get to the point. Ugh.

So after that I thought about just leaving it scheduled as I had planned to make another $2000 payment on the 18th, and could have just let it go through on the 21st instead and then scheduled a different payment for today, but I really didn't want to do that. I like having the money in the account before scheduling a payment.

So I slogged through all the FAQ's and stuff on the bill pay and finally found where you can make a change to a scheduled payment, so I was able to change the date from 1/21 to today. The payment should post tomorrow. That will leave that card with a balance of $5407.11, with 3 more payments of $2000 each going at it this month.

DH will have to charge a plane ticket, a hotel night, and travel food once before it is paid off, but I'll figure out how to absorb that. It'll be about $750, so I'll just need to come up with $158 more dollars unless interest hits at that point, then I'll have to come up with a little more. I still have $140.65 in the MacBook Fund I can borrow from if needed and $400 in the vacation account. If I do wipe out the MB fund I'll need to repay it with some of the income tax return as DD is to start her senior year with that and it is eight months away.

As it stands that brings our total credit card debt down to $10,507.11 for the moment. It feels good to finally be moving forward with this January plan.

All of them. I'm not picking sides.

I do not like the hit we are going to be taking with the end of the payroll tax holiday. I'm estimating $500 a month on a normal month. Probably $750 this month due to the extra week of pay. I may come up short paying off the BoA VISA this month. I am still going to try to squeeze it out, because gosh, darn it, I want it gone, but any breathing room the extra week of pay gave us is gone. Your gubmint dollars at work.

I am just very, very glad we have spent the last few years buckling down hard and paying down our debt with a vengeance and that we are used to living on less than half our income. And if it is that bad for us with a good middle class income, I can't even imagine how hard this is going to slam those who are barely scraping by. Well, hello there Great Depression 2. I'm not an alarmist by nature but I don't see us coming out of this for a long time. I worry about what the world will be like when my kids are adults.

I am starting to think about putting the whole buying a new house thing on hold for a few more years. Well, I've been thinking it for the last few months, but this may just be the final nail in the coffin. It's going to take longer to build up an emergency fund with $500 a month missing from DH's paycheck. It's certainly going to make saving for and cash flowing college harder than I thought. And Mom isn't getting any younger. With two mini-strokes to her name already I really worry more about leaving her on her own.

It's even crossed my mind to cancel or postpone Disneyland. I'm not going to, but I think this is going to be the last vacation of consequence for a few years. I'm just really glad that we'll have a full kitchen in the condo.

It's possible DH might pick up another week in February. If he did I could bank that and it would go a long way towards making up the shortfall for the rest of the year.

I am worried about my knee. It has been swollen and painful since Christmas and it's started clicking. I am going to try to get a hold of the doctor tomorrow now that the holidays are over. I am hoping it is just needing to be drained of fluid. I do not want cortizone. I also do not want to end up having knee surgery again and having yet another medical debt to pay off.

Okay, I know I sound negative and down, but I am actually in a surprisingly good mood today despite everything. This has been more of a getting it out of my system rant. DS was pretty easy on me with his first day of homeschooling since the holidays ended. And I am totally understanding the math today, so go me. I thought I was going to struggle the whole year, but I think that this unit at least will be easy.

I transferred the money from savings that I saved for January and paid out the following:

$300.00 to Mom for her utilities
39.53 Life Insurance DH
32.70 Life Insurance Me
59.89 Car Insurance
45.63 House Insurance for Old House
41.16 ADT Security System for Old House
153.00 Storage
570.00 Mortgage
29.80 Electricity Old House
100.00 Chase VISA
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$1371.71

I have $227.43 left in checking and $28 of my allowance left in cash to get by on until the 11th. No problem.

I transferred $2000 from ING and it should arrive on Thursday and I will then send that to BoA VISA, my first of four $2000 payments to be made to it this month. I am so excited about putting this card to rest by month's end.

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I have decided that I will be sending my $100 January allowance to a friend of mine in New Hampshire who is in dire straights right now medically. She and her husband are in fear of losing their medical insurance and they both have numerous ailments. She has to take like 12 different medications a day just to stay alive and her husband has to take some too and is in need of surgery.

They have both been unemployed for a while, no more benefits, he's now got a seasonal job that bounces between 10 and 20 hours a week and could end at any time. They have been desperately looking for work and are down to eating one meal a day and were out of heating oil. I also asked her if she wanted me to ship her a 50 pound bag of rice. I have enough gift cards at Amazon to do that. Waiting to hear back from her on that.

They can't get food stamps or Medicaid because of the face value of a life insurance policy, their only asset, despite the fact that they are well below the poverty level at this point. That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. What sort of state denies someone food stamps and healthcare because if the wife dies they will then have $750,000? New Hampshire!

If she dies they won't need food stamps or the Medicaid, obviously. Basically she's been told she can either die or move to Vermont where they have different rules. Your tax payer dollars at work, people. If I lived in NH, I would seriously be yapping at the heels of my congressmen and my governor and any news channel or paper that would listen right about now.

I am really looking forward to this being an easier year than last year. It's got to be.

So I've made a few goals for the year. I don't call them resolutions since I don't believe in them, they are just some things I'd like to get accomplished between now and 2014.

1. Pay off the last of the credit card debt, of course.

2. Rebuild the Emergency Fund.

3. Sell the house.

4. Start putting money in the college fund, at least $7000 by the end of the year. Won't start until #1 is accomplished. I'd like to have $15,000 by the fall of 2015, which should cover a year at our local university or two years at the local community college for DD.

I know #3 is not really up to me, it will either sell or not, but hopefully it will. I do have some other goals, but I will reassess after I pay off the credit card debt and the EF is up to at least $5000.

Oh, and I added $2.45 to the coin jar last night. I had $1.99 in interest hit my ING account and deposited $20. So that $21.99 went to the EF, bringing the new EF total to $1545.79.