Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

I've got a few things in my freezer I want to use up this week, a duck and some steaks. I also have quite a bit of cabbage so cole slaw or cooked shreds will be heavy in the menus this week. Also we have 8 dozen eggs in the fridge right now, so that will play into my menus as well. And the only fruit I have on hand is oranges and one can of pears, so not a lot of variety on that count.

Monday--
Grilled steaks
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Oranges

Tuesday--
Pancakes
Scrambled Eggs
Lightly fried cabbage and onion shreds
Oranges

Wednesday--
Fried rabbit
Baked potatoes
Green Beans
Oranges

Thursday--
Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Beef and pork meatballs
Garlic bread
Cole slaw

Friday--
Pizza with leftover spaghetti sauce, shredded leftover meatballs, pepperoni, onions, and (frozen) bell pepper strips
Salad

Saturday--
Lamb de provence patties
Fried potatoes
Cole slaw
Oranges

Sunday--
Roasted duck
Baked potatoes and carrots
Broccoli
Oranges

Breakfast this week will be omelets, sausage, bacon, pancakes. Lunches will be meatloaf, crockpotted turkey, turkey quesadillas, and shredded cabbage or salad.

We bought a rabbit at the food co-op the other day. They had some in the freezer, so I am going to fry that up on Wednesday when DH is home so we can all try it. I remember having it when I was eleven and liking it, but I haven't had it since and the kids never have. I don't know about DH. But anyway, if we are going to get into raising meat rabbits then we definitely want to know if we all like it.

I did some pricing as well, and it looks like meat rabbits are selling for $20, at least the breeds I am looking at, which are the Californian and the New Zealand. So start up livestock costs will be $80 for 1 buck and 3 does or $160 for 2 bucks and 6 does. We can make some fairly inexpensive rabbit tractors from PVC pipes, rabbit wire, and zip ties for daytime use, but at night I would want them in hutches. Also in winter and the heat of the summer they would need more shelter than tractors provide.

That's still a good way off, though. At least a year. I think I will add a budget category called rabbitry and start saving some money for it once the credit card debt is paid. Even if we don't do rabbits, we will do meat chickens and the money will be there for either.

I can't believe how close I am to finally paying off the BoA VISA card. At the beginning of January it felt like it was going to take so long just to get to this point, but now it's almost here. It feels so good to be almost out from under it.

DH bought a one way plane ticket $457.40 and one of our autopays went through $105 (for some reason I thought this one was $120, but I guess not). So total BoA balance is now at $2562.40. We will still be able to pay that off on Friday and then we are starting over with this card, using it only for DH's plane tickets, hotel overnight in Anchorage, and travel food. Oh, and anything DH might need from the commissary, like cold medicine or cough drops No more miscellaneous purchases.

After this month DH can go back to buying round trip tickets, instead of one way tickets. That'll make it more convenient for him.

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I cashed out for another $5 gift card for Amazon from swagbucks. I think I'll be able to hit five of those this month. I have one that should hit my account in a day or two. I think I am going to save these gift cards for Christmas. My friend who was doing so bad didn't want me to use the Amazon cards for her, so I have a balance right now of $75 in my account.

If I can add $25 a month between now and Christmas I should have a total of $350 in gift cards. We spent about $600 on Christmas this year, so that covers over half of it. We ended up buying a lot of stuff on Amazon, too, so that will work out really well for us.

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I didn't end up driving down to the farm yesterday. I've just been too exhausted lately and a drive like that with two bickering kids (they have been nuts this week) was more than I thought I could handle. The money is still set aside though. We will go next Saturday when DH is here to do the driving.

I think I may have mentioned this already, but my doctor retired after saying he wasn't going to and now I need to find a new one. The main doctors' collective in town put me on a waiting list because apparently they can only schedule through February and they are booked. I'm totally thinking they need to improve their software, or go back to an old-fashioned doctor's appointment book.

But I did find another organization in town that takes our insurance and DH gave me a list of the doctors there that are open for new patients, and ten of them are female, so I am going to spend a lot of time on the phone on Monday (or Tuesday if they are closed for the holiday) and see if I can't get an appointment in the next 30 days instead. I hope so, because my BP meds run out on March 1 and my new cholesterol medicine runs out on February 22, and I can't even get a hold of my old doctor to add refills until I can find a new one. I'm more concerned about the BP med than the other.

If I have to I will go to the walk in clinic, bring my prescription bottle, see a doctor and explain the situation and at least get enough BP meds to last through March.

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I am trying not to get impatient waiting for Experian to update its stuff. It has about $16,000 worth of paid off stuff still listed. Usually it's updated mid-month, but for some reason they haven't updated it since December 7. We have a monitoring service because of theft years ago. I am just impatient. I want to see how all this payoff is going to affect our credit score. I hope they update it in February.

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I have decided to stop wavering and go ahead with paying off the 0% Chase bill next instead of the mortgage. I have also decided to stop sending extra to the mortgage. The extra $193.16 I've been sending each month will replace some of the wiggle room that the higher social security taxes took away. That was a hard decision to make, but I am feeling pinched right now trying to meet all goals with that money missing from our income. And I don't like feeling pinched as it tends to make me resentful and want to go waste money on something. I may revisit that in a month or two, but for now I will just make the regular payment.

Do you think it would make more sense to me to try to pay off the mortgage quickly or to pay off the 0% interest credit card? The plan has been to pay off the card, but I ran the numbers and if I used the money I had planned to use for the Chase card and continued to pay minimum payments on it and instead threw that at the mortgage, I could have the mortgage paid off by the end of June.

The Chase card is at 0% through the end of 2013. Acutally I think it is until January 2014. And then with no mortgage to pay as well as all the extra money we were throwing at it, we will be able to have that credit card paid off by the end of the year, while it is still at 0%.

Part of my hesitation is psychological. For so long my goal has been to pay off the credit cards. It's been my number one priority. I am not naive enough to believe our house will sell quickly once it goes on the market in spring. So it seems like it would make things a lot easier if it is paid off when it sells, one less round of paperwork. Plus the mortgage is at 5.5%. So it seems silly to not take care of it first.

No matter which way I do it, they'll both be paid off by the end of the year. How do I get past these psychological barriers? Common sense me, people.

So today is payday and the first thing I did this morning was to pay $2609.14 to the Evil Empire. This brings the BoA VISA card down to $2000 even. All of the autopays for this month have gone through now except one that will be $120, so VISA amount payoff will actually be $2120. That brings total credit card debt down to $7100.

After my final payment of $2000 next week the BoA card will be paid off and will only be used for autopays and DH's plane tickets, hotels, and travel food.

Then the only card we will have left is the Chase VISA, with $5100 left on it and it has a 0% interest rate through the end of 2013.

Money Out this Payday:

$2609.14 BoA VISA payment
__125.00 Half year dues
___44.87 Old House phone for security system
___72.00 Water/Sewer (Old House) to the Holding Tank
___72.56 Internet
___37.68 Garbage
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__135.00 Paying Back the Mac Book Fund
___45.00 Allowances
__300.00 Farm money for meats
__100.00 Miscellaneous (toiletries, OTC medicine)
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$3641.29

The Emergency Fund now sits at $1670. I am $30 short of my January goal, but that should be no problem to meet.

Today's check was 3420.49. I already had money saved for the dues, the garbage, and the water/sewer. I also had some money left from last week.

After paying everything I will have $146.59. $90 of that will go to physical therapy on Friday, so really $56.59 until next payday.

The plan so far for next Friday is $2120 to the BoA to pay it off, $200 to the Vacation Fund, $100 to the property tax fund, $570 to the Mortgage, $100 to the propane fund and $200 to the Mac Book fund.

February 1st will be the start of the new Budget Template and I am setting up a spreadsheet for that to let me know where I'll go from there.

So today is payday and the first thing I did this morning was to pay $2609.14 to the Evil Empire. This brings the BoA VISA card down to $2000 even. All of the autopays for this month have gone through now except one that will be $120, so VISA amount payoff will actually be $2120. That brings total credit card debt down to $7100.

After my final payment of $2000 next week the BoA card will be paid off and will only be used for autopays and DH's plane tickets, hotels, and travel food.

Then the only card we will have left is the Chase VISA, with $5100 left on it and it has a 0% interest rate through the end of 2013.

Money Out this Payday:

$2609.14 BoA VISA payment
__125.00 Half year dues
___44.87 Old House phone for security system
___72.00 Water/Sewer (Old House) to the Holding Tank
___72.56 Internet
___37.68 Garbage
__100.00 Emergency Fund
__135.00 Paying Back the Mac Book Fund
___45.00 Allowances
__300.00 Farm money for meats
__100.00 Miscellaneous (toiletries, OTC medicine)
---------------
$3641.29

The Emergency Fund now sits at $1670. I am $30 short of my January goal, but that should be no problem to meet.

Today's check was 3420.49. I already had money saved for the dues, the garbage, and the water/sewer. I also had some money left from last week.

After paying everything I will have $146.59. $90 of that will go to physical therapy on Friday, so really $56.59 until next payday.

The plan so far for next Friday is $2120 to the BoA to pay it off, $200 to the Vacation Fund, $100 to the property tax fund, $570 to the Mortgage, $100 to the propane fund and $200 to the Mac Book fund.

February 1st will be the start of the new Budget Template and I am setting up a spreadsheet for that to let me know where I'll go from there.

I found a beautiful house for sale today. It's a 1920's farmhouse and the wallpaper and such is very outdated, but it's got one of those gorgeous farmhouse kitchens with a walk in pantry. Very rustic. It's set on 6.7 acres of level land and is ten minutes on the freeway from the city I live in now. It's got a barn, a shed, and a large garage/shop.

It's got mature fruit trees and backs up to a spring fed lake. It's far enough from the river to not be in the flood plain, but not so far that you couldn't walk to it. It's got a wood stove and plenty of trees for fuel. The land has been in hay. It's less than a mile to two grocery stores, several restaurants and a bowling alley.

There's a cell tower on the property on an easement so no worries about cell reception. It's on the county bus line into the city and has a stop right near the community college. It's a two minute drive to a branch of our credit union. We'd be ten minutes from my mom's house, five minutes from my MIL and FIL's house, and ten minutes to my SIL's house.

It's got garden space, is wired for internet, is on city water and sewer. Taxes are $1820 a year. It is 1679 square feet with 4 bedrooms. The master bedroom is on the main floor and it has 2 bathrooms (not common for that time period). And the very best part is the price...$265,000. It's been listed for 240 days. I am thinking this is due to the old-fashionedness of the house and the fact that it has carpet instead of hardwood floors (though I wouldn't be surprised if there was hardwood under the carpet, given it's age).

I mean, it is 95% of what I want in a house and the land. I have liked other houses before, but I've not had one come so close to everything on my checklist before. Maybe 75%. We could have hens and rabbits and a rooster. Maybe even a barn cat. Can't have a house cat because of allergies, but a barn cat would be nice.

Now who knows if it will be available after our house sells, but it's amazing to realize places like this are actually out there. That maybe we won't have to settle after all.

It is a really good thing that DH was not trying to get home this week and that he is working an extra week as they have been in whiteout conditions for the last few days and no planes would be able to take off and land. What is a whiteout? It's when blizzard conditions reach stage 3 and no one is allowed to go outside. Visibility is gone, all you see is white, whirling, blinding snow. Stage 2 they are allowed to go outside but they must travel in caravans of 4 or 5 trucks. Stage 1 is when you must travel with 2 trucks together.

DH sent me some pictures after he was allowed to go outside again. It is still snowing, but no longer blizzard conditions.







Even when they are in whiteout conditions and can't fully do their jobs, they still get paid. It's one of the hazards of working in the arctic.

It's been cold here, too, but nowhere on that scale. The last few days have hovered around 28 degrees F. It has been taking 20 to 25 minutes to defrost the van every morning, even with deicer, because the inside of the window is just so cold it takes forever to unfog enough to drive. I am going to have to buy some more deicer soon.

I read somewhere that wiping the inside windshield with isopropyl alcohol can prevent that fogging over, but I've never tried it before. I think I will do that, though. Or at least look for some type of antifogger.

The days have been very sunny this week, but that's deceptive. It's just very icy. I keep waiting for it to snow here, not that I want it to, but it only brushes the tops of the foothills. Today the chickens were doing the one foot stand, like a flamingo. They keep one foot up against their fluffy warm bodies and then switch off. We put some hay down for them as that helps insulate them from the frozen ground.

My son is still running a fever today, but he looks a little better than yesterday. DD had early release today and came home and crashed for 3 hours. I hate the flu. It is just so enervating. At least I still can function.

I don't think I realized how many times a day I check in here before I suddenly couldn't. Five minutes here, five minutes there, a good hour in the afternoon or evening. So happy the site is up and running again.

I have made good use of my time researching meat rabbits and meat chickens, pens, hutches, and tractors (not the diesel kind, the movable pens with built in coops) and getting an idea of what the expense will be and the minimum size property we'll want to purchase when we are ready to move. I know we are probably two years out from raising either right now, but the more I know, the more feasible it'll be to actually do it.

There has been nothing financial to worry about this week. I'm just waiting for Friday to make another payment to BoA and another payment to the dentist for my crown.

Homeschooling is going well this week despite DS being sick with the flu. He's been hovering around 100 degrees with his fever and generally miserable. I am understanding the math faster than he is, which never happens. We're doing a reduced schedule for him at the moment, as he isn't up for a full class load, but he wants to not fall behind on the harder things to catch up on, namely math and science. We are a couple weeks ahead on history and a few days ahead on literature so as long as we get chair time in by the end of the month we're fine.

Queen got a bath today. She's been hanging low to the ground when she walks and that's usually a sign of a partly blocked vent (and it was) which can lead to getting egg bound which can lead to death. Always so much fun to break it up, but she perked up after she was dry again.

The two leghorns went over the fence to the nice neighbor lady's house, who sometimes invites them over when she's working in her garden, but she was away all day today and so her dogs were in the fenced back yard instead of the house. Oh, my gosh, I have never seen the leghorns fly before, but Ecru got going so fast she was over the neighbor's fence and across the yard and over the fence into the chicken pen in one go like a little white bullet. That's about 40 feet.

Everything I've read says they can't fly more than 15 feet, but that girl zipped like a bat out of hades, so I guess they can if their lives are in danger. I have never seen a chicken with her wings pumping so fast before, not even the time Curious got her tail feathers clipped by the same dog. Ecru was hilarious, but only because she didn't get hurt. A chicken with a dog bite is no laughing matter.

Eggshell only made it over the neighbor's fence and into our yard in one go, but she was right off the ground again and airborn a few seconds later. They do learn eventually to check for dogs first. It just takes some of them longer than the others. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere for people getting into and out of debt, but I'm too tired to figure it out.

I did get a $5 gift card from Swagbucks for Amazon yesterday, and I got another survey from ACOP, so that'll be $3 eventually.

I cleaned out my purse tonight and added 85 cents to the coin jar. I have $12 in my allowance envelope from December. I thought it was $6 or $7, but I had miscounted a five as a one.

I also added $10 to the EF, so the new EF amount is $1560.00.

As often happens on Sundays, I am mending. One of our king size sheets got a hole in it. We only have two, so I have been using this sheet while DH is in Alaska, putting the holey side on his side of the bed. Gradually the hole has gotten bigger and bigger, so today I decided to mend it. I used a back stitch as I want it to be strong and hold up, but I don't care about it being pretty. I will still only use that sheet when DH is away, because I don't think it will hold up too long to his tossing and turning.

I know that I could just go out and buy a new bottom sheet, but sheets have gotten ridiculously expensive over the last several years. I have a hard time paying $40 for a good sheet or $100 for a set. I suppose when this one wears out I will do that, but for now this will do. Once it wears out I will make it into linen napkins as it is a very pretty turquoise color and does not show four years of washing. I will also save the elastic for some future project.

I also sewed a couple of buttons back on to a couple of shirts and rethreaded the ties through a pair of DS's sweatpants that had come out. That's an easy fix. Just take a large safety pin and pin it on one end of the tie. Then push it through the hole and work it all the way around the sweats until you can push it out the other hole. Easy peasy.

So 3 items of clothing and 1 sheet have been returned to usability with less than a half hour's effort on my part. Not bad.

Using up freezer supplies this week.

Monday--
Roasting 2 chickens (packaging the meat on one for the freezer)
Baked potatoes (making extra baked potatoes)
Green beans
Oranges

Tuesday--
Calzones (chicken, homemade spaghetti sauce, pepperoni, onions, bell pepper strips, cheese)
Cole slaw

Wednesday--
Chicken enchiladas (homemade sauce)
Cole slaw
Oranges

Thursday--
Baked potato soup (using extra made on Monday and bacon is the protein in the soup)
Salad
Oranges

Friday--
Bacon cheeseburgers with homemade buns
Homemade French fries
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Pizza (tomato sauce, homemade sausage, onions, bell pepper strips)
Cole slaw

Sunday--
Beef pot roast
Mashed potatoes and gravy
Green beans
Drop bisucits with choice of homemade jams

Lunches this week will be low carb meatloaf, chicken quesadillas, salads or cole slaw and any of the leftover stir-fry I made last night.

Breakfast this week will be pancakes and eggs for DS, sausage and cabbage or cucumbers for Me and DD

The broccoli finally kicked it in the 27 degree F freeze we had Friday night. The kohlrabi survived and I picked it.

We got 10 eggs today. Go, chickens.

I forgot about making buns for the cheeseburgers today, so I ended up throwing together a quick stir-fry. I cut up 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs that I ransacked the chest freezer for and put them in a marinade of 1 cup low sodium gluten free soy sauce, 2 T of honey, 1/2 T of ginger, and a 1/2 T of garlic powder. While that was soaking DD and I cut up 3 carrots, 3 stalks of celery, 1 cauliflower, green beans, and 1/2 a yellow onion. I did more of a combination of stir-fry and steam-fry as I don't like to stir constantly. It made enough for us to have it for dinner, for lunch tomorrow, and maybe still have some leftover. Doesn't it look yummy?

I also made a batch of cinnamon ice cream tonight and I have some French bread going in the bread machine.

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I went to the store today and I ended up spending $127.53. I just didn't have the energy to go to Kmart and the grocery store so I bought the toiletries at the grocery store. I got a couple of things not on my list and forgot the peanut butter which we are totally out of.

I meant to spend about $100, but I went through the bakery. *sighs* I should know better, but I swear the box of cinnamon rolls just jumped into my cart when I wasn't looking. I also bought two boxes of psuedophedrine from the pharmacy and 1 box of Dayquil because my supply was woefully low and I feel a sinusy thing coming on. And then I remembered I needed batteries. But I won't need to buy anything else before payday on Friday and I have $70 left.

They were having a good sale on whole fish, but the fish counter reeked. I could smell it from 10 feet away. I have noticed that a lot at the small Haggen since the remodel. I know that they've instituted some cost saving measures to pay for the totally unnecessary remodel, like not restocking the salad bar or letting the hot food in the deli run out when it runs out, carrying less selection in some areas and way too much in others, raising prices, and pushing their own store brand far more than they ever used to, but the fish counter should not smell like that. I draw a line there. Clearly they are holding on to fish that previously would have been out the door before it stank. So no more buying fish or seafood from there. That makes 2 grocery stores I will not buy fish from.

Haggen has always been my favorite grocery store, but I will either have to go to the big one 5 miles out of my way or just stick to Trader Joe's and the Food Co-op (which carries fresh fish) from now on. It's a shame, too. I've been shopping at that store since I was 4 years old and they were just that store, not a small chain of stores. That's almost 39 years now. I have never been disappointed in them until the last year, but now I am.

I had planned to go today, but I decided to take another look through my freezers first. I am glad I did. I had thought I was out of hamburger, but I found six packages of it on the wrong shelf behind some frozen veggies.

I had thought I needed chicken, but I found 2 whole chickens. Unfortunately the chickens are frozen together so thawing in the micro is not really an option. The package is too big. I'll have to thaw it in the fridge roast it, and then divide it into portions for the freezer. I also found 2 pork chops, 1 pound of ground pork, 1 pound of ground lamb, 6 steaks and five packs of bacon.

After that I cleaned out the fridge and found a head of purple cabbage and kohlrabi in the back. These are both good keepers and were perfectly good. I have a cucumber that I will need to eat tomorrow. If I put it off much longer it'll be chicken feed, not people food. And of course I have broccoli. I am halfway through my lettuce, celery, and carrots, and I have plenty of potatoes and onions, so really, there's nothing I need to buy except dairy and fruit.

So how do I make use of that great coupon of $10 off a $50 purchase good through Monday? Well, $22 of it will be milk. And I will buy some flour and some tuna and some oranges. That should put me to the $50 point and then I won't need to set foot in the grocery store for another week, although I still need to go to Kmart for the toiletries.

I am going to make homemade sausage with the ground pork and ground lamb for breakfasts next week and make a couple of meatloaves for lunches. And the steaks will definitely make it into a couple of dinners.

I sent $100 (my January allowance) to my friend who is in desperate need right now. That'll leave me with about $100 for the week in checking after I do the shopping. I should be just fine with that. No more bills are due before next payday.

I sent for another $5 gift card from Swagbucks for Amazon. The last one hasn't come yet, should show up this weekend.

I added $5.64 to the coin jar.

Today is payday, finally, the first one of the new year, and the damage is $123 and some change more in taxes out of this first check. Next week will be a bit higher as it is a seven day paycheck and not just a five day one.

I started my morning by taking a shot at the Evil Empire and paid off another $2000. DH bought his one way plane ticket on Wednesday which had brought the balance on the BoA VISA to $5,983.64. So the new balance on the VISA is $3983.64. I will have 3 autopays coming out before the end of the month, so that will go up a bit, but I am still on track for paying the card off by month's end. Total credit card debt currently sits at $9083.64. This is the first time in a very long time I have been under $10K. Go me.

Then I made the car loan payment. I also paid another medical bill to the podiatrist and made a payment on my crown to the dentist.

$2000.00 to BoA VISA
757.82 Van payment (plus extra to principal)
205.30 Dentist
75.00 Podiatrist
50.00 Two weeks of allowance for the kids
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$3088.22 Total

I still owe $350 to the dentist for my crown and should have that paid off by the end of the month. I am thinking of rescheduling my 2nd crown until after vacation in March. The tooth has not been hurting since getting the other crown put in. I don't think I'm hitting it anymore when I grind my teeth at night. The last one ended up costing $200 more than the estimate because of how much novacaine they had to give me.

I have just under $300 for the next week. I need to buy toilet paper and tissues. Normally I go to Costco for that, but I am just not up for a warehouse store, so I'm heading to Kmart. I've been out of tissues for a week, not great when everyone is sick. Even if Charmin is nice to blow your nose on, tissues are better.

I need to do a grocery shop, too. I have a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase. This is one of the rare times I will use coupons, since most are for processed junky foods and are useless to me. They are also having a sale on Organic Valley products so I will get milk, heavy cream and half and half (the last 2 for making ice cream) if the sell by dates are decent.

I have been wondering about maybe paying off the Sienna when we sell the house. Right now we have close to $800 a month going to it (we're paying more than the actual monthly payment). The van will be 2 years old on June 6th, so we have a while yet to go to own it free and clear. We've knocked off about 4 months worth of payments by paying extra.

This is only if we get anywhere near our asking price and can still bank a good amount for a new downpayment. With the car paid off it frees up $800 a month to go towards college or the EF or the downpayment. But I don't know. A bigger down payment means a smaller mortgage. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I did talk to DD about the fact that if she went to the local community college for two years and then transferred to the local university (they partner so credits from BCC are transferrable to WWU), it would save us about $15,000. She seems amenable to that and it would give us more time to save the money for WWU.

I figure we can save about $12,000 a year for college each year once the credit cards are paid off. The $10,000 that we will save by her going to the community college the first two years can be saved for WWU and should be enough to cover the shortage for years 3 and 4. Assuming that tuition doesn't go up too much, of course. There will also be tax returns and hopefully yearly bonuses that could be saved for college if necessary.

How did college get so expensive? When I went it was about $100 a credit up to 15 credits and then anything between 15 and 18 credits was free and if you took more than 18 credits (not recommended) it cost money again. Mom paid for half, I paid for half.

It helped that I had a scholarship from work that was enough to at least pay for my books. It also helped that taking classes in the summer session was cheaper. But it's been 22 years and tuition has just gotten ridiculous, even with the local discount. We are definitely going to feel it, but we should still be able to manage without loans. I guess I've gotten good at managing these last almost 18 years since I've been married.

If my daughter can manage to find a job, I'll expect her to contribute. Same for my son when he gets there. But that's a big if in today's economy and I don't see that getting any better. This depression is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I am just hoping we won't see an all out collapse of the American dollar, but the rate at which the government is spending I'm not holding my breath.

They just make me so mad. I mean, the aid to help Sandy victims has been tacked on with so much crap with each elected official getting a little something something for his own state. That sort of thing is business as usual for our elected, but it needs to stop. It should be about helping out the victims, not seeing what you can get for you and yours before you'll okay help.

I wish we could add an ammendment to the Constitution saying that bills had to be specifically for that one thing only and not to help pig farmers in Arkansas or corn growers in Nebraska (just randomly picking here) when it's supposed to go to rebuilding stuff in New York. That's half if not more of the problem with our debt. So much greed. That's the kind of entitlements that need to stop, the ones the officials get away with.

I wish we could make all elected officials live on a wage that was just high enough they couldn't get food stamps and make them have to pay for their own medical insurance and lose their vacation days until they've balanced the budget or at least cut all of the fat our of it. I bet it would happen pretty darn fast if they had to actually feel it.

Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant. Don't know where it even came from.

Tomorrow is payday and I'll get to see what the higher taxes does to the paycheck. Ah, well, maybe that's where that rant came from. The waiting.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracana, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked orpington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is a stubborn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird. She is second in command of the pecking order, after Queen.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen (HBIC)



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Knox is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

I spent $6.43 on two prescriptions today leaving me with $20 in the checking account until Friday. I also bought two burgers at DQ today out of what's left of my December allowance, leaving me with $6 in cash. No biggie. Plenty in savings still.

Now onto the chickens. I swear the majority of the chicken pictures I take are of chicken butts. I swear they are facing the camera when I push the shutter down, but by the time it goes off they have turned around. It's the one thing I really miss about film cameras, there is no delay between when you snap the photo and when it is taken. Still, film was expensive to develop and I do love the ease of digital. I managed to get a few non-butt chicken shots today though.

First up are Queen (Rhode Island Red), Curious (gold sex-linked orpington), Goldilocks (Auracna, gold cheek puffs), Henrietta (Auracana, red cheek puffs), and Kyri (Bantam Auracana cross, gold cheek puffs).



Henrietta has the most beautiful markings.



Georgie (gold sex-linked oprington) on top of Fort Knox. Of course. If there is a roof, she will be on it.



Georgie and Kyri



Silver (silver lace-winged wyandotte, I know, creative naming). I swear she was facing me. At least it's not a full on chicken butt shot. This view shows off her gorgeous wings more fully, though.



Patricia (Barred rock). She is stubburn bird. That is why she is named after my mother, who is also a stubborn bird.



Curious, Silver, Pipsqueak (black australorp), and Ecru (white leghorn). Pipsqueak stayed small for a long, long time. Now the only chickens bigger than her are Silver and Half-pint who also stayed small for a long, long time.



Half-pint (black australorp) and Eggshell (white leghorn, I think she's been rolling in the mud)



Queen



It has been such a wet January so far, the area around the coop, shed and Fort Know is just mud. It doesn't matter if you scrub out the buckets every day (which we do) and fill them with clean water, they are filthy within a couple of hours.

We are hoping to reseed some of the area in spring, although I don't know how successful that will be. The chickens have pretty much ravaged that area. We'd have to pen it off for weeks. Fortunately there is plenty of nice grass outside the main pen and they don't spend the whole day in the mud, just the main feeding and scratching session. The rest of the time they are chasing bugs and worms and eating plants around the property.

Laying is going well. With 9 pullets, a 20 month old hen (who finally stopped molting), and two that are nearly 3 we have a very good supply. I'm not looking forward to next year at this time. We'll have 9 hens molting for the first time and two hens molting for the second time. The yard will look like a slumber party after a pillow fight. And one hen laying consistently. I hope they don't all go into molt at the same time! There is a bit of variance between the breeds, but still most of them molt at approximately 18 months and it can take several weeks.

Now Mom is saying she doesn't want to raise anymore ducklings after all. I think that is probably wise. We all love them, but they are seriously filthy animals and not as biddable as chickens. I wasn't really up for it this year anyway with homeschooling. That takes up too much of my time and you seriously have to worry about baby birds a lot. I'd really prefer a more carefree spring, but we'll see what happens when they appear in the feed store and start making their cute little duckling noises.

In relation to talking about how hard it is for people to find a job in a previous post...my husband's work is hiring. They had hired a guy for this one position and he was to start working on Friday. He never showed up. He never even called to say what happened. DH found out through the grapevine that he'd accepted another job with another company.

I find it totally unacceptable that a person would accept a job and then not call to say they were taking another job instead. It is highly unprofessional and this industry remembers things, so he could easily have shot himself in the foot. Also, it's like a slap in the face to all of the people who are out there desperately looking for work to be so arrogant as to not even bother to call. On the bright side, financially anyway, it looks like DH may get more extra weeks if they don't find someone.

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Disneyland parkhopper tickets went up by a huge amount. It was $235 per person for a five day parkhopper and now it is $290. That's a difference of about $400 for the 7 of us. I'll be watching in case there are sales. They do sometimes have them. We won't be buying until the end of February.

With that jump in prices we will definitely be eating most of our meals in the condo. I figure we can get by with about $300 in groceries for 8 days for the four of us. I have no idea what organics and all natural foods will cost in Anaheim so I'm budgeting high. I am not risking DS's allergies by buying chemically laden foods.

DH and I are working on meal plans. I will be having some kind of meat (sausage, bacon, ham) and vegetables (probably cukes or cabbage) for breakfast and everyone else will do pancakes and eggs or french toast and bacon, ham, or sausage. We'll have sandwich and salad fixings for lunches. I'm thinking a beef roast and either chicken or turkey for meats unless they have actual deli meats without additives and corn syrup solids.

We get one free breakfast at the park for our magic morning. We want to eat BBQ one day at the ranch if it is open, we want to get Monte Cristo sandwiches once (possibly twice), and there's a great Italian place at CA that serves wonderful lasagna. I want skewers from the Bengal Barbecue, DH and I are thinking about just doing Blue Bayou for the two of us on our anniversary because of the expense. And we are thinking maybe either Mickey Mouse waffles or pancakes one day. We have requests for getting ice cream at the Carnation Cafe at least once, churros at least once, and one of the big turkey legs (split amongst two) and corn on the cob. I haven't set a budget yet for that, but I will be looking up prices at mouseplanet to see what I'm looking at.

We did find out we could reserve seating for the Colors show with the $15.99 dinner instead of with the $45 dinner and DH is supposed to find out about reserve seating for Fantasmic and the fireworks show as I am well past my days of sitting on the concrete for 2 hours to get a good seat. Plus with my knee I'd never get up again.

Boy, big vacations are expensive. But it is worth it to give this experience to our kids, our nieces and DH's sister.

I feel like I am just waiting for the days to pass until Friday arrives. I thought when we were ahead of the game like we almost are now, waiting anxiously for paydays would be a thing of the past. But no. I'm still waiting for paydays. I'm restless for them to come so I can shell out for the debt repayments this month that will finish off that darn BoA card. I am particularly wanting to see how much the extra social security tax is going to affect paychecks.

And then I will be restless for the income tax refund so that the Chase card and the rest of our credit card debt will be a thing of the past.

I imagine even after that I will be anxious to start socking away money for the emergency fund, the HSA, and college and to pay off the mortgage, so I will still be waiting for each paycheck.

Maybe one day it won't be a waiting game for me, but somehow I doubt it. I think there will always be something that I'm wanting to add to or save up for. Of course once the EF is to 3 months I imagine the waiting will take on less anxiety and be more like a simple ordering of where the money goes.

Once the credit cards are paid off I want to get the EF to $18,300. That is 3 months' expenses. If we can save $2000 a month for that starting in May, we should hit that by the end of the year. After that I'll add to it more slowly, aiming for $30,000.

Meanwhile I hope to start socking away money for college0 (DD will start in the fall of 2015) and bump up payments to the mortgage. That will be under $13K by the end of April. Also, get all the last minute fiddly things finally done and the carpet replaced in the old house so that we can get the dang thing on the market.

I have no idea if our tax refunds after this year are going to remain substantial. That depends on whether or not we max out the HSA again like we have done for the last two years. If we do, any substantial tax refund will likely be thrown at savings for college. If we have a healthy year, likely we won't need to max out the HSA again. I have a feeling we will do it again at least this coming year. I'm pretty sure I'll need another MRI done on my knee and possibly more knee surgery at some point this year the way it has been acting so I need to save up some for the HSA, too.

Not to mention that I'm paying off the rest of my crown ($525) and will be getting another one in February, so at least another $700. That's almost halfway to our deductible right there. Throw in one BP prescription and we'll be at the halfway point by the end of Feb.

So the waiting game continues. 3 more days until payday, 3 more days until I can make the next $2000 payment to BoA and the total dropping to $3,610.74. Ten more days to drop it to $1,610.74. 17 more days to drop it to $0. I am forever counting the numbers.

3 more days with $27 left in the checking account, no bills to pay, and $25 left of my December allowance. Just ticking along, waiting, waiting, waiting for the end of the month to arrive. Waiting for the future to begin. Waiting.

I found this to be a fairly thought-provoking article:

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/65-percent-of-am...

It sounds like the American public just might be starting to wake up a little and notice what our elected (both sides) are doing and how it's going to end up hurting all of us. One can only hope.

Also read an interesting article about the hopelessly unemployed, those who have been unemployed for four or five years and have ceased looking for work for at least a year. Or the kids who have been trying since high school to find a job, still couldn't get one in college, and upon graduating and a year of job-seeking end up going back to school hoping it will come out better on the other side of their student loans. Or the women who took 20 years off to raise their kids and are now trying to get back into the workforce. Or the 55 year olds who were laid off and now won't be hired because they're the wrong age. These ones of course do not make it into the unemployment statistics. I managed to lose that article or I'd pass it along as well.

I do worry for my daughter. She's going to start volunteering in the spring to at least have that as job experience. I was doing farm work at 4 every summer, though not seriously until age 8. We could always find summer employment. I remember walking into a restaurant once and asking for an application and the manager coming over and interviewing me on the spot and asking if I could come in for orientation that night. The work was always there. Now sixteen year olds can't even get a job flipping burgers.

How does she help work her way through college if there is no work?

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the murder of my daughter's friend F. She would have been 17. Murder is always senseless, the murder of children doubly so. F died at the hands of her mother's live in boyfriend. Domestic violence, alcohol, and a gun were responsible for her death.

I wish that she had left that house instead of going out and getting between her mom and her mom's boyfriend. I wish he had not disconnected their phone line. I wish she had run through the dark in the early hours of the morning and knocked on our door, on anyone else's door. I wish that I'd found out about it in a better way than reporters knocking on my front door and asking if we knew the murdered child. They hadn't even given us a name, but I could look down the block and see where everything was centered and I knew immediately who it was.

F had never said a thing about her situation, had never mentioned the abuse her mother was going through. She'd never gotten in the way of it before and like most children in such cases, she was a silent witness, until one day she wasn't.

It rocked our little neighborhood to the core and was the impetus for us leaving the area and moving back to town. My kids just could not handle living in a place where a child they had played with for years was killed. No one felt safe anymore, especially my kids, despite the fact that the murderer commited suicide and was no longer there.

I hope my daughter makes it through the school day without crumbling. We have decided not to remind my son of what day it is. He was 9 when it happened so his memories are not so sharp, but he adored F. She never minded when he tagged along with his sister. She was such a sweet girl and will always be missed. As a mother, it just broke my heart.

Still feeling kind of drug under (I am getting better, though) so the meals this week are going to be pretty simple. I just don't have the energy to go all out. Yeah, I know. Simple for me can still be pretty complicated when I make almost everything from scratch. (I have premade meatballs and premade sauce that I froze the last time I made spaghetti and meatballs, so the first two days are not as difficult as they might appear).

Monday--
Spaghetti with homemade sauce
Lamb and pork meatballs
Broccoli

Tuesday--
Meatball sandwiches
Cole slaw
Oranges

Wednesday--
Herb roasted chicken
Baked potatoes
Broccoli
Hoem canned pears

Thursday--
Tropical Chicken Stir-fry (broccoli, carrots, onions, celery)
Canned pineapple

Friday--
Homemade pizza (sausage, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper strips)
Cole slaw

Saturday--
Bacon cheeseburgers on homemade buns
Homemade french fries
Cole slaw

Sunday--
Wild-caught salmon
Broccoli
Baked potatoes
Oranges

Lunches this week will be low carb meatloaf and leftover chicken (wraps, salads, quesadillas). Breakfasts will consist of pancakes and eggs (DS), and sausages and cucumbers (DD, Me). DH is gone until the 23rd so work is providing his meals.

We are out of pot roast so no Sunday pot roasts until I can drive out to the farm again, which probably won't be until the 12th or the 19th. It depends on how much extra taxes are taken out of the 11th's paycheck. The drive to the farm is not worth it unless I pick up $300 worth of meat at a time. We haven't been since we picked up our turkey in November so supplies are running low. Still I have a lot of frozen wild salmon and cod and some chicken in the freezer so we'll cope without beef and pork for a while if we need to, or I can venture to the food co-op if need be as they have some sustainable organic meats.

So Queen--you all remember Queen, right? The one who sulks if you put her back in the pen if she doesn't want to be there.

So Queen has apparently noticed my absence outside in the last two days. I've been sick and so not been out to see her since Thursday. Even though the kiddos went out and talked to the flock apparently it wasn't good enough for Queen.

About 3 o'clock I hear an unheavenly racket going on outside my bedroom window. I thought one of the chickens had flown out and couldn't figure out how to get back in. That still happens with a couple of the heavier chickens. I opened up the curtains and looked out and there was Queen, who of any chicken besides Curious and Georgie, can get anywhere she wants to except the roof (that's still Georgie's claim to fame, none of the others have managed it yet).

Boy, when she saw those curtains open, she got so excited. She started jumping up in the air. She was getting a good three feet of lift with her wings and was chattering the whole time. As soon as I opened the window and spoke to her through the screen she started cooing at me. It was so funny. She settled right down and after about five minutes wandered back to the fence and hopped over. I guess she just missed our daily chats?

The girls seem to be very happy this winter, probably because it hasn't snowed yet and the ground is thawed at least for part of the day so they can still scratch. Egg production is going well. It is nice not to have to buy eggs. A few days ago I noticed the going rate for organic, free range, sustainably farmed eggs at the grocery store was $8.99 a dozen.

We're getting between 7 and 10 eggs per day. I'm going to have to take a couple dozen to my physical therapist and have SIL and MIL stop by for some, too, soon. The backlog in the fridge is getting so big.

Mom is talking about getting ducklings again in the spring. She might as well, since Fort Knox is sitting there empty, but I'm not doing them in a brooder in the garage again. They can be raised in the spare bathtub just like the first set were. It socializes them better when we can spend more time with them and pick them up more frequently and that only happens inside the house.

Speaking of ducks, Lady is doing well at her new farm. I still miss her, but she and the widowed drake are getting on famously, beyond all of our hopes. We'll try to go visit her next weekend if I am better by then. I miss having duck eggs for cooking, but I'd much rather she be happy.

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There isn't much to talk about on the financial front right now. Everything is ticking along on autopilot until 1/11. That's a good thing, I guess. And it'll give me time to finish up writing about the food stamps challenge. No, I haven't forgotten about it.

Also wanted to give a great big thank you to all of my readers. My blog hit 1.5 million hits this morning! That's half a million since April. It still amazes me how many people want to listen to (erm...read?) me blathering on, even when I wander off topic *coughs* chickens *coughs* But I am very happy that you do!

There is a quote that goes "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." Lately I've been having to make do or do without paper towels. This wasn't an actual choice on my part, I just apparently get a brain cloud whenever I go to the grocery store and keep forgetting to get paper towels. This probably has something to do with having a case from Costco that lasted a year so I never even had to think about it for months.

I don't use them too much, just mostly to drain food that has a bit too much oil on it or collecting out the hamburger fat. We use wash cloths or linen napkins at the table. For a while now I've been using napkins instead of paper towels for draining food. We don't eat out that much here, but there is a drive-in we go to about twice a month and they give us enough napkins to clean a small country.

Well, I finally made it through my stash of those napkins and I've been looking around for what I could use in place of paper towels. It needed to be something absorbent and that got me to thinking. Flannel. I had a small stash of flannel that had never been used left over from my mother's cloth diaper making years ago for my sister's last child. They had been cut to diaper size but never hemmed. I took one and cut it in half, did a couple quick hems, and washed the two pieces. I tried it out when draining my homemade French fries. It works very well. And once used can just be tossed in with the towels to be washed.

I'm not sure I'm ready to switch completely away from paper towels just yet, it's one of those non-frugal things I've held onto, but until I remember to actually buy them, this is working out fine. Plus I had a lot of fun teasing my kids when they asked what I had drained it on and I said, "Oh, just some old diaper...material." They totally freaked with my pause. But once they realized the material had never been used as a diaper they were fine. Yes, sometimes Mama has a slightly twisted sense of humor.

I think once the flannel sheets go on clearance this year, I will pick up a twin top sheet, and make it into non-paper toweling and we'll give it a shot for awhile. I need more practice hemming anyway.

What do you make do with when you find yourself without a convenience item easily at hand?

Got statements in the mail today from two CU's showing the interest earned there. $4.21. I added it to the Emergency Fund, which now comes to $1550.00. It's almost never at an exactly equal amount like that. I am hoping to get the EF to $1700 by the end of this month.

I've been dinking around with my spreadsheet and assigned dates to my categories, so I know what to pay when and what to fund when this month. It's more complicated than usual this month with the high amount of debt payoff that will be happening. I decided to leave plenty of cushion in each payday to account for any changes in taxes and I still will be able to pay off the BoA this month, even if we were to charge $1000 on it this month so my worries were unfounded.

Extra money will be dumped into savings at the end of the month and I'll allocate from that. Even with my worst estimates, I'm looking at a surplus for January due to the extra week of pay, so I'm not as panicky as I was. That money will mostly go for Disneyland and to replace the money that I borrowed from the MacBook Fund. A couple hundred dollars will carry over for the 2 day paycheck week.

Otherwise I think we are good. We should be able to absorb the tax changes in future months okay. It's going to affect savings of one sort or another, but it won't affect anything else. I'll know by how much once we get the paycheck on 1/11 and the one on 1/18.

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I recieved a $5 giftcard from Swagbucks for Amazon last night and I cashed out for another one today.

The BoA payment I made yesterday posted. DH's hotel for his trip up, travel food, and our gym membership hit today, so the new balance is up a bit from what I said yesterday to $5,610.74.

The mortgage payment posted this morning. I made a payment of $570. Of that $68.51 went to interest and the rest to principal. The new mortgage balance is $14,446.84. My goal for February is to bring that under $14K. I am trying to pay off $500 worth of principal each month right now. I will reassess my mortgage goals after the credit card debt is paid off and I know what is going on with paychecks with the new tax laws.

Homeschool went okay yesterday, it just took forever. Although I understood the math right away (totally new concept to me) it took DS longer to cotton on to it. We are doing rays and angles and line segments, and defining whether the measured angle pairs are complimentary or supplementary or neither. The lesson ended up taking 90 minutes instead of the usual hour.

Then history took a lot longer than usual. Sometimes the curriculum splits stuff up in really stupid ways. Wednesday's history only took a half an hour while yesterday's took 90 minutes. If they divided it up better it would come to an hour a day. One day you are reading 3 pages in the history book and the next day you are reading two chapters.

It wouldn't be so bad, but we started The Secret Garden yesterday. Normally literature lessons consist of one short story or 3 or 4 poems that are read and then questions are answered about plot and character development or in the case of poems, analyzed. But when he needs to do actual books, which happens twice a semester, they divide it into ten lessons, no matter how long the book is. So he ends up reading 30 to 40 pages a day for that which wouldn't take too long, except it is using regional dialect.

Now I personally hate dialect in books. It's a pet peeve of mine. It's overdone and it makes things difficult to read. It's enough to say, hey, these people are from Yorkshire, they talk a little different and maybe give a bit of the flavor of it, but not pound the reader over the head with it. On top of that it also is using old-fashioned language so things like thyself instead of yourself are used. But when you use dialect, it's thysen instead of theyself, or youn'un instead of young one. Then a ton of questions afterwards so literature is ending up taking way, way too long.

Now all that would be fine in high school, but this is 7nth grade. We were already at 5 hours for the day with only those 3 subjects. Add on top of that grammar and usage, vocabulary, composition and either art or science, plus 20 minutes a day for PE and we were at around 8 hours and school is only supposed to take 5 and a half hours per day. We were both cranky by the time we finished.

I ended up reserving the unabridged book on CD. I'm going to allow DS to read along with the CD instead so that he isn't struggling with dialect and old-fashioned language and we can get through it faster. Fortunately the library had it in so I can just go down and pick it up today.

Hopefully today will go better. We haven't started yet as DS didn't sleep last night and I let him sleep in. I think he's coming down with what DD has. *sighs* Me, too, maybe as I didn't sleep all that well either. Well, I was well for a whole week. That's better than nothing.

I made my first payment of $2000 to the BoA VISA today. At first I screwed it up and forgot to check the date I'd scheduled it for. This was because it used to put the first day available for payment, but they switched their payment page to the same one they use for MasterCard (which I haven't used in months) and now it automatically schedules it for the day the payment is due, which wasn't until 1/21.

I tried calling them to see what I needed to do to change it, but their phone customer service is completely unhelpful in this situation and offered no option for speaking to a human. Plus it takes forever to get to the point. Ugh.

So after that I thought about just leaving it scheduled as I had planned to make another $2000 payment on the 18th, and could have just let it go through on the 21st instead and then scheduled a different payment for today, but I really didn't want to do that. I like having the money in the account before scheduling a payment.

So I slogged through all the FAQ's and stuff on the bill pay and finally found where you can make a change to a scheduled payment, so I was able to change the date from 1/21 to today. The payment should post tomorrow. That will leave that card with a balance of $5407.11, with 3 more payments of $2000 each going at it this month.

DH will have to charge a plane ticket, a hotel night, and travel food once before it is paid off, but I'll figure out how to absorb that. It'll be about $750, so I'll just need to come up with $158 more dollars unless interest hits at that point, then I'll have to come up with a little more. I still have $140.65 in the MacBook Fund I can borrow from if needed and $400 in the vacation account. If I do wipe out the MB fund I'll need to repay it with some of the income tax return as DD is to start her senior year with that and it is eight months away.

As it stands that brings our total credit card debt down to $10,507.11 for the moment. It feels good to finally be moving forward with this January plan.