walked with mom for 35 min

Spent $2.26 on postage for last half.com book

Goals for Nov were

1. Spend $100 on clothes. I need a new coat, and a hat to warm my ears and a smaller pair of jeans, but don't have to have the jeans right now, so unless I find a good deal on a coat and hat I probably won't get the jeans just yet.

Spent 204.21 way over, but it was things I need, just maybe not right this minute. Hard to pass up good buys when you know you need something soon. I got a new lambskin coat, a hat, a scarf, two pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of sweat pants and a sweat shirt.

2. Only spend $450 for monthly basics - groceries, gas, hbas etc

Over in this area too $456.73

Groceries $148.10
Fast Food $29.40
Restaurants $45.76
Nieces $39.74
Books/Newspapers $15.03
Gas $25.87
HBAs $56
Entertainment $10.50
Misc $86.33

3. Walk for at least 30 min a day for at least 20 days. Since the days are shorter there's not going to be enough time for my normal 55 min walk.

Made this one.

4. Save $1000 over my 401K investment

Made this one, but still waiting to use the money on my new shower whenever it gets installed.

5. Get my shower redone and paid for

This is delayed to Dec 9 because the materials didn't get here yet.

6. Put $100 more in my cash reserve fund.

Put $200 in the fund so this is done now.

7. Only eat at fast foods 4 times and only eat at restaurants 5 times this month.

At at fast foods 5 times and restaurants 5 times so missed by 1.

My networth increased by 5.91% in Nov, that's very nice, I'd like to see that again in Dec

I also spent $217.35 on xmas gifts in Nov and $40 on stocking up on sales items from my $200 stockup budget. Most of my xmas shopping is done now. Just two more people to finish up, my grandma and youngest niece. I hope to finish both next week.

I put $50 a month in my xmas fund so I have $600 to spend. I buy 8 gifts for family and then also contribute to Silver Key, Toys for Tots and Care and Share from that budget.

I'm mad at myself because I had a $3 rebate for the Monopoly games I got to give to Toys for Tots. I took the games in to donate yesterday and went to fill out the rebate form today and realized I didn't write the UPC down. DOH! I'm going to try to remember to check if the grocery store has the games in stock and get a UPC from there this weekend. I might go to Media Play this weekend for their triple points days and I can check there too.

First day back to work after a 5 day vacation. So hard to get up early to get to work on time. I've always been a night person and it's way too easy for me to get used to sleeping in. It was freezing this morning. The temp was 18 degrees. BRRR!

I went to Souper Salad on the way home from work I had a coupon for a $1.00 off the meal and when I was paying I saw they had gift cards that give a free meal with a $25 purchase. Meals are normally $5.99. That's almost a 25% savings and since I eat there pretty regularly I bought a card. This will come from my stock up money.

Total spent so far this month = $488.13

I had the day off today and mom and I went shopping.

My first stop was the post office to mail the latest half.com book. $1.42
When I got home tonight saw I had sold another book for $6. Since I have to go into the office tomorrow and won't have time to go to the post office my mom offered to take it for me. I'll leave it in the door for her to pick up tomorrow.

We hit a bunch of stores today. Here's the list.

Walmart - $49.48 ($21 for xmas gifts and $28.48 for 2 pairs sweat pants and sweat shirt for me. Mine are getting too big for me)
Kmart - $5.99 xmas gift
Ruby Tuesday's - $10.26
Foleys - $0
Hallmark - $2.18 xmas card for grandma.
Mervyn's - $0
Sears - $0
JC Penny's - $0
Christmas store - $0
Bed, Bath N Beyond - $8.58 xmas gift, 20% off coupon
Hobby Lobby - $0
Bank - deposited $13.95 in rebate checks and $15 in loose change
Oak Express - $0
Walgreens - $11.33 receipt says I saved $12.59

Total spent so far this month = $482.77 overbudget again

walked with mom for 55 min

Thanks everyone for the congrats on paying off the car. This is the first new car I've ever owned. I always bought used before. I decided to go new this time for peace of mind. When I drive into town it's 15 miles of freeway with no place to walk to for help. And I don't have a cell phone. I wanted a car I felt comfortable with for reliability. I plan to keep it for a minimum of 7 years and hope for 10 years. I only put about 6000 miles a year on it so I shouldn't have a problem keeping it for a number of years.

As I hoped my headache left about midnight last night just about the time the storm finally got here. It was such a relief. It went really fast. I was lying in bed and all the sudden it was gone. I just gave a big sigh of relief and thought to myself, "Oh, that's so nice!" We only got a tiny bit of snow, but it was so cold while we were walking. It was 32 degrees but the wind was blowing like crazy, that always makes walking harder.

I bought some old-fashioned oatmeal yesterday and fixed it in the microwave for breakfast. I forgot how much I liked oatmeal. I tend to get into habits with breakfast and lunches where I eat the same thing every day. I put some maple syrup on the oatmeal and it was yummy!

I finished re-reading my book A Stroke of Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton. Romance/Fairy. Excellent book. Fourth in the series.

I have one more day off before I have to go back to work. I'm going shopping tomorrow and hope to finish up most of my xmas shopping.

walked with mom for 55 min

I've had sinus headaches almost everyday this week and have another one today. So tired of it. We're supposed to have snow tonight and tomorrow, maybe after it blows through my headaches will go with it.

Went to the grocery store and spent $36.69 I try to check my receipt afterwards before leaving. I can't watch the register that closely. Lately it's wrong so often it's a major pain in the butt. I had to go the customer service to get $9.98 refunded. There were buy one get one free on 2 items I bought that didn't ring up right, they charged me the full price. Grocery sales go from Wednesday to Tuesday so the fact that it's Saturday and this item is still ringing up wrong, tells me the grocery store just doesn't care if they get it right or not. It's hard to believe no one in the state noticed this before today. Since the cash register is driven by computers and I imagine the sales prices are input in one place and downloaded to all the stores, it's hard to believe they couldn't know this is wrong 3 days into the sale. Just makes you feel ripped off even if you do get your money back.

Total spent so far this month = $431.58

On a more positive note I made my last car payment today. WOOHOO! I'm SO glad not to have that monthly bill even if it was 0% interest and I made money by not paying cash upfront. I just hated that bill every month, it felt like I was paying extra for the car since I'd been driving it for so long. This will free up $344 a month for savings.

BTW my car is a 2003 Saturn ION and it's been a really good car. Gets almost 30 miles per gallon and I haven't had any problems with it at all. It's only needed regular maintenance and I had to replace one of the tires when I ran over a nail. And I had one recall notice on a part that they replaced in about 45 minutes. That's it, very happy with it.

Sold another book at half.com for $3

Finished re-reading my book Seduced By Moonlight by Laurell K. Hamilton. Romancy/Fairies. Excellent book. This is probably the third time I've reread this book. I love this author and this series. I like her vampire series too, but I like this series about a modern american fairy princess the best.

walked with mom for 55 min

Sold another book at half.com for $2

I was planning to make a big batch of Wendy's chili today and since I know it makes so much I asked my mom if she wanted me to bring some over for supper tonight. She said that was fine so after our walk I went to Safeway to get two missing ingredients - Kidney beans and Fritos. I like Fritos with my chili. Spent $4.88

Total spent so far this month = $394.89

I went to the library and picked up a couple of books also. I've been doing some research on the Glycemic Index for controlling diabetes and weight loss. I found two books, so need to read them and see if it's something I want to try to follow.

Made the chili and put half of it in food storage containers before I took it to mom's. All of us had 1 and half bowls each and I left the rest for them to have for lunch this next week. We played games after that and had ice cream for dessert.

I finished reading my book Night Game by Christine Feehan. Romance. Excellent book. I love this author, she has so many great series going right now. She has the Carpathians (vampires), the seven sisters (witches) and the enhanced psychic abilities series, which this book belongs to. I like all of her series.

walked with mom for 50 min.

Bought a paper for .50 cents and looked through the adds. I'm looking for a computer, preferably a notebook, and there were some really fantastic deals. I tried to get online to Best Buy all day since the add said they had special online deals today, but I never got through, the site was down everytime I tried. That's going to cause a lot of ill will from customers. I refuse to go to the stores tomorrow, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see if anyother good deal comes along.

My sister and I went to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving dinner. It was packed, it wasn't nearly that busy last year. I guess more people go out to eat on Thanksgiving than used to. Her husband takes the kids to Kansas to see his mom every year for Thanksgiving and she refuses to go with them, so we usually go to lunch and a movie on that day. We both had chicken fingers and I brought both of our leftovers home and had them for dinner tonight. Spent $11.50

Then we went to the Mall to see a movie. We were early for the movie and Kmart is right next to the theater so we went in there first. They had some really good unadvertised sales. The had a lot of board games on sale at buy one get one free, plus there are 2 or 3 rebates on a lot of the Milton Bradley games. I got two Monopoly games for the Toys for Tots drive. They were $12.00 for the two games but I get a $3.00 rebate. One of the items suggested for gifts for the Toys for Tots was board games, but after I bought them I started wondering how much kids play board games anymore. I know when I was a kid we played them all the time. My bother and I used to spend hours playing Monopoly after school. I also bought a scarf for myself for walking in the cold for $5 and I bought a package of 8 MM flavored chapsticks for my youngest niece. Total spent at Kmart = $27.85 of which $22.85 was for xmas gifts.

My sister took everything to the car while I went to buy the tickets for the movie. I spent $10.50 on the tickets. I had expected her to pay me back, but she never did. Oh well, she drove so no big deal. We saw Walk the Line and it was a real good movie. I'm going to look for the soundtrack and see what's on it. There were a lot of good songs in the movie. I recently bought the Essential Johnny Cash CD which is 2 CDs and has aroung 36 songs on it. I think I've played it about 8 times now.

Total spent so far this month = $390.01

I have a 5 day weekend since I'm using up some of my vacation. Hope to have a very relaxing day tomorrow, yet also get some of my housecleaning done, and maybe try Best Buy online again.

walked with mom for 55 min. Found a pair of sunglasses while we were walking today. They are perfectly good, so I guess I'll use them.

I had a half day off for comp time today from working Sat morning. I got in a quick nap, but I've had the nastiest headache the last two days. Finally got rid it of it by taking some sinus pills. I always start with Excedrin migraine pills because they work 80% of the time but every once in a while it's a sinus headache and I don't recognize it at first.

I bought $5250 worth of I-bonds today with the money from the EE bonds I sold a while ago.

The stock market is really doing great right now, hope the upward streak lasts the rest of the year.

I got my first $5 check from Pinecone today and had another survey to do when I checked my email. This is cool. It will be even better if they send me samples of the two items I surveyed so far. I got a Bertolli olive oil and pasta sauce sample in the mail today.

Finished reading The Hunting Wind by Steve Hamilton. Mystery. Ok. This is a new author for me, but the book wasn't interesting enough for me to read any more of his books.

walked with mom for 45 min. very cold

Went to dinner with parents at Village Inn. Spent $11 got a piece of pumpkin pie to have with lunch tomorrow. I love their pumpkin pie, it's a good thing they only have it for about two months out of the year

Total spent this month = $362.51

Signed up for my 2006 benefits today. Most everything stayed the same except my Flex Health Care fund which I decreased since I have extra this year, which fortunately they changed the law and I can use until March next year. But that means I need even less in reserve for next year.

Half.com is depositing $48.56 in my account. That's a bunch for two weeks. I have some more books I need to list. Maybe this weekend.

Finished listening to the library book on tape The Lonely Men by Louis L'Amour. Western. Good

Finished reading my book Flashback by Cait London. Romance. Good but not as good as some of her other books. Lots of repetition, which I find boring. She tells the same story from two or three viewpoints.

walked with mom for 35 min

I sent in two rebates today. $11 from Longs and $10 from Del Monte.

Nothing else to share today.

Went to bed last night at 10:00 and woke up at 8:30 this morning. Felt very good. Walked with mom for 55 min. Went to the grocery store and got some more gourmet foods for my brother's xmas along with my groceries. Spent $37.63 on my groceries and $22.88 on him. Bought him Jerky, sausage and speciality coffees and cocoa packages and a big box of chocolates. I still want to get him some crackers and cheese dip.

Had a real relaxing day. Cut up my veggies for the week and made tuna salad for lunches and read the paper. Then around 4:00 I went to my parents for Thanksgiving dinner. My mom usually fixes dinner for our immediate family the weekend before or after Thanksgiving since she goes to her sister's for Thanksgiving. Really good. But way too much food. I brought a piece of pumpkin pie home since I didn't have room to eat it there.

Got to talk to both my nieces for a while and asked the youngest what she wants for xmas. She tells me a Playstation PSP and says it costs about $500. I told her she wouldn't be getting it from me. Maybe in a couple years when it comes down to a couple hundred mom and I can split it for her. She gave me some other ideas so at least I can start buying stuff for her.

Played several games of cards with my parents after everyone left. That's always fun.

Total spent this month = $351.51

We had our fvo today where we put our softward product in production. It was scheduled to start at 2:00 am this morning. I generally don't sleep well when I know I have to get up in a few hours and it seems easier to me to stay awake than sleep a couple of hours and then wake up. So I didn't go to bed. I logged into work at 2:00 am and found they weren't ready for us to start yet, but everyone had to hang around until they were ready. Well I wasn't able to start till almost 5:00 am. I did my testing and dropped off the bridge at 6:30 then since I was hungry I went and cooked eggs for breakfast. Right when I'm done one of my co-workers calls and wants me to get back on the bridge to check something out. So I do that and tell her yes it is a problem. Then I get off again. It's my job to find breaks not fix them

My parents had placed a SHARE order that needed to be picked up between 9 and 10:30 this morning and they couldn't go do it since they left home at 7:00 to drive to my grandpa's funeral. So I told them I would get it for them. Since I knew I had to leave in a couple of hours I didn't lie down. Instead I forced myself to stay awake and I drove over to the SHARE pickup at 9:20. It had snowed most of the night and the roads were really slick. I get to the SHARE place and the foods not there, they said come back after 10:00. On the way back home I saw something I've never seen before. The Shell gas station had a sign out saying Gas Sale today. I looked and it was $2.09/gal it's selling for $2.19 everywhere else. So I stopped and filled up my tank. Spent $20.37

I drove back and got the SHARE food about 10:30. Then I went home and finally went to bed. But by that time the sun had come out and it was really bright and I just fell asleep when I got a phone call from Yellow Book with an automated message telling me they had delivered my phone book. Like I couldn't figure out what that big book on my front porch was. So then I couldn't get back to sleep so I got up and cleaned my kitchen and read a book.

My parents called on their way home from the funeral and I met them at the Village Inn for dinner. My dad paid as thank you for picking up their food for them. Afterwards they came to my house and got their food.

I finished reading the library book Crystal Gorge by David Eddings. Sci Fi. Very Good. Third in a series.

Now I'm extremely tired and hope I'm not so tired I won't fall asleep. Seems ridiculous but that happens to me sometimes.

Total spent so far this month = $313.88