I went up to Walgreen's after school with DD to see if they had that Organix Renpure shampoo that some of you were talking about that was buy one, get one with a rebate attached. My daughter was out of shampoo and she can't use mine because it is for oily hair only (and I'm very possessive of it, because it is super hard to find unless I order it online and incur shipping costs). Her dad's shampoo is too harsh for her hair and smells very masculine, and her brother's special chemical free, fragrant free, allergen free stuff is too expensive for anyone else to use.

She's good about using whatever I buy, but it has to be available. Usually I just get the 99 cent bottle of VO5 in strawberry, but this works, too. Two bottles of shampoo for the eventual cost of just a stamp, envelope, and sales tax sounds good to me.

I ended up spending a total of $38.12 there, $6.99 of which will be reimbursed. They had the VO5 conditioner on for 79 cents on sale in Freesia, which she likes the smell of. Also got cheap hairspray, a package of headbands for DD because her head is too big for the ones she's had for years, 100 count Excedrin PM, and a thing of Vick's Sinex because I ran out. That nasal spray is expensive and I never see coupons for it. The register printed out a coupon for a free bottle of Afrin nasal spray or up to $7 off, so I will use that the next time I go. I prefer Sinex, but Afrin is one of the few other types that works on me.

I set up a spreadsheet when we got home to track rebates and filled out the form and got it ready in an envelope to send off tomorrow. Rebating only works if you remember to do it! I'm not sure that I'll get into it too much, but doing it once in a while when I find out about it and it takes no effort on my part, then I will.

DD and I also had a talk about why we are pinching so tight right now in some areas, like eating out, so we can finish getting out of debt and save up for a new house. I find it helps to talk to her periodically about it, because sometimes she forgets and thinks she can't have anything she wants so doesn't ask for it at all. She does get what I think is a quite adequate allowance of $10 a week so she has plenty of her own spending money. She does a lot for it, including making dinner a couple nights a week on her own, and helps me almost every other night unless she has a ton of homework.

And if she babysits her brother for any serious length of time (more than an hour) she gets paid for that, too. There was nothing my sisters resented more when I was growing up than being forced to babysit me for free when they could have been babysitting the neighbor kids for a profit. It isn't much, just $3 an hour, and it's pretty rare, maybe once a month that it happens.

I found a recipe online today for pita bread. I looked through several until I found one that looked easy and still made pockets. Most of the easy ones were flat and didn't puff. It is more simple than making English muffins which I've done before. We're getting bored with buns all the time for sandwiches so I thought I'd change it up. It'll be cheaper than the bun recipe to make, even accounting for the fact that it only makes 8 servings, so I'd have to make two batches in a week. If it works well I will post the recipe.

I called the old homeowner's association to make sure that they received the dues since they still haven't cashed the check we left on 1/31 or sent out a receipt. The girl at the desk said that yes, they'd received it, so now I just have to wait for them to deposit it.

I paid the mortgage payment today of $386.14.

The propane bill for the old house came today and ouch. It was just over $400. This is the first fill up we've done since July. I'm going out to the house Sunday to finish packing up the laundry room and the one kitchen cupboard, maybe finish the living room, and put out the rubbish bin. We've been keeping the temp at 60 so the pipes don't freeze, but it's been around 45 outside for the past month, with no snow since mid-January, so I am going to drop it down to 50. The house is pretty energy efficient and the thermostat may not even kick on unless it drops below freezing outside. Come the end of March we can turn it off altogether.

I haven't been setting money aside for propane but that will change with the next paycycle. I'll start putting aside $80 a month. We may not need to use it but at least it will be set aside. I used to do that, budget for bills that weren't monthly, but I got out of the habit. I've set up a new spreadsheet for the budget that goes into effect on the 18th. It has categories for these non-monthly payments.

Okay, now food today:

Breakfast:
Eggs (free from chickens)
Hashbrowns ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $2.50)

Lunch:
2 kids
Orangic deli meat sandwiches on homemade buns ($3.25)
orange (.50)
apple (.50)
baggies of plain potato chips (.50)
water

Me
Leftover bowl of TJ's chicken noodle soup (free)
Chicken leg (.50)
salad (.25)
water
Total: $5.50

Dinner:
Homemade pizza:
dough ($1)
cheese ($2)
sauce (leftover from homemade spaghetti sauce, so free)
herbs (.25)
2 ounces pepperoni (.75)
2 ounces salami (.75)
4 ounces ground beef with sausage seasoning (.60)
1/4 chopped yellow onion (.15)
Homemade breadsticks:
Dough ($1)
Parmesan cheese (.25)
Can of Pineapple ($1)
Can of green beans ($1)
Milk ($1.50)
Total: $10.25

There will be an extra ball of dough for a future pizza out of this as well as leftover pizza and breadsticks so that will make a future meal or two this week, especially with DH gone and not eating it. With that in mind the $10.25 is not as expensive as it first appears.

Total $18.25 for the day, so under the goal of $20 a day.

The wind is blowing like crazy today so I made sure we had our flashlights located and found a supply of fresh batteries I knew we had in case of power failure tonight. We've also got those rechargable things that plug into outlets and when it gets dark or there is a power failure they come on, so we are set.

Added $1.91 in coins to the change jar.