Lucky Robin's Personal Finance Blog

I trimmed my own bangs this morning, cutting off about two inches. I am getting better and better at this as the years go by. It only took me three minutes and there are no scraggly pieces or uneven lines. They look great!

The local cheap salon charges $8 for a bang trim. Used to be $6. Before that $4. No way am I paying $8 for 3 minutes (if that!) of work.

I only get my hair cut 2 to 3 times a year and not at the cheap salon, either. I go to mid-priced Regis. Since I was not ready for a full cut, but I was sick of bangs down past my eyes, I just had the urge.

Saving $8 when I can do a good job is great. Now, if I couldn't do a good job, that is a whole other story.

DH is talking about Disneyland. I said no way for next year unless his extra weeks continue for past what is currently expected, but its doable for 2009. I have started saving $100 a month. And if I can add the 2008 tax return into the vacation fund, then there will be no problem going in 2009. We only have to pay for food, park fees, and lodging. Airfare is always free from the miles DH racks up flying up to work and back.

We might not even have to pay for lodging if we can get Mom's condo. That can be hard, but planning it over a year in advance makes it possible. It's not within walking distance but they do provide a shuttle, so it would be worthwhile to do.

We tend to go for 10 days, though, which also might be hard to reserve at the condo. Even if we could do one week at the condo and 3 days elsewhere it would save a bundle.

Now that Disney and some of the less expensive surrounding restaurants offer healthier food choices, like salads,kale, asparagus, celery and broccoli as sides or for sale at food carts, we won't have to get a hotel with a fridge and microwave, either. That has always added to the expense.

I have to be very careful how I eat because of my past health issues and so does Rose who also has postprandial hyperinsulinemia. Which involves eating a lot healthier than the normal Joe and balancing protein (devoid of any fillers, growth hormones, additives or preservatives) with low glycemic vegetables and being extremely careful with the complex carbohydrates we do choose (no corn since I was recently diagnosed with a corn allergy, no white flour, no barley, no white sugar, no white rice, no processed cereals, and very minimal amounts of fruit which is the hardest). In the past we've had to really work hard at it on vacation if we didn't have a full kitchen and access to a grocer. My last trip there alone proved it can be done easily now.

I'd really rather wait until 2010 but DH says that is easy for me to say because I just went this year without them. LOL He does have a point. I just think it will be easier when Tobias is almost 10 than almost 9. But if the money is there, I will probably get overruled.

So it is official, DH is working 28 days straight, then will come home for a week and then he may have to work an extra week again after that. But the two extra weeks are guaranteed now. So I won't see him until the 27th, when normally he would have been home today.

That will give us an extra $5250 net this month. I am planning on spending in this order:

$5250
- 700 car repair
-----
$4550
- 302 2 new twin mattresses for the kids
-----
$4248
- 400 new car music system
-----
$3848 to remaining credit card debt

I don't think it is going to cost $400 for the music system, though. The simple CD player/radio I want is around $100. I am allowing $300 for installation fee, but I don't think its anywhere near that. But whatever is left will go to the EF.

DH may very well get 2 or 3 more extra weeks between now and Christmas. There is a huge backlog of work due to the first guy quitting. So he is doing his own regular two weeks in the field engineer position and then in his extra weeks he is either training or helping with the backlog in his old position, but at his new rate of pay. Works for me. Especially if it means this card might be paid off by year's end and not with next years tax return. Sure would love that.

I received my 2nd $50 check from Global Test Market today. 4 days past the 6 weeks it was supposed to come in, but better late than never.

That will go to the EF fund. I am going to town tomorrow so I will make the deposit then and shoot it off to ING. I'll use the main account so I don't have to wait the week for the check to clear at podunk CU before I transfer it.

I need to earn between 100 and 150 points to cash out again for another $50. Some surveys don't credit immediately, though most do, so I think I have 50 points floating around out there in limbo still.

I took my car in to the dealership this morning for an oil change and for them to put it on their diagnostic machine to see why the engine light is coming on. It's been on for a year. Midas had put it on their machine a year ago and couldn't find anything so didn't charge for it.

I thought that maybe the machine at Ford would be better at diagnosing a Ford, so gave it another try. They found the problem. It is not a safety issue, but it will not be good for the engine if I let it go too much longer, especially if I want to keep the car running another two years. They used a lot of initials and said something about a whosit and a manifold thingie (yes, my knowledge of car bits is astronomical), and needing to order a part.

Anyway today's visit cost $135.12. I made an appointment for Friday to have the rest of the work done. It needed to wait until the next payday anyhow. The estimate is $679 and that includes tax. Well, we have an extra paycheck this cycle that was all supposed to go towards paying down debt. Now a big chunk of it will go towards fixing the car.

I am going to be positive about this, though. We have the money to do it, when we might have had to use a credit card a year ago. And even if we didn't have the money coming in I have over $1100 in my emergency fund. So we would have been able to cover the car cost with the EF without putting it on credit. And that is huge. Not having to use the EF is even bigger. It feels really good.

There was no school today. It's beyond me why the school district thinks there needs to be a day off when there have only been 4 days in the school year for us so far. I understand having teacher work days in any of the other months, except December. They had two weeks before school started to do their planning, so why so soon? Seems silly.

All this to say that I am glad there is school tomorrow so my two little sniping, picking, poking, annoy each other to death children are away from each other. It's like someone turned a switch and turned them into brats overnight.

We went to the chiropractor and to tae kwon do so we did get out of the house some today. Nothing financial today other than I mailed out some of the bills that I should have mailed on Friday. Well, nothing will even be close to being late, so it doesn't matter that I didn't get them off sooner.

I am so tired. Barking dogs last night interfered with my sleep. If I had a dog and it was barking its fool head off all night long, I'd be out there seeing what they heck he was yowling for after about ten minutes. And telling him to knock it off. I wouldn't let it go on and on all night.

Neighbors got an earfull when they got home from work today. I was cranky and not really in the mood to be nice about it either, but I held it in and was polite. Their excuse? I didn't realize anyone else could hear them. Umm, hello? And also, DUH! Everyone else can hear them. My point was proven by another set of neighbors coming by to complain about the dogs as well.

Supposedly they will keep the dogs in the house tonight. We'll see if they really do. This house is clear across the street from me, but closest to my bedroom window. Those dogs are loud. I hope they do what they said, because I don't take well to irresponsible pet owners.

There are steps I can take if I have to. First with the homeowner's board, because it is against CC&R's to let dogs bark all night and they can be fined. Then with SSC which is animal control, that also has the power to fine nuisance dog owners. And if neither of those work than with the sheriff as they are violating the county noise ordinance.

Hopefully it won't come to any of that. Especially since the board isn't too swift on cracking down on the roaming dogs, which are also not allowed. We have a leash ordinance in our CC&R's and a leash law in our county, but dogs are always roaming around sans owners out here trying to get hit by cars and using your lawn or flowerbeds like they were their own personal litter box. Most of the board are dog owners and one of them has a roaming dog. Sigh.

Dogs have their place and it isn't in my yard. If I wanted a dog in my yard I'd own one. And some day I even may have one. But it will be trained, fixed and not allowed to run all over tarnation.

End Rant.

Okay, I finally got everything entered into my spreadsheets of what was paid out of Friday's paycheck. Balanced the checkbook, too. Anyway, here's what went out.

$ 20.00 Garbage
56.00 Water/Sewer
100.00 Medical
61.00 Auto Insurance
37.50 House Insurance
150.00 Tae Kwon Do
87.50 Property Tax/Dues
25.00 Athletic Fees
100.00 Vacation Fund
100.00 Education Fund for DH
36.00 Netflix
109.00 Storage
110.00 Power
120.00 Cable/Phone/Internet
50.60 Propane
72.00 Cell Phones
100.00 Emergency Fund
50.00 Water Delivery (2 months)
30.57 Life Insurance DH
400.00
+ 34.00 Security System
---------
$1819.17

That leaves me with $222 which will be split between groceries and gas.

$867 of the above went into my temporary savings accounts for things that aren't paid monthly or things that get lumped together when the payment is actually made.

Today is another no spend day. I'm not going anywhere or buying anything. This makes 5 no spend days this month so far. That's over 50%, so not bad at all.

Today I have to balance the checking account. Yuck. My least favorite financial chore. I should also get around to listing all the bills I wrote out yesterday. If I don't procrastinate it. And I need to make up a weekly menu plan as well. So let's see if I can get all that accomplished today instead of being totally lazy and only doing laundry and dishes today.

Today I spent $5.82 and added $4.18 to the coin jar.

$12.69 Old Balance
+ 4.18 Added in
-------
$16.87 New Balance

As some of you know, I make my kids save part of their allowance. They are paid every four weeks. Of their allowances, they must allocate 20% to long term savings. This works out to $4 for Rose and $3 for Tobias.

Of the amount they put into long term savings, I will match them 25%. If they want to put in more than 20% of their allowance I will continue to match them up to $8 (so I'd put in 25 cents for every dollar saved up to $8, the most they can get each month from matching is $2).

I have done this so that they have an idea right from the start of their earnings what a 401K does and how it works and to get them used to always contributing to one. I've explained a bit how it works in the real world and that Daddy's work has a 401K that matches 50 percent up to 6%. The only comment I got on that was could I match theirs up to 50 percent. Umm...no. Why not? Because in the real world the employer makes that decision, they don't. They seemed okay with that awnser.

Rose does not save anymore than the $4 that I make her save. Tobias saves the $3 I make him save plus $1 more so that his savings account can be equal to his sister's.

So far neither of them has wanted to save more than $4 despite the Mommy Match. They are not yet ready to max out. It has been fun watching them accumulate the extra money, but neither one of them have cottoned on to the fact that they could be earning more by saving more. Or else they aren't willing to give up any more of their spendable income to their Kiddie 401K program.

Sounds like some grown-ups I know, LOL. It is certainly a fun experiment. This savings account is untouchable until they are 18. They can then use it to pay towards college or a wedding or a car or a house downpayment or maybe open a retirement account when they are working a real job. So its not necessarily a true retirement account, it just works like one until they can access it.

Not much in it yet, it's only been half a year or so they've been getting an allowance but its the lesson, and the principle of it that I want them to learn.

Yesterday I got one of those $100 Tempurpedic pillows...for free. My mother had bought it a couple of months ago, slept on it for a couple weeks and decided she didn't like it. For whatever reason she didn't try to take it back, like she did the bed when she decided she didn't like it. I've used it a couple times when I took a nap at her house when I wasn't feeling well and I liked it.

Anyway, she offered it to me. Last night I slept on it and had what was probably the best sleep of my life. Combined with the new mattress, I may never have serious back, neck or hip aches again.

I have been wanting one of those pillows because I have just never found a regular pillow that I really liked. But I really didn't want to shell out $100 when that money could go to so much better use elsewhere.

I am a happy camper. My insomnia is almost completely gone now.

My next agenda in the bed department is to replace the children's mattresses. Neither one of them has ever had a new mattress. Their mattresses are garage sale finds that had been used but kept in plastic. Neither mattress is that comfortable (in my opinion) just to sit on.

Costco has some really nice twin mattresses for $139 (boxsprings are extra). I don't need boxsprings since Tobias has a Captain's bed that used to be his Daddy's and Rose's boxspring is in good shape. With tax it should come to $302. So we will get those with part of the extra money from DH working extra weeks.

I did some shopping at a few different places today. I had to buy DH some new underwear and ship it up the slope. Don't know why he can't think of these things when he's home! Spent almost as much for shipping 2nd day air. Picked up a few groceries as well. So I ended up with quite a bit to add to the change jar.

I added $6 in ones and $2.82 in change. I won't, or shouldn't be, spending any more money like that this weekend, but I do have to pay some bills, so I'll get around to that this afternoon and post it later on.

Total in the coin jar is $12.69, 1 bus token, 1 button, 1 washer, and one big paperclip (tee hee). I was able to roll one roll of pennies out of that, but nothing else is close.

Today was the first paycheck in the first full paycycle that DH gets at the new pay rate. So I am able to start sending $100.00 a month extra to the EF now. This is in addition to the $10 a week I already send. Also when I added in the interest last month, I did it a day early, so it actually earned $2.72 instead of $2.63.

$1139.94 Starting Balance
.09 Adjusted interest
+ 100.00 Deposit
---------
$1240.03

My check from GTM should arrive tomorrow. It would be nice if it came today so I could dump it into savings before the weekend. But I doubt it will come even one day early.

I added $4.80 to the coin jar and will be making a deposit tomorrow.

I will be putting $19 in the Safety Net account and depositing $10 in the CU connected to ING, and will be sending that off with the regular $10 Thursday deposit.

$88.31 Old Safety Net Total
4.00 ACOP check
5.00 dimes
+ 10.00 quarters
-------
$107.31 New Safety Net total

$1100.94 Previous Full EF Total
19.00 Safety Net Deposit
+ 20.00 ING Deposit
--------
$1139.94 New Full EF Total

Well, I found a new research panel to sign up with tonight. It looks legitimate. It pays in gift certificates, but they are to places I would use, so I decided to give it a whirl. You have to build up $20 credit before you can cash out though. Hopefully it is one with some frequency. I could use some Amazon GC's for Christmas.

I'll keep you updated as to the legitimacy of this one when I am able to cash out.

And then think how scary it would be if it actually came true.

Things are going slow in the survey world this week. I've finally got my points level to 752 at Global Test Market. Just 248 points to go and I can cash out again with them for a $50 check. It has been forever since I've qualified for a survey with them. Okay, maybe a week, but I was so used to qualifying for several in a week. I should be receiving my most recent check from them on the 8th. They do get every single bit of their 6 weeks in before the send that check out!

I was hoping I'd be able to cash out again with them by the time the check came as normally it takes me six weeks to build up enough points to cash out. Oh, well. At least GTM gives you 5 points for the surveys you don't qualify for, unlike so many others.

ACOP has been super slow, though they have sent out a couple qualifiers that looked like I should qualify, so hopefully I'll be getting something from them.

Still nothing from Pinecone. I haven't qualified for any of the lately rare Lightspeed ones. Your2Cents is MIA and so is NFOMySurvey. Feels like a regular drought in survey land.

Greenfield keeps sending ones that don't pay anything. Yeah, if I wanted that I'd have stayed with SurveySpot.

SurveySavvy is sending them out once a week, but I've only ever qualified for one of theirs and it takes like 8 weeks before they even credit the money to your account and then you have to cash it out and then you have to wait for it to arrive.

Zoomerang I haven't qualified for anything in a long time. They don't pay in cash anyway, they pay in merchandise. But there is something I want, so hopefully that will change soon.

That's surveys in a nutshell.

I'm doing pretty good for the month of September so far. That makes 3 no spend days.

I used the pre-paid cash card to buy gas today, but that was paid for last week so I don't count that. as spending. Filled up the tank for just under $40. Costco gas is still at $2.559 a gallon while everyone else but one ARCO is upwards of $2.799. I know Costco can buy wholesale and get a better deal, but that much better just seems suspicious to me. The other places have to be doing some gouging.

The wait in line for gas today was ridiculous, though. I didn't even go at a busy time. I suppose it was the after holiday fill up.

School went great for the kids today. I am always happy to hear that. They also did tae kwon do class today. Tuesdays aren't a normal class day for us but the dojang was closed yesterday so we made up that class today. Rose doesn't want to do tae kwon do on Tuesdays and Thursdays because she has 72 minute long P.E. classes those days. Can't say I blame her!

We came home to another crockpot beef roast, tender and delicous. Both kids were whining about wanting nuggets on the way home. Tough. I'm not taking them out to eat for a good while, and especially not when there is a meal waiting for them at home.

Tomorrow will be a spend day as I have a 1.5 hour physical therapy appointment. $75 for that. My hip is pretty much back to normal so this will most likely be my last visit. I'll see what the girl has to say, but I think she'll agree with me.

My appointment is at 10:30 and the school bus leaves at 8:46, which means I could get to Curves by 9:00, workout, and still get to my appointment on time. I think my hip is well enough now to do that. Though maybe I should wait until I see what the girl says about it. Oh, who knows?

Mom gave me 20 pounds of red potatoes from her garden so I'm going to have to start working those into meal plans along with all the green beans and blueberries. They are a very good tasting potato so it shouldn't be a problem.

I forgot to mention on Saturday or Friday, I don't remember which, the fire department was doing its Pass the Boot fund raising effort. Pass the Boot is when they come to one of the busiest intersections in town and while the light is red they walk around with a fireman's boot. If you want to donate you just put your window down and call them over. Then whatever money you want to donate you put in the boot.

They also have a firetruck and a "triage" set up in the Walgreen's parking lot off the intersection and you can talk to them and ask them questions about firefighting and basic first aid.

Anyway, so I donated $5 to that and forgot to list it in my spending journal.

Well, I am looking forward to school staring tomorrow. They posted the monthly lunch menu on the school site today so we went through it and it looks like there will only be two days this month they don't want hot lunch.

Hot lunch prices have risen from $1.90 to $2.00 and milk costs 50 cents now instead of 40 cents. But milk comes with the lunch price, its only if you buy it for your own sack lunch that it costs. 85% of their school is on the free or reduced price food program. Not us, we certainly don't qualify.

Considering the cost of cold lunches, though it is not that bad of a deal. We've got a really good lunch program that is high on nutrition. It was devised by the university food science department and everything is made on site and without the usual additives and preservatives, which is pretty cool. They get to play with our elementary school because it is the poorest county school in the poorest county school district and there is a huge effort to help the poverty stricken with proper food nutrition.

This is great, really, because the lunches are wonderful. My favorite is the roasted chicken leg, blue potatoes, glorius greens (mixed green salad), and apples. If a parent wants to go down and eat lunch with their child they can. An adult lunch is $2.50. A lot of the food in the food program is grown in county and much of it is donated from one of the organic farms in our school district.

The kids have bowls of fruits and vegetables in their classrooms for anytime snacking as well. It amazes me just how much this little public school does for these kids and how much community support it gets.

Over half the students in this school speak English as a second language. About 50 percent are Russian or Ukranian immigrants, 1 percent German immigrants, 10 percent are from our closest native tribe, 10 percent are from our originally migrant Spanish population who end up sticking around and working the dairy farms in the non-summer season because the kids are all back at school. 1% are East Indian and run most of the gas stations out here that the tribe doesn't (not the poor part of the population), 3 percent children of the kids I went to school with that came over with the vietnamese boat people in the 70's, and the rest are regularly born American kids. All that diversity and there's only 3 black kids, though. I guess they are still mostly up in Seattle. I only had 5 in my high school and that was in the biggest city of my county.

The school offers free language classes at night to parents who don't speak English as a first language. This is also a university program. So far they have always been able to get someone out for whatever language they need.

I love what the community has done for this little school. It is one of the nicest elementary schools I've seen, they got some nice grants for equipment from certain WA state foundations. And these kids are really getting a leg up. It shows in our test scores, too, the older the kids get the better their scores, to the point where the high school just got 97% on the reading part of the WASL and 93% on the writing part in 10th grade. Not bad for kids who so many of did not learn English first.

Math's at 73 but that is still a big improvement from past years. Things are working here.

Sorry, guess I went off on a tangent, but I love our school district and our school. One of the reasons I feel comfortable not homeschooling. This was supposed to be an entry about how much I was going to have to shell out tomorrow for the lunch program. $40 buck each for the month this month anyway. But considering cold lunches are made with organic bread, organic turkey deli meat, organic fruit and usually cucumber slices, it is probably a difference of $30 a month from what I'd buy. Not so awful and I seldom will have to stress about making lunches.

Which is good because school starts a half hour earlier this year, though it doesn't get out any earlier, and bus pick up will be at 8:46 instead of 9:19. Oh, well, at least the closest bus stop is our driveway, because I'm one of the moms who can monitor it.

I forgot to mention the CD player in my car is broken. It was working just fine and then it wouldn't turn on. This wouldn't be too bad but the radio is also part of the CD player and so is the clock. Fortunately the car does have another clock its just never been set, so I had to dig out the manual and set it.

If we didn't spend so much time in the car it wouldn't matter that much but I think I'll have to get a new one put in before I go insane with the kids and their constant backseat bickering. Whoever said music soothes the savage beast wasn't kidding. Not talking about me here. I'm talking about the kids.

First I'll talk to DH about it though and make sure it isn't a fuse. I don't think it could be and the CD player is 8 years old. The place that installed it doesn't even exist in our county anymore. It of course has a CD in it, too. Annoying especially because it is one of mine and not the kids's.

I'll price them on Wednesday when I come in for physical therapy. Hope its not too pricey. All I want is a simple one CD player with a radio. No 5 disc changer business. No MP3 adapter. I'd even settle for a tape deck.

Meanwhile, I have my tape recorder and I guess I will bring it and my old tapes along. That should be a hoot. Have to be careful. My taste in music in high school and college ran the gammut between Paula Abdul, Heart, Howard Jones, David Bowie and Alice Cooper. Can't be playing Alice Cooper in front of the children. Ever.

Yesterday was a no spend day. And I had lunch over at the neighbor's, so free food I didn't have to cook, too. They had a barbecue for their daughter's birthday.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned the new neighbors yet. They moved into the house next door that the creepy neighbor used to live in. They have a seven year old granddaughter that lives with them and a 14 year old son of their own. The little girl gets along great with both my kids.

The boy seems to have taken a shine to Rose. I'll have to watch that as she's only eleven but is tall, a pretty blue-eyed blond and chesty for her age. And has hips. Already the hour glass figure. Not sure I want a fourteen year old boy sniffing around her. We are always very careful with Rose as she acts very mature for her age. She got hit on for the first time when she was 9 by a fifteen year old boy who had no idea she was that young. He did it front of me and DH, too. Needless to say he apologized profusely when I told him her age! LOL So this sort of thing happens to her quite a bit and so we are just extra careful.

I spent the rest of yesterday watching bad SF movies on sci-fi channel. I like bad SF movies, though. Although Mansquito was a bit much. Liked A.I. Assault and Android Apocolypse quite a bit though.

Anyway, today is a no spend day also. Not going anywhere or doing anything.

So a long while back I was thinking about doing plasma donation to earn a little extra money. I kind of looked at it but never really went into it deep enough to see what it was about.

So I've been researching it some more and specifically the company that has a branch in my county. They pay $25 per donation and you can donate twice a week. It takes about 1.5 hours to donate plasma and it is different from regular blood donation because they put everything but the plasma back into you. It takes the body 48 hours to replace what is lost from donation.

So they are paying $16 an hour basically. Not bad for lying on your back and reading a book or taking a nap. I'm not sure if they take money out for taxes or not, that wasn't listed on their website. But they do require a social so I'm betting they probably do, which knocks it down a bit. Of course, they may just require it because you might have to be a U.S. citizen. You also have to bring a photo I.D. and a current utility bill for proof of permanent residence. They don't want homeless people or drug addicts coming in off the streets for health issues.

I can donate if my high blood pressure is under control with medication, which it is, and with my thyroid medication, as well. I have to not be currently sick and if I've been on antibiotics they have to be out of my system for a set number of days. So I qualify if I wanted to set up an appointment any time soon. My past illness does not disqualify me from donating as it has been 2 years.

I'm still not 100% sure, but I keep thinking about it. If I donated twice a week for a whole year I'd earn $2600. But I know of coures, that I will get sick or have weeks where the kids are too sick for me to go or we go on a trip or whatever. But I reckon I could still make $2000 a year.

The only thing that might be an issue is it is 23 minutes from my house. Which means gas. Gas is currently $2.55 a gallon and it takes about 2.8 gallons to do a round trip from my house. At best that is about $7.50 per trip. So subtract that from the $25 and its $17.50. I figure I can combine it on Friday's with my regular trip to town for grocery shopping and banking, so one day I wouldn't be coming in for just that, which means one donation at $17.50 and one at $25, or a net gain of $42.50 per week. Still worthwhile I think.

I'm not one who is afraid of needles or having things sticking out of my veins. I had that going on for a good portion of 3 years of my life, so it isn't a problem. But I am still a tad hesitant. It just seems kind of creepy. I think I'm probably blowing it all out of proportion. I just keep thinking how nice it would be to have regular $50 donations going into the EF every week. Or finally open a spousal IRA.

I spent $15.49 at the grocery store today. I used the self-check and I think it would have been faster to just go to the express lane. Looking up produce is a pain as you have to go through all the touch screens. Everything is in alphabetical order and so of course nectarines were on page 10 and plums were on page 12. No shortcuts, no clicking on the letter it starts with. And once I entered in the nectarines, I had to start all over again with the plums. Some stores you can just enter in the number of the produce and it is much faster. So I guess I'll stick to using the self check at Fred Meyer because it has nice shortcuts, and avoid it at this grocery store.

I cleaned out my purse today and added $6 in ones and 51 cents to my coin jar.

I received a $4 check from ACOP today. It will go into savings on Tuesday and then I will send it off to the EF at ING with the regular deposit on Thursday.

The interest for the month of August was available from ING, though it won't post until tomorrow, I don't think. It was $2.63. But since I won't be looking there again until next Thursday I'll add it in now.

$1098.31 Old Balance
+ 2.63 Interest added
--------
$1100.94 New Balance

I don't have all of my ING in EF or the interest would be higher, but I like to have some money available locally in case of some emergency where I need to get at it quickly.

Does anyone keep any money on hand at home for emergencies? I am thinking of putting $200 in a little firesafe combination lock box to hide in my house in case an emergency happens on the weekend. Although maybe not, if it were a true emergency I could use a credit card and just pay if from the EF on Monday. I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable having that much money in the house with DH coming and going like he does, even in a safe and with a home security system. I just don't like the idea of using a credit card like that.

I was also reading in the forums about the homeschool thread and all I can say is that there are a lot of generalizations going on there. I've homeschooled and I've had kids in public schools and some of the stuff about public schools being said is wrong, some of it is right.

But really it is the parent that makes the children social, polite, involved in the community, regardless of whether or not they are in public school or homeschooled. I can take my kids to the grocery store and teach them how to pick out produce and how to use coupons and how to calculate a unit price, and in fact, I do. I can teach my kids about saving money, writing a check, balancing a check book, and the proper and improper use of credit. It has nothing to do with their schooling, it has to do with my parenting. And I think that is what so many homeschooling parents forget, that sometimes public school kids learn just as much as homeschooled kids do because their parents make sure they do. I was a public school kid who learned because I wanted to.

Homeschooled kids aren't better than public school kids, they are simply luckier than public school kids because they have one parent who is able to be more involved in their schooling. And that is what makes a better kid, an involved parent. As a SAHM, I am able to be as involved in my children's public school education as I want to be. If I don't like what I see I would not hesitate to pull them out, or talk to the teacher or principal.

And just as an aside, I have seen so many posts on homeschooling forums and sometimes this one, even in this latest thread, by homeschooling mothers who spell or use so many words incorrectly it makes me cringe and it scares me. Spelling is huge in how you present yourself to the world and if yew kan't speel proporly howse ya gunna teech yer kidz two dew it? Or tell the difference between there and their, bear and bare, accept and except, effect and affect, to, too, and two? There certainly should not be an arrogance about homeschooling in the same paragraph as words that are spelled or used wrong, because it completely undermines the point. Not that there should be arrogance anyway in regards to homeschooling.

The whole thing reminds me of the blown out of proportion SAHM/WAHM debate. It doesn't matter whether you work or don't work, it matters how you parent your child.

My third entry for today.

I stopped at Freddy's today to get organic milk and use my coupon. So I got another gallon of organic milk for $3.58 a gallon. And guess what printed out at the cash register? Yet another coupon for $3.00 off 2 half gallons of Organic Valley milk.

They also had turkey legs on sale for 79 cents per pound so I got two packages. I ended up with 9 very large turkey legs. My daughter is an extreme turkey lover so this works out well. It's been a while since I've seen them for 79 cents a pound. They are usually 99 cents a pound now.

I also took Rose for a haircut today. We had the girl wash it, too, which I usually don't do, but Rose's ears still hurt from being pierced and she bumps them so much when she washes it herself, we decided it would be worth the $3 extra to have someone else do it for her. So it ended up costing $16. Now that she is eleven she no longer qualifies for the children's haircut, even though all they did was give her bangs, trim the ends and put a little layering around the face. Took all of ten minutes, if that to do the actual cut. It wasn't some fancy adult style or anything. Of course, I forgot my $2 off coupon for them, too.

Five more days until school starts and it can come none too soon for me. The kids were picking at each other for most of the day. But they managed to finagle a two night stay at the lovely Casa Grandma so I get some time to destress.

I think I might go to a matinee movie tomorrow if Hairspray is still here. It is tonight, but they change out on Friday mornings and I have a feeling it will be gone. That's okay if it is, I'll just stay home and watch a movie I taped instead. As long as I get to unwind. Then I'm going to get started on The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald. Starts out set on the Australian planet Kookaburra. Should be interesting. Plus its military sci-fi, which I love. Looks like she may be as good as Elizabeth Moon at that if it is even possible.

Today was the auto deposit of $10 to savings. I also deposited $26 in ones from my coin jar. I then sent that $36.00 off to ING.

$1062.31 EF Old total
+ 36.00 Today's deposit
---------
$1098.31 New EF Total

Interest for this month is going to put it just over $1100, but it is not deposited until tomorrow or Monday.

Don't ever tell me little bits can't add up to an EF. I'm living proof they do. Just have to keep at it.