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Archive for November, 2008

Spendy day plus proud of mom

November 16th, 2008 at 12:37 am

Well, it has been a really spendy day, but it was a treat for us for a change! Nice and relaxing and just a fun day.

We are spending Thanksgiving with DH's family so we offered to pick up some local wine if they wanted some. They will be paying us back for this. They asked for 4 bottles from a particular winery a half hour from here. We decided to make an afternoon of it and do a tasting, buy wine, then grab lunch somewhere. We sprung for a case because the wines were so good! We got the 4 we went there for, 3 bottles for us, 2 bottles for Thanksgiving dinner, and 3 bottles for gifts for inlaws. This completes Christmas shopping for them! The two bottles for dinner were a must - holiday spiced cranberry apple wine. YUM!

Spending for the day:
Two tastings w/2 wine glasses: $8.00
Case of wine: $143.91 (eek! this is after a $2.10 discount for a "wine of the month" and the $15.99 case discount.)
Lunch: $28.00 for two HUGE burgers w/ fries, large beer for DH, and good tip.

We've been tipping extra ever since reading on here about people cutting back on tipping but still eating out. We hardly ever eat out, so we feel comfortable tipping extra.

*Mail Break*
- Just went and got the mail and got a rebate check for $2.74. This is for trying a new Arm & Hammer cleaning product.
- Uh oh. DH's idiotic doctor's office has sent him to collections over $7.43 and now he's on a tirade. He's mad enough now that he wont be going there anymore. They refuse to send us a bill and don't tell him his balance or ask for payments when he goes in for appointments. Really cute for a counselor's office that's supposedly "treating" him for ADD! Well anyways, don't appreciate this stress on what has otherwise been a nice day. Oh, if this impacts his perfect credit......

So on to my mom. Ever since she was diagnosed with breast cancer she has been unbelievably helpless wih everything. She just finished radiation last week and I'm wondering if her spirits are lifting just a little bit. Yesterday she wanted to order a book through her book club but the website was overcharging the shipping. Of course she called me - what am I supposed to do about it? So I told her she needed to call them and she did, no questions asked! Got it worked out and called me back with a cheery tone in her voice. Then today she had a neighbor come over to look at her broken dryer. It turns, but wont heat. So she called a local supply company and found out the parts would cost almost $100. Then she went online and found them for $75. Wow, my mom went online and found a better deal?? I'm impressed and quite happy about this! She can wait a few days for her dryer to get fixed and she's saving $25, nevermind the cost savings of not hiring a repair person to do it. She baked this guy some cookies and handed him the $20 she had just earned for babysitting my cousin. Now I just have to get this money from her when my credit card statement posts. I had her put it on my PENFED card to get the 1.25% cash back. Hey, every little bit helps! Almost a dollar cash back - she'll take it!

Car loan - WHOA!

November 13th, 2008 at 06:15 pm

I just called to check the status of DH's car loan because the check hasn't cleared my bank yet. Apparently they got it because he now owes a whopping $561.54 on the car!! There are three payment coupons left - 2 regular payments plus the final payoff. I think we can knock the rest of this out in one shot. I'm "borrowing" from savings to get this out of the way.

I originally wanted this car paid off by the end of 2008 (scheduled for October 2009) but that didn't seem possible. Wow, looking good at the moment. DH has NO IDEA!

Said car now has the check engine light on as of this morning. Should just be a $30 sensor that DH can replace. Thank goodness he's really interested in cars and can do a lot of work himself.

Good karma tonight!

November 11th, 2008 at 01:49 am

I stopped by Target to get some paper towels that were on sale. Been trying to cut back on using these, but with 2 dogs and 2 cats sometimes you really NEED a paper towel!

Went to the pet store to buy crickets for my anole and some fish food. Used a $3 coupon that was expiring tomorrow.

Then I went to a discount type store to look for two picture frames for a project. Picked up a few cute little Christmas extras and found the frames I was looking for. Then I found my tea!! I know I made a comment before on here about giving up my tea due to the cost. I used to buy it at Target for around $2 a box, but it's almost $4 at the grocery store. Well this store had 10 boxes marked $1.99 each. I tossed 5 in my basket, thought about it for a minute, then tossed the other 5 in my basket. So glad I did because as the cashier was ringing up my purchases, I felt something hit my wrist. The woman behind me was handing me an extra 20% off coupon she had. I ended up saving $7.52 with the coupon. Then when I got out to the car, I noticed that tea all rang up $1.50 each. So I got 10 boxes of tea for $12.00!! I was very grateful to the person who gave me the coupon!