Monday, October 27, 2008
And on the financial front
Quick Financial update, I have paid down our car to $15K, that is what Saturn said they would give us for it, I hope it hasn't dropped much since we called. But the little bump in the road is our neighbor across the street hit our car. The driver side corner was damaged and it pushed in the front alittle, popping the grill off, etc. We were parked in front of our house and he was pulling out of his drive way and backed into it. Of course it's murphy's law, we want to sell it, and then someone hits it. Well it should be ready next week and then we are rushing over to Saturn and hope to be rid of this SUV by then. Once that's done we are funneling all extra money to our savings/tax fund. I need to define some goals for us through the end of 2008 and re-evaluate what we need to accomplish. This last month some of my focus has just gone by the wayside. We are accomplishing some things like puchasing the used suv and working towards selling the other, but not much else. So I'll be figuring this all out and posting this soon hopefully!
Wii Fit
Well I've been meaning to get a Wii Fit, as I want to lose the 10 lbs I've gained in the last 3 - 5 months, (last year I lost 10 and now it's back) but I've gotten so tired of my dvd's and it always seems like a chore. For about 2 months now I've been thinking about the Wii Fit. I also thought this would be a good idea as our 13 year old is in that stage, where he's alittle chubby, not to active and not excited about moving at all. Granted I kind of expected this because my older son had this same problem but as soon as he hit High school he grew so tall and started walking everywhere, his friends houses, the park, all over, plus he's in drama, building sets after school each day and enjoys playing pickup foot ball games, overall just busy/active all the time. Thus, he lost his belly fat and now looks like a healthy teenager, who can still eat! But our younger son hasn't really reached that growing spurt, so my solution the Wii Fit.
I finally got one today, it's been out of stock at our local WM but they finally came in. My younger son was so great and set it up for me and we both setup our profiles. It tracks your weight, BMI progress with each game etc. We both took turns using it before dinner and I must say I think this is what we have been looking for. So far all the games/exercises are fun and gets your blood pumping! Then after dinner and once we picked up our older son from drama, we got my DH and older son setup with profiles to track their progress as well, and then we all proceeded to take turns until bedtime playing the Wii!
It was wonderful! Lately the boys just seem to do their own thing, we still chat alot in the car, picking them up and right after school I always make a point to sit down with them, go over their day etc, but we haven't done alot of family things.. so it was awesome to have all of us, taking turns laughing and sharing it all as a family. I think I will make one night family Wii night, so we have a family together time, and my younger son and I are planning to try and use the Wii 4 - 5 times a week and track our progess.
This was the best $90 I think I spent all year! I hope I still feel that way in a few weeks once the "newness" wears off.
I finally got one today, it's been out of stock at our local WM but they finally came in. My younger son was so great and set it up for me and we both setup our profiles. It tracks your weight, BMI progress with each game etc. We both took turns using it before dinner and I must say I think this is what we have been looking for. So far all the games/exercises are fun and gets your blood pumping! Then after dinner and once we picked up our older son from drama, we got my DH and older son setup with profiles to track their progress as well, and then we all proceeded to take turns until bedtime playing the Wii!
It was wonderful! Lately the boys just seem to do their own thing, we still chat alot in the car, picking them up and right after school I always make a point to sit down with them, go over their day etc, but we haven't done alot of family things.. so it was awesome to have all of us, taking turns laughing and sharing it all as a family. I think I will make one night family Wii night, so we have a family together time, and my younger son and I are planning to try and use the Wii 4 - 5 times a week and track our progess.
This was the best $90 I think I spent all year! I hope I still feel that way in a few weeks once the "newness" wears off.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Weekly update?
Wow, it seems like time is just flying by lately! I thought I had just updated my blog, but turns out it was over a week ago! I need to get on the ball and start posting more! So I guess since it's been so long, here is my Weekly update:
Our used new to us SUV - so far so good, after taking care of the brakes, taxes, etc, it seems to be running great, and no issues! Ya!
Our Saturn we need to sell - this was parked in front of our house and wouldn't you know it, our neighbor across the street HIT it! Hit the corner smashed it in and now we have to get it fixed! This is a 1 year old car and I am just hoping it will look like it did before he hit it. I mean geez, we have it up for sale, it was in perfect condition and now this! Fortunately he was honest and left us a note so we knew who had hit our car, and we already have approval to take it in to get fixed on Thursday.
I have paid down the car to what the dealer said they would give us, so as soon as it's fixed, I think we are going to just take it in. I would like to get more, but we had it up for sale for a few weeks now and not much interest really. I would rather be done with it, and wipe the debt off.
The rest of this month has been filled with appointments and will continue, we have had dentist appointments and my DH now has to have $1300 worth of dental work done, I'm just glad we are taking care of it all now with my bonus money. I think the chemo really weaken his teeth because before this he never had any problems, or cavities. Our two boys have their visits this Friday, hoping it's just the cleaning they need, and next week is my cleaning. My DH also had two doctors appointments - he was having some other issues related to having Chemo so he had to make another trip this week to the doctor.
So that's been our month so far, and money is just flowing from me! I am happy we are in a position now to pay these things off and pay in cash, and I am really looking forward to slowing down my spending and getting back on a tight budget, hopefully soon ; )
Our used new to us SUV - so far so good, after taking care of the brakes, taxes, etc, it seems to be running great, and no issues! Ya!
Our Saturn we need to sell - this was parked in front of our house and wouldn't you know it, our neighbor across the street HIT it! Hit the corner smashed it in and now we have to get it fixed! This is a 1 year old car and I am just hoping it will look like it did before he hit it. I mean geez, we have it up for sale, it was in perfect condition and now this! Fortunately he was honest and left us a note so we knew who had hit our car, and we already have approval to take it in to get fixed on Thursday.
I have paid down the car to what the dealer said they would give us, so as soon as it's fixed, I think we are going to just take it in. I would like to get more, but we had it up for sale for a few weeks now and not much interest really. I would rather be done with it, and wipe the debt off.
The rest of this month has been filled with appointments and will continue, we have had dentist appointments and my DH now has to have $1300 worth of dental work done, I'm just glad we are taking care of it all now with my bonus money. I think the chemo really weaken his teeth because before this he never had any problems, or cavities. Our two boys have their visits this Friday, hoping it's just the cleaning they need, and next week is my cleaning. My DH also had two doctors appointments - he was having some other issues related to having Chemo so he had to make another trip this week to the doctor.
So that's been our month so far, and money is just flowing from me! I am happy we are in a position now to pay these things off and pay in cash, and I am really looking forward to slowing down my spending and getting back on a tight budget, hopefully soon ; )
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
New car!
We got it! Yesterday we pickup up our used "new to us" SUV. Last week after we got the estimate back with some issues, nothing to major we negotiated more off the purchase price and got the seller to agree to take the SUV in for one repair that was still covered under warranty before we took possession of it. The repair would have cost us $350 dollars! So he took in it, got it covered under warranty and we picked it up yesterday. Now there are a few things my DH will be fixing, small things like an air filter, etc. Today we paid they sales tax and got a temporary permit, the taxes and permit $322! I really wasn't expecting that much for a 2001 vehicle, but not much we can do about that. We now have 60 days to get the emissions done and get our permanent plates.
All this really adding up, but it will still save us alot of debt in the long run, so pay the dues now, go through alittle pain, but come out better in the long run.
In other news, my filling I had done almost a month ago is still hurting me! So back to the dentist today, and guess what, they cant really tell me why its hurting.. not what I wanted to hear, so in an attempt to figure this out my dentist put me on a weeks worth of some low type of steroid to stop the imflamation and hopefully the pain will go away.
Also - last Friday I finally went in to have a small little type mole looked at on my leg, turns out it was just a scar, looks like a mole, she says I must have nicked myself shaving and then sometimes they turn into this mole like thing, Well of course that's not the medical terms she used but you get the picture, anyway it's not cancer, it's all good. So while I was there I also had her look at the mole right below my eyebrow, it's benign but it's one of those poofy type moles, I asked about getting it removed, and she was like ok, here is what we will do, and hop up on the bed! Inside I'm thinking WT**?? I have never had a doctor just do the procedure right then and there, usually they make you schedule another appointment, etc.. but not her! She took care of it, it took all of about 10 minutes! And now I have no mole! It does look alittle yucky, but it's healing up nicely, and the insurance might cover it all! The total wait time, filling out forms and procedure took less than 30 minutes, I swear that was the best medical experience I have EVER had. You can be sure I will be going back to her for other things I may need!
Ok long post again - but I have decided with some of this bonus money I am getting everything we need taken care of, as much as possible, finished paying braces, doctor bills, getting my leg checked, etc. I really want to start next year off with just oweing on the houses, no other debt and as much as possible all medical / dental things done and checked for everyone in the family.
Let's see if I can do it!
All this really adding up, but it will still save us alot of debt in the long run, so pay the dues now, go through alittle pain, but come out better in the long run.
In other news, my filling I had done almost a month ago is still hurting me! So back to the dentist today, and guess what, they cant really tell me why its hurting.. not what I wanted to hear, so in an attempt to figure this out my dentist put me on a weeks worth of some low type of steroid to stop the imflamation and hopefully the pain will go away.
Also - last Friday I finally went in to have a small little type mole looked at on my leg, turns out it was just a scar, looks like a mole, she says I must have nicked myself shaving and then sometimes they turn into this mole like thing, Well of course that's not the medical terms she used but you get the picture, anyway it's not cancer, it's all good. So while I was there I also had her look at the mole right below my eyebrow, it's benign but it's one of those poofy type moles, I asked about getting it removed, and she was like ok, here is what we will do, and hop up on the bed! Inside I'm thinking WT**?? I have never had a doctor just do the procedure right then and there, usually they make you schedule another appointment, etc.. but not her! She took care of it, it took all of about 10 minutes! And now I have no mole! It does look alittle yucky, but it's healing up nicely, and the insurance might cover it all! The total wait time, filling out forms and procedure took less than 30 minutes, I swear that was the best medical experience I have EVER had. You can be sure I will be going back to her for other things I may need!
Ok long post again - but I have decided with some of this bonus money I am getting everything we need taken care of, as much as possible, finished paying braces, doctor bills, getting my leg checked, etc. I really want to start next year off with just oweing on the houses, no other debt and as much as possible all medical / dental things done and checked for everyone in the family.
Let's see if I can do it!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
SUV Update
Well today DH is off to pickup the SUV, take it to be inspected and hopefully everything will be fine on it. This morning we already took out the remaining cash we needed to purchase the SUV. I hope everything works out. On the Saturn we have up for sale, we did have one lady come over and look at it, test drive it yesterday, but I don't really think she is ready to buy. She was nice enough, but I don't think people should waste each other's time if they aren't really ready to spend the money. Oh well. You never know, maybe she will change her mind and want to buy it. Our plan is to take a week or two trying to sell it, if it doesn't sell then we will decide on whether to keep waiting or just take it to the dealer. In the meantime, I will be working on paying the loan down to 15K. I have a payment scheduled for tomorrow of $1500 - this would take our balance down to $17858, leaving about $2858 I need to pay so the dealer could just take this, make the payment to the lender. I should be able to schedule the remaining amount by next week. I am getting a little excited as things start shaping up and are being taken care of. It's a wonderful feeling to be able to pay all the bills, pay something off, and work on outstanding issues. Even in this finanical turmoil (I've lost about $12,000 in my 401K and investment accounts) it still is a great feeling! I will also start working on my 6 month EF. I have $1060 in it right now, and after some things are cleaned up, this will be top priority.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
10 Thousand anyone??
10 thousand dollars, to some it seems like so much, to others a do able number, to me, it means that much less debt! 10K of debt wiped out! Well not yet anyway, and not sure if that's the exact number, but should be close, because we went used car shopping and found a what seems like a great reliable SUV, it has about 100k miles. All the reviews I read said this SUV can take quite a bit more and it had one owner that keep records of all maintenance etc. So we will be making an offer. The seller also said we could take it into the dealership for an inspection. So once that is done on Thursday, if everything looks fine, we will be the proud owners of a used SUV. Paid for in Cash! Whoohoooo!!!! Then that just leaves us our Saturn which we need to sell, we have put this up for sale already and if we don't get any offers than we will take it back to the dealership - they said they would give us $15K for it, so at least we know we can sell it. We hope to get $17k by selling it ourselves, just not sure how that will work out. If it does, then we will be eliminating about 10K in car loan debt! Less money to pay off, especially in these crazy financial times, we do want to be debt free.
Next - smoking update - well dang it, I just can't get the hang of being a non-smoker..lol I've had three days when I've slipped up. I need to get back on the NOT one PUFF EVER thing.. my brain says one thing, my body says something else and I know one of them is lying! But I keep falling prey! Never the less I'll keep at it, this still is the longest time ever that I've only had like 8 cig! lesss than a pack in 3 weeks.. unbelievable since I just to smoke 20 a day! Yuck! That would be 8 vs 420!! Still not good enough though, I need to be a non-smoker all the time. I'm still working at it.
Work - well what can I say, after about 3 months of it being slow, it is now getting pretty busy, dang it, I'm used to the slow times, now I have to ramp up. So these past few weeks I'm staying busy during the day my normal "day" job and we are also getting alittle more business from our Embroidery company. I don't mind to much really, I like staying busy, I just wish I could get my mind to also want to stay busy working out.. which leads me to:
Weight - dang it, haven't worked out at all this week! And only 2 times last week. As of today I have gained all my 10Lbs back that I lost last year! I hate it! My clothes aren't fitting right, I can't stay motivated enough to work out consistantly and I know some of this is being caused by my quiting smoking/chantix/eating and bloating.. so what's a girl to to.. I really need to find a way to get my ARSE in gear!! Sorry for the foul languge, ; 0
I need to add a weight bar to track here as well.. you know I think I'll do that now.. so every can see .. let's just hope is at least starts to stay steady and go down, not up! I can't handle this, I worked so hard to lose 10Lbs all to gain it back.. oh well back to the begining.
Next - smoking update - well dang it, I just can't get the hang of being a non-smoker..lol I've had three days when I've slipped up. I need to get back on the NOT one PUFF EVER thing.. my brain says one thing, my body says something else and I know one of them is lying! But I keep falling prey! Never the less I'll keep at it, this still is the longest time ever that I've only had like 8 cig! lesss than a pack in 3 weeks.. unbelievable since I just to smoke 20 a day! Yuck! That would be 8 vs 420!! Still not good enough though, I need to be a non-smoker all the time. I'm still working at it.
Work - well what can I say, after about 3 months of it being slow, it is now getting pretty busy, dang it, I'm used to the slow times, now I have to ramp up. So these past few weeks I'm staying busy during the day my normal "day" job and we are also getting alittle more business from our Embroidery company. I don't mind to much really, I like staying busy, I just wish I could get my mind to also want to stay busy working out.. which leads me to:
Weight - dang it, haven't worked out at all this week! And only 2 times last week. As of today I have gained all my 10Lbs back that I lost last year! I hate it! My clothes aren't fitting right, I can't stay motivated enough to work out consistantly and I know some of this is being caused by my quiting smoking/chantix/eating and bloating.. so what's a girl to to.. I really need to find a way to get my ARSE in gear!! Sorry for the foul languge, ; 0
I need to add a weight bar to track here as well.. you know I think I'll do that now.. so every can see .. let's just hope is at least starts to stay steady and go down, not up! I can't handle this, I worked so hard to lose 10Lbs all to gain it back.. oh well back to the begining.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Spending money like water!
Well not totally like water, but since I got my bonus I have been going through the money. Just in the past few days, some of the out going money includes:
$560 - Orthodontist (hopefully the last bill and then my son will be done)
$207 - Dentist for a cavity
$1000 - Paid off CC card
$357 - Airfare for a trip in Dec for my DH and I
$300 - other bills
Next up - shopping for school clothes for my boys tomorrow, and my husband and I have been shopping for the last few days for a used car, the plan, purchase a used older SUV for family use, and a small used car for DH to run daily type errands in. By doing this and getting rid of our newer Saturn, this should save us about 10K in debt. Although I keep flipping back in forth on keeping the car and getting two used ones, I really need to let the two used cars win out. With my bonus, I would be able to pay off our new car, but why do that? That 10K in savings if we got the used cars would be much better in savings and using it to work out something with our 2nd, or work out something with the remaining to CC's floating around out there.
So most likely we will have 2 new to us used cars in the next week or so, and be car debt free. I don't want to be house or car rich and not be able to do anything or ever get into the situation we were in last year. We are still dealing with those problems and slowly fixing them. We are getting there, each month our situation is starting to look brighter and brighter.
Now next up or continued really is - my health, I had alittle slip when my DH and I went out on Wed, 3 cigs.. and then none since then, so in the last 16 days, I've had 3. Better, getting there, but in the last 6 months and these last few weeks, I've gain 8 lbs that I lost last year.. and still just kind of blah, eating to much, only worked out twice this week, just blah, Ive got to kick it into gear somehow, get these 20 lbs off me and just be done with it already! Geez how many years have I said that! 10! This is alittle depressing, but I have to keep the faith, and try to find a balance between our finanical life, health, family life, etc.
$560 - Orthodontist (hopefully the last bill and then my son will be done)
$207 - Dentist for a cavity
$1000 - Paid off CC card
$357 - Airfare for a trip in Dec for my DH and I
$300 - other bills
Next up - shopping for school clothes for my boys tomorrow, and my husband and I have been shopping for the last few days for a used car, the plan, purchase a used older SUV for family use, and a small used car for DH to run daily type errands in. By doing this and getting rid of our newer Saturn, this should save us about 10K in debt. Although I keep flipping back in forth on keeping the car and getting two used ones, I really need to let the two used cars win out. With my bonus, I would be able to pay off our new car, but why do that? That 10K in savings if we got the used cars would be much better in savings and using it to work out something with our 2nd, or work out something with the remaining to CC's floating around out there.
So most likely we will have 2 new to us used cars in the next week or so, and be car debt free. I don't want to be house or car rich and not be able to do anything or ever get into the situation we were in last year. We are still dealing with those problems and slowly fixing them. We are getting there, each month our situation is starting to look brighter and brighter.
Now next up or continued really is - my health, I had alittle slip when my DH and I went out on Wed, 3 cigs.. and then none since then, so in the last 16 days, I've had 3. Better, getting there, but in the last 6 months and these last few weeks, I've gain 8 lbs that I lost last year.. and still just kind of blah, eating to much, only worked out twice this week, just blah, Ive got to kick it into gear somehow, get these 20 lbs off me and just be done with it already! Geez how many years have I said that! 10! This is alittle depressing, but I have to keep the faith, and try to find a balance between our finanical life, health, family life, etc.
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