Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

There was $18 left in the grocery envelope when I re-funded it today, so I transferred that to the Emergency Fund.

$4346.77 Balance Forward
___18.00 Amount Added
-----------
$4364.77 New Balance

These are my to do lists for the next couple weeks. I will likely get all of the financial ones done this week and hold off on the more physical activities until next week. I am finally able to drive today to go to the doctor. I still have a full head and runny nose and exhaustion, but the worst from having the flu is behind me. I spent a good ten days in bed. That was the worst flu I've ever had and I am behind on everything.

1. Get ready for taxes
--gather my Youtube/Google income for DH
--gather my hobby income for DH
--gather my Thrive income for DH
--gather the interest income for DH
--gather the charitable donations paperwork for DH

2. Medical Fund Bank Account Spreadsheet
--Bring up to Date
--Balance against bank account

3. FSA
--get proper receipts to submit for the orthotics

4. Prepare the March Budget Spreadsheet

5. Reminder second half of vacation payment is due March 2

Non-Financial

1. Grocery List
--go through flyers to check sales
--check online for digital coupons
--make meal plan
--make list

2. Go through onion storage and throw out any bad ones

3. Go through squash storage and throw out any bad ones

4. Check potatoes for sprouts or bad spots
--throw out bad ones
--set aside sprouted ones for quick use

5. Garage Chest Freezer Inventory

My sister is still not doing well. Continued prayers would be appreciated. She needs to have surgery, but her doctor wasn't in today due to it being a holiday. It is something she has been putting off because she doesn't have medical insurance. This is going to be rough for her.

I was able to get out of bed today, but am still very much under the weather. I still can't drive because my head spins. DD is about a day behind me. DH and DS seem to be getting better faster than us, they always do, but are still pretty bad off. So far my Mom has not caught it.

Sister is spending the night here tonight so she isn't alone and so DH can take her back to the ER if she needs to go. I hope she doesn't catch this. That's the last thing she needs right now.

We have blown our takeout budget out of the water this week, but no one feels good enough to cook, so we won't be paying off as much to Mom, but so be it. We have gotten a lot of egg flower (drop) soup. Nice hot broth with protein and no gluten. I think I could live on it for another week, but I am hoping I will feel up to making dinner starting tomorrow. Who knows, though?

Please pray for my eldest sister. My husband is taking her into the ER.

...but I woke up with this awful chest cough that set in in the middle of the night. Guess DH and I won't be going out to celebrate after all. But I bought ribeyes a couple of days ago on sale, and DS will cook them, throw baked potatoes in the instant pot, and open a can of green beans to nuke, so I will still get my dinner cooked by someone else, which is all I really wanted. I might have to eat it in bed, but so be it. And DS is making these really good gluten free brownies instead of cake.

Things are going a lot better with my mom today. I am hoping that means the end of all the horrible, emotionally and physically exhausting days! She apologized for being so cranky and for taking me for granted. That was nice to hear, but honestly I am so used to it now I simply vent here and move on.

I took DD to physical therapy and then I went to take a three page approval thing my insurance needs to my rheumatologist's office to have them fill out and fax in, but no one was there. There was an open sign on the door and it was office hours, but the office was dark and locked. I'll call tomorrow and make sure someone is there.

Then I went over to the foot and ankle clinic which is just across the parking lot to try to get an itemized receipt for the down payment for the orthotics that the FSA wanted (it had one thing missing from the receipt I had), but the bookkeeper had just stepped out, so the receptionist left a detailed note and she was to print it out when she came back so that I could have it in the morning. So that's another trip to the two doctor's offices tomorrow, but I have nothing else on the agenda.

DD had a very tough time at PT today. The pool has a limit of four people in it at once and she had a scheduled therapy session, but they also have drop in hours for people who have finished therapy but pay an extra fee each month to come in, but they have to get out if a session is scheduled and it is overlimit. Well, at one point there were seven other people in the pool (all women between 60 and 80, they actually said their ages in the course of their conversation) besides DD and her assistant therapist. She was getting crowded back into a corner even though she was on one of the underwater treadmills. She came close to having a panic attack. She has a hard time speaking up for herself due to her panic disorder.

I guess the therapist didn't speak up at all to tell the extra women to get out of the pool, either. My daughter had a hard time even hearing because the other women were being so loud. The therapist did tell them to get back a couple of times, but they crowded in again. DD felt cornered. According to DD they were making statements that were racist, homophobic, transphobic, as well as nasty talk about young people and entitlement while shooting dirty looks at her (they really didn't like having to move for a young person), and vicious political talk (not sure which side, don't care) all at top volume. DD has a very short haircut (her hair actually hurts her when it is over an inch long) and a very androgynous appearance due to her body type and the swollen steroid face so I am sure they were making assumptions. It has happened on more occasions than I can count and she has been mistaken for a boy wearing girl's clothes as well.

It was inappropriate talk for where they were. As much as I support freedom of speech there is a time and a place to show your nastiness and a medical facility where people are in pain is not that place. You need to be conscious of other people, especially in a place that echoes every word said like the pool area. I seriously can't believe people talk that way in public. What happened to kindness and behaving yourself in public?

When she came out and told me about it on the way home, I called and reported it. I didn't act mad, just wanted them to know what had happened. I'm not usually one to rock the boat, but I will stand up for myself and my kids strongly in situations like this. The woman I reported it to said I should also call the head of the physical therapy department and tell him everything I told her and that what happened to her today was not okay. I left a voice mail and supposedly I should hear back tomorrow. We'll see.

Hopefully they have a way of tracking the women. I'm sure there is a sign in sheet or check in or something. Then they can talk to them and tell them not to act that way there in the future. Whether they will listen or not is up to them, but I do believe they should at least be spoken to. If I had been there, I would have said something directly. More importantly, I hope it will at least result in an enforcement of the pool limit. If there had only been the two other people in there with them like there was supposed to be, I don't think they would have gotten so out of hand.

It has been a rough week. Mom had her surgery last Tuesday and they sent her home Wednesday night. It was far too early for them to send her home. Not only was she incoherent, she was combative, and couldn't walk without starting to fall over. I about yanked my shoulder out of the socket catching her from falling.

Unfortunately they did not take me seriously at the hospital the night before when I told them how bad it would be if they sent her home early. If there is a next time I am going to the pre-op appointment and making it very clear that this is not okay. This has happened every time, it is just a little better if she is in the hospital those first three days.

She was also trying to manipulate everyone into giving her too many pills. Not the painkillers, but her diazepam (which is Valium). She took 6 in one day by getting my husband and son to give her two (that's her dose) when I had already given her two. She was beyond incoherent that day. I instituted a write down everything time and date pad so that can't happen again. I had asked DH to do that from the start, but he had not (I was still in massive pain, so didn't do it myself at that point).

She did not regain her ability to speak in complete sentences until yesterday. She's still a little slow, but at least now she is making sense most of the time, about 80 percent, which is where she normally is nowadays. She was able to walk without help on Saturday.

DH did take off Thursday and Friday, but he had to go back to work today. There is overtime being offered again this week (he couldn't get any last week because of helping me with Mom and needing take sick leave). It wasn't an easy day as she wanted a shower, which took an hour to do, but she was very cooperative. It is just hard to give a shower to someone else, even with a bench seat and a detachable sprayer. Easier than without one. She needed it though. It had been a week (she had to wait that long).

She still isn't wanting to eat much, but I got her to eat Jello (3 times) and a cheeseburger (she had some frozen) and some milk. Not the best of nutrition, but it is better than nothing.

I am starting to feel better now that I had an Embrel shot again. It was getting really bad with the pain without it. If I had any doubt it was helping before this, it is totally gone now. Things still aren't worked out completely with my shots, but on Thursday the doctor gave me two shots to take home, so I took one that day and I have one more, and if it takes longer than that to get my prescription moving, than I can get more. According to my doctor, everything has been approved with the new insurance since last week, but I have not heard anything from the pharmacy yet about the shot.

DH is going to see if he can't move things along for me as I don't have time to be on the phone right now between taking care of Mom and shuttling DD to appointments. I can get more samples if I need to, but I sure wish they would have told me that before I went 4 weeks without.

I am still not sure if we will be able to leave Mom long enough on Wednesday for DH and me to go out for my birthday, but I hope so. I so need to get away for a couple of hours and just not have to focus on anyone else.

Well, the last two weeks were a bit of a whirlwind of downs followed by ups. While the IRA dipped down to around $9200, it has more than recovered. The 401K never dipped to the point of a loss, but it mostly held even due to contributions until this week when it went up again. All in all, we are up $1273.21 since January 14th, with $440 being contributions from us and $440 being contributions from work. So almost $400 up.

$18,463.14 401K
+10,036.12 IRA
----------------
$28,499.26 Total Retirement

I forgot to post this yesterday, but there was $40 left in the grocery envelope when I refilled it on Friday, and I had enough nickles for a roll in my coin jar, so I deposited that $42.00 into the Emergency Fund.

$4304.77 Balance Forward
+__42.00 Amount Added
---------------
$4346.77 New Balance

There was 19 hours of overtime on DH's paycheck this pay period, which was an additional $1070.87 over the new normal pay period. Part of the $800 to Citi was the initial payment and deposit for our vacation in March. Some of it was the new baking supplies and the induction skillets and sauté pan and gluten free flours, a sweatshirt and dress for my DD, a dress and a pair of boots for my birthday, etc.

$425.72 Tithe
_500.00 Utilities
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_100.00 Household Envelope
_280.00 Family Chiropractor Monthly Plan
_111.08 Internet
__36.00 Garbage
_100.00 Car Insurance Fund
_100.00 Gas Money
_100.00 Blow Money Adults
__90.00 Allowances Kids
1000.00 Monster Mom Loan
_800.00 Citi
_100.00 Gift Fund
-------------
4142.80 Total Money Out

$7000.00 Balance Forward
-1000.00 Payment Made
----------
$6000.00 New Balance

Mom made it through surgery with flying colors as she always does. I went up and saw her for about half an hour and she was eating and alert. I didn't stay longer, though, because she was very tired. She wasn't in any pain because the nerve block hadn't worn off yet. I'm sure tomorrow will be a lot harder.

It snowed today for about 4 hours. Ugh. Now it is sleeting though, so I am sure it will be gone by morning. At least I hope so.

I made it about halfway through the SOTU speech, but will save the rest for tomorrow. I'm going to hit the bed early tonight. I've never actually listened to one of these before for any president. Dude can talk. Watched a bit of the senate today, too. Dudes can talk. Lots of talk, talk, talk.

The last week was hard on retirement, but the IRA has almost completely rebounded this week and I'm still ahead on the 401K, so the total balance is still higher than it was the last time I reported in, but I probably won't put the balance until after the addition of payday, which is Friday, so won't see it hit until Monday. I hope it keeps going back up.

I need to get bread baked tomorrow. And maybe hamburger buns, too. I also have to take DD to the neurologist. It's just for her 3 month migraine check. Her meds aren't quite cutting it, so we may have to adjust. One of these days we'll get it right. We have a lot of appointments this week and Mom will be coming home during some point. DH is working late again tonight. It's 10 p.m. and he is still there. He doesn't want to take more sick leave than he has to.

Although below is my plan for the week, with Mom's surgery and us unsure what day she is coming home for sure, things may get swapped around so that an easier meal is made that day. And there is the very real possibility that exhaustion may lead to one or two nights of take out. I hope not, though, because I feel much better when I cook myself. We do have two gluten free options for restaurants, though, so at least there is that.

I am trying to find other restaurants that have good options, too. I mean I know that any place that serves, steak, baked potato, and a veg is okay, but that gets pricey when feeding four people. We do have a gluten free burger place (beef, chicken, or turkey), although they do serve wheat buns as well, and a Polynesian place that does not use wheat flour. But I hope to avoid that. I am going to need as much nutrition as possible while taking on my mom's care. Plus it is always cheaper.

Monday:
Chicken Rotini Alfredo (brown rice rotini)
Green Beans
Bananas

Tuesday:
Five Spice Chicken Stir-fry with broccoli, carrots, celery, and onions
Rice
Blueberries

Wednesday:
Gluten Free Pancakes
Ham
Cucumbers
Apples

Thursday:
Beef Chuck Roast
Baked Potatoes
Broccoli
Oranges

Friday:
Black Pepper Chicken (onions, celery)
Rice
Home Canned Pears

Saturday:
Gluten Free Pizza
Salad
Canned pineapple

Sunday:
Salmon
Baked Potatoes
Green Beans
Home Canned Nectarines

January was a tough month and I am happy to see the back of it. I still don't have my Embrel shots coming because of the doctor's office dropping the ball, so I've had a lot of pain for the month of Jan. I lost 12 pounds, I had a nasty stomach virus and a nasty sinus infection, not at the same time, went off gluten, and I tried to do an eat from the pantry challenge and mostly succeeded. I did buy a few things, but most of the money I saved went into buying bulk meat for the freezer, $3.49/lb chuck roast and $1.99/lb boneless skinless chicken thighs. Tonight we are getting takeout for the first time in ages.

My mom's surgery is on the fourth and we are hoping they will keep her in the hospital until Friday, but she might be coming home sooner than that. DH is taking some sick leave, but the bulk of taking care of Mom will still fall on me and my son. This should be her last surgery. I did locate my power of attorney, her living will, and the actual will a couple of weeks ago, so I have all the paperwork I need should something go wrong. She also added me to her bank account so I can do that if needed.

I am not looking forward to February either, although I will have some time off on the 12th as DH and I are going out to dinner for my 50th birthday. I really wish I was on my shot. This is just going to be such an overwhelming time for me and to have it be in pain because I don't have my meds is just stressing me out.

We've got our vacation set up for mid-March for our 25th wedding anniversary now and I will likely need it very much after caring for Mom and shuttling her around everywhere. She will be allowed to drive by then so will be able to do for herself again at that point.

I know I just need to take a deep breath and calm down and make sure that whatever I do during this month that I make an effort to do my exercises, try to find time to destress, and continue to eat as healthy as I can. Oh, and get good sleep. Last time my mom had surgery it ended up with me falling off the good eating wagon and I gained back all the weight I had lost. I do not want that to happen again. I worked hard to be here and I want to keep seeing the scale going down. It's going to take a lot of focus. Hopefully I can maintain that.

$4301.11 Balance Forward
+___3.66 Interest Added
--------------
$4304.77 New Balance

No, not on money stuff. I have been trying to be a good citizen and watch all of this impeachment stuff and I did watch all of the opening arguments, but my gosh, I'm only 3 hours into yesterday's livestream of the question asking and it is so mind-numbingly tedious I just don't think I can do it anymore. I feel sorry for those poor senators. They don't get near enough breaks. They must have bladders of steel. I hope none of them have circulation issues because I can just feel the blood pooling in their legs from not being able to get up and walk around enough. I might try again tomorrow, but ugh, no more tonight.

I did a quick run at the grocery store tonight and bought some organic Russet potatoes. I was out and I didn't know when I'd get a chance to swing by Trader Joe's and get bags, so I just bought open stock at the closest grocery. It was $1.29 a pound, so not bad. Not as good as TJ's, but not bad.

Has anyone had a good, sweet navel orange at all this orange season? I haven't. They've all been sour or barely sweet. It has been such a bummer to me. They are picking them before they are ripe and it is awful. Orange season is my favorite fruit season and this is the second year in a row the grower's have ruined it by picking too soon.

I am so tired. I have been in bed for most of the week with a stomach virus. It was bad. I didn't eat for two days. It went through everyone in the house except Mom. I'm not sure where it came from, but probably the doctor's office when I took DS in for his physical. I use the hand sanitizer, but I still get sick every time I go to a doctor's office within 3 days. Although DH could have brought it home from work, too. I haven't slept well with it, either, so I am running on empty.

I also still have not gotten my Embrel shots for 3 weeks now. I thought the insurance was dragging it's heels. Nope. No one ever told the lady who does the approval that I had brought in my insurance card two weeks ago and asked the to get the ball rolling. I was so ticked off, but it does no good to get mad. It wasn't her fault, it was the fault of one of the receptionists who wasn't even there. But I talked to the actual approval lady this time and she is going to call me when it is taken care of.

I have to take DS back to the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully I won't catch the plague this time.

$4275.11 Balance Forward
+__26.00 Amount Added
------------
$4301.11 New Total

I had $26.00 left of the grocery budget from the previous pay period so transferred that to the EF. I am only adding little bits here and there until the debt is gone. My first goal is to get it to one payday's worth of income. Not sure when that will happen as I'm not allocating funds to it until the debt is gone in May.

$8000.00 Balance Forward
-1000.00 Payment Made
-----------------
$7000.00 New Balance

We were indeed able to make $2000 worth of payments this month. One payment two weeks ago and one today. It feels so good to watch that balance drop so much this month. If we can keep this up it will be paid off May 1st. Maybe sooner depending on our tax refund. It will feel so good to have this debt behind us for good.

Well, my Amazon order came today. Yes, I have been buying a lot of stuff recently, but it has all been planned and budgeted for. I got some new cooking and baking things, which was 2 skillets, a sauté pan, both of which are for induction cook tops but lined with ceramic for easy non-stick cooking (that copper stuff doesn't last), a pastry brush, 2 whisks, two dough scrapers (the pack of two was cheaper than buying one one), a set of 7 stainless steel measuring cups and 7 stainless steel measuring spoons with a leveler, a tortilla press, and 2 dough buckets with lids.

So now I can get started on making the gluten free fridge doughs. I really like the idea of doing this, making up a huge batch of dough that is good for up to ten days and then baking from it. I got two buckets so that I could have the bread dough going and the flatbread/pizza dough going at the same time. And the great thing about this system is that after five days it begins to take on a sourdough flavor.

I really like the idea of making dough once and then baking from it until you run out over several days. Making dough tomorrow is my project. I will do the pizza/flatbread dough first because I want to make Naan bread tomorrow for chicken shawarma.

I used to bake all the time to save money and even though the ingredients are more expensive than wheat flour, it is still much cheaper to make my own gluten free breads than to purchase them and of course I can get a greater variety by doing it myself and it will all be fresh, not frozen.

I made two ebay purchases today totaling $102.43. Quite a bit is shipping, but with ceramic and glass that's a given. They have to wrap it thickly and individually. I have a discontinued dinnerware pattern that I have been slowly adding to as I find semi-reasonable prices. They are never going to be completely reasonable since you can't get it anywhere but the used market, but these ones were much better prices than I've been seeing. I have been watching for about two to three years.

So I got the salt and pepper set (light wear on the bottoms) and 8 16 oz tumblers that had never been used. I have been searching for the glasses a lot longer than the salt and pepper set. I used to have four but they all got broken over the years. I would like to get 4 more after these come if I can find a decent price. They have more, but not with reasonable prices. The glasses will only be for special occasions, not for every day use. This comes out of the household budget.

I got my Costco membership 2% back certificate today. It is for $89.69. I also got an email today saying my Costco credit card rewards check was coming as well, which will be $415.54. That's a total of $505.23. The Aerogarden Farm Plus XL

https://www.aerogarden.com/farm-xl.html costs $499.95 so that will be enough to cover it without dipping into my upcoming birthday money. Since I am downsizing my outdoor garden due to my autoimmune diseases making it hard for me to do things, I will be growing lettuce and herbs and a couple cherry tomato plants inside this year. Maybe a cucumber as well or a jalapeño plant.

The outdoor garden will be down to 3 raised beds and have strawberries, green onions, my big rosemary plant, zucchini, radishes, and peppers. Maybe kohlrabi. We may grow green beans in the ground, but I am just not sure. I will still have my bee balm, yarrow, echinacea and calendula in the trash barrels. Then they are contained but still have plenty of root room. They are all spreaders so if not contained will take over. But they are my favorite for making a mixed herbal tea.

I still want to grow what I can however I can despite my limitations. Fresh veggies are so important and this way I can have them year round, too. I have had a good experience with the smaller system and the fertilizer is organic. And I can grow all the lettuce I need without worrying about recalls and food poisoning, plus have a bigger variety than what is available in the supermarket. One day all I may be able to do is grow inside from a wheelchair, but hopefully that is a long, long way off.

We haven't spent anything these last five days. When you can't easily get around town you don't tend to go out and purchase things. It's been a nice quiet weekend so far. The snow finally started melting. There are still patches of it, but you can also see patches of the ground and the road.

Of course with such a big snow melt, there is likely flooding in the county. There usually is. Hopefully it isn't too bad. We had about 10 inches in town so they probably had closer to a foot and a half. There are areas that often flood only ten miles from here. I'm glad I don't live in a flood prone area anymore.

My weight loss is going nicely. I have lost 10.4 pounds so far and this is day 6. I am doing a controlled carb intermittent fasting sort of thing. I have an 8 hour window within which I eat. I only eat two meals because I am not hungry enough to eat three when I control my carbs, but if I were to eat a third it would be protein only and within the window. At the first meal I eat only protein. At the second meal I divide my food into three equal parts. One part is protein, 1 part is low glycemic vegetables (lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, bell peppers, zucchini, green beans, cauliflower, radishes, cucumbers), and one part is a high glycemic vegetables (usually potatoes, onions, carrots, winter squash, or parsnips) or gluten free bread (in case I want pizza or a sandwich or flatbread) or rice. Rarely will it be fruit instead for the carb. If it is fruit it will be an apple or an orange. But I find the other fills me up better, so I've only had fruit once.

Too much fruit is a diet breaker for me, because basically it is just sugar in the body. I also make sure the carb meal is consumed within an hour. This has to do with insulin dumping and not getting that second insulin dump that happens about 1 hour and 15 minutes after starting to eat carbs if you are still eating them.

Two days a week I have a larger carb portion at that meal than usual. This helps me to stick to it better and not feel deprived. I am not so concerned with calories, just equivalencies, but the calories are generally between 1500 to 1700. This is the diet I was on in the past where I lost 70 pounds, so I know it works.

I have also increased my physical activity. I am now doing all the arm exercises with the resistance band from physical therapy again and not just most of the leg ones. I have two more leg ones I can add in when my ankle stops hurting. DH rubbed it last night and it is much better, but still not quite right. I think it might be out of alignment and need an adjustment by the chiropractor. I found some exercises I can do for my ankles with the resistance band, so will try to do those if they don't hurt too much.

I've also added just some simple ones I can do sitting down. Arm circles, waist twists, just reaching up for the ceiling, and punching forward. I still have to be careful with this because of my rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. The point is just to move my body as best I can. When it starts feeling easy I can add more reps. But slow and steady is the way to go with exercise for me.

It has been snowing for the past 4 days and it has been bitter cold. Today is a little warmer, but we got down to 17 degrees F, which is darn cold for here. We've had the furnace at 75 just to feel like it is 68 at the far end of the house from the furnace. We are all wearing layers inside. I have on a long-sleeved shirt with a short sleeved shirt on over it and then a long sweater over that, heavy sweats and heavy socks. I just think about how much it would be if we hadn't had the insulation replaced under our part of the house last month. I wish we'd put plastic on the windows when I wanted to, but it got put off.

The gas bill will be high this month. Electric will be a little higher, too, because we are using the space heater in the rabbit shed to keep the water bottles from freezing. And I know my mom has been using her space heater, too. And we did have Christmas lights on for 3 weeks.

DH has been able to get out and go to work. We had about 8 to 10 inches of snow and they haven't done a great job about plowing the roads. But he is used to driving in the snow due to all the years of working in Alaska. DH has been authorized to do 10 hours of overtime a week for next week and the week after that. He could have some this week, but he has a cold and isn't sure he is up for it. He's barely managing to get in his 8 hours a day at the moment. Hopefully next week he will be better and he can take full advantage of it.

The extra money would come in handy because I would like to get an electric grain mill and the one I am looking at costs $263 if I want the attachment for small grains like millet, and I do. It's a big upfront investment, but it is a whole lot cheaper to buy rice and grind it into flour than to continue to buy rice flour at high prices. Even with a bulk source it still isn't anywhere as cheap as just buying the different rices to make sweet rice flour, white rice flour, and brown rice flour, so it will eventually pay for itself. Pretty quickly, too, within the year. And as far as I can tell millet only comes in grain form, not flour form so if I want millet flour I have to grind it myself. Sorghum flour I will still have to buy in bulk unless I can find a source of the grain itself, but I can deal with that.

Also both the husband the son need new belts and the son needs new farm boots. There should be some overtime money after that to throw at the mom loan or at the EF. I haven't decided quite yet. Of course, I won't count on it until he's worked it, but tentatively that's the plan.

On my weight loss goal I have lost 5.4 pounds since starting to eat right again. Today is day 4. I am tracking my calories and food with my fitbit. I am doing about 20 minutes of exercise a day. I will be working up to 30. I lost all of my stamina when I was in bed for 3 weeks and have been working at getting it back for the last week. They are careful exercises from my physical therapy time, ones that work with my rheumatoid arthritis and not against it.

DH said the IRA went over $10K today, so that was a nice milestone that happened. I have been anxiously awaiting that moment so I am glad it finally got here.

I've been kind of lazy about planning my meals out this week. Mostly I've just been taking meat out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge and then deciding what I am going to cook based on what has thawed out and then figuring out what is going to go with it. I usually like to plan better than that, but I'm still not up to snuff after being so sick for so long. I guess whatever gets homemade food on the table instead of takeout works, right?

Tonight I made meatloaf for dinner and roasted potatoes, bell peppers, and onions, with a bag of steamed broccoli on the side. It was my first time using gluten free bread crumbs. I didn't notice any difference in flavor at all, so that is nice. It didn't quite hold together as well as usual, but that might be down to the fact I only used 3 eggs instead of 4 and had an extra pound of meat in the mix, so I probably should have actually used five eggs for a five pound meatloaf (leftovers for lunches). Everything tasted great, though, even if it was a little messy to eat.

Well, I think that about wraps it up for today. If you all could pray for me that I start sleeping better, I'd appreciate it. Too many restless nights are running me down.

$17,248.25 401K
+_9,977.80 IRA
-------------
$27,226.05 New Total

We are up $725.48 since the end of the year, $440 of which was contributions, so $285.48 in gains.

I hate it when USPS flat out lies about attempting to deliver a package. Got an email 10 minutes after their supposed attempt to deliver. There are five people at home. Our road is free of ice. The driveway and sidewalk are shoveled. There was one person sitting in the room attached to the front door. The front curtains were still opened and you could see the person who was sitting there. It was obvious people were home from the three vehicles in the driveway. The door bell never rang and no one knocked. No attempt was made to deliver this package. This is not the first time this has happened, either. I hate when stuff comes by USPS because they are just such liars. I know the truth. They over-committed someone to deliver and had too much stuff and ran out of time. It's like they think we are stupid.

Yesterday was such a lazy day for me. I pretty much stayed in bed under the electric blanket and read. I still have no stamina. I wonder if I was on the antibiotics long enough?

It snowed yesterday and it is still around today, but it is not very much. Maybe 1/2 inch if that. I hope it goes away soon. The older I get, the more I hate snow. I mean, I appreciate its beauty, but nothing else about it. It just makes everything extra cold and the roads hard to drive on. I used to love it when I was a kid, but now when I see snow, I think "Get off my lawn!" as if it were a recalcitrant child and I an old fogey.

My Amazon order came yesterday, too. Well, part of it did. It is still weird having things delivered on Sunday. I got a bucket white rice flour, a bucket of tapioca flour, a bucket of potato starch, a 3 lb bag of sorghum flour, and a 3 lb bag of extra fine sweet rice flour (that's more for cakes and pastries). The latter two came in paper bags. The first four are for the master flour recipe. I already had xanthan gum.

So today I will make up the master flour recipe and put it in the stainless steel canister I also ordered for that purpose. It should hold two batches of the flour recipe based on volume. Then I will make up the master dough recipe and go from there.

I really like the little one gallon buckets some of the flours came in. They are light enough for me to manage and air tight. I think as I finish them off I will transfer the flours that don't come in buckets to those buckets and relabel them. They all stack, so they will take up less space that way, and I won't have to deal with all the plastic bags. I should go through the white rice flour fairly quickly as that is what is used in the greatest quantities.

I am still waiting on a couple of things from that order, including the bucket opener, but I can use a paint can opener on them as well. I also got some pure palm shortening for making biscuits and a stainless steel ice bin for the freezer that should come today. The bucket opener isn't slated to arrive until February 3rd! Ridiculous. Prime has spoiled me.

I spent about $202 on the entire order, but in the long run, buying in bulk is much cheaper. The ice bin was pricey and so was the canister, but you can't beat stainless steel for durability and longevity. We try to keep away from plastic (especially single use plastic) as much as we can. It is not always possible, but we do our best to use glass, ceramic, wood, and stainless steel when we can. It is definitely hard with these specialty flours, because most of them do come in plastic. And plastic does keep out bugs and larvae, generally, so it is a trade off.

I guess as long as I am mindful about is, that is the best I can do.

I finally made it to the library today to do my favorite thing, save money on books. I picked up four novels and 3 cookbooks. The one that I am interested in the most is Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I can tell already that this will highly likely be a book that I actually buy if we like the end product of the recipes. I have three weeks to make these recipes and make that decision. It's a $30 book so not a decision I will make lightly.

It's a real catch all of gluten-free baking. I have been baking homemade breads and pastries for decades, but this is like learning to be a good baker all over again. The skill set is different. Fortunately this book seems to teach the skill set along with the recipes. Probably one of the reasons it is so highly recommended for beginners on Amazon. This is really something I want to get good at, because a loaf of Udi gluten free bread is very expensive, is only half the number of slices of bread as a regular loaf of bread, and those slices are also smaller. Making my own will save a lot of money in the long run, even if the ingredients are still quite expensive compared to wheat flour. I am finding bulk sources, though, to lower those costs.

I also have an apocalypse fic to read for pleasure, which is one of my favorite genres. I was supposed to read it last month for my book group, but the person who had it checked out had it overdue for 3 weeks despite my hold. Rude. Can't wait to take that into the bathtub and escape life for a while. I think one of the reasons why I like this genre so much is that they always have it worse than me, so I end up being grateful for my life even if it is one lived in chronic pain. Because, you know, at least I have electricity and the internet.

Not too much happened yesterday. I am a little bit better with the sinus infection today than yesterday, but still am not sleeping as well as I had hoped I'd be by now. Hence the 1:40 a.m. post. Are they ever going to fix the time stamp in the blogs? I've asked about it a few times. It's not been right for months. And still no icons. Anyway, my hip is acting up again because I spent so much time in bed and the chiropractor being on vacation for two weeks over Christmas. I've had 3 visits and it still keeps jamming up and it messes with my knee and ankle, too.

We did do a small grocery run for milk and fruit yesterday with money from last paycheck's grocery money, but other than that and some gluten free flours I will get tomorrow, I think the grocery budget won't be used too much this pay period unless there is a tremendous meat sale. I'll do a grocery tracking post when I am done with the shopping.

I am going to deposit what was left in the grocery money to the EF tomorrow. I want to get back into the habit of doing that again.

$9000.00 Balance Forward
-1000.00 Payment Made
---------
$8000.00 New Balance

So the new paycheck amount with the FSA money being taken out of it is $105 and some change, but the difference in paycheck amount is $87 and change because more being taken out pretax affected it post tax. That's not bad at all. We did get the FSA debit card thing sorted out. It was because it was Walgreens and they have sell other things, so we had to make sure it was run as a pharmacy purchase. Anyway, I've done up all the bills already since I could see the pending paycheck amount. I have a bit of money to transfer to saving tomorrow, but other than that the bills and budget are done and the yearly budget is done. Here's the where it all went:

$318.63 Tithe
_500.00 Utilities
_400.00 Grocery Envelope
_100.00 Household Envelope
_280.00 Chiropractor
_111.08 Internet (gotta do something about this!)
__36.00 Garbage
_100.00 Car Insurance Fund
_100.00 Gas Money
_100.00 Blow Money (Adults)
_120.00 Allowances (Kids)
1000.00 Monster Mom Loan
------------
3165.71 Total Money Out

I got nothing done today except make dinner and go to the chiropractor. I just don't have the energy yet and I think I will have to take it easy for a few more days. We aren't out of clothes yet and the towels can wait another day to be folded. We'll survive. I just wish I wasn't so cold. Even under an electric blanket turned up to high and with a space heater going in my room, my hands and feet are like ice cubes.

Tomorrow I have to take DD to physical therapy or I wouldn't even leave the house. I really don't want to sit there for an hour, but she wants me at the first appointment. Some days I just want to clip those apron strings hard, but with a disabled child I never will.

Mom is driving us all crazy right now. She's arguing historical facts and also things the End Times are right now and no one wants to listen to her anymore. I have to limit how much time I talk to her right now because she's going through an irrational period.

I think after we have finished paying off our debt to her we are going to take all of the bills except her TV/phone/internet and just pay them directly. Right now we pay for all of the garbage and then are giving her $500 a month for gas, electric, and water/sewer. But she is constantly complaining about how high everything is. I mean, I think she contributes about $50 a month to it total for the joint bills during the cold season and nothing during the warm season, but she just goes on and on.

So if we just take them and pay them it will be one less thing for her to complain about and then she can keep that $50. We're thinking about $200 in rent, too, maybe. It will mean achieving our goals a little slower, but will be worth the down tick on all the unnecessary stress she puts on us and herself freaking out over a 31 day billing month being more expensive than a 30 day billing month. Heaven help the March after February freakout.

We may need to install a handicapped ramp off the back porch, too, which will cost $1000. Mom is having issues getting up and down stairs and DD and I would also use a ramp if we had one. Mom doesn't want to pay for it, so if we do we'll have to save up for it or take that future month's contribution to the EF to pay for it. We are going to be here another six years so it is not the end of the world if we have to pay for it ourselves. We will get the use out of it. RA is a degenerative disease so I know that it would be nice just for me, really. Although, I can still do stairs fine, I don't like them and go down them sideways.

Oh, well. It's 1:45 a.m. I need to get to bed.