Some snowflakes/August Change

I went to the bank today after work and made an extra payment on my LOC.

My change for the month was hefty. I purposely didn't spend any that I got buy when buying things, because I  needed this little psychological boost.

1 roll of Toonies - $50
1 rolls of loonies - $50
3 rolls of quarters - $30

for a total of $130

Added to that was some leftover gas money and grocery money which added up to $100.

Together that was $230 down on my LOC.

I need to keep up the focus and get this debt DOWN.

And.................he is gone

With a quick dash back into the house to grab his mother's dog eared copy of Voltaire's Candide, DS2 is gone.

Don't tell DS1, but the tears have been far more copious this time than when his brother left for the first time.

I think it's because it means this phase of motherhood is truly over.

Waiting for all the money pieces to fall together.

Money is whipping in and out of my accounts like crazy and to be honest, I will be happy when both boys are settled in to school. Then I know the tuitions are paid and I can get back to whatever my new budget will be.

DS2's tuition was paid yesterday. The RESP money is in, so as soon as it shows up on my MasterCard, I can take care of that.

DS1's tuition is still pre-scholarship so we are waiting for that to be applied. I forget how long that took last year. The online College account says the 20th of August but I know full well it was in September before it actually was applied. So we are waiting to see how much that is, and if any of his accommodations are covered.

DS1's MC bills for his travel down are finally posted. He stayed in a hotel last Wed night and the charge just showed up on the MC today. So that is all paid. What a difference in gas prices between the countries. A fill here was about $50 and down there it is high $20.  It does annoy me that it takes that many days for the charges to show up on the card.

My laptop is still in the shop. I stopped by yesterday and talked to the guy. It made it to their bench Friday.  The Trojan is deeply embedded in my system and they are having trouble wiping it out. So it will be another couple days.

Funny thing - I noticed the weird popups (Trojan) when I was ordering shirts for DS1 from Holister.ca (Abercrombie and Fitch). Hey, $10 Tee shirts!  And good quality ones too. He has one and loves it. Anyhoo, that is when this popped up.

Enter my school laptop that I brought home with me last week. DS2, who hates clothing shopping, said he liked his brother's shirt and since they were cheap, could he get a couple since he needs new shirts anyways.

I never even 'thought' and went to my school laptop to the webpage and after picking a couple, I went to start the check out process and the SAME popup came up. Coincidence???? I think not.

I shut it down and restarted it. Apparently the school has better virus protectors because it is gone. I checked with the techie at school.

I called the company to tell them what happened from their webpage on two different occasions. They could not have cared less.

The money for DS2's hail damaged car came through. I put that in  a savings account. It will be there when we decide what his new to him vehicle will be and find one we can afford.

And that's the money poo.

It's payday today so it feels like a brand new start to things. 

One gone

Well DS1 left yesterday. His girlfriend spent the weekend with us as they tried to make the most of their last few days together.

We spent Tuesday packing and making sure he had all his proper documents to get across the border. This would be the first time he would be going alone, by vehicle. 17 hours is a long long drive. I hope he doesn't choke to death on the stench of his hockey equipment.

He dutifully texted me after he got through the border and again when he checked into a hotel in North Dakota. A lot of the boys that drive far just pull over at a roadside stop or a 24 hour gas station, but that made me nervous.  He spent a night in a vehicle when he went to Craven (outdoor music concert) this summer, when their tent got flooded, so he knows how uncomfortable that it.

He should be on his last leg of the journey by now. When he texted last night he said he was glad to be back in the land of low gas prices. It's crazy expensive up here.

The house felt emptier last night, for sure. The cats were looking for him.

Part of me felt the tiniest bit relieved. Now I can focus on getting DS2 ready for his departure and give him my full attention. I am sure DS2 is thrilled LOL

DS2's car

So we had our appointment with SGI (claims) for them to see DS2's car after the hail storm. They are used to seeing lots of little dents but they said it was rare to see such massive dents all over a car like that.

He did his once over and documented everything and stopped when the damage value was at
 $10 000, saying that was enough for the car to be written off. Then we had to wait for  a claims adjustor to evaluate the worth of the car.

It took awhile as everyone is on summer holidays. They came back with an initial value of $7600, which was more than I thought, honestly.

Then I had to take in the $6000+ in receipts from the past year for all the repairs we did: struts, transmission, upper and lower control arms, etc

Know what they offered us for that? $200. That's it. Said nothing counted but the transmission.

I was shocked.   Kind of sad that all that work was valued and almost nothing.

That cheque will come in a week or so and I will tuck it away until DS finds a vehicle he likes and we can afford.