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Well have been sick all week so haven't been anywhere except the doctors and since we are on free scripts for the rest of the year this one doesn't cost us..so haven't spent money on anything but groceries...except today when I just ordered my daughter a christmas present (although that is from our present account)

Finally have my ICE account back to $2000 so now going to work on our savings for a home deposit and hopefully nothing else comes up that is to expensive. Still working...
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Another nice update! We are looking at a new vehicle tomorrow, so if that turns out to be what we are looking for, our debt will be going up as we are in need of a new vehicle. We shall see how it goes!

Celebrations for this update:
-$896.03 paid off in the last 2 weeks!!
-Total Debt went under $490K!!
-Total Debt went under the next $1000 mark for the 6th update in a row!! (This is a record for me!)

Student Loan $0
Payback Savings $0
David's Bridal $0
Scheel's Card...
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My last entry was about found money so to speak. I received a debit card from the hospital that overcharged me $200 almost two years ago. As a couple of you mentioned, they should have paid me interest because If I had been two years late in paying, I would have paid interest. No kidding.

Well, yesterday DH and I took the debit card to our bank which happens to be the bank the debit card supposedly was issued from. I wanted to put th money in savings. There is a branch manager...
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All our mortgage payments hit (a bit late because of the holiday):
US: $728 to principal
UK1: $178
UK2: $38
UK3: $40

All told, $984 went to principal.

New debt totals:

US Mortgage $385,371
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $31,948
UK Mortgage 2 $6,735
UK Mortgage 3 $7,091
___
TOTAL DEBT $440,145
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Trying to do some financial planning for husband's job transition.

It appears we will be getting about $1,500 in "extra" money since his current job pays a check behind and also he is cashing in his retirement days.

Don't know exact numbers yet but we plan on paying off both of our monthly credit cards, putting back enough to pay the house & car insurance in full, go out to a nice celebratory dinner, and the rest will probably be put towards either the fence or one of the...
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Well, it was an expensive day for me, and variables have suddenly shot up to 85%.

I went to the doctor (a $5 copay) and he prescribed Celebrex, which, it turned out, cost $125. However, after taking only one, I can say it may be worth it.

I mailed my Florida grandson's birthday package for $12.

I went to Sam's and bought Lactaid for $19 and groceries for $15.

When I picked up my grandson after school, we went for treats at McDonalds for $3.

And I did a load of laundry...
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So I'm walking past the bakery and my debit card jumped out of my wallet, ran inside and came back out with a slice of lolly cake. So of course I had to eat it.

I have to start leaving my debit card at home and changing my walk home so I don't go past the bakery.

And every time I blow my budget put an equal amount into savings.


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We had a fairly reasonable weekend.

GROCERY - $56.44, $15 was spent on 1 kilo ground coffee (it was on sale, 50% off) and we also spent $10 worth of mixed nuts and fruits and a bag of pepitas (this should last at least a month). This is what we normally have for in our breakfast. DH makes our breakfast, he would soak rolled oats with homemade kefir, in it he would also put frozen berries and the mixed nuts & fruits. He would normally make enough for 2 to 3 meals. In the morning...
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Welcome Halloween!

For me, Halloween is all about the costumes. I love costumes so much that when my mom said I was too old to go out trick-or-treating and there were no Halloween activities for me to go to I got creative. I convinced my brothers and some friends to dress up and go Christmas caroling with me on October 31st. My mom gave us credit for creativity and let us go, so long as we weren’t accepting candy. It was such a good experience! We had 4 part harmonies...
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I've been busy all summer with the kids. We literally just go back on Sunday from Hawaii and school started today. I am a bit breathless seeing that it's the start of 3rd and 1st grade. I can't believe time is flying. I thought the years would go slower but it's not. I feel like screaming stop already I don't want them to grow up. Where is the time going? I swear I blinked and we had just moved and my DK1 was holding up her 2015 1st day of kindergarden sign. No no no. I...
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We damaged the carpet at our rental home when we had a treadmill placed on it for over a year. We did buy a mat to place between the treadmill and carpet, but it must have been unbalanced as one foot made a whole about 2 inches by 2 inches across.

We have now been in communication with our landlord so that we can rectify the problem before moving out. He has agreed to let us proceed with stretching or patch repair based on the suggestions of the repair person when he arrives....
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I am up to 30 items on eBay, and I have already sold one for $40. So now it's 29. I will be shipping the package this morning. There is an offer on another, but it's low. I'm going to counter.

I can add 20 more items for free, so I'm going to try to do that today.

I have some watchers, but overall I would say there is not a great deal of interest yet. Maybe when the auction is close to ending I'll get some bids.

I'm going to the doctor this morning. I was planning...
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I have calculated that I am currently spending a total of $210 a week. Multiply by 13 and that is $2,730. So I already have 3 months of stringent living expenses in my EF. I want it up to $10,000 to cover any major house repair expenses or having to fly overseas to sick family members.
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Amazon has been our friend with girls in college. We buy needed items to ship to their dorm and save them the time shopping.

I rented a book for my daughter on Thursday night and had it expedited to arrive by Saturday for $8.99 because of the holiday weekend and her need to read it! She opened it today to find the wrong book!!

I contacted Amazon who offered to waive the expedited shipping if I wanted to rent or buy another one. Unfortunately, no more rentals available,...
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Hi all

Some updates over the past few months. overall things are up and down.. still stressful.

1. Work. I am still at that company that wants me to work downtown. Since my last post they have been saying. "we will just work downtown through June", then thru July, then August and now it appears never ending. I am required to be onsite Tues-Wed and stay overnight. I really dislike 'traveling every week, packing up, staying over, working late'. I was only passively looking...
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Had a very nice free breakfast yesterday morning -- pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit -- and afterwards a fun time playing board games with the grandkids.

I came home and got to work on entering eBay offerings. I got 13 done before a headache did me in. I'll get back to it today. Looks like I can put 50 online without paying an extra fee, so I will be careful to pick out the best. (I know I said I had only 50 items, but some of them are in sets and will need to be listed separately.)

I...
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Interest for August on our savings came to $105.78.

We are earning 1.85% on a majority of it.

The CD that expires in March is earning 2.23%. I think I could actually transfer money in our money market into the CD so it could earn more. When our last CD expired in June, I didn't know what we were doing for housing for our next move. There's always a chance we would buy a home. But since we are living on base, we will not need to put any more down on a home.

It's not a lot...
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I had $362.85 left in my checking account so transferred $300 to the EF and left the rest as a buffer. If I can keep saving $300 a month I will hit my goal in 2 years.
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Total for the month was $1,247.36. Not too bad and it was mainly because we did not have utility bill due (this is going to be different story in Sept) and there was no property rate again in August (but it is starting again in Sept, for 10 months and we just receive the statement, it is going up a bit). Some highlights on our spending:

GROCERY = Total for the month was $246.99, under $250 so I’m happy. I think we will try to keep our grocery spending at this level, so around...
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Another *crazy* week... Accidents, hospitals, cancer, biopsies, blahblahblah. It's too much to process. I gave my one-week notice to my "fake employer" on Friday. It's clear (now) that they have no intention whatsoever to keep this office going. So I started calling them my "fake employer". I don't have any answers. I would prefer to just walk out (next Friday). But I didn't want to give them any fuel whatsoever. Like, "Monkey Mama didn't give us any notice so that's why we didn't...
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