Sunday, December 28, 2008

MIA!

Wow, I hadn't realized how long it's been since I stopped by here. A lot has been going on!

Where to start?

We found out we'll be getting about $9,000 in a lump sum payment. I'm not going to go into the gory details about it. I'll just celebrate. :) It may be a little less - we'll have to see what happens. We should have it in hand by the end of January. With another similar check in June! And summer school payment in August!

That means...we could be debt free except for the house & student loans (and some/much of the car) by the end of the summer. Plus be able to pay for new gutters in cash.

How cool is that?

We've been carefully planning how we're going to be spending this money. We did decide to buy me a cheapy laptop for school/work purposes. I'm doing a lot more freelancing for other schools and for the state, as well as taking classes as we can afford it. I also have a student teacher this spring and will not be able to access my work computer as much. This will be perfect. It was $400 at Best Buy on super sale.

I found some great deals on after-xmas sales. For now, no list, but it was awesome.

We had a terrific holiday. Time to relax, and had dinner with my sisters at my mom's house.

Umm...

I have one more week off - we don't return until Jan 5th. I plan to spend some time in the basement getting things in order. It's such a disorganized mess down there!

We did make some sales on ebay - not a ton, but enough to help us get some traction during the holiday season. It would be so cool to have some extra money next Christmas. Not for presents, but for helping Mom out, donating. And after xmas sales. :)

Okay - enough for now. There's a ton of backstory on a lot of the points here, but I don't want to make this a giant entry. We're off to breakfast in a few minutes - an extravagance that puts an end to the holiday week. Have a terrific New Years!

Saturday, December 06, 2008

What a week!

Well, a few things have happened - we got a snowstorm on Sunday night, over 7" of snow and we still had school on Monday! I called in - it was just too dangerous to drive, and it took us awhile to dig out.

That evening, though, I went to Kmart for super doubles and got two nice bags full of stuff for $4. I like that! lol They were out of the Gilette body wash, but I figured they would be. Our Kmart is not well-stocked under good circumstances, much less when they're doing this.

As I was leaving, though, I walked past electronics and didn't check the Wii games. Then, I realized I'd probably kick myself if I didn't look for a Wii Fit, even though there was no way they'd have them...but they DID! So I got one! (Mom paid for it as the rest of my xmas present from her) That thing is AWESOME! I'm so excited - it's fun to use, and I've lost 3 pounds since I started it on Monday. Go figure!

I did get the bills done, and we are left with...not much until payday (the 19th this month). We do have cash set aside for xmas, but we have about $135 in the checking account. Obviously, we will have to suck it up, and also borrow some from our EF to get through the month. I hate that. I told dh, I want to limit it to $25 a week if we can, which I know will be hard, but we have got to start following the budget. There is no way that two people should not be able to live on our income, even with the debt payments we have. It's very frustrating.

I'm about to head down to the office to work on getting some ebay auctions ready to go. I figure, I can get as many as possible set this weekend, but then it's just getting too close to Christmas. If I wait much longer, they won't ship in time to make it, and then people get crabby. I'm also a little chilly, so getting up and moving around would be a good idea.

But first...what should I have for lunch? Hmm...