Jen's Blog

My dog managed to save us some money today. He cooperated with his cast removal and xrays - no sedation needed. Good boy. ;-) He's doing well, three weeks post-surgery.

I overcame my desire to do take-out, or go out, and just got myself in the kitchen and threw dinner together purely from leftovers (and a little bit of fresh fruit). While we were eating it occured to me that everything we were eating had been given to us. The leftovers were from dinner a couple of nights ago courtesy of the IL's, and the fruit was from my mom and the demonstration garden at which she volunteers.

I find when I'm stressed out and feeling emotionally taxed the last thing I want to think about is food. That was fine when I was single (OK, so it isn't fine to skip meals...) but it most certainly is not OK now that I have a daughter to care for. When I don't want to think about food but have to, the next thing that pops into my head is "let's go out." It's only when we have an abundance of choices in the house that I can easily or somewhat easily overcome that urge.

It's all about planning ahead. If the shopping is done and a few meals are figured out, and there's easy/quick food in the pantry/freezer, then even when I'm wiped out dinner can still happen at home, for a reasonable amount of money.

Today was a spend no money day. No bills were due, no errands needed to be run. I basically didn't even think about money at all today, and that was nice. My niece and nephew came over for lunch and to hang out with DD (their cousin), and then we all had dinner at my in-laws' house. DH's brother is in town with his girlfriend. Lots of family time today. Families can be weird and awkward and frustrating, but it's nice to have them around, too.

Side note about Google - I checked my adsense stats this evening and so far DivaTribe is bringing in a fair amount of $. :-) At the rate it's going it will more than pay for the hosting costs I currently incur.

Oh, I need to call my insurance company and see if I can get the rate reduced on our second car, now that DH bikes to work and it isn't being used on a daily, or even weekly, basis.

I have had the urge to buy stuff lately - small stuff, stuff we don't really need. I think I'm getting past it though. After going out to buy more milk and toothpaste, DD I went to two other store but walked out without buying anything. So even if the urge to spend money is sometimes there, at least now not only can I sense that it's creeping up out of some other need, but I can talk myself through it. I don't need special under-eye dark circle concealer when regular concealer will do just fine. And that's not even the issue - the real issue is that I'm feeling super ugly these days and need a decent haircut and some time out in the sunshine. No miracle dark circle concealer can make up for those things.

Paid bills today. Visa came today - all of the dog's charges are on it, so it is a biggie. Still, we will pay it all off. Speaking of Visa - DH and I are looking into some sort of mileage/reward credit card. There are two we're considering right now. Since we already charge so many of our purchases anyway, and we pay it off in full each month, we might as well get some rewards if we can. I need to read the fine print on each one before we make a decision.

Today we're going to the fair. We can take the free shuttle there, so no hassles with driving or finding (and paying for) parking. We got two free tickets becuase DD is performing with her dance classes, and 4 more at a reduced rate by buying them ahead of time through DH's work. My in-laws, niece, nephew, former brother-in-law, and my mom are all coming with us, to see DD. We bought some ride tickets ahead of time too, at a reduced rate. Love planning ahead!

The prescription saga continues...I got a reimbursement check in the mail yesterday for the three receipts I had submitted. Only two got reimbursed - the third said I had filled it "too closee to another refill" or some such nonsense. Got on the phone, politely (I swear! I was polite!) explained what I thought had happened (filled in town out of necessity and got my mail order processed, finally). Long story short, I've got a credit coming my way.

Always examine bills and statements for errors, and don't be afraid to get on the phone AND write letters until you get resolution.

For the things we buy, I think Trader Joe's gives us more for our money. I went to Vons today, spent about $90 and don't feel like I got nearly as much for my money as I would have at TJ's. I know milk and cheese are cheaper at Trader Joe's. I ought to save a couple of receipts and do some comparisons. I've read about keeping a price book at various sites, and in The Tightwad Gazette, but so far I've never done that. Funny - I usually love to analyze stuff like that.

My auctions are almost done. Of the four that have ended already I've made about $40; one more ends later this afternoon. People are still getting good deals for these stamps, but I'm making more than I had hoped. Win-win.

The latest sale in the consignment store....looks like the customer didn't hit the final "confirm order" button. Says a check is in the mail. We shall see. I went in and palyed around with the text on the second to last page, hoping to make it OBVIOUS that the order isn't confirmed until you hit the "confirm" button.

Had another former student call yester regarding tutoring. That brings me up to five students, if she is going to come on a regular basis this year. The call was for a couple of review sessions before school starts.

So that's that. A little bit of money coming in right now and I feel good about it.

Edited to add that I made about $43 on my auctions. :-)

Back from a weekend away. DD and I went out of town to visit my parents and had a good time just relaxing, blowing bubbles, walking around town.

I have five auctions going right now and the total is up over $25. That is encouraging.

My daughter is going through a pile of clothes from the little girl across the street. They're both tall and thin, so it works out well to have a neighbor who's about two years older than DD. I think she got 2-3 pairs of pants, about 5-6 shirts and some leggings to sleep in. I think hand-me-downs are great and hope DD feels the same for as long as possible, especially when the neighbors across the street buy good quality items to begin with.

Just one day later, 3 of my 4 auctions have bids and are up over $18 already. yea! I haven't listed my last lot of stamps, but I ought to do it, since these others appear to be successful.

DH gets paid every two weeks, so some months we get an "extra" check now. Between that, and a check received from some freelance work, we have almost enough right there to cover our dog's bill. It appears our savings are preserved for another day.

I got a phone call yesterday from the mom of a former tutoring student. She wants her daughter to come see me again this year, so that brings me up to four students. I think each will come once a week, too. I am going to call all of these families in a couple of weeks and get my schedule put together.

I've spent some time this morning listing 15 rubber stamps at eBay, in four separate lots. I have six more stamps to sell as a group, but I'm holding off on listing them until my other four listings get a bit of traffic. I tried to list the ones that were most likely to sell first. I hope I get some decent bids for these. It is kind of hard to part with a few of them, thinking about how much money I've spent over the years. But I just don't use them anymore, and now they are just taking up space and making me feel guilty whenever I see them and try to remember the last time I even used them. And then there are those that I bought and never even used, or used maybe once. What a waste.

I washed the car today. It was filthy! Now and then DH or I will run it through the automatic car wash at the gas station, but today I just felt like doing it myself. So now it's done and cost pennies to do.

Tried one of the three new recipes two nights ago, and DD and I ate the leftovers last night while DH worked late. It was OK - the recipe sounded better than the final product, but it was still good. Good enough, anyway. I think I'll try another one this evening.

My prescription saga seems to finally worked out, unless it doesn't come today via FedEx. After all of my phone calls and complaining, I finally got a supervisor involved who called my doctor's office personally. That got results. I don't know where the breakdown in communication was, but it seems to be figured out now. Persistence is the key, sometimes.

I got out two cookbooks that I haven't used much and found three new recipes to try. So that will be at least three meals at home this week, plus at least one night of leftovers, most likely. I did all the shopping yesterday, aside from getting self-rising flour. I figure there has to be a substitution for that using regular flour and baking powder, or something.

The concert last night was fun, and we had a great dinner of crackers and cheese, fruit and veggies, pitas and hummus, and juice mixed with Pellegrino (sp?). It was all appetizer food but we had plenty of it and it was quite satisfying. Plus, eating outdoors with good friends is satisfying all by itself.

Right now, I seem to lack enthusiasm for saving. Ironically, I spent much of the morning updating frugal living pages at DivaTribe, immersing myself in the world of saving. I am willing to cut myself a little slack and figure that since we now have our hands full with caring for our dog, and have been stressed and tired, ordering a pizza last night isn't the end of world. We're eating in tonight, once DH finally gets home.

Tomorrow night we're going to an outdoor concert with friends. We're each bringing a picnic dinner to share, so I'll be heading to Trader Joe's tomorrow for some yummy goodies.

Mostly I'm just tired. Last night was a hard night - first night home with our dog and he barely slept at all. Spent the night crying and whimpering, instead (him, not me). ;-) He's been sleeping some today, and if my 4 y/o would actually take a nap I would have loved to grab a little snooze. Alas, that did not happen.

OK, this is just me rambling now and not talking much about saving money. Bear with me - I will get back on the wagon soon enough.

This is not a huge money saver, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. Twice a week, I take DD to swimming lessons. DD always uses the shower there afterwards, which means twice a week I'm not bathing her at home. So our water usage at home is slightly less.

On the subject of water (can't remember if I've mentioned this before): we keep a bucket in our shower to catch the extra water as we wait for the shower to heat up. It adds up to quite a lot of water each week. We use that water for our gardens and potted plants.

Last night we had dinner iwth friends. We had originally talked about going out to eat, but in the end we ate at their home, and truth be told, I think I enjoyed it whole lot more. My friend is an excellent cook, our two girls were able to run around and play, and their older son could go out and shoot hoops until it was time to eat. The adult could relax and chat. All in all, it was a much nicer experience in many way. Often, going out to eat is overrated.

Tomorrow's is my dog's surgery. I just got back from dropping him off. I am so glad that we can make the choice to do this, and that it's not going to break us financially or mean we'd have to go without food in order to do it, or some other terrible scenario. It will seriously deplete our savings, having to do this twice in less than a year, but it's money. We can save it up again, slowly but surely. Now, let's hope that this is the end of all of this.

Got away for the weekend and had a really nice time visiting two sets of friends. Sometimes it's nice to get away, even if it's just for a couple of days.

I signed up for the SavingAdvice daily money challenge and am looking forward to seeing what it's all about.

I sold two books recently on half.com. It's funny how I'll sell nothing for weeks on end, and then I sell multiple items in a few days. One sold for $7 and the other sold for $5. That's not too bad.

For those that run their own web sites, I recommend looking into

Latest on the prescription ordeal:

My doctor's office said they faxed the Rx to the pharmacy on 7/14; the pharmacy sent me a note dated 7/16 saying they hadn't received anything. I talked to the pharmacy yesterday and they are going to call my doctor's office and resolve this. Why do I feel like I'm the negotiator here? It will be worth it when done...It will be worth it when done...It will be worth it when done...

Haven't been out for coffee at all this week - yea for me. Aside from bills I haven't spent much money at all - we've been eating in three meals a day and haven't bought anything except new dance tights.

Had to take DD to the ER last night - she is fine, thankfully. And I'm happy we have medical insurance, too.

As I've mentioned before, I am not that great about using up leftovers. Dh doesn't mind eating them, but after a day or so I really don't like to. Anyway, tonight I made sure to heat up the leftover spaghetti from Monday night and last night's homemade pizza. So not only have we eaten in the last three nights, which is good in and of itself, but we've also eaten up some of our leftovers instead of letting that food (which equals money) go to waste.

The insurance saga continues. Apparently my doctor's office hasn't faxed in my prescription, although I was told they had received the fax requesting it from the insurance comapny last week. I swear, a big component of being frugal is being persistent, and determined. It would be easier to just fill my prescriptions month in and month out at the pharmacy down the street, and get reimbursed for whatever I could, but in the long run I will save time and money by using the mail order service. I wish I didn't have to make umpteen phone calls to get everyone doing what they're supposed to, however. I'll be paying my doctor's office a visit tomorrow to see what's going on. Harder to blow me off in person.

It's official - our dog will be having his second TPLO surgery done next week. At least this time around we knew to take him straight to the surgeon and skip our regular vet. So, that's that.

I got some information today from a friend who has a mileage credit card. Like us, she and her husband charge nearly everything and pay it off each month. Now that DH is back to a job with guaranteed vacation time, it seems wise to come up with ways to fund these vacations. And, given that we'll be homeschooling DD, we're going to have some flexibility when it comes to when we travel.

I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and it was nice to pay a $20 copay instead of the $40 copay we paid on our old plan. I got a prescription written to use with mail order. Maybe mailing this one in will facilitate things - I have no idea what's going on with my other one. I really need to follow up in that tomorrow.

Some good news on the money front - a check for some freelance work that DH did is on the way, and it is fairly sizeable. Money goes out (for our dog, most likely) but money comes in (extra work). Yes, it would be nice to play with that money, but money coming in is always good, regardless.

DivaTribe's store has 14 designers and almost 100 items in it now. It has potential. I need to keep working on marketing it and getting it out there. I think summer is a tough time for online selling, what with vacations and all, and no major holidays on anyone's mind. I'm meeting some really terrific women designers though, and that has definitely been exciting for me.

Sunday morning...

Yesterday we had dinner at my in-laws' house, and it was nice to not have to think about what to make AND have a great dinner, too! We need to go grocery shopping now. I have pasta and frozen veggies in the house, and some pizza fixings, but as far as fresh produce goes, we are all out aside form my tomatoes I'm growing.

I'm going to try out my mother-in-law's serger and see if it's something I might like to have, down the road. A friend of mine has one and raves about it, but they aren't cheap. A good one will cost $300-$500 I think. Yikes. She said she sold off most of her rubber stamps and had enough to buy the serger. Something to think about, seeing as I hardly do any stamping at all any more.

I've been trying to set up one of my prescriptions through mail order with our new insurance company. It will save me money, but what a hassle it's been! This isn't rocket science, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to ever do this, but you'd think that was the case, the way the ins co and the doctor's office have been handling things. I'll be glad when it's settled - the rate is cheaper, it gets billed automatically so no checks to write, and it gets delivered to my home.

Oh, the temptation to go out to eat is strong when it is hot out! Or at least, when it is hot in my house!!

I had my Starbucks this morning - and I do indeed enjoy it ever so much more when it is a treat and not a given.

I downloaded two songs from the Apple music store today. $1.98 + tax. They are the two Shirley Temple songs that DD is dancing to at the fair this summer. Figured for two bucks she can practice at home if she wants to, or at the very least just get more familiar with the music.

Today went as planned - ate breakfast at home, packed a lunch and snacks for the beach, and ate dinner at home. So I didn't spend any money today. I did, however, manage to get myself a very lovely sunburn on my legs. Ouch.

Tomorrow DD has dance. When time permits, I let myself stop at Starbucks on the way there. It feels like a treat when I give myself permission to go only on certain days. It all depends on whether or not DD gets up at her usual time or sleeps in. She's pretty regular when it comes to wake up times, but every now and then she snoozes late and I have to wake her up to make it to dance at 9.

Schools here don't start up for a month or so, but I've been thinking lately about tutoring. I have so much free time right now, with no students. But it will be nice to see my returning students again, and meet one or two new ones. The money each week is nice too, of course. ;-)

We're meeting with some friends at their house for a playdate today, so I'll be packing up lunch and some snacks for that. We have plenty of food around for dinner, so we'll be eating at home. I know I'll need to go get some milk soon, and some fresh produce, but otherwise we still have enough to go a few more days easily without shopping.

Yesterday DH received the final amount due from an uninsured motorist who hit our car last fall. We took her to court to cover our rental car expenses, and finally, FINALLY, she has repaid us all that she owed. It's nice to have that done. I guess she finally understood that this was *not* going to go away and that ignoring it was just making it worse.

Now that we have vision insurance again, I'm going to use it to get prescription sunglasses at little or no cost. I'm happy about that.

Didn't spend any money yesterday - woo hoo, lol.

I took the time yesterday to update two retirement accounts to reflect our living trust as being the secondary beneficiary. I've been meaning to do this for a few months now and finally got around to it. Sometimes just getting those pesky details worked out helps relieve some of my money stress.

DD and I are meeting DH for lunch today. His company has a cafe on site that serves organic food with vegetarian options, so it lines up well with our values. It's also subsidized by the company, so it isn't all that expensive. At the last place DH was working, he would go to the market and buy a week's worth of lunch fixings for about $20-$25 and keep them in the kitchen/frig there. Now, he spends about $3-$4 a day for a hot meal, and gets to eat something different each day.

On the dog front - we have an appt. for nearly next week.

Our dog had major surgery last November on one of his hind legs (you can google for "TPLO dog" if you want to read about it). This evening, he started limping and not putting weight on his other rear leg. BIG SIGH, and lots of worrying here tonight. I will be calling the animal hospital tomorrow, to get it checked out. Please cross your fingers that whatever is wrong is something minor. I am not feeling optimistic. :-(

Someone posted in the forums asking what inspires you to save money. This sort of thing is what inspires me - that feeling/knowledge that someday we're going to need money in the bank. I want to make sure we always have it when we need it.

Well, one auction went up over eleven dollars, but the other one stayed at the opening bid of $1. That's the bummer about low starting bids with no reserve. You hedge your bets that someone will bid and then someone else will come along and say, "Oh I can bid $1.25", and you're off and running. But when it doesn't happen, you've sold your goods for a measly dollar. Oh well. I still got some money for things I wasn't using at all, so that's still OK.

I just checked, and my auctions are up over $11 now. They still have over a day to go. Woo hoo! One auction is sitting at its opening bid of $1, but the other is over $10 already. I'm glad I listed these - they're rubber stamps that I never or rarely used and gave me guilt trips, just sitting in my craft room. Better to pass them along to someone else who will be happy to get a good deal on them.

I'll post again when the auctions end - wish me luck!

Finally - the last day of this month's Visa billing cycle. What a month.

Didn't spend any money yesterday but that's because I was knocked out by a migraine. I don't recommend it for anyone looking for creative ways to economize. ;-)

My dad will be here tomorrow night, so I need to figure out dinner. It's just one extra person, but since we usually eat meatless meals and he doesn't, some of my stand-bys don't always work. It's not a big deal - I'll get something worked out that we'll all be happy with.