Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

Our newborn kits are a week old already. They have sure grown!

We spent a good portion of Saturday at a meat rabbit expo. I fell in love with a New Zealand Red and a couple of the New Zealand Black rabbits. They are really beautiful and I wanted some, but we have made the decision to not buy any more rabbits for our little rabbitry until next year. We have enough to make a go of it, and we don't want to bite off more than we can chew.

Most of them were for sale for $20, so I will keep the expo in mind for next year when I am ready to buy rabbits. Rabbits usually cost $25 to $30 directly from breeders, but they were less at the expo just because they are trying to encourage more people to get into it and the whole homesteading movement with small, sustainably raised meat animals.

I wrote more about it on my farm blog, so if you want more details than that you can go there to read about it. My side bar has details how.

This payday was a small one and there wasn't much to do. The only bills coming out of it are $72 to savings for the water bill, and the phone bill from the old house. Oh, and we renewed our license tabs. They were $85.70.

We worked some more on the PVC hutch frame, adding a second layer. It's going to make things so much easier. In fact it already has. The new rabbits we bought last Sunday have one more week in quarantine before I can put them in with the other rabbits. That will streamline care again.

Yesterday and today all of the non-carpet flooring is going down. No more excuses, although the guy did have a good one, he sliced his hand open last weekend and had to get 14 stitches, he didn't use it. He was working only in a supervisory capacity today, but the work is being done. It's both bathrooms, the laundery room the kitchen, the dining room and the walkway from the front door to the dining room.

That means we should be able to call the carpet guys tomorrow to schedule an appointment. Carpet is going into the living room and the four bedrooms. The floors get too cold out there if you are only using the wood stove to heat with to not have carpet in the main rooms. It's not as bad if you are using the propane furnace, but I still always wore socks out there. After the carpet is laid, the doors go into the frames, new laminate goes on the bathroom vanity tops and then the house is done. We may have to do a bit of landscaping outside, but hopefully not too much more than add a couple of plants, keep the lawn mowed, and the ditches weed-eaten.

I hope this means we can put it on the market in June. I really want to have it ready for the summer buyers. It can take people up to 90 days to get approved for a mortgage sometimes, even with pre-approval, so even if we do find a buyer, unless they are using cash, it's still going to take some time. I just really want to be on the other side of this and seriously looking for our dream home/farm.

Today is payday, but I won't get to the payday post until later.

Part of my son's homeschool requirements is that he take a test every fall and spring to see that he's on track for his grade level. This is different from the MSP testing he did last week. He did this back in April.

Anyway, scores came out today and his math was 850 points above the state average. Our state average is above the national average, but I don't know by how much. He's very analytical and that part of his brain doesn't seem to have been damaged last June. He's a 7nth grader and this score puts him on the math level of an average 10nth grader.

His reading skills were about where I expected them to be. High in vocabulary and non-fiction comprehension and lower in fiction and long passage reading. This is directly related to his head injury and where the brain damage occurred. Vocabulary and non-fiction are again the areas where analytical thinking comes in, while fiction is where creative thinking comes in. Long passages he still loses a bit of focus on.

There were also some issues with the test itself glitching. It's one of those tests where it adapts itself to how you're doing. If it is too easy for you and you answer all the questions it gets harder. If it is too hard, it gets easier. Well, it kept going back and forth and what should have been an hour long test ended up being a three hour test. So towards the end there I know he was just kind of wildly guessing to try to get it to finish. I'm not overly worried about it being a little low.

He wants to be in a field that uses math heavily when he grows up so fiction comprehension isn't really going to come into much play as a real life skill. Still, we'll work on that and spelling this summer. There is no spelling curriculum in middle school be it public school or homeschool, which I think is really stupid. So I'll have him log on to Spelling City and play it through out the summer.

All in all it's been a pretty successful homeschool year, though. I look forward to getting his MSP results back. They track a little more realistically when it comes to reading and writing.

Today (well, yesterday, it's after midnight) was the day of the $10 auto transfer to savings, bringing the Emergency Fund to $3652.32. That leaves me with $47.68 to come up with by month's end to meet my May savings goal.

I've been taking care of the newborn kits. They are just starting to get a tiny bit of fur so they aren't all pink now, but starting to turn white.



And we (mostly DH) put together this:



What is that? The base for this:



The rabbits are very happy in their larger grow out cages.



There is a rabbit expo on Saturday that we are going to. DD will be at an overnight and we are hoping to ditch DS with DH's parents for the day.

On Sunday we went down to Arlington and brought home three new purebred, pedigreed New Zealand White rabbits from a different lineage for our breeding stock for $25 each. They are eight weeks old and it will take them a while to grow up. They are show quality rabbits. I forgot how small eight week olds are.

Meet Starbuck, Serenity, and Sweetie Belle.



Then on late Monday afternoon Piper kindled. She had seven healthy kits. They are the sweetest things, just these tiny, naked, pink squirmy bundles. If they weren't so squirmy I could fit three in one hand at a time. They make the cutest little noises. All of them had fat little tummies today so they are nursing well. Piper is such a good mama.

So right now with the seven newborns we have 19 rabbits in residence. That won't be the case for long though. Soon 5 of the 6 thirteen week olds will go to freezer camp, leaving only Lola to grow up and be breeding stock. It will be hard, but the whole point of this venture was to grow our own meat, so we would know exactly what went into it. We know what they have been fed and that they have been loved and cuddled and had happy lives. And we will know that those lives ended in a humane way.

DH is hard at work on a new frame for the new cages. We are keeping ahead of the space needs, but only just. I want to be completely ready for when I can move the three new youngsters out of quarantine and into the rabbit shed with the others after two weeks' time.

I am trying to locate a small livestock scale, so I can see the before and after amounts so I will know the dress out rate.

In six months' time I will have 3 breeding does and 1 breeding buck in one breeding line and 2 breeding does and 1 breeding buck in the other breeding line. Then I won't have to breed related rabbits to each other at all. It's not that big of a deal in meat rabbits, but a lot of people think it is weird based on human conventions. So if I ever want to sell live rabbits to people in the future, having bunnies from an unrelated doe and buck will make the squick factor not be there.

Aside from the $75 for the rabbits, I spent $30 for a new hay manger for them, and bought another $15 40 pound bag of feed. I found a new source for feed that uses no soy and no GMO. I found out about it from the breeder. And sure enough, one of the feed stores here carries it. And coincidentally they happen to have a meat rabbit expo going on this weekend, with a butchering demo. So we will buy a 50 pound bag of this feed when we go to it and start mixing the two together until the first is gone and then switch completely over.

So between the bunnies and homeschooling I have been pretty busy. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to catch up on the blogs again.

Monday--
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Salad
Strawberries

Tuesday--
Pork chops
Fried potatoes
Applesauce
Broccoli

Wednesday--
Beef stir-fry (broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery, green beans, bean sprouts)
Oranges

Thursday--
Homeamde pizza (pepperoni, ham, onions, bell pepper strips)
Salad

Friday--
Barbecue chicken
Pineapple
Coleslaw

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Cucumber slices or homemade pickles
Homemade French fries

Sunday--
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Blueberry cornbread muffins
Green beans

I am really so very tired of this. This being yet another day when the flooring didn't get done out at the house. The excuse a couple of weeks ago? The guy coming down from Seattle to help had something come up. The excuse today? The guy coming down from Seattle to help couldn't make it. Um...so do it without the guy from Seattle, okay? Because you claimed that the two of you could do it, why does person number three, who is clearly unreliable as all get out, need to be there?

They claim they will do it tomorrow. Why the heck does anyone ever remodel anything? Or maybe I should say how the heck, because what should have been a six week job that started last summer is still going on. The price is still the same, thank goodness, and the quality is high, but the timeliness is ridiculous.

I just want to get on with things. I want it done. I want it sold. And I want to buy my farm and move. It feels like I am being held hostage to someone else's whims. I am just so over it.

Okay, now for all the things that went out of this paycheck.

$1000.00 to Mom
___90.00 Physical Therapy
___35.42 Electric Old House
__757.82 Van Loan (plus extra)
___51.78 Garbage (one extra can this month)
__212.71 Medical
___41.78 Security Old House
___72.56 Internet
__225.00 Monthly Chiropractic Family Plan
__105.00 Propane Fund
___19.00 Dues Fund
__100.00 Property Tax Fund
__100.00 College Fund
__100.00 Appliance Fund
__100.00 Christmas Fund
__100.00 Laptop Fund
__100.00 Vacation Fund (Hawaii 2018)
___28.00 Kids' Allowances
___75.00 Three NZW rabbits from different bloodline
__100.00 Cash for the Week
------------
$3414.07 Total Paid Out

We are down to owing Mom $72,000. That means 6 years left to go, if we continue on the repayment of $1000 a month. It will be gone when we are both 49. Our van will be paid off well before that. After that is paid off we will work on paying off the mortgage on our small farm that we plan to buy once our house sells. And also play mega catch up with retirement. We want to go into retirement 100% debt free, which will make it easier to get by on less. As will raising our own meat and growing our own produce as much as possible.

It feels like we are finally starting to really pull ahead as I plan for future needs and am able to set the money aside each month. We are two paychecks ahead of our bills now and we have half a month's income in the Emergency Fund. It's getting there and each small step I take has built on the last one. Some people may scoff at $10 here or $5 there, but I know. I know from experience that it is the little things just as much as the big things that get you there.

I added $36 to the Emergency Fund today. It was what was left in checking when the new paycheck hit. That brings the EF to $3642.32. I'm going to bump my May goal up to $3700.

I also funded some funds today, which I'll put the amounts in my payday post, but I thought I'd post my fund totals.

$1000.00 in the Mac Book Fund
__200.00 in the Laptop Fund
__200.00 in the Christmas Fund
__200.00 in the College Fund
__100.00 in the Appliance Fund
__200.00 in the Hawaii 2018 Fund
__100.00 in the Property Tax Fund
__305.00 in the Propane Fund
___89.00 in the HoA Dues Fund

We've got a long way to go on some of these, especially the College Fund, but we will be putting the Christmas Bonus in, as well as most of the tax refund next year (which is ridiculously big because of our HSA that we always manage to use all of).

The Christmas Fund will be augmented by the Amazon gift cards I get from swagbucks. DH's Laptop is limping along and hopefully will continue to do so until I've got the replacement money in place. DD will be getting her MacBook (or equivalent laptop) in August. She's taking some graphics intensive classes next year as a senior. The Appliance Fund is currently earmarked for a chest freezer. Property tax was just paid last month. Propane Fund is just a holding fund until the bill comes and I pay it.

All in all, things are going along pretty smoothly in the Funds department.

No, not dollars. I wish! No, but this blog has now had 2,000,000 visits. Thanks to everyone who has been reading these past seven years!

Oh, and I added $5.43 to the coin jar last night.

Today was the weekly $10 autopay to the Emergency Fund bringing the new total to $3606.32.

I checked my accounts tonight and the mortgage payment hit, so the new total is $12453.13. I love seeing how much more it goes down each month now that we are in the home stretch.

I also added $13.33 to the coin jar. Ten of that was from my daughter who wanted to exchange her coins for bills. And since my rule is all coins and ones go in the coin jar, in it went. I only had $3.33 in change in my own purse.

There is not too much going on in my little corner of the world right now. My son is doing MSP testing so there isn't even much going on with homeschooling this week.

We are awaiting the birth of Piper's new kits. It is day 28 in her pregnancy and they usually give birth between day 28 and day 32, so it's all up in the air which day she'll have them. She has made her nest but as of this morning has not pulled any fur yet, so I don't think it's going to be today. Since rabbits are born without fur, the doe pulls the fur off her underside to cover them with before she gives birth so it is the sign to watch for. Not only does that give them fur to be covered with, it clears the way for easier nursing for the kits.

Fortunately it will be cool the next few days. It was 80 on Monday which is not a good temperature for any rabbit, let alone a pregnant one.

I've managed to pull a few weeds, but the garden has not come any further than that. Now the DH is home, we should be able to get some work done and get things going.

Not much in the way of spending money this week, except yesterday and today I got DS Mcdonalds on the way to testing just because it was easier and more convenient that early in the morning. So $6 bucks each day and will likely do that for the next two days of testing.

He's done great so far, but the writing portion starts tomorrow so that may be more difficult for him. He would be great doing it orally, but MSP doesn't allow for that.

I'm way behind on reading the blogs here again. Hopefully everyone is doing well and having a nice spring this week.

I have managed to get all of my spreadsheets updated, closing out April, creating and filling in the first bills from May, and updating my EF/Holding Tank spreadsheet. My checkbook is balanced and it seems there will be a slight surplus of money even before we hit the extra payday for the month on the 31st. I plan to divide it between the Emergency Fund, the Appliance Fund, and the College Fund.

The slight surplus is because we won't be going to the farm this month, so that $300 I usually spend will not be spent. I need to work on using up the food that is our freezer because in about two weeks I am going to need that space for our butchered rabbits. So this week's meal plans will be based on using up that meat.

Monday--
Lamb chops
Fried potatoes
Green Beans
Bananas

Tuesday--
Tacos
Oranges

Wednesday--
Open face meatball sandwiches
Cole slaw
Grapes

Thursday--
Spaghetti and Meatballs
Broccoli/Cauliflower

Friday--
Beef stir-fry
Oranges

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers
Homemade Fries
Bananas

Sunday--
Roasted Duck
Baked potatoes
Green beans
Drop biscuits with choice of jam

Okay, bills paid today:

$2000.00 BoA VISA (Vacation Leftovers)
___45.67 Old House Insurance
___66.65 Van Insurance
___39.53 DH Life Insurance
___32.70 Me Life Insurance
__600.00 Old House Mortgage
__168.00 Storage
__300.00 To Mom for her Utilities
__100.00 Emergency Fund
---------------
$3352.55 Total Spent

I also have $200 in cash and took out money for the kid's allowances. Part of the money paid to BOA VISA was from the last paycheck. This will leave us with about a $1700 balance on the card from our vacation. It will be paid off on May 31. With today's $100 deposit the Emergency Fund now sits at $3596.32. $88.68 to go to meet May's goal of $3685. I paid extra on the mortgage. About $61 will go to interest and the balance should be under $12.5K when it hits.

The house is supposed to be done to the point of being able to install the carpets after this weekend. I will believe it when I see it.

The wing of the house we live in is connected to the main house by two steps. They are very big steps, one foot deep by four feet long. Last night I managed to miss the top step and went sprawling forward at a 45 degree angle. I put my hands out to stop myself against the furnace closet doors and that did slow me down for a second, but then I went all the way down onto my knees and managed to end up on my elbows, too, somehow.

It took me five minutes to get myself together. I had to scoot on my butt to the bathroom because I had hurt my hands and knees enough I couldn't crawl and I couldn't push myself off the floor. I had to use my forearms on the bathtub to leverage myself back up.

I had to sleep on my back last night because I couldn't sleep on either arm and when I'd roll in my sleep I'd wake up from it. This morning my elbows have black bruises and my knees are very blue. Even the heels of my hands are bruised. Thankfully I can walk okay today except it hurts to climb the stairs. The part ofthe knees I hit was just under the knee caps, not on them, thank goodness. My hands are a bit sore, but not as bad as last night or even this morning. My neck and shoulders were stiff. I jarred myself good. It's the elbows that are the worst, though.

I am going to go sit in the hot tub at the health club tomorrow. I don't dare take a bath because getting up out of it might be impossible, even with handicapped grab bars, since my hands don't want to grip right. I can type okay, so I don't think it's more than bruising. I don't think any of it is more than bruising and muscle strain.

I went and got a massage today ($90) and it made a big difference in my functionality the rest of the day. I really wanted to work in the garden this weekend. Not sure what I can do because there will be no sitting on my knees, but I might be able to use a shovel to get the bigger weeds out. This will be the first dry weekend in ages and I really wanted to make use of it. I don't want to just lay around all weekend because I think that will make it worse, not better. At least my back is okay.

I need to do a payday post, but I haven't gotten my stuff together yet. I have food in the crockpot so no matter the temptation to eat out to take it easy on myself, the smell of the food cooking is preventing that. I did switch out my menu plan days though so I could have the ease of cooking a roast today. The nice thing about having plans for several meals is that when life throws you a curve ball like this you can adjust accordingly. So I did.

Today was a no spend day, though both kids tried to convince me to get takeaway, I still made the salmon, which they of course gobbled up like crazy. I feel a bit better today. 4 days of my own cooking is definitely helping though I still am having an allergic reaction to the apple blossoms.

The kids and I did a major clean out in the rabbit shed today. We spent 2 hours on it. We also did a complete spray out, bleach scrub, and heavy duty rinse of the cages for the six junior rabbits. They are eleven weeks old so no longer called kits.

The rabbits are doing well. The youngsters are growing like weeds. I have been able to determine that 3 are does, 2 are bucks, and one will kick me until the sun goes down before it lets me check. Well, that one will definitely be going to freezer camp. Would anyway, since I've already picked out the male and female I'm keeping from this litter. Phoebe is growing up and is 4 months old today. Leo is pretty laid back and doesn't do too much. Piper is pregnant and it shows in a slight rounding of her belly and a bit of a mischievous streak.

Tomorrow I will scrub down Piper's old cage and if Leo will let me pick him up I will try to scrub his cage, too. DS is going away overnight with my mother tomorrow to a decoy show to sell off the last of Dad's decoys (hopefully). He helps her run the table and earns part of the profit. The show is actually on Saturday, but they go down early Friday evening. So if I can't get Leo out of his cage, the scrubbing of his will wait until Sunday. I will also do Phoebe's cage on Sunday.

Piper's cage is clean and I won't be disturbing her anymore, other than to remove the droppings tray and spray it out daily, until after she's given birth and the kits are at least a week old. She's 22 days pregnant and is starting to make nests in her cage with straw and hay.



I won't put the nest box in until day 27, though. Rabbits gestation runs anywhere from 28 to 32 days and they don't recommend you put the nest box in until day 27 or the rabbit might decide it is a litter box and not a nest box.

I am getting excited. Although I was pretty sure she was pregnant from her behavior, palpating the abdomen, and her rounded belly, nest making proves it. I won't be such a nervous breeder next time, but since this is my first time I was worried it wouldn't take or something.

While my cat had kittens once when I was a child, we didn't see them until they were about 3 weeks old. I will be able to see the kits the day they are born or the next morning if they are born at night. It should be an interesting experience and hopefully nothing will go wrong.

$3496.32 Starting amount
+__10.00 Amount Added
-----------
$3506.32 Ending Amount

It all adds up. Found another dime today. This makes six. Why are people throwing their dimes away?

Okay, so yesterday I deposited $50.25 to the EF, and then today I shifted a bit of money around and deposited $29.24, and I also got my interest from Capitol One 360 of $2.03 today. This brings the new amount in the [/b]Emergency Fund[/b] to $3496.32. My goal for May is $3685. So I have $188.68 to go.

Tomorrow will be the regular ten dollar auto deposit and Friday I will put in $100. Since there are 5 Thursdays this month, I will have four more $10 deposits. So that is $150 and that leaves me with $38.68 to scrape up this month. That should be doable. I might even be able to hit $3700, but we'll see how things go this month. It's only an extra $15, but you never now how things will be towards the end of the month.

I would really like to get the mortgage under $12K this month. I should be able to do that, barely, since I will make a payment on the 3rd and then a payment on the 31st. The 31st will be June's payment, but it's still a psychological hit to know that in theory I'll be under $12K by month's end.

I picked up a piece of salmon today on impulse when I was getting milk, so I will be inserting it into the menu plan tomorrow and bumping the stir-fry to next week since I forgot to buy broccoli and cauliflower anyway. I'll pick some up on Saturday so we can have it as planned with Sunday dinner and then the leftovers can go into the stir-fry on Monday.

Today is the 3rd day I have stuck to my meal plan and avoided eating out or takeaway. Four days to go. I might make it a two week challenge. My stomach has stopped hurting with the end of the non-homecooked meals. It always does. I don't know why I do that to myself.

We have MSP testing starting on Monday. I really wish we didn't have to do it. It's not even in our city and it's at nine in the morning. Which means getting DS up before DD goes to school, which DD hates because she is low energy in the morning and DS is bouncing off the walls energy. I don't particularly appreciate having him up at seven, either. Low energy Mama that early in the morning.

And I know that despite his energy, DS will not test well in the morning. Freaking standardized state tests. He'd have to do it in public school, too. I just find it to be a useless waste of time. As I did when I was a kid and had to waste my own time on the Iowa test.

Well, it is 7nth grade. That is one of the banner years, like 10nth grade. But all those tests do is measure how well a kid takes a test. And when you've got an auditory and kinesthetic learner, a written test is the absolute worst judge anyway. He always gets above average though, so I guess I should just quit my griping and deal with it. Except driving to another town 4 days in a row is not my idea of a great way to spend my time, especially since there is no waiting area for the parents and the public library doesn't open until ten. Fortunately I will only have to do it on Tuesday. DH will do it on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I'm just glad he'll be home for most of it.

I managed to get caught up on my slacking. The April Budget is now fully updated and closed out. The HSA tracking is fully updated for the month. The checkbook is updated and balanced.

I sent $4500 off to the BoA VISA and will send another $2000 on Friday. That'll leave us with about $1700 to pay off by the end of May and then our vacation will be paid for. I still think it was worth it to go, but man was it ever expensive to pay for seven people. I've already told DH we won't be able to afford to do that again.

I'm just glad there is an extra payday this month because of how the paydays fall. DH's pay is on a four week cycle so every once in a while he gets an extra paycheck in the year. This is that month so I can shift things about a bit and get the rest of that vacation paid off. Then we'll have a clean slate again.

The mortgage is under $13K now. I will pay about $61 in interest on this next payement. I love seeing it so low. I'm pushing to get it under $10K, but that'll take me to November, I think. Unless it sells of course. Assuming the remodellers are ever done. I don't believe them even when they give me an actual date, because they flew right past the last one. *sighs*

DH's bosses decided that they are caught up enough on redlines that he won't have to bring anything home with him and work this hitch. Last hitch was hard though the money was nice. But they said in a couple of months they may need to do that again. I'm of two minds on it. If he has to do OT I'd rather he do it on the slope. Then again, at least it's OT. It just interferes with doing absolutely anything if he has to bring it home.

I have still not been able to shake this sinus thing and I am starting to think I might be allergic to rabbit dander. I am allergic to cat dander and dog dander which is why we don't have pets. I'm hoping not. It could be the dogwood and the rhodies in bloom. I hate allergies. Allergies can go away and leave sunny days in their place.

I haven't been very together this week. Queen's death, while expected, still threw me for a loop. I've got my equillibrium back today, so I thought I better get my head out of the clouds and pay some attention to the finances. Although they were basically on auto pilot this week anyway. Nothing much happens during the last week of the month. I took care of property tax ($424.58, half year) and the water bill ($144, two months) on Friday which were the only things due. I also had physical therapy on Friday ($90).

Yesterday I cashed out at Swagbucks for a $5 gift cared to Amazon. I haven't really been paying much attention to SB this month, so only got $10 in GC's. Today they seem to be giving double points for everything so I've got SBTV running in the backrgound. I have just been more busy this month than usual and not wanting to waste so much of my free time on it.

I got 11 cents and a sheet of address labels from some charity I have not donated to in over ten years. I have written them and asked them to stop sending me appeals so they don't waste their money on me, but they don't listen. I have no compunction against using what they send. I donated well to them for five years, but my charitable contributions are focused elsewhere now, locally. Anyway, that is my fifth or sixth dime this month.

I added $12.26 to the coin jar today. I had a lot of ones in my purse.

I stopped by the feed store and bought a 40 pound bag of rabbit pellets. It is $14.99 plus tax, so $16.29 altogether.

I paid the AMEX off ($271.92) for the month. I need to make a large payment to BoA VISA, but I need to balance the checkbook first. With the large amount of overtime money in the bank account, I haven't been balancing daily like normal, so I'm a week behind. I'm nowhere near overspending or anything, just need to know exactly where I am at so I can figure out how big the payment can be.

My electric bill has been moved from the 7nth to the 13th. They have changed how they bill, so last month's was a little higher to compensate for the extra week. Now it's back to normal and I do like that it is away from the first week of the month. I really don't like anything being due then, because that is when all the autopays come out and I don't want to think about having to write out a check. Their website sucks, they use impossible to decipher captchas, and the amount is variable from month to month so I don't autopay or pay that one online.

I have made it through my second day of no eating out and sticking to the meal plan. I've been wasting more money than I want to think about on takeaway and last minute grocery runs for deli food because I have been under the weather and haven't felt like cooking. I aim to get that back under control. I am sure I will stop feeling better eating homecooked food again, too.

I guess that about catches me up. At least I can't think of anything else for now.

I am heading back towards eating Paleo again, so the starches in my menu plan are mainly for the kids. I think I have basically given up trying to get my meal plan posted on Sundays. Ah, well. I suppose it really doesn't matter what day I post it so long as I follow it, right? That's the way to save money on the grocery budget.

Since I have been slacking so much lately and having so much takeaway, I challenged myself to get through the whole week without eating out. Day one has gone okay, but it's usually Friday and Saturday that I have the real trouble with.

Monday--
Oven baked chicken
Cole slaw
Oranges

Tuesday--
Low carb meatloaf
Cole slaw
Bananas

Wednesday--
Pork chops
Fried potatoes
Salad
Oranges
Green beans

Thursday--
Beef stir-fry
Bananas

Friday--
Tacos
Oranges

Saturday--
Bacon Cheeseburgers
Homemade sweet potato fries
Cole slaw

Sunday--
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli/cauliflower
Blueberry cornbread muffins

I bought some toiletry items on etsy today. I spent $70. I have bought from this particular shop owner before. Because of my allergies I have to be careful with what I put on my skin anymore. As does my son. The only scents used are from essential oils and no artifical colorings or chemicals are used in these products. Here is the breakdown of what I purchased:

$15.00 probiotic deoderant stick (Citrus)
__4.50 Gardener's lip butter in a tin
_10.50 Conditioning Herbal Detangler spray
__8.50 100% Natural Acne Bar Soap
_15.00 Natural Sun Stick
__6.50 Marshmallow Root Shampoo Bar Soap (for thick curly hair)

The rest was shipping. I swear by her acne bar. I've also used her chest rub (used like Vaporub) and one of her salves for dry skin. I have been very happy with everything and it has all worked well.

I am very curious to try the shampoo bar. I have a hard time finding good shampoo for my hair type and use a very expensive type by Paul Mitchell that has tea tree oil and eucalyptis. Almost all shampoo these days is formulated to make your hair be thicker, fuller, and have added moisture. It is extremely hard to find anything for oily hair that is incredibly full and thick and the last thing it needs is more volume. Everything seems to be for dry hair or color treated hair or damaged hair. There is very little for hair that is in good shape, just very unruly and makes plenty of it's own natural oil. So hopefully it will do the job I want it to do.

I also spent $107.34 at the grocery store today. I bought a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. I've been kind of letting the diet slide lately and eating too many junky starches, so trying to head back towards eating Paleo again. I still need to make up my menu plan for the week, and stick closer to it this week. I'm never going to beat this sinus thing if I don't start eating right again. Of course all I want to do is eat chicken noodle soup. Well, maybe I'll make egg flower soup tomorrow for lunch. Pretty close to the same thing and I have homemade chicken broth in the freezer.

In the vein of finding homes that are too expensive and that we can never have, and DH's pentient for showing them to me, I set out to find something with some serious bells and whistles that we could afford and show it to DH. Not super seriously or anything, just to make the point.

Well, I found a doozy in our price range, albeit it closer to the high end and with yearly taxes of $4700. I went down my checklist. 5 acres. One level. House in good repair. At least 1500 square feet (it's 2500). Outbuildings for storage and for rabbit housing and chicken housing. Garden area. Mature fruit trees. A private well. A shop. Room for DS's model train layouts. A pond. A wood stove for back up heat. A large and roomy kitchen (plus beautiful). Close to family (2 miles from sister-in-law and nieces, 5 miles to MIL and FIL, 15 minutes from Mom and town.) Good school district.

And then for the bells and whistles. An indoor swimming pool and hot tub. A glass and brick green house. And...a small hanger for a Cessna airplane, with a shared private landing strip with dues of 45 a year!

It's $374,500. With our planned down payment of $60,000, we'd still be walking away with a pretty big mortgage and monthly payment. And I don't actually want a super big mortgage with college in the picture soon. The cost to heat a pool would actually be less than heating a house if we istalled a heat pump to exchange air from the house to the pool and back, using the pool as a heat sink. And we could rent the hanger to someone with a small plane so get a bit of income on the side to help with the mortgae payment. I'm not seriously considering it, of course, but I thought it was fun to find something like this anyway.

We are too far away from buying a house yet to be serious about anything. Still just looking and dreaming.



I'd still be happier with the almost 20 acre place for $305,000.

Queen died yesterday, so needless to say most of my payday financial stuff didn't get done. And we ordered takeaway. It was just not a good day all around. We knew it was coming and we had the chance to say good-bye to her Thursday night, but it was still a rough Friday. Rest in peace, sweet girl. I'll miss you.

Yesterday I found another dime. I think this is the fourth dime this month. This one was in terrible condition. It was so dirty I barely saw it. It blended in with the dirt. I found it about a foot from where we store out outdoor garbage bin.

I added $9.44 to the coin jar today. Today was also the day of the $10 auto deposit to the Emergency Fund so that brings the balance to $3,423.75, making me $31.25 short of my April goal of $3455. I have a deposit ready to go of $41.25 from the coin jar that I will deposit tomorrow, so I will hit my goal with an extra $10.

Because I managed to save $210 to the Emergency Fund this month, I am going to set my goal for May to save $220 and get my EF to $3685. If I find that easy enough to do, then my June goal will bump up another $10. I might just start doing that each month until it hurts and then back off one.

If I can manage to do that until December I will have $5505 in the EF, plus whatever piddly interest Capitol One 360 puts in there. Since my goal for the year is to have it at $5000, it would be great if I can achieve the higher number.

DH says that there should be big bonuses this December because of the size of the projects being worked on. There will be higher profits to be passed along. The smaller bonus this year was because they had smaller projects last year. He says with the size of the project we should see a bonus like double or triple the one he got after he'd been employed for them by a year. I am hoping that is true, but I won't let myself get my hopes up so high like I did last year.

Plans for bonus money is to set aside $2500 off the top for the medical deductible of 2014 and stick it in our HSA. Anything after that goes into college savings. Same for our Income Tax Refund. Straight into the college fund. These monies will primarily be for DD to go to community college, but DH can use it to when he decides he is ready to go for his B.S. in Electrical Engineering via an online university. The same one he got his A.S. from in Electrical Engineering. He also has an A.S. in Architecture. Or maybe it's an A.A. Is Architecture an art or a science? Because you are drawing...

Hopefully those monies will be large enough to pay for college, or a good portion of it. Hopefully we will have our farm before she starts college. DD will be taking a business class and be running one of our farm businesses, probably the rabbit end, with any profits not used for expenses going into her college fund and a small monthly salary. DS will help run one of the other businesses, likely the egg business, and will draw a small salary from that while the rest goes into his college fund.

I'm going to have to look up small business law and farm law and how hiring your own children works for a small business. Or maybe I'll have DH do it. That's the boring part, plus he had a small business once so he knows where to go for the answers.

I pretty much refused to leave the property yesterday, since DD stayed home from school and DS is homeschooled. I have a sinus infection that has been kicking me hard. I have antibiotics but they take a bit to start working. But anyway, not going anywhere ensured a no spend day. Today won't be one. I caved and grabbed a couple of hashbrowns from a fast food drive-thru as it was the only way I was getting breakfast. There was very little time between taking my daughter to school and caring for the life stock. I wanted to do a few things on the computer before my very early appointment with the sleep doctor. This should be fun considering I got zero sleep last night.

I am going to ask sleep doctor to double my sleep meds. I just cannot fall asleep with this darn C-PAP machine on unless I knock myself sidewise with sleeping pills. Right now I have to take 1 zolpidem, 75 mg of amytriptalline, 2 Benadryls and 2 (generic) Excedrin PM's to get to sleep at all. I'd rather just take 2 zolpidem and be down for the count. So hopefully he will agree to that or I am just done with the trying to use the C-PAP at all. My apnea is not that bad, certainly not life-threatening, but the treatment for it is not improving my insomnia at all. I was getting deeper and better sleep when I did sleep before. Now I feel like I'm running on empty all the time instead of just half of the time.

I think I could adapt to one or the other of the masks if I could just fall asleep on my side. I can't fall asleep on my back. I've never been able to, but that is the only way the masks fit on properly. If you try to sleep on your side it pushes partway off and then it doesn't work right. Makes me crazy.

If I can get 2 zolpidem, I think I'd be knocked out before I realized I was falling asleep on my back. And at least it is a cheap medicine. 30 pills costs like $2.45 or something. I wish I could get off all of it, but that's only ever going to happen if I can sleep regularly to begin with.

I will try to take a nap when I get back from the sleep doctor appointment, without the machine. I will sleep until two and go pick up DD and then do homeschool with DS. That's the nice thing about homeschool, if you don't sleep, you can take a nap and do lessons in the evening. DS won't mind. He has a new train layout he's putting together and Mom will be around all day.

Maybe I should switch my menu plan posting to Mondays as I've missed Sunday's the past 3 weeks running now! Anyway, this week is mostly chicken based. I had a couple of whole chickens in the freezer and would like to clear out some of the things that are taking up the most space.

Monday--
Crockpot chicken (saved the broth)
Microwave baked potatoes
Canned green beans
Canned pineapple
(Yes a lazy kind of day!) I froze 4 cups of shredded chicken to use on Friday

Tuesday--
Bananas
TexMex Chicken and Rice
(Recipe is simple. 4 cups cooked rice, 1 large jar of homemade or storebought salsa, 2 cups of shredded chicken. Stir together and heat through in microwave).

Wednesday--
Homemade pizza (pepperoni, ham, onions, bell pepper strips)
Cole slaw

Thursday--
Chicken Noodle Soup (made with saved broth, carrots and celery and leftover chicken)
Cole slaw
Oranges

Friday--
Chicken Enchiladas
Chips and Salsa
Salad

Saturday--
Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches
Homemade French Fries
Oranges

Sunday--
Blueberry cornbread muffins
Beef chuck pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Broccoli and cauliflower

So after my little talk with DH of him showing me places we can't afford when something new comes up on the housing market, today he showed me something that we can afford...

It's further out than I want, it's painted an ugly color (dark brown with lemon yellow trim) and has awful panelling in the living room and bonus room, and slightly better panelling in a bedroom. But it is over 1700 square feet, has a wood stove, a propane stove, and electric, so you can choose what you want to heat with.

But...but it has a huge barn, a huge shop, a huge garage, a green house, cold frames, mature fruit trees, a garden, a large pond (as in swimming hole size, not something you make from the big box store, you can take a row boat out on it) and it is 20 acres. Half wooded, half pasture. And the land is beautiful. Utterly gorgeous. It's idyllic. I can't think of anything more I want in the land. And the property tax is under $2000 a year. Asking price? $305,000.

Gah.

As DH says, a house is a house. We can paint. We can take off the panelling. We can find a pretty house anywhere. We can't find pretty land anywhere.

Maybe I just need him to stop showing me anything for a while.

The remodelers are supposed to be done today, but they haven't called to say so yet. Same old, same old, I suppose.

I added $8.24 to the coin jar...which was the change from our takeaway dinner tonight from the Polynesian place. I just didn't feel like cooking today. No one else did either. Most of what we got were stir-fries and egg fried rice. Lots of leftovers so we'll get several meals out of it. Trying to keep the eating out to once a week. I have a cold that keeps making me think it is going away and then it comes back a day or so later in full force.

Today was payday. I'll try to update on that tomorrow.

The kits are 9 weeks old. Haven't they grown? They are doing very well.

The $10 weekly auto transfer to the Emergency Fund went in today, bringing the EF to $3414.75. I still need to come up with $40.25 to hit my April goal of $3455. I have $20 in the coin jar and will have one more auto transfer this month of $10, so really that is just coming up with $10.25. I am almost tempted to change my goal to $3500, but it's already going to be at $200 saved this month. And sometimes I stack the deck against myself in trying to be too ambitious. It doesn't do me any good if I have to then turn around and take the money back out of the EF.

There isn't much else going on here. I'm reading Ashen Winter, which is the sequel to Ashfall, a near future story of the aftermath of the Yellowstone volcano exploding. It's got a lot more action in it than the first one did. I liked the first one a lot, but this one is more of a nail biter page turner. I always like it when the sequel is better than the original because it is so rare. Of course the final book in the trilogy won't be out until 2014 sometime. Ugh.

Oh, well. After I finish this one it's back to reading about rabbits and worm bins, etc. Then maybe I'll start educating myself on sheep, goats and pigs. Not that I have any intention of raising those any time soon, still being in the city, but the more I know, the more educated a decision I'll be able to make in the future.

We did a major clean out of the rabbit shed today. We filled two of the empty 40 and 50 pound feed sacks with rabbit manure. The last time we did the super duper major clean out, we only filled one feed sack with manure. That is how much they have grown. The garden is going to love it if it ever stops raining again long enough to spread it. I am so glad you don't have to compost rabbit manure before using it. Makes the whole process that much easier.

I think we will end up having to either give it away or sell it. There is only so much garden to absorb it. I've seen it selling for about $15 for a 50 pound feed sack's worth on Craigslist. I think I'm more in the $5 zone. Mostly because I will just want it hauled away.