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Home > Archive: June, 2007

Archive for June, 2007

Trying Not to Count My Chickens Before They Hatch!

June 12th, 2007 at 04:44 am

We accepted an offer on OD's home in Oregon, 98% of asking price with no contigencies. Realtor says it's the cleanest offer she has seen. So we will know on Friday if they qualify for their loan. The new owners want to close on July 15th. OD moves and starts her internship on July 2nd. So that works out great. This was our first experience of selling a home and it was kind of too easy. The house appreciated about 38% in the 21 months we owned it.

We also received dividend checks this week from two business that we are part owners of. Last year when we received the checks, we used them to pay for YD's spur of the moment wedding. This year no wedding to pay for so that all went into savings.

Then I received my State Farm statement for our car insurance (after receiving the four rebate checks from them) and our car insurance is dropping another $20.00 a month, so it will be just about $104.00 a month to insure our three vehicles. DH 2005 Chevy Silverado is the biggest downward adjustment with my 1994 van dropping a few bucks too!

When it rains it pours in a good way sometimes too!

YD and SIL arrive home tomorrow for a visit. It may be his last chance to get home before his next deployment. So I know we will be taking them out to dinner, etc. Also high school graduation for the boy across the street and my friend's daughter, so that will cost a bit in gifts.

Yesterday I was doing a few admits and one patient was especially sad. I wanted to go out to breakfast and told DH. He got out of the shower and talked me out of it, which is funny because it was a total role reversal for us. So he made us some breakfast and we save some money! We really want to stay in frugal mode even though we are pretty flush right now. Of course the bill has not yet come for the new TV that we are enjoying very much! Love the DVR, so worth it.

In fact, I DVR'd Oprah on Friday that I rarely watch, but my sister called and said it was about money (she knows how obsessed I am because she is too). It was the follow up to the Debt Diet show she did about a year ago. Very interesting....

Then I DVR'd Big Spender on A&E on Saturday and watched it later in the day. That is always motivating... so I think the new TV and DVR is actually helping me SAVE money! Ha Ha.

Today in the mail I received .....

June 3rd, 2007 at 03:59 am

A fourth and most likely final State Farm check for $74.20. This check had a notation of 2005 Chevrolet, which is our most expensive to insure vehicle, thus the largest check so far.



We spent the day in the back yard, went to the dump 3 times. The total cost of getting rid of a lot of tree branches was $45.00. It would have cost $110.00 for a chipper and we didn’t really know what we would do with the chips….The green stuff is kept separate so I can pretend they don’t just add it to a landfill somewhere, but then I guess that would be okay anyway… YD took this photo today in North Carolina. It is not from my garden, though I wish it was.

We went to a local garden store and bought 2 zucchini plants, 2 yellow crookneck and two butternut to plant. We have two raised bed boxes so they will go in one. The other has a huge flowering plant in it that flew in a few years ago and volunteered to cheer up our yard.

Then I realized that I really do like a couple of the roses that I was planning to dig up and give to my mom, so I ended up weeding them, watering them and tomorrow I am going to go ahead and feed them all and plan to transplant them in the fall since they are in a bad place.

All the talk about handing plants down through generations must have hit me. These roses have been here since we moved into the house (20 years this August) and I was thinking it would be nice to give my girls starts of them.

After our third trip to the dump I told my husband I would buy him a piece of pizza from this place in town we never think to go to because it is away from town, very close to the local high school. We got two pieces of loaded vege pizza with yummy artichoke hearts for $3.25. We decided it was well worth it.

One week from today we will be in San Francisco at the Giants Game. I will get to see my youngest daughter who is flying in and driving home with us. I have not seen her since February and I am missing her a lot. She has already told her father several meals she wants him to cook while she is home. She is actually flying into Reno to MD’s and they are going to the Bay Area on Thursday for a game that day too. It’s hard for me not to dash over to Reno (well not exactly dash since it is a 6.5 hour drive) and see her, but sisters need their time together too without mom. OD has decided not to come because the flight was going to be about $500.00 and she has her last final on June 11th, so she will come home after that. Hopefully SIL will be coming too the 13th if he gets leave approved.

DH called from work, (he left here at 5:00 a.m.) and wanted to go out to breakfast. I agreed, but figured I would get a biscuit or something and let him eat a full breakfast. His conscious got the better of him. He stopped at the store and got a bagel, an avocado, an artichoke and some sausage and made us omelets instead. We had plenty of eggs.

It was a good thing his conscious got the better of him because we bought a new 50” Plasma TV! There was a rebate at Costco and we agreed we would put it on the Costco AMEX and pay in full when the bill came. We had just paid the current bill, so I know it will be due July 7th or so. We have continued to put $300.00 every other week into the grocery account and right now there is about $1000.00 in that account. We had almost enough saved a year ago when YD and SIL decided to get married and we sort of insisted on a real wedding. There went the TV money!

Anyway we are putting it to good use and I am again back on the treadmill (quit using it when the TV died in the TV/treadmill room). We are rolling our change and need to try to keep our food to about $250.00 for the month in order to pay for the TV. Yes we probably should have waited until we had the cash in hand, but (isn't there always a but?) the rebate ended soon and we had also been told we are getting a dividend check that could pay for 3 TV's next week so we went for it.

Anyone see Big Spender on A&E today? I watched it while walking on the treadmill this morning. The people on the show give me panic attacks!

By the way, I am adding the $74.20 to the TV fund.

Okay off to enjoy the new TV now, plus the doggies think it’s lap time!

Challenge update

June 2nd, 2007 at 01:54 am

DH gave me $23.00 today. Sometimes when work is really busy, he will pitch in and really help the guys and gets some of the tip money. This week has been really busy, so $23.00 to add.

Also my former full-time client called and asked to me transcribe a meeting for them. They mailed me a check the day I took the work back instead of having to wait until the end of the month, but it took me until the end of the month to update my challenge!


$838.75
24.00 DH money
80.28 Extra work

$943.03 New total

My boss at the hospital called me about another doctor's office who's regular transcriptionist was out sick. I did 6.5 hours work for them, but still need to bill it out.

I will update my May totals later.