On my daily check of the accounts I found a gas entry...not that it would hurt us...but, nice to know now...and husband forgot to tell me.

It seems the more kids we have the less we talk!

Last minute possible plans to go see my bro in GA on Saturday.....have to pack food and rearange shopping, plus gas to get there.

Husband sold two things on ebay, then paid for shipping from our checking....but he is getting paid in his paypal..somehow the math is way in his favor! But I am not really complaining, I am happy the stuff is out of the house.

(hey those were quickies...)

I am google defficient, I rarely find what I need though I am getting better.

I was killing time and came accross a list of 100 altenate search engines and decided to try

chachab, it was mentioned as having a guide. I assumed I was getting a some sort of computer program that would help narrow down the options or something.

But instead I got a live person!

I wasn't desperate for information or anything just wanted to test it, so I asked about plantains and said my husband bought one for the kids to try but I was clueless. (Cause he did)

Within seconds she brought back three recipe sites, the first of which included a discription of what it is like at each color phase (very important for a newbie like me)

I was way impressed, true I might have eventually searched out recipe plantain, but the live person understood 'new food' and all right off the bat.

I totally am going to use this way more, in fact if I can figure out how to get them on my bar instead of google I want it.

Due to some silly things I want right on my spreadsheet budget, I am having trouble copying the equations easily, and by hand is a pain, there has to be a better way.

While I work on it, I did most of it by hand to be ready, in February I plan on recording which store we go to and how often, my goal is to make it once a week for BJs (I was earlier aiming for less, but we get gas there, and we can't do that less than once a week) and every third week for the other 3. (harris teeter, aldis, and food lion)

The less you go the less you spend, and I want to spend less, though I have plenty budgeted.

Anyway I set up the form for that, so I have no excuse when I go shpping Friday-or Saturday (at Bjs and aldis, not food lion- I hope) not to fill it in properly.

Should make DH happy because the church is sponsering a food bank thing and I want him to buy some stuff for it, aldis seems like the perfect place for a tighwad to find things to donate. No offense to the recipients, but one can of corn is like another...

Though I am glad I read, oh phooey was it contrarys blog? about not all knowing how to cook? I am aiming for simple, though he list doesn't say pasta, wonder why not, posta topped with tomato sauce is way easy.

Oh well, canned fruit, veggies, and maybe meat if they have it it is.

I had this big old post about goals and how things were going and plans for February..and I lost it, the whoel thing thru one dumb click as I was switching between an IM and the main screen...

UGh I hate that.

Oh well, we have one trip to the Post office to mail some games my husband sold to add anyway. (so happy bout him selling some dust catchers!)

When he is done I will be taking that extra and transfering his portion to ING and mine writing a check for most to the church, and the remainder I so have to call the car company to see how to get it applied to principle.

I'll rewrite goals review after that.

Well not really, but I did decide to splurge yesterday and we all went to the discovery place.

We have a membership so the only cost was food.

While we were there at the end of the day we watched them set up some tables. They do this everynight or at least everynight we are there, so I sent my husband to ask what was up. He discovered a members only event. Did I mention we were members? So we stayed, and got to eat free, candy cookies and icecream, watch them destroy peeps via liquid nitrogen, a vacum, and somehow blow one up..I missed the explination, but I was there for the fire .

Then we got a first look at the new exhibit. All kinds of cool info on sugar (it is in concrete!) and taste buds (loved JC's face when the grape jelly bean turned to strawberry as she stopped holding her nose!)

There was more but we had to leave, it was past the kids bedtime, we rarely do that at all, but oh it was a great day.

total cost....16$ for dinner for 5 of us, plus the gas to drive there, not to shabby for a very full day

On a side note today we went grocery shopping and we are under budget to close out the month, and the rest of the loot burning a hole in my pocket I will call the car company today...if they arn't there i will call Monday to get it to them. applied to principle, not prepayment!

K I might be the only one to find this funny, but dude writes an article on how to lose weight, and says the actual diet he follows is weight watchers.. but he didn't pay for it...he read their patent!

Lastly, for the curious out there…I followed the Weight Watchers diet. I did not pay for the diet, nor did I go to meetings. I found out all the information about the diet on-line. The first place to look is at their patent.

10 unconventional diet tips

course I don't recomend his tips....but I do recomend searching for a patent before you pay for the plan!

Pre kid (of course) We lived the easy life, we had checks for weeks waiting to be cashed. We frequently went as much as a month in between trips to the bank, and still spent plenty..though plenty less than most of our peers.

I remember one persons shock when my husband told him about the backlog of checks waiting to be deposited, he couldn't understand how anyone could survive without constant cash in. We couldn't understand why not....

I also worked with a few people who were in love with the 'extra check months' (paid weekly) I thought they were nice, but never really had an effect on my budget. (extra then went to pay off my husbands loans)

Now my shock is not that many live paycheck to paycheck (went thru that phase, when the money out is that close to the money in..hard to balance, but we have)

No I am shocked that we wasted all that interest! We could have paid off the loans faster, paid less interest each month, saved it in a high interest account...a CD or simply savings, anything. But no, we were too lazy to make an extra trip (or three) to the bank!

Now there is direct deposit, love that, no trip to the bank! But now that we are back on track, we have a 'cushion' for 'mini emergencies' and a roll over, to pay bills that come in before the check does (first check is first friday nowadays, first bill is mortgage on the first..) That cushion and roll over are not earning interest in ING nor are they reducing the car loan. This has to change!

Of course you know I am lazy, so change has to be easy, and painless, and no work for me. which is why we looked into ING checking, direct deposit, no delay in transfer from checking to saving..I so hope it all works out.

And I so hope that I can teach my kids painless lazy ways to save/reduce interest earlier than I learned them! I also hope I can pass on easy painless budgeting, and a sense of how to rearange when kids come.

Well since I put my budget on the computer with excell, and of course my checkbook, I also have my goals, and a couple 'counting chickens' pages.

and I am checking the bank account every day! sheeshe, this from a gal who used to balance the book once a month and fill in all the reciepts only because I had to write a check, (or three).

Now I am at the opposite end, I don't feel I finished online unless I take a peek to see if any bills that were pending came out, or if the latest paycheck posted. I soooo am rolling my eyes at myself!

So I followed a link just to see what my retirement saving should be, I know it isn't where it should be right now, but I was just curious how far off it was...

you ready for this?

According to the calculator I should be saving 139% of my yearly income (well of my husbands, since I don't make any)

err yeah, I read it again, not a typo of mine, they said 139%! Exactly how am I supposed to do that?

I also looked at the graph and it says I would make the exact same salary for the next 40 some years, at which point I will switch to withdrawing my retirement, which goes up every year....err somehow that seems backwards, wouldn't I make more as I work, and need less as I grow old? (to a point)

I am not sure what a real retirement calculations would be, but I can understand why so many don't even bother if we are supposed to save more than we make, we might as well give up and enjoy the loot while it is here!

This is not to say I don't want to save for retirement, just that calculators may do more harm than good!

You ever count your chickens before they hatch? That makes very little sense unless you have read aesops fable

'the milk maid' (that is one version of many)

So the other night I was plotting how fast we could pay off the car, and I was looking at wether or not we should drop the food bill to pay it off earlier, but well I am enjoying the luxury so much lately I am not sure I am interested in cutting back again for a few months off the car bill.

Course that is not including any future expenses that may come up (insurance rising, kids needs, minor emergencies, ect)

I also did some math, my husband says he wants to take his 15% of the leftover and store it in ING (really the man is wonderful-my 15% will go to church and family splurges) and watch it pile up, of course I know the average leftover based on 45 hours a week and of course I figured out what it would come to....silly, counting chickens.

Course there is no pail on my head to fall as I daydream, but is there a harm in it anyway? Does Aesop no best, should I keep my dreaming to myself and focus on well something more useful?

I know compared to the northern portion of the country it is snuggly warm, but we have thin blood!

I lived in cold frugal houses most of my life so I am used to it (though don't you worry I complained a plenty then!)

My poor husband on the other hand grew up with climate control being tops on the 'spend here first'category, when you were cold you turned the heat up...he hates temperatures below 70 indoor.

But cold weather brings up an irritation of mine...wear a coat people!!!! Yeah you rubbing your arms, stamping your feet, and muttering about the cold....this is what coats are made for!

And please tell me, what would you do if your car broke down and you plus your small child were stuck waiting for help? Do they have to suffer because you assumed you would get right into a car, then straight to the store?

My daughter gets carsick and is in general required to remove her coat as soon as she gets in the car, and yet I still require her to wear one, it is a lap cover when she first gets in, it is warm and snuggly from house to car to church. And should the unthinkable occure, she will be relativly warm.

Oh and as to whether it will help you stay healthy, no a coat is not a barrier to cold germs, it is however useful to keep you warm..leaving your body free to fight any germs, instead of ignoring them as your body desperatly tries to keep you from freezing to death!

new, iso, veggie/fruit

19: nothin, yep, yep
20: nothin, yep, err no
21: food only, yep, and yep

So far, you cannot pay anyone if you do not have a phone number..which makes sense, if they are going to promise to pay someone they want to be able to get ahold of them in case I type the address wrong.

Also, no paper checks, means you might have trouble when autodraft requires a voided check. So far one company says a note explaining it is an online bank will get me past it, but I have to mail the form and wait a month to see.

I think if I used bill pay that wouldn't be a problem, but I don't.

nothin, yep and yep

My husband came home today and told me ING has a checking account, that pays interest, with no minimum to recieve it.

Way cool since we always have a 'cushion' and we often have to leave money for bills that havn't cleared yet. We could be earning interest on that!

Course two things I noticed already, there is an 'overdraft credit' instead of linking to a savings account.
And transfers between ING accounts are instant! I never had a chance to test that before, but it is way cool

One thing I forgot to try..follow a link for a bonus, and see if I could choose checking instead of saving, I might have screwed myself out of 25 (and someone else out of 10) by failing to do that .

Well we have it all worked out, found all the err money, OT was piling up thankfully, but not enough, too much lax on the grocery spending. So I made excell tell me how much I spent so far this month, and how much is left from the budgeted 500 (seeing as how it used to be 400, I feel soo much freedom, and I love it)

I also made a sperate category for 'misc' which would mainly be gifts, right now if we eat out we call it food and take it from the grocery budget..so you could buy gormet nuts or you could buy lunch out.

and we are going to up the auto saving, which will actually bring us up OVER 10%!!! first for our parenting lives. (pre kid we wer rolling in loot!)

Still no allowence, but since he does work so much OT we are going to use it for paying off the car and some 'fun'. I am thinking of being anal and making it a % system, IE leftover from one month is 15% his to waste and 15% mine, remaining 70% goes to the car, course I still am not figuring how to pay the principle of the car instead of a prepay...have to call them next month (when we know how much is leftover) and figure that out.

Anyway being anal gives each of us more fun when he works more, while still having to be a budgeted amount, instead of 'I think we have extra why not splurge' (which is why the leftover in the account isn't as nice as it could be right now!)

I decided to give up on doing todays goals, today, seems I never get around to it, so yesterdays goals on today

newnothin
isoyep
veggiesyep

so proud of my nothin and two yeps

I found some of the err money, I was calculating a budget based on a bunch of overtime checks.

So I looked up the lowest check he had looking for one with no OT, put those numbers in, and now err is a bit less.

still there though....and the money had been piling up quite a bit, since he is working so much OT

Yeah who wouldn't want to have that problem!

Well the thing is, I don't actually have the money, but excell says I should. I used to do the budget with old fashioned paper and pen.

And now I am trying to learn excell again. I have a brain like a sieve, so it isn't as easy as you might think! but thanks to Boe, I got my basic register set up, and I thought I aught to have a budget on their too, only..there is too much money according to excell math! so where is it going, what am I forgeting?

Here are the categories I have (and no I can't find the old one on paper .)

house (meaning mortgage)
car (payment)
phone
net
food
car gas
yearly/12 (insurance+HOA)
Gas
Electric
Water
Sewer
autosavings (ING)
church

So pinecone works, do others? Not prizes, I mean cash..

I searched for MLM information, and found a cute website about WFH jobs, including paid surveys...personally the payout (even at guaranteed 5 per of pinecone) is not worth the time for a steady job, but well...it is a way to get paid for goofing off online

their list

I thought I would try one and see if it is real, and cancel if it isn't. worst it can do is waste some time, and obviously I am in the mood to waste time today!

(so far greenfield only offers entrys to sweepstakes, I'll give it a week, but not gonna stay for an entry)

So lots of MLMs are focused on say selling X, Y or Z because of course you like X Y or Z and you know your friends do to.

Now there is one focused on buying a website and then buying whatever parts of the alphabet you normally buy. (except the vowels..no flour availible)

You buy a website, liscense and all that, then you buy stuff from yourself and convince others to buy stuff, from themselves, by paying 200 to get their own website....what about matenence fees? you have to renew the site right? No mention of them yet.

Now in all honesty I can understand the concept, makes sense if you are in the habit of buying a lot of stuff (and you can convice a few friends to buy your way), but if you know what we spend you are not comming up with much bought, energy drinks and nike shoes are not on my list...and as for groceries, well pop might be on my husbands wish list, but it isn't going to suddenly get on the list just because it is on 'reduced price'. (that we paid 200 to get it reduced too....)

Not that a couple thousand a month doesn't sound oh so nice, just that....well I can't see it happening. Still gonna do more research, because...they are nice people, I would like it to work, but....not to much hope.

newnothin
isoyep
fruit/veggie err nope only two pathetic, but I eat one per meal, so if I miss one, I have major trouble fixing it....

So lasr night I hugged my husband, then as we parted to get work done, UE, my youngest at 1, who still prefers not to talk, reaches out hus arms for me says "nuh" and then points to himself, he repeats this twice.

I giggled as I gave him his turn at a hug. See for him "nuh" used to mean nurse, he has since weaned and usually only says "nuh" when the world is ending and life is terrible, but last night. Life was good, he just wanted a hug and a snuggle, so he asked for it. Even pointed to himself to say it was his turn.

So cute (well to a mom anyway) and a nice reminder that even though he deosn't talk much, he can communicate.

So while reading the Laura Ignalls Wilder books I am looking at her kitchen, and comparing it to mine.

Lauras kitchen (as of book 2)
1. spider (seems to be a frying pan on legs..)
2. dutch oven
3. something to cook coffee in

My kitchen:
1. frying pan (no legs needed nowadays .)
2. dutch oven, actually 2 of them, one large one small, oh and a huge roaster
3. four pots (one medium, one large, two huge)
4. two stones (one round, one rectangular)
5. four frequently used muffin pans, two mini, two large
6. one 13*9 cake pan, one 9"square
7. three mini bread pans, one large

and that doesn't include the stuff I have 'lost' since I don't seem to use and figure if I don't touch in a year I can get rid of.

I seem to be richer every time I pick up a book....

Laura also packed her entire belongings in a covered wagon for a trip (or two) I am not sure I could currently pack up my kitchen in one wagon!

Seems to me, that Americans are spoiled, we want chocolate every day, instead of being thankful we can get fruit and veggies anyday. We want someone else to do most if not all of the cooking instead of being greatful we can always find flour, cornmeal or even premade bread pretty cheap.

We complain about our 'small' houses with only one or two bedrooms, instead of being greatful we don't cook eat sleep play all in one room..not to mention the indoor plumbing!

We kavetch about paying premium prices for 50billion channels of nothing to watch, instead of being greatful we can all see and hear professional music, acting, reading, and speaches. (Laura certainly never heard the president on the prarie..no matter how much we complain when his address interupts out favorite show)

Really, the next person who tells me I am rich for being able to stay home, I aught to respond how rich I am just to live in a house with electricity and whole house heat (ever roast your front at a campfire while your back froze?)

new bought nothing spent at all
isoyesterday yes, today, working now.
veggiesbarely made it yesterday, had a snack of craisins (with chocolate) at bedtime so I wouldn't fail, today I had one with breakfast, one with lunch and fully expect to have one with dinner so I'll tentativly say yes.

I am finding the iso easier, and thinking of what I can add next month, thing is I am a 'do it now' 'add it all on, kindof person, 100 iso excersizes is easy, so why not do more? but well if I do more on my 'must' list then on days when I am tired, busy, ect, there is more I feel I have to do, and then I feel I can't succeed so I wont even do my 100!

Like the guy with the rocks, he was insulted at being asked to guard a pass and drop a measly 10 lb rock on all passerbys. he boasted he could lift 50, or 100 or whatever easy, in the course of the boasting/showing off he threw out his back and the enemy wandered in with not even the 10lb rock on his head..so I am trying not to bite off more than I can easily do. Or maybe I am just lazy

So this whole thread I responded to wasn't the greatest response, but had information, but a request was made for ‘honest’ answers, guess I am not considered honest.

Kind of annoying, but at the same time, what can you believe on the internet? Bet people don’t believe I am a 6ft tall redhead with hair down to my knees either…..or a size 8.

I do it too, when my young friend comes and tells me about her new ‘friend’ online who is writing poetry 'just for her', we google it to see where it originally came from. When she tells us how he cried over this or that, we suggest how easy it is to lie online. (I know, lets make me a size zero!)

But still it bothers me, every time someone online suggests that I am not really a redhead, or I do not really do what I do, live like I live whatever, I get annoyed, hurt by the anonymous. I start to think what is the point in being honest if no one believes me anyway?

Pretty silly eh..Maybe I should do some growing up!

I guess I'll stick with honesty though, I am not to interested in making up stories or anything. Can't see much point in it, my own life has joys, and trials enough, no need for make believe.

(Oh and I suppose to tell the truth those size 8s are getting rather snug...)

My husband specifically asked for the 'extended scene edition' for Christmas, I think it was the most anticipated gift he waited for.

And while I am trying to get more sleep, we are up for the last two nights watching the first movie, yep you heard me, two nights way late, watching one movie. It is on TWO disks! Night one the fellowship forms, night two it breaks (and Gandolf is lost sniff sniff .)

And yeah it took self control not to pop in both disks in one night, or keep going to movie two.

But I am left feeling...the usual, they screwed up my book!

Anyway, we can't find the second two books, the return of the king and the two towers. Course we also couldn't find the ending to the hobbit (we were reading it to our son, he loved it, but the last few pages of the well worn book were missing, so we borrowed it form the library, only to discover the missing pages contained one line "only a small hobbit after all, and for that I am greatful as he passed the tabbacco") anyway. ...

So my husband goes online to find out more about getting a second copy..yeah real frugal of us, but it takes months for us to read, more than one renewal. Well the hobbit is selling on ebay for 8,000 dollars! good grief! Of course that is the origional eddition (which we do not have, ours is revised to fix 'inconsistancies' by JRR Tolkien.) But boy do I wish we had it!

New: nothing but lots of groceries.
iso both days done
veggiesyesterday done, today prolly have to get dinner to get 3.

Day 9, I had company...nothing went right.

Day 10, I was recovering from 9, but managed to meet all goals.(new stuff compiled in 11)

Day 11:
new:New batteries for the smoke detectors, no more chirping! Also new wallet by Husband, his has major hole problems...only the cheap one he bought has too small compartments, just a smidgeon to small for a card...I hate cheapp stuff.

isodone just now

veggie4! finally did it

I have been procrastinating a simple money transfer because I felt I had to go balance my checkbook do a projected budget brainstorm needs for the loot, and some other miscelaneous 'stuff'. Which of course with company, christmas, busted chin, and all I never managed to do anything...well I just did the transfer, not exactly what I wanted, I just did it based on the information in my head, a safe estimated transfer, sure I am not maximizing interest and all, but I certainly wasn't maximizing by doing nothing either. Now when I have time I can go get more and transfer if the numbers agree, but at least in the meantime something is getting interest.

so anyway, just do it! very good advice.