I stopped in at the little store/gas station a mile from my house today to pick up a head of garlic (25 cents) and noticed a little display on their counter next to the register. It had single, wrapped, flavored cigarettes for 72 cents each. I asked them if people actually bought those, and they do! I was stunned. Then the guy behind the counter said, what's really amazing is if you multiply that by the number in a pack it would cost nearly $16 for a pack. And people do this one at a time!

I haven't been this annoyed at the American consumer since the peanut butter pre-mixed with jelly in a jar.

Today was a humid 73, which is in a lot of ways worse than a dry 87, but no kind of day could have made me not be a little cranky today. Woke up with a sore throat. Not the kind that makes you want to scream every time you swallow, but the kind that is there all the time, kind of in the background, but it still hurts, just not the type of hurt you can't function with. What we call a "summer" cold, onset with weird weather swings. Even ibuprofen didn't dull it down, but fortunately ice cream and popsicles did help freeze it out. I hope it is better tomorrow.

We had two big thunderstorms tonight. One came through at 8 p.m. and dumped so much water on us that it was coming over the sides of the gutters as well as down the downspouts. I ended up taking photos with the digital camera because DH doesn't believe me when I say water goes between the house and the gutter as well as over the free-standing side of the gutter. He's never home when it happens! Digital camera has the ability to record small bits of live action, too. Now maybe I can get him to put up the new gutters I have been whining for for 2 years. He has a Home Depot gift card he got from work as some kind of thank you for something, so it won't even cost anything, the card will more than cover it. I think he just wants to buy a miter saw, but honestly, we don't need a miter saw. We can borrow one from his Dad. He isn't even a tool guy, but sometimes he wants what he wants. I suppose we all do. But the freak storms are fading the paint on the side of the house and so the gutters are a need.

The other storm came through at ten. This one went through in about ten minutes instead of a half hour like the first one. The thunder wasn't as loud, either. Didn't see lightning with either one.

Did spend some unnecessasary money today, but less than $20. I was feeling too lousy to cook so for lunch we drove up to Lynden. We got food from the dollar menu from McD's (with enough for dinner, too) and ice cream from DQ and I took a different route home than we drove there, so we had a lot of nice scenery to look at. We also went by a gas station that was at $3.16 a gallon so we filled up there, so that cost $45, but that is a planned gas expense that I would have paid out tomorrow anyway. That is 3 cents cheaper than the cheapest one in Bellingham. Going for the drive helped us all with the stir crazies, too.

In the afternoon we cleaned out my son's room and took out a bunch of toys he has grown out of which we will either garage sale or freecycle, depends on how much work I feel like doing. Today's attitude would say just chuck it on freecycle, but I sure wouldn't mind getting a little cash out of it. Or I suppose I could list it on almostfree, might actually get a bit better than garage sale prices for it then.

Some time in the evening my son's friend R came over for about an hour and a half, so they were happily occupied for a bit so I could catch up on my emails and keep my crankiness to myself.

Not much else happened tonight, other than watching a series finale of my favorite show, that really should have been 2 hours long instead of one. It deserved that, but I at least enjoyed the hour they did have. If this show were still on next year I'd have a heck of a time giving up cable next month.

Tomorrow my son has his last class before the recital and maybe if I go put the rolled coin in my purse right now, I'll actually take it to town with me and deposit it in the freezer money account. Here's hoping.

The automatic deposit was made into long-term savings today, bringing it up to $215. I haven't gotten around to placing the last $10 left over from the previous pay cycle in, but I have it ready to go for when I go to town tomorrow.

I will also be adding some to the freezer money but won't know for sure how much until I do the budget tomorrow. Probably $25, though. I also have $15.50 in rolled coin and I still haven't taken in the aluminum cans, so hopefully I won't be so scatter-brained again that I forget. I mean they are in a big hamper on my front porch. It's mesh, see-through and I have to walk right past it to get out of the house. You would think it would not be so difficult for me to remember.

Tomorrow will be a busy day, I have a lot to do. My morning will be peaceful, though. I have a therapuetic massage scheduled, and I had thought about cancelling it and not paying the $45 for it, my back is really messed up from turning over the compost pile and it has aggravated the old injury, so I guess I'll just have to suffer along and go in, LOL.

DH called and he will be working an extra week, so that is 21 days straight, 14 hour days, anything over 8 hours a day is overtime pay and all of Memorial Day will be overtime pay, also. We'll be able to have a little breathing room, but not much as our CC&R half year dues coming up in July and I really hope the old home owner's association goes belly-up. I could do without the dues. I already maintain the utility easement between my house and the neighbor's house that they are supposed to maintain.

Actually, the new neighbors said they will help with that once they get a lawnmower and even borrowed my lawn mower and did the mowing of it and mowed their lawn last weekend, and today they gave me a one gallon gas container, filled up and borrowed the mower again and did the easement again. I think I am going to like them. And it sure beats an empty house (twice) or a domestic violence situation, which we have seen since we moved here.

Also have coming due half year car insurance towards the end of June and house insurance due the end of July. So like I said, some breathing room, but not much.

I took the car into the shop today to have the oil changed and the power steering fluid changed and it cost me $140, ouch. Well, they did top up all the fluids and do the whatnot bits of the 3000 mile check-up and everything was low, probably evaporated in this heat. 90 degrees today. Yuck.

Also got an estimate on how much the next repair is going to cost, which is $145 for the part and about $55 for the labor. Big sigh. But its part of the brake system and it has to be done. I've got it scheduled for next Tuesday. This time I will come home on the bus and then take a bus into town once the kids are out of school.

I love my car. I really do. Despite the fact that it is 14 years old, and seems to need something new every six months or so. It is comfortable, it is easy to drive, it only has 118,000 miles on it, it is paid for and gets an average of 20.5 mpg, which is okay, not great but not awful. But sometimes it feels like a great big old money pit.

I just really wish we weren't so far into debt that we could buy a new (to us) car that was only about five years old. I won't even talk about what our other paid for vehicle is doing, or rather not doing, in our driveway right now.

But this is what we are saving up for, so eventually we'll get there.

Hanging out in town for a few hours can be expensive, potentially. Especially since the repair shop is more or less next to the mall. But all I bought today was a sun hat for me to wear in the garden or on walks. My scalp burns through my hair, despite the fact that I have tons of it, but then I think redheads are prone to sunburn anyway. Even those of us who have burnished auborn coloring and not the lighter true redheads with the freckles, still burn easy.

Now that went off on a tangent, didn't it?

I have begun my second month of blogging and what have I learned since coming here? Probably the most important thing I have learned is that I can save money despite my debt load. It's not a lot of money but $10 a week adds up. I end this first month with $195 in my long term savings account. Aside from the $10 per week, I was also able to put in $50 at the end of the pay cycle.

I have learned that not using my dryer much has dropped my electric bill substantially. I have learned that if you do a second spin on the washing machine it gets a lot more water out and then your clothesline time is cut down substantially.

I have learned that getting support from other people trying to overcome their debts and save money makes it so much easier for me to do the same.

I have learned about click thrus to earn money, surveys to earn money, trial offers to earn G.C.'s and earn money, and product evaluations to earn money.

I have completely changed the way I look at finances and have cut out tons of things that I thought were necessities and really weren't and have learned to pick and choose my luxuries (keeping Netflix on the one out at a time, as opposed to the much more expensive 3 to 8 out at a time).

I have quit a DVD club, a beauty club, and a book club that were all not necessary or all that worthwhile. Sheer laziness had kept me from stopping these autoships.

I'm sure I have a lot more to learn as I go along, but I don't feel like I'm taking baby steps anymore. More like toddler ones.

Today was about as frugal foodwise as I could make it. The first asparagus of the season was cut from my garden today, ten spears total! My crowns are five years old now, so I get good production.

So for breakfast I steamed 2 spears, diced them and added them to a 2 egg omelette that has just little cheese, leftover from a great cheese sale months ago (I freeze it). The eggs are from the farm down the road and cost 5 cents each. Teensy bit of olive oil from the scratch and dent store (neither scratched or dented, I suspect the brand was phased out).

Lunch was a turkey sandwich (homemade bread, 2 slices turkey from a deli sale of $1.99/lb where I bought several pounds, repackaged and froze them). Added a glass of milk from the $1.99 a gallon cost at the gas station. Handful of chips from the jumbo bag that was on sale 2 for $5.00.

Dinner was 2 pieces of my 29 cents per pound chicken hindquarters (from a sale where if you bought ten pounds it was 29 cents a pound and I bought 40 pounds and repackaged them). The 8 remaining asparagus spears, a small can of crushed pineapple from the scratch and dent store including the juice, and a 49 cent red bell pepper and 1/2 a yellow onion stir-fried in the previously mentioned olive oil.

Of course, food is usually nowhere near this frugal, but it was a fun game today figuring it out.

Frugal things I did today, hung laundry, baked bread, did paid to reads.

The very best thing I like about this site so far, is that when I get yet another phone call from SIL telling me of the big purchase she has made with money she doesn't really have of something that I would really like to have but definitely don't need to have, I can come here, read a bit, and get my head on straight. Common sense is good in big doses.

Well, today was payday so I had to spend money. After the kids got off to school we drove to town and paid:

1. Mortgage on our house, $400, payment amount is $375.86, regular payment and $24.14 to extra principal.
2. Bank of America Visa, $850.
3. Power bill, $110 (this will change either June or July, as they readjust for the budget program.
4. Lunch out at the appropriately titled Cinco de Mayo, $38 for the two of us, plus take home for the kids, and enough leftovers for 2 more meals for me and DH.
5. Costco (I kept my resolve of not shopping at Costco for a whole month) for just a few items we were completely out of, chili, cheese, 10 pound bag of fries, pepperoni (for homemade pizza), hoagie rolls, 50 pound bag of bread flour, and crackers, came to $70. I never walk out of Costco under $100, so I was thrilled.

Then we had to go back home and to the elementary school to watch the egg drop the fourth graders were doing. Each child had to come up with packaging that would protect an egg from cracking if it were dropped from 25 feet. Rose's worked and the egg didn't crack. There were 80 kids and approximately half of them broke. It was fun watching, but in the back of my head I kept thinking how far all those eggs would go to feed people. I didn't like the idea of that kind of waste, even for a science/physics lesson that was pretty cool.

After school we had to come back to town (ouch, that's $18 in gas just today). We also filled up at the Arco, which was running at $3.13 a gallon, everywhere else is $3.27 except Costco. So that was $40 into the gas tank.

We still have to buy printer ink. Oh, and Rose is having dance pictures with her class tonight in her recital costume, so that's another $14.

Believe it or not we still have nearly $300 left to pay for upcoming bills. Next payday will only have 4.5 hours on it, so I had to hold some cash back. The only bills coming due next week are cell phone and water delivery (some might call this a luxury, but we've had e.coli in our tap water too many times due to problems at the water district, so its not, and its cheaper than buying bottled water).

So that's where things stand today.