It took a little while, but I sorted through the books that sis gave me and listed what I could on half.com. Apparently, the books you buy through Scholastic promotions in the school have a different ISBN that doesn't allow them to be resold. (I have a ton of them at home, too. I guess they'll be garage sale or donation material when the kids outgrow them). So anyway, I was able to list 32 books, and couldn't list about a dozen. My plan is to leave the dozen down where the kids can reach them, then put the others one shelf higher. That way, if they want to read them (or have me read it to them) I can keep track of it and put it back on the shelf where I can find it if it sells. I'm so inspired that I'm going to go through the rest of the books in the house and add them to the list. I'll keep out the absolute favorites that we read all of the time. For the rest, it's worth it to put them out there and if they sell, they sell. I'm not sure why I'm so excited, because the average listing price is about $1.25 each, but at least I feel like I'm doing something, and even $1.25 would be better than nothing!

That made up for a little disappointment I had today. My credit card cycle closed on June 3rd, so I was able to tally up my June totals for stuff like groceries, gas, etc. that I charge each month. Over the first 6 months of the year, I averaged about $550/month for groceries and $305/month for gas. I feel like I should be able to knock 20% off both of those categories, but obviously haven't, despite paying a bit more attention to my finances since February. The gas total, though incredible, doesn't bother me so much, because I do the whole EBAY gas gift card thing when I can, and it's not like we drive for fun. It's pretty much work, school, and home. The grocery bill really bums me out. Some months it's great, some months it's terrible. My goal (which seems laughable now) is $75/week, or $300/month. After stewing over this all day, I think I need a two-pronged approach: limit my groceries to $75/week, period, despite "great sales", or all the stuff the kids want, etc., second, rework my menus when we have company come over. I've got to search some of the frugal sites to check out good, company-acceptable recipes that won't kill our budget.

So that's the deal. I'm home tomorrow. Grocery shopping (ironically) but I'm shooting for $50 because 1) I'm mad now and 2) with hubby travelling all week, we're kind of cleaning out the pantry/fridge. We'll see how it goes...