Day	Amount	Place	Category
Thursday	$15.00	PT Copay	Medical
	$7.00	Qdoba	Eating Out
Saturday	$32.00	Safeway	Groceries
Sunday	$50.00	CostCo	Groceries

 

Okay, so spending this week is a little disingenuous because I kept cash out from the money my brother paid us this month to cover a lot of little things. We went to the Farmers’ Market on Thursday and spent at around $20. Also, on Thursday morning, I spent around $20 on office snacks, since a lot of my staff wasn’t thrilled about having the mid-week day off. (I actually love having Wednesdays off, but most of my staff would rather have a three day weekend.) We had drinks and Irish Nachos at a local pub where we saw one of our favorite bands play on Friday night, running us $25. On Saturday, C and J went on a dump run that also cost roughly $20. So that’s around $85 more in spending- but none of it was ever in our bank account to begin with.

Even with that, though, we’re under $200 for the week. And that’s pretty nice.

We will be spending more, probably tonight, as we buy the last few things we need for the home inspection- drawer/cabinet child proof kits, the little plastic things you put in unused outlets, no slip decals for the tub.

And with that, I think we’re pretty much ready for home inspection. We need to do some general tidying, borrow a crib from friends, but yeah, I think we’re there. And that feels good.

 

We have now test driven all three (four) cars we’re looking at. In the “we could make this work” category are the Prius and the Imprezza. Both are smaller, but would fit our current dogs in the back. They are also not quite as expensive. Plus, the Subaru dealer and the Toyota dealer don’t charge “destination” fees. If price wins out, it will be the Imprezza.

In the “handles current and possible future situations” category are the Prius V and the Jetta SprtWagen. Both have backs big enough for our current dogs, with enough room in case we got a bigger dog in the future. (As we currently have our smallest dogs ever, that’s not inconceivable.) With the Jetta, we’d be best served waiting for the 2013 models so that we could custom order- we don’t need a giant sunroof. But the Prius V was actually the most comfortable car to drive for both C and I, though getting used to the shift on the dash would take some time. Still, both these cars are going to run $26-28k. We have to do some research about battery life and maintenance costs for the new Priuses. If we go with the Jetta, we’ll have to figure something out for winter as we only have a one car garage.

We won’t be buying until escrow for the MIL is closed, though, as we don’t know if we’ll need to pay off the HELOC on her condo or not. That makes a $13k difference in finances, so it’s a pretty big deal.

 

So that’s where we are. Moving forward. Not as fast as I’d like, but making progress. I really am looking forward to when I can stop the “hurry up” part and start the “waiting”. Remind me of that in 9 months, though.

 

We are half way through 2012. I’m revising some of my goals because life took some turns I wasn’t quite planning on when I came up with the goals.

1)      Be paid for publishing one piece of fiction

Submissions so far: 2

Responses: 1 rejection 1 acceptance

The anthology I had a piece accepted to is now available to buy on Amazon. It’s called Conquest Through Determination.

2)      Pay All Adoption Expenses in Cash & Still Pay for C’s College Out of Pocket

We’re doing good here. This was helped tremendously by getting 3x as much in life insurance from the MIL than expected. Our savings is still growing, and we’re in really good shape

Make money publishing my next art/fiction book

This is on hold for now. However, I did have a chance to talk with the artist I want to work with on Friday, and her life has settled down, so there’s a good chance we can start work on this sometime in June. (When my life settles down a

bit.)

3)      Attend FinCon12. Pay for the trip with money from allowance/side projects saved/earned BEFORE the conference starts. Goal: $600

Conference attendance paid for. Tickets paid for. The only things left are food and the hotel. I probably won’t have enough in allowance to cover all of it, but it won’t be far off, and the biggest expenses are already taken care of.

4)      Become a member of Yakezie (6 month anniversary is Jan 21)

I plan to be a member of Epsilon class when the application goes up in August. I do need to make sure I’m still connecting with new challengers, though, because a lot of the challengers on my list this last time will be Yakezie Delta class members.

In order to develop relationships with new challengers, I have decided that each edition of What I’m Reading on Saturdays will now include a new challenger.

5)      Make money from my blogs.

AdSense earnings: $22.11 (They won’t send me any money until I hit $100.) Apparently, though, I’ve already earned $5.82 so far this month. No idea why the uptick, but I’ll take it.

6)      Be healthier

I walked twice on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesday, as I was getting ready to take my walk, my boss came into the office and asked what I was still doing there, so I went home instead.

We went to the dog park on Tuesday and Wednesday. We went again on Friday. It was too warm to go yesterday or today.

I mowed the lawn on Saturday.

We got lots of fresh veggies at the Farmers’ Market, and that lead to us having chicken cacciatore for dinner last night as well as an arugula, fennel, orange salad with mint.