It's an all-time record for me to have 3 no-spend days in a row - the holiday and bad weather sure helped. I'm heading down to Dad's today to take him to the accountant and do his grocery shopping for him, so other than the gas (120 miles round trip) I'm set.

Followup to my life insurance quest: I went to Lowermybills.com and checked out the rates on plans comparable to what I have now. Assuming I still get the super-preferred rate (who knows?) there is one rate that would be less than $2/month cheaper. I'm going to put this on hold until June, when I go to my doctor for my annual checkup. If it seems like everything is in order (cholesterol, weight, etc.), I'll switch plans. Not only will it save me $480 over the 20-year term, I'm already 3 years into my term, so I'll be picking up an extra three years, which won't be bad...

Today's line item is my electric bill. I'm also on budget billing here, and I pay $168/month. It's only supposed to be about $133, but for some reason I went way over last year, so I need to make up the extra over the first 6 months of this year. In June it should go back to $133, but I want to conserve enough so that at the end of this cycle, it gets reduced to $120 for next cycle. The biggest challenge for us is having hubby and the kids turn off the lights. It seems like the place is lit up like Christmas all the time! Between that and more judicious use of the dryer and dishwasher, we should be able to cut enough. Fortunately, I'm not a big Air Conditioning person (though hubby is) so that should only run in the evenings when he's home.

Have a great day!