Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

1. Go to the doctor.
2. Possibly go to the pharmacy depending on what news I get at the doctor.
3. Stop by Michael's and get their monthly calendar as I am interested in taking a jewelry making class. If I like it I may consider trying to make some stuff for profit.
4. Go to Costco. I decided to bite the bullet and keep the Costco membership, but I am going to have to get a new card because my lost one is just not turning up.
5. Deposit my $8 check from ACOP into my vacation fund at the credit union.
6. Pick up organic milk and some organic lunch meat for school lunches.

So it will definitely be a spend day, no way around that today.

I did a 300 point and a 200 point survey today at Lightspeed that put me over the top on my points, so I was able to cash out for a $10 check, sent to paypal, supposedly by the end of tomorrow's business day. We'll see. The last time I had enough points to cash out there they sent a check in the mail.

I am still waiting on ReadRevenue, which is driving me crazy. At least when TinklyCash went on the fritz, they told us why. Sigh. If I hadn't had such a good exerpience with ReadRevenue, I would have given up on them after this. If I haven't gotten my money by 2/13, which will make it a month, then I will no longer use it anymore.

I'm torn about dinner tonight. I know I could just make something simple like spaghetti and meatballs, something that I don't have to babysit if I put the meatballs in the micro. But I am still so tired and even that sounds like a huge production.

I have to go buy milk anyway so I'm trying to talk myself down from getting a pizza while I'm out. It's only $6 for a large pepperoni, but then again, its $6 that really does not need to be spent. The problem with being sick is that my resistance to spending money goes way down. There is just so much ease, or at least there is a perceived ease to getting take out.

If I didn't need milk, I wouldn't even drive down to the store as it requires more effort than I really feel like putting out there. Oh, I'm alert enough, its not like it would be dangerous for me to drive the 1.2 miles to get there, but I'm just really lethargic. Haven't done my treadmill since last Wednesday.

I do have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow. I'm kind of glad I couldn't get in today, so I could get some more sleep while the kids were at school.

Someone else wrote a big rant about the cost of weddings and I was going to leave this as a reply but as it got so long, I decided to just make it my own blog entry.

I had a beautiful, gorgeous church wedding with about 60 people. My mother and father's gift to me for the wedding was my $500 dress. The dress was exquisite and I couldn't have been any happier in Vera Wang. My in-laws gift to us was the cost of the church rental, with the accompanying wedding planner whether we wanted her or not, and the kitchen clean up crew for approximately $500. I did spend $119 on a veil. I could have made a perfectly good veil for $20, but I fell in love with this one and paid for it in cash. I borrowed the hoop skirt slip thing that holds the dress out poofy from my SIL. My shoes were $10 white ballet shoes.

What did I spend (pre-paid by the way) on: I spent $750 on photographs. I'd seen what an amateur photographer had done to my SIL's wedding and I felt this was an appropriate splurge. We had a long enough engagement that the photo package was paid for long before the wedding took place. To this day, nearly 12 years later, I do not regret that.

I paid $100 for silk flowers and florist's tape. My wedding colors were burgandy and teal, which would have been hard to find in real flowers and cost about $400 to have prepared. I checked out every video tape and book in the library on how to arrange wedding flowers that they had and I learned how to do it. I put together two massive bouquets for either side of the altar, that stood on 2 $10 rented pedestals. I also made a large swag that went over the fireplace in the reception hall in the church basement and two of the ushers were charged with bringing the vases and pedestals down to the reception after the wedding was over to make them do double duty.

I did my own bouquet and that of my two attendants, did the mothers' corsages and all of the boutinierres for the men, buying a package of pins with a pearl like head for pinning them with for $2. I used about $30 worth of white ribbon (not from the bridal section, where it was much more expensive) and $5 worth of burgandy ribbon leftover from Christmas, to add finishing touches to the flowers and to make pew bows for the first ten pews, every other row (which I also learned from a library video.

We rented two candlelabras from the rental place for $10 each that held 24 candles each, each box of 12 candles cost $2, so $8 for candles. We are still using those white candles nearly 12 years later during power failures. I bought a unity candle at Micheal's for $12. The preacher we paid $50 and the pianist was $20 to play Moonlight Sonata during the lighting of the unity candle and to play the actual Here Comes the Bride Music. We used a CD with Pachabel's cannon in D for the processional, and we played a song that was special to us, also on CD. Both CD's we already owned.

We actually paid for the rental of the groomsmens tuxedos and had a coupon, 3 for the price of 2. So DH got his and the 2 others for $100. We also bought the fabric for the bridesmaids' dresses, a lovely teal satin, and my mother sewed them. They were simple and forgiving yet elegant, as my SIL was quite pregnant and my other attendant was also a bit larger. They were designed to be dresses that could be worn again, as perhaps to a banquet or another wedding as a guest. The material, pattern, and thread cost $70 and the girls bought their own shoes together. The flower girl dress was her Christmas dress, and it was burgandy and she wore her regular white patent leather shoes.

We got our wedding cake from the local grocery store. Instead of buying a wedding cake we got a 25th wedding anniversary design. It was completely white and very elegant, 3 tiers and one sheet cake, simple white cake with white frosting and frosting as the filling. The store set it up for us, and the cake cost $100. Comparable wedding cakes in the same design book cost $300. We had bought a cake topper for $15 at a craft store and put it on ourselves after the store people left.

We mostly used the church's dishes for the reception, though we did use my grandmother's punch bowl and the cake serving set I had been given at my bridal shower, as well as two champagne glasses also given at the shower. We used a $2 bottle of sparkling cider for our wedding toast. We had coffee, tea, punch, nuts and mints. The wedding had been at 2 so that people would eat lunch before the came and the reception was done by 5 as we had a reservation to make for our honeymoon, so people didn't need to eat a meal there anyway. We spent around $30 and most of that was the price of the can of coffee and the nuts. No fancy dinner, no big dancing extravaganza.

Decorations downstairs included 6 packages of streamers and 2 packages of balloons in the wedding colors, 2 teal paper tablecloths for $30, engraved wedding napkins $25 for 100 when we bought our wedding invitations at the same mail order catalog for $100. Aside from the punch bowl of my grandmother's we used a five branched silver candelabra with candles from upstairs that my husband and I and my SIL and BIL had given as a gift to my in-laws for their 25th wedding anniversary. SIL had used it at her wedding, too.

So the grand total for my wedding was $1646 out of pocket, $2646 if you count the gifts of the church and the dress form our parents. Oh, and add in the price of the book How to Have a Big Wedding on a Small Budget, $4 used at the used book store. $2650. A beautiful wedding with not one thing I would have changed, all for less than $3000, and everything prepaid with cash.

Everyone told me what a beautiful wedding it was, how they were sure it must have cost a fortune. I just smiled at my DH and we kept our secret.

Yesterday was game day and as usual, Rose's team got trounced. It just is hard to get any rebounds when 4 out 5 players on the opposing team are a head taller than the tallest player on your team.

I emailed the head coach last night and I told him that next year they need to divide the teams up more evenly between ages and grades and experience and lack of experience and height because when you have one team from your school that is beating everyone by 30 points or more and the other one has barely managed to win 1 game all season, there is a huge inequality and it makes the losing team very dispirited every week. I don't know if he will do anything about it, but I'll be a big pain about it at the start of next season to at least be heard on the issue.

Rose got fouled on badly and got pushed into another player who's elbow went right into her temple. She was hurting too bad to even take her free throws and she's good at those, almost always makes them in practice. Another girl got slammed in the face and her tooth cut through her lip and was bleeding. She couldn't take her free throws either but also had to have a sub. Same person fouled them both. She got pulled two fouls later, thank goodness.

We packed our own snacks yesterday so no money was spent at the vending machines. The kids left the game with my parents and I came home to rest. Which I did do some, but then I got to writing and 26 pages later it was 3 a.m. That's really good for my health. But when stuff starts writing itself, I tend to go with it, because you never know when the muse is going to leave.

I made a promise to myself that I was going to write 365 pages this year, whether it was good or not, the habit needs to be gotten back into. And blogging doesn't count! And neither do outlines. That doesn't mean I have to write a page a day, I just need to hit my page count by year's end.

I went back and read the stuff over this afternoon and corrected all the typos and grammatical errors that weren't intentional, and I was really pleased with it, as sometimes middle of the night writing turns out to be less coherent than other times. In any case, its going in the "write" direction. Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.

Today I went in and picked up my kids and got gas. I used $30 of my gas money. It was down to $2.55 a gallon. I didn't go to Costco where it might have been cheaper because I can't find my Costco card and I didn't really want to go all the way across town, either. My card expires at the end of this month anyway and I'm not sure I will renew it. It's a hard decision, especially since they raised the fee.

Mom got me some eggs from the organic egg farm when she went out to get some for herself, so I have four dozen fresh eggs in my fridge. She cleaned them out between us. So that cost $6.

I got really fed up with a rude person today, and kind of let them have it in my own understated way. I always try to be polite, even when what I really want to do is be less than polite, to put it politely. Some folks are clueless and no matter what you do or say, they shall remain clueless. But such is life when you are dealing with people who don't have an ounce of common sense or consideration for others.

I'm going to try to see the doctor tomorrow if I can drag myself out of bed. Or more accurately not fall back into bed once I get the kids off to school. Or at least make an appointment for Tuesday if necessary. I am tired of being tired and not well.

I did a survey this morning and have a $5 check coming from Your2Cents. I also took a prequalifying survey for ACOP but I don't know if I'll get it as they asked about what type of TV service we have and we don't, so that's probably a no. I didn't make the one with the product trial I wanted as it was supposed to have started the 24th. Oh, well, these things are hit and miss. I've gotten two offers this month from Vindale but I just don't know if I want to do those anymore.

I'm still waiting on ReadRevenue to pay out from the 1/13 cash out. I'm not sure what is wrong but I heard from another one of the PTR places that they were having problems connecting with paypal due to an earthquake and dislocated cables, and since both are Asian Island based that's probably what the deal is. So it will most likely get straightened out eventually.

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.

Right now I am feeling very overwhelmed by finances. Just am. Not sure why. Well, maybe it is that I have been spending down savings when what I really want to do is be building it up. But bills must be paid when they come due and you know, I really wish they would come at a more convenient time. Like 3 years from now or something.

I guess I am tired of scraping. I know this year is going to get better. Eventually. But it was supposed to be better now. DH isn't the least bit bitter over what his work pulled, but I am. I'm trying not to be because it is far from useful to feel that way. It's just that when you think you've finally come to the light at the end of the tunnel and then you find out its just an emergency flare and you're only halfway out.

I know I'll feel much better when I can start contributing more than $10 a week to savings again. I'm just letting all the negativity overwhelm me. And that's just no good. I am grateful I had a savings to spend down during this long stretch of no paycheck.

Tomorrow is payday and I know getting everything taken care of will improve my feelings. At least I hope so. I usually have a very positive upbeat outlook and I don't like being Judy Attitudy (bad attitude), I like being Sunny Bunny (good attitude). Sorry, kidspeak at my house. Rudy Attitudy isn't around yet (he's got bad manners and an attitude).

I am also exhausted. My sleeping pattern is way off.

Well, I bit the bullet and listed some books on half.com today. 13 books. And I have a big box of other books still to list. I don't have high hopes for anything except maybe the home school books that we never wrote in. Still, one has to try.

I will be going through my movies, too. I have some VHS ones that I'm not interested in keeping, and some DVDs, also. I think we even may have some old video games and I know we have a bunch of preschool computer games the kids have outgrown.

DH is going to list his first class upgrades on E-bay tonight. They tend to go at $200 per pair. You can only list those once a month, so he is listing a pair this month and then one next month. So hopefully we'll bring in close to $400 for each sale. He only gets four paper upgrades a year, the rest our electronic and cannot be transferable. I wish they had more paper ones like they used to, but having any to sell at all I am grateful for.

Everything helps. We really need to go through a lot of our stuff and see what we can sell. I'd like to get rid of our clutter and get some money from the process.

I also have some things I am going to put on our local Craig's list now that we have one. But I will wait until March when it is more spring-like. Some outdoor toddler equipment like a castle slide, a car that you sit in and push with your feet, a climb through tunnel and an aluminum swingset now that we have the big wooden play structure. We also have a table that turns into an easle and some v-tech toddler toys and an Intellitable. Things I just don't want to mail or give away. I suppose I can list the v-tech stuff now, though.

I just finished reading an article comparing our nation's spending to people who spend without a thought to the future. It was very insightful.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/StateOfTheNationBroke.aspx

I'm not sure how to post it as an actual link. I'm supposed to be able to, but it doesn't. I suppose there is a trick to it, but oh, well. Copy and paste. It's worth the read.

As promised, my gluten-free meatloaf, which also happens to be low-carb or high protein for those who eat that way.

1.5 lbs harmburger
1 bunch of green onions, chopped, both green and white parts
3 heaping tbsp garlic, minced
4 large eggs
1/2 cup freshly shredded parmesan cheese
1/2 cup cheddar cheese

Mix green onion, garlic and hamburger (torn into chunks). Mix in eggs and cheeses. Mix with hands for best consistency. Oil an oven safe dish lightly (helps with clean up later on). Put meatloaf in oven safe dish. Cook at 375 for an hour. Let stand about 10 min to allow the grease that rises to the top to reabsorb. If you blot it up the meatloaf will end up dry. This can also be made in a muffin tin for individual sized meatloaves, but will dry out quicker so check on it after 45 min. It can also be fried into patties but is kind of fall aparty that way.

Garlic is very essential to the flavor of this recipe, if left out it will be quite bland.

I so did not want to make a big production over dinner tonight. I had a huge case of the lazies. So I made salmon patties. I don't use bread crumbs or crackers like many people do, I use parmesan. Everything was on hand in the pantry or fridge So here's my recipe.

3 6 ounce cans of pink salmon
3 scallions, chopped, both white and green parts
2 jumbo eggs
3 tsp minced garlic (from the jar)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese (not from the green can, freshly grated)

Mix it all up, form it into patties, fry in olive oil over medium heat (turning once) until done. Simple, easy, took all of 5 minutes, if that, to prepare and not much more than that to cook. Add a can of green beans and you have a meal. Well, we have a meal, we eat big at lunch, light at dinner. But I suppose you could add a roll and a fruit if you wanted or some other sides.

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 recieved an $8 check today from ACOP for the online family food diary I kept for them. I am still waiting to hear if I qualify for a product trial or not. It only pays $5, but the use of the product is at least a $5 value.

I sent ReadRevenue an email Friday as the $3 payout has still not shown up. It isn't there today, either. I wonder what's up with them, they are ususally so prompt and I have never had a problem with them before. I cashed out on 1/13, so its long past time when it should have been here. If it doesn't show up by tomorrow, I will send them another email.

I have been really sick of the fact that all of my casserole dishes, glass baking pans, glass bowls, divided plates with lids, bamboo steamer, and microwave safe dishes barely fit into the cupboard that I have designated for them and quite often will jump off the shelf if you open the door too fast.

And I've been grumping about all the canned goods that are on the floor level shelves that I have to get down on my hands and knees to see what I have in there.

And I've been irritated that all of the juice is way up high on the top shelves. Well, I decided to finally do something about it.

I put the canned goods in the cupboard where the dishes used to be, put baking items where the juice used to be, put the dishes where the baking items were, and moved the juice to the floor level shelves, where the kids can get them out easily. I don't know why I didn't do this before.

Now I can easily see how much and what I have to work with and it is right at mid-level, so no reaching and no hunkering down. I may make some more adjustments, but at least now I know I won't be running out of tuna, salmon, green beans, corn, or tomato sauce anytime soon. And I can easily see what I am low on.

No more buying stuff that I think we are out of and not buying stuff that I think we have too much of and being wrong. That should save some on the grocery bill and make this week's menu planning a breeze. Which I oughta do tonight, but probably won't do until morning.

I am going to a very small convention this spring of women who have the same disease as I do, that will also include 4 days at Disneyland, which I think I have mentioned in here a bit ago.

I just spent a couple of hours going through all of the menu options at all of the restaurants in the park. I have to be very careful what I eat to keep my condition under control, maintaining a strict balance between low glycemic vegetables, carbohydrates, and protein. The ratio is about 50% low glycemic vegetables, 40% healthy proteins, and 10 percent carbohydrates (preferrably complex ones). This is not the same as a low-carb diet, it is what is known as a controlled carb diet, which is far away from the high protein/low carb thing.

Well, the menu changes over the last two years have really made an enormous change at Disneyland and this is actually going to be easy. Plus, going there with other women with the same condition who all have to eat the same way as I do, makes yielding to temptation a huge peer pressure no-no.

On top of that, I will be avoiding everything with white sugar and white flour in it. I don't think I can avoid the chemicals and food additives, I'm hoping I can avoid trans fats, but I can do the best I can with what I got. And what I got is going to be way easier now.

I am going to make up a list of my preferred eating places with the choices I want, and all of their prices, so I can make up an appropriate budget for food expenses. I already know how much the hotel fee is going to be with tax, and because I will have a roommate both at the convention and the hotel by Disney, that will be cut in half.

It's going to be weird going there without my husband, but I'll still have a blast, with just a teensy twinge of guilt that I will squash down like a bug. Some of these women are like sisters to me, the good kind of sister, not the evil one. LOL They supported me through all of the surgeries and all of the trials I have had and just being with them is one of the most nurturing things I can do for myself. And the fact that half the time will be spent at Disneyland is just extra cheese on the skinny crust pizza. What? You were thinking icing on the cake? LOL I can't do that too often anymore.

I tried to lobby for us all just going to Disney for a whole week, but sigh, they want to have the learning stuff, too. And I do, too, but...its Disneyland! I'm just a big kid when it comes to that place.

At least the entire trip is being paid for in cash. I haven't gone the last two years so I don't feel guilty about going this year, especially since its in California. I know I should probably spend the money on debt, but like we were talking about in another blog, sometimes Mom has to do something for Mom. DH gets correspondence school, something he wants, and I get this. And $2000 still goes to debt.

And airfare is free with DH's miles. First Class even. As long as we don't have to pay for it, I am too spoiled to fly coach. But I am too frugal to actually buy a First Class ticket.

Well, I added up the numbers today. The real numbers, not just what I think they are from memory. Having that one card at such a high interest rate for so long really hurt us. I am glad it is under that now, down to 6.9%, but wow did it mess us up while it was high.

Credit card totals:

$19,458.14 Bank of America Visa
18,666.97 BoA/MBNA Master Card
+ 5,940.00 Citi Master Card
-------------
$44,065.11 Total Credit Card Debt

I thought it was a lot lower than that, but nope, its not.

$44,065.11 Total CC debt
35,251.24 House Mortgage
-----------
$79,316.35
147,354.13 Medical Debt (Mortgage on parent's house at 5.75%
-----------
226,670.48 Total Debt

Scary number isn't it? But we started 2005 with $250,000 worth of debt, so we have made progress. And we will be knocking off $2000 more when we get our tax return.

And our 401K is at $42,314.20 and we have a meager amount in savings, so even though our net worth is totally in the red, we are doing okay in the retirement department. Thank goodness.

Facing the numbers was really helpful to me. It has shifted my mindset over one more degree. We really have to crack down on the things that waste money. Like eating out, which we still do too much of even though we have cut way back. This is our Latte Factor (even though I don't drink coffee and DH barely does and when he does he makes it himself, and its espresso).

On Monday I am going to the library and finding a good Mexican cookbook and a good Chinese food cookbook. And I am going to figure out how to make our favorite eating out foods at home.

Our 401K statement came in the mail today. Our new balance is $42,312.20.
This is an increase of $858.20 for the month of December. Not as much as usual but still decent, considering what the stock market did last month.

On Year to Date for 2006
_________________________
$32,951.79 Beginning Balance
2,434.08 Employee Contribution
1,936.06 Employer Contribution
3,638.37 Market Gains
1,527.49 Other transactions
-173.59 Fees
-----------
$42,314.20

**********************

$9,362.41 Total increase in 401K for 2006

Not bad for only contributing 3% of our income. I wonder what would happen with 4%? Well, maybe we can up it later in the year and find out.

Well, the financial down of DH's work backing out of his promised raise has been replaced with some fairly good up news. Maybe. Do you all remember back when I was talking about DH applying for another job with the same company, that he was their top choice until a last minute resume came in and knocked him out of the running?

Well, that guy was fired because despite his fancy master's degree, he couldn't actually do the work. His idea of doing the work was "Show me what you got and I'll okay it." He was the one who was supposed to do the actual work and couldn't get it through his head that he wasn't being paid to sit on his tush and okay things. He was being paid to do the work himself.

So they've started training DH for the position. Chances are he'll start in the next four to six months. If they follow through on what they said this time. And this promotion would come with a big raise, way bigger than anything he could ever get at his current job. We're talking $1000 a month more, net, not gross, and that is just the starting wage of that job. The wage it tops out at is, get this, $600 a day for a ten hour day. Yes, a day. Oh, and you get that whether you work the full ten hours or not, if you work more than 5, or $300 if you work less than 5. Even if you only work one hour that day and then fly out. Of course, that's if you have a master's degree or 10 years of experience.

So he's not near that, but he is going to start a new set of correspondence classes to finish his B.A. and then go on to get his Master's. We have to come up with the initial downpayment, which we'll use his safety bonus for, but work will reimburse him at the end of each course, 100% for A's and 90% for B's, up to $4000 a year. DH has always gotten A's except 1 B from everything he has done so far, so I don't doubt he will do well enough to get fully reimbursed.

Yes, the company pulled a nasty with the other thing, but they've really stepped up to the plate now. It sounds more like they didn't want to give him a raise now because they figure he's going to be getting a big one with the promotion, even though his direct bosses wanted him to have one. If they follow through on this, it'll solve a lot of problems. With an extra $1000 a month, we could be out of credit card debt in less than 4 years and have our mortgage paid off in 6. I do not want to get my hopes up again, but yeah, its something pretty great, possibly.

So cross your fingers for us and say prayers if you do that sort of thing, cause I sure would love to know there is a real end to this debt tunnel.

Hope: When you get to the end of your rope and find a tire swing.

Last night I threw two chicken legs in the crockpot with half an onion, chopped, 5 tbsp of minced garlic, 6 stalks of celery with leaves, 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper and 1 tbsp of freshly ground kosher sea salt and filled it to the top with water. I set it on high for 4 hours and then on low for 12 hours, then it set to warm.

Then I drained it through a collander, set aside the chicken, dumped the veggies, put the broth back into the crockpot, added a large diced carrot, 2 stalks of diced celery and 1/3 of a bag of egg noodles I found in the cupboard. Set the timer for an hour, than picked the chicken off the bones and shredded it and put it back in the soup. Voila, chicken noodle soup with very little effort and no constant watching that the pot doesn't boil over.

Of course, salt may need to be added to taste on the finished product. My kids didn't think it needed it, but I did, so I just added it to my bowl.

Very cheaply made and I have 2 meals worth of leftovers. Yummy.

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.

Well, I checked out the requirements to donate plasma and I can be on blood pressure medication and still donate blood as long as my blood pressure is no higher than 160/90. Since with the meds it runs at 120/80 or thereabouts I am fine. And I can be taking HRT, too, that's not a problem. And the anti-D that I take on occassion for sleep (low dose for sleep, quadruple the dose if taking as an anti-D) is also allowed.

Now I just need to finish up this course of anti-biotics that I am on, wait 72 hours and I can donate. I will call them next week to see about setting stuff up. They require a medical screening and physical exam before they okay you. Since I have never been to a country that's disallowed, never been promiscuous or used drugs, and have never had an STD or transfusion, I should be good to go.

I hope so. Even if I can't max out at $200 a month, even half that would be helpful. And DH should qualify as well and he could donate when he is at home, so that would bring in a little extra.

I finished re-reading The Automatic Millionaire last night and tonight while Rose is at basketball and Tobias is doing his Headsprout lesson for reading practice, I will start working through the workbook.

Once I do that, I will probably buy the Finish Rich Workbook, too, but I may not be quite ready for that. I think that one is more into teaching about buying stocks and bonds and IRA set ups and all that while the workbook that I bought is about getting out of debt.

Chase (a card I have now with no balance) has offered me a 4.9 percent interest rate for the life of the loan which I am thinking about taking. I have one card that is at 6.9 percent until March of 2008 and another card that is at 15.9 percent which is a fixed rate air miles card. The 6.9 card loses its rate in March and goes up to 17 percent.

So I think I will use Chase to transfer the balance on the card that is going to go up to 17% and then focus on aggressively paying down the air miles card. The balance on the 17% card is almost $19,000 and the limit on the Chase card is $16,700. We will be taking $2000 of our tax return to pay on that card and with the two payments I have to make between now and then, the balance should be under $16,700, so that card will be empty and then we will cancel it.

I have been wanting to cancel it as it was an MBNA but got bought out by BOA and now I have three cards owned by BOA, which I don't like to have so many from one company. Once it is cancelled I will have one BOA VISA air miles card, one MBNA/BOA Master Card, one Chase VISA card and one Citi Master Card. The Citi card is the one at 6.9% and still has $2000 worth of credit line I can access at that same precentage, so if I need to I will transfer around a bit so I can stay with only 3 cards with a balance on them.

So for now, that is my plan.

Today is the day of the automatic deposit of $10 to savings. I am still on a holding pattern as far as sending money to ING goes. I am waiting until 1/26 to send any money off, just to make sure I make it through this long stretch of no pay. I think I do have enough to make it through now, but I had to take quite a bit out of ING to make it this month.

I am glad I had it available, I just really want to get back to building it up again. But bills obviously had to come first.

Today school was delayed an hour because of the snow and then the kids had early release 2.5 hours early. I don't have a clue why. They usually have early release on the last Wednesday of the month, which this is not. I hope they aren't still going to do it that day, too.

We went into my mother's house to do some laundry. When I was there she told me she had closed out an old joint bank account we had that I had forgotten about. It was mine, but her name was on it as she used to make deposits for me when I worked nights and slept days. Anyway, it had $85.75.

Oh, I also spent $36.06 filling up the car with gas. I thought I'd be under my gas budget this month, but I just met it. Darn. Oh, well.

I spent under $12.95 and $16.95 on books, plus $2.34 sales tax for a total of $32.24. I bought Smart Couples Finish Rich, which I have read previously and The Automatic Millionaire Workbook, which supplements another one of David Bach's books, both in paperback. I feel like I am ready to face working through the workbook now and getting all my ducks in a row.

The rest of the money I have set aside until 1-26 and I won't make any decisions on where to put it until then. I am tentatively thinking about putting it in the vacation fund. My trip to California is coming up in May and the convention for my disease lasts 2.5 days and then some of us are going to Disneyland for 2, possibly 3 days.

My airfare is free through DH's miles and I will have a roommate both at the convention and at Disney. So I'm trying to save $1000 to cover hotel and food. I'm not interested in souveniers other than my one lapel pin that I get no matter where I go. So far I have $116 saved up. I will have $500 from the tax return that I get to use. Well, technically its $800, but I want to push to save as much as I can and only use $500 from the tax return, so I can use most of it to pay debt.

So I have $116 saved, and $500 dedicated, which means a total of $616 and I need to come up with $484 in 3.5 months. Without dipping into the $10 a week that goes to the EF no matter what.

I saw an ad for donating plasma in the paper today. They are claiming up to $200 a month. I don't know if I can donate or not. I have high blood pressure but it is completely controlled with medication, diet and exercise. I will have to look into the requirements. If I could do that and max it out, I could earn $600 in the next 3 months. Oh, plus a $10 bonus if I bring in the advertisement.

...a $3 payout from ReadRevenue for PTR's. I cashed out on Wednesday at 1 a.m., well technically that is Thursday and it is still not at paypal. They are usually pretty good about 24 to 48 hours, so even with the holiday (and they are Asian based, so come on, they don't celebrate MLK) this is slow for them. If it isn't there tomorrow I will pursue it. They have a 72 hour minimum they claim and it has never been this late before from them.

And an $8 payout should come in the next four weeks from ACOP for doing an online 4 day food journal for my family. I love ACOP. I get the occassional $5 surveys from them but its the free product trials that pay. The last one I did paid $15.

I'm close to cashing out at GTM. MySurvey is taking forever to build up. I know Ima has had good luck with them, but I've been signed up since April and have only cashed out a $10 check once. Lightspeed is slow right now, too. Ironically.

But thanks to Jeffrey and Nate it is now back to normal and I can post again. I was in the middle of a bunch of posting when it decided to not recgonize the fact that I was logged in and when I re-logged in and hit new entry, it kept taking me to the log in page. Argh. But they fixed it with their cyber majicks! LOL

I am hoping that is the symbol for rolling eyes, as I did that a lot tonight and want to get it right as I figure I may be wanting to use it a lot. That's what it appears to be for the forums, so I'm going to see if it translates into the blogs. And if it does, then I'll go tell Baselle.

Today I made a loaf of bread and a batch of hamburger and hot dog buns. I'm getting better at the buns, though next time I will double the time of the second dough rise. My hot dog and hamburger buns are flatter than I'd like.

Still the kids like the way they taste and will eat them up, so a little flatness isn't causing complaints.

I am also going to throw the makings of turkey soup in the crockpot tonight, just fill it up with turkey necks, an onion, a carrot, some celery leaves and inner stalks, garlic, salt, pepper and water and let it go all night. Then tomorrow strain it, pick all the meat off the bones to add back to the broth, add fresh carrots and celery and homemade whole wheat egg noodles, and have it ready for the kids when they come home from school for dinner, served with warm homemade bread. Yummy and cheap.

I am really glad I bought a pasta maker in my formerly less than frugal life. I didn't use it much then, but I sure use it a lot now.

It snowed about 2 inches today. This is on top of the foot that is already on the ground. It was a real pain because last night was garbage night, so although it was really easy to get the can out to the end of the drive, getting back in when the path was covered with 2 inches of snow was not a lot of fun. At least the recycle bins were easy as I don't have to drag them through the snow.

It also meant that school was delayed for 2 hours. I am starting to think I live in an area of whimps. I mean, come on, I get closing down for lots of snow and/or if it is really cold, but it was 32 today, as opposed to the 20 its been so, what are they thinking? The highway is still bare and they weren't operating on snow routes so what gives?

I swear my kids haven't had more than five full days of school since mid-November, either they close down completely or they open late, or if there is a good day its a holiday. They're going to end up going to school until July to make up all the missed time at this rate!

It started to thaw a bit around four and rained just long enough to get the roads slick and then the temp dropped to 32 again and it is snowing, kind of, again. So that is the makings for black ice fun. Probably another late day tomorrow. I swear my daughter put in more hours when we were homeschooling than she does right now.

It totally messed up my plans for the day of going to Curves and driving to the little bank branch nearby and paying my credit card bill. I will go tomorrow. I don't like going to Curves in the afternoon as there are always too many people there then. I did shovel out my driveway again, so I got some exercise, and I walked on my treadmill for 20 minutes. I'll probably have to shovel again tomorrow.

If I can't get out tomorrow I will pay the CC on line but since I am paying out of two different checking accounts it is easier to do it in person.

I really don't like El Nino years. It is great for the southeast coast as the El Nino weather systems tend to rip apart hurricanes before they make landfall, and nice for the mid-west as they get milder winters, and easier on the east coast, too. But the west coast and the rockies get socked by very cold winters. Oh, I knew it was coming. You don't have a summer as ridiculously hot as ours was this year without it being followed by a bad winter with lots of snow and windstorms. And we are supposed to have an early spring and another hot summer. It can't come soon enough for me.

Still, I'd rather get socked with cold and snow here (as long as we have power and heat) than have the southeast endure those mind-shockingly horrific hurricanes. Just wish there was a happy medium when I'm up to my knees in ice.

I haven't updated my spending journal since Thursday, I think. I was so gung-ho on this when I started and now I'm kind of...eh. That's partly because I really don't like what the spending journal is revealing about my own personal habits. Which is that I am weird about food.

I will often buy food I don't need, even though there is plenty of food in the house because I am stressing over something. I'm not talking junk food or dumb purchases, either. Just...quantity. Like I'm afraid there won't be enough in the house or something.

This is particularly difficult now as we are no longer using the full size upright freezer. I am confined to a half size cubic chest freezer and the freezer that comes with our fridge, which is quite large for its size. I think it may be bigger on the inside than the outside, very tardis-like.

Well, I've managed to curtail the freezer spending, but seem to be trying to make up for it with pantry items. What is up with that? I did not grow up poor. Even the year my dad was on strike from the mill (he went to work pumping gas and my mom, a retired teacher, substitute taught nearly every day that year), we always had adequate food. We were never deprived. So where is this coming from?

Oh, I have issues with food. I'm a recovered bulimic, 11.5 years free of the disease, which conincides with my getting married and moving out of my parent's house. But its never been over not having enough. It was always over being in control of my life, or not being in control of it. I'm starting to wonder if my need to have such great quantities of food in the house is my way of dealing with how out of control I feel the debt situation is and the whole life on hold will he/won't he get a raise issue with DH.

And as issues go, well, I'd rather be buying too much food than ever go back down the road to an eating disorder. But when we are trying to cut back on our grocery budget and save some money here, it is very counter-productive to be coming up on this sort of thing.

I'm hoping putting it out here in black and white, may help me to recognize what I am doing and find a less destructive thing to do.

My last straw with myself was tonight when I emptied my change jar and went down to the convenience store and got a 16 inch pepperoni pizza for $6.49 when I could have very easily made something healthy at home, or even a homemade pizza of better quality for less money with what I had in the house. It went over from healthy food buying to junky food buying. Uh-uh.

This has to stop. No more money is to be spent on food between now and January 26th, unless it is for milk or for the kids for making cold lunches at school. No more mindless buying. I must be mindful in my buying.

Seems like a lot of people on the blogs right now are waiting for raises. I hate it, waiting. Last year, DH got what his boss called a partial raise. Contracts had not been signed and it was promised to him that when they were signed, which was supposed to be last summer, he would get the rest of his raise and it would be substantial. And retroactive.

I am not a greedy person by nature, but I really don't like waiting for what was promised. See, the raise last year was pretty much eaten up by the huge jump in medical premiums. Add on the new taxes for bumping up a tax bracket by just a few dollars, seriously by $5. Afterwards we were left with about $25 more each month net. Now this year the premiums went up again. Not by a couple hundered a month like last year, just by $28 a month. So now, DH is bringing home $3 less than he was a year ago before the raise. Ain't life grand?

So anyhow, last week we learned that the contracts were finally signed. Then his alternate called to say that there had been a meeting and raises were not being given out across the board. Which means selective raises will still be given out, but not everyone gets one this year.

Now I am worried that his boss will go back on his word. Not because he wants to but because of pressure from higher-ups. And of course, it'll probably be week's end before we know anything at all. He had a great direct boss, who will fight for him, but that doesn't mean he will be successful.

Meanwhile, DH's alternate was just offered a job for another company up there doing the exact same thing she is doing now. The starting wage for this same job there is $1.50 more per hour than what DH makes now. The wage range ends at $11.50 an hour more than what DH makes now. DH is currently at the top of his wage range with the current company after 11 years.

Now we are both starting to wonder if his company is actually paying the differential or not. Because there is supposed to be one for working up there, the employees are supposed to make a lot more money than the ones in town (like $10 an hour more) as they are working outside civilization and all and are away from their families.

Finding out something like that is close to impossible as the company won't release the information, so the only way to find out is to ask an employee in the same job how much they make. Awkward. Finding it out from another company, a bit easier, but not by much.

So anyway, his alternate may leave for this other company. If she does, he's back to doing the work of two people again. Which he's usually done for at least half the years he has worked there. And never been compensated for. And I feel he should be because it means more time away from the family. Its all just very frustrating. I feel bad for DH because I think they take advantage of him. He is extremely loyal. It's been a good job and a good company, but...its things like this that make you question your loyalty to the company.

I know I'm probably just blowing everything out of proportion and that it will all work out just fine, but if it doesn't...I'm going to encourage DH to actively pursue other opportunities, because we can't afford not to get compensated appropriately.

We will survive, raise or not. But I was looking forward to actually making some headway this year, instead of walking in place.