Today is a no spend day. I didn't even use gas today as we went nowhere. I like days like this, just laze around and do nothing days...okay, I did do dishes and cooked three meals, well, 2 since we warmed up fish and veggies leftover from lunch for dinner, and I pulled some weeds. But other than that...LOL

I forgot, I did do some laundry today as well, but most of the day was spent reading, writing, and I'll watch the two shows I taped Monday and Tuesday as well tonight while I fold laundry. Kyle XY and Eureka. I don't watch much, just that, Doctor Who and Torchwood, but the stuff I do watch I am fanatical about. Well, not fanatical really. Except for Doctor Who. But anyway...

I wrote eleven pages on my book today so I am happy and the next portion is clearly plotted out so I ought to be able to pound out a whole chapter or two this week.

My cold is still bothering me a bit, I am still getting dizzy if I move too fast or bend down to pick something up off the floor. The cough is mostly gone though. Still running a bit of a fever though and have the joint pain still, which seems to have settled in the inside of my hip sockets and behind my left knee, weird place for it. Well, compared to this time last week, its not much of anything, but its not feel good plow ahead conquer the world which is how I'd much rather be feeling at the moment. August is normally my best month of the year. But it is getting better and that is what I focus on.

I am putting off balancing my checkbook. That's the reason for the overly chatty moment here. Sigh. It's not that bad, I just really dislike doing it. Well, I suppose I best get to it.

I read this article today:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/BrokenChinaADysfunctionalNation.aspx

If you think business practices in the states are corrupt and stupid and that our economic system is broken, this article about China might have you thanking your lucky stars that at least we are decades away from the sort of thing going on there.

It's a long article, but very good and well worth the read.

I transferred the weekly $10 to ING this morning, bringing the total in the EF to $760.51. I peaked at how much interest I have earned so far this month and it was at $1.46.

I read this article and thought it was interesting, though not really something I didn't already know, it validated what I did know and echoed my experience here at savingadvice.com:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/SaveMoney/HowToSaveTwoHundredThousandInSixMonths.aspx


Added 37 cents to the change jar today.
Spent $10 on gas and $12.63 on dinner for me and the two kids.

Yesterday the temperature here got to 105 by five o'clock. It took until 3 a.m. just to get my room cooled off enough to sleep. Fortunately today it was "only" 82 at its worst and there was a nice breeze. Still have a hot house but not a baking hot house.

The kids are spending the night with my mother and I will pick them up tomorrow at four. Tomorrow is also payday so there will be a good bit of money going out to credit card debt.

I am currently watching 3 different shows on the internet that I either missed when we didn't have cable or are from the U.K. One is Kyle XY which can be watched directly from the network website, one is The 4400 which I am watching season 3 of off of youtube and the third is a supernatural one called HEX which is very, very weird and dark, and definately British.

I finished watching Mansfield Park last week and loved it. Of course, it's Billie Piper so what's not to love? Watched the British miniseries of Casanova and Blackpool, both with David Tennant, again what's not to love? Okay, they were both a bit weird and they allow far more things on their television shows than we do even on HBO it seems.

I'm looking forward to watching The Ruby in the Smoke when I get through the current ones. And yes, I am watching a lot of tv but it has been far too hot to do anything else! In a week I probably will go for two weeks without watching any because we will be on vacation and then I'll be reading Harry Potter which always takes me at least a week.

I think that covers everything.

Wasn't there a boy band called that about ten years ago or so? That's how hot it is right now. 96 degrees, and today there is no wind at all. The only way the kids are allowed to play outside is if they stay under the trees, at least until the sun moves to the other side of them and then the horseshoe will be in the shade and they can play there.

I think they are nuts. The house is still plenty cool enough to be mostly comfortable. But it was not cold this morning despite running the fans in all the windows all night. It was just cool.

I hope this heat wave breaks soon. It's tempting me to buy a single room air conditioner or something. I've always said I'd never need an AC in the house since we only have 2 hot months. But after last summer and now this, I'm sorely tempted.

Today is shaping up to be a no spend day. So was yesterday. The kids were begging to go out to eat or to go down to the gas station for junk food, but I have held firm. We just don't need to make any trips when we will be going to town tomorrow, and they don't need junk food anyway. They just want it.

I wrote 12 pages yesterday, so I am quite proud of myself. Getting back into the flow of things again was not as hard as I expected once that pesky writer's block broke.

I received the final final bill for my surgery and I owe $1097 for my portion. The last so-called final bill was off by $10. Not in my favor. Ah, well. Life goes on and I go with it, so I'll deal. As ever.

I had to harvest more broccoli this morning and pick more strawberries. The garden is going like gangbusters and the zucchini, cucumbers and squash are still in the flowering stage, so I imagine in a couple more weeks they will take off like crazy. Hopefully they will wait until we get back from our vacation.

We are trying to decide what we will do on the island. Butchart Gardens of course, with the fireworks and light show, and we plan on going to The Center of the Universe, but after that, it's pretty much open. There is a Native American exhibit that we wanted to see last time we were there.

I'd like to go inside the parliament building as it was closed last time we went for Canada Day. And I'd like to go whale watching and take the carriage ride through downtown Victoria. We took the carriage ride through old Victoria last time we went.

The kids want to see the Undersea Garden again, which is amazing. It's built right on the floor of the bay and you can look right into the underwater habitat. It also has stuff like in an aquarium. And maybe we'll go see Miniature World and the Butterfly Garden again. We have seven days up there and some things only take half days. But we don't want to run every single day. We'd like to just hang by the pool a couple times.

At least lodging isn't costing us anything. We're going through my parents' travel program. They had a bunch of points about to expire so they booked a condo for us to use. It has a full kitchen, so we will be taking some food across the border with us. I still have to check on exactly what can cross the border. But we know where the organic grocer is up there and there's always the QFC if we need it.

Aside from the Undersea Garden, when I ask my kids what they want to do up there they say they want to go to the Spaghetti Factory! And the ice cream place with 97 flavors. DH is just as bad, he wants to go back to "that little Italian place" and the ABC breakfast restuarant. Which we will, but of all the things they remember, they remember the restaurants the most vividly.

I guess I shouldn't throw stones. When I went to Disneyland last I was looking forward to the Blue Bayou restaurant an awful lot. Just have to remember this isn't a food vacation. We're only planning on one meal out a day anyway, since we can cook breakfast and one other meal at the condo, except the day we go to the one restaurant.

Not much going on today. Laundry and dishes and minor house pick up to do. And a nice day to hang clothes on the line. The weather report for this week scares me. It's going to be back in the mid to high 80's and one day at 90. Well, that will dry a lot of clothes, won't it?

...looking at cars online. Sigh. I saw something that looks just like what we need. It's a gorgeous well-maintained Ford mini-van with leather seats, 1995, 110K miles, in excellent repair, for $3200.

I am seriously thinking of scheduling a test drive on it. Of trading in the Blazer on it. We can definitely swing it. But do I want to exchange a 1996 for a 1995? Well, it's got 45,000 fewer miles on it than the Blazer does. And it is in working condition, whereas the Blazer needs the air conditioner and some other under the hood type thing fixed. We can do the payments no problem.

And the other thing is, its a Ford. We've had excellent luck with Fords. This Chevy has been nothing but a drain on us since the day we bought it. Not that I'm anti-chevy. My first car was a Chevy Nova (1976) that I got in 1988 and it is still out on the road today, I still see it going strong. But, it seems the old Chevy was a lot better than anything circa 1990's.

But, but, but, we think we can manage to wait another year before buying any replacement vehicles. So why do I go looking for these things when I know better?

Yesterday was payday. Bills paid were:

$820.00 to BoA Visa
$372.00 to Water/Sewer
$ 88.90 to Citi MC
$ 34.00 to Security system
$ 93.00 to Puget Sound Energy
$ 30.57 to Life Insurance
$ 60.00 to Medical
$100.00 to Gas Card
$ 76.83 to Costco groceries and toilitries
$105.89 to Haggen groceries
$ 72.00 to Cell phone

So quite a bit of money out yesterday. Water/sewer is 6 months. They've switched over to a new computer system and have their elbows up their noses when it comes to billing. Fortunately I've just been keeping the money in account until they got around to billing. It's supposed to be $104 every two months.

Next week will be a rather large payout as well, as propane goes out, garbage, medical and house mortgages go out, homeowner's association dues, car insurance and $200 to Comcast for hooking up the new digital phone, putting in a new cable system for the internet and moving an existing cable to a new location for the telly.

I'm still not a huge fan of having cable telly again. But I absolutely adore cable internet. Makes me happy. I also like having caller ID for the first time. It's not an extra with the new system, it comes standard. I ignore call waiting. I think its rude and always have and I will not use it. Well, unless its DH. That could be an emergency. So I would then. Just have to figure out how.

The PC went belly up this week. I'm not sure if I said that before or not. When DH comes home he will do some tinkering and if that doesn't work we will take it in to 3-D, the local computer fixer people and see if anything can be done. We'll at least retrieve the photos off the hard drive. Then we will be looking at saving up for a little Compaq desktop. Doesn't have to be anything grand or expensive.

Oh, gas prices have dropped again, here. I filled up at Costco yesterday at $2.99 a gallon. It didn't even cost $45 for just under 15 gallons. Last time it was $52! So that's nice. It's also nice to still have over $50 on the gas card.

I need to remember to call and make an appointment to have the steering fluid flushed in the car. It's in serious need and I will try to schedule for next Friday as I will be in town doing all the banking for next payday then. I have a couple more repairs to schedule as well. It seems it's always something, but I suppose when your car is 15 years old, you do what needs doing to keep it on the road. The repairs still aren't more than half a car payment averaged throughout the year, so I think we're still doing good there.

Not much else going on. Oh, I was able to watch Doctor Who Utopia today. Took a good bit of hunting to find a working download, but I finally did. It only aired on Friday in the UK. It'll start airing in the states on July 6. Not sure when the DVD will be out, but definitely not until after it finishes its run on Scifi channel. I'll need to start saving up for that, too.

I found out Torchwood starts airing on BBCAmerica in September. Not sure if SciFi will do the spinoff or not. Well, I've watched them all online anyway. No info on when the DVD of that comes out either, but it'll probably be just as pricey as DW, so I should probably just double the amount I'm putting away for DW.

I think that's about it then, for today. No money spent at all today.

I read a very good article this week entitled "When Banks Turn Evil." I thought I'd pass it along. It is quite enlightening.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/BetterBanking/WhenBanksTurnEvil.aspx

Curious to hear what others think on this one.

Jiminy, yesterday was a busy day. We are spending the holiday weekend (no school on Friday so a four day one for us) doing intensive spring cleaning. We got so much done. All of my recycle bins are full of paper, plus two paper bags full of shredded documents. Of course, recycling doesn't come for 10 days and we very well may have more to add to it by then.

We're being brutal in what we get rid of and what we are keeping. Sometimes I think its not brutal enough but there will be a chance for that again in future.

We borrowed DH's dad's truck yesterday in exchange for putting 3 gallons of gas in it and we got to leave the kidlets with his mom all day, so we got alot more done than we otherwise might have. We took a full truckload to storage. The house is beginning to notice the impact of less stuff.

You know how sometimes when you really get into it, it seems like you totally have to trash the house while you're cleaning and sorting to get to anything and while you're doing it it looks worse than when you started, even though you know in your head you've accomplished something? Well, we're past that stage now and into the it looks so much better stage.

The cable people are coming on Tuesday and I actually think the house is going to be presentable by then. It is going to be really odd to have cable again and it is going to be really wonderful to have cable internet for the first time ever. We've been tootling along with a 56K modem since we first went online.

We are getting the bundle package for one year, so it will be $100 for tv, internet, and phone service. Currently we are paying $62 a month for two phone lines and internet service, so this will be adding $38 to the total. We will only have one phone line but long-distance in the U.S. will be free, so I won't have to buy the calling cards from Costco anymore to talk to DH when he's in Alaska. Since we are downgrading to trac phones on our cells next month, the difference there will more than cover it.

We still won't watch much in the way of TV though. We have gotten out of the habit and I like that. But we did want Sci-fi channel back and we will be getting BBC America and the one children's network that we want, as well as History channel and Discovery channel and that's pretty much what our TV watching will be confined to.

We are also insituting limits on the kids on how much they can watch daily (like 30 minutes on week days) and all homework and chores have to be done first. There will be no mindless watching. It'll be turned on only for programs, not to "see if something" is on to keep us company. It may be a challenge to see if this will last but DH and I are both pretty determined. As for me, I will probably only have the TV on Fridays and Saturdays. And that's the way I like it.

Okay, enough ingnoring of the cleaning, sorting, trashing and storing. Back to it.

This is ridiculous. Hello, PNW? Hello, Mountains? Hello, rain? Where'd you go. What the heck is with the heat all of a sudden?

I watered my veggie starts extra well today. I don't want them dying from lack of moisture. That would defeat the purpose of growing veggies to save money at the grocery store.

I was able to do a little weeding when the sun passed behind the big cedar tree and the area went into shade. I'll do a little more in about an hour when it sinks enough to be behind the fir and pine copse. I am taking it very slow and easy. I don't want to overdo it.

Oops, I just remembered I need to go hang up a load of towels on the clothesline. I have to take advantage of this while it lasts for something.

I think I got twelve hours of sleep from when I went to bed last night until I got up today. Of course, I had to get up twice during the night to take medication, but went right back to sleep. My body must have really needed it.

I think I may go sit out on Mom's front porch/deck for awhile and watch the flowers. It's windy so they dance a bit when it is. Nice and relaxing. It is a warm wind, which is nice.

She needs to put her porch swing up on the deck, that would make it even better, she just never got around to it last fall when the new deck was put in. Maybe when DH comes home again he can help her do it with my nephew-in-law.

Today is definitely a no spend day. Nowhere to go, nothing to buy.

Today is my blogoversary. I had written this wonderful wildly witty entry and it disappeared into the ether, and I don't have the energy, the memory, or the desire to recreate it, but you all would have been very entertained and it would have offered you a life changing moment. No, not a life changing moment in your life, just one in mine.

Which is what this year has been like for me, one life changing moment after the other. Some were so little I barely noticed them until they built upon each other and suddenly I had some really big things going on in my life. The biggest one of all? Living within our means. Where did that come from? How did we do that? Where did this amazing thing come from? It would have been a thrill ride to read about it. But oops, its gone. So...that was our big life changing moment. Hope you were along to see it as it happened and if not, go back and see how it did. I think there's a time machine around here somewhere...

I guess I'll just write about my day today instead. I went to the doctor, my blood pressure is happy on the cut from 40mg to 20mg on my meds for the last two weeks, so I get to continue on that for a while and come back in July for another check. One more step in my plan to get off it for good.

I also got my flu shot booster and don't need to worry about that again until October. Thyroid meds are doing a good job so I'll stay on that as well.

Other things done today, a trip to storage, a visit to the chiropractor, and driving DH to the airport. Then a wedding shower. It went okay. I had very mixed feelings about going to it. I'm happy for the people getting married, they are both great people.

But the husband is, or rather was, the spouse of a very close friend who died way too young and way too unexpectedly and it feels wrong to think of him as married (or about to be) to another woman. My friend's twin daughters were there and they are very happy and get along well with what will be their new siblings. I was very happy for everyone, but looking at the girls was eerie. They look so much like my friend did as a girl. Still, the two merging families are all so overjoyed. It has been good on both sides for everyone.

I think mostly it just has made me miss my friend. I will visit her grave tomorrow and then I think I will be okay about everything. She was the kind of person who would want everyone to be happy after she was gone and going there and reminding myself of that will help me to stop being a silly goose about it.

Anyway, that was my day.

In addition to the $13 in rolled coin and $10 survey check that I deposited yesterday, I also had $25 in ones. So that was a total of $48 to the vacation fund. The new total in the vacation fund is $134.47.

Today was the day of the weekly auto deposit to savings of $10. I also had an additional $30 to add, so that is $40 that is being sent off to ING for the EF. That brings the new total in that account to $578.95.

We rented a storage unit this week and have started moving stuff into it, not much yet as its just whatever fits in the trunk on a day we are going there anyway. I think we may get a U-haul for one serious trip, though. But first we will try to borrow FIL's truck.

I had my carnial sacral therapy this morning and it went well. I am starting to see a bit more improvement.

DH came home yesterday so I drove to the airport to get him and we filled the car up with gas @ $2.95 a gallon. Ick.

Rose went to a birthday party last night and while we were out in that area we drove around looking at the houses there. They were gorgeous. This one for sale had a magnificent view of Mt. Baker and it was for sale so we grabbed the flyer. It was really an amazing house, 3000 square feet, tons of windows, custom built log cabin house with dark green trim, 3 bd, 2 ba, lots or room, granite countertops in the kitchen, huge decks, a loft, tile floor in the kitchen, hardwood floors in the other rooms on an acre of wooded land, jetted bath tubs and an outdoor hot tub. The roof was aluminum though and I don't like that. I like shingles. But it was still lovely.

The cost, though? Woo Hoo. $950,000! Holy guacamole. But I think for what it was that was a fair price, just not for us. I don't think I'd ever be willing to spend that much money on a house.

DH has been told that his contract for the new job will be given to him to sign on April 10th and that the job will start on April 17th. I still don't know if I'll believe it until his signature is on the dotted line. Seems to me like so much could happen in the next 17 days.

I am trying to keep an upbeat and positive attitude about all this but I do not want to be disappointed. I guess I'm trying to keep a lid on my expectations, even as the light at the end of the tunnel gets ever brighter. I want to be happy and excited, but its more like I'm just starting to bubble over a bit. Holding everything in check until it is 100% in place.

I want this so badly because it means finally crawling out of this debt hole dug by so many medical bills. I want to be free of that burden and this is a means to accelerate that. Just the thought that in a few years time we will be out of debt instead of in years and years, makes me want to believe in the company. But I don't. Not yet.

Today is payday so I will be heading to town to do the banking, paying some bills and the medical mortgage, trying to get the doctor on the phone to call me in a different blood pressure medication and something for this nasty sinus infection that won't die.

And I will be dragging Rose around with me, unless I can get ahold of my mother and she can go be sick at her house. She did go to school yesterday since she was feeling better but then last night she spiked a fever again.

The last empty lot in our neighborhood is being de-treed this morning. It's a double lot, too. So we got to watch trees crashing down. I met the lady who is going to be putting a house on the lot when I was waiting with Tobias for the school bus to come. She seems nice. No young kids, just a daughter who is 16.

They put the JVA up at DH's work yesterday. They have to keep it open until April 4 even though they supposedly are planning on promoting DH into this position. Just another hoop to jump through and I still don't trust his company. We shall see. I really hope it all works out because this will be a huge income leap for us.

I have to make an appointment today for an oil change on the Blazer and I think the accelerator is wonky, too. Sometimes the little thingy next to the speedometer gets stuck up on 4, which it shouldn't be getting to to begin with. Usually it revs up to 3 if I'm going up to 55 than drops back down to 2 or between 1 and 2. And the sound it makes is different than normal. And you have to punch it to go in reverse. Still not going to fix the AC or the 4 wheel drive though. Finishing the 4 wheel drive fix is another $200 and they can't guarantee that it will indeed fix it.

We so need to replace that vehicle. At least the car is in good shape, other than I need to get it in for an oil change as well.

DH will be home on Wednesday so I can get everything sorted for late next week. I hope.

Well, this is kind of anti-climactic after my 100,000 hits post, which by the way put me over 1000 comments, two biggies in one day.

Anywho, I finally figured out how to work the sites I frequent portion of my settings (never looked under links before), so I have put down some of the sites I visit a lot. Only some of them are to do with personal finance. A couple of them are quite old-fashioned, but if you can get past sentences like, "Suppose your husband can only give you $30 for the grocery budget this week...", they can be quite informative and entertaining.

My favorite in that vein is the Home Economics Archive Research and Traditions, or HEARTH, that operates out of the Cornell Library. It has a lot of really good information from out of print home economics books between the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century. And a lot of is very helpful to frugal men and women today, again if you can get past the less than liberated women ideas. Worth it though.

Menus4Moms is like that, too but had good ideas for scrimping on the grocery budget but still eating pretty well.

I also threw in some legitimate survey panels that I have actually received payment from and did not ever have to pay them anything at all. And my two favorite authors and a couple of my personal fun/fan things to make it look like I am more well-rounded than I am.

Did I mention in my last post what a lovely day today was? It got up to 72 degrees in town, and 68 at home and it was bright and sunny. Last week at this time it was snowing. Go figure. MSN weather said it was going to rain all day and be 50 degrees. Guess you can see why I use google weather most.

Anyway, it was finally a nice enough day for a long enough time when DH was actually home, that we took down the outdoor Christmas lights. I bet I made the neighbors happy. Not that I really care what they think anyway if I have a few light up deer and some other standees in my yard when their idea of lawn ornamentation is white trash junk yard deals and six cars in various states of do they run or not. Well, or what the other neighbors think either. We're quiet, good neighbors, pay our association dues on time every year and keep the weeds mowed. I figure if it bugs them they can tell me and no one ever has.

But I am glad to have them down because it means I can now get to weeding flowerbeds and garden beds if the weather stays clear. I am so ready for spring. Today was a gorgeous taste of it and I want more.

I did some poking around and I have crocus, daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths all coming up, which usually doesn't happen up here in the mountains until April. I may have blooms in 3 weeks instead of the end of April. Oh, and my primroses are blooming, very pretty. Of course, I found my first slug today, too. Ick. Still pretty small though, less than an inch long. I hope they aren't bad this year and that all the cold killed the eggs, but I fear they may be nasty.

I am raring to go on veggies, but from past experience I don't dare plant until April and even then sparingly. We've had a hard frost as late as April 15th and I don't fancy losing seedlings. But I can at least plant snow peas on the 1st.

We're going to have to do some serious fence repair or replacement this summer. The old fence is just rotting and it was so poorly installed by the previous owners. I'm surprised its lasted eight years as it is. Just another thing to put on the list. We have a wants list and a needs list, and fence goes on the needs list because we live off the highway and I don't need my kids wandering out of the backyard and up there and getting themselves run down, especially as we are on a dead man's curve sort of area.

I really hope they hurry up and get the funding for that project at DH's work because I have so many things that need doing and we can't start until it comes through.

We had a gorgeous sunny day today. Almost all of the snow has melted, it is down to maybe 1 inch to 1/2 inch in places. It would have been a great day for hanging laundry if I hadn't already spread it over the drying racks to dry inside last night. Oh, well.

Today was a no spend day. I did a load of dishes and vacuumed the living room. Then I wrote for 6 pages.

I wrote 8 pages last night and 2 the night before, if I remember correctly. It might have been 3. I need to go back and count everything up again, I've lost track. I think its in the 170's. I now have 8 chapters written in order and then a ton of out of order "scenes" that will get worked in as I go. Some of the "scenes" are 1 or 2 pages and some are closer to 10. I never could completely write something in order, always get flash forwards, as I call them.

The more I write, the more I am thinking this may need to break down into four books, one per year that covers the story. Otherwise its going to be way too long. I don't want to be Harry Turtledove or J.K. Rowling and cause carpal tunnel syndrome to my readers from holding heavy books if my books ever do end up getting published.

Still no news on the PTR payments. I think I am going to quit them all. Now that I am writing so much I'd rather use that time on it. Much more productive and a possible much larger payoff in the end.

It snowed most of last night, then when the sun came up it started melting right away. It got up to 51 degrees and now as the sun is heading down it is raining ice, so I am sure as soon as the temp drops in the dark it will snow again all night, and melt again all day tomorrow. We are left with a crusty 2 inches at the moment.

I picked up the kids and the laundry from Mom's. She was so great to do it all. Well, not all, I've been doing the towels at home and hanging them on the drying racks. I do look forward to my new dryer when I get around to being able to get it. I will still line dry and rack dry to a certain extent even after. But I want the option of using my dryer in a case where someone's coat gets soaked but not dirty or same with shoes.

I am feeling a little better, I got some serious sleep Friday, didn't do that great last night, but Friday helped so much it didn't matter too much. I made the kids clean up the living room, they had trashed it royally before going to Mom's for the weekend, so I saved it for them to clean! Hey, they need to earn their allowances.

I am almost caught up on dishes. I have half a load in the sink still, and am currently washing a load and did another one this morning. I really let that slide while sick, only washing when we ran out of something. I did rinse everything so it didn't stink or mold, though. So it was mostly a question of just running everything through.

I have picked up one less than frugal habit this last year. I buy the jumbo aluminum foil from Costco and I use it to line my baking sheets. Then I don't have to clean my baking sheets. It is a bit wasteful environmentally but saves me time and I'm not trying to scrub burnt on cheese or sauce or whatever off the sheets. The foil does not end up being recycleable as it is not cleanable.

The kids have gone off down the road to play with some other kids so I am going to do some writing. I did 3 pages this morning before I picked up the kids. I'm really in the zone now. That puts me at 158. Go me!

Not much going on today. I wrote 5 pages last night before I went to sleep. Today I finished off season 4 of 24, but I still have to watch the bonus disc.

I need to do a load of dishes and a load of laundry and fold what is currently on the drying racks, but I am procrastinating fiercely instead.

Today was a no spend day.

Hanging out at my favorite car dealerships website for a bit today and they have 3 nice used cars, all the same make and model, just different model years and amounts of mileage and prices. They have tons of this model with cloth seats but we like the leather/leatherette type better as they are so much easier to clean with the two kids. Once you've had kids barf in the backseat of your car you'll see the difference in clean up time and ease.

Anyway, two of them are white cars with tan interior, virtually identical except on is a 2002 and one is a 2005 and of course mileage and price vary quite a bit, but even the 2005 with low mileage is about $8000 to $10,000 less than a current year model, depending on interior dodads. Our current sedan is a white car with tan interior so we'd be used to it, even if white is not my favorite color for a car, it does give good visibility at night, except in snow. The other car is silver with gray interior and is a 2003. Again, silver not my favorite color but I do like it, just not sure I want to be driving a dark car at night. Mileage is 32mpg hwy/28 mpg city.

Its not like what is available now matter, though. We have to get to the promotion and raise in April first. But I still like to go and look.

Almost every day this week has been a no spend day and today was one as well. Tobias now has a cough and the chills so I'm pretty sure he's down with the flu now as well as Rose. He will not be going to school tomorrow no matter how hard he fights me. He hates missing school! The last time I made him stay home he didn't speak to me for almost the whole day.

They had both been trying to talk me into going out for dinner or getting take out. We are having freezing rain and a lot of it and even if they weren't sick, I'm not about to go out in that stuff. And I didn't want to go out anyway. I think I'm through the worst of the flu but I don't need a relapse and I still am very tired and needing a lot of sleep. I wish I'd made it in to get my flu shot this year.

So I made macaroni for dinner which was easy, if not very fast and added some taquitos, one of the few processed food products I still buy, and some grapes. Not a grand nutritional meal, but cheap, made with food on hand and low effort.

I think I may pack up the kids tomorrow and go be sick at my mother's house for the day. She has satellite TV and that would keep the kids from getting on each other's nerves, too much and give me a chance to keep resting.

I've been thinking about little habits I have that save me money even though that was not the intention, it just turns out to be the benefit.

For example, my car has a delay on the lights. I can set it anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, and that is how long they will stay on after the car is turned off before they switch themselves off.

For years now I have had it set on the 3 minute delay because that is approximately how long it takes me to get everyone and all their stuff out of the car and up to the front porch and get the door unlocked and get inside. So I don't have to leave the porch light burning all day long if we leave in the morning, knowing we won't be back until after dark.

Now in the beginning this was just a bad habit of mine to forget to turn on the porch light, but now I consider it a good habit that saves a bit on the electric bill.

Anyone else have this sort of habit that unintentionally saved them some money?

Today, well technically yesterday, was payday. It was such a relief to finally have money again. I really hate paycheck to paycheck and I swear some day I will be free of that leash. It may take 10 years but I will be free of it!

I am so exhausted all the time right now. I wish I knew what was wrong with my system. Is it possible to get mono more than once in your life? Because I had that in 8th grade and that is the closest thing to how I feel right now. All I want to do is sleep. After the kids went to school today I went back to sleep and did not get up again until it was time to go out and meet the school bus. This was on top of a full night's sleep.

The kids wanted to go out and play and since it was sunny and reasonably warm out at 47 degrees I let them go until 5, which is when it gets on towards dark. So while they were gone I managed to pull myself together long enough to check online to see what the amount of the direct deposit was and to write out some bills.

$42.92--Homeowner's Insurance
$41.73--Phone
$70.94--Cell Phone
$93.74--Citi MC
$93.00--Puget Sound Energy
$35.00--MB Youth Baseball--T-ball (Tobias)
$45.00--MB Youth Softball--Fastpitch (Rose)
$100.00-Cash out for gas
$312.00-MBNA MC

I still have to pay the house mortgage ($400), the 1/2 year dues for the homeowner's association ($125), set aside money for 1/2 the water bill due at Feb's end ($56), 1/2 for garbage ($25), put aside $50 for propane (still haven't been billed yet) and $100 for property tax savings out of this check.

Mortgage and Homeowner's dues are due on the 1st. I would have paid the mortgage today but we didn't make it into town before the CU closed. The drive-thru is open until 7 but they won't take mortgage payments, so I just could get the cash out for gas. And there is no one in the office on Fridays to accept the dues, either. So I will do those most likely on Monday.

Oh, I went to two grocery stores and spent $37.16 at one and $86.44 at the other one. I did make one wasteful food purchase. They had Marie Calendar TV dinners on sale 4/$10 so I bought four spaghetti dinners. To me, that is the ultimate in wasteful food spending because it is the absolute easiest, cheapest meal to make from scratch. But I am sick and I wanted my comfort sghetti, so I did it.

Usually when I buy something from Marie Calendar it is just something I don't normally make myself or if I do, it involves a tremendous amount of effort, like pot pies or beef stew. And if I hadn't been limited by the amount of freezer space I knew I had left, I might have bought more. I guess I need to add don't go food shopping sick to the list of don't go food shopping hungry or with the children. I did all three tonight. My bad.

My oh-so-wonderful mother is going to take the kids home with her after Rose's basketball games to spend the night. I love my Mommy. She took one look at me tonight and offered. I am very glad because I am just not operating on all 8 cylinders. Actually I'm not sure I'm operating on all of 1 cylinder at the moment. Took my temperature: 100.5. Oh, joy. I hope this isn't the start of walking pnuemonia, come to think of it. That I don't want to deal with. At all.

Today was a no spend day, my first in quite a while. I probably won't actually spend anything else until Friday, which is payday, and its been a long one coming, I tell you.

I've got about $30 left and I owe my change jar money and my savings a lot of money. I haven't had a chance to put my travel money into the bank yet.

People are bugging me about what I want for my birthday in February and there is only one thing and it is $80 and I'm trying to convince them to go in on it together so I don't end up with a bunch of junk I don't need or want, but get what I really want. But noooooo, they want to get me something unique, not something with someone else. Mothers and MILs.

I was expecting this. I'm not happy about it, but just from the way things were going, I figured this would happen. The company went back on its word and won't be giving DH a raise. Since he didn't get it in writing they claim they have no record of it. Stingy company, they made record profits last year. It's annoying me.

But I figured it was where things were going. I just had a sense of it.

I am just going to have to redouble my efforts. I have considered maybe getting a part time job, but I really don't want to. Maybe it is time I seriously looked into mystery shopping. Definitely time to start listing stuff on Half.com and ebay. And I'll definitely go and cancel Curves. Sigh. That's okay, it is good to have the decision made. My contract is long over.

DH's boss did say if they could get written proof of how much this job pays at other companies, than the company would at least consider it. Somehow I doubt that, too.

I am on here posting so much today as I am trying to avoid cleaning and organizing my son's room. It is a disaster area and we are going to do some serious purging of old toys and clothes. He was given a big organizing unit for Christmas from his paternal grandparents but we can't even get it into his room to start! So, I suppose I should really go get on it and stop procrastinating. Who knows, maybe there is something e-bay saleable in there? Okay, into the breach I go.

This is my 5th Entry for today but it is payday so it is to be expected that I can't silence my keyboard for any decent stretch of time once I sit down to it.

It is a very interesting experience tracking daily spending. DH is totally on board with it and is even reminding me when I forget which is very helpful because I want to do this.

We had a very good day out and about while the kids were in school. It is nice to have some time just to be a couple, even if it is doing mundane things like paying bills and grocery shopping. Being able to have an uninterupted conversation in the car is pretty cool, too.

Dinner tonight was cooked out of the freezer and pantry, none of the new stuff. I am trying to stick to a menu plan so things will stay on track. So dinner was oven baked chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans and milk for everyone else, and just a piece of chicken and some green beans for me. My stomach is still unsure of itself, though I am feeling miles and away better than yesterday.

I really wanted to buy some bananas today but the last time we did it brought in fruit flies with them so until they have all died off we aren't buying fruit unless it goes in the fridge. It is so frustrating, I've got a few pest strips hanging but they just don't want to land on them.

A few more days and they should be all dead, there is no more available food for them. We are being extra careful that if we do leave dishes in the sink because the dishwasher is full, that we rinse everything off. Last thing I need is a resurgence of the the things because someone left a ketchup blob on a plate.

I've got plenty of apples and oranges, which of course is why I want bananas. Sigh. Oh, well, I will live and if this is the only thing in my life that is upsetting than I think I am very happy to live with that!

Today was the automatic deposit of $10 to savings, which I will be transferring to ING soon.

I have some horrible type of stomach bug, it hit hard last night. DH went and bought me egg flower soup from the Chinese place that has no MSG. It's the only thing that will go down right now. I hope this thing passes fast as we have to do our grocery shopping tomorrow. He also got a 1/2 gallon of non-fat milk and a 1/2 gallon of 2% milk as we were completely out. He took the money out of savings but I will pay it back tomorrow when we get paid. Which is why I'm waiting to send the $10 to ING, when I can send this with it.

We got our income tax booklet in the mail, now we just have to wait for his work to issue the paperwork and the banks to send the interest notices. Probably nothing will come until the last day of January. I hate waiting. We should be getting back close to $3000.

I so wish we had that money throughout the year but because of the way DH works, 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, he gets taxed funny, as if he was making the same amount each week of the month, when he only works 2 of 4. It's stupid but there isn't a way around it. We've tried. There used to be back when you could claim as many exemptions as you wanted to, but now, even with the max we are allowed to claim, it still ties up $3000. Bugs the heck out of me.

Today was a no spend day.

I didn't go anywhere so I didn't use any gas.

We ate leftovers.

I built a fire in the woodstove instead of using the propane furnace.

I scheduled a bill to be paid online for 1/5/07, to save a stamp. (Man, that 07 feels weird to type).

I found another quarter on the floor of the kitchen and added it to my change jar.

I did the garbage can dance, where you get into the garbage can and smash it down so you can get a couple more bags in it before you put it out. Technically, not supposed to do that, but my garbage can has a limit of 80 pounds and believe you me, I am going to get all 80 pounds in there, or as close to, and the only way to do it is to do the garbage can dance.

Got all the recyling sorted as we have free recyling pick-up every two weeks and the value of recycled materials is deducted from our garbage bill since it doesn't go into the landfill. It's usually only a couple dollars a month, but every little bit counts.

Just my frugal things for the day.