Happy New Year!

I checked our interest bearing accounts and found we earned $60.58 on our cash in December. Not too exciting but if we earn that every month for a year we would have $726.96 more in our pockets.

We are watching the Rose Bowl parade this morning...well now afternoon here. We are either taking a road trip to visit a nearby art museum (free admission). This was a request by artist daughter! If we don't end up there today, we'll go tomorrow.

And whichever day we don't go to the museum, we plan to take down our holiday decorations. So hopefully not too much spending as we start off the new year.

My husband and I need to sit down and finalize our YNAB budget. I think it is looking pretty good as we start the year.

I go through periods of time feeling anxious. It's usually the mind going through all sorts of crazy scenarios that I have no control over.

Today, I'm primarily anxious for my older daughter to be flying alone (she has flown without us, but with a group) to visit us. I think it is more about the weather as the Midwest is about to get slammed with a snowstorm. She flys out very early tomorrow morning going through Saint Louis. If the flights are all on time it will be no big deal. It's if there are delays that I'm concerned. So prayers and good vibes are appreciated in the next 24 hours.

I'm also feeling anxious about making financial plans for the next year. Some of the decisions are easy. Save for retirement and college. I think I'd really like to make sure I have a firm savings plan for all the things we want to do in the next year. And I know that some of the reason that is hard is because I don't know exactly what we want to do. What are our priorities?

So that's where I stand today. I think if I can do a little brainstorming of ideas first that will help my brain calm down a bit. And then eventually I would need to discuss numbers with my husband. It will work out. I just know that if I throw out some random goals without knowing where the money comes from and if we can save enough in time that I will probably just fail. I don't want to fail!! And no I don't really think I will fail. It's just the feeling of it.

Do you get anxious about making goals, financial or other?

Although our Christmas shopping is done, we did some shopping today for needs. At Ulta. Where the checkout line was horrendous! Not that I was really surprised. The man buying his daughter's makeup just about had a heart attack when they gave him the total! The stuff is expensive and adds up fast. I don't think they had any coupons. We were buying one liter of conditioner and a tiny bottle of hair serum of some kind. With 20% off and $6 in rewards our total was $26.49. That conditioner bottle should last me six months. It seems the shampoo lasts about twice as long!

I bought a long sleeve shirt on Land's End today. I've been wanting a gray one to replace one I got rid of last winter. Today, I was able to get it for half off, free shipping and will get a $15 credit because I used our Chase Freedom card through the Visa Checkout system. The total before the credit was $17.90. I had to throw in a child's fleece hat $3.97 to get my total high enough for the credit offer. I will donate that since both items together will only cost me $2.90!

We went out to lunch today. We tried a new pizza place here in town, called MOD Pizza. It was really good! With drinks for three of us we spent $31. We ate late, so hoping dinner here at home can be light. Oh, and the meal was in our budget!

We have plans to watch Polar Express tonight also. It's been a few years since we watched it...and I was contemplating decluttering the disc. Guess it stays for now!

We received lots of goodies (food primarily) in the mail from my parents today. Their Christmas gift to us. They know the kinds of things we like. And there should be nearly zero clutter as a result. There were some candles...which could take awhile to burn though.

I hope you are all enjoying the lead up to the holidays! If you are stressing out...please don't it isn't worth it. I have heard of too many people getting upset this time of year for various reasons. That makes me sad when it should be a joyous time. It seems to come from putting too much pressure on ourselves to please others or expecting too much of the season. We have scaled back considerably and I can tell we are all enjoying ourselves so much more!

I sold more shares of my daughter's college fund the day interest rates went up and the market went up. I'm selling to cover the cash we used out of pocket to pay tuition and housing last semester. I still need to withdraw another $2K before the end of the year. Although if the market keeps tanking, I may just forget it!

It's officially holiday break! We have no particular plans. I'm hoping we can find some low/no cost things to do at home or in the area before Christmas. I guess my husband has a few more days of work before then too!

I did buy toilet paper and got $1 back from Ibotta for the purchase. Always nice to find some savings. I have nearly $16 accumulated with

Ibotta and will have to wait until I'm at $20 to get cash through Paypal. I would guess it will happen before the month is out, since there are a lot of rebate opportunities this time of year! That's my referral link. You get $5 and so do I after you claim your first rebate.

Apparently we took out cash last month at enough places to get our ATM fees refunded to the tune of $11.25! I'm thankful our bank refunds these (only up to $15), but I don't like that we paid them in the first place.

I did find (and told my husband) about ATMs around us that do not charge fees for withdrawals. Another thing you have to adjust to when you move!

We just booked an airline ticket for our daughter to come home for about 13 nights. It could have been longer, but she needs to go with the marching band to the bowl game before she returns home. She will be in California on Christmas Day as it turns out. The cost was just over $600! I would have booked much, much earlier, but couldn't until we knew the whole bowl schedule. I should get her spring break trip booked right now, too.

I think I've mentioned before that my husband qualifies for the Post 911 GI Bill which he can transfer to me or our daughters. It is 36 months of benefits, which we have currently split into 18 months for each of our daughters. We were planning to start using it next year and we still might.

The exciting news is there is no cap each semester. The benefit will also pay non resident tuition! That was news to us. This would be especially important for my oldest daughter if she were to take more than four years to graduate. Currently one of her scholarships covers a large portion of the out of state tuition. It is renewable but only covers four years. It's that possible fifth year that this benefit could help to cover everything that isn't covered under that scholarship. We have time to figure it out. And who knows she may get other scholarships.

In addition to the tuition benefit, there is a housing benefit and money towards books! I knew about those as well. Feeling blessed that this is available for our family. Now we just need to be smart and use it when it is the most beneficial.

I'm still doing eCards in early December, and skipping the traditional pictures and cards. However, I'm in the process of making two photo gifts. Neither one is specifically for Christmas.

The first one is for my sister and her family. They adopted a 9 year old girl this August. She had been placed with them in August of 2014. We don't live nearby so I wasn't in a rush to have a gift for the big day. I finally decided that a photo album of pictures from the first year would be welcome. My sister is extremely busy with her new life as a parent, and as a kindergarten teacher. I did have to tell her about the gift since I would need her help to obtain enough pictures. She was thrilled!! The book is over 40 pages at this point. I'm just waiting for a few more photos.

The second photo album is for my parents, the grandparents of my new niece and my children. Their album will be pictures of all the grandchildren from the last 15 months or so. I gave them a photo book two years ago and they LOVED it. It is always out on their coffee table. I've only just begun this album, but I think it will come together a little quicker because I'm limited myself to the basic 20 pages. I also chose a size that is on sale for just $9.99 plus shipping. We have come to the conclusion that since we won't be together for Christmas we don't need to exchange gifts. But since I have this idea that I know they will love and the price is right I'm doing it anyway. They also have an anniversary just 2 days after Christmas, so I can consider it an anniversary gift too.

I won't order the photo book for my sister and her family until I know for sure that I can get at least 40% off. I'm using Snapfish which currently has 50% off.

Do gift photo gifts or send photos with cards?

My youngest daughter has wanted a Wii U for over a year now. There are some new games she wants to play. I've put it off since we already own a Wii. However, she asked for one AGAIN for Christmas. So this time, I'm giving in. She is willing to pay a portion, up to half actually. I'm doing my best to get the best deal...primarily by buying used.

I purchased an Wii U with several games for $300 the other day on eBay. My ballpark for just the Wii U was $200. I kept missing out on auctions and Buy It Now offers because other people were willing to pay more. This seller had six games (including one with lots of accessories) included. At least two of the games were ones my daughter wanted. And even used would have cost me $80. I plan to sell at least three of the games to help offset the cost. I think I can sell for $65.

Another way to get the cost of this new system down is to sell the old Wii. My older daughter needs to decide if she wants to have it for her dorm room. I think she is leaning towards no. It won't bring much money, but maybe $40. And then the girls need to determine if there are any other games we already own that they want to sell. The games will still work with the new system.

I also bought another game she was interested in for an amazing deal...Lego Dimensions. It costs $99.99 normally. Which is a CRAZY price for game!!!! I was able to get Target to price match it to Amazon for $84.99, then used a 35% Cartwheel offer for the game, and a 10% off gaming coupon, a $10 gift card and 5% off with my Red card to get the purchase price under $40. I grabbed the deal because I knew it was a super price. I'm not entirely sure that I will give it though. It may get returned if I decide it is too much (I normally only spend $150 on each child)! I may save it for her birthday in July. Or I could even sell it and make a little profit.

I'll have to let you know what the final cost of this gift ends up being after I do so selling in the next few weeks!

Does anyone else have a gamer in their family? Do you have ways to keep your costs down? Have you ever bought used for Christmas (I have!)?

It's been a pretty good day for a birthday. I'm a low key kind of gal who doesn't need much to be happy. But I enjoyed phone calls from my mother and best friend. We ate dinner in tonight, but my husband surprised us with cupcakes! There were also a few gifts: a pair of slippers and a new CD of Christmas music. A couple items I asked for.

I also received a $100 check from my parents. I'm not sure exactly what my plans are for that money. Maybe a new sweatshirt!

I redeemed my Swagbucks last night for a $25 Amazon gift card. It arrived today! I was a little disappointed to learn that my birthday Swagbucks were 55 SwagUps! I should have waited one more day to redeem. I'm sure there will be another redemption before my SwagUp expires.

I spent the Amazon gift card, plus two others worth $30 to purchase some Christmas gifts. I only paid $8 out of pocket on a $63 order. Very pleased with that!

If you want to catch up with my Christmas planning and preparations, check out my other blog,

Your Organized Friend.

No work and school for my husband and daughter today in honor of Veteran's Day. We made a little outing for lunch to a local restaurant. Spent $40 for very yummy food!

Afterwards we ventured to the the Veteran's Park in our new town. It is technically a state park and honors all veterans from the state's 100 counties. It was really well done. And free. I took lots of pictures. It was really nice to be outside on this beautiful fall day.

The rest of the day we will spend at home eating dinner we planned from our pantry. We might need to sit out on our porch to enjoy a little more of the beautiful weather!

Did you know if you have an Amazon Prime membership you now get access to some music for free. This morning I was reminded of Harry Connick Jr's new album. I looked it up on Amazon...and it's free because of our Prime membership. I was originally going to tell my husband to get it for my birthday later this month. I guess not since it is free.

Because of my birthday this month, I have been given some coupons to use: $10 to Kohl's and $5 from Famous Footwear (there's not even one in my state). I will use the Kohl's coupon because I have several I can combine. In fact, I think I'll buy myself a birthday gift with these coupons. My husband wouldn't mind being off the hook for the purchase. I also have $10 in JCPenney rewards to use this month as well. Time to shop...hopefully for free!

Our spending seems to be right on track this month for what we've budgeted for everyday expenses. Payday is actually next Friday already! Early since the 15th falls on a Sunday.

We're going to what I think is the last football game of the season...maybe more if they go to playoffs which is actually likely. The coach of this team is a former NFL player (isn't that cool?). So we'll spend about $20, $14 just for admission and at least another $3 for dinner as my daughter is starving by third quarter. This is budgeted under entertainment.

No particular plans for the weekend. We might get some new Christmas lights. I have a post scheduled tomorrow on

Your Organized Friend about checking on our holiday lights.

We are trying to keep spending to a minimum because of our upcoming trip and recent car repairs. So far it seems to be working. I do credit YNAB for helping my husband and I be on the same page.

My daughter's both have ideas for Christmas. And so does my husband. Our youngest daughter wants a Wii U. Those are nearly $300 new. That is twice what I normally spend on them. We already told her she may need to chip in, which she was fine with. I may be able to snag used on eBay or locally on Craigslist or Facebook, preferably under $200. The other daughter has a list of graphic t shirts she is interested in. She also wants a wireless adapter for the drawing tablet she got last year. Those things I can snag pretty easily. I guess I need to get back to Bing and Swagbucks and accumulate more Amazon gift cards.

Do you use Amazon Prime Music? How is your spending so far this month? Are you planning Christmas gifts yet?

I was at Walmart last night to buy gum for my daughter. She paid for it out of her allowance. We stock up with three packs at a time, so her cost was $2. In the candy aisle I found my favorite flavor of candy canes. Wintergreen. I feel like I have been searching a couple years for this flavor. So I bought them for $2, along with the traditional peppermint flavor that was just $1. I had that item on my baking list, so I can cross one thing off.

My primary errand last night was actually the library. I had a book that was due. I had tried to renew it online, but my account showed expired. I vaguely remember there was a three month 'trial' or 'probation' period. I also had a feeling my daughter owed a library fine for two books we never got notice about their due date. So, I returned the book, renewed both our cards for three years (no charge), and paid her fine. The fine was $7.60! Two books that were overdue by nearly three weeks. I also got her account set up to send us email notification of due dates. We usually rely on those notifications. And these are newer accounts in our new town. We should be able to avoid any more fees in the future.

The reference to my baking list above can be found on

Your Organized Friend. I'm doing a lot of planning for Christmas now, so I can be less stressed in December to enjoy the season. You can do it too!

If you have read my other blog,

Your Organized Friend, in the last couple days you know I'm starting my Christmas planning. One thing I'm trying to decide on for simplicity sake is Christmas cards. I sent them last year. I probably spent $30 between photos and stamps for 35 cards. I bought the cards on clearance the year before, so that was the least expensive option.

This year I'm considering eCards. I can get a one month membership to American Greetings for $3.99 or Hallmark for $5. Each membership is unlimited cards for the period of the membership. I could also get longer memberships that would bring the per month cost down. Both sites allow the card to be sent to Facebook(and some other social media sites) and/or email. I would still have to mail one or two cards to a couple people who are not online (my mother in law, who is 80 is one).

I'm considering doing this to save time for me, the clutter for others, money for us and keep my stress level low. You can tell me if you think it's tacky, but I don't care entirely what others might think. I'm still making an effort to connect, just a different form. I could opt out of the Christmas card giving all together, but I don't think I'm ready for that.

What are your thoughts on eCards?

I'm making a double batch of chili this morning. I will keep half or at least four servings in the fridge for tonight (maybe tomorrow) and freeze the rest for next month. I have chili on the plan for November 12.

I'm in the beginning stages of thinking about Christmas baking. I'm sure that seems early, but my daughter and I do like to do this each year. I'm going to brain storm options, and then get her opinion. Once we know what we will make, I will decide how much and if we will double any recipes. If we make something in November we can freeze it for closer to the holiday. The next step would then to make the grocery list for those items. I like that if I start early I can find some coupons and sales on the ingredients and know exactly how much to purchase. I can also spread it out a bit so that it is hardly noticeable on the grocery bill.

What do you make in double or triple batches? Do you do this regularly or just once in awhile?

My information was stolen from the government along with my husband's and 21.5 MILLION other people this summer. Ironically just this week the Army posted reminders about how to avoid identity theft. As if we only need to do these things to avoid theft of identity. What about our own government keeping the information provided to them safe?

We have been given three years of credit monitoring including our daughter under 18. Not sure about our oldest daughter seems she should get it too. She may be notified separately. There is identity restoration service and $1 million worth of insurance attached to this as well in case our identities are stolen causing financial harm.

Ick. Sometimes I really do dislike the government!

Oh, and the insurance company for the moving company is offering us $1400 of the $2600 we claimed for the damage they did to our things. One of the items that is damaged the most is being denied! We can appeal. We are going to discuss tonight to determine if we will or not.

Everything that was moved was put on an inventory. The driver logs it along with current damage. He seems to have logged damage on an entertainment center that would match the area we are claiming, but I think his notes were for other damage in that same area...not the big damage we now have and didn't have before. It is really hard to prove this unless we had up close pics before, which we don't. Why would we take a close up of the corner of furniture when it wasn't damaged? It appears someone attempted to repair the area with wax, marker and spray stain. It looks awful. And I feel so mad when I think about it.

I'm working on calculating our net paychecks for next year. I won't really have all information until January, but I have the taxable portion so I should be able to roughly calculate taxes owed for 2016. I need to know this to figure the withholding necessary. I was way off this year since I hadn't figured out the tuition tax credits. The main reason I want to figure net pay is so I can determine if we can actually afford this Europe trip my daughter wants to take. It is a trip that will cost us close to $5K. It is definitely something to plan for and figure out.

After making the meal plan yesterday, I need to start working on the grocery list. I will start with ingredients needed for the meals and add on other items we need closer to my actual shopping trip.

My daughter lost the end cap to her flute head joint at the football game on Friday night. We looked it for it, but she was all over the school grounds that night. I found one on Amazon for this specific brand of flute. It is $8.98 with shipping. I had Citi Thank You Reward points and a gift card from Bing Rewards that I applied to it to make it zero out of pocket.

My husband received $100 from my parents for his birthday. He's applying those funds to his birthday gift(a sound bar) purchase which was over $200 after we used gift cards. My parents didn't send cash last year, so I thought they were done after sending us cash for many, many years. I need to go back to Best Buy and see if I can get them to apply a 10% off coupon. I tried when we bought it, but because they were price matching they wouldn't accept it. Now the item is on sale on their website for that amount we price matched for. So if I bought it this, we should be able to use the coupon. That coupon amounts to $37 and worth the effort I think! I let you know how that goes.

We currently have $20 worth of Kohl's cash because my husband and I bought running shoes earlier this month. A pair of jeans were also purchased. So now I need to decided how to spend our Kohl's cash. I even have a 25% off coupon and another $10 off a $10 purchase coupon I should be able to stack with the Kohl's cash. Right now I'm think of practical items: gloves, long underwear, shirts for my daughter. It seems I could get a couple of those for free or very little out of pocket.

I ordered an item from Amazon last week only to realize a day later we didn't need it. So I wrote refused on the package. Amazon has it and after I emailed said they would credit our credit card. It's only about $6, but I can put that back in the budget!

I was happy to learn from my daughter we don't owe any money to the University for this billing period. I do know she needs to put down $200 for her sophomore housing contract sometime in November.

I've already started talking to my kids about what they want for Christmas. Luckily they both have ideas! This helped me so much last year with shopping to ask early and get it done early! I'll be sharing a lot of my Christmas planning in November and December on

Your Organized Friend. You might want to follow along for ideas if you want to get a head start on your holiday list.

We also made a purchase of college football tickets for the three of us. We want to see our daughter's marching band performance. And we do like the games, too. Other family members are going also. Tickets cost us $255! I charged them to our Discover card. The most recent statement closed just prior so we have quite awhile before we would actually HAVE to pay the balance. I noticed there is just over $9 in rewards I can use towards the balance, too.

I took two library books my daughter checked out. We kind of think they may be overdue. Library wasn't open when I dropped off. Usually we would get an email reminder. Not sure if it went to spam or what. And we are having issues logging into her library account to check. So I'm planning we owe a few dollars to the library.

I'm excited about the end of the month. We get to budget again...and pay off all these cards we have been making purchases on. The cool thing is the money is already set aside! I love YNAB!

Thanks for reading my random post!

We spent $22 to fill our van before our trip. I would guess we have the same amount of fuel we had before we left. Luckily that should get me through the week. It seems it is also time for an oil change and other routine maintenance on my van. Will get that done in early November.

Admission to the band competition was $10 each. So a crisp $20 bill out of the wallet. They did include a program which many other schools sell for $5.

We left after my daughter performed and before the awards to eat at Subway. We spent $14 there. This was basically lunch and dinner for us.

Our final expense for the day was a trip to Trader Joe's. We bought two canisters of coffee, two pumpkin bread mixes, crackers, a red pepper spread, pumpkin butter, two frozen stuffed mushroom appetizers a cheese cake and ginger cookies. The total bill was $50. These aren't exactly items we put on our every day list, but they are some treats we like to indulge in when we get to shop at Trader Joe's. I think it has been nearly three years since we shopped at one. We already made coffee this morning and my daughter opened the pumpkin butter. I'm incorporating one package of stuffed mushrooms into a meal later this week.

All of our spending has been recorded in YNAB. My husband noticed yesterday when he recorded our Subway expense that we went over our restaurant budget. Yep. I didn't expect we would go more than once. But I did budget eating out for band competitions into the entertainment category. So the beauty of YNAB is I can adjust where this expense actually falls. I can either increase restaurants by the amount we spent (and decrease it in the entertainment budget) or change the expense to the entertainment category rather than restaurants.

YNAB[/url=http://ynab.refr.cc/M52KHR8] refers to this as rol... working for you? Anyone about to start a trial or make a purchase?

Our daughter has a band competition out of town today. We were up early to get her ready. And that was after a late night of Friday night football. If the band does well today she won't be home until midnight! We sent her with $40 for food. Likely way more than she needs.

My husband and I will travel up to the competition. So we have the cost of fuel. And we will eat at least one meal out. I'm going to try to convince him to eat lunch before we go. Since we will be in the larger town we may stop at some stores we miss from our old town. Specifically Trader Joe's coffee is on the list.

Admission to the event is $10 per adult. So there goes a $20 bill out of our pocket! I just took $100 cash out yesterday and it feels like it is being spent fast. We did budget for this though.

Have a Super Weekend! If you are at home and looking for some decluttering or organizing ideas, read my 31 Days of Decluttering and Organizing posts

Your Organized Friend.

I came up with that title because I wanted to share that my husband finally decided to buy his own coffee to take to work and make in a machine that makes one cup at a time. Work doesn't provide coffee like some places and he can't plug in his own coffee maker like he could at some other sites. He had been buying coffee at the shop in the building for a minimum of $2.32 per day. Some days he spend up to $4.54. So for about 20 work days a month he was spending $46.40 up to $90.80. He was good about putting the transactions into YNAB for the last month, too. I think that is what put him on this new path!

We bought a can of ground coffee that cost us about $7. I think one can could last him an entire month at least. But even if he needs twice the amount, we will be saving some cash.

Another thought I had on my title was regarding Halloween costumes. So many are store bought these days. And I did notice that Walmart has some VERY reasonable prices, but with a little creativity a costume can be made with items you already own, thus making the costume FREE!

I'm sure we could take this Don't Buy It, Make It title further. Do you have some thoughts on when it is cheaper to make something than buy it?

I received my first $6 referral for

YNAB in my PayPal account yesterday. Much faster than the 30 days they indicated. Effectively, YNAB was only $48 rather than the original price of $60. I just need four more people to buy the software under my referral and the software will be free for us.

The Best Buy gift cards we ordered from our Citi rewards arrived on Saturday. The gift cards amount to $200 and I will record them as a snowflake. We almost made our purchase Sunday, but realized we had a 10% off coupon at home that they said might work. It seems the item we want to buy went off sale, raising the price nearly 20%. They will however, price match with Amazon.com, who still has it at the price Best Buy had last week. Sales person wasn't sure if they could combine Price Match with 10% off coupon. I'm going to try though. I also remembered that I chose Electronics Stores for 5% cash back on my US Bank Visa for third quarter. That will amount to around $10 back when I use that credit card for this purchase. Specifically we are buying a sound bar for one of our televisions. It's for my husband's birthday.

Today I ordered the famous L.L. Bean boots for my daughter to tromp around campus with this winter. Those were $99 shipped. But like nearly all of their famous boots they appear to be on back order. Some said January 4th, but this pair said December 4. Hoping they fit and arrive just before the weather turns colder.

Oh, and I'm starting to follow Hip2Save again for the holiday season. I don't usually follow the other months of the year...I find I buy too much stuff I don't need!

Do you follow Hip2Save? Do you have L.L. Bean boots? A sound bar for your television? Let me know if you use my YNAB referral code so I can thank you!

We had a $5,000 CD mature about three weeks ago with NFCU. It was earning nearly 5%. I can't seem to find that good of a rate, so I'm taking advantage of the next best thing. There is a 12 month CD special for 3% at NFCU. Our investment in this is $3,000 as that is the maximum allowed.

I'm just glad I didn't procrastinate getting the cash invested any longer. I kind of forgot about it and somehow it came to mind yesterday and I took care of it this morning online.

I did get my Checkout 51 $20 check in the mail yesterday. I wasted no time getting it deposited. And since it was extra money (snowflake) I added it to a Discover reward, and several Amazon gift cards and Swagbucks rewards to order a daybed quilt set I've been wanting to get. It was ordered from Amazon and will arrive tomorrow. We have an extra twin bed in our bonus room/family room that we used to just keep in basement storage. I never cared about the look of the bedding I would put on it as it was just for the occasional guest (usually a child). I now care because I see the bed EVERY time I'm in our family room. I want it to look more part of the decor of the room. With taxes is cost about $64, but non of that was out of income, just snowflakes!

Spending this weekend will be football and marching band competition admissions and a little food or drink at those events. We are going to window shop for speakers too. These are to be a birthday gift for my husband and hopefully paid in full with some credit card rewards. We have to find what we want to buy first. Once we know where and what the cost will be I will order the gift card that we will use to pay for it.

I have a ladder shelf on Amazon that I'm eyeing for either a birthday present (in November) or to use my future rewards for. It would probably be about $65 shipped.

Oh, and in other news. My daughter is likely skipping the band trip to Universal over spring break (which costs about $450). She gets that her Europe/WWII trip is much more costly and this money could help fund part of it (only 10%). We haven't signed up for the big trip yet, but can anytime. We will be talking about ways to get this funded with additional help from her. I think she has some cash she is hoarding that would be helpful.

I think I mentioned in my last post we were to get swiped by Hurricane Joaquin. Since then it has changed paths. Of course, we are still getting a lot of rain. It has actually been raining here for 12 days. Yes. 12!!

The rain caused the home football game to be moved to Thursday night. My daughter and the band were to perform. It ended up raining so much that they let the band go after the first quarter of the game. Thank goodness. I was soaked.

The rain continued and caused the state to issue a State of Emergency. Unfortunately this cancelled the marching band competition my parents flew in to see. And to make matters worse, my Dad arrived with 'allergies' that we most of us caught. He thought it was allergies initially, but obviously a cold virus. It even caused my daughter to be sent home from school today. And she will miss tomorrow too because she had a fever.

So I sit here thankful for time with family and wishing to feel better soon! Oh, and we didn't lose power by the way either. More financial stuff later when I feel better.

We don't live on the coast but we can get to the beach in just under two hours, so close enough. It seems Joaquin won't make a direct hit here, but we are getting a ton of rain. Like 8 inches in the next couple days. And this is day 8 of rain here.

I'm heading out shortly to get fuel in my van. Cash for my wallet. And more non perishables and batteries if the power goes out. That is really the biggest danger we face. No power. The ground on the trees around here (and there are a lot of them) is saturated, so bring on the wind and power lines are likely to go down.

Oh, and we have company too! The plans we had for the weekend have all been cancelled, so we will likely just hunker down and wait for the storms to pass. A new game I ordered on Amazon should arrive today and help pass the time.

Stay safe if any of the rest of you are in the path of the storm!

I feel so far behind here on this blog!

I have paid off all of the transactions we put on credit cards in the last two weeks off. It's so nice how YNAB just keeps setting that money aside and the money is there to pay it. I'm going to continue paying credit cards every pay day. I don't wait for due dates usually. Oh, and I will need to buy YNAB in the next two days. I did put the cost in the budget, of course.

I was able to make a $336 payment to our Citi card that we've had a monthly balance on, but no interest. The new balance is $650. I'm pretty sure I need to pay this by the end of the month so I'm not charged any interest! I think that will be no problem. We have over 20K points that we need to redeem too. Probably for gift cards. Once that is all complete I think I'm closing this one. Along with a few others that really aren't being used.

I accumulated quite a few snowflakes. I was hoarding Amazon gift cards in hopes of buying something I wanted. I did get there, but now the item is back ordered and won't arrive for a few weeks. Today I used $30 worth of gift cards to buy Tenzi, a dice game my daughter wanted. I paid extra to make sure it arrived tomorrow. We have company coming and may get stuck in the house while Joaquin goes by our area later this weekend. So my earnings for my want became earnings for my daughter's want.

We have made airline reservations for the Thanksgiving holiday. I paid $882.18 for three of us to fly. The deal wouldn't have been as great if it weren't for that Southwest Companion Pass that my daughter has through the end of the year. So far we have only used it twice, but it sure has been a bonus! We also used hotel reward points to secure a hotel before and after the flights because one is super early and the other arrives pretty late in the evening and we have a drive to get back home since this airport isn't in our town.

I made sure to make a payment to ourselves for the tuition we covered from our savings account. This extra is really coming from the savings in changing our W2 withholding. It sure helps to have a plan!

In other expense news, my youngest daughter has been invited to go on a trip to Europe the summer of 2017. We have to pay for it, as it is two teachers going that are getting the tour together. It is definitely educational in nature. My daughter wants to go and other than the cost there is no reason she shouldn't go. The cost is $4345 for 14 days. We don't have to sign up yet...the latest we can decide is February 2016. Decisions, decisions.

I'll try to get a tally of my snowflakes posted in the next few days.

My 31 Days of Decluttering and Organizing has begun today. Go

here to view.

Yippee! My husband is using the YNAB app to enter in his expenses so far this week. He even pointed out to me yesterday that he did so. And I'm not sure that tracking caused this, but he decided to take some coffee from home this morning!

We've been have problems with any mail being forwarded from our old home to our new rental place. It worked for awhile when we moved to the apartment AND from the apartment to the rental. But nothing direct from the house...and it was requested and input THREE times! Today we finally got a bill in the mail from the old house. It was for that darn mold test. Just $50, instead of the $75 I remembered. At least mail is coming our way.

Most everything we get mail for has been updated as much as we can, so we haven't been too worried, but there are things that come through that we don't have any control over.

Turns out I have a buyer returning an item they bought last week. They are stating it doesn't work. I know I tested it before I sent it off. And another buyer is having trouble paying me through PayPal for another item. A bit frustrating!

I'm should be able to cash out my Bing Rewards tomorrow for a $5 Amazon gift card. After that one, I will have $41 in gift cards. I'm hoping to get $60 so I can make a 'want' purchase.

My husband did change the withholding on his W2 to 18 last week. The change is already showing on his paystub for pay on September 15. The goal was to avoid having any further withholding through the end of the year, as we have determined we have already paid enough to cover taxes on our return. The increase in pay is $259.32 each paycheck through January 1. This money is going straight to savings to pay ourselves back for tuition just paid.

We have a CD with Navy Federal Credit Union that is expiring on the 17th. It was a 5% interest CD for 12 months. The maximum we could invest was $5,000, which we did. That means $250 earned! I only wish all our money was earning this rate. I may invest in another CD with NFCU that has a maximum investment of $3K earning 3% for 12 months. Much better than 1% on savings. I'll get that all figured out once the CD matures next week. Does anyone know of any CD specials with secure banks earning a decent rate?

We will have a little spending tonight as we are going to an away high school football game to see our daughter perform with the marching band. Admission is $7 each. Plus concessions, we usually need a least a water since they won't let you bring any in and it's HOT here! I gave my daughter $15 since we weren't sure about dinner, but she thinks the band boosters are covering the cost of pizza for the group. (The game is 45 minutes away and they leave right after school...going to be a LONG night!)

Really hoping to keep the rest of the weekend LOW or NO spend!

I paid the big fat University bill today in full. I had the money in savings. It was $7,198.55. I have not yet pulled any money from her ESA, since the market is down. It was looking good for a very little while this morning. Not that I planned to make a sell order today. We have time.

You will be glad to hear that I did some entering of things into YNAB. I watched another tutorial which was helpful. I entered in all the credit cards we use regularly, with their current (PreYNAB balances). I entered only the $X I set aside at the beginning of this month to spend on the irregular purchases of the first half of the month. I budgeted that money into categories...starting with guesses really. Got to start somewhere though!

After that I went back and recorded actual purchases, most of which were on one credit card. There were a couple others on the Discover card and one in cash. I did have to adjust the budget. Originally I had no money for car repairs, but we did have a $129 expense for car maintenance. I had at least two other categories like this as well. The budget still shows $325 left, but I see it is assuming I want to pay all the card balances with this current income, which isn't exactly what I normally do. So, when I have a little more time I will look at that closer.

I'm feel better than I'm working on it. It does take time, but I do hope the investment is more clarity in how we spend some of our money.

My husband has a four day weekend due to the holiday. Although because they are getting ready for a conference next week he needs to go in to work on Sunday for awhile.

We took advantage of the time off to get some errands done. The first involved getting a few more civilian clothes for him to wear. One shirt(on clearance for $10) and a tie. We tacked on two 99 cents cards with our purchase at Kohl's so we could get over the $30 to use a $10 off coupon. Spent around $22 for those four items. Very pleased since business casual clothes can get pricey.

We took our truck in for an oil change, tire rotation and replacement of cabin filter. The bill was over $120 at the dealership. The big mistake was letting the dealership do the cabin filter. We have replaced that ourselves in the past. It cost $22 for the filter and $40.99 for labor!! Ugh. I looked up the cost of the filter on Amazon. Only $8.09 with 2 day shipping with our Prime Membership. We are good with maintenance on our vehicles but my husband also tends to react with yes at anything the dealership suggests without knowing if we have recently done it or if it is something we can do easily ourselves. I'm definitely going to get a spreadsheet set up with our past maintenance and start recording what we should have done and when. Maybe there is an app? Do you do a good job at keeping track of vehicle maintenance?

Finally, our big splurge for the day was a USED treadmill. I saw one someone was selling locally for $1000 that was nearly new. We weren't convinced it was the right size motor for my husband who would prefer to run nearly daily. But it seemed a bit like a deal compared to a $1500 new one we had been keeping our eyes on. Before we committed to this local sale one, we stopped by Play It Again Sports and found a nearly new treadmill that was almost exactly the same spec wise as the $1500 one. The were asking $799. And for $50 more they would delivery it up to upstairs bonus room. Sold! After tax and delivery it was around $908. Cheaper than new, but like new, and delivered for less than we were considering. I will definitely use it since we don't have a gym membership. I expect my daughter is interested in it also. Fingers crossed it doesn't become a clothes hanger!!

We are paying for the treadmill out of savings since we have a pretty healthy bit of cash and this is a small drop in the bucket. And an investment in our health is worth it!! It arrives Tuesday afternoon.

It's payday so I paid off more debt that has been sitting on credit cards (no interest is being charged). I feel better than it is starting to dwindle down.

Specifically paid:
$704.38 American Express (Orlando trip expenses)
$3.20 American Express (movie rental)
$360.44 Target Red Card (dorm & school expenses)
$166.58 Discover (online school expenses)

We still have just over $2,184.79 on credit cards. Considering it was over $3K when my husband and I were discussing things a few nights ago we have made some progress. The goal will be to keep spending as low as possible to try to use some extra income toward expenses.

At the same time we are working on debt, we are discussing flying to see family and college daughter at Thanksgiving. I have a Companion Pass earned with Southwest that lets my youngest daughter fly for free with me through the end of the year. This means we only need to pay for two tickets. One scenario has our flights costing $911. Which when you divide by three people flying is pretty good!! I really dislike the idea of flying during the holiday simply because it is so busy, but that is when most of us have time off work and school.

My daughter had two good days of high school. So far so good. She can tell a lot of kids are connected to the military, since the teacher asked them to introduce themselves and say where they were born and where they have lived. That is a much better question than 'Where are you from?'. Do you have any idea how hard it is to answer that question? At least simply?

With the start of school I can feel myself getting back into routines. Laundry is getting done on a schedule. Dinner is at a decent hour. And so is getting to bed.

We still need to get the spending under control. Some of it has been unavoidable. I thought I would go to the grocery store today, but upon looking around in the kitchen I had asparagus, couscous and chicken. Sounded like dinner to me! Tomorrow I think I can skate by again without going to the store. I have some frozen fish sticks that if we don't eat...will never get eaten. Not sure why we bought them, other than they must have sounded good during one of the trips where we didn't have a list. What we don't have are too many fresh vegetables...and I'm craving some greens. I think I will pick those up and see if we can last through Saturday for groceries.

One reason I'm trying to control the groceries is because I spent more money today. Cat food for the next two months $40, a $20 flute repair (that's cheap!), and $10 worth of personal spending (socks and a pair of sunglasses). The socks and sunglasses really were needs. The elastic in the socks are becoming too loose and uncomfortable to wear. The sunglasses are to replace a pair I lost at Universal earlier this month. Pretty good deal to get both for $10.48.

If we have the food, we really don't need to grocery shop anyway!! I really hope the spending is slowing down.