I thought my 0% lasted until the end of the year. I was surprised with my last statement from our last credit card to see that I owed over $100 in finance charges. That's it. I transferred the money from ING and just paid it off in full.

I am embarrassed at how long it took us, but we are finally out of credit card debt. So now all we owe is our mortgage on our home and our rental home.

Our E-fund took a big hit, but with my buy nothing challenge for the year (personal spending), I am hoping it will be in a comfortable range before too long.

I can't even share the news with DH as he is asleep, still on East Coast time since he just arrived home yesterday after spending a week with:


By the way, I knitted the ladybug coat she is wearing. It is a bit long, but hopefully she will be able to wear it for a year. It is made out of baby alpaca yarn and the pattern is here if anyone is interested:
http://www.petitepurls.com/Fall09/fall2009_ladybug.html

We have started a new challenge tonight of how long can we go just buying fruit, veges, bread, milk and coffee. Our freezer is brimming with food that needs to be eaten including leftover party food from Ally's first birthday party in August.

Happy Veteran's Day to all our Veteran's, especially my 85-year-old father-in-law who served in WWII, my two older brothers who both served in Vietnam, and my dear son-in-law who is currently serving in the Marine Corp and is getting ready for his deployment to Afghanistan. He has not been overseas since 2006 to Iraq. 2010 is going to be a tough year for my family.

Attempting work today. Hopefully I make it through my 7 hours. That's all.

I think I am going to survive, Tamiflu seems to be helping, that's all.

Yesterday was payday and since I woke up a little early I decided to get up and check the bank accounts and go ahead and pay for the new washer and dryer. I process that payment at my bank web site, then I consider maybe I should go ahead and pay my AMEX bill.

Then the dilemma is should I pay everything that is owed to this point or just the balance due (closing date 9/30). I pay my Amex in full every month, but sometimes I pay several times a month so I don't have a huge payment at the end of the month.

Okay I will pay it all off, so then I download into Quicken the transactions. Costco, Coleman Co, AT&T, Direct TV, Costco, Comfort Inn, Comfort Inn, Costco.....wait Comfort Inn. The motel charged us??? We paid with gift certificates from our local radio station shopping show. We had to give them our credit cards in case we made a long distance call or something.

Grr.... get them on the phone, starting the conversation with them when DH says, "we didn't stay at the Comfort Inn". Fraud alert!! "Have your manager call me when she/he gets there at 7:00 a.m. please".

I immediately call AMEX and cancel my card, dispute the charges. I am fuming.... someone stole our information. I have been a victim of forged counterfeit checks several years ago, so I was very upset.

So I finally get off the phone with AMEX, am 15 minutes late to work. I call my mother's bank to check her VISA card to make sure there was no fraudulent activity since she also gave them her credit card (I am on my 80-year-old mother's accounts). No everything is fine on her account.

About 10:30 I realize Comfort Inn has not called yet, so I call them. Oh yes, she was just going to call me back. She remembers me, I was coming up for the US Figure Skating competition. Um... gulp... Yes "she is sorry, we did not call to cancel and they were booked solid so they charged my room"....

OMG I went to the wrong motel! No wonder Best Western Horizon Inn did not have a reservation for us when we got there (they had empty rooms though)!! That should have been my first clue.

"I am an idiot, I am so sorry". Assistant manager giggles and says "that's okay, I can refund you one night, but not both".

Umm yeah, I am lucky they didn't charge four nights of rooms since I also made my mother's reservation using my credit card.....

I'm telling you menopause does something to your mind. Luckily my dear sick husband was very nice about it. He didn't feel good enough to laugh, but told me "things happen".

So I might as well have set a match to a $100 bill. Ugh!

The Marine Corp 234th Birthday Marine Ball is on November 6th this year. Last year my granddaughter was 3 months old and I went back to take care of her so my YD and her DH could go (I had just flown home for 8 weeks after being there the first month after she was born).

This year my coworker grabbed that week off before I could... So DH is going back to take care of our little southern belle.




I found a flight on cheap tickets for $530.00 from here to LA to Dallas to Savannah, but it involved an overnight stay in LA. So he said try United Airlines (which is DH's business Visa Card). Their price was $630.00 out of here (which is cheap, we usually pay somewhere around $1000.00 for round trip from here to the Carolinas).

Anyway he says let's just check if we can use miles. Now may I just say we have never been able to use miles out of Humboldt except once when it cost us 40,000 miles to fly to Las Vegas. Otherwise there are simply no seats. We have to drive to San Francisco or Sacramento to use our miles.

So to humor him I pull it up on the computer and low and behold, we can book the round trip flight November 4-10th with miles. $10.00 fee and we splurged on the 5 extra inches of leg room for $79.00. Wow I could not believe it. First time ever. People must not be flying as much.

Now DH just needs to get over the flu that he came down with yesterday. DH is rarely sick so it is quite difficult. AND expensive. Yesterday he wanted Nyquil. Today he wants Thera-Flu. We were just at Walmart in Oregon (no sales tax)and I looked right at the Nyquil and thought we still had some... but no we don't. So yesterday I spent $8.96 on Nyquil and today $7.03 on Thera-Flu! Hopefully tomorrow he will not think of a different cold/flu medicine he wants.

Hoping I don't get it....

I ordered up the black yarn to finish up the ladybug sweater. I hope I get it by Saturday. I really want to finish it in time to send back with DH.

We are leaving soon for a trip up to Oregon to see my 10-year-old nephew participate in the US Figure Skating 2010 Western Regionals.

Our local radio station has a Saturday morning advertising/shopping show in which I obtained 6 nights (2 for us, 2 for my brother, 2 for my mom) at the local hotel for $44.00 a night. This is a $25.00 savings over the special price for skating visitors. I also purchased $40.00 worth of "blue money" for the restaurant across the street for $20.00.

One of my favorite quilt stores is in Medford and I am not even going to visit. Better to just stay away than fight urges that I vow to beat for the entire year (ending 9/30/2010). I am hoping to finish the red yarn portion of Ally's ladybug sweater over the weekend. My brother's family lives in Seattle, so this is a nice chance to get to see my nephew skate live and it is only 3 hours drive!

I am pretty sure the rooms have microwaves and I cooked enough oatmeal this morning for my breakfasts. We already have bottled water and I made iced tea to pack and take too. Still have some individual packs of that yummy trail mix from Costco with the M&M's in it.

While in Oregon which has no sales tax, we are making a stop at Walmart (closest from us is 1.5 hours) for some general merchandise including their almond face scrub. We were going to buy tires up there and have them put on but DH called the local chain tire center and they matched the savings so they are down being put on now. Cost $426.11 for 4 tires for my Toyota Camry.

DH is getting on board more and more and last night made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with the last of the ham cooked last weekend. He used the last 2 Costco sandwich rolls too. They were yummy with the addition of the last of the avocado and tomato. Unfortunately we ran out of milk and didn't want to get more since we are leaving town for a few days.

My friends daughter will be feeding the dogs:



Lola's old blanket that she curls up on to sleep at night (behind the love seat in the TV room) is in the new washer right now. It is so nice to not have to go to the laundromat to wash bulky items. Plus the last time we washed our bulky items it was about $5.00 a load!

It's a beautiful fall day on the North Coast of California, but a storm moves in Monday.

I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend.

I bought a new washer and dryer set on Saturday. However, we paid cash for the Whirlpool Duet set with the steam option. I am hoping to save money on dry cleaning and the water savings should pay for our garden next year. This was a planned purchase so should not count for the no buy anything for myself year.

I have been really down the past few days after seeing my granddaughter on Skype. She is growing so fast and we are missing so much. DH will probably travel to see her the first week of November. I cannot go since my coworker beat me to asking for that week off (she is going to a Nascar race) that the kids need us to babysit so they can go to the annual Marine Ball.

This is what makes me happy/sad:




I have not seen her since August 21st and will not see her again until the end of the year when I managed to get a week off. I hope Ally remembers me and greets me like this:



I am knitting this:


I should have it done by the time DH goes back to South Carolina.

Time to get up and use up the last of the zucchini in this:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/zucchini-gratin-recipe2/index.html

and then if I have enough energy left I am going to make this:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sandra-lee/shortcakes-with-warm-strawberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Up and at em!

A new Kohl's opened this week in our area. While this may not be a difficult challenge for some of you, we have Ross, Sears, Target and K-Mart and now a Kohl's.

We received a $10.00 off coupon in the mail and DH needed some new T-shirts so we decided to go yesterday. First we went to our business for DH to make a schedule for the employees and take care of the cash register. Then we went over to his mother's house and had breakfast (I brought some bacon and some frozen french toast made last week to use up some bread). Finally it was after 9:00 a.m. and off we went. Well if we filled out a credit card application we received 20% of all our purchases that day and received another $10.00 coupon. DH and I both filled out applications so we had a total of $30.00 off purchases.

DH said he admired my goal of not buying anything for a year, but he thought it would be "okay" to get something. I admit I sort of looked but thought NO!

So we used the cash off to get my granddaughter a book and a Christmas Ornament. DH got about 10 new T-shirts at $4.80 a piece and my FIL's 80th birthday gift of an insulated looking long sleeve shirt with a matching Columbia Fleece Jacket.

So I did it, passed up the cute shoes, the Simply Vera Wang and the Dockers pants that would have been a nice addition to my work wardrobe (I live in jeans and T-shirts otherwise).

My five things for the day:
1. Got up, made coffee, let the dogs out and then tried to keep them quiet until DH woke up (we both rarely sleep in but wish we could).
2. Fixed the hem on 2 pairs of my winter wardrobe work slacks.
3. Doing laundry (this should count for more than 1).
4. Just got off the phone with Direct TV and got the HD football added for free after I screamed and yelled about their misleading advertising in their flyer and told them I would not pay the cancellation fee and it could go to collection for all I cared and actually it probably would fit a class action lawsuit if I could get enough people to say they had been misled too.
5. Going to go sit and knit and try to calm down after getting all worked up with the customer service people and getting transferred 4 times... yes 4 times before getting #4 resolved.

DH's 5 list:
1. Made breakfast.
2. Cleaned up kitchen really well including Clorox Cleanup on the drainboards.
3. Took a 1966 console stereo for the elderly folks next door to a secondhand shop since it still works and they hated to dump it.
4. Making split pea soup even as I type for same elderly neighbors for their dinner.
5. Has had lots of patience all day with menopausal me.

My self-imposed 1 year not buying anything that I don't absolutely genuinely need. No clothes, no shoes, no socks, no undergarments. No new makeup, unless I actually run out of something. No new moisturizers (I probably have enough assorted brands to last 5 years). No books, no magazines..... No nothing!

I had my first evaluation at my job yesterday and had no negatives or any place I needed to improve. That felt good. Today I saw the worker's comp doc and I felt ready to bump back up to 7 hours a day. My shoulder is much improved.

We had Direct TV installed today saving $17.00 a month over our cable TV with many, many more HD channels too.

DH is on board for this year, which is going to really help since he does 95% of the cooking and household/grocery shopping.

Our Christmas present will be flying back to see our sweet granddaughter, oh yeah and YD and SIL too.

I so wish I could keep up with posts. If only I could get on at lunch time at work, but practically every site is blocked, even ones I need sometimes.

Yesterday was DH's birthday and tomorrow is our 31st anniversary.

Not sure what my problem is, but this is the 2nd month in a row that I entered my mortgage payment in Quicken and then failed to actually make the payment. Since my mortgage is held by ING, I just transferred from savings so it would be credited immediately. Then I transferred $2500.00 into savings along with making a payment to AMEX which is mostly Costco shopping and gas.

August was an expensive month paying for this:




But paying for the kids flight home AND the party was still cheaper than us flying to South Carolina, renting a house and a car for a week.

We also had 2 weddings and my mother's 80th birthday party this summer. Since DH and I did all the planning and most all of the cooking (my siblings all live out of state), they (the siblings) ended up paying for all of the party and the quilt I made for mom.

I am still trying to figure out what type of savings plan to start for granddaughter. College is already covered due to her daddy being a Marine (not sure how this works, but that is what SIL tells us). We are considering a DRIP or mutual fund or savings bonds.... have not made a decision yet, but need to soon. I told the kids that I was not going to buy my grandchildren crap, but would do savings accounts for them. We did buy a ladybug set of bath toys from Costco.com for her. That is a ladybug cake she demolished.

Our garden is still growing, just made a yummy zucchini gratin last night for both us and our elderly neighbors next door who were happy to get a home made meal (made mashed potatoes and baked pork chops, homemade rolls). I should say not frozen first. Their daughter (who lives 7 hours away by car) comes up and makes and freezes meals for them as often as she can.

I am cut back at work to 4 hours a day from a comp claim on my shoulder. It somehow became frozen (probably from working 7 hours a day on a computer). It is doing a bit better after some physical therapy and exercises. Another reason I am not here as much as I would like!

I absolutely hate working full-time. I just don't have the time to keep up anymore. Like Ceejay I read nearly every entry each day. I still read as often and as many as possible.

In the meantime, the garden is in, the new budget/plan is in place and I am on my second successful week of taking cash out on Saturday and making it last until the following Saturday. I take $200.00 a week out for groceries, gas and spending.

The only reason I have time to post today is I am home with a migraine (almost time for another pain pill). Meanwhile every hour I go change the hose to drip on another rose.

I know Suze Orman would tell us if we wanted to buy a 6-pack, we could not afford it, but I just cannot wait to see my granddaughter again in August. People first then money, right?



DH used United Miles for his recent trip to the Carolinas where he helped YD's family move from North to South Carolina (30 minutes from Savannah) so I think that has been the cheapest trip ever for either of us back to the Carolinas.

Need to find a nice rental cheap on the South Carolina Coast and will be using miles hopefully again to fly back so that will help with the costs.

This is the reason I do not use coupons:
This week's Sunday newspaper coupons:
1. Ken's Dressing 3-$1.00 off various products.
2. Trident Gum, 2 coupons, 1 for 75 cents and 1 for $1.00 off 3 packs.
3. $4.00 off a DVD when you buy Sunmaid raisens.
4. $3.00 off Mega Red (better than fish oil).
5. 1.00 off 5 pounds of Cuties and 55 cents off 3 pounds(mandarin oranges).
6. Coupons for Olive Garden (the closest Olive Garden is 3-4 hours away).
7. BOGO and $1.00 off Airwick spray.
8. JC penny's portrait, assorted coupons.

That's it. Last week's are equally worthless to me. So I don't use coupons. It is rare to see one that is something I would even CONSIDER buying, much less something I regularly buy. Oh well, watching for sales on things I buy works.

Last week Walgreen's had Blue Emu cream on sale for $9.99 for a little jar. I bought 3, saving $24.00 in one swoop. DH uses this stuff on his elbows and when my back was flared up I used it. Today I bought Classico pasta sauce for $1.99 a jar, which is usually over $3.00 a jar. I bought 18 jars. (We don't have Trader Joe's or I would buy that brand, which I do whenever I am near).

Yes it is cheaper to make my own and I do sometimes, but it is nice to have it ready to doctor up a bit too.

Smell cleaning products before buying. I just, thank goodness, finished up my one and only bottle of Clorox Greenworks "Natural" toilet bowl cleaner cleaning both bathrooms this morning.



It stinks like a skilled nursing facility, seriously. Will never buy it again. The frugal part of me could not just throw it out even though every time I used it I could hardly stand it.

Now watch one of you guys will think it is great. Another one to avoid... Orange Glo. That sickeningly sweet orange smell is just too much for me. I would rather use ammonia and bleach (separately of course).

Okay back to your regularly scheduled blogs.

DH and I went grocery shopping at Costco and Winco. I ate a hearty breakfast and took my own ice tea to drink, but after stopping at MIL's first to visit a bit, then onto Winco where we saw a few people we knew, stopped to chat. By the time we got to Costco I was hungry. I ate lots of demo food (the Asian Salad kit is yummy), but got a hot dog and soda for both DH and I as we left since it's another 25 minutes back home.

Now my OD says that didn't count, what do you all think?

We spent $67.46 at Winco and 25.27 on food at Costco keeping it under $100.00 for the week the third week in a row at $92.73, plus $3.22 for the hot dogs and soda making a grand total of $95.95.

DH filled up my Camry at $16.66. He filled up the car last Thursday so that represents about $3.00 a day in gas costs for commuting for me.

We also bought toilet paper at Costco and granddaughter a cute new pink sleeper with ladybug print. It will go in her first Easter basket. So the Costco total was actually $55.28, pretty good for Costco. Also half and half, eggs, turkey lunch meat and salted mixed nuts (all on the list).

Winco included some longer lasting items including 2 packages of tea, a small jar of jam, some sugar free pancake syrup and Chex Cereals that had a coupon stuck on each package, $3.00 off any 3 making it $1.38 a pack. Cherrios were also $1.50 and I bought a box of those. Another great find was peanut butter and choco chip rice cakes. It will be interesting to see how they taste. 2 pounds of Tillamook cheddar was green tag, $1.00 cheaper than Costco's price, but still higher than last year at $6.78.

This week's menus:
Tonight: Carnitas
Monday: Chicken cacciatore
Tuesday: Fish
Wednesday: Leftover Chicken.
Thursday: Tacos

All meat from the freezer including the already cooked carnita meat that was cooked, sealed and frozen a few months ago. Fish is either orange roughy or salmon frozen from Costco.

I went to K-mart yesterday to get vacuum cleaner bags and was shocked at the price, over $3.00 a bag. I need to find a cheaper place to buy them.

So again, another no spend week is planned.

That's a no spend week! On Thursday I got up and was scrounging around packing my lunch and was considering buying lunch in the hospital cafeteria. I started thinking about Suze Orman on Oprah earlier this month challenging everyone to not eat out for a month. I started thinking and realized I have not eaten out yet the month of January. Well that's it. I am making it until the end of the month!

What makes this a lot easier is last month sometime DH found little chicken sandwiches at Costco "on sale", which made them 50 cents a piece. It is really easy to grab and thrown in my Coleman "lunch pail". I don't get sick of the same thing day after day, well okay I am sort of getting sick of them now after eating them almost every day for a whole month. Uh oh, I just went out to the freezer. I have 2 left, which means I need to plan for this coming work week. Safeway has bags of lettuce on sale for $1.00. I will probably get a few of those and see if I have some canned salmon. If not I can cook up some chicken breasts (in the freezer) and use those in my salad.

I get my $100.00 allowance for February next Sunday. This month I spent $95.00 of it on January 1st shopping with my mom and sister. The last $5.00 went to the little boy scout across the street selling raffle tickets for a cord of wood.

Speaking of Boy Scouts, etc, the little girl we bought Girl Scout cookies from the past few years has gotten totally lazy. We came home from work to a phone call asking us to call her if we wanted to buy cookies this year. I am sure her sales will be way down. We live in a neighborhood so it is really easy for her to go from house to house. I was pretty surprised. She must have saved the phone numbers from last year's form.

One more item of interest: For those of you who have considered taking 0% interest money and sticking it in a savings account, making the minimum payments, then paying in full before the 0% runs out. I did it. I was so worried I would miss the pay off date, I kept thinking never again! So back in June Bank of America called me and said they could loan me $23,000 until February 2009 billing cycle and it would cost me $99.00 "transfer fee". She caught me on a bad day and I agreed. I immediately transferred it into ING Direct and paid it off 2 weeks ago. Never do that again I thought. Then I added up what I made from it. $350.00 after the $99.00 fee. The key is that it has to be a large enough amount to make it worth you while. I doubt another offer like that is going to come along.

I have a long list of to do's for the weekend including the sock box and hopefully cutting out one of the summer outfits for my granddaughter. I bought the patterns for $1.00 each and the fabric 50% after last Easter. She was not born yet, but I knew I would want to make her some clothes.
So I could start with this:



or this:


Here she is wearing a sweater I knitted:




Okay Saturday is off and running with lots to do, getting back to my roots. Happy frugal weekend everyone!

So it's Saturday, grocery shopping day. I have been craving beef bourginon the last few days, so asked DH to make it this weekend. Ah yes, he says, whole sirloins are blah, blah, blah at Costco. He will buy one and make a big pot of bourginon. Yeah good. Off he goes to work early with the plan to call me later for grocery list and shopping (Costco 2 blocks from work).

I am still recovering from my cold so my goal for the weekend is to get the laundry caught up. So I bring my morning cup of coffee in here to the computer and start catching up on the blogs. It suddenly hits me that WAIT A MINUTE! Buying a whole sirloin to make one dish and freezing the rest is what the old us would do. The new us would buy a smaller amount of beef or see if there is something in our freezer we can use. So I called DH and told him my thoughts. We are supposed to only be spending $100.00 a week on groceries and if we buy a whole sirloin that would most likely put us over.

He agreed somewhat reluctantly, but came home having spent a total of $68.48 at Costco and Winco for the week. He's getting pretty good on the self-check out at Costco.

My only spending for the week was $35.75 to fill-up my Camry (DH actually drove it to work on Thursday so he could fill it up at Costco, cheapest gas in town) and $5.00 donation/raffle ticket from the little Boy Scout across the street.

DH has gone to the local college basketball game with a friend and is getting a hot dog at the game for "dinner". I had leftover chicken and S&W piquinto beans. I think I will finish off the Dreyer's Peppermint ice cream in the freezer tonight.

My low-energy day was spent comparing TV packages and I think I have found one through Direct TV that will save us about $30.00 a month over our current local cable company. Luckily I can add the sports block to a cheaper plan to get even cheaper a plan than I originally thought.

Now I need to work on the cell phones, since our contract is up in about a month. I rarely use mine, but DH uses his a lot with his work and traveling.

We offered to pay for YD, SIL and granddaughter to fly home for a visit. They really are trying to not let us pay for it, which I appreciate. If they can't come by March, I am going to have to fly back to NC. It's been 2 months since I saw my granddaughter and I am sure she has changed so much. She will be 5 months old tomorrow.

Seeing Sara Bareilles in concert last night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Bareilles

She is a local girl made good, nominated for 2 grammy's this year. Small venue, but dinner before was $$$$. Our friends ended up paying for dinner, since we bought the concert tickets, but we left the tip. We did not expect them to pay for dinner. Theoretically it was my birthday gift, since Monday is my birthday.

The opening band was so loud, I would have told my own kids if they were playing the music to turn it off! Then I realized I didn't really like rock concerts when I was a teenager, why would I like them at 50??

But Sara's beautiful voice and talent made it all better..... I almost felt young again!

Noise and flashing lights unfortunately did bring on a migraine by the time we got home, so today has been a low energy day. The same friends we went out with last night dropped off 2 dungeness crab, which DH picked and made crab stuffed baked potatoes with lots of crab left for tomorrow.

I swear they were better than last night's restaurant salmon dinner that was $24.95!

Working in a hospital, I did not think I would get to take advantage of "drug rep's" freebies. Well I was wrong. The medical staff secretary's office is kitty corner to mine. She comes in to our common area with 3 trays, one of veges and dip, one of little pinwheel sandwiches and one with little dessert bars of some sort. Apparently they were left over from a presentation the drug rep had given some of the docs at the hospital.

I had a ziploc quart bag I filled with the little sandwiches and another with veges. I chopped the broccoli, cauliflower, baby carrots and bell pepper up, added a cubed sweet potato and roasted at 375 degrees for 1 hour after tossing in olive oil and garlic salt. Had that for dinner along with leftover standing pork roast. DH is taking the little sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.

Unfortunately it was a spend day. DH paid our property tax, bought us each a Columbia fleece hooded jacket for $19.99 at Gottschalks and found J Henckles Knife sets regularly $138.00 for like $29.99. He bought a set for his parents who need them for Christmas. He also found a miniture snow globe with our granddaughter's name on it! Spelled wrong, but we think we can change an I to a Y!

He also picked up a prescription for me at Costco and a few pictures our daughter downloaded of our granddaughter. The prescription is a certain cream that perimenopausal women use. I was shocked at the price, did they run it through my insurance, almost $100.00!?! My new insurance takes effect January 1. I am thinking maybe I should up my FSA contribution. I started with $50.00 a month.

We are on the Do not Call list so we rarely get a call, but tonight an 800 number comes up. I answer and it just so happens DH was standing behind me looking at an e-mail we had received. The nice lady asks for "Mr. Smith". I hand the phone over to him and duck out of the room.

She is trying to sell him that disability coverage or something for our one outstanding credit card debt. He told her if things were so bad he could not make the payment, he might as well "end it all". I started laughing so hard, he could barely get off the phone. Maybe you had to be there....

So dropped off my purchases for the 10-month-old little girl who's name I pulled off a giving wreath at work. DH and I dug through Costco's well priced Carter's jammies to find the right size for her, along with 2 outfits, Baby Einstein books, a really cute little jacket and a Catipillar toy that you roll balls down (a woman in Target said her daughter loved it).

I noticed only one name left on the wreath I picked off of. If no one takes it by Friday, I may be shopping for another child.

Today was the first official day of employment at the hospital that I have been contracting with for 10 years. I have settled in and am looking forward to saving money especially on our medical insurance premiums.

I have to wait 90 days for eligibility for the 401K, but am ready to start.

I have to say asking for the day after Christmas off was strange, even though it is a paid holiday anyway. I have to get my mind shifted away from the freedom I have had for so long. I could not ask for a nicer boss and nicer staff that I work with. The past 6 weeks have been really good and this job came at exactly the right time in my life.



However, it is 2 weeks since I visited the granddaughter and boy am I missing her. Hopefully they will all come home for a visit in February.

I spent $1.00 today on oatmeal for breakfast. Lunch was leftover frittata and an apple. Dinner was salad with leftover turkey and ham diced up in it. My bottle of salad dressing did not have the lid on tight and when I shook it up it splattered all over the clean dishes in the dishwasher and floor. The dogs were happy!

DH is on a business trip. Oh did I mention we are broke? Or I should say almost broke. That's what happens when you take 90% of your savings to invest in another car wash. Like I said the job offer came at the right time!

Today at Costco. DH just called to tell me. We are historically one of the highest places in the country.

I'm home from North Carolina and had a great visit with my granddaughter, daughter and SIL.



So the job I tried out, I have accepted. It is a huge lifestyle change for me, but I am adapting. This week all I could do was work, come home, walk the dogs, eat dinner and collapse with jet lag. Hopefully I will start having more energy so I can get some chores done.

Working in the hospital it is tempting to buy my food there because it is so cheap, but I can still bring it from home cheaper. I do occasionally buy breakfast or lunch, but generally have been doing well packing my breakfast, lunch and drinks. I get to work around 7:00 and stop to eat about 8:30. We have a frig, toaster and I brought a microwave for my office which was very exciting for my coworkers. Of course everyone is welcome to use it.

Starting January 1st, I will be saving $450.00 in health premiums alone. I am covered at work and to add my husband is only $30.00 biweekly. There is also a flexible spending plan and a 401K, but no match.

I need to figure out the amounts to deduct for the FSA since of course you lose whatever you don't use.

I am thankful to have been offered this job with such good benefits in this economy.

Put a 5 day hold on our opening deposit. I called and talked to the 800 line and the representative said they would hold all checks for 5 days for the first 30 days and then overnight after that.

DH called the local branch and they removed the 5 day hold for 30 days. I am very used to at WAMU making a deposit and having the entire amount available so this will take some getting used to.

DH made some chili verde too hot me a month or so ago. He made a 9 x 13 pan of pasta, chicken and the usual ziti type stuff with veges and we ate that Sunday and last night. I sent home 2 meals worth with my mother who stopped by to pay us for going to the dump for her (pay for the dump fee actually and she added $10.00 to it).

So tonight DH is eating some of the too hot chili verde and I am eating more of the Sunday casserole for dinner. I do not mind eating something yummy 3 nights in a row, DH does, 2 nights in a row is his limit. The rest will be frozen in a container or containers for lunch for me.

Unfortunately I have to run by the library and pay my $37.00 fine for forgetting to take my books back before my trip to NC. I also am stopping by Costco to get a couple of prescriptions.

I cleaned our 2 bathrooms and cleaned out the refrigerator. The dogs are fed and my payroll work is done for the day.



I checked flights for November and they are running around $450.00 round trip which is cheap. YD and SIL have a special formal party they want me to babysit for. Hey I figure I'd better go visit whenever they ask me and I will stay longer than one night of course! They are not coming home for either holiday, so I am going to try to go. Seriously how can I resist seeing that sweet baby.

Beautiful sunny fall day here in No Ca. Time to run errands.

Okay so we have our IRAs at Scottrade, I have 2, (SEP and ROTH), DH has 1 (ROTH) and 401K at work.

So Thursday morning he gets up and I am in at my computer preparing for my work day in my usual sweats and T-shirt. He comes in and says, "How much trade money do I have available". I look it up and tell him....

"Buy me 200, no make it 250 shares of Wamu". I execute the trade and go about my day. Go to bed peacefully that night. DH comes stomping down the hall at 6:00 a.m. (he slept on the couch like he normally does, is right now as a matter of fact) and tells me, "It's on the news Wamu failed last night".

I told him from now on when he tells me to buy him some stock, my response will be "wamu". Of course I immediately started saying "wamu" to him the rest of the morning before he left for work. He thought it was funny the first 2 times, then started to get mad. Ha haha, I can't help but snicker even as I type this.

So anyway, that IS where we have banked for several years, but we opened an account yesterday at US Bank where my daughters bank. I stop by there anyway to deposit their checks for them (we both contract with the same hospital and they live in Reno so I pick up all our checks and take them to the bank). DH also used to do his business banking there and knows most of the women bankers, so it seemed a natural fit. They have a free checking/money market/bill paying account so it will do just fine.

It will take a while to change over everything since my Ameritrade comes out automatically and my ING accounts are connected to Wamu.

So tonight at dinner DH and I went over our spending plan to live on his salary, use mine for savings, home improvement, retirement, and our beach house rental next year (I hope!).

My work contract has been slow in paying for about the last 6 months, so it is imperative we become more disciplined with our budget.

We were doing very well until the whole NC/granddaughter thing happened, but it is going to be back to our $100.00 allowance each a month and careful spending.

I want to quit using our AMEX card at Costco, but DH is just totally hung up on the rebate, so we compromised by keeping a running total and paying weekly instead of monthly. I frequently now make more than one payment a month, but now he is on board with the idea too.

Also DH has had a separate "grocery" account, then we charge on AMEX at Costco for things that should come out of that account, but I end up paying the AMEX out of the bill paying account, so we have to figure out something for that.

Also my check is going to be 100% transferred to ING so it is not so easy to transfer into the bill paying account to cover mindless spending (AMEX again). Then when quarterly taxes are due, I will transfer the appropriate amount back into the new "bill account". Still need to open DH's new "grocery account", but I wanted to hammer out our plan first.

What to do about the Costco/Amex/grocery dilemma..... hmmm....it's late, it will come to me tomorrow.

I am here at YD's and brought the ladybug quilt I finished. My MD and I surprised her at her baby shower Sunday. It was quite the wild time, flying through a thunderstorm, sleeping in Reno, Nevada being woken by three earthquakes the night before we left....getting lost in the rental car trying to get back to the hotel, not using the Garmin correctly....(called daughter and she told me to flip open the Garmin so it could work right instead of just turning it on!)

Anyway I am trying to conserve money as best I can on this trip. Our flights were $240.00 round trip Reno to Raleigh on Delta, rental car $200.00 for eight days Mazda 6, from Enterprise, a full $200.00 less than Hertz. We stayed the night in Raleigh, driving down to Jacksonville Sunday, the day of the baby shower and will spend one night on Sunday before flying home Monday,May 5th.

We are going to the commissary tomorrow to grocery shop. We didn't buy food on the plane and luckily the hotel had a microwave and a small "market" so we had frozen Lean Cuisines in our hotel room Saturday night, flying in at 10:53 EST. It was only 7:00 p.m. to us so dinner was not that late.

It is also nice to have a reality check and see what my daughter has for the baby. I am relieved almost that she has no sweaters yet since I have two different ones half made that will be perfect for the winter, at least I don't feel like I wasted the money on yarn, like I did a bunch of newborn onesies (she must have about 20 of them!).

Well practically found money... I was going through DH's business file to find some information I needed to update his CCR on line for a government contract. Anyway I found $125.00 worth of gift certificates for a local grocery store that we must have stuck in there since we buy them each year for both ourselves and our employees as Christmas bonuses. These were from December 2006. What a nice surprise!

Also I already finished Ally's first quilt, well the top anyway! I finished it up over the weekend:


My daughter also picked out the fabric for the next quilt and yesterday I purchased an additional piece of fabric for contrast, which is the white with polka dots.



I also picked out two pieces of fabric for little summery dresses for summer 2009. The patterns were purchased for 99 cents a piece, the Easter fabric was 60% off and the other piece was 40% off. The two pieces of fabric, one 2 yard piece and 1.375 yards were $10.52. Not dirt cheap, but cheap enough, plus it will fulfill my need to create.





Dinner tonight is leftover chicken/asparagus lasagna from Copykat.com and a mini-loaf of bread along with olive oil sauteed broccoli and orange bell pepper with a splash of garlic salt.

I am interested to see how long I can stretch the $125.00 in gift certificates.

Lastly, instead of paying for a beginning quilting class and hauling my machine out to the local adult ed class, I have committed to spending Wednesday evenings for two hours to sewing. I'm ready!

DH and I could not be more thrilled. After raising three daughters, a granddaughter is going to fit right in. It was all I could do not to run out and buy baby girl stuff. But I keep reminding myself baby Ally is going to be the first grandchild AND great-grandchild on both sides of the family.

I started knitting a white blanket (why did I pick such a hard pattern?) and I have plenty of fabric to make a couple of quilts.

I admit I did fill a pink basket and sent it off to North Carolina with a few items in it for baby, my daughter and my SIL, practical stuff actually. My daughter can't find the hair wax stuff she likes in North Carolina and SIL really likes a local restaurant's salad dressing, so I picked that up along with a bar of premium chocolate and some changing pads, one little outfit, a blanket, some receiving blankets and some pink hangers.

We are a little halfway through the month of March and I have $77.53 left in my $345.00 budget for food (groceries, alcohol, restaurants). We are making chicken cacciatore for Easter (weird I know, but my MIL was just diagnosed with congestive heart failure, so we have to make low sodium, ham and commercial turkeys are out). We are using tomato sauce that we made out of roasted tomatoes, garlic and basil from FIL's last year's garden, so hopefully I can stay under budget for the month. We have some chicken in the freezer, but may need to pick up another package of boneless thighs at Costco.

I budgeted $515.00 for utilities and spent $514.22. Pretty good estimating there...

Something seems wrong in the auto category, I show only a little over $100 for gas so far... did DH pay cash or charge to Renner (a card lock place). Must ask him when he gets home.

I dodged a bullet this month and talked DH out of going to Las Vegas. He received three free nights at the MGM because they screwed up his reservations last year at the convention he attends each year (every other year held in Las Vegas). Luckily they extended the gift certificate another year.

We will find out what DH's bonus is the last week of March, but there are many things it can be used for including landscaping at our rental home (needs to be done, it's neighborhood rules), fund Roth IRA, fund HSA for this year, or just save, save, save. Our home needs painting, but DH did it himself last time, he just is too worn out to do it himself he says.

We had a gift certificate to:
http://www.tututun.com/main.html

So we scheduled that and hopefully that will satisfy DH's need to get away. Owning a business, he has a hard time relaxing unless he is out of town (especially since he gets called all the time by employees).

All in all I just keep plugging away....

My husband brought me home two miniture calla lillies, one dark pink and one white with variegated green and white leaves, very nice (for May Day). My mother came by yeserday and really liked them (she is a gardening maniac).

So today I asked where DH got them. Safeway!

So tonight we ran down and got two each for my mother and his mother. They are $4.00 a piece so the total was $17.16 for our Mother's Day Gifts.

We then ran by our friend's house to drop off 1/2 of the bag of red potatoes DH bought from Costco and 3 large onions from the bag of onions. In return we got a pound of mozzarella cheese from our friends. We frequently trade bulk items we buy from Costco. This was sort of unplanned. We usually are more organized about it, but with me being gone up to OD's house for 10 days and my BF starting a new job we were a bit disorganized about it.

If you were getting sucked into the Round Table Pizza ads about the Artisan Prosciutto pizza... don't bother. We got a large for $14.99, which was $7.00 off and it was very bland. We rarely buy pizza and wish we hadn't!

17 days until we have an empty nest. In the meantime MD has arrived home to spend the time with her younger sister.

So food is going to be costing a bit more in those 17 days.

I have harvested lots of local apples and baking a lot of apple crisps!

I bought halloween candy for 75% off Long's Drug Store. Total of 126 bags for just over $100.00. It's the yummy stuff too like Snickers, Milky Way, Reese's.... All going to my SIL and friends in Iraq.

It's going to be interesting to see how low our food budget can get with just the two of us.

I feel like like is really starting over at almost 49 years old!

Seeing the movie The Wicker Man....DH's birthday is Wednesday so we decided to do something "fun". At least I took my own snacks.