So I added the $40.50 in the coin jar and the $31.96 leftover in checking to the EF. Along with the June deposit of $100, which I made today even though it's not June yet, bumps the Emergency Fund to $3844.78., so the normal goal would be to scrape up enough to get it to $4000, but since DH has overtime, June's goal is $5000.

I went ahead and funded my funds as usual today, even though I know that eventually that money will probably be wiped out for the Wisconsin trip. But I'm keeping it in the funds sections anyway until we know either way what is going to happen there. Available fund totals are now $1300 ($1000, if I don't count the meager college fund). This does not count the property tax fund or the propane fund, or any other fund that is a bill paying fund for bills not paid monthly. We'll only be taking from the non-essential funds like Christmas, Laptop, etc.

Here's what came out of today's paycheck:

$300.00 to Mom for June utilities
__90.00 Physical therapy
__39.53 DH Life Insurance
__32.70 Me Life Insurance
__66.62 Car Insurance
__45.67 Old House Insurance
__41.16 Old House Security
_168.00 Storage
_600.00 Mortgage ($224.14 extra to principal)
_100.00 Cash for week
__30.00 Kids Allowances
_620.64 AMEX (gas and eating out)
__72.00 Water/sewer Fund
_100.00 Emergency Fund
__19.00 Garbage Fund
_100.00 Hawaii 2018 Fund
__19.00 Dues Fund
_100.00 Propane Fund
_100.00 College Fund
_100.00 Laptop Fund
_100.00 Christmas Fund
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3165.77 Total Paid Out

I have $241 in checking, msot of that will go for groceries and over the counter medicines to restock up after the three of us were ill.

When the mortgage payment hits the remaining mortgage will be under $12K. I am excited. $10K left seems closer than ever

Oh, I forgot, there was also a medical bill of $157.41 for my daughter.

Today was the $10 auto deposit to the Emergency Fund, which brings it to $3672.68.

I emptied my wallet and added $25.00 to the coin jar. Tomorrow I will take the bills and roll of pennies to the CU and deposit it. There is $40.50, which will put me over my May goal of $3700.00 by $13.18.

Depsite my earlier post and the financial setback family stuff may cause, I am still going to try to get the EF to $5000 by the end of June. $1000 from overtime, $100 from the normal monthly deposit, $40 from the 4 $10 Thursday deposits, so scratching up $146.82 from somewhere. Well, a tiny bit less since there will be a small interest deposit in my Capital One 360 account on the 1st.

There is $31.96 left in my checking account so maybe I'll throw that in there, too. I just feel some urgency to get to $5000. Not sure why. After that my next big goal will be trying to figure out how to get to $8000, which is one month's income. Ideally, I'd like to do that by the end of 2013, but not sure how practical that is, especially with saving the Christmas bonus for college expenses. Unless there is more overtime. I know I can at least hit $6000 by the end of the year if we don't have to actually use the EF for anything.

Being sick for a week has been good for our bottom line. I ended up with $205 in savings from money I didn't spend this week. I had originally intended for this to go for groceries. Of course, not eating for 3 days and DD not eating for 3 days, made a big difference in groceries, too.

So I am setting that money aside. I am not going to put it into the Emergency Fund no matter how much I want to. I am going to put it into a temporary fund earmarked towards FIL's upcoming heart surgery. He is going to be having one for a bulging aorta soon, which was a result of the myocardial infarction he had a couple of years ago. He is choosing to go to Wisconsin to do it. The best doctor for that particular operation is there. The second best is here, but I guess they don't want to take that chance, even though it would be massively less expensive.

So they'll be there for a while and MIL wants DH to be able to come for part of it. DH can't take off work so it would have to be during one of his home shifts. We really can't afford it without wiping out a lot of our savings. Round trip flight will be around $800. Several days in a hotel and food around $1200. So we're looking at trying to come up with $2000.

I won't take it out of our Emergency Fund. The EF is for our emergencies, not other people's decisions to fly halfway across the country. So I'm going to try to squeeze it out elsewhere. I figure if I raid some of our other funds, the laptop fund, the Christmas fund, the Hawaii 2018 Fund, the appliance fund and the college fund, that's $700. So that puts me at $905. I'd just need to figure out where the other $1095 will come from.

I guess some of it can come from the overtime week DH is working. I still want to save $1000 for the EF from that, but I figure I can at least put the freezer on hold again and the $1000 for that could be saved in the temp fund. I doubt he'll get it scheduled before the end of summer, so we can likely save the difference.

I am trying not to be resentful of the fact that we will have to spend this $2000 on something that is not our goals. I know this is important to offer support to the in-laws. But I can't help feeling like if it was me, I'd do it locally and save the extra expense. It's not like the doc here is bad at this surgery. The other guy has just done it more. But this guy trained under that guy so the skill set should be there.

It's one thing if there was no one available locally, but there is. At least FIL can do all of his follow up care here. I will work on keeping my resentment to myself. It is uncharitable of me and not something I want the in-laws to see, because I do love them like parents. Parents who often think with their hearts and not their heads, but parents nonetheless.

There is very little going on here. No spending, as I am recovering from a nasty stomach virus I had over the weekend. Definitely on the upswing, but I feel bruised and like I have been put through the wringer.

I did add $1.80 to the coin jar.

I should meet my goal of $3700 in the EF by the end of the month. Not much else to add. Things continue to go smoothly on autopilot.

The rabbits are doing well. They new kits are starting to come out of the nesting box now and explore the bigger cage and pester their mother. The chickens continue to lay eggs well. And I guess that's it.

Tuesday:
Barbecue chicken (I'm totally cheating with this. I am grilling boneless skinless thighs on the George Foreman grill and then pouring barbecue sauce on top of them. It's easy and fast and I'm definitely into that this week after spending the long weekend with a stomach virus.
Pineapple
Baked potatoes (in the microwave, again, a time saver)
Green beans

Wednesday:
Homemde pizza (yellow bell pepper strips, yellow onions, ham)
Pineapple
Cole slaw

Thursday:
Beef Ribs
Baked potatoes
Broccoli/cauliflower

Friday:
Bacon cheeseburgers
Fried potatoes (from leftover baked)
Cole slaw

Saturday:
Grilled pork chops
Watermelon
Fried potatoes (from leftover baked)
Salad

Sunday:
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams
Broccoli/cauliflower

Monday:
Tropical Chicken Stir-fry
Blueberry cornbread muffins

I received $10 in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks raising my total to $130. I haven't spent as much time on them this month or last. I've been too busy with the rabbits. The kits are growing fast. This is them two days ago. They are 13 days old.



They all have their eyes open now. In another week or so they will start jumping out of the nesting box.

There isn't really anything else going on. Oh, I paid the propane bill, but that money has been set aside for awhile so affects nothing.

Basically I'm just waiting for the 31st to get here to start on the next cycle of paying bills. Everything is pretty much on autopilot at this point.

I went to the sleep doctor today and we are trying yet another C-Pap mask. This one is smaller and is a much better fit. In fact I took a nap using it this afternoon (woke up feeling sick this morning and very tired, but it could just be the cottonwood blooming and the Scotch broom) and I didn't take it off in my sleep and I slept pretty hard for 3 hours. So I think we may finally have a winner. I had to pay $144 upfront for my visit since the doctor's practice quit playing nice with Aetna who is one of stingiest reimbursers for medical insurance.

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Yesterday was the day of the $10 auto deposit to savings. That brings the Emergency Fund to $3662.32. $37.68 to go to hit my May goal of $3700.

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The three people that were trapped in the bridge collapse yesterday are in stable condition with only minor injuries. It was a miracle only three cars went down with the bridge.

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4 out of the 7 rabbit kits have opened their eyes. The other 3 are working on it. They are so adorable. They are 12 days old.

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The carpet is going to be laid on May 30th, which hopefully means the finishing touches will be put on the house the weekend of the 1st and 2nd. I really wanted to put it on the market in May, but now if we get it on there by mid-June it will still be early enough to hit those buyers who want to buy and move in over the summer so they are all set for school for their children before it begins in the fall. Since it's a 4 bedroom home in a neighborhood with lots of kids, I'm assuming it will appeal to the family market as opposed to the Canadian vacationer or the American retiree. Hopefully it won't just sit there.

Of course I can't get my hopes up yet, because I'm sure they will find a way to make it take longer than it should. That's been the case since this began. At least the rug is being installed by rug people and not the people doing the rest of the work so they won't be able to back out of it for spurious reasons.

We go over this bridge all the time, once or twice a month. We were just on it 11 days ago. There are people trapped in the water. It is really scary to see something like this on the news, happening in a place I am so familiar with. First thing we did was make sure our neighbor was home safe. She works in Seattle and commutes over this bridge ten times a week.

That part of the freeway people are going 60 to 65 MPH. It's four lanes of traffic. I can't even imagine. I am just glad that rush hour was over when it happened because it could have been so much worse. My mother was going to be going over that bridge tomorrow on her way to visit relatives in Eastern Washington. It's a very unsettling thought.

I hope they get the people out soon. A couple are sitting on top of their cars and one person is trapped inside a truck. Head above water, apparently, but they are worried about hypothermia. It just seems crazy that something like this can just happen. One minute a solid foundation, the next plunging into the water.

I think I'll be glued to the news tonight.

I got an alert from my credit monitoring service today. I have it because of a past incident with a stolen wallet. Anyway, my credit score has gone up six points to 793. According to the report we are using only 12 percent of our available credit and the national average is to use 16 percent. Ideally I'd like to be at 800 by the end of the year, but I'm not sure what it would take to do that. Probably paying the van loan down some.

I feel like we are really positioning ourselves well to buy a new house in the near future. I am still thinking along the lines of paying off our van loan if we get enough extra when our house sells. It would be one less thing to worry about and it would free up some money for upcoming college costs.

McDonald's has started hiring again. I think DD should throw her hat in the ring and try to get a summer job. She has plans to volunteer at the animal shelter but that is only 2 hours a week and you can go in at whatever time you want during their open hours. She could easily do both.

Yesterday was so beautiful and today is so wet that the chickens are taking it as a personal insult. I am tired of the weather swings, but it could be so much worse. I feel guilty complaining about the weather here when I read the news and see the photos coming out of Oklahoma.

That sort of devastation seems unreal to me because I've never seen it in real life. The only things I have personally experienced are massive floods big enough to declare us a disaster area and the day the creek exploded and the town was under a black mushroom cloud. And even that can't compare to the scale of the tornado there. My heart and prayers go out to the people who have survived this devastation.

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I didn't sleep last night. I hate it when that happens. It makes it so hard to cope with the day in a good financial state of mind. So my planned homemade pizza turned into an XL carry out pizza from Round Table instead. $29.35. It has gone up from $27.18, what it's been for the last year. That left me with 65 cents for the coin jar.

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I am so behind on where I want to be with gardening. There has been so much to do lately between homeschooling and the animals and whenever I finally get that wrapped up, it starts raining. Usually May is nicer than this, especially in the second half. I know by mid-June it will stop raining and then we won't see much of it until the fall, but it always feels like forever waiting out the nine months of the year when it does almost nothing but rain here.