Tag Archives: bills

Frugal Friday

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Overall, except for the coast trip, it was a low-budget week. This week is an in-between; August’s bills are coming out, so it’s just basics.

After the gym, I went to Winco and spent $ 55. I bought wine as well, but that doesn’t go on my grocery bill.

The weather is turning hot again, so no eating on the patio, and dinners have been lighter. I made a brown rice salad with chickpeas, red onion, and cucumbers with some feta. I’ll have that for lunch today as well. I made some tofu in the air fryer, so I can use some of that for dinner tonight.

I’m planning on swimming today, and then I won’t go down to Roseville till next week. I need gas, so I’ll do that at Costco. I’m still waiting for my LLS to get finalized, and then I can submit my insurance premium. I’m very grateful for LLS’s support for patients.

Nothing new with books. I finished Fever Beach by Carl Hiasson. Funny and provocative to say the least. I don’t have any holds, so I need to go to the catalog and place some on hold.

Five on Friday/Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, Credit cards, frugalism, husband, knee injury, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma, velcade, Walking by

Frugal-wise, I’m not in the Cotswolds like Mavis over at $100 a month. She probably should change the name of her blog. But she’s got the money, so why not enjoy it? Plus, she loves England.

Here in my neck of the woods, N. Ca, it’s been too hot to do much outside. The temps are much nicer in the coming week, but still some 90’s, and I saw it gets in the low 80’s, so that will be much nicer. I miss sitting outside in the mornings and afternoons.

Money-wise, just paying bills, and I had to pay the overpayment from SS. It’s ok, I’ll deal with it. It’s done, and I’m going forward. I just need to work the budget with the SS I’m getting. I’m still working on my credit card bill because I put the cremation on there. But I should be able to knock it down next month. I hate having a balance. But needs must.

After my Velcade shot, I stopped at Costco to pick up some lox for the bagels I bought at Noah’s. I also picked up some rose wine( my favorite) and a Gloria Ferrier champagne-type brut. I wanted Mumm rose, but they were out.

I gave my daughter $100 in cash to buy the paint for the studio. She’s really done a great job clearing it out and rearranging it to suit her. We might go get that today as long as she drives, since I’m on Dex. I don’t sleep well on Dex nights, and last night was no exception.

I also have a food bank donation to drop off and some more stuff for Goodwill.

I’ve almost finished most of my list of things to do related to B. If something comes up, it’ll be an outlier I don’t know about. I may take care of a few things today or not. It depends on my focusing on which Dex does affect. So we’ll see.

I’m still debating getting the next steroid shot for my knee. Mostly it’s ok. When I try and do a little extra walking or swimming, it acts up, but then I seem to recover the next day. The shot did help quite a bit, so there’s that.

Looking ahead with the budget

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So, I tallied the rest of the month with food, nonfood, cat food, and we’re at $700. The food bill was @ $500, so the $200 is non-food, cat food(which is pretty high since our one kitty is not doing well and we buy a lot of cat food for him to eat. Ollie has a thyroid cancerous tumor and isn’t long for the earth. He’s a super sweet Maine coon and at one time weighed in at 20lbs.image

So back to the budget.  I added B’s two take home checks and it covers our bills but not a lot extra. It’s going to have to be my SS checks that give us the annual bills. And I’d like to start making  extra payments on the Santa Fe. If we can pay that off it’ll free up $600 . Yes, that’s a high payment but he gets a reimbursement of almost $400 a month so it works out. Looking ahead though, we cannot have a car payment in retirement.  I’m kinda freaking out a bit concerning the actual numbers. We don’t have a large 401 or anything so… But I’m hopeful that I can knock this out by the end of the year. Next would be our second. That was part of the worst re-finance in the world during the time when they were giving out re fi’s with no income verification and over inflating home values. Yes, we were incredibly stupid to do it. But this is finally, almost under $20,000 so that’ll be the next thing to get rid of.

It is , of course, ambitious, but I feel compelled to work this out.

We will see……

Dinner is chicken tacos in the crock pot with rice.

November budget and other miscellany!

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So, November is a little tight on the budget. With ynab, i was almost a month ahead ,now its more like 2 weeks. Most of it is the extra medical bills and Invisalign payments of $500. But with this check everythings covered till mid month. Also, we have property taxes due. I had wanted to start overpaying on the Santa Fe, but that will have to wait till December or even January.

I know the medical will be done this month and my one cc that has the last Invisalign payment will be paid. After that the Invisalign will be more like $200 a month or less. It was the first $2000 they wanted fairly quickly.

Also, christmas money will be available and the extra is our property taxes I put in there. It was a great way to budget it since you can’t withdraw from your Santa fund. i will definitely do that next year.

B hopefully will get one more bonus this year but I don’t want to count on anything since his last one paid for the tree removal.

It always seems money is needed for something and honestly its a little scary thinking of retirement. But I shall preserver as always.

On to my doctors appointment. Geez, since I got the Pomalyst much later than I expected and just started yesterday , thats day 1. So the cycle is 21 days. that puts me at November 17 to finish and my appt. is November 18. So that is so not going to work as I won’t even had a blood test yet. So the complication is the following week is thanksgiving and the week after is too long away and my husbands out of town anyway. So, I did the best I could and my appt. is Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. And I need to have the Zometa IV. So, its kinda a drag as sometimes I never know how I will feel from the Zometa. But its the best of all scenarios.

Anyway, Ive been busy washing the couch covers and switched the white for the tan for winter. Plus I did get thru a few magazines to give to the thrift store.Plus there’s a little pile of other stuff to go.

Friday financials

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Wow, we still have money going out and for some reason all these misc bills coming in. The fire tax, a medical copay??,not sure why this is coming in, my sons extra class money for the fall semester, our propane tank bill, and I think some others, oh, yeah, my husbands crown expense at the dentist. So , the budget is stretched way too thin. We’ re off next week to Santa Cruz, so I’m not going to worry about it all till we are back. I’ve got our $5.00 savings, and I’ll bring that. It’ll be depleted but it’s for travel, so that’s what it’s for. 

It’s suppose to be in the 90’s here. What is up with that. 

Today, JKWP has 20 days left. So tomorrow we are under 20. Yeah, us!

so, I’m pretty over my rant about library stuff. Especially since my daughter is applying for a full time job with the library. Of course, who knows what they’re looking for, and I’m sure they already have a good idea of who they want. But, for her sake it would be awesome. 

I never had a full time job and it’s something I wish I had. It was never for lack of trying, but not continuing to try. Also, when I was ready after my daughter turned 9, I was at 41 pregnant and had my son at 42, so, that changed the picture ….Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

Budget 2014

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imageI’m pretty close to our budget for 2014. The thing that we need to do is be sure to budget in for home repairs and maintenance and non food items. That’s where we tend to over spend. Most of our bills are fixed so I know those amounts. Our monthly out go is still too high for retirement. Not sure how this will play out in the next five years. I may or may not be here. But with the new drugs that are out, I’m hoping to be. I would love to pay off our second and then work on the first mortgage. But, thats not happening anytime soon. I guess we’ll have to make decisions on those in the next few years.

Im going to use cash envelopes for a few months till were back on track with some areas, such as clothing. Usually I just sort of fit clothing in. We don’t buy a lot of clothes, but when we do it’s easy to spend $100 or more. So I’m budgeting for that. Also, we have car tags in January.

I’m using my YNAB budget again too. Since I can’t use it on my iPad, I have to use my daughters netbook . I’m going to see if I can buy it from her so I have it up when I need it. She has 2 other computers so she doesn’t use it. It’s an okay program. I’m more of a pencil and paper budgeter( is that a word)???.

so, I work today and I’m sure it will be slow. Also, I need to call optumrx  for my revlimid refill.

So have a great day! How’s your budget looking for 2014?