Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

$9787.91 Beginning EF Balance
__100.00 Monthly EF Deposit
___16.00 Rabbitry Sales Money
___17.40 Safe Driver Rebate
+__26.00 Coin Jar Money
------------
$9947.31 New EF Balance

Now if I can just get myself over to Costco by month's end and get my AMEX check cashed I will hit $10,000. I am sure you will hear my screams of joy wherever you are when that happens.

$9777.91 Ending EF Balance
+__10.00 Amount Added
-----------
$9787.91 New EF Balance

Today I spent $59.54 on 10 ducklings. We got 6 Welsh Harlequins, of which the females can lay between 260 and 300 eggs a year, and 4 Pekins. The Pekins will be meat birds. We won't know for sure about the sexes of the Welsh Harlequins until they are a bit older. I am pretty sure at least two of them are girls. I am hoping more are.

I'd really like them to be 5 hens and a drake, but it's really luck of the draw at this point. They are one week old. Once they feather out and grow up a bit we will be able to tell them apart as the males and females have different markings. If I get at least 2 hens, though, we will be well set up for next year because Welsh Harlequins will go broody and hatch a clutch a couple times a year. Assuming they aren't all females. Which I am assuming, because who has that kind of luck with a straight run?

Any excess drakes will be meat birds, too. Too many drakes just won't get along after a certain age unless there are no females. We will keep the nicest one, possibly two depending on the ratios. They are so stinking cute right now it is hard to think about the ultimate purpose of most of them. But we are choosing to farm and to raise our own food and we know we will get there. If we can do it with the adorable rabbits, we can do it with ducks. And eventually chicks, as we will be getting meat chickens later this summer.

If you would like to see my ducklings:

http://youtu.be/WpiBAoZqkzE

My mom got 15 meat chickens so we will probably get our chicks as soon as hers are old enough to go outside and the brooder is free. And we will be getting at least two turkeys in mid-April when they come in. They will have Bourbon Reds and Royal Palm, and a few other heritage breeds. I'd really like Royal Palm, but I would be happy with Bourbons or one of each. We are planning on them being meat birds, but I will admit right now that the turkeys may end up being pets. We will see.

I spent $25 on wood and hardware to build a brooder box for the garage. It should be really easy to make. They cut the pieces to size to make a box that will be 4 x 4 x 2. We are keeping them in the bathtub for now and they won't go to the garage until they are older.

I will be raising them on organic feed and of course they will have free range of the fenced back yard during the day. I have really missed having ducks. They are such a happy animal to have around.

$9767.91 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto Deposit
------------
$9777.91 New EF Balance

802, baby!

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

I sent $1236.41 to the Emergency Fund.

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

I also sent $1000 to the January Money Fund.

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

I added $1000 to the Appliance Fund.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can't believe that my youngest son turned 14 years old today.



He is 5 foot 10, starting to get a mustache, and his voice has more or less settled. He has shown some real maturity in the last six months. It amazes me when I think where he was just last summer, short, chubby, cracking voice, no body hair. Now he is tall, slender, steady, needing to learn how to shave pretty soon, and a nice baritone.

For his present he got a WiiU. We made him pay the first $210 out of his savings, though, and covered the remaining $100 plus the rest of the tax. He has been saving most of his allowance for half a year, most of his can money (he collects aluminum cans around the neighborhood from people who save them for him and takes them to the recycling center for cash), and even part of his rabbit money (he generally gets 33% of rabbit sales unless I need it for feed money).

He spent almost nothing on anything else during those six months. I am proud of how hard he worked to save the money. He is getting a really good work ethic. He still wants to start an egg business when we move, too.

We have been throwing around getting ducklings this year, but I'm not sure if we are going to. We got mom to okay it, but then at the last minute she said, "But I don't want any of those upright ducks." Well, that is what I wanted to get, Indian runner ducks. I'm not going to buy the ducks, pay for the feed, build a house for them, and then not get the good laying ducks that I wanted just because she thinks they look stupid. I'd rather not get them at all and wait until we move so I can get what I want. If I'm paying for them, I should get to choose.

Sometimes I really do not understand how my mother's brain works. But whatever. It's her property. Basically she wants ducks and wants the ones she wants, but doesn't want to take care of them or pay for them. I wish our house would sell. I am so tired of her random edicts. We pay enough to live here, but whatever. I love my mother, but man, she is the one person on this planet who can drive me right up a wall.

I'm participating in a pantry challenge right now on my other blog. Everything I make for the rest of this month (except milk) is to either come from our pantry/freezer stores or from what we grow or raise on the homestead. I'm not buying anything but milk and that is from a local farm. It's been interesting to figure out what my meals will be.

To be honest it is not all that different from my usual way of living, just without any eating out. But I can't just go to the store if I want something. I need to make do with what I have on hand. If I run out of onions or potatoes I can't just go pick up more, I have to break into my dehydrated ones. If I run out of bread I can't just pick up a loaf, I have to bake it. If I run out of garlic I have to use powdered.

If I am craving fresh greens, I need to make do with the herbs growing on my kitchen windowsill and try to jolly my lettuce starts into growing a little faster. I do have 3 cabbages and 10 pounds of carrots stored, so it's not like I won't have anything fresh veggie like. I do have some frozen veggies, too. But it does limit my choices a bit and make me stick to my inventory. But we've been needing to eat down the freezer for a while now, so it works.

$8420.50 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto Deposit
-----------
$8430.50 Ending EF Balance

DH cleaned out his wallet before heading up to the slope. I added $18 to the coin jar.

$1030.00 College Fund
___19.00 Dues Fund
__300.00 Propane Fund
__200.00 Vacation Fund
__200.00 Appliance Fund
__167.00 January 2015 Money Fund
__600.00 Moving Fund
__200.00 Aquaponics Fund
+_200.00 Christmas Fund
-----------
$3316.00 Total Funds Money

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$8410.50 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto Deposit
-------------
$8420.50 New EF Balance

We went to the dreaded Wal-Mart yesterday to find a shockingly empty parking lot (only half full) and a badly understaffed and understocked store. There were no greeters and no shopping carts inside the store. I haven't been in there for over a year. I'd never seen it like that. We went to try to find some sweat pants for the kids. Of course all they had was swim suits, shorts, and tank tops. Wal-Mart used to carry sweats year round.

I did pick up some cheap plastic pots so I can repot my spider plant, poinsettia, lemon thyme and rosemary. I also got some glass plates to put under each pot to catch drips and dirt. I couldn't get potting soil though as the garden center was closed and locked. They didn't have anyone to staff it.

I bought some black towels for the rabbitry, new underwear, a Ball canning book, a new set of canning stuff (tongs, funnel, magnet, bubbler) and some totes for storage.

I'm afraid I snapped at a girl scout on the way out who had asked me on the way in to buy cookies, but I swear they are like little raptors pushing cookies in your face. I hate girl scout cookie season. Most of them are aggressive and rude. I was very tempted to tell her if she could pronounce all the ingredients on the box I might make a donation, but I sure as heck would not buy the box of poison she was peddling. I held my tongue and just gave a very sharp no after my earlier polite one.

I hate that they are allowed to camp out at store entrances. Drives me crazy. It's going to be like that all month everywhere I go. Even if you don't make eye-contact or are clearly making as wide a loop around them as possible and still get in the door, they come after you and get in your way. The adult supervising them just lets them do whatever they want. No manners are taught at all when it comes to selling. It's just all about pushing the sale and being in your face.

We never would have been allowed to behave like that when I was a girl scout.

I made a deposit to the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund yesterday.

$8335.90 Beginning EF Balance
___30.41 Reimbursement check for buying Mom vitamins
___28.00 in ones
+__17.00 in rolled coins
-------------
$8410.50 Ending EF Balance

I don't really have a monthly goal at present, but I need to deposit about $160 a month to hit $10K for the end of the year. Most months I hit around $180 to $200 saved, so that shouldn't be a problem.

So DH and I drove down to the Willamette Valley on Friday as part of an early anniversary getaway and to pick up our new purebred pedigreed breeding stock of New Zealand Red rabbits. We drove back on Saturday. It was nice to get away, the weather was beautiful on Friday, but we hit a snowstorm on the last leg of the trek home on Saturday. We had a great time, though, and even though he won't be home for our actual anniversary (our 19th) on the 18th, we still feel like we got to celebrate. We had a nice steak dinner out.

Meet our new buck Wildfire:



And our new does Sienna and Cinnabun:



They are very sweet, gentle-tempered rabbits. No biters or scratchers in this lot.

Costs for the trip (I'm rounding):

$90.00 for the rabbits
$80.00 for the hotel fee
$82.00 for 2 tanks of gas
150.00 for six meals out
-----------
402.00 total spent this weekend

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

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

$8335.09 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto Deposit
-----------
$8345.09 New EF Balance

I spent $45.87 for two prescriptions yesterday, an antibiotic and one of my maintenance drugs. I have a UTI and I hate the world. That should probably improve by tomorrow. I did not need this right before we have to drive to Portland and back in two days time.

I am very excited to get our new rabbits, though. And to have 24 hours away from the kids. Even if we will have to stop at every rest area between here and Amity. *sighs*

This is way more exciting than watching the credit card go down was. And that was exciting. The mortgage hit and the grand total left to pay it off is $5,836.07. It is so close I can taste it. I mean, in an ideal world the house would sell before it is completely paid for, but part of me really wants to pay it off on our own. Not that I'd say no to a good offer if I got it, though!

Yesterday when I was doing my grocery shopping at the food co-op for produce, I still checked out the meat just in case there is something on sale. Yesterday I lucked out and they had a rack of lamb on sale because the sell or freeze by date was about to expire. It was $5 off so I ended up paying $19.03 for it. It was 1.44 pounds of local organic lamb. That still worked out to $12.50 a pound, but most conventionally raised rack of lamb imported from Australia is $15 a pound, so I felt I did pretty good.

We only get lamb a few times a year (maybe a total of 15 pounds a year) and rack of lamb maybe once a year. Since we ate dinner early and I knew we'd be having a late night, I had my daughter go ahead and cover it thickly in Herbs de Provence and put it in the crockpot with half a cup of water, cooking it on high for 4 hours. Oh, it came out so tender and delicious, as good as I've ever had it in a fancy restaurant. Actually, better.

The kids and I split it (DH is in Alaska) and had it as a late night (11 p.m.) dinner. It was perfect, just enough to keep going until midnight. I am glad I bought it. It was a little expensive, but it was within the grocery budget to splurge a bit and I don't splurge on much of anything.

Friday:
Homemade pizza with pepperoni, rabbit sausage, onions, and bell pepper strips
Salad

Saturday:
Baked Chicken
Baked potatoes
Green Beans
Bananas

Sunday:
Beef pot roast slow cooked in the crockpot
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli/Cauliflower
Watermelon

Monday:
Southern Fried Rabbit
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Oranges

Tuesday:
Rabbit stir-fry with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, onions, ginger, garlic, bean sprouts
Apples

Wednesday:
Homemade baked potato soup
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Cole slaw
Apples

Thursday:
Rabbit bacon cheeseburgers on homemade buns
Homemade French fries
Cole slaw
Oranges

$8235.09 Beginning EF Balance
+_100.00 Amount Added
----------
$8335.09 Ending EF Balance

Funds Update

$400.00 Property Tax Fund
__19.00 Dues Fund
$200.00 Propane Fund
$100.00 Vacation Fund
$100.00 Appliance Fund
$167.00 January Money Fund 2015
$500.00 Moving Fund
$930.00 College Fund
$100.00 Aquaponics Fund
$100.00 Christmas Fund
-------------
2616.00 Total Money in Funds (Excluding EF)

$1000.00 to Mom
__144.00 Water/sewer Old House (2 months)
__600.00 Mortgage Old House
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__100.00 Emergency Fund
___19.00 Dues Fund (HoA Old House)
___90.00 Physical Therapy
+_100.00 Cash for Week
-------------
$2153.00 Total Money Out

I've also got to pay the kids' allowances for the last two weeks and buy groceries. I don't need to get that much. Milk, potatoes, lettuce, kale, chard, parsley, salmon, cod or snapper depending on what is in, deli meat, turnips, maybe a winter squash, and cabbage. I think I want some pears, too, but it will depend on how they look. I still have some apples and oranges, a couple of bananas, and a very unusual for me out of season imported watermelon, so not doing bad on the fruit front.

I need to pick up some black oil sunflower seeds for sprouting with the barley fodder, for the rabbits and some new chew blocks to hang from their chew toys. I am glad they are refillable. I also need to pick up some locking hardware for the 2 outdoor rabbit hutches that never had it put on and two feed cups. I have plenty of extra water bottles. We will be using the outdoor hutches when we bring the new rabbits home. They will be in quarantine for 4 weeks before I put them in with the other rabbits to make sure they have no illnesses.

I am going to risk breeding Piper with the red buck after he settles in simply because I don't want to wait a month. I want our first batch of spring bunnies by the end of March/beginning of April. I will breed them outside in one of the rabbit tractors (movable pens) to minimize exposure.

Piper is our best doe so she'll be the odd one out. The others I will pair up so I am having two does having litters at the same time. When Kalia is old enough to breed she will be paired with Piper. Then when the two red doe kits grow up I will pair one with Piper and one with Kalia, because end game is to have two unrelated litters growing out at the same time so if someone wants breeding stock that is not related I will always have that option for selling.

Okay, that kind of went off on a tangent.

So I had another person come by tonight to buy a 9 week old rabbit buck kit for $15 as he had a litter of straight does and needs a buck for them when they get old enough. I put a blurb up on a local Facebook group yesterday and 2 hours later had been contacted by this person, and then last night another person made an appointment to come by on Saturday to look at them. The second person is interested in one or two, but was planning to look at some other rabbits, too. I don't know if she will buy or not, but if she does it is another $15 to $30 depending on one or two.

I am also going to look for a group who does raw meat diets for their pets and advertise there.

Between my sale last week of $60, and this coming one of $15, I'll have made $75 in less than a week. If I get 2 more youngsters sold, that will be $105. My New Zealand Reds that I am buying on the 1st will total $95. I like the idea that I could possibly pay for my new rabbits by sales of kits. Ignoring the fact that I am paying my son 1/3 of the rabbit profits because he does a huge amount of work when it comes to them and that I already have the money for the purchase budgeted. Most future money will go to pay for feed.

I also put up an advertisement for a breeding trio for $60 of some really sweet, friendly kits. If they sell, that'll be a nice boost. I ought to put up a thing on the bulletin board at the feed store, too, on Friday when I go to pick up more black oil sunflower seeds.

If I ever end up making enough money to pay for feed completely by selling rabbits, any profits will go into the Aquaponics Fund, followed by the Farm Fund. I'd have to sell at least $260 worth of rabbits every 2 months to pay for feed. That would be $180 for feed minus my son's percentage.

My son wants to start his own egg business when we move so he'll be saving some of his rabbit money for start up costs. I'll buy the brooder and incubator and egg fridge since I will want them for ducks and quail and meat chickens anyway, but he will pay for the laying chicks, feed, bedding, and egg cartons for his own business and I will collect a percentage of his profits because I know I will be helping him and also to cover the cost of constructing their housing if it isn't pre-existing. Probably 1/2 to start and when he's paid his portion drop it down to 20%. And if we don't get much in way of egg sales we can feed excess eggs to the pigs.

Back to the rabbits, I am thinking of selling Lola as well. I would like to have one more litter with her and pick out her biggest doe kit to keep. I haven't made my final decision. She is a good mother, but she is very standoffish, doesn't like to be taken out of her cage, which makes cleaning it difficult, and doesn't want it cleaned when she's in it even to the point of just removing soiled hay is upsetting to her.

Lola also isn't at weight for breed standard, so unless she gains just over half a pound (9 oz) she can't be put on a pedigree. She may do so. I know that Piper and Phoebe put on a little weight in their second year. She only turned one last week, four days after my birthday.

I don't know if she will ever reach breed standard though. She was a runt who we grew out an extra month and then we figured we'd see how she'd do if we grew her up a while longer, and the others were biggest of their litters. 3 months ago she only weighed 9 pounds, so I am hoping this break from having kits and the higher protein feed while I am improving her condition will put that extra bit of weight on her she needs.

We start breeding again the first week of March, but Lola will not be bred until mid-April. That gives her almost two months to gain those nine ounces.

DD is wanting to have a hand in the Aquaponics, in caring for the vegetables and maintaining a vegetable stand. I'm not so sure she wants to make it be her own business, but work more on a percentage basis. Even if she did want it to be her own business, I wouldn't, because it's my baby at this point and when we first start we will be providing the needs for our family first, our animals second, and only selling any surplus. I don't think there will likely be much the first year we do it. We will keep any fish we raise for our own use, too.

I think DH is going to have to build our aquaponics set up though. And the hoop house for it. The one full set up I really wanted to get, but the shipping adds almost $2500 to the cost, which was already pushing $5000. So, no, that is not going to happen. But I have found some pretty simple systems and I think that with a 150 gallon stock tank, a few water tubs, a water pump, an air stone, some plumbing bits, and some crushed rock, we could set up some media beds easy for way less money. Like $600 to $700 for a system that would grow half as much as the $5000 system. Even if I sprang for the special clay pebbles it'd still come in around $1200 or so.

I am looking at blue gill perch or trout for the fish because they tolerate our weather better and it is easier to get fingerlings in this area of those types. I'd like to do a relatively small system to start with maybe four grow beds and then expand from there. No point in building a really big system while we are still living here. Ultimately I'd like a 300 gallon stock tank for the fish and 128 square feet of growing space in the media beds. And then I'd like to build a second system after a year or two of growing. But 64 square feet is a good enough place to start. We might even just start with 32 square feet. We can always add on.

I would like to get a couple of solar panels and marine batteries to run the pump and power any additional lighting needed. I think I can use LED's so it would not take as much power. So that would be an additional expense. I know I can get a marine battery for $130 or so and a solar panel with mounting brackets and all the right bits for around $700.

Another thing I was thinking about was maybe not just growing fish for us, but growing minnows or guppies or something for the ducks we are going to get to eat. I'm not sure though. From what I remember guppies are filthy fish and they might overpower an aquaponics system with their waste. I am still very much in research mode here. But I do want to do something this spring, even if it is just a system with ornamental goldfish in it.

$8225.09 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto Deposit Added
------------
$8235.09 Ending EF Balance

I will be glad tomorrow when I can finally send $100 in. I like to see it jump a little more than $10 a week.

So I'm sure if you've all been paying attention by now, you know how much I think my insurance company sucks. If not, well, Premera sucks. I mean their website is so bad, that if you try to find a specialist dentist, like an oral surgeon, for, say, a root canal, it lists things like this:

Dentist--urologist
Dentist--breast prosthesis
Dentist--colon and rectal surgeon

Now I have long thought this company has its head up its colon, but I know that's not where I keep my teeth or where any dentist cares to visit. We had this same problem when we are trying to find an orthodontist. *sighs* DH will call them and make them find us an oral surgeon. Because I do think I am still looking at a root canal in the foreseeable future. Which is a whole other story.

Now, I had to fill some prescriptions and one of them goes on the deductible, the Crestor, because if there is one thing Premera is deathly afraid of it is paying for non-generic name brand drugs even if that is what your doctor thinks you should be on. So that makes the drug $185 for 30 pills, or $6.17 a pill. Ugh. But, the Walgreens pharmatech told me they have a discount card for that drug and he whipped it out in the hopes it would give me a reasonable price to pay. You want to know what that reasonable price was? $25! Not $25 off, but $25 total. So I walked out of the pharmacy paying a cool $40 for 3 prescriptions instead of $200.

He also told me that he would mark it in my file because it is an ongoing discount, not just a one time only. Yay! But to also always ask about it because they don't always pay attention to the little notes.

I was a little resentful when we had to switch over to using Walgreens, but today made up for all of it, except losing my long time pharmacist when our little locally owned pharmacy went belly-up.

Also I can use my rewards card at the pharmacy. I haven't figured out what the rewards points are for, but I am racking them up.

I also spent $29.51 on over the counter meds while I was there, too, and got a $2 off coupon for a brand of vitamins I buy.

I transferred money from my College/Tuition Fund to my regular checking account at the CU. It was $1170. So that will arrive on Thursday and we can then make the payment and start the process of getting DD enrolled at the online high school. Our choices were pay up front the $1170 or make a down payment of $45 and make monthly payments, but then the total would be $1445.

We will actually get some of the $1170 back when we see how many of her credits transfer. Most of them should as she was halfway through her senior year and was only a week or two into the second semester. Our out of pocket will likely be around $690, so we should get $480 of the payment back. It is just the fastest and easiest way to do things without having to pay interest at some point.

Currently this leaves $930 in the College/Tuition Fund. Fortunately this is the only payment we have to make until she starts college. The whole four year program is covered by the $1170, which is why we will be getting money back. Since all text books are online and everything is graded by computer is an extremely reasonable rate for an accredited school.

Since she plans to go on and do their accredited college program afterwards for her A.S., we can look forward to much more reasonable college costs as well. I believe it is $1040 a semester for college and that includes the texts. After that she would have to transfer to a brick and mortar university, so I don't know how much it will be, if she decides to go on. But we can save meanwhile.

This is going to be interesting. I just want to get her through high school with her mental health intact and have a diploma in her hands within a reasonable amount of time. That is my priority. The rest will happen when it happens.

So this morning I figured out that if I pay $680 a month on the mortgage it will be paid off this year. If I pay $2000 out of our income tax refund and pay $690 a month it will be paid off in October. This is assuming I make a payment March 1 as I don't expect to see the tax refund before the end of March.

We could actually pay off the entire mortgage with our tax refund and still have some left over. (Don't judge the big tax refund. We are getting it because of our HSA being maxed out this year.) Except I want to put $2000 into the college/tuition fund as well as pay $2000 on the mortgage. And put a substantial chunk of it into the Aquaponics Fund.

Does anyone know if a portion of high school tuition is deductible like college tuition is? I know we won't be able to deduct it until next year, but it would be good to know now. My daughter will be enrolling in an online high school to finish her senior year and we'll be paying between $690 and $1445 depending on how many credits transfer. I think 17 will transfer but they won't know until they get her transcript.

Also, can you deduct tuition or college expenses for more than one person or is it a set amount per year regardless of how many people in your family are going?

For anyone who has both a Capitol One 360 (formerly ING) savings and checking account. I know that when you make a deposit to savings the funds are not available for ten days. Is this true when you make a deposit to checking as well? Is this true if you transfer between your C1-360 savings into your C1-360 checking account? Is there a required balance in the checking account?

There are a few times a year when it would be easier to transfer saved money to a checking account there from my savings there and then make an online payment, but not if it is going to take longer than the 3 days it takes to send it to my main checking account at the CU.

$8205.19 Beginning Balance of EF
___10.00 2/6 Auto Deposit
+__10.00 2/13 Auto Deposit
-------------
$8225.19 Ending Balance of EF