Saturday, May 31, 2008

Woo hoo!

Imagine my surprise when I checked my mailbox at work and found that she had put the curriculum hours through - and my check was there and waiting!

$1400, bay-beeee!

I almost did a happy jig, but that may have hurt my back. I did email her and tell her that I felt like driving over to her office and giving her a big wet sloppy kiss. :)

That means - that we can get the BEF back to where it needs to be - we can pay OFF the dryer - we can buy some much-needed clothes - we can get the dog and insurance funds up to where they need to be - and I think we'll still be able to set some, if not all, of the money aside for the curb & gutter assessment.

I am sooo excited about this.

I was able to get some clothes today - dh is picky about certain clothes, not to a real big extent, but wants Hanes and certain colors, etc. I ran all over town today - to find what I want at the Kmart. Go figure. I was able to get 2 packages of underwear, 9 t-shirts, 2 pair of jeans for him, a pair of capris and a shirt for me for work this summer, a pair of shorts for me, and a purse (mine is literally falling apart) for just over $100. Even better - I'm probably going to be returning 2 of the shirts and one package of underwear - they were bought at Target & weren't really what he wanted, but I figured they were close enough, and then I found them at Kmart. That means about...umm...$16 + tax returned. Not terrific, but not bad, either.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Da book!

Amazingly, I broke down...and purchased our own copy of "Total Money Makeover".

I had borrowed it from the library three times, but when I went to go re-read it, it was marked as "lost" and "pending charges". In other words...no one was going to be replacing it any time soon.

Last weekend, Dave Ramsey had a $10 sale on his books, but I found one on ebay for a similar price, and I could use paypal (past ebay sales) to pay for it instead of the evil cc's or having to get it out of the monthly budget.

And it arrived within 2 days! So, I'm about 3 chapters into it. I got the "updated" 2007 version, which I haven't read yet, so it's a little different.


(But I still haven't done the bills yet...I'm kind of scared to see how much we've spent since my back went out...on a brighter note, the physical therapy seems to be helping me, so that's nice!)

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Dum da dum dum DAAAAAAAA

Who did it?

Well, I did.

I threw my back out two weeks ago (2 weeks tonight, we went to the ER for it!) - diagnosis: extreme sciatica issues, bulging disc in lower back, "narrowing" channel for the spinal cord, and cysts on my spinal cord.

I haven't felt my toes on my left foot in 2 weeks. Fun, fun.

Needless to say, I haven't been doing much. I had to take a week off work (possibly the worst possible timing, but I don't want to go into huge detail for fear of real-live-people reading this in real life...), and have been pretty much eating crap and eating out a lot as I'm hurting too much to do much of anything at all. Except sleep.

So, it's time to get a plan going.

After tomorrow, I should be done with the massive year-long curriculum work (yay!), which will net a nice amount. Depending on how the meeting tomorrow goes, I'll be putting in for a minimum of 95 hours of curriculum time, possibly more if we decide more needs to be done. That's 95 hours @ $23 an hour = ...well, a lot. Almost $1800 after taxes, etc, if I'm doing mental math right. 100 hours would be $2300 before taxes, so...yeah. Close enough.

And this, the VA can't seize, either. Yay! So - that would mean we can pay off the dryer, get the money saved up for the assessment, and pay down (off?) the smallest cc.

  • I won't be putting a garden in this year because of my back, so no garden expenses.
  • I wont' be doing a rummage sale any time soon, but possibly in August when the roadwork is done.
  • We might be taking a car load of crap - er, rummage items - to a flea market about a 1/2 hour away. Every Sat, $10 for a space, and we have a shade that we can borrow from my sister. I'm excited about that.
  • And, I need to get some more stuff going on ebay as soon as I can get out from under this crushing weight of school work. Thank God this year is almost over. I'm so ready. It's been a horrible semester.

So...keep fingers crossed that my back behaves. I have an appointment for physical therapy next week Wed, and an appointment with the bariatric surgeon next week Tuesday. Insurance says I have to be on a MD supervised diet for 6 months before they'll approve the Lapband surgery, and I have an appointment to see my doc on 6/12 to start that. So, possibly...in Dec, I could have the surgery. That would ROCK!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

I <3 Walgreens

I've had such a fun time this week with the Walgreens P&G deal, and didn't even go over our budget (we used a sinking fund for the dog, but won't need the amount we took out until she needs her shots in Dec). We are kind of tight this month due to stupidity, but we'll be fine. Frustrated, but fine.

So...what did I end up with from Walgreens? Glad you asked:
  • 17 tubes of toothpaste
  • 9 bottles of dh's favorite body wash (Old Spice Pure Sport)
  • 3 pretty new colors of nail polish (dh says they're "teeny bopper" colors - I told him they were for my toes, not my fingers, and he sighed in relief)
  • 1 lipslicks (fun)
  • 1 blush (backup)
  • 2 eyeliners (backup)
  • and...something else that I'm forgetting.

I also ended up with $60 in RR's to use in the next two weeks. So far, here's what I'm looking at to use them on:

  • Generic H&S (we didn't use "the deal" to buy H&S because it was just too expensive - but we have no problem using the generic version),
  • Breathe Right strips are on sale next week for $1 for 18! We usually pay $10 for 30 of them, and they REALLY help me stay asleep and feel more rested.
  • Miracle Whip 2/$5, 4 of these should last us through into fall
  • Batteries.
  • Oh, and 1 Gillette 2-n-1 body wash, which comes with a RR for a free one. I've seen on HCW that some people are able to roll these, which would be cool, but I'm not counting on it.

At least, that's my plan right now. I've looked at the sales coming up and there's not much to roll these RR's in to. I passed on the razors, etc this time.

Love these deals...it was almost as fun as the P&G thing at Kmart last summer! Now THAT was a rollin' fun deal! lol

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Well, VA did it!

The rebate finally posted to our account yesterday. Instead of $1200, we received $227.51, because VA seized the rest of it.

I am...okay with it. I am glad that the VA bill will be down below $1000 again (it should be about $500 or so now), but jeez...how will we get through the month?

Sometimes, it takes me longer to learn the lessons I need to learn. I'm a big girl now, you'd think this wouldn't be so tough!

Okay - here's the plan.
  • Pay the cable bill.
  • Pay the cell phone bill.
  • Call the cell phone people to switch to pay-as-you-go, which I was supposed to do FOUR freaking months ago. (Another..'why the hell do I do this to myself?' thing...)
  • Transfer the $50 or so that's in paypal.
  • Figure out where we're at. I will NOT fall behind on bills again. We can cut groceries a LOT - we're not anywhere near starving.
  • Give my boss the hours sheet for the curriculum work I've been doing. That's $23 an hour, and if I got the check with the May paycheck, that should be close to $800 or so. Then, we could pay off the dryer and get started on paying off the bed.
  • Get off my doof and get some things posted on ebay.
  • Get off my doof and go through the rummage pile to see what I could take to a flea market in town the weekend of the city-wide rummage sale (which I can't take part in because of the construction on our street this summer).

Okay. That's a plan. I can do that.

(It doesn't help that work has been so stressful lately. That will ease in about 3 weeks. My bp should drop back to normal levels after that. And that's also the #1 reason I haven't been posting much lately...as well as the #1 reason we fell off the wagon with eating out. Ugh.)