Okay, now for all the things that went out of this paycheck.

$1000.00 to Mom
___90.00 Physical Therapy
___35.42 Electric Old House
__757.82 Van Loan (plus extra)
___51.78 Garbage (one extra can this month)
__212.71 Medical
___41.78 Security Old House
___72.56 Internet
__225.00 Monthly Chiropractic Family Plan
__105.00 Propane Fund
___19.00 Dues Fund
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__100.00 College Fund
__100.00 Appliance Fund
__100.00 Christmas Fund
__100.00 Laptop Fund
__100.00 Vacation Fund (Hawaii 2018)
___28.00 Kids' Allowances
___75.00 Three NZW rabbits from different bloodline
__100.00 Cash for the Week
------------
$3414.07 Total Paid Out

We are down to owing Mom $72,000. That means 6 years left to go, if we continue on the repayment of $1000 a month. It will be gone when we are both 49. Our van will be paid off well before that. After that is paid off we will work on paying off the mortgage on our small farm that we plan to buy once our house sells. And also play mega catch up with retirement. We want to go into retirement 100% debt free, which will make it easier to get by on less. As will raising our own meat and growing our own produce as much as possible.

It feels like we are finally starting to really pull ahead as I plan for future needs and am able to set the money aside each month. We are two paychecks ahead of our bills now and we have half a month's income in the Emergency Fund. It's getting there and each small step I take has built on the last one. Some people may scoff at $10 here or $5 there, but I know. I know from experience that it is the little things just as much as the big things that get you there.

I added $36 to the Emergency Fund today. It was what was left in checking when the new paycheck hit. That brings the EF to $3642.32. I'm going to bump my May goal up to $3700.

I also funded some funds today, which I'll put the amounts in my payday post, but I thought I'd post my fund totals.

$1000.00 in the Mac Book Fund
__200.00 in the Laptop Fund
__200.00 in the Christmas Fund
__200.00 in the College Fund
__100.00 in the Appliance Fund
__200.00 in the Hawaii 2018 Fund
__100.00 in the Property Tax Fund
__305.00 in the Propane Fund
___89.00 in the HoA Dues Fund

We've got a long way to go on some of these, especially the College Fund, but we will be putting the Christmas Bonus in, as well as most of the tax refund next year (which is ridiculously big because of our HSA that we always manage to use all of).

The Christmas Fund will be augmented by the Amazon gift cards I get from swagbucks. DH's Laptop is limping along and hopefully will continue to do so until I've got the replacement money in place. DD will be getting her MacBook (or equivalent laptop) in August. She's taking some graphics intensive classes next year as a senior. The Appliance Fund is currently earmarked for a chest freezer. Property tax was just paid last month. Propane Fund is just a holding fund until the bill comes and I pay it.

All in all, things are going along pretty smoothly in the Funds department.

Okay, bills paid today:

$2000.00 BoA VISA (Vacation Leftovers)
___45.67 Old House Insurance
___66.65 Van Insurance
___39.53 DH Life Insurance
___32.70 Me Life Insurance
__600.00 Old House Mortgage
__168.00 Storage
__300.00 To Mom for her Utilities
__100.00 Emergency Fund
---------------
$3352.55 Total Spent

I also have $200 in cash and took out money for the kid's allowances. Part of the money paid to BOA VISA was from the last paycheck. This will leave us with about a $1700 balance on the card from our vacation. It will be paid off on May 31. With today's $100 deposit the Emergency Fund now sits at $3596.32. $88.68 to go to meet May's goal of $3685. I paid extra on the mortgage. About $61 will go to interest and the balance should be under $12.5K when it hits.

The house is supposed to be done to the point of being able to install the carpets after this weekend. I will believe it when I see it.

With the final numbers in, we spent $7,521.76 on our vacation to Disneyland, about $2000 more than I had bargained for. This trip was for seven people (we paid the way for my SIL and 2 nieces). It was a once in a lifetime trip, one they would never have taken on their own due to divorce and the subsequent poverty it brought into their lives, and I think it was well worth the expense to give them this opportunity.

That being said, we may end up carrying a small balance into May. I will be trying my best to pay it off before the due date on April 21st, though. I have paid $5030 of it so far. DH is going to use his miles to get a few free tickets for work, and he has one free hotel stay for frequent visits, so the money that would go toward that will be used to pay off the vacation balance.

I may dip into the EF to pay it off sooner, though. I am used to living with a $1000 EF, so if I use $2000 of it to pay on this, it'll bring it to $1000 again, then I can start rebuilding it. We won't be doing a big vacation again until 2018 or 2019, so and I will be saving up for it starting in June.

----------

DH's DVD player in his laptop went out so he will now be using the old portable DVD player up at work. I have to start saving up for a new laptop for him. His has other problems as well and it has really been limping along.

My own laptop will have to be taken in as soon as spring break hits. The built in mouse has quit working and I have to use a plug-in mouse with it. My laptop is still under contract so that won't cost anything, but I can't afford to be without it during regular school hours since I use it in homeschooling my son.

If I take it in the Friday before spring break, I should have it back by the Monday after spring break. It usually takes 10 days to fix something since they send it to Seattle. I just hope they can fix it. I know they will replace it if they can't, but it is such a major hassle to transfer everything off one computer and on to the next one. And this one isn't even a year old so I really hate the idea of them not being able to fix it for such a small thing.

----------

I have been thinking that if we get enough money when we sell the house we will pay off the van. I send in close to $800 a month on van payments (extra to principal), and it would be really nice to knock that payment off. That would mean no debt (besides what I still owe Mom, but that's not on a credit report) going into buying a new house and getting a mortgage. It would also give us more wiggle room to save money and pay for college.

Mom has said we can stay here as long as we like, so we may take an extra year to add money to the downpayment so we won't owe so much when we buy a new house.

----------

My camera quit working sometime between when I packed it for Disneyland and we arrived in California. I'm not sure how it got damaged since it was in my carry-on. MIL gave each of us $100 before we went on vacation and I didn't spend mine, so I may go to a couple of the pawn shops and see about buying a good camera for very little money.

I use my camera almost daily and I don't like not having one. I don't have to have a top of the line one, but I'd like something more than my cruddy dumb phone camera, and I'm not about to upgrade to a smart phone just for the camera. I've owned my digital camera for ten years or so, and I really hate that it broke. It is possible they could fix it, but I doubt they could do it for less than what getting a new one costs. That is something that really bothers me about technology these days. Oh, well. What can you do?

It is official. The tax refund hit our account this morning. I just paid off the Chase VISA. We are officially OUT of credit card debt! After 10 years of being in it, and the last 7 of working very, very hard to pay it off, we have fired our last shot at the Evil Empire and we sunk their battleship.

And now it's time to start to upgrade our rickety picket fence (baby EF) into a wall of stone. I added $1000 to the EF, put $1000 into the MacBook Fund. The other $1903 I'm not sure what we are doing with yet, we're waiting until after vacation, so I transferred it to ING with the rest of it, just so it's out of our account and can't be frittered away.

The new EF amount is $2835.35. I am adjusting my goal of $1900 by the end of February to $2900.

And cue music...

I'm walking on sunshine, woo ooo,
I'm walking on sunshine, woo ooo,
I'm walking on sunshine, woo ooo,
And don't it feel good!

Today was payday. I added $110 to the Emergency Fund bringing it to $1835.35.

Bills paid out today were:

$1000.00 to Mom
__100.00 to Chase
__757.82 to Van loan
__570.00 Mortgage
___25.00 Kids' allowances
___44.87 Phone old house
___72.56 Internet
__110.00 Emergency Fund
___19.00 Garbage (HT)
___72.00 Water/sewer (HT)
__100.00 Property Tax (HT)
__100.00 Propane (HT)
__100.00 Miscellaneous and Groceries
---------------
$3071.25

I also set aside $90 for physical therapy. Both the mortgage and the van loan had extra sent to principal. When the mortgage hits it will put it just under $14K left.

I need to come up with $64.65 this month to hit my EF goal of $1900 by the end of February. I added $13.03 to the coin jar, what was left of my miscellaneous money from last week.

I also filled up the van with gas, $49.79, but that went on the AMEX which gets paid off at the start of every month now.

Other than milk, I shouldn't have to buy anything for the next week.

DS needs new tennis shoes. His feet have grown tremendously. I will inherit his current ones. They are very nice Nikes that just happen to fit my feet. Hand me ups, I guess. I will probably get shoes for him next payday, not this one.

My first mammogram went okay. I don't know what I was being such a scaredy cat about it for.

So today is payday and the first thing I did this morning was to pay $2609.14 to the Evil Empire. This brings the BoA VISA card down to $2000 even. All of the autopays for this month have gone through now except one that will be $120, so VISA amount payoff will actually be $2120. That brings total credit card debt down to $7100.

After my final payment of $2000 next week the BoA card will be paid off and will only be used for autopays and DH's plane tickets, hotels, and travel food.

Then the only card we will have left is the Chase VISA, with $5100 left on it and it has a 0% interest rate through the end of 2013.

Money Out this Payday:

$2609.14 BoA VISA payment
__125.00 Half year dues
___44.87 Old House phone for security system
___72.00 Water/Sewer (Old House) to the Holding Tank
___72.56 Internet
___37.68 Garbage
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__135.00 Paying Back the Mac Book Fund
___45.00 Allowances
__300.00 Farm money for meats
__100.00 Miscellaneous (toiletries, OTC medicine)
---------------
$3641.29

The Emergency Fund now sits at $1670. I am $30 short of my January goal, but that should be no problem to meet.

Today's check was 3420.49. I already had money saved for the dues, the garbage, and the water/sewer. I also had some money left from last week.

After paying everything I will have $146.59. $90 of that will go to physical therapy on Friday, so really $56.59 until next payday.

The plan so far for next Friday is $2120 to the BoA to pay it off, $200 to the Vacation Fund, $100 to the property tax fund, $570 to the Mortgage, $100 to the propane fund and $200 to the Mac Book fund.

February 1st will be the start of the new Budget Template and I am setting up a spreadsheet for that to let me know where I'll go from there.

So today is payday and the first thing I did this morning was to pay $2609.14 to the Evil Empire. This brings the BoA VISA card down to $2000 even. All of the autopays for this month have gone through now except one that will be $120, so VISA amount payoff will actually be $2120. That brings total credit card debt down to $7100.

After my final payment of $2000 next week the BoA card will be paid off and will only be used for autopays and DH's plane tickets, hotels, and travel food.

Then the only card we will have left is the Chase VISA, with $5100 left on it and it has a 0% interest rate through the end of 2013.

Money Out this Payday:

$2609.14 BoA VISA payment
__125.00 Half year dues
___44.87 Old House phone for security system
___72.00 Water/Sewer (Old House) to the Holding Tank
___72.56 Internet
___37.68 Garbage
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__135.00 Paying Back the Mac Book Fund
___45.00 Allowances
__300.00 Farm money for meats
__100.00 Miscellaneous (toiletries, OTC medicine)
---------------
$3641.29

The Emergency Fund now sits at $1670. I am $30 short of my January goal, but that should be no problem to meet.

Today's check was 3420.49. I already had money saved for the dues, the garbage, and the water/sewer. I also had some money left from last week.

After paying everything I will have $146.59. $90 of that will go to physical therapy on Friday, so really $56.59 until next payday.

The plan so far for next Friday is $2120 to the BoA to pay it off, $200 to the Vacation Fund, $100 to the property tax fund, $570 to the Mortgage, $100 to the propane fund and $200 to the Mac Book fund.

February 1st will be the start of the new Budget Template and I am setting up a spreadsheet for that to let me know where I'll go from there.

I find that the closer I am to being out of credit card debt, the easier it is to pay the bills. It feels less and less like money slipping through my fingers and more and more like seeing the summit of the mountain and knowing it's not much further and just a little push will get me there.

I got to contribute $100 to the Emergency Fund this time, something I haven't done in a while. I also deposited the coin jar money to the EF as well, so that was an additional $97.05. The EF now sits at $1205.41. It is good to see it going up again.

I funded my funds, bringing the totals to $85 in the HoA Dues Fund, $200 in the Property Tax Fund, $400 in the Propane Fund, $400 in the Vacation Fund, $400 in the Mac Book Fund, and $200 in the Christmas Fund.

Expenditures for this paycheck were:

$1000.00 AMEX
__100.00 Chase VISA
__300.00 To Mom for her utilities
__100.00 EF
___21.98 Electricity for the Old House
___50.00 to the Holding Tank for garbage (not due 'til Feb)
__39.53 DH Life Insurance
__32.70 My Life Insurance
__59.89 Car Insurance
__45.63 Old House Insurance
__41.16 ADT Security for theOld House
_153.00 Storage
_100.00 Vacation Fund
__17.00 Dues Fund
_100.00 Property Tax Fund
_500.00 Mortgageon Old House ($376.14 plus extra to principal)
_100.00 Propane Fund
_100.00 Mac Book Fund
-------------
$2860.88

I also spent $56.20 to fill up the van. It was 3.39 per gallon. It's a little cheaper at Costco, but I really didn't want to go over there today and as long as it is no more than a 20 cent per gallon difference, I'd actually use more gas going over there and then waiting in the interminably long lines.

And I spent $230.41 on groceries. I stocked up on some things that my cupboards were bare on, mostly canned goods. I also restocked the flour stash and bought some oranges and milk. I am definitely starting to see the higher prices now. Even though I didn't buy any meat since we get it at the farm now, I still wanted to see what the current store prices are, and Holy Toledo are they high. I mean some of them are higher than their grass-fed, organic counterparts. I may need to up the grocery budget once we finish eating the inventory in the freezer. I'm trying to hang on to $600 a month, but half of that is spent at the farm.

I paid out DD's allowance for two weeks, $30. DS does not get an allowance until 12/14 as his was advanced to him so he could buy something on a really good sale. I also took out $200 in cash.

I bought DD a new MP3 player. She was willing to settle for the 4GB one, so it was $40. I used part of the $200 in cash for that. Since it was half what I was expecting it to be, I told her I'd just pay for it if she'd do some extra chores for her grandmother. So she's going to clean all of the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor, vacuum, and clean out Mom's fridge. She's also going to do all of the laundry this weekend.

DD is going to stay after school one day next week to teach her English teacher how to knit using a loom. They're going to knit some hats for some charity and they need to make 26 between now and the 18th. Knitting goes much faster on a loom. I didn't get the details on what charity, but I think it was local. I find it kind of hilarious that my sixteen-year-old daughter is teaching a sixty-something-year-old woman to knit. It's like, shouldn't that be the other way around?

Speaking of knitting, I really need to get going and finish making DS's scarf so I can start on DD's. It's hard to work on his because he is with me so much since we homeschool him. I am trying to keep it a surprise. His sister has made him a hat in the same yarn.

I almost wiped out a pair of elderly jaywalkers tonight. I guess teenagers are not the only ones to dress all in black and take crazy chances walking after dark. If it hadn't been for the man's white hair and the woman's white shoe souls, I'd not have seen them in time to stop. And they were only 20 feet away from the well illuminated stoplight with it's cross walks.

14 days and counting until the bonus checks will be put in the mail...

I am so happy it is November. No more $500 payments to the doctor for DS's treatment. We will have one more $300 payment for glasses this month and then we'll be done with big medical for a while, I hope. Although we still need to save some as come January we will have the $2500 deductible again. Hopefully this coming year it will not be met so quickly. I will have to have two molars fixed, but I am hoping to use part of DH's Christmas bonus to do that.

I did send the extra $230 to AMEX along with my regular payment. Here's how it all broke down this week.

$730.00 AMEX
_100.00 Chase (no interest)
_300.00 for Mom's utilities
__92.97 to the Freezer Fund
___7.03 to the Emergency Fund
__32.97 Electric at the Old House
__25.00 to the Holding Tank for Garbage
__72.00 to the Holding Tank for Water/Sewer old house
__39.53 DH Life Insurance
__32.70 Me Life Insurance
__59.89 Car Insurance
__45.63 House Insurance for old house
__41.16 Security system for old house
_153.00 Storage
__17.00 HoA Dues for old house
_100.00 Property Tax for old house (Holding Tank)
_500.00 to Mortgage for old house
_100.00 to Holding Tank for propane (old house)
_100.00 to MacBook Fund
__28.20 Dental (DH)
__15.69 Medical (DD)
_100.00 DH's monthly allowance
__15.00 DD's weekly allowance
__10.00 DS's weekly allowance
_267.32 on groceries (did a major staples stock up, plus OTC meds)
----------------
$3075.09

I will also be making the car payment out of this payday, just waiting for the bill to get here. I took $100 in cash out for miscellaneous needs. And I will be depositing $46 from the coin jar on Monday, which puts my Freezer Fund at $1000 even. And the MacBook Fund is now at $300. I had $7.03 left after fully funding the Freezer Fund so that went to the Emergency Fund, which now sits at $1008.36.

Today I deposited $69.33 from my coin jar to my Freezer Fund as well as $100 from today's paycheck. This brings the Freezer Fund up to $750.81. The freezer I want is $900 plus tax so I still have a ways to go, but it's nice to be 3/4 of the way there.

My Vacation Fund now sits at $200, my Property Tax fund at $600, Christmas Fund at $100 (very late starting this), and MacBook Fund at $200.

Property taxes are due at the end of the month and will be $518 and some change, so there's plenty in there for that. Things seem to be going along right on track and I hope they continue to do so. It makes things so much smoother when they do.

Today was payday and for once I am not slacking on getting my post up for bills paid. I have enough sustainable, organic beef, chicken and pork in the freezer that I think we can skip going to the ranch this month altogether and just go the second week in November. I've also got some other things in the freezer that need to get eaten, some fish, rice, and miscellaneous items that could round out some meals, but not quite be meals in and of themselves.

Here's what came out of this week's paycheck:

$1000.00 Loan to Mom
_1700.00 Bank of America VISA
___10.00 School class t-shirt for DD
__100.00 Freezer Fund
___25.00 Garbabe (holding tank)
__105.00 Pantec
__100.00 Vacation Fund
___17.00 HoA Dues (holding tank)
__100.00 Property Tax (holding tank)
___25.00 Kids' Allowances
__100.00 propane (holding tank)
__100.00 MacBook Fund
__100.00 Christmas Fund
--------------
$3482.00

Out of yesterday's payday and about $300 from short term bill savings, I paid the following bills:

__32.88 Electric
__10.59 Medical
_400.00 Mortgage for the old house
_301.30 to Chase (no interest for 18 months)
__90.00 Medical
_300.00 To Mom for her utilities
_757.82 Car payment (plus extra to principal)
_685.86 to BoA credit card (will pay more next week)
_176.09 Paid off computer (18 months same as cash)
__70.56 Internet
__44.87 Phone for old house (for security system)
_144.00 Water/sewer for old house
__49.91 yearly propane tank rental
_125.00 Cash for groceries
__25.00 Kid's allowances
------------
$3605.18

I just raised the kids' allowances from $7 and $12 respectively to $10 and $15 per week. They have really stepped up and started doing a lot more of the daily chores and helping with the gardening. I've told them that if they slack off though it's going back down.

I have $42 left of my grocery money for the week. Aside from milk I should not need to buy anything else this coming week. I thought I needed to buy chicken legs or thighs, but I did some digging around in the freezer and found 3 pounds which I cooked up for the next few days lunches. There may be more in the freezer. I do have two whole chickens and some boneless, skinless thighs.

It will be a short grocery week as we are going down to Tacoma on Wednesday, spending the night, going to the Point Defiance Zoo on Thursday, spending that night, and then coming home on Friday after morning rush hour. That wipes out our vacation savings, but we have nothing else planned for the summer.

Our hotel room has a microwave and a fridge and there is a Top Foods (like Haggen) nearby. We will bring a cooler with some food from home and our little egg cooker (which does boiled eggs or poached and our microwave bacon cooker, so we can have bacon and eggs for breakfast that we bring. I am going to roast a chicken on Tuesday and pick all the meat off the bones and we will bring that in the cooler. I will also bring along coleslaw and salad and a bottle of dressing and maybe a couple cans of green beans. And peanut butter, jelly, butter, and bread. We will probably eat out two meals (one at the zoo), but that is in the vacation budget.

So my two $5 gift cards for Amazon.com from Swagbucks that I cashed out on the 31st showed up today in my email a few minutes ago. I promptly transferred the codes into my account at Amazon and it is nice to see that little balance of $10 there. Then I turned around and cashed in more points for 2 more $5 gift cards. That will leave me with a balance of 101 points in my Swagbucks account, so just another 349 to go for another gift card.

I don't put a lot of effort into swagging. I do the daily poll and the 2 point vids and have the search bar and every website I go to I enter into the search bar instead of going directly to the website. And I use the search bar for actual searching, too, usually to look up recipes or for local food sources and local homesteading blogs.

I spend less than 5 minutes a day actively doing anything and I end up with around 30 points a day. On occassion I'll have the SBTV bar going on the side if I think about it. It's not a huge amount, but it does add up.

I'm saving my gift cards towards a Mac Book for my daughter. She wants a good computer before she goes to college. We'll probably buy it between her junior and senior years of high school, so I have a little over a year to save up for it as well as earn gift cards towards it. Maybe I'll end up with $100 in gift cards by the time I'm ready to buy. That would be a nice little discount.

Today is payday, the small one, but they didn't take medical out and I had $1200 left over from last week, so I got to send a whole $800 extra to the BoA Visa. This isn't the regular monthly payment, it's all to principal, yay!

Payments made today:

$800.00 BoA VISA
__84.72 Car Insurance
__41.25 Old House Insurance
__37.61 Life Insurance DH
__32.70 Life Insurance Me
_154.00 Storage
__41.16 ADT Security on Old House
_100.00 Freezer Fund
_100.00 Mac Book Fund
+455.86 Mortgage (plus $80 extra)
----------
1847.30 Amount paid out today

Oh, we have to go pay car tabs, too, which is around $90. I don't remember for sure, but will edit this after we pay it. And I'll have to write a check next week for hot lunch money for DS. That will be for $9 for the rest of the school year. And I have to contribute allowances, $19 today and $19 next Friday.

That leaves me with $400 for the next two weeks, but no bills to pay before the 15th, which is our next payday. Plus I have $1000 in savings that is earmarked for old house stuff, but could be dipped into in a pinch and replaced on the 15th. And I also have the $300 from last week that is set aside to buy organic, pasture-raised, sustainable meat tomorrow. So mostly these next two weeks I'll just be buying milk and produce and some bulk spices.

It feels good to have everything squared away and to not have to think about finances really for the next 2 weeks. I mean I will think about them, obviously, when you blog this much about money, you do think about them. But not in a "what should I be doing now?" way.

Oh, and the Mac Book Fund and Freezer Fund are both new items on the budget. The freezer we are saving up for will be around $600. We need to buy that before we can buy half a beef, which I will start saving up for as soon as the freezer is paid for.

The Mac Book fund is for my daughter. She has waited patiently while everyone has gotten new computers in the last few years while she limps along on an old PC and she is next on the list. She wants a Mac Book for video editing and for college, so even though it will likely take me a year to save up for it, I thought I'd start now. She's just finishing her sophomore year of high school, so she probably won't get it until towards the end of junior year, but she's just happy to be getting one eventually. She's easy like that.

ETA: Tabs were $85.74.

Good a reason as any to blog, isn't it? I have to be up in the morning to let the chickens out at 8, but then I can go back to sleep if I can for a couple more hours. It will be a full day. There is one open house we want to hit up on the hill. It is a rather spacious house at $262,000. No hardwood floors so I imagine it's all the carpeting that makes it so they can't ask for ridiculous pricing. We will hit that house early as we can. The open house starts at ten so we will be there near the start.

After that we will head to Sedro Woolley to Skagit River Ranch. They have a farm store that is open only on Saturdays from 10 to 6. They are a farm that sells grass fed animals. They also sell specific cuts of meat in their farm store and I would like to get some ribeye, t-bone, chuck roasts and hamburger and try them out before making a decision about buying a half a steer later this year. Mom wants to go in on it with us and buy the other half of the steer. Buying a whole cow together would bring the price down a little.

We'll see how it tastes. I am considering this farm and another one that is in Bow. The one in Bow costs less, but it's Chiangus as opposed to just ordinary Black Angus. I know I like Black Angus, but I don't know what difference Chiangus makes in taste, flavor or leanness. I am hoping to visit the other ranch on another day to see if I can buy samples as well.

Then when we get back DH has to set up the computer. The cobbled together mess DS has been using finally stopped working. They were financing 18 months same as cash, so we got an inexpensive desktop only, since our monitor is in perfect condition. DH finally took the back up laptop in to be fixed before the warranty runs out. Hopefully they won't have to wipe it because there are no backup discs for reinstalling windows. I have $200 in the laptop fund, so that money will go towards paying for the new desktop. I was hoping we'd get ahead of the curve on things that were going to go wrong and I'd save up enough before we got to this point, but the thing gave up too soon.

The kids have to have one fuctioning computer between them to write on for their writing assignments and no one wants to give either one of them one of our laptops. They are too hard on things.

It is time for DD to visit the eye doctor and if needed she can get new lenses. Not frames of course, those are every 18 months. She has been complaining about headaches and she thinks her prescription might have changed.

I forsee a very expensive spring/early summer. And sometime before fall I'll need to buy a chest freezer if I am going to get that much meat.

Not really too much to report this week. DS has been sick with a nasty stomach bug and missed three days of school this week. I don't think this child has ever had such a sick year before. I really wish that parents would keep their kids home when they are sick. I am really getting sick of my child constantly being contaminated because other parents don't have a back up system in place if they are unable to stay home from work with their child. Plus these kids are 12, 13, 14. They legally and safely should be able to stay home alone if necessary. It's irresponsible to send them and I'm tired of my kid paying the price for other parents. He's always been so healthy and the last 12 to 15 months it's been one thing after another, poor guy. Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant.

I cleaned out my purse and added $11.14 to the coin jar. I took $19 for allowances and divided them into the kid's envelopes. I also added the last $15 of DS's birthday money into his envelope. I really need to take him to the credit union as he's got quite a wad of birthday cash and saved allowances.

I've got the replacement all set up now except for installing Office, which I will do today and then I can enter in all the information into Excel for the past 3 weeks. I've kept track on paper, but it is not the same, especially since I've managed to lose and find the paper three times. I am definitely going to keep contributing to the laptop fund. It is well worth it.

I also need to update the HSA tracking spreadsheet and the EF tracking spreadsheet and the Holding Tank spreadsheet.

I am close to being ready to cash out my first $5 gift card for Amazon at Swagbucks. If I leave the SBTV player going to the side of the screen for the next couple hour or two, I should hit it, but I don't know if I want to make that kind of effort in one go, so it might take all weekend. I still haven't signed up for that other one that Laura (Keeping it Frugal) has where you watch the videos. I need to try to remember to do that.

I did another survey last night for GTM. They aren't as good as they used to be. Survey values have dropped from 50 to 35 and screeners are only worth 1 point or a drawing entry instead of 5 points for every screener. I think once I hit my 1000 points I may be done with them. They used to be so good and I could easily make money with them, but that was three years ago. Now that I'm getting back into it again, wasting my times with small payoffs is annoying.

I may have qualified for a market study at another company. If so it'll be worth $8. I hope I get that one. I won't know for a week and a half if I did. I wish they would tell you if you do. If you end up qualifying they send you the product. If you don't, you never hear about it again. But I made it all the way through the first screener and the second screener, so I think chances are good.

I have to go to the store today because DH finished off the ketchup (left the bottle in the fridge, but it was empty) and I didn't discover this until yesterday when I had already been to the grocery store. But I have to take Footloose and Puss in Boots back to the DVDExpress booth anyway, so I can pick up some ketchup then and some crackers and some more soup. They have a sale on right now of 2 cans for $1 and since soup is about all DS can eat until this virus finishes running it's course (no fruit, no veg, no dairy), I want to take advantage of the sale.

I'm also hoping to find some unflavored pedialyte since it doesn't have dyes or fruit juice or artificial sweetners. Even though he is drinking lots of water, he's really at risk of dehydration. I did put him on Imodium on the doctor's rec. It seems to be helping.

Well, I finally heard back from Best Buy. I guess it took the 2 full weeks to realize the laptop was beyond repair, which seriously, it wasn't. All it needed was a new screen. It worked just find if you hooked it up to a monitor. To me, that's like totalling a car because you need to replace the windshield. *sighs*

Anyway, they said I could get a new one of comparable value for free or credit towards an upgrade. I'm sure there won't be one of comparable value. And is that comparable value in today's dollars or in the dollars of the year I bought it? I liked my old laptop. It had the best keyboard in the world for typing quickly, plus a ten-key pad so I could easily enter stuff into spreadsheets.

And will the remainder of my service contract transfer to the new one or be refunded? And what about the one time license for my Office software that was only to be installed on one computer? And what about the fact that I'd just renewed my Kaspersky anti-virus program? Are they going to replace all of that or am I just going to be out of luck on those counts. I might have to make a fuss.

I wonder if I get the broken one back then? Because if I do, we can hook it up to a spare monitor and use it as a backup computer that has Office on it. The kids would like that since they are working out of Open Office and Office 2007 respectively. They probably won't let me keep it, though.

I guess it's a good thing I kept putting money in the laptop fund as I will likely need to buy a new service contract. Won't go without it after how much value I got out of it with these last several repairs.

I did not make it to the CU I keep the safety net in this week. I meant to, but things just kept getting in the way. There have been various purchases made and I have kept saving all the ones and coins. I picked up hotdogs for Mom at Costco and she paid me back in cash, $11 for a $10.66 purchase. I put the whole eleven into the coin jar.

So including that $11, this week I ended up adding a grand total of $28.28 to the coin jar. I will have quite a deposit to make on Monday if I ever get over there. The safety net is getting pretty close the the $1000 mark.

So since The Market closed in Fairhaven, it took with it the only commercially sold source of Boar's Head deli meats, the ones without fillers or additives that my son can handle. We found out today that The Bagelry, a bagel shop in town that also makes sandwiches on it's bagels, uses Boar's Head meat, and if we put in an order the night before they will sell us just the sliced meat, as long as we buy a pound at a time. And it is at the same price as the grocery store we used to buy it at.

This is such a relief. We have really been struggling on what he will eat, because he has a very short list of what he will tolerate cold and of course there are no microwaves available to students at the middle school level.

Of course I will have to divide up all the meat and freeze most of it, as it has a three day holding time without the additives and preservatives. I'll have to be a bit more organized and remember to thaw as necessary. It's such a small thing, but it really will make my life that much easier.

I am really glad that we hit our deductible last month as yet another prescription has gone up. Thankfully out of pocket cost for it is now $40 instead of $100ish. What is up with the cost of prescriptions lately? This one was name brand but all the other ones were generics and I know it can't cost as much as they are raising it.

Did government benefits get raised this year? Seems like whenever they are prescription costs go up. *is annoying* My mother actually refused to go to the doctor when she thought she might have walking pneumonia because she wouldn't be able to afford the antibiotics. I told her I'd pay for it if necessary! I may grouse, but for that I'd put debt repayment to a lesser amount. Makes me worry about the old people in her position who don't have family members who could step in.

Oh, the payment hit the credit card so the new balance of it is $6,557.86. The interest had hit, too, but the interest hits should be a lot smaller now.

Got a thing in the mail from the insurance company. They want to go after the makers of a surgical mesh that went wrong in numerous patients, attaching improperly to organs and/or growing through them. I am one of those patients and my insurance company shelled out an awful lot of money for me to get it fixed.

So they want my info and I'm like, that's an awful lot of work for me to track down that I'd rather not be doing. The doctor who did the initial surgery retired years ago. I don't even remember what year I had the initial surgery in, unless it was done when I had my hysterectomy when I was 33. I vaguely remember trying to schedule that so they could do it at the same time, but can't remember if they did or not. It's been 9 years and I've had so many surgeries it all just blurs together.

I'm not really sure there is a record anywhere anymore, which is why I didn't pursue the class action lawsuit in the first place. (I guess I can check with my OB/GYN and ask him if that was done at the same time, then I'd at least have a date, and they might have the name of retired doctor to see where the records got to). Or maybe the hospital would know. Ugh. See? Work. Guess I will be on the phone a lot on Monday. Oh, joy.

I was hoping my laptop would be back from being repaired. All they have to do is replace the screen, so I don't know what it taking them so long. I am so sick of working on this cobbled together mess with this larger than life keyboard. *sighs* Plus the lack of mobility is also annoying. I can cope. I just don't want to have to. We get spoiled by our luxuries, don't we?

The laptop fund is now fully funded. I am going to start saving up for the next one, though, at the lesser rate of $100 a month. There is just too much that might go wrong with 3 laptops and a netbook in the house. And my computer and the netbook are the only ones with service contracts because the two of us tend to drop things a lot. I've used mine already. It's paid for itself and then some and I have another year and a half left on the contract. I imagine I will at least need a new battery by then, though it's still holding it's charge. That was always the nice thing about the Vaio batteries.

DH got tabs for the Crown Vic yesterday. It ended up costing $42. It's supposed to be $33 according to an initiative several years ago, but they're always finding some way to creep it up. So now I just need to worry about getting the brakes fixed. The steering fluid needs to be flushed as well. I am saving up partially for it and then using the tax return money to make up the difference.

I've been a little lax on recording this, even though everything has been paid on time. Still, I want a good record of things this year, so this is a bit of a catch up post for bills that have gone out since the 1st.

$__41.25 Old house insurance
___86.30 Car insurance
___37.61 DH Life insurance
___32.70 Me Life insurance
_1000.00 AMEX
_3600.00 Bank of America (The Evil Empire)
__375.86 Mortgage on old house
__142.00 Storage
___15.98 Electricity old house
___39.37 Alarm system old house
___90.00 Tae kwon do lessons
----------------------
$2221.07 Spent so far

I still have to do mid-month bills like internet, phone for the old house, car payment, as well as set money aside for dues, laptop fund, garbage, water/sewer, and propane. I also have the Fashion Bug card to pay off. That one will never have interest charged on it and will always be paid in full.

I have $1400 left of the December money. I may have to dip into some of the money I set aside for January, but I am going to try to cut it as close as possible, so I can save that money instead.

And I've managed to procrastinate it all the way until Tuesday, but here are the bills I paid from the most recent paycheck.

$1300.00 to BoA
__300.00 to Mom for utilities
___44.89 landline at old house
___65.56 internet
__757.82 car payment (plus extra to principal)
__243.46 Laptop Fund
__115.25 Medical
__150.00 Groceries
___12.00 DD allowance
____7.00 DS allowance
--------------------------
$2995.28
-_100.00 to the Emergency Fund
---------------------------
$3095.98

They said it could take up to 8 weeks to fix my computer as there are three things wrong with it (and it might require the screen being replaced and parts being ordered from Japan, yikes). I'm not going to go that long without a computer or the internet. So, I've been putting money aside again in a laptop fund and we used it to buy a cheapie. It's a bit more than a Netbook, but it's an off brand so it was quite inexpensive. It has a great keyboard though, so I can keep up with my book writing and short stories, as well as this blog, my diet support group and online tracking software, and all the financial spreadsheets.

I downloaded Open Office. I'm not going to buy another MS Office program and the one I had can only be installed on one computer, and hopefully can actually be reinstalled on that one. But at least Open Office works for my writing and my financial spreadsheets, so yay.

The laptop cost $379 plus $33.35 in tax. It wiped out my laptop fund again, but I will start adding to it again next month. It came with a six month free trial run of Kaspersky anti-virus and I installed my free malware program as well.

DH and I are considering dropping the gym membership. With my knee the way it is, I have a hard time even swimming right now and he's in an off exercise phase. Maybe we can pick it up again after my knee heals from the next surgery, but for now it seems like a waste of money. We aren't on a contract anymore so no cancelling fee. Our other option is to opt out for three months. We'll figure it out.

Because I have been sort of avoiding a lot of stuff this month (not the bills, just the rest of the minutiae that goes along with recording things), I am finally getting around to listing what went out the payday before this one. I am trying to get back on the ball again.

$1180.00 to BoA CC
___14.08 Electricity Old House
___44.89 Phone Old House
___65.56 Internet
___39.37 Security System Old House
__500.00 Extra AMEX payment (to catch up)
__385.76 Mortgage Old House
__200.00 Laptop Fund
___55.00 Dance Class
__232.42 Medical Bills
__350.00 Grocery Staples Stock UP
--------------
$3067.08

We also spent about $250 on meals out that week and $61 for the stupid PTSA magazine drive for DS's middle school (I bought two kitchen gadgets and Fine Cooking magazine, which I buy anyway). The rest is still in checking.

I was surprised to find the paycheck about $300 less than it should have been. They took medical out, but it was still $300 short of what it usually is when they take medical out. I'll have to try to talk to DH about it tonight if I can get a hold of him. He's been very busy up there lately. The only thing I can think of is maybe the 401K deductions have started. They weren't supposed to start until October, but maybe they approved him short of a year on the job or something. It wouldn't be the first time. We got medical benefits after one month instead of three, so it's possible.

It's just a little frustrating because it meant I could only send $1700 to the VISA instead of the full $2000 I had intended to send. Two steps forward, one step back is what it feels like. I also sent $100 to the one MC. It's minimum payment was $31, but I couldn't do that. I know that other $69 could have gone to the VISA, but it just felt wrong to make such a tiny payment on the MC. I guess this was a kind of compromise.

I had to go to BoA in person today because I could not find my car loan statement. And they don't let you pay it online like you can the credit cards. I could set up an auto pay but I think DH has to sign the paperwork as well as me as the loan is in both our names, and he's not here. I had the number so they looked it up and applied it to the right thing, and I have a receipt to prove it if something goes awry.

I stopped at the BoA over by the gas station since I was over there, but they weren't open. At 9:30! Whatever happened to banker's hours? Maybe they are like one of my credit union branches that is open 11 to 7 instead. Anyway, I had to drive all the way down town to pay it.

I filled up the gas tank on the van. I was running on fumes (as in the display said I could drive for 12 more miles before I ran out of gas). It cost $61.82. I'd say ouch, but that's a pretty normal price for a full tank these days.

I paid for internet and the phone bill for the old house, got the amount of kids' allowances out from the CU, and sent $200 to the 18 months same as cash for the laptop (which brings the total down to $600). I've set aside $60 for physical therapy on Monday and $65 for DS's tae kwon do tornament fee. I took out $40 for me to take DD to go see a movie tomorrow and for incidentals this week.

I have $100 left in the checkbook for groceries. I decided it was okay to go close to the wire. If I hadn't I'd have only been able to send $1600 to the VISA. Since we are not eating out for the rest of the month I think we'll get by just fine with that amount. Anything left over at the end of the week will go to the coin jar and eventually the EF. This should be an easy grocery week since DD is spending the night at a friends and DS is going off with Mom to the decoy show. They tend to eat a lot more on weekends, so they will be doing that on someone else's dime which is nice.

Somehow or other I messed up on the math on my EF. I'm not sure how, but I ended up with $54.64 more than I thought I had in my Emergency Fund. Maybe I forgot to record a transfer at some point. Still, better I have more than I thought than less than I thought, but I'll try to watch my math better in future.

Anyway, I added $56.50 to the Safety Net portion of the EF. That was the money from the coin jar, plus the money I did not spend in my wallet that I had leftover from the last pay period. That brings the amount at CU#2 to $363.53. I added $100.46 to the EF at ING, bringing the amount there to $1,495.93.

$1495.93 ING EF
+_363.53 Safety Net EF
-------------
$1,859.46 Total EF

I think I will make it my goal to squeeze out enough money somewhere to get the EF to $2000 by the end of the month. I added $2.71 to the coin jar today after grocery shopping, so I'm on my way, bit by bit, step by step.

To my holding tank I added $1000 for medical. I also added $100 there for property tax and $17 for dues.

Bills paid out of this paycheck:

$300.00 utilities to Mom
___9.00 owed son to reimburse for vacation trinket
__36.00 son's 6 week allowance
__65.00 daughter's 6 week allowance
_100.00 cash
_500.00 mortgage on old house
__39.37 security system on old house
_144.00 storage
__41.25 old house insurance
__83.98 car insurance
__37.61 life insurance DH
__32.70 life insurance me
__49.91 propane tank rental old house
_330.57 Laptop (18 months same as cash)
-------------------------
$1769.39

I've got a little over $400 left in checking. Really starting to feel like I'm pulling ahead of the whole paycheck to paycheck thing. It is a good feeling. No credit card payments this time, but almost the whole of next week's paycheck will go to that (and the car payment), so it's all good.

Oh, I paid extra on the mortgage. Like $124 extra to principle. This was because I was so close to being under $20,000 I couldn't stand to not pay the extra to make that first digit a 1.

Before DH left to fly up to work yesterday he emptied his wallet of all his coins, so I had another $1.55 to add to the coin jar. That will be the last coin jar addition at least until after I go back to Virginia Mason next Monday to have my follow up appointment next Monday. We shopped in such a way so that I wouldn't have to buy anything or spend any money between now and then. I'd make it an official no spend challenge week, except for the fact that it's not really a challenge for me. It's just the way it is this week. I can't drive myself anywhere until I have the okay from the doctor and I don't need to pay any bills until next week. No challenge in that at all.

Still, there won't be any fast food or restaurant food picked up at the last minute. There won't be any impulse purchases or decisions to replace worn out flip flops or new goggles for the pool. So that's at least good for the bottom line. No money out means no money into the coin jar though, so I think I will set aside a few dollars for it anyway. I usually scrape together about $15 a week for that, so that would be a nice amount to add to it when I do start driving again.

I transferred the money from ING to pay the AMEX. It won't be here until Thursday and the bill won't be paid until Monday, but I wanted to make sure it was in the account well before the day I made the electronic payment, even if means sacrificing a couple of days worth of interest.

DH and I had a long talk about what to do with the extra money from his raise. One of the things we gave up for the kids when we had to do major belt-tightening was lessons. Tae kwon do and dance. We decided to put our son back into Tae kwon do and our daughter back into dance. She will take two classes in the fall for $105 a month and he will have three lessons a week for $90 a month. Actually DS already started yesterday, but DD won't start until September when school starts.

I particulary wanted DD in something because she does not have PE for her sophomore year and she tends to put on weight if she is not excercising at least every other day. Also her nutritionist for her pre-diabetes counseling recommends she exercise to help keep that in check. She will still have to do something else, like swimming though because she chose classes on Monday and Tuesday and the exercise needs to be more spread out than that.

I don't know when I'll be able to get back into the pool, but it will definitely be by September. I'd say mid August but they close the pool down for two weeks then to drain and clean it. Why in August I will never understand. December makes more sense to me to close a pool down, but the Y and the aquatic center both do it in August as well. Maybe because that is when the lakes are all the warmest.

The other part of the raise will be tacked on to debt repayment or new medical bills, which should start coming in shortly. I wish they'd just send them already. I want to know how much it is going to be so I can plan out the budget for the next several months.

Other tweaks to the budget will be increasing the amount to the Best Buy 18 months same as cash to pay off the laptop. That will go from $125 a month to $200 so it will be paid off by year's end. I know I could take several more months with no interest, but I'd just like to do it and get it over with. Then when it is done I will start contributing that money to a new laptop fund so that next time one breaks irrepairably I can just buy a new one without financing it.

Another tweak is that our homeowner's insurance on the old house will be going up. Right now it is $41 a month. Starting next month it is $41.25. Next year if we still own that house I will try to pay it all in advance.

Oh, I sent the HoA dues off. It was actually only $100, not $102. I had forgotten that I had divided $100 by 6 months and it came out as $16.666666666, so I just put $17 in each month instead so of course it was a little over. That money will stay in the holding tank for the next dues payment at the end of January.

I made my coin jar deposit at CU#2 into the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund. The exchange rate was excellent as between my $41 in American and $20 in Canadian, I had a deposit of $60.62. That's almost at par! Anyway that brings the safety net up to $307.03. I also transferred $100 to ING into the Emergency Fund there so my total EF between the two is now $1545.51, so I have hit my goal of $1500 in the EF by the end of August, and a whole month early. My next goal is to hit $2000.

I also paid bills today for the rest of the month. There is nothing else due between now and the 1st.

$__33.08 (4 prescriptions, medical)
$__90.00 (physical therapy, medical)
$___9.38 (walk in clinic, medical)
$_100.00 Cash Out
$__44.89 (phone, old house)
$__37.68 (garbage, new house)
$_125.00 (laptop, 18 months same as cash)
$__65.56 (internet)
$_100.00 Emergency Fund
$1000.00 Holding Tank for Medical
$_757.82 Car payment with an extra $250 to principal)
$_500.00 Holding Tank First week of August bills
------------
$2863.41

The remaining amount of this paycheck will be spent on our road trip for hotels and food and $100 to clothes and toiletries. $1000 of next week's paycheck will be set aside for medical and $200 for groceries.

I'm really starting to feel like we are getting ahead of the game, paying bills early and setting aside money for future expenses. We are still a bit paycheck to paycheck, but I think we're pulling ahead now by a couple of weeks worth of expenses.

First off, I put $3 in ones and $1.23 in coins into the coin jar today, eventually destined for the EF. I also went to the grocery store again as I had totally forgotten to buy deli meat for the kids' lunches when I did my big stock up. Plus we were out of fruit bars and rice bars so I got some of those as well, and they had a good milk sale going on, so I went ahead and stocked up a bit. The milk doesn't expire until the 25th so there is plenty of time to drink it and I shouldn't even have to set foot in a grocery store again for several days. I'm hoping at least ten days. I spent a total of $55.52.

I had physical therapy today so that's another $90 out the door. I really wish I didn't have to go every week but when I skip a week it starts getting hard to walk properly again, and the last thing I want is to go back to using a cane. It screws up my shoulder, scapula, elbow and arm and I end up limping which makes my other leg and hips hurt. I guess for now it is a necessary evil.

DH contacted me that he did suspend the Toyota payment for this month so I was able to pay the other two medical bills, $31.71 and $96.51. I also sent $100 off on the 18 months same as cash computer loan. Even though I have the money to pay this, I'd rather collect interest on it when I'm not being charged any interest o the loan, which will be paid for long before the time is up.

That house that we like so much has been taken off the market because it didn't sell. I am hoping that means they are going to let it sit for six months and then relist and make it look like a new listing. With all the information I've gathered about that house, if it is put back on sale by the time we are ready to buy again, we can probably get the price way down, since no one has bought it despite three price reductions and I'm thinking they'll just be happy to be rid of it at that point.

DS went back to school today and he had a good day and had no pain. He didn't eat breakfast though and he didn't want to take a lunch because they got out early. I made him take a couple of rice bars so he'd at least have something if he did get hungry. His appetite is way off though since the surgery. He's lost five pounds and if he keeps eating like that he's going to lose more. Which considering he was 10 pounds overweight at his last physical isn't a bad thing but I don't want his nurition to suffer at the same time. He did eat half a piece of chicken, some watermelon, some potatoes and a glass of milk for dinner though so at least he isn't starving.

DD is doing well on her prediabetes diet. Her face has gone from being quite round to having a pointy chin and cheekbones and she's only been on the diet since the 3rd. That's only 13 days. She says all of her tops are getting loose, too. I've been following the diet for the last 4 days and I can already see a change in my face and feel a change in jeans as well. So it seems it is working quite well for us both.

I watched the documentary Fat Head (after someone here rec'd it) the other day with the kids (they got such a kick out of it, it's so funny and entertaining) and it really describes well what has happened over the last couple decades in our country. Plus it really explains in a very understandable way how insulin works with protein and how it works with carbs. I'd definitely rec it to anyone who wants to learn why our weights in America are so screwed up. It's not new information (at least to me) but it is presented in a way that would be very helpful for those who haven't done the reserach themselves.

Finished reading The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritson. I swear that woman has a very grisly mind, but her books are can't put them down sorts. I'm already well into The Keepsake. It is so nice to be able to read again. Now that I'm used to them my trifocals are worth their weight in gold.

Also bought gas today. $44.74 for 10.92 gallons at $4.09 per gallon. Yeeps.

Today is payday and I made a payment of $2500 to the BoA Master Card. That leaves me with $887.89 to pay off next week and then that puppy is done. (Well, there will probably be an interest fee that comes in as soon as it is paid off but I'll pay that right away, too). I need to move the two autopays off that card and on to another one so there is absolutely nothing left on it. It comes to $133.43 each month (so that is why the numbers are a bit off down below).

I am so excited because that will leave us with only one credit card left with a balance on it. Evil Empire, your hold on me and mine is getting looser and looser!

So anyway, money out today:

$2500.00 BoA MC
--300.00 to Mom for utilities
---39.37 for security system at old house
--100.00 to the Emergency Fund
--141.96 to Verizon
---84.62 major toiletries stock up
--100.00 Cash
---55.00 Entertainment
------------
$3320.95

I have $286 left in the checkbook and will probably spend about $50 of that on food this week, but the rest will go into next week's bills.

I had $40 leftover from last week's cash so I put that in the laptop fund. I had $1.17 in coins that I put into the coin jar.

I added $100 to the emergency fund. Taxes have been removed from my calculations now so that brings the new EF total to $377.36. It feels weird to be starting almost all the way over again with the EF. In May I'll be able to make a much larger contribution.

New credit card debt totals:

$20,157.03 BoA VISA
+---887.89 BoA MC
-----------
$21,044.92 Total owed to the Evil Empire

$22.947.81 Previous credit card balance owed
-21,044.93 Amount Left on credit cards
------------
$--1903.01 Amount of change on balance