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Archive for October, 2013

Well I sure feel dumb

October 27th, 2013 at 10:18 pm

A few months ago I upgraded to a smart phone. I wasn't really checking the bill (bad bad bad I know).

I discovered I was being charged for insurance and phone protection (which of course they never "told" me)

A few weeks ago, I was just browsing the bill and came upon these two charges. I immediately logged online and deleted those services.

This will save $9.99 a month. DH also downgraded his DISH movie package and that should save $20 to $30 a month. He had a special they offered him for 6 months and it has now expired. He decided it wasn't worth it anymore, except I am sure he will be missing Game of Thrones when that comes back on.

Our electric bill and water/sewer bill went down also. I imagine it is because both girls are now away at college and the usage has gone down. I am not spending as much on food either.

The natural gas bill however, did go up. Obviously that is because the weather has turned colder and we had to turn on the heat.. We have a programable thermostat which we feel really helps. We were also notified that our garbage bill will be going up also but I don't know how we could save anything there. If they offered every 2 week pick up we might be able to swing that, but I think it is either every week or once a month. I definately will check into that.

Going back into debt again.....

October 24th, 2013 at 04:02 am

It is good and bad.

The bad....DEBT! (and just when we were $400 away from being debt free except for the mortgage) Frown

The good.....we are doing some renovations on our house....since we are now empty nesters, we are redoing the hall bath/girls bathroom and the laundry room which is upstairs right next to said bathroom.

We are planning on staying in this house for 3 to 5 years, possibly longer depending on many circumstances.

Over the years, we have done many updates to our house....some small...some bigger. A little background...when we moved into this house a little over 16 years ago, it was brand new. Because we had sold our previous house and had exactly 21 days to find a new house, this house was about 2 weeks away from being completed worked out well for us....that being said, we were not able to pick anything such as flooring ect, so over the years, we have slowly been updating it.

Every year, we would choose 1 or 2 things to do and slowly but surely it has come around.

I took before pictures and will take after pictures to share if anyone is interested.

It will take about 2 weeks for completion. They came today and did the entire demolition.

In spite of the mess/chaos, it is exciting!

RIP Sammy.....

October 21st, 2013 at 04:26 am

This weekend has been very terrible for me and my family....we had to euthanize our 16 year old cat.

Even though he was an older cat, it was sudden and unexpected with not a lot of time to prepare.

He was like my third child...my little shadow and a family member to us all.

I have been a blubbering mess all weekend when my mind is not busy doing something.

I know in time it will get easier.




Property taxes going up

October 16th, 2013 at 11:36 pm

We were watching the news the other night and they said property taxes for the coming year were going to go up as much as 9% in our county.

We have not received our bill yet, but I did go online and managed to find our new rate.

The somewhat good news is that it appears it is only going up $123 from last year.

I guess some of it depends on which city you live in, and if certain bonds ect are expiring or taking effect, so it appears we got off somewhat lucky.

We do have a school bond measure and a parks and rec measure coming up for vote in our city and if those pass, I have a bad feeling about next year.

Not going to worry about that now, but just be thankful they didn't go up too much this year.

Foster Farms Chicken Recall

October 9th, 2013 at 04:17 pm

I made dinner last night (orange chicken stir fry) and we had just sat down to eat, when DH turned the local news on and they had a segment about a Foster Farms chicken recall. They gave the serial numbers and DH went to get the bag of chicken from the freezer (I buy the big bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco) and sure enough, the bag was part of the recall!

Dinner went into the garbage (boo)and we will be returning the bag to Costco this weekend for a refund.

They said the recall just came out (and not sooner) because of the government shutdown and the lack of people available.

The recall affects people in 18 states and approximately 287 people have become ill.

Two of the serial numbers are P6137 and 6137A (I believe).

Whew!

October 7th, 2013 at 04:11 pm

They waived the fee! (see previous post)Yipee!

Now to make sure that doesn't happen again!

First time ever

October 7th, 2013 at 04:46 am

to get hit with a late fee. Crud!

I was thinking last week there was something due...got sidetracked and then suddenly remembered Thursday night after I got home from yoga that the small credit card was due....I was one day late.

$25 fee....going to call on Monday and see if they will waive it.

If not, we may just cancel. Right now, the only thing on it is our Verizon (internet) and Netflix. Those would both be easy to change over to the Wells Fargo card. I had asked DH to do it a while back, but he just keeps forgetting.

We will see.

So irritated with myself!

An investment & the title came

October 2nd, 2013 at 07:13 pm

In me that is....now that I am an empty nester, I decided to sign up for a yoga class....$89 twice a week for 10 weeks. I think that is a pretty good bargain. It is through our local community college.

I have never done it before, but so far, I am loving it!

Also, the title to the Focus came last week. Now it is official! BOTH of our cars are paid off.