Just over a week ago, I refilled the black ink for our printer at Walgreen's for $12.99. I was able to print for several documents. Now, the printer doesn't think it has a color cartridge. But it does. This cartridge may be low on ink, too.

So far I've been trouble shooting. I've rebooted. I've pulled the power cord out. I've removed and reinserted said cartridge. I've cleaned the connections. Nothing works. This printer only works if the color cartridge is in place. The black could be missing and it would still print.

I think my best bet is a new printer. Yes, I could go get the color refilled for $12.99 and try it. My gut says this would be wasted money. The cartridge isn't being 'seen' by the printer as it stands now.

I could buy a brand new cartridge for around $22. This might work. Or, it might not. If it didn't work, I might be able to sell on ebay for at least half the amount, making it equal to getting the original refilled.

If I buy a new printer, I will spend about $40. I already looked at which one I would buy. Ink would be included.

If I tried all options and still ended up with a new printer, my outlay would be $75. If I just skip all the guessing, I spend only $40. I might be able to sell the printer online with full disclosure of problem.

Thoughts anyone? Oh, and my daughter NEEDS to print for school this weekend.

My daughter's have concerts (vocal and band) next week for school where they need to dress nice. My youngest has a dress, pants and a shirt that will work, but she needs shoes. My older daughter needs everything!

Last night, we went to the mall and hit JC Penney's. My older daughter found pants for $12.99 and a shirt for $14.99. With tax, I spent less than $30!! I'm thrilled that we were able to find items quickly and at great prices.

We attempted one shoe store last night, but did not come up with anything that would work. We will go again this weekend.

In addition to dress clothes and shoes, my daughter's need snow gloves and boots. They both WANT new snow pants, but they don't NEED them, so they are last on the list. I'd like to find the snow pants used, if possible.

I need new clothes, too!! For some reason, I'm always on the last of the list. Well, it's probably because I don't work outside the home.

I'm a planner. I plan ahead. Ocassionally, too far ahead. Two weeks ago I bought a large bag of candy for our trick or treaters. I told the family: have a couple pieces and save the rest.

A day later, my husband realizes he can't resist the candy, so buys another bag for us to eat. A big bag. Fine. I guess I could eat a few pieces of chocolate. Who am I to argue!

He mixes the new bag of candy with the first bag! What? Why do that? Here's the confession: over the course of a week we eat both bags of candy. Both bags. Large bags of chocolate candy. Now that can't be healthy. I'm sure that was nearly $20 worth of candy.

I bought another large bag on Sunday. Yes, I had a couple pieces again! But that bag is ready for the beggars tonight.

Yes. Tonight. October 30th. Our town among others in this state trick or treat the night before Halloween. Oh! And you have to tell a joke at the door.

Joke: What do witches put in their hair?
Scare spray!

Have a great Halloween! I hope I can stay out of my daughter's candy. Well wish me luck anyway.

Payday is Friday. Unfortunately, I don't think I have extra for our home equity loan!

Turns out our gym membership is about to expire on November 14th. We paid in full for a 3 year membership...well, three years ago! We need at least two more years. So, the extra cash needs to be held until I figure out the gym membership costs.

Darn.

Without further delay, here are the pictures of our new couch and ottoman in our front living room. I'm standing by our front door. I wish I had a wide angle lens to show the room off better!







Guess who likes the ottoman. The kids and the cats!!

I'm going to need some artwork for above the couch. That wall is too big to be bare.

And if you were interested in this couch I found out it is made by United Furniture Industries. The tag said Simmons, but upon further inspection UFI is the true manufacturer. You can look at their website here to find a retailer near you.

I took care of it yesterday. I emailed Bank of America and confirmed that we did indeed like to delete our escrow account. They emailed back within a couple of hours that it was complete and a check with our escrow balance is on its way!!

As of November 1st, we will only send Bank of America our mortgage payment consisting of interest and principal. That will be strange!!

The escrow check will be for $404.34 which is just under the amount they would needed as a buffer or low balance amount. I may find something to do with that money. Maybe the home equity loan?

I will begin setting aside $281 per month to account for taxes and insurance right away. The first payment I need to make is not until March 2010!

I feel very confident this will work well for us. I plan to set up email reminders for the taxes since I will only be billed once a year for those.

My family started taking probiotics this summer. I first bought them at the local health food store. A package of 30 capsules was about $18. That is $0.60 per capsule. We all shared a couple packs with in a matter of weeks.

I decided if we wanted to continue to take them they needed to be less expensive. I found the brand we liked at Amazon.com! The packages were 90 capsules for $18.60! That is $0.21 per capsule. A savings of $0.39 per capsule.

I signed up for Amazon's Subscribe and Save plan which locks in the price for all future orders AND provides free shipping. I now get three packages of 90 capsules every 90 days. Originally, I signed up for four, but my husband keeps forgetting to take his...so I adjusted the order amount. I can change it later if needed.

To reduce the amount I pay every 90 days I use my swagbuck earnings towards Amazon gift cards. I earn them in $5 increments. Since the last order I earned $20 in gift cards!! I also had $2.60 left from another order.

Here's the breakdown of our current probiotic shipment:

3 90 capsule probiotic packages = $51.36
(price dropped to $17.12 per pkg)
Amazon gift certificates applied = $22.60
Total out of pocket = $28.76
Price per capsule = $0.11

The savings over local store for the three of us is $0.49 per capsule. Or $132.30 every 3 months. Or $529.20 per year!! Geez.

I'm going to keep earning swagbucks just to help keep the cost savings down. Works for me!

I made two lists today. One was things I needed to do today. Turns out I did everything!! The second list is things I need to pay on payday. These aren't usual bills. Here's the list:

Auto Registration
Out of State Gym Membership*
Maintenance agreement for flute
Extra money towards mortgage escrow
Extra payment to home equity loan

Yipee! Did you see that last one?

*we are have a 24 Hour Fitness membership which costs us $52/year each! We do occasionally work out when we visit relatives, but when we move again we hope to be all set up!

Um...it's snowing here today. Well, it's not sticking to the roads and the green grass is still visible. But the flakes are still flying.

Yesterday, we ran to Home Depot and purchased a blanket for our hot water heater. Our basement, where it's located, isn't heated. We also bought some insulation for the basement. There was 6 foot section where the frames meets the foundation that didn't have ANY insulation. We didn't notice it until this summer and we lived here nearly 3 years!!

I also bought some caulk and sealed up a few areas on the outside of the house. I did this last year, but found a few more areas that need sealing. I will also use some clear caulk inside to seal where our windows meet the window frame. There are a few gaps.

We also picked up some more energy saving bulbs and a new outdoor light fixture. Our total cost at Home Depot was about $75. I think the light fixture and bulbs were the most expensive! Best thing is we completed most of those projects yesterday when it was warmer. Yipee!

P.S. I made to the gym on a Saturday. That is a miracle!

DH is off work for the next four days due to the Columbus Day holiday. The kids still have school, so I get extra time with my honey.

These longer weekends often result in extra spending. I think we may skip a sit down lunch and hit fast food instead. We want to window shop a bit.

We also need to do a little winter weatherizing. Caulk and a little insulation shouldn't set us back too much.

I think the local orchard needs a visit from us for their yummy cider and a couple pumpkins.

Happy Fall!

Borrowed books at the library.

Six hour sale at the local grocery store. Stocked up on quite a few things. Only spent $32.

Found 10 things to sell. Listed them on craigslist. With pictures. Hoping for some quick sales.

Crockpot smells of something good to eat for dinner. Will throw together a salad. Easy!

Funny. No mail for us today. No bills, no junk. No complaints here!

Umm...I think someone is on my side today. I sold the ugly couch!! For $100. The cool thing is it is going to a college kid who is colorblind...he doesn't care that the colors are outdated! Perfect.

Turns out Wii game systems are on sale this week. I bought ours at Target. They dropped their price by $50! Since this is the only thing the girls want for Christmas, I jumped on it.

So a very spendy weekend in some respects. However, our spending money for the remainder of September sits at $200, which is awesome for us. I think I can use the most of this toward paying back the EF for the braces later this week.

It's all working out...even if the plan has changed a bit along the way!

Yes, Yes I did buy the sofa today!! I also bought a coordinating round ottoman.

Here's what has been in our living room:


To see what I'm getting in a couple weeks go here. We are getting the first sofa that appears in the advertisement, but in the color of the sectional beneath that picture. We are also getting the round ottoman that appears with the sectional.

I'm thrilled!! We paid $762 for the two pieces. This includes our sales tax and $19 delivery!! Yipee.

I came home immediately and listed the two items above on craigslist. I've listed the couch before with no takers, so my hopes are not too high with that one. If they don't sell by the time the sofa arrives, I will donate them to the Salvation Army and take the tax deduction.

Crazy. We are thinking of going furnture shopping today. Of course, this is different than furniture buying, right?

We have a 90's mauve and green printed sofa in our front living room. It was given to us several years ago. At the time we kept it in our basement. Now...it sits in the first room visitors see. Ugh. I'm so tired of it. I tried slipcovers, but they are sloppy.

This week, I saw an ad for a couch I'm interested in. We are going to look at it. The ad states it is $499.00. Great price! But I need to see the quality.

I actually may go with it even if the timing isn't right. This couch is becoming a need. My sanity can't take much more of this crazy couch.

The couch is actually in great condition. No tears, holes, or rips. It's comfortable to sit on. It is ugly! Word to the wise, don't purchase a printed couch...it's just going to look outdated in 10 years.

go out to lunch. I went to lunch with my neighbor this afternoon. We picked a noodle place that had COUPONS!

We purchased two noodle bowls. With the coupon one was free. We opted for water, as well. I spent $3.60!!

Now, I'm off to purchase groceries to cover meals through the end of the month.

Yes, after four no spend days, I went shopping. A true planned outing of spending. Because I had coupons!!

I had two $5 off any purchase coupons for Old Navy. The girls need fall shirts. In the end, I bought four shirts for $20.14!!! A great deal.

I went with a friend. For lunch we picked up pretzels. With a coupon!! Buy 1, Get 1 Free. Total $2.75. My portion $1, since I did the driving. Yipee! Oh, that pretzel tasted soooo good, too.

I ended up with a no spend day yesterday with my Mom. She bought my lunch, bought ingredients for dinner and picked up the tab for a couple items at the health food store (items I intended to purchase).

We visited the new sculpture garden. It's so new they just took the fence down yesterday morning! The grand opening is on Sunday. I think the whole family will want to go then. I love free art. Oops, I did spend $0.75 to park my car. I guess I did spend money yesterday!!

Today, I have school activities to help with and a walk scheduled with a friend. I think today will be another no spend day! That will make 4 days if you are counting.

We still have $350 in our checking account. Payday is 8 days away. I'm positive we would have far less if DH hadn't traveled this month. There are still things to buy...groceries, gas, and a few fall clothing items for the girls. It's just nice to be in a good place!!

Yesterday, was a no spend day for me. I'm hoping for a couple more this week, too.

I spent a good portion of my day deep cleaning the kitchen. There is still more to be done, but it is starting to shine! Here's what I cleaned:

Sliding glass doors
Kitchen sink blinds
Two lazy susans
Outside of dishwasher
Outside of stove
Outside of refrigerator
Under the refrigerator
Kitchen sink
Swept kitchen floor

I still need to clean inside and outside of the kitchen cabinets and deep clean the kitchen floor. I'm dreading the outside of the cabinets the most. They are painted white. As you can imagine, they are NOT dirty hand friendly! The cabinets were painted when we bought the home. They were the one thing we didn't like about the house. Guess what, I still don't like them!

I might play sparkle fairy some more today. Or not. Either way, I'm not spending money!!

Two years ago, I signed a contract to rent to own a flute for my daughter. I also purchased the rental and maintenence agreement, which came in handy several times.

I recently contacted the music store to confirm the remaining payments. I just couldn't read my copy of the agreement. My inquiry prompted them to offer me a discount, if I would pay the account in full!

Instead of 5 more payments that would equal about $179, I will pay them $111 next week. A nice surprise savings of $68! My daughter will finally own her own flute, which she has been looking forward to.

By renting to own the instrument, I did pay more than if I had paid for the instrument in full at the beginning of lessons. At the time, $750 seemed like so much money to lay out for an instrument my daughter had not even begun to play. I didn't know if she would practice, or even like playing it! The rental contract allowed us an out at any point in time. We could have simply returned the instrument and be free of future monthly obligations. Turns out she loved the flute! And she plays it so well.

It is what it is. Now I'll have a little more cash in my pocket each month!!

The weekend has been great as far as keeping spending to a minimum. We have $32 left in the checking account and payday is Tuesday. I completely expect tomorrow to be a no spend day!! I must say it feels good to be in control of the money.

Yesterday, we picked up $17 worth of items at Walmart. Only $8 of that was an unnessary eyeglass case for our youngest daughter. It is a hard case with a magnetic closure and she'll have it for a long time. The free one given with the eyeglasses is soft and has a open side. Not the best kind for a child!

Today, I ran to SuperTarget and bought minimum groceries to get us through the next two days. Much of it will cover lunches for the remainder of the week, too! I spent $18.

On Tuesday...I will make a much bigger grocery run. I think I will aim for buying for about 10 days. I guess I need to start writing a meal plan and grocery list!

Right now, I'm off to make mini loaves of banana bread and jello in case the kids need a snack! After that, I'm thinking about finding some items to list on ebay. I'm dreading that though.

It's four days until payday and we have $67 in our checking account. I might need a few food items and one daughter needs an item for school.

Sometimes I feel that we are living paycheck to paycheck. But we aren't. We have cash, some of it just isn't set aside for spending. I hope to make this a very low spend weekend.

The good news, the last two days have been no spend days. Yipee!!

It's been a spendy few days. On Friday, we switched cell phone providers. It is somewhat of a forced move, since our previous provider was ending their service. My phone was free. My husband wanted a slight upgrade. His cell phone was $92 with tax, but we will receive a $50 rebate in a few weeks.

We went out of town for one night to visit family. We bought gas, food, snacks, beer, and wine! Too bad these visits just can't be free. Oh, but I did get some KFC for free....since I waited over 30 minutes to get our food. I don't think I will ever go there again. Ever.

Today, instead of buying a kitchen sink and faucet, we went to the zoo for just under $20. That was a good move. We stopped by a state park with a lunch packed from home for a picnic. Also another good move. We had a great conversation with the kids...love those!

My husband took the van to be washed...and lost our rear windshield wiper blade!! The part is only made by Honda since our van is less than 2 years old. That will be an expense for later this week.

I've bought the groceries for the week and wrote a check for my youngest daughter's school pictures. Here's crossing my fingers that there are a few no spend days ahead!

I just made a payment to my husband's government credit card in the amount of $644. It's for an airline ticket he didn't request or use back in July. He has requested a refund of the ticket. Because of government bureaucracy it will take up to 2 months for the credit to be applied to the card!!

This government card does not charge interest, so in theory it would be okay not to pay it. But the Army has access to the card and can see if he doesn't pay on time. Not paying on time can result in a counseling session with a notation on his record.

It will all work out in the end(we will get the money back)...but right now it feels like I'm just throwing money away! It doesn't help that I'm trying to get these braces paid off at the same time!

---------------

Thanks for the well wishes yesterday. I feel much better today! Have a great Labor Day weekend, too.

My water bill came in under budget by $16. Yipee!!

The utility company changed their system last month. At that time I was charged for 45 days worth of water. Today the bill covered about 10 or 11 days worth. It will all even out eventually.

For now, I'm enjoying a smaller bill.

We've made it to payday! We spent pretty much every last dollar we had allocated towards spending this month. In fact, I had to dip into some of our extra cash for kleenex, since our youngest daughter caught a cold! Poor baby.

We did a really good job of holding out and waiting to spend only when necessary. I had a list of things that we could wait to buy. They included paper towels, trash bags, my haircut, razor blades, and bar soap.

Today, I'm writing a check for the first round of school pictures. I picked a package that is $17. The cheapest was $12. I decided to spend an extra $5 to be able to give another 5 people pictures. I'm sure they'll appreciate it.

The good news: after paying bills we should have $915 to allocate towards braces! I'll update the ticker when I actually get that money into the emergency fund.

It feels good to be flush with cash...even if it is only for a few days!!

Did you know people do this? They make a plan, a pact, a commitment for a year to not spend anything. For some of them it's for environmental reasons, for others it's for monetary ones.

Okay, they do spend money on food and health/safety items. For some of them it is okay to buy something as long as it is not 'new'. I suppose that has to do with turning against our consuming nature.

On some level, I like the idea. However, I have kids and I just don't think it is practical. I suppose I could do it just for myself. As I think about this a little more, I realize that I'm pretty close to no spending for myself. I rarely buy myself anything new. So maybe it wouldn't be so hard.

Who am I kidding? It WOULD be hard to not spend anything!! Congratulations to those who take this path or even attempt it. Do you think you could do it?

As I mentioned in a previous post, we changed our homeowner's insurance deductible. Specifically, we increased it to $1000. It seems we will most likely get a refund. If I'm reading our online statement correctly, the refund will be equal to $68.53!!

That is money I can use towards those braces!! Things did go well today. She's in minimal pain with Advil every four hours. Our orthodontist even called to see how she is doing!! I wasn't expecting that. He even offered his home phone number which I took down. I love this guy!! He's one of those people that you can tell really loves his work. We should all be so lucky.

I completed a Pinecone survey today, so I expect so see an additional $3 in our bank account soon. Our checking account has about $35 left until Monday. So, we hope to have a very limited spending weekend. I think we can do it!!

Once payday arrives, I have to buy new jazz shoes for one daughter and a leotard for the other. Turns out they both grew over the summer!!

Tomorrow's the big day: braces for my oldest daughter. Most of the money is coming from our emergency fund. We hope to have the money paid back by the end of October or sooner.

And we get to hit the emergency fund for more than planned because we have to pay my husbands government credit card for an airline ticket he didn't use! It is going to get credited back, according to the travel agency...but not for another two months! Ugh. The government is slow!! So, we have to pay the card by the due date of September 5th. I am going to wait until the last day to pay it in case the credit comes in sooner!! Please. I hope it does. Eventually, we will get the money back, but I really have no idea when or how long that process will take.

Our checking acount is down to $73.33. My husband needed cash and fuel for the car. He's working weekends...so a few extra trips into work increases the amount of gas he needs. The cash is probably for Monster drinks, so he can stay awake at work!! He's exhausted.

I received an rebate in the mail a few days ago for $15. Yesterday, I qualified for to cash out some MySurvey points. I will get a $10 check in a couple of weeks. All the money is going towards those braces right now!

I really want some more Global Test Marketing surveys. I'm less than 200 points from being able to claim a check for $50!!

Our debit card points are adding up too. We have enough to cash out $50. I will actually cash out when we get to $75.

Yesterday, was a no spend day, for me. I hope to make today another one!

We are making changes to our homeowner's insurance policy. We have decided to increase our deductible to $1000, up from $500.

When I first inquired it appreared this change would save us $59.70. In the meantime, we received our renewal notice effective in October. The notice stated the renewal premium would be $717.99!! Whoa, that is an increase of $143.60 from the previous year.

I inquired again about the premium at the time of renewal for a $1000 deductible policy. It would be $658.47. So, even though our insurance premium is going up, it is now going up less since we have switch to a higher deductible policy.

Final increase per year: $84.08. That's about $7 per month. I think we can handle that!!