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I’m now on summer “break” as of Tuesday. I have my part time job still. It pays more per hour than my regular job so I don’t mind working over my break. Since it is considered “essential” work I have had the option to work with health care level guidelines in place. I work around 5-6 hours a week with this job. It is helping me meet my financial goals at an accelerated pace.

I’m also helping my high school senior navigate scholarship applications. It is very...
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Our state university system has made a big fanfare about how campuses are re-opening. Yes, we're moving students into dorms in the fall. Yes, some classes will be held face to face. How many? I don't have a hard figure yet, but I would be surprised of the hundreds of classes offered by my department if more than one or two are face to face. It has to be this way. We don't have enough room to make socially distanced classes across the board. We will have a very hard time...
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I redeemed credit card points for a $50 Subway gift card. I like choosing a physical card so I have the option of using it or gifting it. In this case, it’s likely I’ll use it to treat the family to our local Subway since we are no longer ordering out. They are open for pick-up only. The previous gift cards I ordered with points were for Staples and Lowe’s.
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The outlet extender came yesterday, a day earlier than projected. I have the aquarium all set up. Now I'm just waiting for the 24-hour period to play out before I add the fish. Hope that will happen without trauma.

I ordered a set of washcloths, a picture frame, and barber scissors from Amazon yesterday. $60!

I remember once talking with my SIL about bargain hunting and trying to save money, and she said, "Sometimes I wonder if it isn't better to just get what you need...
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I went back to PetSmart yesterday and exchanged the cracked tank for a new one, checking it first before leaving the store. Since I was there, I also bought a bag of Iggy's kidney care dry food, which was a whopping $63. I was trying to save a trip, but it turns out I will have to go back some time and return one bag of gravel -- I bought too much. It's only $6, but next time I get out that way, I will get my money back.

I still haven't completed setting up the new aquarium,...
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I sit here in our state and life is pretty normal now, most businesses are opening, hardly anyone wearing masks, still social distancing, disinfecting all hands/carts etc when you go into a store, still restricting how many people go into a store etc...but our state has 22 days no new cases...our borders open up in july to some states not all as some states are still having active cases, we had a BLM protest here over 5000 people attended, it was a peaceful protest and no-one got...
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Finally was able to contact the irs today my itin number was reinstated end of feb they sent a letter early march but we haven't got it yet...also called the irs office they said that they have only gone back to work 2 weeks ago and have so many to process so wait 6 weeks and call back if we haven't heard anything...so we are hoping they have received it...mail has been slow but didn't think it would take this long to receive letters...here is hoping that it is done and done soon...
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We've had a dead tree next to our driveway for months. I've been meaning to call our tree guy for that one. Then in the storm a couple of weeks ago, a large limb came off the big tree next to our garage. That's the 2nd time that has happened. It's time to get rid of that tree. And while they're at it, I'll have them prune the tree in front of our house.

Tree guy came today. Total damage is about $2,400. He's hoping they can come by the end of next week. Hopefully no big storms...
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My husband returned home on Saturday from his three week trip. I'm very glad to have him home once again!

He has submitted his travel claim voucher and it is waiting approval. Hopefully we will have funds by Friday or very early next week. The portion coming to us is $2,066.58, which is per diem and mileage. He spent $927.07 in a three week period. So after paying those charges off we are left with $1,139.51.

A nice little windfall that is tempting to spend on a few things...
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In getting mail yesterday i had a letter from a collection agency. I opened and found a debt from a medical visit i had to a local ER in January.

I had to wait until today as the billing group was in another time zone. I was confused as I had NEVER
received a bill and my insurance did not either.
I called today and waited 40 minutes to talk to a representative.
I laid out the scene no EOB as insurance never was billed/ no bill ever reaching me... and immediate...
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I went to PetSmart yesterday and bought a small aquarium, plus gravel, accessories and a heater for $92. Ouch! Then when I got home and started the process of setting it up, I found that there was a small crack in the tank. So now I have to take it back. The aquarium came in a sealed box. This time I will make them open the box and check for cracks.

PetSmart is right next to Aldi, so I ran in quickly and got a few items for $16.

Today is pay day, and I have paid my bills;...
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The stray cat that we adopted is now neutered. Twice the surgery was scheduled and cancelled, I think because the county wasn’t officially yellow yet so non-life-threatening surgeries weren’t allowed. (even for animals) This time it didn’t get cancelled thank goodness. We’ve been eager to get this done because this male cat had been marking his territory in our house. I think the behavior has stopped now.

The total bill for neutering (including IV fluids and pain meds)...
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Hi all, I have been a bit slack with recording the 52 week mega money challenge payments for weeks 3 & 4.

In week 3 it was a public holiday, so I decided that as public holiday weekends are generally a bit more expensive I would save the smaller payments for these weekends.

So with week 3 I paid $25 on my cards (two-thirds on Virgin, one-third on NAB) and $20 on B's card.

For week 4 we paid $62.50 on my cards so I have listed that my share has been paid for the $125 week....
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Well we updated our car last month and after a week I heard a weird noise, now the car was checked over and everything and everything seemed fine...so we called the company and said that it was making a noise and I wasn't happy as we just got it from them...he had us take it to their mechanic...and he said it needs a new transmission...so they are doing that next week...they need to order in and postage is slow here considering the borders are closed and no flights...but they are...
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It's spring, there's a ton of stuff to around home and garden and the last thing I want to do during a coronavirus outbreak is to see a doctor.

But I've been doing quite a bit of that lately.

Out of the blue, I had a scary issue with first seeing a very large, dark floater in my right eye, and hours later, I started seeing flashes of light.

I saw my ophtmalogist, who performed a very uncomfortable exam of my eye and told me the good news was that my retina was not detached....
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Yesterday, I switched our cell phone plan to their lowest cost unlimited plan, which ended up saving us about $22 a month. I did have to switch to paying our bill with our checking account. I had been using our US Bank Credit card to receive 5% back, however the math still worked in our favor to switch. I think I had seen this offer before, but the math didn't seem to add up in our favor. I'm wondering if something else changed or if I just didn't do the math right last time!

I...
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We received another refund from the high school. This time it was $20 that we had paid for a class lab fee. It was refunded since the school was closed in March. That class – Foods – wasn’t fun for DS4 to do online. It would have been a challenge to make fun & interactive online and that teacher just wasn’t the type to change her lesson plans. The school just sent out a survey to get feedback on parent preferences for safety measures vs going online so I guess the Fall...
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Yesterday morning I made my online order to Panera. It took several tries, because I was trying to get it to accept a promo code for a $5 discount for a curbside order over $20. For some reason, that was a hurdle. But I finally did it, charging it to my gift card and all was well. Then while I was on the way there, I got a call that they were out of white bread. Three loaves of white bread were the main part of my order! I was almost there, so I just continued on and then...
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It's been ages. I see there's been some good news since I was last on. Congrats to everyone who is now debt free.

We seem to be spending a lot more on food recently. We have barely been going out, only when really essential. I'm still off work due to my health. Just trying to keep everyone safe, that's the aim.

I let my budget slack these past few months. I need to deal with it now.This morning I updated it.

Everyone is healthy here.
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I asked James and he said that the guy that keeps "spamming" actually is tech support, so it is him working on fixing the blogs, finally. As annoying as it is, it isn't spam.
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