Homebody Getting Back to My Roots

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.

Anyone know? I still have her frugal gardening site in my favorites, but there has been nothing since October 2007 posted and nothing here.

Settling back into life. Made a huge casserole (will we ever be able to NOT make a huge casserole) with pasta, the last of the homemade tomato sauce from FIL's garden last year, nonfat ricotta and low fat mozzareela and some leftover roasted veges along with turkey italian sausage. I ended up giving a bunch to my mother. So it ended up being two dinners for DH and I and 2 lunches for me.

Today I am making a crockpot dish from the crockpot365.blogspot site. Mongolian beef. I am using the linked recipe since I did have Hoison sauce in the frig.

DH is being very cooperative with my frugal/healthy cooking (well okay healthy for us). I am making a brown rice pilaf to go with the beef and steamed cauliflower. I made nonfat milk instant choco pudding last night so we will have that for dessert.

I cut up a small watermelon for snacking, but need to run to the store today to get lunch meat for DH's lunch. He normally eats out lunch every day so this is a huge change for him. Safeway is running their deli meat in California for $4.99 a pounds, well a few of them anyway including turkey, which is what I will be purchasing.

Payroll work is finished for the day, the front is watered, dinner is in the crockpot, time to get back up and start cleaning. Being gone for 6 weeks means dusting and mopping are needed desperately even though DH did pretty good on keeping up with house pick up and sweeping doggy hair.

Beautiful sunny Northern Coastal California day!

Okay one of the biggest events of life has happened, we enjoyed it (probably a little too much) and it's time to get back to financial reality.

I spent 6 weeks in North Carolina enjoying my new granddaughter and spending way too much money (rented a house on the sound side and another on the beach side of the outer banks, rented a car, tried to economize on food, but did eat out some.


The sunsets in North Carolina were beautiful.


DH flew out twice because he was convinved the baby was going to come early so he had to fly home and then back a week later. Okay he didn't HAVE to, but how could he miss the birth of his first grandchild?



Our older daughters came to. It was wonderful. Yes it's true, this 6 day old baby girl smiled responsively.



The first thing I did when I got home was download and balance our checking accounts and AMEX account. I paid all our bills on line. DH would call and tell me what had come in the mail. He is worthless on a computer, so that was the easiest.

Next thing... clean the master bathroom. Nothing further needs to be said. Luckily DH is deer hunting so I have 5 days to reoriente myself to Pacific Standard Time. I woke up the at 4:30 this morning, which was better than the 3:30 a.m. the day before. Trying to stay up past 8:00 p.m. is tonight's challenge.

So for the rest of the year... no spending, well except for Walgreen's for photos. If you order online by tonight and put "half" in the coupon code box, your photos are half price, but you must spend at least $10.00. I had over 200 photos to print.

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!).

of California... over 70 degrees today. And what was I doing? Running errands in town. Went to lunch with DH, took a thank you gift (brownie bites from Costco) to DH's insurance agent who helped me get his Cal-Osha Injury Prevention Plan done.

Then I went to the fabric store to find something to make latest Ally quilt more girly. I found some lavender flannel gingham to put in between the rows. I used a 50% off coupon to get the backing for the quilt in the last post. I am spluring and having that quilt professionally quilted by a fabulous artist who uses a machine, but she is very good with the machine!



Tomorrow is a sock knitting class I plan to go to, but in the meantime, we have a dinner invite at our neighbor's house.

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!

Today is the last day to open an Ameritrade account and get your bonus $100.00 after a year with minimum $50.00 deposit each month. I am still trying to decide whether to do it. I am considering actually opening them for my three daughters too. That would be $200.00 a month. It would be Christmas presents for them, which is a little more than I normally spend for them, but it might be a good idea to encourage them to save.

Mmmmmm what to do, what to do? All three already have accounts at ING.

I got this recipe from: http://freezerchicks.blogspot.com/

French Toast Casserole
1 pound load of Italian breast
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar, divided
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans, optional
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Cut bread into cubes. Place half in greased 9 x 13 pan. Microwave the cream cheese until melted, stirring halfway (about 30 seconds). Stir in half of the sugar and the extract into the cream cheese. Pour this mixture over the bread (will not cover completely, sort of spread it around with the back of a spoon). Sprinkle nuts over cream cheese layer. Top with remaining bread cubes.

Beat the remaining sugar, eggs, milk, cinnamon and melted butter together. Pour over bread cubes. Freeze at this point or let sit overnight in fridge. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Serve with syrup or fruit.

NOTE from Janet: I use any type of bread I have on hand for these recipes and they always turn out great. If I have frozen them, I just take them out of the freezer the night before and put it the oven on time bake. Then they get their thawing and soaking time.

NOTE from Me/Homebody: I found whipped cream yummy on top of this. I made it for Christmas 2007 for the first time and my family really liked it. This second time I didn't add the sugar in the milk/egg mixture and did not add the butter either and there were no complaints, so it must have been okay!

First it was the freezer, then Friday morning I had a french toast casserole that had sat in the refrigerator overnight. I turned the oven on, stuck the casserole in, turned on the timer for 30 minutes and went back to work. 30 minutes later.... the oven is still cold. Great! Luckily it worked the night before when I made swiss steak and a batch of healthy not fat oatmeal cookies.

I passed off the casserole to a friend who doesn't like to cook and who's two older kids are home from college this week. They called this morning to say thank you.

In the meantime, with trying to regain my lost skills, I dug out a half made quilt, set up my ironing board, turned on my iron, waited a few minutes and started to iron the slightly wrinkled quilt squares to get started on the borders. Well my iron starts spitting out some gritty stuff while water came dripping out the bottom!

Great, so that's the freezer, the oven and now my iron all in one week. I hope that's it for a while.

After reviewing irons at Amazon and a couple of other places, apparently all irons need to be replaced 4-5 years as they all start this "spitting out water" problem. Ugh.

DH called from Costco, they no longer have the Rowenta we saw there, but a Sharp Steamer. My MIL volunteered to go get the Rowenta that is on sale at Joann Fabrics and DH will pick up on his way home.

Okay at least I don't have to go into town today! But I do guess I have to clean house and do laundry instead of sew until DH gets home from work!

Oh and the repair man will be here Monday between 8-12 to see if the oven can be repaired. I really didn't want to buy another oven until we remodel our kitchen. Our cooktop and oven are separate. We just dodged getting a new cooktop when DH took a paper clip (unwound) to the place the gas comes out. Now our cooktop works better than it has in a long time.

Our hand me down freezer is having trouble staying shut so DH hooked up a bungee cord to the door. So today we went hunting for a new freezer. It is just the two of us so we are thinking a smaller freezer, but ours is stuffed full!

Fortunately or unfortunately while walking through Sears I noticed a 70% off sign above a rack of baby girl clothes.
I bought four items:
A cute red corduroy long sleeved dress with little scottie dogs on it for $4.97.
A long sleeved snap crotch red turtleneck with embroidered hearts on the turtleneck for $1.97.
A cute little pink playsuit with pink ballerina shoes appliqued with "baby ballerina" embroided on it for $3.97.
Total with tax $10.35.

Then I went to Borders to buy a book for my great-nephew who is turning 1. I knew what I wanted, a book named "I Am A Bunny".

Of course when I walked in there were a bunch of children's books cheap. I ended up getting two for great-nephew and 4 for Ally Ayn, all for just over $23.00.

Okay the key to not spending money is Don't Go Shopping!

First I want to say thank you for all the well wishes on Baby Ally.

Which brings me to today's post. I learned to knit when I was 10 and sew when I was 14 or so. My skills progressed so that I made all my nieces and nephews who were born before my own children sweaters. I made so many of my own clothes as a teenager and my DH's flannel button down shirts when we were first married.

I hand smocked and made my oldest daughter's first Christmas dress and then later a smocked pinafore dress for daughter #2 another Christmas, with another cute dress for daughter #1. By the time daughter #3 came along, I did manage to crochet her a blanket and that was it. So through the past 20+ years I made one halloween costume for YD when she was about 10 and made a few quilts, but have not quilted even for a few years.

So I had some time today after meeting with our tax accountant, dropping off K-1's and decided to run into town to look at patterns and fabrics. I went in with high hopes and came out so depressed. I feel like I am starting over again. I look at fabric and can't picture the actual item (like I used to). I'm not sure which sized pattern to buy. I feel like I don't know anything!

I made buttonholes, I lined vests and made cuffs.... what happened to me??

So I'm going to stop sniffling and start easy, just start getting to know my sewing machine. I bought it after 9/11 and my oldest daughter has probably had it more than me because she started quilting and had so many coworkers and friends having babies.

There is so much I want to make and do and I feel totally incapable at this point....

So back to my plan...I want to try and sew something every day, just a straight line, change up the stitching, whatever.. just familiarize myself again and see if I have anything left in me.

How could I have let myself lose the skills I had?? sniff, sniff....

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....

Occasionally I have little "mini-nervous breakdowns" about the disorganization in my house. So my latest one involved not being able to find a library book, but somehow it led me to cleaning out our pantry. I was amazed at the amount of food we had that was past it's due date. We must have had 30 cans of chili that we don't remember buying and it's so old there is no date on it. We also 20 cans of tuna dated 07/2007 and a bunch of other assorted stuff. I felt terrible throwing it away, so I called the local St. Vincent de Paul dining facility. They were happy to take it all.

The intake person asked if we wanted a receipt. DH automatically said "No". I said, "Oh yes we do!" Guess who pays the bills in our house, sees the tax accountant each year and has a file to put all tax related items... yeah me that's who!

So now I am really ready to stay organized, rotate the food in the pantry and get all that stuff in the freezer eaten!

What is it about getting a rebate check that makes one spend money or is it just me? I was getting ready to go to town Saturday when I spied the mailman. I had just viewed our Amex statement on line and thought maybe we would get our rebate. We did and I had the nicest fantasy that the $171.00 plus change would be all I spent that day. HA!

Add in the new coupon book and disaster strikes! We ended up spending $334.46 subtract the 171.59 and we ended up spending $162.87. Okay I admit I bought a bag of dahlia bulbs and DH bought his "blue tooth" with a $10.00 off coupon for his cell phone. The law goes into effect in July here in California that your cell phone in the car must be "hands-free" for the driver anyway.

I also purchased cigarettes for BF's son who I was packing a care package for, along with jerky and Crystal Light individual little thingees for your water.

Zip lock bags, laundry soap, DH's deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc, etc. Some of this stuff will last more than six months so I am trying to keep it in perspective that we will save money over the long run.

February was expensive for us, spending almost $1500 over our usual budget for new work boots, a garmin navigator for both MD and us (MD's Christmas and birthday present). Dog toys, Advantage, cell phone over $200.00 in extra minutes since I was out of town for 8 days and used it constantly to talk to DH (stupid, stupid, stupid), shipping two boxes to North Carolina....

Anyway, glad it's over and on to a fresh new month.

November came and went, traveling to Reno for Thanksgiving... then my 50th birtday with a surprise party that DH planned along with the surprise of YD and SIL arriving a week early for the party.... with the best surprise of all. DH and I are going to be grandparents to an actual baby, not another puppy or kitten!

YD and SIL were here a whole month, then MD went to visit them in North Carolina and I traveled back to Reno to dog sit. I came back to the North Coast after eight days of loneliness and isolation with snow all around. I now understand Jack Nicholson downward spiral in The Shining....

The dogs finally left and life is getting back to normal. I have taken over in the past week food. DH is having withdrawal and wants to know every day if I have dinner planned and what are we having.

I upgraded my YNAB to YNAB Pro and I am really liking it.

I have this in the oven right now made from a butternut squash we grew in our garden last summer. I think we have about 4 left:
[url]http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_23521,00.html

As boring as my blog may be, I hope someone gets something out of it. I want to thank everyone who talked about reading and the library. I have become an avid reader again after about a 20 year drought. I go to the library and get 7-8 books at a time and just devour them. No more TV in bed for me! DH still watches, but I am able to tune it out and lose myself in a good book.

So thank you library fans!

I have not posted in months. Life definitely has gotten in the way.

Our house in Oregon did not sell, but we luckily rented it to a local family who has two boys going to the college my daughter went to.

I have taken a trip back to North Carolina, and DH and I sat down and actually made some written goals.

One of those goals was to not waste so much time on the internet and keep my nose to the grindstone during work day, which I have been doing!

I have continued to read the blogs as much as I can and something that struck me was people talking about blackberries. Here in Northern California, I actually picked more today, but only about two cups. The apples are ripening… it’s Halloween.

I finally feel like I am really getting back to my frugal roots. We have been using up every bit of food we buy and I have at least 12 frozen lunches from leftovers. One of our written goals…

Another was to each get $100.00 allowance each month to spend on whatever we wanted. I bought garden stuff, seeds, lettuce and leeks and some Dr. Earth fertilizer. I still have around $40.00 left. Yesterday I considered asking DH if he wanted to go to a late afternoon movie, then I looked in the newspaper and saw absolutely nothing I was interested in. Good thing as DH could not get away from work.

We had a very tiny garden for the first time in like 20 years (I’m telling you my kids sucked the energy out of us)…



We had a butternut squash, crookneck squash, zucchini squash and assorted herbs. My lettuce and leeks are coming up nicely in Supersoil (the gardening store said it’s the best for starting seeds) and I will transplant them when we finally yank out the squash plants. We actually picked a zucchini over the weekend and the butternut still has a few squash on it growing. The yellow crook neck was pulled already. Some of the herbs are still growing too. I can’t wait for next year. On the flower front, I went over and took 12 cuttings from mom’s perennials and planted in little clay pots to put into the ground next spring. I also took seeds from my assorted annuals (purchased in a complete idiotic spur of the moment in a roll base from QVC like this
http://instantflowergarden.com/

I still have some roll to use next year, but dried all the little seeds and put in little plastic storage containers I found at the Dollar Store. I am also going to plan on planting tomatoes in 5 gallon black plastic containers. I saw someone at the garden store who did that this year and got lots of tomatoes (it’s a little cool here really for tomatoes). The South side of my house will be the perfect no wind, sunny area for them. I can’t wait for next year.

So after a summer, early fall of spending more than I would have liked, we have tightened up the belt, and it feels really good!

Don't carry large amounts of cash. I lost a hundred dollar bill in July. First I tried to leave it as a tip along with three one's. DH found it before we left the table when I happened to check my cash situation. 4 days later it was missing and I have no idea where it went.

I have been MIA, busy with the summer and visitors. Hope everyone is doing well.

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.

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!

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.

Happy Memorial Day and thanks to Ima’s dad and all our dad’s or granddads, moms or grandmothers, brothers and sisters, husband and wives, sons and daughters, and in my case son-in-law. All those who have fought for our country.



These pictures were taken by my youngest daughter in North Carolina.

My brother, his Russian born wife (who became a US citizen last month) and their 7 year old son came down for their annual Memorial Day visit.

I started Friday out by taking a test for a position as an airport screener. It was very difficult and I was sure I completely flunked, but when I got home (1.5 hours from test site here in rural Northern California), there was an e-mail saying I had passed. I applied over a year ago and was surprised to hear from them. I guess feeling inspired by Ray and Sharon, I decided to go for it. Waiting to hear what the next step is. I live about 2.5 miles from the local airport so that would be great to get a job there with full federal benefits. But I am also happy working at home and so either way I am fine. There are advantages to both.

So with my brother and family, DH and I went to a local gem and mineral shop/museum that we had not been to since our girls were young. Very interesting, we had forgotten how much so. We yearned for a beautiful large landscaping rock from Brazil, can’t remember the name, but it was blue and white… $3.00 a pound, 45 pounds… ouch, no can do…. First we went to lunch and brother paid (we had made dinner for them the night before, carnitas, fresh pico de gaio, fresh guacamole, etc)… after we were done at the rock place, we went to the South Jetty of the bay and wandered around. It was windy, but the native plants were all in bloom and SIL is very interested in gardening, so she was taking many pictures. Then we stopped at a local nursery where brother bought my mother (who also loves to garden) some new plants since she lost some in our unexpected hard freeze this year.

Today was beautiful, not much wind early and we were at the beach by 9:15 a.m. with the dogs. They had a blast with Lola rolling in some undesirable stuff, which caused them both to get their second bath of the week. Then DH and worked outside in the yard. We marinated chicken (that DH thinks was a bit past the date they should have been kept frozen) in Soy Vey Teriyaki , DH made a dish with pasta, Classico roasted red pepper sauce, a little wine and some cheese he bought at Costco. The cheese was mozzarella rolled with basil and prosciutto. He also roasted cauliflower with a little olive oil and garlic. The chicken was very subtle because we used the last of the teriyaki sauce and there was not the usual amount for 6 pieces of chicken.

We don’t have Walmart or Home Depot, so on Friday when I drove the 1.5 to my test, it was in a town with both. I got there early so I could go shop. I didn’t buy anything at Home Depot, but got some good gardening/landscaping ideas. I did stock up on some stuff at Walmart and found some $2.00 a yard very cute bright flannel to make a baby quilt for YD’s best friend due next month.

It was difficult not to buy more yarn, but stopped myself. Oh and the Venus disposable razors are cheaper than the refills of just the cartridges. Why is that I wonder? I was a bit hungry at Walmart and I was due to take the test so I bought some Quaker Mini-Delights buttered popcorn flavor. They are horrible. I couldn’t even eat one little package. Thank goodness I also bought a big jar of peanuts for $3.97! Another mistake was I wanted some of that Jergen’s face moisturizer that also gives you a fake tan. It is making me break out and I’m almost 50! Oh well with three daughters, one of them will be able to use it.

Yesterday we went to see the movie "Fracture" at the matinee after my brother had gone home to Washington State. We decided to see that instead of Pirates (since it was almost 3 hours long). That is the only money we spent this weekend...$11.25.

All in all a satisfying four days! Hope yours was too.

Another check arrived in the mail. This was the smallest so far, only $8.50, but it has my husband's little Honda 90 as the vehicle. We generally only insure it 3 months out of the year during hunting season.

So I will add this to the challenge:
$830.25
8.50
838.75 new total.

Okay today I cashed the State Farm check and 3 checks totalling $90.00, rebates from Verizon for signing up for cell phone service. This was in addition to the rebates I already received.

The other day I was looking for knitting books at local secondhand stores for babies. I found one for $16.00, so I figured I would go home and look on Amazon. So here are all these books in Amazon, but what kind of patterns do they have in them??

Then it hit me, the County Library! Thanks Thrifty Ray, you whole post about the library in your area must have been hanging in my mind somewhere...

Our county library had a ton of knitting books. I promptly went to the branch in the next town the next day and checked out one, along with a quilts for kids book, and pottery barn home office book, etc.

So today on the way to the next town over that has our bank and the library where I checked out the books, I stopped at our local office store and copied out of the books the patterns I was interested in. I copied two baby sweaters and 4 baby quilt patterns. It cost $1.66 for all the pages. So considering this, I am throwing in another $15.00 into the challenge because this is definitely a new thought on how to save money for me.

I still have not gone to the main branch yet to see what they have, but did put one book on hold by Debbie Bliss who has a bunch of baby knit books.

We really have a very good library system here in Humboldt and it has been severely underused by yours truly, but I plan to change that.

So I went to the bank and then to the library, then I put the $30.00 in the gas tank!

Also over the weekend my sister brought me a pair of Liz Claiborne jeans that were too big for her (did I mention I started Weight Watchers because my 8 year older sister looks younger than me!). The jeans would have cost at least $30.00 so I am adding that too. Oh may I say they are a bit stretchy and quite comfortable even though a bit small.

Unfortunately it cost DH over $70.00 to fill his truck today at $3.39 a gallon and I put in $30.00 to my old van at $3.59 a gallon, both today.


662.25
112.00 rebate checks
11.00 DH gave to me tips from work.
15.00 for using library.
30.00 new to me Liz Claiborne jeans.
830.25 New Total

I received a second check today for $22.00. At the top it says 1994 Plymouth Voyager. I think the last one said 1989 Chevrolet.

So maybe you will get another check if you have more than one car insured.

My older (by eight years) sister came this weekend to visit her daughter and our mother and me. She looked great. She has lost 15 pounds since the beginning of the year on Weight Watchers. Great motivator for me! I swear she looked younger than me too!

So today I started Weight Watchers. DH picked up our side of beef Friday and tonight will be hamburgers and salad.

Work is busy so I am back at it.

Mother’s Day Weekend…. Waaah, I miss my daughters all being together at home.

It’s been a busy financial week starting with 3 more rebate checks in the mail from Verizon for a total of $90.00. Instead of putting it towards the challenge, we used it to buy plants for our yard and a new hose. DH spent last weekend planting including a half wine barrel herb garden. The seed mat is sprouting today after having two incredibly beautiful days, followed by three gray cool days here on the North Coast of California and I have a beautiful red hanging geranium outside my kitchen window.

My middle daughter is here visiting with her two dogs and have been here all week, makes for a pretty crazy house, two little 4 year old terriers and two big mixed breeds that are barely over a year old. They don’t know whether to play or fight!

Yesterday I went over MD’s budget with her, giving her a clearer picture of where she stands. She is self-employed like me (same job actually) and does well, but is much clearer about putting away for retirement and how much she has to spend on “extras”. She is very open to our discussions and I LOVE having them! Let’s face it, I love giving my kids financial guidance! I just would hate to see them make the same mistakes their dad and I have made.

Today I did a spreadsheet for myself (my first attempt), itemizing out my monthly gross earnings, deducting insurance, then taking out the appropriate percentage for taxes (40%) and retirement (20%), leaving me a VERY clear picture of my monthly net earnings.

I was able to talk DH about of going out to dinner Tuesday. We were both tired, but went in and cooked up some leftovers together. I had a “burrito” made with leftover tri-tip from Sunday and DH had leftover sausage from Sunday breakfast with some scrambled eggs.

DH is also humoring me in an attempt to use less paper towels. I got a plastic dishpan full of older “flour sack” dishtowels to use for wiping up spills and cleaning. I put them in the cabinet right next to the sink while held our toaster, so I moved that. We rarely use our toaster anymore. I have been doing really well cooking during the week with DH continuing to cook on weekends.

Unfortunately I did receive notice today of State Income Tax Due. I have been trying to call them. The check I sent them did not clear when my Federal check did and I called them. They told me not to worry, sometimes it takes up to 8 weeks for a check to clear. Then today I get this notice of owing $934.54. In the meantime, the check I wrote to the state did clear, but I have a hard time thinking my accountant made this big of an error on our returns. So I am not going to panic until I talk to them. Talked to them, it’s okay, they see the payment, mix up because accountant originally e-filed, but Federal rejected, so we mailed copies of both returns, but should have only mailed Fed.

DH is bringing home a side of beef he bought at the local university sports auction. Every year he gets something interesting…It is grass fed, raised and donated by a local family. I have not eaten much grass fed beef, actually have I ever? So hopefully it will be good. It’s home, we crammed it in the freezer, no eating out for a year!!

Middle daughter arranged a Father and Daughter day June 10th, with us all meeting in San Francisco with my husband and daughters all going to a Giants game. My husband has taken the girls several times over the years. Our youngest daughter will be coming home for two weeks during that time from North Carolina. Oldest daughter is flying down and back to Oregon in the same day so we will all be together. Well they will all be together at the game and dinner later. I will be back at the hotel, probably working!!

This is my first mother’s day as also a mother-in-law to a wonderful son-in-law.



I want to take the opportunity to say Happy Mother’s Day to all of us and to everyone’s mothers. I hope we all have a wonderful day!

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.

Thanks to whoever posted the note about the State Farm rebate. I received mine today!

636.18
18.30 Rebate Check from State Farm.
7.77 Savings from jeans I didn't know were on sale at Walmart when I took them to the check register.

662.25 New Challenge Total


Today is a no spend day, eating up the veges in the bin and thawing a couple of chicken breasts for dinner.

Monthly totals are pretty good, went over a bit in a couple of categories, but not bad all things considered.

PG&E $124.51, down from $171.16 last month.
Gasoline $420.72 (-20.72) overbudget, but DH did drive up to Oregon twice to OD's.
Groceries $294.17 (budget $300.00)

Pet (Landon) $136.40 (budet $200.00) for yearly visit and usual food/toys/grooming.

Household spending was a bit high because of carpet cleaning and the new sheets that were actually paid for with a rebate check $260.00.

The closest catetory:
Hobbies budget $10.00, spent $9.79 (under 21 cents!).

We received our Costco rebate a couple of weeks ago. We wandered around Costo trying to figure out what to buy, just like when we got the Gottschalk's rebate. We toyed with the idea of splitting it. DH ended up getting Turf Builder, some lettuce, a new set of sheets, I can't remember what else. I was going to buy a book and couldn't bring myself to pay even the Costco price for a new book. I knew I had some at home to read.

Then the other day DH called and said I received $2.00 in the mail for a survey. Later that evening, the survey people called, DH had given them OD's phone number and I answered questions on my asthma.

So new totals:
$525.49
108.59 Costco Rebate
2.00 Asthma survey

New Total: $636.18


My payroll work is done for the day so I am going to go work on the yard here at OD's. Then the bathrooms need to be cleaned, rugs washed and vacuuming done with a little Febreze on the furniture and we are close to ready for people to look.

One nice thing, with OD getting rid of stuff, she gave me a pair of DKNY active wear shoes that I love and are very comfortable. She bought them to walk in the snow?? I also got a couple of quilting books, leftover fabrics and a baby scrapbook she bought because it was so cheap! I am sending the scrapbook along with a quilt OD has made to my sister for her new first grandchild (a boy).

DH has decided Saturday is better so I will definitely be running low on coffee and filters by the time he gets here. Lentil soup for dinner tonight. I ate tacos three nights in a row!

I need to take the dogs for a walk too down to the mail and see if my phone charger and Sunday's Sopranos episode is there. DH mailed them to me on Monday.

We don't have a Walmart in our rural California County so I usually try to go when I am near once, especially since I have been buying my every day jeans there for over 5 years. Today OD made me buy some "boot cut" since she wants me to be a little more "hip". I also bought 3 new short sleeved T-shirts.

So I am checking out, bought a few groceries, ingredients for lentil soup for tomorrow and up rings $3.00 for the jeans! I asked the clerk to check the price, she pulled them out and sure enough they rang up again $3.00!

That was a nice surprise.

We got lots of progress made today boxing up garage sale items, donations of some clothes and plain old throw away stuff. DH has decided to drive up Thursday after work and we will drive home Friday morning. That also gives OD and I a deadline, which is good.

Last night DH and I paid the bills over the phone. Thank goodness I was completely organized with bills to be paid on the left side of a red folder sitting on my desk and paid bills for the quarter on the right side. I pulled up the bank's web site and DH told me what to pay. That's the closest we have come to paying bills together for a very, very long time.

We made it through April's bill paying and tax payment and quarterly deposits without having to transfer any money.... but then my mortgage is deducted automatically from my ING savings on the first day of each month. I usually transfer the mortgage payment plus some into the savings each month. This month I was unable to, so it's not like I didn't need a little savings....rats!

We also ordered the glass shower door for OD's house that brought me here in the first place. It was kind of funny, we ordered brushed nickel with glass we liked and the price was $500.00 or so. Uh... we are selling the house, how cheap can we get one? Chrome and "rain" glass at $271.00. Um yeah, let's go with that!