Add on another $107 for my migraine meds yesterday. Luckily, some of that will be reimbursed by my insurance company. (Must remember to photocopy claim form and get claim in the mail!) DH and DD had leftovers for dinner, so yea for us (OK, for them) for consuming leftovers again and not letting them go to waste.

Made two sales in the last day in the store - that is good news. :-)

Not much else to say this morning. We'll be able to get osme of our medical expenses reimbursed through DH's work. They have a plan such that employees can have pre-tax dollars set aside for reimbursement purposes. It will be nice to get some of that money back. I'm not sure what the tax ramifications are, but supposedly this is a good thing. I'll look into it more so I better understand the whole thing.

Spent about $31 on a prescription for DD today. She has something akin to bronchitis, but sort of like walking pneumonia in that she feels pretty good all day and then starts coughing like crazy at night. It's been going on for nearly two weeks, so I got her into the doctor's office today to have her looked at. It wasn't getting worse, but it wasn't getting better either. Also bought her some vanilla milk at Starbucks, and we shared a pastry. Checked out 12 books and one book (Peter Pan) on CD from the library - I love the library.

I've committed to spending about $200 for a print ad and banner ad in Venus for the next issue, trying to promote DivaTribe's store. Here's hoping it brings in some traffic, and sales of course!

We ended up eating in for all meals while our guests were here and it was fine. They even liked the vegetarian casserole I made on Saturday night.

A friend of mine owns a used bookstore now (I may have written about the store before) and said to let her know if there are any books she can watch out for for me. It's nice to have that connection when it comes to books.

Speaking of books, I think DD and I will go to the library today. Books are due back tomorrow, but today is wide open for us in our schedule.

Money going out today in bills was almost exactly equal to money I was depositing from tutoring. Nice when that happens.

I decided to forego my usual Friday morning trip to Starbucks this morning, before DD's dance class. Just didn't want it that badly.

We've eaten at home every night so far this week, including Sunday. We have leftovers to eat this evening, though going out sounds oh-so-nice. We have guests coming into town for the weekend, so we may go out to brunch on Sunday. Haven't decided yet, actually. I still need to get the guest room cleaned up and get to the grocery store for a few things, but they won't be here until lunchtime ofr a little later tomorrow, so there's time. DH will help, too.

I got some soy 'ice cream' today (am trying to cut out dairy for two weeks) and it was $2.99 a pint. not super cheap, but worth it. I miss ice cream, and this is actually quite tasty, to my surprise.

We have a good deal of our Christmas shopping taken care of, thanks to the great deals DH gets through work. It's a nice load of my mind, knowing that we are more than halfway done with the gift shopping AND that it's also already paid for. I'll likely make some gifts along the way as well.

So what will I be making? I'm not sure. I bought an embroidery pattern from Sublime Stitching that I may use for some bags or tops for DD and the younger set. In the past I've knitted, crocheted and sewed things, and tried my hand at lip balms and bath salts. We'll see what i come up with this year.

I spent about $63 at the grocery store today. I think I'm going to go through the last 3-4 months and figure out how much money we've been spending at grocery stores, and eating out. I'd like to think that my efforts to cook at home more and eat our leftovers will be relected in our total spending on food.

DH finished the tile work and it looks nice. A new toilet will be upwards of $200, I think, so we may just keep what we have for now. The next big project is re-tiling around the tub/shower in there.

I got some good deals at Target today on Halloween party invitations and plastic tumblers. The cups were 5 for $1, and I'm going to write the kids' names on them, as part of their goodies to take home. I hadn't planned on starting to prepare for our Halloween party already, but it was a good deal! I got a bunch of plastic bowls and trays last year at the 99 cent store for our party, so I won't need to get much this year, aside from food and treats.

After mailing off a book that I sold on half.com for $5 (woo hoo!) DD and I were driving home and passed a Starbucks. Not so hard to do in this town anymore, I might add. Anyway, I almost stopped for a blended drink, but decided not to. Came home and used some of our mocha latte ice cream and milk to make up milk shakes for DD and myself. Yummy! And much cheaper, too.

And I don't care if it's just a small thing - it saved me money that I can spend on something else now.

OK, I've been pretty happy with saving dinner, adapting the meals with vegetarian alternatives and such, but tonight I saw something that bothers me. Out of this week's recipes, not one of them is less than 40% calories form fat, and some are in the 50-60% range! Now, using soy instead of meat has got to be helping in that area, but I'm bothered nonetheless. Eating in is great, it saves money, she raves about how much healthier the meals are. And I guess they are, if you're eating McDonald's every day! 40-60% of calories from fat - that is unreal.

Another spend-no-money day. Love those! Took a picnic lunch to the beach for a playdate and cooked dinner at home tonight. Also had some money come in for advertising at DivaTribe, so all in all today ended in the black. :-)

DH has been buying things over the past few months from work for Christmas gifts, and tonight we're going to go through them and figure out what we have for whom, and what we still want to get. He can get EXCELLENT deals through his work, so we're reaping the benefits of that.

I'm still trying to do the weekly dinner planning thing. Last week was such a bust. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I only made a real dinner one night. Too dang hot.

I've been line drying clothes this week. The only problem is that I don't have enough line to hang out a full load of laundry. And it feels wrong to do smaller loads of laundry if I don't have to.

Dh grouted the tiles today and it's looking good! This is good practice for when we're ready to tackle our kitchen.

So what's been going on lately? First off, it's been really hot here, so cooking has been the last thing I've wanted to do at night. We ate outside one evening and had homemade pesto, and bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and homegrown tomatoes. Went to Jamba Juice one night. Had cereal last night (sandwich for DD). Hopefully it will cool down soon so I can get back to trying to cook most nights.

DH has been burning the candle at both ends with freelance work. After all current work is done he's planning on taking a break from it for a little while. I'm sticking with four students for tutoring for the time being. It's a decent amount of extra money each month.

We still need to do the grouting on the new tiles, and once that's set we can seal it and start finishing up the bathroom. The side of our house is a wreck - toilet, old sink, new sink, pieces of tile. What a mess.

This weekend DH has started tiling our guest bathroom/utility area, and I reseeded the back yard. After the floors are done we're putting in a new sink, retiling the walls around the tub and repainting. The joys of being do-it-yourselfers. We're saving quite a lot of money compared to having someone else come in and do it, but it takes a lot more time. It's going to look nice when we're done.

Our new reward came - woo hoo! I'm glad we finally got around to getting one.

Some friend sof mine bought a used bookstore. The three of us went over to see it yesterday. I'd been there before but haven't seen it since they took over. They've already made some nice improvements, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else they do. Our DDs were happy to see each other again and play in the children's area. It's still going to be a big box of books for $20, so now when I shop there I'll be getting a good deal and helping friends at the same time!

I decided to try a three-month subscription to SavingDinner. We'll see how that works for us. Havng the sample menu planned, and the grocery list prepared, was a huge stress reducer for me, so this subscription may be $9.95 well spent. I know, I know - I could sit down and plan everything out, and I have tried to in the past. the problem isn't that I can't do it, but rather that I don't do it. I resist it, I procrastinate, I feel put out and put upon. I paid out of my PayPal account, which always feels like found money anyway - I never count on that money for anything.

I'm anxious fo rthe new reward credit card to arrive so we can start earning miles. I've got a $500+ emergency room bill and the trash bill waiting, since they both take credit cards. (Anyone reading who hasn't read other entries in my journal - we pay off our credit card each month.)