Got my paycheck today...I have five checks to run to the bank tomorrow. DH's grandmother is becoming a little forgetful. We celebrated with them in November before they left for Florida, and she gave both of our kids some money. A few weeks ago, we got a Christmas card from them. A few days later, we got another one. We told DH's mom about it, and she said Grandma had just called her for our address to send a birthday card to our youngest, even though she has been sending things to us all month. Then about a week ago, she sent us another Christmas card with three checks, for DH, ds1, and ds2. Hmmm...the boys had already gotten money, and they had decided to stop giving the grandchildren (DH) money this year. So now she sends him money anyway, but not me? I don't mind at all that she didn't - it's just out of character for her to give money to one grandchild and not the spouse. She has always been very inclusive. So DH and I were on the fence about whether to cash them or send them back (it was only $10), but we decided that sending them back would probably cause her to be embarrassed. So we are going to deposit them, whether it's right or wrong, I don't know. So to make a long story short...there's an additional $10 for the month. I will put my sons' into their accounts for when we get around to buying them bonds.
DH and I had a very productive day. I tallied up our expenses for the year, although I have not entered them into the computer yet, so I don't have a "report"!. He worked on getting our information into Microsoft Money. I really liked that program at first because you can import all your information from your cc and bank accounts directly into the program, but I have found a few glitches that make we want to stop using it, unless I can figure out how to fix them. First of all, since my cc statements are already in there, it looks like I am paying twice when the cc payment is taken out of my checking. I can't find anyway to delete this entry as it is imported directly from my statement. Second, the same thing happens with transfers from one account to another - it appears as though the money is being "spent" from the first account. Even though the numbers look the same after, it messes things up when you want to do a graph of what you are spending your money on. DH has been playing with it, so maybe he has found a way to get around this. If anyone has any input on this program, or another one that they find helpful, I would love to hear it. I may start a new post about this...
Anyway, I got a little off topic there. I also got a few loads of laundry done, arranged to have my will notarized (before our trip next week!), cleaned and organized our bedroom, set aside some donations which DH took to ds1's preschool, looked up some deals for our upcoming trip, and cancelled a membership that we no longer used. But the best part - I followed up on a tax overpayment from two years ago and they will be sending me a check. $470!!! It was an absurd amount of time to let this go uncollected, but I didn't even know there was an overpayment for a year, until the lady who bought our house called us. Then we followed up with our closing attorney, who was supposed to take care of it and never did, and our former mortgage company, who (twice) was supposed to send us the paperwork to prove the money was ours, and never did. So it has been on the back of my to-do list forever, and all it took was a ten minute phone call to the tax office. DH thinks this is going to be his gambling money for Vegas
January expenses: $126.73 + 50 (pre-school tuition) = 176.73
January income: $10 + 10 + 531.41 = 551.41