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.

Yesterday was a no spend day finally. This morning started out with no half and half (a necessity in our house), so DH ran to expensive Safeway and bought a half gallon $3.79! It's way cheaper at Costco or Winco where we usually buy it.

After reading Diva Jen's latest blog entry, I think her idea of planned spending would work better for us. We don't buy a lot of food at once and it seems like we always need something. Town is 15 miles away and so DH does a lot of shopping for us.

Today our planned spending includes a new crockpot that happens to be on sale at the local department store with a 10% off coupon. For $29.99 (-10%) we will get a 5 quart, plus a little tiny crockpot free.

The lentil soup on Wednesday was not done after "cooking" all day so I think it is time. Having thought about it, I think our crockpot has got to be at least 15 years old!

I'm looking forward to some easy, yummy crockpot meals in the fall/winter.

I entered all the past 10 days of spending into Quicken. It will be interesting to see how the first month's spending will turn out. We did have several purchases this month that were unusual including new tires and radiator for our 89 Chevy truck, a new vacuum and now the crockpot.

Today is YD's birthday and she woke up with such swollen tonsils she was having real trouble. So off to the ER we go again. Thank goodness she has good insurance through her husband. Her two presriptions, steroids and pain pills were $3.00 each.

Spending:
08/21-
$1.00 coffee
$8.10 post office (mailed pkg to Iraq)
$44.51 Winco for groceries

08/22
$11.70 to Walgreens for a big bottle of Advil Migraine.
$3.21 to local movie rental for 3 movies for sick YD.

08/23
$19.70 to Safewday

Today:
$9.50 for cake for YD (What happened to me baking cakes??)
$32.00 carry out Chinese food (what YD wanted and let's face it she is sick as a dog so whatever she will eat, we'll get).

Advil Migraine Geltabs are expensive, but they really do work better than anything else I have tried and FAST!

Plenty of leftover take-out for lunch tomorrow. DH ate his carnitas that he brought home from hunting since he didn't want it to go to waste.

DH made lentil soup in the crockpot yesterday, unfortunately it did not cook all the way through, even though part of the day it was on high. It was definitely hot, but not hot enough to cook so I guess this means I need a new one.

Local dept store has a big one with matching little one on sale for $29.99. May end up getting that tomorrow when I take YD in to town for yet another doctor's appointment. Her pediatrician office kicked her out when she got married. Then came the ER visits and she needed followup liver tests, etc since they were elevated from the mono.

I guess I better make a list of errands to run in town since I don't go that often.

We ended up spending Saturday afternoon in the emergency room with YD who turns out to have mononucleosis of all things. That ends her soccer season and brings into question her semester of college starting in another week.

Luckily she is covered with military insurance now so the ER didn't cost us anything, but DH ran to get her a bagel during the ordeal and then stopped to get her a sandwich on the way home since we were going to our high school reunion.

We spent $30.00 on drinks at the open bar and had a good time catching up with old friends. I went to the reunion breakfast this morning that was $11.00. DH got up at 5:00 to go back up into the mountains to hunt.

I worked all afternoon and fried zucchini from mom's garden and had leftover chicken thighs DH brought home from his first few days out hunting.

So total for the weekend: %54.50 plus whatever DH's gas fill-up was.

With my high school reunion tonight I have been on the lookout for something to make my hair look thicker.

I was at a salon and found Nioxin Niogel "for fine and thin looking hair" in the clearance bowl of stuff.

I tried it out this morning and it STINKS! I don't think I have ever smelled any hair stuff so stinky other than T-gel shampoo maybe. I paid $5.00 for it. I wonder how much it really costs?? I have to admit it did fluff up my hair pretty well though.

Okay I have a hair appt for a trim. I work hard to get my work done before I run into town.

I stop work at 3:00, get ready to go, stop and pick up my paycheck and pick up a coffee. I get to the hair salon about 15 minutes early for my 4:30 appt. Well no my appointment was at 9:30, not 4:30. I wanted to cry. This is the second time I have missed my appointment becaus

Okay I have a hair appt for a trim. I work hard to get my work done before I run into town.

I stop work at 3:00, get ready to go, stop and pick up my paycheck and pick up a coffee. I get to the hair salon about 15 minutes early for my 4:30 appt. Well no my appointment was at 9:30, not 4:30. I wanted to cry. This is the second time I have missed my appointment because I didn't have the correct time. In this case I think my 9:30 looked like 4:30 to me!! I swear my hairdresser is going to fire me.

So I am desperate and run down to Master Cuts at the mail. It takes the young hairesser about 3 minutes to trim my very thin hair. How much I ask?? She says $5.00. I gave her a $9.00, a $5.00 bill and 4 $1.00 bills.

Then I go get Nexus shampoo, then onto Costco where I purchased a new vacuum cleaner and two of their chicken cesaer salads. Oh and picked up my first Costo downloaded photos. We downloaded a picture of YD and new husband made into wallet sizes to put into their thank you cards.

I totaled my 1/2 month purchases and am a little shocked!

Groceries $263.72!
Eating out $31.39
Car expenses $963.33!!! 4 new tires for truck, air conditioning fixed in YD's car.
Personal care $69.00 (Bare Essentuals)
Household $54.50 (pets and miscellaneous)
Movies $15.00 (Not going to do that again anytime soon.)

Anyway today's spending certainly didn't help the end of the month totals!

Oh well, this is why I stared writing things down to see where it all went. I guess I'm finding out!

After two no spend days, I needed to go to the grocery store.

YD has not been feeling well so I wanted to make something she would like for dinner and I decided on tortolini soup.

All I needed was the tortolini and spinach. I also purchased 3 bananas, and Safeway croutons that were 2/$3.00.

So spending today;
Safeway $13.45
Dollar Store $8.07
Video Store $3.22

Our locally owned video store offers older movies 3 for $3.00, 4 for $4.00, etc. I picked up three movies I knew my husband would not enjoy since he is gone hunting.

I went to the Dollar Store to pick up a couple of birthday cards and ended up finding three new toys for my dog and a couple of nice picture frames.

I am surprised I have only had two no spend days this month. Between myself and my husband we have spent money every day except August 15 and 16 and that is probably because DH is up in the mountains somewhere!

This was my fourth day of a headache, from migraine to nagging. Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up with no head pain.

Well I've been opening my big mouth replying to everyone else's blogs. So I guess it's time to start my own.

First of all I want to thank everyone who participates in the blogs and forums. The blogs are very helpful in keeping me on track and giving me new ideas to save money.

My original reason for wanting to start the blog is to keep track of my spending.

DH and I are at life crossroads with our last little moocher moving out in December across the country from California to North Carolina to set up housekeeping and wait for her DH to come home from Iraq. We are moving her as soon as her college semester is over so she can start the Spring semester in NC.

The last year has been an expensive one for us buying a house with OD, loaning MD $15,000 to buy a house and paying for YD's wedding that we had 13 days to plan!!

My husband and I are both self-employed. It's easy to work too much because I get paid by what I produce (medical transcription).

My goals are to be more organized with finances (and life in general) and actually have dinner ready when DH gets home once in a while.

It goes without saying, I want to get the most for my money based on my values and our "codependent" family's needs.