Well, I dropped off the face of the Earth for a couple of weeks. I'm getting over walking pneumonia. Isn't that lovely? But I am feeling like a human again and starting to resume living.

We finally got all of our books for the virtual school week before last and are plowing full speed ahead with the homeschooling. The kids seem to be thriving and we are falling into a routine now.

The bathtub/shower remodel is almost done. It's done enough to use the bathtub anyway and I had my first long soak in three months last night! It was wonderful. I won't be able to use the shower part of it until DH comes back again and finishes securing it and then it needs to be caulked and then we still need to put the back wall on and paint it, but at least it's useable and there is still the other shower so it's not like we have nothing but a tub.

Okay, what else? Oh, I sent money to savings, to the EF fund.

$1211.96 old balance
150.00 deposit
+ 2.79 October interest
---------
$1365.75 new balance

And I transferred the $40 from the October coin jar savings to the Vacation Fund. It's moving along nicely.

$536.46 old balance
+ 40.00 deposit
--------
$576.46 new balance

$31.61 beginning amount
+09.74 deposit
-------
$41.35 ending balance

I had a bunch of ones in my purse today so I decided to go ahead and throw them in the coin jar when I cleaned out the change pouch. I also found a quarter and a dime on the floor of my room so added that in, too. I've met my new October change goal of $40 saved. I'm tempted to push for $50, but I'm not sure I'll be buying anything else in cash before next payday to make change with. All coin jar savings goes towards vacation costs.

$28.91 beginning balance
+02.70 deposit
-------
$31.61 ending balance

So I've officially met my goal of saving an extra $30 this month to put towards vacation. Since I still have a week left in the month of October, I'm going to up my goal to $40.

Today was payday and I paid the American Express card in full as I do every month. It is used for gas only. I also paid the car payment and the property taxes for the half year out of this paycheck. And the kids got their monthly allowances.

I will do a bit of grocery shopping on what is left and then figure if there is enough money to send the $150 deposit to ING or if I need to wait until next week. I still need to pay cable/internet/phone and garbage as well out of this check. Just have to sit down and write out the checks. Everything else was paid for online.

I took my son to the Doctor today and she is happy about the improvements in him since we changed his diet to one of no artificial anything. He's doing a lot better. Still a long way to go though.

It's been a very stressful week and at the moment I don't really want to talk about it. I likely will soon. I need to. But not now while it's fresh. Meanwhile, life grinds on. I'm almost to my goal of $30 in the coin jar for the month of October and it's only the 21st. Well, technically it's the 22nd by a few minutes. I'll definitely reach it.

$26.13 starting balance
+02.78 amount added
-------
$28.91 ending balance

I added $1.33 to the change jar today. This was change from some gift certificates to McD's that we used as it was drive DH to the airport day. So no out of pocket money spent and change recieved.

$24.80 starting balance
+01.33 amount added
-------
$26.13 ending balance

I also paid bills today online:

$1000 to monthly travel expense Visa
$942 to unsecured loan
$15 to credit monitoring service for DH
$15 to credit monitoring service for me

The monthly travel expense covers DH's tickets to and from Alaska, his hotel overnight, travel food, etc. This is almost a fixed expense. The amount varies from month to month depending on the cost of airfare, but any extra money goes into a fund to pay that expense if it ever tops over $1000, which it on occassion does in the summer. Then the money left from the lower winter amounts is still there. We don't get reimubursed for any of it. But it's still cheaper to live where we do and pay that, then it is to move to Alaska and live there and not have the travel expense.

I did buy some other stuff this week, so I'll do that in a seperate post tomorrow. Major household stuff. Too tired to add more in tonight.

I hate shopping for purses. It sucks. I am not a twenty purse kind of girl. I am a one purse kind of girl. Give me a good, solid purse with lots of slots for cards and photos so I can avoid carrying a wallet, and a nice old shoulder strap so it can go around my neck and across my body for maximum usage of my hands (a must with kids) and I'm happy. If I can find it in some shade of red or burgandy I'm even more happy, but that's not a deal breaker.

The shoulder strap came off my old purse, the leather tore right through. I was pretty bummed because I've already repaired it twice with heavy duty thread and needle, and my stitches always hold but the leather keeps tearing. And I don't overload my purse, so I think it's just bad quality craftmanship, even though the rest of it is perfectly fine and still even looks new. It was only a $5 purse though, so I figure two repairs is all I'm giving it. It'll make a good travel toiletry bag now because of its shape, so I'm giving it a new life rather than just throw it out.

Anyway, the new purse does meet the qualifications of lots of slots and enough compartments to hold things in the places I want them held and not require a wallet. It's not red though. *pouts* Still, it's black and perfectly serviceable. And it cost less than $18 with tax. I tugged hard on the straps to make sure they were strong. It's not leather, which I usually like to get, but again, it's not a deal breaker.

I just wish Penney's hadn't stopped carrying the really good purse that I liked. It would last a good two years without falling apart and then I'd buy a new one in a slighty different shade of red. They had them for ten years and the last two times I had to replace a purse they didn't have that style anymore even though they still carry the same brand. *pouts harder*

I also added money to the coin jar today.

$20.62 starting balance
$04.18 added amount
-------
$24.80 ending balance

I'm well on track for saving $30 for the month this way.

Yesterday we filled up our gas tank at $2.89 a gallon at Costco. I really hope it keeps dropping like this. It's freeing up about $50 a month in the gas budget at the moment. It's only been a few months since I was paying nearly $4 per gallon. If this keeps up I'll be adding the difference left over each month to our vacation savings account. Which will make us reach our goal that much faster.

This is the first time that we'll be doing a fully cash vacation ever (not that we haven't tried, but we didn't fully succeed before) and I want there to be no reason at all to fall back on excess credit card spending, so I'm trying to save up 1/3 more money than I think we'll actually need. Anything left over will go to seed the next big vacation, which we'd like to be a trip to Italy in five years, but that may be a pipedream. We'll see.

I'm not saying we won't use our credit cards on this trip at all. They are convenient and we will, but we will keep track of every dime and not go over what we have in savings and then pay it back immediately when we get home. There's a big difference between using cards on vacation and abusing cards on vacation.

But so far, condo is paid for (free from Mom), airfare is paid for (free with airmiles), and we're saving now for food we will eat and the tickets to get into the theme park. I've got over $500 and aiming for about $1500.

Fortunately DH has hit that point in the year, for the first time ever, where they stop taking out FICA (I think it's FICA) tax. So for the next 12 weeks we'll be getting quite a bit of extra money in his paychecks. $800 will go the vacation fund, and $800 will go to the emergency fund. The rest will go on debt.

I know that I should probably put more on debt, but our repayment is going at a pace that I'm happy with and honestly we've never had this kind of freedom before, really. It's been nose to the grindstone for so long and this last year of ease has made it so much nicer.

In return for this, though, we've buckled down on all the excess spending, especially the eating out. We had gotten to a ridiculous amount of meals out each month. Probably around $400, going out twice a week or more. That is a lot of unnecessary and wasteful expense. Almost every meal is at home now, though.

Oh, I found a box full of stuff we were given at Christmas from our extended family. Most of it was that kind of stuff that you will never use and people just give you because they feel obligated to give you something, but it's never something useful. Anyway, tucked inside was $20 worth of McDonald's gift certificates. So that's two free meals out if we order off the dollar menu, that I can save for a couple of crazy town days and not be tempted to spend real money from the budget on.

Okay, guess that's about it then.

Cleaned out my purse and DH cleaned out his wallet of coins and added to the coin jar today.

$18.26 beginning balance
$02.36 added
-------
$20.62 ending balance

We lost power again last night again during a windstorm. Fortunately it was only for a couple of hours in the middle of the night, it didn't really affect us and we didn't lose any food because of it.

We've started using the wood stove for heat now anyway and will be for the rest of the year and through spring of next year, so we had heat. It'll be nice not to have a heating bill. All that work we did the summer of '07 will finally pay off. It's nice dry wood now and it heats very well compared to some we've had in the past.

I cleaned out my coin compartment in my purse today and had five ones so I added $7.12 to my coin jar.

$11.14 starting balance
$07.12 added
-------
$18.26 new balance

Not bad for only one week into October. All coin jar money goes towards vacation. DH says he put some money in there too, so the amount is a bit higher, but I don't want to dump and count it out. He doesn't think it was more than fifty cents.

So we are slowly building our emergency fund back up. I met my primary goal of getting back up to $1000 last month. Now I'm setting a goal for $2000. I no longer do the $10 a week deposit, instead I now do $150 every four weeks and then if there is any little bits of extra money I'll send it along, too.

$1061.96 beginning balance
150.00 deposit
---------
$1211.96 ending balance

Only $788.04 to go. I reckon that'll take me five months to save up for, but I can do it.

Well, it's been a long time since I've done one of these, but I thought it'd be nice to get back to it again. All coin jar money will go for vacation savings. I will save all coin and throw in one dollar bills, too. When I was doing this before I was averaging about $30 to $40 a month.

$7.94 starting change
$3.20 amount added from purse
------
11.14 ending balance

It's hard to believe but it's been six months since my last entry. We're doing well here financially now and it's harder to blog when you have enough money it seems, than when you don't.

In the past year my husband's income has almost doubled. It made things get easy, but it also brought along with it some very bad habits that I want to stop. Because despite the extra income, we've only upped our debt repayment by a couple hundred dollars a month. And it's time to really buckle down and get going again. At least that's what I keep telling myself.

Thing is I don't really want to. I like having the extra money around. It's nice not to have to scrimp and save every little extra bit of cash that comes into my hands or funnel it all into debt repayment. But I know I need to, because I'm still tired of having all that debt hanging over our heads.

Our emergency fund is far lower than I want it to be at $1000. That's certainly not anywhere close to even a month's salary anymore. So I'm working on building that back up. And I'm starting to save up $1000 more for our vacation in February. I have $500 currently saved for it.

We're going to Disneyland. Our airfare is free from DH's miles. We're staying in my parent's travel condo for free, except for the $50 one time fee for end of stay cleaning. We're just needing to pay for the entry tickets, car rental for 2 days, and food while we're there. It has a full kitchen and there is a Costco close by so we will make and eat all of our breakfasts and one other meal a day and only have one meal out at the park each day.

The kids are saving up their allowances, birthday, and Christmas monies and will buy their own souvenirs.

As for the rest of our finances, we've raised our 401K 1% for the last two pay raises so it is now at 5%. On the next pay raise it'll be up to 6%, the full amount the company matches 50% of contributions on.

The mortgage on the house just went under $30,000 at $29,956.07. Our medical debt repayment is down to $142,623.81. Our unsecured debt is down to around $45,000. The website for that one is down at the moment so I don't have the exact numbers. So we've still managed to make significant progress. But there's so much more we could have made and I'd like to really get out from under this debt.

We can pay at least another $300 a month towards debt repayment that we are currently wasting on eating out. So that's my goal for now, to try to stop wasteful spending and put it onto debt.

We'll be cooking at home a lot more, but that's a good thing. Healthier, too. And it won't be so hard now, either. I just took my son out of public school and will be homeschooling him for the rest of third grade. He was being bullied pretty severely this year and it had totally turned his personality bitter and sad and he was behaving horribly. Two days at home and he's back to being the sweet kid he used to be back when school went well and he was popular.

I gave the school several weeks to sort this out but I just couldn't give them any more time. It was sucking the life out of my child and I couldn't bear it. The difference is like night and day. I wish I still had the curriculum from when I homeschooled my daughter for third grade, but I don't, so I'm starting all over again. I'll be spending about $300 to get started, but fortunately I have that money at the moment.

His math is above grade level but his reading is significantly behind. They don't really teach phonics at his school and it shows. So I'll be starting almost at the beginning with phonics for him but I saw what a difference it made when I did that for my daughter, so that'll be okay.

He's been bored out of his mind at school, too, insisting that they are teaching either "baby" stuff or stuff that his dad and I have already taught him about ages ago in science and history. I think we'll all be happier.

And my son loves to cook with me, so being able to save money by not eating out and cooking at home will be easier, because I'll have a helper in the kitchen and not a strung out child who wants nothing to do with me or anyone else, standing by my side.

My daughter, on the other hand, is thriving at the junior high. She's doing really well. It's funny because she's the one I was so worried about at the start of the school year. Life can be so unexpected sometimes.

Added the auto deposit of $10 to the EF today.

$2593.67 Old balance
+ 10.00 auto deposit
---------
$2603.67 New balance

Just a brief update on Rose, she is doing much better. Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes our way.

I made several deposits to the EF last week. I took interest money made on my safety net and temporary savings accounts and transferred it to ING along with the regular weekly $10, and a refund check from the orthodontist, for a total of $302.57.

$2291.10 Old Total EF Balance
5.77 Interest
286.80 Refund Check
10.00 Auto Deposit
----------
$2593.67 New Total EF Balance

The last payment on my mortgage posted finally bringing the total left on my house to $32,014.98. Slowly but surely we're getting there.

I finally got around to adding the CU money to ING, plus needed to add in the amount of interest from the last two months to arrive at my new total in the emregency fund.

$2198.58 Old Balance
80.00 auto deposits
6.10 November interest
+ 6.42 December interest
---------
$2291.10 New Balance

So I have about $500 to save to finally have a half a month's pay in the bank. Then onward to the next goal of one month's pay.

Expenses for today were $20 to the school for my son's hot lunch account. Otherwise, nothing.

Today was the day of the auto deposit of $10 to savings. I transferred it to ING.

$2188.58 Old EF Balance
+ 10.00 Deposit
---------
$2198.58 New EF Balance

I also spent $74 on the 3rd Series DVD set of Doctor Who which came out this week and arrived in my mailbox today. It is nice living so near to an Amazon shipping warehouse. 2 day shipping for the price of 3 to 5 business days. I won't be making my usual monthly music CD purchase. Not that they are comparable in price but my deal is one purchase like this a month whether it be a movie, a DVD set, or a music CD.

Not too much going on. We've got a long weekend here. Today was early release at school and then the kids don't go back until Tuesday.

I will be taking Rose shopping for basketball shoes later this week, which will cost, and a couple pairs of winter pants. She really only has two pair now that the weather has turned and the cold season has started. Since there was snow in the rain today I need to rectify that pretty quickly. She's grown 4 inches since the start of the last cold season so not much fits. I think we can get by with only buying her two more pairs unless there is a really good sale.

I sent the monthly $100 deposit to ING today.

$2088.58 Old EF Amount
+ 100.00 Deposit
---------
$2188.58 New EF Amount

I also did some organizing in the pantry and in one of the freezers. Still have a bit more to do until I can inventory what I have, though. I should get through that tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will be making a pot roast in the crockpot and a chicken on the rotisserie and we will use that meat for dinners this week. I'll have to freeze some of it so it won't go off before we can use it all.

I'll also be cutting up veggies ahead of time. I've done onions and a red bell pepper and I tomorrow I will do broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and tear up a head of lettuce to store in my salad spinner.

I also diced up a bunch of ham and shredded up some cheese for making omelettes in the mornings. I'd started buying those premade omelettes from the grocery store and they are a sorry tasting, preservative filled concoction that in no way tastes anything like my own. It only takes five minutes to make an omelette in my large fry pan and then I can split it between me and the kids.

I think I may make up little omlette making kits and toss them in the freezer, just a little container that has the diced ham, diced onions, and diced red bell peppers in them in pre-measured portions. Then take one out the night before to thaw in the fridge.

I can't believe I was letting myself by those omlettes. It cost $5 for a package of two. I can make ten omlettes that would feed the three of us for ten days for that same amount. That's how far I had fallen.

I suppose I ought to do up menues for the week as well, though that may not get done until Sunday. We'll see. Don't want to overtax myself.

Today was the day of the auto deposit of $10 to savings. I didn't do anything with the one last week either, which meant I had $20 to move to ING today. Interest was also posted to my ING account today.

$2062.87 Old EF Balance
20.00 Deposit
+ 5.71 Interest
---------
$2088.58 New EF Balance

It's coming along nicely. I'm almost up to half a month's expenses now.

And this is just how badly I'm not thinking. I paid my property taxes today, well, techinically yesterday since it's after midnight. Pretty big thing to forget about, isn't it? Well, at least I didn't forget to pay it. Now that really would have been bad.

So $335.88 out the door for half year taxes. Yes, those are low. We're not a city out here. More like a blink and you missed it, with the accompanying services (few, mostly volunteer), and most of it goes to the schools anyway, which are good.

I also added 2 handfuls of change and $7 in ones to the coin jar. Didn't count the change. Still too apathetic at the moment, but I'm trying, anyway.

I deposited the rolled coin into the safety net today, bringing the total in the safety net to just over $500.

So new EF amount is:

$2039.87 Old EF amount
23.00 Deposit to safety net
--------
$2062.87 New EF Amount

For those who don't know, my safety net is money I keep in a local account for quick access in case of an emergency. The rest of it is in ING. I figure $500 will do me fine until I can get more from ING if necessary. So getting the safety net up to $500 was my goal for it, which I hit today. Happy on that score.

I transferred $20 (two weekly auto deposits) to ING this morning and an additional $15 in ones I had in the coin jar from earlier in the week.

$2004.87 Old Balance in EF
+ 35.00 Deposit
---------
$2039.87 New Balance in EF

I'll be depositing $23 in rolled coin into the safety net, hopefully today, as well, but I'll add that in after I do it.

I also got the 401K statement yesterday and since July 17 it has increased by $2455.58, bringing it to $50,250.89. I am quite happy that we have finally hit and gone over the $50K mark. That feels good. Obviously we still have a long way to go until retirement but this is a major milestone for us.

Well, really I still am sick. Really sick. Just this side of pneumonia sick. One big plus of this is that I have not been spending much in the way of money, because I haven't gone out any more than I've had to.

For some reason life just seems to carry right on whether I feel like getting out of bed or not. I'll have to spend tomorrow because I'll be out of cold medicine and needing a refill on my prescription by the afternoon. And well, DH comes home so I'll have to drive in to town to pick him up, too. Then he can drive for the rest of my life as far as I'm concerned. Or at least until it doesn't feel as if my entire head is made up of gunk.

I didn't even bother to do any surveys for like two weeks now, I didn't transfer money to ING last week so I'll wait until tomorrow and do both Thursday deposits then.

Basketball sign up happened yesterday so I did write a $25 check for that. One of the cheapest sports available, soccer is like $70 now but they aren't playing that anymore apparently.

I feel like I've been living on caffeine and cold pills, not a very good combination at all, but what else can you do? Moms don't really get to be sick, we just blunder on.

Anyway, I really need to do better on keeping up with my blog. My focus is way off on financial stuff lately and I'm pretty sure that's from not writing on here. Let's hope I can get my act together again, 'cause I sorely need to.

I made it to the new Trader Joe's yesterday. It was nice to have so many choices in healthier foods, though I was kind of surprised how much they had in the way of junk food. So many cookies and candies and chocolate covered nuts, and candied dried fruit dipped in sugar. Organic junk food is still junk food and at least it wasn't made with corn syrup.

Still I managed to find $55.61 worth of stuff that we could eat. I tried their store brand milk and it's decent tasting, though I will probably stick with Organic Valley and buying it from Fred Meyer since its a dollar cheaper there.

Never made it to Costco, just didn't feel good enough. Mom took the kids for the weekend, I get them back Sunday noontime. I am spending a lot of time sleeping and a lot of time reading over at Teaspoon and writing some. I've told myself that if I write a chapter on something over there, I've got to come and write at least one blog entry on that same day.

Yesterday was payday so I sent $100 to ING. That brings my EF to $2004.87 and my goal of $2000 is now achieved. I need $600 more to meet my goal of 2 weeks wages. That will take a couple of months.

I've been ignoring my surveys lately, just haven't felt in the mood to answer a bunch of repetive questions. I suppose I should get back to it, as it does help the EF to grow bit by bit. Just kind of apathetic about it.

Part of the apathy has been being sick and part of it has been the onset of SADS with the fall overcast. Time to dig out my light box and start light therapy again. It always hits me very hard in the fall, but it seems like it always a couple weeks in before the light bulb clicks on and I realize what it is I need. I think there was a bad pun in there somewhere.

I need to sit down and do bills still today. I am just in a lazy lay around do absolutely nothing physical mood today. Other than emptying the dishwasher and doing a load of towels, that is. I suppose I ought to do more. The laundry won't take care of itself no matter how hard I wish for it.

I have a really bad chest cold, so my idea of getting my act together and blogging as usual have just really not been top of the priority list.

But today was the auto deposit of $10 into savings, which I then took and transferred to ING. I also remembered to check last month's interest while I was there. It was $3.54.

$1891.33 Old EF Balance
10.00 Weekly Deposit
+ 3.54 September Interest
---------
$1904.87 New EF Balance

In today's mail I got a refund from the orthodontist, so I took that to the bank along with DH's boot reimbursement check from work.

$1444.53 Starting Balance
286.80 Orthodontist refund
+ 160.00 Boot reimbursement
---------
$1891.33 Ending Balance

So I've blown right past my goal of $1500 in the EF and am well on my way to the next goal of having $2000 in the EF.

I didn't realize I hadn't posted since the 16th. The kids have been sick and whiney, I haven't been feeling great either, I haven't spent money because we haven't gone anywhere and I've been playing in the Whoniverse. Found a fan fiction website for Doctor Who (see sites I frequent for more info on what that is) and have been having a grand old time reading and writing. And it's free entertainment, my favorite kind!

But its time for the real world to impinge once again. So, today is the day of the automatic deposit of $10 to savings. I transferred that to ING, bringing the amount in the EF to $1444.53.

DH sent me a reimbursement check for his work boots that arrived in the mail yesterday. I will try to get it in the bank today. That will be an additional $160 to the EF. But I won't add it in until I do it.

Today was a long day. I dropped the kids off at school a bit early today so I could take the car in to the dealership on time. They had estimated that the work would cost $679 but it cost $559, so I added that extra $120 to the EF, along with the GTM check and $2 I had in my purse. I'm coming up pretty fast on my goal of $1500 for the EF.

$1262.53 Old Balance
50.00 Survey Check
2.00 in ones
+ 120.00 car less than estimated
--------
$1434.53 New Balance

I can feel a real difference in how the car is driving now. It accelerates better and doesn't buck when it goes through the automatic gear changes. It makes it feel much smoother, like it used to be when we first got it. Definitely money well spent if we can keep it going for another year or two while we save up for a hybrid.

I'm glad to have this taken care of before winter hits. I really should have the other vehilce repaired before winter, too, but I'm not sure if we can swing that. I suppose I can take money from the EF if I have to, but I'm not sure I should for this. We just don't drive it that much with gas prices so high. And with Humberto and the Mexican gas explosions, it's only going to go up again.

Today was the automatic deposit of $10.00 to savings. I sent that, plus an additional $12.50 off to ING today.

$1240.03 Old Balance
+ 22.50 Deposit
---------
$1262.53 New Balance

I haven't deposited the $50 check from Global Test Market yet. I will do that tomorrow when I do my banking and send it off to ING.

Today I spent $5.82 and added $4.18 to the coin jar.

$12.69 Old Balance
+ 4.18 Added in
-------
$16.87 New Balance

I did some shopping at a few different places today. I had to buy DH some new underwear and ship it up the slope. Don't know why he can't think of these things when he's home! Spent almost as much for shipping 2nd day air. Picked up a few groceries as well. So I ended up with quite a bit to add to the change jar.

I added $6 in ones and $2.82 in change. I won't, or shouldn't be, spending any more money like that this weekend, but I do have to pay some bills, so I'll get around to that this afternoon and post it later on.

Total in the coin jar is $12.69, 1 bus token, 1 button, 1 washer, and one big paperclip (tee hee). I was able to roll one roll of pennies out of that, but nothing else is close.