Tag Archives: California Fair plan

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgeting, budgets, California, home stuff, swimming by

Overall, my budget is going well. I haven’t really gone out most of this week, so that makes a difference. I’m making headway on my CC bill, so that’s encouraging. X amount of dollars can only go to X amount of places.

Today, I’m heading to the pool, then going to Costco to return the pants I bought online. I’ll pick up coffee and olive oil as well. My grocery budget for August came in a bit higher than I wanted, at $500 approx. Of course, some of this is LTF for the freezer/pantry, so even though it’s high, some things won’t need to be bought for a while. I’m going to try to stick to $400 this month and see how it goes.

I’ve got most of September’s bills in. Almost all are on autopay, but PGE is not, as it is on the balanced pay program, so it averages out over the year and is different each month. Other than that, except for annual bills, all are on autopay. Actually, some of my annual bills are on autopay like my Costco membership.

Finally, our weather is turning and will be much cooler next week. I’m ready to not have coolers going all day.

September brings my dentist appointment, eye doctor appt, Flu and COVID shots. I read that the new COVID shot will be available soon, so I’ll wait to get that.

Next week, I have my oncology appt. My labs came back good. No real big change, so I was very happy about that. My platelets are still a bit low due to Velcade, but nothing alarming- just below low normal. Overall, they were good. I’ll see what he has to say next week.

We’ve been moving all the plants near the house to a different spot. It’s suggested to not have anything within 5 feet of the house. We had 4 different bamboo pots near the house, so my daughter moved them out. I’m pretty sure our California Fair Plan insurance is going to have an increase, which I hope isn’t too dramatic. But I did hear/read that it’s likely going up.

We also scheduled a chimney cleaning for the wood stove. There are just some things Barclay always did that we just don’t want/can’t do now. The same with getting the firewood. He pretty much handled that, and now one of us needs to. sigh:(

Well, I’m off to go swim.

Frugal Friday

Posted in budgets, California, cancer, cooking, frugalism, swimming by

This week has been ok money-wise. We’ve had to fill up the Santa Fe twice, but using Costco gas saves quite a bit. Gas here in town is $1.00 more a gallon than Costco. Go figure.

I went to Bel Air to get some leeks for soup and some tea drinks for B. I spent $58. Probably at Winco that would have been a lot less.

Then most of our annual fall bills have come due. Allstate I decided to do in payments. That’ll help break it up and I’ll finish it by Dec. Then the big one is our insurance. Here in California most insurance companies are not insuring for fire so you have to get a rider with the California Fair Plan. So you have one with the insurance company, in our case, that’s AAA and the the Fair Plan.

Both went up a couple hundred dollars but at least it’s not thousands. Still, for such a small house it’s a pretty expensive policy. There was no payment plan option so it went on the credit card. I got to $600 in my cash envelopes, but that’s certainly not enough. Hopefully next year I can get more in there.

Today is a swim day and Barclay trying to get someone to do something at UCD in regards to appts. We are so frustrated with them and honestly shocked at their inefficiency and lack of response. It is baffling since before we had such extraordinary service from them before. But this has been absolutely awful.

So once I get back from the pool, I need to organize my thrift store stuff to take next week. I also want to box up a dozen pint jars and offer them on Pay it Forward as I have way too many jars now. I’m not planning on canning as much so I know someone who is canning will use them.