Never been so excited to get gas!

We were driving home from school today and I glanced at the sign of the station where we always turn and did a BIG double whammy. It was reading 99.9 cents/Liter. It hasnt' been under a dollar in.........lordy a long time. In the summer it was mostly 1.199 and early in the fall it shot up to $1.499.

Naturally I wheeled in and was glad the tank was almost empty and we filled up. There are probably 20 stations in our smallish community and this is the only one this low, I discovered. Yeah for us.

Of course my almost 14 year old had to remind me how angry I'd been when it jumped from 79.9cents/L to the 90 cent range.

It was a good lesson in relativity for all of us.

Help

Just a shout out to any readers out there who are far more blog familiar than I am. I am wanting to add the lil bars on the side to show how far debt is paid off, as I see many of you do on your pages. What the heck is that tool called for blogger??? LOL

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Ch-ch-change

I spent a few minutes tonight happily rolling change. Not sure when I did last but it was in the summer. I haven't acquired much but every little bit helps. With the $41 I rolled, I am close to $100. I think when I get to $100 I shall drop it into my mini EF or else put it towards my bank of mom loan.

I can't wait until those are both done so I can put anything extra towards my personal loan.

I do love rolling change LOL

Must be the kid in me.

A beautiful sight

It is, truly, a beautiful sight, to see a Credit Card balance with that beautiful image "O Balance"

Now let's keep it that way and whatever goes on during the month, goes off by the end.

wheeeeeeeeee

Flowing like water out of a cracked dam

Thank goodness it is PayDay Friday and thank goodness I have a bit of extra cash coming my way due to being maxed out on some of the federal contributions. I need an extra $500 for the hockey team fees, I have a bit of Halloween Candy to buy and the fundraising exchange has begun so some money will go out there.

On the bright note, as mentioned yesterday, if there are no hidden surprises, the Mastercard will be paid off so I can focus on my other two big goals of the year:

• building the mini emergency fund of $1000
• working to pay off the Bank of Mom loan

The mini emergency is do-able before end of 2008 but with no money saved towards Christmas and extra hockey expenses due to away over night games and hotel/gas/food costs, it is doubtful I will have the Bank of Mom one paid off.

I need to redo my budget to allow more room, if possible for the potential hockey expenses each month. If it is not used then all of it, or the unused portion, can slide into the mini or BoM goals.

It's been an interesting ride to say the least.

Mastercard almost taken care of!

With payday fast approaching I am excited to see that the outstanding balance on the Mastercard will be Paid In Full this Friday!! I am so excited to get this back down to zero, where it was before July. I am glad I worked hard on this to get rid of the debt instead of carrying a balance on it, as I have in the past.

Hopefully nothing *knocks on wood* unexpected comes along that will force a debt that can't be repaid each month.

Yeah me!

with the activity comes ...the fundraiser

I haven't written lately as it's been crazy as per usual in October. School's in full swing, the boys' activities are going full strength and I am pooped.

I want my boys in activities... I do. They give them exercise..socialization...team building etc. I pay the fees they need to join, and I pay for the equipment. I believe in having them busy as I see, as a teacher, the results of children who are not busy with activities whether they be sports, music, dance, church or community.

The hardest part, I think, is the obligatory fundraising that goes with the activites. They take many forms: cookies, flowers, magazines, popcorn, chocolates, hams, turkeys, christmas trees, coupon books, bingos....the list goes on.

This basically becomes a trade between fellow parents....I'll buy a ham if you buy four boxes of chocolates. Non parents or your family members understand, to an extent...but others start to avoid you and I cant blame them lol

We have a small staff at work so we are very subtle about it. A message on the board, info on the coffee table and either people buy or not.

I feel for those who are in these activities and haven't anyone to trade purchases with. Buying all your own...feels onerous.

Where is twiggers?

Just wondering if anyone knows what happened to "In Debt because I like nice things" ? Her link says that the blog has been removed.

I'm sad as I enjoyed reading hers every day.

Anyone???

Where the Debt Stands - October

As of October 1st, 2008

Mortgage - $44 068.16
Consolidated Loan - $14 319.51
His VISA -$ 3190.62
His Truck Payment - $17 303.06
Bank of Mom - $1000.00
My Mastercard - $400.00

Total Debt $80 281.35


So while it is not yet below $80 000, it is down just over 3 thousand from last month. I have made progress on my MC but sadly the spouse has increased his VISA.

I keep hoping 'one day' things will pull together.

Irony and Costco

On Friday I had posted a comment on a great blog entry (whose addy I can't remember). The author had commented on how important it was not to forget the once a year fees that come up such as AAA(CAA in Canada), insurance etc. I had added Costco to the list as one I set aside.

I went there Sunday when I was away for conference and was surprised to find the man at the register tell me that my yearly fee needed to be paid. I KNOW I paid this in July when I was in the city and stopped there. Sadly with no way to prove that at this juncture, I sucked up the $55 and had it added to my bill.

It bugged me the whole way home. I can distinctly recall going in and heading to the customer service line up to renew, telling my boys I'd be right there. I remember the door person saying "oh you can just have that added on at the till now so no need to stand in this line", and I can remember them adding that to my bill when I checked out.

When I got home I checked my bank accounts records (thank god I keep these now) and sure enough there was Costco on my account for the date in July but just a number that included the fee and the groceries I bought. NO way to prove from that, that I paid for membership.

sigh

I am pretty sure I did not keep the receipt though I will look when I go home today. It probably never occurred to me to keep it when the bulk of it was for peanut butter, cheese, cereal etc.

I will try phoning there this week and give them the date I was there and ask them to check their records to see if my account was paid up that day, but I have a sinking feeling about it.

Sigh

So a powerful lesson has been learned. When visiting places where the yearly fee is not a separate paper and is just added on to all the stuff you are buying, KEEP the stupid receipt, even if it is for just groceries and Toilet paper.

Update on Expensive being a woman

Back in July I had hypothesized on how much it costs to keep a girl in basic beauty (LOL) each month. Through a series of generalizations, I decided that it costs me $64 a month to be me. I spent some time this week at Walmart, which offers the least expensive options for purchasing around here and came up with a table to reflect the realities. Let me tell you, they are scary!! I determined the cost per item, and then decided how many units I used of each, per month. Some items I used half, some I used one, and some I use 1.5 times or 2 items of each per month. It was a very interesting experience.

It showed me that just 'being' costs a lot. It shows me that cutting back a bit each month will save little bits. It gave me a base price so I can comparison shop when I get the flyers.

So here it is, before our lovely taxes of 10%.

Cost per month
Bodywash - $2.46
Shampoo - $4.40
Conditioner - $4.40
Blush - $2.41
Eye Shadow - $2.98
Lipstick - $4.23
Toothpaste - $2.08
Fem. Products - $8.96
Deodorant - $5.94
Contact Solution - $8.88
Gel - $9.92
Razors - $5.99
Facewash - $7.11
Foundation - $11.47
Moisturizer - $19.97
Mascara - $7.47
MONTH TOTAL - $98.59

I also realized that I have no clue how to import a chart to this blog as it did not recognize any of the ways I tried. Interesting. And it was all prettily laid out too LOL

And this list doesn't cover all of the expenses. I thought of another 10 while I was typing. terrible. LOL

Willy Nilly

Ok So payday was on the 25th and I dutifully put down the money on the phone, satellite, cell, loans, MC, Visa etc and bought a few groceries. All good. All prompt and proactive. And then somewhere along the journey it was as though everything went to hell in a handbasket. Money was coming out of spots it shouldn't have...spending money was spent on groceries when the store's debit was down and everything got all muddled up and bringing take out home two nights in a row when unexpected evening changes messed up the plan.

I have to admit I was avoiding my blog because it's hard to accept or admit things have gotten all wonky. I need to take time this weekend to just breathe and accept that things may not be all in the right column etc when the month is over. There is just something about my Type A personality that goes "ohh things got all messy.......screw it for the month and start over again at the end of October" lol

Things won't get better soon in some ways as I am gone tomorrow for a conference which I had to put the fee down on my MC as things went wonky at the main office and the cheque didn't go through. I'll get reimbursed, but that will take a couple weeks. Then, I am off again this coming Thursday through Sat for another conference, and while hotel and gas money will be reimbursed, the initial output comes from me. Food is my expense and of course that will be higher than it would be at home.

It's so hard to stay focused when things go all whirly like this. I appear to need too much control, but often in the wrong ways LOL

On the bright note, I avoided again all the checkout trash magazines that were calling me. I stopped myself a couple times from just buying some things, just because but that really is a 'one thing at a time' challenge.

I started back to Weight Watchers last Friday after 4 months and far too many pounds gained back. This will add an almost $17/week fee, but I have that budgeted in for this month already (just in case I went back LOL) as getting to a more healthy weight is essential for me not going crazy or depresssed. It was join for free so at least I didn't have to pay a resigning fee as most months have that varies between $35 and $50, so woo hoo that I picked the free month to bite the bullet and go LOL