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Archive for November, 2015

EOM coming fast

November 25th, 2015 at 07:36 pm

We have spent a good chunk of this month's variable income. I only have $190 some odd dollars left. I was expecting to be higher before we go into this last weekend. We still have to pick up groceries, probably around $75, and fill up on gas on both vehicles, probably around $60 for both. Which will leave us with around $50ish. A lot less than my hope of $100 to $200. We are slightly over spending on groceries, and then I had a few unexpected things pop up that I needed to buy (snow boots for the older, plastic for the windows, etc). Tracking spending has been very useful. It's definitely kept me from spending on frivoulous stuff.

Personally, I am still soda free! It's been a month! I have been drinking coffee daily, but that's only a cup or two. Much easier to limit. Eventually I'd like to get caffeine free, but going from 5+ cans of soda down to none is really, really impressive for me. I've also been doing some sort of stretching or exercising daily, using house work as "weightlifting" or "cardio". Cleaning is coming around as my oldest is in the "make mess" stage. And the garage, due to a minor water leak (need to add more tar around a pipe on the roof), got mostly cleaned out. I think we can finish it this weekend easily.

NaNoWriMo... I'm at a few thousand words, on two different stories. I have good chunks written out in my head, just no time to sit down to type it. Even then, about 1,000 words are handwritten on random pieces of paper. I guess since my point was just to start doing it again, I'm kind of on track. The creative juices are flowing so much that I'm dreaming of my storyland.

In other news, my youngest had a follow up MRI and one of the issues has been mostly resolved! Yay for modern medicine! which he gets to taper off now. :-D His other issue got very slightly worse, but still static and not causing problems yet. There will be more follow ups later. The good thing is that this issue might never cause problems so hopefully it will just always be a watch, wait and see thing. That would be soooo nice.

As for my oldest, he finally has been diagnosed of being on the autism spectrum. It's such a relief because now I'll be getting more tools to help him. Speech has been AMAZING for him, but he still has a long way to go on many things. Luckily he's quite high-functioning, but social and transitions and certain sensory things are slowing him down. They are so optimistic that with getting help early and doing an intensive therapy, that perhaps in a few years, no one will be able to tell that he was ever on the spectrum.

But with this therapy, I might need to transition to part-time/mostly stay at home mom to juggle all the therapy appointments. It will be interesting. Health insurance is the only thing causing problems. My husband's company's health insurance SUCKS, a lot, in cost, access, and navigation. I am paying out the wazoo for mine, but it's GOOD. With GREAT doctors and easy to navigate. Worth every dang penny this year. Looking around now since going part-time would make me lose my insurance. Cobra vs individual vs exchange. If only my husband's work didn't offer, then we could pick what we would need on the exchange and get subsidies. Bleh. There's almost no winning.

As for goals, I'm going to do the same for December: Track spending, work off of last month's income, cut down eating out/vending machines. I even have most of my Christmas shopping done already (had them for a few months). I just need a few little things for stockings and something small for hubby. I might do some handmade gifts for the grandparents with stuff I already have.

Personally, I'm going to keep with no soda, stretching/exercising daily, and.... I'm not sure. Hmmm... I'll have to think about that. Actually, I think I just need to take the time to reflect on 2015 and the upcoming 2016. So many changes have happened and are going to keep happening.

Day Two

November 2nd, 2015 at 09:51 pm

Month is going really well so far! I know it's only half way through day two, but I'm feeling good.

We have our last month's salary figured out, and after all the regular bills (mortgage, phones, car, daycare, allowances, utilities, yearly savings) for the month was subtracted, it left a bit more than $900 left for us to work on variables (groceries, gas, diapers, formula, dog food, etc). Seems very, very doable! I'm hoping to hit under that and have a good $100 to $200 to put into savings. We are starting off well with packing lunch (and dinner on my husband's part) today. And I have enough for lunches all week for me. I'll have to come up with something for hubby the next two days at least. I'm setting up the whiteboard in the kitchen tonight. We spent $17.07 yesterday on door entry rugs. Our new floors were getting very dirty with leaves and rain.

I have been soda free for 9 days!!!! Pretty impressive for me. I've had a few cups of coffee to get over the hump, but even the cravings are finally dropping. Yesterday I raked part of the yard for 30 minutes, so I'm counting that as exercise. Boys and I might have a dance party tonight. I started a bit on NaNoWriMo today. A friend gave me three very random items to start off with because I was stumped, and that became 300 words during my break. It will be an interesting story. Not sure where it will go.

I have a ton of cleaning to do this week. My friend is coming to visit this weekend. I'm so excited, but man, two kids under three really make it hard to keep up with normal cleaning. Plus setting up the guest room for the first time is a lot of work. I had to ask if she gets claustrophobic. Thankfully no. There's still a good chunk of that room that has box stacked ceiling high. If only I could get my basement or garage cleaned out, but that involves some no-kid time, which is a rarity these days between my kid's therapy, work, and husband at school.