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Yesterday I drove to a Kia dealer about an hour away in order to get my safety recall done (airbag software).  My local Kia dealer is not taking appointment for this recall -- at least, not yet.  I wanted to get it done. Air bags are pretty important! They did an inspection as well and recommended that I replace my fuel injector. I told them I would have it done at home, since I had already waited two hours and didn't want to wait another hour. It will cost $175. I've...
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I haven't bought much in the way of clothes since before the pandemic and most of what I've bought since it started was underclothes.  My daughter and I both were sorely in need of some new clothes, me so more than her.  I've been sewing up a lot of seams.  Woman Within has been having a 50% off on most items this week and today was the last day of the sale, so I bit the bullet and bought.
For myself I got 4 tank tops, 1 t-shirt, 1 blouse, 3 shorts with pockets,...
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The price of gas has gone back up over $2 per litre (around $6.50 pg) I have raised the amount once in our budget so trying not to do it again, and although food prices are going up I am going to try and save money in that area as well we currently spend $1000 plus each month and I want to save on that or at least try not to go over it. 
We will be growing our own vegies, or at least some of them but not till sept/oct when it is spring here and we have started buying stuff...
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It's spring and that time when DH usually puts in a garden. This year we are looking for different places to plant besides the normal spots. With the way prices are at the grocery, we want to make sure we use every onion set and every seed in the seed packet. 
We don't have a huge garden area per se. But today I took an old kids' wagon we have had sitting in the back and we put dirt in it and I planted radishes. It is deep enough for them. Then we dug up around this one area...
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Well my refridgerator is not working.  New one will hopefully be delivered on Wednesday.  Will be an interesting few days.  
I do not really celebrate Mother's day.  I have no children and my Mother passed away on Mother's day. Happy Mother's day to all the Mothers and Grandmothers.
 
 
 
 
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Well hopfully I can get back on here after today it seems they fix it and then the next day the same thing...
May we have paid all our bills, except netflix that comes out later in the month, everything else is paid. I have ordered a few things this month so used a bit of our savings but we are ok with that.
We have started to order planters for spring that are eco friendly (not plastic) but as we rent right now its just easier for us with the price and quality of fresh vegies...
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This post comes a few days later than usual, this week has been busy busy busy, lots going on in life!  
April Spending:
As always, this does not include my bills, only "discretionary" spending.  I cannot change my bills as easily as I can change discretionary spending.  My goal is not to live as frugally as I can, I only track my spending to be able to establish patterns and made decisions based on those patterns.
Category - April Spend/YTD Spend: context
Car/Gas...
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A new store has opened up in my neighborhood. It's called Wild Fork. I checked it out yesterday on my walk. Turns out it sells frozen food exclusively. Many specialty meats, but there were a lot of fruits and vegetables and desserts as well. I was interested because it's a 15-minute walk away, and if I were to lose my car in the future, I could easily get there on foot. Between that and Walgreens, I could get pretty much everything I need except fresh produce. That would be a little...
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As I talked about in my last post, the last several weeks were expensive! Now we are in recovery mode.
In the last three weeks, we went through a good chunk of our emergency fund, just upwards of $3000. Now, we are only $400 away from filling it back up. Once our emergency fund is back up to our comfort level, I will stop putting money in savings and send everything to our credit card debt.
We have been very lucky to be able to refill our EF so quickly! First, April was a three...
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It is one of those gloomy, rainy days.  There hasn't been much letup. I went out this morning to do my routine at the gym and then to the senior center to pick up my frozen dinners. I came home and after lunch, fell asleep. It's just that kind of day. There was a baseball game scheduled this evening, but it has been postponed. I'm sure the field is drenched.
I haven't spent anything today, but yesterday I went to Aldi and spent $32. $25 of that was on groceries, and I also...
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For years we saved and saved and saved. We wanted to go to England. Then when we thought we were getting close enough to do so, you know what hit and shut down the world.
We decided to start planning anyway. We didn't have passports so a little over a year ago we did all the necessary stuff to get them ordered. We received them a year ago this month. We then went to a travel agent to discuss what we wanted to do. Neither of us have ever been out of the country so we wanted to...
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Well, finally some nice weather now that is May!
This months goals will be:
Investments:
Put 1000 into the brokerage account over the course of the month
Round up any dividend paying stock that is under $30 so I can get a full share (ex: Unit paid me 2.15 last month so I put an additional $11 with to get a full share in return, in addition to my regular DCA
Health:
Lose 5 pound
Walk at least 3 miles per dayFinancial:
Invest 1000 into brokerage account over the cours eof...
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Well retirement is down $140k and if it wasn't for our windfall I think we'd be substantially more. Probably in the ball park of $250k.  I have already had to talk to multiple friends and clients into staying invested and not being spooked.  And when asked I said I can see it dropping another 10-20%.
But what do you do?  Nothing. If it makes you nervous wrong asset allocation.  If you just leave it invested or invest more well then you know what type of person...
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Glad it is May.  April was just not a good month.   
Many changes happening at work.  As much as I hate job hunting it might be time.  
Net worth is down over 19,000.00 since the begining of the year.  Most of this is due to stock market.  Hope the slide stops soon.  I will work on what I can control like paying down debt.
How did I do on April goals.
Hit step and water goal.
Missed debt payoff by less than $2.00
Missed weight...
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Since I won't be spending anything today, I decided to do my April recap.  It was really a low-spend month -- $1624 total!
Housing - $460 (No mortgage payment due to refinance - it will kick in tomorrow. This is assessment fees.)
Vacation/Travel - $337 (Mostly train tickets)
Utilities - $218
Fees/Services - $110 (Tollway pass, Sam's Club membership fee, license plate renewal)
Groceries - $95
Gifts/Charity - $90 (Charity donation & Easter gifts for grandkids)
Medical/Health...
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Yes! 
I believe we had our first charity pickup since the pandemic started.  I might have put out one bag last year at some point?  I don't remember for sure but I think I did have a charity write off.  Since then, there was one scheduled pick up but they never showed.
They just randomly scheduled for my work-from-home day.  So I optimistically set my *4* bags out.  When I looked outside around noon the bags were gone.  I am so happy! ...
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April was a rare month where my spending was higher than my income for the month. While I was only over by $87.03, and I have a very healthy emergency fund to cover it, I began thinking how easy it can be to fall off the “frugal” wagon and suffer from belt tightening fatigue. 
 


An unexpected dental bill of $102.40 was the main culprit, but I still did some shopping, dining out, gift giving and grocery stocking up while some foods were on sale (chicken)....
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I ordered my hog so that's taken care of.  She's going to give me the original price of $3.50 per pound even though she raised her prices last month to $4.00 per pound to account for higher feed costs.  She just felt so sorry for me with the whole freezer saga.  I've kept her updated as we went along.  She said the hog's butchered weight should be around 170 pounds.  A bit smaller than I've gotten before, usually around 200 pounds, but I don't care. ...
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I've gotten in the bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night, in which case I end up on my phone, like now.
Still no retention bonus on our checks. I believe that once is goes through the process that we will get retroactive payments, which will be nice. We were under the impression that it could happen a lot quicker than it actually has so that leaves people feeling frustrated. 
I'm still not quite sure how I would like to allocate this money. I am saving $1,000...
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And it's beautiful!
Sorry, I tried to add a photo, but of course yet again something in the blogs is not working right.  I'm talking about my new freezer.
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