Some of you readers out there might remember my granola recipe that I posted a while back - I think there are even some who adopted it. Anyway, I got tired of not being able to take it with me to work (the logistics of taking milk with me for the granola were just too much of a PITA), so I decided to make my next culinary adventure...granola bars. Every bit as good and completely portable. Ta-da!
Anyway, I found 4 recipes online and finally decided to make the peanut butter-chocolate chip ones. I substituted natural peanut butter for regular and Splenda brown sugar. I am trying really hard to keep the sugar content down in our diets. I also decreased the amount of corn syrup, which may have been a bad choice as they are a bit crumbly. I'll have to rework the recipe a bit - maybe decrease the corn syrup but add a little honey. BTW, anyone know if corn syrup or honey is better for you? Instinctively, I want to say that honey must be better, but I really don't know. Is light corn syrup in the same class of evil foods as high fructose corn syrup? Another thing I need to find out...if I only knew where!
Since we have a lot of granola eaters out there, I'll try to post a recipe when I find one that it scrumptious. I think my next batch of bars will be coconut-almond-cranberry....mmmmm.
No work tomorrow - but a few errands to run. I have to go to the bank to get a cashiers check for $130 to pay DH's speeding fine. I also have to set up an eye appt. as I am on my last pair of contacts. I have been putting this off for several months now as I know it will cost me about $290 out of pocket. I splurge on the Night and Day contacts ($240 for a years supply), but I absolutely love them and will never go back. I could save money by going to a network eye doctor, but I have been going to the same place since 6th grade and don't want to change. I guess some things are worth a little more.
Took a real beating in the market today, especially with Apple dropping almost $6. Right now, we hold only stocks, no funds, a strategy that my parents swear by (although they have enough to be sufficiently diversified, whereas we do not). I told DH (the investor) that I want to start looking at mutual funds - I think when we can start putting money away again, I'll need to hit the forums for suggestions. I have a lot to learn.

1. Pay off Discover $787 balance -> made a $200 payment today, so down to $587
2. Pay off American Express $4897.28, 0% interest -> down to 4767.08
3. Pay off my student loans $5887 balance (about 4.6% interest) -> down to $5808.77
4. Pay off Dh's student loans $15145 balance (in deferment) -> no change

About $400 better than my last posting...little by little, we're getting there. The best part is taking one entire item off the list (car payment!).

Ok, I bit the bullet - here goes.
December budget:
Groceries: 225 -> 193.05 Cleaning out the freezer and pantry did us some good - to be continued for January as we still have a lot to go through!
Household/Cell: 90 -> 97.88 Rates went up and I haven't gotten around to searching for a new carrier for myself yet, although I did cancel DH's service and get him a Trac Phone (not an option for me due to how much I use it and the need for a portable number)
Car: 250 -> 215.26
Medical: 0 -> 15 (one co-pay)
Clothes: 0 -> 41.56 (DH needed a new winter coat and I have to hand it to him, found a really sweet one at a good price)
Loans: 300.36 -> 100.36 (car payment did not go through until Jan)
Entertainment: 120 -> 153.19 ($88 spent on two family parties for Ds2's birthday - ordered pizza and wings for both)
Gifts: 300 -> 645.55 What on earth was I thinking when I budgeted $300 here in December???
Miscellaneous: 50 -> 182.99 A large amount of this was software for the computer, for which we'll be getting a partial rebate this month...but still...ouch.
Real estate: 0 -> 518 for 2007 dues
School/Day care: 80 -> 103
Investment: 0 -> 0
Cash withdrawals: 80 with no fees -> 220 with $2 in fees
Total income: 1300 -> 1434.94
Total expenses: 1495.36 -> 2487.84 And this would account for the $1000 cc bill we now have! I have already paid off $300 and hope to get to the rest later this month. I'm glad December is over.

The good points: efforts to reduce the grocery and gas/car bills have worked out well. I can look forward to another month of lower grocery bills as we continue to clean out around here. We've been having some great meals with the things we find in the freezer Also, since DH is done with school and student teaching, his only commute will now be to the schools he substitute teaches in - the closest and most frequent being 5 minutes away.

January budget:
Groceries: 200
Household/Cell: 113 ($98 for last months service, $15 for DH's new Trac Phone)
Car: 200 for gas, 200 for inspection/repair (DH thinks he needs new brake pads, among possible other things)
Medical: 6.83 for prescription co-pay
Clothes: 0
Loans: 800 (final car payment plus student loan payment)
Entertainment: 130
Gifts: A big fat ZERO - no birthdays, no holidays, no anniversaries...aw, wait, just remembered one birthday - $15
Miscellaneous: 150 (DH's $130 speeding ticket to pay )
Real estate: 0
School/Day care: 0 (day care closed down, mom agreed to watch them until DH gets a consistent schedule)
Investment: 0
Cash withdrawals: 100 with no fees
Total income: 1500
Total expenses: 1914.83 (the car payment has already been made with money from the EF, so it looks like we might have a little left over this month)

What? It's january 16th and I haven't done my monthly summary yet for December? Eek! I know why - it's because I just don't want to face up to what we spent last month. Sigh.

Good news though - thanks to Apple stock (yeah!) our net worth is now back in the black. It took a dip down into the red after we took some money out to pay off the car loan. Now, the car is paid, and we are $350 to the good! It's a small victory, but I'll take it. It's particularly bittersweet since it was at $3k before DH's last tuition bill, and at about $7k earlier in the year (before his other tuition bill). But hey, it's an investment. DH should be getting his first subbing paycheck on Friday, I get paid on Thursday, and there is still $350 in the checking account. Life is...getting better

DH got a call to substitute teach on Wednesday. 7th graders - not exactly his area of interest (he's elementary/special education), but we'll take anything they offer
I'm showing a few houses tomorrow and a few more on Wed. Seems like I have shown a ton of houses lately, but unfortunately nothing has turned into a sale yet. I have one particular client who has not bought a house in probably 30 years and just cannot believe the prices people are asking (and we are looking in the $60-70k range). He thinks everything is way overpriced, even after I explain to him that this is what the market looks like now. A little frustating, but I hope I can find him something. The worst part is that the few houses he did like, he insisted on putting in offers that were too low and would not budge on his price. Now, I'm all for getting a good deal, but when you have no idea what the market is like and your agent has told you typical home prices for the area, and you have looked at 20 houses that you think were ALL overpriced, maybe you need to start questioning your perceptions too, KWIM? Sorry, just venting. I have so much time invested with this client now, and every time we go looking it seems less and less likely that I will find anything that he likes for his price range, yet I keep trying so hard because I have so much time already invested and want to get something out of it! Damn catch 22...
Anyway, my other showings are for an investor client I have worked with for years. I will bend over backwards for him as he has thrown quite a few deals my way. He knows his stuff inside and out and can pretty much tell if he wants a place in ten minutes. I wish I had more clients like that one
DH got his final bill for the speeding ticket a few weeks ago - $130. $75 fine and our lovely $55 NY surcharge. I love NY, but I sure hate all the taxes and fees. I have noticed that he is driving a bit slower these days though.
Seems like every time I think we are caught up, something else comes up. First Christmas, then my real estate dues, now DH's car inspection. He is fairly sure he needs new brake pads, and his check engine light is on, so I can foresee a large bill. Sigh. But NEXT month, then we'll be caught up...sure.

I transferred $1000 from the EF into checking to get caught up - hopefully the LAST time I will ever need to do this. The end of the year was pretty bad with Christmas shopping and $600 in real estate dues that had to be paid before 12/31. Therefore, the Discover card that I had previously paid off now has a balance of more than $1000. But, I did write out the final check for DH's car, meaning that we will no longer have any car payments. WOOHOOOOOOOOO!

1. Pay off Discover $1100 balance -> made a $300 payment today, the rest will be paid by 2/1 before any interest is charged.
2. Pay off American Express $4897.28, 0% interest -> made a $97 payment
3. Pay off car loan, $696 balance, 3.75% interest -> PAID IN FULL!
4. Pay off my student loans $6044 balance (about 4.6% interest) -> down to $5887
5. Pay off Dh's student loans $15145 balance (in deferment) -> no change

Looks like I can strike #3 from the list...to be followed soon by #1.

And did I forget to mention the best news of the new year? DH is all ready to sub - and has a two week position lined up starting 1/18! A teacher is going out for surgery and he has already been assigned to cover her classroom. Three more schools have board meetings next week (subs have to be approved by the board), so hopefully by this time next week, he'll be getting more calls to sub than he knows what to do with

Here's where it all began...I decided to make a cookbook of "Family Favorites" for my brother and new SIL (married in August) for a Christmas gift. I contacted some relatives (both ours and hers) and asked for recipe contributions - not just basic recipes, but those tried and true, passed down the generations recipes. I collected some of my grandmother's old recipes (she passed away several years ago). I had the grand delusion of collecting these into a hard-covered, bound book with glossy pictures and little personal blurbs. Well, time interfered, and the process turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I ran out of time to get it printed online, but ended up with some beautiful layouts and a lot of special recipes. I included a picture of each contributor, as well as some personal comments they made about the recipes. DH bought a semi-hard covered binder with plastic pages. I printed the pages out and used card stock in between the pages to keep the pages stiff. It turned out quite nice and I think they appreciated the sentiment.
I really, really enjoyed putting this together, from the process of collecting and editing recipes, to the layout design, to selecting graphics. The most time-consuming part was the layouts, but I think that if I had a standard set of pages and only had to plug in the recipes, it would go a lot easier. The hard part would be finding people who want to make personalized cookbooks. The other hard part, for me, is determining how to package the book. I know Staples and the like can do soft cover binding. I found a great little site, which I can't immediately recall the name of (but I have saved somewhere) that will print any book in hardcover for you. Or I can always do the glossy Kodak-type sites for fancy books, although I had a very hard time trying to find a way to type recipes into those. All the layouts I found were to upload pictures - not to type text. This is what took me the longest time to figure out. Although the book did come out nice, I wasn't completely satisfied with having it in a binder - nor do I think it is professional enough to sell that way.
I did quite a bit of searching for a product like this on the Internet, but came up blank as far as individual, personalized cookbooks go. I did find a number of sites that would print them in bulk, i.e. for fundraisers, but my target clients would be the daughter who wanted to preserve her aging mother's recipes, or the grandmother who wanted several copies to pass on the the grandkids, or the extended family who each contributed one recipe for a "family cookbook" to be handed out at reunions.
Of course, I have to find a way to make it reasonably priced too. I checked out a local book binder here and the price for one fancy, nice hard cover book was $50 (in bulk, the price would drop to as low as $9 per book). So, quite a bit more thought needs to go into this.
One more aspect I have been working on: local promotion. I do have quite a few avenues open for this. I work in an office where products are regularly touted (i.e. Avon, Lia Sophia, handmade jewelry, Girl Scout cookies, etc.) One more addition to the break room table might get some exposure, especially since we share a kitchen with a Cooperative Extension office. We also live in an area that has a good number of craft fair and farmer's markets - relatively cheap exposure. I think it's an idea that could be popular. And let's not forget the power of the Internet - you all are going to tell your friends, right?

I would love to hear ideas - positive or negative - to help me decide if this is worth pursuing. I've never had a great attitude towards work, because, quite frankly, I've never had a job that excited me. This idea...I find exciting.

I am going to try to attach some sample pages - not sure how it will work. Bear with me...

That is SOOO not my picture! Jeff? Nate? Argh!

I think this has been my longest absence from blogging since I started, well over a year ago. Things have just been keeping us very busy lately, both with the holidays and the stomach bug that took out every member of my immediate and extended family for a few days.
We had a wonderful Christmas, celebrating on the 23rd (ds2's 2nd birthday) with my aunt and cousins, on the 24th with my in-laws, and on Christmas with my family. We will have one more party this coming weekend at my SIL's house with all the cousins from DH's family. I was able to attend one work party, but missed two others due to illness. I haven't looked at the numbers yet, but I know we were over budget on Christmas spending by the $650 cc bill. OUCH. Not all of it was on Christmas, but a good chunk of it was. That, combined with a big drop in our investments, dropped our already pitiful net worth by $2000, making it still in the black, but barely. We also have two big expenses coming up - my annual real estate dues ($400) plus MLS access ($114), and we should be getting the fine soon for DH's speeding ticket (probably $100-150). We don't have the money for these, so it's back to the EF we go. I am still toying with the idea of taking $2k out of the EF (bringing it to $5k) to catch up the Christmas cc, pay off my dues, and pay off DH's car. Then we could start off the new year with only one cc at 0% and our student loans.
So why am I not crying right now with all this bad news? There's some good news to balance it out. DH has been on four substitute teaching interviews. All have gone very well. I guess it's true that male elementary/special ed teachers are sought after. Anyway, he has to be approved by the school boards before he can start subbing. One board has met and approved him - the others meet in the first 2 weeks of January. We have heard from multiple sources how desperate the schools are for subs, so we are hoping for steady work. At about $70 per day, that would add another $1000-$1200 monthly. That will help us dig out from under the tuition debt much more quickly. DH calculated that he should be able to recover the lost wages/tuition costs of going back to school in about 2 years from when he gets steady employment. Let's hope!
I have a lot of projects on the back burner that will be coming to the front now that the holidays are over - organizing and ordering a few months of digital pictures, helping my mom organize her 30 years of pictures, transferring over my parents tapes onto DVD for them, taking up scrapbooking again with all the cool things I got for Christmas, general organization and cleaning, etc. As much as I hate to say it, I can't even get started on those things when I spend an hour a day on here. For now, I will be a little more scarce 'round these parts. But I'll still be checking in on y'all.

Later.

I feel like I had a lot of them today.
1. Grocery shopping - I got $22.64 worth of food for $8.64 at Tops. Then I stopped at Aldi's and spent $11.51.
2. I found a quarter left in the grocery cart return at Aldi's, which brought my grocery total down to under $20 for the day
3. I made a loaf of bread. It rose. It's in the oven now and smells good. And it's still rising. I hope it tastes as good as it looks. (my last loaf of bread failed miserably)
4. Dinner is cooking on the stove. I used up the rest of the ham and bone, but saved a package for the freezer to make scalloped potatoes with later.
5. I made three batches of cookies for my cookie exchange tomorrow. The first is out of the oven and yummy!
6. I managed to arrange a cookie exchange/Bunco party at my house tomorrow! Latest count has 12 people coming, some of whom I know and some of whom are friends I have yet to meet The hope is to make this a monthly get-together.
7. We celebrated my youngest son's 2nd birthday last night (even though it's not for two more weeks) with my family. We only decided to have the party with one day's notice. We bought everyone pizza and wings and I made a cake. It was a good time and ds2 got a lot of BOOKS!!! He also got some winter wear, which was needed. What he did NOT get was any lot of cheap, easy to break, annoyingly loud toys, for which I am very thankful.
It's been a good weekend so far. I think it will get even better tomorrow!

(DH is laughing at me because not only was I happy to find a quarter, but I was happy enough about it to bother posting it here. Pooh on him...he just doesn't get it)

My top ten favorites of the Christmas season:
1. Christmas Eve with my aunt, who is 92. Every year since I was born (except one year I spent with DH before we were married), the family has gathered in my aunt's tiny apartment for Christmas Eve (or Christmas Eve Eve, or the day after - we have had to switch it around with so many additions to the family). When my parents were first married, there was a total of 5 people who gathered. Last year, we had 15. The menu never changes: cold cuts, potato salad, pickles, cookies, and fudge. My aunt gives us each a lottery ticket, although we never win much.

2. Making new memories, even in keeping with old traditions. This year, for the first time, we are meeting at my cousin's house instead of my aunt's. It got too be too much for her to host. But, the people remain the same, the menu will probably be the same, and I know we'll celebrate in the same manner!

3. Decorating Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve. This was DH's tradition growing up. We were able to do this with his mother last year and will do it again this year. Thus, a tradition is born!

4. Book bags - another tradition of DH's that we have adopted. His mother made cloth book-sized bags that we...er, Santa...fills with books each year for the kids.

5. Cookie exchanges (this year we are combining it with a Bunco party)

6. Cousin's Christmas - usually the day after CHristmas, but this year it will be the Saturday after, most of DH's cousins (about 12-14) gather at my SIL's house will all the aunts and uncles. It's a day of food and fun. We do a gift exchange where you draw numbers. Number #1 will pick a present, then #2 can pick a new present or steal #1's present. It's a riot and it usually takes the better part of an hour with all the stealing

7. Turkey dinner at 1pm and turkey sandwiches that night.

8. Hidden stockings. Somewhere along the line as kids we came up with the idea that we should look for our stockings, much like you would look for Easter eggs! Our parents, er...Santa, obliged, and we would get up Christmas morning and have to search for our stockings. The hiding places got harder each year. We finally abandoned this tradition when we got a little old for our parents, er Santa, to be leaving us stockings...but it might be revived when my boys are a little bigger.

9. Working out an arrangement that we get to see both sides of the family, with no hurt feelings. Both DH's and my parents have never, never given us a guilt trip about not spending a holiday with them. The arrangement might very from year to year, but we always get to see everyone. This year it is 12/23 with my aunt, Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my MIL (at our house), and Christmas dinner and evening with my family.

10. All of the additions to our family. My aunt used to joke that she thought our family line would die with my father, a bachelor until age 39. Then he met my mother, had three kids, who are all now married. They have three grandchildren with many more to come. One of our best presents was our son, born 12/23 two years ago. Just another reason to celebrate this wonderful time of year!

Enjoy the season!

I've got some great gifts for my birthday - we had our family party over the weekend. My parents slipped me $100 and told me that I MUST spend it on myself (how well do they know me??). I had a few items of clothing on my wish list so my mom decided to let me do my own shopping, since I usually return anything she gets me anyway I also received a $50 g.c. to get a new pair of bowling shoes from my MIL. DH got me a new memory card for my camera and two shirts (that I picked out and handed to him at Target). One brother and SIL made me a beaded bracelet with my boys' names on it - the other brother and SIL bought me a TON of really nice scrapbooking stuff. My BIL regifted a $25 g.c. to a restaurant! And my SILs sent me a beautiful sweater from the Gap. I love my birthday
I have not been keeping track of my freebies in quite a while - I'm probably too far behind now to catch up. But one thing I did want to mention - DH found out that his grandparents took out their trashcompactor once Grandpa started using a walker (it was in the way). He called and asked for it, so they gave it to us. My father has been trying to fix our trash compactor for weeks, but found out that the part he needed was no longer made (these things are OLD). The one we received is the same brand, so we are going to try to make one usable compactor out of two old ones. Yeah for recycling!
We have three days left until payday and still about $100 in our checking. Except for the $60 DH took out of our savings, it looks like we made it through another two weeks without going into the EF (of course, now that I said that, we are going to have a financial emergency tomorrow).
My BOA Keep the CHange account netted me $36 and change over the past year. Not too bad, but I think I could have done better just getting a $50 sign-up bonus somewhere. Oh, wait, I think I did get a bonus too when I signed up with them. I am going to keep the account because the bank is so convenient to my work.
Still toying with the idea of taking $2k from the EF to pay off the car and pay down the cc (tuition). It would leave us with $5k. I am very optimistic about DH finding work, as he has four interviews coming up this week for subbing. It seems the substitute teachers are in high demand around here - good news for him!

November budget and actual expenses:
Groceries: 250 -> 176.15 WOOHOO! My largest trip was $44, and I've decided that I am going to start cleaning out the frezzer a bit, so I should be able to keep this low next month too.
Household/Cell: 90 -> 98.05 (contract ended and cell bill went up - I am starting to shop for a new provider)
Car: 350 -> 257.69 What a different those gas prices make!
Medical: 0 -> 9.28 lab bill from previous month
Clothes: 0 -> 0
Loans: 300.36 -> 300.36
Entertainment: 140 -> 194.83
Gifts: 200 -> 335.50
Miscellaneous: 50 -> 74.83
Real estate: 0 -> 0
School/Day care: 160 -> 80
Investment: 0 -> 0
Cash withdrawals: 80 with no fees -> 200 with $2 in fees
Total income: 1300 -> 1340.13
Total expenses: 1620.36 -> 1728.69
A $388 difference. About $190 is currently on ccs to be paid off - another $100 came out of savings. I'm not quite sure where the other $100 came from! We did get quite a bit more shopping done than we anticipated - probably another $200-300 to go before we are done.

December budget:
Groceries: 225 (a slight decrease)
Household/Cell: 90
Car: 250 (no more student teaching after this week!)
Medical: 0
Clothes: 0
Loans: 300.36
Entertainment: 120
Gifts: 300
Miscellaneous: 50
Real estate: 0
School/Day care: 80
Investment: 0
Cash withdrawals: 80 with no fees
Total income: 1300, with the possibility of more if DH substitue teaches
Total expenses: 1495.36
If it weren't for holiday spending, I might have actually been able to make it through this month without using any savings!!

Received $3.30 in Eckerd's rebates in the mail today, as well as a two coupons for Betty Crocker/General Mills (one free, one $1 off) after I wrote them a question about a can of frosting I had bought. Yeah!
I also deposited $4.56 in rebates into my account today - one for Hunts and one from Rayovac (thanks MJrube!). I think the Eckerd's rebates were for the batteries too, so they paid me $6 to buy $3 worth of batteries

The new house I listed on the MLS has already gotten one interested phone call. I would LOVE it if I had a quick sale...it would be app. $1900 comission. But I won't get any hopes up yet. Plus, when this house sells, I will need to find a house for the owner, and possibly her elderly father. It would be just the boost we need. Keep your fingers crossed for me.
I am toying with the idea of taking my EF down to $5k and using the excess (about $2300) to pay off some debts. I could eliminate our car loan (about $900), both small cc balances from this month ($188 combined), and use the rest either for Christmas shopping or to pay down the 0% cc (DH's tuition). I think I could be comfortable with a smaller EF now that DH will be working in a week (hopefully). I am going to hold off making a decision until later this month when my next car payment is due.
On the good news front...DH has two interviews for substitute teaching positions. One is 10 minutes from our house and the other is 20. He also has a resume and phone call in to our local district (5 minutes away), but I have heard that they are really slow at approving subs. I have been hearing that school districts are DESPERATE for subs around here, so hopefully he can get some experience and make some money close to home while searching for a long-term position. Cross your toes for us too - we've got a lot to hope for in the next few weeks.

Tonight we went to play cards with our pitch club (one of three card clubs we belong to). We play three matches, then have dessert. It's an enjoyable night, for free (except when we host a few times a year). Therefore, no money spent today! It helps that I never left the house until then
Today I used up some leftovers to make muffins: pumpkin puree and some pineapple remnants from a can that was opened a few days back. Pretty good - not a recipe I would duplicate on purpose, but one that is tasty and healthy. Bonus: the kids liked them. I always like it when the enjoy healthy snacks.
Back to work tomorrow - I anticipate a lot of little things to catch up on, since I have only been there one half day in the last 1.5 weeks. Should be fairly laid back though, barring any emergencies.
Tomorrow afternoon I have an appt. to list a house. We are going to put it on at $139k. It's a nice colonial, 4 BR, 1.5 baths. The drawback is that it has a shared driveway and not much of a yard. It would be really nice to sell this one, but the market is so slow around here that I am not going to get my hopes up yet. It's nice to have a listing again, though. My last two (a lot and a really small house) did not sell.
I guess that's all the news that's fit to print tonight

Yes, I am totally for breastfeeding - it wa the right choice for me and my boys. So you may be wondering that on earth the downside is...I'll tell you.
(Be forewarned - this post is going to go into details of my body that may not interest you. If you don't want to have a good laugh about the state of my body, please stop reading and go to another post). There. You've been warned. Anyone who reads further and wishes they hadn't has no excuse.

Anyway...I was about to get into the shower fifteen minutes ago. I hung up my robe and my niece walked into the bathroom. She looked up at me (at my chest to be exact) and proclaimed "You have long ones just like my nana!".

WTF? I am 29 years and 1 day old and my breasts are being compared to a fifty-something year old? I guess I can't blame my niece - her mom never breastfed and was lucky to fill out an A cup, so that's her basis for comparison.
I know - this is totally off-topic, but I decided my options were to laugh or cry, and after choosing the former, I decided others might get a kick out of it too
I'm actually still chuckling about it! You can't make this stuff up.

Ah, it's almost over. I had a nice day, although nothing terribly special happened. Work, shopping, then out to dinner with my DH, brother and SIL, and my parents (their treat for my b-day). I received two phone calls and three e-cards from people scattered about the state. All in all, a nice day
I found some nice deals shopping today. I spent $69.13, but a lot of that was on some good meat deals. I bought way more kielbasa than is good for anyone's health, as it is a great thing to have on hand for last-minute meals (I make a great jambalaya). I bought that on clearance (exp. 11/29) for $1.60 each (reg. $3.99) with $1 coupon. It's in the freezer now, ready for use at a moment's notice. I also got a large package of chicken breasts for $1.99lb and two Angus beef chuck roasts (BOGO). I bought Reynold's wrap for $1 with a $.50 coupon, doubled (I don't find free things often, but it really makes my day when I do!). I saved $44.78 with shoppers club and coupons - that's about 40%. I'm happy with that.
Another day at home tomorrow - I love my schedule. Working three days a week (M, T, Th) means that when I have a day off, like for Thanksgiving, I can go nearly an entire week without being in the office. I thought there would be a backlog of work for me today, but my voice mail was pleasantly empty of any urgent matters
And the best news of all - every last bit of Thanksgiving leftovers are gone before I even got sick of them!

Only 2 hours and 13 minutes left of being 28! Tomorrow is my birthday -
Go Jodi!
It's my birthday!
Go Jodi!
It's my birthday!
(almost)


Hahahahaha

(so at what age do I STOP enjoying my birthdays? Is it next year at the big 3-0?)

Blah. That sums up today. And I don't even know why. I just can't get myself motivated to do anything. I took the day off from work - usually I am super-productive on days that I stay home, but today I don't feel like doing anything. Although I did make Pumpkin Black Bean soup for lunch...and I have already mixed up my very first batch of homemade (no bread machine) honey wheat bread (I'm waiting for it to rise). But there are a million other things I could be doing, but I'm sitting here writing this nonsense entry instead. Blah.

(I won't steal BA's "quickies", although that's basically what these will be!)
- we went to Binghamton for TG, stayed until Saturday. No money spent except for gas ($40.01 - it used to be that I could never stop on the exact number, but now I do it on purpose to get my Keep the Change match...but I digress). We had a wonderful weekend catching up with some relatives that we never see enough of. and we ate, of course..too much
- today I spent the day puttering around, taking care of lots of odds and ends. I cleaned up a great backlog of paperwork. I found some old gift certificates that I cannot use, so I put them on E-Bay (bidding at $9.99 after 4 hours) and I am giving another one away to a savingadvice.com member who lives near this particular restaurant (bonus points: I used a recycled envelope from my Janus fund to mail the g.c.)
- I finally found my Rite Aid receipt when I cleaned out my monstrous purse, so I submitted that online.
- no babysitting money spent tonight as my SIL called me to tell me that she was able to watch the kids after all (she had told me last week that she was not able to). The SIL and I do not exchange money for babysitting, but just help each other out when able. Some of you may remember a rant a while back about this arrangement being a little too one-sided, but things seem to have evened out since then.
- I took the day off from work tomorrow, saving $40 in day care costs. I think I will send my older son to the pre-school program there, though, since he has been asking to go. That will cost $17 for three days this week.
- I cashed out $54 from cashduck.com, to be deposited into my PayPal account. I'll post on when I actually get the money. I earned that much from three trials, two of which I need to cancel tomorrow. I will also have $20 worth of g.c. coming to me soon.
- Any of you long-time readers may remember my dispute with a certain cell phone company, to remain unnamed...well, they took away my (Nextel) state of NY discount worth 10%. I called (Nextel) to find out why and was told that they took it off because my contract was up. They (Nextel) never told me that I would only get the discount for the duration of my contract - but, I don't care at this point. I originally signed a 2 year contract, of which one year has elapsed. I am so happy to hear that they (Nextel) think my contract is up, because now I can switch providers. I have already started to look at other plans and think I may go with Verizon. I don't want to point any fingers or mention any names (Nextel), but this particular company I was with (Nextel) was terrible with the customer service and even worse with the false promises when you sign up for service. I might look at a Trac Fone for the hubby, as he truely would only need one for emergencies. I use mine quite a bit more for business and I have to be able to port my number over, since I just had 500 business cards made up with my current cell #, so I don't think I can do a Trac Fone. I'll have to do some research. But I sure as hell will not be staying with THAT company (Nextel).

A productive day!!!

I had to show a house this morning, so I took DH along for the ride and we made a day of it (thanks to my mother for watching the boys). We hit K-Mart, Big Lots, Target, TJ Maxx...I think that was all. Anyway, we picked up a few more things for the boys, finished shopping for one SIL and one brother, and partially finished another brother, SIL, and nephew. Whew. We spent about $120 total - not too bad. $80 went on the cc.
Then we went out to lunch at the Olive Garden - soup, salad, and breadsticks lunch for $5.95. I personally think that is one of the best deals around. We also bought a bottle of their salad dressing to bring home for my mom (well, and for us too!). We used a $25 gift card, so we didn't have to pay cent out of pocket for a wonderful lunch.
DH had a great gift idea for his nephew. We are going to get him a 6-month subscription to Netflix, as he likes to watch movies but can't get to the video store often (no license yet). I think it's a great idea, and if it works out, we will renew it for his birthday gift.
I have never had so much shopping done so early. It's nice.
We will be going out of town tomorrow afternoon - not sure if we will be coming back Friday or Saturday, but either way, I'll be gone for a bit. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday! (how do ya like that alliteration??)

Well, since everyone else is writing about their company responses, I'll write about mine. I got a can of that new Betty Crocker chocolate frosting ("Pour and Frost", I think it's called - where you can pour it on a warm cake) from Big Lots a few months ago. I went to use it just before Halloween and it had a ring of white around the top. I really don't know what it was - it looked like mold, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't. Anyway, I didn't want to use it, although it probably would have been fine if I scraped off the top. I noticed that it was 1 day past the expiration date.
I just wrote to Betty Crocker a few days ago to ask if this was safe to use (I didn't ask for a refund or anything since it technically was past the expiration date, although I did mention that I thought it should still have been edible after only one day). I got an e-mail from them yesterday saying that they were sending me an "adjustment" and I should have it in a few days. I'm not sure what an "adjustment" is, but I hope it's coupons

I spent $8 for lunch today. $8! I usually eat off the dollar menu the few times I do splurge on lunch. But I've been planning to get Mexican with an office mate for a week now, so today we finally got it. And, as lrjohnson says so often, when you have something seldom - it sure does taste good. What a treat. I even had some leftover nachos to bring home to snack on later.
Of course, this did disrupt my South Beachin'. But I can handle that. I am on Phase 3 now, which is the "maintain" phase. I have lost the 5 pounds that I needed to lose. I weighed myself this morning (before lunch!) with our dietician's scale in the office - 139.5. My goal weight is 140, so it's all good
My mom asked me to stop and get 4 things for dinner. But, while I was at Wal-Mart, I thought that I might as well get diapers. And then they had the big cans of coffee on sale for $3.88, and you just can't beat that. Oh wait, there's sweetened condensed milk 2/$1, and I have $1 coupon off 2...Libby's pumpkin was also on sale, and I had a BOGO coupon...so I ended up spending $28 when I should have spent $5. Oh well - everything will be used. And we were out of coffee, much to my caffeine-addicted DH's dismay. I did have one total impulse buy - crumbly blue cheese for our salads. Yum. (but I did have a coupon, at least)
I made it through the two weeks without dipping into savings, thanks to a few unexpected cash finds (prize money, rebates). I think I will get paid tomorrow instead of Thursday due to the holiday. That $584 is supposed to last two weeks, but I have to pay the following bills:
car payments $200
cell phone $90
Uh, I had another $100 bill to pay that I am blanking on right now. Anyway, my point was that I am not going to get out of this pay period without going to my EF, especially if I want to do any shopping.
A few more cash surprises: $5 in Walgreen's rebates, $10 Staples rebate.

Get your kids sick. I took the day off because my youngest has a runny nose and I wouldn't feel right about sending him to day care. Monday is the only day they go - my mom watches them the other two days I work. She actually would have watched them today, but she has a funeral to attend. Not that I mind staying home from work today
I read about a site on a post here and have spent about an hour on it today. My account balance is at $42 from signing up for three trial memberships (plus I have a $25 Wal-Mart gc and a $10 Lowe's gc coming). Seem to good to be true? The verdict is still out. I'll post more when I see the money. The site is CashDuck.com, if anyone wants to check it out. I hope it's legit. There are TONS of offers - I mean, I've only scratched the surface, but I want to see the cash before I sign up for any more. It is a referral program too (where you earn so much for everyone you refer), so if anyone is interested, I can send an invite. Just PM me.
I won $10 last night at bowling! A nice surprise. For Thanksgiving, the ladies bowl for cash. For Christmas, it's the men. My mom and SIL also won the cash. I guess it was a goood night for the family. Between that and the $40 I am NOT spending on daycare (plus the $15 I saved last night when my sitter cancelled), I am feeling pretty good about making it through to payday (Wed.) with less than $100 in the account. Whew.

1. Pay off Discover $893.99 balance -> DONE
2. Pay off American Express $4897.28, 0% interest -> no change
3. Pay off car loan, $1085 balance, 3.75% interest -> 891.33
4. Pay off my student loans $6044 balance (about 4.6% interest) -> down to $5966
5. Pay off Dh's student loans $15145 balance (in deferment) -> no change

It's nice to see progress, even though the money came out of savings to make some of these payments!

I love writing these and I love reading these!

21. I have also never broken a bone (which I attrubute to my higher-than-average milk consumption) nor had my wisdom teeth out, despite their being impacted. I have horribly crooked bottom teeth, but I refuse to get braces (as I refused growing up, therefore having a long string of retainers that never really resolved the problem).
22. I consider the dentist that I had growing up to be a loony. The only reason, I think, that I went there is that my father would lend him machinery in trade for dental care. My dentist fancied himself a weekend farmer.
23. My father still goes to this dentist. I do not.
24. I had an epidural for my first childbirth, but not one for the second. I think I wanted to prove something to myself, but afterward I thought, "What the heck was I thinking?". Nevertheless, I am proud of going without it for one birth - alhtough I will be getting it for the next one(s).
25. DH and I plan to have 4 children. We have two boys now.
26. We got pregnant on the first try with ds1 and the second try with ds2. We both come from very fertile families.
27. I am truely conflicted over whether my boys should be allowed to join the Boy Scouts when they get older. On one hand, it's a great organization. On the other hand, I feel their policy against gay scout leaders is discriminatory and promotes the misconception that homosexuals are pedophiles. For that reason, I feel it would be wrong to support the organization, but I also feel it would be wrong to prevent my boys from joining.
28. My charities of choice are Planned Parenthood and the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.
29. Although I drink rarely, my favorite alcoholic drink is Kahlua and cream.
30. There are very few foods that I honestly detest: parsnips, black olives (green are fine), liver, and beets. I will eat almost anything else.
31. I have eaten cow tongue and heart, frog's legs, and those strange parts that come in the bag with the turkey (in fact, we used to fight over them at my house).
32. We live with my parents. My brother and his wife built a house next door. My other brother and his new wife just unveiled their plans to build a house - on the hill between my parents and my brother's houses. You could say we are a little close
33. I have had two cats in my life - the one I have now (Ramen) and a kitten we rescued from the barn about 6 years ago (Roman). He had kidney damage and only lived about 2.5 years. For the last 3-4 months, I gave him fluids intravenously several times a day. He was a delirously happy cat until the last week, when we decided that letting him go would be the humane thing. Being in the room with him was one of the hardest things I have done. It was also one of the two times I have ever seen DH cry (he's going to kill me if he reads this).
34. I love the first Nintendo game system more than any that have come out since. I still have it. My favorite game was (is) Dr. Mario.
35. My DH trounces me at Risk. I refuse to play it with him anymore. He refuses to play Boggle with me for the same reason.
36. I love crosswords and SuDokus. I just started the world's largest crossword puzzle (28,000 clues). It's so big you have to work on small panels, one at a time. The clues are listed in a book.
37. When we lived in the city, our apartment was robbed by three teenagers (one of whom lived next door) by jumping onto our balcony from theirs. They stole all our alcohol, a candy jar, our Super Nintendo, and a ring. We got the candy and Nintendo back. I was reimbursed $70 for the ring (1/3 of the value from one of the boys). Our landlord refused to let us out of our lease still and we had to live there several more months.
38. My father wanted to name my Saphire. Thank goodness my mother won.
39. My DH wanted to name our first son Seamus. Didn't happen, although we did give him an Irish name.
40. If we have a girl, I want to name her Meredith Elisabeth. All the oldest females on DH's side of the family have Elisabeth or Elizabeth for a middle name.

I just feel that this would be the place for a picture. I find myself wondering all the time about other people - well, here's me:

I know it doesn't matter at all what anyone looks like here, but it feels so strange to me to have such intimate conversations with people and NOT know. By the way, that's my older son with me. We were playing Pretty Pretty Princess. Oh, there's #41: I don't care at all if my boys like stereotypical "girl" stuff, although it does seem to get to my DH at times!
And #42: I still consider myself a blonde even though...well, you can see the picture. I used to have such wonderful white-blonde hair as a child. I miss it.
And #43: I love the shade of brown of my eyes.

Ok, I'm in. I haven't checked the blogs at all for a few days, so I am woefully behind in reading everyone else's responses. I've just spent a half hour here and barely scratched the surface! I already have some suspicions confirmed about people and some basic assumptions totally blown out of the water!

1. I'm a mutt. I have no true ethnicity. I'm a lot English, a little Dutch, German, Scottish, although my last name is totally Irish (as is DH).
2. I once traced my lineage online back to Scottish royalty.
3. My birthday falls on Thanksgiving every few years.
4. My birthday is also 2 days before my brothers, making us just under a year apart. We have celebrated it together nearly every year.
5. We have a female dog named Buford - and if you could see her, you would agree that the name fits.
6. My cat is named Ramen after the noodles, which she ate as a kitten.
7. I grew up on a farm and live on one now, although I am not (and will never be) a farmer. I love the experience of living on a farm, but I hate the work!
8. I learned I was pregnant two days after my grandmother died suddenly in her sleep. I was, prior to that, adsolutely convinced that I was not pregnant. Although I know it in my mind to be false, I believe in my heart that my grandma sent us a baby to help us get over losing her. I have my son my grandmother's last name (Dewey) as his middle name (we had decided on his first name, but not the middle - it came to me in a dream).
9. My children have enormous heads - really, we cannot buy hats for these guys.
10. My favorite color is blue, although my son will tell you that it is yellow. When he was learning his colors, he had to know everyone's favorite, but my mother had already taken blue.
11. My closest friends in high school were all in the top 10 (I was salutatorian). We called ourselves the Nerd Herd.
12. I went to four high school proms - three from my school and one from another school.
13. I had a long-distance relationship when I was 15-16 that lasted a year (NY to Texas). After he moved back to NY, he broke up with me because I was not ready to make certain, ahem, physical commitments. In retrospect, I realized that the relationship was borderline abusive. It later inspired me to intern and work for an abused woman's shelter.
14. I started college as a math major with plans to teach and switched to social work sophomore year.
15. When my DH met me, he was convinced we would end up together. When I met him, I was convinced that we would never be anything more than friends. I was never so glad to be proven wrong.
16. Whem my cousin and I were maybe 10 or 11, we thought we saw Bigfoot in our woods (really, folks, it was large, brown, and hairy). We stilldon't know to this day what it really was.
17. I was supposed to spend a summer in Uruguay with a friend who was a foreign exchange student in our school. Two days before I was to leave, her father kicked her out of the house and my parents would not let me go. Of course, I was mad, but they were absolutely right.
18. I have been letting my kids play on the computer next to me for over an hour now so I can catch up on these blogs!
19. I love dark chocolate covered coffee beans.
20. My DH is my best friend.

More to follow later...

I pride myself on being a good cook and trying new recipes. So when I make a totally bad dinner, I feel bad. Ick.
I wanted to use up the rest of the broccoli from the garden, so I decided on broccoli cheese soup. Nevermind the fact that I have ruined every single cheese soup I have ever made. DH got home as I was making it, so I made him add the cheese (he has done this before successfully). Apparently, my mere presence in the kitchen during the adding of the cheese is enough to make the cheese congeal and float to the top. If you have never eaten soup this way, it is quite an unappetizing texture (though the taste was not terrible). I also decided to make tilapia stuffed with crab. I don't think the fault was with the recipe itself - but in the substitions I made in trying to make the recipe South Beach compliant. Olive oil/Olivio for butter, canned crab for real crab (a substitution of convenience), low-carb bread crumbs for regular. The result was dry, crumbly stuffing with no crab taste at all. But wait, it gets worse. I pulled a box of breaded fish out of the freezer for the kids and cooked them...but they didn't look or smell quite right. I pulled the box out of the garbage - expired 1/05. Ewwww. A quick trip to the freezer produced a budget chicken nugget meal that, coupled with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sufficed. The good part of dinner: I cut up cukes, broccoli, and green peppers for the kids to munch on since they were whiny before dinner was ready. They ate every bite!
I hate wasting food, and I hate even more that the reason I wasted food was that I was trying to save the food from going bad! (or maybe that's a good thing? Now I'm confusing myself). If I had just stuck to the tried and true recipes, everything would have been fine. But, I have come across some knockout recipes by veering from the tried and true...so a little experimentation is good.
(hear that, BA? Get out the da#* crockpot!)

And why did I want to go so badly? By the third store I was getting tired. By the fourth store I was getting a migraine. I had to take Tylenol and a nap when I got home after just three hours of shopping - and it's not like the stores were even crowded! Maybe I have a psychological reaction to spending money - it literally made me sick!
Anyway, I picked up enough gifts for my niece for Christmas and my younger son's birthday next month. I got four gifts for DH for Christmas, so I'm pretty well done with him too. I picked up a nice DVD holder for my parents - we have purchased recordable DVDs and plan to transfer all of their old Christmas tapes over to them. Now I have a nice album to present them in. I actually had the idea of wrapping up a garbage can filled with VHS tapes, with this album at the bottom I'll have to run it by DH to see what he thinks.
My best find of the day: On a whim, I stopped first at The Salvation Army to look at their children's books. I bought $15 worth - about 20 books. At least half of them are in new condition. D's family has a tradition of giving a "book bag" for Christmas - just a cloth bag filled with books. We have adopted it for our boys. They each get at least 5-6 books - this year, it looks like it will be a lot more!
I deposited $90 in my checking account (mileage check and Rite Aid rebate), then took out $190. $40 is for entertainment, $50 for groceries, and $100 for gifts. I hoep this can last us a week and a half, until my next payday. If not, any shortage will have to come from savings. After today's shopping, I have app. $20 left for gifts and $20 left for groceries. I haven't touched the entertainment money yet. I plan to string together a few non-spend days here, as they are desperately needed after today!
Received a $3 Rayovac rebate and a $1.56 Hunts rebate. Every little bit helps!

I have been totally itching to go shopping lately. I mean REALLY itching. I have been on the Internet shopping for the last few days looking for good deals. Has the Christmas bug bit me a little early? Or maybe the last year of totally scrimping and saving is starting to get to me? I don't know. But I am finally getting out of the house tomorrow to go. I will have to be careful, though, in my purchases. I'm debating over taking cash out of savings for holiday shopping, or working with what we have in the account now. Chances are, if I take it out of the checking account, I will have to dip into savings before the next paycheck anyway. I only have about $350 in there for a week and a half. I want to take $100 out for a grocery envelope, plus I will need to leave another $100 in there for gas, and $80 for day care...better take the Christmas shopping money from savings. I did find a flow blue teapot on E-Bay the other day and won it for $14.75, plus $6 S&H. It will be the perfect gift for my MIL, whose birthday is later this month.
My brother and SIL came over last night with a bag of clothes they were giving away to charity. They gave us first dibs DH got two shirts, a pair of shoes, and about 6 pairs of socks (my brother buys really nice clothes - better than I buy for DH!). I got two great pairs of jeans and a shirt. My mom took a pile of t-shirts and shorts for my dad. Then my other SIL stopped over and took a few more things. It was great...but then I felt guilty about giving less clothes to charity, so I raided my closet and worked on filling the bag back up. For a joke, we all wore our "new" clothes bowling last night - my brother and SIL cracked up when they saw us walk in in their clothes! I guess it doesn't take much to amuse us...anyway, that's more stuff for my free tally.
I am getting the hang of Monday-morning-rush-the-kids-to-daycare, finally. It helps tremendously to pack my lunch and their bags Sunday night. I am glad I only have to do this one day a week - it's stressful! My sympathies to all the parents out there who hustle and bustle 5 days a week. Anyway, I packed a nice frugal lunch of a canned-chicken salad sandwich with apple and cheddar - very tasty. I got the idea from Arby's Market Fresh sandwiches - but mine was a lot cheaper. A homemade pumpkin muffin and homemade yogurt were my snacks for the day. Yum.

Freebies:
Clothes - retail value: $130, my value: $70
retail value: 1271.48
my value: 416.45