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Ouch this is going to be expensive - DIET!!

April 20th, 2010 at 03:49 pm

Okay stepped on the scale....179pounds.

Yes instead of being nice to me the scale is being MEAN!! It was suppose to magically turn to 143 pounds.

I guess all that resterant eatting because we have to leave the house so people can see the house and so that we are not cooking and messing up the house is messing up my waist line.

So Tomorrow is the work BBQ, that is the last day before I go back on my diet.

I am going to hit it hard, I am stopping off at the diet center and buying the detox drugs...Yep that is between $75 and $90 for a month. Then I plan on stopping at the grocery store and buying some fruit since I already have the meal replacement shakes (I want to add juice and fruit for flavor).

I have two bottles of the meal replacement already(one for at work and one for home) they are 15 meals per bottle, you are suppose to replace 2 meals with the shakes and then eat sensible the third meal. So a bottle is 2 weeks. Well I need to stop eatting all together. I need to totally stop the garbage that I am putting in my body so I will be doing three shakes a day with the added fruit and fruit/vegtables as snacks to get to my needed calories and then hopefully after my cravings end and stomich shrinks in size (full faster) I can stop the meal replacement and go back to cooking meals.

One thing I do know is if I stay out of the kitchen I eat less so the quickness of the meal replacement might be worth the money.

Going to look into Weight Loss Surgery

April 8th, 2010 at 04:55 pm

After reading a post another blogger said about Tricare paying for liposuction, I did a little research.

Generally in most cases tricare will deny the surgery BUT not always. So I am desided to put that on my to do list! I want to see IF they will pay for it. If not then I will pay for it myself.

I make 50,312.04 per year and basically when I do my taxes I get all my money back so my net take home is VERY good for my area. Average Salery here 15K-18K.

I need to get down to 34% and stay there, in the past I have paid 3K+ to join a weight loss center and I did lose the weight but after I got tired of popping all the pills and monthly detoxafing fasts the weight came back. The weight was off for a year (while husband was out of state for work- but when he got back the weight came back). I was popping 24 fiber pills, a multivitamin, 3 evening primrose oil pills, 2 calcium, 2 cleanse, 2 detox, 6 appitite supressors, and 3 cell-u-rid. I just cant do it, tooooo many pills.

I want to get lipo to my inner thighs, my tummy, and outer thighs. This is where my weight problems are. Even when I was at 143 pounds and skinny I still had fat on my upper inner thighs I did not like. If I get lipo to these areas I can pass the tape test. My waist is fine (averages between 26-29 inches), so need to tackle the lower half which exercise does not always target one area.

I am not sure how much it will cost BUT if it means I pass tape and can extend for 6 more years that is 201,248.16+ in income over the 6 year contrat I would have gotten because I got it done!!

Tuesday seems to be a good day for me, maybe I should plan it for Tuesday!

House Update, Martial Assets, and Job Update

April 7th, 2010 at 06:51 pm

The realtors came in groups yesterday to walk through our house. Atleast 15 realtors came. Last night we got a call from one asking if she could show it to a client so off we went to McDonalds for dinner and so Little Guy could play while we waited for the call back that they were done.

Basically the couple was close to closing on another property BUT the realtor wanted to show them our house first. The realtor called back and said their only complant was that we have all lammenent flooring and they would like wall to wall carpet. Oh well it was only day one, plus we did all lamentant for us (allergies), we do have carpet on the stairs. The carpet on the stairs was new when we closed on the purchase in Feb 2007. Man does it need to be shampooed or replaced. If we would have done carpet it would all have to be replaced before listing so it was money well spent.
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Marital Assets, the lawyer gave we a packet and part of that is the division of the marital assets. So today I worked on the list. I was only going to list the big items BUT I desided to list as much as I could think of. I think once we start putting names next to stuff and my husband sees all the stuff with his name on it he might be more reasonable.

Yes I even listed his JRR Tolken Book Collection, Stephen King Collection, Magic the gathering Cards, XBox360 and his riffs role playing books. I would not want them BUT they do have martial value.

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My husband got his job back, he starts Monday the 12th. He works 5pm-9pm Mon-Fri. So that is good news because he will be bringing in gross $800 per month and because he will have more money to live off of.

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Today I closed the joint checking account, so that is done. The only joint things we have left are the house, truck and his car.

No Job!!

April 5th, 2010 at 07:45 pm

Yep, my STBX is in an uproar. He came in to ask for his job back and they said they did not need anyone. My STBX thinks he should have reemployment rights but I dont think he should. The reason I do not think he should is I think he was a temporary part time employee (that just was kept long term). He has been employed for roughly 2 years BUT he was never rehired as a permanant employee.

So he is waiting to hear back from a person with employee rights. I would have loved it if he could have gotten his job back today so I could report it a closed case to my lawyer BUT the good side is IF he does not have reemployment rights and is not hired back I do not have to deal with him at work.

He worked part-time after my shift was over as a part-time maintenance employee. So if he came to the work location early (because he wanted to BS with the other maintenance staff) I would see him. And truthfully I as sick of his drama, so maybe it is a blessing from above that he might not get his job back.

Like I said I dont believe he has remployment rights because he was only a temp employee, also he told the employee rights secretary he was like the second highest employee for seniority. NO way maybe fourth; but that is out of seven employees but that is if he had any seniority over the others he was working the evening shift with.

Oh well, if he has no reemployment rights he can apply for unemployment. (He has been looking for work; he went to job service, he went to a job fair, and he has applied for work at a old employers working retail). So unemployment until he can get a job would help alot.

Tuesday April 6th is a BIG day!!!

April 5th, 2010 at 05:18 pm

We signed our realtor and so I have been cleaning the house since Thursday Night, I have been putting in 12-14 hours a day cleaning.

Tuesday the realtor will be stopping by with the big sign for the front yard, the lock box for the key, and to take pictures for publication and of course to have the first realtor tours!!!!

Our list price is 214,900. She said 210-220 is where we should be and asked if we had a favorite/lucky number and well the 14th is the day my son was born. so 214,900 it is. My husband was fine with it I guess me quoting 205K, 209K, 199K for weeks as things came up (new tax value, rebuild insurance amount, magazine guess) that he realized 259K was a bit high and even 205K brings in a nice profit.

I need to sweep out the garage and spray the winter sand out of it. I need to move the truck to the street so that the garage looks BIGGER! I also need to reclean the kitchen and touch up the bathrooms. I have a ton laundry to fold BUT due to time constrants I am going to pack up my clean laundry in garbage bags and fill my car (mobile suitcase).

As I packed up I located all the manuals for the appliances so I have created a 3 ring binder of the manuals in those clear sleeves.

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Tuesday while this is going down I have my appointment with the laywer. I have my info packet completed, the tax returns for the last two years, and the most resent pay statement to show year to date earnings. I even started the parenting plan. I cant wait to not be at the receiving end of his rage.

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After failing to find other work my husband finally is going to ask for his old job back; today at 12:30. I have my fingers crossed as he has waited a long time. So I should know soon!

$55 per month added to my monthly bills!

April 1st, 2010 at 07:42 pm

Yep today I went and got a storage unit. I want to get as much stuff out of the house as possible before the realtor desides to start taking pictures for listing and for walk throughs.

I figure in this case it is a case of spending money to make money. Once everything is out of the house it is easy to convince my husband we really do not need it. I mean it is in storage we are not using is so it could go into a rummage sale right????

I am super busy until summer so I am thinking that maybe I will have a summer rummage sale; either at my grandmothers, at my cousins or at our house. But truthfully I hope the house is sold by then.

The positive side is now that the storage unit is gotten and I am going to start loading it my STBX is thinking that the projects he wanted to do should get done. WAHHOOO!

I have to give 30 days notice so depending on the situation it will cost me a minimum of $165 (this months, plus 30 days notice and the time between).

On a side note If later when things start rolling with the lawyers; stuff will be in storage so I will not have to worry about getting rid of something that later the STBX claims he cant live without and I am dealing with that.

I know so many people say if you are renting a storage unit to store stuff it is BAD but in my case, I think it is worth it.
#1 A decluttered house will sell faster
#2 I cant get rid of things since I am going through a divorce and if I get rid of anything it could be bad
#3 If stuff is in a storage unit it will make it easier to part with it once I can (see item #2)

Have a great weekend, oh yeah my weekend starts in two hours because I took tomorrow off.

The realtor called; adventures in money management

April 1st, 2010 at 01:32 pm

The realtor called back last night. So this means that I cleaned the kitchen. Last night I took a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to the appliances and the fronts of the countertop. I love my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

The Kitchen is looking GOOD, well as good as it can with needing a new countertop. The guy to come measure the countertop is suppose to call today at the latest to schedule a visit within 5 days of the call. So hopefully we can give the realtor a ballpark on when the countertop will be done.

The rest of the house is a MESS, so nothing like motivation to get the ball rolling. I have until 11am on Friday to get this house Sparkly CLEAN. I am going to pull an all nighter. It will be done.

I am going to go rent a storage unit on my lunch hour today, hopefully I can get some things moved to the storage unit tonight. I plan to put stuff in, get the house sold quickly; and if once the house is clean I will work the items out of storage into a rummage sale like I planned.

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My husbands first deposit into his new account was suppose to go through today, well it is only 8am and he is at the bank being an ass because the money is not there. The teller told him it could be two days before the deposit goes through.

I am thinking it will show up later today or as a pending for tomorrow. Not a big deal for me as I normally pay bills so I know these things happen and you have to learn how direct deposits affect your account before you can get into a rhythem.

My husband is crazed because it is the first and he used to get his allowance and his gas money on the first. He claims he needs gas money but I know he is itching for his FUN money.

I have been trying to let him figure out his problems but rather than deal with it I said "Honey, why dont you use your credit card to buy gas?" "Then tonight or tommorrow when the deposit posts you can go online and pay the charge". Surprizingly his answer was "you can do that?"

Yeah gonna show him the art of paying a credit card online, but once he opens his online account he is going to see his "Concert Money" sitting there in his savings account and hopefully he doesn't burn through it before the concert/college road trip.

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Today I need to call the school, I hate how whenever they do any kind of fund raiser it takes FOREVER for a check to clear. We wrote a check on the 17th of March and it still has not cleared. I am going to ask IF they have processed it or if they are holding it until they have all the checks for the yearbooks. If they are holding it I am going to ask to swap out the check. That check is the last check I am waiting on clearing before I can close the joint checking account.

I have desided to close the account and then get the remaining money and then we can use the cash to pay the bills, or we can use our credit card to pay the bill and then deposit the cash into our individual checking account which we will use to pay our individual credit cards.

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Asked my husband to see his former employer today about getting his job back, if nothing else until he starts a different job. Murphys law is once you take that first job other offers come in and so that would be win win! Hopefully he will remember today since he has a doctors appointment this morning and the rest of the day free.

Unemployment

March 26th, 2010 at 07:50 pm

Yesterday the hubster went to a construction job fair. Yeah??? He claims he is so handy yet for the basement we had to have a handyman come in and finish because he got too stressed out trying to do simple things. I could have done the work but it upset him to watch me do it becuase he should be capable.

He had a few people at the job fair say they would call next week, BUT the problem is it is out of town work, which means added daycare costs and he would need to be responsible for his hotel room and food. Also depending on how often he could return here would depend on if he blew the whole paycheck on junk before he could pay his bills and a split of the household bills...Can you tell I am not to excited about this idea.

Last week he applied at a old employeer (so little retraining required), and he called them today and basically they said no thank you; you have to have a flexable schedule and we were looking at Mon-Fri 9-5 to minimize Daycare. Plus my husband said point blank he was NOT working nights a month or so ago. After this I told him that working opposite my shift might work so that we would need no daycare, but he did not want to go there since he did not think he could sleep if our son was being loud. Also it is a all nights or all days thing we cant plan daycare willy nilly, so not sure IF they would even go for that.

So he plans to visit job service next week and see what they have that is mon-fri 9-5 and maybe in the mean time take a part time job he has last year working 5pm-9pm. I figure the part time job is a good start until something better comes along or if something better doesn't come along it is a building point. Plus it meets the absolute miniumim requirements he needs to bring in to be able to split bills 50/50.

I want use to split bills 50/50 so that he can learn to pay bills and be a contributing member to this family after being underemployed for years.

The drama to continue.....

Truck runs which means time to WORK!

March 26th, 2010 at 06:50 pm

The truck starts, told Hubby to let it run then turn it off and restart it to check if it is the silonoid. He says it is fine.

I have my fingers crossed BUT I am going to load up the back with the leftover sheetrock scraps and the wood that is garbage and finish cleaning up the rest of the basement.

Now that we have a working truck I am going to have to keep an eye out for deals on river rock so we can finish the border around the house. (Free or cheap is good for me)

Hopefully hubby can figure out an easy way to get rid of the large rock/boulders that are in in yard. I want them removed and am willing to rent a bobcat but hubby doesnt like that idea because he would have to load the rocks into the truck then take the bobcat with to unload them. (Sorry it is not that difficult to drive a bobcat off a trailer then unhook a trailer then use bobcat, hook up trailer then load bobcat); it is not like I am asking him to move them by hand.

As for the large boulder I need to find someone with a jack hammer, hubby says you cant rent one because it has to have a generater to run it. I guess I figured they made gas ones or at least rented them. We will see.

Also now that the truck is running hubby needs to take his car in to be looked at, he says it is making straige noises having to do with wheels. I hope it is not too spendy as I was going to start having us split bills on the 1st of May and I am not sure if he is going to go for paying for the repair all by himself. I was planning on having repairs for the truck split but repairs to our own cars being the responsibility of the driver.

I AM a battery Snob!!

March 26th, 2010 at 02:32 pm

I am...

I do not see the point in spending the time and money putting a cheap short life battery in a car or truck.

We bought a truck 3 years ago, to which the seller proudly proclaimed the battery was put in less than a year ago. So silly us when we had battery problems that first winter 6 months later we took it back to the battery company and had it looked at and they said the battery was fine just a little low...Fast forward to now.

DH is going to go in today to buy a REAL battery. The NEW battery the prior owner installed was the lowest of the line, the guy that tried to charge the battery said that he was surprised it lasted 4 years like it did since it is a 2 year battery. Yes 2 years, I did not even know they made 2 year batteries.

So instead of spending $40 to put in another 2 year battery we are spending an extra $30 and getting a POWER battery that has a 6 year warrenty.

Now the top of the line battery is $104 and normally I would buy top of the line BUT we are planning on selling our house this summer and once the house is sold and we are moved into the Apartment we will have no need for the truck and will be selling it (So yes we could save $30 and put in the cheapy battery BUT It sucked all these battery issues since we thought we had a NEW battery so I am not do that to someone else). Besides I want the Amps on the bigger/better battery until we are done using it.

Spending, Spending, Spending

March 24th, 2010 at 02:58 pm

Well, after the hubster tried to poly the door we got to replace the one upstairs it got white specks in spots (this was with a 4 day dry time). So I have given up. I know at this rate it will take a month to get this door up.

My husband is super busying playing Xbox 360 so to have one side of a door have 2 coats of stain and one coat of poly it has taken 10 days, it still needs the sides and the back done.

I called the place that provided the doors to the builder and am having one prestained. I will then have our handy man come back put in the knob hole, install the knob and put in the hinge holes and hinges and hang it. Two weeks from now my special order door will be DONE!! $80 for the door I just ordered

I am waiting for them to call me back with information so that I can order some siding, when the sprinkler system guy put in the system he got too close to the siding and melted two pieces and the corner piece. I need to have the handy man come over and tell me how many pieces total he thinks we will need to order.

Truck, needs a new starter...Hubster was planning on getting a used one, and installing it himself. Went to see if it would start at all and nothing. So he went to the battery place.

The battery was so low that the battery place is going to try to charge it and then they will test it tommorrow after they see IF they can charge it.

Battery or not IT needs a new starter, there is a problem with the sioloniod on the starter (it is one piece with the starter on this model and not seperate) that allows the vehicle to restart after the vehicle is warm. Anyway now my husband thinks it is just the battery; I HATE this (cuss word here) truck.

Anyway either we will be paying for a battery and a starter. Or a battery now and a starter later. But that is tomorrow.

We need to have the truck running in two weeks time so we can pick up the door and also have it to use for other jobs we need to get done to get the house ready for sell.

I should have just called the repair shop and had them tow it in and fix it BUT I thought it would be easier to do once the hubster was home; but I forgot how EVERYTHING is an arguement over who is right with him and that he takes 5X longer than most people to get around to doing something and 10X longer than most people to finishing it.

On a Positive note..A old friend looked me up and they are so workout crazy that it has motivated me to get off my duff and yesterday I got a workout in (6 mile walk in my reebok tone fit shoes). And this morning I took my diet pills. I need to lose 20 pounds my June 1st I should lose 40 pounds but need to lose 20 for work.

The hubster called and his daughter is in town and she wants him to take her out to dinner. He wanted ideas on where to take her, something not expensive but at the same time enjoyable for her age. It is nice now that he has his own spending money because he is alot more aware of his spending and he is trying to make it last. So that is smile worthy.

Work and Bills

March 20th, 2010 at 02:42 pm

Well been out of town for two evenings so far. Before I left I sat down with the husband and told him what he would need to pay, nothing major just his child support payments and sending lunch money for our son. Everything else is on autopayment out of my checking account.

So he is going to get a little taste of paying bills and buying groceries etc.

Not sure how long I will be out of town. We are at a very nice hotel, my only complaint is that this hotel has the worst insolation. Every night at like midnight the people upstairs come in. We can here them walking to the window to turn on the heat then back to the bathroom then back to the bed; then the second one enters the room and goes to the window/bed then to the bathroom and back to the bed.

They are not stomping but they sure are walking heavy heeled. Nothing like having stomp stomp stomp awaken you out of sleep and then having to wait like a half hour for them to stop walking around so we can go back to sleep.

I am currently on the 7am until 7pm shift, as of Monday I will probubly be switching to 7pm until 7am which will be a pain since my roomie is one at 7am until 7pm and will be staying that shift.

I cant wait to get home after this to see how the husband handled the bills and get everything finally totally seperated. Depending on if his checks come in he might have to do some transfering from one account to another so it should be a good learning experience for him.

PLUS he is having to be fulltime daddy and housekeeper only thing to make it better would be if he had to work also (then he would know what my life is like).

I will post if I can later.

Changed his mind

March 9th, 2010 at 02:39 pm

Last night the hubster got a call at the house. He had requested an email for information from a college and was not expecting a call from them.

Seems the hubster has been looking at attending a couple of colleges out of state. It is a 12 hour drive from where we live and I work (as long as there is not an accident which can cause hour delays, or it being peak driving hours). Once the can of worms was opened while talking about the college he also mentioned looking into housing.

My husband KNOW I will not move to the city these colleges are located in as it is a HUGE city and I hate driving in cities where if you break down on the highway you have to get out of your car ASAP and get to the shoulder or your are going to get creamed by the next car. I have a 6 year old still in a booster seat, that is not an easy task.

I did not hear the whole story; I was upstairs and my husband is hard of hearing so he tends to talk LOUD but I did catch him asking since he would have to put in some time to the part time job in our town that would pay part of the cost he asked if it would be a problem him coming home every four weeks or so.

My husband had been going to college for computers, well he was first going for a certificate BUT after two semesters of classes that will not transfer he realized it would be better to go the degree route and started over, well now 3 and a half years from a degree he wants to be a cheif and intern in Spain or France. All I can say is I saw this coming and he never sees anything through so I am not sure if I can support him in this dream.

Well if he thinks I am going to do all the household stuff and pay for him to try for a third time to go to school he has another thing coming. I have to work the job I have in order for him to be able to attend school without working and he knows it so I know he had no intention of asking us to go with. It is not possible when you look at the fact it would take me a full day to drive from there to work and back and that includes no work time.

It is time to start tracking down a lawyer. Why is it so scary to make the first step? I am tired of supporting him and I think he is tired of my high expectation of him that he cant meet. It is just not in his nature to work a full time job, he gets the most pleasure out of life working just enough to get by and then spending all remaining time with Friends or on computers or video games.

I gave up...

March 6th, 2010 at 09:49 pm

I did not want to spend hours looking through boxes looking for a tiny safe key or a debit card....

So I gave DH the ten dollars it would cost him to order a new debit card, well actually 9 dollars (3 one dollar bills, 5.75 in quaters, 2 dimes and 5 pennies) since that was all I had cash on me and in the house (can you say laundry money).

Well then he says really it is NO big deal. HUMMM it was a big enough deal that you repeatedly texted me in a rage at work but now it is NO BIG deal???

He would rather we spend $12 and order a new safe key....I know this is going to end up costing me 22 dollars because when the card is not in the safe I am still going to have to pony up the $10 to keep the peace.

Whatever, I had a headache; have to work all weekend and I just have no patients for his BS lately. It is like he is bipolar but really it is his PTSD. But after 3 years of dealing with the rage and bipolar type swings I really think I am getting to my limit.

Stressing over $20 - My Rant

March 5th, 2010 at 06:44 pm

My husband donated plasma this morning. They pay $20 per donation.

Last night we were looking for his debit card that they send the money to, could not find it. I think I might have put it in the safe, but of course with the house in shambles as the contractor finishes the basement I have missplaced the safe keys.

Now the card may not be in the safe but it could be. To order a replacement card it is $10. It is approxamitely $12 to have a locksmith cut a new key. So I would like to help him out and look through the mess that is our livingroom and see if we can find the safe key and or the card.

Last night he said NO worries he would let the balance sit and rise and IF once he had say $300 if we still had not found the card he would order a new card.

Well this afternoon; it is my fault that I moved/lost the card that he does not even know where he left it when he left for working out of state for the last year.

All this for $20, yes $20 is life and death because he would like to deposit the $ into his new checking account. Seriously it is things like this that make me want our accounts seperated years ago AND us have our own living spaces so he cant blame me for moving his things.

Seriously I think he left it in his wallet that he throw on the table 13 months ago right before he left the house saying he was not going to need that anytime soon, am I suppose to leave a wallet on a table for 13 months. IF I would have left it on the table I would have gotten in trouble when our son spilled something on it....some times I cant win.

What to do with $38,719.20

March 2nd, 2010 at 06:09 pm

Okay I now I am putting the cart before the horse. I just like to plan ahead instead of looking back and saying I should have done that. The Story is if we sell the house for what the insurance value is then my share of the profit would be $38,719.20. We could get more but then we could get less. But better to plan lots of good things and make a few happen and be left with future saving goals then to not plan and to SPEND.

The amount referenced takes into effect the off the top deduction of money going to our sons college fund. See when I first went back to work after having our son my aunt babysat for us for FREE; the deal was we would use the money to save for our sons future, sons college, pay off our debt or save for a house down payment.

We had NO debt so we saved as much of the saved amount as we could part of it for our son and part for the house down payment. Once we got to the house closing we barrowed that money from our son since technically she did say house down payment.

Well now that the house is being sold and we are going to rent for a while, the first cut of the profits goes to repaying the Aunty Daycare saved $ into a college 529 account.

Then the remainder will be split between the husbter and I. My share should be $38,719.20.

I am planning:
$5000 Roth IRA Me
$6000 CD for Braces for SON
$5000 Money for 529 (want to pay in full now a 4yr community college cost then let ride until college so the gains are basically the cost of college increases)
$18,000 Emergency Fund
??? $4719.20 ???

If you were debt free and came across this Money how would you spend it.

Payday is Today So I

March 1st, 2010 at 08:57 pm

wrote a check for the hubster to cash to deposit into his checking account for spending money.

He got his spending money, gas money and $10 so I can order him some checks for his new account. (To Do - Order Checks)

Giving him the gas money is working Awesome. He said it is no big deal on the amount of gas money he is getting as he is telling his buddies if they want rides they have to pony up money for gas. Funny how before, when he used up all his gas he just asked for more $, now IF he is frugle at the end of the month any extra gas money could be spending money. So Win Win, he is no longer giving his buddies free unlimited rides and I can budget a certain amount for gas money. I was going to give him more this month but when I asked about how much driving he had ahead of him for the month he said the same (went into the speach about telling his friends they would have to contribute gas $), so no reason to give him more if he did not say last month was tight.

Gave Son a check for lunch for the 1st through the 15th. He tends to like to add ala carte items and run out of $, so if I am only paying until the next payday I can keep a better eye on that. And IF the extra spending continues I am going to start looking into ways to send him healthy cold lunchs for less than $1.50 per day. I have done the math before and I always came out spending more per lunch.

Completed the form needed to remove StepDaughter #1 from dental plan. I need to have Hubster sign it tonight so I can fax it tomorrow. The rate is about to spike so we are removing #1 but leaving StepDaughter #2 on for 6 more months as she is in the middle of braces treatment. Removing #1 will save $46 per month; as the cost to insure just #2 is about to be what we were paying for both before.

The last time the hubster was unemployed for a while I hated it because he just sat in front of his computer and the TV all day long. This time it is not so bad, he is getting house stuff done, he is cooking, and since we have no TV he is actually getting alot of stuff done. We will see if that changes once the family room is set back up.

I really like the NO Tv, it is helpful for the entire family. It is such a Time Waster.

What a joyfull day and a little bit of a vent

February 26th, 2010 at 02:58 pm

Last night my husband said he wanted to start a more active role in bill paying. You have no idea what a weight this is off my shoulders.

Once the house is sold we are going to sit down and try things differently. His idea is we would each get paid into our own accounts and then split the bills and pay them as they come sitting down on Saturday to do this.

I have agreed whole heartedly to this because once we do this I will not feel like I am holding the burden. My husband will have his extra money to Free spiritly spend and I will have my extra money to save for our sons college fund and whatever other savings I need to feel financial secure.

Right now his income is not enough to pay for half the bills, that is why I am waiting until after the house is sold. Right now I am handling everything and at the end I work extra hard to fill in the slack. Well once we are renting and the bills go down he will get whatever extra is in his account and if it is not enough like he feel it is not enough now then he will have to pick up his own slack.

Now that I know I am swimming to a goal instead of just endlessly swimming to keep my head above water, I have a new burst of energy to do what I need to do to make sure I get picked to stay on at my job.

This weekend and new tracking come March 1st

February 25th, 2010 at 03:47 pm

On March 1st, since it is the start of a new month I will start tracking food spending. This I hope will allow me to get a real look at what we are spending on food.

I also want to track gasoline usage.

I am hoping that this weekend we will be able to do some furnature movement which will mean that I can clean up the house. When we reset up the office or family room I want to make an area to work so I can start posting items for sale on our towns free online classified listing.

Taxes!! I also want to sit down once the office or family room is set up and gather up all the tax forms and file our taxes.

See we textured and painted the ceilings in our basement and everything that was in the basement is piled in the livingroom upstairs and it is a nightmare. This weekend we hope to caulk the seams, paint the seams then clean up from the mess (Paper, painter plastic) wash floors and move furnature.

We are hoping to put our house on the market, Sell it, then rent an apartment for less and save the difference.

Lots of things to do this weekend and then hopefully start March 1st tracking expenses!

Help with a Budget?? What would you change?

February 24th, 2010 at 07:47 pm

Hi I am trying to cut costs so I can work on financial security. Our take home income MAY drop this Dec due to a lay off so I am trying to be proactive. Right now I am just looking to have a solid budget and trim a little so the saving can go to an Emergency Fund. And later if the layoff happens will make more drastic changes closer to Dec.

Here is my budget could you help look it over and see if there is anything you would look into changing.

Expenses: Monthly
House:
Mortgage $1,060.00
Electric & Gas $126.50 *
Water/Waste $56.90 *
Phone $29.17
Cell $100.00 #
Internet $38.11

Dental - Premium $44.68
Sons Meds $50.00
Daycare $239.00
Child Support $679.00

Car:
Gas $180.00
Insurance $33.16 *
Tags $17.00 *

Misc:
School lunch $30.00 (Edited from $50)
School Snack $6.66-> $15 EVERY 9 WEEKS
Food $450.00 #
Cleaner/tolietry/Paper$10.00 #
Gifts $60.00 *
Clothes $20.00 *
Toys/Fun $20.00 *
Spending $ Husband $100.00
Husband Life ins $38.00
My Life Ins $36.50
College Fund $225.00

$3,647.68 (-$20)

House Repairs
Misc
Dental Cost Share

I was going to explain areas but decided not to make excuses and just let you attack it. But I will put * next to Averages and # next to estimates.

Take Home : $4160.02

Mortgage is Mortgage plus taxes & insurance as loan type requires an escrow account

(Changes) I cut the School breakfasts 2/25/2010 out of the budget. My husband is back home now so I dont have to drop my son off for breakfast at school in order to make it to work on time. This was actually more than $20 because he was buying extra al-carte items but my budget was base price.


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