The plan was to sell DD1's drum kit and buy one of those quick set up pools for the girls to entertain themselves with for the summer. The reality was, it is so shallow for where we can put it (as to not touch DH's lawn!) that we scrubbed the idea. Guess its sprinkler time!

DH and I went to the Restore today. Long drive to the city! This place would be awesome if you are restoring an historical home, but for new construction projects, not so much. We also hit a couple of thrift stores, but were'nt impressed with anything. Oh, well, we had lunch together and spent time together (not very romantic, but nice!).

Other musings, I am ready to quit my job and find something else. I have not had a raise in over two years. I have been through the old bosses bankruptcy and have been polite to the new owners. I have taken on lots more job responsibility, been a good faithful employee. To work on time, pitched in when needed. Then I get called to have a pep talk with "new boss". Gee, she says, still no raises and I need to be a "team player". What the *&^%$! What have I been then?

....So continuing in the saga, DH and I have talked about me working more hours somewhere at the end of the summer. Maybe sub teaching again? Then one of the ladies from works calls and tells me they may ask me to take a back office job at the place I already work. It is great hours, not sure of the money, but I really think this ship is gonna sink and soon. It is a job with a lot of responsibility and little room for errors. Billing and such. But perfect hours and more hours - therefore more money....

What do you all think???

I bought lunch out today - undisciplined.
I spent $20 more than I should have at the grocery store- undisciplined.
I know how to save money, I know my debts and have faced them, how in the world do I get discipline to get serious about getting out of debt? What is going to light the fire of "ah-ha?"
Maybe I need to read more stories of success. Anyone know where I can find good sites for this?

I am so pooped out from the cleaning, painting and the garage sale and scouts, that I keep dragging my feet on cleaning the house and packing for the trip. I need to light a fire under my, uh, rear, but I just can't get motivated. Snuggling with the dogs is so much easier! At least I am not spending! So, I am going to get off the computer and list 5 things on a piece of paper and GET THEM DONE!
bye!

Okay, not actual birdhouses! I went to tackle the girls bathroom and make it beautiful. Unfortunatley it was painted in builders grade paint (ie, like dust!) and they wallpapered right onto it without putting any primer on first. Needless to say when I went to pull down the lovely birdhouse border, chunks of drywall came off too! *sigh* So I scraped and patched and THEN painted. Lots of extra time spent, but not necessarily money, so that is good. On the brighter side, the blue is very cute and "oceany" and the rainbow fish will be really cute in there.
Next..... the bedroom.

Well, things are really slow at work, so they are having us leave after 4 hours instead of 6 or 8 unless it is the weekend, then we get 6. I have been working lots of hours right now covering for someone else, so I am not so worried about the cut now, but when I am back to regular hours, it will be a bummer.

All the bills are paid for April except one - yeah! But not enough coming in to pay ahead on any CC's. Guess I will just have to be content that they are paid for the month. Not anticapating any extra cash coming in either.

We are gearing up to take the kids to Florida at the end of the month to tag onto DH's business trip. Doing lots of online research to try to make it affordable. Found round trip tickets and a rental car (mini van) with unlimited miles for only $240 per person. Not bad! Will keep checking things out. Going to try to Cocoa Beach for a couple of days, then just hammer out the Orlando stuff, Disney, Universal, Sea World.

When I enter the img code and go down and enter my add image, when I go look on the forum, all I have is a box with a little red X in it. My pics are in jpg. Anybody know how I am supposed to post pictures?

I have been shopping with my heart and not my head. Please hang me up as an example of shame and what not to do. I have tried to keep it in check, but I let my desires run away with my checkbook. I canceled the stupid overdraft protection at the end of last year, then they charged me a yearly fee and instead of calling and saying "Hey, I cancelled this!!" I talked myself into keeping it active, in which case I decided to test it and it worked and so now..... shoes for DD2 (yes, she needed them, but could have waited), dinner for us, a new shirt for me to wear to work..... All kinds of my "emergencies" have come up. I know the tax return is coming and have let the devil on my shoulder talk myself into saying its okay to pay it back then, but that money is earmarked for other things and I should be an adult and NOT be doing this kind of stuff.
So, there you have it. My ugly full confession of guilt. What to do with it? Well to start, I am going for a no spend WEEK. I bought gas already, we have food, so unless the girls come up with some kind of school emergency, I should be okay. I will have to pay a couple of bills, but these are budgeted for and I will not count those.

Darnit!! Instead of printing a $10 off coupon for (some) Thursdays, the grocery store that has an "automatic" $10 off for $50 or more spent. This is a bummer because I used to get 2 coupons and use one at the discount, bag your own, place and then the other at the competing hoity toity store that has better meat. Without a coupon, they won't offer the extra $10 off too. Doggone it!!

I have noticed recently, that including myself, many on the blogs have been talking about going full time, getting part time and in some cases getting a second job. I have learned so much on these blogs and have seen some great things happen (Price), but what the heck is up? Is the economy that bad or is everyone so impatient to get rid of debt, that they are accelerating it? I know in our case, a loss of income is the key, but also the price of gas and food just keep rising. Even the prices at ALDI keeps going up! What is going on????

We've been trying to get the old Toyota to pass inspection, even going as far as taking it in to have it preinspected to see if it would cost us too much, so we could decide whether to sell it or fix it. We were told new tires and all looked good (except for the muffler we already new had to be replaced.) So we did the tires and the muffler and when I took it in to get inspected, IT FAILED!! Now they want another $200 for brakes. They also said windshield wipers (they wanted 11.99 for one, we did both for $5 at Walmart), and they said the muffler was not done correctly up to code. So DH will take it back to the muffler place to be redone and see if they will do a passing inspection on it. Cross your fingers!

Only grocery shopping planned tomorrow.

Also, tomorrow DH's company is having a big meeting about how they did in 2006 and since DH was the top producer they are supposed to give him kudos. Hopefully they will give him something else too (money, trip, watch???) We'll see, he is making THEM lots of money!

I got a call from the lady who is doing the interviewing for the library position I applied for. She said they had a limited time to hire someone could I come in on Friday. I told her I had to work Friday 9-4. She told me they had 40 (!!!!) applicants for the job and just no time for interviews and before I could ask any questions she just told me if they came up with another day for the interviews she would call me. The end. That was that. I guess I am a disposable applicant. If I can't make their time and place I am out of luck. Thing is, my old employer knows I am applying for this position and I'm sure she would have let me have some time off to go in for this interview, but this lady hung up before I could even sputter something out! Will keep ya posted.

I'm not sure what to do. My goal for myself at this point in my life is to be a stay at home mom and raise my children. End of story. Then I took on a part time job and we moved to a larger house (not huge or fancy, just a little more room to breath!). I have not been a good money manager, just an okay money manager.
Anyway, I have an opportunity to get a new job. Okay hours, okay pay, and I have friends who work there too (its at the library), so chances are I have an "in" and could have the job. With the hours offered, I could also work at my other job I have had for the last almost 4 years, which has been shaky but holding. So basically, I would be working full time. Yuk.
My thing is the stay at home mom job has a severe time limit to it. I can't go back and take this mom job in 10 years, the kids will be gone. But it would make my husband happy and we could get out of debt and I could drop either/or job at any time if needed.
So what is the verdict from the blogs???

I had to laugh. I figured DH might want to know what is up with our finances, as I post them at home and here. So I discussed with him the amount we still owe in CC debt. I kid you not, the look on his face is like a Victorian Virgin getting hit on. The shock, the horror. Then he sputters and then blows up. It is of course, yep, "MY FAULT". We have debt, we don't go out enough. Yikes! At least the look on his face gave me a laugh. Now for a few days of tension and silence. Ugh.

Going to work up at school for DD3. I have to go to the bank to put in the money for dogsitting so I can boost the savings back to $100. I am soooo tempted to treat myself to lunch out. I have eaten my lunch here so that I don't have to pay for it at school when I eat lunch with DD3(I will just munch on some fruit snacks while I chat with her and her friends), but afterwards, after the bank, I would really like to eat fast food! Ahhh! I will resist, I will resist.....

Dinner is planned and ready. Steak tonight - yum!

DH got paid. It was a little more than usual, not sure why until he gets home with the paycheck stub, but don't want to really tell DH, so I can pay some more bills with it!