Month: May 2012 (Page 2 of 2)

I had a great day in Eau Claire. I took my own lunch, but I did buy snacks and I had to go to the pharmacy for more medicine for these darn hives. But the snacks for the whole day were less than $5 and the medicine was only $2.01, so I still have tons of cash in my wallet. For one panicky moment, I thought I’d forgotten my cash, but I hadn’t.

The “(almost)” was for the youth center and senior center supplies I bought at Sam’s Club, which I charged to the youth center’s card. I figure it doesn’t count if it isn’t charged to my card. But I controlled myself and didn’t buy anything for home because we honestly didn’t need anything. I sampled some mighty tasty stuff, too, and just said, “Thanks, that was really good” and didn’t let them make me feel pressured into buying. (As I previously would have, I’ll admit.)

On another note, I ended up at the emergency room last night because my hives were so bad. The side of my face really, really swelled up and it scared me. The problem was that I still need the prednisone and I’d been on a “tapered” dose, 30 mg 3 days, 20 mg 3 days and 10 mg 3 days. On the 10 mg days, I had a few hives, but yesterday was the first day with no prednisone and they came back really bad. So now I am on 20 mg for another 5 days, followed by 10 mg for 5 more days and I need to see my own doctor before those 5 days are up to develop a plan. But the e.r. doctor also told me to take twice the dosage of the antihistamine, so that might help, too. So frustrating that they don’t know what is causing it, and actually in 70% of the cases of chronic hives, they never do find a cause. Hard to know how to prevent them if you can’t figure out what is causing them. So you just have to take the medicine, which I’ll admit I’m starting to LOVE! Because it works so well. Today is so different from yesterday, just because of meds. Not itching. Not swelling. Not looking like a monster. Just a normal person, thanks to DRUGS. Yikes!

So you are supposed to pay cash and not use a credit card, right? Do you realize how much cash that is? I didn’t until I added up what I needed to take out to fill all the envelopes. And I only put half the month in for groceries and gasoline. $1157. Now that is rather high because there is $375 in the home maintenance envelope to spend at Menards for carpet and stuff for the house we are fixing up. You should have seen the look the teller gave me when I said I wanted it mostly in smaller bills – 10’s, 5’s, and 1’s. But I knew we would be taking most of it out bit by bit and there are odd amounts in each envelope. I did see that I could have taken more 50’s for things like gas, since it costs over 50 to fill the tank. (Ugh) Then I made the mistake of taking cash out for gifts, when I am planning to send checks and not cash. So that has to be redeposited. Still, it was an eye-opener to see in actual money how much goes through our hands each month. And this will be a low month because we are being more frugal than usual!

And, do you know how good it feels to go in to Kwik Trip and lay down $3.01 for a fill-up of gas — on the scooter, that is! Crazy cheap to ride that thing. May the nice weather continue all summer!

Tomorrow is state music contest and I have 11 events to play for. They are pretty much spread throughout the day with only a little conflict in times at the very end of the day. I’ll have to see how well I do at being frugal when I’m out and about! I have to go to Sam’s Club and pick up supplies, and it is so easy to overspend there. Still, having to pay cash should slow me down quite a lot. Like to a stop.

Not as exciting a day, although a few “wins.” We got our Federal income tax deposited in our account. What that means is that we have some “extra” money to put towards the items on that list. Of course, we won’t use it until we get to the end of the month staying on budget. I like the fact that the program is tracking the extra money we have as we fill in our expenses.

I used a lot more gas yesterday because I had to drive to Cameron for a lesson. Last one of the year, though, as she will be driving to Chetek for the next two, then the year is over.

Another: I made a roast and vegetables on Wednesday and not only was there enough left over for yesterday, there is enough for today as well. So all we have used for dinner this week is a rotisserie chicken and the beef roast, plus vegetables and stuff. Pretty cheap week.

Tomorrow is State music contest in Eau Claire. I am going to charge for mileage, so that gas will be reimbursed. I did fill up the Jimmy a couple nights ago. I used my debit card and found that our gas station doesn’t let you use them at the pump, so you have to go inside. Might as well use cash if you have to go in anyway. At least the local station doesn’t have a lot of stuff begging you to buy it, like Kwik Trip does!

First of all, I was able to ride my scooter to work today, so that hardly used any gas at all. And that is good because the Jimmy is empty. Dad didn’t have to drive, either, because he went to a meeting and carpooled with his secretary. So “yea” for not burning hardly any gasoline today.

I got my paycheck from church and it was more than I expected since I missed those last two Sundays. But April had 5 Sundays and I played for two extra services – Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, so it was still a little above normal. I love entering things and seeing my excess going up.

I’ve been working on a list of everything we want/need that isn’t a regular budget item – like both Dad and I need dental crowns and we need a reliable snowblower by next winter and we want to save for our family vacation. So when extra money comes in, we won’t necessarily put it all towards paying off debt, but put it in savings for some of these things that are actually important, but that we should pay for with cash.

First thing I learned is that we make decisions on any given day that will affect us in the future. For instance I didn’t think I’d have to spend anything today, but then I got to work and remembered I’d signed up to eat lunch at work because it was meatloaf day, so there went $3.50. Then the Avon order I’d forgotten about was ready to be paid for. Another $11.50. And the fuel in the car is registering on the “low fuel” indicator.That isn’t a surprise – it was just that the $20 I had for gas is now only $5, which only buys a little over a gallon. But I made it home okay and I’m going to ride the scooter tomorrow if it isn’t raining.

But on the “win” side, we sold a couple of rings to a gold and silver dealer and got $200 in return. That is no small change for things we just had sitting and collecting dust. Who knows what else of value we might have if we look closely?

And another “win:” I changed telephone and internet plans a couple weeks ago and when we got this month’s bill it was only around $50 instead of $90 because of the credit we had on what we’d prepaid, plus our lower cost now. It will normally run about $75, which is still a nice savings, but I wasn’t expecting this month’s bill to be even lower than that!

So, when I changed these things in the budget, I now have about $221 left over at the end of the month, so I can decide what else to pay with that money. Nice situation to be in on the first of the month. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the month holds.