I chose the cent sign for my icon again today since not too much money was spent today.
Steve informs me of the usual pack of cigarettes and soda. He also says he spent $7 total eating while at work. That's it for today. I didn't spend anything.
We went to the races this evening but it was merchant night so tickets were free. We took in our own soda so nothing spent at concessions either. I was sure tempted though with money in my pocket that I made at today's garage sale. I'm out for today..short and sweet.
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
put the seat down (And Other Brilliant Insights for an Awesome First Year of Marriage) by Jess MacCallum
ISBN 978-0-7847-7462-5 Published by Standard Publishing
I looked forward to getting this book for review since I was just married July 30. Yeah, the book is based for the guys.....and written by a man. I actually read the book out loud to my husband. I knew he wouldn't take the time to read it himself. We had some laughs....some agreements....and some disagreements as we read it.
I really appreciate that this is a Christian based book. We did look up some of the Bible verses cited in our own Bibles to see just how the version we use reads. That is one thing about my husband, he joined my church after the wedding. Now it's our church. From a woman's point of view, the advice in this book is right on. It's written in plain English---easy to read, easy to understand. It's a small book both in size and pages. Just 125 pages. Each chapter starts with a cute cartoon. I showed the book to our pastor and he just couldn't stop laughing over the cartoon at the beginning of chapter 7. Chapter 7, by the way, is entitled holy sex!
Along with the book came a little note that I could use the book for giveaway once I was done reviewing it. I've decided to do just that. Whether you've been married a long time, just thinking of getting married, newly married, or even single, you will enjoy reading this book.
I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.
Today the house icon represents that today was mortgage payment day. We do pay it every other Friday. This way it was easier for us to pay as well as it ends up giving us an extra month's payment each year. They tell us that this will cut 7 to 8 years off of the loan.
Otherwise in money it's not been a good day. Remember the electric bill payment that was returned? I had told Steve to call the electric company to make sure they weren't going to send it back through. Instead he just went online and paid it again. Yep, you guessed it...they took both payments. However, it bounced at the bank again. This time they did pay it. Wouldn't be that big of a deal but because of it there wasn't enough for the other 2 auto pays coming out today--loan payment on vehicle and life insurance. Steve made a trip to the loan company and got the payment date extended so all is well for now. Other spending included the usual soda and cigarettes. Plus the overdraft charge again. Yikes! That's $60 wasted this month---that would have been enough to pay the water bill. Tomorrow is a new day...ok, so it's past midnight so it is today LOL
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
Good Friday morning. I'm a little late posting this week because I chose to sleep in--at least my body chose to!
I'm doing a series in case you've missed it-- 31 Days of Tracking Spending. It is a challenge put on through The Nesting Place blog. There are over 700 bloggers who have taken the challenge to choose a subject to blog about for the 31 days of October. There's some great stuff in the linky to check out. I chose spending to ensure that I do keep track. Hubby and I must track where the money is going to so that we can make up a budget of some sort. All that "little" money adds up to big money in a months time. (The link above will take you to my Day 1, where there are links to all the rest of the days as I get them done)
On to those uses for butter. These are out of the 99 Cent Solutions book. The book doesn't state that you can substitute margarine for these, so I assume it's real butter that has to be used for these uses.
1. Keep onions and cheese fresh. Both benefit from butter when it comes to storage. Rub the cut side of an onion with butter and wrap in plastic wrap. The onion will stay fresh for days longer, and you can dice the buttery part right in to your skillet. Hard and semi-soft cheese will stay mold free for weeks if you rub the cut sides with softened butter, sealing them to keep the air out before rewrapping in plastic and storing in the fridge.
2. Get the medicine down. Whether the pill is large or you just have trouble swallowing pills, try a dab of butter to ease the job. Lightly rub butter all over the outside of the pill and it will slip gently down with a sip of water, no sticking awkwardly in your throat.
3. Strip off sticky sap. Tree sap on your hands is nearly impossible to get off, unless you rub it well with butter. Use a generous amount and slather it on your hands like you are rubbing in lotion. Wipe it off with a paper towel and wash with soap and water.
Egads! So technically it's after midnight and the 14th but I won't tell if you won't. I actually forgot all about doing this post until I was reading someone's gather post about their blog.
Not a whole lot of spending today really. Hubby says he bought food while working twice...but he also bought 2 packs of cigarettes today too, which isn't good. I paid the sales tax for Jasmine on an item she wanted with her birthday money and then used a free coupon that I had to pay the sales tax on. I also bought a picture frame at the dollar store.
Oh yes, Steve also bought soda again today. Tomorrow (well today) is going to be the trick. Will his paycheck be enough to cover the 3 bills that are automatically coming out of the bank tomorrow? Stay tuned for my next post to find out!
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
I'm still not finding the time that I want and need to dedicate to squidoo :(
I did an update in my Jerky Direct Business Opportunity lens. I updated some of the wording to be read better and updated the sizes of the packages.
I'm still working on getting all of my lenses giving 10% to a charity. This week I added The LiveLovely Foundation to my Guns n' Roses lens, and dosomething.org to my Death Note lens.
I got a couple more of my lens links shared on redgage.
I did add my more recent book review lens into my book reviews lens. Boy, do I have a lot of book review lenses that could be built! I also need to play catch up on getting This Day in History lenses done for dates that are important to me too. Once I get them caught up I want to build a placeholder lens where anyone looking for a certain date might find it in that lens. I've still not started the new homeschooling lens for this year either. Who knows, I might surprise you next week and actually have new lenses to announce!
Yay! It's squidoo payday today too. $13.50 is my payday this week plus what was given to charity. My paydays are low but I strive to put in more time on squidoo and continue to watch each month grow. I am seeing some going to charity now with the lenses that I have moved over too.
Please do hook up and share your lenses, or posts that include helpful information about squidoo. Thanks!
The spending started with my husband buying his usual pack of cigarettes and then buying soda for all 3 of us. Next we were off to eat lunch at Chili's. We had gotten a $20 gift card as a wedding gift and hadn't used it yet. We picked lunch to get cheaper meals for the 3 of us. The service was slow. So slow that they brought us out some free chips and salsa. Then, when we got the bill they didn't charge us for our drinks. The total was just $21.60 for the 3 lunches. Woo hoo! $1.60 for lunch plus the tip we left.
After that we made a trip to Wal Mart to buy my Carnation Instant Breakfast. I always buy it at Wal Mart over the grocery store because they sell it for $2 cheaper. We also used $10 of my Free Del Monty fresh fruit and veggie coupons that I won from the Frugality is Free blog giveaway. We had $10.25 worth so just paid .25 plus the sales tax for the fruit. That's it, that's all the money that was spent today :)
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
The majority of this past week was spent working on crocheting dish scrubbies for my orders. I didn't take another photo but I still need to make 3 purple ones for one order and 5 black ones for the other order.
I tried to get out the toothbrush rug but only ended up putting in 5 strips before I got sidetracked on something else that needed to be done. I didn't take another picture of it either since I got so little done. Yesterday was sewing club at my church (we meet just once a month from 10-3). Only 3 of us were able to make it so: Anita ironed the material
Betty was cutting material in to strips
And I sewed the squares
We ended up with 13 squares completed, minus cutting them down to the right size. I brought home strips, so hopefully next week I will have more to show you done. We need 54 for the quilt top we want to make.
I also made a few crocheted washcloths this last week. I'm working on an order but needed to make up a few to show the gal colors available. So...first I'm going to finish up the dish scrubbie orders. Then I'm going to finish up the washcloth order. In between I may just do some sewing for church. I'm in hopes of getting strips cut for my next jelly roll style quilt as well as see what I can do to get started on some Christmas presents.
Here is something else that I keep forgetting to report. What is it you ask? Well, we heard that you can take your material scraps, fill a pillowcase and make them in to pet beds to be donated to the animal shelter. We started filling a pillow case at sewing club a few months ago. The pillowcase in the picture is the one that I am filling at home. It's a great way to make sure that nothing goes to waste. It's filled with the bits and scraps that normally would have been thrown away.
Today we had an unexpected expenditure of buying me an elbow brace. Well, not exactly unexpected as I've needed it for weeks. It was a last minute decision of Steve though after bowling. My doctor says my elbow tendons will never heal until I quit bowling, crocheting, sewing etc, however, the brace eases the pain while I am doing those things.
Otherwise, Steve spent a little more for his lunch today. Jasmine and I also treated ourselves to Wendy's for lunch during sewing club at church. It would have cost us about the same to buy something at the store though since we buy from the .99 menu. The usual Tuesday night expenditure is for our bowling league. We've been taking in our own soda even though we aren't supposed to, but he did buy Jasmine a soda.
Other spending included Steve buying soda and a pack of cigarettes. Speaking of cigarettes, my prescription smoking cessation will be coming in the mail. No co-pay with our insurance. And speaking of the soda, I added up what I had for receipts and such for August. On just soda I come up with $41.50. I don't think this is correct as I'm sure several times he didn't tell me he bought, or I just didn't get it written down. After this month and using this challenge I will have a much more accurate spending journal. And, I'm in hopes that even though I won't be blogging about it next month that I can keep up the list. They say it takes 3 months to get an average that is pretty close.
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
As I look over my notes from last week I see NO math listed. That's not a good thing.
Monday we did get to a few subjects---not many. One thing that was wrong Monday was that I was doing an online party 8 hours of the day to sell my crafts. Tuesday we went to Bible study at church in the morning as we do every week. The rest of Tuesday I can't tell you. I remember--she attended a choir performance at the high school. A friend is in the choir and she was surprised to find several of her other friends also performing.
Wednesday is my husband's day off work. He tends to turn on movies or maybe the History channel. We don't tend to get a lot done. We strive to have things for her to do that she can pretty much do on her own. (She doesn't like how he butts in with commentary and answers LOL) She did attend her youth group meeting Wednesday evening.
Thursday--I don't remember Thursday at all other than we spent the evening at church for family fun night--playing bingo. Wait! I remember something. We are using the Every Day Fit program put out by Subway (kit received free over the internet). I had her take 3 of the grandkids out and play 4-square. It was one of the assignments to stay fit from the program. Here is a picture I took of them playing:
Oh yeah, the public school was out on Thursday and Friday for conferences. This means the grandkids were here all day. She went to spend the night at her friends house Thursday evening. Then she spent the night at another friends house on Friday. A friend stayed overnight with her Saturday.
She informs me that she did a lot of things while away for the weekend with friends that would count for school: attended a football game, baked cookies, and lots of walking for exercise.
So there you have it--this is what happens during a crazy week. I'm not even certain that I even wrote down everything.
So far this week is looking a lot better! Her birthday was Sunday, but I will share more about that in next week's post.
Today's biggest expense was the co-pay to the doctor for my physical today.
My husband reports buying a pack of cigarettes today and only spending .98 for a slice of meatloaf for his lunch at work. I'm not sure yet if he's being up front with me on what he is spending yet or not. We got his bank statement in the mail. I can write down what is this month for ATM withdrawal fees so far, and hope he will tell me about others. He claims he can't help it when he's out of town with work and needs cash. I am trying to convince him that he needs to make one withdrawal, figuring what he will need for the week. That part of this tracking spending may have to wait until next month's statement comes in. That way I will have a total for him on just how much he is wasting with those fees withdrawing $20 or so $$ at a time. That's my report and thoughts for Day 10.
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
This sure seemed like an extremely slow mail week for me.
I got the usual magazines: Sports Illustrated, People, Businessweek, Ok!, Time, and Entertainment Weekly. I got some other hausernet mail. Otherwise I did get in 2 books for review--put the seat down and Crazy for Cake Pops.
I
did receive some paypal---$20 from gather, .11 from matesgate, and
$9.41 from bloggerservices. I also rec'd 2 craft orders. At some
points I got paid to my checking account for a book I sold on half.com,
but until I get my bank statement I am not sure when that came in.
Today was Jasmine's birthday as you all know from my previous posts and the cell phone. I don't think she was too thrilled that she didn't get the fancy one she wanted.....she said thank you and took my phone right away to get her friends put in to her own phone. She texted everyone right away...she just didn't have the excitement I thought she should have.
Anyway back to today's spending. That I am aware of my husband didn't spend any money that I know of past putting money in the offering plate at church.
I spent $22 and some change at Wal Mart. Just over $12 of that was yarn and netting to use for craft orders, so that is not part of our budget. I keep track of my business separately. I used 4 more of the free Crave cat treat coupons so only paid sales tax on those. I bought one can of the .30 canned cat food to see how the animals like it. If they like it then I can spend less on the canned food by buying it. I bought myself a new mouse for my computer. My scrollie button quit working a couple of weeks ago and it's been driving me batty. I bought the cheapest mouse for just $6. I splurged on a package of the tart melts as I call them. I love to scent up the house and was out. I also splurged $1 and bought a sheet of Halloween clings. Looks like that is my report for today.
Check out the linky with over 700 others who are also doing the 31 Days Challenge HERE
