Giddy with excitement...pic heavy!

we got the girls a dollhouse for Christmas and it came with some furniture but not alot.  I had talked to a coworker 2-3 weeks ago about Christmas and mentioned the dollhouse and that furniture is so darn expensive but we were going to get some eventually.  Today that coworker surprised me with 3 big boxes of dollhouse furniture and accesories.  It was his mom's.  Her grandkids are too old for it so he asked if he could give it to me.  She said yes so now my girls are the proud recipents of the following (not everything is pictured...otherwise this post would be HUGE)

We are so blessed!

early out day!

So I got done with work early and our one local store is doubling coupons this week (generally they tend to be a bit pricey so I really have to watch prices...even with double coupons). I got 2 bags of cat litter 85 cents each after doubled coupons and 2 packages of 3 each cube steaks..on sale for $2.99/lb. Dh is not a fan of cube steak but I am so I only get a few and make myself one when he has left over chili (which I am not a fan of) or something like that. Total was $6




Then we decided to go to my fav bent and dent. $21 total for

jar of bread machine yeast $1.50 expires march of 2011..missing part of label.

7 containers of welches frozen juice concentrate 75 cents each

20 1 oz containers of cream cheese 5 cents each

2 8 oz tubs of organic whipped butter $1 each(close to date but we use it pretty fast so no worries)

3 boxes of Smart balance microwave popcorn $1 each...boxes ripped or dented but in date and individual packs unaffected

4 big bags of chocolate teddy grahams $1 each (I like these for breaks at work)

4 100% juice pouches 15 cents each (nothing with them...box must have had a leak or something.)

8 marker pens for work 25 cents each

1 package chips ahoy cookies $1.50 (close to date but not expired)



There were a couple more things but I can't remember what they were now...I already put stuff away too. the receipts aren't itemized by item, just price. I will remember eventually though. LOL

good news.

My hubby got a promotion.  He will be making $1 more per hour and have some built in overtime...not much, about 1 hour per week but we figure with the raise and his OT he will take home an extra $150 or so per month.  Very nice!  The best part is that he has very small odds of getting laid off now.  That is a huge plus.  We could follow our original plan now, which was for me to stay home with the kids.  After some consideration today, we are postponing that decision until at least next April.  We get bonuses in April where I work and you have to be employed there when they pay out the bonus in order to recieve it so we will wait.  That gives us a lot of time to save more money and for him to really get into the job and make sure it is a good fit.  At this point, I have no plans to quit but I will stay part-time as I am doing now and just enjoy my time with the kids.  Part time is a perfect mix of adult interaction, making a bit of money and getting time to just be me...not someone's mommy.  I love my kids with every fiber of my being but I need time to be me and be away from them.  Working part time gives me that.  Also once my car is paid off, I want to start saving a lot more and then when we have a more comfortable amount in savings...I am thinking $7K-$10K, I wanted to start hitting the mortgage heavy.  So I believe that I will stay working so we can accomplish this.  Being home is wonderful and I love my kids but I also see the advantages to working part-time for my employer.   I am paid a really good wage for part-time work, I have a lot of flexibility, and the company is a good company (minus a few quirks...but which company doesn't have them).  If I do decided to quit, I won't necessary quit.  I will reduce my status to temporary seasonal and only work a couple months a year.  If I do that it would be very easy for me to go back to part-time status once the kids were in school.  I would basically be guaranteed a year round part-time position when I was ready, whereas if I just quit outright, I would have to work back into a year round part-time position, which is not easily accomplished in some departments. 

tag along

Tonight I tagged along as a friend went grocery shopping.  I had nothing better to do.  Hubby was home with the kids and I hadn't seen this particular friend in awhile. 

I realized, as I watched my friend shop, that my method of shopping is so much different than the average shopper.  I check prices (which my friend did), I also know how much the usual price of X item is at 6...yes 6..stores that I frequent.  I know where the best price is on X item at any given time.  I know that if X is on sale at this store that it is still cheaper at Aldi so it is not a good deal for the sale price.  I know that Y item is on rollback at Walmart and is cheaper than Aldi.  Aye!  How do I keep all this random (and not so random) information in my head.  As my friend was shopping, I think I might have annoyed her a bit, because I was telling her oh wait that is too expensive...if you can wait you can get that here next week for this price.  After a couple items I realized I was being annoying and I shut up and started doing some comparison shopping for myself as this was not a store I ever shop at.   I found that Aldi is generally cheaper on my basics than this store was but I also found a few things they were priced better on than Walmart and Aldi.  This store is very near to Walmart and Aldi so I will keep that in mind.  Her total came to around $100 and I balked...to myself.  I cannot remember the last time I dropped $100 at a grocery store, even Aldi.  I spend roughly $200 a month to feed all 4 of us and this was $100 for about a week for my friend and her roommate.  Yikes.  My friend knows how I shopped and she teased me a bit when we left, saying...did you have a heart attack when you saw the total?  ummm yeah I did.  She laughed.  To be quite honest and fair though, my friend does not have the time nor patience to chase the deals and shop like I do but she does do her best to save money.

When we got back to my friend's house, I started helping her put away her purchases.  I found myself reorganizing and rotating her freezer, fridge and pantry as I put stuff away.  LOL this is what I do when I come home from a shopping trip and it is funny to me (and my friend) that I do this automatically.  She didn't mind and I apologized for it.  She laughed and was pleased when she looked in her pantry after I was done. 

It's nice to dream...

So dream away...

What would you do with $250,000? or even just $100,000.

With $100K, I would pay off our mortgage and our little bit of other debt (my pittly little car payment, the bit Hubby has charged), put new siding on the house, and put the rest away (yep there will still be some left...we have a small mortgage...relatively speaking).  If I had to do something fun with it (paying off the mortgage would be great fun to me but not to the kids, I'm sure) I would like to go away for a weekend to a hotel with a waterpark.  No trips to Disney or anything. I want to go some day...when the kids are older though. 

With $250K, I would pay off the house, pay off the other little debt.  Put away $75K right away and I would still have quite a bit to play with so new furnace, new siding, maybe an addition, completely gut and redo this entire house...or heck...tear this house down and just build a new one right here.  Build it how we want...2 story garage that the top half is attached to the 2nd story of our house with the game room above the garage (and SOUND PROOFED!!) 4 bedrooms, at least 2 full bathrooms and maybe a 1/2 bath, kitchen with counter space, all new appliances, whirlpool tub, oh the list goes on...probably would need more than $250K though.  LOL

beating boredom...thrifty style

It is rainy and cold here.  Friday night, no plans, no money to do much even if we had plans (we are anticipating a layoff before Christmas for Hubby so we are scrimping and saving and preparing...yet again..sigh) so we had a movie night.  The rundown..

3 personal pizzas (bought a few months ago on clearance at Walgreens for 50 cents each)
microwave popcorn (65 cents for 3 bags from the bent and dent)
carrots and dip (left overs from last week)
BLT dip and chips from the store $3
2 redbox movies $2
4 pack of good rootbeer $4 (a splurge!!)
a snack cake from the local grocery store $3.

playing around and enjoying the time with my kids and letting them have a picnic on the living room while we watched the movies= priceless.

Lately we have been ordering out on Fridays, mostly pizza but occaisionally running out and getting McDonalds (dollar menu and no sodas...we eat at home so we drink what we have here) or Subway (footlong and chips from home feeds all 4 of us..not full but we add in other stuff we have here) but we really need to watch it better.  It can become quite pricey for the four of us to eat out.  I want to try and do this more often but I want to vary it a little more, family game night?  getting a little cold here for picnics in the park or stuff like that but maybe we can find something fun to do.  Like building a tent in the livingroom and having a "camp in".  hmmmm.  That's an idea!

my birthday

My hubby asked what I wanted for my birthday.  I will be 30 in just 11 days.  I can't honestly think of a single thing that I want or need (other than some way other than raking to get all the leaves out of the back yard but we tried a leaf blower and still had to haul them all to the curb so raking just worked better anyway).  I have mulled this over for a couple days and I figured out what I want.....

I want to go out to lunch at Sonic with just him (get a sitter for the kids for a few hours) and go back to the dig n save outlet.  Yep...that is what I want for my birthday.  I want to take $40 and go to lunch and go "diggin".  That is my idea of a good birthday.

2 rainy days=2 thrifty days

It has rained here for the last two days...better than snow but still.

On Wednesday the girls and I checked out a newer local thrift store.  It was big and nicely laid out but rather junky and the clothes prices were pretty high.  $4 for a pair of jeans for K that had worn knees and a paint smear on the butt.  uh huh...right!  We did end up getting a pair of Hannah Montana pants for her that had a little bit of wear and a bit of a stain on the back they were marked $3..which I would not have paid for them...but they were tagged with the 1/2 off color of the day so they were $1.50.  Ok  That I will pay...and I got the stain out.  If it had been any worse of a stain I would not have bought them.  We ended up visiting 5 thrift stores on Wednesday.  We found a vintage metal jack in the box, like new for $2, a couple Barbies, a brand new with tag bread pan for $2, and joy of joys...shoes for the girls...one pair for each!!!  K's has butterflies on them and O's are Bratz.  $1.50 a pair and in pretty good shape too.  Thrilled!

Today we didn't visit any thrift stores but we made a bent and dent run.  We got a few of the usuals and they had Strawberry Breeze Welch's juice for 75 cents a container.  It is the frozen concentrate.  I made some tonight and that is really good juice!  We ended up spending $20 total but $6 of that was on diapers for O.  Dang kid just doesn't want to potty train yet.  Soon hopefully.

When we came back to town we stopped at our local store for my one needed grocery item this week...some canned fruit.  They had just restocked their bent and dent reduced cart and the manager saw me come in and told me that they had.  So we went to that cart after grabbing a few cans of fruit.  There was a lot of stuff in there.  Close to date applesauce...which we will use up before date.  The kids LOVE applesauce.  Some dented cans of fruit...tops were still good so SCORE!  and a few dented cans of veggies.  I picked through and got out what we needed and checked out.  Spent a whooping $10 and got 10 cans of fruit, 2 cans of veggies, 3 containers of yogurt (also reduced for quick sale (expires Saturday but no biggie...they are already gone.  LOL we each had one with lunch), 7 containers of applesauce (I gave 3 to the sitter), and 1 can of spaghettios...a very rare item in this house. 

we had the spaghettios, grilled cheeses, and yogurt for lunch.  I made a crunchy baked apple dessert for a snack and used about 1/2 of one of the jars of applesauce.  The kids had part of a can of pears with dinner.  In the winter months we go through canned fruit like crazy.  Fresh fruit is so pricey during these months that we limit what we get to what is on sale and bananas.  We have bananas quite frequently but the other fruit is so pricey that we only buy when it is on sale and only what we will eat right away.  But I want the kids to have fruit so I stock up on the canned and they get that for snacks or with a meal.  

thrift store finder

http://www.thethriftshopper.com/

neat little website that you just type in your zip code to find a local thrift store.  not comprehensive as I have found they are missing a couple in my area but still pretty neat!

a few dig and save score pics

Old Navy shirt

Hanna Andersson Skort

cute shirt

Nice like new Swimsuit for Liv

not that I am a packers fan but MIL is and Liv has an outfit like this already and this one is Kait's size

cute summer dress for Kait

My first "dig n save" outlet experience AKA my alone day

I went to a dig and save thrift outlet today for the first time. I have driven past this one a few times (it is about an hour drive for me) but never stopped. I was going to this town anyway to check out Toys R us for dollhouses for the girls for Christmas and doing a thrift store tour so I stopped. I had gone to a couple Goodwills and another thrift store first. More upscale than what I was about to walk into....

Having never been to a "dig n save", I had some notions in my head on what I *thought* it would be like...maybe sorted by size or category at least, obviously not marked as clothing was $1/lb but I thought it would be slightly organized. It was not. The only organization was toys here, linens here, gigantic boxes of clothes here, wow! I was a bit skeeved out. I do not consider myself a high class person, more low to middle class country type of girl. I am more comfortable in jeans or sweatpants and a t-shirt than I am in a dress and I do not own a single pair of high heels. That being said...this place shocked my middle class self. People rummaging around in this big cardboard boxes digging for that perfect item. I walked around for a bit at first. A bit nervous, a bit out of my element but I decided to give it a shot (not only for myself but for a friend who was in desperate need of pants for her daughters)...tried one box..gingerly digging through..I found a Barbie dress in the next size bigger than my oldest needs...SCORE!! Ok I can try this.. Dug around in the next big box..Hanna Andersson Skort..in the size I assume my youngest will be in next summer...Double score! Ok I was starting to get into this now..By the third big box I was hooked. I found 5 pairs of pants for my friend's girls, a bunch of pants for my oldest, shirts, dresses, and even a couple things for hubby and I. I also found a sheet set from the Disney store for my oldest with the little Mermaid on it. All total I spent $16 at this thrift store and left with 36 pieces of name brand clothing. WOW!

At the other thrift stores I went to today I got a pair of Levis for myself, 2 summer dresses for the girls and 2 barbies...one brand new in the box for $1.99. Nice!

how far we've come

I have been super couponing for about 18 months now, stockpiling sale items for slightly longer and I can honestly say that I have no desire to return to my previous methods of grocery shopping. I find that the longer I keep this up, the less I remember the way it used to be. How I would go through the cupboards and make a list and shop based on that list and what I *thought* we were out of, only to come home and find out I already had 2-3 of what I thought we needed. Sigh. I wasted so much time and money back then. My current approach is very streamlined, organized and thought out. Monday I check grocery ads, pull out my coupons, make my list. Thursday (payday) I hit the stores I need to to get the deals. We fill in as needed with fresh fruit, veggies, milk, bread, and eggs. We hit the bent and dent once or twice a month for fill in items, and Aldi once every couple months for the things we buy there. I love this system.

I realize that my system is not for everyone but it works well for us and I will keep it up as long as I can.

this week's grocery list

was pretty slim. The sale ads were a bit bleak. We ended up only spending about $30 total this week. That included oreos for treat day at work, 3 gallons of milk, 2 loaves of bread, a bag of onions, and a few packs of little smokies. The little smokies were one of the few things I needed yet for the freezer stockpile. We love them and they are normally so expensive but on sale this week for $1.98 so we stocked up. I make a delicious sauce for them out of ketchup and grape jelly. Very yummy

if you are in the market for hats and gloves

check out Dollar Tree. I got the best gloves yesterday for me and the kids. They are plushy, soft, cozy and THICK! The hats seem pretty thick too and nice. We are getting more for spares and for Christmas gifts. They are that nice!

Saturday Lazy day

Hubby had to go out to his parents and help out with a project so the girls and I are chilling out at home. I have a loaf of bread rising and another in the bread machine. The reason for 2, while cleaning the counter I bumped the cord for the bread machine and it came unplugged so I finished kneading the dough by hand and put it in a bread pan. Once it rises a bit, I am going to check it and if it doesn't look "right" I am going to make some bread bowls for chili out of it.

I spent part of the evening yesterday cleaning out the garage so I can get my car in and I put all the kids' outside toys in the basement in preparation for winter. And I am very glad I did! It froze last night and now our yard is COVERED in leaves.

another fun thrift store shopping day.

The girls and I ventured out to a thrift store I have heard a lot about but never been there. It was Huge, like I heard but there was really nothing there. No great deals. Nothing amazing to note. We did get the girls a couple barbies but that was it. The reason I headed to that town anyway (about 30 minutes from home) was to go to the Harley Davidson outlet. Yes, I am a Harley fan. No, I do not own nor ride a Harley but one of my best male friends and one of my best female friends do. They both own them and ride them. I used to ride a Honda but kids, crashes, and fear drove me to selling my beloved bike. I had the bike before I had kids and just before I met my husband. I sold it just before I started dating my husband. So anyway I like to represent, kinda. LOL.

Anyway I scored a hooded sweatshirt at the Harley Outlet, my birthday present to myself....about 3 weeks early. It was less than half of the regular retail price so I was pleased.

We stopped at a few other thrift stores but there was nothing too interesting. In a couple weeks, a friend and I are going on a thrift store grand tour. 12 stores and lunch and about 150 miles. Should be fun!

bread machine=best $4 I ever spent.

I have been using the heck out of my bread machine. Today I tried something new. I have been using all purpose flour in it because I had it on hand and it made a decent, albeit dense, loaf. Rodney is not as fond of dense bread so I tried some bread flour today. What a world of difference that makes! the loaves are light, fluffy and super delish.

I made the dough in the machine and then divided that dough into 2 bread pans. I let it rise more and then baked the loaves in my oven. That is the best bread I have made yet! The girls and I ate almost a full loaf tonight and the bread did not get done until 3 pm. We love our bread in this house. Not so much store bought bread but homemade bread we love!

day off today

My shift for today got cancelled. Due in part to new training groups for the holiday season at work and also due to business being slooooooow. But it didn't bother me, I don't mind having a day off :)

We had a pretty good day so far. The girls and I went to Aldi for baking supplies. I usually get sugar, flour, brown sugar, oatmeal, oil, cooking spray, and pancake mix and syrup there. I often get the frozen juice concentrate there as well. They have really good prices on the essentials. Price vary by store but at ours flour is 99 cents for 5 lbs, sugar is $1.39 for 5 lbs, brown sugar is $1.19, Oatmeal is $1.59 for a huge container, and pancake mix is $1.39 a box. I needed all the baking supplies replenished. Our total for everything was $24 and that included 3 bags of flour, 1 each of brown sugar, regular sugar, raisins, oatmeal, cooking spray, some Hannah montanna dried fruit, 2 containers of frozen juice, 3 packages of Halloween peeps, 2 bottles of syrup, 2 boxes of pancake mix, and a few other things that I don't remember off the top of my head.

After Aldi we stopped at the thrift store and spent a whooping 58 cents. A barbie for 50 cents and a pair of feetie pjs for 5 cents. I buy from the nickel bin for pjs for Liv. She likes to strip herself and it is too cold for that so I cut the feet off and put the pjs on her backwards. Then she can't strip herself at night.

We stopped at our local grocery on the way back home for some bread flour, a head of lettuce and a tomato. We have having tacos for dinner tonight and BLTs tommorrow night. I have been using all purpose flour in my bread machine but am hoping that bread flour will give me a lighter loaf as the all purpose flour makes a tasty but dense bread.

Finally, our last stop before coming home, was a quick trip into the local thrift store where I found a long sleeve harley davidson tee shirt for $6. That made my day.

challenges

on a board I frequently there is a challenge this month to eat out of your pantry/freezer and buy the minimum amount possible. Sounds good right? I wish I could do that. Every time I say I am going to challenge myself to doing something like that something happens, like this week when we have all been sick at one point or another. Each of the 4 of us but hubs and I have been sick all week. Yuck! We haven't felt like cooking, we ate out once or twice, and the rest of the time it was soup, sandwiches and whatever. Had a been doing a challenge, I would have lost big time. It always seems that when I set up to challenge myself the thing that we actually do need is on sale that week. Sigh!

I want to challenge myself to not spend except for the very basics because there is really nothing we need but I also know that in just over a month our busiest time of the year starts at work and I will have no energy left for shopping or deal chasing after working at work and at home and spending time with the kids. Should Hubs get laid off again that leaves even less time for deal chasing because I will start working 6 days a week the week of Thanksgiving through the week of Christmas. GAH! but such is life and that time goes by really fast.

so anyway the point of this is to look for posts very infrequently for the end of November and most of December. I plan to try living mostly off the stockpile those months but moreso out of sheer shopping laziness than anything else. Working 10 hour days 5-6 days a week and trying to do anything besides spend time with the kids and sleep is not one of my strong points.

a good way to spend a a rainy Saturday

Liv, Kait and I went "thriftin" this morning. We hit up 3 thrift stores and dollar tree. At the first thrift store we only got a musical jewelry box for Kait. It has the dancing ballerina in it and plays "somewhere over the rainbow". She found it and had to have it. It was only $1 so that was fine.

We went to Dollar tree next and I got an assortment on things: a ride on pony stick for Liv, a hannah montana notebook for Kait, pastry brushes (because I made some breadsticks with dough from the bread machine the other night and wanted to put some melted butter with garlic on them but realized I have no brushes for that), a bottle of diet coke, and a few other miscellanous things. Then we stopped at the 2nd thrift store where the only score was a Hannah Montana shirt for Kait for a quarter. Our third stop was pretty good. We got a $4 little tikes shopping cart and a $2 sweatshirt for Rodney. We came home for a bit and Liv went down for a nap.

Rodney was home so Kait and I decided to run out to my parents for a bit and dig through the basement stuff to see if we could find a couple more sweatshirts for Rodney and we found 2 that would work. He needs them for work and I hate to buy new ones for that purpose. He works in grease and clothes don't handle that well. They used to supply uniforms there (and they still might) but they are really uncomfortable and stiff and cost $5 a week so he chooses to wear his clothes (special clothes that are just for work that I get from the thrift store and it ends up being cheaper than the $5/week rental fee anyway :) ). So when we were there mom and dad decided that we should go to another town. We stopped at a Goodwill and I found a hooded sweatshirt for $4, finding a hooded sweatshirt was part of my mission today. After Goodwill we went to Walmart and I got another hoodie for $10. Cool! We also made a quick stop to the bent and dent but there wasn't much I needed. I ended up just picking up a few things that I always get there (organic butter YUM!).

went to the bent and dent and wally world today

got a few things at the bent and dent. Nothing really to brag about except a gigantic bottle of olive oil for $7. This is a HUGE bottle. And some bread machine yeast (85 cents a jar) for my newest thrift store prize....a almost new bread machine for $4!!! Super excited about that! It didn't have the book with it but I found it online so I saved the site. I have made 4 loaves of bread already.

At Walmart we had to get a new carseat for Liv. She outgrew the convertible seat but it was actually easier to move Liv into Kait's seat and get a new one for Kait. We scored some ground beef for $1.20 a lb. It is the stuff in the tube that we really don't like all that much but it works great in homemade jerky or hamburger helper or chili and it saves having to use the good stuff for those things.

I also used a couple instore coupons today at our local grocery. 77 cents for 5 lbs of potatoes and $4.99 for quilted northern 12 double rolls.

Decluttering day and thrift store scores

I took the last bit of stuff I had to get rid of to the thrfit store and set out with $15 with the intent of spending a few bucks to get another kitchen chair so Liv can be out of the high chair. I came home with $11.58 left and a new chair for $2 and a Cinderella dress from the disney store for $1. The dress was at the thrift store and is in very good used condition. The chair is nothing pretty to look at but it is sturdy, tall enough and Liv likes it. That is what matters. I am especially excited to be rid of this clutter and almost done with baby stuff!

I'm BAAACK

Yep, tis I. and I am back. Not really back to couponing, just back to blogging about my thrifty family life. Things are pretty well here. I am working, R is working. The freezer is full, the pantry is full. The basement pantry is not full but full enough. I have some slightly blurry updated pics of the stockpile to share




I found ground beef on a 3 day sale for $1.48/lb last week. Needless to say, we went a bit buckwild stocking up but we are absolutely FULL in the ground beef section of the deep freeze. Awesome, yes?...I think so.




and now on to the pics
The formatting went all crazy but you get the general idea..yep we are stocked. Bring on the snow!

blog from 8/13 that I never posted...oops

Wow. Haven't blogged in a couple weeks. It has been a rough couple weeks.

O got 2nd degree burns on a slide. I contacted the zoo where she was hurt and got nowhere. I was not suing them or anything, just wanted to let them know so other parents were aware this could happen. After talking to our doctor, I decided to do a newsstory for a local TV station, which turned out good and bad. Good because the news story went well. I think I did a pretty good job, but bad because I was completely amazed at the rude comments I received. Anyway, it's done and over and I feel good about doing it so whatever.

Because of Liv's injuries I will miss a total of 1 week at work. ouch! That hurts the checkbook, especially since R was only working 32 hours that week. We will survive though. I missed 4 days last week and will miss part of a day tommorrow because of a follow up appointment for her infection.

I am almost done with Christmas shopping. My employer is offering their employee additional discount (the regular discount is pretty substantial and they offer more above that for a limited time twice a year) so I bought everything that I wanted to get people for Christmas. I ordered the items today. My total was just under $150...some of which was stuff for me and R for now. I hated to put that on the credit card but I will pay it off ASAP and not have to worry about Christmas shopping later in the year. Christmas is always such a hard time. We have 3 birthdays to celebrate (me, K and my mom), and I end up working a lot of hours and generally only get one day off a week from Thanksgiving until Christmas and I would HATE to spend that one day off having go shopping.

Per Mary's request

I am blogging today :)

Not much new to report really. I am back to couponing a little bit. I got some coupons in a magazine and one was for hunt's ketchup which was on sale this week at a local store I got two bottles for 98 cents. Can't really beat that!

Hubby has started back at the employer he was laid off from. They called him on the morning of the day he later found out that his employer at the time was cutting his pay. It sucked. So he made a decision to return to his previous employer. He liked it there a lot better. He had better hours, more hours and more pay. This was his first week back and he (and the rest of the family) are much happier.

My job has picked up hours wise, which is nice and not nice. I like the early out days when we finished in 6 hours or less. Those were the good days. Pretty much from here through the end of the year, the early out days will be at a minimum.

2 weeks ago I was able to do some Overtime and that check was nice! Not as nice as I had hoped because they took out more for taxes and 401K then I was anticipating but I was still able to send $300 to my car. I now owe under $1000. I should have it paid off before the end of the year. Hip hip Hooray!!!

We are still plugging along with our plan to be debt free. Once the car is paid off I intend to continue to put that amount away each week...for savings for a car, house repairs, new tires for the jeep, whatever. It will be so nice to be able to put money away.