Suit Up And Head For The Exit!!



Among other things my folks got me a gift card to JC Penney's for Christmas. FrugalSon and I took off this afternoon and made it into the big city and hit the store. I've been reading my Missus Smarty Pants stuff...

http://missussmartypants.com/

...and trying to follow along on some of her advice. I determined before I went what I NEEDED and went and got that.

And if I think I may re-enter the corporate world anytime soon what I needed was a plain solid black blazer. As luck would have it JCP's was having a nice sale and I was able to get the suit skirt to match. Ta-Da!! Done! I only had to add a few CASH dollars to the gift card to get both pieces so I'm tickled with the purchase.

Just got off the phone with the Mother Figure to let her know what I was able to get and to thank her! YEAH MOM!!

Of course I did take a small gander at a few other trendy things but was easily able to leave them behind. In, suited up and then we hit the exit - time in store 15 minutes tops!

Look At Your Payroll Stub & GET Good & MAD



Wow - don't you look HOT this morning!??!

No?

Well, just wait.

I want you to get capital M.A.D. mad this morning. That's right - P.O.d!!

I want you so mad that you're steaming!

Steaming hot that is.

I want you to go and get your payroll stub out of the filing cabinet. (You do have this stuff filed, right?? RIGHT!)



}}}}}frantic rifling of piles{{{{{{



oKAY... I heard that mad shuffling of papers!!



Go ahead. I'll wait on you.






Good, you're back!!


Now I want to tell you about a little conversation the Hubster and I had this past week when I was being headhunted for a nice little J.O.B. in the financial sector.

Afterwards Hubster was asking me how I decided to turn our finances around - the answer "Your payroll stub."

"Huh?"

"As a matter of fact it was your health insurance that did it for me."

"auhhhhuuuugguuu (quizzical Tim Taylorish grunt???????)"

"I saw that we were paying more out every pay period for health insurance than we were saving for ourselves. --Way MORE! Like 85% more and it hacked me off royal that the insurance company CEO's
were living in mighty fine houses and driving super nice cars and have maids and lawnkeepers and such and we were barely scraping by.

It was then at that very moment that I decided to get serious about our finances - I determined that we were going to put back more for retirement savings than the health insurance company was taking out.

That is what began our financial turn-around."


After thinking about it, it made me wonder if it will help any of you to GET MAD enough to want to do something for your own future??

My message, dear friends, is for you to look down at your payroll stub and if you aren't saving at least the same as, if not more than, the health insurance company is getting then I want you to ask yourself, "Why do I think more of their future than I do my own?"

Then get angry enough to do the financial footwork - Take The Actions - necessary to get your future on track!

Stepping off soapbox now!

Okay, you can go back to your paperwork filing now. You are going to file that stub back in it's slot aren't you??

BTW, did I mention how hot you look this morning??

Totally H.O.T.!!

(note: cross posted in forums)

Hair Slicum & Leather Sofn'r



Well I broke the no-spend roll I was on yesterday and bought some stuff. It was out of the Personal Care category and I went to the bank and got cash beforehand so I could limit myself at the store. I keep hearing this is a way of shopping smart but tis difficult when you don't really know the prices on 'stuff'.

Hubster was out of his beloved VO5 haircream and I needed something for this leather hide that's covering my neck and face. He goes thru one of those tubes of gunk about every three years so I had no idea of the cost and I usually just use whatever face moisturizer that my Mom passes along (she tries every new thing that comes along). But, anymore I'm getting more and more sensitive to the perfumes in that stuff.

Anyway, I guesstimated what it would cost and got myself a 10 spot out of the bank.

hair slicum $3.25
leather sofn'r 5.00
tax .74
___________________
spent $8.99

So, I'm taking the $1.01 change to the Challenge.

I don't particularly think I'll do it this way again as I feel pretty secure about my ability to hold back from just running amuck in the stores and it's too much trouble to keep track of the money to put it back into it's category.

But, whatever, now we are beau-tis-i-mous once again and Piggy is fattening nicely!!

$20 CHALLENGE
$51.26 balance
+01.01 glam leavings
______
$52.27 Jan MTD

2007 Challenge $52.27
Cumulative Total $178.38

QUICKIES ala Broken Arrow Style



*Adding to the Challenge money from CashHappySon donation.

$20 CHALLENGE
$35.43 balance
+00.83 generous manchild
_____
$36.26 Jan MTD

2007 Challenge $36.26
Cumulative Total $162.37

*FrugalSon worked yesterday, Hubster dug out ice in driveway and CashHappySon and I went to the movies to see Night At The Museum which was pretty cute. Somewhat better than I expected. Of financial note is that our matinee movies have now gone up to $2.25 from $2.00. Have to readjust my yearly entertainment budget now from $24.00 to 27.00! OWWWWWW!!
Not painful, but still I'd rather that they hadn't hiked it! Even a quarter makes my Frugalicious Gene (TM) pucker!!

*FrugalSon got a dime raise on his check yesterday.

*I got headhunted for a very nice job - went for the interview - turns out it would be commissioned based sales and I'm just not interested in sales. Was nice to be sought out though and the commissions would be quite substantial but still I'm just not into sales - I've done it before and it's not quite my cup of tea.

*Hubster and I went and spent about 3 and half hours picking out the doors and hardware for our interior/exterior doors and they are now coming up w/a quote as much of it will be custom cut to fit our odd sized doorways. Hoping to get loads of the doors done for little cash, but that might be asking a bit much!

*Quote for CashHappySon's car insurance is ridiculous. Both boys are going to go together and each pay their own amount based on their respective vehicles, but they'll get a multi-car discount. Still, too much though!! OUCH!!! Hubster and I do not want them on our insurance - as we would hate to be financially liable if they were to seriously hurt someone in a car accident.

*Estimate from the country treasurer says that our house taxes are going up by a mere $5.00 next year - which isn't too bad you know!

*Think I'll go drink a cup of serenity!

ChopChopShop-Mom's Shopping Service

CashHappySon had yesterday off so we got a couple of things done.

1)Got all his extra ING orange accounts shut down! Kiss Off Orange!!

2)Sat on hold for 45 minutes trying to get his Tracfone up and running again after his sim card went kaput. Near non-English speaking CSR later he was unable to help us get it back up and running nor unable to tell us what to do.

3)Trip to Walmart to exchange his phone for another one. Thankfully due to Hubster's good influence we all save our boxes, receipts and baggies, etc. so we had everything needed to exchange it - even after one lady at the register said it couldn't be done.

Lesson: NEVER MESS w/A MAD MOM who has just set on HOLD for 45 minutes and then driven thru an ice-storm and trekked thru a Walmart store full of RUDE people about a phone that he's only had for like two months being fried!

I was ready to Kick Pa-Tut*-y and take names.




He got a new phone AND the price had since gone down so he got a small $4.55 refund. YEAH TEAM FRUGALIS!!

4)Do Not Forget Dear Reader - that he has a burning hole in his pocket which cash likes to run through. He's been knife collecting and so he took his spending money for the week of $5 and added the refund and bought himself a four knife lot off of ebay. He doesn't have an ebay account so Mom does the bidding and paying. Price w/shipping $10.44.

Money Burning Hole in Pocket 10.55
CashHappy Collector's Fever -10.44
__________________________________
Wouldn't you just know that
Mom's Shopping Service Fee just
happens to be = .11 cents!!

5)Taking it to the challenge!

$20 CHALLENGE
$35.32 balance
+00.11 chopchopshop
______
$35.43 Jan MTD

2007 Challenge $35.43
Cumulative Total $161.54

New Slider



The workmen guys showed up yesterday to put in my new sliding glass door. All that hoopla over needing to rent a concrete saw or buying a grinder (that's what they did) and all they had to do was knock one little piece of concrete out of the way with a hammer! At any rate FINALLY got my door in!

Shheewwwwww...glad we got that done before the ice and snow came blowing in! The house is already discernably warmer!

On the down side, I had to pay for the last half of the windows too, but did get a discount for some of the work that the saleman priced out for us, but the workmen refused to do that carpentry work, so I took that off the final tally - funny how they forgot to do that themselves!

Balance due was 2490.00 - 50.00 = $2440.00 in cash! Here's to saving up for work before hand! Hard to be patient sometimes though!!

Glad to have that portion done. Just waiting now on the exterior and interior doors and new storms to be totally weather tight. Now we still have a bit of a whooosh when the wind blows!

They also picked up the window awnings they had just left in my yard for a week and a half! We did freecycle all the old mini blinds, so that's all gone now. Progress is being made!

Updating Mortgage Balance

Updating the mortgage balance as my last $33.12 extra payment posted.

New balance is $23,360.41!


(Not my house - just like the visual of a hairy house - that's what a mortgage feels like!)

The Satisfaction Factor

What is the satisfaction factor? For me it's having the money put back for when a bill comes in.

Today it's the car tag registration for The Hubster's car - due is $93.50. In the Car Tag Registration Fund was over $100.00 so we're good and have a bit of a head start on next years! YEAH TEAM FRUGALIS!!

This means our budget is working just as we've fashioned it to do.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! That my friends is SWEET!



Photocredit: FroznCarrrots

Is She Typhoid Mary? LuckyRobin's Avoidance Fever

I seem to have caught LuckyRobin's Avoidance fever! FrugalSon is off today and I used that as an excuse not to work on the budgets but to rearrange furniture!

We have completely moved my room back to it's normal bed position after the window & blind installation got completed this weekend.

Moved The Hubster's dresser out of CashHappy's room and into our bedroom and taken the ugly bookshelf of Hubster's audio & media stuff out of our bedroom and put it in the place the dresser was in CashHappy's room.

Too much stuff - too little house.

Actually I have a big house it's just that folks want everything on the main floor when some of it could concievably be better accomodated in the basement.



This moving of furniture will allow the door-hanger guys to get to The Hubster's closet to put in a closet door. There hasn't been a door on his closet since we moved here! Only a curtain over it. I'll be so glad when this gets done!! They sent a second guy out to measure the other day as the first guy just wanted to be sure he got it all straight. Nothing here is standard measurements!!

The Hubster called the window people today - they are the ones putting in the sliding door and asked when they were coming back! They took off the awnings and threw them in the yard...they were supposed to haul them off. They've left broken glass in the yard, also supposed to be gone and hadn't bothered to notify us of when they intended to come back and put in the sliding glass door.

Okay - they haven't got paid the second half of the balance as the sliding door isn't installed yet - they have to rent a concrete saw, but hey, get the trash out of my yard if you're just gonna drive off into the sunset peeps!!

Oy vey!!

He says they are planning to show up Thursday - now wouldn't it have been nice of them to check and see if Thursday works for us???? Oh well, I will make it work!

A Stay At Home Sunday

Today has been a stay at home Sunday for us - working on getting all the new plantation shutters up and adjusted, painting out one of the windowsills that had to be replaced and working on getting all four (CashHappySon, FrugalSon, mine, and Household) of our 2007 January budgets in place while upgrading to the new YNAB 3.1 version.

I'm a slow learner on new upgrades, besides it being the change from one year to the next and on top of that we each have boo-coo entries in our checkbooks for December as we closed out all our orange savings and CD accounts. Much to keep straight as to where it goes!!

I've got FrugalSon's done and caught up to the moment - only three more to go!

DEEP SIGH!!



Budgeting and book-keeping is something I usually enjoy - when I'm somewhat current. With so many transactions it does get confusing!

Staying at home makes it a no-spender for me!

The Doorman Cameth!



The door man came (with his girlfriend no less on a holiday???) and measured all our openings for new fittings. The doors in this house are not a single one a standard size that you can pick off the showroom floor.

He'll go home, enter his figures into the computer and we'll go back maybe tomorrow to the big box lumber outlet and pick out what they say they can make work in our weird sized openings and can squeeze out of our door savings account.

I'm very excited about getting some doors on two of the closets and a door on one of the bedrooms and two new exterior doors and glass storm doors installed (what will it be like to live here w/o the winds blowing thru the cracks????). Some of the other doors may have to wait. We'll see!

Warm Cockles and Budgeting Done Right



Here's hoping there's a chicken (or TWO) in every one of your pots for 2007!!

After this post I'm off to make a big pot of chicken soup for the hungry hordes who are bound to come out of hibernating some time this year! In the crockpot is the traditional New Year's hoppinjohn (blackeyed peas & ham).

Ta-da, just now checking the mail from the last few days and here's the tag notice for Hubster's car. Happy I am that the money is sitting there all nice and pretty in savings waiting to pay the little sucker!!! Anticipatory budgeting does work if you do it right!! Yeah Frugalis Family!

Just updated the mortgage information over to the right! Oh how I wish that bugger was gone! Good to know that zillow.com states my equity is inching upwards quite nicely! Warms the cockles of my heart!!

Ummmm...I'm with disneysteve, moving and selling is quite the chore. That's why if The Hubster and I do decide to downsize it'll be one last hooray right about the time he retires. Getting his Dad's house ready to sell was a MAJOR chore and still we have no buyer in sight! I'd hate to be trying it when he's pushing 70's or beyond! Makes me tired just thinking about it!

My mother just recently built a home and she is still a year and a half later disconcerted when trying to find her stuff to bake and get ready for the holidays!!

NEW always sounds fun and exciting...but a wise person counts all the costs, eh? Seems more and more I turn things down because of the effort it would require.

How about you?

Auto Insurance Unexpected DISCOUNT



Earlier in the month when I paid my auto insurance for the year which is a big ole whopping amount I was trying to do it by phone and the girl told me that since I was paying the entire coming year's premium that I would get a $43.69 discount! YEAH!!! That was certainly a nice surprise!!

I'll take it!!

(...but it makes me wonder that if I'd just sent the check in the mail if they would have refunded anything, you know what I mean????)

Anyway, an unexpected little gift from good old Santer' Clause!!

Laundry List of Ailments



Finally have enough time and a cable connection that I can post about my brother's hospital stay. He was admitted to the Indian Hospital even though he had lost his CDIB card in a fire about 4 or 5 years ago. This not having it when he needed it now is typical of his lifestyle. He could have gotten it replaced many times but never did.

He had NO Identification on him except a receipt from a state trooper that had collected his license when stopping him and finding him driving w/an expired license. Another case of not bothering to take care of the bare necessities in life.

My Dad had picked him up that day to get his help on a farm project when he sees that he has swollen up by about 40 pounds. Can you say Congestive Heart Failure? Yes.

He was shipped out of the Indian Hospital by ambulance to a metro area public hospital. After a long litany of tests we have a laundry list of multiple diagnosis - (diagnosises???).

COPD - Emphyasema (sp?)
PAD - Periphial Artery Disease (legs & feet were purple/black-OH MY!!)
Heart Attack
Congestive Heart Failure

His heart is very damaged and enlarged and operating at about 20% of normal. His breathing on a scale of 1-10 (10 being normal) was running about 2 at the highest and about 1 1/2 sustained.

Lucky him - no blockages. Luckier him my Dad was an emergency room/intensive care nurse & nursing professor for years and could see his critical state. They took 20 pounds of fluid off of him in one day's time!

He has worked very intermittently throughout his life and we are hoping that he has enough work credits to enable him to begin collecting SS disability. Our tribe will be paying for the majority if not all of his hospital care.

He's 54 years old. He has always pushed the family away. He has five children and only one of them came to see him in the hospital as the mother of the child brought him as he's still a teen. The other grown kids didn't bother. None of his "friends" came to see him.

Sadly, these friends have always been more important to him than family. BUT, he was surrounded by his sisters, parents, nieces and nephews. Hopefully through this he will see that we really do love and care for him. Even when it's hard and for many years it has been next to impossible to get close without getting screamed at and pushed away. This is my brother whom I believe is undiagnosed bipolar.

The medical team at the hospital were all very nice except for the one lady who kept trying to treat him for diabetes and wouldn't believe any of us when we kept denying that he had it! They tag-team doctor at this particular hospital and I can't say that I cared for it - we never saw the same doctor twice and we were there for 8 days!!

Anyway, they released him right before Thanksgiving and he went home on oxygen and is currently staying at my Dad's house. No telling how long he'll willingly submit to that.

That's all for now - I just wanted to record some of it here for my own memory's sake and to thank all of you who prayed while we were there! The prayers were needed and are much appreciated.

To make this financial in nature - I had to raid the petty cash here at the house to the tune of about $60.00 in order to keep running up to the hospital and feeding myself while I was there on 'my watch'. Now will have to resupply that money from somewhere in the budget.

Little House So Very Small
Just Room Enough For Love That's All

Somehow the LOVE is missing this weekend. At least for my mortgage holder.

Okay - we are blanketed with the blizzard this past week and this weekend and Wednesday night the cable line snapped in the onslaught. Today they finally came to fix it. Because I sometimes pay more than the set amount on my mortgage I don't have it set on automatic, but just log on at the end of the month and make the next month's payment.

Yesterday comes and STILL no cable. No logging on. Nope - no can do. How to make payment - I get on the horn and think I'll just phone in my payment and they can take a check over the phone like so many others do. Yes, I can do that but it's a $15.00 fee to do so....augh!!! I'm halfway thru the AUTOMATED payment process before they finally tell me there is this DUMB fee!!! Can I talk to a HUMAN BEING with feelings please???

Oh well, I went ahead and did it rather than be late on my payment. I tried to call them today and ask to have the fee removed or payment cancelled or something because of the blizzard - so I could log on and make the payment at no charge but there are no service reps there today. I will try again on Monday.

SHEESH - $15.00 bucks! Oh yes, did I mention that they also have stopped sending statements so there is some little bit of difficulty in even trying to mail them a payment and getting it accounted for correctly. Go ahead - ask me how I know!! I dare ya!

No really - You probably don't wanna ask as I don't think it would be pretty! Did I mention that I hate Countrywide?

No?

I hate Countrywide.

You can't tell I'm disgusted, can you????



$15.00 bucks to take my payment - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHHH!

Updating the Mortgage Info:
New Balance as of 12/01/06 $23,674.36
Contractual Payoff 7 years 5 months
Actual Payoff 7 years 1 month

Got It At The Curbe' Mall

Saw a free chair by the curb this a.m. and stopped, asked the lady about it and was able to snag it for CashHappySon who wants to move out. It might not be his first pick but HEY, it was FREE Dude!!

Looks a lot like this:



Worst comes to worst he can toss a blanket over it and viola - a place to sit. And when he's done with it he can sit it out at the curb!

Later I went to a garage sale and the guy gave me a free box of oil paints that had been marked $5.00 for the box. FREE - can't beat it!

Did buy three tables from him - two twig tables for $5 lg. & $3 small that I'll resell at my booth for likely 10 & 6.

Got CashHappy one of those round doowhicky tables the el-cheapo kind you throw a round tablecloth on for a bedside table. He doesn't have one here. Paid a $1 for it.

FrugalSon was with me and he bought himself a little knife in a sheath for $2.50.

A Suppressed Head

Did some of my Christmas shopping at the grocery store today! Love it - fundies for $4.00 for 3 pair, couple of big bags of peanuts for my brother, giant hot sauce for CashHappySon, de-icer for FrugalSon, t-towels and dishcloths for sister, niece, niece-in-law, ex-sis in law, mother - all five of these gifts for 14.00 total, candy for stocking stuffers, etc. Total here was $48.87, a dollar of which was for a loaf of bread. The rest comes out of the budgeted and saved for Gift Escrow.


Whittling the Christmas list down!!

Voted today.

Took CashHappySon to the orthodontist and found out that they will be putting braces on his upper teeth as well, which is basically a surprise to me as I asked the doc about this when we started and then the answer was No.

...hmmmm...I'll be having further discussions with them about this on the phone tomorrow as the kidster is the one paying for it and the lowers will put him in hock a good little while and if the upper ones will cost him more then I'm gonna up the stink level! His upper teeth appear fine, he just had an extra lower tooth that needed help! Always somethang', isn't it?? Then after the ortho it was off to work time for him.

Picked up and dropped off FrugalSon at his two jobs. Picked up CashHappySon from his job. Tired now. Something off with the blood pressure or some other body parts as today I have had a feeling of suppression.

Just took my blood pressure and will be reporting the numbers to the nurses in the family to see if I'm dead yet! Just an off feeling kinda like the feeling when your ears are stopped up but it's not in my ears but in my head. Weird. A suppressed head. Surely some humor in that but at the moment I can't come forth with it! :/

Here Comes Pride in the Backstretch

And the race is on...

Nahhhh....really the race is over! The Hubster had a treadmill test back in April I think it was, that cost $500.00 more than our insurance would pay! He passed the test so that was good news.

The bad news is that our 'MedicalPrescriptionCoPay Fund' did not have 500.00 in it at the time the bill came starting in June. The hospital agreed to take payments so at $50 a month I've been whacking away at it. I could've put them on the CC, but they weren't charging any interest so I just let them carry it! That way my $500 stayed in the bank earning interest in our Emergency Fund!

Yesterday I paid the last payment on it! Sheeeeewee! I'm glad that's over.

That's the same thing The Hubster said when the treadmill test was over. He also said it's hard to run on that thing and suck your gut in at the same time when they put cute little nurses at the helm!


I told him that they put them there for exactly that reason...a man's pride will keep him running longer if NymphoNancyNurse is there monitoring him than if Nurse Rachet was on duty!

heheeeeeee...

Nothing like a pretty young filly to spur a guy on!!

...whatever, it worked!

Pride! While it may be frowned upon in the Bible it does ocassionally have it's uses!

Mortgage Update



After yesterday's payment posted I have an update on our priority goal of paying off the mortgage:

Drumroll please!! Gotta get these beasties off my back!

11/01/06 Current Mortgage Balance = $23,893.92

November Expenditures:



11/1 Grocery Expense 83.34
11/1 Paper Goods 34.23

Notations: $4.00 of the grocery was for part of a Christmas gift for my brother. I usually buy him food that doesn't need refrigeration. Got him a couple of those beef sticks.

And $2.00 of the Paper Goods was for candles for some Christmas candleholders to be sold in my antique booth.

How Do I Miss These Things???



Okay, I'm rocking along thinking I'm doing great on the budgeting front when WHAM a realization that I've only been budgeting for six months worth of auto insurance premiums but stretching them over 12 months! Duh!

So, in other words I only have half (312.00) of what I need (624.00) and it's due on 11/30. If I squeak the payment to my agent late in the day on the 30th I might get by with taking some of December's auto-insurance allocation to pay it. Then I've got to save like the dickens to get it together before the end of May when it'll be due again.

I hate screwing up. I especially hate messing up financially.

RAAAAAAAARRRRRR!!

Today I paid off my October CC charges - of 223.48 which was the October groceries and some Christmas, due on the 9th of November. These were all budgeted and saved for items.

So far scheduled for November payments as they were put on the CC in October after the cutoff date are:

534.00 car warranty mainten. unexpected
380.00 paint planned
25.00 paint planned
626.00 tooth crown - emergency
______
1565.00 CC - must be paid off as I refuse to carry a balance!

and now try to come up with
312.00 auto insurance - dumb mistake
_______
1877.00 As I said, the E.F. is definitely going to take a hit!! And I think I see mounds of beans and rice in the near future.

OUCH, OUCH and Double OUCH!!!

It's Soooo Rewarding!



Just noting that today I requested online a $20.00 rewards check payout on my Discovercard. They said it will take 5 to 7 days to appear in my checking. Just wanting to note here when it was requested so I can count down the days to see how quick they are.

I bet they don't slow down on drawing my payment out of the checking though! This is the first time I've done an online request for this.

Anticipating money = good feeling as long as it doesn't take too long! I'll log it as inflow when the money clears my account.

Also of note today I made a payment on the mortage of 404.03. Will update on the right when it posts.

Deposited 20.45 today from the October Challenge - a mysterious .07 cents made it into Piggy this month as I only logged 20.38 as income. You gotta love a good mystery!

I spent about 4.00 today out of my allowance as I had already wiped out the October grocery budget and after yesterday's freezer fiasco I needed some hamburger for tonight's dinner and an onion, plus I got myself some Vitamin A&D (1.67) which really helps me along with Vitamin B6 & E to fight off the cold/runny nose/mucus/sore throat thing when it starts to creep up during the winter months. I had run out of A&D and I don't like to head into cold weather without it!

So, at first twinge I dose myself up w/2 B6's, 2A&D, and 2E's. By morning my head is 99% of the time cleared up. If not totally clear then a dose of one of each for the next few days usually zaps any crud that is trying to jump on me!

There you have it - L.L.Frugalis' cold remedy. Anything that gets past those vite-viti-vege-mums requires a dose of the Hot Toddy (hot whiskey, honey and lemon) and some Vicks Vapor Rub to the chest just for the Mom effect.

Go, and cough no more!

Catching Up Update - Up Up I say!

Sunday was a no spend day. FREE breakfast in Sunday School class. Somebody brought Braum's sausage biscuits which were really good. I had never eaten one before. There were other things such as FREE muffins, FREE coffeecake, and FREE coffee. Hallelujah!

Monday was also a no-cash spend day for me. The Hubster did however make the downpayment on the windows which we'll be paying cash for! No payments, yeah!!

Over the weekend FrugalSon had to make a big car repair expense to his lil' truck, a whopping $2.17 for new fuses so his horn could beep once again.

Yesterday morning The Hubster was looking for his snackcakes (his one big requirement for a happy worklife) and so we trotted down to the basement to the freezer only to find that everything in there was thawing out! Glad we made the visit.

When I returned from my morning errand CashHappySon and I worked on throwing out what needed tossing ($$'s down the drain) and getting the rest into the cooler. Then upstairs to shuffle the refrigerator's freezer to fit in as much as we could.

Ended up cooking some of the meat in the crockpot for the dogs. Nice treats! ...and cooked about three packages of sausage links for the boys.

Those wouldn't fit into the upstairs freezer. They had a nice breakfast and lunch on them and still have some leftover. SIGH! Bad freezer!! We checked and no the breaker hadn't switched off or anything. Boo!

Later The Hubster calls and has me plug it into another socket. Ta-da it works! It is an older freezer that I got from my Mom when she replaced hers.

I'm thinking at this moment in time I'm just going to leave it empty and unplugged unless someone wants to gift me with a side of beef or a hog or something! Saving on electricity.

I just don't think I utilize it as much anymore w/just the four of us at home right now along w/the inconvenient trek to the basement to stock it or retrieve something. If it were upstairs maybe! It's TOO TOO TOO Ugly for upstairs though.

Along with that is the car maintenance that The Hubster had done yesterday. I sent him in to get his scheduled oil change only to discover that it is time to do the 30,000 mile maintenance in order to keep his warranty in place.

This little bit of sunshine cost us $534.00 on the CC!! Jeepers! November is looking slimmer and slimmer as we also had his $626 crown thingy earlier this month that went on the CC!

The E.F. is definitely taking a hit, as there is no way I can cover all that out of current income and still be able to eat and have utilities, much less have gasoline for work commute!!



Okay Lord, I need a lot less money going down the drain and much more money coming up out of the drains! Up Up I say! And again I say UP!!

Santa I've Been A Very Good Girl



The window man is here measuring as we are getting new insulated windows in the top story of my house. It will be about 6 weeks before they can install but I'm excited as I think Santa is going to be extra good to me this year and will be doing my whole top floor (11 windows) instead of just the five windows we thought we were going to do!

YEAH SANTA!! I think we'll have a snuggly Christmas this year! On the outflow side today is a deposit of half for $2490. Not bad.

Holy Taco Mole!!!

Found a steal yesterday afternoon. Before the movie CashHappySon and I were out and about letting him put his application in some places. He's ready to move on from burgercentral - he's stayed the year his Dad & I required from him. He's a bit of a flutter-bye and we're trying to discourage that in the job market.

We went out to the big salvage barn near here - they sell gas, groceries and hardware...it's about 20 minutes from nowhere. It's a kind of scratch and dent store. I shop there frequently and CashHappy knows the owner/manager from the drive-thru lane and our visits to shop. The guy wasn't there but we brought home the application to fill out. Anyway, while there I spent big money yesterday. A whole .26 cents!! Wee-ha!

They have those neat little taco bowls in a large sleeve with 15 of the corn taco shell bowls in it for 25 cents each sleeve. With tax that is .0173333 cents each folks! Bet you can't guess what we're having for dinner tonight????



If they aren't stale I will go back and get some more and put them in the freezer!! This is how I feed my family cheaply. I look for deeeeeeeeep discounts and then when the item tastes good I heaviliy stock up.

Holy Taco Mole - Think I may have a SCORE!!!!

Also yesterday I spent even more money - GASP! Got two new stained glass candle stands for 50 cents each and a box of 4 blown glass ornaments for 12.5 cents each. These are all for Christmas giving. I'll add some candles from the dollar store to the holders.

For myself I bought a green blown glass money frog. I'm fung shuei-ing my money sector! (Wooo-ooooooo did you feel a newage breeze just then???) Really just a cute little frog that is going to sit on my entryway table. I paid 25 cents for him.

Finished!



The painters just finished up and left. My house is officially fully painted! Ta-da!

That's the good news. The bad news is that there are a couple of window trim boards that need to be replaced. Once that happens the painter guys promised to come back and do the finish work.

The better news is that the estimate I got was the price I had to pay. In other words, he didn't try to jack me up in the end! Woo-hoo!

I hope to add some before and after pics later.

MonkeyShines

Catching up to date - I did spend on Sunday as we bought lunch on the way to my Mom's house and I bought my new reading chair that day.

But Monday was a No Spend day.

...and Tuesday was a No Spend day!

Just peel me a nanner because it sure makes me' lil ol eyes sparkle!

Bowling for Dollars


Jesus was a Bowler??

CashHappySon went bowling with his grandparents and brought me home change of $1.96 to add to Piggy. S.T.R.I.K.E.!

Jesus was a Bowler?? Who knew?

FrugalSon helped me scrub the stove today and get the house ready to receive the new reading chair I bought for myself!

It's one I've been searching for - for about two years now. Bought it from my Mom! Ha! They'd only had it about a year when they decided to build a new house and it didn't fit in the new, so had been in storage. When I went to visit Sunday/Monday they were having a garage sale.

I had thought it would cost me about $600 to buy what I wanted, but got this recliner that looks like a great comfy club chair for 200.00. I've been saving up so I'm good with the purchase as it was well within my budget.

It is my new domicile. When you can't find me? I'm in the sunroom, reading! Do Not Disturb!


$20 CHALLENGE

$08.40 balance
+01.96 bowling for dollars
______
$10.36 Oct MTD

Cummulative Total $60.50

Mr. vs. Mrs. Spending Battle



Saturday, October 14, 2006 was another no-spend day for me. Now The Hubster on the other hand (whose spending we are not officially tracking here) spent money.

At the big box home repair place he bought stuff to make mr. fixit stuff go. He did buy something not on the list $2.50 for a new elcheapo measuring tape. So he's not altogether too dangerous to let out in the hardware store alone. He spent $25.07 to fix the faucet, fix the sprayer, and got galvanized nails to put up some trim boards that needed replacing outside. Also he spent $11.93 for vacumn cleaner bags. Goodness me, but can our next vacumn be one of those bagless ones? I hate paying money for something to 'throw away'. The door repairs he did cost zip but the elbow grease and his time!

0.00 spent Mrs. vs. $37.00 spent Mr.

I WIN!! ...and got my stuff repaired! Woo-hoo gotta love being a gurrrlll!

What Has Got Into That Man??



The Hubster has gotten himself into gear today. Helping with the moving of stuff into the basement, PLUS he did some repair work on my couch...it was trying to run away with itself a bit of stuffing at a time was leaking out...The Hubster installed some new foam strategically to keep the old stuffing in and no more from coming out!

Then as if that wasn't enough he has decided that today is the day to fix my kitchen faucet that has been dripping and possibly he'll get to the front door that isn't closing properly! FrugalSon is at work and The Hubster and CashHappySon are off now to the bigbox home repair place to get parts. Before nightfall I may have a sink that doesn't drip and a sprayer on my kitchen sink again! Woo-hoo! Big doings!

The Hubster is a wonderful guy but he normally puts off the household repairs until, well, NEVER! He hates doing them, but doesn't want me to hire it done either.

If I could get into my kitchen I'd bake him some hot rolls, but he's got all the cleaning supplies out from under the sink, the faucets off in the kitchen and in the living room the couch is upside down until he gets home w/some more vacumn cleaner bags. Maybe he'll get hot rolls tomorrow!

At any rate I'm thrilled. Don't know what got into him, but I'm hoping this new handy fellow shows up again sometime during this quarter!!

He has been so busy getting his Dad's house cleaned out that he couldn't of done anything here if he had wanted to. But delayed repairs are starting to snowball, so I guess he figures he has to get on it or things will start to tumble around our ears!

Whatever got into him, I'm grateful!!

OMGosh, I just realized I turned the guy loose w/o me in the 'toy' store w/a debit card! This could get ugly!