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I added $23.69 to my EF today, bringing the grand total in there to $18,977.69 and bringing my net worth to $125,687.56.  Inch by inch we are getting there.
I am not doing a retirement fund update as they still haven't put the deposit in from Friday's paycheck.  It always gets messed up when there is a holiday and it takes a few extra days to show.  But judging on how much the accounts fell in the last two weeks, there won't be an increase and I won't even break...
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DS5 is now a licensed driver. I spent about $350 on six hours of driving lessons several months ago and it was worth it to me. With DS1 & DS2 I wasn’t so afraid to ride in the passenger seat with a driver-in-training but I am now. Relatives helped on getting driving time for him too when we visited them last month. I’m glad that we’ve got the last one over the line.
 
I don’t know how much the insurance will go up from adding a third teenaged...
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I see the website has been upgraded in my absence. I like what I see so far!
I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving. Ours was quiet as usual. We continued our new tradition from last year of Rock Cornish game hens instead of turkey, along with ham, cornbread dressing, carrot soufflé, and my homemade cranberry sauce. I usually do the fresh snap beans with potatoes & bacon, but my dad said to just cooked the stir-fry veggies we had in the freezer. Fine by me! Everything...
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I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving! I celebrated with my family at my brother’s house. There were 10 of us total and we had a fantastic time with lots of food and laughs and football watching afterward. It was so nice to have everyone together again after last year, when there were only a few of us.  Lot’s to be thankful for! 


 


I am mostly finished with my Christmas shopping; I only need to pick up a gift card and a doggie...
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I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Ours was blessed with family and grandkids.  Two of my daughters each hosted a meal - one at 3pm and one at 6;30pm.  Both meals were fantastic! Needless to say, after playing with grandbabies all day and enjoying two delicious meals, I was tired and full when I got home!!   We spent yesterday at home relaxing and enjoying some quiet time.   We pulled two steaks out of the freezer and the hub bbq'd...
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It's 2:45 a.m. and I am still up doing Thanksgiving prep.  I just turned off the pressure oven (did not use the pressure setting) and left the door ajar, so my gluten free pumpkin cheesecake bars can cool for an hour before they go into the fridge and then I can go to bed.  The gluten free lemon bars were finished right after dinner.  I did up the gluten free stuffing so it can go into the turkey first thing in the morning and the potatoes are getting peeled and...
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My table arrived, right on time!
I immediately dressed it in Christmas finery, so no, you can't see much of the table itself, but rest assured, the finish is beautiful.
Once I knew how to post a picture, but now it seems I don't!  I can't seem to find the sweet spot between huge and tiny.  Oh well.  
The morning involved a little spending: $35 at the grocery, $18 at the gas station, and $3 at the car wash.  Variables are up to 95%.  
I'm packing,...
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So the last few months I have just about given up on our budget...when I get sick or depressed it just stresses me out and I also spend way to much money...it's a bad habit and one I am breaking...usually happens once a year!!
So I sat down today and since our income doesn't really change..if it does it usually goes up so we don't add it in...and I have written up our budget for the next 2 years and if all goes well we should be able to buy a house in 2 years...sounds like forever...
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It's pretty obvious that it's usually cheaper to rent to buy. Also with the way things have been going it's become very apparent that rents haven't gone up at the same rate as homes.  It's also true that renting typically has always been cheaper than buying.  So if you wanted to say live closer you could usually rent a place cheaper than it would cost you to buy.  This is probably even more true if you have been renting say for 10 years.  The amount paid might...
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It’s not much however I’m happy. Today, I bumped my IRA contribution to $100 a month, I’m hoping to eventually max this out since I’m not getting any younger. 
I also paid $100 on my student loans. 
 
Since I’m not great at managing my money without a pay check, I got with my accountant  who will begin paying me a paycheck bi-weekly, withholding taxes starting in January. 
 
My interview with my third client went...
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Today I'm going through my fridge and dealing with perishables.  I made apple crisp, and I'm cooking some carrots, most of which I will freeze.  I also chopped up and froze some celery this morning -- that will be good for use in soup.  Now I just have a bit of cheese to use up -- think I'll make an oven-toasted open-faced cheese sandwich later on.  I have managed not to go to the store this week, but I will tomorrow morning, just to pick up food to take to...
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Our gas (with fake logs) fireplace gave out last year. We were able to hire a handyman to do some tweaking to limp it along last winter while I planned to replace it this year. Replacing it became a bigger and bigger deal. No place could just replace the ‘guts’ of it. Even the mantel couldn’t stay because it would break when the fireplace was pulled out. The fireplace came with the house so it was almost 20 years old.
 
That meant that an upgrade that I...
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It's been nearly a month since I have blogged but all is fine here.  I am now working 3 days per week at my job, which is really great.  The job is going well and I can now plan to get some clients to fill up the remaining two days; now that I know exactly how much time I have available I can work more strongly towards that.
We got all of our banking stuff sorted and tax returns lodged, so it has been great to have that done and to spend less time on that area.
Financial...
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Finally got a hold of the IRS and got some answers as to what has been going on...let me try to explain where it makes sense...living in a different country we have to do a paper copy of our taxes..I do ours on the computer and then print them out and send. When the pandemic hit our taxes must have been there somewhere but they had closed etc so nothing was done and then they were so backlogged and had millions of stimulus payments etc to do as well...so we gave them plenty of...
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So our state has  pretty much over the last 2 years been covid free in the community except for a few minor outbreaks...but tonight we are opening up our borders...none of us are happy there are states that will be allowed to travel here now without quarantening that consistently have over 1000 new cases a day...and have for a long time..obviously they don't know what they are doing there....so with my hubby having cancer and my health we are really limiting where we go and...
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As I sit here and look at the budget for december I am reminded that come Jan 1st it is tax time again (in the US anyways) and the crap starts all over again...yes I know I shouldn't call it that, but we are still waiting for them to do this years amended taxes....so its just a major headache as we can't do them online...and when we call they have no info and ask us to send them again...which we have decided ehen we send them they have to sign for them now so I know that they get...
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I find it hard to believe Thanksgiving is almost here. But then again, I saw the crazy grocery shopping start this week, so that should have been a been indication. We got to the stores early for our weekly trip and by the time we left the second store, the parking lot was getting quite full.
I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of those of you who earned free turkeys! Sadly our stores did not have any of those great offers. I remember growing up, my father would be given a turkey...
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First, I just want to say that the theme here is OMG, life is crazy but money things are very very good.  This is just getting magnified (the money part).  This week was so busy I feel like I am 10 posts behind on getting caught up.  (& I am determined to get caught up, on some level.  Especially because of all the money stuff.  If I blog about nothing else, will get to the money stuff). 
Money stuff to follow in future posts...
We got MM(18)...
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I went to the refinisher today to take a look at my table to make sure it looks good.  To my surprise, it wasn't fully assembled.  I guess as long as it is by Wednesday, when it's delivered, that's okay.  The guy in charge said he is having problems with labor shortage.  The new finish does look fabulous, a really enormous improvement.
On the way home, I stopped at Walgreens and bought a large package of pads ($18) and two large bags of M&Ms ($8) for making...
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Well here’s an update. 
Paid $100 on  student loan #2 and I’m now  at $19,600. I’m hoping to throw another $4000 at it by the end of the month. Hopefully I can pay it off by February. 
 
My lawyer called and the company that ripped me off offered $2,500, he recommended we reject it. The sad thing is the language they’re using implies that I was to be an employee and not a contractor which by the way is worst. They technically...
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