Finances on Friday!

It's time for Finances on Friday again! And, I didn't manage to get up one single other post this week. All of us ended up with colds and lots of coughing, Brittany got pink eye from one of her students at daycare and David got bronchitis. So, that and math worksheets pretty much took up the entire week.

I did manage to get to the doctor Tuesday for my glucose test. They didn't call me so that means I passed. My blood pressure was great, the baby looks great, and everything's great!

I'm 29 weeks today!

So.....on to the finances:

• Our utility bills have gone down for this month. We haven't used as much propane since it has warmed up some during the day. Our electric is still fairly low because we haven't run the air conditioner. And, our water bill was cut in half after David did a little work on the two toilets that were leaking water. Yay!
• I canceled the cell phone insurance on Brittany's phone. She was supposed to be paying me for it, but didn't and I ended up forgetting. We also get a 25% "employment discount", which I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm not arguing, so our cell phone bill now is pretty decent.
• Made $30 from selling books on Currclick during their sale the week before last. By the way, if you homeschool, check them out. The link is on the right sidebar!
• Some of the kids needed shoes and one of the local stores had their shoes BOGO for $1.
• Found a purse! It was also on sale for 30% off making it only $20!

My family's reaction?    "It's yellow."

Well, I had made up my mind that I wanted a yellow purse because 1) I need a little color in my life and 2) Yellow is in this season. And, of course, I always make my fashion decisions based on what is in for the season.

Ahem.

Well. Anyway.

I like it.

• Used up all the leftovers this week so none went to waste.
• David went to the free medical clinic this week for city employees so that saved us a co-pay.
• About six months ago we got a credit card in order to raise our credit score. We made a few purchases (it is still on 0% interest) carried the balance for a little while and have almost paid off the purchases. It worked! As much as I really hate credit and that everything revolves around that ridiculous score, doing this did raise the score and we've paid no interest. We are looking to purchase a home and are trying to rebuild our credit since the bankruptcy.
• Went through all my homeschool stuff and am donating around five bags of stuff to our homeschool book benevolence.

Don't forget to link up over at Renaissance for Finances on Friday and tell us what frugal things you did this week!

Finances on Friday!

I'm a little late getting up my Finances on Friday post this week. I've been cleaning house all week and trying to go through everything and get rid of anything that we don't need/want and trying to just pack up anything we aren't using to get it out of the way. And, I'm almost done! I just have to finish 4 loads of laundry and clean up the homeschool stuff and I can kick my feet up, relax and eat bon bons. (Are you laughing yet?)

I also missed last week, so here are my frugal efforts for the last two weeks:

• I made $194 from the consignment sale! I was hoping for $150, so I'm really excited. This money will go back into the clothing fund for some things I couldn't find at the sale, like shoes for the older girls, tshirts/shorts/shoes for my older two boys. WHO ARE IN MEN"S SIZES. Where does the time go?
• Found some beef marked down for quick sale.
• Used some leftover beef and rice to make stuffed peppers for my lunches last week.
• Forgot to register for a women's conference I had wanted to go to. I'm not sure if that's a success or not, but I guess it will be saving me $50.
• A very good friend bought my girls a surger and is teaching them to use it! SO thankful for her!
• I decided that since the girls have been learning to sew, that we could make a diaper bag, crib set, blankets and burp cloths for this baby. There is some super cute owl fabric, and since Brittany works one night a week at the fabric store she can get a discount. So, we'll see if this is a frugal endeavor, but none the less, I think it will be fun and a fantastic learning experience!
• Used my grocery store rewards card and saved 10 cents/gallon on gas. This is twice as much as saving 5/gallon at Sam's.

And, where things weren't so frugal............

• I went shopping at Sam's and unloaded the groceries from the van onto driveway in front of the garage for the kids to take to the extra fridge in there, while I quickly went to take David something at work. Well, apparently TWO WHOLE PACKS of lunchmeat got overlooked behind a bucket of stuff in the garage and I didn't notice it until the next day when I went to make David's lunch. It had to be on the 65 degree day instead of the unsual 35 degree days we'd been having.
• David had a MUCH needed four days off (Saturday through Tuesday) so he wanted to do something fun. We took the kids for pizza, then bowling and ice cream. The cost gave me heart palpatations, but really it was worth it because we had some great family time.

Does anyone else get anxiety over spending money? I admittingly am very uptight about it. I am thinking about buying a new purse, because, well, i just want one. I have spent maybe six dollars in the last six years on purses. I usually pick them up at yard sales. But, this year I'm just in the mood to buy a brand spanking new purse. I'm not talking Coach or Dooney and Burke, just maybe a nice $20 one from the local discount store. And, I'm still stressing about whether or not to spend the $20. David is like, "JUST GO BUY THE PURSE ALREADY. You deserve it."  I don't know. I am way too hard on myself. I can get very frustrated if I don't do every frugal thing perfectly. I know part of that is the "oldest child syndrome", but I also know what it feels like to lose everything. So, anyway, it seems like a constant struggle to be frugal, but yet not try to "maintain control" over everything to the point where my faith is "in my finances". Know what I mean?

Don't forget to link up over at Renaissance for Finances on Friday!

Happy Birthday Bailey and Bethany!

 

Last Thurday was Bailey's 5th birthday.

 

 

 

Sunday was Bethany's 12th birthday.

 

Happy Birthday Girls!!!!!!!

 

 



Monday Musings: Good Night Edition

This is Bailey's (5) rendition of the "good night" saying before bed last night:

"Good night, sleep well! I hope that bugs don't eat you!"

Finances on Friday!

These last two weeks have warn me out, and this week I've spent catching up on laundry and getting the house back in order. I've also been packing some boxes. No, we haven't heard anything else about the house. David called them the day after our anniversary and he hadn't been able to do any of the repairs yet, but they really want it to work out that we can buy it from them.

David walked in the door the other day and saw the boxes and said, "Are you preparing for rain?"

At first I didn't get it, but he said, "Remember the movie 'Faith Like Potatoes'?"

Well, I hadn't thought of that, but that principle is also in 'Facing the Giants'. I don't want to be presumptuous that God is going to give us that house, but if packing boxes means that I'm preparing for Him to do bless us with it, then I guess that's what I'll do. Worse case scenario, we'll have less clutter since I'm trying to weed out anything that we don't need anymore.

So, I'm linking up this week again with Rebecca over at Renaissance for Finances on Friday!

Here are a few frugal endeavors for the week:

• FOUND the missing library book! Shockingly it was on the bookshelf that I had instructed a certain someone to check already, because I was sure it was probably there.
• Went to the natural grocer and got a free pound of organic butter. I also had a coupon for lunch meat, but they were sold out of that.
• Sold a book on Cash4Books. I used Bookscouter to find the best quote. I had a stack of some old textbooks, and they were only buying one of them. Oh, well, one is better than none!
• Got coupons for a cupcake or cookie from the cafe at Barnes and Noble for signing up for the kids' birthdays.
• Got a free code for a Redbox rental in my email. I'll probably use it tomorrow since it's going to be cold and rainy again. (But, 70's next week!!!!)
• I took a bag full of books and magazines to put on the "free" shelf at the local library. I've benefited from others who've put things there many times, so I like to return the favor.

Well, nothing went terribly wrong in the frugal department this week, so maybe we can just declare this a week of success!

Don't forget to link up over at Renaissance and share your frugal endeavors for the week, as well!

A Birthday, An Anniversary and a Baby Update!

Sunday, a week ago, was Tristan' s 9th Birthday!

Since life is all about Yugioh right now, he wanted money to buy new cards to make new decks. Then, David took the younger kids to see Thor 2 at the dollar theater. We were going to go bowling since one year we surprised him on his birthday by taking everyone bowling. We don't go often because it's so expensive and we tried last year on his birthday to go, but it was league day so they didn't have any open lanes. Well, this year it wasn't league day, but they had a city wide tournament going on. So, no open lanes again. But, the movie was a good plan B and he was happy.

Tuesday was David's and my 19th anniversary. We were getting ready to go out for a late lunch when he got a phone call from the VA telling him he needed to go have xrays done. They should have had him go in two weeks ago, but they never called. Instead, they called Tuesday morning and insisted he go in that day. He told them that we already had plans and that they should have called him two weeks ago. I said that he should just go on in and get it done, it wouldn't take long, and we could get on with our lives. So, we did. It wasn't for any emergency, just on some documentation he needs in his records about his knees.

Afterwards we had steak at Outback. We hadn't been there in a long time, but David wanted steak (and honestly so did I) and Texas Roadhouse didn't open until four. It was good, but not great. We had a good time together though. Afterwards we went to see Captain Phillips at the dollar theater, and like I said in my Finances post, I had to close my eyes for most of it. I think it was a good movie? Well, from what I listened to of the movie, it was good.

David says he has something big planned for next year, our 20th. I'm excited to find out! I hope we can go on a short trip or something. We haven't been anywhere overnight together in fifteen years.

I also had another ultrasound, and a doctor's appointment. The due date lined up with the last ultrasound, so the doctor changed my due date to June 13. The ultrasound said June 14, so I 'm not sure what that one day's difference is all about. Whatever. David's dad's birthday was June 17, and mine is June 23, so we'll see what happens. This is the first June baby!

The baby looked great on the ultrasound, and my blood pressure and everything is good so far. I'm so, so thankful! I'm really caught on what I think the gender is this time. I'm kind of leaning toward boy, but then again, maybe girl. We've moved on to a "girl/boy/girl" pattern, so it would be time for a boy. Well, we'll find out in June.

I had meant to post all this last week, but the kids got a stomach virus, and then gave it to me. We also had our 568th snow of the season and I'm now trying to catch up on 586 loads of laundry in the garage. It's so COLD out there, I don't want to go out and switch it out, but it's supposed to be in the 60's by Friday. YAY!

Just Keep Swimming...........

Saturday a week ago the kids were invited to a birthday party at an indoor pool. They had so much fun.

Travis.

I wasn't even sure he would get in the pool at all.

Only two out of the ten of them were fish at this age, all

the others didn't even like to get their faces wet.

Brennan was like the Pillsbury dough girl in her life suit.

I took it off of her a while later and she kept trying to dive in.

She likes to live dangerously.

 



Bailey wouldn't get off the steps, but she had fun..

 

 



Tristan

 



Thomas, one of my two fish.

 



Monday Musings: Pathetic Edition

Travis (3) pouting and brows furrowed: "The other kids are in there and I want to watch Ku Panda, but they are watching a pathetic movie."