Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

I am putting a copy of my Funds totals here in case something goes wrong transferring stuff between laptops. This is the first time in my life I've ever had so much money saved up. Almost $14K and it will be over that by month's end.

After our next mortgage payment on Friday we will have more money in the Emergency Fund than we owe on the mortgage. That feels incredible.

$2024.84 January Money Fund
$7687.86 Emergency Fund
___76.00 Dues Fund
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__100.00 Propane Fund
__300.00 Vacation Fund (Hawaii 2018)
__600.00 Appliance Fund
__300.00 Moving Fund
__900.00 College Fund
_1200.00 Laptop Fund (using to pay off same as cash)
__700.00 Christmas Fund
------------
13988.70 Total in Savings

I spent just under $60 on take away today. We will get several meals from it. I just know this weekend is going to be a little stressful and I may or may not be up to cooking too much. We have 2 litters due and the temps have dropped to freezing which means an awful lot of checking on the rabbits will be done on Saturday and Sunday to make sure no kits are born on the wire, but are born safely in a nest or at least promptly put into one if they are not. I have been lucky so far in that all of the kindlings so far have resulted in only one kit born on the wire (on Phoebe's first kindling) and I was there within five minutes of it happening so we were able to save it.

I'm not too worried about Lola, but this is Serenity's first litter, so I pretty much will be doing hourly checks for the next two days. Which means a lot of walking and since my physical therapist had a migraine today and I cancelled last week due to illness, I am not in the best shape for that right now. I've had to use the cane twice this week. But it needs to be done and I'm sure the kids will take their turns at it and alert me if I need to go out and take action.

Anyway, today was payday so here is the list of money that went out:

$225.00 Monthly Chiropractic Family Plan
_100.00 Emergency Fund
_100.00 College Fund
_100.00 Property Tax Fund
_100.00 Propane Fund
_100.00 Moving Fund
_100.00 Christmas Fund
_100.00 Appliance Fund
__19.00 HoA Dues Fund
_200.00 Laptop Fund
__72.56 Internet
__47.52 Phone Old House
__41.94 Garbage
_500.00 BoA VISA
_757.82 Van Loan (plus extra)
------------
$2463.84 Total Money Out

I deposited the coin jar money into the safety net portion of the Emergency Fund today. It was $43. I also sent $100 to C1-360 to the primary EF.

$7534.86 Beginning EF Balance
___43.00 Coin Jar Money
+_100.00 Monthly Deposit
-------------
$7687.86 Ending EF Balance

That leaves me with $33.14 to come up with this month to meet my November EF goal of $7720. I've got 2 more Thursdays this month, so that will take care of $20 of it, so really only $13.14 to scrape up. That should be easy enough.

I am hoping to have it to $8000 by the end of the year. That's a bit of a stretch, but I think I can do it.

DH found out that bonuses come out on December 20th, so we should get it by the end of December. I have no idea what to expect. The first year he worked for this company the bonus was 10% of yearly income. The 2nd year it was 5% of yearly income, because they only had small projects. DH says they did a lot of big projects this year and big projects usually come with more bonus money.

10% would be fantastic. It would mean putting aside enough to finish funding DD's first year at community college and having enough left over to pay the mortgage off (It's just over $8200), with a tiny chunk to the EF. 5% would still be pretty awesome, meaning having enough to pay for her college and having a small chunk left over to go to the EF.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 10%, but I will still be happy with anything they give us.

Since today is payday, I cleaned out my purse and put all the ones and coins into the coin jar. I add $10.53. I kept back 2 quarters to pay the parking meter. I like to keep at least that much on hand in case I can't find free parking at the library.

Hopefully I will be able to make a deposit today. I can pop over there after physical therapy today if I remember and don't feel like a bruised puppy afterwards. Physical therapy will be $90, assuming she doesn't cancel on me this week due to illness.

I am glad I didn't get around to making the baked potato soup last night. I was definitely in need of comfort food tonight. And it turned out beautifully:



I had to make the roux twice, though. The first time I wasn't paying attention and didn't even look at the flour DD had brought up, just dumped it in. Well, there was a dead miller moth in it. Fortunately that was the end of a bag of flour. Unfortunately, I ,had to throw out 2/3 of a cup of butter. Ouch. With butter so expensive these days, losing over a stick of it does not feel good.

How is it possible to have such a long day on such a short day? Well, I suppose having to deal with DD's evil teacher is probably why it felt so long. I totally see what DD means. The woman is a master manipulator and it was one of the first things I called her on. Let's just say woman got schooled, hard. And we got the assignments that DD should have got in the first place.

I have to say the counselor and person from admin were top rate. Neither could understand why DD hadn't been given her assignments in the first place. Teacher really was falling all over herself. The VP wasn't there. No reason given, she was supposed to be. Oh, well. Evil teacher is now on notice that her crap won't fly with us. I do wish DH could have been there. I think his physical stature alone would have cowed her even if he is the kindest, most gentle soul, but I managed all on my own at my little 5 foot 5 inches to put her in her place. It did take a lot out of me though.

Today was a no spend day, but tomorrow won't be. I really should go to the store tonight, but I am just too tired. I know I will regret not having caffeine in the morning, but I will stop at the store after taking DD to school.

I am getting really bad about posting my menu plans. I am still cooking meals, I just keep forgetting to post them ahead of time. I find it helpful when I do, and it helps me stick to my budget, it's just been super crazy around here lately. I got 8 quarts of rabbit stock canned today and made 2 quarts of rabbit vegetable noodle soup for dinner. It was so good. It blows chicken soup right out of the water. And see how good it looks:



Continuing on the soup theme:

Tuesday:
Baked potato soup
Homemade bread
Oranges

Wednesday:
Beef stew (beef, carrots, potatoes, green beans, gravy)
Pears

Thursday:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Homemade garlic bread
Cole slaw

Friday:
Homemade pizza (sausage, onions, bell peppers)
Oranges


Saturday:
Roasted chicken
Baked potatoes
Broccoli/cauliflower
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams

Sunday:
Chicken quesadillas
Chips and homemade salsa
Salad

So my credit score went up at Experian. It is now 799. Boy it is hard to break 800. I think this is in response to the car loan dropping below a certain amount and the mortgage going under $10K in the last couple of months. Everything is in great shape on there, nothing that shouldn't be is on there and everything that should be is. This all bodes very well for when we buy our next house. That is assuming the old one sells.

So my mom's handyman's wife does alterations and I got her to replace the zipper on my jacket. It cost $20. I thought it was a great deal, because it included the zipper, which was 27 inches long. And it's a better zipper than the original. My five-year-old jacket now has many more years of life left in it. I just need to be careful when I am holding the young rabbits. They are what chewed through the zipper in the first place. And then the tab fell off.

I could have gone through the rigamarole of shipping it back to Land's End and making them replace the jacket, but I kind of felt like a rabbit chewing through the zipper wasn't a failure on their part. Plus they would have just pulled the, "Well, it's not exactly the same as the newly designed squall jackets, so it doesn't count as something we will replace for free." I figured it would be more likely I'd be out the shipping for sending it back and then have to pay for them to send it back to me when they denied it, so was a better deal just to have it fixed.

She did a great job. I can't even tell it is an aftermarket change. $20 is a good deal for me, especially since that jacket now costs $139. It was like $75 or something when I first got it. There might have been a coupon involved.

I also sewed up a hole in my sweatpants seam.

My daughter needed a new bag for school. Her backpack basically fell apart on Friday. So we found one on clearance for $15, originally $30 at Kmart. They also had canning jars for $10, so I picked up a case of quart jars. I wanted to buy a couple of pairs of sweat pants, but they didn't have any women's. They had men's, teen's, boy's, and girl's, but all they had in women's was light weight knit pants. Yeah, cause that is what I want to wear on these 40 degree F mornings.

After that we walked over to the Good Will next door and purchased some of those bowls with handles that I think were originally used for those really big fancy coffees, but we use them as soup bowls or for really big cups of tea.

I looked at both places for a 12 quart stockpot because I would like a second one, but Good Will did not have more than an 8 quart stockpot and the only one they had at Kmart was an ugly, light blue, mottled ceramic one by Paula Deen. Right size, but not in my kitchen. I prefer stainless steel anyway. I may have to put it on my Christmas list for the in-laws.

I can muddle through with one for a while longer, it would just be nice to have two pots of stock going at once so I can pressure can the results all at once instead of in batches. I mean the big canner can do 14 quarts of stock at once, so I'd like to take advantage of that and save the time. Actually, come to think of it, I could do my second batch of stock in the smaller canner. It's got the capacity to cook 12 quarts of stock, even if it can only can 9.

I think I will have to order my sweats from a catalogue. And maybe some warmer PJ's while I'm at it. Do they make king size flannel sheets? I can never find them.

So I've got an appointment set up for Wednesday with the principal, guidance counselor, and the horrible teacher. That woman is a piece of work, I tell you. She knew she was supposed to have the work for DD to get today. My daughter waited before school until one minute before the bell rang and the teacher was not in her classroom. She had to run to not be late to her first class.

Then after school, no sign of the teacher. She waited 15 minutes. The classroom was open and the lights on, just no teacher. I think she did it on purpose. And I think she'll try to play it like DD didn't show up for it. I am beyond livid. B***h is going down. Sorry for the language, I seldom get worked up enough to think it, let alone sort of type it out.

Oh, well, nothing to be done now. I have a weekend that does not need to be taken up with anger and resentment.

I got 10 quarts of rabbit meat canned today and plan to make soup and soup stock for canning tomorrow with all the ribcage pieces. Hoping to get at least 10 quarts of that canned as well. I also want to do 25 pounds of organic potatoes and the store has wild caught fresh Keta salmon on sale for $2.49 a pound so want to get about 3 of those to can. I also want to do a batch of pickles.

I picked up some pears at $1 a pound. I am not probably going to can pears this year, but I did want to enjoy them while they are in season and less expensive. Maybe after I get everything done this weekend I will have a different opinion on canning some. We'll see. I am definitely planting pear trees when we move. Then we can at least be assured of good organic pears eventually.

I've gotten my files from the big box store. Now I just need to update them and I can do a payday report for last week. I'm behind, but nothing is urgent at the moment. If the computer was going to go belly up, now was a good time of the pay cycle to do it.

Today was the weekly auto deposit to savings of $10. I transferred it the to Emergency Fund.

$7524.86 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Amount Added
------------
$7534.86 New EF Balance

Also, what is up with the hit counts? Is it just me or are they going crazy? I just hit 3 million a couple months ago. Now it's at almost 7 million. I don't think my blog is that compelling.

...should never be allowed anywhere near children.

What do you do about a teacher that refuses to give your kid the work they missed while they were absent with a legitimate and excused illness?

First day my daughter was back at school after missing a week and she asked for the assignments the teacher's response was, "I don't have them."

The second day she was back she asked for the assignments the teacher said, "Get the from someone else," even though they had all been turned in so there was no one else to get them from.

The third day she was back she asked again for the assignment packet that according to the teacher's own syllabus says she will provide. Again the teacher would not provide the assignment packet, saying get it tomorrow. She did not have it the next day, either.

DD let it go a week as she was tired of dealing with it. Well, now the teacher has handed back the packets so the class can do additional work off the packet and she still won't give one to my daughter, even though she gave them to a couple of other kids who were also out with this bug.

She is also saying in class that anxiety orders do not exist and they are just an excuse for kids to get out of work they don't want to do, like standing in front of the class and giving a presentation. My daughter's doctor has diagnosed her with social anxiety that often will induce asthma. Daughter had to leave the class for an attack and the teacher talked about her behind her back while she was out according to the other students. Daughter still does her oral presentations and does not try to get out of them.

Another student overheard this teacher gossiping about my daughter with another teacher and it got back to my daughter.

I really don't want to get into another stink with the school district after all we went through with the middle school principal and my son, but this woman is unresponsive and not doing her job. She resents the fact that my daughter has been absent so much, even though the absences have all be excused.

If she is unresponsive to my messages again I guess I have to take the next step and contact the principal. I know this is a different principal, but my experience with the other donkey has colored all of my thoughts when it comes to administration.

My daughter has never complained about a teacher at her high school before, ever, except to say one couldn't control the class. She has nothing but negative words about this woman. She's had her for other classes over the years and says she is just getting progressively worse. I've heard my daughter's friends talking about her as well, saying that she doesn't listen and punishes kids passively aggressively for being absent when they get back and ridicules them in class when they are gone and to other teachers.

I am very frustrated. I don't understand how someone who behaves like that is allowed to keep her job. I know she's been reported by other students and parents on numerous occasions. My niece, who is a substitute teacher, says she hears complaints about this woman every time she teaches at my daughter's school. I wish they would kick out bad teachers. They just shouldn't be allowed near kids.

DH went back to Alaska last night and cleaned out his wallet before he left. I cleaned out my purse, too. I had $14.79 in coins and ones to add to the coin jar.

I keep forgetting to post my menu planning. I'll just start from today and go through Sunday. I'm trying to keep to in season foods as much as possible on the fruits and veggies.

Wednesday:
Baked potato soup
Leftover pot roast
Apples

Thursday:
Fried rabbit
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Pears

Friday:
Rabbit vegetable and noodle soup
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches
Apples

Saturday:
Homemade pizza
Cole slaw

Sunday:
Roasted Chicken
Baked potatoes
Broccoli/cauliflower
Oranges

I am getting very frustrated with my body right now. This virus just won't go away. It's not full force anymore, it is better, but I'd like to breathe through my nose without having to blow it ten times first. *sighs*

My laptop stopped working again. The exact same problem that they supposedly fixed the last time. It turns on, but does nothing. And it won't work plugged into a monitor. So seems to me that the part they "replaced" they either didn't replace or didn't replace it correctly. Plus the fan isn't working.

So I'm using the back up laptop, which I hate because it is Windows 8 and has a touch screen, and a mouse that likes to randomly do whatever the heck it wants just to screw with you. Even if you turn off all that stuff. And of course I haven't saved anything to a flash drive in the past two days so my November budget and my rabbit kit weight tracking spreadsheet and my EF and HT spreadsheets were all updated yesterday, but I am sick and not thinking clearly and did not back them up.

DH is going to try a few things and then if he can't get it working temporarily enough to grab those things I need off the desktop, we'll have to pay for it to be recovered. But not repaired because it is still under the service contract. I just want them to really fix it this time. And I hope they don't try to give me a new laptop instead. I want my Win7 and my comfortable keyboard that can keep up with my typing speed. I don't want a new Win8 stupidhead touchscreen that will have a nervous breakdown in 5 minutes from the time you turn it on replacement.

Sorry to be such a whiner today.

I have had some expenses and need to do a payday report, but of course that will have to wait until I can access those things again.

/rant

I managed to get $50 worth of gift cards from Swagbucks again this month. This is the second month running. I also hit my daily goals every day again this month, so that bonus should hit in a few days. I also lucked out on a big survey that should be credited in another 2 days.

If November goes this well, I will have over $300 in Amazon gift cards to spend on Christmas, along with the cash I've been saving each month. It's really nice to know that Christmas is taken care of and I won't have to last minute scrimp and save. Starting to save a set amount early in the year really does make all the difference.

The interest from my C1-360 account hit. It is $6.25. I added it to the Emergency Fund.

$7518.61 Beginning Balance
+___6.25 Amount Added
$7524.86 Ending Balance

$195.14 to go to meet my November goal.

I set a goal for myself for the month of October of getting the Emergency Fund to $7510. Today's weekly auto deposit of $10 from savings put me over that range.

$7508.61 Beginning EF Amount
+__10.00 Amount Added
------------
$7518.61 New EF Amount

My goals for November are twofold. One is to get the EF to $7565.91, which is the one month's expenses milestone, which I am pretty darn close to.

And because I need a higher goal to shoot for during the month of November than $47.30, my primary goal for the month is to get the EF to $7720. That will be a total of $203.39, $140 of which will be provided by the 4 $10 weekly deposits of the month, and my usual $100 monthly transfer to the EF, and leaving me to come up with $61.39 from other areas of the budget.

I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow to find out if that is what it is. It could just be a sinus infection gone really wrong. Hopefully it has not gone into walking pneumonia.

I wrote a really cranky post this morning, but deleted it. It was mostly about giant ads being obtrusive on websites *cough* SA *cough* lately. And also a top ten reasons why I hate top ten articles or lists in general. Yes, the irony of that is not lost on me.

There is not too much going on in the financial area for me. Spent $53 on prescriptions on Monday and $41 on takeaway.

We are force nursing one of the rabbit kits which takes up a lot of time. Basically you hold the doe rabbit confined and put the kit on her to nurse. He was not thriving and was starving. He is doing better now, but is still half the size of his siblings. I think he will do okay now that he has learned how to nurse.

I think the sucking reflex was not very strong in him, but that has improved. We are doing it twice a day and will likely do so for another week. He is starting to fill out and is gaining strength. He was kind of grey when we found him on day 3 and 1/4 the size of his siblings, but now is a healthy pink and white and his fur has started to get shiny. I've weighed him a couple times to make sure he is gaining. He is. His legs finally started filling out. Now I think he is going to make it.

We tried to bottle feed so we could monitor intake and because Piper really doesn't like being held in place, and he would have none of it, but he is happy to nurse. He's nine days old now and I think the worst of it is behind him. It has still been very stressful for me worrying though and I've had to spend too much time out in the cold, which is making the bronchitis or whatever worse. Not much I can do about that. It takes two people, one to hold Piper and one to hold the kit in place.

Hopefully the doctor will give me some medicine tomorrow that can kick this to the curb. What I really need is cough medicine, hopefully the good stuff with hydrocodone in it, so I won't be up all night coughing my lungs up.

We went down to the ranch today to buy our meat for the next six weeks, plus 5 beef chuck roasts and 6 pounds of hamburger extra to can this week. We paid $380. The usual amount for six weeks or so worth of meat is $300. We took $400 down to allow for the extra. $400 is half our grocery budget for the month. I will use the leftover $20 to buy some chicken legs from Trader Joe's.

We also spent $35 on Arby's because we had some coupons and we were pooped after cleaning out the rabbit shed and scrubbing cages today. No one wanted to cook. Wow, that is getting up there in price. I remember when a family of four could eat there for $20. It's not been that long ago, either.

Our house had its first showing today. I doubt anything will come of it, but you never know. It would be lovely if it did, but I know how long it can sometimes take for homes to sell and I'm not counting my chickens before they are hatched. I refuse to get my hopes up.

Tomorrow is slaughter day for six of the rabbits. I never look forward to that day, but I do look forward to having another 17 pounds or so of meat in the canning jars or the freezer this week.

Nephew-in-law also dropped off some fish that he caught today. He likes to fish, but doesn't like to eat the fish. That's a win-win situation for this household.

I am still fighting this flu bug. I have more energy than I did, but will be glad when I am all the way back to normal. If I get to be before the next cold hits.

Today is payday. I paid a few bills and set aside some extra money for the farm so we can purchase some extra beef to can this weekend.

Otherwise the way the money went today was:

$1000.00 Loan Payback to Mom
__400.00 Utilities to Mom
___90.00 Physical Therapy
__400.00 Beef Money
__100.00 Cash for Week
___40.00 Allowances
__144.00 Water/Sewer Old House
___53.82 Medical (DD ER Trip)
___82.30 Propane Old House
__424.49 Property Tax Old House
__700.00 Mortgage
__500.00 January Money Fund
------------
$3934.61 Total Money Out

The January Money Fund is now at $1275.25. The budget is running smoothly.

Today is the weekly auto transfer of $10 to savings. I moved it to the Emergency Fund.

$7498.61 Beginning EF Amount
+__10.00 Amount Added
-----------
$7508.61 Ending EF Amount

I have $1.39 to go to meet my October goal of $7510.

After trying to fend off a cold for weeks, I am down. I am just exhausted even after sleeping for 12 hours. Well, there was a break in there to get up and feed the rabbits and let out the chickens and call my daughter in sick to school. But then I went back to sleep. I think it might be the flu. Everything aches, I have a headache, constant post nasal drip, coughing, and bad headache. I was doing okay yesterday, did all that canning and everything, but I feel like a truck ran me over today.

Both kids are sick, too, but they have a stomach virus. One kid is puking and the other kid has the other end of the issue. I do not want either of those things. I had a stomach virus in September and really don't want to go through that again anytime soon. I do have an appetite, though it is small. So far today I have eaten a can of soup. Neither kid is eating much of anything.

Today is a no spend day because of not feeling good enough to go anywhere. I also cleaned out my purse and added $1.76 to the coin jar.

I was able to count kits last night. Sweetie Belle had nine and Piper had seven, 16 altogether. That brings the rabbit population in our rabbitry to 44. The mother's are both doing well with their kits.

So far there are no freezes in the night time forecasts. Hopefully it will stay that way for a while. I am worried about water bottles freezing over night. I may end up putting a small heater out there at night to keep that from happening. Or possibly I can insulate the water bottles. They have that thick foam that goes over pipes. I wonder if they have some big enough to go around a 3 inch diameter water bottle? Hmm...I'll have to investigate that.

So last night I bought a whole salmon, 5 1/2 pounds, and today I cut it up and canned it. Surprisingly it only makes 6 pints of canned fish. I will know for next time to buy twice as much fish so I can do a full canner load. The salmon was wild caught coho on sale for $6.99 a pound, so it came out to $38 and some odd cents. It will definitely be cheaper for us to catch our own fish in the future, but for now we'll have some easy to eat salmon for one of those days I do not want to cook.

I also bought a 25 pound bag of organic carrots for $22 at the food co-op. It made 19 quart jars and there was enough peels and tips and ends cut off to feed to the rabbits for about 3 days. Of course I can't feed them carrots every day because of high sugar content, but I can give them some every other day. I am keeping the scraps in water to prevent them drying out.

My back and shoulders are killing me, though. It takes a lot of work to peel and cut up 25 pounds of carrots. It'll be worth it though when we have the makings for quick crockpot stew this winter.

Sweetie Belle had her first litter of kits yesterday late afternoon. I don't know how many yet as she was adamant about me not going into her cage even when I bribed her with a piece of purple kale. She just snatched the kale and then shoved the door shut with her nose. I will do it this afternoon and make sure they are all healthy. She actually gave birth in the nesting box which is a rarity for first time mothers, but I guess she thought it was the best place.

Piper gave birth to her fifth litter this morning. Not in the nesting box, surprisingly. I will also count and check on the health of her babies this afternoon. Judging from the size of the pile of fur this is not a small litter of six kits. Maybe she felt the nesting box was not large enough.

So we've gone from a rabbit population of 28 to who knows how many. Could be over 40. Six are due for slaughter soon, but not for another week at least. And we'll start weaning Lola's litter on Thursday and move them to the one empty grow out cage. By the time they are ready to be split up the other six will have gone to freezer camp. Or pressure canner camp. Either way we'll have a whole lot more meat put up for the winter.

Today is payday and here is an accounting of what was paid or put into savings.

$1500.00 Bank of America VISA
__100.00 Emergency Fund
___19.00 HoA Dues (Old House)
__100.00 College Fund
__100.00 Christmas Fund
__100.00 Moving Fund
__100.00 Appliance Fund
___40.00 Allowances
__100.00 Canning Jars* and Rabbit Supplies**
__100.00 Cash for the Week
___25.00 Garbage
-----------
$2284.00 Total Money Out

*2 cases of quart jars and 1 case of pint jars
**Water bottles, a hay tunnel, and a bottle of Vetrimycin eye wash ($27, ouch)

I also spent $50 on gas yesterday. I will be buying a 25 pounds of organic carrots to can and a whole salmon to can.

Left to pay for the month of October is the water/sewer bill, half of which has been set aside already, and the property tax for the half year, all of which has been set aside except $25 and the propane bill, which is $80. Those will be paid next Friday. I will also pay the mortgage then instead of waiting until the first and will also put $500 into the January Money Fund. All the rest of next payday's money is allocated for November bills.

Today is the first payday of the cycle, so I sent $100 to Emergency Fund at C1-360.

$7398.61 Beginning EF Amount
+_100.00 Monthly EF Deposit
----------
$7498.61 New EF Amount

I am $11.39 away from making my October goal of $7510.

I had $5.61 left in cash from the last paycheck. I added it to the coin jar.

I have also made the decision to continue to fund my funds for now instead of diverting them to January money. Instead of making extra large principal payments on the mortgage, I will save $500 of that for January money and then go back to making the extra large payments in February. I will still be making a payment big enough to pay off $500 in principal each month, just not $1000.

And come January I can always dip into other funds if necessary, particularly the vacation fund or the appliance fund. But I don't think it will be necessary, since we are getting more money each month through year's end due to having hit the amount for the year of that one tax they can take out. With this plan, I should be able to put $500 a month into the January Money Fund, which will bring the total there to $2203.25. I should also be able to scrape up another $1300 between now and year's end. That should be plenty to take care of the unpaid time off.

Today is the day of the auto deposit of $10 to savings. I transferred it to the Emergency Fund.

$7388.61 Beginning EF Balance
+__10.00 Amount Added
-----------
$7388.61 Ending EF Balance

$111.39 to go to hit my October goal of $7510. Since there are two more Thursdays this month and I will be making my $100 monthly deposit tomorrow, I don't foresee anything getting in the way of reaching my goal.

I haven't written much the past couple of days, because every time I've started a post it has been so whiney and complainy that I thought better of it. I've got a cold which is halfway between exhaustion and misery. If it were complete misery I'd just stay in bed and not do anything other than rabbit care, but it's not. It's just enough to make me grumpy and tired and wish I could breathe better, but not enough to keep me from doing things like laundry or dishes or canning the last of the apples into applesauce.

I am trying to take it somewhat easy, but I do have to breed two pairs of rabbits today. I have two litters due on Monday. If each doe has at least six kits we will have a population of 40 rabbits. Six are due to be processed in about a week and a half, though.

There hasn't been anything to do financially and won't be until payday on Friday. I will then have bills to pay and I need to buy canning jars as well so we can put up the next batch of rabbits and make some more rabbit broth to can as well. It is so good. It tastes way better than chicken soup. I can't even believe how much better.

Paydays will be different now that DH is going up on Tuesdays and coming home on Wednesdays. We'll be moving to a 5 day check, a 7 day check, a 3 day check, and no check cycle, instead of a 6 day, 7 day, 3 day check, and no check cycle. It will still be the same amount of money, just assigned to different weeks. I'll need to adjust my budget accordingly, but the stuff that will be adjusted is all short term savings stuff that can come out of any paycheck and not bills.

DH says he will be bringing home a couple days worth of work. That should at least pay for one of the extra tickets he bought. He bought 3 so he could get the Thanksgiving and Christmas time trips taken care of before they doubled or tripled in price.

DH says there is a possibility of raises next year when the new contract is negotiated. I hope so. Insurance and taxes both went up this year, to the tune of about $800 less in the month than last year. And insurance will likely go up again right before the Affordable Care Act comes into play. We've been managing well, but only because we paid off all that credit card debt. Plane tickets were also about $100 more each month, so that's about $1200 more we weren't spending in 2012, also.

We are still managing to save for both the long-term (Emergency Fund, Hawaii 2018 Fund) and the short-term (Christmas Fund, College Fund, Computer Fund, etc.), but it would be easier if college weren't looming in the fall. The community college is still $7000 a year between tuition and books, and this is with DD living at home. WWU would be $10,000 a year, but I'm not sure she has the GPA to get in there.

Her grades are screwed because of how sick she has been and she had too many absences, so unless she aces the ACT or the SAT it's likely community college for her to get her grades up. She is smart enough to do well, and she is a good test taker. At least in college she won't have classes every day and can have some down time to recover if she gets sick.

Hopefully she can get a job this coming summer. The fast food places and some of the diners are hiring again and DH and I still have an in with the owner of the restaurant we worked at when we were in college, so we can probably pull a few strings if needed. We would have done it last summer, but no one was hiring then and DD was focused on volunteering. She has no work experience at all, so strings will likely need to be pulled.

DH told me he will have four unpaid weeks off at Christmas, so I really need to start shoveling money over to the January Fund. Which means most of the short-term savings will stop for now, except the property tax fund, the moving fund, and the dues fund. Those must go on. But I can put a hold on the computer fund, the Christmas fund, the appliance fund, and the college fund for Oct/Nov/Dec, which will be $1500 to add to the January Fund. Plus the $100 a month I was already saving.

I know that he will get a bonus at Christmas, but I don't know how much it will be. It's never been less than 5% of yearly income, but we want to save that money for college, not use it to live on.

Monday:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Cole slaw
Bananas

Tuesday:
Meatball sandwiches on homemade bread
Cole slaw
Apples

Wednesday:
Chili
Baked potatoes
Green beans
Bananas

Thursday:
Baked potato soup
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Bananas
Green beans

Friday:
Homemade pizza with ham, sausage, onions, and bell pepper strips
Cole slaw
Apples

Saturday:
Roast chicken
Fried Potatoes
Broccoli/cauliflower
Applesauce

Sunday:
Beef chuck pot roast
Green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams
Mashed potatoes and gravy

I didn't make it to the CU where I keep the safety net portion of my Emergency Fund to deposit money yesterday, but made it today. I also got the statement for the quarter yesterday and earned a whopping 54 cents in that account.

$7335.51 Beginning EF Amount
___52.56 Coin Jar Savings Added
_____.54 Interest Added
-----------
$7388.61 New EF Amount

$121.39 to go to hit my October goal of $7510.

I also finally got that account set up so I can access it online. And I added that account to my online C1-360 account so I can now transfer money from the safety net to the main EF. Since the original plan was to only have $1000 in the safety net account I've got quite a bit I can transfer. They will make test deposits in a couple of business days, which with the holiday Monday likely means on Wednesday.

I can also now wet up this CU account to receive paypal deposits. DH already has our main account hooked up to the allotted number of email accounts. Now I can have my own paypal hooked up to an account. This last month I did the 5 $5 gift cards from Amazon and then the $25 gift card instead of getting a $25 cash check just because I couldn't hook up my email to our main account and I didn't have the routing information on the other bank.

This month after I get the 5 Amazon cards, I will go for the $25 cash. Then I can get it dumped into the CU account and from there grab it from the C1-360 account. It's a few extra steps, but I don't have a checking account with C1-360, just savings, and at least when I first set it up when it was ING, you couldn't paypal to a savings account. Now I just need to go set up the paypal account with my email and then set it up with the safety net CU checking account. As long as I can get the money to where I want it to go eventually, then I'm happy.

Today is the day of the $10 deposit to savings, so I transferred that to the EF.

$7325.51 Beginning EF Amount
+__10.00 Amount Added
------------
$7325.41 Ending EF Amount

I'll also be depositing my coin jar money later today and I will be even closer to hitting my October goal of $7510 in the EF by the end of the month.