Sold a book on 1/2.com today. This was a good one: $4.65 + shipping. That will go into my $20 challenge, along with the $.15 I started with.

Trying to be frugal this week. I have $90 to spend at Kohls (bonus $ that expire on the 12th, due to some overspending last week!). We also went a little overboard at Blockbusters (2 kids movies/2 adult movies. Total, just under $20). People talk about the dangers of shopping with kids all the time. Hubbys are just as bad!

We're meeting with a financial planner on the 13th. It's a favor to a friend, who used this guy and really liked him, and gave him our name. No money out of pocket, but I've no doubt that he's going to suggest we move our money out of our mutual funds into annuities and load mutual funds. Maybe I'm being cynical. We have a pretty good hold on our financial picture so, while I'm interested in hearing what he has to say, I'll definitely think twice (or thrice) before doing anything he suggests.

That's about it for today. Gearing up for a long weekend at the beach this weekend (courtesy of MIL).

Walgreens first:

As expected, they were out of the Pert. No surprise, they never have everything I'm looking for. Regardless, I got the other 2 bottles of shampoo (11.98), the Walgreens-Brita filter (6.99), the 4 pack of light bulbs (1.99), and 3 small mailing boxes ($.55 each). The total with tax came to about $24, minus the $5 coupon. $19 out of pocket, and I'll get $23.06 back on a Walgreens gift card ($20.96 + 10%). Not a bad deal at all.

Stopped at Wendy's for dinner. Stayed late at work and had to get home for a meeting, so I had to grab something quick. While I was cleaning out my desk this past weekend, I found about $20 in old Wendys gift certificates. They have to be at least 3 years old. I tried using them, but the manager told me they don't accept them anymore. There's no expiration date on them, so she told me to call or email the company. I'll see where that gets me.

Finally, got my electric bill today. Used an average of 53.12kwh/day, instead of 55.29/day last July. So I'm heading in the right direction, albeit slowly!

That's it for tonight. Quick post. Hope all is well!

My thoughts, not me. I'm staying at home! Here they go, in no particular order:

1. I was rereading HouseHopefuls blog, catching up on some back entries. I really need to get back to the Mypoints thing (it's painless), and I need to get back to some of those trial memberships where you get the free gift cards. Requires some organization, but nothing a calendar can't handle. Plus I've been getting myself more organized, so I think I can handle it.

2. Myrtle's Money mentioned that she bought a "Save a Watt" to check how much her appliances are costing her in electricity. I can buy it locally for $20. I'll try to hold off buying it and just do what I know I should (shut down computer, unplug things, etc.). I'll see what effect that has, and pick one up in a few months if it doesn't help.

3. We paid off one of our cars last month (woohoo)! I need to call the insurance company so I can raise the deductible. The loan company required a $500 deductible, but now that we don't have a loan, we can bump it up to $1000. I also need to sign up for the driver ed class that has been on my list of things to do for YEARS! It will cost $60 each for me and hubby, but will save $120/year for 3 years.

4. I'm also going to check into a programmable water heater (thanks Ima) and an insulation blanket for the water heater, though ours is pretty new, so I imagine it's pretty efficient.

5. I'm cancelling my Weight Watchers online membership. I joined in February, and have lost 11 pounds, which is great. But I was never great about tracking my food and points. I think I'm just more aware of what and how much I'm eating. I have all the tools at home (the points scale, the book, etc.) and many of my friends do it, if I need to get on line for something. I'd rather save the $16.95/month.

6. I also have one other online membership for $7.95 that I need to cancel. I use it a few times/year, so it would be cheaper for me to just join when I need to.

7. On the today show, I saw a financial planner from CNBC talking about what % of your income should go to housing, transportation, savings, etc. I only caught a piece of it, but I'd like to track it down so I can compare it to our numbers. (I know housing is 30%, but I'm not sure about the rest). That's my plan for the evening.

Whew, that's a lot. Better get going!

I went to a baby shower yesterday. Driving home, I was thinking about how totally excessive it was. (Full disclosure, I had ridiculously excessive bridal and baby showers too!). It's one of those things where I "wish I knew then what I know now".

In both cases (bridal and baby), we registered for gifts. (One store each in my case, two stores this time, and I've seen even more)! Looking back, I registered for things that I thought I absolutely had to have, and ended up never using. If I had it to do over, I would have registered for more diapers and wipes, and less of the gadgets.

The mom-to-be yesterday got an extraordinary amount of stuff. She knows she's having a girl, so it was a "princess" theme. Every single thing she got was pink or purple. I thought to myself, "what happens if her next child is a boy?" She likely won't have another shower to get it all again, but in blue. Crazy. I'm sure she got enough outfits and onesies that the baby will not have to wear a duplicate outfit for the first 6 months of her life!

All that said, I know how excited she was, and I was too. I just wish I had an experienced mom tell me that the wipe warmer that you plug in the wall to keep the wipes warm when they hit baby's hiney wasn't really necessary, that you could warm them in your hand just as easily. The Diaper Genie, where you store used diapers until you're ready to throw them out, wasn't really needed, especially when the refills were $5 each. We move our garbage to the garage every day, and it goes to the curb twice a week. Throw it right in the trash and there's no smell in the house! Amazing...But I did get an amazing free meal in the process.

Today we have a stay-at-home day, except for Church. It looks like it may rain, which is ok for me, because I have things in the house that I need to take care of. Also, with July wrapping up this week, I need to finish paying July bills and see where we're ending up.

One little, one big.

I called CVS. Turns out that they can't extend the expiration date on ECBs that were given when you purchase products (like rebates). The only ones they can extend are the quarterly ECBs that they give you based on your spending. So I'm out the $2. Lesson learned.

Tougher lesson: I'm out $100 today. My job pays for the first $100 of public transportation costs each month. You can arrange for any money you need above that to be automatically withdrawn from your paycheck. They give you a special credit card to use whenever you buy your tickets. Normally, I use the same amount each month, so I put in the amount and set it to repeat each month. For the summer, my commuting pattern changes because the kids are out of school. So I did a 1-time change to my new amount. Unfortunately, I forgot to do another 1-time entry for August, so I'm not getting my $100 this month. I went in today to reset it for September (must be done by 8/1), and I realized that I forgot it. I haven't figured out my exact costs for August, probably $75-100. Expensive lesson learned. I'm putting a reminder in my calendar on the 20th of each month to double check. Ouch!

So today was not a banner financial day for me. I'll hope to improve it tomorrow...

In NJ, you can shop around for a 3rd party supplier for both gas and electric. The utilities make it pretty easy, too. On the bills, they spell out exactly what your usage is, and what the price to compare is. In an effort to try to get my bills down, I spent the better part of this morning checking it out.

Alas, I was disappointed to find out that in most cases, the 3rd party suppliers were actually providing alternative sources of energy, and would actually add a few cents/unit onto my bill. For those who are interested in reducing their carbon footprint and going green, it seemed really reasonable and worth checking out. I may come back to it, but my focus today was to try to save some money, and it didn't work. At least I can cross it off my list of things to look into.

Stopped by Walgreens today to take advantage of some back to school sales. The store was a madhouse and of course all the really great deals were pretty much sold out. I did manage to pick up a few things on my list, and spent about $6.

Has this happened to anyone? I have a piggy bank where I dump all of my change at the end of the night. It's getting really full, and I'm so tempted to count it out, but I'm afraid if I do, I'll make up a reason to spend it. The temptation is killing me, though. I'm going to try to stick it out until Christmas time.

Working from home tomorrow. I have a date with my washing machine. I'm also going to spend some time decluttering my house...

Called CVS yesterday, but there office had closed. Will try again on Monday. Went there to pick up a few things however, and was pleased to find a $5 ecb for a survey I filled out a while back, as well as another $2.50 in ecbs. I'll make sure to use these before they expire!

Today I'm heading down to dad's. I spend a few hours with him, do his grocery shopping, run some errands, and have dinner with him. No spending, other than for him.

I'm looking to continue decluttering the house. In addition to paperback swap and the others, I'll keep my eye out for anything I can pass along to my younger nieces and nephews, sell on ebay, etc. Not sure how much it will help financially, but it will definitely help my mental state!

I emailed the electric company to see if they had a "time of use" program. They offer it for NY residents, where your rates are super high from 9am-9pm M-F, and super low the rest of the time. It would definitely make sense if you're out of the house during the day (we are) and you can arrange your laundry, dishwashing, etc. during the cheap times. For some reason, they don't do it for NJ residents, and I didn't get a good understanding from the customer service rep as to why. My utility bills are through the roof, though, so I'm definitely trying to come up with ways to significantly reduce.

I've rambled enough. Hope everyone has a good day!

I'm going to call CVS tomorrow morning. I do their Extra Care program, and got a coupon for $2 that expired at the end of June. I read that if you call them and tell them that you haven't used the coupon, they'll reset it and extend the expiration date. I've been such a slacker the last few months (which is why I didn't use the coupon in the first place). Normally, I would have thrown it out, but no more. I'll call and see what they say. I'll let you know tomorrow.

On another note, I know I've spoken in the past about Paperback Swap . com. For those of you who haven't heard of it, you post books you want to get rid of, and others do the same. The only cost to you is that you pay the postage if someone requests one of your books. For every book you mail, you get a credit which allows you to request a book from someone else. Easy as that. My kids are into Harry Potter and I just got the first 5 books using my credits. They also have sister sites where they swap DVDs and CDs. I started doing that too. The first 4 DVDs I posted were requested by others right away. They don't seem to have as good a selection of new movies, however, as I wanted Alvin and the Chipmunks and it had to be put on a "wish list". Still, it allowed me to declutter a few movies from my house.

We've had a sea change in the way we handle finances in the family. Hubby has been complaining for as long as we're married that he has no idea about our finances (I pay the bills). We've finally reached a compromise that's working. We're writing every single thing down on a piece of paper in our bedroom. That way, at the end of the month when he wants to know where our money goes, he can see it all in black and white. A side benefit is that I think we're subconsciously spending less. Writing down every dollar really does help. Go figure. This will also allow me to get back to tracking our expenses so we can see what needs to be cut, so that will be another positive coming out of this.

Thanks for all the kind words from everyone. It's good to be back on the wagon...

Can't commit to jumping both feet in the pool, but I'm dipping my big toe in. After months away from this site (and really much longer since I've been really focused on this stuff), I'm back.

Funny how things change and yet they're still the same. I'm trying to get a grip on all of our expenses, and cut them where I can without lowering our quality of life. Much tougher now with gas and grocery prices. Usually, I don't feel it so much when they talk in the news about this stuff but over the last few months, I've definitely been seeing it. My utility bills are also through the roof, despite significantly lower usage over last year.

So hear I am, anxious to catch up with my old friends, and ready to read about some of the new posters. I'm always looking for good tips. Until my next post, I'll leave you with this tip, which I came across as part of a fundraiser I'm involved in:

In our area, non-profits sell grocery store gift cards. Many of the major chains have this program, where the charity buys $1000 worth of gift cards, but only pays the store $950 (5% discount). They then sell the gift cards at face value, so they make $1000 and keep the $50 as profit.

I always assumed that the stores only made this deal available to charities. However, the stores (at least the ones by me) will give this deal to anyone who buys $1000+ worth of gift cards. That's a 5% savings! And with people's grocery bills these days, the savings would add up quickly. A family who spends $500/month on groceries ($6,000/year) would save $300/year doing this.

The only trouble is coming up with the money up front. One alternative to make it easier is to partner with some family or friends and share the benefit.

If you're interested, check out your store's website and surf around for gift cards. If you don't see it, call the customer service #, as it's not always well advertised.

I'm happy to be back. Hopefully I'll be able to get my focus back...

We went out last Monday to celebrate Valentines Day / Anniversary. We went to an upscale Greek place. Everything was fine, but not worth the money. (For people who know me, when I say something is "fine" it means it's not really that great, but I don't want to be rude). Anyway, the food did taste good and the wine was great, but we left feeling a little let down.

Then on Thursday we ordered pizza for dinner. Doubly wasteful here because I defrosted something that hubby wasn't really into, so that went to waste and we paid for the pizza. Ouch.

Finally on Saturday we went out to dinner again (Christmas gift, along with a Broadway show). We went for more of a Bennigans-style restaurant and we left feeling great. We each had appetizers, entrees, and drinks, and walked out for $70 including tip.

Needless to say I need to get back to the discipline of NOT eating out so much!

I've been making good use of Paperback swap dot com. I just mailed a few more books and ordered a few I'm interested in. I need to update my inventory on half.com, because that's about to expire. Just need to find the time to go through them all.

Is anyone else amazed that it's already the end of February? The year is flying by, as usual...

Aaaah, I needed this!

We're off on Monday and I'm working from home on Tuesday, so I'm set up for a nice long weekend at home.

I picked my nephew up Friday night. He's staying until Sunday, which basically means that my kids will be fully occupied until then. Tonight we're all going to a friend's house for dinner, and the kids will be going to grandma's for a sleepover on Monday.

We're going out to dinner Monday night. (Cheaper than going on Valentine's Day), and we picked up pizza for the kids last night. I'm making an appetizer for tonight, using stuff I already had in the house, so I'm all set there.

I returned books to the library (before they were due, thank you very much). No fines yet during 2008. I also went to the Post Office to mail books for Paperbackswap.com.

So that about wraps up my spending. I'm planning my menu for next week, looking to use up a bunch of stuff in my freezer, but I'll need to go to the fruit/veggie store, probably tomorrow.

Have you guys tried these? Our printer broke, so I bought a new Dell Printer/Copier/Fax/Scanner for $150 minus a $50 rebate. I also bought an electric pencil sharpener for $20 minus a $10 rebate (ok, a bit of an impulse buy, but with two grade schoolers, I need sharp pencils and I can never get them sharp enough by hand!).

Anyway, a rebate copy of the receipt and the rebate submission form automatically print from the register. You go online, enter a few numbers, and boom, within a few weeks you get a check. I've done this several times over the years and it's always a pleasant experience. (You don't hear the phrase "pleasant experience" and "rebate" in the same sentence too frequently)!

I also deposited a few checks that I had, from my dad and DH's mom to reimburse us for stuff we bought them. The 15th of the month is big for us because that's when I get my first check, I pay most of the bills and get a good handle on where we sit financially. Our first installment of the vacation payment is due ($950) and we're trying to put $1000 toward the HELOC for the renovation we recently did. It'll be tough to get both. We'll see how it shakes out.

I always pay my ccs off in full each month. Last month, I thought I set up a scheduled payment for one of the cards, but I either forgot, or it didn't go through right. Whatever, the payment wasn't made by the due date. I made it the morning after. When I got my bill this month, they hit me with finance charges of $39.54. (No late fee, surprisingly). Anyway, I called up customer service and explained the situation. She told me she would give me a "one-time courtesy credit" and remove the charges on next month's statement. I was all set to pay them, but it's great that I didn't have to. All it took was a phone call.

There have been two other times when a call like this has done wonders. The first was calling Direct Tv a few months back (see previous post), the second was with this same cc, when they charged me the annual fee. (Does anybody pay an annual fee for a cc anymore?). They reversed that charge as well.

I'll keep my eyes open for other opportunities to save money with a phone call. If anyone has any others, I'd love to hear them!

Rereading the frugal books that I got from the library has reminded me of my dilemma: I'm quickly reaching the point where I've taken advantage of the obvious, easy financial changes, and the only things left are things I really (really, really) don't want to do. I guess what I give up going forward depends on how desparate I get!

The other thing I realized is that the advice is basically the same from book to book. Granted, I've read a lot of these types of books over the last few years, but there's not usually much new in them. I find it much more valuable to read through the blogs for a great website or find from one of the fellow bloggers.

I finally wrapped up my 2007 Flexible Spending Account. A check for $507.42 was deposited today (Yay!). I can now turn my attention to 2008 FSA. I already have about $200 in charges this year, so I'll try to get them in next week.

I also submitted the last set of claims for DS's speech therapist that are covered in network. We only had authorization to use her in network through December, and they wouldn't extend, so I now need to use her as an out-of network. The difference is about $15 extra out-of-pocket for me per visit. Still some coverage is better than nothing.

DH and I were talking about finances yesterday, and the recession that's about to hit (if it hasn't already). I realized that the place where I'm really feeling it is with my electric and gas bills.

I know food has gone up, but it doesn't seem like I've taken such a hit there. I know gas has gone up, but my driving has gone down, so if anything, that's been a wash for me. But my electric and gas bills are through the roof!

I'm on a budget billing plan for both. Both electric and gas are now up over $200/month each. I haven't yet, but it's worth going through the exercise of comparing usage this year over last. My guess is that maybe usage has gone up a little, but not enough to justify the huge hike in payments.

So my goal for the week is to do that comparison, and reread the frugal books to come up with some ideas on how to keep those bills down. Changes won't go into effect until they reset my monthly payment in 6 months, but hopefully I can work toward a credit at that point. Ouch.

A guy at work was running a super bowl pool. I paid $20 for a box, and based on the score at the end of each quarter, you can win money (or not). One thing I like is that your numbers change with each quarter, so if you're stuck with numbers unlikely to hit (5s are always bad), at least you're only stuck for a quarter. I know this is right up there with the Lottery in terms of wasting money, but we're not fans of the Giants or Patriots, so it will certainly make watching the game more interesting.

I took a few frugal books out of the library. One is Jean Chatzky's Pay it Down on $10/day. Good advice, but most I've already taken advantage of. The other is about raising a family on less than 2 incomes. (I forget the exact name), but basically it's about how where you can cut to allow one half of the couple to cut back to part-time. I've read it before, and it's a good read. I want to reread it now to see if there's anything I missed the first time around.

I'm back from a business trip of a few days. I did great financially, because everything (hotel, meals, etc) will be paid by my company. I did breakdown at the airport bookstore and bought a few magazines to read during my 2 hour delay (on top of the two hours I arrived early)! I actually thought ahead and brought some books with me, but I read them on the trip down.

It's the end of the month, which means that today is the day I calculate my net worth. I have a feeling it's going to look pretty ugly, given the recent slide in the stock market. Our 401(k)s are the biggest chunks of money we have, and the market is down 8% already this year. Good thing I'm not planning on retiring for quite a while!

DH's had a bit of uncertainty on the job front. The company is not well run, and layoffs, relocations, job changes have become the norm. He's ok for now, but it's been very unsettling for us to be in this position. Job security has never been an issue for either of us (thankfully).

He's been working with a headhunter and looking outside the company for a few months now, but it's tough to figure out how aggressive to be. For example, he has his ideal jobs that he wants to pursue. Then there are others that would be ok. There are still others that he wouldn't normally consider, except in desparate situations. How do you know when to stop looking in one tier and start looking in the next one down?

In the meantime, we're taking a closer look at the spending. Nothing drastic (yet), but trying to position ourselves so that if something does happen, we'll be better prepared.

Always a challenge...

I just ordered my groceries from Peapod. What a great service! They sent out two coupons for free delivery (normally $6.95), and I have the total $ amount direct debited from my checking account which saves me another $1. I could have saved $2 if I could be a bit more flexible with the delivery time and date (which I can't). It's great being able to do the shopping from your home computer, no kids in tow, no rash decisions, etc.

It's shaping up to be a quiet weekend for me. Hubby is taking the kids to MIL's tomorrow, so I'll have the day at home to straighten up, organize, etc. Then I'm off on a business trip Monday for a few days.

Finance-wise, it's been a pretty quiet week. I ate at work a few times, but other than that have stayed on the wagon.

I just can't get my taxes right. After owing an absolute bundle last year (and the year before that, and the year before that), I paid some modest estimated taxes in the first half of last year, then changed my withholding to take more $ out of my paycheck for federal taxes. I didn't do any big time calculation, but based on the amounts, I felt confident that I'd at least be in the ballpark.

I logged onto Turbotax tonight to get an idea of how they would shake out. I'm still waiting on a few mutual fund tax forms (which will only make it worse), and it looks like I'll owe about $1500 Federal this year. I can't figure out the state amounts yet, because I need to have the federal information firmed up first.

What a bummer! One thing that I will do this year that I never seem to do in the past is file my NY taxes first (always get a refund), then use that money to help pay my federal bill.

In other news, brother and SIL called tonight. They booked the house we always get in the Outerbanks for this summer, so I'll have to send her our share sometime over the next month or so.

OK, I had an entry and lost it.

I had a good day today. I returned two things for $120 and $25, went to the bank and dry cleaners, and took advantage of clearance sales at the Children's Place. Also went to Modells to get new sneakers for the kids and a birthday present for a party on Monday.

My thought for the day is the cost of extracurricular activities. Two kids in various sports throughout the winter and spring, and for some reason all the bills are due now! $205 total for softball and baseball, $70 for volleyball, $25 for a soccer tournament this weekend, and $150 for a preseason baseball clinic. Yipes...

I'm getting ready to donate an old car. It was FIL's, and we got it when he passed away. I used it for a while, but started having trouble with it, and it wasn't worth dumping any money into it. It's a 1992, and the book value would be next to nothing, so selling it privately wouldn't be worth it (not to mention a big hassle).

I need to submit our medical receipts to get reimbursed from our Flexible Spending Account for 2007. I have until March 31, but I want the money . We have about $400 left. My printer at home broke, and for some reason I can't access the account at work, so I need to have hubby print everything out. I want to clear that out before I start submitting 2008 receipts.

Speaking of which, I went to the eye doctor recently. It was the first time I've been there in 2 years. I felt like my eyesight was deteriorating, but the doctor said the prescription was very close to what it was before. I bought a new pair of glasses (2 years for my current pair is a record!). We have vision insurance through work ($36/year for the whole family), so the whole thing ended up costing me $150 out of pocket. I was pretty pleased with that.

I'm starting to get my year-end tax statements. This is my least favorite time of year, because I always owe a bundle, but last year, I had additional money taken out of my paycheck, which will hopefully cover it. We shall see...

Wow, I gave into every impulse yesterday! I was picking up my dry cleaning, and had an overwhelming hankering for Chinese food for lunch (it's right next door). $5.67 spent. Ended up being just ok. Later in the day, had a hankering for the new Milky Way hot cocoa at Dunking Donuts. I've been holding off, trying to be good, and gave in. Picked one up for me and one for hubby. $3.60. Again, just ok. Then, a friend of mine asked me to go for dinner and drinks with her. $32.50, but totally worth it. So over $40 spent yesterday on impulse!

Today, in addition to watching football, I'm using up some stuff in my fridge. I had 9 carrots and a bunch of celery, so I diced them, used some to make a sauce, and froze the rest. I also caught up on some laundry and cleaned the house.

Also, on the plus side, we had a busy Friday night (DS had a birthday party, DD had soccer practice). Hubby suggested we order a pizza for dinner, but instead, I made pasta with shrimp and alfredo sauce (had the cream and parmesan cheese open in the fridge; needed to get rid of it, and I had shrimp in the freezer). I felt pretty good about that.

This should be a fairly ordinary week. Busy, as usual, but ordinary.

I have to start taking notes throughout the day so I remember everything when I sit down to blog. Here are my musings from the past few days:

Finally ate lunch at work. I didn't have time to eat breakfast at home, and forgot to pack my lunch, so I was absolutely starving. Ended up getting lunch at work. Bad news: Had sushi, which is expensive. Good news: Paid the $10.67 in cash. Moral of the story: pack my lunch the night before and leave a packet of oatmeal at work.

Got rid of Onstar. It came free for the first year we bought our GM car. After the first year, DH insisted on keeping it, even though we both have cell phones, AAA, etc. Cost about $14/month ever since. They switched from analog to digital last year, and we needed to have the dealer install a part. Things were so crazy last time we went to the dealer that we forgot to have him do it. Our subscription was automatically cancelled 12/31. Sin of omission, here, because I'm not going to say anything to hubby.

I need to cancel Netflix. I've had a DVD outstanding for 6 months (no lie). Can't find it anywhere in the house. DH looked online and the penalty is a $20 charge, so I'm going to eat it and cancel my membership. I'm tacking this on my list of 2007 financial issues, though, since it's really a holdover from that!

I also need to call my water company. We're signed up for budget billing and pay $27/month. (Water's cheap in NJ). I have accrued a credit of about $47, because they've charged us more than we've used. When I went to look at the statement, it doesn't show usage, just the budget billing amount. Bizarre. Also can't check accounts online, so I need to call up. One of my targets for the year with all of my utilities is to reduce usage by 10% (totally arbitrary number). I'm not sure how reasonable it will be for the water bill, because it's so low to begin with, but electric and gas for sure.

I don't have big plans for the weekend. DH is going out with some guys Saturday night, and we're staying home on Sunday. I'm going to take advantage of the time to take down all of the Christmas stuff and put everything away. Lofty goals, for sure...

I did my first grocery shopping of the new year, and stopped at CVS to take advantage of some of their ECB deals. One of the things I'd like to do in 2008 is to track my grocery spending a little more closely. I'd like to start a grocery book. I tried this last year but it was a bit tedious. Very informative, though, so I'm going to take another stab at it. Curious to see what I learn.

I've been pretty good about cash out so far this year. I spent about $11 for a birthday gift, and I had to spend $44 on a subway pass for work. Not much else. I'm also proud of myself for bypassing Wendy's yesterday while I was running errands for dad, and having lunch at his house instead. Still no money spent at work, either. Not bad.

In addition to the fight I need to have (still) with the insurance company, I need to call my mail order rx company. My doctor was supposed to give me a 90-day rx with one refill, and they're saying she forgot to indicate refill, so I need a new prescription, so I need to straighten that out. On the plus side, they gave me a generic instead of a name brand, which cut my cost from $100 for a 90-day supply to $77.34, which will save me over $90 this year. (It was costing me $150 for 3 months at CVS, so mail order really pays. If you can use it, it's worth checking into).

DS has an art class tomorrow after school, then I'd like to putter around home and get some stuff done. We had company all through the holidays and I'm having trouble getting the house back in order...

Didn't have a chance to speak with the insurance company yet. It's been a busy few days.

Stopped for gas yesterday ($48.25), but I put it on my Shell MC, which gives me 5% on Shell purchases and 1% everywhere else, and I have enough credits that it will be covered. In retrospect, I probably should never have gotten this card, because there are others out there that will give you 5% on gas no matter where you go. But when it came out a few years ago, those other cards weren't available, and the bonuses were tripled for the first three months, which made it really attractive. Perhaps later in the year when I get some other things settled, I'll look at this as well.

Today we have basketball practice for DD and DS, then DD has a birthday party. In lieu of gifts, the mother asked that we donate a book to the elementary school library. Seems like a great idea. Then we have friends over during the rest of the day...

I've done well financially so far this year (I know, it's only been three days)! The only money I've spent is $.50 each day for the newspaper. (I don't make this a habit, but with football playoffs coming, you can't beat the NY Post). I've eaten breakfast at home and brought lunch to work so no money spent there.

DS's speech therapist is here this afternoon. We finally won the battle with the insurance company to reimburse us for our costs. Unfortunately, she charges $100 per session, of which $84 is "reasonable and customary". I have a $20 deductible per visit, so they give me back $64 per session. Not bad, considering I thought I'd get nothing for a long while.

I need to resume my battle with them, however. The therapist is out of network, but they gave me an exception to treat her as in-network because nobody else was available in our area. The exception ran out on December 13th, but we still need her. We're trying to get them to extend the date, and they're balking big time. I guess they need to make it difficult to keep them afloat financially, but man is it frustrating! So I'll call and see if I can make any headway with them.

Hubby's uncle passed away, so we need to go to the wake tonight and funeral tomorrow. We'll have to pay the babysitter tonight, and we bought flowers for the wake. (I'd prefer a charitable donation in his memory, but I lost out).

We've also got friends coming over tomorrow and Saturday for dinner, so I'll need to go shopping for that. This year, I'm categorizing that as "entertainment" rather than "groceries" so I have a better idea of what I'm really spending.

That's it for now. Have a great day!

I officially ended my participation in the coupon trains today. I've been thinking about it for a while, and have seen several of the train members jump over the last few months for various reasons. I guess I finally realized/admitted that I wasn't getting enough REALLY great coupons from it. I was taking coupons for stuff I could use, but nothing that I couldn't do without. So with that, and the pressure that comes from getting it and knowing it needs to be turned around quickly, and the cost of mailing it ($4 each), I decided to call it quits.

I feel good about the decision though. I've needed to make some small changes like this for a while, so I'm glad to put them in motion. Another change: I'm going to start having my property taxes taken directly from the checking account. I've been meaning to do this for a few years now (I know - pathetic), but I just got my stubs in the mail today and it had the enrollment form for autopay, so now I really have no excuse.

Another long overdue change: I started having the kids do chores. They're 6 and 8 now. They both make their beds, put away their clothes after I fold them, DD sets the table and gets the mail, DS puts the recyclables in the garage and brings up the garbage can, and they both need to clean the playroom together. It may not sound like much, but it's been a really positive thing for me. I'll add more to their list as I think of them.

Finally, though I have mixed feelings about this one, we're dipping in to savings to pay off some debt/bills. We have about $4500 on a 0%cc that expires in September. This was from a home improvement a while back where we added a room and bathroom to our house. We also have $2700 for some other necessary home improvements, and the $1000 tax bill from the audit. So we're cashing in some mutual funds to wipe that all out. We're finally ready to start fixing the bathroom that was damaged in the flood last October, and I want to have the rest of this stuff cleaned up (financially) before we start the bathroom.

So alot's been going on...baby steps, but I feel positive about them. We'll see how it goes.

It's been forever since I've blogged. Looking over my last few posts, each of them start that way. I'm swamped, but I've been swamped for as long as I've had kids, so that can't be it. I guess I just haven't been focusing so much on finances lately. At all. No major problems, everything humming along, but nothing exciting to blog about either.

Before I blog, I like to catch up on a few of the blogs on this site. It seems like many of the "old-timers" that started on this site around the time I did are posting less, or not at all. Remember Retire@50? What happened to her? I used to really like reading her blog. And PricePlus was always one of my favorites. Even the ones that are still posting seem to be doing it less frequently. (Except Ima - I'm always inspired by you!). I check in on some newer blogs now and then, but I haven't been able to follow them as closely as I'd like to. I'm not giving up, though. I just need to figure out a way to do it.

OK, pity party over. Here are some financial happenings over the past few weeks: Went on the annual vacation to the Outerbanks. Always relatively cheap. We split a house with my brother's family, and eat in every night but 1, so it's not that expensive.

Daughter made a travelling soccer team. We're really excited for her, but the letter literally went like this: Dear Daughter, Congratulations on making the soccer team. Please forward $375 and a copy of your birth certificate no later than July 20th. I'm going to track how much I spend on all of this just to see what it runs me.

I need to go cook dinner, but it was great checking in...

I forgot where I first heard about the paperback swap website, but I decided to give it a shot. My sister passed along 3 dozen paperbacks...the kind of quick-read mysteries that I used to enjoy. But I find I have so little spare time now, and when I have time to read, I'd rather read different types of books. So I posted them all, along with old books of mine.

The company gives you 3 free credits (each credit allows you to "buy" a book) when you post your first 9 books. Thereafter, you get 1 credit for each book that you swap. The only cost is for you to mail a book if someone else wants it.

So I ordered 2 finance books that I haven't read, as well as a diet book that I had many moons ago but have since gotten rid of. Even better, 3 of the books that I posted were on other members' wish lists, so if they confirm that they want them, I mail them out and get 3 more credits. Cool find. Can't wait for my "new" books.

This is the best one I've had in a while, though it definitely cost me. Dropped the car off for an oil change and other regular maintenance (should be about $200). Got my passport renewed (a whopping $107). It expires in June, so I had to do it. I've been thinking of getting the kids passports just so they have them, but it would be $92 each for them, so I'm going to wait on that for a while. Went to Walgreens and picked up a bunch of their free after rebate items. No $ out of pocket as I used a WAG giftcard. Went to Eckerds for 2 FAR items and to use a raincheck. Went to the post office to mail a half.com book, and went grocery shopping. Paid the town taxes, and went to the bank. Phew, I'm tired just writing about it.

So I think I'm pretty much caught up with life. DD needs to write thank-yous for her Communion gifts, and I need to figure out how to upload the pictures from my digital camera to the computer. I'm assuming it shouldn't be that tough. Wish me luck...

Inspired by Kashi, here's my US map. I hope the link works. Only 18 states (35%). There are a few that I'd still like to hit, but I just don't see most of them happening until retirement...


create your own personalized map of the USA

So the Communion was a success. Everything went well, DD was a bit nervous but did great. The party was followed by a 3-day business trip which is now over so I can relax a bit.

I'm working from home tomorrow and plan to get back on track. Property taxes are due and need to be dropped off, the car needs to go for an oil change, and I need to renew my passport. Looking forward to a productive day...