Today was the $10 auto deposit to savings.

$5882.45 Old EF Amount
+--10.00 Amount Added
----------
$5892.45 New EF Amount

I know some people laugh at my $10 weekly auto deposits, but these baby steps have sure brought me forward over the years.

The propane bill came today and was only $49.91. I set aside $100 a month for propane and the propane fund was at $300. So I took the excess $250.09 and transferred it to the Emergency Fund.

$5632.26 Beginning EF Amount
+_250.09 Amount Added
-----------
$5882.45 Ending EF Amount

My goal for the month of August was to get the EF to $5800, which I have now flown past, so I am revising my goal. I want to hit $6000 by the end of the month. That is $117.55 to come up with. Since there are 4 more Thursdays this month so 4 $10 auto deposits will be made to savings, making $40 of that covered.

I added $3 in ones to the coin jar today, so I have a total of $16 in ones, so that makes $56 and I only need to come up with an additional $61.55 in the next 3.5 weeks. I think that is doable.

I added $2.95 to the coin jar today with the eventual destination of the EF. I also found a penny yesterday.

Today was the day of the $10 auto deposit to savings, so I added that to my Emergency Fund. I also added the interest from my C1-360 account of $4.22.

$5618.14 Old EF Amount
+__14.22 Deposit and Interest Added
-----------
$5632.26 New EF Amount

My goal for the EF for August is $5800. I have $167.64 to go.

On Monday I added $6.08 to the coin jar. Yesterday I added $2.55.

Yesterday we bought 2 bales of horse quality hay and a 50 pound bag of feed for the rabbits. We also bought three feeder dishes to attach to the tractors for the various sets of kits and one of the 32 ounce glass water bottles since they had one in. And we bought a tunnel for the littlest kits. I can't find my receipts, DH might have them, but we spent close to $85.

We got takeaway yesterday from the Polynesian place, so that was $33.85.

I got gas on Tuesday, $50.00. (It shuts off automatically at $50, and I didn't want to go inside to further authorize my credit card). We haven't spent that much on gas this summer at all. This is the first time I think I've filled up since June.

Yesterday I got a prescription for $11.03.

And I think that covers all of the spending this week.

Today was payday. I transferred $100 to the EF and I had $36.50 in my coin jar ready to deposit so did that as well. This brings my EF to $5618.14. My goal for July was to get the EF to $5500, so I exceeded that quite nicely. My goal for August is $5800. I also added $5.54 to the coin jar this evening.

It looks like DH's next shift will be a 3 weeks on/1 week off, so we will definitely get one extra paycheck. DH says there is enough work that he will probably do two 3 and 1's. If that is so, we should be able to pay off the mortgage by the end of September without touching the Emergency Fund. I had forgot about the extra paycheck, of which we can send $3000 to the mortgage.

I made a mortgage payment today leaving us with a new total of $10616.89. Minus $3000 in principal will leave us at $7616.89. There will be the August payment of $700 minus the 52.50 interest, which will put us at 6969.39. Two extra paychecks in August and September will give us $7200. So if that all works out it's gone. I hope it does. I will be so happy if it does. I just want to own it free and clear, so that if it takes a while to sell, at least we are not making payments meanwhile.

Then that will leave just the van loan to start throwing money at. Without the mortgage payment and the extra principal we've been paying each month, we should be able to throw $1500 at the van loan each month.

Okay, on to the accounting of the paycheck:

$1000.00 to Mom Loan
__700.00 to mortgage
___90.00 Physical Therapy
___45.67 House Insurance
___41.16 Security Monitoring (Old House)
__168.00 Storage
___32.70 Life Insurance Me
___39.53 Life Insurance DH
___66.62 Car Insurance
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__100.00 Laptop Fund
__100.00 Freezer Fund
___80.00 Kids
__100.00 Cash for Week
----------
$2663.68

I also spent $200 on groceries and $100 to build up my over the counter medicine stock. I needed to buy Zyrtec, nasal spray, cold medicine, sleeping medicine, and heartburn meds. I also bought two bottles of hair dye.

DD dyed my hair tonight. It takes two bottles because from root to ends it measures two feet long and it is so thick it is ridiculous. So no more gray at all. It's a darker auburn than my own hair which is sort of a brownish, goldish, red with grey streaks at my temples that when I was much younger were naturally ash blonde streaks. I used to say I had chameleon hair because it has so many colors in it.

We used a natural hair dye that my food co-op sells. I haven't colored my hair in a couple of years so it kind of surprised me what a difference it makes. It took forever to rinse out, though. I think I may cut my bangs again. They are already in my eyes. I have gotten quite good at bang trims. I have been debating going in to have it done, but honestly, if it is just a bang trim it seems silly to waste $10.

I added $3.41 to the coin jar.

I paid the dues for the HoA at the old house. I read the enclosed letter and am mightily irked. Because so many people are letting their homes go into foreclosure, they are charging a $299 transfer fee. This really makes me furious with them. I have always paid my dues on time, I have always abided by all of their stupid rules, and when I sell my house I am going to have to pay them $299. It feels punitive and should not be put onto the folks who don't walk away. Also, if people are in foreclosure, it's not like they will have $299 to hand over to the HoA.

It certainly isn't in the CC&R's I signed. Of course the CC&R's I signed were for free use of the golf course, which they sold to a developer a few years later without input from the homeowners, free use of the swimming pool, which they charged special dues for to repair, and then the next year filled in with concrete so no more pool. They are supposed to maintain the greenways, but never did. Certainly not the one next to my house that I mowed weedeated for years every time it got 18 inches tall. They have $85,000 in the road repair fund (again raised with special dues), but almost never fix the potholes. They are whining about the clubhouse roof again, even though it was roofed five years ago, again with special dues.

I think I will send a "demand" letter when we sell asking them to waive the fee because of their failure to do anything out there and it generally being a sucky move on their part for all the reasons given above. Only in grown up speak. Also, it wasn't voted on. And if I have to pay it to avoid a lien then I am seriously considering trying to recoup it in small claims court. I don't think they can enforce something that wasn't in the contract I signed. They haven't put forth new contracts in 15 years. But who knows?

I darn well will never, ever buy a home with an HoA again.

Today is the auto transfer of $10 to savings. That brings the Emergency Fund to $5481.64.

I haven't been doing much on my Swagbucks the last couple days. Yesterday's goal was ridiculous. Dunno if I'll bother with today's either. Since they changed the Encrave offerings so you have to stay on the page the entire time it's running and can't do two or three things at once I've decided it's too much of a time waster.

Half the time when I do a SB search it tries to download a Trojan (SB is bad for this). Half of the videos don't even load even though I consistently update my flash player. It's getting so it is not worth the hassle. So I'm just passively running SBTV on the side of my page and periodically checking for codes. I'll put in the minimum effort to get my $25 in gift cards each month, but if they are going to make it too hard and too time consuming I may give up on those, too.

Today was the day of the auto deposit of $10 to savings, bringing the new total of the Emergency Fund to $5471.64. $28.36 to go to hit my July goal of $5500.

I also added 58 cents to the coin jar. Baby steps still move you forward.

My homeowner's association sent out the bill for the half year dues. Apparently the fee has been lowered to $100. I had saved $127 for it, so I transferred the extra $27 to the Emergency Fund. The new total in the Emergency Fund is $5461.64. I need to come up with $38.36 to meet my July goal of $5500.

I added $8.78 to the coin jar, which is all the ones and the change DH had in his wallet before he left for Alaska. He dumped it all on my nightstand and I just got around to counting it. Plus I found a quarter and a penny this week.

I had to pay a doctor's bill yesterday, so that was $93.77. I have physical therapy today so that will be $90. I have had a major burger craving this week so I may sneak off after physical therapy and get one. I am debating between doing that and making them for dinner. I am just usually so wiped out after physical therapy I often don't want to cook. But I have been doing so well with not eating out. Hopefully I can resist it.

Today is the small payday, but only a little comes out of it since all bills are paid for the month.

$100.00 College Fund
$100.00 Extra to the Emergency Fund
$100.00 Extra to the Laptop Fund
$140.00 Allowances and Cash for Week
----------
$440.00

That leaves me with $488.10 to get through the next two weeks. This should not be a problem as there are no bills due until the autopays the first week of August and we get an extra paycheck on the 26th . DH and I cleaned out one of the freezers last night and found plenty of good meat to base meals around for the next two weeks. We should only need to buy vegetables. There is plenty of fruit that needs to be picked in the garden so I shouldn't have to buy fruit at all.

Besides the $100 extra added to the Emergency Fund, there was also $38, $10, and 28.99 added from various sources this week.

$5257.65 Beginning EF Balance
__100.00 From paycheck
___10.00 Auto Transfer money from yesterday
___38.00 HT Money
+__28.99 Money left in checking from last payday
------------
$5434.64 Ending EF Balance

I have $65.36 left to come up with to hit my July goal of $5500. There are two more auto transfers this month, so that brings it down to $45.36. I have $16 in ones saved in my coin jar, so that brings it down to $29.36 to come up with still by the end of the month. That shouldn't be a problem.

The College Fund now sits at $500 and the replacement Laptop Fund also now sits at $500. DH is still babying his laptop along trying to make it last as long as possible so we can completely save up for a new one first.

The College Fund will get a large infusion when the Christmas Bonus comes and again when we get our tax refund next year, because we have a lot of HSA spending we can deduct. I don't know if we'll max out the HSA this year like we have the past two years, but it is possible. It will come close. Meanwhile I will save $100 every 4 weeks. It will cost about $10,000 a year including books and fees at the local state university or $7000 a year at the local community college.

The Christmas Bonus is supposed to be quite large this year due to the number of Capital projects done. Not really sure what quite large means, but it should be closer to what he got the first year and not what he got the second year. I am not counting on anything at all, though. I know that if necessary we can do it just on the tax refund and what we are saving alone. The bonus will just be gravy.

One of these days I will get back to posting these on Sundays again! First off, though, I added $6.32 to the coin jar, with the eventual destination of the Emergency Fund.

Okay, so I have been a really lazy cook lately. I mean sandwiches and crockpot food lazy. And I'm really okay with that. The heat saps almost all of our energy right now, and what little we have is used up on taking care of the livestock and their assorted messiness. But anyway, back to the food front.

Monday:
--Spaghetti and Meatballs (no fruit, no veggies, it is what it is)

Tuesday:
--Leftover cold duck made into a salad
--Leftover cold spaghetti
--Casaba Melon

Wednesday:
--Chicken fried rabbit
--Fried potatoes
--Cole slaw
--Watermelon

Thursday:
--Tacos made in the microwave
--Fresh blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries (because of the heat they are all ripe at the same time in our yard for the first time ever)

Friday:
--Homemade pizza (Canadian bacon, pepperoni, yellow onion, red bell peppers)
--Cole slaw
--Leftover fruit salad

Saturday:
--Leftover rabbit quesadillas
--Green beans
--Corn
--Leftover fruit salad

Sunday:
--Crockpot beef chuck roast
--Microwave baked potatoes
--Broccoli/cauliflower
--Fresh blueberry cornbread muffins

There was $30.26 left in checking when payday came on Friday so I transferred it the Emergency Fund. That brings the new total in the EF to $5257.65.

I forgot to post this on Thursday, but the auto deposit of $10 hit savings.

$5230.54 Beginning EF Amount
+__10.00 Amount Added
----------
$5240.54 New EF Amount

I added $4.54 to the coin jar today.

I also gave in and bought a pizza because it was too hot to cook. Today is only 84, not 90 so I think I can manage to cook tonight. Or make sandwiches. Or salads with cold meat. And cold fruit.

DH comes home at midnight Tuesday. I hope he doesn't melt. He does even worse than me in the heat and we've got a lot of stuff that needs to get done. We may have to set up a fan outside.

My Capital One 360 account posted the interest. It was $3.15. I added it to the Emergency Fund.

$5227.39 Beginning Amount
+___3.15 Interest Added
-------------
$5230.54 New Balance

Today was payday. I had $55.77 left in checking so I transferred the to the EF. I also took out the monthly $100 that I usually take out of the first check of the new pay cycle. This just happens to be in June instead of July, so June got two $100 payments. I will still make one in July towards the end of the month though, when the next pay cycle starts.

That brings the new balance in the Emergency Fund to $5227.39. My goal for June was $5100, so I blew by that. I think I am going to stretch and try to come up with $5500 by the end of July. That is $272.61 to come up with. $140 will be from my regular transfers, so I will still need to eek out $132.61 to meet that goal, well, minus a few dollars of interest. It is doable, especially if I keep transferring the amounts left at the end of each pay week to savings.

I really want to stretch for that, because I want to hit $7000 by the end of the year. It may or may not be possible, but I want to shoot for it regardless.

Today is the day of the auto deposit to savings, bringing the Emergency Fund to $5071.62.

I haven't spent any money in the past two days. We haven't gone anywhere, which makes it a lot easier to accomplish that.

I've been following my meal plans, so no eating out recently.

I'm still working on cleaning. It's taking a lot longer than I planned because I am organizing as well as just cleaning.

The rabbits are doing well. They love it when it is nice out and they can come outside in the rabbit tractors. The kits are growing well and will be 7 weeks old on Sunday. A couple of them were close to weighing 3 pounds last Sunday, so will probably top it when I weigh them again this Sunday.

Swagbucks is chugging along well, though I wish they'd fix the SBTV glitches. I've hit goal every day this week except the day it was 140. I will definitely get all five GC's this month as I am only a few points away from it right now.

Otherwise it's been pretty boring here at Casa de Robin.

I received another $5 gift card from Swagbucks. I transferred it to my Amazon account. My GC balance there is now $145. I'm saving it for Christmas. I have hit my daily goals for the last several days, except for Tuesday. 140 is too high to waste the time on it. I'll probably hit today's though as I have a lot of online reading to do this afternoon and can have SBTV running the whole time.

I added $5.95 to the coin jar. Two more nickels and I'll have enough for a roll.

I've got $20 in cash and $55.77 in the checkbook to get me through until payday Friday. I need to buy milk and I want to buy strawberries if the specific farm stand I like the berries from is open. I hope that it is.

Our big screen television quit working. I can't figure out why. It turns on, there is just no image. DH will have to look at it when he comes home next week. I'm not terribly upset by it. Well, I mean, it's only four years old, I think, it should still be running, so from a consumer stand point I'm irked, but I'm not in any hurry to go out and buy a new one. We don't have television service, the kids just played games on it or sometimes watched DVDs.

I let the kids take the television out of my bedroom. We never use it. It had a thick layer of dust on the top and the screen that had to be wiped off and the remote batteries were dead. It's about ten years old and while it has a flat screen it still has the ginormous backside the old tech had. It's just 20 inches.

It is possible the big screen can be fixed, but I don't see much point in buying a new one. DH and I watch stuff on our laptops, generally. I have to admit it is nice for the big sci-fi shows, but I can't even remember the last time I used it. Maybe after we move we might replace it. I just don't want to move a big TV ourselves. It is a pain. Better to have it delivered to our next abode if we even bother with it at all. Those TV's are such energy hogs.

I have an appointment with the sleep doctor in 9 hours. As you can tell from the time stamp he's not done me much good. Our insurance is switching to Premera next month. Hopefully they will accept that. They stopped accepting Aetna, (and rightly so, since Aetna are cheapskates, whose first response is to deny everything at least once) so the last couple visits have been out of pocket.

I'm going to try one more mask and if that doesn't work, I'm done. I just can't use the machine if I'm taking the mask off in my sleep because it doesn't fit right or is uncomfortable.

Well, I suppose I should try yet again to get some sleep. I'm quitting caffeine right now (again) so I won't have that as a crutch tomorrow.

Last night (or early this a.m.) when I copy/pasted my entry, apparently I missed the second half of my post, where I was trying to figure out how much I thought I could get the Emergency Fund to by the end of the year.

In August there will be an extra payday for us. I should be able to save $1000 to the Emergency Fund from that. I have also been able to save at least $200 a month, so that should be another $1200. That should put me at $7300. In November there will be another extra paycheck, and I'd like to save $1000 from it, which should put me at $8300. So I think I will make my push goal be $8500 by the end of the year, which is, coincidentally, about one month's take home pay.

Most of the remainder of the money from those two extra payday's will go into the holiday shut down fund. Every Christmas things tend to shut down on the slope for two weeks at the least and up to four weeks at the most. So I will set aside at the least $3600 for that. That should leave me with about $1400 between the two.

I think I will try to just put it all into temporary savings. I'm not sure for what. Probably some of it for rabbit expenses. Or possibly moving expenses depending on how things go with selling our house. I guess we'll see when I get closer to that time. I may just want to shovel it all into the Emergency Fund regardless. Or maybe save it for next year's medical deductible.

So out of this paycheck I spent:

$225.00 on monthly family chiropractor plan
$650.00 to BoA VISA
$442.00 on groceries
$144.00 on water/sewer old house
----------
1463.00 total spent

Not all of this was from this paycheck actually. I had $400 left from the last one.

I also put $70 into the Emergency Fund bringing me to officially over $5000 at $5061.62. So I've hit my June savings goal. I wonder if I can get it to $5100 by the end of the month? Quite possibly if I don't buy anymore groceries.

Found a penny and put it in the coin jar. Nothing else to report.

Today is the day of the auto transfer to savings, so the new amount in the Emergency Fund is $4991.62.

I added $2.40 to the coin jar.

I cashed out for yet another $5 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks. I've hit the daily goal three times this week.

I did a jobs and the economy survey for ACOP.

I haven't had any no spend days this week, but the amounts I have spent have been trivial.

I've been watching a lot of Netflix while I've been cleaning. Finished Heroes, which I've been working on for a year. Started Alias which I have never watched.

I still haven't put together my payday post from last Friday so I'm just going to do a brief run down here. I've rounded because I don't want to open my spread sheets.

$2000.00 went to BoA Visa and vacation is paid off.
$1000.00 went to the EF
__187.00 went to medical
__160.00 went to groceries
___30.00 went to allowances
___69.00 went to prescriptions
------------
$3446.00 Total out

Today is payday and I was able to add $1000 to the Emergency Fund. This is coming out of the overtime DH worked. I also had $40 left from my $100 cash from last week so I added that to the coin jar money in my EF envelope. That made it total $69.50 so I will deposit that today, too. And yesterday was the weekly $10 auto deposit to savings that I've had for the past decade or so.

$3902.12 Previous EF Balance
+1000.00 Deposit
------------
$4902.12 New EF Balance
+__69.50 Coin Jar Money
------------
$4971.62 New EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto deposit
-------------
$4981.62 New EF Balance

That leaves me with $18.38 to come up with for the rest of the month to hit my goal of $5000 for June. Since there are two more auto deposits of $10 each this month, there will be no problem with hitting that. I'm excited. $5000 is such a nice number.

Not too much going on here today. It was a no spend day. I added $1.72 to the coin jar. I got a $5 giftcard from Swagbucks for Amazon, bringing my account to $135 in gift cards. This will be helpful at Christmas. I was also able to cash out today for another one. SB has been going pretty well this week. I hit the daily goal 4 out of 7 days. I would have hit it yesterday, too, but my daughter came in to have a serious discussion at 11:30 p.m. and I missed it by 6 points because I thought she needed my full attention. Oh, well. Some things are just way more important in life than an extra few points.

I haven't made it over to the food co-op yet. I think I probably could avoid it altogether, but just really want to buy some fresh wild salmon, so will be going tomorrow. I'll buy tortillas, freshly ground peanut butter, raw honey, and ice cream cones while there, since they have the type DS can have with his allergies. And maybe some Sundrops, too. Those are like M&M's only without artificial food colors, fake vanilla, and HFCS. I'll also see if they have Lima bean seeds. Lima beans are the only dried bean I can stand so I thought I'd grow and can some this year if I can find the seeds. I am hoping to spend no more than $100 there.

I also want to buy a watermelon and more strawberries from the farm stand. Although I should probably hold off on the strawberries since I managed to consume 2 pounds on my own since Friday. Okay, I had them with all three meals each day, but even I know that is an awful lot before they are fully in season.

I have a seven pound bone-in picnic ham in the crockpot to cook overnight, as I don't have any lunch meat for DD to take to school. She will be happy to cut a hunk off that come morning to take with her and DS and I will have breakfast and lunch taken care of (ham and eggs and hot ham and provolone cheese sandwiches).

I weighed the rabbit kits today. They are four weeks old. The biggest two are 1 pound 8 ounces each. The biggest last week was 14 3/8 ounces, so they have grown a lot. All kits are over a pound now with the smallest being 1 pound 1.5 ounces. Total litter weight is 8 pounds 2 ounces. Last week it was 5 pounds 4 ounces, so they have gained just 2 ounces shy of 3 pounds this week.

They are all very, very friendly so I think handling them daily since they came out of the nesting box was the right move. I am not seeing much skittishness at all. I am hoping one of the fast gainers is a female. Since I decided not to keep any of the 16 week olds for breeding because of skittishness, I'd like to keep one from this litter. Also, if I decide to sell any, extreme friendliness is a much wanted quality.

But right now I'm not sure I want to sell any, since our rabbitry is still small and it'll be a while before we can cover our meat needs and have surplus to sell. I'd like to get to the point where we have enough in the freezer to have rabbit once a week and be able to sell live, too.

Once we actually get to that point I will probably start raising coturnix quail as well for both eggs and meat. For the time being our egg needs are nicely met by the chickens, but once we move we won't have them unless we want to start from chicks again and I'm not sure I do. Plus coturnix hit maturity at 7 weeks old and they are so much easier to dress (maybe 2 to 3 minutes per quail), they are much more efficient at converting feed to meat than chickens, and have a much smaller footprint.

The quail are something we are looking at for next summer, since we'd have to buy an incubator. We can convert the outdoor rabbit hutches to quail cages, though, although we'd still need to buy or make breeding cages. Hatch rates on quail are about 50 to 70 percent and most of them will not sit on their own eggs, hence the incubator. Either that are we get a broody banty or silky chicken. When eating the eggs, it's about 4 to 5 eggs to equal the equivalent of a chicken egg, but they lay every day which chickens do maybe every 36 to 48 hours. We'd need about 15 females to meet the family's egg needs and then several breeding pairs for hatching eggs that would then be raised to maturity for butchering.

Also both quail and rabbits fall under the pet category for petsitters, so they are great livestock to have if you want to be able to go on vacation once in a while. Petsitters/house sitters are easier to find than farmsitters and don't require a ton of care, though they do need some stuff done daily.

Some day I'd really like to be sustainable enough with the rabbits and birds that we could also trade for organic grass-fed beef, milk, and cheese, organic pork, free range chicken, and the more difficult fruits and vegetables to grow.

I transferred the $44.99 left in checking to the Emergency Fund, which now totals $3902.12.

Payments made:

$1000.00 to Mom
$1000.00 to BoA VISA
__757.82 to Car loan (extra to principal)
___90.00 Physical Therapy
___44.87 Phone Old House
___23.39 Electric Old House
------------
$2916.08

I also took out $100 cash for the week, $30 for the kids' allowances, and spent $145.07 on groceries.

I still need to make a trip to the food co-op and then I should have at least $200 left for the Wisconsin Fund.

I have made it 3 weeks on one tank of gas and still have a third of a tank, so I think I'll make it until next payday before having to fill up. I am glad of it since gas has hit $4 a gallon. Of course, the reason I still have so much gas is that my daughter missed nine days of school with the evil stomach flu (she threw up so hard one day she broke all the blood vessels in her face, giving her skin a freckled appearance) and that the chiropractor took a two week vacation. The only places I drove during that time are to the grocery store and the feed store and physical therapy (one of which I cancelled when I had the evil stomach flu).

I am steadfastly ignoring the laundry and the garden today. I woke up feeling exhausted, so other than taking care of the animals, I have done nothing. The kids had plenty of leftovers to eat so are fending for themselves while I just lay in bed. I thought I was over the evil stomach flu, but I think I may be going in for round 2. Ugh.

Today was the day of the weekly auto deposit of $10 to the Emergency Fund. The new balance of the EF is $3857.13.

Tomorrow is payday and I have $5 left in my wallet and $44.99 left in checking. The $5 will go into my EF envelope for later deposit and the $44.99 will be transferred directly to the Emergency Fund. I am trying to make it a habit to do this with all funds left at the end of each payday week. With that as a goal I have been finding that my urge to spend right up through the week has lessened. I really want to hit $5000 this month for the EF so I am trying hard

I have been doing pretty well with Swagbucks. The last 3 days I hit the daily goal, though I don't think I will today, being is it is at 100 and I'm at 13. I cashed out for one $5 Amazon gift card.

I relocated a $40 gift card for Safeway. DH's work gives one at Thanksgiving and one at Christmas. We used one in California, but had misplaced the other one. The nearest Safeway is 35 minutes away and majorly overpriced, but I am getting so fed up with the Haggen chain since they were bought out that I might actually venture up there.

Haggen used to be my favorite store, but it's really gone downhill since the remodel. Except the prices have gone uphill. And don't get me started on the stench coming from the fish counter. It was so bad on the Memorial Day weekend I decided I am never buying fish from them again.

We have six enormous lemon balm plants growing in the backyard (and some elsewhere) and rabbits can eat that so I am going to harvest some today to give to them. They can have up to two cups of fresh vegetation a day besides their pellets and hay. So far I have given them carrots and their tops, Swiss chard, raspberry leaves, radish tops and blackberry leaves. Lemon balm should be easier to pick then the other leaves (no thorns!) and of course are cheaper than carrots or chard. I am growing chard to give them, but its not got enough on it to harvest yet.

I think I'm having a relapse of the stomach virus I had last week. Either that or I ate something I am allergic to without knowing it. All I want to do is sleep. I am so tired. Definitely going to bed early tonight.

Yesterday when I went to the chiropractor who was finally back from his long vacation, I looked at my card and I don't have to pay the next month of the chirocare family plan until June 28th. He added 13 days to my card to replace the 13 days he was gone. Normally it's due around the fifteenth. Which means I don't have to pay it out of this month's cycle at all. It can wait until the next cycle starts up. And because the 28th is a Friday and they are closed on Friday's we won't have to start the next plan until July 1st. It will still come out of the 28th's paycheck, though.

Meanwhile, that gives me $225 to work with that I wouldn't have had this month. It'll go into the Wisconsin Fund. It comes out of the 6/14 paycheck.

I think I forgot to say what my last coin jar update was. It was $5.65. The way I organize my coin jar is that all loose coins go in the jar, but all bills go into an envelope that I keep in the dresser drawer beneath the coin jar. On occasion I'll get 50 cent piece or a dollar coin and they'll go into the envelope, too. Right now there is a 50 cent piece in with my ones. Anytime I get enough change together to roll coins, then the rolled coin roll goes into the envelope, too. Whenever the amount in the envelope hits $30 or more I make a deposit.

I hit my daily goal yesterday on Swagbucks. I am not sure how since it was 100. I guess I was on the computer a lot yesterday so had the SBTV running in the background. I didn't search much, but I did get the first LA collectors bill. I also cashed in for a $5 gift card from Amazon. I don't know if I'll hit my goal today or not. It's 80, but I don't know if I'll have as much time to spend on the computer today.

I have five things coming out of Friday's paycheck, $1000 to Mom, the car payment, the electric bill for the old house, the phone for the old house, and $1000 to the BoA VISA. Then for 6/14 paycheck I have $2000 to BoA VISA and vacation will be paid off, the internet bill, and $1000 to the EF. There might be a few middling expenses charged to the Visa as DH will be coming home right before I pay that, but there is plenty there to pay it in full. It'll be nice to get back to doing that each month again. I think we only had it paid off for 2 months before going on vacation. It might have only been for one.

The 6/21 paycheck will be the small one with just two day's wages on it. That will be split between groceries, miscellaneous, the sleep doctor, and a good portion of it to the Wisconsin Fund. It looks like FIL and MIL will be staying at their condo from their travel club when they go, so DH might be able to crash there with them. If he didn't have to pay for a hotel that would make things a lot easier.

I had thought it was in Milwaukee, but it sounds like the hospital FIL will be going to is in Madison. I'm not sure if they've got a date yet, but the further out in summer or fall they get it, the easier it will be on our financials to find the money for this. I know you have to schedule quite a ways in advance for these things.

I think June is just going to be a very smoothly functioning money month, so long as I don't throw caution to the wind and decide to eat out a bunch. It is not on the agenda for this week, that is for sure. I have too much lovely food to cook that I am looking forward to making this week. And since I finally got a full night's sleep last night, I'm not going to be too tired to cook it.

Just checked my C1360 account and the interest hit. $2.35. I added it to the Emergency Fund. The new total is $3847.13.

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
------------
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.