Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

An earlier post reminded me to do this. I am taking major advantage of the local strawberry season and the cheap watermelons coming up from California. Wednesday's chicken will also go into Thursday's casserole and I will make Saturday's soup from the chicken carcass. I really hope I like the casserole. It is a new recipe. If I like it, it will be good for making rabbit leftovers into something else, too.

Tuesday:
Meatloaf
Green beans
Canned corn
Strawberries

Wednesday:
Whole chicken roasted with oregano and basil
Roasted potatoes and carrots
Roasted broccoli and cauliflower
Watermelon

Thursday:
Italian Chicken Casserole
Cole slaw
Strawberries

Friday:
Beef stir-fry with yellow, red, and orange bell peppers, and onions
Watermelon

Saturday:
Homemade chicken noodle soup
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches on homemade bread
Strawberries

Sunday:
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Stir-fried green beans
Homemade blueberry cornbread muffins with homemade apricot jam

Monday:
Bacon cheeseburgers on homemade buns
Homemade French fries
Cole slaw
Strawberries

We processed five rabbits today, so we now have a little over 18 pounds of meat and 1 pound of livers. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I will still miss them. They had good lives though and deaths as humane as we can make them. They should provide at least 54 meals for us or 13.5 servings per person. Considering what we spent on feed and hay to raise them to 17.5 weeks old, we are paying about $1.25 a pound for the healthiest, and pretty much the leanest, meat out there. In the future we will try to butcher at 14 weeks.

We froze the furs and when we do the next batch of kits when they grow up then we will tan them. I found a pretty simple way to do so using alum, salt, and water. It'll be about a two week process. I am thinking about making a bedspread with the furs. We want to use every part that we possibly can. The feet can be preserved, too, and sold in batches, and the heads go to the raptor rescue program for their hawks, owls, and eagles.

We kept one doe of that litter. I am not sure if we will use her as a breeder or grow her up and sell her as a breeder. She has good ears and a good body type. She seems to be far calmer now that she is not sharing a cage any longer. Her name is Lola.

I think it'll be a couple of weeks before we can eat one. We need to get a little bit further away from the process, but at least we know we can do it now and that we are one step closer to being sustainable.

I had made up a big payday post on Friday and even though I copy/saved the computer didn't so I lost it. Hopefully I'll get that reconstructed tomorrow and sent in for accountability.

I did get another $5 gift card from SB for Amazon and sent for another one. I am doing pretty good this month, though I've been too tired to get more than 40 to 50 points a day for the last couple of days. Tomorrow I have a lot of reading online to do so will probably hit goal as I will have SBTV running off to the side while I do.

DS needs to finish his compare and contrast literature essay and then he is done with home school for the summer. DD gets out of high school on the 19th at 10 or 11, I'm not sure. It will be nice to be free. We can get some real work done on the garden, turn the compost over, and do a bleach and rinse of all the rabbit cages while they are in the rabbit tractors (portable pens) on the lawn. We also need to get the grapes tied up. They are overtaking the rabbit shed door.

And housecleaning. It needs it.

Today is payday and I was able to add $1000 to the Emergency Fund. This is coming out of the overtime DH worked. I also had $40 left from my $100 cash from last week so I added that to the coin jar money in my EF envelope. That made it total $69.50 so I will deposit that today, too. And yesterday was the weekly $10 auto deposit to savings that I've had for the past decade or so.

$3902.12 Previous EF Balance
+1000.00 Deposit
------------
$4902.12 New EF Balance
+__69.50 Coin Jar Money
------------
$4971.62 New EF Balance
+__10.00 Weekly Auto deposit
-------------
$4981.62 New EF Balance

That leaves me with $18.38 to come up with for the rest of the month to hit my goal of $5000 for June. Since there are two more auto deposits of $10 each this month, there will be no problem with hitting that. I'm excited. $5000 is such a nice number.

I'm starting to think that insomnia is just part and parcel with being in your 40's. I wish it would stop. The C-pap machine has done nothing to improve my sleep. In fact, I think it makes it worse because it is so uncomfortable to wear I then can't fall asleep. I have such a mild form of apnea I don't think it much matters whether I use the machine or not. Sleep doctor has said as much, though he wants me to keep trying.

I think several months of trying is pretty much enough. I don't think it's going to get better. I've been through 3 different masks. I just can't sleep with stuff on my face or strapped around my head. Not for more than an hour or so and then I move and I wake up because it pulls at my hair or my skin or something.

We are almost done with homeschooling. I am so ready to be done. I just want an irresponsible summer. Well, you know, as irresponsible as you can be with children and livestock and a garden. LOL But it would be nice not to have to actually think for a while.

One of my major stressors removed itself last night. Turns out SIL was blowing things way out of proportion and MIL does not actually think DH should come to Wisconsin. And doesn't expect him to. So that releases us from having to suddenly come up with $2000. So I can go back to my original plans for upcoming monies and we don't have to worry about being so freaking tight with it for the next few months. And I won't feel pressured to take on more debt due to family obligations. And I can fund all the funds that I had planned to fund and keep all the funds that are in the funds in the funds. Yeah, that was probably not the best sentence, but I think you all can follow it.

Once homeschool is done on Friday I am going to work on getting us back to eating paleo-ish. Or at least very controlled carb-like. I have been so overwhelmed these last several weeks and I am feeling the bad diet choices in every cell in my body. It's very yucky feeling. I want to go back to feeling the way I did before. I actually even brought Cheetos in to the house this week. The food of death, destruction, and decay, not to mention massive allergies. This is how I get. I don't make good food choices when I am tired and stressed and overwhelmed.

And Kiki, I'm sorry if you thought I was snapping at you in my venting post comments. I didn't mean it that way. It was more of a why didn't I think of that I'm an idiot thought process going on in my head. Actually, everyone, I am slightly off my balance right now, so if I appear to grump at you at all, try not to take it to heart. I'm more grumping at life in general so it just comes out that way. I promise I will be one of the shiny happy people next week. Assuming I sleep sometime soon.

My husband made it home safely last night, but his luggage did not. This is the first time he's even checked a bag in ages. He usually just travels with his carry on. Anyway the airport (the local one) said they would deliver his bag in the morning and he would get a $25 off his next flight coupon, or he could come get it himself and get a $50 off his next flight coupon. He opted for the second choice, since the airport is five miles away and it doesn't (yet) take $50 worth of gas to go there.

He also got a $20 off your next flight coupon for some other reason. I didn't ask. But anyway they can be used together, so he'll get $70 off his next purchased ticket, which is great.

He went to the dentist this morning and there was a balance on my daughter's account, so he paid it with the credit card. *sighs* He is not supposed to do that. They hadn't even billed us for it yet. Well, the bill arrived this afternoon. But I like to pay medical/dental/vision out of checking because it makes it easier to track it for the HSA. And I like to plan for it.

If he hadn't paid it, it would have come out of Friday's paycheck. Anyway, I told him not to do that again, please. I don't like it when my budgeting gets messed up, especially with HSA stuff, and unnecessary charges get made to the credit card. And of course he got the mail so I have no idea where the heck the bill is so I can write down on it the information for the HSA. Love him to pieces, but he messes with my system something fierce sometimes.

I don't even know if he got a payment receipt and even if he did, the likelihood that I will ever see it is pretty small, since I'm sure it's been misplaced by now. So I may not even be able to use this for the HSA at all. Urgh. I know he was just trying to be helpful. *shakes head* I'm trying not to be a complete control freak over this, but I'm afraid I'm not doing very well at it!

I still feel like I am recovering from the stomach virus I had last week. I don't feel sick anymore, just exhausted and bruised and not quite myself yet. And DD got sick again. I think I may have to take her to a gastroenterologist this summer.

The school counselor called today and left a message on my voice mail. Of course I didn't get it until it was too late to call back (I tried), but I have a feeling it is about DD's absences and that she may have lost her semester. To be honest, right now I could not care less. I can't send her to school vomiting or with the other end of that equation, it's against school rules. And I also can't send her to school with a fever over 100.

If she loses her semester she won't graduate with her class, but oh, well. She would have been graduating at 17 anyway. We've talked about this possibly happening since she got so badly ill first semester and then again this one, so it's not like she doesn't know it could happen.

DH gets home tonight so he can call the counselor back tomorrow and we can see what is going on, since she called him as well, but he was busy at the airport in Anchorage trying to get his bag checked since he's bringing home a PVC cutter and that can't go in carry on. He only had an hour between the puddle jumper landing and when he had to get on the big plane in which to do it.

I honestly think my daughter should just homeschool next year, but she doesn't want to be away from her friends. Well, she's away from them anyway with the amount of illness she's had this year. If she does have to repeat (due to absences, not grades, mind you), she does have friends in the class of 2015, too. She doesn't learn well in the school environment. There are too many kids goofing off and talking during class and she finds it hard to concentrate around them.

We'll see what it comes down to. It could just be the counselor expressing worry, but since she's never done that before with DD's absences in the past, I think I'm right in assuming this is where things are going. DD is not a good enough student to pull off being sick and getting all her work done at top grades like I did in high school when I had a bad health year and was hospitalized.

Whatever will be, will be. It's not like we can fix it now, anyway. Unless they have summer school.

I'm cooking this week with an eye towards increasing freezer space. I will be roasting a chicken to use for lunches this week along with the leftover ham I cooked overnight. Ultimately I'll need to have enough space in the freezer for 6 whole rabbits that will likely dress out at 4 pounds each or about the size of a large whole chicken.

I also will make chicken stock with the remains of the chicken so I can freeze it in pints. One of my favorite ways to cook rabbit is in the crockpot with a pint of chicken broth made from our free range, organic chicken bones. I am almost out. I just have 2 pints left.

Anyway, here are the dinner meals planned for the week.

Monday:
Ham and potato soup
Green beans
Bananas

Tuesday:
Tacos (both crisp and soft tortilla shells)
Watermelon

Wednesday:
Salmon
Asparagus
Cantaloupe

Thursday:
Homemade pizza (onions, ham, pepper strips, pepperoni)
Cole slaw

Friday:
Pork chops
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Strawberries

Saturday:
Beef and broccoli stir-fry
Pineapple

Sunday:
Crockpot beef chuck roast
Blueberry corn bread muffins
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli/cauliflower

Not too much going on here today. It was a no spend day. I added $1.72 to the coin jar. I got a $5 giftcard from Swagbucks for Amazon, bringing my account to $135 in gift cards. This will be helpful at Christmas. I was also able to cash out today for another one. SB has been going pretty well this week. I hit the daily goal 4 out of 7 days. I would have hit it yesterday, too, but my daughter came in to have a serious discussion at 11:30 p.m. and I missed it by 6 points because I thought she needed my full attention. Oh, well. Some things are just way more important in life than an extra few points.

I haven't made it over to the food co-op yet. I think I probably could avoid it altogether, but just really want to buy some fresh wild salmon, so will be going tomorrow. I'll buy tortillas, freshly ground peanut butter, raw honey, and ice cream cones while there, since they have the type DS can have with his allergies. And maybe some Sundrops, too. Those are like M&M's only without artificial food colors, fake vanilla, and HFCS. I'll also see if they have Lima bean seeds. Lima beans are the only dried bean I can stand so I thought I'd grow and can some this year if I can find the seeds. I am hoping to spend no more than $100 there.

I also want to buy a watermelon and more strawberries from the farm stand. Although I should probably hold off on the strawberries since I managed to consume 2 pounds on my own since Friday. Okay, I had them with all three meals each day, but even I know that is an awful lot before they are fully in season.

I have a seven pound bone-in picnic ham in the crockpot to cook overnight, as I don't have any lunch meat for DD to take to school. She will be happy to cut a hunk off that come morning to take with her and DS and I will have breakfast and lunch taken care of (ham and eggs and hot ham and provolone cheese sandwiches).

I weighed the rabbit kits today. They are four weeks old. The biggest two are 1 pound 8 ounces each. The biggest last week was 14 3/8 ounces, so they have grown a lot. All kits are over a pound now with the smallest being 1 pound 1.5 ounces. Total litter weight is 8 pounds 2 ounces. Last week it was 5 pounds 4 ounces, so they have gained just 2 ounces shy of 3 pounds this week.

They are all very, very friendly so I think handling them daily since they came out of the nesting box was the right move. I am not seeing much skittishness at all. I am hoping one of the fast gainers is a female. Since I decided not to keep any of the 16 week olds for breeding because of skittishness, I'd like to keep one from this litter. Also, if I decide to sell any, extreme friendliness is a much wanted quality.

But right now I'm not sure I want to sell any, since our rabbitry is still small and it'll be a while before we can cover our meat needs and have surplus to sell. I'd like to get to the point where we have enough in the freezer to have rabbit once a week and be able to sell live, too.

Once we actually get to that point I will probably start raising coturnix quail as well for both eggs and meat. For the time being our egg needs are nicely met by the chickens, but once we move we won't have them unless we want to start from chicks again and I'm not sure I do. Plus coturnix hit maturity at 7 weeks old and they are so much easier to dress (maybe 2 to 3 minutes per quail), they are much more efficient at converting feed to meat than chickens, and have a much smaller footprint.

The quail are something we are looking at for next summer, since we'd have to buy an incubator. We can convert the outdoor rabbit hutches to quail cages, though, although we'd still need to buy or make breeding cages. Hatch rates on quail are about 50 to 70 percent and most of them will not sit on their own eggs, hence the incubator. Either that are we get a broody banty or silky chicken. When eating the eggs, it's about 4 to 5 eggs to equal the equivalent of a chicken egg, but they lay every day which chickens do maybe every 36 to 48 hours. We'd need about 15 females to meet the family's egg needs and then several breeding pairs for hatching eggs that would then be raised to maturity for butchering.

Also both quail and rabbits fall under the pet category for petsitters, so they are great livestock to have if you want to be able to go on vacation once in a while. Petsitters/house sitters are easier to find than farmsitters and don't require a ton of care, though they do need some stuff done daily.

Some day I'd really like to be sustainable enough with the rabbits and birds that we could also trade for organic grass-fed beef, milk, and cheese, organic pork, free range chicken, and the more difficult fruits and vegetables to grow.

I transferred the $44.99 left in checking to the Emergency Fund, which now totals $3902.12.

Payments made:

$1000.00 to Mom
$1000.00 to BoA VISA
__757.82 to Car loan (extra to principal)
___90.00 Physical Therapy
___44.87 Phone Old House
___23.39 Electric Old House
------------
$2916.08

I also took out $100 cash for the week, $30 for the kids' allowances, and spent $145.07 on groceries.

I still need to make a trip to the food co-op and then I should have at least $200 left for the Wisconsin Fund.

I have made it 3 weeks on one tank of gas and still have a third of a tank, so I think I'll make it until next payday before having to fill up. I am glad of it since gas has hit $4 a gallon. Of course, the reason I still have so much gas is that my daughter missed nine days of school with the evil stomach flu (she threw up so hard one day she broke all the blood vessels in her face, giving her skin a freckled appearance) and that the chiropractor took a two week vacation. The only places I drove during that time are to the grocery store and the feed store and physical therapy (one of which I cancelled when I had the evil stomach flu).

I am steadfastly ignoring the laundry and the garden today. I woke up feeling exhausted, so other than taking care of the animals, I have done nothing. The kids had plenty of leftovers to eat so are fending for themselves while I just lay in bed. I thought I was over the evil stomach flu, but I think I may be going in for round 2. Ugh.

Today was the day of the weekly auto deposit of $10 to the Emergency Fund. The new balance of the EF is $3857.13.

Tomorrow is payday and I have $5 left in my wallet and $44.99 left in checking. The $5 will go into my EF envelope for later deposit and the $44.99 will be transferred directly to the Emergency Fund. I am trying to make it a habit to do this with all funds left at the end of each payday week. With that as a goal I have been finding that my urge to spend right up through the week has lessened. I really want to hit $5000 this month for the EF so I am trying hard

I have been doing pretty well with Swagbucks. The last 3 days I hit the daily goal, though I don't think I will today, being is it is at 100 and I'm at 13. I cashed out for one $5 Amazon gift card.

I relocated a $40 gift card for Safeway. DH's work gives one at Thanksgiving and one at Christmas. We used one in California, but had misplaced the other one. The nearest Safeway is 35 minutes away and majorly overpriced, but I am getting so fed up with the Haggen chain since they were bought out that I might actually venture up there.

Haggen used to be my favorite store, but it's really gone downhill since the remodel. Except the prices have gone uphill. And don't get me started on the stench coming from the fish counter. It was so bad on the Memorial Day weekend I decided I am never buying fish from them again.

We have six enormous lemon balm plants growing in the backyard (and some elsewhere) and rabbits can eat that so I am going to harvest some today to give to them. They can have up to two cups of fresh vegetation a day besides their pellets and hay. So far I have given them carrots and their tops, Swiss chard, raspberry leaves, radish tops and blackberry leaves. Lemon balm should be easier to pick then the other leaves (no thorns!) and of course are cheaper than carrots or chard. I am growing chard to give them, but its not got enough on it to harvest yet.

I think I'm having a relapse of the stomach virus I had last week. Either that or I ate something I am allergic to without knowing it. All I want to do is sleep. I am so tired. Definitely going to bed early tonight.

I ordered an electric razor off Amazon today. I haven't had one in over 3 years. I usually steal DH's, but he takes it to work with him, which means I don't have one while he is gone and I really hate using disposable ones. It doesn't bother me much during the fall, winter, and spring to have hairy legs, but now it's finally shorts weather, so I gave in and made the purchase. It was a $65 razor and with shipping it came to $82. Mostly because they didn't have a standard shipping option, only a two day shipping option. Oh, well, that was the one I wanted, one that was both rechargeable and usable with a power cord.

I also picked up a prescription today. It was $2.43. I am hoping to make it through the rest of the week with no spending. Well, I say week. I actually mean until payday on Friday when I will pay the bills and go grocery shopping. I shouldn't need anything between now and then. Still resisting the urge to pick up takeaway. The urge is always there, but I am getting back into the habit of cooking so it is getting easier to resist.

Yesterday when I went to the chiropractor who was finally back from his long vacation, I looked at my card and I don't have to pay the next month of the chirocare family plan until June 28th. He added 13 days to my card to replace the 13 days he was gone. Normally it's due around the fifteenth. Which means I don't have to pay it out of this month's cycle at all. It can wait until the next cycle starts up. And because the 28th is a Friday and they are closed on Friday's we won't have to start the next plan until July 1st. It will still come out of the 28th's paycheck, though.

Meanwhile, that gives me $225 to work with that I wouldn't have had this month. It'll go into the Wisconsin Fund. It comes out of the 6/14 paycheck.

I think I forgot to say what my last coin jar update was. It was $5.65. The way I organize my coin jar is that all loose coins go in the jar, but all bills go into an envelope that I keep in the dresser drawer beneath the coin jar. On occasion I'll get 50 cent piece or a dollar coin and they'll go into the envelope, too. Right now there is a 50 cent piece in with my ones. Anytime I get enough change together to roll coins, then the rolled coin roll goes into the envelope, too. Whenever the amount in the envelope hits $30 or more I make a deposit.

I hit my daily goal yesterday on Swagbucks. I am not sure how since it was 100. I guess I was on the computer a lot yesterday so had the SBTV running in the background. I didn't search much, but I did get the first LA collectors bill. I also cashed in for a $5 gift card from Amazon. I don't know if I'll hit my goal today or not. It's 80, but I don't know if I'll have as much time to spend on the computer today.

I have five things coming out of Friday's paycheck, $1000 to Mom, the car payment, the electric bill for the old house, the phone for the old house, and $1000 to the BoA VISA. Then for 6/14 paycheck I have $2000 to BoA VISA and vacation will be paid off, the internet bill, and $1000 to the EF. There might be a few middling expenses charged to the Visa as DH will be coming home right before I pay that, but there is plenty there to pay it in full. It'll be nice to get back to doing that each month again. I think we only had it paid off for 2 months before going on vacation. It might have only been for one.

The 6/21 paycheck will be the small one with just two day's wages on it. That will be split between groceries, miscellaneous, the sleep doctor, and a good portion of it to the Wisconsin Fund. It looks like FIL and MIL will be staying at their condo from their travel club when they go, so DH might be able to crash there with them. If he didn't have to pay for a hotel that would make things a lot easier.

I had thought it was in Milwaukee, but it sounds like the hospital FIL will be going to is in Madison. I'm not sure if they've got a date yet, but the further out in summer or fall they get it, the easier it will be on our financials to find the money for this. I know you have to schedule quite a ways in advance for these things.

I think June is just going to be a very smoothly functioning money month, so long as I don't throw caution to the wind and decide to eat out a bunch. It is not on the agenda for this week, that is for sure. I have too much lovely food to cook that I am looking forward to making this week. And since I finally got a full night's sleep last night, I'm not going to be too tired to cook it.

I am very much utilizing the fact that strawberries are in season this week. Technically they are not in season yet here, that'll be another two to three weeks, so I'm a little outside of my local foodshed. But California is at least on my west coast foodshed and I'll do an awful lot for fresh strawberries. Except, apparently, get them planted yet again this year.

Honestly I haven't been very good about getting my veggies and fruits in the local foodshed the past few months. I think I just had some major weariness trying after winter ended. It is nice to try to be more sustainable and ethical in my food choices, but sometimes you really just want the darn pineapple from Hawaii.

I am, at least, keeping my meats inside my local foodshed, which is the most important part of it to me. I haven't had meat from more than 30 miles away in over a year, I know exactly where it has been raised, how it has been treated, and by what farmer. That makes me happy. If my organic carrots come from Cali than so be it.

Anyway...

Monday:
Roast chicken
Roast potatoes and carrots
Baked asparagus
Strawberries

Tuesday:
Chicken enchiladas
Salad
Bananas

Wednesday:
Baked salmon
Green beans
Oranges
Fried potatoes (from leftover roasted)

Thursday:
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Cole slaw
Strawberries

Friday:
Meatball sandwiches
Cole slaw
Pineapple

Saturday:
Homemade pizza (ham, onions, bell peppers)
Green beans
Bananas

Sunday:
Barbecued chicken
Broccoli/cauliflower/corn/asparagus baked in foil packets

And my mortgage hit this morning, too. $11,910.21 remaining. I love the countdown, and every $1K down means something to me, but I have to say the one I am really looking forward to is 4 digits instead of 5. Under $10K will make my year. Whereas this just makes my week. LOL

I spent $55 on Saturday to buy 40 pounds of rabbit pellets, a 90 pound bale of local hay, 2 more water bottles and two more clamp feeders. I didn't spend anything today.

The kits are growing well. Today I weighed the lot individually and they vary from a little over ten ounces to almost fifteen ounces. The entire weight of the litter is 5.24 pounds. They are 3 weeks old today and the adorableness factor has hit an all time high.



The weather is finally drying out the ground so hopefully gardening will commence tomorrow. It has been so frustrating trying to do anything in the wet. Hopefully we will have a long and beautiful Indian Summer to make up for the long and wet spring. We did last year and this year feels just like last.

I suppose if all I can do is grow peas, green beans, lima beans, lettuce, swiss chard, kale and kohlrabi, I'll be okay. I'll be happier with more, though. At least the fruit is pretty foolproof. Apples, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and Italian prunes are all on track.

I will probably buy strawberries from the place in Skagit County that were spray free again. I won't make jam this year, because I still have enough jam to feed a small army, so they will be for fresh eating, and for freezing both whole, and in cut up and sugared form. I'd like 30 pounds for freezing total. That should get us through the year.

We did well with blueberries and raspberries last year. We are just finishing up what we froze on the blueberries and we will probably have enough froze raspberries to last another month when they'll be ripe. I thought we were out but I found some buried in the bottom of the freezer with no frostbite.

I was very tempted to get takeaway today, but didn't. I have to keep it firmly in mind that in order for DH to afford to go to Wisconsin if needed, we can't be wasting money on restaurant food.

I spent a lot of time playing with the numbers last night and I figured out that if I start with the $205 I’ve already set aside, take the $900 that is in the funds (not counting the college fund), and then don’t fund the other four non-essential funds for July and August, which will equal $800, I’ll have $1905 with which to send DH to Wisconsin. The other $95 I can scrape up from somewhere.

We might actually be able to do it somewhat differently, too. I think I can take $700 from the 6/21 paycheck, $100 from the 6/7 paycheck, and $200 from the 6/14 paycheck, along with the July and August $800 from not funding funds, and not even touch what is currently in the funds at all. Plus the $205 we already have. That gives us $2005.

I might even be able to fund one of the funds each month if I am extra careful with the grocery budget. We have a lot of meat in the freezer so eliminating the June trip to the ranch to buy meat wouldn’t hurt anything. Plus we are going to have rabbit meat then so that will give us even more leeway. If I only use the grocery money for flour, tortillas, produce, milk and fish, we should be able to get away with using only half of the grocery budget for June.

The big thing will be not eating out much. DH is only going to be home for six days this month so that will help. And then once DS is done with homeschooling, I won’t feel so stressed and exhausted, so I’ll cook more and that will help, too. Part of my exhaustion is that I haven’t been eating as well as I used to and I need to get that back. Dinners have been okay, but there has been a lot of snacking on junk that needs to stop or at least be replaced with something better.

It is possible that DH won’t have to be there for as many days as I am thinking. It is even possible he won’t have to go at all, since neither of his parents have approached him about going at all. Just his sister said that their mom would like it. Of course, DH would probably still want to go regardless. We can squeak it out so if it’s something he wants to do, we’ll certainly try.

On an unrelated note to self: Put the tabs on the license plate. They expire June 6th and they don’t belong in the glove box!

And whoa, is the posting box different? And the font? Not so sure it's an improvement. It looks faded and more greyscale than black and white. Of course I'm sensitive to changes like that because of my vision problems, (I still haven't forgiven LJ for it's last mess) and this coloring is definitely irritating my eyes. Maybe I'm hallucinating from lack of sleep. Oh, do we have spellcheck now, too? The word for the eye rolling symbol is underlined. Well, that I do like.

Just checked my C1360 account and the interest hit. $2.35. I added it to the Emergency Fund. The new total is $3847.13.

So I added the $40.50 in the coin jar and the $31.96 leftover in checking to the EF. Along with the June deposit of $100, which I made today even though it's not June yet, bumps the Emergency Fund to $3844.78., so the normal goal would be to scrape up enough to get it to $4000, but since DH has overtime, June's goal is $5000.

I went ahead and funded my funds as usual today, even though I know that eventually that money will probably be wiped out for the Wisconsin trip. But I'm keeping it in the funds sections anyway until we know either way what is going to happen there. Available fund totals are now $1300 ($1000, if I don't count the meager college fund). This does not count the property tax fund or the propane fund, or any other fund that is a bill paying fund for bills not paid monthly. We'll only be taking from the non-essential funds like Christmas, Laptop, etc.

Here's what came out of today's paycheck:

$300.00 to Mom for June utilities
__90.00 Physical therapy
__39.53 DH Life Insurance
__32.70 Me Life Insurance
__66.62 Car Insurance
__45.67 Old House Insurance
__41.16 Old House Security
_168.00 Storage
_600.00 Mortgage ($224.14 extra to principal)
_100.00 Cash for week
__30.00 Kids Allowances
_620.64 AMEX (gas and eating out)
__72.00 Water/sewer Fund
_100.00 Emergency Fund
__19.00 Garbage Fund
_100.00 Hawaii 2018 Fund
__19.00 Dues Fund
_100.00 Propane Fund
_100.00 College Fund
_100.00 Laptop Fund
_100.00 Christmas Fund
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3165.77 Total Paid Out

I have $241 in checking, msot of that will go for groceries and over the counter medicines to restock up after the three of us were ill.

When the mortgage payment hits the remaining mortgage will be under $12K. I am excited. $10K left seems closer than ever

Oh, I forgot, there was also a medical bill of $157.41 for my daughter.

Today was the $10 auto deposit to the Emergency Fund, which brings it to $3672.68.

I emptied my wallet and added $25.00 to the coin jar. Tomorrow I will take the bills and roll of pennies to the CU and deposit it. There is $40.50, which will put me over my May goal of $3700.00 by $13.18.

Depsite my earlier post and the financial setback family stuff may cause, I am still going to try to get the EF to $5000 by the end of June. $1000 from overtime, $100 from the normal monthly deposit, $40 from the 4 $10 Thursday deposits, so scratching up $146.82 from somewhere. Well, a tiny bit less since there will be a small interest deposit in my Capital One 360 account on the 1st.

There is $31.96 left in my checking account so maybe I'll throw that in there, too. I just feel some urgency to get to $5000. Not sure why. After that my next big goal will be trying to figure out how to get to $8000, which is one month's income. Ideally, I'd like to do that by the end of 2013, but not sure how practical that is, especially with saving the Christmas bonus for college expenses. Unless there is more overtime. I know I can at least hit $6000 by the end of the year if we don't have to actually use the EF for anything.

Being sick for a week has been good for our bottom line. I ended up with $205 in savings from money I didn't spend this week. I had originally intended for this to go for groceries. Of course, not eating for 3 days and DD not eating for 3 days, made a big difference in groceries, too.

So I am setting that money aside. I am not going to put it into the Emergency Fund no matter how much I want to. I am going to put it into a temporary fund earmarked towards FIL's upcoming heart surgery. He is going to be having one for a bulging aorta soon, which was a result of the myocardial infarction he had a couple of years ago. He is choosing to go to Wisconsin to do it. The best doctor for that particular operation is there. The second best is here, but I guess they don't want to take that chance, even though it would be massively less expensive.

So they'll be there for a while and MIL wants DH to be able to come for part of it. DH can't take off work so it would have to be during one of his home shifts. We really can't afford it without wiping out a lot of our savings. Round trip flight will be around $800. Several days in a hotel and food around $1200. So we're looking at trying to come up with $2000.

I won't take it out of our Emergency Fund. The EF is for our emergencies, not other people's decisions to fly halfway across the country. So I'm going to try to squeeze it out elsewhere. I figure if I raid some of our other funds, the laptop fund, the Christmas fund, the Hawaii 2018 Fund, the appliance fund and the college fund, that's $700. So that puts me at $905. I'd just need to figure out where the other $1095 will come from.

I guess some of it can come from the overtime week DH is working. I still want to save $1000 for the EF from that, but I figure I can at least put the freezer on hold again and the $1000 for that could be saved in the temp fund. I doubt he'll get it scheduled before the end of summer, so we can likely save the difference.

I am trying not to be resentful of the fact that we will have to spend this $2000 on something that is not our goals. I know this is important to offer support to the in-laws. But I can't help feeling like if it was me, I'd do it locally and save the extra expense. It's not like the doc here is bad at this surgery. The other guy has just done it more. But this guy trained under that guy so the skill set should be there.

It's one thing if there was no one available locally, but there is. At least FIL can do all of his follow up care here. I will work on keeping my resentment to myself. It is uncharitable of me and not something I want the in-laws to see, because I do love them like parents. Parents who often think with their hearts and not their heads, but parents nonetheless.

There is very little going on here. No spending, as I am recovering from a nasty stomach virus I had over the weekend. Definitely on the upswing, but I feel bruised and like I have been put through the wringer.

I did add $1.80 to the coin jar.

I should meet my goal of $3700 in the EF by the end of the month. Not much else to add. Things continue to go smoothly on autopilot.

The rabbits are doing well. They new kits are starting to come out of the nesting box now and explore the bigger cage and pester their mother. The chickens continue to lay eggs well. And I guess that's it.

Tuesday:
Barbecue chicken (I'm totally cheating with this. I am grilling boneless skinless thighs on the George Foreman grill and then pouring barbecue sauce on top of them. It's easy and fast and I'm definitely into that this week after spending the long weekend with a stomach virus.
Pineapple
Baked potatoes (in the microwave, again, a time saver)
Green beans

Wednesday:
Homemde pizza (yellow bell pepper strips, yellow onions, ham)
Pineapple
Cole slaw

Thursday:
Beef Ribs
Baked potatoes
Broccoli/cauliflower

Friday:
Bacon cheeseburgers
Fried potatoes (from leftover baked)
Cole slaw

Saturday:
Grilled pork chops
Watermelon
Fried potatoes (from leftover baked)
Salad

Sunday:
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Drop biscuits with choice of homemade jams
Broccoli/cauliflower

Monday:
Tropical Chicken Stir-fry
Blueberry cornbread muffins

I received $10 in Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks raising my total to $130. I haven't spent as much time on them this month or last. I've been too busy with the rabbits. The kits are growing fast. This is them two days ago. They are 13 days old.



They all have their eyes open now. In another week or so they will start jumping out of the nesting box.

There isn't really anything else going on. Oh, I paid the propane bill, but that money has been set aside for awhile so affects nothing.

Basically I'm just waiting for the 31st to get here to start on the next cycle of paying bills. Everything is pretty much on autopilot at this point.

I went to the sleep doctor today and we are trying yet another C-Pap mask. This one is smaller and is a much better fit. In fact I took a nap using it this afternoon (woke up feeling sick this morning and very tired, but it could just be the cottonwood blooming and the Scotch broom) and I didn't take it off in my sleep and I slept pretty hard for 3 hours. So I think we may finally have a winner. I had to pay $144 upfront for my visit since the doctor's practice quit playing nice with Aetna who is one of stingiest reimbursers for medical insurance.

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Yesterday was the day of the $10 auto deposit to savings. That brings the Emergency Fund to $3662.32. $37.68 to go to hit my May goal of $3700.

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The three people that were trapped in the bridge collapse yesterday are in stable condition with only minor injuries. It was a miracle only three cars went down with the bridge.

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4 out of the 7 rabbit kits have opened their eyes. The other 3 are working on it. They are so adorable. They are 12 days old.

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The carpet is going to be laid on May 30th, which hopefully means the finishing touches will be put on the house the weekend of the 1st and 2nd. I really wanted to put it on the market in May, but now if we get it on there by mid-June it will still be early enough to hit those buyers who want to buy and move in over the summer so they are all set for school for their children before it begins in the fall. Since it's a 4 bedroom home in a neighborhood with lots of kids, I'm assuming it will appeal to the family market as opposed to the Canadian vacationer or the American retiree. Hopefully it won't just sit there.

Of course I can't get my hopes up yet, because I'm sure they will find a way to make it take longer than it should. That's been the case since this began. At least the rug is being installed by rug people and not the people doing the rest of the work so they won't be able to back out of it for spurious reasons.

We go over this bridge all the time, once or twice a month. We were just on it 11 days ago. There are people trapped in the water. It is really scary to see something like this on the news, happening in a place I am so familiar with. First thing we did was make sure our neighbor was home safe. She works in Seattle and commutes over this bridge ten times a week.

That part of the freeway people are going 60 to 65 MPH. It's four lanes of traffic. I can't even imagine. I am just glad that rush hour was over when it happened because it could have been so much worse. My mother was going to be going over that bridge tomorrow on her way to visit relatives in Eastern Washington. It's a very unsettling thought.

I hope they get the people out soon. A couple are sitting on top of their cars and one person is trapped inside a truck. Head above water, apparently, but they are worried about hypothermia. It just seems crazy that something like this can just happen. One minute a solid foundation, the next plunging into the water.

I think I'll be glued to the news tonight.

I got an alert from my credit monitoring service today. I have it because of a past incident with a stolen wallet. Anyway, my credit score has gone up six points to 793. According to the report we are using only 12 percent of our available credit and the national average is to use 16 percent. Ideally I'd like to be at 800 by the end of the year, but I'm not sure what it would take to do that. Probably paying the van loan down some.

I feel like we are really positioning ourselves well to buy a new house in the near future. I am still thinking along the lines of paying off our van loan if we get enough extra when our house sells. It would be one less thing to worry about and it would free up some money for upcoming college costs.

McDonald's has started hiring again. I think DD should throw her hat in the ring and try to get a summer job. She has plans to volunteer at the animal shelter but that is only 2 hours a week and you can go in at whatever time you want during their open hours. She could easily do both.

Yesterday was so beautiful and today is so wet that the chickens are taking it as a personal insult. I am tired of the weather swings, but it could be so much worse. I feel guilty complaining about the weather here when I read the news and see the photos coming out of Oklahoma.

That sort of devastation seems unreal to me because I've never seen it in real life. The only things I have personally experienced are massive floods big enough to declare us a disaster area and the day the creek exploded and the town was under a black mushroom cloud. And even that can't compare to the scale of the tornado there. My heart and prayers go out to the people who have survived this devastation.

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I didn't sleep last night. I hate it when that happens. It makes it so hard to cope with the day in a good financial state of mind. So my planned homemade pizza turned into an XL carry out pizza from Round Table instead. $29.35. It has gone up from $27.18, what it's been for the last year. That left me with 65 cents for the coin jar.

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I am so behind on where I want to be with gardening. There has been so much to do lately between homeschooling and the animals and whenever I finally get that wrapped up, it starts raining. Usually May is nicer than this, especially in the second half. I know by mid-June it will stop raining and then we won't see much of it until the fall, but it always feels like forever waiting out the nine months of the year when it does almost nothing but rain here.

Goodness, it's practically Tuesday. I used to be very good at posting these every Sunday. Oh, well. I guess I'll just post Tuesday through Monday this week instead. I am trying a few new recipes out as well as using a couple standbys this week. It kind of felt like we were getting into a rut so I wanted to change things up.

I'm trying two new recipes from the Owlhaven blog and the good California (organic) strawberries are in, so will be using those a good bit this week.

Tuesday--
Homemade Pizza (pepperoni, ham, onions, and peppers)
Cole slaw
Pineapple

Wednesday--
Thai Beef Chard Wraps

DH cleaned out his wallet in preperation for leaving tonight and I cleaned out my purse. Together we had $13.63 for the coin jar.

DH's work called an hour ago. They've asked him to work an extra week so this hitch will be a 3 and 1, instead of a 2 and 2. It will be nice to have some overtime that we can actually save part of it. I'm going to put at least $1000 of it into the EF. I am hoping to have $5000 in it by the end of June.

DH needs a new laptop and I've only got $200 saved towards it. It'll be $300 saved by the next time he comes home, but with the overtime we'll be able to make up the difference. We could do 18 months same as cash, but I'd prefer not to. I'm trying to get away from that sort of thing.

He's been babying it along for a while. His DVD/CD drive quit working a couple months ago, his head phone jack is broken (he's been using a USB head phone set), the battery only holds 5 minutes of charge, and there is something wrong with the internal wifi card because it doesn't matter whose internet it's on, it drops it every five minutes or so. By the time he got everything fixed it would be about the cost of a new laptop. This one is a few years old and doesn't have a service agreement anymore. I think it's running Vista or ME for Windows.

As for the rest of it, I'm not sure. I'll figure that out when we get closer. I could fully fund the appliance fund so we can buy a chest freezer when we are ready. I'm just not sure yet.

We paid the phone bill for the old house today, $45.03. The only other bill due for the rest of the month is the propane and I have the money set aside for that. I'll pay it on Friday.

Speaking of the old house they completed most of the flooring this weekend. There is only one bathroom left to do and it won't interfere with the carpeting, so we have the rug laying scheduled now. Finally. Did I mention that the guy in charge of everything sliced his hand open and had to get 14 stitches, last Sunday? It looks nasty. He didn't cut anything important like a tendon, though. He was lucky. It is his dominant hand, too.

Mom is going away for the weekend, so I'll be on full time chicken duty Friday through Tuesday. Most of the time I just let them out in the morning and check their food and water. Mom usually puts them away at night and gathers the eggs during the day.

The kits are growing well. They are now completely furred, even the area around their mouths, so only their noses are pink now. They are so adorable. In a few more days they will open their eyes. In two more days I can change the nest box litter. They recommend waiting until they are ten days old before you do.

Hopefully tomorrow we will actually get the garden started.