Today is another beautiful spring like day. I am just getting ready to take a ride over to the next state. I generally make a liquor run on Tuesdays.My husband will be coming home early today because he has a dentist appointment, one county over. While he is there, he will stock up on beer.
The area I live is so funny, we have to drive to North Carolina to buy liquor, but you can't buy beer there. So, he has to drive to a different county to buy beer!!

I went to the bank and cashed the paycheck before I went to pay bridge.
As soon as I got home I sat down with my cash and funded all my envelopes.

My husband works by the hour and sometimes his check vary a lot. I set my budget up on a sheet of paper and sometimes there is not enough money to fund all of the envelopes. I put the least important envelopes last, like christmas club, medical account, van payment (which had been paid off for 15 months, but I still save it)land payment (which is also paid off now).
I am always tickled when there is enough paycheck to fund all the accounts and there was today.
It helps that my husband works usually 7 days a week.
You might think that medical should not be placed last, but I know if we have to pay a medical bill, we have the cash in savings. It is just nice to save something in advance.

Yesterday, I had a no spend day. I did use a little gas driving out to see my dh at his jobsite. Of course, I didn't really get to look around and talk to him, cause the home owners grabbed me the minute I got there to show me around.
Then I fixed a nice dinner and we ate pretty late, about 9:30.
Now, that the time has changed, my dh didn't even get home from work until almost 8 pm.
My dh enjoys the fact that he can now play music while we eat. We moved our record player, tape and CD player all in one kind of thing, into the breakfast room.
So we got up and danced after dinner!!
Today is payday, so I get to do my envelope thing this afternoon!! One of my favorite things to do.

I just figured out about what dh and I spend for breakfast at home every day. It comes to about 30 cents each.
We each eat one egg and 3 of those little smokies sausage.
We always have left overs for lunch. We bring home our dinner out from the night before and use that for our lunch. My dh is so good about packing his lunch every day of his working lift. I bet that has saved us tons of money.
The subs he uses, eat their lunch out every single day.
We have one guy who has done our a/c work for the past 20 years. He has eaten lunch out for the past 20 years. One day we were talking about stock. He was given the offer to buy stock in his A/C company but he did not have the $2000 to purchase it.
He didn't have $2000 but he could eat lunch at a restaurant every day!!!

I think I have gotten more frugal since I joined this forum and maybe it is starting to rub off on my husband.
He fixed himself a cup of hot tea this morning. Then he carefully wrapped up the tea bag and took it with him to use again this morning. That is great.

We went and looked at land yesterday after work. The roads are being graded and are pretty bad, so we never got to see the lots on the creek.
They want $175,000 to $195,000 for the creek lots, so it really doesn't matter. I could not afford one anyway.
I sure am glad I bought my two acres on the creek (I live on) when land was much more reasonible.

I was listening to the news today and did you know that refrigerators with the ice and water on the door, cost about 20% more electricity to operate than a regular refrigerator.
Actually, i am the only one that I know that does NOT have the ice and water on the door. I don't like them, because i seem to always spill ice on the floor. It is nice to know that I am saving money on that.

I was just reading Brooklyn girls blog about the fact that a ticket she just got, will wind up costing her about $2000. It was just for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign. That is how much her insurance is going to go up for her first ticket.
I think that is terrible.

First of all, I have no idea how much fine you have to pay when you get a ticket?

I guess I am glad I drive slow; it has apparently saved me money. I have never had a ticket in my life. I hope I keep it that way.

Well, I am starting to dream about this place. Last night, I dream that I met with a bunch of the ladies on here. We all stayed at a hotel and my roommate was Contrary! She was very nice and we got along great!
On the other hand, my dh did not sleep much last night. Our fan quit and he has to have a fan running in order to sleep. He has a severe ringing in his ear. He is out right now, trying to buy a new fan!

Has anyone seen "Where's George" on any of their bills? I got one the other day and went to their site. I gave them the serial number and found that my dollar was last tracked at a Wendy's in Powder springs, Ga. over 100 miles from here.
Now I am going to be on the lookout for more Georges!!

I got a draw from a customer on Feb. 5th to pay for the insulation and installing drywall. (that included the materials also.
Knowing how slow this company was, I put the check into my savings until the work was finished and I got the actual final bill. I got the bill on Saturday and immediately sent them a check.
The money I transferred from my saving into my business checking.
My business checking does pay a little interest, but only 1/2 of one percent interest on balances over $10,000.
I figured that I earned an extra $70 in interest by keeping that money in my money market account for the 4 weeks it took to complete the job!
I would have earned $6.90 if I let it sit in my checking.
So I made an extra $63 in interest.
I hope everyone feels that is ok?? It is the first time I have ever done that.

I had a no spend day and a very nice one. There are 4 of us ladies trying to learn how to play bridge. we try and get together on Mondays to play and practice.
This monday is was at another ladies house, so there was no money spent by me. Actually, we don't spend a lot for refreshments since we all drink water. We do, however, pig out on that new candy, kissables! I got my candy half price right after valentine's day. So, I am pretty much set when it is my turn to host again.

Today is Tina's birthday and I hope she has a very happy day!

MY dh did a side plumbing job yesterday. We built the house for this guy, but he only uses it about one weekend a month. He leaves the water on and one of the pipes burst. (He had a slow leak outside, he plugged, it blew out and blew a pipe inside the house)
Luckily it did no damage inside, but needed to be fixed.
So my dh went over and worked on it all day yesterday.
I do his paycheck every sunday, so he will not get paid for yesterday from me. By the time he gets these sideline paychecks, it is time for a new pay day.
So, I never count those checks in my budget. I just add them to savings.

He is charging the man $150 for his labor. Since my husband is so handy, we have never hired a plumber or electrician. How much do most plumbers make? He was there for most of the day, plus made side trips to check out the problem last week. I think he is charging a fair fee, do you?

I just got my edward Jones statement yesterday. I noticed that I now own 5 shares of a stock called brocade.
I wonder how I got this? Somebody must have bought or sold something. That is how I got Timothy Horton stock, Wendy's spun it off. Oh well!!

What does your life revolve around? What is most important in your life? For some, it could be food, drugs,work, children, etc.
Someone on another forum said that my life revolves around money. I would have to disagree.
I learned to respect money at an early age after my father died. We didn't have any income coming in. I learned what it was like to go to school and be hungry all day. Money is important in my life and to many other people, it is too.
But, I would have to say that the most important thing in my life is my husband and our life together.
I think we have a pretty wonderful life!!

My husband is the type that sees the glass half empty. I am opposite, I see the glass half full.
I told him last night that we had lost some money when the stock market fell the other day.
But the way I told him was that we had made $30,000 in our mutual funds the past 5 months and only lost $10,000 of it. So we are still $20,000 ahead.
He keeps talking about the $10,000 that is gone instead of the extra money it made.
He is in his mid 50's, so I guess there is no changing him. I wish he did not view things so negatively.
I don't think I will even tell him what is going on with the market today! Don't you either!!

I just checked with the vanguard mutual fund. I have all my mutual funds listed there, so that I can see the value of all my mutual funds with out having to go to each mutual fund company.
I took a hit of about $10,000 because of yesterday's stock market drop.
However, I am not too upset.
I started keeping track of my mutual funds at vanguard on Sept. 21st. According to my notes, I am still $20,000 ahead of where I was on 9/21, so that makes me happy!!

Since I have learned how to check on my accounts on the computer, I do this almost every day. That way, I can keep track of what checks have cleared, because I write a lot of business checks.
When I checked today, my business checking had gone down about 19K since yesterday.
What was missing was the almost 19K that I had deposited on Saturday to pay a big drywall and insulating bill.
The bank said they are having some problems and to check back this afternoon. Gosh, I hope nothing bounces in the meantime.
The deposit showed up yesterday when I checked, but has disappeared today. I don't really understand why?

I am so happy that I have this forum to come to. Everone here is so kind and nice to each other. It is nice to be among people who are interested in the same things as I am. Yesterday was not a very good day, but I hope today is better.

women who frequent a local forum forum that I am on.
They don't like the fact that I talk about saving money.
They check out what I say on this forum to see if they can find out anything to put on the local forum to critize me.
They did that today!
One is thirty two years old. I owned my own house free and clear, when I was 32 years old, she doesn't.
They critize that I am not frugal because I own a corvette.
I own a corvette because I have been frugal all my life. I think it is pretty childish to have someone follow you around on the different forums. What an exciting life they must have!!

I am still reading the electric meter and recording it everyday. I really think it makes me more aware of how much power I am using. The nice thing is that my bill has been under $100 for the past 4 months. That is money I can add to my challenge money!!

I finally got my little Holly groomed. She has not been groomed since the first part of November. We had an appt. for Dec. 28th and my groomer took sick leave for at least 6 months.
I have been looking for a good groomer all over.I have heard horror stories about some of the local groomers, so I have been very careful.
I finally got an e mail from another lady who is very particular about her dogs, telling me of a new guy that recently moved here.
I just got back from picking her up and I am thrilled. She looks great and was only there for 2 hours instead of the usual 6 hours. It may seem expensive, but I think groomers do earn their money. I bet she enjoys not having all that hair hanging in front of her eyes.

The interest on my 5.25% money market account got added to my account yesterday. I love earning interest. I told my husband that our net worth increased by $1793.73 yesterday and he said, how? I was surprised!! I said, it is one month's interest on our money market account. He does not seem to realize that when we are building a house, we are losing a lot of money in interest. Buyers should be aware of that also. We lose about $2000 a month in interest. We use our own money to build. If we had to borrow from a bank, we would be paying even more interest.
Anyway, it was nice to see that $1793 added to our account, plus I have more interest being payed to a jumbo c.d. that I opened. I am keeping track of how much interest I earn each month.Wow, I like this!

I had a nice day at my bridge class. Teacher only teachs for a few minutes and then we play the rest of the time. I decided to go and buy more of that valentine's day fudge that is on sale. They put so many preservatives in that stuff, it will last a month and look at all the money I am saving!! (wink)

Thank goodness my husband likes cheap shampoo, vo5, which you can get for 99 cents. The last few months, Ingles has been selling the Shampoo and conditioner together for 99 cents.
I just checked under the counter cause my husband told me he needed conditioner. He has 9 bottles of shampoo left over but no conditioner. What is he doing?
He doesn't have much hair anymore.
Well, at least he won't run out of shampoo any time soon.

I drove all the way to N.C. and paid $270 for drafting paper for my dh. He just opened it and I will have to take it back, it has no grids on the paper. No one carries this around here, so it had to be ordered. I sure hope they take it back and will send it back. It just won't work. I wish I knew a place to order it on line. We are so in the boonies!

I had to drive to N.C, to pick up some drafting paper for my husband. I can not believe how much I had to pay for 100 sheets of paper, almost $270!! It is not nice weather , so I came straight home and did not spend anymore money today. Property taxes are going to be due next week, so there is going to be lots of money going out in the next 7 days. Just happy that we have the money!

Wow, I had a good week, thirty years ago. On Feb. 15th, 1977, I got to go to my first and only elvis concert. I had front row tickets.
Three days later, I met my dh. He was a blind date set up by a mutual friend. It was love at first sight!!
We are celebrating tonight with a steak dinner!! February 18, 1977!!

We have been out looking at land all afternoon.It has been real cold and the wind is blowing 40 mph.
We went to one new subdivision that has no finished roads yet. Because of all the snow, we just parked on the main road and walked all over. We were frozen when we made it back to the car. Luckily, the car was warm cause we took our puppy with us. We drove around and got out several more times. We found 2 or 3 lots we really liked that had pretty good views. Now, we have to find out the prices. I am sure they will be priced $70,000 to $90,000. That seems awfully high for a cabin lot, but what can you do??

The snow is starting to melt cause there is so much sunshine today. It is still bitterly cold outside. But I think we are going out looking for land today. We found a new subdivision that looks promising.
I know real estate sales are terrible right now. There is 555 homes for sale in this county and 750 in the next county and we live in a very rural area. However, my husband is the best (honest he is) builder in the area and his homes have always sold quickly.
I love having the money sit in my money market account earning 5.25% interest but it is time to buy a lot. I hate giving up that $60,000 to $70,000 to buy a lot, but that is what it takes.
Also, we can't decide on a floor plan until we buy the lot.
We always try to buy something with a view and we need a plan that will show off the view to the best advantage.
That makes a difference in the view is in the front or in the back.
Guess we will bundle up and head out shortly.