I added the $5.41 interest from C1-360 account to the Emergency Fund.

$9409.98 Beginning EF Amount
+___5.41 Interest added
-----------
$9415.39 Ending EF Amount

Pinecone has sent me a sign up link. The only catch is that it has to be sent to someone through an email I forward to them. I can't just post the sign up link. If anyone is interested, leave me your email and I will send it to you. Then I will delete your comment if you say so in your request to remove the email address from my blog.

I've been getting about one paid survey a week from them.

Andromeda had four healthy kits yesterday and Phoebe had six today. I am very excited that Phoebe had all black kits. Since Phoebe is white and Wildfire is red, I was expecting those two colors. I was not expecting black. But clearly Phoebe's albino gene only makes her present as white. She has black genetics. So I get black New Zealand rabbits a whole year ahead of schedule! And without having to pay through the nose for one.

And with Lola's death, I have room in the rabbitry to grow up a doe as a breeder, so hopefully there are some girls in the litter to choose from. Then in a year I can bring in a black buck from elsewhere. It is nice to have some good rabbit news for a change.

I have someone who wants to buy some rabbit meat, so hopefully I will have a little more profit from my rabbitry this month. At least enough to pay for 150 pounds of feed.

And that was my scream you just heard.

$_9,948.36 Beginning EF Balance
+__57.00 AMEX cash back
------------
$10,005.36 New EF Balance

I've done it. I've got the Emergency Fund to $10,000. I never thought this day would come. I am so excited that it has.

I was actually surprised at how quickly the tax refund came. We were way behind on getting it sent off this year, but it came 8 days after we sent it in. Total this year was $6236.41. It would have been $60 higher if we hadn't done it online. But it cost $30 to do it online and we chose to pay for it from our bank account instead of with a credit card, not realizing until it was too late that it cost an additional $30 to do that, which is a major rip off in my opinion, but DH didn't read the fine print until too late. Oh, well, what is done is done.

I sent $1236.41 to the Emergency Fund.

$8531.50 Beginning EF Balance
+1236.41 Amount Added
-----------
$9767.91 New EF Balance

I also sent $1000 to the January Money Fund.

$1000.00 Amount Added
+_167.00 Beginning JM Fund Balance
------------
$1167.00 New JM Fund Balance

I added $1000 to the Appliance Fund.

$1000.00 Amount Added
+_200.00 Beginning Appliance Fund Balance
-----------
$1200.00 New Appliance Fund Balance

I set aside $1500 to pay for DH's sleep study and the remaining $1500 will go to pay for materials to build our green house and duck house.

We did not qualify for the child tax credits this year, DH worked too much overtime and it bumped us up, and our daughter is 17 this year anyway, but we were able to deduct the full amount for our HSA since we maxed it again this year. Without that our refund would have been much lower.

I think I am going to try to get the Emergency Fund to $10,000 by the end of the month. I think I can do it. I got our safe driver's refund check to cash, our AMEX check to cash, a $16 check for rabbitry sales to cash, $100 to come out of this coming week's paycheck and two more $10 auto deposits. I basically need to come up with about $30 to hit it and there are already 7 ones in the coin jar. I can do that.

Once the EF is at $10,000, then I am going to change my focus a bit. I will still deposit $100 a month to the EF, but the $10 weekly deposits, the refunds that come in, the rabbitry money, and the coin jar money are going to be used to build up the moving fund account. Right now there is only $600 in that account and $300 of that is going to have to go to the HoA for their extremely ridiculous new rule of paying the HoA $300 to transfer ownership of a property in the development to a new owner.

Even though we plan on renting a U-Haul to move, I know we'll need it out for a week so we don't have to rush things. I also need to pay for a piano mover to move the piano. And I'm pretty sure we'll need to pay for a few meals out while the kitchen is in transition. So I'd like to get that fund up quite a bit higher than it is. Maybe $1500 or so.

As soon as DH gets home we are buying our chest freezer with the Appliance Fund Money. I am going to get the biggest one they have at 24.6 cubic feet. That way we will have plenty of space for rabbit meat, a steer, half a hog, and a couple of lambs. Then the small chest freezer we currently have will be for chicken, turkey, and duck meat and the freezer under the fridge can go strictly for frozen fruits and whatever vegetables are not canned.

I made it over to the CU and made a deposit today into the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund. I had a lot of money to put in this time, tons of ones, rolled coins, and a couple larger bills. I often wonder if they think I'm a waitress saving all her tips, because I always deposit so many ones and coins. It came out to $101.

$8430.50
+_101.00
----------
$8531.50 New EF Balance

The milestone is that we now have one full month's net pay saved. We've had a month's expenses save for a little while now, but now we have passed the mark of a full cycle of paychecks. I am pretty happy about that.

I also added $6.87 to the coin jar tonight so I am already started on the next round. My goal for March is to hit $8600, which I will as I haven't even made my monthly $100 deposit yet and I have two more $10 per week auto deposits this month still to come. That will bring me to $8641.50, so I am going to go for a stretch goal and try to hit $8700 this month. I am still walking around with my AMEX rewards check, too, because the only place I can cash it is at Costco and I haven't been up for going there. I don't remember how much it is, but I'm thinking around $58.

It is nice to keep seeing the numbers going up. Now if the interest rates just would for bank accounts.

I want to get two more months' income saved and then after that I want to start laddering CDs in the amount of $1000 for each month. That way if something bad were to happen, we'd still have easy access to 3 months worth of income, but my money above that would be able to work a little harder for me.

I will earn at least $16 tomorrow in farm sales, possibly up to $20 if I can find one more bag of rabbit liver, so that will go into the savings account as well and will bring my total homestead earning to date to $115.

The new rabbits are adapting well. Wildfire has gotten very friendly and Cinnabun and Sienna are becoming less skittish. We bred 3 pairs of bunnies on the 8th, Piper and Wildfire, Serenity and Leo, and Lola and Starbuck, so around the 6th to 8th of April we will have litters again. I am hoping for some reds out of Piper's litter.

We slaughtered seven kits for the freezer yesterday. Again, most of these will end up ground. We are really making a good dent in our meat bill, even subtracting out the costs of feed, though it is still not the easiest part of farming.

I have selected the last of Serenity's does to grow up to breeding age. She has great confirmation and does not have the bend at the tip of her ears that I am trying to breed out of my rabbits. Since she will be here long term, we have named her Serena. She has a great personality and has never bitten or scratched.

I may keep one of Andromeda's boys, too. There is one without the bending ear tips as well, and he would be good to breed with Serena when he gets old enough. He has a great, friendly personality and a generally happy demeanor.

I sold another doe this week, Serena's sister, actually, for $20, so that will help offset feed. I've now made a total of $95 selling rabbit breeding stock, though my son did get a cut of that.

While I probably won't keep Serena long term or the buck I will breed her with, I will eventually sell them as proven breeders, I would like to keep a doe or a buck out of one of her litters.

5 of the kits get to grow out a little longer, including the buck I might keep. That leaves us down to 17 in our rabbitry at the moment. We haven't had so few in such a long time. Feed costs this month will be much lower.

I am still researching aquaponics, but may end up putting it off for another year. We will put up a greenhouse, though, this year. I am also researching goats, further. I am debating breeds at this point. I'm still leaning toward kinder, but I'm also looking into dairy sheep as an alternative.

We need to make a decision on ducklings soon. They either need to be ordered from a hatchery or we can go to the feed store this week and get potluck choices. I'd like to get some for future egg-laying. The chickens are getting old for layers and are so very noisy. I swear hens are louder than roosters sometimes. Some of the duck breeds are very quiet. They just murmur or hiss. Some are noisy, so you have to be careful you know which are which before buying them.

I still need to do my payday report for the last two weeks. I've been putting it off, because I've had a pretty bad headache and doing math stuff and analytical stuff just makes it worse.

The interest on my Capitol One 360 account hit. It is $5.74. I added it to my EF.

$8345.09 Beginning EF Balance
+___5.74 Amount Added
-----------
$8350.83 Ending EF Balance

I dropped DH off at the airport tonight, but before we left he emptied his wallet. He had ten ones and a bunch of coins. Altogether I added $14.42 to the coin jar. I also see little piles of coins he's left around the house that I need to go and gather up. He has a bad habit of emptying his pockets wherever he happens to be and not where the coin jar is. Probably I'll find an additional 50 cents or so.

I have a lady who is interested in buying rabbits in a couple of months. She wants to start raising them for meat and is looking for breeding stock for after she moves. I'm crossing my fingers as she sought me out as opposed to me advertising for it. Still, I may never hear from her again, either.

I haven't done Swagbucks since December. I just got exhausted from it. Not sure when I'll start up with it again. Just don't feel like it yet.

I broke my hairbrush tonight so will have to buy a new one. I am irritated. I know my hair is ridiculously thick and long, but a brush shouldn't just snap in two if it hits a tangle. Unfortunately I get a big tangle at the base of my skull where the C-PAP mask strap goes that has to be worked through every day. I am thinking about buying an old fashioned brush with a wooden handle and actual bristles. I'd have to order it online though. I haven't seen them in stores for years but I've seen them online. But I'll have to buy a cheap one in the meanwhile.

I added $8.12 to the coin jar today.

I haven't done Swagbucks in a week. My SB toolbar disappeared from my IE and I've tried redownloading it and nothing. The computer seems to think it is there, though it is not showing up in the list of programs when you look to install/uninstall something.

It's still on my chrome, but I find it is easier to use SB in IE than in chrome. Especially to have the SBTV running in the side.

Aside from that I've been too busy to put the effort into doing it right now. I know I'll get back to it in January. I have enough SB right now to cash out for a $30 GC, though I'll probably wait and get the 5 $5 at the start of Jan.

For the last 2 years we gave SIL a $200 gift card to Target. SIL lives at the poverty level despite working two jobs. This year we couldn't afford to be so spendy since DH's bonus was not as high as expected. I feel bad about it, because we like being able to help her out, but we have done a lot for her this year.

We even kept our own Christmas pretty simple. So this year she is only getting a $40 gift card. I am debating about giving her the 2 $50 Safeway gift cards we got from DH's work, since she lives near one and the closest one to us is 30 miles away, but then I think we will be going 4 weeks without a paycheck and that $100 might be something we could use for that time period.

With taking her and her daughters to Disneyland this year, I think we have spent more than enough money on them. I just hope she wasn't counting on the bigger gift card.

I deposited the coin jar money into the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund today. It was $43. I also sent $100 to C1-360 to the primary EF.

$7534.86 Beginning EF Balance
___43.00 Coin Jar Money
+_100.00 Monthly Deposit
-------------
$7687.86 Ending EF Balance

That leaves me with $33.14 to come up with this month to meet my November EF goal of $7720. I've got 2 more Thursdays this month, so that will take care of $20 of it, so really only $13.14 to scrape up. That should be easy enough.

I am hoping to have it to $8000 by the end of the year. That's a bit of a stretch, but I think I can do it.

DH found out that bonuses come out on December 20th, so we should get it by the end of December. I have no idea what to expect. The first year he worked for this company the bonus was 10% of yearly income. The 2nd year it was 5% of yearly income, because they only had small projects. DH says they did a lot of big projects this year and big projects usually come with more bonus money.

10% would be fantastic. It would mean putting aside enough to finish funding DD's first year at community college and having enough left over to pay the mortgage off (It's just over $8200), with a tiny chunk to the EF. 5% would still be pretty awesome, meaning having enough to pay for her college and having a small chunk left over to go to the EF.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 10%, but I will still be happy with anything they give us.

I managed to get $50 worth of gift cards from Swagbucks again this month. This is the second month running. I also hit my daily goals every day again this month, so that bonus should hit in a few days. I also lucked out on a big survey that should be credited in another 2 days.

If November goes this well, I will have over $300 in Amazon gift cards to spend on Christmas, along with the cash I've been saving each month. It's really nice to know that Christmas is taken care of and I won't have to last minute scrimp and save. Starting to save a set amount early in the year really does make all the difference.

Most of the time I only manage to get $25 in gift cards to Amazon from my Swagbucks stuff, but I had a little more time to waste in September since DS is actually doing most of his homeschooling without my input. So I managed to get $50 in gift cards this month.

And I hit the daily goal every day, so will get a bonus for that on top of the daily goal bonus here in a day or two. Probably my biggest change is doing their surveys. I didn't even start trying to do surveys until August. I tend to qualify for 3 to 4 of the big ones each week and at least one of the smaller ones.

I had originally planned on using my Amazon gift cards for Christmas, but I have been saving cash for that as well and have a good balance. So I am thinking of using my gift cards to buy quail supplies instead. I can get a good book on raising them and an incubator with quail egg inserts from Amazon.

I can make the brooder out of a cattle watering tub and a plywood board we already have with a spot cut out for the heat lamp to go through. They would live in the garage. We have the feeders from raising chicks and all I'd need is to get some marbles to put in the chick waterers we have. The marbles prevent the baby quail from climbing in and drowning.

The quail stay in the brooder until they are five weeks old. We'd have to build a pen for them to finish growing out in. We will be raising coturnix and they start laying eggs at 7 weeks old and are fully mature at 8 weeks old. We will then choose three males and 9 females. We will set them up in the outdoor rabbit hutches as breeding quartets for eggs. The rest we will butcher for meat. Incubation of eggs only takes 17 days. I'd like to eventually have 6 males with 18 females for breeding and eggs, but space constraints make that impossible before we move.

I canned my first batch of rabbit meat. I've never canned meat before. I ended up with six quart jars of meat. I didn't can the ribcage sections. Instead I used them to make stock and canned it, too. You can read about that on the farm blog if you like:

http://whendidthisbecomeafarm.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/first... It is nice to have some canned meat. I am always afraid the freezer will go out in a power failure. They rarely happen here, but they used to happen all the time at the old house.

Speaking of the old house, we are meeting with a realtor there tomorrow. Can't believe we finally get to move forward on getting it on the market.

DH's overtime pay hit the account this morning. I transferred $1000 to the Emergency Fund. Usually I nickel and dime my way along, so it was nice to be able to put a large chunk in for a change.

$6115.32 Beginning EF Balance
+1000.00 Amount Added
-------------
$7115.32 Ending EF Balance

$186.68 to go to meet my September goal. My October goal is $7500, which is a month's net earnings. I can't believe I am so close now.

The other bit of big news is that DH has hit the income point for the year when they stop taking out social security. It was actually met on August 30th. So for the last four months of the year we will have bigger paychecks. That will really help with my savings goals.

Projected earnings are $173K unless he gets more overtime this year and of course the Christmas Bonus total will be added to that. If Christmas Bonuses are 10% this year, he will get a check for $17,300 minus taxes. If it is 5%, he will get a check for $8,650 minus taxes. Either way, DD's first year of college will be paid for and we'll be able to use next year's tax refund for something other than saving for college. If something goes wrong with the bonus, the tax refund will still be enough to pay for her first year of college at the local community college.

I have done great on Swagbucks this month already without hardly trying. Today there is a swag code until 6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET. It is prosperity and worth 7 points.

Meal planning this week is again trying to get in some of end of summer vegetables and fruits.

Monday:
Beef chuck pot roast
Baked potatoes
Romano broad beans
Watermelon

Tuesday:
Spaghetti
Homemade spaghetti sauce with fresh tomatoes, fresh onions, minced garlic from the jar, fresh basil, fresh oregano, fresh thyme, a pinch of dried rosemary, freshly ground sea salt and freshly ground pepper and some tomato paste)
Meatballs (ground beef, Italian bead crumbs, parmesan, romano, egg)
Cole slaw

Wednesday:
Meatball sandwiches
Leftover cole slaw
Fried potatoes made with leftover baked potatoes
Nectarines

Thursday:
Fried rabbit
Corn on the cob
Broccoli/cauliflower
Cantaloupe

Friday:
Homemade pizza made with leftover spaghetti sauce (onion, bell pepper strips, ham, pepperoni)
Kohlrabi

Saturday:
Bacon cheeseburgers with homemade buns
Fried potatoes
Salad
Watermelon

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

DH cleaned out his wallet in preperation for leaving tonight and I cleaned out my purse. Together we had $13.63 for the coin jar.

DH's work called an hour ago. They've asked him to work an extra week so this hitch will be a 3 and 1, instead of a 2 and 2. It will be nice to have some overtime that we can actually save part of it. I'm going to put at least $1000 of it into the EF. I am hoping to have $5000 in it by the end of June.

DH needs a new laptop and I've only got $200 saved towards it. It'll be $300 saved by the next time he comes home, but with the overtime we'll be able to make up the difference. We could do 18 months same as cash, but I'd prefer not to. I'm trying to get away from that sort of thing.

He's been babying it along for a while. His DVD/CD drive quit working a couple months ago, his head phone jack is broken (he's been using a USB head phone set), the battery only holds 5 minutes of charge, and there is something wrong with the internal wifi card because it doesn't matter whose internet it's on, it drops it every five minutes or so. By the time he got everything fixed it would be about the cost of a new laptop. This one is a few years old and doesn't have a service agreement anymore. I think it's running Vista or ME for Windows.

As for the rest of it, I'm not sure. I'll figure that out when we get closer. I could fully fund the appliance fund so we can buy a chest freezer when we are ready. I'm just not sure yet.

We paid the phone bill for the old house today, $45.03. The only other bill due for the rest of the month is the propane and I have the money set aside for that. I'll pay it on Friday.

Speaking of the old house they completed most of the flooring this weekend. There is only one bathroom left to do and it won't interfere with the carpeting, so we have the rug laying scheduled now. Finally. Did I mention that the guy in charge of everything sliced his hand open and had to get 14 stitches, last Sunday? It looks nasty. He didn't cut anything important like a tendon, though. He was lucky. It is his dominant hand, too.

Mom is going away for the weekend, so I'll be on full time chicken duty Friday through Tuesday. Most of the time I just let them out in the morning and check their food and water. Mom usually puts them away at night and gathers the eggs during the day.

The kits are growing well. They are now completely furred, even the area around their mouths, so only their noses are pink now. They are so adorable. In a few more days they will open their eyes. In two more days I can change the nest box litter. They recommend waiting until they are ten days old before you do.

Hopefully tomorrow we will actually get the garden started.

I haven't been very together this week. Queen's death, while expected, still threw me for a loop. I've got my equillibrium back today, so I thought I better get my head out of the clouds and pay some attention to the finances. Although they were basically on auto pilot this week anyway. Nothing much happens during the last week of the month. I took care of property tax ($424.58, half year) and the water bill ($144, two months) on Friday which were the only things due. I also had physical therapy on Friday ($90).

Yesterday I cashed out at Swagbucks for a $5 gift cared to Amazon. I haven't really been paying much attention to SB this month, so only got $10 in GC's. Today they seem to be giving double points for everything so I've got SBTV running in the backrgound. I have just been more busy this month than usual and not wanting to waste so much of my free time on it.

I got 11 cents and a sheet of address labels from some charity I have not donated to in over ten years. I have written them and asked them to stop sending me appeals so they don't waste their money on me, but they don't listen. I have no compunction against using what they send. I donated well to them for five years, but my charitable contributions are focused elsewhere now, locally. Anyway, that is my fifth or sixth dime this month.

I added $12.26 to the coin jar today. I had a lot of ones in my purse.

I stopped by the feed store and bought a 40 pound bag of rabbit pellets. It is $14.99 plus tax, so $16.29 altogether.

I paid the AMEX off ($271.92) for the month. I need to make a large payment to BoA VISA, but I need to balance the checkbook first. With the large amount of overtime money in the bank account, I haven't been balancing daily like normal, so I'm a week behind. I'm nowhere near overspending or anything, just need to know exactly where I am at so I can figure out how big the payment can be.

My electric bill has been moved from the 7nth to the 13th. They have changed how they bill, so last month's was a little higher to compensate for the extra week. Now it's back to normal and I do like that it is away from the first week of the month. I really don't like anything being due then, because that is when all the autopays come out and I don't want to think about having to write out a check. Their website sucks, they use impossible to decipher captchas, and the amount is variable from month to month so I don't autopay or pay that one online.

I have made it through my second day of no eating out and sticking to the meal plan. I've been wasting more money than I want to think about on takeaway and last minute grocery runs for deli food because I have been under the weather and haven't felt like cooking. I aim to get that back under control. I am sure I will stop feeling better eating homecooked food again, too.

I guess that about catches me up. At least I can't think of anything else for now.

I found a ten dollar bill today, in of all places, the credit union parking lot. I mean, the one place that you think people would be careful with their money or at least be aware of the cash they have is there. Oh, well, finders keepers. It was an empty lot so not anyone around to see if it had been dropped. I put it in the coin jar so it will go to the EF.

I was at the CU getting money out since we never made it there Friday before they closed. I only took out $65. $25 of that was for the kiddos allowances. The rest was spent at the feed store getting more rabbit supplies. I will still need to get four more feeders and one more waterer this month or next, depending on when the new cages arrive. Still no info on the shipping delay. DH is going to call them tomorrow.

Mom is considering ducklings again. And turkeys. I have enough on my hands with the rabbits so I told her if she did, other than letting them out in the mornings once they were old enough, care would be up to her. Maybe next year when this is more of a routine, but not right now.

I'll need to pick up a bale of Timothy hay in about a week. The rabbits have gone through quite a bit of it. Fortunately a bale of hay is about $7. It's taken the rabbits 5 weeks to go through 1/2 a bale. We had 3/4 of a bale on hand already.

I still need to order the rabbit wringer and get a good set of poultry sheers. The rabbits will be ready for butchering in 3.5 weeks. Oh, that's going to be a tough one, but there is a reason why we are raising our own food, and this comes with it. Doesn't mean I am looking forward to it in the least. Still, I know they've had a great life with lots of snuggles, good care, and excellent food. I can't say the same of the plastic wrapped polystyrene trays of meat in the grocery store. And if it turns out we can't do this, the feed store wants to buy them so if nothing else, we can breed them for pets, right?

Today has been a rough day. Our city had 21 people in the Boston Marathon. As of the last news eighteen had been reported in to family as safe, including the pastor who married DH and me, and his wife. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to be affected by something that happens on the other side of the country. The world seem so big until it is suddenly made small by something like this.

Had a bit of a shopping spree. Only it was at Goodwill so it didn't cost very much. DD got 3 lightweight sweaters, a cute turquoise empire waisted spring shirt, and a 3/4 length lambskin jacket. I got two 8 x 10 tarps, 5 wide mouth pint jars with rings and lids, and DH got a thing to help his laptop fan work more efficiently. Hey, it's a big shopping spree for us! We spent $53.72.

I need the tarps for the rabbit shed to hang on the walls behind the cages to protect the walls against sprayed urine. Yesterday I picked up two rabbit cages at a feed store near the ranch we get our meat at. We were on the way back from our ranch trip and there has been a shipping delay on the cages we ordered and we can't really wait much longer to take the kits from the mother rabbit. I just need to pick up a couple of feeders tomrorow and we can start taking the babies away.

When we are at the feed store they inquired about our rabbits and I left contact info, because they are interested in buying them to sell as pets. Of course I told them we are just getting started, so it wouldn't be for a while. Someone is going to call me.

I just find it interesting that through no effort on my part whatsoever we have people that want to buy our rabbits for pets or for food. I guess they are right when they say word of mouth is often enough. Of course, this first batch is for us, but we should have a new batch of kits in about 4 weeks.

There are some pedigree NZ Whites on offer in the next county so if the cages come in time, I may see if I can get a couple more adult does. Then I can really get into production.

It snowed here yesterday morning. I don't even know. It was just a light dusting, 1/2 inch or so, certainly not a blizzard, but hello, it's the middle of April. This is so not on.

I think I will pay property tax tomorrow. The courthouse is next to the library and I have a book on hold to pick up so might as well combine trips, even though tax isn't due until month's end. Not much point in waiting. I just want it done because the last two years I waited until the last minute and then had to pay it online, along with the online charge for doing so.

I've not been as chatty over here. That's mostly because I've been talking about the farm stuff over on the other blog, trying to mostly keep this one on the financial front. If you want to catch up with that stuff you can visit me there at

http://whendidthisbecomeafarm.wordpress.com/

Supposedly the house will be done by the first week of May. I'm still not holding my breath. It would be nice. That's an excellent time to put it on the market. And it'll be move in ready. But they've been pushing the date out and out and out since this began, so who really knows? I just want to be done with it.

I got another $5 Amazon gift card from Swagbucks. I haven't been very focused on it this month. My account balance is now $120.

DH's mother gave us a camera so now I don't have to worry about saving up for a camera. Which is nice.

Oh, and I found a dime in the parking lot today. It went to the coin jar.

I was able to pay back the $250 I took out of the EF and add enough to meet my savings goal of $3200 by the end of March. It now sits at $3253.65. So my goal for April will be to get it to $3455. My usual amount sent to the Emergency Fund is $140 a month ($150 if there happens to be 5 Thursdays in a month). To meet my goal I will need to come up with an additional $61.35.

While DH has had his overtime approved, there may be trouble with finding him a bed. As they have ramped up for the busy season, they've hired more people and of course the rooms are very tightly scheduled. DH is willing to change rooms on a nightly basis if necessary, so hopefully they will come up with something. Otherwise he won't be able to get it this month.

Because the head people are getting anxious for redlines to be done, and because there is no one who actually is in the position for the work that needs to get done, it's going to sit there until DH can get to it, which means if they can't find the bed now, the work won't get done until they do.

Since it is not part of his usual work which is coming in fast and furious, they can't just pull him off what he's doing either and have him do redlines instead. So whether it is in April or in May, at some point he will need to work six weeks straight through. It's just a question of when. I just hope they can find the beds now. I'd rather he be home in six weeks for rabbit harvesting then miss it. I can handle most aspects of it, but I don't want to do the actual deed on my own the first time.

I cashed out at ACOP today for $17.10. They will be sending me a check in 2 to 4 weeks (usually takes 10 days in reality). That will go into the Emergency Fund when it arrives.

I should be getting a safe driver's refund check in a week or two from Allstate. It's usually between $20 and $30. That will go in to the Emergency Fund as well.

I also cashed out for a 5 gift card for Amazon through Swagbucks today. Hey, those of you who do Swagbucks, where do you find the daily goal you are talking about? I've looked around a bit, but I can't seem to locate it.

I need to try to get my act together on doing surveys again. ACOP sent me two good ones last week and I totally spaced on them.