When we had the bathroom flood last October, I had to clean out my closet. I bagged up a bunch of fall/winter suits and skirts that I never thought I'd fit into again. The bag of clothes sat in my son's room since then. I forgot about it and assumed it was a bag of kids' clothes. When I finally went to throw it out, I saw what it was. Some of them fit and the others were close. Yahoo! Saves money on the clothing budget...which was promptly spent on a dress for DD's communion. But I already have another event to wear it to, so I feel better about it.

All else is going well. I've been pretty busy later, but things should lighten up considerably once the Communion is done.

I'm cruising along until the end of the month.

The basement has been cleaned up. Bags and bags of junk have been thrown out, with still more to go. We're spreading it out over a few weeks, because we don't know how much the garbage men will take at one time.

Turns out the insurance will not cover ground water. The agent said it's an exclusion on all of their policies...you can't even buy a rider for it. I'm not sure what the final damage will be, but I'm estimating it to be in the $2000 range. Fortunately, hubby had some company stock that we were planning on selling anyway, which just about covers it.

We'll definitely be able to pay off the HELOC (~$6300) using hubby's bonus, so that'll be great. We're waiting until the very end of the month, though, to make sure everything else is paid.

Bought DD's shoes for her Communion. Gotta love Payless. Buy one get one 1/2 off (I bought DS dress shoes too), and got DD a new pair of sandals for the summer for $27. I thought that was a pretty good deal...

I'll be home tomorrow, so I'm hoping to get a few errands run. We'll see how it goes.

In case you haven't heard, Northern NJ was hit with a big Nor'Easter this weekend. The result of 6.5" of rain on an already saturated ground? 5 inches of water in my basement and a broken hot water heater . Fortunately (or unfortunately for us) we've had 2 other water-related emergencies in the past 6 months (bathroom pipe burst and water softener leaked). So the company we used to clean up those messes bumped us up the list and came over Monday to suck up the water. The heating guy came today to replace the hot water heater. All else in the basement (boiler, washer, dryer, fridge and freezer) appear to have made it out ok. (Thank goodness).

Next step is to call the insurance company. I'm not sure if we have flood insurance or what would be covered. And I'm sure everyone in my area is calling them, too, because the wait times have been crazy. Always an adventure.

Good news is that hubby's bonus came through and it was on the high end of what we thought. Bad news is that a chunck of it will now go to pay the bills associated with this flood. At least we have it. Other good news is that at least our entire house/cars aren't under water like many in our area who needed to be evacuated. Also, hubby's been complaining about how we haven't cleaned out the basement and it was such a mess. Not anymore!

In other news, taxes are done and filed. (I read today that the IRS gave people affected by the storm an extra 2 days to file, but I submitted mine Sunday night so I didn't need the extension)!

With all that behind me, the next big thing is DD's 1st Communion. I need to get her shoes and tights, and arrange for pictures.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I think that once the Communion is behind us, things should settle down quite a bit.

And a shoutout to the weight loss challenge: Still down 8 pounds, and just bought 2 new pairs of pants one size less than what I've been wearing, thank you very much. On to the treadmill!

Whew! Just finished them, using Turbo Tax. The net result is an outflow of about $2000, which is significantly better than the $7000 from last year. I'll have to up the estimated taxes a bit more.

The upside of procastination is that TurboTax has been free for the last week or so. I have to fill out Federal and 2 states (NY & NJ), so I probably saved about $75 by not having to purchase it.

Hubby will be back from his trip tomorrow night, so I'll go over it with him then and get this out the door. Can't tell you what a relief that is.

Where has 2007 gone that it's already the middle of April? Did I blink or something?

I'm back from a very relaxing, cheap vacation. Back to the swing of school, spring sports, DD's 1st Communion in May, and life in general.

I'm blogging now because I (STILL) haven't done the taxes. Time to pay the piper...I'll start as soon as I submit this entry, I promise!

Got hubby's April paystub. A 3.65% raise this year, better than average, but not as great as year's past. His bonus check comes on the 15th, so I'm anxious to see how much that is. It'll go a long way to determining how much debt we can knock down.

Still doing the treadmill thing. Down 8 pounds since January, despite vacation and Easter. Slow and steady wins the race. My HUGE challenge now (in addition to the taxes) is to stop picking at all of the leftover Easter candy. I'd throw it all out, except my kids know EXACTLY what's there. My goal is to limit myself to one piece per day and have it last through the end of the year...

The kids are off from school this week, so we headed down to my brother's house in NC. 80+ weather for the last 3 days...a big change from NJ, where it's only in the 50s. It's been a pretty cheap vacation. Aside from gas to get down here, and a trip to the local museum today, we're not spending any money.

When I get back this weekend, I need to finish my taxes. (Ignore my previous posts from January and February, when I talk about getting a jump on them and not waiting until the last minute!).

I sold another book on half.com. Another $2.00 for the old savings account! More importantly, one less piece of clutter in the house. I'm going to check out paperback swap.com. I have a ton of paperbacks that I'll never read again, and they don't sell well on half. Maybe I can trade them in for something else I'm interested in...

April is a big month for us financially. Aside from taxes that are due, hubby gets his bonus this month. I also (finally) submitted the estimate for repairing the bathroom to the insurance company, so I should be getting that check back as well. The goal is to pay off the money we just transferred to the HELOC when the 0% cc promotion ended. That'll be great.

So that's it now...I'm off to enjoy the rest of vacation!